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Luck had truly been on his side today.
While his father’s hours in the Hokage’s office were long and often so grueling that exhaustion prevented any sort of interaction between the two of them for days to weeks at a time, his teacher’s arduous, unending missions outside the village were infinitely more taxing, leaving him for weeks, and sometimes months, with neither hide nor hair of his teacher to indicate whether or not he was doing well, or if he was even alive.
It was infuriating, going so long without the man who could truly teach him to be strong in a way even Konohamaru-sensei couldn’t; and, though he’d never admit to this, it was also nerve-wracking, going day-to-day wondering if the man he’d worked so hard to impress – the man who’d shown him how to be a real shinobi – was dead or not.
He knew it was selfish to think that way – Sarada and her mother had had it so much worse, twelve years without a word before mounting danger brought their husband and father back only to have him immediately report to the Hokage instead of visiting his family – but he couldn’t help it; he’d worked hard to gain Uchiha Sasuke’s approval, dammit, the man couldn’t go dying on him!
And he hadn’t: today, after a six-month absence, Uzumaki Boruto’s hard-won master had returned to Konoha, dragging him away from his regular gaming-meetup with Shikadai and Inojin without so much as a greeting, forgoing such a common courtesy in favor of appearing out of freaking nowhere, giving all three of them heart attacks and delivering a rather critical remark. “Your spatial awareness needs serious work.”
That was all it took to get Boruto to go hurtling after him – the man hasn’t bothered to let even his own family know he was still among the living for ages and he thinks it’s okay to insult his student after startling him on purpose?! – chasing after the clearly-sedated movements of his mentor throughout half the village until they reached the usual training grounds they’d taken to using after perfecting Boruto’s Rasengan.
As soon as Boruto had reached the clearing to see Sasuke standing facing away from him he’d slid into a battle stance, wary. The raised eyebrow his master cast over his black-cloaked shoulder sent flashes of excitement up and down Boruto’s spine.
“Let’s see if you actually managed to improve on anything while I was gone.”
Never had a training session where he had his ass handed to him so many times been so much fun, though if anyone asked he would immediately claim otherwise.
There was just something about the Uchiha’s movements, a magnificent grace and lethal fluidity that Konohamaru-sensei would never be able to match in a hundred years, that made him an excellent, if impossible, sparring partner.
Sasuke never even activated his Sharingan – never did in any of their sessions, which was weirdly both the most disheartening yet inspiring thing in their entire training regimen, motivating Boruto to work harder and harder on his taijutsu in hope of someday, maybe, catching his master off guard and forcing him onto the defensive for once – while he calmly and effortlessly tossed the blonde around, never putting any real power or speed into his attacks yet still managing to leave Boruto panting and exhausted within only a few hours in the effort to keep ahead of the Uchiha’s lightning-quick movements.
The sun hadn’t even begun to set properly when Boruto was finally flipped on his back into the ground, carving a groove into the dirt as he skidded to a halt. It hurt, but not too badly, and he would have gotten back up to keep going if the sound of soft applause hadn’t made itself known over the slight ringing in his ears.
“Nice job, Boruto! You managed to mostly dodge that one!” the pride in his father’s voice awoke several conflicting emotions in Boruto – they were both working to restore the bond they’d had years ago, bit by bit, a delicate process that neither was eager to disrupt – that he quickly squashed, focusing only on the delight of impressing his father instead of the negativity he would have spouted a year earlier.
Of course, Sasuke had to immediately dampen his student’s good mood. “Hn, he didn’t move his left hand fast enough; if I’d moved faster while throwing him, I could have ripped his arm right out of its socket.”
The look Uzumaki Naruto wore as his son gingerly sat up could only be described as affectionately pained. “Sasuke, please don’t talk about dislocating my kid’s arm so casually when you were just throwing him into the dirt a second ago.”
