Well I said these chapters would be longer, what more do you want; a lemon? Sorry, not this story - but the next really long one I do will have one for sure! I'm about halfway through writing it right now and once 'With Snow Comes Change' is finished, I'll be posting it. So in this chapter we see Karin and Suigetsu and just to clear things up if it's confusing; they are not a couple, I just like their personalities together and I needed people close to Sasuke for this part. Also please don't kill me for the proposal suggested here, I just really want it to happen to me! Sadly though, I know that it can't happen and it makes me cry inside when I think about it too much. The next chapter will either be the last...or the next to last. I haven't decided yet.
KEEP IN MIND that this story revolves around Sasuke's proposal, not the wedding itself! If my public wants a third installment of the 'Thunder/Rain' series, just leave a review or send me a PM. Also, guests who ask questions...I'm so sorry that I can't reply to your reviews so PLEASE either sign into your account or leave your name so I can find you! I had someone ask me a few weeks ago if they could take this story and translate it into their language but I have no way of knowing who you are so that I can answer you!
Stalker-hater: I can't believe that you're still here. How silly of me to think that you actually got a life or a sense of tolerance, but your comments still don't mean anything more to me than wasted space in my mailbox. I'm sure that I'm not the only one you're hating on and I'm also sure that I'm not the only one saying these kinds of things to you, but I do know that I don't care what you say about me or my love for SasuNaru. Viva la Yaoi baby!
Just as he stood up to relieve his poor ears of the torture, Suigetsu and Karin showed themselves to Sasuke as they ventured to the back yard. Karin was yelling at the aquatic man that they should have waited for Sasuke to answer the door before they went anywhere. Suigetsu was shouting at the red head that Sasuke wouldn't have cared if they came into the house from the back door and that they had a right as former teammates to use said door. Upon seeing Sasuke's angry eyes, the two of them stopped what they were doing and just smiled awkwardly.
"Sasuke-kun, I just want you to know that I didn't want to come this way!"
"Oh please, if you didn't want to come then why did you follow me?"
"To kick your ass and make you stay at the front door!"
"You wouldn't have been able to and you know it!"
"Both of you had better shut your mouths before I send a Chidori through both of them," Sasuke said in a voice as cold as ice. Sending chills down both of their spines, Sasuke turned to Jugo. The man seemed unaffected by the bickering, so Sasuke wasn't particularly worried about him at the moment. He supposed that it was because he was in the garden and he didn't really want to hear the two former teammates fight.
"What do you two want?"
"Nothing really. We're just bored and we know that you don't have any missions until your boyfriend takes office."
"Go find something else to do. I'm busy."
"I told you Suigetsu! Sasuke-kun has more important things to do than entertain the likes of you!"
"I'm pretty sure he was talking to you, psycho-bitch!"
"I don't know how I tolerated you both for five months."
"Because we were kick-ass and you needed us!" Suigetsu answered.
"He may have needed Jugo and me but you just got in the way with all of your laziness and complaining!"
"Oh and what use were you to Sasuke huh?"
"Let me think; oh yeah, I can sense chakra from miles away and I can use my own chakra to heal him!"
"Only if he bites you. Now the only one he's biting is Naruto."
"You little shit!"
Karin punched the shark-like man but as usual he turned into water and made the red-head more furious. Sasuke glared at them, sharingan spinning, and the two immediately stopped. Sasuke took a deep breath and brought a hand up to his temple to try and ease the headache he was experiencing. Karin tried to suggest letting her heal him but he held up his other hand to silence her. After a few minutes, Sasuke felt Jugo put his hand on his shoulder to ask the silent question if he was alright. Sasuke nodded to the large man but still had his fingers rubbing circles on his temple. Breathing a few more times, Sasuke looked to the two newcomers to the garden and spoke again.
"Now what is the real reason for you two being here?"
"Well, we're actually here for Naruto," Suigetsu admitted.
"You missed him. He was here about half an hour ago. He's with Tsunade now for his Hokage training."
"Well that sucks. We come all the way out here for blondie and he's not even here!"
"Why did you want him?"
"The dog-shinobi wanted us to ask him what was off limits for the birthday party he's planning."
"You mean Kiba right?"
"Yeah the guy with the huge white dog. He also said something about gift ideas."
"But his birthday isn't until October," Jugo commented.
"Apparently since he started going out with our leader here, blondie has been the hardest person to shop for in the village."
"Why does his relationship with Sasuke affect his gift-shopping difficulty?" Jugo questioned once again.
"It's probably because I give him anything and everything he wants as it is. I don't have a problem with admitting that I've made it difficult to surprise my boyfriend with anything."
