Title: The Somewhat Awkward Bromance of Naruto and Sasuke

Summary: The one where Naruto wonders how he ended up as the responsible one while Sasuke contemplates the benefits of suicide to avoid the shitstorm up ahead and both decide to have a bromance instead.

Dsiclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

Warnings: Mentions of suicide, self-inserts, comic relief kissing, gender confusion. Not necessarily in that order.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 1: How do the self-inserts do it?~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~Sasuke~~~~~~~

SMOOCH!

Fairytales, she knew, had a tendency to idealize kissing. They were shown to be something magical, extraordinary, and wonderfully good. A kiss at the very end signified the happy ending of a story, where evil was finally vanquished and the heroine was swept away into the hero's arms. A kiss could signify transformation, turning an apparently insignificant frog into a prince. A kiss could represent awakening, allowing a slumbering princess to open her eyes to the adoring gaze of her beloved.

The point is, magical kisses were for fairy tales. So, why, pray tell, had she – someone practically allergic to any sort of romance except the fictional kind and who hadn't had a single boyfriend her entire life – just experienced a so called magical kiss?! While she supposed it could count as an awakening since she had finally opened her eyes in a sense, or maybe a transformation since she certainly wasn't who she was before, it certainly didn't signify a happy ending and did it even count as a kiss when it was between twelve-year-olds?!

The dark haired boy – no, girl – blanched, reality sadistically punching his – her – gut as he – she – realized what happened, which caused the now gender confused person to forcefully shove away the blonde boy touching hisher lips.

Naruto, twelve years old, team assignment day. It was right after graduation day, which had been circled in red the calendar in his apartment. Wait, was I the type of person who circled dates on calendars? Actually, scratch that, I had an apartment of my own?!

"Naruto," someone – Sakura – hissed viciously, bringing me back to the present.

Oh my god, I just kissed Naruto. Fuck, I just kissed a twelve year old. Immediately, his – her – face greened, and the child – adult – laid a hand on the table for balance. Because, it was Naruto, that idiot, a twelve year old, that annoying usurantonkachi.

"Naruto," Sasuke said blankly, softly, because she was by some twist of fate in Naruto, the story, awakened with that stupid kiss, and because Naruto, that fucking idiot, had just accidently kissed him. An almost incoherent rage enveloped hisher mind, fury at the sudden transmigration, annoyance at the idiot for his silly antics, anger because fucking hell, that was hisher first kiss in both lives. Unfortunately, he could only express anger for two of those.

And Sasuke, whether a university student in another world or a revenge obsessed child in this world, was extremely good at avoiding problems he couldn't solve. Unfortunately for Naruto, that meant that all of Sasuke's anger was being channeled towards him.

Sasuke stalked forward with a still scarily blank face, and braved the horde of fangirls beating up Naruto. Deftly, he navigated the flying limbs and picked up the blonde idiot, who scowled at him and started yelling how it was his fault.

"Sasuke-kun, what–"

He wasn't particularly good at witty banter, in either lifetime, so Sasuke let his actions do the talking for him. He let his anger take over, and lifted Naruto up over his head.

"Sasuke, you bastard! What the hell do you think–"

Sasuke didn't let Naruto finish. With a graceful movement, he threw the blond, then watched calmly as Naruto went sailing out the window, screaming all the while. Sasuke then stepped forward and closed the window, making sure Naruto couldn't get back in that way.

Silence reigned in the classroom, everyone staring at him with wide eyes.

After a few seconds, Sasuke felt obliged to fill it. "It's called defenestration," he said politely, because both his parents had raised him to be polite. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "The act of throwing someone out the window, I mean."

They were on the first floor, so Sasuke wasn't particularly concerned. At any rate, Naruto was a jinchuriki. He'd be fine. Probably. He felt a little guilty, since twelve-year-old Naruto was such a childishly cute character, but on the other hand, Naruto had kissed him. That was utterly unforgivable. Yup, Sasuke nodded, Naruto had gotten what he deserved. He ignored Naruto's banging and screaming at the window, demanding to be let back in.

Instead, he went back to his seat, finally relaxing a little as Naruto gave up and went around to use the front door. Maybe he should start considering his whole self insert situation and how to get out of it? Nah, he decided after a moment of thought. He was going to avoid the problem until life hit him with a sledgehammer. Denial, denial, how he loved it so. Now, distraction, distraction, where ever could you be?

