SN

When Sasuke wakes up, his first thought is, I’m going to Neji’s today.

His second thought is, I feel like crap.

This is familiar, the aches and pains. He is used to a breakdown taking its toll on his body, but it’s been so long -- three or four years -- that he’s forgotten.  With a groan, Sasuke rolls out of bed and shuffles into the kitchen. Breakfast of tea and toast -- the only things he can stomach right now.

When high school started, he had vowed to leave this behind. This weakness. Sasuke had shut himself off from thoughts that might lead to this, thrown himself into his schoolwork, hadn’t even bothered to go through the boxes left moldering in the basement -- boxes holding things that no longer belonged to anyone, but were too valuable to get rid of. And now, despite all his best efforts, somehow Sasuke’s dam of emotions had been cracked. Over the past few days, he’d cried more tears than he had his entire two years in high school.

The tea kettle begins to whistle. Sasuke sighs and tips the steaming contents into a chipped red and white mug. True, he hadn’t cried so much in years, but he hadn’t laughed so hard either. Is it worth it? he wonders absentmindedly as he slides two slices of bread into the toaster. Is opening up to others worth the pain that accompanies the memories?

Snuggling into a blanket, Sasuke settles himself at the table with his breakfast and a notebook. Might as well work on his poetry assignment, if he’s going to be in this philosophical mood all morning.

. . .

An hour and a half later, surrounded by eraser shavings and crumpled papers, he finally surrenders. “Stupid poetry,” Sasuke growls, slamming down his pencil and rubbing his throbbing temples. “Stupid rhyme scheme. Stupid Shizune-sensei. Stupid assignment. Stupid new beginnings.” His head feels hot and wooly, like someone’s stuffed it with cotton. His stomach is churning, his eyes ache, and all he’s managed to come up with is a bunch of words that rhyme with “dawn.” “I need a break.”

Sasuke wonders what Neji is doing right about now. Probably not stupid homework. Maybe he’s reading a play. Or watching the clouds, like that one kid in Sasuke’s gym class who refused to run laps because he was “studying the weather patterns.”

Or maybe he’s wondering what Sasuke is doing right now. Sasuke stands and makes his way into his bedroom. Neji didn’t say specifically what time Sasuke should come over -- maybe they could do homework together.

. . .

Sasuke regrets his decision as soon as he knocks on the door. Nope, he thinks, this is a bad idea. He turns around to leave, but before he can, the door swings open.

Sasuke winces and quickly spins around. “Hey N--”

There is a girl standing in the doorway. She can’t be much older than twelve. Her hair, like Neji’s and Hiashi’s, falls to her waist, and her milky eyes match theirs as well. What’s different about her is the air of utter indifference that she exudes.

The girl raises an eyebrow, and Sasuke is strongly reminded of Neji. “Who’re you?” She pops a pink gum bubble, and Sasuke tries not to flinch.

“I’m here to talk to Neji. We’re, um, working on a project?” Sasuke tries to act confident, but the scrutiny of the girl’s gaze is intimidating. Why does everyone have such strange siblings? he wonders.

“Oh.” The girl pops another bubble and crosses her arms. “You’re the one who passed out on the roof.”

Sasuke can feel his cheeks warming. “Yes. I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Mm-hm.” The girl gives him a slow once-over, and Sasuke tries not to fidget. Who is this girl and why is she so judgemental? “You can come in,” she says finally, and he lets out a small sigh of relief as he follows her inside.

If Gaara’s house is nice, Neji’s is like a museum. Everything is quiet, untouched and some sort of expensive-looking mahogany. “Take off your shoes,” the girl says over her shoulder, and Sasuke complies.

“You have a lovely house,” he remarks, trying to be polite, and the girl turns to stare at him, narrowing her eyes.

“Don’t touch anything,” she warns. “Daddy will lose his shit.”

“Um.” Sasuke blinks. Daddy? “Are you Neji’s cousin?”

“Duh.” The girl pops another bubble. “Are you his boyfriend?”

Sasuke gapes at her. “I --”

“Please.” The girl rolls her eyes. “It’s no secret he’s got a thing for guys.” She leans forward, a mischievous gleam in her eye. “The closed doors, the porn --”

“Hanabi!” Neji is standing in the doorway, glaring at the girl. “What are you telling him?”

“Nothing.” The girl -- Hanabi -- shoots Sasuke a look. “Have fun, you two,” she trills and sweeps out of the room, leaving a frowning Neji and a bright-red Sasuke in her wake.

Neji scowls after her. “Troublemaker,” he mutters. “Sorry about that, Sasuke. She likes to torment guests.”

