Denial
By Narkness

Sasuke liked to think. And there wasn't many things that he liked. He liked tomatoes, for one, but it ended at those two. There was too many things he tolerated loathingly. He tolerated Sakura's incessant prattling, Naruto's irritating addiction to noodles, and even, sometimes, Kakashi's very strange caricature.

These things, he could and would tolerate. But not this.

He could tolerate things, he could like things, but he most certainly hated this place. He hated sand! He didn't like one damn thing about it. It was a coarse, gritty matter that always managed to end up in his sandals, between his toes, and for no rhyme or reason, in his ears. He didn't like the color of it, he didn't like the feel of it, he most certainly did not enjoy the taste of it either.

Not only did it cling to the streets outside, but inside, it still stalked his shadow. No matter how careful he was to clear his shoes before coming inside, sand still followed him. It was driving him mad, that gritty feel as he stepped across the floor boards. And then, not matter how much he got up in the middle of the night to shake out his bed sheets, the sandy particles still remained, rubbing against his skin.

And so Sasuke swept and shook every inch of the hotel room, until he was perfectly satisfied that no alien matter was invading his sheets or floor any longer. Sasuke could now relax, and he tried as hard as he could not to think about sand, distracting himself with the disgusting weather.

During the day, it was debilitating, deplorably hot, yet at night, one could quite easily freeze to death. Whose genius idea was it to build a city in the middle of the desert, anyhow? Who on earth thought it would be pleasant to be surrounded by nothing but sand and gruesome heat?

At this rather proper moment, in which Sasuke was feeling like murder, Naruto burst through the front door, sounding brain-dead drunk, and Sasuke could hear the sand grating across the floorboards. His beautiful clean floorboards. Naruto hadn't taken off his shoes. Sasuke gritted his teeth.

There was some disoriented mumbling, which sounded as if the blonde idiot was looking for a place to sleep, before a long hard 'thump' that resounded across the floor. Naruto had acquainted himself with the floor and a heavy drawn out snore followed not long after.

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose in the cold dark room and breathed as deep as he could, and released it steadily. He was beginning to believe that thinking was not so much a joy as it was a pain. Then, he tried almost everything to get to sleep.

He counted sheep.

He counted more sheep.

He counted so many sheep, he was sure that there was no more sheep to count, ever.

And once it seemed just plain hopeless, he counted the ways he'd like to kill Naruto. That was a pleasant dream to have. Very pleasant, for him, that is. But then he'd conjured up this odd Gaara-esque sand-coffin-type visions, and those bloody blighting grains of sand plagued him again.

With a growl of fury, Sasuke threw the comforter and weaved blankets from his body in an impressive theatrical fashion and leapt up from the futon. The drama would have been excellent, if any one was watching, but it was ruined by Sasuke's instant reaction to the disturbingly bitter night air.

"Bugger, wank, shit," he proclaimed, before bouncing on the heels of his feet like he had a horrid ants-in-his-pants issue and stutteringly reaching down for the comforter. He draped it around himself in an odd cape like fashion and shivered into the warm material, wiggling his cold bare toes unnervingly.

Not so dramatic.

He ungracefully shuffled over to the drawers of the dresser, before extracting a pair of socks, which looked perfectly unused. He dusted his feet thoroughly, and put the prim white socks on his feet. Now his feet were warm, his body was warm, and he was ready to go somewhere where sand would not bother him. He avoided his slippers, they had already betrayed his socks once, he wouldn't be fooled again, and took a step out of the bedroom and into the cupboard of a sitting area.

Sasuke cautiously stepped over the mass of snoring carrot-orange and nonchalantly continued to the entrance, inhaling sharply each time he could feel sand grating beneath his feet. He chose a pleasant mantra as he did so, 'must not kill, must not kill, must not kill, must not kill,'.

Not so silently, he slipped on his sandals outside the door and strolled through the almost clean corridors of the hotel. He thought vaguely about harassing the hotel management staff about this certain issue he was having. However, the last time he had made a snide comment about the sand in his shoes, the Sand Ninja's had merely laughed at him and said he would get used to it.

Sasuke couldn't understand how anybody could get used to coming home and having sand in impossibly inappropriate places. How the hell did sand get into his underpants? And he simply couldn't go and wash thoroughly because the hotel provided only baths. A little dingy metal tub in which he had to squat to immerse even his hips. It wasn't working. He'd only end up sitting with sand grazing against his ass in the tub. He'd learnt his lesson earlier today.

