The title... is most definitely misleading. Well, in a way. Sorta.

Team Hebi was composed of four interesting individuals, two of which who really didn't go well together. These two were, namely, Hozuki Suigetsu and Karin.

They were complete opposites. Their clothes were completely different from each other's. Karin had too much top whilst Suigetsu had too much bottom, not to mention there were also the colors of their clothes. Karin's hair was pinkish – red 5 or hot pink? – and clashed with Suigetsu's grayish – it looked more white than anything, really, so perhaps it was grayish white, then – hair. She had been completely obedient to Orochimaru. He had never cared about the man. She was practical. And he wasn't. But not one of those was the reason why exactly they didn't get along together.

Now, why did they not work well together? Well, the answer was a bit obvious. So obvious that Juugo, their companion that hadn't been in contact with humans for a long time, noticed it.

Karin and Suigetsu did not like each other because they were both vying for the affections (and the body) of the supposed leader of Team Hebi, Uchiha Sasuke.

Karin had thought that after all of the stunts that she'd pulled on Sasuke, the boy would've already figured out things. Unfortunately, he didn't. But she could relate a bit. He had spent a lot of time with Orochimaru and if he had wanted to stay sane, he would've tried his best to tune out perverse thoughts. Karin partially had no problem with that. That only meant that she could grope him without him thinking that it was a problem. Though it wasn't as if she had groped him as of late.

She couldn't. No, not with that idiot around, trying to stop her advances.

That idiot that went by the name Suigetsu.

"For the record, I plan on sticking close to Sasuke."

Sure, he was talking to Karin back then, but Suigetsu had thought that perhaps Sasuke had understood the hidden meaning. Well, at least Karin had understood that she was up for some tough competition.

In the world of ninja, the phrase "love is a battlefield" took on a whole new meaning.

For the love of himself (and Suigetsu loved himself very much), he couldn't understand why he wanted the Uchiha from all of the people he could've picked out there. Okay, so maybe he didn't have a lot of choices since, after all, he had been stuck in some sort of... fish tank and the people back at Kiri weren't the prettiest of people.

Sosure, maybe he did understand why he wanted the Uchiha, but that, perhaps, was beside the point right now. All he wished that the first hot person – the hottest person, to be more exact – he had come across was someone who was susceptible to his feelings. Or, well, wants, for that matter. Unfortunately, Sasuke was far from that. Very, very far. But, fortunately, Sasuke was enough of an eye-candy, so most grievances were forgiven and forgotten!

But Suigetsu had a feeling that this was more than just some sort of temporary emotion. He was far too obsessed in getting inside the boy's pants that it seemed as if he would die if he didn't do it soon. And not only did he want to... sex up – Suigetsu had never ever been a poet or someone fluent with his words; he preferred actions – the Uchiha, he also wanted to know the boy even better! The thought was laughable. Unfortunately for Suigetsu, the laughter was at his expense.

It had been ages since Karin stepped inside a town. And what luck! It was also a festival day. Stalls and paper lanterns hung on wooden posts lined the streets. People decked in their yukata and other festival garb were all over the place. The sounds of merrymaking were predominant. It might have been a small town, but the people there knew how festivals were supposed to be done.

Juugo had never been one for festivals. In fact, this was his first time being in a festival. After all, he spent most of his time trying to control his homicidal urges. If it wasn't for that, it was usually because people avoided him like the plague so he didn't know exactly when the festivals took place. Poor him. He had had such a suppressed childhood. Perhaps he could go and discover what being a child meant today...? Nah. He didn't seem like the type of person who would be all hyperactive. That was mostly Suigetsu's job.

Suigetsu also wasn't one for festivals. He had spent his childhood in training and avoiding death. His teenage years were spent killing people. Of course, add to that the fact that there really wasn't any festival in Kiri that minors could attend without being killed. The people in Kiri were vicious. Not that everyone already knew that by now.

Though that didn't mean that he didn't find this festival business rather exciting. The lights were all drawing him to different smells and stalls. The smells were tickling his nose. His ears were twitching with all of the noise. He knew that he was going to have fun. And he'd have more fun if only he could kill people, but, sadly, he couldn't. Because dearest Sasuke was pro-life when it came to people who weren't named Uchiha Itachi.

Sasuke had never been one for festivals, too. At least he used to like going to festivals before his brother killed the whole clan. Oh the irony, too. The only reason why he liked going to festivals was because he got to spend some time with Itachi then. But since there was no Itachi-niisan and like hell he would want to spend some time with that homicidal freak (whose name wasn't Gaara) that offed his family, Sasuke decided that he would sit out on this festival.

When he voiced his decision to his temporary teammates, they – well, Karin did and Suigetsu sort of did that; Juugo was just as quiet as always – disagreed to it, saying something along the lines that he should ease up a bit or that he should have some fun because god (or anyone could just ask Jashin-sama) knew just how much fun anyone could have around Orochimaru. Which was a lot for sadists and people who were somewhat like Orochimaru.

Sasuke, no matter how much his teammates protested, remained firm in his decision.

