Putting Out the Lantern

"Sasuke, could you hand me that orange?" Naruto stood in his kitchen over a moist and fresh cake. Sasuke sat on the counter 'helping,' which entailed handing the man something when it was asked of him and spending the filler time admiring how adorable he looked in his little apron.

Sasuke had been beating himself up for days for not paying attention when he had the guy naked the first time they met. Come to find out, his little blonde tease was a model.

A model. Why hadn't he seen that one coming? Well, according to Naruto, he was an ex-model.

"I don't do that anymore."

"Why the hell not?"

But all he got as a reply was a light glare and a request to take out the trash.

The raven picked up one of the round fruits and placed it in a waiting tan hand, "why do you love orange so much?"

Naruto shrugged, "I dunno. It's just a great color." He started to peel little swirls off of the skin onto the top of the cake as a final decoration.

"Yeah, but your car is orange, as is your cell phone, iPod, computer, half of your wardrobe, bathroom, curtains-"

"I just like orange," when he was finished, Naruto stepped back and smiled before glancing at his guest, "why does it matter so much? Do you have a problem with the color orange? Some scarring childhood experience?"

Sasuke snorted and slid off the counter, standing next to the blonde to admire the cake, "not really. Just a bit odd."

It was impossible, there was absolutely no way Naruto had any connection to the Orange Underground. The idea was actually a bit ludicrous. Naruto, despite his lack of love for cops, did not tolerate any sort of misconductual behavior. In the blonde's apartment, he had to treat everything, including its occupant, with the upmost respect and kindness. His cursing was kept to a minimal, as were any lewd comments and actions. And it was hard. Naruto had to be the most attractive person he had ever had the pleasure of bothering. That, and Sasuke was just used to being a bastard.

"So...are we going to eat it?" the smell had been enticing him since he stepped into the apartment.

"Nope."

Sasuke had to refrain from rolling his eyes, "why?"

"It's for someone else," Naruto retrieved a cake container from his cupboard and began packing it all up. “I need you to carry that bag for me.”

Sasuke looked where the blonde nodded and picked up the bag sitting on one of the breakfast bar stools. The bag contained two containers of apple juice. When he looked back up again, Naruto was already slipping into some shoes and tossing on a light jacket.

“What are you doing?”

“We are going to see some old friends.”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows, “old friends? You’re taking me to see your friends?” A smirk flitted across his face and as the blonde passed him to get the cake, he cut him off, bumping him back against the counter. Naruto gasped lightly in surprise. He was eye level with the teen’s black Tokio Hotel t-shirt. The fact that he was four years older but a foot shorter than the delinquent, really grated his nerves. He looked up into hypnotically dark eyes, smelling the faint scent of cigarette smoke on the other boy.

“…Yes?”

Sasuke stared down, nearly getting sidetracked by the bright, innocent blue eyes. With his free hand, wayward fingers snuck to the hem of the blonde’s untucked, brown button-up. The crimson red vest added a very classy look and made him almost untouchable to someone like Sasuke. But only almost.

“Not that I’m complaining, but don’t you think it’s a little early in this to be introducing me to your friends? I mean, we’ve only known each other for about a week,” Sasuke leaned down slightly, making Naruto lean away and shrug him off.

“Don’t flatter yourself, kid. This isn’t a normal social calling,” Naruto picked up the travel safe cake and headed for the door.


Sasuke was a little peeved that his not-so-subtle advances on the blonde were being, rather expertly, shot down. He hadn’t picked up a spray paint can in eight days because the one owning that perfect little rear-end asked him not to. Of course, he hadn’t felt like he was starving since then either. He took full advantage and abuse of what the blonde had said and showed up on his doorstep every chance he could, which was every day. Out of politeness, he never asked to stay the night, but it had been offered. Naruto asked him once where he lived.

“Sometimes here, sometimes there, where ever I can catch some shut-eye.”

Naruto had looked completely scandalized by this answer and offered the couch more often. But Sasuke refused when he noticed a hint of pity in those blue orbs. He took no one’s pity, no matter how much he wanted to get into their pants.

“So, where are we going?”

They had taken a subway across town and were in a run-down neighborhood that even made Sasuke a little nervous. Not for himself, but for Naruto. This definitely looked like a place the cute little blonde could get mugged and kidnapped and made into someone’s bitch. The thought made him growl in his throat.

