Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ My, How Convenient ❯ Epilogue ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: Naruto is copyright to Masashi Kishimoto-sensei.

Author's Introductions: SasuNaru porn at the end. Kiddies should stay away. Yeah, it took four months to finish, but... I did it. For the record, this is the second multichapter fic that I've finished out of quite a few I've started, gotten bored with somewhere in the middle, and left to gather dust. This is most probably the last SasuNaru fanfic I'll be writing (in English, at least), as I'll be moving on with other fandoms and attending to RL concerns. These said, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the people who took the time to express their views about this fic, whether favorable or not. You're the reason I bothered uploading and reuploading in the first place. It's a few days past due, but Happy New Year!

My, How Convenient
by spare

Epilogue

“You've gotten better, Naruto,” Lee complimented, leaping away from where the blond jounin had successfully deflected what would have been a fatal kick aimed at his stomach.

Naruto grinned self-deprecatingly. “You're no slouch, yourself,” he replied. The blond was breathing hard, sweat practically dripping out of every pore on his body, while Lee looked far from worn out. The jounin who had taken after Gai-sensei's infamous bowl-cut hair and flashy fighting style regarded him easily, arms gracefully spread out in the stance of the taijutsu style the shinobi had mastered over the years. “I could barely keep up with you.”

No shit.

Naruto may have the Kyuubi's near-limitless chakra and stamina to his advantage, but somehow Lee always seemed to outclass him when it came to speed every time they sparred.

“Your reflexes have quickened, at any rate,” Lee acknowledged admiringly. “You should be proud.” The older jounin sounded like the genin instructor that he was, saying this, and Naruto wondered wryly when he himself would start sounding like a teacher.

It had been a year since Lee had taken a teaching job at the Ninja Academy, while Iruka-sensei – months ago, when the older shinobi had been very drunk and in a good mood – had asked Naruto whether the blond would want to teach the next batch of would-be genin the following school year.

Naruto was considering it. Heck, if he could juggle the job along with a possible ANBU promotion, why not? Probably an unprecedented move, too, if he ever decided to do both. But, yes, he was thinking about it.

He was thinking about a lot of things, lately.

A lot of things that happened to revolve around one particular night with one particular person in one particular tea house exactly seven days ago, when life had effectively ceased revolving exclusively around Ichiraku ramen bowls and becoming the next Hokage and beating Sasuke-bastard to prove who was stronger.

Now it was different. Everything was different. What sort of fool was he to have believed that things would stay the same?

“You alright?”

“Huh?” Blinking, Naruto returned to the present. Lee was looking at him, a worried frown on the shinobi's face. The Kyuubi vessel seemed to be getting that a lot, lately.

“I was asking whether you're alright, Naruto,” the jounin repeated. “You looked like you were zoning out there for a minute.”

Naruto inhaled deeply. “I'm fine, I'm fine,” he quickly blurted out. “I'm...” he blinked again, and managed a small smile. “Just a little dazed, that's all.”

“If you say so,” Lee allowed, still regarding him dubiously. The taijutsu specialist looked as if he was about to say more, when something in the distance caught his attention. “Oh, no!” Lee yelled, face shifting into a grimace that would have been comical if the person in question wasn't so damned serious, “Sakura! I completely lost track of the time!”

“You got a date with her today?” Naruto asked, glad to have a convenient subject to edge out the first.

“Yes,” Lee admitted, nodding vigorously, and then summarily smacked himself upside the head. “But I'm late! I should have been at the bridge an hour ago!” the elder jounin wailed.

“You should hurry along, then,” the blond advised. “Who knows, Sakura-chan might still be there. Compared to Kakashi-sensei's legendary tardiness, I'd say an hour's wait is nothing.”

Lee's eyes literally glimmered with hope. “You think so?”

Naruto nodded. “Well, yeah.”

“But our spar–“

“Don't worry about it,” he cut in dismissively. “I'm too tired to continue anyway.” And then, when the taijutsu specialist looked torn between finishing the afternoon's friendly spar and meeting with Sakura, added, “Go to Sakura-chan already! Do you want to keep her waiting a minute longer?”

Lee was already on his feet. “Thanks, Naruto!” the jounin called, bowing before beating a hasty retreat to the general direction of Konoha bridge.

Naruto's eyes followed the jounin's silhouette until it disappeared from sight, thinking with a mixture of wonder and quiet amusement how, several years and a lifetime before, he would have done cartwheels over live coals to be in Lee's position right now. But his feelings for his pink-haired former team-mate had faded away with the passage of time.

Now, although they remained good friends, occasionally working together on special assignments, Naruto had discovered – with some surprise and a great deal of unwarranted guilt – that his infatuation with Sakura was just that: a childhood crush. Unrequited, unfulfilled memory that it was, however, Naruto treasured it just the same.

He wondered whether this... matter with Sasuke would end in a similar manner.

Naruto fell back on the grass, staring up at the cloudless afternoon sky. Dusk was only a couple of hours away. Then would come night, cold and lonely, as nights without tasks or missions often were.

Cold and lonely and empty.

“Curse you, Sasuke-temee,” Naruto whispered, wanting the words to sound bitter, but unable to muster enough conviction to be really angry with the dark-haired bastard.

He had not seen hide nor hair of said jounin since – well, since that mid-afternoon walk out of the Hokage's office. Which would be close to seven days. Practically a whole week.

Granted, they were high-ranking shinobi who were often given missions lasting weeks or even months off to some far-flung town or forest. And granted that even during the times Sasuke remained in Konoha, the bastard generally kept to himself and wouldn't be seen by anybody until he decided he wanted to train or was summoned by the Fifth. Despite such allowances, however, Naruto still couldn't quite shake off the feeling that Sasuke was avoiding him. On purpose and all. Like Naruto was some sort of disease. Or a bad memory. Or both.

Am I exactly that to you, you bastard? Naruto thought, an uncharacteristic glare crossing his features. You seemed OK with pretending nothing happened in the beginning. Nothing strange, that is. So what's with the big change?

