sasunaru is otp

Honestly, Mark should’ve seen it coming.

It starts with Eduardo staying over one evening, and while Chris and Dustin had passed out after an hour of tequila shots – Dustin curses Eduardo’s tolerance the next morning – Eduardo takes ahold of where Dustin’s Crunchyroll account is open on their TV and scrolls through a list of titles.

Eduardo doesn’t know much about anime. He reads through some description and think some sound fascinating, others not so much, based simply on his knowledge of Love Live.

But then he encounters a title called Naruto, a series about a boy who has a nine-tailed fox spirit sealed inside him. Eduardo didn’t know foxes could have nine tails before. Must be some Japanese thing. So Eduardo clicks play, and leans back against the couch, careful to avoid Dustin’s unconscious body (since Chris had done the wise thing and wandered over to his own bed before promptly passing out), and watches the first episode of Naruto.

Mark comes in during the second episode. “Hey,” Eduardo says. “CS lab?”

Mark grunts something that sounds like a yes. He does a double take at the TV and says, “Are you watching anime?”

“Yeah.” Eduardo laughs a little. “Dustin’s Crunchyroll account was just open, so I decided to click around.”

“Oh,” Mark says.

He goes to his room for a minute, but then comes back out, carrying his laptop. He kicks Dustin aside, except Dustin stays stoutly on the couch, snoring.

Eduardo helps Mark heave Dustin’s body over the other side of the couch, and even though there’s a small amount of space between him and Eduardo’s body, Mark manages to squeeze between them anyway. Mark and Eduardo’s thighs are pressing together, and Eduardo pretends not to notice.

“You’re watching Naruto with me?” he asks Mark with surprise, who shrugs.

And that’s how they marathon the entirety of the first season of Naruto in a night, until noon the next day.

Chris is the one who wakes up to Eduardo and Mark with bags under their eyes, staring at the TV screen and looking dead inside. Chris himself holds the same sentiment – he’d beat Dustin last night, with fifteen tequila shots. Not Eduardo though, who managed to swallow down seventeen.

Going to brush his teeth first, Chris comes out of the bathroom five minutes later to see Mark and Eduardo in the same exact position. “What are you guys doing?” Chris asks with interest, because even though they look tired as hell, their gazes are fixed on the TV screen.

Mark’s the one who answers. “Watching Naruto.”

“What’s that?” Chris asks, peering around to look at the TV screen. There are some anime kids talking about a scroll or something; Chris has learned, after Love Live, never to question the verisimilitude or the logistics of anime.

“Ninjas,” Eduardo responds.

“Were you guys up all night watching?” Chris asks. Neither Eduardo nor Mark dignify that with a response, so Chris does the sensible thing and assumes that’s a yes. “You guys stayed up all night watching an anime about ninjas?”

“It’s a good anime,” Eduardo says, still not taking his gaze off the TV screen.

“After a year of knowing you,” Chris says, “and I didn’t think that I would ever hear those words come out of your mouth.”

“We’re changed men,” Eduardo says.

Mark says nothing. His gaze is studiously on the screen still, and Chris says, “Well I’m gonna get to class. I don’t know if you guys are going to keep watching Naruto, or actually remember that you’re Harvard students, but – ” he waves a hand. “Have fun.”

He gets ready and heads out for class, with Mark and Eduardo still watching Naruto. When he comes back, he sees the TV off, Mark and Eduardo asleep on the couch, with Dustin still passed out on the side. Mark and Eduardo are inclined towards each other, Mark’s head on Eduardo’s shoulder.

Chris shakes his head. Everyone in this suite is completely hopeless.

*

Mark and Eduardo’s friendship is comprised of a number of things. An intolerance of stupid people. Shared ambition. An affinity for hot sauce. Hatred of dedication pages in books.

And now, Naruto.

It doesn’t really go over Chris and Dustin’s heads, though, that Mark and Eduardo are best friends. They’re not sure if they’ve uttered the words in vicinity of each other, and they do well enough on their own and away from each other. But when they’re in the same room, they stick together like glue. Well, like Eduardo is the glue and Mark is the thing that Eduardo accidentally sticks to and doesn’t mind and then they don’t let go. (Dustin is aware that this analogy is not exactly flawless.)