At that moment, Iruka entered the classroom. You are the answer to my prayer, Sasuke thought gratefully, and sent out a quick prayer to whatever gods existed in this verse for Iruka's continued health.

The man in question froze, staring suspiciously at all of them, before appearing to finally come a conclusion and beaming. "My god, you guys grew up so fast. You were such a troublesome class, but it seems graduation has allowed you to not be as immature as always. I never thought I'd see the day where you'd all be sitting in your seats quietly by the time I entered. It was impossible, unthinkable, with all the insanity in you little brats, but it finally happened. I'm so proud!" Iruka blubbered and shed a tear or two of joy at the end. "This is the best graduation gift I could receive."

Sasuke didn't know whether to be glad the man was happy, admire the man's optimism, or to be annoyed at all the insults he'd given the class while simultaneously praising them.

"Sasuke-kun's responsible for it," someone blurted out.

Iruka's eyes fell upon him like a hawk. "Really?"

Sasuke blinked languidly. Was he? Were they all quiet since they were disturbed by his sudden violence? Or because they had seen the horrifying sight of Naruto and him kissing? Not quite sure how to answer, he defaulted. "Hn." There, a nice, Sasuke-like response. He was rocking this whole being Uchiha Sasuke thing, even if he had just thrown canon out the window. For now he would continue to act normally, lest he be captured by Anbu or something for acting out of character.

Iruka beamed at him, but there was a speculative gleam in his eyes which made Sasuke uneasy. "I'm sure you'll be an excellent shinobi, Sasuke. But if the whole active shinobi thing doesn't work out, you can always become a teacher here at the Academy!"

Sasuke imagined himself in charge of a classroom full of mini-Narutos, pranks at every corner, projectiles flying everywhere, mysterious substances smeared on the ceiling – and oh god, the kissing – and flinched. He took back every nice thing he had thought about the man. Iruka was clearly trying to kill him. He must have seen Sasuke throw his favorite student out the window and had sneakily decided to take his revenge upon Sasuke like this. Sasuke considered how to politely tell Iruka where he could shove his idea, then realized he, as Sasuke, wasn't quite bound by social constraints like he had been before, and could in fact flat out tell Iruka what he thought. Delighted, he did exactly that, "Never."

Iruka's eyes hardened, and Sasuke could feel a recruitment speech coming on. He immediately upgraded Iruka from savior to Evil Recruitment Dolphin-Demon With Claws.

Thankfully, the dead-last finally stormed into the room. "Sasuke!" he screeched furiously.

Oh look, his new savior. Okay distraction. Will give a five out of ten for successfully distracting Iruka, who had now been engaged in scolding Naruto. It still lacked flair though, so it could only be a five. And of course he had to take off some points since it was that idiot.

Iruka finally managed to get Naruto to sit down, though unfortunately he happened to place Naruto beside Sasuke. With a frown, Sasuke added further points to the Demon!Iruka theory, and scooted further away from Naruto, causing the boy to give him an indignant look. Sasuke quickly cast his eyes around before Naruto could make a move, and spotted a potential victim sitting behind him. He pounced. "Sakura. Sit next to me."

She lit up like a Chirstmas and eagerly jumped into the space between him and Naruto. "Really?" she asked with joy, ignoring Ino's muffled sound of outrage.

Sasuke looked at her blankly. If she wasn't sure, shouldn't she have asked before she sat there? Whatever, she was still a sacrifice who could protect him from Naruto, who was unlikely to pull tricks on him since his crush was right beside him. There, now he was temporarily immune to any retribution Naruto may have planned."Hn," he said in reply to Sakura.

She gave a squeal of excitement, looking at him stars in her eyes.

Oh, Sasuke thought with a wince as he belatedly remembered that Sakura was his fangirl. Oh dear.

