The Kiss, Part II

by Ju

Sasuke squinted into the darkness; even with his superior night-vision, the only thing he could make out was an orange jumpsuit, inches away from his nose. Said nose promptly twitched as it detected a strange musty smell, which led to the vague thought that Naruto really needed to do his laundry more often. The thought was somewhat depressing. Or maybe he just felt depressed because he was hiding in a bush with his idiot of a teammate at three in the morning. And there was a branch poking him in the arse.

"Dammit," he hissed angrily, drawing the attention of his companion. Naruto stopped trying to peer into the window beneath which they hid, and turned to stare at him with uncomprehending blue eyes; this was an expression that Sasuke was very familiar with. "Why did you have to drag me along with you?"

The confusion disappeared, to be replaced by a big stupid grin. "We're a team, aren't we? You've gotta watch my back on dangerous missions!"

Sasuke sent him a look that would've felled a tree, but Naruto was oblivious; or uncaring, which was possibly worse. Curbing the also familiar urge to strangle the other boy, Sasuke said flatly, "Sneaking into Kakashi-sensei's house in the middle of the night to steal his copy of 'Come Come Paradise' is not a dangerous mission. It's suicide."

Naruto's grin just grew wider. "Can you imagine the look on his face when he wakes up to find it missing? It'll be hilarious!"

And even as Sasuke was asking himself why he didn't just leave the idiot to his death wish, he thrust his face up to the other boy's and ground out, "He'll kill us, you bloody moron."

That was apparently all it took to piss off Naruto, who also thrust his face forward and scowled. The action was thoughtless on Naruto's part, but it wasn't lost on Sasuke that they were suddenly in a position similar to that of a certain incident in a certain classroom during which certain people had done a certain something; just the memory of it caused Sasuke's cheeks to burn now.

Naruto didn't notice anything, which was only to be expected. But as they crouched in their little bush, glaring at each other so closely that their noses touched, a mild voice from above them asked curiously, "Are you going to kiss?"

Sasuke jerked in surprise, at the same time that the other boy lost his balance and fell forward.

Naruto's lips were warm and soft, just as he remembered them.

~ fin