Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Sasuke or any of the characters in this story.

A Day in the Life of Uchiha Sasuke

Sasuke had survived many near-death experiences in his lifetime. He had survived the massacre of his clan almost five years ago, said deed accomplished by none other than his older brother Itachi, who was, in fact, the one to be potentially blamed for the current situation that Sasuke was caught up in.

Sasuke had survived the fate of the cursed seal Orochimaru had branded him with in the Forest of Death during the Chuunin exam; He had survived his second major encounter with Itachi, and, come to think of it, he was still alive after using the Chidori one to many times, on more than one occasion.

The point: Sasuke was strong, and he could survive just about anything. He had survived countless brushes with death in the past, and he could certainly survive any life-threatening encounter he was met with now.

Unfortunately, sitting in front of one of Orochimaru’s many old pianos and listening to Sakon drone on about something with resemblance to ‘Do’s, ‘Re’s and ‘Mi’s, that particular thought didn’t quite seem so convincing.

The day was Monday. The time, eight in the morning. The place, Orochimaru’s hideout, West block, piano room.

It had never occurred to Sasuke that being one of Orochimaru’s subordinates, in addition to the fact that Orochimaru didcreate the Sound Village, he might have to go through such torture as this. What great shinobi required his trainees to take piano lessons? It was ridiculous.

Although, even just having piano lessons once a week wasn’t so bad. But taking into consideration the weekly violin, flute, saxophone, double base, voice and music theory lessons, it was positively horrendous.

Piano lessons weren’t that bad when Sasuke actually thought about it. In flute lesson, Sasuke was subjected to verbal abuse at its maximum, sometimes having so many vulgarities thrown at him that he came out of class feeling dizzy. Sasuke sometimes marveled at how many cuss words Tayuya, a girl, knew.

Saxophone lessons were just plain abusive. It wasn’t fair having a teacher with so many hands to play the saxophone; Sasuke’s hands weren’t nearly big enough for him to handle a saxophone properly.

Violin lesson was plain torture, voice lessons sucked, Sasuke didn’t understand half of what went on during theory lessons and as for double bass lessons - well, let’s just say that the first time Sasuke had tried to hold up a double bass, he had ended up somewhere under the base. It was almost as if Orochimaru had planned all this, but then again, he probably had.

It had been all too clear to Sasuke for quite a while now: Orochimaru was on crack. But if Orochimaru was willing to train him up enough for him to one day be able to defeat Itachi, who was he to complain? Admittedly, though, Sasuke wasn’t in the least bit happy. The teachers Orochimaru had hired were so boringthat Sasuke spent half his lesson time spacing out and not taking in a word his instructor said. But then, why he even listened to a thing these instructors said was beyond him.

Which brings us back to the present.

“Sasuke!” Sakon roared, bringing his hand down angrily on the side of the piano and causing his brother, Ukon’s, head to sway sickeningly at the back of his own. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said so far?”

Sasuke considered this question for a while. “No.” he finally answered, quite truthfully, but at the same time trying to twist his normal facial expression into something other than what Sakon might mistake for disrespect. He had learnt on his first piano lesson that it was not at all wise to glare, talk back, roll his eyes or do anything that might be labeled ‘rude’ to Sakon. It wasn’t at all pleasant dealing with Ukon, and Sasuke had to remember that.

Sakon sighed exasperatedly. “Play this piece for me, please.” He said, placing a score Sasuke had never seen before in front of him. It was a simple sight-reading piece. Unfortunately, Sasuke was not, and never would be, the best music student, and was not spared a few dozen mistakes as he progressed through the piece at an agonizingly slow pace. The piano was something unfamiliar to him.

Sakon slapped his forehead. “Sasuke, you make more mistakes than what makes up the piece itself!” He sighed once again. “Well then, I’ll assume you’re just tired. Take the rest of the lesson off and have a good rest.”

Score. Sasuke snatched up his book bag, stuffed his piano books in and rushed out the door. On his trek down the hallway, he pulled out the timetable Orochimaru had given him when he had started living there and glanced down at it. He had chores to do next. He might as well get started on them.

Sasuke headed toward the laundry room, pondering over the fact that his week was so jam-packed with activities that Orochimaru had needed to give him a timetable to remember them all. Of course, when he had just started living there, he had definitely kicked up a hell of a fuss. He had soon learnt, however, that violence was not the way to go about when it came to Orochimaru. That Kabuto had sent him for counseling and anger management classes for months, something Sasuke wasn’t about to readily look back on.

