Watching

A/N: I’m sorry for such a long wait, but with AFF down for MONTHS on end, I haven’t been able to post. I hope you guys are still reading, and I hope this chapter was worth the wait!

Review Responses

Daze: I left you a note at the beginning of the last chapter, but I thought I’d respond here, too, in case you missed that. No, I wasn’t planning to post the ItaSasu one-shots as part of this story; they don’t actually even go along with this story, they’re a part of the canon storyline of Naruto. But besides that, even though I do adore ItaSasu, I meant for this fic to be SasuNaru. I understand that not all SasuNaru fans like ItaSasu, so I wouldn’t ever start forcing the pairing on you guys. ^^ I want you to continue to be able to enjoy the story, so any ItaSasu will be purely hinting, and always one-sided.

Reemu-chan: I’m glad you’re enjoying the story so far! Hm… Naruto can’t really switch schools, because remember he’s living in an apartment payed for by his relatives? He can’t afford to get a place by himself, and his school is the only public school in Konoha. Yeah, the story is depressing at the moment, sometimes I get an angst urge. I always write either humor or angst, sometimes a mixture of the two. But I’ll promise you what I’ve promised other readers who’ve asked: I always end my fics happily, and I’ll do the same with this one. ^^

fiberchick7: I don’t like all the Sakura bashing, either. It’s really not in her character to be what a lot of people make her into. She’s cruel at first, yes, but she grows over the course of the series. After the time skip, she’s actually become one of my favorite characters. But anyway, she’ll redeem herself for her mistake, I promise.

Houseki: Good to see you back! I’m glad you’re still enjoying the story! I hope you like this new chapter just as much… and don’t worry, all the angst will be over with soon… just in time for a new round of angst! ^^; I’m so mean. Meh, the breakup with my girlfriend was pretty much mutual. ^^; Actually, what happened was that a close friend and I fell for each other while I was still with my girlfriend. She was a friend of my girlfriend’s too, so we got together and talked to her, and I broke up with my girlfriend to be with this other friend. Heh. I sound like a terrible person now, but my ex is okay with it, and I’m very happy. You should check out some of my new girlfriend’s stories, she has at least one SasuNaru one that I know of! She writes under the name Shadows_Call.

Hm… as for YIM, I still don’t have it! I’m not actually sure how to set it up… I do have a Yahoo e-mail account, though. Maybe you could explain to me how to set YIM up sometime ^^; I’m rather computer illiterate.


Disclaimer: Don’t own Naruto.

***

There’s gotta be something witty and sarcastic I can say right now to make this entire situation less depressing. My whole life has been depressing, but the idiotic grin has never failed me before. The irony gods can shit on me as often as they want, but as long as I can laugh at myself while giving the rest of the world the finger, everything’s alright.

I lost that somewhere along the way. Somewhere between falling for Sasuke and becoming the school fag, I lost the will to keep that goddamn grin on my face.

And now it’s all gone to hell.

***

Naruto couldn’t control the way his body arched slightly, aching to be closer to the pale pink lips traveling down his neck. He panted, the chords of his neck emphasized and then bitten gently, every piece of him given special attention. A mischievous tongue dipped into the hollow of his throat, tasting the faint, salty essence of sweat produced by arousal. Naruto nearly purred, wondering vaguely how it was possible for him to make noises that didn’t even sound human anymore. The curve of his neck was nuzzled gently, soft, spiky black hair brushing over his skin and making him shiver, goosebumps rising on his tan skin. Smooth thumbs massaged his hips gently and more attention was lavished on the junction of his neck and shoulder, light kisses pressed down it in a trail, then soft breaths exhaled against the now sensitive skin, the wetness left behind cooling and making the blonde shiver again.

The hands on his hips became more mischievous, thumbs moving inward with their massage until a palm was pressed gently over his arousal, making Naruto arch again and release a soft, wanton moan before deciding that it was his turn to take charge. In one movement, he flipped the other boy beneath him, staring into surprised, coal-black eyes for only a moment, then possessively claiming the same lips that had just been expertly torturing him.

Lips and tongues met, the kiss beginning possessive and hungry and shifting into something slower, disturbingly heartfelt. Naruto pulled away before he could be consumed by the feeling building in his chest.

“Sasuke… I love you.”

Naruto jerked awake, panting, blue eyes wide and unfocused. He swallowed and closed his eyes again, putting his head in his hands and trying to catch his breath. He pulled his knees up to his chest and winced, the pressure between his legs almost painful. He was only under a threadbare sheet, which was currently pooled around his waist, but his entire body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Finally able to breathe again, he ran a hand through slightly damp blonde locks, opening his eyes again slowly.

Dreaming of Sasuke again. His last words before he’d woken ran through his mind again and he cursed, angrily shoving the sheets off of his body and turning, his bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor. It’d been a week since he’d last spoken to Sasuke, and these dreams had been plaguing him ever since, always ending the same way. He glared at his alarm clock. Nearly five a.m. He let loose a stream of curses which ended in a strangled whimper, and put his head in his hands, jaw clenching with the effort of withholding tears intent on forming.

