Chapter Text
Chapter 2: Uneasy Hearts Weigh The Most
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“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t see them right now. The doctors are still doing tests to find out how your parents were killed.”
Itachi's face was stern. He was looming over the man at the front desk, the man wincing as Itachi slammed down his fist.
“I don’t give a fuck! You will let me see my parents, or so help me god, you will be in that room next to them when I ram your dense head into that wall!”
Sasuke had never seen his brother like this before. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his brother mad before.
Itachi had always had a monk-like demeanor—a constant state of calm and composure.
In other words, this was new for him.
“Ah, yes. I understand… Right this way, Mr. Uchiha.”
Itachi turned to signal Sasuke that it was okay to go now. And he brought himself from his seat.
Sasuke felt his stomach drop at this motion.
Everything came back to him. His parents were going to be lifeless when he walked into this room. And he realized, maybe he wasn't ready to see this.
He stopped walking halfway down the hall.
“Sasuke.” Itachi turned to look at him.
He didn’t even see or hear Itachi approach him before his brother embraced him.
He said it before, and he’ll say it again: he and his brother have never (for as far back as he can remember) shown affection towards each other. It just wasn’t done.
Sasuke froze. He didn't know how to react.
Before he could react, it was over. And Itachi was already walking away. He felt tears begin to well.
But he wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. So he wiped away the tears and followed his brother.
__________________________________________________________________________
Sasuke was pacing back and forth in his room, contemplating whether to message Naruto or avoid it altogether and throw the paper away. But he knew he couldn’t do that. Maybe it’d be best to call him? No. That was even worse. The smartest idea was probably to forget about it tonight and go to sleep.
He put his phone face down and went to take a shower. He brushed his teeth, then put on pajamas and lay down.
30 minutes passed, and Sasuke couldn't sleep.
He turned his head to his clock that read 11:42. Great. Sasuke thought to himself.
How was he supposed to sleep with the weight of having Naruto's phone number?
He reached over to his bedside table and grabbed the piece of paper with Naruto’s number scribbled on it. His handwriting is awful. He thought with a subtle smile, then dismissed the thought immediately. Because why would he have smiled about that? He hated him.
He sighed to himself and decided he had the number, so he might as well put his number in his contacts.
He typed his number in and stared at the name box. He sat on the thought of maybe making it something stupid, but thought better of it. Simply typing his name.
If he were to message him tonight, he wouldn't even receive a response. So what would be the point of texting him so late at night anyway?
There isn’t one. He thought. So why does he want it so badly to the point he can’t sleep?
He would have to endure it. Because he refused to stay up thinking about this any longer.
Sasuke slammed his phone onto his nightstand and turned in his bed. Letting his eyes fall closed, he eventually fell into a deep sleep.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sasuke was on the verge of sleep in Kakashi-sensei’s class, cheek resting on his palm, eyes half lidded, when he felt someone vigorously shaking his shoulder.
Naruto had decided to sit behind him in class that day, but he didn’t pay much attention to it. He didn’t want to look too deeply into it in case he interpreted something the wrong way.
But he definitely didn’t expect to be shaken awake by him.
“Sasuke! Psst…”
He heard aggressive whispering at him from behind.
“Sasuke, are you awake?”
Sasuke shoved his hand off his shoulder and turned to Naruto.
“Yes. What is it?”
Naruto looked annoyed at him for some reason.
“You didn’t text me last night. Why is that? Did I accidentally give you the wrong number?”
“No. You didn’t give me the wrong number, dobe. I just didn’t feel like messaging you.”
Naruto looked offended by this, and if Sasuke wasn’t being delusional, a little hurt.
“Why not?”
Now he looked a bit angry.
“I just didn’t, okay? Drop it.”
Sasuke was beginning to feel irritated at this. Because it wasn’t like he was lying to Naruto, he really didn’t know. Not only did he not know why he didn’t want to text Naruto, but he also didn’t understand why a part of him wanted to text him. This was all too much at once for Sasuke’s hazy mind to handle.
He heard Naruto sigh at this. Assuming that he dropped the topic, he went back to pretending to take notes.
He thinks he is going to fall back asleep, but is suddenly awoken by a sharp jab in his left shoulder. He hisses in pain, turning around at Naruto.
“What the hell was that?”
Naruto is looking in the other direction, then turns to him.