What had he done?

~~~~~~~~Ino~~~~~~~~

Ino wondered what she had done to deserve being put in a group with people like Shikamaru and Choji. Oh, that's right, she was born in the Yamanaka Clan, and thus had to be put in the Ino-Shika-Cho group. Which sucked, cause she'd really rather be with Sasuke! But since she had been put in a group with them, she supposed she could stand to eat lunch with them. Of course, they were sitting somewhere she could still see the room where Sasuke usually had lunch, or the window at least. Usually, the window was open to let in the breeze, but today it was basically closed, meaning Ino couldn't stare at her crush.

"What's Naruto doing?" Shikamaru wondered, sounding puzzled.

"Eh?" Ino wondered, turning to see that Naruto sneaking along the side of the wall and then peaking through the crack of the window. "Is he going to bother Sasuke-kun?" she wondered with a frown. "Seriously, considering Sasuke's in a mood today, he should just stop already."

Suddenly, Naruto threw up the window as he leapt inside, causing the window to shut behind him, preventing any noise from going out.

What's going to happen now? Ino wondered as she exchanged a glance with her teammates. Perhaps nothing would really happen, Ino mused, or maybe, she thought with a lecherous grin, it would dissolve into a beautiful mess of shounen ai instead!

~~~~~~~~Naruto~~~~~~~~

Naruto huffed angrily as he pulled himself up on the ledge. Just who did Sasuke think he was, overreacting and throwing him out the window? That was just wrong, and every cell in his body could agree on that. Not to mention, it was totally weird and unexpected. Seriously, it was like Sasuke had turned into Sakura for a moment, his reaction was that weird. It just wasn't supposed to happen.

In fact, Sasuke had been weird all day. Okay, maybe not all day, but definitely since that accidental kiss. He made Sakura sit beside him, and while Naruto knew that she was awesome, Sasuke didn't think so. And then he had disappeared as soon as Iruka had dismissed them for lunch. Seriously, it was downright creepy how fast Sasuke had disappeared. Even Sakura had looked confused – Sasuke was just there one moment, and gone the next.

But even more than that, there was just this feeling that something was fundamentally off about Sasuke, something wrong. Something was telling him things weren't going the way they were supposed to. It made Naruto off balance, and something itched at the back of his mind, like he should know why this was happening. Everything was, obviously, all Sasuke's fault. So there was only one thing to do: beat him up and get the answers!

Which brought him to where he was now, creeping along the ledge. Sasuke always had lunch in one of the empty classrooms, and Naruto was going to sneak in there and do his thing. The window was opened just a crack, barely enough to let air in. Naruto wondered why Sasuke needed to almost close the window to eat lunch. He grinned and carefully peaked through the crack in the window to see the expected sight of Sasuke holding a kunai with the pointy part facing towards himself, aimed at his heart, ready to be plunged in.

Yup, a totally normal sight to see at lunchtime–

Wait, WHAT.

Naruto's thoughts screeched to a halt, watching as Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut and then began to bring down the kunai. Faster than Naruto thought possible, he leapt through the window, deciding to forget his previous plans. After all, he kinda had more important thing to worry about, like oh, why Sasuke had decided to commit suicide all of a sudden.

"Sasuke, you bastard, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Naruto exclaimed as he landed on Sasuke and knocked away the kunai. They fell on the floor in a tangle of limbs, and Sasuke looked at him with wide eyes. Naruto was pracitcally centimeters away form Sasuke's face, and mindful of what happened earlier, he backed away so what he was only sitting on Sasuke instead.

Sasuke didn't answer, but his lower lip trembled.

Naruto began to get A Very Bad Feeling in his gut. Oh no–

A sniffle escaped Sasuke, and his eyes teared up.

No, no, no, no, no! Naruto thought frantically. What was happening?! Sauske wasn't supposed to cry, he never cried! Naruto didn't even know it was possible for him to start crying. What was Naruto supposed to do now? What did you even do when other guys started crying? He didn't know, and he most certainly wasn't qualified to deal with this!

"Sasuke, don't cry! J-Just man up and deal with this or something. Come on, boys aren't supposed to cry and stuff, you know?" Naruto had no idea what it was that he said, but clearly it was the wrong thing since it made Sasuke actually start sniffling more, and he actually started crying. This situation was so absurd, Naruto had no idea how to deal with this. This wasn't supposed to be happening! C'mon Naruto, think, he thought desperately. What would Sakura-chan do in a situation like this? Naruto blinked, then blanched. Oh shit, Sakura. She had already beat him up so much earlier today because of the kiss, what was she going to do when she found out he had made Sasuke cry? Forget becoming Hokage, she'd kill him first!

"Ahh, dammit, Sasuke, what made you this way?" he lamented, looking heavenward for inspiration.

Sasuke apparently took that as a question, and started babbling in gibberish. But... Naruto could understand it? It wasn't gibberish, he realized, it was English. Man, it had been a long time since he heard that. But, hold on sec, where did he know English from again?

