Work Text:
“Hey, hey, Sakura-chan! Wanna go on a date?”
Sakura sighs. “Fine.”
“Aww, come on, Sakura-chan, pleeeeeaseeeee—wait, what?”
“I said fine, idiot.”
“Um,” Naruto blinks. “Uh, what? Huh?” He blinks again. “Really?”
“Yeah, I need a fake date to get this one guy off of my back,” Sakura says with another sigh. “He keeps asking me out, no matter how many times I tell him no.” She frowns. “I’d beat him up, but I thought this might be the more diplomatic approach to try first.”
“A fake date?” Naruto says, a bit dismayed. “Well, that’s…” He trails off. “I guess that’s not so bad, actually. I’ll take it! Oh, and if you need any help beating up that guy, let me know!”
Sakura gives him a wry smile. “Thanks, but I think I got it covered.”
Naruto nods. Sakura definitely does. The dull sting in his shoulder from the last time she’d enthusiastically slapped him serves as evidence enough.
For now, he has a date to plan!
“Sasuke.” Naruto pokes his pen at Sasuke’s textbook. “Hey, Sasuke. Guess what?”
“What,” Sasuke deadpans without looking up from his textbook.
Naruto grins. “I have a date with Sakura-chan tomorrow.”
Sasuke snorts. “No you don’t.”
“I sure do,” Naruto says, his grin widening. Finally, Sasuke looks up, his eyebrows set in an unimpressed line. He scrutinizes Naruto’s expression for a moment before his eyebrows raise.
“What, seriously?”
“Yup.” Naruto beams. “Better believe it!”
He doesn’t mention that it’s fake. That’s not an important detail, anyway. Probably.
Sasuke’s staring at him with a strange expression. “Sakura agreed to go on a date with you?”
Naruto is almost offended by the sheer amount of disbelief in his tone, but he’s too excited by his plans tomorrow to let it dim his grin. “Yup,” he says cheerily again. “It’s gonna be the best date ever!”
“Huh,” Sasuke says noncommittally. “Well, try not to fuck it up.”
“As if I’d ever!”
Naruto fiddles with his pen. It’s in a pretty bad shape, with most of the cap gnawed through where Naruto would mindlessly chew at it when he was younger. He should probably get a new one. He starts tapping it on the desk.
“...well?”
Naruto glances over. “What?”
Sasuke raises an eyebrow. “How was it?”
Naruto blinks. “How was what?”
Sasuke’s expression turns more incredulous. “Your date?”
Naruto taps his pen a little faster. “Oh, yeah, that!” He grins. “It was awesome, obviously!”
He turns back to stare at his pen again, but he can feel Sasuke still watching him. It’s an awkward, awkward silence that follows.
“...that’s it?”
Naruto’s eyes dart back up. “Huh?”
“That’s all you have to say about it?”
“What do you mean?” Naruto frowns. “I said it was awesome, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Sasuke says slowly, “but knowing you, I thought you wouldn’t shut up about it for the next hour. You didn’t even bring it up until I asked about it.”
“Well, it’s…” Naruto’s pen tapping slows down. “I mean, Sakura-chan’s awesome, obviously. And the date was, too. Obviously.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Sasuke mutters.
“But, like…” Naruto trails off again. “It’s—I dunno. It wasn’t actually as awesome as I thought it’d be.”
Sasuke blinks at him. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Naruto scratches under his headband. “I mean, I kinda thought it would feel more fun. More exciting, I guess. I’ve liked Sakura-chan for years, but…” He wrinkles his nose. “This didn’t really feel like… anything. It just felt like any other time we would hang out together. Which is still awesome, but…” He shrugs. “I dunno.”
Naruto wanted to attribute this to the fact it was fake. Sakura had made it clear from the start, but she hadn’t said anything about not treating it like a real date—and Naruto had pulled out all the stops, buying flowers and making a reservation at the nicest ramen place he knew and everything. And even though it was a fake date, Sakura had been playing along the entire time, too. At the end of the day, she even gave Naruto a kiss on the cheek and thanked him for the meal. Honestly, Naruto is convinced that a real date with Sakura wouldn’t be much different from the fake one they’d had—
—but then why does he feel so empty after it?
“Interesting,” Sasuke hums. His eyes drift to Naruto’s hands, still fiddling with his pen. “Maybe it was just a bad date.”
“Hey!” Naruto frowns. “I’ll have you know that the date was—”
“Awesome,” Sasuke finishes for him with a roll of his eyes. “I know.”
“Exactly,” Naruto says, satisfied. “Actually, I bet you’re just jealous of how awesome my date was.” In a display of astounding maturity, Naruto sticks his tongue out at Sasuke. Sasuke responds in kind by throwing an eraser at his face that harmlessly bounces off of his forehead. “Oww,” Naruto whines anyway. “Mean!”
