It's Alright if It's You (1/1)
Aka, the one where Sasuke's got a crush, crush, crush (not on Itachi), the fic formerly known as The Neverending Story.
I crammed so, so much into this. I don't even know where to start. Ugh. Just...ugh. The thing was tedious as I don't know what. I can't even with it anymore. It was supposed to be short and silly, with Sasuke having a Mulan moment, the one where she saw Shang with his shirt off for the first time; that scene will never not be funny to me.
Even though I like to write Naruto as a closet!pervert in this series, Sasuke has his moments, too. He's just a little more not obvious about it. Although I think he may have been crying on the inside at some point during this.
But then like...alla dis...just sorta happened when I started listening to Sybil's Don't Make Me Over. And Shakira's Será, Será (her voice in Spanish owns my soul). And Remember by Ember (from Danny Phantom). And Non-tan’s cover of Stainless Night, cause that's a go-to angsty Sasuke song. So I really can't be held responsible for the weird soppy mess this turned into.
The Jurassic Park reference that accidentally slipped in there, though, that was straight up fate some kind of wonderful. Since yeahsureyoubetcha I went to see the manifestation of my childhood in IMAX 3-D.
Also, QVC Japan is very real. And disturbing. Watching the live stream was like watching a Pringles commercial from the 90s on the telly today. Once you pop, the awkward fun don't stop. But of all the things from Japan for someone like me to consider weird, it had to be this. Go figure.
***
Characters: Naruto/Sasuke, Shikamaru
Rating: R
Words: 8238
Summary: "What does Kiba have to do with wanting me to-why I am even trying to turn this into a discussion? I am not sitting on you."
Soft, his knuckles rap on the wood, an intended series of four knocks interrupted mid-sequence by the abrupt opening of the door revealing Shikamaru standing on the other side.
Lowering his arm, Sasuke looks up. He blinks, taking in the dark circles beneath Shikamaru’s eyes, the drawn and worn-out expression that has to be from more than simply a lack of sleep. “...hey.”
After a quick glance at his watch, Shikamaru mutters a curse. His elbow moves aside the small duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, while a hand reaches to dig in the back pocket of his jeans for a pack of Black Black gum. He pulls out the last stick and tears it open.
There’s a faint smell of mint when he puts the gum in his mouth. It lingers as he crumples in his hand the wrapper and the empty package, stuffing both back into his pocket.
“Is everything...” The clear agitation’s a rare display, atypical of a normally composed Shikamaru to appear so distracted, and Sasuke’s fingers tug on the drawstrings draped over the front of his left shoulder, rustling the black and yellow sack pack lying against his back. “You’re not leaving because I-”
“Oh, it’s-no.” Suddenly stiff, it takes a moment or two for Shikamaru to allow the tension to ease from his body. “No, it’s not that. Nothing to do with that. Didn’t mean to make you think-” A finger and thumb rise to pinch the bridge of his nose, following the click of his tongue, and the beginnings of a frown are replaced with a smile stretched too tight. “It’s not that serious. Family stuff, I guess I should say.”
Sasuke gives a slow nod. “Ah.”
“Just frustrated right now. So it’s not-” Shikamaru drops his arm, letting out a soft snort that almost turns into a laugh. “I wouldn’t even have the energy to deal with that guy back there if he ever thought I-well, between him and the other one, my family may actually be the lesser of two evils.”
Sasuke glances to the side, far from inclined to disagree through the smile he tries to stem. “Wouldn’t doubt it.”
From inside the apartment Naruto calls out to Shikamaru, accusing him of spreading inappropriate lies that aren’t true, then cutting himself off halfway through his own tirade to ask who’s at the door.
The smile on Shikamaru’s face is a gradual set to his features, a shrewd look almost sly alongside his tone an amused drawl. “Who else are you expecting?”
A noticeable strain seeps into Naruto’s raised voice, lends a gruff quality to the words seized by low, intermittent grunts. “Sasuke’s here already?”
Nearly taking up the entirety of the threshold, Shikamaru continues to hold Sasuke’s questioning stare, but it’s Naruto he decides to answer. “A hopeless guy like you, as much of a pain as it is to admit,” he says, with a quick glance behind him from over his shoulder, “I’m starting to think Kiba was right about the key. It’s a wonder you haven’t given one to-”
There’s a shrill screech and a heavy thump, both drowned out by the loud cry from Naruto demanding to know why Shikamaru isn’t not here and not in other places where he really needs to be, promising to kick his too meddlesome ass if he doesn’t get out of the way and stop keeping Sasuke from coming in.
Not quite frowning, Sasuke gives Shikamaru a strange look, eyes slightly narrowed wary at the humour in Shikamaru’s expression.
Shikamaru simply shrugs, though, retaining a trace of a knowing smile despite the more obvious reluctance that begins to settle as he steps into the hallway to allow Sasuke through. “Listen, I probably won’t be back until Monday. Tuesday at the latest, maybe.”
Not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable, because he doesn’t want to seem intrusive, Sasuke doesn’t pry, curiosity set aside at the grateful look he receives in return. He’ll ask Naruto about it later. “Anything you need for me to take care of while you’re gone?”
Shikamaru begins to say something but then seems to think better of it, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag. “Just make sure Naruto doesn’t eat me out of house and home. Since he tends to forget I live here, too. But you’ll do that anyway, so...”
Head and shoulder leaned against the doorframe, Sasuke snorts, folding his arms over his middle and crossing one leg in front of the other. “Still haven’t figured out where he puts it.”
That knowing smile makes another appearance, and Shikamaru shakes his head, turning his face from view. Heading towards the stairs, he raises two fingers in the air, leaving Sasuke behind him with a lazy salute. “See you.”
When Shikamaru reaches the end of the hall, Sasuke pushes away from the doorframe and enters the apartment. The door closes with a soft click, and he locks it with the thumbturn on the knob. Still facing the entryway, he carefully takes off his shoes, placing them neatly beside Naruto’s running shoes haphazardly thrown against the wall.
“You do know I could hear the two of you badmouthing me from all the way in here, right.”
“And?”
“And, he says. And.” Naruto scoffs. “That really the best you can come up with?”
“The only thing I need when it comes to you. What are you even doing that’s making you sound so...” One foot out of the entryway, Sasuke pauses, kept still at the sight of a shirtless Naruto in the middle of the living room, body a long straight line balanced between his feet and one hand supporting his weight while pushing his chest away from the floor.
It isn’t that he hasn’t seen Naruto without a shirt before. He’s seen him without a shirt numerous times. Maybe too many times considering how often Naruto’s liable to take off his shirt after finishing one of his routine morning jogs he’s somehow been able to drag Sasuke along to every once in a while.
So it’s not something to be entirely unexpected.
Or at least it wouldn’t be if this wasn’t the first time he’d seen Naruto without a shirt since coming to terms with the fact his attraction to him had long ago diverged from a simple emotional appeal.
The initial animosity of their relationship left him unprepared for any level of physical attraction, much less his sudden appreciation of Naruto’s back, mentally tracing with his eyes along the sharp motions of taut lines muscles pulsating beneath skin slick with sweat, teeth scraping across the corner of his lower lip at the deep resonance of Naruto’s murmurs uncharacteristically low counting from twenty-six to thirty-two, so stupidly transfixed by something as mundane as Naruto doing push-ups, and Sasuke starts at the realisation he’s staring.
He’s actually staring.
Fortunately, Naruto’s too absorbed on maintain good form to notice, one arm held steady behind his back, intent on making sure his chin touches the floor with the audible tally of each slow rep. Either that, or he really is as oblivious as he sometimes seems, which, for once, works in Sasuke’s favour.
“You done posturing?”
“That, uh...depends.” Another grunt, and again Naruto begins to lower his body to the floor, lifting himself back up with a far too confident grin turned Sasuke’s way. “You impressed yet?”
“By you?” Leaving the entryway, Sasuke walks into the living area, stepping over a half-empty water bottle and a rumpled black t-shirt turned inside out. “Hardly.”
“Way to bring down a guy’s self-esteem.”
“Like I could ever put a dent in your overinflated ego.”
“Still nothing compared to yours, but yeah,” Naruto admits, facing forward, breath drawn long through an exhale, “only because I already know you don’t mean it.”
Sasuke snorts. He pulls the sack pack from over his shoulder and places it down beside the large beanbag chair sat against the wall. “You can read minds now?”
“Nah, I just happen to know you.”
The easy conviction almost makes Sasuke falter. Less because of what was said, and more so because of the underlying assurance no different from Naruto’s normal resolve.
His thumbs find their way into the front pockets of loose jeans while his shoulders bunch slightly inward, an involuntarily gesture that leaves him feeling a little too self-conscious. Looking away, he turns his gaze towards the TV, hard-pressed to hear the nearly muted voices of the two QVC announcers presenting the bag of TropicalMaria frozen mango chunks being emptied into a glass bowl.
It’s not the greatest distraction, but it’s an opportunity to look busy. It’s enough for the time being. More than enough to validate his unwillingness to be subjected to whatever movies or shows Naruto says they should watch, which he knows is a little unfair of him considering Naruto doesn’t actually watch QVC.
The channel mainly serves as background noise, because Naruto likes to claim it helps him concentrate, something he picked up when he was five, during the time his parents had to travel to Spain on short notice, leaving him in the care of an elderly woman, coincidentally a retired teacher, who apparently scarred him for life by making him practice his kana tables over and over again too many times while she just sat there on her really weird smelling chair and watched QVC all day.
“I’m serious, Sasuke, that bossy old lady must have been pushing a hundred or something. At least. Way before the ashes, she already had one foot in the urn. I kept begging my parents to send someone to come get me because I didn’t know when she was going to croak. Especially during the middle of one of those TSV showings she always got a little too excited about, I didn’t want to take any chances.”
A loud groan diverts his attention, and he turns back to Naruto, watching him continue another set of push-ups, this time with both hands supporting his weight.
“Do me a favour, would you,” Naruto says, pausing to widen the gap between his hands just a little. “Come sit on me.”
Sasuke nearly does a double take, nearly stumbles on the words misconstrued as something he’s already telling himself he did not hear. “...what?”
“I want you to sit on me.”
The second time can’t be a coincidence. Because it’s not. It isn’t. Inopportune, maybe, although it’s his own faulty subconscious Sasuke can’t help but blame for this increasingly reckless desire to pick apart from his conversations with Naruto numberless times more than once upon many the kinds of things crude variations of what Naruto will probably never say.
