Chapter Text
Chapter 19:
“Sasuke!”
Naruto forgoes his mark to rush towards his co-captain. The giant center from the other team had slapped the ball out of Sasuke’s grasp and turned fast enough that his elbow caught the raven in the face. There’s blood and Naruto is seeing red again. It seeps through Sasuke’s fingers as he hold his nose and Naruto is losing his rational.
“You fucking asshole!” Naruto bellows, rage ignited in his blue eyes. “Your strategy is to take out the team?! If there’s no team than you win!?” Naruto is fighting against the arms that have grabbed him from behind. “You’re not a fucking basketball player! Fucking apologize to him!”
The coach is pushing a white cloth against Sasuke’s face, the raven wincing somewhat as he uses bloodied hands to hold the cloth in place.
“Dude. Chill!”
It’s Kiba, but Naruto doesn’t pay him any mind. He’d much rather tear the other team’s center to shreds. The brunet is struggling to keep a hold on him, and Naruto hopes it slips so he can get at least one good hit on the motherfucker who’s looking down his nose at him.
“Accidents happen.” The boy states before his lips quirk up in a small smirk.
Naruto feels feral. With new found strength, he tears out of Kiba’s grip and is about to destroy the piece of shit in front of him when he hears someone call out his name.
“He’s not worth being kicked off the team, idiot.”
Bright blue eyes ablaze with far too many emotions meet a deep black. Sasuke’s still holding the white cloth to his face. It’s more red than white at this point and not helping Naruto’s mood any.
“But—“ He starts off before he reads Sasuke’s emotions more thoroughly.
The co-captain is pissed. Neji, who is right behind him, is equally as mad. It manages to cool the flames Naruto can feel eating him up from the inside. Sasuke should be the angry one. Naruto knows why he got so angry, but it isn’t something he really wants to admit at the moment, so he relaxes his muscles. Kiba stumbles, using Naruto’s shoulder to catch himself. Naruto meets his best friend’s gaze and offers a small apology that the other waves away.
“So, Uchiha holds your reins. Interesting.”
Naruto clenches his hands at his sides, trying to suppress the urge to deck the big center that’s walking away. It’s not fair. How can the refs be that bloody blind? Taking deep breaths the calm down, he listens to Sasuke answer questions for the coach, Neji interjecting his own opinions. The game starts back up and Naruto spends half his attention on watching the coach bristle as he talks to Orochimaru. Something tells him that he’s not getting too far.
“Can you afford not to have your head in the game?”
The words barely meet his ears before he comes into full body contact with his mark. A whistle meets his ears and Naruto is just about ready to snap again.
“Charging! Green, number twenty-two.”
Shutting his eyes, Naruto takes a couple of breaths to calm down. When he opens them he finds a hand in his face. He looks up to see Neji.
“Do you want to switch marks?”
Naruto blinks. Neji looks like he’s annoyed, but Naruto doesn’t think that it’s his fault.
“But you’re the point guard…”
“And you’ve run into three fouls against your mark. Mine hasn’t been doing any of that garbage. I just want to get through this game.”
Naruto can hear the irritation in Neji’s voice. This game is a bust. Lee was moved to play center. And Keita was put into the game. The guy looked stressed. It was almost comical. Lee danced around the other team’s center with a grace Sasuke had lacked. He was being driven to the hospital to get his nose checked out. Konoha was up by so many points, it didn’t really matter. The longer this match went on, however, the more bruises their team seemed to uncover.
“I’m sorry.” Naruto turned away, looking dejected.
Neji let out a breath that added on to Naruto’s stress.
“I’m not mad. I just… was expecting a better game I suppose?” Neji pulled Naruto up when the latter grabbed his hand. “It’s not your fault, but we may have to work on that hot headedness of yours.” He let a small smirk grace his lips, putting Naruto’s nerves at ease.
“Ya.” Naruto agreed while letting out a breath. “My bad, cap.”
0_0_0_0
“I told you there was no need to leave work…”
Sasuke tries not to snap at Itachi as the older Uchiha frets about. He’s tipped Sasuke’s face in a million different directions, and hasn’t found what he was looking for.
“Nonsense. You expect me to leave you alone when you’re admitted in the hospital?”
“It was a checkup. Literally just a precaution.” Sasuke pulls his face away from Itachi’s hands, annoyed with being manhandled.
“For a broken nose!” Itachi looks put out, though Sasuke is willing to bet it’s less than he feels at the moment.
“It’s not broken... Just bruised up pretty good.”
“I’d like to have a severe talking to with the boy that did this to you.”
“You might have to stand in line, Naruto was pretty upset.”
The words leave his lips without his permission. The Uchiha’s blink at each other before Itachi gives Sasuke that look that means ‘I bet you didn’t mean to say that out loud and now I have dirt on you’. Sasuke turns away, fire engulfing his face. It doesn’t help him any, Itachi seems far too pleased.
“Do share.” His older brother probes.
“It’s nothing. Just a hot head on the team.” Sasuke tries to play off, but Itachi isn’t having any of it.
“Right. Just a hot head that my baby brother seems to be infatuated with.”