“Jealous?” Sasuke scoffs. “You wish.”
“It’s okay, Sasuke-chan,” Naruto simpers, relishing in the scowl Sasuke sends him at the nickname. “You’ll get your first date soon enough, too!” Naruto, of course, is resolutely ignoring the fact that his first and only date so far has been a fake. “If you learn how to stop frowning so much, at least.”
Sasuke, somehow, frowns harder. “Whatever.”
“Actually,” Naruto hums, deciding this is an infinitely more interesting conversation to have. “Actually, who do you even like, anyway?”
Sasuke shoots him an unimpressed look. “Why do you care?”
Because thinking about his date with Sakura is making Naruto feel weird and strange in ways he doesn’t know how to describe, and interrogating Sasuke on this topic is bound to be more fun. Naruto doesn’t bother actually saying that to Sasuke.
“Is it Sakura?” Naruto presses instead, before he shakes his head. “No, you’ve rejected her, like, five times already. Oh, maybe Ino? Actually, you’ve rejected her a couple of times, too. Um… Tenten?” he guesses. “Or, like, Hinata?”
Sasuke sighs. “Naruto, I don’t like girls.”
Wow. Naruto knew Sasuke was always a little bit prickly around the other gender, but he’d never expected Sasuke to be a flat-out misogynist. He frowns. “That’s kind of shitty of you to say, man.”
“I’m gay.”
“Oh,” Naruto says. He squints at Sasuke. “Wait, like gay gay?”
Sasuke stares at him flatly. Naruto coughs.
“No, yeah, that’s cool. I just kinda forgot that’s a thing.” Naruto scratches his nose. “Is that why you keep rejecting Sakura-chan and Ino?”
“Among other reasons,” Sasuke mutters.
“Huh,” Naruto says. “Hey, what if Sakura-chan was a guy? Would you go on a date with her if she was a guy?”
Sasuke closes his eyes and lets out his fifth long-suffering sigh of the conversation. “Naruto, being gay doesn’t mean I’ll date anyone who’s a guy.”
“Oh,” Naruto says. “Right, sure.” He pauses. “But would you date Sakura if she was a guy?”
“No.”
“What about Ino? If she was a guy, I mean.”
“No.”
“Huh,” Naruto says. “Is there any girl you’d date if they were a guy?”
“No,” Sasuke grits out, slamming his textbook shut. “Why the hell are you still asking about this?”
“I’m just curious,” Naruto says defensively.
“This is,” Sasuke asks, pinching the bridge of his nose, “the weirdest possible line of questioning you could subject me to.”
“It’s not—it’s not that weird!” Naruto shoots back after only a bit of hesitation. “It’s like me saying I’d date you if you were a girl. That’s not weird, right?”
Sasuke’s hand drops. “You’d date me if I was a girl,” he repeats flatly.
“Yeah, I guess,” Naruto says with a shrug. “I mean, I haven’t really thought about it, but…” He squints. “Yeah, I guess I would.”
“Right,” Sasuke says. “Okay.”
“Huh? Hey, wait, where are you going?” Naruto watches, bewildered, as Sasuke shoves his stuff in his bag and heads for the door. “Sasuke? Heeyyyy, Sasuke!”
“I think,” Naruto mumbles into the table his face is pressed against, “Sasuke’s mad at me.”
Sakura sighs. “What did you do this time?”
“Nothing.” At Sakura’s skeptical look, Naruto finally lifts his head. “Nothing! Really!” He rests his cheek on his hand. “I was just telling him about my date with you, which was awesome by the way,” he adds absentmindedly, “and then he got annoyed and left.” Naruto snickers into his hand. “Man, I bet he’s just jealous.”
Sakura’s expression manages to turn even more skeptical. “What exactly did you tell him right before he left?”
“Huh?” Naruto lets his hand drop. “Oh, I told him I’d date him if he was a girl.”
Sakura’s expression does something funny. “You said you’d date him if he was a girl,” she repeats slowly.
“...yeah?”
“Naruto,” Sakura says carefully, “I don’t know how to go about this, so I’m just going to say it.” She holds Naruto’s bewildered gaze for a few moments. “Have you ever considered you might not be straight?”
A confused laugh bursts out of Naruto. “Huh?” Naruto shakes his head. “I can’t be gay, I went on a date with you, like, three days ago.”
“A fake date,” Sakura points out.
“Yeah, but the feelings were real,” Naruto punctuates dramatically with a clutch of his chest.