The amused smirk lightening his mentor’s features – a rare, altogether near unnatural expression on his constantly dour teacher – was interrupted by a whisper-like sigh of annoyance, though his tone remained suspiciously light as he said, “Usuratonkachi. Did you need something? You know I already gave my report in detail earlier.”
‘He visited Dad first?’ Boruto thought with an inward pout, though he supposed in this case it was logically acceptable to report to a superior before going to taunt a subordinate.
A bandage-wrapped right hand appeared in front of his nose. Boruto blinked upward, catching his father’s enthusiastic grin and was left unable to resist releasing his own megawatt smile, reaching one hand up to grab the offered limb and be pulled up easily, turning to face Sasuke with Naruto.
The grin stretching Naruto’s face melted into a smile, something smaller, softer, but no less genuine. “Well, with you in the village and Boruto’s training finished-” “Hey!” Boruto protested immediately, spinning about to point right into his father’s face “Who said we were done?! I still need to prove my spatial awareness is way better than his!” “-I thought I’d give Shikamaru some overtime for once so that we could take advantage of this rare opportunity,” Naruto continued, undeterred by his son’s indignation.
Sasuke’s smirk dropped into his signature deadpan expression. “Ichiraku?” he asked needlessly.
Naruto’s grin returned full-blast, and Boruto’s protests to continue the fight died a very quick death as he grabbed hold of his father’s wrist and demanded, “Ichiraku Ramen.”
An evening spent getting the one food he considered superior to his mother’s, with both his father and his teacher, together, with him, at the same time?
Heck yes.
“LET’S GO, DATTEBASA!”
In the end, despite his less than eager agreement to accompany the father-son duo to the ramen stand, it seemed Sasuke actually enjoyed their boisterous company as they happily chattered back and forth about Boruto’s awesome training and Naruto’s agonizing paperwork in between slurps of ramen. While he didn’t smile, exactly, the Uchiha remained calmly and quietly content over the course of the meal, only speaking up to scold his student over his table manners once.
“Ah, lighten up, teme! The food’s going into his mouth and not onto the counter, isn’t it?” Naruto waved off his friend’s lecture, sharing a conspiratorial wink with his offspring as if it were a successful prank they’d pulled off together.
Sasuke, however, was not impressed with the Hokage’s logic. “Yes, and when he swallows the wrong way in the middle of a sentence and ends up choking to death, there won’t be anything for him to fall face-down into.”
Boruto, who just managed to avoid choking on his last mouthful of noodles, cast his mentor a scathing look. “Trying to take all the joy out of ramen… unbelievable…”
“It’s a wasted effort,” Naruto cut in, proud fox-grin in place. “Boruto’s been raised right.”
“And I shudder to think of the after-effects. Shadow clones were bad enough; the fact that you’re actually passing your bad habits on to your shrunken double is almost horrifying. The way you inhale ramen is one thing that definitely shouldn’t get a second generation,” Sasuke muttered, making Naruto roar with laughter and Boruto absolutely cackle. He’d heard his mother scold his father for this exact same reason a thousand times before, and hearing it once again from Boruto’s own teacher somehow made it even more hilarious.
Boruto laughed until his sides hurt, then somehow managed to wrestle control over himself in time to finish the last of his ramen before it went cold, fighting back snickers all the while.
Sitting here, with his chuckling father on one side and his almost-not-quite-smiling master on the other, felt like the easiest thing in the world; like a piece to the puzzle he’d never realized was missing was finally in its place.
It was as they were paying for their meal and leaving the stand that Sasuke finally turned away from them. “I’d better be going. I’ll come back before I leave tomorrow, so I expect you up bright and early,” he tossed casually over his shoulder, and with anyone else it would have irritated the hell out of him, but right now, Boruto could only come to the same conclusion he’d reached the first time he’d seen his teacher’s back: ‘Cool!’
Then Naruto quietly said, “Sakura-chan isn’t here,” and the Uchiha stopped dead in his tracks, abruptly shattering the illusion of cool impassivity.