Somewhat confused, he focused on Sasuke's words.

"–thought I could just ignore my problems, that there was no need to freak out, but if I just ignore them, they'll just pile up and how am I supposed to deal with Zabuza, Orochimaru, Chunin Exams, Itachi, goddamned Danzo, Madara, Zetsu, Kaguya and the rest of her alien family and speaking of which if I'm not Sasuke doesn't that mean I'm not Indra's reincarnation either because that would mean Sasuke would never gain Indra's power which would mean that everyone's quite possibly screwed when it comes to Infinite Tsukoyomi? I'm an entirely average person, I'm not qualified to deal with this level of bullshit!" Sasuke said hysterically, tears flowing everywhere. "So I decided to kill myself because either this was a dream and thus I'd wake up, or this was real and if I was dead at least I wouldn't have to deal with all this crap and either way I wouldn't have to deal with this whole self-insert mess anymore!"

"Oh," Naruto said dumbly. Oh. Sasuke's words had struck a chord with him, dislodging some very important memories. That's right, he thought. Before he was Naruto, he was someone else. Someone who had watched the story instead of living it. A self insert, huh? Well that made a lot of sense, and explained why Sasuke had been acting so wrong and his persistent feeling of wrongness. But he didn't remember dying or falling into a coma or anything, so how had he ended up here?

"At least, that was the plan until you stopped me," Sasuke glared at him, and whoa, where did the tears disappear to? Meh, at least Naruto had accomplished his goal of stopping Sasuke's crying.

"Why am I even explaining this to you, you don't even understand English," Sasuke muttered. "Just go away so I can go murder myself."

"Actually," Naruto replied, testing out his English, "I think I'm a self insert too."

Sasuke looked at him like he was an idiot. "What do you mean 'you think'? You either are, or you aren't. Which is it, idiot? Or did you lose your brain in the self-inserting process? Is your brain that tiny? Oh wait, I'm sorry, I forgot you don't have one in the first place. My bad."

"Why is it that you can go from an emotional wreck to insulting me in ten seconds flat?" Naruto wondered. To his surprise, Sasuke actually looked mortified.

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to insult you, you just make it too easy – wait, no that didn't come out right either!" Sasuke said, frustrated, and crap, were those tears gathering at the corner of his eyes again? That had to be stopped at all costs!

"Moving on," Naruto said loudly as he internally wondered why he was having to comfort Sasuke when Sasuke had been the one to insult him, "Dude, you can't just commit suicide and leave me to deal with this insanity alone!"

"Um, yes I can and you can't stop me. Suicide is clearly the best option here, dumbass. First of all, I have basically no real attachments to the people here – aside from some fangirlism tendencies, which honestly isn't that much – and do you realize that there's no anime, internet, fanfiction, books, etc here, at least not the ones we know and love? Do you realize what that means? No finishing your anime, no more fandoms! How do you expect me to survive?!" Sasuke ranted. "And there's the usual death and gloom in naruto-verse as well."

Naruto froze, becoming horrified. "Oh my god, you're right. How do the self inserts do it?"

Sasuke shrugged helplessly. "I have no damn clue, and I don't want to stick around to find out. Anyway, you get my point, so–" Suddenly Sasuke froze, horror dawning on his face.

Naruto blinked, worried. "Er, Sasuke? You okay?"

With a shriek, Sasuke suddenly threw him off to the side. As he felt the wind sweep pass him and then as the hard, unforgiving wood of the wall hit his back, Naruto wondered what he had done to set Sasuke off this time. "Ow," he mumbled as he fell to the floor in a heap.

"You idiot!" Sasuke yelled hysterically at him, now standing up.

And now the point where Sasuke starts a fight with me, Naruto thought with a grimace as he picked himself. Any moment now, Sasuke should be throwing a punch – so why was he instead slowly backing away and looking at Naruto like he was the second coming of Madara?! Seriously, if anyone was Madara here, it should be Sasuke, not Naruto!

"Dammit, Sasuke, what is it now?" he was with exasperation, wondering why he had to be the mature one. Seriously, he was Naruto. Maturity wasn't a word in his dictionary. Well, to be accurate, he didn't even have a dictionary in the first place.

"Do you not realize the position you just put us in?" Sasuke demanded. "With you sitting over me like that, it was the cliche setting for someone to walk in and misinterpret everything!"

