Chapter Text
He knew the exact day his obsession started, down to the moment.
Sasuke had only recently started school, and had thrown himself into his studies in an effort to try to advance quickly, to become the best and prove to Itachi that he was ready for serious training, that he could be trusted. It sort of backfired in that he forgot to try to make friends, and before he knew it everyone was already clinging to their new friend groups and he was all alone. Top of his class, but alone. He felt a bit hurt, then made the active choice to turn his hurt into feeling slighted, annoyance easier to deal with than the thought that maybe he was unlikeable, but it may have ended up making him unlikeable, or unapproachable at least. Whatever. He didn’t need friends anyways.
The day it started he’d been feeling just a bit self-pitying, biting his lip and looking around as the class struggled to pay attention to an especially dull lecture on the history of the kunai. He should be paying attention, but he knew this already, and Bekko-sensei wasn’t really…his favourite. He’s guessed this sensei was no one’s favourite, the kind of teacher who’d regularly send kids out in the hall or rap their hands with a ruler if they weren’t paying attention, which, er, he wasn’t. Still, he snapped to when a loud clack ran through the classroom, the telltale sign that Bekko-sensei had found a victim to his strict teaching-style.
“Pay attention!” Bekko-sensei snapped, and Sasuke let his eyes fall to the student he was screaming at, a blond boy curled over and clutching his hurt hand. “You’ll never succeed if you can’t make it through a mere thirty-minute lecture.”
“Maybe if you didn’t make it feel like thirty years!” the boy spat, raising his head defiantly and screaming in their sensei’s face. “Seriously, is this some kind of jutsu? Or is it normal for people forced to listen to you to want to kill themselves?”
Sasuke snorted involuntarily, before frantically stifling himself when Bekko-sensei whipped around to see who had laughed. He didn’t find Sasuke, but the boy next to him did, his eyes glittering with pleasure that someone had laughed at his antics. Sasuke looked away as soon as he met his eyes, feeling a strange surge in his gut at the attention. He glanced back again a moment later when Bekko-sensei went back to lecturing, a bit let-down that the boy was no longer looking at him. Huh.
His name was Uzumaki Naruto, and that incident wasn’t the last.
He was just…different. Sasuke couldn’t put his finger on what was so special about him, but he knew he was, and he couldn’t look away. It was annoying him that he found so much interest in Naruto, that his heart leapt when he interrupted class with whatever knew ploy for attention he was trying that day. Unfortunately his annoyance didn’t last, replaced instead by…weirdness. A squirming in his belly he’d never felt before, a blooming warmth that crawled up his chest and to his cheeks, a tingling when Sasuke passed Naruto a test and their hands brushed. Pain. It was…concerning.
“I think I’m sick.”
All conversation around dinner immediately stopped at Sasuke’s proclamation, cutlery clattering. His mother reached across the table to press a hand to Sasuke’s forehead, but he didn’t look up from where he was picking at his food.
“Why do you think that?” she asked gently. “Are you hurting anywhere?”
Sasuke frowned, abandoning his food to cross his arms over his stomach. “Yes.”
“Where’s the pain?” Itachi asked, moving over until he was kneeling down next to Sasuke. “We have some painkillers-”
Sasuke furiously shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt a lot right now. Just…when I think about it.”
From the corner of his eye he saw his parents exchange a look. He held his stomach tighter.
“Think about what?”
Sasuke bit his lip, his throat going dry. “Have you ever hurt thinking about someone before?”
His family exchanged another look, but it was remarkably less alarmed and more amused. Sasuke frowned harder because he was being serious!
“I don’t know,” his mother replied mildly. “How do you think about them?”
Sasuke sighed harshly, turning away to stare off into an abyss.
“Just…how they look. How they talk really big and move a lot. How they keep getting up and talking back even when everyone seems against them.”
“Oh?” Itachi asked, humour in his voice. “What else?”
“They’re cool,” Sasuke said immediately, his thoughts now attacking him. “Not in the normal way. Like, no one else thinks they’re cool but I do because they can do all sorts of tricks and even catch the sensei with them! Grown ninja!”
His audience made noises of interest, so Sasuke kept going, kept listing all the ways this particular person had somehow taken control of his thoughts and caused the pain in his chest.
