Summary: I was never one to be in groups. I enjoy staying home with a book and nothing else. I like coffee and warm blankets, gloomy days and candles, sweaters and glasses. I like simple things. But what I feel for him, it is not simple. It is complex and beautiful and so inexplicably real that I can't help but dream of his ocean eyes and sunny hair and knowing smile. I can't help but be attracted to his loudness and his laugh. I cannot help but to love him. My Naruto.

Author's Note: Okay. So, my whole hiatus has been huge. Basically, a lot of shit went down and then up through the roof, and I needed some time to recover. A while, actually. I'm reposting this story because I got an actual plot for it. And, I also met a good friend named Max a few weeks ago, who is also a NaruSasu fan. We were talking this morning, and somehow I mentioned writing. He said he'd love to read some of my work some time, and I figured, fuck it. I need to get back to a routine of writing anyway. So, I took down the original story, combined the first two chapters, and then wrote some more of it. So it's quite a bit longer than it was before, but I know that I prefer long chapters to short chapter. I swear I'll try to actually update regularly. I won't give an actual day because I suck at that, but if I don't just hound me with annoying PM's and reviews and I'm sure I'll be reminded to update. So, in a way, you all have Max to thank for getting me back into the game. Everyone say, thank you, Max!

Disclaimer: If I did in fact own Naruto, Naruto and Sasuke would be married.

Chapter One

I am painting in my living room when I hear the front door behind me open, the rustling of plastic bags giving away who it is. The sunlight is washed across the canvas, pouring in from the window to my left, allowing me to work without the lights on. The red rose gently painted in watercolors on the once-white expanse, accented by a blue and purple background, seems to be glowing in the sunlight. I feel a sense of pride rise up in my chest, something that I don't feel often and cherish as it's there before it's gone again. I look behind my shoulder, to see those lovely blonde spikes bent down as he unties his shoes. There are three bags beside him, each emblazoned with the local grocery store's logo, and I set down my paintbrush to help him carry the food into the kitchen. After he removes his shoes, he follows me, standing beside the table that we eat at.

"I wasn't sure what you wanted for dinner Teme, so I just bought some stuff to make spaghetti," he says, and I begin to empty the bag that contains a rectangular box filled with uncooked noodles and a jar of tomato sauce.

I look to my left at his face, and smirk. "And what are you going to have Naruto?"

The blonde looks at me in disbelief, as if wondering how I could ask such a thing. "Well, ramen of course! Don't you know me at all?" He puts his hand over his heart, and sniffs as he turns away, mimicking wiping away a tear as he turns from me. "I thought you knew me better than that."

I feel a smile come to my lips, a genuine one, as I lightly smack him upside the head. "Pull it together Dobe. I'm sure you'll be fine."

He turns back to me, his mouth splitting into a grin, and he reaches in front of me to grab the packet of ramen, his hand dangerously close to my crotch, and I wonder for a moment what it would feel like to have his palm pressed against it.

I quickly shake my head to clear my unruly thoughts. Naruto is oblivious, wiggling his oh-so-wonderful hips to a song playing in his head, humming along as he takes a pot from the top shelf next to the fridge and begins to fill it with water from the sink. I smile again to myself, then walk into the living room and begin cleaning up my workspace. Painting was not my job, nor did I think I was good enough for it to become a career, but Naruto thought otherwise. It was a pastime I had picked up some years ago, when I had taken a trip with my family to Spain and had become fascinated in the art. My father didn't particularily understand art, but he supported my hobby of creating it, as did the rest of my family. When I had graduated high school, my parents expected me to go to college, but I found that living in a dorm with some stranger and having to go back to classes with other students didn't take to my liking. Naruto had been my best friend since we had been young, and he had agreed. He wanted to be a chef, but couldn't afford to go to culinary school, so he wanted to take a year or two off to get some money under his belt. We both had decided to go eventually go to college, just not right now. I needed space, and he needed cash. In our conversations, we had come across the idea of the two of us living together, splitting rent until we were ready to attend school. We decided that this was a good enough course of action, and within a week had rented our own apartment for three hundred dollars a month, I had gotten a job at a local hotel at the front desk, and Naruto was employed at a ramen shop down the street.

