Convictions

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-san. I own nothing and I make nothing from writing this. The song ‘Diary Of Jane' is by Breaking Benjamin.



Summary: In which the dust settles and Sasuke doesn't belong.



Pairing: Naruto x Sasuke, implied Chouji x Ino



Rating: PG



Warnings: Language.



A/N: This is ‘Convictions’, the third vignette I’ve made. If there’s anyone out there with a Naruto request (detailed, mind you), this would be the time. Or maybe I’ll post descriptions of all of the chapters so you can choose. Let me know, okies?



P.S. Any one requester can request as many as they want, but it has to be detailed.



Here’s the twelfth short story.







Shadowed



"Something's getting in the way

Something's just about to break

I will try to find my place

In the diary of Jane

As I burn another page

As I look the other way

I still try to find my place

In the diary of Jane



What have I become?"

 

 - ‘Diary of Jane’ by Breaking Benjamin







He didn't know how, but Naruto had talked him into coming back to Konoha and made him promise to be a 'good boy'. It happened so fast that he couldn't stop the way everything was progressing until he was shackled to the wall in a cell and Naruto was laughing about something from the other side of the bars like Sasuke cared about what he said.



Over the next few months, he was assimilated back into the village, although everybody but Naruto was wary of his very existence among them, after trying to destroy these very people on more than one occasion in the past.



Sakura took to him kindly enough, but she still had a hint of animosity in her eyes from the time she'd tried to kill him.



Kakashi, the idiot, wouldn't stop saying mysterious things to him, like 'you must look underneath the underneath' as if he were still twelve years old. It made Sasuke question whether or not this 'being good' idea was just that.



A good idea.



Everyone else treated him like a caged animal, poking him with sticks and food when they knew he couldn't react the way he wanted.



Chidori them all into pieces, kill Naruto for doing this to him, and then off himself in his old, demolished house.



Yes, they may have thought him to be a little insane, but that's what happened when your whole family got murdered and the person you thought you knew, wasn't exactly who he pretended to be.



Naruto was the most annoying of all, following him around like a lost puppy when he should've been training to be Hokage. Nothing had changed with the idiot, obviously, and it infuriated him.



How the fuck did this useless dunce best him?



*~*



A year passed and Sasuke found himself living in a small apartment, counting off the days until the village would trust him enough to let him roam free.



And then he could escape again.



Konoha wasn't his home anymore, even if Naruto still claimed it was.



*~*



He started to notice things, slowly.



Like how Hinata blushed when she was with Kiba, or the way Sakura's eyes strayed to Kakashi whenever he didn't notice that she was staring. After that, he started to notice everything going on around him, and one thing was made painfully clear to him the day he saw Chouji kiss a blushing Ino in the doorway of her family's flower shop.



He didn't belong with these people.



"What are you glaring at now?" Naruto huffed out, ramen sticking out of his mouth as he looked around, gaze zeroing in on Ino and Chouji as they kissed. He snorted and went back to eating his ramen, like the sight didn't bother him. "They've been together for a whole year, asshole. You just haven't been around to notice."



Sasuke turned his glare on the idiot next to him, feeling the need to kill rise.



"I hate you." He hissed out, standing up from the counter of Ichiraku and stomping off down the street, glaring murderously at anyone who looked back.



*~*



Ino and Chouji were pregnant, and getting married.



Shikamaru was the best man. Hinata, Temari, and TenTen were all of Ino's bridesmaids. Sakura was the maid of honor.



Naruto made him put on a suit and sit in the front row.



He hated weddings.



*~*



"Why do you care so much?" Sasuke asked him one night, sitting on the raven's couch. Naruto gave him an odd, blushing look before shaking his head like he didn't understand the question. "I obviously don't belong here, Naruto. Why do you care so much?"



The blonde finally laughed humorlessly, and Sasuke was taken aback when the idiot leaned over and kissed him.



"You do crazy things for love, Sasuke." He said mysteriously, before getting up from the couch and leaving Sasuke's small apartment.



He just sat there for a long while, slowly contemplating Naruto's words.



Then he smiled, "Oh."



The very next day, he bought a present for Ino and Chouji's baby girl, much to their surprise.



Then he hunted Naruto down and preceded to show him just how crazy love was.





What Sasuke did is completely up to you guys. :)