Boruto blinked, feeling like he was completely missing something incredibly obvious as his father raised one hand to scratch at the back of his head, eyes straying to the side as if in guilt as he admitted, “She took Sarada-chan with her on a training mission outside of the village. She said it was an old tradition Tsunade-baa-chan used to do with her back when she was her student. They won’t be back for another week yet.”
Blinking, Boruto cast a glance at his mentor as he realized – Sarada had been excitedly bragging about this trip with her mom for weeks, her excitement over learning new and powerful medical ninjutsu overshadowing her usual composure – yet their timing had tragically coincided with one of their absentee father/husband’s rare returns to the village.
Boruto could feel his whole body wince in sympathy as Sasuke’s head lifted just a bit, shifting the dark hair cascading down his back.
“I see,” he said lowly. “So that’s why they haven’t tracked me down yet… I was wondering about that.”
Boruto didn’t want to think about the fact that – for a moment there – he’d completely forgotten Sasuke even had a family separate from theirs. That he had a wife and daughter who surely missed him and worried about him even more than they ever could.
Fighting off a grimace as his sensei’s shoulders slumped near-imperceptibly, Boruto chanced a glance up at his father, hoping against hope that he’d say something useful, but for once Naruto seemed at a total loss for what to say, an occurrence even rarer than a blue moon, but there was no time to be astonished; there was still time to salvage this evening and, dammit, if his father was too clueless, then Boruto would just have to take the lead this time!
Striding forward, Boruto caught hold of Sasuke’s empty left sleeve, a stunt he’d never have dared to pull at any other time, determination making him stupid for a brief second. He heard his old man make a sound of surprise when he firmly tugged on the stretch of fabric, earning himself the Uchiha’s neutral, hint-of-bemusement expression, as if a child pulling on his shirt sleeve was a foreign concept to him – which it probably was, now that he thought about it.
He made sure to amp up the megawatt in his grin as he attempted not to bounce on his toes like a two-year-old. “Mom took Himawari with her to visit some Hyuuga relatives for a couple of days,” he said cheerfully, willing his voice not to waver in uncertainty. “If you don’t want to go home to an empty house, you could spend the night at our place!”
The shocked splutter from behind them had nothing on the completely mystified look on his teacher’s face, and mentally Boruto cheered like crazy – he almost never managed to startle anything out of Sasuke! ‘I gotta remember to stick it in Sarada-chan’s face when she’s no longer trying to kill me over sparring with her dad when she was on a trip, dattebasa!’
For a minute, he was positive Sasuke was going to somewhat-politely refuse and disappear in a shunshin, but whatever state of shock that had managed to render the Nanadaime Hokage mute seemed to have worn off, because suddenly Naruto was coming up on Sasuke’s other side, looping his left arm around the other man’s shoulders in a very familiar position, grinning wider than Boruto had ever seen as he effectively trapped his friend and rival.
“Boruto’s right, Sasuke! No need to be depressing; you can hang out with us all night instead! Men’s night at the Uzumaki house!” he crowed, Boruto cheering enthusiastically.
“I think I’d rather slice off my remaining arm,” Sasuke deadpanned, but neither Uzumaki listened to his griping; slowly but surely, despite the protests, death glares, and half-hearted escape attempts, they gently managed to drag and cajole the Uchiha all the way back to their house, Boruto only letting go of his sleeve to quickly dart to the door to unlock and open it with a flourish, revealing Hinata’s pristinely clean floors and immaculately put together entrance hall with a dramatic ‘Ta-da!’
“You already paid for my dinner, you don’t need to put me up for the night. I’ll be fine in the Uchiha compound,” Sasuke attempted one last dismissal, one that was doomed to fail miserably; Naruto’s grip around his shoulders tightened and Boruto’s eyes got very wide and weepy.
The eyes were a bit of a secret weapon of his; while he might not have inherited the Byakugan like his sister, Boruto seemed to have inherited the puppy-dog look to end all puppy-dog looks. It hardly worked on his mother anymore, but with his father, it had an 89.6% success rate. No sense in holding back now, after coming all this way.
