Shukaku and I thank you guys for reviewing, favouriting, and following.

D: Thanks for the compliment. I know that a lot of Naruto stories have some form of Sakura bashing. However, I like my stories to be UNIQUELY mine, which is why instead I picked Sasuke (Not that I don't like Sasuke; he's an interesting character with an interesting background)

Yaoi's of Naruto: I plan to give some more details about Jin in this chapter, so I hope it's to your liking.

LadyEudave05: thank you for being such a loyal fan!

Disclaimer: As I mentioned in the first chapter, I DO not own any of the characters in the Naruto Universe; all rights belongs to Kishi-sempai. If I did, Naruto would be a very different anime world...

000

It had been a week since the incident with Sasuke had happened, and Naruto was still unsure of where things stood with Gaara. Were they friends or were they more?

As he sat daydreaming in his math class, those were the questions that were still running through his mind

He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't notice that the math teacher, Umino Iruka was no longer up at the front of the board but was now standing in front of his desk.

"Naruto!" the brunette teacher said, loud enough to grab the blonde's attention, "can you tell me what the answer to the problem on the board?"

Jumping slightly, the blonde looked up at the board and answered the problem correctly, causing Iruka to frown, but he nodded and continued with his lecture.

Naruto shook his head, trying to dispel the thoughts that were running around so rampantly in his head. With fixed determination, he managed to pay attention to Iruka's lecture and take notes in the notebook that, up until then, he had been doodling in.

When class was over, Iruka called Naruto up to his desk, a worried look in his brown eyes.

"What's up, Iruka-sensei?"

"You seemed so unfocused today, Naruto. Is there anything wrong?"

Iruka knew about the incident with Sasuke, all the teachers did as it was all the students were talking about. For a moment, he wondered if that was what was bothering the blonde.

"I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei. I just had a lot on my mind," the blonde said quickly. He didn't really want the brunette teacher to worry as Iruka was also a family friend and the blonde knew that it was a possibility that Jin could be tipped off, which was something that didn't need to happen.

Iruka frowned as he knew that Naruto was hiding something, but he decided not to press the teen any more than he had; he had already made the blonde late for his next class.

He wrote a tardy slip for the blonde so he wouldn't get too much grief from Anko; she was a stickler about being early and on time. As he gave the teen the note he said as a sudden thought, "Naruto, I'm here if you ever want to talk about anything."

The blonde gave a brunette teacher a small smile as he accepted the note and nodded before disappearing through the door.

000

When the bell rung, signaling the end of the school day, Sasuke watched bitterly as Gaara walked over to the blonde and whispered something into the smaller boy's ear. It had spread like wildfire through the school that Gaara had stolen the blonde from the Uchiha and had the Subaku had threatened the raven in the hallway to stay away. Sasuke was going to make him pay for the humiliation he was handed.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a blonde moving into his field of vision as the Uzumaki walked by him with Sakura in tow.

"So Naruto, do you have a ride home? Or are you going to walk home?"

"Gaara offered to give me a ride home. Jin didn't want me walking to school while he works those murders. You know they're getting closer to town, so…" the blonde trailed off, shivering at the thought.

As the Uchiha stowed his books into his messenger bag and walked into the parking lot, he saw the blonde walking towards the Subaku's jet black Ford Focus.

000

As Naruto headed towards the black Ford Focus, he could see Sasuke out of the corner of his eye and he briefly wondered why he was in the parking lot. Was the Uchiha stalking him or something?

However, he was granted an answer as he reached Gaara's side. A sleek gray Mercedes pulled on the other side of the parking lot and when the figure got out of the driver's seat, Naruto gasped.

The action didn't go unnoticed by the redhead and Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow at the blonde as he followed Naruto's glance to the car, where a tall, long-haired raven in dark blue jacket stood and he seemed to be looking for someone.

