Chapter 1
Laying in bed all day on his day off was pure bliss, with his laptop off to his side of his extremely small twin sized bed, he took a look around the room, seemed liked a dorm room in a normal sense, the look alike two dressers on either ends of the matching wood framed beds that made way too much noise if you even dared breathe on them
Heh, yea, college, thats totally why I’m here
Gaara hadn’t been home all day, well, since Naruto woke up that is, so around 2pm. Gaara slept in the bed not even two feet away from him, and Naruto wouldn’t say to any of his friends, but he got lonely even if he knew Gaara would be coming back, well hopefully coming back. In these circumstances there's always the chance he wouldn’t, or would be found dead, or just never heard from again. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. Naruto remembers a housemate that moved in and not even a week later he was gone. What’s sad is, he couldn’t even remember his name. The turnover rate was pretty damn high but that’s only to be expected in a place like this, in a goddamn halfway house. Well, this was technically a three quarters house, no live in house manager checking to see if your room was clean every day and waiting up for curfew every night. No, Naruto had minded his qs and ps and was now in a house that so happened to house five addicts, and they were drug tested three times a week, but other than that, it was very much college-eque.
The sunlight warmed his thighs from the window his bed was pushed up against, knowing he shouldn't be down because Gaara was only at work, as was required in this house, and instead should focus on feeding himself. Naruto often would just lay in bed some days and ignore hunger and thirst just for the sake doing so, but his therapist Shizune said that listening to his body blah blah blah, take care of yourself stupid bitch, or something like that.
Now he had a car, a car with a leak in the brake fluid line, so unless it was to go to work, he tried not to drive it. His friend across the hall, one of his best friends really, Neji, always hounded him about just taking and getting it fixed, and Naruto had plenty of money, kinda, so he could take to get it fixed, it was just so much. Kiba, Neji’s roommate thought it was funny actually, “you always joke about wanting to die so beep beep bitch heres your chance, now get it fixed dumbass” Kiba was very....chaotic, to say the least. Neji and Kiba were his best friends here, even if both of them had relapsed for a time, back to back almost, and he found Neji od’ed in the bathroom, it only happened once, and he had lived, so, water under the bridge. Truthfully Naruto had been worried after Neji went back to treatment, because the aftermath of that OD like the thirty minutes in the time it had taken Neji to fly into an absolute panic and beg Naruto not to tell the house manager, with tears flowing down his face and scratch marks across his eyes from where he had tried to scratch them out when he was fucked up, in a voice that Naruto barely recognized as his friend, BEGGED Naruto not to tell, and then took off in his fancy car that his family bought for him years ago. Neji went to treatment the next night but in that time Naruto didn’t sleep once, knowing that he could get the call that his friend was dead along with so many others.
Angsty feelings aside, he was hungry, and not trusting his piece of shit car, pulled up door dash on his phone.
Ah yes, my one and true steady friend, Door Dash.
Ordering his favorite savory noodle dish, he waited for the confirmation, then decided on catching up on Lucifer, one of his favorite Netflix addictions at the moment since it would take a hot hour due to traffic at 6 that plagued the twisting highways that made up of the mountain city.
Getting bored after about twenty minutes, he decided to go harass Kiba across the hall since that bastard should be home from work by now.
“Oh hey what’s up bitch.”
Kiba was sprawled in the bed closest to the nearest wall, and the windows across the room had the blinds pulled all the way up letting the summer sun warm up the small room in a house that seemed perpetually freezing, curtesy of Gaara always fucking with the thermostat.
“How was work?” Naruto asked, as Kiba was entirely absorbed into his phone.
“Dude, I upsold the shit out of some food today, and I’m ahead of that bitch Ino in the lead for sales.”
“Whats the reward since it’s this weird competition?”
“Oh, like scratch off tickets or some shit, I don’t care about that, I just want to beat her.”
Kiba was sitting up completely at this point, using arm gestures and way too into explaining how, as a server he always recommended expensive sides and tried to get people on the rewards program, and how he was going to need the cooperation of everyone in the house to sign up so he could beat the girl at his job that for some reason he couldn’t stand. It was fucking Red Lobster, so it couldn’t that serious, but we all needed to focus on something, and if Kiba’s hyperfocus of the month was being the best server in Red Lobster history, then so fucking be it.
Naruto checked his phone and saw that his driver was ten minutes away.
“Hang on Kibs, my foods about to be here, i gotta put clothes on I guess.”
Walking the three steps to his room he hastily put on a shirt, and the only shoes readily available were his work shoes he wore at the restaurant he worked at, thick soled and squishy and nonslip, he slipped them on then got down stairs, crossed the living room to their front door, onto the giant porch with a table and chairs and ash trays a blunder, he leaned on the dark wooden rail that pointed to the sidewalk and the road and waited.
It didn’t take but a few minutes when a black honda civic pulled into the shared driveway the two houses next to each other shared. Naruto walked down the stairs to the right onto the small patch of pebbles and struggling grass and then awkwardly put his hands in his shorts waiting for the driver to get out.
The man got out, and fuck was he pretty. He had dark hair in a sort of weird hairstyle where it was long but also kinda spikey with fringe that reminded him of the guys in the King for a Day music video. He was pale, wearing all black, shirt and skinny jeans with classic vans, and wow, Hes just my fucking type.
Remaining as chill as possible, he walked to meet the stranger just infront of his car, onto the concrete, where somehow his shoe caught, and his ankle completely gave up and rolled, next thing he knows is he’s being stablized on either side of his arms looking up into the darkest eyes he’s ever seen.
“Oh my god im so sorry, these are my work shoes, and I don’t wear them outside much and”-
“Are you ok?” the stranger stopped his babbling, and Naruto couldn’t tell if he was concerned or trying not to laugh, ok a little dickish.
“Oh yea no I’m fine, I’m chill.”
“You’re chill?” Naruto couldn’t tell if he was being made fun of at the moment and he didn’t care. His face now flush with embarrassment, he was just working on saving face at the moment.
“Yea, yea I’m good, hey thanks man” He reached for the food that might have been held out for thirty seconds now, he didn’t know, whatever.
“Yea” the dark dude replied, already making his way back into his car.
“Thank you! Drive safe please!” Naruto tried to manage to get in before the car door slammed.
The black car pulled out and was around the curve and Naruto was still standing there like an idiot, holding his takeout bag, staring.
“Fuuuuuck I didn’t even look at his name.”
And I just looked like a total simp.