A/N: I'm thinking that I actually liked this chapter… Much more than the last one, anyway. Plus, I deviated from my original plot, just a little...

Chapter VI

Almost finished with the mountain of cleaning Naruto and he were doing, which now resembled more of a knoll than a mountain, Sasuke looked at his watch and cursed. His foul mood and the tense atmosphere between the two all but evaporated when Naruto, smartly, decided to pick up a chart. From the bottom of the pile, resulting in an avalanche of papers, burying the poor blonde. After Sasuke finally got his laughter, however short-lived, under control, he helped get the papers off of him.

And so they had worked in an amiable silence, once in a while broken by commentary jokes by Naruto. They didn't often receive anything more than a smirk, but the amusement playing in Sasuke's eyes was unmistakable.

But now their "fun" was over because Sasuke was going to be late for work if he stayed any longer. And he really didn't want that. He stood up. "I have to go. We are coming in to finish the hours next weekend?"

Naruto nodded and stood up as well, brushing imaginary flecks of dust and dirt off his knees. "Okay. I'll see you in class on Tuesday, right?"

Sasuke just replied with a noncommittal shrug and a sigh. He turned and walked away. Then, almost as an afterthought, he raised his hand in a lazy goodbye gesture. Naruto belatedly returned the gesture and almost jumped out of his skin when a person appeared at his elbow.

"If he's leaving, you're free to go as well. It doesn't count toward your hours if you are both not here," Tsunade said, handing the boy his disturbingly orange bomber jacket.

"Okay, I guess I will. I have a paper to write, anyways," Naruto returned, muttering thanks as he slipped the jacket over his shoulders. He stifled a yawn and stretched the kinks that he'd acquired by not moving for a while from his back. He sighed with relief as the vertebrae popped back into alignment with a series of cracks.

"Okay brat, good luck with that. Oh, and remind Jiraiya that he owes me fifty bucks," Tsunade said, cackling evilly at her final statement.

"O-Kay, will do. Later Old Hag," he laughed as well as he danced out of the way of enraged fists. Halfway down the hall he turned, grinned cheekily and waved.

The grin settled into a content smile as he walked out the front doors. He's been making slow but steady progress with Sasuke, and by the end of the day, it seemed like he had put the whole "stalking" misunderstanding behind them. Naruto was glad of that; the Uchiha was already hard enough the get to know, without him hating Naruto's guts.

Naruto just hoped he wasn't digging his own grave, becoming someone's friend who didn't seem to want any.

Sasuke broke into a run as soon as he passed the threshold of the hospital, and begun to sprint when he checked his watch again.

He wasn't going to make it.

There was no way he'd make the twenty minute walk into a five minute run. Even if he'd sprint the entire way, he wouldn't make it. Even if he could sprint the entire way. He cursed under his breath all the way, pulling his work shirt on over his T-shirt without even slowing.

He clipped his tag on his chest just as he huffed through the doorway. He ran to the check-in clock, he was only two minutes late! But when he went to clock in, his eyes widened. Someone had punched in for him? If that was the case, Orochimaru couldn't have been there. Nobody would have clocked in for him, for fear of its negative consequences.

As it was, he couldn't really think of anyone who liked him enough to risk it. When he looked to see who else was working, he frowned. Gaara? It didn't really matter whom, he was just grateful.

"Hey," he said as he got to the registers. Gaara just turned to him and nodded, a faint smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Thanks for," he gestured vaguely with his hands. "You know."

"No problem." Gaara's smirk grew as he waited for Sasuke to finish serving the creepy gray-haired patron. "But… It is my turn to clean the latte machine. And I know how much you love to clean those machines…"

Sasuke groaned. "Fine. I doubt I should have expected you to do anything just from the goodness of your heart. What heart, right?"

Gaara snorted. "Damn straight. You should know better than that."

Sasuke just growled in response.

"Helllllooooo? Anyone hoooooome?" Naruto shouted as he pulled his key from the lock and closed the door. After a moment of quiet, he answered his own question. "Obviously not. I guess it's just me, then."

He walked to the kitchen, maneuvering around the table without flipping in the light switch on. He rummaged around the cupboards, looking for his stash, and hooted when his hands reached his prize. He deftly turned the water on to boil and placed his ramen on the counter.

As he waited for the water to boil, his eyes roamed the room fondly. Though the ownership of the house had changed hands, he'd been living in it since his birth. It was first owned by his parents, then it was Jiraiya's, and it was soon to be his.

It was a beautiful two-story, three bedroom, and two bathrooms. In a nice neighborhood, it was two miles from the college campus, giving him a nice workout if he was running late. Of course he had a car, but he only used it when he really needed it. It was the car he shared with Jiraiya, and since he wasn't the best of drivers, he preferred to walk.