"Having fun won't kill you, yanno?" Suigetsu said.

"Even I must admit that Suigetsu's right and that would mean a lot," Karin said.

"I'malways right." A glare was sent Karin's way.

"That's just as true as I have black hair!"

"Well, if you were drawn by someone in black-and-white, you would have black hair."

"Then that must mean that the fact that you're right is fictional."

Suigetsu snarled while Karin curled her upper lip in disgust. The both of them glared at each other. That, of course, did not help the situation at all. It just made Sasuke want to stay away from them even more. He didn't do festivals and noise.

"Where will you go if you won't join us?" Juugo asked.

Suigetsu and Karin, of course, hadn't heard his inquiry since they were still far too... engaged in whatever they were doing.

Sasuke merely shrugged and just left, soon blending in with the crowd. As if someone wearing a huge purple bow around his waist could easily blend in with the crowd. And it wasn't as if that duck-butt hair of Sasuke's was normal. Though by the time that Suigetsu and Karin managed to pull out of their little glaring match, Sasuke was already gone. And that made the two of them angrier at each other even more. They bickered that it was the other's fault that Sasuke went away.

If they or anyone else for that matter had asked Juugo, he would say that it was both their problem that the Uchiha went away. Of course, the bickering duo didn't ask him that question or anything near it, and if they did, they probably wouldn't believe him anyway. Knowing that he wasn't needed, he, too, lost himself amongst the crowd. He would know when it was time to go. Hopefully, he wouldn't go crazy this time around.

When Suigetsu and Karin looked around their surroundings, they blinked. There was no Juugo to be found. More importantly, there was still noSasuke to be found. They, obviously, did not want to be left with each other so, with a huff, they parted ways. They also obviously had the same intention in their minds, to find Uchiha Sasuke before the other did. It was ingrained on both of their heads that the person who was able to find the elusive Sasuke – well, at least it seemed so to them... and millions of other people – today, would be the one who won their little spat.

Sasuke lightly sneezed as he looked up the building. Hot springs, huh? It had been ages since he'd been in one. Most of the time, at least during his time in Konoha, he had only went to public bathhouses once, and that was only because of that one time there was a water shortage in the area where he lived in.

His team did want him to... loosen up. This would be one way of doing it.

Before he stepped inside the building, he softly sneezed again. He made a mental note to make sure to watch out for his health. Having a cold was no good at all.

Sharp, pointy, and exceedingly white teeth glinted in the darkness in a nearby alley.

Suigetsu had managed to find his prey.

Sasuke had been in the hot springs for around a minute or so. His eyes were closed and his arms were crossed in front of his chest. A damp towel was on the top of his already soaked head. It felt warm. And Sasuke liked warm. The water was very warm, too. It felt so nice. He felt himself unwind.

It was as if someone was massaging him.

"Sasuke," someone whispered.

Oh, someone was massaging him.

He cracked one eye open and then closed it again. He acknowledged the presence of his fellow bath-mate. "Suigetsu."

"Does that feel nice?" Suigetsu asked, rubbing Sasuke's shoulders yet again.

"I hardly feel anything. It's more like there's water on my shoulders."

Suigetsu was composed of eighty percent water. That was ten percent more of the water found in relatively normal people.

"Youhave to be feeling something," Suigetsu said.

He applied more pressure on his massaging.

Sasuke looked thoughtful a bit, his eyes looking to his right, and then he looked at Suigetsu, his face blissfully blank.

Suigetsu applied even more pressure. Surely, Sasuke was feeling something now. That was supposed to be one of the guy's erogenous areas that he was touching.

No moan met poor Suigetsu's ears. No... climactic facial expressions were presented to his eagerly awaiting eyes. Nothing at all. Sasuke was as devoid of emotion as he usually was. And it was really irking Suigetsu. If Karin had seen this scene, she would've been laughing like the maniac that she was.

Suigetsu didn't like losing.

He didn't like being made a fool.

He didn't like waiting.

He didn't like any of this at all.

He didn't like the fact that maybe maybe something deep inside of him, much more deeper than his loins for sure, felt rejected.

No, no. That wasn't how he did things at all.

He wanted to desperately damn the person named Uchiha Sasuke.

But he couldn't because he–

"What exactly is your purpose of coming here?" Sasuke asked.

"What? It's bad to want to be with your team leader and make relationshipshealthier?" Suigetsu asked.

Suigetsu didn't like thinking most of all. He was a man who lived for the moment.

Thinking wasn't like him at all.

Avoiding the issue wasn't like him at all, either, but, hey, he didn't know that because he was busy trying to eradicate from his mind the thought that he was avoiding the issue.

Sasuke looked at his... subordinate with a calculating gaze.

"It isn't like you at all," Sasuke said after a while.

"Well, you talking a lot isn't like you at all either, but you don't see me acting like I've got a disease or sumthin'," Suigetsu said. "And 'sides, what's got you thinking that you know who I am?"

At times like these, Sasuke often wondered if Naruto or Suigetsu had met before or were closely related to each other.