He didn’t love Sasuke. He couldn’t. His shoulders shook and he swallowed thickly, fingers curling tightly in his hair. Tears burned the corners of his eyes but he refused to let them fall. That would be acknowledging it, this thing that he couldn’t allow, and he refused to do so. After a few moments he finally regained control of himself and lied back down, curling up and reaching down, pulling the sheet over himself again. He spent the next few hours staring at the wall with half open eyes, waiting for his alarm clock to go off.

***

Sasuke always parked in the teacher’s parking lot. Years spent as one of his fans--not stalkers, but fans--had taught Sakura this, and she’d found the information helpful in planning the best way to speak to him. He always got to school a little early and waited in his car for the first bell to ring, so it was the perfect opportunity to have a bit of time to speak with him in private.

Sakura had woken thirty minutes early that morning, completed her morning routines, and made it to school with a full twenty minutes open to speak with Sasuke. She didn’t know how long the conversation would take, so she’d planned plenty of time. The entire thing was very well planned, actually. She’d even been rehearsing in her head exactly what she was going to say to the dark-haired boy, but the minute his sleek black car pulled into its usual parking space, she forgot everything. She swallowed nervously and rocked forward onto her toes, holding her books to her chest and giving Sasuke a hesitant smile and wave. He didn’t acknowledge her, but merely parked the car and leaned back in his seat, reaching forward to presumably turn up the volume of the radio.

Okay, so he was angry. She already knew that; it was why she was talking to him. She hadn’t expected the conversation to be all flowers and sunshine. Of course, she also hadn’t expected to be dismissed before even getting a word out, but that was beside the point. Summoning her resolve, she walked over to the driver’s side of the car and knocked lightly on the window, again giving the boy inside an anxious smile. Sasuke, who had been reclining in his seat, very slowly opened charcoal black eyes and regarded her for several moments before giving her one of his most venomous looks, which was pretty formidable since nearly all of his looks were already venomous.

She swallowed again, but didn’t give in and merely knocked harder, mouthing the words “We need to talk,” knowing from the vibrating beat that she could hear even through the closed window that he probably wouldn’t be able to understand her if she spoke aloud. Sasuke’s eyes narrowed, but he finally straightened in his seat and pushed a button on the door. Sakura released a soft sigh of relief as the window rolled down.

She raised her voice to be heard over the music spilling out the window. “Sasuke, I just wanted to say--”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

She paused, trying not to let her temper get the best of her. A few days of repeatedly admitting to herself that she would obviously never be able to have Sasuke had lessened a bit of her Sasuke worship, and she found herself wanting to snap at him for not letting her finish her sentence. She was still hurting, her heart sore at the knowledge that her crush would never be anything more than that, but she found herself actually able to become, at the very least, annoyed with Sasuke now.

“Please,” she said with as much sincerity as she could muster. “I just want to apologize… and explain myself if you’ll let me.”

“Your apologies mean absolutely nothing to me, and there’s no way you could possibly explain yourself,” he responded sharply, but the window was still down, so Sakura thought that might be as close to acceptance as she was going to get from him at the moment.

“…I’m the reason that everyone knows,” she finally said, looking him in the eyes.

“You’re not very good at apologies.”

She almost laughed at that. A bitter, nearly hysterical laugh. The rest of her words came out in a breathless rush. “I just want to be honest with you. It was an accident, it truly was. I saw you two together and it hurt so much that I just needed to talk to someone. I told a friend of mine in confidence.” Sakura didn’t want to admit which friend. Ino had made a mistake, but no more so than Sakura herself had. She didn’t want Sasuke angry at the blonde, too.

The window was still down, but Sasuke hadn’t said anything, so she forged ahead. “And the thing with Naruto… I was just so upset and angry and… I don’t even know what else. I didn’t like that people were being so cruel to him, but I was still so mad at him for taking… for taking you. It was horrible of me not to help him, I know. I’m going to try not to make that mistake again.”

“First of all,” Sasuke finally said, reaching forward and turning off the radio. “He didn’t take me. I was never interested in you.” Sakura had to admit that such blunt honesty stung, but she remained quiet and listened. “I was never interested in any girl. The only person I’ve ever wanted is that idiot.” He grabbed his books and opened the door, Sakura jumping backwards quickly to avoid getting hit with it. “And second, I’m not the person you should be telling all of this.” He slammed the door, gave her a curt but accepting nod, then walked away from her without another word, shoving his keys into his pocket.

***

Naruto quickly learned that the best way to avoid getting insulted horribly or having the shit beat out of him was to avoid people all together. In classes, he was safe, because the teachers obviously weren’t going to let anyone mess with him around them, whether or not they approved of him or the rumors going around. But lunch and the time between classes was beginning to become a problem.

First on Naruto’s list of “Preventative Measures to Avoid Being Murdered” was to avoid showing up at school until right as the first bell rang. This wasn’t much of a problem, since even before becoming Konoha High’s resident fag, he had usually arrived at school late or barely on time. Second on the PMABM list was to keep his head down while walking the halls, and wear a hat. If he walked fast enough and no one was able to notice his shocking blonde hair, he might just make it from one class to another without being mauled. Finally, third on his list was to avoid, under any circumstances, entering the cafeteria. That’s where most of the worst of it occurred. He could go without lunch just fine, so he began spending his lunch period out in the courtyard. It wasn’t that much of a change--he’d spent lots of time eating there--it just meant he couldn’t risk going to get food anymore. That was okay, too. He could justify eating double the amount of ramen that he usually did when he got home.