“What do you mean? That wasn’t me…?”
Sasuke narrows his eyes at him. What the fuck is he up to? He thought.
He decides to turn back around. Maybe it was an accident, and Naruto’s just too much of a coward to admit it.
But as soon as he did, he felt the pain again, this time at the base of his neck.
Sasuke whipped around in his seat, very much fed up,
Naruto, again, turned the other direction.
“Okay. What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything, Sasuke. I told you.”
He could easily tell he was lying. But before he could antagonize him again—
“Boys.” He heard Kakashi-Sensei calling on them.
“If there isn’t something you have to say to the whole class, then you better not say anything at all.”
Sasuke heard Naruto grumble something under his breath as Kakashi-Sensei turned back to his whiteboard to continue the lesson.
He felt Naruto rest his feet on the back of Sasuke’s desk.
Naruto was gradually starting to piss Sasuke off more and more.
Sasuke reared his foot back and stomped onto Naruto’s as hard as he could.
“Gah!” he jolted with a loud noise of pain.
“That is it! Boys, I’ve had enough. I want both of you out of my classroom immediately. And don’t come back until you’ve learned common classroom courtesy.” Kakashi-sensei scolded.
Sasuke pushed back from his seat with annoyance and marched out of the classroom.
He couldn’t believe Naruto had provoked him into becoming such a nuisance. Then again, he wasn’t entirely dissatisfied. Frankly, he was quite impressed with himself for making Naruto yell out in pain in a quiet classroom; it was humiliating. Perfect payback.
He sat down on the cold floor of the empty hallway and leaned against the lockers, inhaling deeply.
He closed his eyes so he could drift off into thought for thirty mundane minutes until the next class started.
“Ehem.”
He opened his eyes to a clearly dissatisfied Naruto above him.
“What the hell was that, Sasuke? You quite literally embarrassed me in front of the entire class?!” Naruto hissed.
Sasuke closed his eyes again, “You deserved it, you were poking at me, so I kicked you.”
He heard Naruto lean down from where he was standing, and he pried open Sasuke's eyes with two fingers.
“Kicking is much more painful than someone poking you with a pencil, dude.”
Sasuke attempted to blink, but failed. So he grabbed Naruto's wrists and pulled them off his eyelids.
“It hurt. So I made sure you’d quit.” Sasuke glared at him. Then deeply inhaled again.
“Look. If you genuinely want me to help with our project, then you can’t get us kicked out of class every day.”
Naruto went limp. And scooted beside Sasuke to sit against the lockers.
“You can’t put that on me, Sasuke.” Naruto turned to him. Sasuke did not share the look.
“I can do whatever I want, dobe.” He replied.
Naruto scooted to sit directly in front of Sasuke, most likely an attempt to get his full attention.
He didn’t know why Naruto always needed Sasuke to focus on him during conversation.
Though. Sasuke probably would have given him his attention more often if Naruto hadn't made it so apparent that he needed it to hold a conversation.
“I wish you weren’t such a difficult asshole sometimes, Sasuke, you make everything so much harder than it needs to be.”
Sasuke didn’t know how to respond to that. Because it was true, though he wasn’t quite sure why he was that way. If he weren’t, it would most likely make life a lot easier for him. But, in the long run, nobody said life was easy.
“I-” Sasuke started. Then the bell rang with a loud shriek, and students began filing out of classrooms.
Sasuke stood up quickly, scooping up his bag and beginning to shift his weight forward when,
“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto called for him. Quickly grabbing his own bag and facing Sasuke.
“I’ll talk to you after school, okay?” Naruto asked, with a sure look on his face.
“Maybe,” Sasuke replied, turning and walking away.
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Sasuke stared out the bus window with his headphones in. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Naruto called out his name. Or the way he scooted closer to Sasuke to get his attention.
Why would he even be thinking about that? Sasuke didn’t like Naruto. He never did; he may have had feelings for him in middle school. But you can’t control who you like as a kid, and Sasuke wasn’t into boys like that anymore. Especially not Naruto.
Was he in denial? Yes, most definitely, but he’d rather be in denial than have to face the consequences of his stupid feelings right now.
When he got home, he lay in bed thinking about Naruto’s words,
“I’ll talk to you after school, okay?”