"This behavior of yours isn't the one that I've gotten accustomed to," Sasuke said.

"We should take you out to hot springs more," Suigetsu commented. "Makes you talk more."

Sasuke leaned on the rock behind him and looked at the starry sky, the towel on his head falling on the top of the aforementioned rock.

"Maybe it does," he said.

This sky, oddly enough, was the same as the one he could see in the part of their house in front of the pond.

"What's niisan's hobby?"

"... Tentaikansoku."

Stargazing.

Suigetsu's eyebrows rose – it was a secret, but he couldn't raise just one eyebrow; always had to be two. Maybe Sasuke was sick, yeah? It sure seemed like it. The Uchiha Sasuke that he had come to know did not answer a question like that with those words. Hell, he wouldn't even answer at all.

"Who... the hell are you?" Suigetsu asked.

Sasuke turned his head to look at Suigetsu and then quirked an eyebrow.

Suigetsu felt a tinge of jealously. Why was it that every person he encountered could rise one of their eyebrows? It just wasn't fair at all.

"You're just too talky to be Sasuke," Suigetsu continued.

"And you're being far too rational to be Suigetsu," Sasuke said.

"I'm a ninja, too, yanno?"

"I sometimes forget that you are."

"... I want to take out that stick in your ass and replace it with my own."

Suigetsu was a man of action and vulgar words. Always had been. In fact, he could remember Mama Hozuki telling him not to tell such things, or at least something quite close to those words, to girls that he planned on being with in the (nearby) future. Then again, Sasuke, no matter how pretty he was, was obviously male.

"I look forward to seeing that day, Hozuki Suigetsu," Sasuke wryly said. "You and Karin both."

... Suigetsu had always known that Karin was far too brutal for Sasuke to see her as an actual woman.

"What'll Karin be able to stick up there, huh?" Suigetsu asked.

Still, that funny fact did not change Suigetsu's decision to make Sasuke only his. He was not a threesome man when it came to Uchiha Sasuke.

"... You're taking this seriously?" Sasuke asked after a while.

"Yeah, I am," Suigetsu answered with all the honesty that he could muster plastered on his face. "I mean, isn't this a serious thing? This'll affect our already fucked-up team dynamics."

"Last time I saw it, it was only you and Karin having these fucked-up team dynamics."

"Oh, so you're fine with Juugo, huh?"

"Juugo's better compared to the two of you. At least he's quiet."

"But he's a sicko!"

"All of us are. It comes with being a ninja."

Clearly, they were already having a misunderstanding.

This...argument of theirs was making Suigetsu lose hope. It seemed as if he would never ever get a piece of Uchiha Sasuke – not as if anyone else had. But he was getting the idea that maybe Juugo would. Because Sasuke seemed to like Juugo. And damn. Was Sasuke interested in romance or something? Because he sucked at that.

Juugo would be the kind of guy to sweep people off their feet. He was kind, he was quiet, he seemed like he'd make a convincing gentleman if it wasn't for his occasional freak periods, and he was tall. Sasuke seemed like the sort who'd go for tall people.

Suigetsu was shorter than Sasuke.

"This is just shit," Suigetsu muttered.

He leaned on the rocks the same way as Sasuke did and threw his arms around the somewhat large rocks that surrounded the hot spring.

"The sky's so boring," Suigetsu said. "It doesn't change at all."

There really wasn't anything important that he could say.

"It does," Sasuke said. "The sky changes. Especially at night."

The stars seemed much brighter when he was younger.

Suigetsu twisted his face and tried to see the sky at a different angle. Itstill looked the same.

He wondered what crack Sasuke was on today. It seemed really nice. Maybe he could have it, too, yeah?

Sasuke looked at Suigetsu with half-lidded eyes, his cheek lightly touching the rock. He had a somewhat thoughtful look on his face which dissipated when he said, "Just this night."

Suigetsu sat up straight and raised both of his eyebrows. What the hell was Sasuke saying now? The heat was seriously getting to the guy.

Sasuke inched closer to Suigetsu and placed his lips on Suigetsu's own lips. They stared at each other. Sasuke felt Suigetsu's lips quiver. And then he saw the light bouncing on white teeth.

Suigetsu was laughing.

"You suck, Sasuke," he said amidst peals of laughter.

"Yes, I know," Sasuke said.

"Still," Suigetsu had considerably calmed down by that point, but there were still tears of mirth in his eyes, "it felt kinda nice."

"You have a crush on me," Sasuke said, deadpan.

"Yeah. Obviously. What're you gonna do about it?"

Sasuke looked back at the sky.

"Nothing that I know will work," he answered.

Suigetsu toothily grinned. And then landed a peck on Sasuke's lips.

"You like that, don'tcha?" he asked.

"No," Sasuke said, "not really."

And it was the first time Suigetsu saw Sasuke smirk. That made him laugh. A lot.

He had definitely made some monumental progress. He could only think what Karin would do if she knew.

Thank you for reading through this! Comments/concrit/reviews/etc. would be nice. Not really needed, but, eh, concrit keeps me happy. I'm partially odd that way.