Not that Naruto invested that much of an effort to inquire into Sasuke's whereabouts, but he full well knew that the Uchiha had not been recently assigned to any other missions since the last one they had done together.

Nor had the dark-haired shinobi been seen by anybody else of late. Kakashi-sensei, who sparred with the younger jounin almost as frequently as Naruto did, had expressed at best mild surprise over Sasuke's non-appearance, but the masked pervert was too hung up on missing out on his monthly Icha-Icha fix to really care. Apparently, the latest installment (Double Issue! Commemorative Full-Color Poster Inside!) was sold out by the time Kakashi-sensei inquired at the bookstore.

“The last copy, and somebody else beat me to it,” Kakashi had sulked blearily. “What sick, cruel person would do such a thing?” Unable to find the appropriate answer on Naruto's face, the jounin had continued to nurse the warm jug of sake he had leaned into for support, intent on getting thoroughly plastered.

Konohamaru, who usually knew what went on with everybody else in the village, had assumed that Sasuke was currently cooped up in the Uchiha compound, either meditating or perfecting some sort of secret kick-ass jutsu nobody else must know about.

“So what's the matter?” Konohamaru, nosy even after hitting puberty, had asked. “You guys had another quarrel?”

Naruto had frowned evenly at this. “Why'd you say that?”

“Well, you've been asking me and everyone else who'd give you the time of day whether we've seen Sasuke lately,” the young chuunin had matter-of-factly replied, shrugging. “Or at least, something terribly ill-concealed to that effect. Come on, fess up, nii-chan!” Konohamaru had continued, ribbing him gently. “What happened during the last mission?”

“Why do you think--”

“You guys started acting funny ever since you came back from your latest pair-up assignment,” Konohamaru had replied. “It must have been serious, what with Sasuke making himself all inaccessible to everybody and you running around town asking after him,” the boy had further added, just before he left to other matters. “Is it?”

Alright, so maybe Naruto had understated things just a teeny bit.

Anyway, that didn't change the fact that Sasuke was avoiding him, the damned bastard.

Because if Sasuke wasn't, the dark-haired jounin would have handed Naruto's orange jacket over personally. Instead, the bastard had mailed it to the blond jounin's doorstep on the exact date promised, wrapped in brown paper, washed and neatly folded as if it had never been worn before.

If Sasuke wasn't, he would have contacted Naruto or some other shinobi for a friendly spar or two by now – a week's lapse in training without some serious injury to excuse it could very well erode combat skill. And Sasuke was adamant about keeping himself in tip-top shape. Instead, Sasuke had virtually disappeared to who-knew-where, leaving Naruto more questions than the blond could comfortably answer and forcing him into longer internal monologues than usual, when his time could be better spent at Ichiraku with a steaming bowl of miso ramen.

His stomach rumbled noisily, as if on cue.

Speaking of ramen...

Shrugging off his mental tirade (his longest, not that he kept tabs or anything), Naruto pushed himself up off the ground.

No use angsting too long over the bastard. If Sasuke wanted to be found, he would be, eventually. The bastard can't avoid him forever, right? And it wasn't like the idea of sleeping with the Uchiha again should occupy his every waking moment, right?

Right. There were, after all, other, equally important things to look after.

His stomach rumbled its concurrence, again.

Nodding resolutely to himself, Naruto proceeded to head off for the village proper. The best thing after a good day's spar was the bowl of ramen you could treat yourself to right after, as he always said. And no way was he going to let thoughts of dark-haired evasive bastards get in the way of his daily ramen fix.

For sure.

With these thoughts in mind, Naruto left the training grounds just as speedily as Lee had, an orange blur moving steadily through the trees.

In the distance, a pair of obsidian eyes silently observed the blond jounin's departure, unnoticed and unremarked.

x x x

“Another bowl?” Itadakimasu, the ever-amiable middle-aged proprietor of the Ichiraku ramen stand inquired incredulously from behind the counter.

“You just broke your record, Naruto-kun,” Ayame informed the blond jounin currently seated on the stool he'd come to habitually occupy over the years as the establishment's number one customer. “Twenty bowls in just two hours! Where do you pack it away?”

“Training, of course,” Naruto gamely replied, one hand held out expectantly for his next bowl of ramen. “Now come on, gimme another one!”

Itadakimasu sighed. “Hokage-sama would suffer a coronary when she sees the bill for this.” Eternally squinting eyes drifted back to the pile of empty china bowls stacked haphazardly on the counter, but the elderly man did as he was bid, producing another steaming bowl of miso ramen and setting it down in front of the blond ninja mere seconds later.

Naruto grinned, a well-worn pair of chopsticks held at the ready, tipped the bowl closer, and dug in.

Ah. Bliss.

Ramen always cheered him up, no matter what; it was his own personal recurse from life's troubles, be it from a childhood spent as the village outcast, an upcoming S-class mission, or, more currently, dark-haired ice princes who screw you senseless and then virtually disappear from the face of the earth.

Especially evasive dark-haired ice princes, Naruto inwardly emphasized, bringing a mouthful of noodles to his lips. Particularly one whose butt you can't stop dreaming about every night. (But he'd tried. Oh, hell, how he'd tried.)

Not that it mattered whether he did, or didn't, because the status quo remained the same. Sasuke was avoiding him like the plague, and Naruto was spending his days holed out at Ichiraku eating his worries away. It wasn't like merely thinking about Sasuke could conjure the jounin like some weird summoning jutsu, of course, Naruto rationalized further, chewing on a thin sliver of beef absently as he did so. Not that he'd ever seriously entertained the thought.

Of course.

So why did he even bother thinking about the bastard when he was here to eat?

“Argh,” Naruto groaned aloud. That is, he would have, if his mouth wasn't full at the moment. As it were, the blond almost choked on the noodles and meat slices he was in the process of swallowing, coughing as discreetly as he could while he hastily beat at his chest to prevent the food from going down the wrong way.

He was still engaged in such activity when he heard the canvas flap in front of the shop being lifted behind him. A slight creak further signaled the arrival of the newcomer as whoever it was sat down on one of the available stools.