His eyes came to rest on the picture frame over the stove. It was a picture of a man he bore an uncanny resemblance to, from his mischievous grin to messy blonde hair, with his arm around an attractive brunette woman.

The woman, his mother, was Kushina Uzumaki, and the original owner of the house of her childhood. She had passed away shortly after his birth, the pains of childbirth being too much and contracting an infection that clipped her life short in her prime. Though he didn't really know her, the storied from Jiraiya and his father made up for that, he felt as if he knew her.

Then the man, by process of elimination, was his father, Minato Namikaze. A police detective, one of the best, until the day he died, almost five years ago; when Naruto was thirteen. It was in a shootout, between the police and some bank robbers. Naruto was told that it was a clean shot, killing instantly, so the man hadn't suffered. Why they had told a kid something like that, he didn't know, but was glad to know the truth.

Naruto's eyes drifted to the picture hanging next to that one. This was of his high school graduation, Jiraiya hiding his research paraphernalia behind his back and grinning to the camera, beside an equally happy Naruto, who had his arm slung across the older man's shoulders, giving him bunny ears.

Though technically they shared no blood relation, Jiraiya was Naruto's "uncle," though "great uncle" might've been a tad more appropriate, given the man's age. Or that's just what Naruto thought when he was feeling particularly spiteful or angry at the perv'. The man was Minato's advisor on the force, but before that he was a family friend and had known Minato since he was a kid. Safe to say, he retired shortly after Minato.

Naruto was startled back into reality when the water began whistling from the kettle. He then turned on the light to be able to see what he was doing as he poured the water into his ramen cup and closing it up again. He patiently waited the three minutes, then began wolfing down the meal. That was one thing he shared in common with his father -their love for ramen.

He slowed down when he was about halfway done, trying to savor the last bits. He walked into the living room, where he'd last left his textbooks, and pulled them towards him. He was already finished with the outline, the night before it was completed, for his psychology paper, and all he needed now was to write it.

Except that he just couldn't seem to focus.

His mind kept coming back to the Uchiha. He wasn't really a bad guy underneath that tough exterior shell, once you got to know him. But that was just it, Naruto doesn't know him, not very much anyways. But he had somehow made it past the boy's defenses more so than anyone, save Kakashi, in Konoha had. The only personal information he knew about the Uchiha was what Kakashi had told him, and that was only that he didn't have much of a family.

But that still didn't tell him anything. Naruto wasn't sure where all this curiosity was coming from, only that he'd always hated mysteries. And that he was just a naturally curious person.

And, boy oh boy, was Sasuke an enigma. He was smart, obviously, and was top of the class in high school. And the only reason, Naruto assumed, why he hadn't been valedictorian was because he didn't spend all four years at one high school. He liked to read, again obvious by the amount of books that were in his apartment. He worked a lot. And he probably wasn't rich, figuring the size of his apartment. It was either that or just that it was close to the campus, but Naruto had a feeling it was the former. He had a fairly explosive temper, but can usually reign it in. And finally that he was sensitive when it came to family.

The only relatively personal information that he was able to find out by himself was by "doing a Jiraiya" and stalking. Naruto will admit to it, it was definitely an invasion of privacy, but it was really the only way he was going to find anything out about Sasuke.

Naruto personally had no idea how anyone could be so cold and impersonal, and not get lonely. It as fairly obvious he didn't have any friends in high school; didn't want them. Because anyone who wanted friends wouldn't act like such a bastard.

Which begged the question, what was Naruto doing? Why was he bothering on a seemingly hopeless task? Simple. Naruto doesn't believe in lost causes. He's just hopefully optimistic like that. Plus he believes whole-heartedly that nobody doesn't want friends.

Naruto was once again shaken, literally this time, form his thoughts by the hand on his shoulder. He came to life animatedly, falling backward over the backing of the couch. The man who once had his hand on the blonde's shoulder raised his hands innocently, laughing all the while.

"Sheesh, you were so out of it! I came in calling your name, but nothing! What could have possibly absorbed that much of your attention?" Jiraiya asked, replaying that momentary freak-out of the blonde's over and over, mentally.

"Oh, I was…" he looked at the clock, then down at his computer. In the past hour or so, all he'd gotten written was the title page, nothing more. He smiled sheepishly. "I was thinking, I guess?"

Jiraiya laughed even harder. "Well, don't strain yourself! Woah," he took a good look at the un-amused Uzumaki's face. "You're serious? No joke?" At Naruto's nod, he cleared his throat and continued awkwardly. "Well, would you like to, you know, talk about it?"

