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Sasuke was a lonely boy. He had no one and nobody to share his grief as well as misery. Each night that little boy had to swallow his tears alone.
After seven years:-
(Sasuke and Naruto are thirteen years old)
Even sasuke himself had not realised what the blonde haired nine tails jinchuriki had meant to him until the moment his life was threatened as both were stuck inside ice barrier and naruto was about to be impaled by a barrage of senbon needles which would surely make him bleed to death.
Without thinking of another moment sasuke dove right before Naruto and gets impaled by the needles.
He was prepared to die for a boy he had hated almost all of his life.
Naruto opens his eyes to see sasuke standing before him shielding him from the needles thrown by Haku, the masked enemy who had trapped them inside the barrier.
Sasuke falls into Naruto's arms and says one last line before he will departed from this world.
"I hated you..." coughs up blood
"Had not even...killed him."
Naruto dared to hope with his naive heart that he was fine that they'd get through this but sasuke fell limp in his arms his heart broke.
He scowled.
'How dare anyone least of all a shinobi who hides behind a mask take Sasuke from him?'
Naruto looks behind, eyes widening as he sees Sasuke's unharmed state, his heavy heart settles.
Naruto had not yet fully grasped the thought of someone close to him dying but something in him knew that if Sasuke dies, he would never recover. The beast inside him just might uncoil to destroy the hope which against all odds resides in him.
Of love.
Of belonging.
But none of it matters if he isn't there.
If he doesn't cheer.
_______
Naruto had wide eyes and looked around with a frown when he saw that no one was there at the meeting spot which Kakashi sensei had told him to come at with that lazy smirk of his.
A few moments later, sounds of light footsteps arrogant in their surety were heard and who else could it be but Uchiha Sasuke.
Sasuke walked like he owned the place, hands in his pockets, back straight and his lips curled as he saw Naruto's frowning face.
"What are you doing here, dobe?" He asks as settling down on the remains of a dead and fallen tree, taking out his knife to sharpen it, barely sparing Naruto a glance.
Naruto's mood soured and he scowl, angry at being treated like this by him, "Teme! What are you doing here?!"
Sasuke jolts a little, Naruto doesn't notice and goes back to sharpening his knife after barely glancing at Naruto.
To his words sasuke replied with nothing more than a sound of acknowledgement: "Hn...?"
This agitated him even more and as he got up in sasuke's face.
Sasuke pushed Naruto against the tree and said, "What do you want,.loser?"
Sasuke's eyes were wide, breath short and pulse racing.
'Why must he—?' But he doesn't get to finish the thought as Naruto shouts at him, hands reaching out to shove Sasuke off.
____
Sasuke scowls, an ache developing in his forehead, making it hard to even think and Naruto didn't know that he was the cause of this.
Sasuke's free hand shoots up to cover Naruto's mouth, the other took this chance to shove him away which made Sasuke fall down.
Sasuke's eyes were wide, mouth gaping open like a fish and Naruto goes into a fit of giggles.
"Ha! Look at you! Teme! Fell down! Like a fish! He he..."
Sasuke snarls, still disoriented from his headache pulls down Naruto and the other crashes into him.
He shrieks, limbs flaring as he is pulled by the Uchiha.
Teeths graze each other, lips clash together in an ungrateful heap as though toddlers practicing how to kiss.
"Teme!" Naruto says, eyes gaping in horror, shivering in disgust at the sensation and his face flushes red.
'Eww! I touched this teme's dirty lips again, dattebayo!'
Sasuke wipes at his mouth with a scowl, gets up in a flash and becomes unsteady on his feet. Looking as though he's about to fall down like a sickly maiden in front of the male lead.
Naruto catches him before he can trip over the tree branch.
"Sasuke! You feel hot!" He shouts in concern.
Eventually, Kakashi sensei and Sakura get there, Sasuke gets a holiday for the fever which had overtaken him as Naruto tries to supress them coiling in his heart, twinges of pain which could've been mistaken for concern but we're nothing like it—At least that's what Naruto wishes to believe.
_____
"Teme!"
"Dobe!"