Living with the dobe was wonderful in more ways than one. For starters, I had the opportunity to see him whenever the two of us weren't working or running errands. We had at least a few movie nights a week, and some of those he would fall asleep across my chest. We could cook together, eat together, shop together, and watch TV together. We had our occasional fights, but that was expected with our clashing personalities, though in a weird way we balanced each other out. We were light and dark, yin and yang, and I loved it. I loved him. I always had, with what started as hating him, moving to a small crush in middle school, then an infatuation in early high school, and by our senior year I had reached the peak of my feelings for the boy. He was idiotic and immature and annoying, but he was also beautiful and sweet and caring. I loved seeing him wake up in the morning with bedhead, and I loved when he would hug me to make me feel better, and I loved how he would call 'teme' and smile that lovely smile.

I am suddenly shocked out of my reverie by a loud bang in the kitchen. "Ow!"

I quickly put down the tube of paint I was been holding, then run into the kitchen where Naruto is holding his knee and cursing under his breath, the packet of ramen laying on the counter.

"Dobe!" I say, "What are you doing?"

Naruto looks up at me. When at full height, he is taller than me by a few inches, but as he is bending down to massage his knee, his head only reaches my chin.

"It's nothing Teme," he replies. "Just hit my knee on the oven."

I sigh. "Naruto, you have to be careful."

"I know," the blonde says, "I just wasn't paying attention." He stands up, and I realize just how close we are to each other. Only about six inches away. Naruto looks down into my eyes, his ocean blue clashing with my onyx black. They shine at me, and I feel my heart speed up in my chest as he leans forward a bit. My eyes widen, and my breath stops for all of five seconds. Then, he reaches his hand behind me to grab the ramen from the counter.

"Thanks Teme," he says, an odd look in his eyes. "For caring and all."

It takes me a moment to process his words, and I berate myself for not answering the moment he spoke. "No problem Dobe. Just don't hurt yourself again."

He smiles at me, his head slightly cocked to the side, and I have to remind myself to take air into my lungs. "I'll try."

I nod, then power-walk to my room down the hall, the second door on the left, and close it behind me. I keep my back against the door in case Naruto decides to come barging in like he is prone to. I closed my eyes and take a deep breath, then look down at my crotch, which is starting to become heated.

Sometimes, I admit, I want to strangle Naruto for the things he does to me. Well, not specifically me, but my body. But when I think about how close he was, and how great it would be to kiss his lovely, pink lips, I can't help but shiver in pleasure. Naruto was special. I have been attracted to males before, yes, but never one so much as Naruto. Perhaps because I am not a believer in casual sex, and therefore would like to get to know someone before we did anything. Which sounds old-fashioned, and it is, but it is what I thought and nobody was going to change that. I was not only attracted to his body, but his personality, and that's what made my need for him so much sweeter. However, I was not a virgin. Not by heterosexual or homosexual standards. The former was a product of trying to get over Naruto in high school when he began dating a girl who was widely known as easy, after which I came to the conclusion I was - completely and totally - gay. The latter happened on a drunken night after an argument with the blonde. The twenty year old man that took me home was a brunette with hazel eyes and dark skin, and possessed a lilting voice that quickly annoyed me. The experience was enjoyable, but not exactly what I was in to. For one, I had to top, and it wasn't until I realized I would have to do this that I found I was meant to be a bottom. The fact slightly hurt my pride, but I like to please my partners, and I find nothing wrong with that. Especially if it was Naruto.

I hear him call from the kitchen, something about how he's putting on the noodles. My mind is still thinking about Naruto naked in my bed, so it takes a few moments for the thought to register. I yell back a quick, "Okay!" and then lean against the door thinking of innocent things until the tent in my pants is gone.

By the time I make it back out to the living room, Naruto is sitting on the couch with his feet at one end, holding a bowl in his left hand and a fork in his right. He obviously ate something a mere hour or two ago, because he isn't shoveling the ramen in his mouth like he usually does when he hasn't consumed anything since lunch. The blonde is watching some gorey horror movie. He has always liked these, and I have to admit that some of them are entertaining. The rest, however, are basically just pornos with a bit of blood and death thrown in. Naruto finds these about as amusing as I do, and therefore stays away from them. He keeps to the films that contain a little mystery, as well as a fair amount of bodily fluids and many scenes of exposed organs.

He doesn't notice me watching him, but I decide that I should probably go drain my noodles for dinner. As I am doing this, I hear screams and pleads from the TV. When I go back a few minutes later with a plate of spaghetti in my hands, a brunette is being decapitated by a chainsaw, and Naruto has this sadistic little smile on his face. I smirk, loving the look, and use ons hand to move his feet from the middle cushion on the couch so I can sit down next to him. We don't say anything, just watch the movie in silence as we eat. When both of us are done, Naruto finally speaks up.