Right next to where Naruto himself was seated, to be exact.

By the way the fine hairs at the back of his neck stood on end, Naruto ought to have known who it was who arrived. Ayame beat him to the declaration, however.

“Irasshai-- oh, it;s Sasuke-kun!” the ramen girl announced chipperly. “Finally came to claim your share of the prize, ne?”

“Hn.”

Oh shit.

“So, what'll it be?”

Why now?

“Shoryu ramen would be fine.”

“Hai, shoryu ramen it is.”

Naruto sat paralyzed in his seat throughout the brief exchange, a maelstrom of emotions brewing in his head, foremost of which was the urge to flee. Which, he knew, was ironic, if not ridiculous, since he hadn't seen the Uchiha for a week and had been mentally bitching about the fact for just as log, and now that the source of his fears and nightly frustrations was there, alive and breathing --sitting next to him with nary a care in the world, the bastard--WHY was he not looking?

Naruto turned his head, and looked.

And found Sasuke's dark, impassive eyes evenly looking back.

“We sure haven’t seen you in a while,” Itadakimasu was saying as he prepared the latest order, back turned to them. “A certain—“ a cough “—jounin I know has been running around town asking after you for almost a week now.”

Said jounin attempted to be one with the floor. There was a slight chance he would have succeeded, too, if not for the dark eyes that held him frozen in place.

“Was he?” Sasuke inquired politely, breaking his gaze from the blond as Ayame chuckled not-too-discreetly in the background.

“Naruto.” A soft sound, almost like a murmur, but not quite.

Naruto all but jumped at the sound of it. “H-huh?” he replied shrilly, and quickly recovering, amended, “I-I mean—hey there, Sasuke-temee…”

A pause. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” the Uchiha noted conversationally, giving no indication that he noticed the blond’s discomfort. Sasuke stared blankly on, seemingly content to read the menu posted on the adjacent wall.

“Yes,” Naruto asserted. “Yes, it has.” He looked down at the half-eaten bowl of ramen just beneath his nose. It looked and smelled as appealing as ever, but the butterflies flitting restlessly in his stomach made it impossible for the meantime to muster another bite.

“Here you go, Sasuke-kun,” Ayame announced, breaking into the awkward silence about to settle between them. She set the bowl down in front of the dark-haired jounin. “Douzo.”

Sasuke gave a slight nod, dipped his chopsticks in, and began to eat. Naruto did the same, but with considerably less relish than before. He toyed with his food, letting noodles and egg and meat strips swirl aimlessly within the thick miso broth. Blue eyes kept drifting back to where Sasuke sat, eating calmly.

Not that Naruto spent that much time ogling the other man to make a fair comparison, but he though Sasuke looked slightly different since last time they saw each other. The raven-haired shinobi had gotten thinner, for one thing; nothing drastic, mind you, just the more angular bent of his features, the way his cheek bones were more defined.

Whatever he’d been up to these past few days had taken its toll on the Uchiha’s body, for sure, although Naruto noted with a mixture of envy and fascination that these slight physical changes didn’t make the taller jounin any less appealing. If anything, the few pounds Sasuke had shed over the week doing God-knew-what served to draw even more attention to his dark, brooding eyes, the midnight-blue bangs that fell rakishly about his face, the bony, yet graceful fingers holding a pair of chopsticks in place. And his lips—pale, as the rest of him was, but full, and sensuous, and parted as the Uchiha leisurely brought a clutch of the savory noodles to his mouth, sucking them in between his teeth.

Naruto inhaled deeply, unaware until that point that he had been holding his breath, feeling a blush rise to his whiskered cheeks at what… at what was… at whatever it was Sasuke thought he was doing.

Eating ramen, he reminded himself. Just eating ramen. Only the way the dark-haired shinobi was doing it… The blond shook his head. Best not to go there. Best just to finish with his own bowl of ramen and leave.

Quickly.

Gripping his bowl decisively with one hand, a pair of chopsticks on the other, Naruto set off to do just that. That is, he tried to. He made a good enough attempt in the first few seconds, at the very least. For some weird reason, however, his eyes appeared to have a mind of their own, and kept wandering back to sneak continually lingering glances at where a certain dark-haired jounin was situated. Afore-mentioned jounin kept eating obliviously on, looking like he had all in the time in the world to do so.

Argh.

Stupid eyes.

Stupid Sasuke, who apparently could spend a week not eating or sleeping right and still look good—heck, even better for it.

Fuming, but admittedly unable to not-look, Naruto watched his stoic rival pick up a sliver of meat from his bowl with his own pair of chopsticks, holding it securely between the identical strips of wood.

The dark-haired shinobi raised the morsel to his lips, parted his mouth. A pink tongue darted out to catch the juicy treat, and pearly white teeth began to nibble delicately on the succulent piece of flesh.

Only when the Uchiha decided to swallow the morsel (an action that brought attention to the ninja’s pale, slender throat) did Naruto realize that his own mouth had long gone dry.

Most probably because he’d pretty much forgotten to close it since Sasuke began. But, if the familiar stiffening in his groin was to be any indication, a dry mouth was the least of his immediate worries.

“Hn.”

The soft, implacable sound broke the momentary trance he seemed to have gotten himself into. Naruto looked guiltily away, feeling his face grow warm and his mind go light-headed in a way that no amount of sake could accomplish. Perversely, the ache in between his legs grew stronger, so much so that the Kyuubi vessel was sure that when he stood up, he would have to perform a bit of henge no jutsu to conceal it. Naruto prayed that Sasuke wouldn’t have the presence of mind to activate his Sharingan then.

Not that anything short of a surprise attack on the village by enemy nin could drag him from his seat (and expose his not-so-little dilemma) right now.

“Something the matter, Naruto?”

That, and perhaps Sasuke’s deep black eyes boring into his own just then, with far greater interest than the blond ninja could comfortably handle. ‘Guilty’, ‘Homoerotic’, and ‘Fantasies’ might as well have been written on his face at the moment.