So he just gives himself another moment to recover, taking the much needed time to process the implications regarding his newly discovered attraction for Naruto in this state. Squeezing his eyes shut, slowly, slowly, he breathes in. He opens his eyes as he breathes out, wilful in his ignorance of the sounds Naruto has yet to stop making and what he can only hope is an incredibly subtle appreciation of Naruto’s back, a view of Naruto he’d failed to notice until recently.
Clearly, it’s affecting his ability to think. Clearly. But he refuses to let his mind wander around someone like Naruto.
He can’t afford to let his mind wander around someone like Naruto.
“You want me,” he says, tone even, averting his gaze once more from the path along lithe muscles defining Naruto’s shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, “to sit on you.”
Naruto lets out an affirmative grunt, in a split second lifting from the floor his hands he brings together in a quick clap before beginning another set of push-ups. “Yeah. You’d be the right amount of weight. Do that whole too stretchy weird bendy thing where you get all foldy and stuff. Then I can fit you on me.”
Sasuke blinks. “...you’re an idiot.”
“I am not a-listen, I need to get the one-up on Kiba before Monday, okay, so if you could just help me out and sit on my back for a few sets, that’d be real good.”
Sasuke rubs the heel of his palm against his forehead. After so long, it’s a given he should already know better. More often than he’d like to admit, however, Naruto’s inability not to go off on some sort of tangent still tends to take him off guard. “What does Kiba have to do with wanting me to-why I am even trying to turn this into a discussion? I am not sitting on you.”
“You won’t hurt my back, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, Naruto. I’m not worried about hurting your back. I wouldn’t bother sitting on your back if I truly wanted to hurt you.”
“Then why not?”
Sasuke gives him the driest look he can muster. “You’re really asking me that.”
Still on the balls of his feet, propped up by his elbows on the floor, Naruto raises his body to a plank position, an unwarranted glare overly critical aimed at Sasuke. “What? You think I’m not strong enough to handle your weight? That I can’t handle you on top of me because you’d be too much for me, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Sasuke just sighs. Then he does it again. And again. Because at this point, it’s all he can do while Naruto carries on and on. Out of everything impossibly wrong with this hypothetical scenario, of course, how much weight he’s capable of bearing while doing push-ups is the one aspect Naruto would choose to take offence to.
“Because I could so totally take you right now, you know. Hold out all night long if I had to. I have more than enough staying power to keep going with your bony-”
“Are you even listening to yourself?”
“Kind of hard not to,” Naruto says, casual, not in the least fazed, “seeing that we’re the only ones here. But I really don’t see what the big deal is.”
“...tell me this is something you would ask anybody else to do. Tell me this isn’t something you would only ask me to do.”
“Eh...well, um, not really. I wouldn’t trust that. But since you are here...”
“No.”
“Come on, Sasuke. It’s not like I’d let you fall or anything.”
“Why would you ask me to sit on your back at all? How are we still having a conversation about this?”
“Because you’re my best friend. As much as I’m your best friend. And this kind of thing isn’t so different from what we normally do. I mean, you can’t exactly deny that we do things like this a lot.
“Like the time Chouji took us to that really old hole in the wall bar that looked like it was going to come down any minute. The Saturday before the one last week, I think. We met up with Kenji and Sho, and all of us shared a huge bottle of that really strong whisky you couldn’t handle.”
“My alcohol tolerance is on the lower side of average. Get over it.”
“No, no, no, because for you, someone like you being such a lightweight-it wasn’t even that you drank a lot of it. But you still dropped off on the table, real quiet with your head in your arms, and the rest of us sat there for like ten or fifteen minutes trying to decide whether you were passed out or not.”
“...make your point before I do it for you.”
Hands flat less than shoulder-width apart, elbows held in, Naruto begins to push up from floor. “Yeah, like glaring at me is actually going to prevent me from talking-my point is, majority rules volunteered Kiba to wake you up, except for some reason he thought it’d be a good idea to do it with a freezing can against your face-and this was right after I warned him to stop calling you Himiko, too. Then out of nowhere, suddenly, you just made a straight dive for him and tried to stab at his future little Kibas with the plastic spoon you snatched from Shikamaru.
“Naruto...”
“Oh-oh, the best part, though, here Kiba was, squeaking about how important it is for him to protect his manhood, while you were whispering all these things trying to convince him to hold still. And when you told him it didn’t matter if he’d be able to perform or not because the only steady relationship he could keep was the long-distance one with Akamaru, everybody else just fell out laughing. I even think Chouji was actually close to crying.”
Hair shadowing his eyes, fingers digging into his palm, Sasuke balls at his side the fist he doesn’t use to hit Naruto.
“Still don’t get how you could forget what happened, but r-remember that Monday, when Kenji teased you about changing your name to Ebichu on his phone, but wouldn’t tell you why? The whole thing’s because Shikamaru was eating raisin rum ice cream that night, that’s where Sho got the-hey, don’t look at me like it was my fault. You were the one who caused a scene that time. Matter of fact, I was the one forced to take responsibility for you and ended up having to haul your cranky half-dead ass on my back all the way down-”
“Keep talking, Naruto.” Sasuke lifts his head, teeth clenched in an attempt to keep at bay the rising embarrassment overwhelming any genuine irritation inspiring him to shake the life out of Naruto. “Keep talking, and the only part of me that’s going to be doing any sitting is my foot on your face.”
Using his hands for leverage, in one fluid motion, Naruto jumps to his feet. The thin sheen covering his face continues down to his neck, to his chest and a long torso cut off by the red track pants he wipes his hands against. Quick strides lead him to Sasuke as he tugs up the thick waistband of his pants concealing the black shorts he’s wearing underneath.
Hands on his hips, squinting, he looms closer, close enough to differentiate the random handful of strands standing out against normally unruly hair a lighter hue lying nearly flat against his scalp. “You’re the violent kind of sleepy drunk. None of that’s my fault. But asking you to sit on me, was that really such a bad thing for me to do?”
Never before has the temptation to strangle Naruto been so strong. Barely, though, just ever so barely does Sasuke resist the urge to cry out and attack him.
He settles for the twitch over his left eye instead, the same one that just as soon disappears at the light touch the back of Naruto’s hand warm against his cheek.
“...you okay?” Brows furrowed, eyes conveying a too obvious concern, Naruto frowns, pushing back dark hair and placing his hand over Sasuke’s forehead. “Your face is getting kind of red. And you’re starting to look a little constipated. You’re not coming down with something, are you?”
Whatever annoyance the open display may have provoked is waylaid the moment Sasuke suddenly becomes hyperaware of the distance that isn’t between them, the breath only just a light brush across his skin, the sweaty body all but pressed against him, and he stills, rooted to the spot, seemingly caught between Naruto precariously close and the wall he unwittingly backed himself into.
If the situation were different, if Naruto wasn’t Naruto, if he were any other person so blatantly invading his personal space, it’d be a nonissue.
But Naruto is the only person he sees, the only person he can see, the source of bare threads fostering this notion weaved and too tangled within his own self-imposed doubt, this stupid, stupid fear he’ll never be able to see anyone else again after Naruto.
He can recognise that Naruto isn’t unattractive. By any standards. If he ever had to confine himself to a single type, he couldn’t say Naruto wasn’t the near epitome of it.
He’s only human.
And he’s a guy.
Having those kinds of thoughts, even for someone as brash and impulsive as Naruto, lack of good sense aside, it’s not the worst that could happen. At best, though, it’s frustrating. Imagining the context of their relationship well beyond what they have now, wanting to initiate the serious kind of relationship he can’t be sure isn’t simply wishful thinking on his part, because he still doesn’t know if there could be a place like that for him in Naruto’s life.
It’s a far cry from what began as a fling with Suigetsu. Despite being roommates, Suigetsu’s supposed exception for him worked out to be a convenient situation. The proposition of sex with no strings attached was a good way to release the stress from those first couple of months at Tama. Yet more than a year later, even with Karin in the picture now, he’s honestly surprised he and Suigetsu remain so close.
Yet he’s so much closer with Naruto. Maybe even in too many senses of the word. However unconventional the nature of their friendship, it’s something they just are. Whatever’s between something that’s just there.
Because Naruto isn’t Suigetsu. And Sasuke doesn’t want that kind of physicality with him for the sake of it, probably even more so since sex has been one of the few consistencies in most of his relationships, convenient or otherwise.
The idea of attempting to seek that kind of intimacy from Naruto, though, in the face of a dependence on the experience he doesn’t have, this simple little yearning to build upon the familiarity already there-maybe if he just leans in a little closer, if he closes his eyes so Naruto won’t seem so far away, allows himself this one moment to be reckless, maybe he really could just-
Opening his eyes, he pushes himself from the thought, drawing back from the hand that still feels warm against his skin.
“...Sasuke?”
There’s a flash of something in Naruto’s eyes. Beneath the needless concern yet to go away is an emotion Sasuke can’t quite place, but then Naruto’s smiling again, smiling like he always does, with that same easygoing look so very undeniably Naruto, and it’s ridiculous how someone who could be almost painfully straightforward could simultaneously be so hard for him to read.
“It’s nothing, Naruto.”
“You sure?”
“Stop questioning me. I’m fine. It’s just that new type of infection.”
“New type of infection? What new type of infection? I haven’t heard about this new type of infection.” Eyes slightly wide, Naruto reaches to cup Sasuke’s face, gently turning his head from side to side. “You do feel kind of warm still, but I’m not a doctor-do you think you need to go see a doctor? Let’s take you to go see a doctor.”
Sasuke pulls the hands away from his face. “No, I don’t need to see a doctor. It’ll be gone once I get rid of this annoying guy who keeps hanging off me.”
“Look, you.” Stern, or at least pretending to be, Naruto throws an arm around Sasuke’s shoulders, levelling him with a hard stare. “Don’t give me that kind of grumpy attitude when I’m trying to show you my concern.”
“Why are you standing so close to me?”
“Tch. See if I bother to be concerned about your wellbeing next time.”
“I didn’t ask for your concern this time.”
Naruto grins. “Lucky for you, I’m the kind of friend who’d make sure you’d never have to.”
The carefree admission leaves him feeling oddly subdued, and Sasuke sighs, wondering why he even lets Naruto continue to affect him to such an extent. Lifting the arm from around his shoulders, he slips out from underneath Naruto’s hold, retreating to the grey beanbag chair only a few steps away.