Naruto paused for a moment, then shook his head, indicating a negative. "It's nothing overtly important. Just musings, if you will."

Jiraiya frowned. "Alright, who are you, and what have done with Naruto?" he asked in the exact same tone Naruto had used to ask Sasuke the same question, only mere hours ago. So Naruto, being who he was, just had to laugh at the irony of the situation. "What?" Jiraiya asked as Naruto began clutching his sides, cramping from laughing so much.

"S-sorry. It's just that I had said that earlier today to someone, and it was funny that you'd say it, too," Naruto explained. "Such a coincidence… Anyway," he shook his head of useless thoughts and focused on the man in front of him. "How was your day?"

Jiraiya smiled and pulled out his newest manuscript. "Fantastic! I got almost thirty pages written! And that's just what I got done after lunch! Before lunch, I had done tons of valuable research."

At the mention of "research," Naruto promptly rolled his eyes at the perv'. Research, yeah right! Peeping is more like it. But he didn't say anything on it; Jiraiya already knew his views on the man's "profession." So he just nodded through the rest of the man's explanation of his day, until he was finished and it was quiet. That was when Naruto remembered something sort of important.

"Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Tsunade wanted me to remind you that you owe her fifty bucks? Does that mean she actually won a bet? I thought you'd said she was a sucker and never won? Eh?" Naruto stopped as he realized the annoyed patient look on Jiraiya's face, and he apologetically stopped to let Jiraiya get a word in edgewise.

"No, she hasn't won the bet. Yet. It's kind of an ongoing bet, and she thinks she's gonna win. And I may have to concede that she might," Jiraiya sighed.

"Really?! What was the bet?" Naruto asked, curiosity once again getting the better of him.

"Oh, it's not important," he replied evasively, not quite reaching Naruto's eyes as he talked. "Really, it's no big deal. Say," he pointed at Naruto's computer, "Why don't you get working on that paper you need to write, instead of putting it off until the very last second. You're already cutting it short as it is; isn't it due tomorrow?"

Jiraiya succeeded in drawing Naruto's attention away as the blonde scrambled to find all his papers and began hacking away on the keys to his computer. He smirked as he stood up and walked into the kitchen for something to eat. 'Man, that boy is easy to distract,' he thought to himself proudly. His pride was cut down, however, when, as he was leaving the room, a voice called out to him.

"I didn't forget. I expect answers when I'm done!"

"Sasuke? You work here too?"

Sasuke froze inside the overturned latte machine. He looked up towards the heavens with out moving. He mouthed, "Seriously? Are you kidding me?" He could feel Gaara's smirk as he crawled out and turned an incredulous look to the newest customer. How could the blonde have recognized him by only seeing his backside? He decided not to think about that, for the sake of his sanity, continuing to ignore Gaara's sadistically amused smirk, who was surely thinking the exact same thing he was.

"Yes," he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I work here."

"Quit socializing with the customers!" Tayuya yelled, popping in, like usual, from nowhere. "That latte machine won't clean itself, Uchiha! Wait… wasn't it supposed to be your turn to clean it?" she asked Gaara, invading his personal space and poking him in the chest. And despite his hate for being touched, his smirk didn't falter. He didn't even slap the hand away; nothing was going to ruin his rare good mood.

"It was, but Sasuke here, so graciously, offered to do it, as he is just so good at it," Gaara replied, only just able to hear the curses directed at him from Sasuke.

"Ah, whatever, just get back to work you slackers! I'm going on my break, don't miss me too much!" she yelled and disappeared as abruptly as she appeared.

"We won't," both Sasuke and Gaara said under their breath. Sasuke turned to Gaara and spoke in an even, serious tone of voice, "I hate you, you know that right?"

Gaara nodded and handed Naruto his change and coffee.

Sasuke scoffed and muttered to himself as he climbed into the machine again, "Yeah, give the hyperactive annoyance more caffeine. Bunch of friggin' geniuses."

"Thanks," Naruto started, blatantly ignoring Sasuke's previous comment. "Bye, Bastard!"

A salute from the hidden-from-view Uchiha, accompanied by an almost silent, "Later, Loser."

Gaara's smirk grew.

A/N: Look, actually on time. Scary as it is, it's true. Like I said, I think that I actually liked this chapter. I seem to have finally gotten back into the swing of things, so to speak, after going so long without writing. The lack of response to the last chapter was disconcerting, but I thank those who did take the time to review. I also took it as initiative. If the last chapter was so terrible, so then I'm hoping that this one is better by comparison, I guess? I tried harder anyways.

I'm going on vacation for a week, and won't be able to access the internet until the 19th, so I think I'll be able to update by Wednesday the 23rd. Until then, hold tight and wait expectantly for the next update!!