Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: June 2nd 2006, Friday
second version: August 29th 2008, Friday

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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23: Sakura’s confession

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This whole friend thing was getting old. Naruto was quite surprised himself actually. He had thought it would be easy. He had thought that just being with Sasuke like that, like friends, if somewhat odd friends, would be enough. He had planned to wait until they were fifty after all.

He had never imagined it would be this difficult, this demanding on his patience, this… this tempting! Naruto just wanted to throw himself at the guy and kiss him! The problem was he didn’t want his teeth kicked out or his bones broken right after. Naruto wanted to kiss Sasuke, yes, but he also wanted Sasuke to want him to kiss him. He wanted to be kissed back!

Naruto hadn’t quite understood what that expression ‘hormonal teenager’ meant before. He had always thought Lee and Gaara were just weird with the way they sometimes seemed so desperate. But Naruto understood now, and he admired Lee and Gaara’s restraint these days because they did have times when they were in the same room and not all over each other. And they knew that they wanted the same thing. Such restraint!

-

Sasuke suddenly started to make a habit of disappearing just before last class ended. Just before other classes ended too, but mostly it was last class. It didn’t happen every day, but often enough that Naruto noticed and wondered. The thing he wondered about the most was why the teachers were so easygoing about it. Sasuke probably had more hours of absence than anyone in class, with his skipping and his whole week of sick leave. Sometimes Sasuke spoke with the teacher before he left. He said something to them in such a low voice that no one else could hear and they looked worried and nodded. They scribbled something in their notes and looked apologetic. Then Sasuke left. Very suspicious. Other times he really just disappeared. One minute he was there, the other he was gone, and even though Naruto thought he kept a close eye on Sasuke, he was surprised every time. Those were the really weird times, because the teachers didn’t seem to mind or even find it strange. They just scribbled in their notes when they noticed and never asked anyone if they knew where Sasuke had gone or when he left. Just scribbled and continued with class.

It took a while before Sasuke answered Naruto’s questions about it.

‘My shrink’s talked with the school. I can call her whenever I want to.’

He didn’t, of course, he said, when Naruto had started to worry about Sasuke feeling bad enough that he needed to call his shrink that often. He just used it as an excuse to get out of class when he wanted to smoke or just didn’t feel like being there.

First Naruto had been appalled, that Sasuke could be so sneaky and use his sickness like that. Did it count as a sickness? What was it really? Then Naruto had been sort of jealous, he didn’t have anything he could use like that and Iruka and skipping school did not match at all. But Naruto supposed he wouldn’t manage as well in school if he wasn’t there as Sasuke did. That guy had really good grades, and Naruto had only seen him study once or twice when he was at Naruto’s house. And he was there a lot these days.

The next thing that had jumped Naruto’s mind was that Sasuke really was sick. If it counted as a sickness, whatever it was. You saw a shrink for many things, right? Naruto still had trouble fully accepting the fact that there was something... wrong with Sasuke. What did it mean? The guy seemed so normal. Pissed off and rude, but for Sasuke that was normal, wasn’t it? Were there things you couldn’t say to him? Could he suddenly just get all weird? Even weirder than he had been that time when he passed out in Naruto’s arms?

Naruto knew that he was probably just overreacting; Sasuke had said he was fine. But still. It felt weird.

This day was one of those days when Sasuke had left last class early. They couldn’t leave the classroom for the lockers together, split up half-way because Sasuke had number 365 and Naruto had number 175 and meet up again on the way to the bus. It wasn’t a decided routine, Sasuke probably wouldn’t have accepted that, but it was how the end of the day usually went, when Sasuke didn’t sneak off early. It felt odd, empty, not having him there.

Sasuke stood waiting for the bus when Naruto came outside, looking all cool and unaffected, as always. Naruto should have been annoyed, maybe, but he had to smile as he half-ran toward him. Sometimes Sasuke walked home when he had left last class early, but sometimes he didn’t and this time he hadn’t. Sometimes he chose to stay and wait for the bus. Naruto liked that.

It was a windy Wednesday, nine days into October, and the sky held a thick layer of clouds over their head. It wasn’t raining but it looked like it could start any minute.

Sasuke rolled his eyes when Naruto came closer and waved. There were already other people there but they didn’t matter.

“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto said when he arrived and laughed between pants. “You’re here. Lucky.”