He makes himself at home. Soft, he breathes in, breathes out as his body begins to relax, long limbs monopolising the overgrown pillow that provides more than ample room for two people. The majority of his body nearly devoured by the lush foam padding, he peers up to see Naruto staring down at him.
“...you comfortable enough down there?”
Shifting a little, Sasuke gives a low murmur. “Didn’t stretch today.”
Naruto snorts. “I can tell.” He pulls on the lobe of his left ear, careful to avoid tugging on the small onyx hooped earring he bought last week. “Think you’re actually going to offer to share with me this time? Or do I have to make you scoot over again?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“The fact you keep throwing yourself on the comfy chair so much, I’m starting to think you’re taking advantage of my very generous generosity.”
“Is this your way of telling me to move?”
“See, here’s the part where I want to say yes, since I really should kick you off like I do everybody else, but then I know you’d probably find some way to spite me if I did, because you’re a vengeful bastard who holds grudges longer than any normal person would ever consider healthy.”
“I don’t hold grudges. I just have a highly selective memory,” Sasuke says, completely unmoved by the look of utter disbelief on Naruto’s face. “Hurry up and go change so we can start. You’re not sitting by me like that.”
“...I will never understand what kind of sense you think it makes for you to tell me how I can and can’t sit on my own furniture. In my own apartment.” Naruto plops himself on the tatami mat floor, side resting against the chair. He rubs the back of his head, extending his legs in front of him and wiggling his toes. “What’re we supposed to be watching?”
Sitting up, Sasuke reaches for the sack pack placed on the other side of the chair. He folds his legs, dropping the thin bag in his lap.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for that. I was getting ready to buy another one tomorrow, too. All this time you had my bag and you didn’t tell me?”
Loosening the drawstrings, Sasuke opens the bag, a hand inside blindly searching for the drama he brought. “You left it in my closet. It’s been sitting there taking up too much space for the past week.”
“Figures that’s the kind of response I’d get from you,” Naruto grumbles. Moving closer, he leans over the chair, forearm lying above Sasuke’s shoulder. “You could have least told me where it was.”
The DVD box-set he pulls out of the bag, Sasuke hands it to Naruto then places the sack back on the floor. “Here. We’re watching this.”
Glancing at the cover, Naruto doesn’t hide his scepticism. He takes a quick look at the front then flips it over to the back. “Iris?”
“It’s the first part.”
“...this almost sounds like some kind of romance drama.” Naruto slowly turns towards Sasuke, eyebrows threatening to disappear into his hairline. “Don’t tell me it’s some kind of romance drama.”
Sasuke rests his cheek against the palm of his hand, head supported by his elbow propped up on the chair. “Would it matter if it was?”
“N-not that I’m saying it would. Because it wouldn’t. I’d still do it. Watch it with you, I mean, but that type of thing, I don’t really care for it. And really, even if I did, it’s not like-”
Suddenly tight-lipped, Naruto frowns in thought, eyes focused on the fading koi emblem on Sasuke’s dark blue shirt. There’s a brief pause, no longer than a second or two before he takes in a breath, releasing a deep exhale and lowering his arm to place the DVD on the floor.
“...it’s not like what, Naruto?”
Shaking his head, Naruto laughs, his smile somewhat over the top, waving a hand in front of Sasuke to brush off his concern. “Nothing, nothing. Uh, just something Kiba said to me earlier. Doesn’t matter now.”
“What’d he say?”
“Ah, nothing important that you’d care about. He was just being a smartass. Just being Kiba, you know. But, uh-Iris. Iris. You did say this wasn’t a romance drama, right?”
“...this coming from the guy who almost cried when we finished My Lovely Samsoon.”
“For the record, before you go around spreading untruths that aren’t necessarily untrue,” Naruto says, finger prodding at Sasuke’s shoulder, “you need to stop letting Karin tell you what to watch. Because you just end up making me watch it with you. Not to mention, I thought we agreed not to bring that up ever again.”
“I didn’t agree to anything. I wasn’t the one who kept flying off the handle at the screen because of that Hyun guy.”
“That’s because you’re the kind of person who could probably relate to him,” Naruto mutters.
“If telling yourself that makes you feel better.”
“...anyway, you plan on staying over tonight? Since, you know,” Naruto says, moving just a little closer, wearing the most annoying self-satisfied grin so exceedingly pleased, “you’re the one who keeps falling asleep on me every time we do this.”
He doesn’t fall asleep on Naruto every time, but he does it often enough that there’s not really much he can say in his defence anymore, so Sasuke opts for a glare. Needless to say, the effect’s been lost on Naruto for the longest time, if glaring ever had any effect on him. “Falling asleep on you doesn’t actually have anything to do with you.”
“Sure, sure. Although it’s still pretty surprising you find me so comfortable.”
The heel of his palm pressed against Naruto’s forehead, Sasuke grunts, pushing him away. “You aren’t. It’s your chair. Not you.”
“Heh.” Naruto wipes the pad of his thumb along the corner of his mouth. “How much you want to bet it is me?”
“If that’s the case, you may as well give me your wallet.”
“Oh, come on. Not even if we were the only two people in the world?”
“I’d rather sleep on Kiba’s floor.”
With a squawk, Naruto bolts upright, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Nothing short of dumbstruck.
“You better take that back, Sasuke-there’re too many things wrong with everything about that sentence, and you know it. Shikamaru would never allow me to let our place look anything like Kiba’s.” A little flustered, Naruto shakes his head, arm held out flailing in front of him. “Hell, I wouldn’t allow me to let our place look like that. Me, Sasuke,” he says, further emphasising his point with a hand delivering three quick pats to his chest. “Me.”
“You really aren’t that much better.”
“Don’t say that,” Naruto hisses. “Especially when you know how risky it is to stay at Kiba’s apartment for long periods of time, comparing me to a guy who’s thoughtless enough to put his own roommate on the endangered species list, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“There are living things growing in that place, Sasuke. All sorts of creepy crawly living things growing in the very folds of his never washed and always used futon.”
Sasuke flicks Naruto’s arm. “You shouldn’t embellish so much.”
“Okay then, since you won’t listen to one of the few people who escaped from Kiba’s apartment and actually lived to tell the tale, when’s the last time you even went over there, huh?”
“Yesterday.”
“You went to Kiba’s place yesterday?”
“Saw Shino there, too. It looked liveable to me.”
“You came all the way over here yesterday, and you couldn’t even bother to see me?”
Sasuke rolls his eyes at the absolutely pitiable look of dejection on Naruto’s face. “Kiba called me, asking to borrow a book for class, so I offered to drop it off, since I was already getting ready to leave to meet you in Green Hall.”
“Oh, yeah. That is right, isn’t it. We did do dinner there last night.” Rubbing his chin with his forefinger and thumb, Naruto gives a slow nod. “But still, of all people, you let Kiba borrow your books? You don’t even let me borrow your books.”
“You never asked me to borrow my books.”
“And if I asked you now?”
“I’ll say you’re being too needy.”
“But didn’t you just-”
“Someone as irresponsible as you should learn to buy your own books.”
“What the-”
Sasuke lets out a soft laugh, pushing loose strands of hair behind his ear. He rests his cheek against one arm folded on top of the other, lips pressed together to curb the small traces of a lingering smile. “Are we still watching Iris?”
“Yeah.” Naruto perks, reaching to his left to pick up the DVD. “Yeah, all that stuff about black ops and espionage, it sounds good. Really good. Definitely want to see how it goes.” He holds up the DVD, with a quick flick of his wrist pointing it at Sasuke. “I can even overlook the fact you never let me watch these things in the one language I actually understand.”
“Then put it in. Having to wait on you like this every time I come over, it’s turning into a bad habit.”
“It’s not like you couldn’t have done this yourself already,” Naruto mumbles, grunts as he begins to stand and head for the TV still showing QVC.
“Either way, you still wouldn’t be ready.”
“But you’ll wait for me, though, right?” Naruto places the first disc in the tray, closing the box-set and laying it on top of the DVD player. “When I take too long, even though I don’t mean to, you’ll still stay, won’t you?”
With a sigh, Sasuke tears his gaze from Naruto’s back, looking up to the nondescript light fixture hanging from a plain white ceiling. “After going through the hassle of coming all the way out here...”
Naruto turns to face Sasuke, chuckles low as he pulls down the waistband of his pants he begins to step out of, exposing knee-length shorts. “Just bear with me for a little while longer, okay.”
“How much longer?” Sasuke wrinkles his nose. “The smell’s starting to permeate.”
Pants bundled under one arm, wry, Naruto just stares at him. “Look. I’ve been training with Kiba for who knows how long today, busting my ass trying to get ready for this marathon since I didn’t get a chance to do the one last year. So yeah. I’ve been sweaty all day. And I just might smell a little. What else do you expect?”
“It’s not a little.”
Naruto snorts, raising his free arm above his head. “Can’t be that bad if you didn’t say anything be-” Hunched forward, his features distort in exaggerated horror as he starts to cough, expression continuing to sour with a stream of gagging noises. “Okay, seriously, you should have said something about this before.”
“You shouldn’t have made me wait this long.”
“Che. And you call me impatient. It’ll take me what-five minutes tops? Give a guy some time, would you?” Naruto gathers his pants in one hand and chucks across the other side of the room.
Following the flight of the pants, Sasuke watches them land on top of the small mound of clothes piled beneath the large poster of Plastic Tree. He looks back to Naruto, lips pursed at the too wide smile Naruto’s unable to hold back. “No.”
“What?” Naruto yields with both hands raised in front of him in a placating gesture. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You don’t say anything about the clothes that mysteriously appear in my hamper, either.”
“Yeah, those.” Naruto’s eyes dart to the TV, finger scratching the side of his head. “There’s just something about the way you wash my clothes.”
“You’re too lazy to wash them yourself, you mean.”
“Sure.” Naruto shrugs, breaking into another smile. “That might be it, too.”
Sasuke snorts.
“But you do know that pile’s only there because Shikamaru’ll be gone for the weekend, right?”
“For his sake, I’m almost tempted to bag your clothes and throw them out with the trash.”
Naruto sniffs. “Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you like him more than me?”
“Because I appreciate being able to hold conversations that don’t threaten to lower my intelligence.”
