A/N: Me again. Second story ever, but this time it's SasuNaru! This means yaoi, so if you don't like it, please don't read! Because I didn't want the two of them to be as clueless as they were before the giant fight they had, this is taken in time if Sasuke hadn't left Konoha. Yeah, we all wish that this was a "what if he didn't leave" story, but a "he didn't leave at all" story, but alas, he left so it's too bad. There's also hintings of KakaIru, but that's just in there for some laughs. I try to keep all the characters to their personality the best I can because if I changed it, they wouldn't be them anymore! Please read and review? Thanks!

"Old Lady Tsunade!" The door to the Hokage's office was nearly slammed off its hinges as a hyperactive blonde stormed in. His entrance scared the two occupants inside the room.

"Naruto! Would it kill you to knock on the door for once!" the agitated Hokage yelled at him, her back ramrod straight from the sudden intrusion. The pink haired girl next to her sighed and her eyes fell to the floor next to Naruto.

"Hey, what's this?" He crouched down to pick up what seemed to be a purplish plant with fuzzy leaves.

"Naruto, don't touch th--!" Sakura screamed but it was too late because now the blonde just stood there with his hands around the herb with his eyes wide open.

"Drop it!" Tsunade commanded and he did as he was told. They both rushed over to him and picked up the plant gingerly, with gloved hands.

"What? What's wrong?" the dumbfounded boy asked nervously.

"This is an herb that one of the ninjas found near Konoha's borders a few days ago. We don't know what it is, but it appears to be a mutation from one of the other plants nearby. Are you feeling okay?" Sakura asked him as she returned to the desk, placing the plant in a tin pan with some other herbs.

"Yeah, I'm fine… What does it do?" he asked as he backed away from the Hokage's hand, feeling his forehead. After receiving an annoyed frown from her, he walked to the desk as well, peering closely at all the dried up looking plants.

"We don't know for sure yet," Tsunade spoke up, "but from the most current tests, we conclude that it makes anyone who touches it with their bare skin gets some strange side effects from it." She looked at Naruto with ominous eyes. "And maybe sometimes it gets even worst…"

He paled at her last sentence. "Am I going to die?" he whimpered.

Sakura turned away from him so that her back was to him. "Much worst than that…" she mumbled to him. "This plant," she picked it up and showed it to him again, "makes you…" she trailed off and looked at Tsunade.

"Makes you," she picked up the sentence and leaned closer to him, her face full of impending doom, "act strangely… towards the one that you love most. Consciously or subconsciously love, that is…"

Naruto laughed at the two of them, clutching his stomach and backing away a bit. After a few seconds of short bursts laughter, he recovered and wiped away some tears. "What's so bad about that? I though I was going to fall to pieces or something!" he chuckled lightly.

Sakura and Tsunade looked at each other apprehensively.

"Well, uh, Naruto, we're not sure how long the effects will be or how dire it will be, but it's definitely not a good herb. Until we find out more about it, we have to keep as many people away from it as possible," Tsunade said to him, her face obviously worried about something.

---

"Iruka-chaaan!"

"Kakashi, get away! I'm teaching class!"

"Konohamaru-chan, what is Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei doing?" Moegi asked as the entire class watched Iruka try to smack Kakashi away with a ruler.

---

"Well, I'm sure I'll be immune to it, since I have Kyuubi in me!" he said confidently.

"As far as we're concerned, though, the herb doesn't do any physical harm to you, so Kyuubi might not be able to get the herb's poison out of you. Check in with us if you feel funny, okay, Naruto?" Sakura patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, sure…" the fox demon container rubbed the back of his head and strolled out, completely forgetting that he had nearly kicked down the door for something.

Once Naruto was out of the room, Tsunade turned to Sakura. "So, who do you want to bet it's going to be?"

"Hokage-sama!"

---

Hm, no I feel fine… I bet Kyuubi will deal with it, whatever those two say…. Naruto thought as he walked out of the building and into the streets of Konoha. He sighed as he walked towards Ichiraku and saw that he didn't have any more money left. Hey, there's Sasuke, maybe I can get him to buy some fore me!

He ran over to his teammate excitedly and smacked him on the back, causing poor Sasuke to cough out a breath and skip a step. Not only that, but Naruto also killed his usually brooding stance.

"What do you want, dobe?" he asked angrily, his hands stuffed in his pockets as usual.

"Sasuke, do you want some ramen?" Naruto asked him cheerily, walking next to him.