‘My bitch.’

“Chill, you’ll see,” Naruto smiled as he walked through the ghetto, a once very familiar neighborhood to him. He could hear the rambunctious voices of children before he ever saw them, but when the orphanage came into view, the yelling grew louder. Children ran all over the front lawn, mostly egged on by a boy wearing a long red scarf and silly goggles that were too big for him. Naruto led Sasuke around the building.

Sasuke leaned down as they approached the door, “what are we doing here?”

“Like I said, visiting old friends.”

Before Sasuke could get another word out, someone peaked out the door and gasped, “Naruto!” A man with a brown pony-tail came running out of the building. He quickly embraced the slightly shorter blonde in a very warm hug. It made Sasuke kind of twitch.

“I wasn’t expecting you, what in the world are you doing here?”

Naruto looked a little sheepish, “well, considering I forgot your birthday last month, I decided to drop by for a late ‘sorry.’”

The man laughed, making the scar that ran horizontally across the bridge of his nose curve upwards slightly, “some things never change. C’mon in. I’ll call in the kids, I’m sure Konohamaru will be happy to see you.”

And that’s how Sasuke, practically the king of underground graffiti, got dragged into spending the evening with a group of annoying kids. They yelled and threw cake and jumped on him every chance they could. One in particular kept hitting him with a wooden sword and calling Naruto “boss.” Then there was a girl with pig-tails who blew him kisses and a boy with a disgustingly runny nose. But through it all, Sasuke couldn’t help looking at Naruto. He seemed so…happy. It was strange.


It was dark on their way back. Sasuke was overjoyed when the blonde latched onto his arm, but he hid it very well. Naruto was still smiling and chatting away about nothing as they walked.

“Hey, Sasuke?”

“Hm?”

“Take me to go see that thing you were telling me about. That thing in the park?”

“Naruto, it’s late. And dark.”

“I don’t care, I’m not tired.”

Sasuke smirked, “if you’re not tired, I could think of something to do.”

Naruto looked up innocently, “take me to see that thing in the park?”

Sasuke face-faulted and sighed, “fine.”

Remarkably, the city hadn’t removed the Central Park monstrosity yet. So the pair made their way to it, arm in arm. Naruto leaned into the taller boy’s warmth, but resisted nuzzling his arm. It was already plainly obvious the boy wanted a place in his bed. The last thing he needed to be doing was encouraging him. Vaguely, he wondered if the boy was cold. All he wore were jeans, tennis-shoes, and a long sleeved shirt with a t-shirt over it.

‘Maybe I should get him a jacket.’

Sasuke stayed wary as they entered the park. He knew no one good went into the park after dark. His hands were in his pockets and he kept a careful eye out. Luckily, the mural was close in.

The moonlight shone bright enough to illuminate the bicycles. There were about thirty of them, molded and formed into a giant hand reaching up from the ground. It was bizarre, and beautiful. A sign was stuck in the ground in front of it reading: “I can ride my bike with no handlebars.”

“Wow, it’s lovely.”

Sasuke grimaced and looked down at the blonde who seemed so entranced, “I hate it.”

“Oh, come on Sasuke. You can’t deny that it’s well done,” Naruto leaned his head on the boy’s shoulder. The sight was adorable and Sasuke felt something stir in his heart.

“Naruto, how do you know all those kids at the orphanage?” the question had just come out on its own. Sasuke realized when he was finished asking it that it was probably none of his business, but the blonde answered.

“Iruka raised me there.”

“…You’re an orphan?”

“Yup, my parents died when I was an infant.”

“Oh,” the raven-haired boy felt the air get thicker, “I’m…sorry.”

Naruto raised his eyebrows and looked up at him, “why? You weren’t the cause of any of those things.”

With the moonlight reflecting in blue orbs, Sasuke found himself a bit less coherent. He couldn’t feel his body, but he knew he was leaning down by the way the orbs got bigger. Or was that because Naruto’s eyes were widening? When he finally felt soft lips against his own, he couldn’t have given less of a good god damn.