Naruto’s mouth opens then snaps closed. He pauses, frowning at the floor before looking back to Sasuke. “Now that’s just downright mean.”
“As mean as you are for keeping me waiting. Hurry up before I start without you. I should have watched it with Suigetsu when I had the chance.”
“It really wouldn’t kill you to stop being so pushy, you know.”
Extending his leg, with his foot, Sasuke nudges Naruto’s ankle.
“All right, all right, I’m going already-I’m going. Sheesh. Pushy and touchy...”
As Naruto turns to walk away, yelping when he nearly trips on the water bottle he leaves right there on the floor, Sasuke leans back into the chair. He heaves a sigh, closes his eyes, listening to the heavy treading of Naruto’s feet beginning to fade into the sounds from the TV a little higher than before. Stretching his arms above him, he lets them lie lax against the cushion, elbows turned out from either side of his head, in one hand three fingers from the other held in a loose hold.
It isn’t long, however, before the empty calm is interrupted, and he releases a quiet moan, brought out of quasi-meditation by the light thump a heap of soft material dumped on top of him.
One eye opened, he peers up to see Naruto standing above him, opening both eyes when he looks down to see a familiar fleece blanket still folded lying on his chest.
Tilting his head back to look at Naruto, he blinks. “...thanks.”
Naruto snorts. “Guess it really is the comfy chair.” A hand grips the edge of the white towel draped around his neck, one side lifted to dry the back of his hair. “Did I take too long?”
“Don’t know.” Slowly, Sasuke rolls up from his spine, the blanket falling to his lap as he shifts to make himself more comfortable. “Knowing you, though, probably.”
“I’m clean. Shouldn’t that be enough for you?” Skin still a little flushed, Naruto pulls off the towel and throws it over the back of the armless orange swivel chair pushed beneath the modest desk sat against the wall. Fingers toy with the hem of a yellow t-shirt, fiddling with the waistband of grey sweats, loosening the portion of the t-shirt tucked into his pants. Halfway across the room, he pauses, standing outside the small kitchen area. “Oh, hey, you want anything?”
“If you want something.” Sasuke shrugs. “I’ll share with you.”
“Not that you couldn’t have gotten up to do this yourself,” Naruto says, “but I think there’s still some beer left. If Kiba didn’t drink it all again.” He bends down, opening the door to the fridge. “There’re some rice crackers, in here, too. The ones with the seaweed and black sesame seeds, I picked up a couple bags yesterday, since I know you like them cold sometimes.”
Closing the fridge with his foot, he stands up, juggling a bag of rice crackers and two cans of beer held against his chest, struggling with his elbow to switch off the light.
“And this really good mint chip ice cream. They were giving out free samples at the convenience store with that seriously crabby old guy who always hangs around there, you know, the one by the Krispy Kreme-these two really cute girls were being really nice to me, and they gave me more than one sample, so I felt like I had to buy more than what I usually would.”
Sasuke picks up the remote and turns the volume up a little higher, then selects a different input, changing the TV from QVC to the DVD menu for Iris. “That’s because you’re gullible.”
“Appreciating people being nice to me doesn’t make me gullible.” Plopping himself on the chair, with a sigh prolonged, content, Naruto settles down beside him. He places the two beers on the short table in front of them, handing Sasuke the bag of rice crackers in exchange for the fleece blanket he spreads out over them both. “It just means I appreciate people being nice to me. Which really doesn’t explain why I keep you around for company.”
“Apparently I’m only good for being a free weight on your back.” There’s a loud pop as Sasuke opens the plastic bag lined with foil. “Where’d that even come from?”
“Yeah, about that, I’m trying to develop a one-time only special weekend routine.”
“For...”
A hand cards through messy hair still somewhat damp, and Naruto chuckles. He stretches his legs out in front of him, bare feet peeking from underneath the blanket. “Ah, well, me and Kiba, we sort of have this bet going on. Trying to see who can do the most one-hand push-ups in a minute.”
“I thought you were training for the marathon?”
“Oh, yeah. We were doing that, too. Since classes were out today. But we ran into that Kobayashi guy I told you about last week, the grad student. Remember him, the one with the really funny eyebrows, who knows aikido like you?”
“Lee?”
“Yeah. Real nice guy as long as you don’t let the bushy brows scare you off. Me and Kiba bumped into him while we were mapping out a route close to campus, so we started talking-got his number this time. Turns out Lee’s going to run the marathon, too.
“We decided to help each other train, and he showed us some of his workout routine, all these really cool exercises he could do. Like push-ups with one hand. And then he did a couple standing upside down. Handstand push-ups. Who the hell even does those? But on top of that, he’s fast. I mean, really fast.”
“Considering how slow you are, anyone compared to you is fast.”
“Whatever, Sasuke. Lee already did enough to make me look bad today.” Naruto reaches into the bag for a handful of rice crackers varying in shape and size, popping them into his mouth one at a time. “But as soon as Lee left, Kiba turned to me and said, bet I could do a hundred of those one-hand push-ups in two minutes before you can even get to twenty in one. So, of course-you know me-I couldn’t turn that down. Not when that guy thinks he can actually outrun me. And now I have till Monday to work on putting him in his place.
“Going at it for so long, though...” The light from the TV reflects the grin bright on his face as he curls his bicep, fist clenched. “I really do think it made a difference.”
Sasuke swallows the food in his mouth, reaching over to push down Naruto’s arm. “It’s amazing how Shikamaru can stand to live in the same complex as either of you. Especially when he has to deal with both of you at the same time so often.”
“Trust me. He’s not as sensible as you want to believe he is.”
“More sensible than you at any rate,” Sasuke concedes, although maybe even more so considering Shikamaru’s not the one who ends up indulging Naruto more than he probably should. “How many push-ups can you do so far?”
Naruto holds up his left hand. “Uh, on this hand, in one minute, my best count was around twenty-five.” He lowers his left arm then raises the right. “And on this one, I managed to get up to thirty once. Think that’s enough to give me an edge?”
“The only way I could take you any less seriously right now, is if you decided to use two fingers instead of one hand.”
“Yeah, that’s being real helpful, Sasuke. Like I’m going to be able to pull off that kind of crazy Bruce Lee shit by Monday.” Naruto reaches over for a can of beer, flipping open the tab that releases a soft hiss. “I might ask Lee if he can do it. Tomorrow, when we meet up in the morning to run. Want to come?”
“You’re that determined to make yourself look bad?”
“So you can show me up in a couple things. Rub it in a little more, why don’t you.” Naruto tips his head back and takes a large gulp of beer, pausing to swallow with his can held midair. “Seriously. You should come, though. We’re meeting up around six, because it’s supposed to start raining around ten, but we’ll keep going if the weather’s still good.”
“That’s early for you.” Feet flat on the chair, legs raised brought close to his chest, Sasuke reaches for another rice cracker, readjusting the blanket covering him. “Even on a Saturday.”
“I know. Eight’s usually good for me, but I have that digital montage thing I have to start for Hagane’s class, so I want to make sure I give myself enough time to decide what to do.”
Sasuke glances at digital watch on Naruto’s wrist, pressing a small button to illuminate the wide face. “It’s already late. Almost nine. You sure you still want to-”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. You know I don’t mind with you. But cutting into my training schedule like this...” Naruto grins, stealing the round, uneaten rice cracker from Sasuke’s hand. “You can make it up to me if you say you’ll be there when I cross the finish line.”
“I have a reason to be?”
Naruto takes another sip of beer, licking his lips and twirling the can, swishing what’s left of the liquid inside before placing the can back on the table. “You’re going to make me beg for this, aren’t you?”
Running a hand through his hair, Sasuke breathes in, chest rising faster than the exhale too slow to come. “The marathon’s all you’ve been whining about lately. I know you want me to go. It’s just...”
“I guess it does seem sudden to expect you to make that kind of decision for something four months away, but if you’re not going to run with me, I still want you to be there.”
“...why? It won’t make a difference whether I go or not. You don’t need me there.”
“Maybe I don’t need you there, but I...” Naruto smiles, simple like the brash idiot he is, the kind of smile easygoing he always gives, and Sasuke feels his body curl inward, feels his body into the chair sink deeper, because he doesn’t know how to push himself away. “Just knowing you’ll be there, knowing I’ll have seeing you to look forward to at the end, something I’d like to think would help me run a little faster, that would really mean a lot to me.”
“Naruto, you...” Sasuke clutches the bag in his hand, crushing the plastic against his palm. “How can you just say something so...”
“What? You’re the one too chicken to even sign up with me. It’s okay, though. Going against someone like me, I’d lose my nerve, too. We both know I’d beat whatever time you got. Hands down.”
Sasuke throws his head back, covering his eyes with an arm shaking from the force of a hollow laughter that makes no sound. “You dork.” His chest falls with a slow exhale, wavers with a quiet inhale the hitch suppressed in his throat. He lowers his arm, fingers releasing the bag Naruto relieves from his hand. “I don’t need to prove myself to a loser like you.”
“I swear,” Naruto says, pulling out a square rice cracker and wielding it at Sasuke, “one day, I’m actually going to get you to stop calling me names.”
“I thought you didn’t make promises you couldn’t keep?”
“...you just really like picking on me, don’t you?”
“I would.” Remote in hand, Sasuke points it towards the DVD player and presses play. “If you didn’t make it so easy.”
“Even though you treat me so poorly, the fact that I’m still here, that I’m choosing to endure the martyr role in our friendship, willingly, this better be the best drama of all time.”
Setting the remote aside, with a faint hum, almost resigned, Sasuke lets his head fall on Naruto’s shoulder. His hand grasps at the edge of the blanket between them, fingers twisting and unfurling the soft material that suddenly makes him feel cold.
Naruto clears his throat. He closes the bag of rice crackers, folding it over the top. The rustling echoes loud in the room. It’s a harsh noise, breaking the steady stream of dialogue in Korean.
Harsher still is the concern in Naruto’s voice much softer that follows. “...you all right?”
Sasuke’s grip on the blanket tightens. He keeps his gaze steadfast on the screen, ignoring the eyes that shouldn’t be watching him instead of the TV.
“Because if you’re not feeling up to it, we can always-”
“Needlessly worrying about that kind of thing, Naruto, I already told you I was fine.” Unconsciously drawn closer, leaning towards the body a solid warmth beside him, Sasuke sags against Naruto, fingers curled around the blanket becoming slack as he breathes in the blend of Naruto’s soap and deodorant that reminds him too strongly of sage. “...I’m fine.”