Why had he said that? After all that happened, he still wanted to talk to Sasuke.
*Bzzt*
He jolted, and quickly picked up his phone.
“Unknown Number: Hey Sasuke, ik you probably won't see this till later but we should talk”
Sasuke stared at the notification for a long while without opening the message.
Talk? Why talk? What was there to talk about? Nothing abnormal had happened. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.
Now that he thought about it, how did Naruto get his phone number? Sasuke hadn’t given him his number as well when Naruto gave him his?
He picked up his phone and opened the message,
“How did you get my number…?”
He waited only a few seconds before Naruto began typing, it was like he had been waiting with the message open for Sasuke to respond.
“I have my sources”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow in confusion at his phone. Sources? Was he just going up to random people he thought might just happen to have Sasuke’s number and asking for it? He scoffed.
“I’m blocking you.”
Sasuke laughed to himself. Naruto can’t just get his feelings hurt that Sasuke didn’t text him, then go and find his number from other people. He wasn’t going to entertain this.
“NO WAIT”
“Then tell me how.”
“fine”
Sasuke waited while Naruto typed out his response.
“Sakura gave it to me yesterday…”
Sasuke blinked flippantly at the message.
Sakura Haruno? The girl who had carried a very obvious crush on him since elementary school? He didn’t expect someone like her to ever talk to Naruto. Knowing her, she would have ignored Naruto at all costs. She was a stern, smart girl, she hated annoying, loud people such as Naruto. He had no idea how someone like him could convince Sakura to give Naruto his phone number, especially if she still had a crush on him.
Thinking about it, Sakura seems like the perfect match for Sasuke. They share many qualities, and she’s very pretty, one of the prettiest, and most widely desired in their class. She was everything a guy was supposed to find attractive. Yet, Sasuke did not share her affection.
Just like every other feeling Sasuke had, he didn’t understand why he felt this way about Sakura. It’s not that he despised her like he did Naruto, in fact, he quite enjoyed Sakura's presence. She wasn’t rude, or loud, or even any sort of a disturbance to Sasuke’s very well-kept peace. Sasuke just wasn’t interested in pursuing her romantically.
Sasuke decided not to respond to Naruto's text.
Chapter 2: Uneasy Hearts Weigh The Most
______________________________________________________________________________
“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t see them right now. The doctors are still doing tests to find out how your parents were killed.”
Itachi's face was stern. He was looming over the man at the front desk, the man wincing as Itachi slammed down his fist.
“I don’t give a fuck! You will let me see my parents, or so help me god, you will be in that room next to them when I ram your dense head into that wall!”
Sasuke had never seen his brother like this before. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his brother mad before.
Itachi had always had a monk-like demeanor—a constant state of calm and composure.
In other words, this was new for him.
“Ah, yes. I understand… Right this way, Mr. Uchiha.”
Itachi turned to signal Sasuke that it was okay to go now. And he brought himself from his seat.
Sasuke felt his stomach drop at this motion.
Everything came back to him. His parents were going to be lifeless when he walked into this room. And he realized, maybe he wasn't ready to see this.
He stopped walking halfway down the hall.
“Sasuke.” Itachi turned to look at him.
He didn’t even see or hear Itachi approach him before his brother embraced him.
He said it before, and he’ll say it again: he and his brother have never (for as far back as he can remember) shown affection towards each other. It just wasn’t done.
Sasuke froze. He didn't know how to react.
Before he could react, it was over. And Itachi was already walking away. He felt tears begin to well.
But he wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. So he wiped away the tears and followed his brother.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sasuke was pacing back and forth in his room, contemplating whether to message Naruto or avoid it altogether and throw the paper away. But he knew he couldn’t do that. Maybe it’d be best to call him? No. That was even worse. The smartest idea was probably to forget about it tonight and go to sleep.
He put his phone face down and went to take a shower. He brushed his teeth, then put on pajamas and lay down.
30 minutes passed, and Sasuke couldn't sleep.
He turned his head to his clock that read 11:42. Great. Sasuke thought to himself.
How was he supposed to sleep with the weight of having Naruto's phone number?
He reached over to his bedside table and grabbed the piece of paper with Naruto’s number scribbled on it. His handwriting is awful. He thought with a subtle smile, then dismissed the thought immediately. Because why would he have smiled about that? He hated him.