It probably wouldn’t have worked on Sasuke if Naruto hadn’t been giving him the exact same look, blue eyes wide and glistening, lower lip jutting out just so, head tilted a bit to the right; perfectly mirrored combination from both sides.
“Tch… annoying.”
It discouraged Boruto, but Naruto just laughed in triumph before bodily dragging his former teammate into the front hall, barely giving him any time to pull off his shoes before they were disappearing into the living room, Boruto scrambling to catch up to them.
On his own, Naruto was a pretty incredible story-teller. With Sasuke in the room however, reaching new levels of snarky commentary every other minute and offering a far less sugar coated side to the story after the other had finished his tall tale, the Hokage’s slightly embellished stories of his Genin days became epic hour-long sagas complete with recorded number of times falling off a tree while walking up it with chakra and the terrible scars gained from battling the infamous horror that was Tora the cat.
Normally, Boruto would have asked for a story from later on in their career, chosen from the many rumors he’d heard from teammates and gossiping ninja alike – their first Chunin Exam maybe, or facing Orochimaru, fighting the Kazekage of all people – but he was so busy trying to breathe through his laughter he couldn’t even bring himself to care that they were telling him the tamer sides of their careers. He was learning about his otherworldly powerful father and enigmatically calculating master in ways no one else ever would, and he loved every single second of it.
“-and the woman was hugging her cat so hard I swear I heard a rib crack! Man, I felt so bad for that stupid furball; you should’ve heard the noises it was making, screaming bloody murder in the middle of the mission center!”
“You’re one to talk. I seem to recall the shrill sound of your voice complaining over every D-rank we were assigned; I’m astonished it took so long to get the Sandaime to agree on our reassignment to the bridge-builder.”
“Oh shut up! Giving lame D-ranks to ninja as awesome as us was just a total waste of our talents! We deserved a C-rank by that point and you know it!”
Sasuke’s exasperated sigh was barely heard over the sound of Boruto’s wheezing, too caught up in his own mirth to notice the muted, nostalgic expressions taking shape on both men’s faces as he managed to regain control of his breathing.
“Everything always decided to go insane the second we got assigned to anything,” Sasuke murmured.
Naruto hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, sounds about right. Team Seven was never allowed to take a break, especially in Wave Country…”
“What happened in Wave Country?” Boruto asked eagerly, still panting for breath.
This time, he didn’t miss the furtive glance between the two senior shinobi before his father yawned loudly while Sasuke made a show of glancing at the clock.
“It’s getting pretty late, you know,” Naruto proclaimed as his yawn tapered off, leaning around the living room table to nudge his son non too subtly. “I’m tired already!”
“Dad, you don’t even need that much sleep!” Boruto deadpanned, doing a suitable imitation of his mentor as his father spluttered in protest.
“I do!... occasionally! Occasionally I need to sleep! And anyway, you don’t have a ridiculously powerful chakra monster inside you; you still need to sleep! And I’m sure Sasuke is tired by now; it’d be rude to keep him awake any longer, isn’t that right, Sasuke?”
Sasuke stared at Naruto with a flat look, looking back and forth between unimpressed son and pleading father as if he couldn’t quite believe they existed and he was being forced to interact with them.
He closed his eyes. “Yes,” he ground out, so drawn out and low it was dragged out of him. “I could use the rest; and you as well, Boruto, if you expect to survive the training I have in mind tomorrow.”
The thinly veiled threat of training was ripe with promise, which only served to wind Boruto up even more. ‘I am so ready to fight shishou; anytime, anyplace, ‘ttebasa!’ he thought, practically vibrating on the spot at the thought of taking the man on.
More than anything, he wanted to challenge him here and now, but he knew the consequences of ruining his mother’s spotless living room, and he wasn’t quite mentally prepared for such retribution.
And, whether he liked it or not, there was some truth in both his father’s and mentor’s words; he’d be exhausted in the morning if he didn’t get to sleep soon, and he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to face the Uchiha when he was running on empty.