"Not only that, Sasuke-kun, but the whole world makes a huge deal out of celebrating his birthday. Having just his friends throw a party for him must be hard too," Karin said, frustrated that she couldn't spend some time with her cousin on his special day.
Ever since she learned that he was related to her, she had been trying to get to know the boy better. Naruto was an open book as far as general information went but the subject of family was really a touch-and-go topic for him to openly discuss. His painful past and childhood, along with no one telling him who his parents were until he found out himself made it hard for him to trust anyone with sensitive family information. He really only felt comfortable talking about his family with Sasuke or Sakura, since they were part of his original team. Not even Sai was privileged with the little information he knew about his mother and father. Karin knew that he considered the man with the scar across his nose as his adoptive father as well as the man with the mask, but she wanted to know what he thought about the Uzumaki clan. Sasuke had told her before that he knew nothing about the clan with the name he was born with but Karin did, and she wanted her cousin to know as well. She felt it was her job to pass on the knowledge to the 'leader' of the once esteemed clan, while she was the one to accept the role of carrying on its lineage.
"Whatever dog-breath wants to do for his party, Naruto will be happy with. As long as it doesn't interfere with my plans, I have no problems with it," Sasuke said.
"You mean your plans of birthday sex?" Suigetsu commented while wriggling his eyebrows at the Uchiha. The action just made Sasuke smack the man upside the head.
"I'm not talking about what the two of us do in the bedroom with the three of you. Although I'm sure the entire village is curious by now."
"We know that whatever you do makes Naruto insanely happy the next day. And all of your fan girls like to call you a sex god."
"Those bitches are just jealous that Naruto is the only one who gets any Uchiha cock, right Sasuke?"
Sasuke's face remained impassive but Suigetsu knew he was angry by the Chidori Nagashi that Sasuke unleashed on him. Suigetsu was doing a good job of imitating a fish on the ground while Karin was laughing at the man's pain. Jugo was trying to make sure that Sasuke didn't damage the precious piece of heaven that his blonde boyfriend had created and Sasuke himself was trying to fry some sense into the shark-man's head. Karin stopped laughing as the lightning died down and she looked at Sasuke closely. Focusing on the other reason she had come to the Uchiha-Uzumaki house, she braced herself to ask the question that was burning on her tongue.
"Sasuke-kun…when are you going to ask Naruto to marry you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You two have been together for three years, and even when we were traveling around as a team I could tell that you missed someone. I know that you didn't love him back then but it was just too obvious to me that Naruto was the one you always thought about when you fought in the war beside him. When all was said and done and you got together with him, you actually showed your happiness. Three years is enough time to make Naruto wait, don't you think?"
Sasuke stared at her for a few minutes before he sighed and motioned for all of them to take the conversation inside of the house. The three followed him, Karin walking as Jugo carried an unconscious Suigetsu, as Sasuke lead them all into the living room. Sasuke spread himself out on the chaise section of the couch that he and Naruto slept on the night they confessed to each other and leaned on the pillows to support his upper body. Jugo sat beside him and looked at his 'cage' nervously while Karin was sitting on the chair beside Sasuke. Suigetsu was laid out on the floor and slowly coming back to consciousness. Sasuke relaxed a bit and closed his eyes before telling his former team his plan.
"I had been thinking about asking him to marry me since New Year's."
"Then why haven't you asked him yet?"
"I didn't know how to do it perfectly."
"And I suppose you do now?"
"If I have a thunderstorm in the next few days, then yes. I have a few back-up ideas if it doesn't though."
"So if you know how you want to do it then why haven't you done it?!"
"I'm actually hoping to ask Naruto very soon."
"Really?! When?!"
"I ordered the ring today and I plan to ask him on our anniversary if it rains."
"Why is rain so important to the proposal?"
"If you're trying to get to know him then you should at least know his favorite weather."
"He likes the rain?"
"Thunderstorms, to be exact. I won't go into great detail but a long time ago they helped him get over a very long and traumatic experience. Now though, he sees them as a comfort."
"Naruto-san holds thunderstorms very close to him then?" Jugo asked. He felt that he too should know the future leader of the village better. Jugo knew that ultimately Sasuke was the one that knew him the best but it didn't stop the orange haired man from being grateful to Naruto for everything he's done.
"When we were younger they were the only source of real comfort he had, let me put it that way."
"So what do you want to do for your proposal?" Karin asked, continuing her interrogation of her former crush and leader.
"Take him to dinner, ask him over dessert and then run in the rain with him. I usually don't go out in the bad weather so the fact that I'll be running around with him makes it more special for him."
"Do you know what you want to say to him?"
"Yes I do, and I'm not telling you. Knowing your mouth, he'll know all of this before I'm ready to do it. In all honesty, I shouldn't be telling you any of this."