"Teme?"

"Hm?" I say, because I'm too engrossed in the boy whose eyes are currently being pierced with sharpened metal rods to answer with anything more.

"I've been thinking about something. . ."

I feel my attention sharpen, and I glance over at Naruto, who is trying to look interested in the movie, but the rhythmic tapping of his finger against his thigh gives him away.

"And what's that Dobe?" I try to keep my breathing even, because against my better judgment, I think Naruto is about to say something important about us.

His body shifts a little; he has rested his right ankle on his opposite knee. He turns his eyes to me. "Maybe we need a break."

I sit there for a moment. A break? But we're not together. . .

Then I remind myself that there are dual meanings to that sentence. "What do you mean?"

Naruto's eyes light up, and he turns his whole body to me, his legs now hanging off the side of the couch, his torso facing me. "Like, a vacation."

My eyebrows raise. "A vacation?"

He nods his head, then grins. "Yeah. My family, they have this old cabin a few hundred miles away, on the side of a lake. I didn't know about it until a couple of years ago, but apparently some maids come in to clean it every week, so it's perfectly sanitary." He glances at his lap, then back up at me, and I realize that for some reason, he is nervous upon my answer.

I think over his proposition for a few moments. A vacation? With Naruto? Secluded? In a cabin? It seems too good to be true, and I can't help but feel important that he would choose me to take with him instead of one of his other friends like Kiba or Shikamaru. Then I think of what could happen in that little cabin by the lake, what it could lead to, and I don't feel an evil grin coming to my face like I would expect, but a genuinely happy, excited one. Naruto notices this, and sets his palms on the small space between us, slightly leaning forward. His grin widens, and he says, "Is that a yes?"

I feel myself melt under his wonderful gaze. "Yes, Dobe. It's a yes."

He breaks out into a full smile, his canines unnaturally sharp. Then, the look in his eyes changes, and his grin slowly fades as he leans towards me. He continues to come closer, and it is not until I am fully reclined on the couch that I realized I had been leaning back to escape the feral gleam. He is positioned over me, and I feel the blood rush to my crotch as he moves his head closer, until we are a mere half foot apart. Then, he uses his left hand that is to the right of my head to pull something out of my hair. He dangles it in from of my face, and I feel it tickle my nose. It is a small ball of white string.

"You had a fuzzy in your hair," he whispers, and I cannot help but think that he made his voice sound as sexy as it did.

He gets off of me, and walks to the kitchen to throw the ball in the trash, humming quietly. I stare at the ceiling, my arms spread out, and it is not until he shuts the door to his room that I realize I had forgotten to breathe again.

It is two days later that I come to the conclusion that Naruto is the single most infuriatingly ramen-obsessed being on this planet.

He wants to bring forty-five packets with us. Forty-five.

"Sasuke!" He whines, for perhaps the hundredth time today, when I tell him no again. "The cabin is half an hour away from the closest town. Half an hour! If I run out, how will I get more? Do you want to deal with me complaining about having none? Do you?!"

I take my thumb and forefinger, pinching the bridge of my nose as I sit on the couch while Naruto keeps his place standing in front of me, like a child facing his parent. "Dobe. You are talking forty-five fucking packs of ramen. I know for a fact that you can eat that much in three days time, but if you keep up this appetite you're going to die from an overload of sodium in your system before you're thirty!"

Naruto throws his hands up in the air, yelling in frustration, then yells back at me,"Fine! Have it your way. But you're cooking for me, and when I start whining about being hungry, I don't want to hear you complaining about shit!" At this, he stomps off to his room, slamming the door, and I hear him yell again in his anger before there is silence.

This is one of the times when Naruto seems too much for me. When our personalities are too opposite, when the yelling and arguments about stupid things are too much, when I just want to kiss him and then have wild sex and have it be all good and happy. But the problem is, I'm simply not brave enough. I have times where I think, I'm just going to do it, but then I hesitate for one moment, just one half of a second, and then I'm freaking out over all of the what-if's. I think a part of me has accepted that I'm never going to have him, that that's what he is to me: everything I can't have. It scares me, because we'll be out shopping or going to see a movie, and I'll see him looking at someone, and I don't get mad or anything, I just get sad. Like I expected it all along. Like I expected not to have him choose me. Maybe it's because even in high school, all of the people I didn't want wanted me, but the one person that did, well, he barely thought of me as more than a friend. As far as I know, he still does.