“Oh.” Sasuke wonders how many guests Neji regularly has over. “It’s fine.”

Neji shrugs. “We could go to my room, now that my uncle knows you’re coming over.” Sasuke hesitates, remembering the low ceilings and thin walls, and Neji must notice his reluctance, because he quickly adds, “Or we could go up to the roof again. It’ll probably be warmer in the daytime.”

So they end up on the roof once more, reclining across a blanket. Sasuke thinks, for a moment, that maybe this is too informal -- and then Neji, eyes closed, smiles. “Mmmm. Peaceful,” he murmurs, and Sasuke stretches out next to him and grins. The sun is warm and Sasuke’s eyelids are heavy. He’s maybe starting to drift off a little when Neji says abruptly, like he’s just thought of it, “Oh. What did Hanabi say to you that made your ears turn bright red?”

“Huh?” Sasuke’s eyes fly open and his startled gaze meets Neji’s curious one. “Uhm… nothing. It was stupid -- nothing.” She hadn’t been telling the truth, right? Of course not. That was ridiculous -- Neji was regal and proud. He would never… Sasuke could feel the blush creeping back up his cheeks. No. He wouldn’t do… that stuff.

Neji’s eyes narrow at Sasuke’s sudden blush. “Was it about the play?”

“No.” Sasuke is slightly relieved, but his curiosity is piqued. “What play?”

“Nothing,” Neji says -- too quickly. Sasuke props himself up on his arm and raises his eyebrows, and Neji looks away, busying himself with smoothing out a wrinkled section of the blanket.

“Does this have anything to do with what you said about the stars yesterday?” Sasuke pushes himself to a sitting position and crosses his legs. “That was Shakespeare, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Neji still isn’t looking at him. “Henry VI.”

Sasuke has a sudden flashback to the clearing. The book Neji was reading then -- “You really like theater, huh?”

Neji’s head snaps up, and an outraged flush spreads across his face. “I didn’t --!”

Sasuke can’t hold back a smile. “That’s really cool. Are you good at acting?”

Neji scowls and looks away. “Of course,” he mutters. “Nobody can play Hamlet like me.” He glances at Sasuke out of the corner of eye, as if gauging his reaction.

Sasuke is biting his lip so hard he thinks it might be bleeding. Unbidden, the image of Neji dressed in Shakespearean clothing popped into his head, and trying to keep a straight face is torture.

Neji is now looking around nervously, even though the two of them are alone on the roof. “Listen,” he hisses in an urgent whisper. “You cannot tell my uncle about this. He would be beyond angry if he knew I was ‘wasting my time on that theater stuff.’” His angry air quotations show that he’s obviously parroting his uncle’s words. “He thinks I go to study groups after school, not play rehearsal with Lee and Tenten.”

“Lee and…” Sasuke understands now. “That’s how you three became friends?”

Neji sighs and sags back against the blanket. “Oh, God. Yeah. It was freshman year. I was looking for the Quiz Bowl practice and I accidentally stumbled on the tech crew interest meeting.”

“Accidentally?” Sasuke can’t help himself. “Does the Quiz Bowl team meet in the auditorium?”

“Be quiet.” Neji smacks Sasuke’s arm, not enough to leave a mark but enough to sting. “I’m telling a story here.”

“Right. Sorry, Hamlet.” Sasuke ducks the next slap and shuffles out of range of Neji’s slaps. “Keep going.”

Neji huffs and blows a stray lock of hair out of his eyes, but he’s smiling. “So I walk in, and there’s around ten other kids there. Sitting on the desks, and passing around a bag of potato chips and laughing. And when I walk in they all fall silent, and then one girl--”

“Let me guess. She had Mickey-Mouse hair.”

Neji stares at Sasuke for a second and then starts laughing, hard enough to make his face pink. “I thought that too! Tenten smiled at me and she said, ‘Are you here for the theater interest meeting?’ And I was going to say no, but she was so welcoming...” Neji breaks off, smiling to himself, lost in his memory, and Sasuke feels a strange twinge in his chest. Jealousy? No. That makes no sense. Why would he be jealous? “...so I didn’t say anything. And then Lee jumped up, ran over and grabbed my hands, and then he begged me -- actually, literally begged me -- to join them. With tears in his eyes.” Neji shakes his head, grinning. “So what could I do? I sat down, and from then on, three days a week, we meet after school to ‘practice.’” This time, Neji’s air quotes are accompanied by a snicker. “By practice, I mean two seniors and I run our lines and everyone else plays some sort of theater game and eats snacks. Honestly, I have no idea what we’re going to do when it comes time to actually perform.” Neji looks so happy, and Sasuke can’t help but mirror his expression.