He sighed to himself and decided he had the number, so he might as well put his number in his contacts.
He typed his number in and stared at the name box. He sat on the thought of maybe making it something stupid, but thought better of it. Simply typing his name.
If he were to message him tonight, he wouldn't even receive a response. So what would be the point of texting him so late at night anyway?
There isn’t one. He thought. So why does he want it so badly to the point he can’t sleep?
He would have to endure it. Because he refused to stay up thinking about this any longer.
Sasuke slammed his phone onto his nightstand and turned in his bed. Letting his eyes fall closed, he eventually fell into a deep sleep.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sasuke was on the verge of sleep in Kakashi-sensei’s class, cheek resting on his palm, eyes half lidded, when he felt someone vigorously shaking his shoulder.
Naruto had decided to sit behind him in class that day, but he didn’t pay much attention to it. He didn’t want to look too deeply into it in case he interpreted something the wrong way.
But he definitely didn’t expect to be shaken awake by him.
“Sasuke! Psst…”
He heard aggressive whispering at him from behind.
“Sasuke, are you awake?”
Sasuke shoved his hand off his shoulder and turned to Naruto.
“Yes. What is it?”
Naruto looked annoyed at him for some reason.
“You didn’t text me last night. Why is that? Did I accidentally give you the wrong number?”
“No. You didn’t give me the wrong number, dobe. I just didn’t feel like messaging you.”
Naruto looked offended by this, and if Sasuke wasn’t being delusional, a little hurt.
“Why not?”
Now he looked a bit angry.
“I just didn’t, okay? Drop it.”
Sasuke was beginning to feel irritated at this. Because it wasn’t like he was lying to Naruto, he really didn’t know. Not only did he not know why he didn’t want to text Naruto, but he also didn’t understand why a part of him wanted to text him. This was all too much at once for Sasuke’s hazy mind to handle.
He heard Naruto sigh at this. Assuming that he dropped the topic, he went back to pretending to take notes.
He thinks he is going to fall back asleep, but is suddenly awoken by a sharp jab in his left shoulder. He hisses in pain, turning around at Naruto.
“What the hell was that?”
Naruto is looking in the other direction, then turns to him.
“What do you mean? That wasn’t me…?”
Sasuke narrows his eyes at him. What the fuck is he up to? He thought.
He decides to turn back around. Maybe it was an accident, and Naruto’s just too much of a coward to admit it.
But as soon as he did, he felt the pain again, this time at the base of his neck.
Sasuke whipped around in his seat, very much fed up,
Naruto, again, turned the other direction.
“Okay. What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything, Sasuke. I told you.”
He could easily tell he was lying. But before he could antagonize him again—
“Boys.” He heard Kakashi-Sensei calling on them.
“If there isn’t something you have to say to the whole class, then you better not say anything at all.”
Sasuke heard Naruto grumble something under his breath as Kakashi-Sensei turned back to his whiteboard to continue the lesson.
He felt Naruto rest his feet on the back of Sasuke’s desk.
Naruto was gradually starting to piss Sasuke off more and more.
Sasuke reared his foot back and stomped onto Naruto’s as hard as he could.
“Gah!” he jolted with a loud noise of pain.
“That is it! Boys, I’ve had enough. I want both of you out of my classroom immediately. And don’t come back until you’ve learned common classroom courtesy.” Kakashi-sensei scolded.
Sasuke pushed back from his seat with annoyance and marched out of the classroom.
He couldn’t believe Naruto had provoked him into becoming such a nuisance. Then again, he wasn’t entirely dissatisfied. Frankly, he was quite impressed with himself for making Naruto yell out in pain in a quiet classroom; it was humiliating. Perfect payback.
He sat down on the cold floor of the empty hallway and leaned against the lockers, inhaling deeply.
He closed his eyes so he could drift off into thought for thirty mundane minutes until the next class started.
“Ehem.”
He opened his eyes to a clearly dissatisfied Naruto above him.
“What the hell was that, Sasuke? You quite literally embarrassed me in front of the entire class?!” Naruto hissed.
Sasuke closed his eyes again, “You deserved it, you were poking at me, so I kicked you.”
He heard Naruto lean down from where he was standing, and he pried open Sasuke's eyes with two fingers.
“Kicking is much more painful than someone poking you with a pencil, dude.”