“N-nothing,” Naruto replied, quickly shaking his head in the negative. In an attempt to regain some semblance of normalcy he hastily grabbed his bowl of ramen, intending to tip the receptacle closer to himself, succeeding instead in spilling most of its contents on the countertop and the front of his favorite orange jacket.

Kuso.

If anyone knew a ninjutsu to make the earth crack open and swallow him up, now was the perfect time to use it on him. (Absently he made a mental note to bug the erosennin about teaching him such a skill one of these days.)

“Oh, Naruto!” Ayame called out in alarm. Behind her, Itadakimasu had turned around, momentarily forgetting about the saucepan he was in the act of stirring.

“You alright?”

“You didn’t burn yourself, did you?”

“It’s alright, I’m fine,” Naruto declared earnestly, even as he wiped off the wet splotch left by the ramen broth with the sleeve of his coat, soggy strands of ramen sticking to it. Nevertheless, it was a futile effort; the warm liquid did not spill so much as soak through the cloth. Now, besides the erection tenting the front of Naruto’s pants, he could feel a wet warmth just over his belly. It’s almost as if I came with my cock out and the rest of my clothes on—

“Here, let me help,” Ayame was saying, a wash cloth in hand.

—and oh shit of all the stuff to think about at a time like this

“N-no!” Naruto all but shouted outright, seizing the ramen girl’s arm and pushing her away. He stopped her just in time, too. All Ayame needed to do was lean forward just a couple of inches more and she would have seen why exactly the young jounin was so fucked up at the moment. At the ramen girl’s puzzled look, he hastily added, “I mean, it’s ok, I could do it myself.” Hurriedly he resumed wiping what little of the mess he could with his hands. “See?” he finished, grinning bashfully.

“You should go home and change, though,” Ayame commented, eyeing the front of the garment contemplatively.

Naruto more or less managed to casually fold his hands over his lap. “I should?” he gulped.

“Yes, definitely,” Itadakimasu affirmed, nodding.

“But,” he protested, “but I could just take my jacket off—“

“But even your undershirt’s soaked through, isn’t it?” Sasuke ventured, cutting him off.

“No, it isn’t,” Naruto denied, feeling blue clouds of doom steadily gathering round his head.

“Take it off, then,” the dark-haired jounin returned without missing a beat. The rest of his face was as neutral as it ever was, but a faint, wicked smile played about his darkly glinting eyes. “Take it off, and then we’ll see.”

Did he just say— Naruto’s eyes widened for a second before his brain connected the sentence to the situation at hand. Dammit, but he shouldn’t instantly read too much into the bastard’s words! “I…” Naruto shook his head to clear the bad thoughts away.

They wouldn’t.

Ayame frowned at him, looking concerned.

Itadakimasu had an eyebrow raised, a quizzical expression on his face.

Sasuke looked as detached as ever—that is, until you looked into his eyes.

“I won’t!” the blond shinobi shouted, finally, and did the one thing he’d wanted to do since Sasuke came in.

He turned tail and ran.

x x x

That bastard, Naruto thought. That smug, sexy, 'I-can-make-eating-ramen-an-act-of-seduction' bastard. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Just thinking about how unfair it all was kept him running all the way up the flight of stairs that led to his apartment, unmindful of the stared he was receiving from the other tenants and innocent passersby.

Naruto was so occupied, in fact, that it wasn't until the blond shinobi had slammed open the door to his living quarters, walked in, hand automatically reaching for the light switch on the wall nearby, that he became aware of three essential things.

One, the living room light was already on. Two, the living room light was already on because there was someone else inside his apartment right now. And three, that someone else, as could be observed from the dark-haired figure now emerging from Naruto's own bedroom, was none other than Uchiha Sasuke.

The bastard beat him to his own home, by some bizarre contrivance or another, took the extra minutes to rummage through the blond's closet, and retrieved what looked like a clean but faded yellow t-shirt, clutching it now in his hands. For a few fleeting moments Naruto considered running away before the Uchiha discovered his arrival, and decided upon the next moment that it was an absurd notion. It was his own apartment, dammit! He planted his feet firmly past the doorway. Sasuke looked up as Naruto closed the door behind him, no semblance of surprise or apology registering on the taller shinobi's face.

“You didn't lock your door,” he commented simply, instead.

Naruto inclined his head to the side. “I never do.” Always forgot where he put the damn keys, and what was there worth stealing among what few belongings he had, anyway?

Sasuke shrugged. “Well, I let myself in.”

“Obviously,” the blond remarked dryly.

“Hn.”

“So why are your here?”

Instead of answering, Sasuke tossed the yellow shirt at him. Naruto caught it easily enough, and the Uchiha nodded meaningfully at the still-wet stain on the foot of his orange jacket. “Change your clothes first.”

x

Naruto changed his clothing inside his bedroom, the door firmly latched shut, all the while trying not to think about why he should be so modest all of a sudden. They were both guys, after all, and it wasn't as if Sasuke had never seen him bare-chested before. Heck, they'd been to the onsen together (at Sasuke's suggestion, Naruto remembered) and didn't pay each other any mind (at least, Naruto didn't, and he'd assumed Sasuke didn't, either).

And of course, just seven days ago...

Naruto shivered, chose not to proceed with that thought, and hurriedly put on his shirt.

Sasuke was in the kitchen, back to the sink, by the time Naruto got out. They spent a few seconds staring wordlessly at each other, Naruto's face steadily heating up, before Sasuke at last cleared his throat and looked disinterestedly away.

“We need to talk,” he stated simply.

“Yeah,” Naruto nodded. “I guess we do.” The blond took a few steps forward and sat himself behind the kitchen table. Sasuke occupied the chair adjacent to his. He noted that the dark-haired shinobi had taken off the drab grayish-green vest indicative of his rank as a ninja. A quick glance around led him to where it now hung over the left side of the living room couch.

“How long has it been, exactly?” Sasuke ventured. “Since that last mission.”

