Chapter One- Meet Hyuuga Hinata

"Uzumaki Naruto! If you don't getting back here right now I will seriously pound your ass in!"

The twenty-five year old blonde man cackled as he shot out of his best friend's house. More precisely, to escape his wife. Sliding across wet pavement he crouched behind the freshly trimmed bush on the side of the driveway as a pink-haired woman stormed out. Sharp eyes darting back and forth she looked around furiously for the young man before letting out a frustrated cry.

"Damn it Naruto! If I have to get Sasuke to get you out of hiding I will. And you will clean up the bloody mess you made with the ramen!" she hollered, running a hand over her forehead.

Needing to muffle his chuckles, Naruto watched as the woman let out an angered yell, and finally stormed back into the house.

It was ten minutes later when Naruto finally got up the nerve to return into the house.

"Oh Sakura-chan!" he called, drawing out the 'a' in –chan. But he blanched at the glare the woman gave him over her shoulder. Her hands were preoccupied with washing the floor from the ramen broth.

"Naruto, I hope you value your life…" she growled venomously.

"N-Now Sakura-chan! There's no need to get violent!" he stammered, backing away while waving his hands in front of him. But the pink-haired woman just took another step closer. Then another, another, and another.

Just when she raised her fist, there was the sound of the door opening then closing.

"Oi! I'm back." Came the drawling voice of Uchiha Sasuke.

Immediately Sakura expression changed to one of adoration, "Sasuke!"

From the hall came the man, loosening up his black tie. He was an attractive man, with the rugged black hair, stylishly mussed. His eyes were a rare coal black, though were rumored to flash red when he was truly angry. Stripping himself of his suit jacket, he barely acknowledged his wife taking it to put it away. But when she returned he did kiss her lips softly, making her expression even happier afterwards.

"Sasuke, how's the job going?" Naruto said in a teasing voice as he plopped down in a chair and propped his feet up atop of the table. They came down fast enough when Sakura smacked him upside the head, and she ignored his cry of pain and protest.

"The usual, I had to stop the company from falling apart." Sasuke's answer was short and to the point. Although marrying Sakura had loosened him up a bit, the dark haired man was still cool, calm, and collected as when he was a kid meeting Naruto.

In return to the uncaring statement, Naruto tried to look interested, "Cool, cool. Hey, hey! Did you talk to Gaara?"

"Un," replied the dark man, "He says you owe him a drink."

"For what?" scoffed the blonde, trying to sneak a fresh baked pastry that Sakura had set in front of her husband. Promptly he was whipped by a drenched dish rag. He yelped as she hit him on the head, making his spiked hair droop.

"Apparently his team lost last night, and he wants to mope. Annoying…" Sasuke bit into the pastry, and let out a small smile to his wife. She brightened considerably, and returning to washing dishes. She was never much of a cook, but no one could beat her baking as of yet.

"I should give him a call…" murmured Naruto absently.

"Yes, you should." Said Sasuke blandly, eating another fruit-filled pastry.

The afternoon went pretty much like that. Naruto would talk, Sasuke adding in tiny comments here and there while Sakura found obvious reasons to beat the family friend. She did consider him like a younger brother even though they were practically the same age, Sasuke being a year older than them both. Sakura was the youngest of the odd trio, but was like Sasuke's arm when Naruto deserved to get hit.

And so the day passed.

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Gaara was often told he was a monster. He never denied it, but he never confirmed it. But he certainly looked the part, although it did give him a dangerous hunk sort of look. His hair was that rare color of red that was only four percent of the world's population. Cut short, it held natural spikes in it. And he was one of the few straight guys that could pull off eyeliner. But what really surprised people was the tattoo of the kanji 'love' in red on his left temple.

A long time ago, Gaara was one of those children that were feared. He was abnormally aggressive, and angry because of the fact he didn't have parents, and his uncle had beat him. Some one called child services when he came into school with a black eye, and burnt flesh. Emotionally scarred, he had refused anything even closely resembling friendship. Thus he jumped from foster family to foster family, always in the system. No one had managed to handle him.

That had all changed now.