Sasuke attempted to blink, but failed. So he grabbed Naruto's wrists and pulled them off his eyelids.
“It hurt. So I made sure you’d quit.” Sasuke glared at him. Then deeply inhaled again.
“Look. If you genuinely want me to help with our project, then you can’t get us kicked out of class every day.”
Naruto went limp. And scooted beside Sasuke to sit against the lockers.
“You can’t put that on me, Sasuke.” Naruto turned to him. Sasuke did not share the look.
“I can do whatever I want, dobe.” He replied.
Naruto scooted to sit directly in front of Sasuke, most likely an attempt to get his full attention.
He didn’t know why Naruto always needed Sasuke to focus on him during conversation.
Though. Sasuke probably would have given him his attention more often if Naruto hadn't made it so apparent that he needed it to hold a conversation.
“I wish you weren’t such a difficult asshole sometimes, Sasuke, you make everything so much harder than it needs to be.”
Sasuke didn’t know how to respond to that. Because it was true, though he wasn’t quite sure why he was that way. If he weren’t, it would most likely make life a lot easier for him. But, in the long run, nobody said life was easy.
“I-” Sasuke started. Then the bell rang with a loud shriek, and students began filing out of classrooms.
Sasuke stood up quickly, scooping up his bag and beginning to shift his weight forward when,
“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto called for him. Quickly grabbing his own bag and facing Sasuke.
“I’ll talk to you after school, okay?” Naruto asked, with a sure look on his face.
“Maybe,” Sasuke replied, turning and walking away.
______________________________________________________________________________
Sasuke stared out the bus window with his headphones in. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Naruto called out his name. Or the way he scooted closer to Sasuke to get his attention.
Why would he even be thinking about that? Sasuke didn’t like Naruto. He never did; he may have had feelings for him in middle school. But you can’t control who you like as a kid, and Sasuke wasn’t into boys like that anymore. Especially not Naruto.
Was he in denial? Yes, most definitely, but he’d rather be in denial than have to face the consequences of his stupid feelings right now.
When he got home, he lay in bed thinking about Naruto’s words,
“I’ll talk to you after school, okay?”
Why had he said that? After all that happened, he still wanted to talk to Sasuke.
*Bzzt*
He jolted, and quickly picked up his phone.
“Unknown Number: Hey Sasuke, ik you probably won't see this till later but we should talk”
Sasuke stared at the notification for a long while without opening the message.
Talk? Why talk? What was there to talk about? Nothing abnormal had happened. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.
Now that he thought about it, how did Naruto get his phone number? Sasuke hadn’t given him his number as well when Naruto gave him his?
He picked up his phone and opened the message,
“How did you get my number…?”
He waited only a few seconds before Naruto began typing, it was like he had been waiting with the message open for Sasuke to respond.
“I have my sources”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow in confusion at his phone. Sources? Was he just going up to random people he thought might just happen to have Sasuke’s number and asking for it? He scoffed.
“I’m blocking you.”
Sasuke laughed to himself. Naruto can’t just get his feelings hurt that Sasuke didn’t text him, then go and find his number from other people. He wasn’t going to entertain this.
“NO WAIT”
“Then tell me how.”
“fine”
Sasuke waited while Naruto typed out his response.
“Sakura gave it to me yesterday…”
Sasuke blinked flippantly at the message.
Sakura Haruno? The girl who had carried a very obvious crush on him since elementary school? He didn’t expect someone like her to ever talk to Naruto. Knowing her, she would have ignored Naruto at all costs. She was a stern, smart girl, she hated annoying, loud people such as Naruto. He had no idea how someone like him could convince Sakura to give Naruto his phone number, especially if she still had a crush on him.
Thinking about it, Sakura seems like the perfect match for Sasuke. They share many qualities, and she’s very pretty, one of the prettiest, and most widely desired in their class. She was everything a guy was supposed to find attractive. Yet, Sasuke did not share her affection.
Just like every other feeling Sasuke had, he didn’t understand why he felt this way about Sakura. It’s not that he despised her like he did Naruto, in fact, he quite enjoyed Sakura's presence. She wasn’t rude, or loud, or even any sort of a disturbance to Sasuke’s very well-kept peace. Sasuke just wasn’t interested in pursuing her romantically.
Sasuke decided not to respond to Naruto's text.