Naruto kept his eyes riveted to the vest. “Seven days, more or less.”

“Hn.”

“Where the hell have you been, anyway?”

“Around.”

The blond frowned. “Wanna be more specific?”

“Hn.”

Naruto snorted. “Jerk.”

A retort on Sasuke's side was in order at this point. When none came within the stretch of a minute, the Kyuubi vessel finally turned to regard his best friend's face. The Uchiha was looking intently out the open window and into the mellow darkness beyond it, night having fully settled in the streets of Konohagakure. Between them the air felt thick and grew thicker by the minute, and Naruto was about to open his mouth to say something, anything to break the uneasy silence, when Sasuke saved him the trouble.

“I've been thinking about it,” the dark-haired jounin spoke, voice barely above a whisper. Sasuke coughed, then just as quietly continued, “About that night, I mean.”

The Kyuubi vessel blinked. Seconds passed like eternity plodding through a jammed intersection before he recovered the nerve to respond to this revelation. Naruto opened his mouth, and closed it. Then opened it again, managing to mumble, “Me, too.”

“Hn,” Sasuke sighed, nodding briefly at this, obsidian eyes now apparently finding the burnished surface of the kitchen table of particular interest. The raven-haired shinobi appeared as cool and detached as ever, but his dark eyes narrowed and his shoulders stiffened ever so slightly as he went on, his tone clipped and terse, “That time, in the shower, I never asked if I you'd mind--”

“I didn't,” Naruto quickly cut in, and felt his cheeks grow warm at the admission. “I'd have whooped your ass if I did,” he added.

Sasuke lifted his gaze upwards, relaxing visibly at these words. “Like you could ever,” he replied, a familiarly superior smirk creeping up the taller jounin's features, “Dobe.”

Blue eyes narrowed dangerously at that smirk. “I could, and you know it,” Naruto reiterated.

“Hn.”

He fought the urge to stand up and throw a punch at his rivals' smug face. “I'd have beaten you ten times over already, if I really tried,” the blond half-yelled, half-declared, instead.

“Hn,” Sasuke repeated dismissively, smirk threatening to become a full-fledged grin for a second or two before the jounin's 'brooding avenger' exterior reasserted itself over it.

This time, Naruto stood up. “Bastard,” the blond shinobi growled, leaning menacingly over to where Sasuke still sat and glaring squarely into his eyes, “Wanna settle this right n--”

Naruto never got to finish that sentence.

He suddenly felt himself being pulled forward, felt hand grabbing his whiskered cheeks, and then Sasuke's mouth was on his, kissing him deeply.

“Would you mind now?” Sasuke whispered breathlessly against his lips when they separated. Pale fingers tangled through his hair, stroking the blond bangs feathering the sides of his face. “Naruto...”

It took the blond a moment to follow what the other jounin referred to. When he did, Naruto gripped the Uchiha more securely by the shoulders, craned his neck lower, and kissed Sasuke with all his might.

They parted for air minutes later, gasping for breath, staring wonderingly at each other's faces. Both of them were flushed, bodies shaking visibly, lips and tongue tingling with the taste of each other. Somewhere during the kiss Sasuke's hand had slid up under Naruto's shirt, while the blond's own hand clutched the back of the Uchiha's neck. He had all but settled on Sasuke's lap, not as mindful of the hard edge of the table digging into his side as he was of the arousal, hot and heavy, straining from within the confines of his pants.

And of Sasuke's own.

“Does that answer your question?” Naruto breathed.

x x x

Naruto wanted him. It was evident in the way the blond pressed against him, in the dazed, hungry look in Naruto's eyes, in the insistent hardness prodding against his thigh.

Naruto. Wanted. Him.

They'd been in a similar position before, of course, with the blond straddling him, breath coming in shallow gasps; both of them fully clothed, and aching all the more for it.

But there were differences.

This time, both of them were awake. This time there was no denying the lust that they felt for each other. This time Sasuke's hands roamed freely beneath the thin fabric of Naruto's shirt, caressing the toned expanse of the blond jounin's chest. This time Naruto resumed kissing him again, having answered his question, fiercely, searchingly, as if everything they were to each other depended on it.

And Sasuke responded in kind, exploring the Kyuubi vessel's mouth just as furiously. Why the fuck did I wait for this, the dark-haired jounin mused wryly to himself as Naruto began bucking his hips forward, lean but muscular arms tightening their embrace, the both of them groaning into each other's mouths when their groins met.

But of course he had to wait. Aside from the time it gave him to plan his next course of action, it made the sight of the usually outspoken dobe needful and incoherent against him that much sweeter to behold.

Sasuke stood up, pushing Naruto off his lap and backfirst over the kitchen table, and broke the kiss so he could nibble around the spot where the smaller jounin's yellow shirt had ridden up just enough to expose one brown nipple.

“Nn... Sasuke,” Naruto grunted through gritted teeth, squirming under the Sharingan user's assault. Hands scrabbled for purchase where the Uchiha held them firmly in place.

Sasuke moved lower, trailing soft, teasing kisses down the blond's taut stomach, deft fingers beginning to work the pants off of Naruto's body. These came off easily enough, the blond jounin's boxers (a wet spot on that one that sure as hell wasn't caused by any ramen spills) following suit, and soon Sasuke had shoved the restrictive garments past the dobe's knees. He took one last lick at the area just below the smaller ninja's navel before Sasuke rose and stood back to observe his handiwork.

He'd seen more gay porn in the past seven days than would last him a lifetime to ascertain that he wasn't gay – at least, in the general sense of the word. The mere sight of naked male bodies did not turn him on, and wouldn't, unless, or so he'd learned, a few aesthetic conditions have been met: the guy must be blond, for one, blue-eyed, for another, lightly tanned, and (at this, the Uchiha couldn't help feeling a bit disturbed) whiskered.

As no other men he'd seen sported all four characteristics (while the picture of the Yondaime in Kakashi-sensei's house was close enough – just pencil in some whiskers – he wasn't that desperate to jack off to the picture of a dead village hero), and no other men who looked otherwise came close to turning him on, Sasuke thereafter concluded that he wasn't a full-blown homosexual.

