"What are you talking about? She's been flushed and sweaty all day. She's sick or something!" Naruto. Bless his stupidity. With a bit of luck Kiba would accept that explanation. Those two were rather alike after all.

Kiba, however, just looked from Naruto to Sakura and back again, an incredulous frown on his face.

"What are you talking about? She only gets all hot and bothered when she's looking at you, Naruto!"

Sakura crinched. Did he have to use those words?

Kiba took a few big sniffs. "Besides, she doesn't smell sick. She smells of..."

Kiba was mercifully cut short by a punch to the shoulder delivered by his silent teammate. Sighing a big breath of relief, Sakura made a mental note to be sure to thank him for that later. Kiba glared at the bug user, whose only respons was to stoically ignore him, further enraging the hot-headed Inuzuka, distracting him for long enough to forget all about Sakura and Naruto. For the moment at least. He was sure to remember sooner or later and unfortunately, he wasn't the kind of person to give her an easy time about it. Sakura's heart sunk at the thought of it. Wonderful. Yet another thing to worry about.

She eyed Naruto. How much had he inferred from what Kiba had already said? Did he realize what it meant? Once again Sakura quietly blessed his stupidity though when she noticed he still had the same concerned look on his face, rather than looking puzzled or ridiculously happy. The idiot still thought she was sick. Well, if that was the case, she certainly wasn't going to do anything to change his mind about that. The second they entered the streets of Konoha she excused herself from the rest of the group, informing them that she was going to go straight home because she was feeling a little wiped out. The deeply worried look Naruto shot her upon hearing that was almost enough to make her heart break. He might be a stupid fool, but he was too damned sweet a fool.

Sakura ran back home as quickly as she could. The sooner she put some distance between herself and that loveable idiot, the better it would be. How much longer was she going to be able to keep this up though? She couldn't keep avoiding Naruto forever. Even if she managed to get herself transferred to another team (and she really, really didn't want to do that), she'd still run into him and they'd likely still have missions together every so often. On top of that, it seemed everybody else was starting to notice. Was she really that easy to read? It embarrassed her to no end. If everybody could tell though, wasn't it about time she admitted it to herself?

Just to try it on, she let the idea roll around in her head a few times. Perhaps she really did love Naruto. She loved Naruto. Well, that wasn't so bad. She could at least say it to herself without it feeling all weird and horrible. She loved Naruto. I. Love. Naruto. It actually felt kind of nice, kind of right...

I love you, Naruto.

Turning as white as a sheet, Sakura made a mad dash for the toilet and got rid of her lunch the wrong way. No, not time yet. Definitely not time yet.

As hard as she tried though, even with her remarkable powers of denial, she couldn't deny that literally getting sick with nerves thinking about, well, that subject, something had to be going on. People didn't react this way to people they didn't have very strong feelings for. That line of thought came too close to actually admitting she loved the blonde though, once more causing a bout of nausea, leaving Sakura to quickly clamp her hand over her mouth while desperately trying to suppress the sick feeling to her stomach. Funny, it seemed like Naruto ended up being right about her being sick after all, she though grimly. Sick in the head, that was...

She had to talk about someone about this, she thought as she walked over to the kitchen to grab something to eat, even though the continued rumbling in her stomach didn't leave her with much of an appetite. If she didn't eat though, it'd get even worse. Who could she talk to though? There was no way she could discuss such things with Tsunade-sama, it would just be too embarassing. Kakashi-sensei wasn't an option either, because that old pervert would just try to push the two of them together, even if she wasn't ready for that yet. Ino could probably understand her better than most of her other friends, if for no other reason than because she was a girl as well, but if Ino found out that she, that she had feelings for Naruto of all people, she'd never hear the end of it.

Who did that leave? Rock Lee would probably help her if she asked, but he'd also be completely crushed that she chose Naruto over him. Also, she wasn't entirely convinced his idea of helping wouldn't consist of making her do 500 push-ups or some such to prove her, uhm, affection. She wasn't really close enough to anyone else to ask them for help with something like this either. Great. She'd just figured out that she couldn't figure this out on her own, but she also couldn't talk about it with anyone. How wonderful.

Stepping back into her room her heart almost jumped out of her chest and the bowl of hot soup she was carrying was send flying as she was startled by Kiba's sudden appearance sitting on her bed. She'd been so lost in thought she hadn't even sensed him. She braced herself for the worst as she looked at Kiba's face, grinning even more wolfish than usual.

"So, about earlier today..."