Sakura shakes her head, a bit annoyed but also, Naruto thinks, a bit fond. “Naruto, you know you can like both boys and girls, right?”
“Huh?” Naruto blinks. “Both?” He blinks again. “Really?”
“Yeah. It’s called being bisexual.”
“Oh.” His brows furrow. “Huh.”
Sakura waits.
“Wait, what does that have to do with me? I’ve never liked a guy.”
Sakura gives him a look that Naruto almost thinks might be disappointed. “You spent our entire ‘date’ talking about Sasuke,” she points out, finger quotes included.
“Yeah, ‘cause he’s an annoying loser, and I like complaining about him,” Naruto responds immediately. He pauses to process Sakura’s words. His eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, you think I like Sasuke?”
“Um,” Sakura says. “Yes?”
“What—why would I ever like that guy?” Naruto splutters out. “He’s the most annoying guy I know, always standing there and looking smug and pretty and whatever like he owns the place even though he doesn’t, I can’t stand him and his stupid nice eyelashes even if he’s, like, kind of nice sometimes when we study together, but, god, he’s always calling me those stupid names like loser and dead-last even though his pretty face is the real loser—” Naruto stops to take a breath.
“You just called him attractive three times in a row.”
“Okay,” Naruto says. “Okay, well.” He opens his mouth. He can’t actually think of much of a defense for this. “Well, I don’t need to be gay or—or whatever that other thing you said was—to see that!”
“Naruto,” Sakura says wearily. “You said you’d date Sasuke if he was a girl.”
“Yeah,” Naruto agrees.
“And you find Sasuke attractive as a guy.”
“...yeah.”
“So what exactly is the problem with dating him as a guy?”
“Well, obviously…” Naruto trails off. His brows furrow. He brings a hand to his chin. “Hm. Actually…”
Sakura waits.
“Uh…”
Sakura continues to wait.
“Oh,” Naruto says. “Shit.”
Sakura lets out a pleased sigh. “Finally.”
“Oh, shit!” Naruto says. “Sasuke? I like Sasuke?”
“Yes.”
“Ohhh, shit!” Naruto says again. “I am bisequential!”
“Bisexual,” Sakura corrects, but Naruto’s too busy shoving his stuff in his bag to notice.
“Sorry, Sakura-chan, I gotta run. Bye! Thanks for the help!”
“Sasuke!”
“Stop yelling across the length of the hallway, loser.” Sasuke turns with an unimpressed look. “What is it?”
Somehow, actually seeing Sasuke now is making Naruto’s fountain of courage dry up. His tongue feels especially heavy in his mouth. “Uh,” he offers.
Sasuke’s expression turns annoyed. “Spit it out already.”
“I’m gay for you,” Naruto blurts out.
“What,” Sasuke says.
“Wait,” Naruto shakes his head, “wait, no, I got it wrong. I’m, uh, bisexual for you.”
“...what?”
Fuck it.
“I THINK YOU’RE REALLY ATTRACTIVE AND WE SHOULD MAKE OUT,” Naruto yells across the hallway.
Sasuke’s eyebrows raise until they disappear under his bangs entirely. “Are you high?”
“Fuck,” Naruto groans into his hands. “Okay, okay, wait. Give me a second.”
Sasuke gives him a second. When the feeling of wanting to disappear into the ground dissipates, Naruto lifts his head from his hands.
“Okay. Hi. Sorry. Yes. So, I’m bisexual now,” Naruto gets out stiltedly. “And I think you’re really hot and nice and stuff even though you’re annoying and I hate you.”
“I’m… getting mixed signals here.”
“THE POINT IS,” Naruto says loudly. “I would date you even if you weren’t a girl. I mean, also if you were a girl. I mean—fuck. I’d date you!” Naruto takes a few steps forward. “That’s the point. I just wanted you to know. Ignore the—” He coughs. “Ignore the stuff I said before that.”
“Oh,” Sasuke says. “Hm.”
“Yeah,” Naruto says helpfully. “So—yeah.”
“Hm,” Sasuke says again. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Naruto repeats. “Uh, okay, what?”
“Okay,” Sasuke says again, his lips curling into that infuriating half-smile that Naruto either wants to punch or kiss off of his face. “Where are you taking me out to?”
“I don’t—huh?” Naruto blinks. “What?”
“For our first date,” Sasuke says calmly. “Where are we going?”
“Oh,” Naruto says. “Oh! Um, uh—” He blinks rapidly. “Uh… Ichiraku Ramen?”
Sasuke huffs out a fond sigh. “Yeah, I probably should have guessed.” As he passes Naruto, he pats him on the shoulder. “We can talk about the making out part afterwards.”
“Oh,” Naruto says dazedly. “Cool.”