It was only the sight of Uzumaki Naruto, currently sprawled across the kitchen table with his shirt pulled up to reveal his chest and his pants sliding down to his ankles, that aroused the Uchiha to no end.

Good for him. Too bad for the blond, now trying to sit up with the support of shaky elbows, previously unfocused eyes fixing to glare at his face, as Naruto asked, voice roughed with lust, “Why'd you stop?”

Instead of answering, Sasuke swept his own dark gaze down between Naruto's uncovered legs, regarding the blond's cock, precum dripping freely from the tip, with a mixture of unadulterated lust and amusement. The dark-haired shinobi didn't smirk or chuckle at what he saw, but he might as well have, because the husky, mock-pleasant tone of his voice suggested as much as he inquired, “Did you miss me that much, Naruto?”

He was rewarded with a blush on those delightful whiskered cheeks for his troubles. “Bastard,” Naruto bit out in reply, kicking upwards with a force that sent the blond's orange pants flying completely off his legs and in the general direction of Sasuke's torso, “Quit ogling me and come over here!”

Being a ninja, of course, the Uchiha easily dodged the crudely launched projectile. The pants went smack against the dish rack instead, summarily landing on the kitchen sink. He quirked an eyebrow at his best friend, and smirking, threw back, “Why should I?”

“Sasuke!” Naruto growled, and for a brief moment, the Kyuubi inside the blond seemed to resurface as blue eyes flickered red with chakra and the whisker marks on the sides of his face widened, the inky black seal on the blond jounin's belly standing out against the flushed skin. Then it was gone, as if it was but a mere trick of the light, and there lay Naruto as he normally was, sans most of his clothing, looking very pissed.

Suddenly the blond smirked, eyes narrowing craftily as if an idea has just occurred to the young man, shifted his upper body so that most of the weight rested on his left elbow, and, lifting his now unencumbered right hand, began stroking his own weeping erection with it.

It took all of four strokes before Sasuke at last gave in, body hunching over the blond shinobi's form once again. He started where he'd left off kissing just above the area where Naruto was evidently a natural blond, left hand grasping the hand that the smaller jounin leisurely yet firmly pumped himself with. And then, partly to indirectly apologize for teasing him, partly because Sasuke wanted to torture the dobe even more, the Uchiha bent further down, drawing both of their hands out of the way, gave a swift lick up the engorged head of Naruto's penis, and took the throbbing length inside his mouth.

Naruto yelped the first instant Sasuke's tongue touched the throbbing underside of his cock, then whimpered and bucked his hips urgently forward as the raven-haired jounin began to suck.

And suck hard Sasuke did, thoroughly enjoying the sounds the blond jounin was making. He bobbed his head up and down Naruto's swollen dick, and made a feral noise at the back of his throat as a set of fingers twisted themselves in his hair, prompting him to move faster, to take the blond's length even deeper down his throat. Sasuke looked up, wanting to see Naruto's face as he swallowed around the needy organ, and was pleasantly surprised to find the jounin looking back through heavy-lidded eyes, breath coming in short, shallow huffs that were both irresistibly cute and arousing at the same time.

There must have been something similarly evocative in the Uchiha's face as well, as apparently the sight of Sasuke sucking him off proved to be too much for the self-proclaimed future Hokage to handle. Naruto came, cock twitching, shooting load after load of warm spunk inside the Sharingan user's mouth.

Sasuke swallowed every drop, relishing the salty-bitter taste of Naruto's semen on his tongue. Do I taste the same? he wondered idly to himself, just before he felt Naruto's hands urgently coaxing him upwards once again, guiding his face to his, and soon they were back to kissing each other, wetly and hotly and with no finesse whatsoever, Naruto eagerly tasting himself on Sasuke's mouth as his body still trembled and hummed in the afterglow of release.

“Cheater,” Naruto mumbled lazily against the dark-haired jounin's lips when the spasms finally subsided.

Sasuke threaded gloved fingers through his hair. “Look who's talking.”

The blond chuckled wryly at this, and pulled the Uchiha even closer, tanned arms winding around the taller man's back. Only then did the dobe appear to realize that while he himself was practically naked, Sasuke was still very much clothed, and immediately resolved to rectify the situation. “Take your clothes off,” Naruto ordered, tugging at the taller shinobi's black overshirt.

“Hn.” Smirking inwardly, Sasuke immediately complied, discarding the fleeting though of teasing the blond some more. He'd been too focused on pleasuring Naruto to notice before, but now that the fair-haired shinobi mentioned it, Sasuke found the rough fabric on his skin uncomfortably tight and confining. He quickly pulled his shirt up over his head, throwing it somewhere (probably a cupboard) behind him. His hands caught up to where Naruto's own were busily working on his pants, which didn't come off as smoothly as planned because the kunai holster on his left thigh hot in the way. The trousers slid to the floor with a thump, followed soon by his underwear, and Sasuke hurriedly kicked them away. The cool air hitting his aching cock felt like a blessing; Naruto's hands reaching over to fondle it playfully almost enough to send him over the edge. Sasuke groaned instead, and mustered sufficient willpower to strip off his forehead protector and the gloves and bandaged covering his forearms as the blond shinobi went on jerking him off relentlessly.

Now fully naked, he bent back down to lick across Naruto's chest, coaxing the other man's hands to quicken their movements. Sasuke felt himself begin to shudder with each stroke.

Close. Breath hitching, his eyes slid shut. “N-naruto--”

A wayward finger brushed across the weeping tip of his organ. That was all the help Sasuke needed. White imploded behind his eyes, a brief yet welcome oblivion, and somewhere between that and the blood pounding in his ears he was dimly aware that he'd spent himself in Naruto's hands.

He felt the shinobi stir beneath him a heartbeat later. Sasuke groggily opened his eyes in time to see the blond licking the cum off his fingers, pale brows furrowed thoughtfully in apparent concentration. Then, noticing the Uchiha's eyes upon him, Naruto declared, “You really do taste like chocolate milk.”