I stop myself there, my thoughts coming to an abrupt stop, and the emptiness in my chest is palpable as I run a hand through my hair and stand up from the couch. I walk into the kitchen, looking around for the keys to Naruto's car that we've been sharing this week while mine gets a new engine, and, when I find them, I quickly walk out the door and into the stormy evening to get the-kind-of-but-not-really-mine-Dobe's forty five packs of ramen for our vacation.

When I pull up into the parking lot of our apartment complex, the rain is still coming down hard. It's 7:48 in the evening, and for the most part dark at this time of year, but I can see a light on in our window from here.

I climb the stairs two at a time, trying my best to keep my hair and the ramen dry from the downpour. I almost slip a few steps from the second floor, but I am able to reach out and grab the slippery metal banister before I can fall. When I get to the door, I turn the knob, realizing that I forgot to lock it when it turns easily in my hand. As I step inside the warmth of my home, shaking my head a bit like a dog and shutting the door behind me, I hear a pot being dropped in the kitchen, and a mumbled curse. I can gather from this that while I was gone, Naruto decided to sneak out and make some dinner, only to have me return as he was in the process, and be caught in the act.

However, I'm taken by complete and total surprise when I step into the kitchen, my hair sopping wet, my jacket dripping a mess in my wake, probably looking like complete and total shit, and Naruto, my absolute perfect, golden-haired and blue-eyed Dobe, placing the dropped pot back onto the shelf where he had knocked it down in his surprise, with a full dinner laid out on the table.

I feel like a goldfish, my mouth moving, opening, closing, then opening and closing again. My eyes flit from Naruto, who is now smiling at me with the most beautiful grin I have ever seen before in my life and scratching his head, to the table covered with food. And then I start counting the plates: there are twelve. Two hold roasted chicken pieces, and I know that he had to walk to the grocery store two blocks away in the rain to buy this and some of the other things, because he wouldn't have enough time to make them. But the plate also has a salad on it, along with a stuffed tomato, and off to the side I see a bowl of ramen he made for himself, and I cannot help but smile. There is a small cake in the middle of it all, only five inches wide, covered in a dark blue icing (which is my favorite color; of course he would know that) and I know that it must be a chocolate cake, because although I'm not a fan of sweets, I have a love for chocolate cake, and Naruto knows this well.

I look up at him now, and I notice that he's moved closer, just a few feet away from me, and I see that his blonde locks are indeed damp. He speaks to me then.

"Teme, I don't know what's wrong with you lately." He looks at me weirdly, and I feel guilty, realizing that I must have been more moody than I thought. "But you're my best friend, and I don't want to fight. We've been friends for years, and I want us to be friends for more years." He takes one step closer. He's only two feet away now. "I want you to know that I'll always be here for you Sasuke. It might take me awhile sometimes to understand why you do the things you do, but if we work together, I think we can always get through shit like this." His eyes are boring through me, like X-rays, and I feel like I'm being studied. As he's speaking, his pupils flick towards the scars on my arms, and I know what he is thinking. But then he closes me into a hug, and for a second I'm confused, because it's been a few months since he's hugged me for more than a few seconds, but when it hits me, I say,"I understand, Naru," and his grip tightens on me and then it is gone.

He steps back, and his eyes are blue- so blue, it startles me, and I want to take that blue and surround myself with it, bathe in it, live in it. He moves to stand behind me, then leads me to the table, and pulls out the chair behind me. He uses his strong but gentle hand to push lightly down on my shoulder, and I sit down, and then he moves the chair back in. He walks around to sit down in his own chair, and before I can even pick up my own fork, Naruto is eating.

After five minutes, when I've only been watching the beauty that is my best friend, Naruto Uzumaki, he looks up at me, swallows, and says,"Aren't you going to eat, Sasuke?"

I smile at him, then pick up my fork and knife to begin cutting into the chicken. "Of course, Naruto."

The next day, we are pulling up to a large cabin next to a beautiful lake at two in the afternoon. The whole place is secluded from the campgrounds that surround the lake, which apparently is a really popular place to the locals. If the distance of one mile from the assigned campgrounds isn't enough, the whole property is surrounded by signs blaring "PRIVATE PROPERTY" at anyone who sees them, and I smirk as I think that as a teenager I never would have listened to those stupid signs.

