Sincerely Devoted (SasuNaru)

The lover and loser

10:11PM

I had to focus on studying, but eventually I gave up and went to bed. Sasuke crawled into bed with me and kissed my shoulder.
"I'm sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have asked that of you. Are you still mad at me?"
I turned around to face him, "Of course not, silly. I know why you'd want to do it."
"Sometimes, I feel like I love you so much that I am actually going insane." He sighed.

I chuckled, kissing his cheek. His eyes seemed to brighten up a little after that peck.
"We can go public after I graduate from college!"
He soon seemed disappointed again, "But that's at least 4 years later."
"But that's 4 more years you'll get to spend with me too." I nudged him. He arched his eyebrows, shaking his head.
"That's too little, I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

12:47PM

It was the interval before the last class at 1pm. Kiba and I were at our lockers, pulling out the necessary books and notes.
"We're going to get ramen after this, yeah?" He shut his locker door.
I nodded excitedly, "Of course! I wouldn't forget!"
"Let's bring some books too, we can study at my place after our ramen date." He chuckled.
I agreed with his plan, after all I really need to catch up on revising the topics I'm weak at.

Especially math!

Maybe without Sasuke today, I'm able to cramp some knowledge into my brain successfully.
He distracts me too much to use my brain to think of anything else besides him.

2:09PM

"Letssssssss gooooo!" Kiba cheered and we started skipping to our favourite ramen place together. But we were stopped in our tracks by huge group of people queueing. It was near by the ramen eatery. Could it be a new food store?

We continue to walk forward to see where the queue leads to and we could not believe our eyes.
It led to our ramen place.
It was my favourite secret place to hide away from the world.
"Could you believe it? Sasuke came here to eat yesterday!"
"Yeah, I didn't think someone like him would come to such affordable places!"
"Yeah he looked so cute in those pictures all over Facebook!"

I walked into the store, seeing the boss and the ladyboss serving and running around the place.
"Naruto!" She finally stop to greet me, "You didn't tell me your friend was a celebrity.. But thank you for introducing this place to him! It has helped our business tremendously in just a single day. How can I ever repay you?" Her eyes smiled and I could see her tearing up.
But she looked exhausted.
Both the boss and her are too old to be working this hard.
And they are definitely understaffed to be taking on this amount of customers.

"Let me work for you!" I requested.
Kiba looked at me shocked, he smacked me lightly. "Not during your examination period, dummy!" He whispered loudly.
"It's not only for them, but for myself too." I hushed him.

"Are you sure you want to work here, Naruto?"

"Yes, I can start now!" I dropped my school bag and ran the kitchen.
Kiba followed me, helping out to wash the dishes while the old man was cooking.
"What are you doing?!"
"What are you doing here, Naruto?"
Both Kiba and the boss asked in unison.

"I'm working." I replied the both of them.

Kiba facepalmed, unsure why I was doing this.
But he didn't have to know.
I just needed to have some money to call my own.
Not from Sasuke's wallet.
I wanted to have my own name.
Not just 'Sasuke's friend'.
I wanted to prove to people.
And to prove it, I need to earn money to earn respect. And this money has to come from my own two hands.
I don't want to live in his shadow anymore.
So that when I graduate and when we go public, I can be worthy enough for Sasuke and not just some broke student leeching off a celebrity.

9:58PM

The last customer exited the eatery after thanking us. The entire day the store was filled up with customers.
I felt happy for the old couple. Because I knew they were struggling to keep its doors open.
But at the same time, I somehow felt.. sad.
Sad that my secret has been revealed to the world.

I didn't wanted to share this secret place.
But now that everyone knows about it, it doesn't feel like it belongs to me now.

Kiba slapped me lightly on my shoulder, "Wow, I'm tired. You owe me dinner."
Kiba was a really good friend, he didn't want to work but he helped me out anyway.
"No, no. We owe you dinner." Both the husband and wife served us with the ramen sets we've been waiting for.

"With extra noodles." The ladyboss laughed.

"Are you still open?" A customer asked, as Kiba and I were digging into our ramen.
"Sorry, we're clos-" I turned around to face the entrance.

And I almost choked.

It was someone that looked like my lover.
He looked so familiar.
Sounded so familiar.

Crap, I know who he is..
It was Sasuke's brother.
Itachi.