Not exactly expecting that comment, Sasuke found himself blinking. “Mm?”

“Well, you do,” the blond jounin insisted. “The first time you kissed me, for real, your mouth--” at this the dobe abruptly stopped, as if remembering just what that same mouth had been doing to him minutes before.

Sasuke immediately discovered that Naruto's blush extended just barely past his nipples. That, and the fact that the blond had begun to reharden between their cum-drenched stomachs. “Mm-hm,” the Uchiha absently agreed.” He was about to attempt nuzzling his best friend's collarbone, pushing what remained of Naruto's yellow t-shirt that hid anything even higher up and out of the way, when said blond began to snicker.

“Man, I must really be that good,” the Kyuubi vessel remarked, pulling the sweat-soaked shirt over his head and thereby undressing himself completely. “You haven't formed a semi-coherent word since I gave you that last-minute hand job.”

Sasuke smirked. “Not a chance, usuratonkachi,” the dark-haired shinobi swiftly contradicted, speaking as clearly as his sex-hoarsened voice could allow. “Try again.” He bit lightly on the newly exposed flesh between the blond jounin's neck and left shoulder to emphasize his point.

Naruto's right hand crept back down, tracing a hipbone. “Is that a challenge, bastard?”

Now he felt his own cock begin to reharden between their cum-drenched stomachs. “What do you think?”

The blond's face broke out into a somewhat-strained grin. “We should move this-- ah... s-someplace else, is what I think,” Naruto replied, driven a bit off-track by Sasuke's tongue lingering on the pressure point below his throat.

The Uchiha inhaled deeply. “The bedroom, then?”

They moved, or rather Sasuke moved, Naruto falling into step behind him, and tried to ignore the pinprickles he was feeling that indicated the blond's blue eyes roving over his naked body, checking him out. Making sure that they were at a respectful distance from each other (somehow they both knew that they wouldn't make it to the bedroom door if they so much as brushed the tips of their fingers against the other's own), they took the four or five strides needed to reach Naruto's bedroom. The dobe, ever careless, had left the bedroom door ajar, and so it was a simple matter of walking in.

Naruto pounced on him the moment his left foot went past the door frame. They tumbled, conveniently, right on the bed, obviously unmade since Naruto left it this morning (and other mornings before, no doubt); Sasuke flat on his back, the blond shinobi on his stomach right above him. Sometime during their fall they'd ended up kissing each other again, and to Sasuke that felt nice. Their erect cocks rubbed against each other, and that felt nice, too.

Their hands were everywhere, touching, exploring each other's bodies eagerly. When his fingers brushed the crack of Naruto's ass, the blond shivered, and kissed him even harder. Encouraged, he began to tease around the hole, gently coaxing the blond's legs even further apart. He just had enough presence of mind to grope with his other hand for the tub of petroleum jelly he'd noticed on top of the drawer by the bed, back when he'd retrieved the shirt for Naruto to wear. His hand encountered the back of Naruto's hand, instead, where the Kyuubi vessel's stubby fingers held the opaque jar securely.

They broke apart for air and stared at each other.

“Hand it over,” Sasuke panted, trying to pry the lubricant from Naruto's fingers.

“Nope,” Naruto glibly replied, and gripped the small container even more tightly in his fist. “I'm topping you tonight.”

The Uchiha fixed him a glare. “Naruto...”

“Sasuke...” The blond glared back.

Chakra flared. Auras clashed.

Sasuke looked over the blond's shoulder. “Hey, is that a picture of Gaara in a bunny suit?”

“Wha--?” Naruto followed his line of vision. “Where?”

Smirking his smirkiest smirk of the evening, Sasuke effortlessly wrested the jar of petroleum jelly from the distracted shinobi's hand. “Right here,” the raven-haired jounin announced, nimbly unscrewing the lid and dipping his fingers in, “Dobe.”

“You cheating bastard,” Naruto grumbled as the Uchiha inserted one well-lubricated finger into the blond's anus. The Kyuubi vessel looked as if he was about to say more, but didn't get to do so, because Sasuke had instantly located Naruto's prostate after a bit of probing, and proceeded to rub it with his fingertip. Naruto let out a strangled moan.

Sasuke went on stimulating the patch of nerves inside the smaller man, withdrawing his index finger after a while only to re-enter with two, and later three fingers. Naruto's anus greedily sucked them in, a tight, pulsing heat around the slicked appendages, the blond's moans steadily growing louder and more needful each time they struck home.

Unable to take it anymore, the Uchiha abruptly pulled his fingers out, and hurriedly smeared a plentiful amount of lube over his own straining erection. Naruto's breath whistled between clenched teeth at the sudden loss of contact, hips instinctively pushing back to chase after the moist digits. Sasuke took this as an opportunity to prop the blond's torso upright, so that Naruto half-knelt, half-sat atop him, straddling his waist, buttocks hovering a hair's breadth or two above his leaking organ.

“Naruto,” he found himself calling out softly, urgently, to the blond.

“Sasuke-temee...”

The cock tip nudged against the dobe's ass apparently giving said idiot shinobi a hint of what the Sharingan user silently pleaded him to do, Naruto complied, easing himself down on Sasuke's cock. It was a smooth, liquid slide, an action marked by their sudden sharp intakes of breath.

Hot. Trembling, sticky fingers settled over the blond man's thighs. Tight. As tight as he remembered, back when he took Naruto for the first time. Naruto. His dobe.

His.

He must have said it out loud, because he heard the blond reply shakily, “Yes...”

The world swam back in to focus, and there Naruto was, sitting atop him, tanned legs spread, the blond's own cock jutting proudly as he took Sasuke to the root. Another second passed and they both began moving, neither of them bothering to go at it slowly from the start. Naruto bounced on top of him, raising himself a few inches but never quite abandoning Sasuke's erection, then quickly sliding back down, each movement creating the blessed friction no hand could ever hope to replace. The Uchiha responded by thrusting his hips upward, forcing his organ as deeply up inside Naruto's ass as he could with each redescent.

