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“I didn’t know you had freckles,” Sasuke whispers, fingertips ghosting over the side of Naruto’s face, touch so light that it leaves goosebumps in its wake instead of warmth.
Naruto feels his heart stutter and skip and careen into Sasuke’s touch like it’s a lifeline. With an unsteady hand, he reaches up and presses Sasuke’s flush against his cheekbone.
Sasuke stills, something like uncertainty flickering through his dark eyes.
Before he can say anything, Naruto swallows down the thoughts racing through his mind—faster than either of them could ever dream of running—and replies, “That’s 'cause you can only see them in the summer, dumbass,” and counts the lack of my-heart-is-going-to-explode seeping into his voice as a fucking win.
In his book, at least. Sasuke would probably enjoy the aftermath of his exploded heart.
It feels like the world is shifting. Even if he wanted to, there would be nothing he could do to stop it.
Sasuke snorts, then, with that soft kind of smile that Naruto only ever sees pointed at cats, or when he’s talking about before, or in his dreams.
Not that he dreams about Sasuke often. Well. Not voluntarily.
Moonlight reaches out to trace the curve of his best friend’s lips, and Naruto wonders, transfixed, if Sakura will wake up at the force of his heartbeat.
It wouldn’t be surprising. It’s a lot louder than usual. Maybe louder than it’s ever been, with the way it seems to shake his whole body from the inside out.
He wonders if she can feel it through their connection point—if her temple beats against the cotton of his too-tight shirt in time with the roaring in his ears.
Sasuke’s eyes are so very black. Naruto can see his reflection in them; he can see the flush rising on his own cheeks, matching the faint pink that makes Sasuke gleam in the light.
He’s always had pretty eyes.
Naruto’s always liked looking at them.
Sasuke slips his hand out from under his own, moving down to brush his nails against Naruto’s neck, delicately, feather-light.
“Are you gonna go see Snake-sensei tomorrow?”
At Naruto’s question, Sasuke rolls his eyes and mutters, “I still don’t know how you get away with calling him that to his face.”
“It’s fitting, that’s why. And you didn’t answer the question!”
“It’s not as disrespectful as the way you refer to the rest of the Sannin, I suppose,” Sasuke avoids, the glint in his eyes enough evidence that he’s just being a dick about it.
Naruto huffs. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I’m going tomorrow." Sasuke flicks him in the chin. "Also, Kakashi forgot the eggplant again.”
Naruto breathes out a quiet laugh, partly because Sasuke’s just so stupid, and also because Kakashi-sensei always does stupid things and complains about their consequences. He closes his fingers around Sasuke’s wrist and pulls their connected arms into the space between them.
“D’you wanna go shopping tomorrow? After I get back from my thing with Ero-Sennin?”
“That was the implication, stupid.” Sasuke intertwines their fingers together. “You’re my only option, remember?”
Sakura’s going to be out all day tomorrow, working a shift at the hospital under Old Lady Tsunade. Kakashi-sensei will be—well, Naruto doesn’t really know, but grocery shopping with him is always a bitch. Their teacher, Sharingan and all, does not understand how to tell a good tomato from an only half-good one.
Maybe it’s more that he doesn’t care, but everyone else does. Well. Sakura doesn’t sometimes, but she still gets the good ones. Like a reasonable person.
“You could go alone, asshole,” Naruto whispers, but tugs him closer, gently, trying his best not to wake Sakura up. He rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile wrinkling them into sweet crescents as he complies.
Sakura stirs—just a bit, and they both freeze until she exhales a sleepy sigh and throws a careless arm around Naruto’s middle, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like go to fucking sleep.
Sasuke laughs softly, prying his fingers from Naruto’s to adjust Sakura’s arm into a position that’ll hurt less in the morning. But his warmth returns almost instantly, and Naruto squeezes his hand in welcome, in fondness, in love, in a way he’s never been able to think about before.
His voice is lowered into something that’s barely a mumble, but there’s less than five inches between their faces, so Naruto hears it. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“I dunno,” Naruto says. “Where would you be if no one was there to watch you be a bastard?”
He snorts again at that, but the fondness in his eyes as he glances down to Naruto’s mouth—and up to his eyes so quickly that it looks like panic—screeches whatever words on the tip of Naruto’s tongue to a halt.
Sasuke presses his lips together, and Naruto’s drawn instantly to the motion. He swallows down whatever that means. Sasuke sighs, then, not unlike Sakura had, but it’s tinged with something sharper than contention.
Sasuke has always been sharper than Sakura, in every way of the word. Sakura’s intelligence has always been the bigger-picture kind of smart, and Sasuke is the kind of person who hyperfixates on a detail until he can understand it inside and out.
But they’re both too focused to do, and that’s where Naruto comes in.
They balance each other out. They’re good for each other.
Sasuke glances past Naruto at their third teammate, eyes dragging slowly back over Naruto’s arms and torso before they return to his face. After that, Sasuke turns onto his back, throwing a hand over his face. The fingers of his other hand remain intertwined with Naruto’s.
“Nowhere,” he murmurs finally, squeezing so gently that it's like he doesn't even know he's doing it. His voice is even softer now, nearly hoarse with the sheer smallness of it, like Naruto isn’t meant to hear it.
Tonight, he learns that Sasuke says I would be nowhere without you like he says have you eaten yet or take this or be safe.
In it, Naruto hears I love you, and knows that if he has anything, he has this: Sakura’s hold on his torso, Sasuke’s fingers intertwined with his, Kakashi-sensei’s steady, unwavering presence somewhere downstairs. Breakfast on the table before he wakes up. A blanket thrown over his body when he falls asleep on the couch instead of his, well, any, bed.
It’s everything he’s never had before. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.
Naruto holds onto the I love you too and keeps it at the tip of his tongue until Sasuke's breathing evens out.