Under The Enemy's Roof

A/N: Gah...psych exam...no comments for tonight, sorry! But I still wrote something! Hope that counts!

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Under the Enemy's Roof
chapter v

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Naruto groaned as he ran his fingers through his blonde hair. Stealing a glance at the perched at the back of the room, he heaved a massive sigh as he felt practically all of his brain cells pop in boredom. It had been two hours since the bell rang signifying the beginning of school and the teacher still hadn’t arrived. Instead, all that had been left for them was a message scribbled on the blackboard telling everyone to read pages from their textbook and to enjoy the sunshine. The blonde deeply suspected that the message had actually been written the day before, or perhaps even last week, since it had been raining since morning, though it had been rather sunny the past week. Plus, the supposed assignment was to read over 3,000 pages of text.

Another classmate had confirmed his suspicions when he had asked. The teacher, indeed, rarely ever showed up before the actual period was up, in fact, he had given specific orders for the students to never wash the chalkboard. The message had been up for nearly two weeks now. There were rumors that the teacher was actually a pervert who liked to terrorize the pretty teachers from other classes as much as possible, especially one specific ‘Iruka-sensei.’ The boys theorized that this ‘Iruka-sensei’ must have been one spicy platter to have hooked their wayward teacher like that.

Naruto’s eye twitched at the thought of his new home room teacher preferring sex in the teacher’s lounge, or, even worse, a bathroom stall to actually teaching. This apparently terrified his classmate, who thought that he had done something to offend the blonde. He started apologizing profusely, until Naruto reassured him that it was nothing that he had done.

A scowl made its way back onto the small boy’s face as he remembered the earlier events of the day. It still made his blood boil when he thought of Sasuke’s smug face. He could just imagine the brunette right then with devils horns and a pointed tail, pasting the message onto the bulletin board with his two lackeys, Neji and Gaara, helping him. He quivered in rage just thinking about it. Turning his head, he caught sight of one of the offenders on the opposite end of the room staring out of the window.

His eyes softened as he looked at the other boy, who seemed so lonely in the corner by himself. None of the other students even bothered to talk to him, though, not in the rude way that they had done to Naruto, necessarily. Rather, it a fearsome way, where everyone avoided him like the plague. The blonde could clearly see that no one dared to sit in the desks directly next to the redhead. Instead there was an intersection of empty desks, with Gaara’s lonely figure in the center. Deciding that something should be done about it, Naruto, letting his anger dissipate, walked over to the loner.

Sliding into the desk next to the stoic boy, the blonde pasted on his best grin. “Hey.”

For a second, everyone in the class held their breath. No one had ever willingly spoken to Gaara before. It had always been a forced affair when it came to the heir of the Sabaku fortune. If he had a group project, the group simply did all the work for him, happy to take on the extra labor for the sake of being away from him. If they had to talk with him, they said as little as possible and absolutely, under no circumstances, attempted small talk. Now, Uzumaki Naruto, some new kid, had just done in two days more than what most people did to Gaara in a lifetime. Between the fist fights, the insults, and now, the casual greetings, everyone in the room felt as if they were going to faint from information overload.

Gaara glared at Naruto suspiciously as everyone else anticipated the blunt weapon to appear in his hand at any moment to knock the hyperactive blonde unconscious. Then, much to the class’s surprise, the redhead actually responded, albeit laconically, with a bored, “Hn.”

This, however, wasn’t good enough for the newcomer.

“Hey, why don’t you lighten up? Say a bit more than just a syllable!” said Naruto brightly as he slapped a hand over the brooding redhead on shoulder in a friendly gesture. The room froze again. No one ever, ever touched Gaara.

The Sabaku clearly did not appreciate this gesture, as he turned to give Naruto a long, cold glare that could have frozen oceans had the blonde not been so full of sunlight and optimism. “Are you done yet?”

“Tch. What did I tell you? You should lighten up some, freak-boy!” grinned the newcomer, not really minding his companion’s chilly attitude. Then, suddenly noticing that the room had gotten quiet, looked around to find the entire room effectively eavesdropping on their conversation. “Hey! Go mind your own goddamn business!”

Immediately, the entire room bursted out into a panicked bustle, with everyone talking about anything that came to mind. No one dared to disobey the boy who was favored by the three most powerful boys in the school. Naruto’s lip curled at the room’s obedience, still unable to wrap his mind around his new-found and rather unwanted power. He wasn’t used to people obeying him. He was used to them throwing reasonably heavy objects at him or ignoring him or laughing at him.