"Well excuse me for trying to save your life," Naruto retorted, miffed. With the way Sasuke was acting, you would have thought that Naruto was trying to kill him or something.

Sasuke scowled. "Look, you have to be a bit more mindful of who we are now. If we're not careful, this could turn into a..." Sasuke shuddered, then continued, "A NaruSasu universe."

"Is that what you're worried about? Sheesh, you don't need to be, I'm like as straight as a ruler," Naruto reassured.

With a glare, Sasuke replied darkly, "There's this thing called a bendy ruler."

"Straight as one of those hard plastic rulers then."

"Plastic can be melted and reshaped!"

"For the love of ramen, why can't you just accept I'm straight?!" Naruto demanded. Honestly, most of the time people had trouble accepting that someone was gay, not that someone was straight. Sasuke was weird.

"Oh yeah?! Well you said you were a self-insert, didn't you? So why the hell did you kiss me if you knew it was going to happen? In fact, I realized I was self-insert after that stupid kiss, so does that mean you're responsible for my situation or something?" Sasuke hissed menacingly.

The room suddenly filled with an oppressive air, and Naruto gulped, watching as Sasuke picked up the kunai he had dropped.

"Hey," Sasuke said quietly, intently, as he casually flipped the kunai in his hand, "If you kissed me on purpose, if you brought me here on purpose, I will set all the ramen stands in Konoha on fire."

Naruto gasped. That was a far crueler threat than he had expected. Sure he hadn't always been Naruto, but ramen was still ramen: the most glorious thing in existence. "You wouldn't dare!"

"I basically care about next to nothing in this world right now," Sasuke said calmly. "And consequences for my actions? I couldn't care less about them."

"But I didn't do anything on purpose, I swear!" Naruto wailed. "I ddin't even realize I was a self-insert until you started talking in English! Just leave my precious ramen stands alone, Sasuke, you cruel bastard!"

Sasuke frowned, but he put away the kunai, apparently believing him. Naruto could have sobbed in relief. Sasuke asked with disappointment, "So I'm guessing you don't know how to go back?"

"Nope."

"Well, then I guess I'm off to murder myself in hopes that that'll wake me up from this nightmare. This time, kindly don't interrupt me," Sasuke told him, and took out the kunai.

Naruto had to stop him somehow. Thinking quickly, he blurted out, "Then I'll just go and release the Kyuubi then." Sasuke had to have some compunctions about indirectly killing the main character, right?

Sasuke gaped at him. "Look I know I'm a genius and you're an idiot incapable of coming up with a half-way decent plan even with help, but that doesn't mean you can copy my plan of suicide! Plus, you'll end up responsible for a lot of deaths that way. A better method would be to like, hang yourself or something."

I could strangle him for how earnest he sounds. Does he not even realize he's insulting me and telling me to go die? Naruto thought as his eye twitched. He didn't even know why he was trying to save Sasuke. "Kyuubi healing factor, so a half-assed attempt at suicide won't work. Anyway, we don't even know whether we're in canon or in a fanverse. If we're in canon, it probably won't be too bad, but if it's a fanverse... just thinking of the banishment fics or Naruto bashing fics makes me shudder. And that's not even touching the horror of the M-rated fics. Speaking of which, I sort of understand your fear of NaruSasu now..."

Sasuke stiffened. "I don't think I've ever even read a Naruto bashing fic, and according to your memories, were you ever chased and beat up by civilians for practically no reason other than your existence?"

Naruto blinked. "Er, no..."

"Then you're fine. Those kinds of universes usually play up the horror of your childhood," Sasuke said dismissively. "Me, on the other hand. Do you even know how many Sasuke-bashing fics there are? The bashing fics usually start after graduation or the chuunin exams, so unlike you, I don't have a clue to tell me in which universe I am! The fandom is not kind to him, and neither is canon. Whereas in canon, you get married to a beautiful wife and have kids and become Hokage and turn into a respected figure and get your happily ever after, my destiny is to spend three years with a possible pedophile, murder people, kill my brother, lose an arm and not get it fixed, get thrown in prison for probably a year, marry a girl I barely spend time with, wander around the world like some sort of vagrant, and not even recognize my own daughter. You have plot armor, and me? I didn't even exist when Kishimoto first outlined the story. I refuse to continue to exist as such a character! My destiny is so terrible I might as well lie down and die."

