"Next time, I don't care for your reasons, you're being dropped off at the main gate or in front of the theater," Shikamaru stated as he tossed a small packet to the shaking blond that sat at the far end of the couch. Either the brunette had noticed his friend's meager responses and decided not to ask, or he was too distressed to give it much thought. In any case, the tension was enough to keep the two of them on edge.

"How was I supposed to know that he would be there?!" he shouted, gripping tightly onto his script in order to keep himself from shaking. "I didn't think he knew where I was!"

"Maybe that was our problem," his friend groaned slightly as he finally took a seat in order to keep from pacing. "Maybe we didn't think this entire thing through. We didn't explore enough possibilities like the fact that Itachi isn't an idiot and was very capable of using his power of deduction. We were naïve."

"That still wouldn't make sense," Naruto mumbled while placing the packet to his lips in thought.

"I know," Shikamaru sighed with a contemplative stare fixated on the ceiling. "It's one thing to know that you were at this manor. It's something else to know about your theater pursuits."

Naruto closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind so he could think as rationally as possible. Even Shikamaru had been perturbed by this news, and he was starting to run out of ideas. He needed to contribute something in order to keep them from being discouraged or at a complete loss altogether. Itachi made it plain that he knew where he lived and that he disapproved of what was happening, but he never said what he was going to do about it. Could that really have been the extent of Itachi's interference?

Spite.

No. It could not have been that easy.

"We might not have anything to worry about," he finally croaked his response into the stillness that kept his friend in a state of bewilderment. The other boy glanced at him inquisitively, though kept silent to encourage him to continue. "He made his dissatisfaction pretty clear, but he never said that he would do anything about it. It's not like he can, right?"

Shikamaru leaned forward, his eyes still studying the blond as he rested his chin in his palm. "That is true... Though, something like 'spite' isn't very becoming of someone like Itachi. I can't bring myself to trust this just yet."

"We might be over thinking it," he insisted, trying to avoid the strange surge of nausea that nagged at his stomach. The last thing he wanted to do was think about anything at all. Thinking, at that point, led him to remember that he hadn't seen Sasuke since the day before, and just the thought of it was enough to make Naruto shudder with anxiety.

"Coming from the guy that never thinks these things through? I'm, somehow, not comforted by that," Shikamaru retorted playfully, grabbing the second script with disinterest. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?"

Naruto shook his head before the question was even finished. Damn that freakish ability to always know when something was up! But how was he supposed to talk about something that he wasn't even sure he wanted to happen? The fact that he had been so frightened and uncomfortable in the first place was a troubling thought on its own without thinking about how odd Sasuke was acting the entire time. Something like that was supposed to be intimate and special; at least, that's how he always imagined it would be. When a moment like that felt anything but extraordinary, he panicked and was even forced to tell Sasuke to stop, as if he had already known from the beginning that it would get him nowhere.

"I find it uncanny how I find myself believing you all the time," Shikamaru's voice broke through his unsettled thoughts, weighing him down with every passing second.

"Am I that obvious? All the time?" Naruto blurted the question, flipping through the tiny booklet trying to keep his eyes from meeting the other boy's.

"Yes."

He sighed.

"Then, no." Naruto gave a quick glance to his friend, noticing that he had been looking through the booklet too. "Sometimes I can see the gears turning in your head, but I often find myself wondering why you respond to things the way that you do, and then it becomes a bit clearer."

"I'm an idiot?"

"A bit simpler than that. We're just kids, Naruto," Shikamaru explained with reluctant emphasis. "It pains me to admit it, but the fact that you're involved in this huge tabloid scandal and still in high school... that doesn't happen, much less to a teenage boy who had never been in the public eye before."

"Or near it," he added irreverently.

"I can't measure things like impulsivity or capriciousness," the brunette continued before tossing the script back onto the coffee table. "And I'm still not a good actor, if you haven't guessed by now."

"I... I'm afraid to go back..." Naruto mumbled, hiding his face within the script's contents.

"You haven't even called Kabuto, have you?"

Another timid shake of the head prompted the other teen to push himself off the couch with a loud yawn. "Well, I suppose you should head over there to apologize and give them some sort of excuse."

"I'm sure they managed without me."

"That's not what a theatrical man says. The show must go on, dude!"

"You have to work, don't you?" Naruto muttered in question with a suspicious stare that made his friend smirk knowingly.

"I have business to attend to, yeah, but I also think it would be responsible of you to go in and explain yourself to your partner."

"You mean lie to my partner?" his voice faded into a dreary mumble as his chest heaved a deep sigh. He knew that he would eventually have to go back to Suna, but he was hoping to have a day to rest on it and think up a good excuse for not showing up at all. Kabuto was the one who had given him the chance to be a part of this production and, because of that, Haku had high expectations of him. He was letting them down.

"Yes. I mean lie," Shikamaru answered with a thoughtful glance to the blond. "You don't really have a choice in the matter, do you?"

"Why not?" he spat more bitterly than he would have liked. "Lying is what makes me feel so helpless all the goddamn time!"

"You can't be serious," his friend retorted with a disbelieving chuckle. "This entire summer has relied heavily on all of us lying."

"What does that get me?" Naruto snapped, standing quickly to face Shikamaru with a heated glare. "I can't walk outside comfortably without the fear of being noticed, I've left Kabuto and Haku in the dark, and I can't even look at Sasuke without feeling like I'm about to vomit."

"Strangely, I can relate to that last one."

"Fuck off!"

"I'm sorry. You know I'm only kidding," Shikamaru sighed with a light pat to the blond's shoulder, "but I only criticize when I know you haven't thought something through. I know you resent lying and, if you remember correctly, I told you to try and be honest in the beginning and it was you that was so adamant about keeping everything to yourself. Even now."

Naruto felt his shoulders sink, his gaze faltering to a meek stare that fell to the floor in embarrassment. Seeing his friend was supposed to offer him the console that he lacked the night before. Shikamaru was the one that he was supposed to be able to tell everything to. If there was one person in the world he could rely on, it was him. But how could he bring himself to admit to something so personal that ended with him feeling even lonelier and humiliated than before? It was coming to a point where Naruto felt too ashamed of where he was standing, and even more mortified of the fact that he had no one but himself to blame.

"You're not obligated to tell me everything, Naruto," Shikamaru added with a tired sigh before heading for the door, "just like you're not obligated to keep everything to yourself."

The boy nodded in acknowledgment as he followed his friend through the house and out to the familiar black car that, at a closer glance, was almost identical to the one Itachi had arrived in. He knew that he was not entitled to be upset or angry with anybody but himself, but the circumstances had become too overwhelming for him to help it anymore. He opened the door before the driver had a chance to come around, and sat in silence while staring at Shikamaru apprehensively as he seated himself next to him.

"But I really do wonder..." his friend mused, almost on cue as if he knew Naruto had been expecting something.

"Yeah?" He questioned hoarsely, clasping his hands together in order to cease the resumed trembling.

"What good would the truth do you?"