"No," was his curt reply.

"Aw, Sasuke!" he whined, hoping that he would fall for the trick. Iruka usually did. But then again, Iruka could be such a softy sometimes.

"No, dobe, go away."

Naruto stopped and pouted a bit before changing his tactic. Usually he wouldn't call on Kyuubi for small petty things like this, but this was an emergency! No ramen? By the gods, that was disaster.

"Sasuke…" he growled and put a hand on his shoulder, gripping the cloth with sharp nails. "Buy me ramen," he licked his sharpened canines and glared at him with red eyes.

---

Sasuke sighed exasperatedly, staring at his empty bowl of ramen. "Hurry up, dobe, I have things to do."

The blonde slurped up the last of his soup and wiped his mouth, finally content after many bowls. "Ah, finished!" He laughed childishly and looked over at Sasuke, who was now pulling out his wallet and paying. "Thanks, teme."

"I would say that you owe me, but that money is as good as gone," he said flatly and walked out of the shop without another word.

"Hey, don't leave me like this! I bet you don't even have anything to do!" Naruto trotted after his teammate. He was planning to annoy him again today.

"I'm going to be training and you'll just get in the way."

"No, I'm not going to. I'll even fight you to help you improve!" he said pompously.

Sasuke stopped walking and turned to the blonde. "Are you trying to purposely annoy me?"

Naruto turned his head to the sky a bit and tried to avoid it by saying, "Well, I wouldn't say purposely…"

Quick steps made Naruto skip a bit to catch up with Sasuke again. His lips were pressed in a thin line, expressing his annoyance already. "Look, I'm going to bet you something."

"A bet? On what?" Naruto asked excitedly almost jumping like a girl.

"I'm going to fight you and if I win, you leave me alone for a week," he said, letting Naruto understand that first before adding the pros for him, "but if you win, then I'll buy ramen for you for an entire week."

"You're on, teme!" Naruto yelled without a second thought.

Seven days without being bothered by him is worth more than a fight… Sasuke thought as they went to the training grounds.

---

"So…" Sasuke panted as he leaned on a tree. "Where did your overconfident attitude go now?"

"Shut up, teme, you know I beat you once, and I can do it again!" Naruto stood up shakily and wiped the film of sweat on his forehead away.

"Hey, remember the terms we agreed to…" Sasuke warned. No help from Kyuubi.

"Yeah, yeah, I know…" he muttered and took in a deep breath. He charged at Sasuke and threw a punch at him. As excepted, the Uchiha easily blocked the punch. "Hey, Sasuke?"

"What, dobe?" he asked as he tried to jab him in the stomach.

"What would you do if I kissed you right now?" his tactic was to shock Sasuke long enough for him to punch him down. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work.

"I would punch the living daylights out of you," was the monotone reply. Their fight continued for several more moments before Naruto spoke up again.

"No… Really," his face turned serious and he grabbed Sasuke's arm, bending it behind him and holding him down so that he couldn't move. Well, either he couldn't move or he didn't want to move. They stayed like that for some seconds as Sasuke gathered his thoughts.

The first time around, he thought Naruto was joking, but that look on his face made him think otherwise. He broke away from Naruto and stood up with his hands up to show his submission. "Is this what you do in your spare time? Think of ridiculous questions to ask people?" He looked up at the sky to determine the time.

Naruto ignored his question and pranced around yelling something about free ramen. Sasuke rolled his eyes and placed his hands back into his pockets and waited for the dobe to calm down.

After the blonde finally recovered he acknowledged the fact that he was asked a question. His only answer was a shrug.

"Whatever, dobe. I'm going to go now," Sasuke sauntered off again, leaving Naruto alone.

"Psh, spoilsport…"

---

Seven day s and I'm still incredulous about how much this dobe can eat… Sasuke looked at the mountain of bowls that towered over Naruto precariously. He was starting to regret giving up on that fight. Why had he done so anyway? He couldn't even remember.

"Finished!" Naruto announced happily and waited for Sasuke to pay again. Too bad this is the last day, he thought and followed Sasuke again.

For the past week they had been doing this. Eating until Sasuke's wallet resembled an anorexic stick then going out to train. Against Sasuke's will of course, but he lost the bet so he had to pay the price.

Sometimes Naruto would join the training but most of the time he sat against a tree and poked fun at Sasuke. It took every last ounce of energy for Sasuke not to murder him. Though both had confessed that they were best friends, an annoying best friend is still annoying.