Groaning “Fiiiiiiine,” he climbed reluctantly to his feet, trudging slowly toward the doorway, before a truly terrible idea jumped into his head and he spun around, dramatic-Uzumaki-finger-point at its finest. “But! If we have to go to sleep already, we must meet my terms as well!”
He liked to think that Sasuke looked rather impressed with his negotiating skills instead of annoyed, but it was his father’s amused smile that really made this worth it. “Alright, sure, if you’ll go to sleep right after. What do you want?”
“We all sleep in here on the spare sleeping mat in the closet!” Boruto all but demanded, making both senior shinobi blink at him in bemusement.
“All three of us? Together? On one sleeping mat?” Naruto asked, a bit dumbstruck.
Boruto just grinned. “I call dibs on the middle!”
In the end, there wasn’t much opposition to his idea.
Boruto hadn’t slept in the same bed as his parents after a nightmare in over five years, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his head; he was still trying to reconnect with his father, and he already, truly considered Sasuke to be part of his family now too, so he saw absolutely nothing wrong with this sleeping arrangement.
Neither did Sasuke, apparently; the only one with any protests to offer was Naruto, and that was only because making a guest sleep on the floor rather than in the small but cozy guest bedroom seemed like a crime.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” he asked again as everything was set up, a bit late to be asking such a question but coming out of his mouth regardless.
Sasuke’s patience after the amount of times Naruto has asked him that was impressive. “It’s fine, dobe. You let your kid set the conditions for this agreement; if you really want to take this up with someone, do it with him.”
“Excuse me? Have we forgotten that he’s also your student? I know for a fact Himawari would never ask a guest to sleep on the floor for her own benefit!”
“That’s because she’s more like Hinata than she is like you, usuratonkachi.”
“Why you-!”
Further bickering was cut off by Boruto deftly slipping under the covers in the exact middle of the sleeping mat, snuggling the blanket with a cheeky, playful grin at both men. Naruto sighed in exasperation; Sasuke’s eyeroll looked like it honestly hurt.
Finally, after all was said and done, both shinobi settled down with only mild grumbling, Naruto on Boruto’s left and Sasuke on his right.
Boruto had to hide a rather proud grin underneath the blanket, quite pleased with himself and almost wondering how he’d ever accomplished such a feat so quickly.
He wriggled around a bit, being sure to keep his movements slow; with the world’s strongest shinobi on either side of him, he was both in the safest and most dangerous place in the world, and the amount of comfort he took in that was honestly surprising.
Who could have known, that after years of proclaiming his immense dislike for his father, and attempting to punch the Uchiha in the gut the first time they’d met, he’d be snuggled in between them like a burrito?
It was kinda surreal, but at the same time, a dream come true, so he supposed his giddiness was totally understandable.
Eventually he settled on lying on his right side, facing Sasuke, biting his lip to suppress his prepared cheeky comment when he saw his teacher’s eyes were already closed. He had no way to tell if the elder shinobi was actually asleep already, but there was no need to risk getting a death glare that trumped even his sister’s.
Still keyed up from the anticipation for his training tomorrow, he bit back a giggle and grinned widely. ‘Man, if Sasuke sleeps over every time he comes back from a mission, I’m gonna have to cut his missions short. Two, three days tops; then we could do this more often and I’d get more chances to finally kick his ass!’
Grinning gleefully, he relaxed completely into his cocoon of blanket, quietly resolving, ‘Assuming she doesn’t kill me first thing, I’m telling Sarada all about this just to see her face, ‘ttebasa!’
He lay still for a while, wishing that he could simply will himself to sleep, but since that kind of defeated the purpose of sleep in the first place nothing much happened. He felt vaguely drowsy, but for the most part he was fine.
He wished he could move around, fidget just a little, but he didn’t dare; if Sasuke really was asleep by now, Boruto didn’t want to risk receiving a kunai to the neck.