“-and the pain is like- it’s like an ache. It hurts but it feels sorta drawn out, you know? And it feels deep.”
“Ah,” his mother finally said like she understood, putting her fist to her open hand. “I think I know what this is.”
“You do?”
“Yup,” she said solemnly, and leaned over once again to tweak his nose. “It’s a crush, Sasuke.”
Sasuke gawked, before leaning away to shake his head furiously, his cheeks a ridiculous colour. “No, it’s not!”
“It is,” his brother affirmed.
“No!” He couldn’t meet anyone’s eye. “It can’t be! It hurts way too bad for something like that. A crush is supposed to be like what the girls pretend to have - just dumb and petty. This doesn’t feel like that at all- oh!”
Sasuke straightened up, considering a new horror that he gradually grew to realize was the only explanation. It fit all his symptoms.
“I’m in love,” he said bleakly, then looked back into the abyss.
“You’re six.”
It was his father’s only contribution to the conversation, but Sasuke couldn’t care about that. He simply shook his head.
“I’m in love. It’s the only explanation.”
“Sasuke…eat your rice.”
Food? At a time like this? They must be joking.
But Sasuke ate even though it was tasteless, sighing as he did. He was doing a lot of sighing lately, he realized, and mournfully added it to his list of symptoms.
***
“Hey, you’re Sasuke, right?”
Was he? He couldn’t remember suddenly with Naruto in his face, a cute pout and wide eyes staring up at him with suspicion and a bad attitude. Too late, he realized Naruto wanted a response, but he couldn’t force the words out and now Naruto was glaring, pulling away to roll his eyes and flash him a rude gesture before simply wandering off.
“He hates me,” Sasuke gushed the second he got home, running to his mother to share such a devastating turn of events. “He hates me.”
She listened docilely as he explained, the story taking three times as long than the actual confrontation and by the time he was done miserably recounting his failure dinner was ready and both his father and brother were sitting at the table, eyeing Sasuke dubiously.
“-and now I don’t know what to do because he hates me.”
“…who?” Itachi dared ask, struggling to catch up.
Sasuke scowled. “Naruto, the…” he sighed, hating himself but pushing through, “the boy I’m in love with.”
His father said nothing even though his eyes got that distant quality, like he knew something ridiculous was about to happen and he could do nothing to stop it. Itachi looked genuinely confused.
“Sasuke,” Itachi chuckled, shaking his head. “You can’t have a crush on a boy.”
“Itachi,” his mother chimed delicately, but now his brother looked even more confused. His father tucked into his food.
Sasuke scowled. “I can’t help it. You think I want to feel like this? It’s awful.”
But also, now that Itachi said he couldn’t do something he really really wanted to do it.
So the next day he waited for Naruto by the academy swing, knowing this was where he frequented not because he was a stalker but because he was an excellent ninja-in-training and had great observation skills. He was going to speak to him today, because being afraid to just talk to someone was too much, but as the time ticked away and he felt his anxiety mount he realized he was going to say something stupid. Wait…he hadn’t even thought about what he was going to say! No wonder he was feeling so scared, he was going in unprepared! What kind of ninja was he?
“Oi, are you gonna use that swing or..?”
Sasuke jumped, whirling around with horrified eyes as the object of his affection announced himself, arms crossed and eyes annoyed.
“I…” But the words got clogged in his throat and nothing came out. Sasuke tried to swallow, but instead felt himself flushing and, horribly, near tears.
He ran away.
“Oh, Sasuke,” his mother sighed, sitting down next to him on the back porch where he’d confessed his recent failure, struggling not to cry. “Why don’t you try writing him a letter instead?”
***
His mother was an absolute genius.
It had taken hours of work and about thirty different drafts but in the end he had a semi-presentable love confession written in the neatest characters he could manage. It was respectable and honest and he was definitely, definitely going to sign it. Yup.
(He didn’t sign it.)
He left it on Naruto’s swing under a rock so it wouldn’t blow away, then scurried over to the bush across the swing when he saw him show. He waited with bated breath as Naruto approached, inspected the rock dubiously, and finally picked up the folded letter and opened it up.