But it wasn’t as if he were a masochist or anything.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t enjoy this sort of power, but he had always told himself that he would come across it himself, that he would one day just become an ordinarily loved and ordinarily hated citizen of Japan. He snorted somewhat at his dream of mediocrity. Most people would want to be an astronaut or a policeman, but he wanted to be normal. He would give practically anything to be one of those dime-a-dozen businessmen he saw time to time stumbling out of the bars late at night with a group of their buddies, laughing and making lewd jokes, and on their way back to their sons and daughters and wives.

He heaved a sigh as he realized that now that he was part of the Uchiha household, he’d probably be provided for and pampered no matter how he did in life. Hell, he could probably drop out now and masquerade as one of the gardeners he had seen shifting in and out of the yard. No one had to know that the Uchihas had taken in an idiot, all they’d know is that those rich bastards had had the same gardener for a hell of a long time. He groaned somewhat as he realized that Sasuke, being the skewed brother figure that he was, would never allow that. In fact, if the brunette could have his way, he’d probably tie Naruto up in the mansion forever, never letting him out.

Then, realizing that he had just described the spitting example of an over-possessive lover, the blonde shuddered, though, to his disdain, not in an entirely bad way, and tried to focus back to the matter at hand.

“Why do you care?” spat his almost forgotten conversation partner. He was staring suspicious daggers into the smaller boy. At this, Naruto blinked, confused at first, but then eventually grinning back toward the other boy.

“Well, why not?” asked the boy with a huge smile lighting his face. “I’m your classmate after all, and, besides, it was probably Sasuke who talked you into that note thing anyway, that bastard.”

A strange silence fell between the two of them as Gaara tried to comprehend what Naruto had just said.

“Besides,” continued the blonde, “I wanna get to know you better, you know, be your friend.”

Gaara felt as if his day had gotten a lot brighter.

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“So why did you sign that note anyway?” asked Naruto has he walked down the steps of the school with the redhead. Although his stoic classmate still rarely said anything, they had at least gotten over the possibility of any outbursts of violence that might come from either side. Gaara had also managed to convince Naruto that he had written his name under the announcement on his own, not wanting to be affiliated to the Uchiha in any way. This had, of course, warranted another huge outburst from the little blonde.

“Because,” drawled Gaara, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “you and I are the same.”

“The same?” asked Naruto, clearly confused by the meaning of this. He wracked his brain to try to figure out what the redhead meant, but still came up empty.

“Don’t you know?” asked the Sabaku heir. This time, it was his turn to be confused. Although it was possible for the blonde to not know about his condition, the other had reacted to his presence the day of the fight, which should have set off some alarms. His green eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the other. Although Naruto was still small, he was obviously on his way to puberty, which meant that he should be undergoing noticeable changes unless if he were taking drugs. In that case, he would have known from the Uchihas what was going on.

“Know what?” replied the blonde sheepishly, with an apologetic smile on his face. He honestly didn’t know what was going on.

“Your,” Gaara’s voice dropped considerably, “condi-“

“Naruto-kun.”

The blonde’s body swivelled around to see who had just called his name. He suddenly came face to face with a tall boy who looked very similar to Sasuke, with the same ivory skin and onyx eyes that seemed to be flashing a bloody red now, either from anger or from disdain. Naruto was tempted to say ‘Sasuke,’ until he remembered that he had another ‘brother.’

“A-ah,” began the small boy, “You must be Itachi.”

He paused for a while before adding, reluctantly.

“-onii-chan.”

An eerie smile found its way across the elder Uchiha’s face as his eyes gleamed with pleasure at the polite suffix. “No need to be so formal, Naruto-kun, Itachi-san will be fine.”

The blonde only nodded weakly at his words. He had suddenly lost all of his spunk now that he was standing before the intimidating young man. The brunette carried an air of authority about him that immediately froze all impulsive thoughts that could run through the smaller boy’s head.

“How about you get into the car, Naruto-kun?” suggested Itachi, although it was obvious that it was more of a command than a question. Nodding once more, Naruto bid Gaara farewell before slipping into the expensive black car. Making sure that his new ‘little brother’ was tucked away and out of sight, the Uchiha heir twisted back and glowered at the young boy left standing in front of him.

“Say anything to Naruto-kun,” threatened Itachi, with a mocking emphasis on the suffix, “and I will expose you and your family, raccoon.”

Gaara glared long and hard at the man, before submitting to the brunette’s will. He couldn’t gamble the family fortune over something as trivial as this. He would accept the blonde’s friendship, but he could not afford to place his sister and brother, as annoying as they were at times, in such brutal danger. Besides, with any luck, there was a chance that he would be able to ruin the Uchiha household with the secret that they were withholding from Naruto, which he was suddenly not so sure concerned only his ‘condition.’

Nodding with satisfaction, Itachi turned on his heel and swiftly entered the car, driving away with a perplexed and fidgeting blonde in the backseat.