"Don't be like that! You have plenty to live for," Naruto protested, desperately trying to salvage the situation. Where was Therapy no Jutsu when you needed it?! "Like, uh, um, yeah! Fangirls. You're liked by a lot girls! You don't have to marry Sakura, and in fact, I'd prefer it if you didn't. You're free to marry whomever you choose. And uh, powerups! You get cool powerups. And, uh... you have a very... devoted brother?"

Sasuke looked at him blankly. "Oh. I didn't tell you. I was actually a girl before, so the fangirl point is kinda useless since I wasn't lesbian."

Naruto blinked. Hold on, if he's a girl, shouldn't I be the one worried about 'catching' NaruSasu from him since he's the one attracted to guys, and not the other way around?! Well, that at least explained Sasuke's extra weirdness. Girls were practically from another planet after all.

Sasuke continued, "And to get the Sharingan, you have to go through emotional trauma, and for the Mangekyou? More murder and trauma! And as for Itachi, Sasuke's 'devoted' brother as you put it, what do you think he'd do to me when he realizes I'm not actually Sasuke?"

"Ah," Naruto realized with a wince. That would not be pretty. "Point taken."

"I'm so glad you understand," Sasuke beamed, and Naruto shuddered. That look was far too strange on Sasuke's face.

"Dude, don't smile. It looks too weird on Sasuke's face," Naruto commented.

The smile quickly morphed into a scowl. Much better, Naruto thought contentedly. All was once more right in the world.

"Another reason why I shouldn't stay here. Apparently, I'm not allowed to smile here. Well, don't mind that, I'm just going to go murder myself now, excuse me," Sasuke said coolly.

Naruto blanched. All was definitely not right with the world. He didn't want to be alone, damn it. "Sasuke wait! I didn't mean it, I take it back. You can smile if you want, no matter how unnatural it looks. I mean, unnatural as in it's not a sight you see often, not unnatural as in your smile's too weird or creepy. And I'm not lying when I say that! In fact, your smile is actually quite nice to look at!"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him, unimpressed. "Are you aware that you just dug yourself deeper into a hole with every word you spoke or are you that oblivious? And really, that awkward compliment – 'quite nice to look at' – are you trying to invoke a NaruSasu scene or something? Do I need to defenestrate you again?"

What the heck is 'defenestrate'? Naruto thought, but guessed it couldn't mean anything good. "Don't you care about Itachi?" he said desperately, knowing that this was the one topic he should not touch, but his options were running out. "Look, if you kill yourself, while yeah, that might mean you might end up back in the real world, that would mean that this world's Sasuke would definitely be dead. Itachi would be absolutely crushed by that wouldn't he?"

Sasuke faltered, clearly not having considered that yet. Sensing an opportunity, Naruto pounced, "And look, if you kill yourself then you might just die, and there's no guarantee that you won't reincarnate like Indra or something. So rather than trying something with so little a chance of success, why don't we try to figure out what brought us here in the first place, and/or come up with some way to go back by using some cool jutsu or something? That way, you'll have a better chance of going back, and in case that doesn't work out or things get too rough, we can commit a double suicide or something."

Sasuke stared at him, then commented, "Okay, now I know for sure that you're a self-insert because no way in hell would Naruto have ever had those thinking capabilities."

Naruto sweat dropped. Why did Sasuke keep insulting him like this?! "But I have a point, right?"

A conflicted look crossed Sasuke's face. "Well, yes, but... Itachi's going to hate me."

"Well, you don't know that for sure. It's not like we asked for this to happen. And maybe we always were Naruto and Sasuke and just remembered now. And if we're not, we'll try to figure what happened to the originals too okay?" Naruto comforted.

"I still don't want to end up with you," Sasuke muttered halfheartedly in protest.

Naruto grinned, "Well, Sasuke bastard, it's not like I want to end up with you either. I'm straight, remember?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "Fine, but if I reserve the right to defenestrate you if you make any advances," Sasuke threatened.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Whatever. It's not like we need to have a romance, we can have a bromance instead, you know!"

"I'm a girl, you idiot," Sasuke reminded gloomily, "I don't even know how you do a bromance."

"True," Naruto conceded, "But I'm sure we'll figure it out along the way, believe it!" Saying such he flashed Sasuke a million watt smile. Internally, he decided he would never say 'believe it' again. It just didn't have the same awesomeness as 'dattebayo'.