He found himself wandering aimlessly through the corridor, until the floor rose suddenly into stairs that made his head dizzy. Sasuke followed logic as best he could and dearly hoped that even sand couldn't follow him up so high. Perhaps any traces that he trailed with him would taper off somewhere within the stairwell as he harshly stomped his feet up the wooden steps in irritation.

It wasn't fair that his village had to send him here. Just because, since his unenthusiastic return to Konoha and much mental torture by Morino Ibbiki later, he'd been reduced to chuunin level missions, despite his aptitude to ANBU level skills. At least here there was little to no supervision. At home, in Konoha, he couldn't so much as fart without his neighbors complaining of Sasuke attempting to kill them.

Only one of those complaints had been true, and it had been for a good cause. The old woman that lived beside him in apartment 10A had been stealing tomatoes off his vines from his balcony for far too long.

Not only did his neighbors have a vendetta against him, but there was constantly an ANBU following him around. He was watching when he cooked, when he cleaned, when he ate, when he went to the bathroom too he was pretty sure. Although the Hokage had promised him that he was not under suspicion of being a homicidal maniac anymore, he was supervised like a badly behaved child with a paranoid parent.

Once he'd caught the ANBU looking carefully at his tomatoes, ready to sample, but not before he was struck with an errant kunai. Sasuke apologized, but had a smile on his face the entire time, on the inside, of course. He was considering inviting his ANBU stalker to Christmas dinner, just to spite the Hokage.

When Sasuke reached the very ending of the towering staircase, he threw open the exit door and took a gulp of fresh bitter night air…that smelled a lot like sand. It also became quite apparent that logic didn't apply in Suna, because there was a large layer of sand coating the roof of the building. He cursed vehemently under his breath, and restrained the edge to run forth and kick something. The only thing stopping him was that he knew that doing so would only cause a hefty sand deposit in his socks.

He noted the water tower that sat beside him, although he wasn't quite sure what rain it would possibly hope to collect and he climbed to the top. It sounded graceful when put into words, but really, there was plenty of swearing, shivering and instances where he lost his blanket, and almost slipped and fell to his death.

He almost screamed in delight when he discovered an absence of sand atop the rounded lid of the water tower. Sasuke found a flat spot to sit, pulled his knees up to his chest and dragged the blanket over him so only his eyes could be seen. It was possibly the only sand-less place in Suna, and yet he could still see it, the distant sand hills that rose and fell beyond the town walls. Hills should be made of dirt!

Sasuke was homesick.

After only a single day in Suna, he missed trees. He missed dirt. He missed abundance of water. He missed summer pajamas. He missed tomatoes most of all, and tried not to think of how the vines at his apartment would be most certainly be bare. There were many things he missed, but thinking only made him depressed.

He still had seven more days of this torture. That was, one hundred and sixty-eight hours! Or ten thousand and eighty minutes! Or six hundred thousand and four, eight hundred seconds! His head hurt. He understood Naruto's motives for getting blind drunk…aside from the fact that Naruto suspected he'd knocked his girlfriend up. Naruto could sleep, nonchalant about sand, and not think about how Hyuuga Hizashi would end his life slowly and painfully for impregnating the heir of Hyuuga house.

Yet, Sasuke's willingness for a good night's sleep was tarnished by the thought of venturing out into the streets to find a provider of alcohol. He wasn't that desperate for a drink. Also, he'd almost certainly freeze to death before he even reached a pub, and he wasn't enthusiastic about wrapping himself in his blanket in the street. Sasuke simply didn't own warm clothes. When the Hokage had told him to take warm socks, he'd thought she'd been joking.

He decided too that he hated the chuunin exams.

He didn't like children in general. They all made infuriatingly annoying noises, threw tantrums over nothing, cried, dribbled, and above all, made too much mess. You had to train them, teach them, reprimand them, and constantly keep an eye on them. The only decent experience he'd had with a child had been Kurenai's little one, Asuma. Mind you he was turning six this year. He was a polite little thing that was the spitting image of his father, without muscles and the dirty habit of smoking.

