Sasuke sat at the bridge with his leg twitching up and down quickly. He had gotten there far too early so his mind was able to roam over anything that it chose to. Today's chosen topic was the change in the villagers' behavior towards Naruto. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't think of any good reason as to why the villagers had all of a sudden decided to start caring for Naruto. The only things that came to his mind were horrible things. He never actually saw how the villagers treated Naruto, but he always knew that they were bad enough to leave scars. He had seen one or two of them on Naruto's arms every once in a while when the too small orange jacket would ride up. He never mentioned it, though, because Naruto seemed to go out of his way to try to hide the marks. Sasuke would never understand why Naruto wanted to protect the villagers so badly after all the things that they did to him, but he would never deny Naruto that wish to do so.

He felt a presence coming towards him and he looked up to find Naruto heading towards him. His eyes widened in shock when he saw Naruto wearing a new outfit that he had never seen before in his life. His immediate thought was that Naruto looked hot in the new outfit, but he forced that to the back of his mind as Naruto came up to him with a blush painted over his cheeks. "Where did you get that outfit?" Sasuke asked.

"Some of the ladies in the village bought it for me," Naruto answered.

"Seriously? Sasuke was shocked. Even if this was all just a ruse to try to hurt Naruto even more, they were taking it a little too far. He knew exactly where those clothes had come from and he also knew that they were expensive because they were designer clothes made specifically to be used by ninjas.

"Does it not look good?" Naruto asked all of a sudden wary about his image for some reason. It was weird. Before, when he had that hideous orange jumpsuit to wear, he never really cared about what he looked like, but now that he had this new outfit he was totally conscious of his appearance.

"No," Sasuke answered. "You look…" He couldn't find the right words to say. Correction, there were no words to describe how good Naruto looked at the moment. The new outfit showed off just enough muscle mixed with curve to make people want to see more. Sasuke couldn't just describe that so easily.

"Oh my gosh Naruto!" Sakura gasped as she arrived at the bridge. Naruto jumped in surprise. He wasn't used to Sakura even noticing he was there except when she had to push him away from Sasuke so it was weird that she had directly spoken to him even before she said good morning to her precious Sasuke. "You look amazing," she praised with hungry eyes.

Naruto backed away from her and found himself accidently pressing against Sasuke's chest. Sasuke stiffened for a second only to find that Naruto's warmth calmed him. "Thank you," he said nervously. She continued to close in on the two of them and Naruto tried to sink even deeper into Sasuke's chest.

"Go away," Sasuke said to Sakura.

"Sorry," Naruto jumped and tried to move away from Sasuke only to find that an arm was wrapped around his waist.

"Not you," Sasuke said. "You can stay here. I was talking to Sakura."

"You're so mean to me Sasuke," Sakura whined even though she continued to advance on Naruto. Her fan girl tendencies would not allow her to back down from such a hot man before her even though he was the Naruto that she had despised and refused so many times. She smirked at this thought. She had refused Naruto so many times before that he would be delighted to go out with her now. Ino would be so jealous. "Let's go on a date Naruto," Sakura purred.

"Um," Naruto stuttered. His crush on Sakura had faded long ago and the only reason that he still chased after her was so that she would stay away from his real crush. So that she would stay away from Sasuke. But he didn't want to hurt her by refusing her after he had asked her out so many times.

"He doesn't want to," Sasuke answered for him.

"I wasn't asking you," Sakura said. "I was asking Naruto."

"I-" Naruto tried again. He really wanted to refuse, but he really didn't want to hurt her.

"Well I answered for him," Sasuke growled. He was actually surprised by how easy it was to protect Naruto. He had had the sneaking suspicion that he might have had a crush on Naruto for some time now, but this moment proved it. Not only had he kept Naruto against him when he usually hated all kinds of physical contact, he was also making sure that Naruto wouldn't go out with Sakura.

"It's not your decision to make," Sakura hissed.

"Now now," said Kakashi as he appeared in a puff of smoke. "Let's calm down Sakura. You'll scare away our clients if you act like that."

Sakura fumed, but said no more.

"Where are our clients?" asked Sasuke.

