Chapter Text
Naruto groaned loudly as Kakashi explained their next mission to his kids.
“A television program? What the heck, sensei?!” he exclaimed.
“It’s what the hokage gave us.” the jonin answered coolly, while shrugging.
“But senseeeiii! I wanna FIGHT! I don’t have time for this!” Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms. Sasuke and Sakura were beside him, also looking down about this mission.
Kakashi only smiled and said, “The hokage thought you were good enough for this. You kids “pull off that charm for things like this” according to him.”
Now it was Sasuke’s turn to growl. “We’re not being taken seriously.” he seethed
Sakura crossed her arms. She was also somewhat upset about doing something that wasn’t ninja-like at all, but in her opinion, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, especially since they had been doing harder training these days and could have something easier to focus on. Besides, she was curious about what they were going to do for this program. And the hokage didn’t lie about Sasuke being charming.
While Sasuke was quietly brooding, and Naruto was fuming with frustration, the Haruno asked her sensei, “What are we going to be doing for this program anyway?”
Despite wearing a mask, the 3 genin could tell that Kakashi had a very wide grin on his face that said, ‘you guys really aren’t going to like this, but I find it very funny’.
The students were tense, sweating nervously and preparing for what their sensei would say, that could potentially ruin their reputation as ninja.
“Naruto and Sasuke will sing a duet!” he announced.
This sent both genin in an angered frenzy.
“HUUUUAUAHUUAAH??!!!” the boys yelled in unison. “US TWO??? A DUET??? ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!!”
Kakashi simply laughed in delight, while Sakura giggled.
“SENSEI!! What the heck?!!” Naruto yelled, obviously angry that he had to SING A DUET on TELEVISION in front of practically the ENTIRE VILLAGE, and not to mention, he had to sing it with Sasuke, his rival and other brain cell.
What if Sasuke-jerk doesn’t even know how to sing?? We’ll be total losers after that! Oh man, Sasuke will kill me!
“Kakashi-sensei, please!!” the Uzumaki pleaded. “I’d rather walk massive dogs or babysit stupid children, dattebayo!! Just get me out of this!!”
Sasuke snarled. “Oi, usuratonkachi!! Are you going to leave me in this heck of a mess?!” the normally calm Uchiha was now exclaiming to the younger blond.
Naruto turned to the raven. “I’m gonna be hokage one day, dattebayo! I don’t need this event RUINING my reputation!!”
“Me neither!!”
“Well, someone has to do it!!”
“So, you do it, dobe!”
“I’M NOT GONNA DO WHAT YOU SAY, DATTEBAYO!!”
“Sasuke! Naruto!” Kakashi called over the flurry of yells being thrown around. Although for once, the jonin kind of enjoyed it.
The boys turned to look at their teacher with frustrated eyes as Kakashi said, “This is final. The hokage ordered it, so you will have to do it!”
Said boys growled in annoyance, silently pouting that doomsday was going to be their reality in some time.
The silver-haired ninja turned to Sakura, who was still giggling and said, “Sakura, you will be stage manager and choreographer for the whole thing.” He then whispered more quietly, “I suggest you help the boys pick a song and rehearse, hmm?”
The pinkette smiled. “Yes!” she affirmed.
“Well!” Kakashi said, clapping his hands together and giving his classic one-eyed grin. “You’ll have a week to prepare for this thing, so you’ll have plenty of time to practice this duet, boys!” he said.
Sasuke and Naruto simply glared at their teacher in frustration.
Naruto sighed.
This is gonna be a nightmare, dattebayo...
….................................................................................................................................
The following day, the blond trudged to Sasuke’s compound, trailing behind Sakura. The 3 genin had agreed to meet up at Sasuke’s place for the stupid rehearsal, and it was already getting on Naruto’s nerves.
Earlier that day, Naruto tried singing to himself and to be honest, it wasn’t too bad in his opinion. But the fact that he had to sing and make a fool of himself on TV with his friend was just another bout of frustration for him.
He didn’t know whether Sasuke could sing too, nor did he know the specific song they were going to sing, but whatever it was, he sure did hope they weren’t going to sing anything too freaky or cringe.
The Uchiha let his teammates in once they arrived. He served them some tea (which made Sakura blush and fangirl over him for the next couple of minutes).
Sasuke was also as ticked off as much as Naruto was, so naturally he wasn’t the one to bring up the subject. It was Sakura who started talking about it.
“Have you two sang before?” she asked.