I crammed so, so much into this. I don't even know where to start. Ugh. Just...ugh. The thing was tedious as I don't know what. I can't even with it anymore. It was supposed to be short and silly, with Sasuke having a Mulan moment, the one where she saw Shang with his shirt off for the first time; that scene will never not be funny to me.
Even though I like to write Naruto as a closet!pervert in this series, Sasuke has his moments, too. He's just a little more not obvious about it. Although I think he may have been crying on the inside at some point during this.
But then like...alla dis...just sorta happened when I started listening to Sybil's Don't Make Me Over. And Shakira's Será, Será (her voice in Spanish owns my soul). And Remember by Ember (from Danny Phantom). And Non-tan’s cover of Stainless Night, cause that's a go-to angsty Sasuke song. So I really can't be held responsible for the weird soppy mess this turned into.
The Jurassic Park reference that accidentally slipped in there, though, that was straight up fate some kind of wonderful. Since yeahsureyoubetcha I went to see the manifestation of my childhood in IMAX 3-D.
Also, QVC Japan is very real. And disturbing. Watching the live stream was like watching a Pringles commercial from the 90s on the telly today. Once you pop, the awkward fun don't stop. But of all the things from Japan for someone like me to consider weird, it had to be this. Go figure.
***
Characters: Naruto/Sasuke, Shikamaru
Rating: R
Words: 8238
Summary: "What does Kiba have to do with wanting me to-why I am even trying to turn this into a discussion? I am not sitting on you."
Soft, his knuckles rap on the wood, an intended series of four knocks interrupted mid-sequence by the abrupt opening of the door revealing Shikamaru standing on the other side.
Lowering his arm, Sasuke looks up. He blinks, taking in the dark circles beneath Shikamaru’s eyes, the drawn and worn-out expression that has to be from more than simply a lack of sleep. “...hey.”
After a quick glance at his watch, Shikamaru mutters a curse. His elbow moves aside the small duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, while a hand reaches to dig in the back pocket of his jeans for a pack of Black Black gum. He pulls out the last stick and tears it open.
There’s a faint smell of mint when he puts the gum in his mouth. It lingers as he crumples in his hand the wrapper and the empty package, stuffing both back into his pocket.
“Is everything...” The clear agitation’s a rare display, atypical of a normally composed Shikamaru to appear so distracted, and Sasuke’s fingers tug on the drawstrings draped over the front of his left shoulder, rustling the black and yellow sack pack lying against his back. “You’re not leaving because I-”
“Oh, it’s-no.” Suddenly stiff, it takes a moment or two for Shikamaru to allow the tension to ease from his body. “No, it’s not that. Nothing to do with that. Didn’t mean to make you think-” A finger and thumb rise to pinch the bridge of his nose, following the click of his tongue, and the beginnings of a frown are replaced with a smile stretched too tight. “It’s not that serious. Family stuff, I guess I should say.”
Sasuke gives a slow nod. “Ah.”
“Just frustrated right now. So it’s not-” Shikamaru drops his arm, letting out a soft snort that almost turns into a laugh. “I wouldn’t even have the energy to deal with that guy back there if he ever thought I-well, between him and the other one, my family may actually be the lesser of two evils.”
Sasuke glances to the side, far from inclined to disagree through the smile he tries to stem. “Wouldn’t doubt it.”
From inside the apartment Naruto calls out to Shikamaru, accusing him of spreading inappropriate lies that aren’t true, then cutting himself off halfway through his own tirade to ask who’s at the door.
The smile on Shikamaru’s face is a gradual set to his features, a shrewd look almost sly alongside his tone an amused drawl. “Who else are you expecting?”
A noticeable strain seeps into Naruto’s raised voice, lends a gruff quality to the words seized by low, intermittent grunts. “Sasuke’s here already?”
Nearly taking up the entirety of the threshold, Shikamaru continues to hold Sasuke’s questioning stare, but it’s Naruto he decides to answer. “A hopeless guy like you, as much of a pain as it is to admit,” he says, with a quick glance behind him from over his shoulder, “I’m starting to think Kiba was right about the key. It’s a wonder you haven’t given one to-”
There’s a shrill screech and a heavy thump, both drowned out by the loud cry from Naruto demanding to know why Shikamaru isn’t not here and not in other places where he really needs to be, promising to kick his too meddlesome ass if he doesn’t get out of the way and stop keeping Sasuke from coming in.
Not quite frowning, Sasuke gives Shikamaru a strange look, eyes slightly narrowed wary at the humour in Shikamaru’s expression.
Shikamaru simply shrugs, though, retaining a trace of a knowing smile despite the more obvious reluctance that begins to settle as he steps into the hallway to allow Sasuke through. “Listen, I probably won’t be back until Monday. Tuesday at the latest, maybe.”
Not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable, because he doesn’t want to seem intrusive, Sasuke doesn’t pry, curiosity set aside at the grateful look he receives in return. He’ll ask Naruto about it later. “Anything you need for me to take care of while you’re gone?”
Shikamaru begins to say something but then seems to think better of it, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag. “Just make sure Naruto doesn’t eat me out of house and home. Since he tends to forget I live here, too. But you’ll do that anyway, so...”
Head and shoulder leaned against the doorframe, Sasuke snorts, folding his arms over his middle and crossing one leg in front of the other. “Still haven’t figured out where he puts it.”
That knowing smile makes another appearance, and Shikamaru shakes his head, turning his face from view. Heading towards the stairs, he raises two fingers in the air, leaving Sasuke behind him with a lazy salute. “See you.”
When Shikamaru reaches the end of the hall, Sasuke pushes away from the doorframe and enters the apartment. The door closes with a soft click, and he locks it with the thumbturn on the knob. Still facing the entryway, he carefully takes off his shoes, placing them neatly beside Naruto’s running shoes haphazardly thrown against the wall.
“You do know I could hear the two of you badmouthing me from all the way in here, right.”
“And?”
“And, he says. And.” Naruto scoffs. “That really the best you can come up with?”
“The only thing I need when it comes to you. What are you even doing that’s making you sound so...” One foot out of the entryway, Sasuke pauses, kept still at the sight of a shirtless Naruto in the middle of the living room, body a long straight line balanced between his feet and one hand supporting his weight while pushing his chest away from the floor.
It isn’t that he hasn’t seen Naruto without a shirt before. He’s seen him without a shirt numerous times. Maybe too many times considering how often Naruto’s liable to take off his shirt after finishing one of his routine morning jogs he’s somehow been able to drag Sasuke along to every once in a while.
So it’s not something to be entirely unexpected.
Or at least it wouldn’t be if this wasn’t the first time he’d seen Naruto without a shirt since coming to terms with the fact his attraction to him had long ago diverged from a simple emotional appeal.
The initial animosity of their relationship left him unprepared for any level of physical attraction, much less his sudden appreciation of Naruto’s back, mentally tracing with his eyes along the sharp motions of taut lines muscles pulsating beneath skin slick with sweat, teeth scraping across the corner of his lower lip at the deep resonance of Naruto’s murmurs uncharacteristically low counting from twenty-six to thirty-two, so stupidly transfixed by something as mundane as Naruto doing push-ups, and Sasuke starts at the realisation he’s staring.
He’s actually staring.
Fortunately, Naruto’s too absorbed on maintain good form to notice, one arm held steady behind his back, intent on making sure his chin touches the floor with the audible tally of each slow rep. Either that, or he really is as oblivious as he sometimes seems, which, for once, works in Sasuke’s favour.
“You done posturing?”
“That, uh...depends.” Another grunt, and again Naruto begins to lower his body to the floor, lifting himself back up with a far too confident grin turned Sasuke’s way. “You impressed yet?”
“By you?” Leaving the entryway, Sasuke walks into the living area, stepping over a half-empty water bottle and a rumpled black t-shirt turned inside out. “Hardly.”
“Way to bring down a guy’s self-esteem.”
“Like I could ever put a dent in your overinflated ego.”
“Still nothing compared to yours, but yeah,” Naruto admits, facing forward, breath drawn long through an exhale, “only because I already know you don’t mean it.”
Sasuke snorts. He pulls the sack pack from over his shoulder and places it down beside the large beanbag chair sat against the wall. “You can read minds now?”
“Nah, I just happen to know you.”
The easy conviction almost makes Sasuke falter. Less because of what was said, and more so because of the underlying assurance no different from Naruto’s normal resolve.
His thumbs find their way into the front pockets of loose jeans while his shoulders bunch slightly inward, an involuntarily gesture that leaves him feeling a little too self-conscious. Looking away, he turns his gaze towards the TV, hard-pressed to hear the nearly muted voices of the two QVC announcers presenting the bag of TropicalMaria frozen mango chunks being emptied into a glass bowl.
It’s not the greatest distraction, but it’s an opportunity to look busy. It’s enough for the time being. More than enough to validate his unwillingness to be subjected to whatever movies or shows Naruto says they should watch, which he knows is a little unfair of him considering Naruto doesn’t actually watch QVC.
The channel mainly serves as background noise, because Naruto likes to claim it helps him concentrate, something he picked up when he was five, during the time his parents had to travel to Spain on short notice, leaving him in the care of an elderly woman, coincidentally a retired teacher, who apparently scarred him for life by making him practice his kana tables over and over again too many times while she just sat there on her really weird smelling chair and watched QVC all day.
“I’m serious, Sasuke, that bossy old lady must have been pushing a hundred or something. At least. Way before the ashes, she already had one foot in the urn. I kept begging my parents to send someone to come get me because I didn’t know when she was going to croak. Especially during the middle of one of those TSV showings she always got a little too excited about, I didn’t want to take any chances.”
A loud groan diverts his attention, and he turns back to Naruto, watching him continue another set of push-ups, this time with both hands supporting his weight.
“Do me a favour, would you,” Naruto says, pausing to widen the gap between his hands just a little. “Come sit on me.”
Sasuke nearly does a double take, nearly stumbles on the words misconstrued as something he’s already telling himself he did not hear. “...what?”
“I want you to sit on me.”
The second time can’t be a coincidence. Because it’s not. It isn’t. Inopportune, maybe, although it’s his own faulty subconscious Sasuke can’t help but blame for this increasingly reckless desire to pick apart from his conversations with Naruto numberless times more than once upon many the kinds of things crude variations of what Naruto will probably never say.