"They're right here," Kakashi said as he pointed behind them.

There were two men standing on the other side of the team. They looked to be brothers. In fact, they were probably twins. They were smiling kindly at the group, but there was still something that Sasuke felt that he couldn't trust. Something was up and he was determined to figure out what before it hurt Naruto too badly.

The trip was slow. The men who they were transported kept complaining if they tried to speed up. Apparently one of them had just recently recovered from a broken leg and was still having trouble walking. So the journey was slow and Sasuke didn't like it at all. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen while they were gone. He couldn't shake the feeling that these men were just there to distract them so that whatever was going to happen, happened while they weren't there. That probably meant that whatever was going to happen, was going to happen to Naruto.

"So Naruto," one of the men said.

"Yes?" Naruto asked as he turned from his position at the man's right. Sasuke watched the interaction closely from the back of the group while Sakura, with her position on the other side of the men, and Kakashi, with his position in front, took no notice of the interaction.

"I heard it was your birthday today," he said.

"Yes," Naruto said nervously.

"That's cool," he said. "How old are you now?"

"I'm 15," Naruto answered. He was looking down at his feet awkwardly so he didn't notice how both men flinched at the declaration, but Sasuke did notice it.

"That's awesome," said the villager. "What would a 15 year-old such as yourself want for their birthday?"

"I don't know," Naruto admitted softly. He had already been given everything he ever wanted by this one day of people being nice to him.

"Oh come on," said the man. "There must be something that I can get you."

"You don't have to do that," Naruto gasped.

"But I want to," said the man. "Come on. You're doing us the favor of escorting us out of the village on your birthday. The least my brother and I can do is to buy you a birthday present."

"I really don't need anything," Naruto tried again.

"Birthday presents aren't supposed to be what you need," the man said. "They're supposed to be what you want."

"Really?" Naruto asked. He hadn't gotten any birthday presents before so he didn't really know what they were supposed to be.

"Well not exactly," the other man cut in. "Presents don't have to actually be what you want, but a lot of the times they are. Most people try to get things that are either practical or more likely to be used. It's like buying a girl jewelry, or a shinobi a special type of weapon. Neither is exactly needed by that person, but they're more likely to use the things rather than something else."

"Yea yea," the first man rolled his eyes. "So what do you want for your birthday?"

Naruto hesitated for a moment. There really was nothing that he could think of wanting. He had learned from an early age that he should never desire anything that he knew he would probably never get, which was practically everything. He had learned to only ever want the necessities and had been ignoring all of the niceties that people had while he was doing it. "I don't know," he said uncertainly. He didn't want to upset the men, but he could really not think of anything that he could possibly want. At least not anything that these two men could give him. The only thing he wanted, other than the villagers' acceptance that seemed to be starting, was for his teammate to love him. Not the teammate that everyone assumed that he wanted, but the male teammate who was only months older than him, but that same man would never love him. "I really don't want anything," Naruto said. He wasn't sure if that would appease the men and he didn't want them to be mad at him, but he really couldn't think of anything. He couldn't even think of any product that he didn't want because he paid so little attention to that kind of stuff.

"Don't worry about it man," the first man smiled. "We'll find something to give you."

"If you want something in the village that we're heading to," the second man continued, "be sure to point it out and we'll get it for you."

"A-alright," Naruto nervously bit his lip and Sasuke had to hold back a growl. He couldn't believe that Naruto was acting so nervous around the town's people. They were just villagers and Naruto could cut them to shreds without a second thought, so why was Naruto allowing them to reduce him to nothing more than a stuttering nervous mess.

The first man swung his arm over Naruto's shoulders and laughed at his reaction, making both Naruto and Sasuke tense. Naruto tensed because he wasn't used to the affectionate contact and thought that the man had intended to hit him, while Sasuke tensed because the man was putting a (possibly) dangerous hand on his Naruto. Then the man released Naruto and moved back. Naruto relaxed and all was well again. And, if Sasuke just a little bit closer with his hand tightening on a kunai, it was just because he wanted to be ready to protect the villagers if they were to get attacked.

I told you i'd be done with this chapter soon. I hope you guys like it