"That's Itachi. He works for my brother," Naruto said explaining his reaction, "but I don't know why he's her-"

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Sasuke walking towards the taller raven, who was leaning against the car. Itachi looked up at the approaching teen and merely nodded as Sasuke hopped into the car. Itachi got in and was driving away when a particular shock of blonde hair caught his hair. Recognizing the teen as Jin's younger brother, Naruto, he stopped.

"Naruto?"

The blonde, who was about to get into Gaara's car, looked up in surprise to see that the grey Mercedes pulled to a stop in front of the car. He looked up to see Itachi looking at him with those piercing onyx eyes.

"Hi Itachi. Is something wrong?" he said, shifting uncomfortably; it was unnerving to have Sasuke and Gaara glaring daggers at each other while he was talking to said raven's older brother.

"Do you know where Jin is? He hasn't been answering his phone at all and we need his approval to run some tests on that boy that was found the other day," the raven said, trying not to give too much information away, but he needed the blonde to understand that this was very important.

"Jin said that he was taking the day off, which is why he was actually there this morning when I got up. Did you try the house phone?"

"Damnit Jin. Of all the times for him to take a day off," he said while shaking his head. Then thinking quickly he asked the blonde for a favor.

"Listen Naruto, can you give this message to your brother as soon as you get home?"

He waited until the blonde nodded to continue. "I need him to call me as soon as possible. Tell him to call me on my cell. If I don't pick up, it's because I'm in the cemetery visiting my mother and I'll call him back as soon I can get a signal."

"Okay, I guess I'll see you later, Itachi-san."

As he turned to get into Gaara's car, the blonde could've sworn that he saw a face just beyond the gates of the parking lot and closed his eyes as a shiver ripped through his body. He opened his eyes and looked back to see nothing. He shrugged and got into the car, not noticing the worried look that flashed across the elder raven's eyes before the car took off.

000

The car ride to his house had been a quiet one. Gaara could tell that the blonde was thinking about something, but he didn't want to upset him so he remained silent.

Naruto was wondering why Gaara had taken an interest in him all of a sudden, not that he was complaining; this is was what he had wanted in the first place, but now he found himself wondering the redhead's motives and decided to speak his thoughts. He just hoped the redhead wouldn't take it the wrong way. Fidgeting with his fingers, he asked nervously, "Gaara?"

"Hmm?"

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Naruto asked the one question that was running through his mind like a wildfire. "Why did you do this? I mean, why would you date someone like me?"

The Subaku was silent for so long that Naruto thought that he wasn't going to answer the question. However, he turned to the fox as they stopped at a red light and Naruto averted his aqua eyes at the look in the sea green ones which held a mixture of hurt, passion, and something else that the kitsune couldn't pinpoint.

"It's because I know what it's like to be tricked by that black haired bastard. I wanted to say something, to help you somehow. I wanted to tell you all about how the Uchiha was going to play you like a fool and then make you look like an ass, just like he did with me."

"What happened?" The blonde asked, blushing when he realized what he had just asked. He had no right to ask that of Gaara, as that was none of his business, "I mean only if you want to."

Sensing the blonde's uneasiness, the redhead gave him a small and rare smile before he turned his eyes back to the road and continued to drive. "It's okay. Last year, before you came to the academy, we were together. We were the "it" couple of the school; I was the most happy and felt like I was on the top of the world because he made me feel special. Everywhere we went everyone looked at us and smiled because they knew that we were happy with each other. But then, that Sasuke did something that I could never forgive him for."

"What did he do?" the blonde whispered as he felt like the suspense was going to kill him.

"I caught that bastard cheating on me with a senior in the gym. I watched him let the boy take him and the only reason that they stopped was because I screamed Sasuke's name. When he turned and looked at me, there was this dead look in his eyes. There was no life in them. Then, he just turned and walked away with the senior. I was crushed and all I remember is wanting to just make him come back, but then all I felt was rage bubbling up inside and I wanted to kill him for breaking my heart into a million pieces. So when I found out that you two were together, I wanted to warn you and tell you not to mess with him unless you wanted to get your heart broken. The only reason that I didn't do it was because he told me that he had changed since us, so I wanted to see just how much has changed, but he hasn't changed at all."