So he just gives himself another moment to recover, taking the much needed time to process the implications regarding his newly discovered attraction for Naruto in this state. Squeezing his eyes shut, slowly, slowly, he breathes in. He opens his eyes as he breathes out, wilful in his ignorance of the sounds Naruto has yet to stop making and what he can only hope is an incredibly subtle appreciation of Naruto’s back, a view of Naruto he’d failed to notice until recently.
Clearly, it’s affecting his ability to think. Clearly. But he refuses to let his mind wander around someone like Naruto.
He can’t afford to let his mind wander around someone like Naruto.
“You want me,” he says, tone even, averting his gaze once more from the path along lithe muscles defining Naruto’s shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, “to sit on you.”
Naruto lets out an affirmative grunt, in a split second lifting from the floor his hands he brings together in a quick clap before beginning another set of push-ups. “Yeah. You’d be the right amount of weight. Do that whole too stretchy weird bendy thing where you get all foldy and stuff. Then I can fit you on me.”
Sasuke blinks. “...you’re an idiot.”
“I am not a-listen, I need to get the one-up on Kiba before Monday, okay, so if you could just help me out and sit on my back for a few sets, that’d be real good.”
Sasuke rubs the heel of his palm against his forehead. After so long, it’s a given he should already know better. More often than he’d like to admit, however, Naruto’s inability not to go off on some sort of tangent still tends to take him off guard. “What does Kiba have to do with wanting me to-why I am even trying to turn this into a discussion? I am not sitting on you.”
“You won’t hurt my back, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, Naruto. I’m not worried about hurting your back. I wouldn’t bother sitting on your back if I truly wanted to hurt you.”
“Then why not?”
Sasuke gives him the driest look he can muster. “You’re really asking me that.”
Still on the balls of his feet, propped up by his elbows on the floor, Naruto raises his body to a plank position, an unwarranted glare overly critical aimed at Sasuke. “What? You think I’m not strong enough to handle your weight? That I can’t handle you on top of me because you’d be too much for me, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Sasuke just sighs. Then he does it again. And again. Because at this point, it’s all he can do while Naruto carries on and on. Out of everything impossibly wrong with this hypothetical scenario, of course, how much weight he’s capable of bearing while doing push-ups is the one aspect Naruto would choose to take offence to.
“Because I could so totally take you right now, you know. Hold out all night long if I had to. I have more than enough staying power to keep going with your bony-”
“Are you even listening to yourself?”
“Kind of hard not to,” Naruto says, casual, not in the least fazed, “seeing that we’re the only ones here. But I really don’t see what the big deal is.”
“...tell me this is something you would ask anybody else to do. Tell me this isn’t something you would only ask me to do.”
“Eh...well, um, not really. I wouldn’t trust that. But since you are here...”
“No.”
“Come on, Sasuke. It’s not like I’d let you fall or anything.”
“Why would you ask me to sit on your back at all? How are we still having a conversation about this?”
“Because you’re my best friend. As much as I’m your best friend. And this kind of thing isn’t so different from what we normally do. I mean, you can’t exactly deny that we do things like this a lot.
“Like the time Chouji took us to that really old hole in the wall bar that looked like it was going to come down any minute. The Saturday before the one last week, I think. We met up with Kenji and Sho, and all of us shared a huge bottle of that really strong whisky you couldn’t handle.”
“My alcohol tolerance is on the lower side of average. Get over it.”
“No, no, no, because for you, someone like you being such a lightweight-it wasn’t even that you drank a lot of it. But you still dropped off on the table, real quiet with your head in your arms, and the rest of us sat there for like ten or fifteen minutes trying to decide whether you were passed out or not.”
“...make your point before I do it for you.”
Hands flat less than shoulder-width apart, elbows held in, Naruto begins to push up from floor. “Yeah, like glaring at me is actually going to prevent me from talking-my point is, majority rules volunteered Kiba to wake you up, except for some reason he thought it’d be a good idea to do it with a freezing can against your face-and this was right after I warned him to stop calling you Himiko, too. Then out of nowhere, suddenly, you just made a straight dive for him and tried to stab at his future little Kibas with the plastic spoon you snatched from Shikamaru.
“Naruto...”
“Oh-oh, the best part, though, here Kiba was, squeaking about how important it is for him to protect his manhood, while you were whispering all these things trying to convince him to hold still. And when you told him it didn’t matter if he’d be able to perform or not because the only steady relationship he could keep was the long-distance one with Akamaru, everybody else just fell out laughing. I even think Chouji was actually close to crying.”
Hair shadowing his eyes, fingers digging into his palm, Sasuke balls at his side the fist he doesn’t use to hit Naruto.
“Still don’t get how you could forget what happened, but r-remember that Monday, when Kenji teased you about changing your name to Ebichu on his phone, but wouldn’t tell you why? The whole thing’s because Shikamaru was eating raisin rum ice cream that night, that’s where Sho got the-hey, don’t look at me like it was my fault. You were the one who caused a scene that time. Matter of fact, I was the one forced to take responsibility for you and ended up having to haul your cranky half-dead ass on my back all the way down-”
“Keep talking, Naruto.” Sasuke lifts his head, teeth clenched in an attempt to keep at bay the rising embarrassment overwhelming any genuine irritation inspiring him to shake the life out of Naruto. “Keep talking, and the only part of me that’s going to be doing any sitting is my foot on your face.”
Using his hands for leverage, in one fluid motion, Naruto jumps to his feet. The thin sheen covering his face continues down to his neck, to his chest and a long torso cut off by the red track pants he wipes his hands against. Quick strides lead him to Sasuke as he tugs up the thick waistband of his pants concealing the black shorts he’s wearing underneath.
Hands on his hips, squinting, he looms closer, close enough to differentiate the random handful of strands standing out against normally unruly hair a lighter hue lying nearly flat against his scalp. “You’re the violent kind of sleepy drunk. None of that’s my fault. But asking you to sit on me, was that really such a bad thing for me to do?”
Never before has the temptation to strangle Naruto been so strong. Barely, though, just ever so barely does Sasuke resist the urge to cry out and attack him.
He settles for the twitch over his left eye instead, the same one that just as soon disappears at the light touch the back of Naruto’s hand warm against his cheek.
“...you okay?” Brows furrowed, eyes conveying a too obvious concern, Naruto frowns, pushing back dark hair and placing his hand over Sasuke’s forehead. “Your face is getting kind of red. And you’re starting to look a little constipated. You’re not coming down with something, are you?”
Whatever annoyance the open display may have provoked is waylaid the moment Sasuke suddenly becomes hyperaware of the distance that isn’t between them, the breath only just a light brush across his skin, the sweaty body all but pressed against him, and he stills, rooted to the spot, seemingly caught between Naruto precariously close and the wall he unwittingly backed himself into.
If the situation were different, if Naruto wasn’t Naruto, if he were any other person so blatantly invading his personal space, it’d be a nonissue.
But Naruto is the only person he sees, the only person he can see, the source of bare threads fostering this notion weaved and too tangled within his own self-imposed doubt, this stupid, stupid fear he’ll never be able to see anyone else again after Naruto.
He can recognise that Naruto isn’t unattractive. By any standards. If he ever had to confine himself to a single type, he couldn’t say Naruto wasn’t the near epitome of it.
He’s only human.
And he’s a guy.
Having those kinds of thoughts, even for someone as brash and impulsive as Naruto, lack of good sense aside, it’s not the worst that could happen. At best, though, it’s frustrating. Imagining the context of their relationship well beyond what they have now, wanting to initiate the serious kind of relationship he can’t be sure isn’t simply wishful thinking on his part, because he still doesn’t know if there could be a place like that for him in Naruto’s life.
It’s a far cry from what began as a fling with Suigetsu. Despite being roommates, Suigetsu’s supposed exception for him worked out to be a convenient situation. The proposition of sex with no strings attached was a good way to release the stress from those first couple of months at Tama. Yet more than a year later, even with Karin in the picture now, he’s honestly surprised he and Suigetsu remain so close.
Yet he’s so much closer with Naruto. Maybe even in too many senses of the word. However unconventional the nature of their friendship, it’s something they just are. Whatever’s between something that’s just there.
Because Naruto isn’t Suigetsu. And Sasuke doesn’t want that kind of physicality with him for the sake of it, probably even more so since sex has been one of the few consistencies in most of his relationships, convenient or otherwise.
The idea of attempting to seek that kind of intimacy from Naruto, though, in the face of a dependence on the experience he doesn’t have, this simple little yearning to build upon the familiarity already there-maybe if he just leans in a little closer, if he closes his eyes so Naruto won’t seem so far away, allows himself this one moment to be reckless, maybe he really could just-
Opening his eyes, he pushes himself from the thought, drawing back from the hand that still feels warm against his skin.
“...Sasuke?”
There’s a flash of something in Naruto’s eyes. Beneath the needless concern yet to go away is an emotion Sasuke can’t quite place, but then Naruto’s smiling again, smiling like he always does, with that same easygoing look so very undeniably Naruto, and it’s ridiculous how someone who could be almost painfully straightforward could simultaneously be so hard for him to read.
“It’s nothing, Naruto.”
“You sure?”
“Stop questioning me. I’m fine. It’s just that new type of infection.”
“New type of infection? What new type of infection? I haven’t heard about this new type of infection.” Eyes slightly wide, Naruto reaches to cup Sasuke’s face, gently turning his head from side to side. “You do feel kind of warm still, but I’m not a doctor-do you think you need to go see a doctor? Let’s take you to go see a doctor.”
Sasuke pulls the hands away from his face. “No, I don’t need to see a doctor. It’ll be gone once I get rid of this annoying guy who keeps hanging off me.”
“Look, you.” Stern, or at least pretending to be, Naruto throws an arm around Sasuke’s shoulders, levelling him with a hard stare. “Don’t give me that kind of grumpy attitude when I’m trying to show you my concern.”
“Why are you standing so close to me?”
“Tch. See if I bother to be concerned about your wellbeing next time.”
“I didn’t ask for your concern this time.”
Naruto grins. “Lucky for you, I’m the kind of friend who’d make sure you’d never have to.”
The carefree admission leaves him feeling oddly subdued, and Sasuke sighs, wondering why he even lets Naruto continue to affect him to such an extent. Lifting the arm from around his shoulders, he slips out from underneath Naruto’s hold, retreating to the grey beanbag chair only a few steps away.