Naruto is fast asleep beside me, stuffed full candy and fountain soda from a gas station we had hit up an hour ago. He's sitting up, but his head is leaned back, his arms limp in his lap, snoring. It's not a loud snore, but not a quiet one either. I look at him and smile for a moment, then reach over him and open his door.

The blond wakes with a startled look around him, after having pitched to the side of his door opening so suddenly, and I almost laugh but hold it back as a smirk and light chuckle.

"Temeeee!" he whines, and I take the opportunity to open my own door and get out to stretch my legs, lifting up my arms and arching my back much like a cat would after a nap. Out of the corner of my eye I see Naruto getting out of the car, looking up at the cabin and then turning to me as I stretch. "So," he says,"Are you ready to get all of this shit out?"

This time I turn towards him, my stretching complete (the bastard refused to drive the whole 5 hours, saying he didn't have his glasses so it was "unsafe", even though he's never needed glasses his whole life), and sigh, then say,"Yeah. Let's get everything out of the back first."

We open the back doors of the small car, one of us on each side, and start grabbing duffel bags and backpacks to take inside. We had each brought three, mine consisting of an assortment of clothes, shoes, hair products (I like my hair soft. Sue me.), paint, brushes, pallete, a sketchbook, some pencils and erasers. Naruto's on the other hand, were full of haphazardly thrown in shorts, shirts, and boxers, and his only pair of shoes were a pair of worn out flip-flops he was wearing right now. His last bag was filled with the forty-five packs of ramen he insisted on bringing with us.

I look back up to the cabin, and this time I really pay attention to it. It's pretty big, with a few rooms I'm sure, and the porch is large enough for a whole group of people to lounge around comfortably. There are chairs and two tables laid out on one end of the porch, and overhead protecting them from any rain that had passed through, and on the other side there's a large swinging bench hanging from the roof. The whole of the cabin is made of wood (obviously), with round logs making up the walls while the roof is consisted of shingles in a dark brown color. From where I am, I can see a second story window at the front of the house, the curtains drawn to allow some sunlight into the room.

On the other side of the car, Naruto has finally wrestled his bags away from the car, and is walking up the gravel path to the porch. As he climbs the steps in front of me, my eyes sneak down to look at his hips, and I watch them move in rotation as he walks to unlock the door with a few curses, then pushes it inside the cabin with ease, and I smirk to myself.

When we get inside, the whole place is nice, homey, warm. The floorboards are a light polished wood with no ugly blemishes that I can see and the furnishings include a two couches, a glass coffee table, a loveseat, a fluffy looking chair, all set out in front of a large television setup with e DVD player in the cabinet below the TV. The other cabinets on either side contain movies, plenty of them, and I realize that this place must not have gone out of use as long as Naruto made it seem if it had a fully functioning DVD player and that many movies.

While I was busy ogling the living room, Naruto had walked up three stairs to get to a landing that housed the kitchen, a beautiful, large thing with cabinets that matched the color of the floor and shiny silver appliances set atop stone counters. The blond had already set his things down on the floor, and was making his way towards the fridge with a hungry gleam in his eye.

"You're not seriously already looking for food, Dobe?" I ask, but it doesn't deter him from his path. "We just ate a gas station an hour ago, you know." I cross my arms and smirk, leaning up against the counters.

"Teme! That was gas station food!" he replies, and he opens the fridge only to groan, letting his arms fall down to his sides and looking up the ceiling to emphasize his frustration at the emptiness of the large kitchen appliance. "Gas station food is barely anything! And now there's no food here either!" He closes the fridge in a pout, then begins looking in the cabinets. In the end, all he finds is where the plates and bowls are, but no food.

I chuckle a bit. "Dobe, you brought ramen with you. Remember? Or did you forget how you begged me for a whole day to let you take it with us?"

Naruto walks up to me, his arms behind his head and laughing. "You're the one who let me! You only have yourself to blame for that one." At this he wags his finger at me, then turns around and starts heading out to the car to get the grocery bags of food in the trunk that we had picked up in the same town the gas station was in. "I'm going to get stuff for dinner," He says as he walks out, then turns back to look at me, his hand on the front door's knob. "You can take your stuff upstairs, second door on the left. The first door is a the bathroom and the one of the right is my room. If you have time before I get back, take my stuff up there too for me, yeah?"