Naruto crossed his arms. “Of course, I can, dattebayo! I’m not an idiot!”
Sasuke just let out a grumble. “Hn.”
Sakura nodded and smiled, excited at the prospect of maybe seeing Sasuke sing. It made her blush again to think of it.
“Okay, that’s fine! We have a lot of time to practice, so you can be prepared for this by the end of the week!” she exclaimed.
Naruto groaned. “What song are we singing anyway?”
“It better not be anything stupid.” Sasuke muttered. I will never recover if I have to sing Taylor Swift or something, he thought.
“I was wondering about that too,” Sakura replied. “Well, since it’s a duet, it’s got to be song that two people sang right?”
“Oh, come on!” the blond shouted. “It’s gonna be something super cheesy then?”
“Not necessarily, Naruto,” the Haruno replied with an annoyed look in her eyes. “A song could still be good if it was sung by two people.”
“Hmm.” Sasuke sounded. He was listening to the conversation, and so far, he wasn’t interested. But maybe he could get it his way if he suggested a song he liked so he wouldn’t look like a total idiot.
“So, what artist then?” the raven asked. “Something realistic, like The Neighbourhood.”
“Are you kidding, Sasuke-jerk?” Naruto turned to his teammate and frowned. “I’m not going to sing anything dark like that!!”
“It’s the only good artist out there.” Sasuke retorted.
“It’s emo like you are.” the Uzumaki deadpanned, to which Sasuke just silently rolled his eyes. Then, Naruto’s face brightened with an idea.
“Hey! Hey! Let’s sing something by Alan Walker if you’re into those dark songs, dattebayo!”
The Uchiha internally winced at that remark, remembering his huge ‘Alan Walker phase’ when he was younger.
“No, dobe.” the raven answered Naruto. “That’s all cringe.”
“Heyyy, ‘Faded’ wasn’t too bad!”
“No, usuratonkachi!!”
“‘Dark side’?”
“NO.”
“Idiots!” Sakura yelled, smacking the two boys on their heads, with both groaning and rubbing their hair afterward. “You can’t sing songs like that on stage! The hokage needs something uplifting, not dark and mysterious!”
“Then what are we going to sing, Sakura-chan?” Naruto asked.
Sakura paused for a moment, then beamed.
“You guys will sing ‘The Greatest Showman’!”
“HUUUUHA?!” the boys exclaimed. “A musical??!!”
Sakura giggled. “Just one song from there! It’ll fit well I think!”
She turned around and fished two pieces of paper from her pack and handed them to her teammates.
Sasuke nearly lost his cool again as he saw the title.
“ ‘The Other Side’?!! But that song sucks!!” he retorted.
Naruto inspected the lyrics on the page and frowned.
“Wait, I never heard this song before.” he pointed out, scratching his head in confusion.
Sakura smiled. “That’s okay! I was planning that we could watch ‘The Greatest Showman’ before practicing, just to get a feel for it.”
“Oh God.” Sasuke huffed and smacked his forehead. I’m going to watch a Goddamn musical. And with the idiots?? Kill me already.
Naruto was also miffed about the idea, but Sakura wasn’t bothered, and before long, they put on the musical drama and watched the entire thing. Sakura was extremely in love with the ‘Rewrite the Stars’ number and thought it would have been wonderful if she could sing it with Sasuke.
Chandaro!! I’ll make sure to do that one day!!
During ‘The Other Side’ number, Sasuke was squeamish, imagining that he would be singing this with Naruto where everyone could see him.
Why the hell were we even nominated to do this? Did the hokage even see us? We’re freaking ninja in training!
The Uchiha certainly didn’t like the fact that he was going to look so un-intimidating by doing this. How was he going to achieve his ambition if he had this in his record? And besides, he didn’t even like the song, and thought Zac Effron wasn’t all appealing.
While the number was going on and the character of Zac Effron jumped on a table and started dancing, Sasuke suddenly widened his eyes in horror as a terrible thought occurred to him.
“Sakura.”
Both Sakura and Naruto were surprised by the dread in his voice, as normally Sasuke would NEVER talk like he was scared.
“...yes, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura timidly answered.
He pointed to the television screen and then turned to face her.
“We’re not doing the same moves, are we?”
The color drained from Naruto’s face as soon as he heard that. And what made it worse was the thoughtful look on Sakura’s face.
“Kakashi-sensei said it had to be choreographed...” she muttered.
Naruto practically leaped into the Haruno’s lap as soon as he heard that.