"Oi! Gaara!" the man turned to wave to his blonde friend maneuvering through the bar to get to him.

"Naruto." He said in a calm, calculating voice, "I assume you are well?"

"Doing great. Sakura-chan nearly killed me for breaking her mother's vase." Naruto replied, raising a finger to the bartender for a beer.

"So you are still acting like an idiot. I don't know how Sakura-san can put up with you all the time like that." Gaara said coolly.

"Gaara, you know that's not right!" Naruto said, and Gaara smiled fractionally at the wide smile the twenty-year-old had on. That kid was one of a kind.

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Trembling, pale hands hurriedly stuffed clothing into a bag. Whimpers echoed through the room as a small drop of blood hit the wood floor.

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"So how are your brother and sister?" Naruto asked after he took a sip of his beer.

"Well, Temari is desperately in love with this slacker guy. Of course, this same slacker has like, a two hundred IQ, it's ridiculous." Replied Gaara, huffing slightly at the thought of his older sister in love. It really was a funny but slightly disgusting thought. Although the blonde had always been slightly on the girly side and not a complete tomboy, she did have two brothers for siblings. So she was always a rough girl of sorts. Seeing her in love was quite a shock to the two brothers.

"Heh! I knew someone in high school who was just like that! Nara Shikamaru! He, Chouji, and I would skip class-"

"Small world…" grumbled the redhead, "I think we're talking about the same people."

"No way!" Naruto laughed, "I've seen your sister, and to him, she'd be too "troublesome". Besides, your sister's gorgeous, and Shikamaru always wanted a plain girlfriend."

"Ridiculous black hair up in a ponytail that seems to defy gravity?" Gaara said flatly, making Naruto falter. The blonde rested his cheek on his palm.

"Wow, really is a small world, isn't it?" he said finally, and grinned, his odd whisker marks stretching across his cheeks.

"Hai…" replied Gaara, and raised his beer, "To the not understanding of women."

Naruto happily clinked his bottle with his friend's, and they drank.

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Thunder crashed as the small figure hurriedly to yank shut the zipper to the bag. They cried out in pain when they nearly zippered their finger in. Another droplet splattered on the ground, only a few inches from the previous, and the one before that, and before that…

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"Damn," commented Naruto as he and Gaara made to leave the bar, but found it dumping buckets of rain on them. By the time he got to the car, which wasn't even that far from the entrance, he was dripping wet. Waving to Gaara, who was contemplating just going back inside for more alcohol, he slid into his car, and headed back to Sasuke's and Sakura's house. Using his key, he didn't even bother knocking. That was why he screamed when he saw his best friend and his best friend's wife on their way to a very compromising position.

It could also be said they were very much lip-locked, and Sasuke's shirt had been thrown aside.

"Baka!" snarled Sasuke, tugging his shirt back on as Sakura boiled, "Can't you knock? It is our house dobe."

Naruto was still shuddering at the thought of two of his closest friends doing it on the couch he usually lounged on. Talk about a gross out. But finally he snapped out of it.

"You know my apartment complex is going through renovations, Sasuke! I have no other place to go! It smells and the noises wake up the dead!" he whined.

Sakura ran her fingers through her hair in annoyance, "Why can't you just get a girlfriend and live with her?! It would make our lives easier ten-fold!"

"I don't think a woman would swoon for this baka, koi." Sasuke commented dryly, but then turned to Naruto, "Once the renovations are over you're out. Got it?"

The blonde grinned, but when he opened his mouth he was interrupted by a furious knocking. Sakura stood, her brow furrowed.

"Who comes at this hour, other than Naruto?" she said softly as she walked out of the room to the front door. Curiously, Sasuke and Naruto followed.

When the door opened, Sakura's eyes widened. In the doorway, absolutely drenched, was a small but beautiful woman. Jet black hair dripped with the torrent of rain that pounded on her head, and pale, shimmering lavender eyes with no pupils drooped with weariness. Blood dripped down her face from the gash along her hairline. She was dressed in a sodden white jacket and black slacks.

"S-S… Sakura…" murmured the woman in a shy voice, before she staggered forward enough to faint into the woman's arms.