The kiss was amazingly gentle, and chaste, and just freaking AMAZING. The hold on his arm loosened and he moved his hands to around the blonde’s slim waist. He felt nervous hands on his chest but he only pulled the small man closer. Naruto made a soft noise, trying hard not to give into the kiss. But when Sasuke tilted his head and pressed their lips more firmly together, he couldn’t help the light moan that escaped him. It was the sound of that moan that made Sasuke force himself to stop before he took it too far. It had been lovely noise that he felt in his pants.

He pulled away from the kiss, but he didn’t go far. He could feel the blonde’s breath on his lips, tempting him back in. And he almost gave in, but he couldn’t. Not here in the middle of Central Park at the dead of night.

“…Damn.”

Naruto gave a light, short laugh, a little breathless, “I was about to say the same thing.”

Sasuke smiled, sliding a hand up the blonde’s back. Naruto closed his eyes with a slight shiver, lightly gripping the front of Sasuke’s shirt. This was bad and he knew it. But that kiss had been so…addicting. He could still feel the boy’s lips.

Sasuke’s heart was pounding behind his smile. He wanted to stay like this, but they were in a bit a dangerous place to gently embracing.

“I-I should take you home.”

“Hm, yeah,” Naruto opened his eyes again and met Sasuke’s stare. They didn’t move and neither of them wanted to. Naruto already knew he was going to ask the boy to spend the night, and Sasuke already knew he was going to accept.

Naruto felt like his head was swimming under the boy’s intense eyes, “we need to go.”

“Hn,” Sasuke leaned down again lightly nuzzled the blonde’s nose, “we will.”

Before he could kiss those inviting lips again, they were interrupted.

“Uchiha!!”

Naruto jumped while Sasuke scowled, pulling him closer to his chest and looking up. Inuzuka came running out of the darkness of the park trail and skidded to a stop in front of the couple. Naruto peeked from hiding his face in the tall boy’s chest.

“Shika said I might find you here. We need to go. There’s-who’s this?” the incredibley ADD boy looked at Naruto and smiled pervertedly, “OH, gonna get lucky tonight, Uchiha?”

Naruto bristled with a glare that nearly matched Sasuke’s.

“Inuzuka, what to you need?”

This got his attention again, “Oh yeah. Shika needs you on the Avenue of the Americas now! You have got to see this!”

“See what?”

“It’s the Orange Underground.”

That was all the incentive Sasuke needed. He let go of Naruto but took his hand and took off. Naruto didn’t say anything but tried to keep up.


“Shit,” Kurenai muttered for the thirteenth time, Sakura was counting. She stood next to the curly, brown-haired woman in the chilly night air. Shikamaru and Shino stood on the other street, closer to the park wall that faced the road.

Quick footsteps caught the green-eyed girl’s attention. Just as she looked up, Kiba came around the corner with Sasuke and a blonde boy she didn’t know. The raven’s first reaction was rather loud.

“Holy fuck!”

“Keep it down, Uchiha,” Kurenai sighed.

Sasuke gaped at the wall. Ten days ago, him, Shika, and Kiba had started a giant mural that was intended to be an urbanized portrait of Gandhi. Instead, a red-eyed pop artist, Kyuubi, smirked down at them with a proud brand of the Orange Underground.

“Cocky, that’s all this is. The bad part is that they are very good,” Kurenai put her hands in her jacket pockets.

“So, they are declaring war on us?” Sakura looked at the woman.

“Afraid so.”

“Fuckfuckfuck,” Sasuke ran a hand through his hair, “you have got to be kidding me.” Naruto just regarded the whole situation curiously.

Shikamaru came across the street with Shino, “Kabuto just called, he has Ino and Choji and he wants to call a meeting now.”

Everyone nodded except for Sasuke, he turned to the blonde then looked at Kurenai, “I’m going to be a little late. I need to take him home.”

The woman nodded and began walking away with everyone else. Sasuke turned to Naruto, “I’m sorry about this. I’m gonna take you home.”

“No, Sasuke, it’s fine. I can take a cab.”

“Are you sure?” he put a hand on the blonde’s cold cheek.

Naruto scoffed lightly, “yes, I am an adult. I’ll be fine. You need to be careful.”

This made Sasuke smile, “I will. Listen, could I…stop by when this is over. I mean-“

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Both wore soft smiles and Sasuke sighed, “alright, I’ll see you later.”

Hesitantly, he leaned in for a quick peck on the lips, “bye.”

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A/N: sorry for such a late chapter update. i was out of town for a week. but i'm back now!