The Fox and the Crow

Sakura giggled as she finished the last sentence of her story, “And Prince S got on his knee and asked Princess Flower to marry her instead of Princess Pig.” She hugged the paper, lost in her own world.

Iruka cleared his throat. “Uh, very, good. Sakura, you can sit down now.”

Sakura glanced at Sasuke once, and blushed and went and sat down next to him.

“Okay. Let’s see. Shikamaru, how about you?”

Shikamaru sighed, “What’s the point of this.”

“Ninjas need to be creative. So, what better way to test your creativeness, than by a creating writing assignment.”

“It was too troublesome to write.” He laid his head down on the desk.

Iruka sighed, and looked around, “Okay, Naruto. How about you.”

Naruto jumped up, “Alright!” He went up to the front and held out his paper.

“Okay. So there was a crow sitting on a tree branch. And he’s got a piece of cheese in his mouth. Well a clever fox decides he wants the cheese, so he goes up to the stupid crow, with his beady black eyes, and his cocky attitude. And of course since the stupid crow is full of himself, the fox figures out a plan to get the cheese.

So he goes up to the crow and says ‘Hey, crow. You have the prettiest black hair…FEATHERS!…feathers that I’ve ever seen. And you have such intense eyes, and I heard that the most beautiful sound comes out of your mouth…err, beak…when you sing. I’ve heard that you’re the best singer around.’

And so the crow, all conceited, decides he wants to show off, so he opens his beak to sing, and the cheese drops out. And the fox catches the falling cheese and laughs as he gets to eat and the stupid crow doesn’t get anything.”

There were a few chuckles, and a few snickers from the crowd.

“Naruto…” Iruka sighed, “This was supposed to be creative. You weren’t supposed to recite some child’s fable!”

Naruto laughed and scratched the back of his head, “But I couldn’t think of one.”

“Go sit down.” Iruka said defeated.

Naruto sat down next to Sakura and stuck his tongue out at Sasuke. Sasuke smirked and stood up and walked in front of the classroom, before Iruka had even called for him.

“Sasuke…” But he stopped himself when he saw the dangerous gleam in Sasuke’s eyes.

“The fox might have gotten the cheese, but he’ll never be as good as the crow.” He stared directly at Naruto, “Because, the fox will always be jealous of the crow, because the crow was born with wings, and can raise to heights that the fox can never even dream of getting too.”

There was a tense silence over the classroom. It was obvious that Sasuke had just declared war with the loud-mouthed blonde. They all watched the two, with the same morbid curiosity one would watch a train wreck with.

Naruto stood up, and pointed a finger towards Sasuke, “You got something to say to me? You bastard!”

Sasuke took a step forward.

Iruka cleared his throat, “That’s enough. Let’s call a break. Everyone leave now. Except Sasuke and Naruto.”

The classroom quickly cleared out.

*****************************************

Naruto kicked a stone in his path and watched with simple pleasure as it landed several feet in front of him. “Why do I have to write a story with that jerk?”

Sasuke had offered his place as a meeting place for their joint assignment, but Naruto wasn’t about to go somewhere alone and isolated with Sasuke. One of them would end up dead. After all, foxes had fangs, and it didn’t matter if the crow had wings, if it didn’t have room to fly away. The idea of Naruto’s head plastered on a fox, with a crow’s body with Sasuke’s face hanging out of his mouth, teeth imbedded in the crow’s body…it brought a perverse comfort to Naruto.

He shook his head clear of the thought. So he had suggested the library. There would be witnesses there.

He looked up at the tall building, disappointed that he was already there, and would now be in Sasuke’s presence again. He could never get away from the cold-blooded Uchiha.

“You know, I’m still surprised you picked a library.”

Naruto jumped almost 3 feet high in surprise, he turned around, “Damn it! Don’t do that to me.”

Sasuke sighed, his body lax like usual, one arm on his thigh, “You’re not a very good shinobi, if that surprised you that much.”

“Shut up! I’ll be Hokage one day, and then you won’t be able to talk to me that way.”

“Whatever.” Sasuke walked towards the library, “If we get kicked out of here, because you’re too loud…my dinner is your treat.”

Naruto frowned, “I never agreed to that.”

“Are you saying you can’t behave in a library? Too noisy, Fox?”

Naruto smirked at the nickname, if only Sasuke knew how true that really was.

“Fine. But if I’m quiet, you’ll buy me ramen.”

Sasuke shrugged, “Okay. It’s a date. Now hurry up.” Sasuke disappeared inside the building.

Naruto froze…had Sasuke said ‘date’? And even if he did, what did he care? Free ramen was free ramen. He nodded, and quickly ran to catch up with Sasuke.

**********************************

Sasuke stared at the blank paper, and tapped his pencil on it, irritated. Three hours, they had been quietly fighting about a story line for three hours.

“What about a hero on a quest for magical panties?”

“What kind of magic?” Sasuke found himself asking, tiredly.

