Sorry for not updating in a while, I've been getting bored with typing this all the time so I took a little break, I hope you all don't mind. But anywho I'm back now and I hope you all like this chapter. You get to understand Itachi a little more. I also want to give a special thanks to all those who review, follow, and favorite this story. It means a lot.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Naruto


Chapter 7: The Truth

I seriously have nothing to wear. I look around my room at the mess of clothes I had all over my floor and bed, Even though it's only ten, I'm already picking out clothes. I rub my face and fall back onto my bed.

"Ugh." I hear my door open so I quickly jump up not really knowing what to expect. The door slowly opens and reveals my mom. I force myself to stop tensing. I know I said I'd give her a chance and I know that it's only been a day since our talk, but this is going to be a lot harder than I anticipated.

"Is something wrong, Naruto? You look a little stressed." She looks at all of my clothes sprawled across my room. She glances up at me before looking back down to step over all my clothes to get to me. I sigh sitting back down. I don't know, should I tell her? I probably should. It would only help build a better relationship.

"I don't have any cool clothes to wear for a party that I was invited to tonight." My mom moves some clothes to sit next to me.

"I could try and help. I may not look it, but I can pick out good outfits." She smiled and looked around again.

"Thanks for the offer, but you don't seem like you'd know how to dress for a teenagers party." She sits up straight crossing her arms across her chest with a smirk forming on her face. She stands up looking at me wit confidence and determination in her eyes.

"Tell me what these people are like and I bet you that I can come up with something that'll blow their socks off." I arch a brow when I look at her. I then close my eyes and smile.

"Fine. They are the type of people who are popular but rude. They are dark, theoretically I guess. Not too nice. They probably go out a lot to have fun. Lastly, they probably aren't the best of role models."

"That should be easy enough." She walks over to my door looking back. "I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, she comes back with something in her hand. She grabs one of my few black shirts up off of the floor as she walks over to me and puts the stuff on my bed. She ushers me up and se grabs my shoulders looking me over real quick before going into my closet and scavenging for something. After she finds what she was looking for, she comes back over to me.

"Take your shirt off and put this one on." I take off my shirt and put on the black one that she handed me. "Now your pants." I was a little more hesitant with this one, but I still do it. I then ship on the only pair of black ripped jeans that I own. I never wore them because before my parents probably would have taken them. She then grabs a black belt with spike like studs on it and put it on me. After that she grabs a bracelet and holds out her hand. I hold out my right wrist and she put a spiked bracelet on me. She backed up and pursed her lips to the side judging whether or not she needs to make any adjustments.

"It's a lot of black." I say looking down at myself. Although, I guess Sasuke normally wears all black a lot of the time.

"You're right, put this on." She handed me a dark crimson colored shirt that had some kind of design on it and I put it on. She smiles in approval. "Better." She then grabbed a necklace and held it up. "This necklace means a lot to me." She looks at me. "I want you to keep it. My eyes widen slightly.

"I can't."

"Think of it as a present for all of your birthdays that I've missed." I wait for a minute thinking about taking the gift. It was an emerald looking stone with a little silver ball on both sides of it. I nod and she smiles latching the necklace onto me. "Now all you need are some shoes."

"I know where I can get some of those."

She looks up to me with a raised eyebrow. "Where?"

"One of my friends, so do you think that I could go get them now?" She thinks about it for a minute before nodding.

"Okay."

I quickly walk to my door and stop. "I'll clean this up tonight. And thanks for the help." I run out the door and down the street. When my house was out of view, I start to walk. I hope Kiba's home. If he's not I guess I could always ask Shikamaru. I wonder how Shikamaru is doing, I haven't heard from him recently. He seemed to be busy.

I walk up to Kiba's door and just as I was about to knock, the door swung open. I stand there frozen with my hand still in mid knocking position as Kiba looks me over. That's when it hit me, I didn't have my jacket. I tried not to do anything to suspicious as I hid my arm.

"Hey Kiba." I shove both of my hands in my back pockets and nervously laughed.

"Hey, what brings you here? Not to mention that you look really ..." I shifted my weight from foot to foot a little nervous. "good."

"Well, I was actually going to ask you if I could borrow some shoes." Kiba stood there for a little while longer, still a little shocked by my sudden clothing change.

"Huh? Oh! Of course. I'll get you some, wait here." Kiba runs off leaving me to look around at the outdoors. I wonder where Kiba's going. "Here." I snap my gaze back to Kiba who was holding a pair of black and white shoes. I smile taking them.

"Thanks. Can I leave my shoes here and get them later?"

"Yeah that's fine." I take my shoes off placing them inside as I slip on Kiba's shoes. There was a gust of wind that was surprisingly cold. It is getting close to winter I guess.