“What’s it been?” Sasuke muttered. “Five minutes?”

“No, more like twenty. You have no sense of time.”

“You have no sense of anything.”

“You don’t know that,” Naruto grumbled.

The place was soon crowded with even more people and Naruto was happy to find them pushing him and Sasuke closer together. When the bus came everyone hurried to get on; because they were in a hurry or because they were pushed by people in a hurry. Naruto was pushed into Sasuke and didn’t mind it one bit. He could smell the guy’s shampoo.

Sasuke sat by the window as he always did and Naruto sat beside him. Naruto still got and noticed the annoyed glares from the Sasuke fan-girls, but he had learned to not let them get to him. Why should he be upset when he was the one that got to spend the afternoons with Sasuke? They would be so jealous if they knew.

“We need to do some shopping,” Naruto told Sasuke when the bus had taken them half-way home. Sasuke raised a brow.

“We need to?”

“Alright, I need to,” Naruto made a face. “But you need to keep me company.”

“I don’t need to do anything with you.”

“Oh, come on,” Naruto groaned.

Sasuke sighed.

“What are you shopping for?”

“Huh?” Naruto frowned. “Err... Um…”

He took his bag from the floor and started to grope around for the note Iruka had given him before he left for school. He had piled half his books and notes in Sasuke’s lap before he found it.

“Aha!” He grinned in triumph and held up the crumpled, scared-looking note before unfolding it. “Let’s see… 6 small red apples, 2 blue milk cartons, 1 cucumber and rice. Just that.”

Naruto grinned. Sasuke snatched the note from his fingers before he could drop it back into the bag.

“I’ll take that,” he said and stuffed it in his pocket before dumping Naruto’s books back on him and going back to looking out the window.

Naruto hummed happily while stuffing the books back into his bag, unable to stop grinning.

-

They were in the aisle that had rice, looking for the brand Iruka always bought, when Sasuke surprised Naruto so much that he knocked down a column of bean cans with his elbow.

“Sakura confessed to me today,” he said.

Cans flew and rolled over the floor and Naruto yelped. He looked at Sasuke, then at the cans spreading and for a moment he neither knew what had happened nor what to do about it; both Sasuke’s words and the sudden crash had made things chaotic and confusing in his head.

“S-Sakura?” Naruto got out eventually; fell to his knees and started picking up cans, starting with the ones that hadn’t rolled so far. An old woman passing the aisle by looked very disapproving. “As in Sakura in our class?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke said.

Naruto thought he saw color on his face, but wasn’t sure because Sasuke quickly started chasing after cans too. They did that for a while, chasing cans and restacking them. Naruto’s heart was beating. Sasuke didn’t usually talk and share stuff like that; he was mostly quiet or replied to what Naruto said. It had to be a special occasion.

“Well?” Naruto dared to say eventually, when the spread out cans were fewer. “What did she say? What did you say? Are you like... dating now?”

The words were hard to form, but he had to.

“No,” Sasuke frowned and looked like that was a stupid thing to say. “She told me she loved me and I turned her down.”

“Why?” Naruto found himself saying. “I mean, she’s pretty, isn’t she?”

Naruto went to fetch some more cans. He didn’t know why he had said that, that Sakura was pretty. She was, but… They were sort of rivals, weren’t they? Both after the same guy. But Sasuke had said he turned her down. He hadn’t turned Naruto down. Had he? Sure, he had said he didn’t like Naruto and that Naruto should leave him alone, but he hadn’t actually meant it, had he? He was here with Naruto now, by choice.

“I’m not interested in her,” Sasuke said like it was obvious.

“But why not?” Naruto kept talking stupid.

“What?” Sasuke was annoyed. “You want me to go out with her?”

“No!” Naruto hurried to say. “I was... just thinking.”

Sasuke huffed.

“That explains it.”

Naruto made a face, though inside he was grateful for the normalcy. Before he could retaliate Sasuke held out a green, black and transparent plastic bag of rice.

“It’s this one,” he said.

“Ah!” Naruto looked and recognized the coloring as Iruka’s brand. “It is! Where did you find it?”

Then he frowned.

“When did you find it?”

Sasuke shook his head and walked away.

“That’s it, right?” he said. “We’re done.”

“Hey!” Naruto yelled. “Wait up!”