“Sakura-chan, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO!!” he shouted. “I CAN’T TAKE ALL OF THIS, DATTEBAYO!!”
“OI IDIOT!!” Sakura yelled, hitting the blond again and driving him out of her lap. “The hokage ordered it and so did Kakashi-sensei! I can’t DISOBEY, IDIOT!”
“Really, Sakura? REALLY?!” Sasuke remarked.
The girl hated that she had to put her crush through humiliation like this, but she had a responsibility of choreographing it, so she could make it look less humiliating.
“Don’t worry, Sasuke-kun! It won’t be EXACTLY like this!” A sudden idea came to her mind. “What if I choreograph it so that you will be acting out a fight while singing the song?”
This made the boys frown and think for a moment, considering the idea.
“It does have some ninja-ness to it...” Naruto said. He then crossed his arms and smiled his signature cute smile. “I like that idea better!”
Sasuke sighed, then gave a small grin. “At least I get to beat you up, dobe.”
“Not if I beat you up first!” the other boy answered.
“It’s an ACT guys.” Sakura stated firmly, but then smiled too. “Good! So, you guys can practice the song and do ninja-like moves too! It could be good representation for the ninja of Konoha!”
Sasuke and Naruto liked this idea better now, although they were still ticked off about the singing, at least they had SOMETHING to look forward to.
By the time they finished the movie, it was already getting late, so the kids agreed that after training they would meet at Sasuke’s house again to rehearse, and each would do their homework, Sakura would plan the stage and Sasuke and Naruto would do their singing.
..........................................................................................................................
The following day, the genin met up again at Sasuke’s compound to practice. Naruto felt like an idiot that he was going to SING today, but he was a little intrigued at what Sakura was planning for the dance-fight or whatever.
By the time they reached, Sasuke had already set up the song on his walkman.
“I can’t believe I had to go out and buy this dumb song...” the Uchiha had muttered under his breath. He planned that after this whole mission was done with, he’d toss that VHS tape into the river or something.
Sakura asked the two boys if they had memorized the lyrics of the song the night before, and when they replied in the affirmative, Sakura gave them their roles and who was singing what.
“Okay, Naruto, you’ll be singing Hugh Jackman’s part. Sasuke-kun, you’ll do Zac Effron.” Naruto nodded.
“Hn.” Sasuke answered, but inside he thought, I don’t even like Zac Effron, why do I have to sing his part? Although, his part matches me more.
Once they settled in and agreed to their parts, Sakura beckoned for Sasuke to start singing.
AHHHH YES!! I can’t wait to hear Sasuke-kun sing! He must be really good at it, chandaro!!
The girl tried to keep her cool and tried to pay attention to what he could be improved on. She was kind of the manager of the whole thing after all.
Sasuke hesitated at first. Both his teammates were sitting in front of him and were going to hear him sing.
Damnit... I can’t show them how embarrassed I am. Whatever, I shouldn't care, he thought. Just do it already.
With that, the raven cleared his throat, plugged in the VHS tape and started to sing a couple of lyrics in the song:
Okay, my friend, you want to cut me in
Well I hate to tell you but it just won’t happen
So thanks, but no
I think I'm good to go
Cause I quite enjoy the life you say I'm trapped in
Both Sakura and Naruto had never heard Sasuke like this. Sakura practically had hearts in her eyes as she listened to his melodic voice match with the song. There were no cracks in his vocals, and he’d memorized the lines well enough. Even Naruto thought that his best friend did a pretty darn good job in singing the song properly, and not butchering it up.
Sasuke sang a couple of more lines before stopping and turning to his teammates.
“So?” he simply stated.
“AHHHHHH, SASUKE-KUN!!! THAT WAS SO WONDERFUL!!” the Haruno exclaimed in excitement as she jumped up. She felt her face blushing hard.
The Uchiha gave a frown at Sakura’s sudden excitement, but then sighed. “Well, as expected of you.” he murmured.
Naruto crossed his arms and laughed. “Wow, jerk! I thought you’d butcher it so bad, but damn that wasn’t too bad for an idiot like you!”
Sasuke smirked. “It’ll be better than yours, I'm sure.”
“Neh, Sasuke! You haven’t even heard my version yet!”
After Sakura stopped fangirling, Naruto went up next to demonstrate his singing skills.
Okay, let’s do this, dattebayo!