"Okay then, but no offense that proposal sounds sort of overdone."
"You think I should ask him another way then?" Sasuke asked the woman dangerously.
"You can have your dinner and your rain but I think that you could do better than that. I mean you are Sasuke UCHIHA. You hold yourself to a higher standard than the rest of humanity."
"Then by all means, Karin, explain to me how I should propose to my Naruto."
"Get crazy with it, you're only going to get to do this once so you may as well go all-out. Have dinner on top of the Hokage monument, spell your names out in rose petals, dance when it starts to thunder, kneel when it starts to rain and then ask him."
"No."
"WHY NOT?!"
"For one thing, Naruto told me a while ago that he never wanted a proposal that was done in a book. What you just explained was read to him once from one of the romance novels that Sakura tied him down to a chair to listen to. Second, I'm not the type of man to spell out anything in rose petals. Third, I already plan to dance with him in the rain, but I want my ring on his finger before that happens."
"So why won't you do it on top of the Hokage monument?"
"Naruto wants to have dinner on the monument, but since it's a monument we could get in trouble for desecrating it. Since he's going to be Hokage in August, he wants to revise that rule, but only when his image is added next to Tsunade's."
"Well then that sucks. You really couldn't come up with anything better than dinner and proposal during dessert? I thought you were better than that!"
"Sasuke is better than that, but he's thinking about what Naruto would want. Naruto wouldn't want anything too flashy or publicized so Sasuke is thinking of ways to propose that makes Naruto happy, not himself."
"Suigetsu is right, Karin. What I want doesn't matter here; if he says yes I'll be happy. I want Naruto to be the happiest with all of it. If we were doing a proposal my way then I would need the services of the Aburame clan."
"The bug people? Why would you want their help with proposing to Naruto?"
"Because insects don't fly in the rain under normal circumstances. What I would want to do is have fireflies spell out our names in the air in the back yard and when lightning would flash I'd make them spell 'will you marry me?' as I give him the ring."
"Why don't you do it that way? It sounds a lot better and a lot more special than just asking him while you're at dinner."
"Now that I'm thinking about it, he may like it more that way. I can just cook for him at home and ask him while he's comfortable and not expecting it."
"See, it's more intimate that way and you don't have to wait to take him upstairs and have not only anniversary sex but celebration sex as well!" Karin gushed as she mentally left the room to fantasize about Sasuke and Naruto in bed together doing who knows what. Sasuke shook his head at her and Suigetsu was snickering at the expression of pure joy on her face. Jugo was smiling as well but not at Karin. He was smiling because Sasuke looked a little happier than he was when he saw him earlier.
"Now getting back to the reason why we came here in the first place; what should we tell people to get Naruto for his birthday?"
Just as Sasuke was about to answer, the subject of their conversation walked through the door looking spent. Sasuke hurried off of his chair and rushed over to catch Naruto before he fell. The other three could only look at the two in curiosity and mild fear and panic. None of them had ever seen the boy so weary before and it wasn't a welcomed sight. Yes the whole world had seen both of the men after they finished their fight after the war, but Naruto was still full of energy and happiness at the time. Seeing the man like this was new to all of them and seeing Sasuke move so fast in a non-life threatening situation was also unheard of. Sasuke picked Naruto up and carried him to the couch to lay him down while Jugo left to get the blonde some water. Naruto groaned when he was put down and Karin immediately knelt by his side to check him over. While she was checking everything, Sasuke was holding his hand and stroking his hair to comfort him.
"Naruto, you're okay. Tell me what's wrong, does anywhere hurt?"
"Nothing hurts, I just have a killer headache and I'm so tired my eyes could fall out."
"So I take it Tsunade sent you home."
"She not only sent me home, she told me to take the next two weeks off because she had some stuff she needed to take care of that I couldn't be there for."
"Stuff like what?"
"I don't know teme but it has me scared. She doesn't make any decisions regarding the village without me anymore and she never summoned me and then sent me home only two hours later with no explanation. What if she's having trouble with the council? What if they're reconsidering me for the Hokage title because I'm too young? What if I did something to make her mad and she's just not telling me to make me paranoid?!"
"Calm down Naruto-san. Here, drink this and see if it helps."
Naruto took the water and drank it slowly while Sasuke looked at his boyfriend with a weird expression. He had a feeling he knew why Tsunade sent him home and if he was correct then the woman was going to pay. If he was right then it had something to do with his proposal and the ring. If the woman made his love panic and upset for that reason then Sasuke was going to have more than just choice words with her the next time he saw her.
"What happened before she kicked you out, baby?"
"A messenger hawk came through the window with a Stone village seal on the pack it was carrying and then she just told me to go home and not come back for a while. Normally if something like that happened then she would show me and question me on how to handle the situation, but she didn't even tell me what it was about! I had a headache when I woke up from my nap and the whole thing now is just making it worse."