"...no idea what he's doing, does he?" Sasuke muttered something indistinct and dropped to the ground as he buried his face in his hands.

With a roll of his eyes, Naruto offered a hand to Sasuke. "I'm not that bad. C'mon, let's have lunch. We have like, seven minutes left. We can like, plan on what to do and stuff."

Hesitantly, Sasuke took his hand and got up. Noticing they were a bit close now, Naruto took a step back, giving Sasuke some space since he probably cared about that. Or at least, that's what he intended to do. Instead, when he took a step back, his foot landed on top of Sasuke's hitherto unnoticed bento box, causing him to slip backward and fall on the floor, and since he was holding Sasuke's hand, the other boy came down right on top of him.

Oh fuck, Naruto realized with horror that once more, his lips were connected to Sasuke's. With a shriek, the Sasuke scrambled up and away from Naruto.

What did defenestration mean again? Naruto too quickly got up, and backed away slowly. "Now, Sasuke, calm down–"

"Defenestration!" Sasuke declared, and faster than Naruto could react, he delivered a swift kick to Naruto's stomach, sending him sailing out the window once more. Huh, okay, that must be what defenestration meant.

As he went flying through the air, Naruto could only lament, why did I even help that stupid bastard anyway?!

~~~~~~~~Ino~~~~~~~~

Naruto had spent far too long inside, Ino decided. She was dying to go inside and see what was happening, but she was also afraid that in the time it took for her to go through the building to get to the room, she would miss some important development. So far, all they had heard was some indistinct muffled yelling, and a couple of thumps. Maybe they kissed again, Ino fantasized with glee, or maybe, oh ho ho, don't tell me they're taking it further? Are their clothes still on, or are they taking it all the way? Kyaaa!

"Okay, that's it! It's been too long, I'm going to go check it out," Ino declared as she prepared to go inside.

"Why would you want to get involved in something so troublesome?" Shikamaru muttered, but she knew that he had to be just as curious. He had been alert at first, but then relaxed when he realized it wasn't going to be something that would be solved quickly.

Ino rolled her eyes, but before she leave, she heard a scream – Naruto's scream. Perking up, she quickly whipped around to see a blond sailing through the air heading straight towards–

Crap, he's going to hit me! Ino thought with panic as she quickly side stepped the flying blond, causing him to crash into the floor.

"Thrown out the window again, huh?" Choji said sympathetically, and offered Naruto a chip. Naruto just groaned. "What did you do this time?"

Ino, meanwhile, raked her eyes over Naruto with a frown. No visible bruises, he doesn't look too disheveled, his lips don't look like anyone's been biting them, but most of all – "Damn," Ino cursed grumpily. "He still has his clothes on."

Shikamaru gave her a disturbed look, like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and subtly scooted away.

Ino was too busy mourning her crushed yaoi fantasies to care.

~~~~~~~Omake:~~~~~~~~

The the jounins crowded around the Hokage's crystal ball as they observed this year's genin candidates. The Hokage was talking about them, but Kakashi barely kept an ear on the speech. Well, at least until something amusing happened on the crystal ball, anyway.

"Ah, Naruto's causing trouble again," the Hokage said with a chuckle.

But the accidental kiss wasn't the end of it. Kakashi and the rest of them watched as Naruto got beat up by fangirls, and watched further as the Uchiha boy finally recovered, and then, to the amusement of many, threw the Uzumaki boy out the window.

Kakashi blinked. That's supposed to be my team? He thought dubiously. Well, at least I know which one to not to use the Thousand Years of Pain Jutsu on.

~~~~~~~~~~Answer: We have no clue, so let's have a bromance instead.~~~~~~~~~~

Thank to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed my stories. It's always nice to know I was able to make someone smile, even if I'm not always able to reply. ^_^ Further reviews, favorites, and follows will of course be appreciated. Even if don't review, if you liked this story please consider checking out another story of mine, Meet Your Matchmakers ( s/12204993/1/Meet-Your-Matchmakers). It's about Sasuke desperately trying to protect Itachi's virtue. Give it try, it's my baby.

(I may or may not be doing NaNoWriMo for this. It took me six days to write 6K words, so we'll see how successful I am.)

thanks for reading,

ketsui meraki

Question: What did you like/hate about this chapter?