He makes himself at home. Soft, he breathes in, breathes out as his body begins to relax, long limbs monopolising the overgrown pillow that provides more than ample room for two people. The majority of his body nearly devoured by the lush foam padding, he peers up to see Naruto staring down at him.
“...you comfortable enough down there?”
Shifting a little, Sasuke gives a low murmur. “Didn’t stretch today.”
Naruto snorts. “I can tell.” He pulls on the lobe of his left ear, careful to avoid tugging on the small onyx hooped earring he bought last week. “Think you’re actually going to offer to share with me this time? Or do I have to make you scoot over again?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“The fact you keep throwing yourself on the comfy chair so much, I’m starting to think you’re taking advantage of my very generous generosity.”
“Is this your way of telling me to move?”
“See, here’s the part where I want to say yes, since I really should kick you off like I do everybody else, but then I know you’d probably find some way to spite me if I did, because you’re a vengeful bastard who holds grudges longer than any normal person would ever consider healthy.”
“I don’t hold grudges. I just have a highly selective memory,” Sasuke says, completely unmoved by the look of utter disbelief on Naruto’s face. “Hurry up and go change so we can start. You’re not sitting by me like that.”
“...I will never understand what kind of sense you think it makes for you to tell me how I can and can’t sit on my own furniture. In my own apartment.” Naruto plops himself on the tatami mat floor, side resting against the chair. He rubs the back of his head, extending his legs in front of him and wiggling his toes. “What’re we supposed to be watching?”
Sitting up, Sasuke reaches for the sack pack placed on the other side of the chair. He folds his legs, dropping the thin bag in his lap.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for that. I was getting ready to buy another one tomorrow, too. All this time you had my bag and you didn’t tell me?”
Loosening the drawstrings, Sasuke opens the bag, a hand inside blindly searching for the drama he brought. “You left it in my closet. It’s been sitting there taking up too much space for the past week.”
“Figures that’s the kind of response I’d get from you,” Naruto grumbles. Moving closer, he leans over the chair, forearm lying above Sasuke’s shoulder. “You could have least told me where it was.”
The DVD box-set he pulls out of the bag, Sasuke hands it to Naruto then places the sack back on the floor. “Here. We’re watching this.”
Glancing at the cover, Naruto doesn’t hide his scepticism. He takes a quick look at the front then flips it over to the back. “Iris?”
“It’s the first part.”
“...this almost sounds like some kind of romance drama.” Naruto slowly turns towards Sasuke, eyebrows threatening to disappear into his hairline. “Don’t tell me it’s some kind of romance drama.”
Sasuke rests his cheek against the palm of his hand, head supported by his elbow propped up on the chair. “Would it matter if it was?”
“N-not that I’m saying it would. Because it wouldn’t. I’d still do it. Watch it with you, I mean, but that type of thing, I don’t really care for it. And really, even if I did, it’s not like-”
Suddenly tight-lipped, Naruto frowns in thought, eyes focused on the fading koi emblem on Sasuke’s dark blue shirt. There’s a brief pause, no longer than a second or two before he takes in a breath, releasing a deep exhale and lowering his arm to place the DVD on the floor.
“...it’s not like what, Naruto?”
Shaking his head, Naruto laughs, his smile somewhat over the top, waving a hand in front of Sasuke to brush off his concern. “Nothing, nothing. Uh, just something Kiba said to me earlier. Doesn’t matter now.”
“What’d he say?”
“Ah, nothing important that you’d care about. He was just being a smartass. Just being Kiba, you know. But, uh-Iris. Iris. You did say this wasn’t a romance drama, right?”
“...this coming from the guy who almost cried when we finished My Lovely Samsoon.”
“For the record, before you go around spreading untruths that aren’t necessarily untrue,” Naruto says, finger prodding at Sasuke’s shoulder, “you need to stop letting Karin tell you what to watch. Because you just end up making me watch it with you. Not to mention, I thought we agreed not to bring that up ever again.”
“I didn’t agree to anything. I wasn’t the one who kept flying off the handle at the screen because of that Hyun guy.”
“That’s because you’re the kind of person who could probably relate to him,” Naruto mutters.
“If telling yourself that makes you feel better.”
“...anyway, you plan on staying over tonight? Since, you know,” Naruto says, moving just a little closer, wearing the most annoying self-satisfied grin so exceedingly pleased, “you’re the one who keeps falling asleep on me every time we do this.”
He doesn’t fall asleep on Naruto every time, but he does it often enough that there’s not really much he can say in his defence anymore, so Sasuke opts for a glare. Needless to say, the effect’s been lost on Naruto for the longest time, if glaring ever had any effect on him. “Falling asleep on you doesn’t actually have anything to do with you.”
“Sure, sure. Although it’s still pretty surprising you find me so comfortable.”
The heel of his palm pressed against Naruto’s forehead, Sasuke grunts, pushing him away. “You aren’t. It’s your chair. Not you.”
“Heh.” Naruto wipes the pad of his thumb along the corner of his mouth. “How much you want to bet it is me?”
“If that’s the case, you may as well give me your wallet.”
“Oh, come on. Not even if we were the only two people in the world?”
“I’d rather sleep on Kiba’s floor.”
With a squawk, Naruto bolts upright, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Nothing short of dumbstruck.
“You better take that back, Sasuke-there’re too many things wrong with everything about that sentence, and you know it. Shikamaru would never allow me to let our place look anything like Kiba’s.” A little flustered, Naruto shakes his head, arm held out flailing in front of him. “Hell, I wouldn’t allow me to let our place look like that. Me, Sasuke,” he says, further emphasising his point with a hand delivering three quick pats to his chest. “Me.”
“You really aren’t that much better.”
“Don’t say that,” Naruto hisses. “Especially when you know how risky it is to stay at Kiba’s apartment for long periods of time, comparing me to a guy who’s thoughtless enough to put his own roommate on the endangered species list, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“There are living things growing in that place, Sasuke. All sorts of creepy crawly living things growing in the very folds of his never washed and always used futon.”
Sasuke flicks Naruto’s arm. “You shouldn’t embellish so much.”
“Okay then, since you won’t listen to one of the few people who escaped from Kiba’s apartment and actually lived to tell the tale, when’s the last time you even went over there, huh?”
“Yesterday.”
“You went to Kiba’s place yesterday?”
“Saw Shino there, too. It looked liveable to me.”
“You came all the way over here yesterday, and you couldn’t even bother to see me?”
Sasuke rolls his eyes at the absolutely pitiable look of dejection on Naruto’s face. “Kiba called me, asking to borrow a book for class, so I offered to drop it off, since I was already getting ready to leave to meet you in Green Hall.”
“Oh, yeah. That is right, isn’t it. We did do dinner there last night.” Rubbing his chin with his forefinger and thumb, Naruto gives a slow nod. “But still, of all people, you let Kiba borrow your books? You don’t even let me borrow your books.”
“You never asked me to borrow my books.”
“And if I asked you now?”
“I’ll say you’re being too needy.”
“But didn’t you just-”
“Someone as irresponsible as you should learn to buy your own books.”
“What the-”
Sasuke lets out a soft laugh, pushing loose strands of hair behind his ear. He rests his cheek against one arm folded on top of the other, lips pressed together to curb the small traces of a lingering smile. “Are we still watching Iris?”
“Yeah.” Naruto perks, reaching to his left to pick up the DVD. “Yeah, all that stuff about black ops and espionage, it sounds good. Really good. Definitely want to see how it goes.” He holds up the DVD, with a quick flick of his wrist pointing it at Sasuke. “I can even overlook the fact you never let me watch these things in the one language I actually understand.”
“Then put it in. Having to wait on you like this every time I come over, it’s turning into a bad habit.”
“It’s not like you couldn’t have done this yourself already,” Naruto mumbles, grunts as he begins to stand and head for the TV still showing QVC.
“Either way, you still wouldn’t be ready.”
“But you’ll wait for me, though, right?” Naruto places the first disc in the tray, closing the box-set and laying it on top of the DVD player. “When I take too long, even though I don’t mean to, you’ll still stay, won’t you?”
With a sigh, Sasuke tears his gaze from Naruto’s back, looking up to the nondescript light fixture hanging from a plain white ceiling. “After going through the hassle of coming all the way out here...”
Naruto turns to face Sasuke, chuckles low as he pulls down the waistband of his pants he begins to step out of, exposing knee-length shorts. “Just bear with me for a little while longer, okay.”
“How much longer?” Sasuke wrinkles his nose. “The smell’s starting to permeate.”
Pants bundled under one arm, wry, Naruto just stares at him. “Look. I’ve been training with Kiba for who knows how long today, busting my ass trying to get ready for this marathon since I didn’t get a chance to do the one last year. So yeah. I’ve been sweaty all day. And I just might smell a little. What else do you expect?”
“It’s not a little.”
Naruto snorts, raising his free arm above his head. “Can’t be that bad if you didn’t say anything be-” Hunched forward, his features distort in exaggerated horror as he starts to cough, expression continuing to sour with a stream of gagging noises. “Okay, seriously, you should have said something about this before.”
“You shouldn’t have made me wait this long.”
“Che. And you call me impatient. It’ll take me what-five minutes tops? Give a guy some time, would you?” Naruto gathers his pants in one hand and chucks across the other side of the room.
Following the flight of the pants, Sasuke watches them land on top of the small mound of clothes piled beneath the large poster of Plastic Tree. He looks back to Naruto, lips pursed at the too wide smile Naruto’s unable to hold back. “No.”
“What?” Naruto yields with both hands raised in front of him in a placating gesture. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You don’t say anything about the clothes that mysteriously appear in my hamper, either.”
“Yeah, those.” Naruto’s eyes dart to the TV, finger scratching the side of his head. “There’s just something about the way you wash my clothes.”
“You’re too lazy to wash them yourself, you mean.”
“Sure.” Naruto shrugs, breaking into another smile. “That might be it, too.”
Sasuke snorts.
“But you do know that pile’s only there because Shikamaru’ll be gone for the weekend, right?”
“For his sake, I’m almost tempted to bag your clothes and throw them out with the trash.”
Naruto sniffs. “Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you like him more than me?”
“Because I appreciate being able to hold conversations that don’t threaten to lower my intelligence.”
Naruto’s mouth opens then snaps closed. He pauses, frowning at the floor before looking back to Sasuke. “Now that’s just downright mean.”