Dear Uzumaki Naruto,
I think you’re a very cool person. I like the way you stand up to sensei and your cool hair. Please be my friend.
…so maybe the letter wasn’t poetry or anything, but it did get right to the point.
Yet Naruto didn’t seem to like it, his face twisting horribly as he inspected the letter before he crumpled it in his hands, throwing it down to the ground and stomping on it. Sasuke felt like he’d just done the same to his heart.
He stumbled home in a daze, unable to process the depths his soul had sunk to, the level of despair slowly descending over him.
“Welcome back,” his father called out when Sasuke made it home. “Your mother is at an appointment and won’t be home until later.”
He followed the sound of his father’s voice through sheer instinct, then froze in the door-frame leading to the kitchen where his father was sitting at the table, scrolls laid out in front of him. He looked up at Sasuke’s approach, but when Sasuke didn’t say anything neither did he, yet he didn’t look away, just crossed his arms and eyed Sasuke pointedly.
Then, horribly, Sasuke was crying.
“He ripped it up,” he hiccuped, clutching at the door-frame. He shouldn’t cry in front of his father, not for real, but he couldn’t help it. He’d poured his soul into that letter and Naruto had just tossed it away like it was trash.
His father grimaced, but didn’t scold him. “Who ripped up what?”
Sasuke whimpered and approached, kneeling next to his father as the story fell out of him. In retrospect it sounded pathetic, and he was starting to feel ashamed the longer the story got, but he couldn’t help it. No one had ever broken his heart like this before.
“Sasuke…” his father sighed once he had nothing more to say, “maybe Naruto doesn’t know how to read?”
Sasuke opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“He’s only six,” his dad explained. “Not everyone learns at the same pace, and that’s okay. I don’t think he’d react like that if he was able to read your…letter.”
“So he didn’t reject me,” Sasuke realized, and felt hope bloom in his chest (regardless of the noticeable cringe his father was struggling with), but then lowered his head in defeat as he continued that thought. “But that means he still doesn’t know how I feel.”
They lapsed into a miserable silence, where Sasuke contemplated if it was possible to die from being in love or if he’d have to suffer like this forever.
“Sasuke,” his father said firmly, and waited until Sasuke raised his head to meet his eyes properly. “If you’re serious about this then you can’t take half-measures. You need to confront Naruto clearly and directly, even if it’s scary. There is no other choice.”
“Wha- I can’t do that!”
“Yes, you can,” his father ordered, voice stern but not unkind. “If you want something badly enough then you need to find the courage to seek it out. It’s the only way, Sasuke. Be brave.”
Sasuke bit his lip, struggling with himself as his father stared him down. It was still so scary, so daunting to imagine going right up to Naruto and just saying it out loud, but rarely did his father speak like this and he couldn’t help but be taken in. His dad was recognizing this as something that mattered to him and was giving him real advice instead of just kid-advice, and suddenly Sasuke felt emboldened. His dad believed he could do it, believed in his abilities, so…
“I’m going to do it,” Sasuke said seriously, and his father met his severe nod with one of his own before turning back to his scrolls.
Sasuke got to his feet, fists clenching at his side as he suddenly had too much energy.
“I’m going to tell Naruto I’m in love with him,” he proclaimed, and ignored how his father raised a hand to rub at the crease of his brow (poor dad, his work must be giving him a headache). “I’m going to go right back over to that damn swing and confess no matter what!”
“Good luck,” his father hummed. “Dinner’s at six, don’t be late.”
Sasuke huffed, running for his shoes with a burning fire in his heart and a single-minded purpose. He wouldn’t be late for dinner, and maybe, this time, he’d have good news to share.
***
“Uzumaki Naruto!”
Naruto yelped, leaping in the air off the swing and falling flat on the ground with a painful thud. Sasuke winced, but refused to stop his approach, burning with absolute purpose.
“W-whadya want?!” Naruto yelled, pointing accusingly as Sasuke approached, his eyes all squinty in his anger and perfectly complimenting the whisker marks on his cheeks-
“You!” Sasuke yelled, then faltered. “I-I mean- I need to talk to you!”
“For what?!” Naruto demanded, still yelling even though he hopped to his feet, meeting Sasuke’s implicit challenge with a fighting stance of his own. “I didn’t do anything to you!”