When he had finished, he closed his emerald eyes and let the blonde ponder over what had just been said.

They had arrived at the blonde's house all too soon and Gaara cut off the engine when the blonde finally spoke and said something that caught the Subaku off guard.

"I was really in love with you."

"What?" the redhead said, teal eyes snapping open.

"I've always had a crush on you, but I just went with Sasuke because he wanted me to and because even though I knew that being with you was an unobtainable goal, I figured that if I was with Sasuke, I'd be living in the dream of the next best thing."

"Naru…" the redhead breathed, his normally stoic eyes showing a deep emotion that Naruto could not pinpoint.

Then in a flash, he felt his lips smash against the smaller pair. At first, the Uzumaki was stock still in shock, but begin to move his lips after a moment.

"Damn, this is good," the redhead thought as his lips molded with the blonde's like the perfect puzzle piece.

When they broke apart, both breathing heavily, the blonde raised an eyebrow in a silent inquiry.

"I don't know," Gaara replied to the unspoken question.

The blonde only nodded. After a moment of comfortable silence, the blonde said, a bright smile on his face for the first time since the thing with Sasuke went down, "I'll see you tomorrow."

The Subaku nodded, a smirk on his face as he gave the blonde one last chaste kiss as he got out. The blonde felt his cheeks burning as he touched his lips and watched as the Subaku drove off.

000

The blonde walked into the house, he groaned at the all-knowing smirk on Jin's face; he had seen everything that had just happened in the driveway.

"Otouto, I thought you were with Sasuke," the elder Uzumaki inquired, sweeping a stray lock of his shoulder-length red hair out of his face.

The remark made the kitsune sweatdrop; he hadn't told Jin about the break-up yet, as they never seem to be together at the same time.

"You see, Sasuke dumped me in front of the whole cafeteria and Gaara was the one I wanted in the first place, so…"

The redhead closed his aquamarine eyes, remembering the blonde saying that he wanted a popular red haired sophomore.

"That sophomore, right?" he asked, trying to corroborate his suspicions.

The blonde nodded, and Jin could only laugh at the dreamy look that his foolish otouto had on his face. However, the redhead frowned when the blonde's dreamy look disappeared in a flash and was replaced by a wide smirk.

"Oh! I have a message from Itachi-san, seeing as you can't pick up your damn phone," the blonde said, smirk growing as the elder man groaned in aggravation that his staff couldn't at least give him one day of peace.

It only made sense that Itachi would be going to the cemetery, as it was his mother's birthday. The redhead thought as the blonde told him the rest of the message.

As he sat down at the kitchen table, Naruto couldn't help but think that the redhead looked more like thirty-two than his age of twenty-two as he pulled out his cell phone to call the elder Uchiha.

Before he left the room to make his call, Jin looked over his shoulder and said softly, "Naruto, I went and got some take-out from Ichiraku's for you; it's in the fridge. If you want, later on tonight, we can watch the new Paranormal Activity that came out on Netflix if you want. I know we haven't had much time to spend together, so go get your homework done and we'll meet back in the living room at nine. Sounds good?"

A heartwarming smile broke out on the blonde's face as he bounced over to give the redhead a tight embrace before nodding and dashing upstairs to start on his homework.

Jin chuckled as he went into his study. He didn't often get moments like tonight due to his unpredictable work schedule, but he loved his job. It helped him to be at peace which he wasn't sure would ever happen ever since his parents' brutal murder. There had been times where he doubted whether he should even keep pursuing the job that reminded him of his late father, but seeing the bright smile on his otouto's face when they could have these small moments made it worth it.

000

I'm so sorry for the late updating. You see, what had happened was… I've got nothing.

But it's done so everybody wins. Anyway, the next chapter will be the last.

**sorry, don't hate me!**

In the next chapter, I will reveal the name of the sequel to this story so REVIEW!

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISM IS WELCOMED AND FLAMES WILL BE USED TO ROAST MARSHMALLOWS ON SASUKE'S CARCASS!