“Umm…magic to stay clean and never need to be washed. Yeah. And there’s an evil queen who wants it for herself, and she tries to steal them from the innocent young girl…oh we can name her Sakura!” Naruto said excitedly.

“The evil queen?”

“No! The beautiful panty wearing…”

Sasuke sighed, “Your mind is in the gutter.”

Naruto pouted, “I thought it was a good idea. But if you don’t like the idea of a girl in panties…” His eyes gleamed, a dumb smirk on his face, “Maybe you’d like to see a guy in a pair of panties. Is that closer to your cup of tea?”

Sasuke’s pencil snapped in half.

Naruto looked mortified, “You broke the pencil! Now how are we going to write anything!”

Sasuke stared at the pencil, “It can still write. It’s just in two pieces. I’ll go sharpen the part with the eraser. Think of something reasonable while I’m gone.”

Naruto watched Sasuke stride off. He took a deep breath, and stood up, stretching. “Maybe I can get an idea from another book.” He walked towards the back of the library, hoping it would take Sasuke longer to track him down that way, and turned down one of the isles.

He stopped at one title, “Little Red Riding…” The end of the title was scratched off. He grinned, “I love this story.” He grabbed the book. “Maybe Sasuke would make a better person eating wolf, and I could be the butcher that cuts everyone out of his stomach!” He opened the book, and blushed when he saw the picture on the page. There was a very muscular man, with long silver hair, with thick chest hair standing naked in front of a girl in a skimpy red bra and panties, and a hooded cloak. The caption underneath said, “The better to eat you out with.”

*************************************************

Sasuke sighed as he sharpened his pencil. He shook his head, he wasn’t sure why he was letting Naruto get to him. When Naruto had first started his story about the crow and fox, it made his blood boil. He didn’t know what had come over him when he stood up and continued Naruto’s childish game. So now, here they were, forced to work together. Not that it really bothered Sasuke. Well, except for the stupid ideas Naruto kept coming up with. They were getting a bit annoying. If his grade didn’t count on it, he would have given up hours ago.

The worst part of everything was, he couldn’t get the stupid story out of his mind. Naruto was obviously obsessed about him. He just couldn’t tell if it was in a ‘I’ll be better than you’ way or something else.

He stared at the broken pencil…was Naruto just being a smart-ass, or did he actually realize that Sasuke was gay?

Gay. The realization wasn’t actually that hard to accept, but the fact that he was attracted to that loud mouthed idiot…that had taken some time to accept. He turned to steal a glance at Naruto, and noticed the boy was no longer there.

“What the…damn it, Naruto.” Sasuke walked over to the table, and glanced around. “Okay, that orange jump suit can’t be too hard to find in these stacks.”

He quickly looked down each aisle, and finally spotted the blonde boy. He looked up at the aisle label, it said ‘Romance, love, and alternative life style.”

He smirked and walked quietly down the aisle, not that it mattered, Naruto probably wouldn’t notice him anyway. He stopped before reached Naruto, and noticed a book, “The Karma Sutra for the Gay Man” (1) He quickly grabbed it before he walked over to Naruto. He looked over Naruto’s shoulder, and smirked, “Your mind is still in the gutter I see.”

“Yahh!” Naruto slammed the book shut. “I didn’t mean to…”

Sasuke’s arms wrapped around Naruto’s body, a book in his hands. Sasuke opened the book, “And what do you think about this one?”

Naruto’s head was spinning. He wanted to explain that he wasn’t staring at dirty books, and yell at Sasuke’s for invasion of personal space, but instead his eyes were glued to the picture in front of him, and he feared just breathing, in case it caused Sasuke’s body contact to disappear. He didn’t understand the sudden extremity of emotions going through him.

“Well?”

There were two naked boys kissing.

“I…” He shook his head, “Don’t show me your fantasies!” Naruto winced, that sounded weak.

Sasuke chuckled, “Do you like my hair?”

Naruto frowned, what was with the random question? “What?”

“In your little story, you complimented my hair. And my eyes, are they really intense? Do you stare that often?”

Naruto blushed. He hadn’t said that…had he?

“So…don’t tell me your speechless.” The arms wrapped around him tighter.

“I…said feathers.”

Sasuke pinned Naruto against the bookshelf.

“Hey.”

“Be quiet. We’re in the library.”

He leaned in and ran his tongue on the outline of Naruto’s ear. Naruto shivered. “What are you doing?” He hissed.

Sasuke sighed and pulled away, maybe he had jumped ahead of himself in making a move. Maybe he was a cocky crow.

Naruto stared at Sasuke who looked zoned out at the moment. The unnatural look on Sasuke’s face surprised Naruto. He giggled, “Hey Sasuke…”

Sasuke shook his head clear, “What?” He tried to ask coldly.

Naruto leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, “I’m tired, so I’m going to go home, I’ll leave the story up to you.”

Sasuke felt the blush rise to his cheeks. Naruto kissed him. Hey wait…he had also ran off and left Sasuke to write the paper! His eyes narrowed, two could play at this game.