And speaking of the devil…

Sasuke let lose all his previously bottled-up anger and glared for all he was worth at Kabuto as he came strolling down the hall, clipboard in hand. Kabuto was like Orochimaru’s personal spy or something, never failing to black-mark Sasuke if he did one thing that didn’t please Kabuto, and then going back to precious master Orochimaru to tell on him. If he didn’t know any better, Sasuke would say he was jealous…

“What’re you doing here?” Kabuto asked Sasuke, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. “Shouldn’t you be in piano about now?”

“Sakon let me out early,” replied Sasuke, narrowing his eyes as his intense gaze never left the latter.

“This early?” asked Kabuto skeptically. “Well, I’ll have to bring this to Master Orochimaru’s attention-”

“I didn’t skip class,” Sasuke scowled. Kabuto was surprisingly good at getting on his nerves. Had the situation been a little different, Sasuke would have the mind to sink his fist into Kabuto’s jaw. But the situation was this. Sometimes, when Sasuke thought about it, it struck him that leaving Konoha had turned him into a surprisingly good boy.

Which was rare, since Sasuke hardly ever thought about it.

---

Sometime later in the afternoon found Sasuke rushing for – of all things – bakingclass. This was one thing Sasuke hadn’t even bothered asking Orochimaru why he needed. Orochimaru tended to give pretty outlandish answers sometimes. Anyway, Orochimaru would probably tell Sasuke that it was completely essential that every good ninja knew how to bake. For whatever reason he might have.

Sasuke was pretty lousy at baking. Orochimaru had him bake chocolate cake two weeks ago, which had inevitably been turned into a burnt and flat mass in the oven. Just last week Sasuke had baked chocolate chip cookies, none of which he had touched himself, but had instead offered to Sakon, Tayuya, Kidoumaru, Jiroubou and Kimimaro, with satisfying results. Sasuke had then made a mental note that about twenty percent of the people that consumed his cookies would live to tell the tale. And no, his cookies weren’t at all safe for consumption.

As Sasuke sauntered into the room where cooking lessons were held, the all-too-familiar voice of his mentor cried out, “Ah Sasuke! Today we will be baking lemon meringue pie!”

Sasuke stood at the doorway, a slightly confused look plastered on his face as he said, feeling a little stupid, “What's... that?”

Orochimaru gasped dramatically. “In your twelve years of life, Sasuke, have you never had the pleasure of tasting a lemon meringue pie?” he exclaimed. “Heck, he doesn’t even know what it means…” he added to himself. “Ah well, today’s the day to learn then.” Orochimaru grinned and licked his lips with that absurdly long tongue of his and started explaining, in accompaniment with vivid illustrations on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom, the various steps to take to make a lemon meringue pie.

Meanwhile, Sasuke occupied himself by examining his timetable while Orochimaru’s back was turned. He had a dental appointment later… A bit of training… Dinner was self-prepared tonight… And then there was Sasuke’s most dreaded – Happy Hour. Happy Hour was equivalent to pure torment, more so that today was photo day, which meant that Sasuke would probably spend the hour after dinner staring at baby pictures of his fellow comrades. Fellow Sound comrades.

This thought led Sasuke to think of his ex-fellow Konoha ninjas. He decided to pass the time, and hopefully block out Orochimaru’s voice, by naming all the ninjas from Konoha whom he had taken the Chuunin exam with.

First therewere, of course, Naruto and Sakura, his teammates. Then there was Ino, Shikamaru… Chouji, if he wasn’t mistaken… Kiba, the shy Hyuuga girl… What was her name again? Then there was the bug guy. Then the year above them: Rock Lee, whose name, eyebrows and dressing sense he wasn’t about to forget; the Hyuuga guy… Neji, was it? And their last teammate… Her name had completely escaped him.

“… And then you bake it in the oven for twenty minutes at a hundred and fifty degrees Celsius.” Orochimaru ended off. “Sasuke, do you have any questions? And stop frowning like that, please.”

Once he had snapped back to reality, Sasuke frowned harder just to annoy Orochimaru. Then he addressed Orochimaru’s question. “Uh… What’s the name of that bug clan in Konoha?” he asked.

“The Aburames,” replied Orochimaru dismissively. “Now get started on that pie of yours, will you Sasuke?”

The Aburames…Of course…

Sasuke took pleasure in gathering the many ingredients for his lemon meringue pie, wallowing in the blissful thought of who he might use it to poison later.

---

Just before dinner, Sasuke made his second trip for the day to the baking room to retrieve the lemon meringue pie he had baked earlier on in the afternoon. He had left it there, reason being that he had a dental appointment straight after baking class and training after that, so having no chance to eat the pie (not thathe planned to), Sasuke had left his pie to be retrieved before dinnertime.