He sat down on the sidewalk and hunched over, picking at the grass growing between the cracks, the sun glaring down on the back of his neck. It wasn’t so bad, really. He liked having a tan. Naruto’s stomach growled, as if rebelling against his positive outlook, and he stuck his tongue out at no one in particular.

“You look stupid, sitting there with your tongue hanging out, idiot.”

Naruto lifted his gaze quickly to find Sasuke sitting about a foot from him on the sidewalk. He was leaning back on his hands, and Naruto finally noticed how truly pale the other boy was. He thought dazedly that the brunette would get a sunburn if he stayed the whole lunch period like last time.

Sasuke lifted a dark brow. “Are you just going to stare at me?”

The blonde broke from his daze and tossed a clump of grass at his classmate. He’d been momentarily shocked to see Sasuke after so many days of… no, he hadn’t missed him. He hadn’t. Now, however, he was just annoyed.

“What do you want?”

Sasuke looked away, an action uncharacteristic of him, and studied the ground intently. “How long are you going to keep playing this stupid game of yours?”

Naruto huffed. “Game?”

“Pretending you don’t miss me.”

No way was he even responding to that. The nerve of that overconfident asshole! Naruto put a hand on the warm sidewalk and began to push himself to his feet, fully intent on walking away, but slender fingers caught his wrist and tugged. Naruto ended up practically in Sasuke’s lap, leaning over him, one hand on his shoulder for balance. He stared into dark eyes and felt something tug in his chest. Sasuke took the moment of distraction as the opportunity that it was and pressed his lips to Naruto’s, holding the kiss for a moment before swiping his tongue across the blonde’s full bottom lip.

Naruto couldn’t help but react. It had only been a bit over a week… why did he need him so much? He refused to think of his dreams, of the way most of them ended. It wasn’t the actions that affected him so much as the words he always spoke. Three simple words that terrified him, because they couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be that much of a freak. If he kept ignoring this, it would go away. It had to.

But ignoring it was hard when he was busy ravishing Sasuke’s mouth. When the dark haired boy was clutching at him like he never wanted to let go and moaning softly into the kiss. Naruto curled his fingers tightly in feather-soft black hair, the other boy making a soft sound of protest against his mouth. “I hate you…” Naruto whispered against his lips. “Why do you keep doing this to me?”

Sasuke’s eyes reflected pain for only a moment before he captured Naruto’s lips again in a furious kiss, now reveling in the hands that clutched painfully tight at his hair, pulling him impossibly close, hurting and loving at the same time. The kiss only stopped when they both realized that it was going too far, would be more than a kiss in a few moments, and out in the open courtyard of their high school. Naruto forcefully pulled himself away from the other boy, glaring off to the side at nothing. Sasuke watched him for a few moments, eyes cold, before getting to his feet and walking away.

Naruto kept his eyes on the ground, catching his breath and willing away the furious anger still hovering at the edge of his consciousness. Anger at Sasuke, anger at himself, at everything. Why wouldn’t he just stop? Why couldn’t Sasuke just let him stop? Why did it have to be so wrong in the first place?

He cursed and kicked over the drink Sasuke had presumably brought outside with him, then took several slow breaths before picking up the rest of the bastard's lunch, standing and dumping it all in a trashcan before heading back inside.

***


End Chapter Eleven
oOKeairaOo

::EDIT:: Okaaay... first of all. To everyone awaiting an update: I'm very sorry, but my computer is... dead. As it is, I'm on an old computer right now so that I could post this update. A few days ago, a drink was spilled on my laptop, and it had to be sent off to the Toshiba place to be fixed. I was told it would be two to six weeks before I got it back. The problem with this is that all of my new chapters were saved on that computer, and so I can't update until I have it back. I'm SO sorry that you all will have to endure yet another wait, but as soon as I get my computer back, I'll have the new chapter up! After that, however, things may be slow going. I'm moving to a new apartment this Thursday, and then after that I'm going to be starting a tech support job until the semester starts again, so I'm going to be very busy. However, I promise that I will not forget this fic.

Also, on that note, I've gotten a few reviews and e-mails complaining about how long you had to wait for this chapter. Um... that wasn't my fault, people. AFF has been DOWN. I can't post new chapters when AFF won't let me. As it is, as soon as the site was back up for good, I bumped the fic back up to the top in case anyone missed the last chapter posted, and then two days later, I posted this chapter. ^^; I don't think I could have gone any faster if I'd tried. I checked AFF every day so that I'd know as soon as it was up again. Besides that, as many of you already know, if you e-mailed me or otherwise contacted me when the site was down, I sent you the new chapters that weren't yet posted. I have no problem doing that as long as you let me know what you thought of the chapters in a return e-mail, so keep that in mind if the site ever has problems again. ^^