"I'm going to go talk to her. Jugo, Karin, Suigetsu, stay here and take care of him while I'm gone."
"I'm almost twenty-one and I take the Hokage position in less than two months, I don't need babysitters!"
"Yes you are, yes you do and no you don't, but I don't care right now. You look sick and about ready to cry and pass out. They're staying, whether you, or they, like it or not."
Sasuke left without a word in a whirl of leaves and arrived in the Hokage's office. Tsunade seemed to be expecting him as she didn't seem surprised to see him – let alone see him angry.
"I know what you're going to say, Uchiha."
"Then explain yourself," the raven demanded of his current leader. His voice was cold and calculating and if Tsunade was a lesser woman, she would have trembled. An angry Uchiha was not something that she wanted to deal with today but it was her own fault he was like this and she knew it.
"I had to send him home because I knew he would ask about it. Yes the scroll is about your ring and yes I could have handled it better but when the hawk came and he walked in the room, I panicked. As Hokage, I know I should have handled it better, but as his family I couldn't help it."
"He thinks you're having problems with him being your successor. He thinks you don't trust him with the Hokage title now."
"I'll explain everything to him tomorrow; tell him to come in whenever he wants and I'll set things straight. I should have a decent excuse by then. Also if he's still feeling ill, I'll treat him but tell him to sleep in tomorrow morning to let his body rest."
"You're going to give me the scroll the bird had and you're going to give it to me now."
"As you wish. The Tsuchikage asks that you respond to his questions anyway, but your ring is being made now."
"I'm surprised that the message got to him so fast. You said it would take a couple of days for it to reach him."
"I may have told you that but I sent out an emergency hawk. They fly ten times faster than their bigger relatives and they're twice as agile as well."
"You didn't think that an emergency hawk would send out some red flags to the Tsuchikage or Naruto?! He has to know what type of bird delivered the message!"
"Again, Sasuke I wasn't thinking. I panicked."
"Your excuse had better be a hell of a good one!"
After Tsunade handed him the scroll, Sasuke disappeared again and was now standing in his living room once more. Still angry but trying to calm himself down, he noticed that Naruto was no longer lying on the couch but Karin was in the kitchen making something to eat. Sasuke cringed at the sight as Jugo appeared from the bottom of the stairs with a blanket in his arms and Suigetsu was nowhere to be seen.
"You're back. Naruto-san is out in the yard sitting with the koi fish and Suigetsu is with him. Naruto-san asked me to bring down this blanket so he could sit with it."
"That's fine. I'll take it to him. Did he say how his head was feeling?"
"No, but he was walking slower than usual. Suigetsu held onto him as support and Karin gave him some pills to help the pain, but Naruto-san insisted that he sit outside with the fish for a while."
"Alright, I'll explain everything to him and bring him back inside. I'll send Suigetsu back in when I've got Naruto so make sure that he and Karin don't fight and destroy my house or Naruto's kitchen."
Sasuke grabbed the throw blanket that he had gotten Naruto for Christmas the previous year and made his way out to the koi pond. Suigetsu was standing over the blonde, looking like a ridged soldier guarding a national treasure as the blonde ran one of his hands across the surface of the water. The Uchiha walked behind Suigetsu and maneuvered his way to sit behind Naruto as he picked him up and set the blanket down at the edge of the pond. Placing Naruto back down on the now padded surface of the pond, Sasuke wrapped his arms around Naruto's waist and motioned for his former teammate to leave. Suigetsu wasted no time in getting back to the house as Naruto leaned back into Sasuke.
"It was an emergency hawk, teme. What if something is really wrong and grandma Tsunade doesn't trust me with the information? What if something really big is going to happen and I can't help?"
"I talked to her; nothing is wrong. The Tsuchikage just needed to speak with her urgently. You're doing fine; everything is okay."
"Then why couldn't she tell me that herself?"
"I don't know, but she is getting old."
"Her age never affected her before – it was only ever her looks that her age affected and she has a jutsu to hide that."
"Just calm down and stop being stupid. She wants you to see her tomorrow."
"What time tomorrow? She said not to come for the next two weeks."
"Any time you feel like it tomorrow and she said she would explain then. Now Karin is making food and I don't trust her with a knife and Suigetsu in the house. I know you don't want your kitchen destroyed either so what do you say we go inside and prevent a disaster?"
"Yeah, okay."
The two got up and made their way back into the house just in time to stop Karin from stabbing Suigetsu between his legs with the meat cleaver in her hand. After a few hours, dinner was done and the three left the house saying their goodbyes to Naruto and Sasuke as the couple went to bed.