“Yes, you did!” Sasuke accused, then thought maybe leading this confession with how his heart hurt so bad he wanted to die whenever he thought about Naruto was perhaps too intense. “I mean, you didn’t, but I…okay let me try again.”
Naruto narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, crossing his arms. “Huh?”
God, he was adorable. Sasuke was going to die. Right now.
“I…think your hair is cool.”
It was, all spiky and wild like Uchiha hair could be but instead a vibrant blond.
“And I like how you stand up to Bekko-sensei.”
No way could Sasuke do something like that, terrified of getting into trouble when all he wanted to do was advance as fast as he could.
“And your pranks are amazing, almost like ninja traps.”
He’d caught every sensei they had with at least one of them and cackled all the while, like he didn’t care at all about being caught.
“You’re so brave and cool and weird a-and I really like you!”
No no, he’d said that wrong. Damn.
“Huh?” Naruto asked, but his voice was funny, a blend between anger and fear. “Stop teasing me!”
“I’m not teasing! I…I want to…”
What did he want again? He said he wanted Naruto to be his friend in the letter, and he definitely wanted that, but friend didn’t seem like enough to describe the burn in his heart. Sasuke frantically searched his mind. Partner? Spouse? The One? All of that seemed true, but none of that seemed accessible! He couldn’t walk up to a boy he’d only had a handful of conversations with and call him his ‘one and only’! Which left…
Sasuke frowned. He didn’t like the word for some reason (maybe because it was only used when the girls harassed him) but it was what fit best. Naruto would know what he meant at least.
“I want to be your boyfriend,” Sasuke declared solemnly, then cocked his own head as he reflected. “Uh, I want you to be my boyfriend? I don’t know how it works.”
Naruto’s jaw dropped, and Sasuke couldn’t help but squirm nervously, all his insecurities he’d thrown to the side returned when he realized there was nothing more he could do but wait for a response.
“That’s…that’s creepy,” Naruto eventually said, unsure. “Gross.”
Oh.
“R-right.”
All the passion, all the confidence and exhilaration he’d used to get him to that point, was suddenly gone. Sasuke felt the retreat in on himself, something that wasn’t hard considering the hole Naruto had just ripped in his chest. Of all the pain this feeling had brought him this was the worst, and now he knew he’d had a real reason to be scared. He felt weak, wanted the earth to open up and take him away from this cursed world, and before he knew it he was crying again.
“O-oi-!”
Sasuke heaved a breath, wrapping his arms around himself and taking a few steps back from where Naruto was looking at him in alarm, his hands raised as if to calm a wild animal.
“D-don’t cry, bastard! It’s no big deal-”
“Shut up!” Sasuke yelled, but yelling just made him cry harder. “I’m not crying. Whatever. This was stupid.”
He turned to leave, needing to get away as far as he could but Naruto stopped him, grabbing his arm to hold him there.
“W-wait! Uh, did you mean it?” Naruto gasped, giving Sasuke a shake. “Do you actually like me?”
“Of course I meant it!” Sasuke scolded. “Why would I go to all this trouble just to lie?”
“To bully me,” Naruto said simply, gesturing harshly. “To get my hopes up and then laugh at me when I believe it.”
“Who would do that?” Sasuke scoffed, then paused. “If someone did that Naruto I’ll beat them up.”
“Because you like me.”
Sasuke scowled. “Yes, idiot, because I like you.”
“Oh.”
Sasuke sniffled, and wiped at his eyes with his free hand, unwilling to wrench away from where Naruto was holding him even though he thought being here any longer was going to cause heart damage. Naruto licked his lips, looking Sasuke up and down before stopping on his pout.
“Okay,” he nodded, and pulled away. “But I get to be the boyfriend, and in return you have to be my friend.”
Sasuke’s heart leapt. “What?”
Naruto hummed, his face doing that adorable squint again as he thought. “What do boyfriends even do, though?”
“They go out,” Sasuke explained, since that was all he really knew. “Ah, but we can’t do that because I don’t have any money.”
“I have money!” Naruto exclaimed, his eyes sparkling.
“You do?”
“Yup! But only really at the beginning of the month so we have to go then.”