He was twenty-one this year, and he'd already exceeded his life expectancy for a male ninja. People he'd grown up with as a child were now getting married, having children, buying houses, retiring, the list went on.

Naruto had finally noticed that Hinata loved him dearly, and they would most likely be forcefully married within the month depending on the outcome of Hizashi's brutal torture on Naruto. Shikamaru and Ino were engaged, Ino having retired to the profession of medic. Neji was a successful ANBU squad leader and you hardly ever saw him anymore. Tenten had resigned to working at the Ninja Academy after a nasty accident involving kunai. Sasuke suspected that Neji's frequent visits to Tenten's house was for more than a cup of sugar.

Kiba's father had passed on and Kiba had accepted roll of head of house. He'd married a pretty civilian woman two or three years ago and they had an approximate of three children, with another on the way already. Lee was still terrorizing the women of Konoha and not giving up on Sakura, despite her blatant refusal of marriage.

Shino was building an odd bug colony in the outskirts of the forest on his days off, and everybody pitied the girl that he would marry, if ever. Chouji, after leaving to train in the outskirts of Fire Country with his cousin for a year or so, had come back tall, brawny and a babe magnet. Chouji had resigned himself to only loving food, until the perfect cooking woman came along.

Gaara, after many years in the position of Kazekage, had found a woman fiery enough to put up with his insanity and promptly married her. His wife looked anything but plain, but it was impossible to believe that a woman so tiny was a very accomplished ANBU. They were probably expecting a child by now.

Sakura was no longer interested in him and had moved onto 'bigger and better things' as she'd quoted him. She and Kakashi were supposedly having a secret raging affair, but the only person it was a secret from was perhaps Naruto. You only had to take one look at the pair and the endearing looks they gave each other to realize.

However, some things had never changed.

Genma was still womanizing. Ibbiki was still scary as hell. Anko was still impressing children at the Academy. Iruka was still nervous and kind. Jirayia was still writing Icha Icha Paradise and keeping Kakashi living for another day. Tsunade was still a poor gambler. Konohamaru and his team were still irritating as hell, but an excellent chuunin team. Kotetsu and Izumo still counted traffic.

Nothing had really changed for Sasuke.

He wasn't married, or had children (that he knew of), he didn't have family, or even a pet. His largest accomplishment was staying alive in general. Twenty-one and still boringly single. It was true that girls still fawned over him, but the whole issue of his person attracting unstable homicidal maniacs tended to turn girls off quite quickly. Sasuke didn't admit that he was lonely aloud, but at times, when he watched his friends smile and laugh, he wished to feel just a little of that happiness that they did.

So he tried as hard as he could to find happiness in things he enjoyed. He tried hobbies, sports, arts and crafts, but none of them were all that appealing. He liked gardening however. He liked to watch the seeds grow, as they unfurled and sprouted above the dirt. He took pride in being able to eat the 'fruits' of his labor. Shikamaru had his cigarettes, Tenten had her kunai, Kakashi had his Icha Icha, Lee had his ridiculous green suit and Sasuke had his tomatoes.

A painful windy whip of sand to his face broke him from his reverie and he made sure not to sharply inhale the grains. He pulled the comforter further around him, covering his face.

Sasuke found himself looking up to the night sky, the blanket of black above him. They had a night sky back home too. But, back home, you couldn't see the stars quite like this. The sky here was brilliant silver sparkles all over and the moon was simply dazzling. The stars made him feel small, insignificant. From what he knew, the universe was mind-bogglingly vast and that was something he, unless he wanted a headache, didn't think about.

Simply dazzling, really.

He speculated there was at least one upside to Suna. Just one.

There was a delightful quality, Sasuke found, to wake up just as the sun did and the streets below him began to fill with people. He liked the way nature seemed to wake up with the sun too. He found, if he awoke to a day like this, it would be a delightful day in which nothing irritating would bother him as much as it did yesterday. On a delightful day, tomatoes were of plenty, Sakura was locked away in the hospital and Naruto was too hung-over to leave his apartment.

Unfortunately for him, and the people of Suna, this was not a delightful day.

He hadn't woken with the crack of dawn, so much as watched it rise. He hadn't slept a wink. Not one. His hair was disgracefully unruly. Tomatoes were not of plenty. And Naruto was going to be forced out of the room, hung-over or not. However, thankfully, Sakura was on maternity leave

At exactly five-fifty-three A.M, perhaps just to vent his frustrations, Sasuke woke Naruto up by pouring water over his head. Naruto stopped snoring, started spluttering, and then picked up with complaining.

