Sadness and Sorrow

Brothers

"I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean." -Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"Uzumaki! Late again! Detention until you can straighten up your act!"

Uh-oh. That wasn't going to go down well with Orochimaru.

Naruto slugged to his seat, slumping in it. A second later, he shot up, yelling in pain. Some funny guy had put tacks in the seat. The whole class erupted in laughter.

But Mitarashi Anko was a strict S.O.B., and she wasn't having any of that. "SILENCE!" she yelled, and it was so. You could hear a tack drop.

"We are not here to play tricks! We are here to learn! Learn!" She smacked the desk in front of her with a yardstick. "Are we so insufferable that we can't get our acts together? What is your problem?"

Naruto tuned her out, knowing her angry rant was not directed at him, but was. She always said the same stuff anyway.

His friend Sasuke watched him with a smirk on his face. Naruto returned his gaze fiercely, waiting for the first sarcastic comment he had.

"Serves you right, dobe," Sasuke said, a full-blown grin on his face.

Naruto growled, his feral features standing out. "You ass! Those hurt!" he fumed.

"That was the point, stupid," the raven replied, leaning back in his seat.

"It's your fault we have to hear this. You owe me a Snickers," he demanded.

"What about ramen?"

"That works too," the blonde admitted.

It wasn't over yet, though.

Naruto seized the opportunity to retaliate when Sasuke bent over to tie his S.J.'s(Sage Jiraiya's/Shonen Jump's).

He reached behind Sasuke swiftly, a malevolent smile curving his face. His whisker-like birthmarks added to the effect. He looked even feral as he placed the metal pins under the Uchiha.

When he leaned back...

"Fucking hell!"

And again the class erupted in laughter.

The school day passed quickly. At the close, Naruto and Sasuke exited the building.

"I told you already," Sasuke sighed. "There is no such thing as a Nine-Tailed Fox!"

Naruto roared with indignation. "I told you, there is photographic evidence that there is a Kyuubi out in somewhere in the wild! There may even be an entire species!"

"Sure, just like there's a tooth fairy and Santa Claus," scoffed the raven. "Even Iruka-sensei agreed with me. They're nonexistent, dobe!"

"BLASPHEMY!" yelled the blonde, and he chopped Sasuke in the throat, effectively restricting Sasuke's air, and therefore, Sasuke's words. He took off running down the sidewalk, knowing the sadistic Uchiha would kill him when he got his breath back.

He wasn't ready to die, not for that.

~~★★~~

Itachi had had a good day. He'd gone on a fairly nice date with a girl of the same fashion, and volunteered at the animal shelter for a few hours. Had to make those college transcripts look good, even though he had some of the best in the nation already.

He was riding now to retrieve his little brother and his friend. They were walking home, but since the elder Uchiha had a car, he figured he'd save them the trouble, because he was just nice like that.

Itachi pulled up on them now. Sasuke had the blonde in a headlock, and he clearly couldn't breathe.

"Oi, foolish brother, enough!" Itachi yelled, and his brother dropped his friend and slid into the car's backseat smoothly.

"An eye for an eye," he stated simply. Itachi decided he didn't want to know, and went to go help Naruto, who still was gasping.

"Freaking... bastard..." he panted a moment later, getting in next to the smirking raven.

"Whatever, dobe."

Itachi sighed. "You guys fight like foxes and crows."

Both teens ignored that, because he said it all the time, and Naruto requested that he pick up Kabuto as well.

Kabuto was Naruto's nine year-old half-kind-of-not-at-all brother, and the sweetest kid anyone had ever met.  Everyone who met him adored him.

But that wasn't always a good thing, as Naruto well knew.

His foster parent had been trying to rape the silver-haired boy since they'd been adopted. It was at Naruto's expense that it hadn't happened. Kabuto escaped everything, and Naruto took it, all because of that promise he'd made...

The rape, the beatings... Naruto took great lengths to hide the evidence. He took three showers a day: one in the morning, one before the abuse, and one after. Kabuto would nurse the wounds and help him with things when he couldn't walk... The child had to bear witness to things no kid should, and yet he knew some people had it worse.

So he tried not to feel sorry for himself; some days were easier than oth-

Snap, snap, snap.

"Naruto! Hey, Naruto," a cute little voice said, bringing Naruto back to the present.

His heart both warmed and constricted as he looked at the little boy in his lap. "Naruto? Are you thinking hard again? I think he's thinking hard again," he said to the Uchiha brothers, who were watching him worriedly.

Naruto always did that, blank out in thought about things. It sometimes took forever to pull the blonde out his trances. His eyes refocused now, and he hugged the boy.

"Hey, you. How was school?"

Kabuto launched into an excited recounting of his day. Naruto paid slight attention, instead focused on the concerned looks the brothers were giving him.

Of course, they'd be concerned; they were like his and Kabuto's second family. But they still couldn't know.