Wondering who he should use to test the credibility of his pie, Sasuke made his way to the kitchen in which all the Sound ninjas where allowed to make their own dinner. Upon arrival, Sasuke was slightly ticked to see Kidoumaru already in there making his dinner. Nonetheless, Sasuke went into the kitchen and placed his lemon meringue pie on the counter.

“Hey kid,” said Kidoumaru in a casual voice before Sasuke could ask him if he wanted a piece of his pie. “Who’re you planning to kill with that thing?”

Sasuke turned and glared at Kidoumaru, who seemed amusedby the thought. “I was going to ask you if you wanted any,” he said dryly.

“With what you pulled last week? No chance.” Kidoumaru smirked. “Figured you would have given up baking after that…”

Sasuke frowned but chose to remain silent. He knew that Kidoumaru knew that once Orochimaru set you up for some kind of class, there was about as much chance of talking him out of the idea as convincing Jiroubou he was a ballerina.

But setting aside that thought… Sasuke looked around the room and tried to decide what he would eat tonight. Finally settling on getting Kidoumaru to make him something, Sasuke turned to Kidoumaru only to start at what Kidoumaru was preparing.

“What… the hell… is that?” asked Sasuke, staring at the pile of stuff on Kidoumaru’s plate.

“Don’t know. Reckon it’ll pass for a sandwich?” asked Kidoumaru, squeezing one slice of bread atop the mass of food and one slice of bread underneath it.

Sasuke snorted and began the new task of rummaging through Orochimaru’s many cabinets in search of someform of food he could prepare, preferably in less than five minutes. Cup ramen was a definite no-no… Sasuke’s eyes rested on a small tin-foil-wrapped package whichappeared to be one of those instant microwave dinners.

Satisfied, Sasuke took the package to the microwave and placed it inside. A pause. He then brought it back out again and checked the microwave instructions printed on the back of the package. His dark eyes flew over the small print before he put the package in the microwave for a second time. After setting the microwave to the instructed time, Sasuke snagged a chair from nearby and sat down. He rested his head on the headrest of the chair and closed his eyes; It had sure been another long day, and despite his best efforts, there was still that nagging voice at the back of his head reminding him that his day was far from over.

Kidoumaru’s voice jerked Sasuke out of his thoughts. “I don’t think you should leave that thing in the microwave for so long,” Kidoumaru said, once again looking highly amused. About what, Sasuke had no clue.

Thoroughly pissed off now, Sasuke grudgingly went over to the microwave, stopped it and opened the microwave door.

It happened in a matter of seconds; What Sasuke did notice was that the package of food seemed to be kind of… rumbling a bit, as if it had been overheated. And just as that thought struck Sasuke, the microwave package had gone off like a bomb; The next minute, Sasuke was covered from head to toe in lord knows what was in that package. Furthermore, the food in that package was hot. Very hot.

Cursing and very nearly slipping over the amount of food that had found its way onto the floor, Sasuke hopped around the room, trying to suppress shouts of “Ow! Hot!” When he spotted Kidoumaru laughing at him, Sasuke gave Kidoumaru the death glare and threw a handful of hot microwave mush at him.

“Dammit! If you knew this was going to happen, why didn’t you tell me?” Sasuke said angrily.

“You… should’ve seen the look on your face… serves you right for not reading the instructions clearly…!” was all he could gather from Kidoumaru’s laughter.

Sasuke made his way to the microwave heatedly and picked up the largest piece of the microwave package he could find. The instructions were printed clearly on it, and Sasuke scanned the words until he saw a fine print at the very bottom that said ‘DO NOT microwave in tin-foil package. Place in bowl or on plate to microwave.’

Sasuke rolled his eyes just as Kabuto entered the room saying, “What’s all the racket in here about?”

Sasuke was onto him in a flash. “Hey Kabuto, want to try some lemon meringue pie?” Sasuke asked, hurriedly preparing a slice for Kabuto to sample. He handed the plate and fork to Kabuto, who hesitated and gave Sasuke a suspicious look before trying a small morsel of the dessert.

The minute Kabuto had walked into the room, doom had already been foreshadowed on his fate. Sasuke knew right there and then that if there was one thing he would take away from this whole experience with Orochimaru, it would with no doubt be the look on Kabuto’s face as the bit of lemon meringue pie registered on his taste.

---

It was a matter of time before everyone was gathered in the 'family room' of Orochimaru’s hideout; Funnily enough, that’s what it was called, thought Sasuke would never in a million years refer to any person in the room as family.

In fact, it was beyond Sasuke why the sound four and Kimimaro even existed at all. Hadn’t they been fighting his ex-fellow Konoha ninjas when he had been making his way to Orochimaru? Unless it was that the Sound had won against Naruto, Shikamaru, Kiba, Chouji and Neji, which Sasuke had actually eventuallycome to doubt, then the Sound ninjas shouldn’t be sitting there in front of him.