Sasuke’s head snaps towards his brother so quick he momentarily worries that his neck might break. It’s pushed back to the backburner of his mind, his brother’s words catching up much more quickly than he wanted them to.
“What are you talking about?”
Thank god, they’ve made it to his car. Sasuke doesn’t think he can handle this conversation outside the safety of Itachi’s old beater. He’s not sure he can handle this conversation at all. Unfortunately, Itachi has the eyes of a hawk and the intuition of a mom of six, so there was no way Sasuke was getting out of this conversation, no matter how long he played dumb. This assumption was further proved by Itachi’s ‘you’re kidding right?’ look that he leveled Sasuke with. Sasuke wishes that the car floor would open up and swallow him.
“His name is Naruto eh? I could look into it myself.” Itachi goaded, knowing full well that Sasuke would rather slide down razor blades into a pit of acid than have Itachi meet Naruto right this second.
All Sasuke needed was for Itachi to accidentally out him to Naruto and have the latter hate him for being abnormal. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could handle that, like at all. Getting decked in the face but the overgrown jackass from The Sound was one thing, but having to pretend that Naruto didn’t make the raven feel like some idiot school girl with a crush was another thing entirely.
“Fine.” Sasuke grumbled.
“Oh, I’m very intrigued. Please tell me about the boy who has earned my baby brother’s attention!”
And Sasuke’s back to wishing the seat in the car would open up and swallow him whole. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do that, and Itachi is still waiting to hear about Naruto. Mortification is growing rapidly from within the younger Uchiha, but, somewhere very deep inside, a piece of him is excited to rave about his crush to someone who will listen without prejudice.
0_0_0_0
Naruto perks up when he hears keys slide into the lock. He abandons the game he wasn’t really watching on TV. It’s volume is muted because both Neji and Kiba have long since gone to bed. It was pretty late and they all had morning classes to worry about. That, and everyone was exhausted from the game they had played. They outshot The Sound by more baskets than Naruto even cared to keep count of. By then end, he was so annoyed he just wanted to go back to his room and sit in the shower. Unfortunately for him, he shared a room with four basketball players. Less unfortunate, he sister wasn’t too far and was readily accepting of his need of hot water. Apparently she had come to cheer them on at the game. Actually, all her roommates had joined her. It was entertaining to gossip and complain about the game with them afterwards.
Sasuke blinked as he pushed the door open. If there was no bruising on the bridge of Sasuke’s nose, Naruto would be able to overlook that Sasuke had been in the hospital. It’s aggravating him all over again, but he’s trying his best not to let it show.
“You look constipated, idiot.”
Naruto scoffs at the raven, earning a smirk as he sets his gym bag on the floor. He bends down to start untying his shoes and Naruto feels snubbed by his attitude.
“Why aren’t you sleeping? You can’t afford to be any more airheaded in class than you already are.” Sasuke muses as he shuffles his shoes out of the doorway and heads into the kitchen.
Naruto definitely feels his irritation building up again, but tries to simmer down, if not for himself than for the two roommates that are attempting sleep and not causing him constant ire.
“I was waiting for my prone to disaster roommate to get back.” Naruto states, leaning against the counter as Sasuke chugs half his glass of water.
“Kiba’s out?” He muses, smirk lighting his features as Naruto rolls his eyes.
“Kiba didn’t get decked in the face today.” Naruto huffs.
“Kiba’s mark was a twig.” Sasuke throws back.
“He didn’t break Kiba’s nose.”
“He didn’t break mine either.”
“Ugh! You’re impossible!” Naruto threw his hands up, trying to keep his voice down to be mindful of their other roommates, but Sasuke always brought out the best in him.
“It’s bruised up pretty good though. And smells like blood.”
Naruto winces as Sasuke brings the cup to his lips again. He keeps his eyes on Naruto as he finishes off the glass before setting it in the sink. Naruto feels oddly naked as Sasuke stares at him. It’s a feeling he isn’t too used to.
“What?”
“You look like shit. Did you get into a fight after I left?”
“No I didn’t!” Naruto hissed, irritation getting the better of him.
He holds back the sentence fighting to leave his lips right after his denial.
You told me it wasn’t worth it.
It’s true. No matter how the other team tried to rile him up, either Neji brought him down or he reminded himself that Sasuke wanted him to stay on the team. Well… he hadn’t said it outright, but that’s what that meant? Right? If he told Naruto to get it together and not get booted off the team, it meant he wanted Naruto to stick around, right? The thought had had butterflies panicking from within him all evening. Kiba probably thought he was insane with how fidgety he was being.
“Good. It’d be embarrassing to share the court with someone willing to match the other team in how low they were.”
The words bite but Naruto tries to read the hidden meaning in them. He tells himself that Sasuke really does want him on the team and not that the other is just being an asshole. He tells himself that Sasuke is happy to be sharing a court with him, even if it’s more Naruto pleased to share a court with him that the other way around.
“Whatever. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, asshole.” Naruto huffs, turning on his heel.
“Night.” Sasuke calls back effortlessly before Naruto pulls his shared room’s door shut behind him.