I nod, uncrossing my arms to pick up my own things beside me, the head down the little kitchen landing, and then up the stairs beside it. They're a bit creaky, and I count seventeen of them until I reach the next story. The hallways is average, not too big but not too small, and at the end I see a window, letting sun into the small expanse of the cabin. It's not until I walk towards it and see Naruto at the rear end of the car, trying to carry as many bags as he can in his hands that I realize it's the window I was looking at when we first got here. I chuckle a bit at the blond's panicked expression right before two of the bag slide off his arms and onto the ground not-so-gracefully. I can tell from here that he curses at the bags, then starts heading inside with the ones he has, probably to come back for the one's he dropped later for a second trip. I turn around, opening the door to the room that's going to be mine for the next two weeks, or hopefully mine and Naruto's if my plan goes as accordingly.

The room is calm and warm like the rest of the cabin, another window allowing sunlight to pass into the room and onto the bed laid out in the middle. It doesn't have much; there is the bed and a dresser to the left of it pushed up against a wall, then a small closet on the opposite side, and a rug on the floor. In front of the bed is another television set, albeit smaller than the one in the living room, and another DVD player.

When I set my bags on the ground next to the closet, I immediately walk towards the bed, throwing myself on it on my back. I lift up my left arm to shield my eyes from the sunlight, then let myself relax. It's comfortable here, I have to admit. Then I think of what it would be like if Naruto were in the bed with me, his head on my shoulder while I trace the skin on his hip with one of my fingers. I don't know about him, but the thought brings a sort of aching in my heart, not painful, but an excited one. I am excited to see what will happen on this trip, what will happen between Naruto and I. I knew that Naruto was attracted to men, but it was the question of whether he was attracted to me that I was concerned about. We had been friends for so long, maybe he would find my affection towards him odd and disgusting. That was my worst fear, I think. For my feelings to be thought of as disgusting. I have had my fair share of being prejudiced against because of my sexuality, but for Naruto to think of them as something adjacent to a gross-looking insect because of our seemingly brother-like relationship was a whole different thing. Our whole lives we had been close, and now here I was, scared out of my mind of the things he thought of me, or of things he could think of me, because of my feelings towards him. There was a chance that he thought the same, but when you care for someone so much, when do you focus on that? You're only focused on the bad things. The consequences of your feelings and the things that could come with them.

Naruto and I no longer living together because of the discomfort. No more movie nights. Or him accidently falling asleep on me. No more Naruto Cooking Nights. No more of him barging into my room and jumping on me to wake me up. No more messy blonde hair, ocean blue eyes, tanned skin and muscled body.

God dammit. I was getting hard again. The thought of his body had such a huge effect on me, and seeing it was worse. The Dobe walked around shirtless more often than not, and I'm sure if he lived alone, he would walk around naked.

Oh, God. Naruto. Naked.

"FUCKING HELL!"

As I heard Naruto scream downstairs, I felt myself jerk out of my thoughts. I had almost fallen asleep there. I sighed loudly, pushing the air from my lungs as I got up on my feet and padded my way downstairs to where Naruto was holding his foot, cursing as he leaned against the countertop with a large pot next to his hand.

I walked up the landing, staring at Naruto pointedly until he noticed me.

"Oh! Teme! Sorry I didn't notice you there, I was trying to rearrange the kitchen and this giant thing fell down onto my foot. . ." He winced as he touched the reddening part of his foot again, then straightened up to look at me.

I smirked again. "You're clumsy as hell, Dobe. You need to learn how to not get hurt so often. It really dampens my paycheck sometimes."

"Hey!" Naruto says, crossing his arms. "We only had to go to the emergency room once, and that lobster got me good. It's not my fault he didn't die as fast as the rest of them did," he grumbles. "And you only paid for it because I had been out of work with a cold for three days! And I still made you dinner, you prissy bastard!"

I laugh out loud this time, the slight blush covering Naruto's cheeks standing out in beautiful contrast with his tan skin. He looks taken aback for a moment, probably freaked out by the fact that I don't laugh very often, especially as he's trying to insult me, but I couldn't help it. The boy was like an adorable overgrown child throwing a fit. "Whatever, Dobe," I say, and he pouts out his lip at the friendly insult I use so often, then watches me as I turn around to walk out the door.

"Teme, where are you going?" he asks a bit frantically, as if I might be going to get the car and drive away back to our apartment because of my hurt from his insults.

"Just to the car. I saw you leave some bags out there from the window upstairs, and I need to go get them."