So, with nothing better to do and nothing else to entertain himself, he simply stared ahead, at the distant wall, the blanket, his pillow, but for the most part, his attention was focused on Sasuke’s face.
When he was awake, Boruto’s master had a very sour disposition, hardly smiling in the sight of others – possibly never smiling at all when he was alone – or smirking widely when he felt particularly vindictive or cruel, mouth nothing more than a line of unpleasantness 98% the rest of the time.
Except around his father, of course.
Sasuke almost-not-quite smiled a lot more when Naruto was around, Boruto noticed.
In sleep, Sasuke’s face lost a lot of the lines it sported in wakefulness, the grim curve of his mouth softened, the severe slant of his eyebrows slackened, his entire face and body relaxed; it was bizarrely interesting, seeing his mentor so unlike himself. He could never imagine him looking like this in the waking world, and felt a beat of sorrow for such a fact. If anyone deserved a break, it was Uchiha Sasuke.
Preoccupied as he was with his thoughts, Boruto began drifting off amidst his contemplations; he didn’t even remember his father was still awake until the older blonde quietly murmured, “Sasuke…. Already asleep, huh? Boruto, you still awake?”
‘Dammit old man, what…?’ Pulled back into wakefulness, Boruto almost started to turn around to give his father a (loud) piece of his mind when a hand, the left hand, his father’s remaining human hand, reached carefully over him, painstakingly slow, clearly taking great pains to not awaken anyone in this blanket burrito.
Boruto just blinked in confusion. ‘If he finds out I’m not really asleep, things could get ugly. But, what is he doing…?’
His question was answered as long, tan fingers tangled with raven hair, cradling Sasuke’s lax face gently, lovingly.
Boruto felt the breath in his lungs freeze as the gesture he’d seen shared between his parents in their most intimate moments played out in front of him, familiar fingers deftly stroking Sasuke’s face with far more care than seemed possible.
‘…..What? Dad- whoa wait, hey!’ words barely restrained themselves from flying out of his mouth as Boruto watched his father’s hand tenderly brushing long raven hair behind an ear. ‘Dad, what are you doing?! You’re going to wake him up!’
He couldn’t even begin to imagine the kind of expression that would take form on Sasuke’s face if he became aware of what exactly it was his best friend was doing while he was asleep; he didn’t think the Uchiha would ever stand for such a humiliation.
But… nothing happened.
Naruto’s fingers continued to stroke Sasuke’s hair, slow and soft, a caress more exquisite than any he’d seen shared between his parents. It was terrifyingly quiet except for Naruto’s calm, shallow breaths and Sasuke’s deep, steady ones.
At some point, Boruto realized he’d stopped breathing entirely, and quickly forced himself to inhale as quietly as possible. He was witnessing this intensely intimate moment in the front row seat, and he could feel a deep blush slowly building across his face until it burned the roots of his hair and positively melted his ears.
Meanwhile, feather-light fingertips traced over the ear that now held raven hair out of the blissfully asleep face, slowly trailing downward until they met his cheek, stroking across smooth skin until they met pale lips, thumb slowly, tantalizingly rubbing over the bottom lip in faithful rapture.
From where he was discreetly trying to smother himself with his pillow without alerting his father to his wakefulness, Boruto looked up to watch the silent euphoria, flushing all the way down to his toes, he was sure. But he ignored his embarrassment as best he could – if it got any worse he’d definitely end up squirming, and then the jig would be up. He didn’t even know what his father would do to him if he found out his son had been watching this delicate exchange the whole time.
Still, his immensely red face aside, Boruto could feel his heart thumping painfully beneath his ribs as the fingers gently took hold of Sasuke’s chin and just held there, thumb lightly rubbing up to brush against his lip again, looking about two seconds away from poking its way in between the plump lips and feeling the inside of his mouth.
Just that train of thought was almost enough to send Boruto shooting out from under the covers and high tailing it out of there.
Would this be happening, if he weren’t here?