It also doesn’t really go over either of their heads that Mark and Eduardo may be into each other in a way that broaches friendship. Like, in a gay way, Chris would say, because he’s allowed to say that. (He would say that Dustin isn’t allowed to say it.) And neither of them are ones to set assumptions on their friends’ sexualities; but if you saw the way Mark looks at Eduardo, if you saw the way Eduardo looks at Mark when Mark’s not looking, you’d say the same.

So when, after that fateful day of Naruto, Eduardo starts coming over more and more often – and not just to hang out with Chris and Dustin, but to go into Mark’s room where Mark locks the door behind him and they spend hours in there – well, what are Dustin and Chris supposed to expect? It seems that the two have finally recuperated their friendship and expressed their homoerotic feelings for one another, and are now banging it out nearly every night. Eduardo spends so long in there, and looks so breathless when he comes out – it’s only a wonder of what and how much Mark and Eduardo are doing alone.

Eduardo comes in at seven in the evening and says hey to Dustin and Chris. As usual, he’s making a beeline for Mark’s room, where Mark looks up from his computer and says, “Hey Wardo.” Eduardo’s brought his backpack and sits down on Mark’s bed.

Mark closes the door.

Then he turns around in his chair and says to Eduardo, “The new season’s supposed to air next week.”

“You think we can steal Dustin’s Crunchyroll account again?” Eduardo asks.

Mark shrugs. “I hacked his password. It’s ilovenarwhals54.”

“Good,” Eduardo says. “I’ll cancel my Business Investment Association on that day.”

“Right,” Mark says, and then spins back to his computer.

But then he spins back and says to Eduardo, “I can’t believe you think Sasuke can be redeemed.”

“He has a backstory! That fuels his reason for everything,” Eduardo says.

Mark says, “Yeah, but he’s still a dick to Naruto, who didn’t do anything wrong except be mildly annoying.” He scowls. “I hope they don’t make an English dub of this.”

“They’re going to,” Eduardo says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “And at least we agree that Sakura should move on from Sasuke – her and Ino’s fight over him is so dumb.”

“They should get together,” Mark says, and Eduardo nods enthusiastically. “Sakura and Ino could be better together.”

“Naruto and Sasuke could be better together,” Eduardo says. “That kiss? That was their first kiss.”

“Yeah,” Mark says emphatically. “It’s probably just to bait the fujoshis – ” (he’d trawled onto the anime forums shortly after that first evening) ” – but at least they have a more believable chemistry with each other. Naruto and Sakura have more of a chemistry with each other – ”

“Hold on,” Eduardo says. “Sakura doesn’t belong with – ”

And that’s how most of their evenings go. It’s not to say that the deep, unbidden lust isn’t there – but for Mark and Eduardo, feelings and thoughts of fate and love and whatnot are secondary when it comes to anime. Chris and Dustin aren’t far off the mark when they assume that Eduardo and Mark are spending a lot of valuable time together when they’re in Mark’s room.

But it’s far more important to theorize what’s going to happen next on Naruto than anything like love or sex.

*

In the next year, FaceMash happens, and then Facebook happens, and then Mark and Eduardo don’t have any time to talk about Naruto because they’re busy running a massive, nationwide website. Company. Thing.

They’re so busy that Mark begins watching new Naruto episodes without Eduardo, and in retort, Eduardo reads all of the manga that’s out and emails Mark spoilers over the summer. Mark doesn’t email him back for two weeks.

Then the dilution happens and while Mark is in the middle of writing his SasuNaru NC-17 fanfiction, Eduardo takes his laptop and smashes it to the desk, destroying all his progress on it. Then the depositions happen, and Eduardo thinks about mentioning how Mark not only whittled down his shares, but betrayed his trust, like Sasuke did to Naruto in episode 124, “The End of Tears.” He decides against it, though; he can send Mark an email about it instead.