Today Naruto had sparred with his teammate and he was sprawled across the ground, staring at the clouds above their heads. Sasuke was sitting up with his hands laced around his knees.

He was reminiscing about that day again. The day when they both fought to near death.

"You're my friend so if I have to break every bone in your body and drag you back to Konoha, I will!"

He nearly kept his word too… Sasuke closed his eyes and smiled a bit.

"And when I looked at you, I wondered if this was how it was to have a brother!"

He was rudely snapped out of bittersweet memories when he heard Naruto growl, "Sasuke-teme…" Sasuke was about to turn around and punch him in the head for calling him all of a sudden but when he did turn around, he saw the Naruto had fallen asleep.

"What would you do if I kissed you right now?"

"I'd punch the living daylights out of you."

"No… Really."

"Hn…" he snorted a bit when he remembered the words. Sasuke stood up and walked away, once again leaving Naruto behind.

---

"Holy crap, Naruto, what the heck do you think you're doing?" Sasuke slapped his hand away and backed away. He took out a kunai and held it out, in case Naruto tried something funny again. They were just walking to the training grounds when Naruto suddenly hugged him.

"Sasuke," he whimpered, looking innocently at him.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked tentatively. He had been acting like the typical Naruto when he just suddenly jumped on him.

"Please, let me hug you?"

"What? No!"

"Please?" he walked towards him a bit.

Okay, something's wrong with him…. I'd better take him to Tsunade… Sasuke concluded. He took a quick step forward and punched Naruto in the stomach hard. Sasuke dropped the kunai and held up the limp body of his teammate.

When he reached the office, he knocked briskly before opening the door. Tsunade looked up quickly, her face painted with surprise when she saw Naruto draped onto Sasuke's shoulders.

"What happened?" she asked worriedly and rushed over to him, carrying Naruto to a chair. Sasuke explained to her what happened. The Hokage listened but was trying not to laugh all the while.

"Sasuke, I don't want you to have a heart attack or anything, but I think you'd better know what happened to Naruto. A week or so ago, he accidentally touched an herb that we had recently found…" she went on to explain to him all that they knew as of right now, which wasn't much. "From earlier tests, we know that the effects will last more than two weeks, but we're still not certain of the exact number of days…"

---

"Sorry class. I know it's hard to concentrate with Kakashi-sensei hanging there, but we need to continue class. Open your books to page 214, please…"

"I think 'hard to concentrate' is an understatement," Konohamaru whispered to Udon.

Kakashi was tied up with thick ropes and hung up from the ceiling in a corner of the room. After two weeks of trying to attack Iruka, the teacher finally gave up and tied him up.

---

"So you'll just have to deal with him until the effects wear off. Hm, Sasuke?"

Sasuke's soul escaped about halfway through her lecture when she explained the properties and side effects of the herb. He stood there like an empty shell while Tsunade nudged him.

"What did I say about having a heart attack? Sasuke-kun. Hey…" Tsunade blinked as he started to leave. "Sasuke, what am I going to do with Naru… to?" The Hokage stared at Naruto. "I guess I'll just kick him out after he wakes up…"

---

"Sasuke, I told you I'm sorry! They told me to see them when I felt funny! Seriously, I wasn't feeling funny… Sasuke, talk to me! Sasuke-teme!" Naruto darted around him as he walked quickly to the training grounds, trying hard not to punch him in the face. All Sasuke could hear was the repetition of his name.

"Argh, shut up, dobe!" Sasuke stopped abruptly and yelled at him. There was about a three second lapse before Naruto whimpered, "Sasuke?"

The boy slapped his forehead and continued walking, the blonde trailing after him like a pet. "Just stop talking for five minutes…"

The five minutes turned into hours when they reached their destination. Naruto sat down on the grass dejected as he silently watched Sasuke practice like there was no tomorrow. After the first hour or so, Naruto started t o get bored and fell asleep. The sun was starting to go down when Sasuke finally decided that that was enough training for a day.

He walked slowly over to Naruto, who was in the same position that he was in about a week ago. He stood there, looking at the dobe and thinking again. Sasuke sighed heavily and crouched down at Naruto's feet.

"How could you love someone like me?" he murmured quietly to the sleeping ninja. "Hn…" He fell to his knees and positioned himself so that he was hovering above the blonde.

"What would you do, Naruto, if I kissed you right now?" he whispered, smiling a bit. He leaned down and kissed him lightly.