Ah. Sasuke hadn't though quite of that. He'd just wanted the snoring to stop.

At precisely seven-twenty-six, a bedraggled Kakashi emerged from the second bedroom of this hotel room that was Sasuke's only link to sanity. It was normal for their sensei to look like he'd just dragged himself out of bed, but this was much worse. Kakashi's hair all pointed to the left, flattened dreadfully at the back. He'd barely managed to tie the hotel bathrobe around himself properly, it hung open shamelessly. Thank god for pajama pants. But, protruding out of Kakashi's mouth was a bright pink toothbrush, and his mouth foamed with white froth.

Sasuke shuddered inwardly.

And then, at the accurate time of nine-nineteen, the front door shuddered.

Sasuke thought that was a little odd. But then, the floor was also shuddering with the bellows of Naruto's snores, as he was sprawled in an undignified on the couch, again. But, nothing really was dignified about Naruto. In the next room, Sasuke could hear the faint buzzing of the telephone line. Either that, or his paranoia was playing up.

The door shuddered again, only this time, it spoke. "Ninja of Konoha?"

Sasuke was so glad to hear a stranger's voice that he flew to the door and threw it open in a grand ostentatious gesture. The messenger swore when the door came forward, smacked him in the face and the world almost caved to black. Sasuke did not apologize to the young man. The way he had thrown open the door had looked spectacular. And the git now had a smug pout on his face.

"Yes?" Sasuke asked coolly, glaring at the smug boy.

"I'm supposed to…" The boy faltered at the sight of the snoring ostentatiously-orange Naruto, "escort you to the arena, for the Chuunin Exam, as requested by the Kazekage."

"We have every intention of arriving in time to supervise," Sasuke snapped at the boy's irritatingly irritating tone. A look of confusion crossed the face of the young messenger.

"The Chuunin Exams started an hour ago…sir."

"…"

Oh.

The young messenger was concerned for his life when a look of murder passed over the Uchiha's face.

Please, don't kill me, I'm just the messenger came to mind, but was not put into play.

It was only nine-forty, and Sasuke was being completely scorched by the sun. The sand that got into his sandals was hot as hell and he cursed violently, all the way up to the arena. Behind him lagged a very at home Kakashi with a violet silk scarf wrapped about his face in place of a mask and a wincing, whining Naruto. They both looked ridiculous.

Sasuke personally denied himself the fact that he too looked ridiculous.

Ahead, the messenger ran. Sasuke didn't blame him.

Once under the shade of the enormous sandy-colored stadium, Sasuke exhaled with a little bit of relief. But only a little.

He flew up the stairs at an amazing pace, following the height-beats-sand logic once more. At the very top of the stadium, ANBU were watching, Feudal Lords were watching, and Sasuke didn't like the height, at all.

"Lazy, lie-about ninja! Where in bloody hell are those cursed Konoha men anyway!? I swear, if I don't see one within the next five seconds, we are going to war -" Sasuke quickly found the source of that rude indecent voice and his dashing comeback was lost in his choked up throat. "Uchiha Sasuke, right?" the woman demanded, more than asked. She didn't even take so much as a look at him. He didn't care, he didn't notice. "Nice to finally see you showed your lazy incompetent ass."

He didn't even have the capacity to nod. He stood there, and stared. The insults didn't even register. There is a God.

She was all bare tan legs and hips. She had seated herself on a wooden table set with arrangement documents in a way that made him gulp. She was stunning. It took more than a beautiful girl to sweep him off his feet. The way she had just spoken to him had done just that. No one had ever spoken to him that way!

Uchiha Sasuke was in love.

This woman would be his, at all costs.

I know this is a little different to what I usually write...or not. If you read this chapter, and are spewing with anything, Enthusiasm? Anger? Disgust? OCD? Please inform me with that pretty little purple button, and let your room fill with the delightful noises of fingers caressing a keyboard.

Don't just add me to story alert or favorites, author alert me! I update once every blue moon, you might find something random you enjoy.

Also, if you find spelling mistakes that irritate you, don't complain, someone offer to beta! Please?

Much fruity love, Narkness.