"Where are you off to?" I walk down the sidewalk with him.

"I'm going to Shikamaru's, he said he needs some help with something." He looks at me. "What about you? It's not every day that we get to see you like this."

"Oh me? I'm going to Sasuke's later."

I saw Kiba smile from the corner of my eyes. If I didn't know Kiba I would think that was a real smile, but I could tell it was forced. There was another cold gust of wind. I tried to suppress a shudder, but I failed. I, all of a sudden, felt something warm drape over my shoulders. I look over and see that Kiba gave me his hoodie once more. I smile at him and grab the hoodie to pull it tightly around myself before I slip my arms into the sleeves.

"Kiba."

"Yeah."

"I want to tell you something." Kiba's movements stalled for a moment before continuing. He must have been a little shocked by the seriousness in my voice.

"What is it?"

"This isn't going to be easy for me ... to speak out loud." I was already choking back tears just thinking about it. Kiba was now staring at me. "I had to tell you that I ... I killed ... I ..." I drop my head to the ground. That's when Kiba grabbed my shoulders making us stop walking, but I didn't look up.

"Killed?" I felt my chest tighten as I took a deep breath, it was starting to get hard to breath. Maybe it was just too soon to talk about this. The backs of my eyes started to sting from holding back tears. I clenched my jaw and looked up with a new found determination. I would not be weak.

"Kurama." I said his name weakly.

Kiba's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

"It was my fault that he died." I drop my eyes to my borrowed shoes.

"Naruto, you're not making and sense."

"The night that I came to your house drunk and spent the night. Kurama ... he tried to find me because I never came home that night. He got his by a car ... all because of me. He died because of my stupid decisions." I look up at Kiba with tears about to fall from my eyes. I don't want him to hug me, if he hugs me then I'll lose it. I don't want to cry over this again. I take another deep breath to finish what I was saying. "I killed him, Kiba. He ... he ... he didn't deserve any of this."

All of a sudden the tears escaped my eyes and the grip on my shoulders left, only to be replaced by strong arms pulling me close. Kiba runs a hand up to the back of my head and the other near the bottom of my back. I wrap my arms around him, grabbing his shirt tightly as I burry my face into his shoulder. Kiba slowly moved us out of the open to next to a tree.

"This was not your fault Naruto. Don't blame yourself for this." He whispers this into my ear. "You don't know what Kurama was thinking about at the moment. He could have been chasing something, or maybe he was just trying to run around. You never can tell if you weren't there." Kiba was rubbing my back which was surprisingly relaxing.

Neither of us spoke after that. Actually we just stood there as Kiba continued to rub my back. It could almost put me to sleep, in fact, it practically did and that's why I slowly moved myself away. Kiba's hand swept over my tear stained cheeks to wipe away any lingering tears. He then genuinely smiled at me.

"You feel better?" After he asked that question, my chest clenched and my heartbeat quickened. I don't know what this feeling is, but I don't like it. I feel kind of nervous to top off my weird feeling, but overall I did feel better now that I told him about what happened.

"Y-yeah. Thanks Kiba. I-I didn't mean for any of that to happen."

"It's fine Naruto, I want to be able to help you in any way I can." I smile but my smile drops when I remember something.

"Kiba, I should probably tell you this too." His smile quickly fades. "I kind of cut again when that whole incident happened. I was just so overwhelmed and I wasn't thinking right."

"How bad?"

"I lost too much blood and fainted a couple of times, but I'm fine now."

"You fainted?" I keep looking down at my feet. I was ashamed that I kept doing that and I didn't want to meet his eyes, but I take a breath and look up to Kiba who looked like he was about to say something but I beat him to it.

"You don't have to worry, I'm not going to do it again."

"You don't know that."

"I'm promising myself I'm not going to do it anymore."

"What if you get too overwhelmed again and you aren't thinking right?"

"I'll figure something out."

"Naruto, I'm just scared about losing you. What if ... what if one day you accidentally cut a little too deeply? You could die. I don't want to lose you."

I never really thought about that. What if I actually did cut too deep on accident one time and I die because of it? It's not something you can just undo. Death is a permanent thing, whether you like it or not. But that is just another reason why I promised I wouldn't do it again. As I was lost in thought, Kiba grabbed my hand. I looked up to him and he looked at me with comforting eyes. That's when my stomach did a little flip and my face got a little warmer than usual.

"Shall we go?" I nod as we walk down the street. When we get to Shikamaru's, Kiba turns to me. "I don't have to go, I can always tell him I'll help him later if you want."

"No, go help Shikamaru. He's seemed stressed lately. Thanks for all the concern, but I'll be fine." I smile to him that I'm really okay. If I honestly wasn't okay then I'd tell him. He hesitates before accepting the fact that I wasn't going to let him bale on Shikamaru.