“What play are you practicing?”

Neji rolls his eyes. “It’s a dumb musical. But there aren’t too many roles, so everyone can be a lead --”

“Musical?” Sasuke’s mouth drops open. “Neji. You can sing?”

Neji stops dead. There is a long moment of silence, and then he says through clenched teeth, “You will not say a word. Not one word. To anyone else. Including Naruto.”

Sasuke is silently cracking up. Neji’s face is the color of a tomato. “I’m not kidding. I’ll kill you,” he threatens, and for a moment, the anger in his face reminds Sasuke of Gaara. This only sends him into further hysterics, collapsing onto the blanket, at the image of Neji and Gaara dueting onstage.

“I can’t believe it,” he gasps. “You’re really a theater nerd. Wow. My brother once dated a theater nerd. He wore a beret and referred to everything as tres chic.”

“I’ve never said that in my life,” snaps Neji, but his angry tone cracks and his face softens at the sight of Sasuke’s hysterical fit. “Really, though. Don’t tell anyone about the acting. No one knows except the other theater kids, the drama teacher Gai-sensei, and --” he frowns “-- my cousins. Hinata and Hanabi stopped by the auditorium after school, once, to surprise me. I’m sure it was Hanabi’s idea. And when they saw me in the middle of a really intense game of Bippity Bippity Bop, they were…” Neji exhales, puffing out his cheeks in a way that he probably thinks looks dramatic, but actually reminds Sasuke of a baby chipmunk “... surprised. To say the least. I had to pay Hanabi off to keep her quiet.”

Sasuke shrugs. “Why does your uncle think acting is such a big waste of time anyway? Why would he care?”

Neji flops onto his back. “It’s all about the ‘family image.’ He loves that phrase. ‘You’ve got to maintain the family image, Neji. That’s why you can’t invite friends over on the weekends. That’s why you have to study every spare moment. That’s why you can’t join any clubs I don’t pre-approve.’” Neji covers his face with his hands. “It’s ridiculous.”

Sasuke flops down next to him, trying not to let the pity he feels show on his face. “What about your cousins? Don’t they have the same pressures?”

“I guess Hinata does.” Neji brushes his hair out of his face. “She’s never allowed out on weekends, or any other time. I honestly don’t know if she has any friends. She has these two guy friends at school -- admirers, or something, who kind of drag her along after them, but --” Neji’s shoulder is so close that Sasuke can feel his shrug, “I don’t know if she likes them or hates the attention. She’s so quiet. She never really talks to me, or her sister.”

The two of them are silent for a moment. Sasuke is thinking about being alone at school, what it means to have friends, whether he and the timid girl from the hallway that day are more alike than he thought.

“Hey,” says Neji, suddenly. “Would you want to come see the play? I know it’s not for a while, for like two months or whenever Gai-sensei decides we’re ‘ready,’ whatever that means, but it might be cool if you could come see it. If you want to, I mean. Just if you wanted to see it.”

Sasuke is frozen, his heart suddenly beating wildly for no reason. He can feel Neji roll over, presumably to judge his reaction, and his hair brushes over Sasuke’s wrist. Why me? he thinks, skin prickling at the light contact. Why would you want to let me into your life like this? Why not Naruto? Why not anyone else, anyone less screwed up?

Neji fidgets a little, wrinkling the blanket. “Never mind,” he mumbles, “it was a stupid idea. I didn’t mean it.” He moves to stand up. “You’re probably busy, and don’t have time --”

“No!” Sasuke sits bolt upright, and grabs Neji’s forearm before the Hyuga can pull away further. Neji blinks in surprise at the sudden motion, but doesn’t pull away.

“No?” His quizzical stare forces Sasuke to break eye contact and look away, heat creeping up into his cheeks.

“I meant. Um. No. I want to go.” Sasuke becomes suddenly aware of the warmth of Neji’s arm beneath his palm, and quickly lets go. “If you don’t mind, that is.” He sneaks a peek of Neji’s expression out of the corner of his eye, and is surprised to find the boy looking at him wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Neji sits back on his heels and aggressively tucks his hair behind his ears. “No, I’m okay. Yes. That would be nice. If you could come.”

“Okay.” Sasuke can feel a grin spreading across his face.

“Okay.” A hopeful smile tugs at the corners of Neji’s mouth, and Sasuke can feel his heartbeat speed up even more. What?

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you actually going to sing?”

“Shut up.”

“Do you have a solo? The audience throws roses on the stage after, right?”

“Shut up.”