If he’d gone to bed alone as Naruto had told him to, would this be all there was between them?
A year ago he would have leapt at such a sign of betrayal, stormed all the way across Konoha to the Hyuuga compound to pound on the door all night until they let him in to tell his mother all about his bastard father’s straying loyalty. The chance to humiliate the Hokage with knowledge of such infidelity – and with a man at that – would have been his greatest dream fulfilled.
But now…
Now, after training with Sasuke for months, after rebuilding bits and pieces of his old bond with Naruto, and forging newer, stronger bonds with them both along the way…
Now, he didn’t quite know what to do.
He knew his father loved his mother. It was in his face every time he saw her, every time he pressed a kiss to her temple or brought her hand to his lips playfully.
It was love, pure and simple, though it in no way reached the level of burning need these half-desperate touches evoked with no effort at all.
Boruto studied his father’s hand as it reached up to return playing with the silky strands of dark hair, the worst of his blush finally beginning to abate.
‘It seems like… he really treasures him.’
He couldn’t see his father’s face, couldn’t see the dazed, adoring smile playing across his lips as he stared at the two boys he cared for most in the world – his darling son and his Sasuke – but with all the care he was exhibiting to touch the other man and not awaken him gave Boruto a pretty good idea of what he’d find there.
Returning his focus to the man sleeping in front of him, Boruto’s face scrunched up. ‘And Sasuke… He’s completely off his guard. He’s never off guard, but here he is, asleep, with someone touching him! What if this wasn’t Dad and was some enemy nin?!’
He breathed as quietly as possible, watched fingers gently petting hair, watched what little remained of the stress and age induced wrinkles completely leave his teacher’s face, and came to a conclusion. ‘Ah, I see. Sasuke knows, deep down… even though he’s unconscious… he knows it’s Dad’s hand…’
Boruto watched his mentor’s face, so peaceful in sleep, become damn near euphoric as the petting continued, gently, reverently.
‘If it were me doing this… if anyone else were doing this- hell, if Sakura were doing this, he’d be awake in a heartbeat. Just what the hell is going on here? Sasuke is sound asleep while my old man thinks I’m asleep… I didn’t want to spy on anything, but it’s already too late for that…’
He didn’t know what was happening.
Didn’t know a single damn thing, but one: this was a moment between his father, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke, and no witnesses would be appreciated.
With a terrible wince and stinging eyes – he felt he’d betrayed his father worse now than he had during his cheating in the Chunin Exams last year – Boruto buried his face back into his pillow.
Sleep was a long time coming.
The next morning, Boruto awoke with a loud, oblivious yawn and a fresh hatred for the birds that liked to chirp directly outside the living room window every damn morning.
He sat up, scratching his stomach with one hand, before blinking and discovering one of his sentinels was missing.
“Hey, Boruto,” his father’s voice startled him harshly, making him jump and look up; Naruto stood in the living room doorway, hair disheveled and relaxed smile on his face. “Hey, I need to wash my face. Wake Sasuke up for me, dattebayo.”
He slid out of the arch before a protest could be offered, and Boruto blushed as hard as he had last night as the memories of the night’s events came flooding back full force.
He stared down at his teacher’s tranquil face – his teacher whom he’ll never see the same way again, he realized with a pang in his stomach – and lifted a hand, about to tap him on the shoulder, before he paused.
Now was a perfect opportunity to test his hypothesis, if he could just gather the courage.
He’d thrown a mega-huge overloaded Rasengan into an insane demigod’s face last year, yet, somehow, working up the nerve to gently, hesitantly run a hand through Uchiha Sasuke’s hair was the most stressful thing he’d ever done in his entire thirteen years of life.
Between one heartbeat and the next, onyx eyes blinked open at his careful touch, and he immediately drew his hand back to his chest as his teacher stared up at him.
“Good morning, shishou,” Boruto said gruffly, a bit peeved that he’d awoken so easily compared to last night, but quickly dashing that frustration out of his mind before it could take root and grow into something unpleasant.