“Oh…” Sasuke whispered, suddenly bashful. “Okay.”
Naruto nodded, like he’d figured something out. “It’s a good thing I’m the boyfriend, since I’m the only one with money.”
Sasuke scrunched up his nose. “Does that me the girlfriend?”
“Yup!”
“Gross. I don’t want to be the girlfriend.”
“That’s how it works!”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yuh huh!”
Sasuke frowned. “No, and if you’re my boyfriend you have to agree with me.”
“What?!” Naruto gasped. “No way!”
“Yes way.”
“Aw, come on-”
***
Sasuke made it home for six-o’clock dinner by the skin of his teeth, but didn’t feel anxious around being late at all. He felt like he was floating, taking off his shoes and joining his family at the dinner table with deliberate movements, his cheeks a bit flushed and his eyes sparkling.
“Did you have a good day, Sasuke?” his mother asked, chuckling at his strange attitude.
Sasuke blinked, and looked around the dinner table at his family, grinning at his mother and Itachi’s amused confusion before settling on his father’s characteristic stoicism.
His father quirked a brow. “How did it go?”
Then Sasuke was launching himself at his father with a squeal, ignoring his mother’s scolding as he almost upended dinner.
“Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!”
His father grunted in surprise, one arm supporting Sasuke where he’d attacked him while the other quickly caught the dishes he’d almost tipped over.
“Don’t waste food,” he scolded, but gave Sasuke a few pats before putting him down and gesturing for him to return to his place at the table. Sasuke did what he was told because his father was very wise and taking his advice had just gotten him a boyfriend.
“Naruto’s my boyfriend!” he cried, buzzing where he sat. “I just did it! Like you said dad I went right up to him and just said what I felt and when he believed me he agreed! He’s going to take me out!”
While his father’s face was very carefully blank at his news, his mother clapped her hands, happy for him even though it looked like there was an edge to her smile that she oh-so carefully turned on his father.
Itachi just looked shocked. “‘Take you out,’ like, kill you?” he asked.
Sasuke scowled. “No. Like a boyfriend. On a date.”
“You gave him boyfriend advice?” his mother teased, directed at his father.
He cleared his throat, and took a sip of miso. “I just told him to be honest. I didn’t predict such a…fortuitous outcome.”
“Sasuke,” Itachi snorted, his eyebrows in his hairline as he shook his head. “You can’t date a boy.”
Sasuke scowled, because he’d just had an incredibly long argument about this exact topic. “Yes, I can.”
“That’s not how it works,” Itachi explained delicately, giving him a small smile like Sasuke was just a kid.
He rolled his eyes. “What, like you know how it works with all your successful dates? Where’s your girlfriend, Itachi?”
His mother pressed a hand to her mouth in a way Sasuke knew she was stifling a laugh, and he shot her a triumphant grin.
“He can have a boyfriend if he wants, Itachi,” she said after a moment, deciding to direct her eyes down to her food. “No harm done.”
“That’s debatable,” his brother argued, then flicked his eyes around the table like he couldn’t believe what was happening, like he was the only sane person there. “You can’t marry a boy.”
Sasuke opened his mouth to argue more, only for the idea of marriage to get all stuck in his head, and the floaty feeling came back.
He gasped. “Mom, dad, if I marry Naruto could he live with us?!”
That would be so cool! He had plenty of space in his room for another bed and he didn’t mind sharing his toys. They could build pillow forts and study together and do all sorts of things. Though, now that he thought about it, Naruto did snore when he napped in class, and that could get annoying…
“You’re too young to get married,” his father said sternly, but couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Aw, what? No fair…”
“But when you’re older,” his mother teased, “you could buy your own home and you and Naruto could live there together if you wanted. You could paint it whatever colour you wanted and maybe get that cat you’ve always begged me for, eh Sasuke?”
Sasuke gasped, the comment reaffirming something he already knew; he really needed to grow up.
“You can’t-” Itachi tried again, before shaking his head when Sasuke gave him a fierce glare blended with maybe just a smidgen of hurt. He pressed his hands to his face, then sighed.
“Fine,” he declared, like he was at all an authority figure in this conversation, “you can have a boyfriend.”
Sasuke cheered.