Chapter Text
Naruto stuck out his foot, almost sliding off the edge of his seat, trying to reach for Sasuke. Just barely closing the distance, Naruto nudged the others thigh with the toe of his beat up sneaker. And nudged again. And again. His efforts, however, were in vain, as Sasuke resolutely focused on his laptop screen in front of him, seemingly unaffected by Naruto’s prodding. From the other side of the table, Naruto huffed in annoyance, and renewed his efforts, this time truly coming close to falling off his chair in an attempt to kick at Sasuke.
Still not looking away from the monitor in front of him, Sasuke reached down and swatted away Naruto’s foot. “What,” Sasuke whispered through gritted teeth, “do you want , dumbass. We’re in the library.”
Having captured Sasuke’s attention at last, Naruto straightened up and leaned forward, pushing his phone across the table to rest in front of Sasuke. Finally tearing his eyes away from the essay in front of him, Sasuke picked up the phone to read the email on Naruto’s screen.
‘Call for heterosexual or homosexual monogamous couples for independent student psychology lab study on Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis. Couples are required to have been together romantically for a minimum one month to qualify for experiment parameters. Participants will be rewarded with $25.00 apiece upon successful completion of the study, as funded by the Faculty of Science Department of Psychology Graduate Studies.’
Sasuke looked up at Naruto slowly, mistrust in his eyes. “Naruto,” he deadpanned, “We are both embarrassingly single.”
Not missing a beat, Naruto grinned back at him. “Yeah. But we could pretend to be dating each other.”
Naruto leant back into his seat, grin still plastered across his face, the assignment in front of him long neglected. “Think about it, Sasuke. We’ve known each other since we were like twelve, and we’re best friends. That’s basically the equivalent of dating, yknow?”
Sasuke turned his attention back to his essay, staring at the words in front of him without really reading anything. His eyes flicked back to Naruto, who was still looking at him, waiting for a response. “It’s not. It is definitely not the equivalent of dating.”
Naruto snickered. “Maybe not, like, actually the equivalent in real life, but for their experiment or whatever, it’s literally the same. They’ll probably just ask us some questions about each other or things that are like kinda personal or whatever. I’ll lie and say you have great dick game, and it’ll be all good. Psychology experiment: finessed.” Naruto proclaimed.
Sasuke’s face slipped into a deeper scowl with every word Naruto said. Noticing the grimace on his face, Naruto scrambled to sweeten the deal. “Twenty five bucks a piece, Sasuke. Come on. That’s, like. Twenty burgers. Ten bobas. Twenty five buckaroonies. All we would need to do is answer a couple dumb questions.” Naruto paused, considering Sasuke’s still dark expression. “Come on, Sasuke, I’d never ask anyone else to do this kind of stupid shit with me. I’d never ask anyone else to fake date me. I’m asking YOU,” Naruto all but grovelled, jutting out his bottom lip and clasping his hands together. “Please, Sasuke? Will you fake go out with me?”
At this, Sasuke turned to look at Naruto again. Head propped up on one hand, he regarded him cooly, his face expressionless, save a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks. Naruto’s heartbeat picked up a bit from the undivided attention, but he ignored it, opting to stare right back into Sasuke’s eyes, hands still clasped in front of him.
“... Fine,” Sasuke relented. Naruto let out a silent cheer, bouncing up and down in his seat, and Sasuke scowled again. “But, if we get found out, this is all on you, dumbass.”
“Don’t you worry about that, it’ll be fineee, Sasuke, believe it!”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you help me edit this already, it’s due tomorrow.”
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