So the years go by. Mark begins reading the manga eventually, to Eduardo’s knowledge, since he emails Eduardo back, talking about the manga and how he tried to hate Sai and didn’t and all the bullshit that Sasuke’s pulling and if Eduardo is still apologetic about him. Eduardo refuses to answer, though, and doesn’t reply to any of Mark’s emails. Mark continues sending them up to 2010, when he realizes that emailing Eduardo is hopeless, especially since Eduardo’s relocated on the other side of the world and clearly doesn’t seem to care about Naruto anymore.

And then, in November 2014, Mark reads the (illegally uploaded) last chapter of Naruto in English. It’s the evening, and his brain processes it, unfortunately, and he makes himself go to sleep, hoping that he’ll wake up and this is all a dream. But it’s not, and in the morning he goes to work and tries to put Naruto out of his mind.

He goes along with his day, coding and fucking around Tetris Battle with Dustin. It’s not until the afternoon a hush falls over the office, and Mark looks up to see–

Eduardo, standing there, red-faced, breathing hard, and looking furious.

Mark’s in his office, but he has glass windows, so Eduardo can see him and he can see Eduardo. Eduardo storms across the bullpen and slams the door to Mark’s office open. Mark jolts in his seat.

“What,” Eduardo says, “the fuck?”

The door to Mark’s office swings closed. The glass is mostly soundproof, as is the door, so no one can hear what Eduardo is actually saying. They can only see him yell at the CEO of Facebook.

“What the fuck was the last chapter of Naruto?” Eduardo shouts at Mark. “What was that? Sasuke and Sakura – ”

“I fucking know,” Mark bellows back, setting his laptop down and finally letting the anger course through his veins. “It was okay up to the end of chapter 699–”

“Chapter 700 is a load of bullshit!” Eduardo says. “When Sasuke – and when he wanted to become the hokage – ”

“Why doesn’t Sasuke just fuck off!” Mark exclaims.

“Why don’t Sasuke and Naruto just get together!” Eduardo shouts back. “I hate Kishimoto so much!”

“Has he ever heard of good writing,” Mark says. “Does he not realize what trash SasuSaku is. Does he not realize, that all the motifs of Naruto…”

As Mark and Eduardo shout at each other, the entirety of the Facebook offices stare through the glass walls. Dustin comes in from lunch and says, “What’s going – oh.” His face blanches, but then it brightens up again, as Mark and Eduardo’s shouting eventually turns into something more civilized, talking about the last battle between Naruto and Sasuke, how that would’ve made a much better end.

“Glad to see they’re finally talking things out,” Dustin says. “C’mon people, get back to work. Your Facebook dads have kissed and made up.”

“Uh,” says one employee, pointing to where Eduardo is crouching behind Mark’s desk as Mark pulls up the epilogue of Naruto, and they start screaming again at Mark’s computer screen. “I don’t think they’re doing that.”

“Sure they are,” Dustin says. “What else do they have to talk about?”

*

BONUS:

“Yeah, Mom, I’m staying,” Mark says, looking at Eduardo who’s nodding at him from his bed. “Yeah – no, Wardo’s okay with it. Yes. No. Yes. Yes, I have enough underwear.” He blushes. “Yes, I’ll be fine.” He hangs up.

“Awesome,” Eduardo says. He’s clicking at Mark’s computer, buying tickets for Anime Boston. “Now we get to go to our first con.”

“I’m not cosplaying,” Mark says. “You can do that on your own.”

Eduardo rolls his eyes. “Then how are you going to have fun?”

Mark shrugs. “Buy merch.” He thinks of all the SasuNaru art he’ll be able to buy. He won’t hang them up in his room, but one day when he has a house of his own he’ll totally have a secret bedroom full of all of the anime fanart he buys over the years, and he’ll show Eduardo and they can have sex in the room sometime, or something. “Meet people,” he adds casually, in case Eduardo tries to say that buying merchandise isn’t enough.

Eduardo snorts. “Yeah, we’re going to meet a lot of weeaboos,” he says, playing with his Kakashi wig.

“They can friend me on LiveJournal,” Mark says, clicking to LJ where he’s already made some friends through sasuxnaru. “Then they can read my SasuNaru fanfiction.”

“Thanks for thanking me as your beta reader,” Eduardo says, and Mark shrugs.

“It’s not a problem,” he says, getting warm under his collar.