Sasuke had once raised this question to Orochimaru, but Orochimaru had just replied with something irrelevant such as “No, they were just sleeping!”, that, up to this day, was still a mystery to Sasuke.

Upon one of his better moods, Sasuke even tried asking Kabuto about this, but Kabuto had just given him one of his ‘looks’ over his spectacles, and Sasuke had been forced to excuse himself from the room quickly before he did something accidental like punch Kabuto in the face.

And now, back to the present.

Sasuke had been wallowing in his own misery, a glare on his face fit to scare anyone off so that they wouldn’t bother him. That was Sasuke’s way of sulking. Although it had worked on his ex-fellow Konoha ninjas, somehow it didn’t seem to have any effect on the Sound ninjas. Least of all Tayuya.

“Move over, shit-head.” Tayuya muttered absent-mindedly as she took a seat next to Sasuke on the couch.

“It would help if your butt wasn’t so fat,” Sasuke retorted grumpily.

Tayuya frown. “You say that again, you bastard. Go on, say it again, I dare ya –”

“Shut it, Tayuya.” Sakon muttered, and Tayuya shut up, but not before glaring bitterly at Sasuke.

“So, what are we waiting for?” demanded Kabuto, who had entered the room shortly after rinsing his mouth. “Hey guys, hand over the photo albums, then.”

Everybody reluctantly handed over their photo album, but once things got started, everyone lightened up a fair bit, and it came to a point where everybody, with the exception of Sasuke himself, seemed to be attacking Sasuke’s baby photos all at once.

“That is one cute baby,” Kidoumaru commented, looking at Sasuke’s year-old baby photos in awe.

“Yeah. Sad he turned out the way he did, though,” said Tayuya without giving Sasuke so much as a backward glance. “What happened to you, Jiroubou? You sure are one ugly kid.”

Jiroubou snorted and reprimanded Tayuya for her bad mouth, but other than that, did nothing much.

Kimimaro had also been surprisingly quiet this whole time; Sasuke wasn’t bothered, he knew that Kimimaro was sometimes slightly more withdrawn than the other four, not counting Kabuto. Such things sometimes resulted from troubled childhoods...

Despite his best efforts, Sasuke felt himself falling asleep. His eyelids felt heavy; The colors of the room became hazy and blended, swirling to form fascinating patterns before Sasuke’s eyes. Eventually, Sasuke drifted off, his head resting on his shoulder and dreaming sweet dreams which were existing somewhere along the lines of killing Itachi.

---

Sasuke woke with a start. He saw, to his relief, that he was still in the living room where he had fallen asleep, but altogether, something seemed different.

Sasuke immediately sat up to face the many people leering down at him.

“What?” he asked obliviously, with no idea what they were trying to pull. Sasuke made a mental note that Kabuto wasn’t present.

“Well, Sasuke,” started Kimimaro.

“We’ve all mutually decided that you’ve been looking depressed these few days,” continued Sakon.

“And we thought we’d give you a little surprise.” Finished Tayuya.

Sasuke glared suspiciously at the people crowded around him. Before his brain could register anything that was happening, the crowd consisting of Sakon, Tayuya, Kidoumaru, Jiroubou and Kimimaro all pounced on top of him.

At first, Sasuke had been under the impression that the Sound ninjas were trying to kill him by squashing him or something. He mentally kicked himself for carelessly leaving his weapon pouch in his room. Yet, as the group spread itself all around him, Sasuke realized that this wasn’t the case.

Everyone in the house knew Sasuke hated close contact. In fact, Sasuke was already getting uncomfortable with everyone around him like that. Hell, Sasuke had no idea just what the insane little group was trying to pull.

The five Sound ninjas around Sasuke joined hands, then, to Sasuke’s horror, enveloped Sasuke in a big bear hug.

Sasuke’s face turned all shades of the rainbow as the cry of the Sound ninjas rang out, “GROUP HUG!”

Sasuke’s eye twitched madly and he refrained, with great difficulty, from killing the five lunatics holding on to him. No, Orochimaru would not like it if his faithful subordinates all got killed sumultaneously in one night. Gritting his teeth and resisting explosion, Sasuke tried to pry his thoughts away from his loving comrades as he plotted their individual demise.

The things Sasuke would stand to have a shot at killing Itachi someday.

---

A/N

This story was created for Link and Luigi’s fanfiction competition. I’ve always personally wondered what Sasuke did during his two-year stay at Orochimaru’s. This story might be continued someday, if people like it.