Both of the blond's eyes were squeezed shut, but his mouth was open, panting and constantly releasing lust-filled cries as Sasuke hit his prostate again and again. Sasuke's own eyes were open and quite alert, deep crimson with triplicate ebony shards observing Naruto and little else, committing the blond jounin's every movement, every expression, to mind.

The bed springs creaked beneath them. The bed thumped solidly against the wall. Sasuke barely noticed, frankly didn't care, at the moment concerned only with fucking his blond ex-team-mate so thoroughly that it looked like he was trying to buck the smaller man off of him, while Naruto frantically rode his cock, the blond's powerful leg muscles clenching and unclenching under his palms. Naruto's fingers twisted already rumpled sheets from where they were propped on either side of the man he'd mounted.

Further up, sweat beaded on the blond's forehead, one such droplet threatening to slide down the bridge of his nose. Sasuke lifted a hand and hastily wiped it away.

Naruto's eyes fluttered open at the contact, ocean blue orbs pulling him in, drowning him in their depths.

“Sasuke!” the blond shouted as release overtook him, muscles spasming relentlessly around the Uchiha's rigid shaft, coaxing Sasuke to come as well, a single grunt escaping pale, parted lips. Naruto had stopped moving, slumping bonelessly over the taller shinobi's seed-soaked chest, but Sasuke kept snapping his hips up, brutal, forceful thrusts as his cock sprayed Naruto's inner walls with his semen.

Eventually he did slow down, grinding to a complete halt moments later, limbs relaxed and fully spent. They lay there for countless moments, catching their breaths, Sasuke's now-soft dick still buried to the hilt inside Naruto, the blond breathing hard against his neck.

“Darn,” Naruto mumbled after a while, voice softly musing, dancing just beyond the precipice of sleep, “I let you screw me again.” Absently he nuzzled Sasuke's throat. “And I wanted to be the one on top, this time.”

Sasuke chuckled briefly. “You are on top,” he pointed out, drawing soothing circles on the blond jounin's lower back with the pad of his thumb.

Above him, Naruto began to purr. “That's not what I meant, and you know it,” the Kyuubi vessel declared without much conviction, relaxing visibly into his touch.

“Hn.” Love you.

Sasuke sighed. Briefly he considered saying it out loud, but quickly decided against it in the end.

Not yet.

The dobe, dense as he was, should figure it out for himself eventually. Sasuke would make sure he got plenty of chances to... put two and two together, so to speak.

Smiling to himself, he continued to lazily run his hands over Naruto's back, feeling happier and more content than he'd ever been for a long time.

Yes, plenty of chances.

They really ought to be rolling off of each other in a few minutes' time, clean themselves up before the cum dried and glued them together. For now, however, for just a little while longer, Sasuke savored the feel of Naruto's warm, sated body against his own.

“Oi, Sasuke...” The words, whispered sleepily against his throat, still held a note of urgency about it that gave the Uchiha pause.

“Yes?” the raven-haired shinobi prompted carefully. What is he going to say? The hands on Naruto's back drew to halt as Sasuke tilted his head to regard the blond properly.

But Naruto was already asleep.

x x x

Two days later, just about...

x x x

Hatake Kakashi couldn't believe his eyes.

“I do apologize if I'm interrupting you in anyway,” Umino Iruka was saying, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, “But Sasuke asked me to deliver this to you before I saw him and Naruto off to that mission in Tea Country. They'll be away for a good couple of weeks, as you well know, and Sasuke wanted you to have it as soon as possible.”

That said, the younger genin instructor presented the latest copy of Icha Icha Paradise (Double Issue! Full-Color Poster Inside!) into Kakashi's waiting hands.

The silver-haired jounin examined the paper-bound volume, gloved fingers stroking the cover reverently. He was dimly aware of Iruka observing his actions with a sweatdrop an eyebrow twitching steadily at his behavior, and while the copy nin frankly didn't care about what most other people thought of him, he decided that at this moment, for the sake of his younger, less-worldly colleague, appearances had to be kept. Kakashi coughed, swiftly hid the dirty book out of Iruka's and anyone else's sight, and mumbled, politely enough, “Thanks.”

Wait a minute.

Sasuke sent this? Kakashi's one regular eye blinked at the absurdity. Then that means... the last person who broke into the store to steal the copy I reserved...

“Kakashi, are you alright?” Iruka inquired, noticing the thoughtful, mildly surprised look on his face.

Making a mental note to make his former student account for such travesty later, the copy nin shook his head assuredly at the other man.

Hell, it was weird. As far as he knew, Sasuke (fortunately or unfortunately) had never acquired his taste for porn. Not that the Icha Icha series could be labeled anything so base and simple as 'porn', oh, no.

Take this current issue, for example. Apart from the main story, there are also pages covering an interview with the star of the upcoming movie, Icha Icha Violence, a nice selection of anecdotes about bath-house 'incidents', not to mention an illustrated, heavily detailed guide to gay sex. Surely, nothing this diverse and education should be labeled porn!

“Y-yes... Whatever you say, Kakashi-san,” Iruka agreed carefully, regarding him with a decidedly odd, cautious look.

The copy nin blinked, again. “Did I just say that out loud?”

The genin instructor appeared to think about answering for a while before declaring, “You did.”

“Oh.”

Now it was Iruka's turn to cough. “Anyway, I think I should be g--”

“But why don't you join me at Ichiraku's for a while?” Kakashi offered casually, cutting the younger man off. “My treat, of course.” He smiled beneath his mask.

If possible, Iruka's odd, disbelieving look grew even odder. “Well, I suppose it's ok...”

“Good, good,” Kakashi nodded happily. A little celebration was, indeed, the order of the day. “Let's go then, shall we, Iruka-sensei?”

“Hai. Let's go.” He thought he saw the man blush for a second, but Kakashi dismissed it, turning to face the street beyond.

And with that, the two men walked to the ramen shop together.

x x x

The End

x x x