He then proceeded to sing a few of his lines:
Don’t you wanna get away from the same old part you gotta play
‘Cause I got what you need so come with me and take the ride
To the other side
So go and do like you do, or you can do like me
Stay in the cage, or you’ll finally take the key
Oh, damn! Can’t you see you’re free to fly?
We're going to the other side!
You could tell Naruto was having fun singing it. His voice was bold and passionate, almost sounding like he was giving heart to the lyrics he was chanting. His voice did crack here and there, but the music in the background could cover that up, and Naruto still had time to work on it.
“Wow, Naruto! That was amazing!” Sakura cheered. “You sound like you’ve been singing your whole life!”
Naruto felt himself blush a little. “Of course, dattebayo! I’m amazing!”
Sasuke gave a smug grin. “You sounded pretty excited about it, dobe.”
“Only because we have to give our best performance!” the Uzumaki pointed out.
“Whatever, that wasn’t too bad,” the raven shrugged, then ruffled the blond’s hair. “Mine’s still better though.” he said coolly. Naruto chuckled.
“That was good!” Sakura commended. “Now both of you need to practice this duet together. Know when your parts are and what lyrics you must sing, okay?”
The two nodded and before long they started to practice singing the whole thing together. They decided to sing the song piece by piece to get it right, so they can master it, while Sakura got to work on the fight they were going to act out while singing.
After the third try at singing the full song, the two were worn out a little, so they decided to take a break and talk over the moves with Sakura.
“I was thinking,” the Haruno started. “We need to set up the stage to look like something. Perhaps the training ground?”
“Something like that,” Naruto said, crossing his arms. “‘Cuz I'd like to jump on things, so there needs to be a lot of rocks and stuff, dattebayo.”
“Hn.” Sasuke agreed.
“Okay,” Sakura thought for a moment, then scribbled something in her notebook she was planning in.
“All right, I’m going to talk to Kakashi-sensei about this plan before I show it, just so it can be official.” She smiled. “For now, keep practicing the song.”
The two groaned, as they wanted to just get on with the dance/fight already, but they nodded and decided to wait for it.
…............................................................................................................................
For a while, practice was up, and about 4 days from the week were gone, which meant that 3 days were left to rehearse.
Every training mission had a little set time for Sasuke and Naruto to practice their moves, which were approved by Kakashi when Sakura showed them beforehand. Sakura and Kakashi seemed to be very serious about this mission, and the boys didn’t understand why this had to be more important than NINJA TRAINING.
“This is so dumb, dattebayo.” Naruto said to Sasuke, who was uncharacteristically lying down on the grass with his arms on his chest, his bento already finished beside him. They finished practicing the moves for the 147475647 th time and they were getting bored. He then started to hum.
“I can’t get the song out of my head.” he groaned. He turned to Naruto.
“Dobe, after this, I won’t be able to get out of my house for weeks.”
“Tell me about it.” Naruto groaned. “I should probably do the same.”
The blonde then also started to hum and for a good 3 minutes he didn’t realize until Sasuke smacked him on the shoulder.
“Stop humming!” Sasuke remarked, annoyed.
“Is it my fault I have to be the one singing?!” Naruto exclaimed. “Besides, look at you, you’re humming too!”
“I’m not.” the raven answered while the chorus thrummed from his throat. He sighed. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Oi,” Naruto said. “You ever wonder why Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei are taking it so seriously?” he asked.
Sasuke sat up and shrugged. “They’re just idiots.” he answered.
“Hmf!” Naruto crossed his arms and stared at Sakura, who was eating in front of them. For a while, the boys stared at her, trying to figure out if there was anything behind their seriousness for this mission.
Eventually, Sakura noticed.
“What’s wrong with you guys?! Stop that!!” she yelled. Chandaro!! They’re getting weirder and weirder by the week!
“Sakura-chan!” Naruto suddenly stood up. “What’s so serious about this mission, dattebayo?!”
The girl frowned. “It’s something the hokage ordered, idiot.”
“Yeah, but what’s at stake here?!” he continued. “You and Kakashi-sensei have been making it so important! Being a ninja is way more important than this crap!”
“Kakashi-sensei just wants it perfect, that’s all.” Sakura stated. “And it is important, maybe not to you guys, but it’s still important.”
“Don’t lie to us.” Sasuke said.
Sakura continued eating, but the two boys could tell something was up and that she was hiding something they shouldn’t know.
“I hate this, dattebayo.” Naruto murmured, flopping back down on the grass.
“Hn.”
Surely there was something else going on, but whatever it was, the boys hoped it wouldn’t be any more embarrassing than it already was.