"Alright, I'll see you on Monday then." With a wave, we went our separate ways.

I decided not to go home just yet. I wanted to take a walk to calm my nerves before I went to Sasuke's. With the whole Kurama deal swirling around my thoughts and there was also something new that I never really felt before. That whole feeling that I had when I was holding Kiba's hand not to long ago. What was with that? I think I've had that feeling once before actually, but it was when I had ramen for the first time. Even then it was more like a warm happy sensation, not quite like the one I felt today. I must say though, that was the best darn ramen I've ever had for sure.

But that doesn't really explain the whole thing with Kiba. If I got that feeling for the food I love, does that mean that I love Kiba? Well of course I love Kiba, so that's not it. Is it because we're getting closer recently? Maybe.

As I was lost in thought, there was something that caught my eye that snapped me back to reality. There was a tall man with a very familiar body structure. They were bent over at the moment, so I couldn't see their whole body, but when they straightened I could feel my heartbeat quicken. The long black hair pulled back into a low ponytail. Itachi. I start to walk to him without thinking, but he turns and leaves making me speed up slightly. I'll just follow him until he stops. I'm curious to where he is going.

He took a lot of twists and turns which made following him incredibly hard, not to mention all the people in the way. I saw him take a sharp turn into an alleyway, so I stop and cautiously walk in front of the entrance. I didn't see him in there, granted it was practically pitch black in there.

I bite my lip and clench my fists. I still never got over my fear of going into dark suspicious places alone, and I don't really want to get over them, for good reason too.

I take a few cautious steps in and then pause. A few more and another pause. I then decide to go the rest of the way. Well, I would have if my heart hadn't decided to stop right then, but guess it had good reason.

I was pushed back against a wall with great force. Why did I do this? Oh shit, why did I have to follow the crazy man into a dark creepy alley? Not the smartest thing you've ever done Naruto. You stupid idiot. Do you have a death with or something?

"Why were you following me?" A deep, and very angry, voice sounded only inches away from me.

"I-I ... well I just wanted to ... uhm ... talk to you." I frowned myself to breath as steadily as I possibly could.

"About?"

"Uhm ... well ... my ... uh ... parents." The grip on me loosened.

"Your parents? Wait, Naruto."

"U-uh ... y-yes?"

"Damnit." He cursed under his breath. "I'm really sorry, I didn't get a good look at you from the distance. Not to mention that you looked different. Here, come with me and we can talk somewhere better than the place."

I hesitantly follow him out into the fading daylight. He takes me to a cafe and buys me a drink. We sat at one of the tables outside and I sipped at my hot chocolate awkwardly as Itachi looked me over. He was leaning back in his chair with his coffee mug against his lips. Finally mustering up the courage to speak I set my cup down.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or anything, really. I just ... I wanted to talk to you for a couple days recently and I haven't seen you. Then out of the middle of nowhere you appeared and I didn't know how to approach you so I kind of resorted to ... following you. Which I apologize for." Itachi didn't speak for a minute, but when he put his mug down it revealed a very amused smile. What could possibly be so funny? "Did I say something funny?" I ask confused.

"No, but it's amusing to see you like this." I grab my drink again taking a sip. We sat there drinking in silence for a little while. The sun was going to be going behind the mountains soon, so I won't be able to stay for much longer. "You said you wanted to talk about your parents?" I look up from my cup and nod. "What do you want to know?"

"I know they were murdered." Itachi stiffened. "And their murderer ... it was you ... wasn't it?" Itachi's face turned from amused to sickened in a matter of seconds. He actually looked like he was in pain. What's that look for? He sat there thinking for quite a while before he even made a hint that he was going to talk.

"...yeah..." He said this quietly as he closes his eyes and takes a drink of his coffee.

I take a breath to calm myself. "Why?" I clench my fists under the table.

"You wouldn't understand."

"We'll never know if you don't try and tell me." Itachi contemplated telling me and heaved a heavy sigh.

"Alright, but I'm only telling you this once so listen closely." I nod and put my cup down to give him my full attention. "I'm also not going into great detail, I'm just going to cover the stuff that concerns you."

He pauses thinking about what to say. "It was around 16 years ago. I was in a group that I shouldn't have been involved with. Even though I saw what they did, I never did anything to stop it. One day I was called upon by the leader. He somehow heard that I was going to leave the organization and he didn't like that, so he gave me a choice. To kill the people that threatened them, or they'd kill my brother. I held my brother very dear to me, so the choice was obvious. And they knew what I'd choose, so they used my wish to leave to their advantage. I tried to think of ways around it, but it was no use. Your parents weren't concerned about themselves, they were only concerned about what would happen to their newborn child, you. They obviously didn't go willingly, and I regret saying this but I had to be hostile about it. Your parents and I finally agreed on something after fighting for a long time, and they knew that winning wasn't a very good chance for them now. They'd give themselves as long as I didn't harm you from then on out. They told me to help watch the group I was with too, and if they were to come after you then I was to protect you. I am sorry that it had to turn out like that, but it had to. They also wanted me to warn you when you were old enough, they told me to tell you to avoid the Akatsuki. They were the organization that I was with that had me kill your parents."