He put the last of the cans of canned beans in place, grabbed the wire basket and followed; but Sakura’s confession kept gnawing in the back of his head.

-

This day Sasuke didn’t argue when Naruto said they should eat cup noodles. He shrugged and said ‘fine’. Sasuke usually didn’t want to have cup noodles; it wasn’t real food, he said. Unfortunately Naruto was completely hopeless at arguing with him about that, because for some reason, when Sasuke said ‘that’s not real food, Naruto,’ he sounded just like Iruka. Naruto lost all fighting spirit; both because his mind had long since been brainwashed into thinking there was no use arguing with Iruka, and because it was absolutely hilarious. The way Naruto was smiling as he gave up always miffed Sasuke somewhat, but he got his way so he couldn’t complain.

But there was something about Sasuke this day though. He was especially un-arguing, that small protest on the bus and the one in the store had been sad. It was like there was something on his mind, like he was distracted. Naruto really couldn’t get Sakura’s confession out of his mind. There was a whole swirl of frustration making a ruckus inside of him.

It didn’t get better when they had finished eating and went up to Naruto’s room, Sasuke taking the floor and getting busy with his music, Naruto taking the bed and pretending to get busy with homework while he was actually looking at Sasuke. Swirls of frustration made more of an impact when you didn’t have stuff to distract you.

He really was beautiful like that, Sasuke, lying on the floor with his eyes closed. His features would relax when he stopped looking and his ears got occupied with music; his frown disappearing. He would look… at ease; even though the floor couldn’t be comfortable and the music sounded quite messy.

Sasuke was still beautiful, of course, but this day the frown did not go away; not completely. It agitated the swirls and made Naruto itch. He thought of Sakura’s confession and he itched.

There was a stripe of stomach showing between Sasuke’s shirt and his pants. A thin stripe of skin that drew Naruto’s eyes in like a magnet. It was a strong contrast to the surrounding colors, dark this day, and seemed to almost be glowing. Was it cold or warm? What did it taste like? How would it feel against tongue, lips and nibbling teeth? What did Sasuke’s skin smell like? Naruto could only remember his shampoo.

His mouth was slightly opened. Sometimes the lips moved slightly, became more tense or less; slid apart somewhat to show a sliver of the darkness behind them.

The throat moved sometimes when he swallowed. His dark eyelashes would fall against his cheeks. Naruto had heard that many girls were jealous of Sasuke’s eyelashes.

‘But he’s mine!’ something inside Naruto was whining when he thought of Sakura’s confession.

Naruto realized that Sasuke had turned him down too, only he had been stubborn and refused to accept it. He’d been badgering Sasuke so long that now he’d worn down the guy’s defenses, his pretending. Or had he? Maybe Sasuke was just going along with this because it was less annoying than the alternative. Naruto thought about the kiss; the first one. Sasuke had done that to get Naruto to hate him. Yes, Naruto had since then grown confident that there was something more behind that excuse, but what if there wasn’t?

Had Sakura accepted Sasuke turning her down? She didn’t always show it, but Naruto knew that Sakura could be a stubborn girl. What if she was stubborn enough to pester Sasuke’s defenses away too? Had Sasuke kissed Sakura to scare her away? It made no sense. It hadn’t made much sense when Naruto got kissed either, but... You really couldn’t kiss someone to scare them away if they had just confessed to you.

Maybe it was a symptom. If Sasuke was sick and needed a shrink, maybe this was why. He kissed people for strange reasons. That could explain his blushing and why he had looked embarrassed when Naruto kissed him in his sleep. Sasuke didn’t secretly like him at all; he was just embarrassed because he had done something he shouldn’t have because he was sick.

Naruto had left the bed and crept closer to where Sasuke was lying without really knowing when he had acted. His legs were folded underneath him and his clenched fists were on the floor on either side of his knees. His heart was beating and the swirls were more of nervousness than frustration now. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He swallowed. The music in Sasuke’s headphones sounded disorganized but at the same time had a strong beat.

Naruto remembered what Sasuke had said that night after the second kissing. If Naruto touched Sasuke again he’d lose all the teeth in his mouth. But Naruto had already touched Sasuke again, hadn’t he? In school when they handed each other stuff, on the bus, waiting for the bus. Sasuke had even been in Naruto’s arms that time when he passed out and Naruto’s teeth were still fine. Maybe Sasuke had forgotten his threat. Naruto hoped so. He crept closer.