“It’s morning?” asked a sleep-heavy voice he barely recognized, and if he hadn’t fried his brain last night with so many mind-blowing revelations, he would have been gasping dramatically at the physical sign of weakness in his mentor.
Boruto observed this unnatural behavior like a hawk. ‘He’s still half-asleep, huh? He actually seems pretty human like this… I barely touched him once, and he woke up immediately…’
The untidy, drowsy look on his normally poise-perfect mentor would have been amusing, except…
Except…
Except after what he had unintentionally seen last night, all Boruto could think of now was how it looked like his teacher had just woken up from a night of assorted debauchery.
The blush that crawled all the way up his neck to his face honestly made Boruto a bit lightheaded, and he not-so-subtly slid free of the covers and scooted away from the elder shinobi, avoiding eye contact and doing his best to banish such thoughts from his head at the same time.
‘WHAT AM I THINKING?! Shishou and Dad doing- doing that!? Get ahold of yourself man!’ near-desperately shaking himself, Boruto didn’t notice his mentor calmly sitting up until he heard the man say his name.
“Wh-what?” Half-turning back to face his mentor again, he was so tense he actually startled when pale, gentle fingers lightly tapped his head.
“Your hair is messy, baka. You look ridiculous,” the light teasing in Sasuke’s voice coupled with the calm, half-awake smile on his face somehow settled Boruto’s racing heart and dimmed his embarrassed flush at the same time.
‘… This is like… when mom does it…’ The comparison wasn’t quite accurate, but, he thought it was close enough.
Naruto reappeared in the doorway then, mouth wide open, most likely in preparation to announce their immediate relocation to Ichiraku Ramen once again – Hokage he might be, master chef he most certainly was not; there was a reason why Hinata did all the cooking in this house – only to pause before any sound escaped him, appearing momentarily thunderstruck at the sight of his best friend patiently combing his fingers through his son’s hair, playfully lecturing him on his disheveled appearance despite not looking much better.
“Shishou!” Boruto spluttered, resisting the urge to bat the hand away when he noticed his father’s stunned expression, “We have a training session, don’t we?! Why don’t we get to focusing on that?!”
Naruto swooped in at that, throwing his arms wide with a loud declaration: “Not without breakfast first! To Ichiraku’s!”
Sasuke’s aggravated, very-much-awake scowl won him a loud laugh from both blondes, and everything seemed to slide into place after that; breakfast was just as loud and excited as dinner had been, and training was just as exhausting and over the top as it had been.
Yesterday was repeated in reverse, ending in Sasuke taking his new mission scroll from Naruto and quite harshly refusing to bring Boruto along. “Make a full-sized Rasengan by the time I get back, and you might be able to come next time,” the Uchiha said over his shoulder, already on his way out of the gate.
“Ohh, you’re gonna regret that,” Naruto snickered as Boruto yelled furiously, pumping his fists in the air.
“JUST YOU WAIT, SHISHOU! I’LL HAVE THE GREATEST RASENGAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN BY THE TIME YOU’RE BACK, DATTEBASA!”
Nothing out of the ordinary, no trace of the unusual midnight-early morning experience between the three.
Though he would never mention it to either his father or mother, the strange, unworldly scene of domestic tranquility would remain on Boruto’s mind for weeks, months to come, distracting him at the most inopportune moments and gaining him plenty of lectures from both Konohamaru-sensei and Sarada. It simply wouldn’t leave his head until his master returned to the village once again without a word of warning, appearing in the middle of the Hokage’s office during a Team Konohamaru debriefing. His utter delight and Sarada’s excited gasp at the Uchiha’s unannounced return would be overshadowed by the relieved, ecstatic sigh of “Sasuke” that came from the other side of the desk, and as he watched two rivals reunite and bicker affectionately, Boruto would remember the moment in perfect clarity once again with a sudden flash of understanding,
‘So, this is what it’s like to be in love.’