I didn't know what to say, even if I fought with him about it, it wouldn't do any good. My parents were already killed and there wasn't anything I could do to bring them back. I was looking at my drink with a scowl. I tap my glass with my finger causing the liquid to ripple into the center of the cup.

"What day was it?" I said quietly.

"October 12."

We sat there yet again in a silence, but this silence wasn't like the others were. I don't know why, but it felt strange. All of a sudden, my thoughts drifted to Itachi and Sasuke. They're brothers, and Itachi said he held his brother dear to him. But Sasuke never even mentions his older brother. Does Sasuke hate Itachi, or does he just not like him as much as Itachi had? Wait, he said he held his brother dear to him, as in past tense. Does that mean something, or was it just a slip of the tongue? Maybe I was just reading too much into it.

"You said that you held your brother very dear to you." I look up to him making eye contact. "Did something happen between you two? Sasuke doesn't seem to be very fond of you." Itachi closed his eyes as a slight breeze blows past us.

"It wasn't always like that." I wait to see if he was going to continue. While I waited I finished my drink and I put it on the table in front of me. "Sasuke is a very complex person. I used to be the only one who understood him. He would always try and bother me, but I actually liked the fact that he would always do that. He wanted to go everywhere with me. He liked me until he found out about what I did." Itachi drank the rest of his coffee and stood up. I stood as well and walked next to Itachi down the sidewalk. "Why do you seem so dressed ... not like you?" Itachi asked, changing the topic as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Sasuke invited me to a party tonight."

"Oh really?" Itachi smirked glancing at me for a second.

"Yeah, I have to be at his house at seven thirty." Itachi glanced down at his wrist to his watch.

"Fifteen minutes." He smiled looking at me. "I'd be careful if I were you, Sasuke has a thing for tan blonds." I felt my face grow hot and my eyes widen. I quickly look down at my hands. He's gay?

"He's ... uhm ..."

"Gay? Not completely. He's bisexual. Well he was the last time I knew, he might be straight for all I know anymore."

"Has he ever liked a guy before?" He looked at me with an amused smirk. I quickly look away. "N-not that I'm interested or anything. I'm just ... curious."

"Are you gay?"

"...uhm..."

"So you like my brother?"

"N-no! It's not like that. He seems nice and he's a good friend but ... I ... uh ..."

"So you don't find him even the slightest bit attractive?"

"No! Wait I mean yes. No wait ... ugh ... I mean ... he is really attractive and all, but I don't necessarily ... well ... like him like that I guess."

"Yet."

"Yeah." I heard a snicker and I looked over. Oh wait. "No, no, no, no, no that's not ... I was lost in thought and I just-"

"It's okay." Itachi was chuckling as he looked over to me. "I'm only teasing." I heave a huge sigh and force myself to calm down. "But can I ask you this?" I look over still a little flustered. "Do you have any feelings for him? Feelings more than friendship. Even if it is just a little bit?" I look to the ground. Do I?

"I really don't know. I really like his looks, but honestly, who doesn't. Anyway, the looks are just the icing on the cake so to speak. If I really liked him as much as I liked Kiba, he would have a good ..." I stop when I realize what I had just said. As much as I like Kiba? Why did he come to mind when we were talking about liking someone romantically? Yeah I know I like him in a friend way, but ...

"Kiba?"

"Uh ... well."

"Are you dating him?"

"No! I just ... I don't know anymore."

"You like him?"

"Not any more than a friend, I think. I don't know, maybe."

"This Kiba, his last name is Inuzuka, right?" I nod. "How do you feel when you're around him?"

"I guess I fell happy, I feel really safe too, and I don't have to hold anything back from him, it's really comforting."

"I see. I'm afraid that you're in the beginning stages of a crush, Naruto."

"Wha-? But we're best friends."

"You can't help who you like. It just happens." We stop walking and I turn to face him. "I can't go any further with you, I have to go in there." I nod and turn to leave. "But Naruto. Give Sasuke this message." He waited for me to look to him. I turn, ready for the message. "Competition." Itachi turns opening a door and steps in.

"Wait, is that it?" He pokes his head back out smiling.

"Sure is. Have a good night kiddo." He disappears back inside closing the door. I look in the window and see a blond male run up and hug Itachi. I shrug and leave. He acted a lot differently than the first time we met.