Had Sasuke kissed Sakura too?

‘I’ll be fifteen tomorrow,’ Naruto remembered, then he threw one leg over Sasuke’s waist and planted his palms on the floor on either side of Sasuke’s head.

Sasuke’s frown deepened and his eyes opened, slowly, as if he’d been sleeping and carefully woken up. There was surprise and annoyance mixed with embarrassment. A soft hint of color on his cheeks.

“What are you doing?” he grumbled and slipped the headphones off his ears. The music got so much easier to hear.

“Did you kiss Sakura?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke frowned even more.

“Excuse me?”

“Did you kiss her?”

“Why would I kiss her? I turned her down. Now get off…”

“I want to make out,” Naruto interrupted.

Surprise on Sasuke's face, at first. Then annoyance, but something about it was off. The color on his cheeks intensified and his eyes turned down, as if aiming for Naruto’s chest.

“I told you,” he muttered, but his voice was weaker and dressed in less confidence than usual. “I don’t like...”

“Really?” Naruto interrupted again and Sasuke looked up again, into Naruto’s eyes. Naruto rebalanced and lifted one of his hands off the floor, placed it on the side of Sasuke’s face; the soft skin was warm.

“I’m in love with you,” he said, trying a smile but felt the lack of joy. “Haven’t I told you?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” Sasuke said and swallowed.

Naruto didn’t remember either.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said and swallowed too; let his head fall down a bit to show that he meant what he said. Sasuke seemed to flinch and there was something swimming in his eyes that Naruto could best describe as fear. Naruto felt it too. His throat was dry, his muscles weak. His skin tingled and his stomach felt like the swirls had nested and made babies. His fingers moved softly on Sasuke’s face, through his hair, but he didn’t know if it was really him. Was it really him, making those small, soft finger movements? Naruto was amazed that Sasuke stayed still.

His music was loud. Didn’t his ears hurt?

It felt a bit like that time when Sasuke had been sleeping, only now he was awake and watching. His cheeks were still colored. Naruto swallowed again. The headphones suddenly got quiet, only to start blaring again after a few seconds of silence.

Naruto took it as his cue and went down.

Halfway to Sasuke’s lips, Sasuke’s fist flew up and hit Naruto square on the jaw.

Even with the warnings and Sasuke’s ‘I don’t like you’s and reasons, it was sudden. Even though it wasn’t a hard punch it froze the insides of Naruto to ice and it hurt. He was suddenly afraid to look Sasuke in the eyes. He felt pathetic, like a failure, like a criminal, and didn’t want to see the evidence in those dark beautiful eyes. He wanted to get up and leave and never come back again, though he doubted that his muscles would carry him.

He looked anyway, but what he found was not what he had expected. There was surprise in Sasuke’s eyes; there was ‘what did I do?’

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke said and that seemed to surprise him too. His fist relaxed to a half-opened hand and he pressed it to his chest.

Naruto took a shaky breath and straightened up.

“No, it’s fine, I…” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that, I was just…”

He laughed weakly, his eyes were burning. He looked out the window. Didn’t want to see anymore. He could feel Sasuke with his legs, but he didn’t want to see.

“No,” Sasuke began and then his voice died; but it came back again. “No. I mean, I’m sorry. I don’t know why… Why I did that.”

Before Naruto could turn, Sasuke had grabbed his neck and pulled himself up; his mouth coming close to Naruto’s ear.

“I don’t think I wanted to do that,” he almost whispered.

When Naruto turned his nose hit Sasuke’s and Sasuke scrunched up his face for a split-second and blinked. Naruto blinked too. There was an arm around his neck that didn’t belong to him. For a moment they just looked at each other. Then Sasuke sighed and turned away.

“Fuck,” he breathed and looked embarrassed.

Naruto smiled, just had to smile. Then he quickly pressed a kiss to Sasuke’s lips before the guy could change his mind. Sasuke blinked again, then rolled his eyes and sighed. His arms shifted around Naruto’s neck as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

And it was enough; for now it was enough, that short, short moment of his lips against Sasuke’s. Naruto slipped his own arms around Sasuke and rested his chin on his shoulder. So much for teenage hormones. Lee and Gaara had to just be perverts.

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