"Oh," the blond laughs, and out of the corner of my eye as I'm slipping my shoes back on, I see him run the back of his neck. "Forgot about those. Close the trunk for me too, will ya?"

I nod, then continue on my way out of the door. The sun is in a different position that when we got here, and the shadows have shifted around the cabin. The two bags are still right where Naruto had dropped them, and I reach with one hand to grab the plastic handles, then walk around to close the trunk. As I turn to go back inside, I hear a voice call out behind me.

"Hey!" a male says,"Wait up!"

I twist back around to look behind me, curious and slightly annoyed at someone trying to talk to me when I have things to get back to (more specifically, blond, blue-eyed things with delicious hips and a gorgeous body), but then stop when I see the man jogging up to me.

He looks to be around mine and Naruto's age, maybe a couple of years older. His hair is a dark brown, wavy and chin-length. He's tan like Naruto is, but a bit darker, and his eyes are a hazel color. He has a piercing in his nose, just a silver ring, and even from here I can see the muscles he has rippling under his shirt as he moves. He's wearing a light blue tanktop and a pair of khaki cargo shorts, something that reminds me of a surfer from California. As he gets closer and smiles at me, his teeth are a dazzling white, but I try to keep my eyes from wandering on him too much.

The man approaches me, walking now that he's closer, still flashing his smile. I notice a pair of ear buds hanging from his shoulders, but the music is paused as far I can tell.

"Yes?" I ask not looking forward to wasting my time on him. He's okay-looking, I'll give him that. Probably handsome to most people. But he didn't really compare to Naruto.

"I got lost," he says. "I was out playing Hide 'N Seek with my friends, and I was the seeker. When I was looking for them, I found myself out here. I was wandering around when I saw you getting things out of your car. Do you mind telling me how to get back on the main road?"

"There are private property signs all over this place," I tell him, and I have to say his story is a bit weird. "How'd you miss those?"

He laughs a bit. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm sorry that I intruded on your place, but I didn't mean to."

I don't smile back at him, only open my mouth to begin telling him to follow the driveway out, and in about half a mile he'll get to the main road, when I hear another voice.

"TEME! What the hell's taking you so long?!"

It's Naruto, and I hear him running from the porch to stand beside me. "Who's this?" he asks, and I stare pointedly at the man in front of us that is looking at Naruto like he's a three-course meal in front of a starving man.

"I'm Hikaru," the man says, stepping closer to us and I feel the sudden urge to growl at the expression he's giving Naruto. When I look back to the blonde, I feel my anger rise when I see his eyes are just coming up from raking up and down Hikaru's body. "I'm Naruto!" he says, rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous gesture and grinning at the man. Then the blond grabs my elbow to yank me to his side, and saying,"This is Sasuke. We're staying in my parent's cabin a two weeks." He grins again.

Hikaru's eyes light up, and I glare at the man while Naruto continues to chat him up. I don't listen, just let my eyes wander us. The trees are big and green, their needles in large bunches, and pinecones litter the ground. To the left of us and the cabin, the water of the lake is smooth, with light waves hitting the sandy area in front of it. The dock that juts out into the water looks a bit old, bit it's still holding and there are no holes; either way, I make a mental note to myself check it out and make sure it's safe before the Dobe decides to go running off it into the water. It is then that I hear the offer Naruto makes to Hikaru.

"You should stay for dinner!" the blond says with that same grin on his face, and I snap my head back towards them and the conversation I was leisurely ignoring.

"Dobe!" I scold,"We barely know him! Why don't you wait a few days before inviting him to dinner?"

In all actuality, I simply don't want Hikaru barging in on mine and the blond's vacation. This is supposed to be our time together, where I attempt to find out how he feels towards me, if I ever get the guts to approach that conversation.

"Temeeee!" Naruto whines, and he pouts out his lip as he crosses his arms in determination. "He's a nice guy! We have to be nice and offer our hospitality. Plus, I make a badass homemade pizza." At this, he looks back at Hikaru, and I see the brunet wink at him before Naruto looks away and back at me, his tan cheeks dusted a light pink.

I don't answer. Just give a stiff,"Hn," with a glare in Hikaru's direction, and turn to grab the bags off the ground to start walking back into the cabin. My anger - fine, my jealousy - is overcoming my mind, especially at the way Naruto seems to like Hikaru's flirting. That pissed me off. It isn't too long afterward that I hear the two laughing and making their way towards the front door, too.

I make sure to shut them out on my way it.