“As mean as you are for keeping me waiting. Hurry up before I start without you. I should have watched it with Suigetsu when I had the chance.”
“It really wouldn’t kill you to stop being so pushy, you know.”
Extending his leg, with his foot, Sasuke nudges Naruto’s ankle.
“All right, all right, I’m going already-I’m going. Sheesh. Pushy and touchy...”
As Naruto turns to walk away, yelping when he nearly trips on the water bottle he leaves right there on the floor, Sasuke leans back into the chair. He heaves a sigh, closes his eyes, listening to the heavy treading of Naruto’s feet beginning to fade into the sounds from the TV a little higher than before. Stretching his arms above him, he lets them lie lax against the cushion, elbows turned out from either side of his head, in one hand three fingers from the other held in a loose hold.
It isn’t long, however, before the empty calm is interrupted, and he releases a quiet moan, brought out of quasi-meditation by the light thump a heap of soft material dumped on top of him.
One eye opened, he peers up to see Naruto standing above him, opening both eyes when he looks down to see a familiar fleece blanket still folded lying on his chest.
Tilting his head back to look at Naruto, he blinks. “...thanks.”
Naruto snorts. “Guess it really is the comfy chair.” A hand grips the edge of the white towel draped around his neck, one side lifted to dry the back of his hair. “Did I take too long?”
“Don’t know.” Slowly, Sasuke rolls up from his spine, the blanket falling to his lap as he shifts to make himself more comfortable. “Knowing you, though, probably.”
“I’m clean. Shouldn’t that be enough for you?” Skin still a little flushed, Naruto pulls off the towel and throws it over the back of the armless orange swivel chair pushed beneath the modest desk sat against the wall. Fingers toy with the hem of a yellow t-shirt, fiddling with the waistband of grey sweats, loosening the portion of the t-shirt tucked into his pants. Halfway across the room, he pauses, standing outside the small kitchen area. “Oh, hey, you want anything?”
“If you want something.” Sasuke shrugs. “I’ll share with you.”
“Not that you couldn’t have gotten up to do this yourself,” Naruto says, “but I think there’s still some beer left. If Kiba didn’t drink it all again.” He bends down, opening the door to the fridge. “There’re some rice crackers, in here, too. The ones with the seaweed and black sesame seeds, I picked up a couple bags yesterday, since I know you like them cold sometimes.”
Closing the fridge with his foot, he stands up, juggling a bag of rice crackers and two cans of beer held against his chest, struggling with his elbow to switch off the light.
“And this really good mint chip ice cream. They were giving out free samples at the convenience store with that seriously crabby old guy who always hangs around there, you know, the one by the Krispy Kreme-these two really cute girls were being really nice to me, and they gave me more than one sample, so I felt like I had to buy more than what I usually would.”
Sasuke picks up the remote and turns the volume up a little higher, then selects a different input, changing the TV from QVC to the DVD menu for Iris. “That’s because you’re gullible.”
“Appreciating people being nice to me doesn’t make me gullible.” Plopping himself on the chair, with a sigh prolonged, content, Naruto settles down beside him. He places the two beers on the short table in front of them, handing Sasuke the bag of rice crackers in exchange for the fleece blanket he spreads out over them both. “It just means I appreciate people being nice to me. Which really doesn’t explain why I keep you around for company.”
“Apparently I’m only good for being a free weight on your back.” There’s a loud pop as Sasuke opens the plastic bag lined with foil. “Where’d that even come from?”
“Yeah, about that, I’m trying to develop a one-time only special weekend routine.”
“For...”
A hand cards through messy hair still somewhat damp, and Naruto chuckles. He stretches his legs out in front of him, bare feet peeking from underneath the blanket. “Ah, well, me and Kiba, we sort of have this bet going on. Trying to see who can do the most one-hand push-ups in a minute.”
“I thought you were training for the marathon?”
“Oh, yeah. We were doing that, too. Since classes were out today. But we ran into that Kobayashi guy I told you about last week, the grad student. Remember him, the one with the really funny eyebrows, who knows aikido like you?”
“Lee?”
“Yeah. Real nice guy as long as you don’t let the bushy brows scare you off. Me and Kiba bumped into him while we were mapping out a route close to campus, so we started talking-got his number this time. Turns out Lee’s going to run the marathon, too.
“We decided to help each other train, and he showed us some of his workout routine, all these really cool exercises he could do. Like push-ups with one hand. And then he did a couple standing upside down. Handstand push-ups. Who the hell even does those? But on top of that, he’s fast. I mean, really fast.”
“Considering how slow you are, anyone compared to you is fast.”
“Whatever, Sasuke. Lee already did enough to make me look bad today.” Naruto reaches into the bag for a handful of rice crackers varying in shape and size, popping them into his mouth one at a time. “But as soon as Lee left, Kiba turned to me and said, bet I could do a hundred of those one-hand push-ups in two minutes before you can even get to twenty in one. So, of course-you know me-I couldn’t turn that down. Not when that guy thinks he can actually outrun me. And now I have till Monday to work on putting him in his place.
“Going at it for so long, though...” The light from the TV reflects the grin bright on his face as he curls his bicep, fist clenched. “I really do think it made a difference.”
Sasuke swallows the food in his mouth, reaching over to push down Naruto’s arm. “It’s amazing how Shikamaru can stand to live in the same complex as either of you. Especially when he has to deal with both of you at the same time so often.”
“Trust me. He’s not as sensible as you want to believe he is.”
“More sensible than you at any rate,” Sasuke concedes, although maybe even more so considering Shikamaru’s not the one who ends up indulging Naruto more than he probably should. “How many push-ups can you do so far?”
Naruto holds up his left hand. “Uh, on this hand, in one minute, my best count was around twenty-five.” He lowers his left arm then raises the right. “And on this one, I managed to get up to thirty once. Think that’s enough to give me an edge?”
“The only way I could take you any less seriously right now, is if you decided to use two fingers instead of one hand.”
“Yeah, that’s being real helpful, Sasuke. Like I’m going to be able to pull off that kind of crazy Bruce Lee shit by Monday.” Naruto reaches over for a can of beer, flipping open the tab that releases a soft hiss. “I might ask Lee if he can do it. Tomorrow, when we meet up in the morning to run. Want to come?”
“You’re that determined to make yourself look bad?”
“So you can show me up in a couple things. Rub it in a little more, why don’t you.” Naruto tips his head back and takes a large gulp of beer, pausing to swallow with his can held midair. “Seriously. You should come, though. We’re meeting up around six, because it’s supposed to start raining around ten, but we’ll keep going if the weather’s still good.”
“That’s early for you.” Feet flat on the chair, legs raised brought close to his chest, Sasuke reaches for another rice cracker, readjusting the blanket covering him. “Even on a Saturday.”
“I know. Eight’s usually good for me, but I have that digital montage thing I have to start for Hagane’s class, so I want to make sure I give myself enough time to decide what to do.”
Sasuke glances at digital watch on Naruto’s wrist, pressing a small button to illuminate the wide face. “It’s already late. Almost nine. You sure you still want to-”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. You know I don’t mind with you. But cutting into my training schedule like this...” Naruto grins, stealing the round, uneaten rice cracker from Sasuke’s hand. “You can make it up to me if you say you’ll be there when I cross the finish line.”
“I have a reason to be?”
Naruto takes another sip of beer, licking his lips and twirling the can, swishing what’s left of the liquid inside before placing the can back on the table. “You’re going to make me beg for this, aren’t you?”
Running a hand through his hair, Sasuke breathes in, chest rising faster than the exhale too slow to come. “The marathon’s all you’ve been whining about lately. I know you want me to go. It’s just...”
“I guess it does seem sudden to expect you to make that kind of decision for something four months away, but if you’re not going to run with me, I still want you to be there.”
“...why? It won’t make a difference whether I go or not. You don’t need me there.”
“Maybe I don’t need you there, but I...” Naruto smiles, simple like the brash idiot he is, the kind of smile easygoing he always gives, and Sasuke feels his body curl inward, feels his body into the chair sink deeper, because he doesn’t know how to push himself away. “Just knowing you’ll be there, knowing I’ll have seeing you to look forward to at the end, something I’d like to think would help me run a little faster, that would really mean a lot to me.”
“Naruto, you...” Sasuke clutches the bag in his hand, crushing the plastic against his palm. “How can you just say something so...”
“What? You’re the one too chicken to even sign up with me. It’s okay, though. Going against someone like me, I’d lose my nerve, too. We both know I’d beat whatever time you got. Hands down.”
Sasuke throws his head back, covering his eyes with an arm shaking from the force of a hollow laughter that makes no sound. “You dork.” His chest falls with a slow exhale, wavers with a quiet inhale the hitch suppressed in his throat. He lowers his arm, fingers releasing the bag Naruto relieves from his hand. “I don’t need to prove myself to a loser like you.”
“I swear,” Naruto says, pulling out a square rice cracker and wielding it at Sasuke, “one day, I’m actually going to get you to stop calling me names.”
“I thought you didn’t make promises you couldn’t keep?”
“...you just really like picking on me, don’t you?”
“I would.” Remote in hand, Sasuke points it towards the DVD player and presses play. “If you didn’t make it so easy.”
“Even though you treat me so poorly, the fact that I’m still here, that I’m choosing to endure the martyr role in our friendship, willingly, this better be the best drama of all time.”
Setting the remote aside, with a faint hum, almost resigned, Sasuke lets his head fall on Naruto’s shoulder. His hand grasps at the edge of the blanket between them, fingers twisting and unfurling the soft material that suddenly makes him feel cold.
Naruto clears his throat. He closes the bag of rice crackers, folding it over the top. The rustling echoes loud in the room. It’s a harsh noise, breaking the steady stream of dialogue in Korean.
Harsher still is the concern in Naruto’s voice much softer that follows. “...you all right?”
Sasuke’s grip on the blanket tightens. He keeps his gaze steadfast on the screen, ignoring the eyes that shouldn’t be watching him instead of the TV.
“Because if you’re not feeling up to it, we can always-”
“Needlessly worrying about that kind of thing, Naruto, I already told you I was fine.” Unconsciously drawn closer, leaning towards the body a solid warmth beside him, Sasuke sags against Naruto, fingers curled around the blanket becoming slack as he breathes in the blend of Naruto’s soap and deodorant that reminds him too strongly of sage. “...I’m fine.”