Disclaimer - No. The following contains: Yaoi.

Need by Youmadbro

Chapter 11.

Tsunade hurriedly signed off one paper after the next. She flicked them one after the other on top of the seemingly never-ending stack of papers. The papers that lay haphazardly on one side of her desk. Shizune hastily brought paper after paper in front of the Godaime - in a desperate attempt to keep up with her pace.

"Next," Tsunade chanted in monotone. Shizune obliged by delivering her the next document.

Tsunade signed illegibly - and was one second from flicking the paper with the rest of the equally insignificant stack - when a word caught her eye. She brought it back in front of her face - halting a slightly startled Shizune from moving further - and read the contents of the paper. Her ocher colored eyes steadily grew wider and wider as she processed each sentence - and by the time she was done reading it - her fists clenched around the document dangerously tight. She slammed it atop her desk and stood - causing her assistant to shrink back a bit.

"Those sneaky bastards!" she hollered. Her fist visibly shook against the flattened paper. She immediately turned her attention to her assistant.

"Shizune!"

The girl jumped. Tonton whimpered in the brunette's arms. "Y-yes, Tsunade-sama?"

"Bring Sasuke here - at once!"

"R-right!"

Karin sighed exasperatedly when Naruto finally left his apartment - from her hiding spot just a few meters away. Behind a tree. Seriously, how long did it take? Did he honestly take THAT long to get ready in the morning? She felt his chakra fluctuating for the past hour - so he had to have been up for at least as long! She would have knocked on his door and invited herself in - but then she wouldn't have been able to view a visibly frustrated Sasuke repeatedly debate with himself whether to barge into Naruto's apartment or not. Which had truly been the whole reason behind her current hiding spot. She had followed Sasuke all the way from his apartment and then stood in the shadows as she watched him raise and drop his hand countless times from the blonde's doorknob. The raven ended up deciding against it - in the end. He left just seconds before Naruto opened his door. And Karin had missed her chance to catch up with the last Uchiha before he completely vanished. But, since she was here - she figured she might as well walk with the man of the hour. She had to get extra information on her soon-to-be genin, anyway. And only their sensei had that sort of information.

oOo

Naruto raised a blonde eyebrow at the old woman carrying two armfuls of grocery sacks. She was staring unabashed at him - as if he looked unusual or something. Maybe he wouldn't have paid so much attention to it - if that hadn't been the fifth person he had caught staring at him in such a strange way. He assumed it was probably just 'kyuubi talk' again - but even if the villagers had randomly started discussing the fox - they had never been so straightforward about it. They had always appeared either hateful or oblivious of Naruto's existence. Those people that had stared...they looked merely curious. Not two feet later - he spotted a group of young chuunin girls whispering behind cupped palms and taking an occasional glance at him. One of them giggled when he passed. That made it a total of eight people so far! What the hell! Did he forget to pick the nori out of his teeth - or something? What gives?

He would have thought that perhaps that was the case. If it hadn't been the random person that - upon seeing him - immediately dropped the items in their hands - walked up to him with a purposeful strut - and slapped him right across the face. The girl's face was beet red and she had big tears falling out of her eyes in streams. The fuck? He touched the harassed flesh with visible confusion - while the girl's dad? brother? uncle? held her back from causing anymore damage.

"Why?" she hollered - she pulled relentlessly against her constraints, "Why is it always the good ones!"

Okay...that was it. What the fuck was going on? So - amongst all the chaos - you could understand how Naruto was too shaken to realize someone had walked up beside him. Until said person was tapping him on the shoulder. Naruto turned around quickly - his arms up to block his face. Like hell he'd take another slap to the face for no reason! But he relaxed slightly when he recognized the girl. And he tensed back up again when he recognized the girl as Karin.

"Hi, Naruto." she greeted. The girl flicked her hair behind her shoulder and smiled at the blonde.

"Hey," Naruto said back. He lowered his arms to his sides. Karin wasn't an immediate threat - he figured. And it wasn't entirely her fault that Sasuke had decided he was straight... She was just sort of an... inconvenience - a useless factor in the equation. So he really had no reason to hate her... and he didn't. He really did not hate the girl...honest.

Naruto quickly got away from the red-head. But not without giving her basic information about his students. He knew she wasn't satisfied with what he said - but he left anyway. He was already late for class, he had said. And then he'd teleported before she could protest.

The typically well-mannered kids were talking loudly and jumping off the walls when Naruto first stepped into the classroom. He knew it was because of the lacking presence of their occasional 'assistant teacher' - who was suppose to be here today - right now as a matter of fact. But that wasn't unusual at all. Because Kakashi was always late. And whenever he decided he would show up - the asshole got the whole classroom's complete and undivided attention. So that's why the grey haired man should be there. Because there were still a few genin left whom Naruto had to test. Genin that had been absent the day the rest of the students had taken it. Hopefully, the extra days had given them a chance to succeed. Naruto thought highly of the triplets - but this was slightly different. Despite how good they were at teamwork and written academy tests - they never did too well on forming one simple jutsu. Shadow clones. He didn't know if it was a hereditary inability...or what. But since Naruto had never really liked the original testing system necessary for academy students to graduate, anyway - he changed it up a bit. It would be nice if they did as well as the rest of the students had. Then he would have successfully finished his year requirement as an academy teacher. Just one step closer to becoming Hokage!

"Okay, you guys! Get back in your seats."

Almost everyone scurried to their spots and plopped down in their chairs - eagerly awaiting anything relevant their teacher might say - about their new rank as ninjas. A few continued to talk and joke - only slightly quieter than before. Naruto could feel eyes on him as he looked down at the paperwork. Naruto shuffled through a stack of papers before he found what he was looking for. Then he stood before the class - reciting the same speech his teacher had given him.

"As of today - you are all ninjas. To get here you faced difficult trials and hardships. But that aint squat. What comes next will be a lot more difficult. Now you're only genin - 1st level ninjas. All the genin will be grouped into three man squads. Each squad will be lead by a Jonin - an elite ninja."

The students that hadn't been whispering to one another seemed to perk up at this. A few others (girls) squealed excitedly.

"I hope I'm in Taro's group!" one whispered loudly.

"Heh, he didn't even graduate," someone teased. "I bet none of them did."

"Yeah? Well, he's WAY cooler than you'll ever be!" a girl shot back.

"Not as cool as Sasuke-sama! He's sooo amazing!"

"Uh huh!" another girl added,"I hope he becomes my squad leader!"

"Ew! That guy? What's so great about him?"

Naruto pretended to ignore them as he continued his speech - louder this time.

"We want each squad to have a balance of strengths and abilities - so that's how we set them up. So I'm gonna announce the squads now-"

The door swung open and in walked -

"Sasuke-sama!" someone shouted. Immediately receiving glares from neighboring students. Because the stupid girl had decided it would be a good idea to break their sensitive ear drums.

"Hey," he murmured almost mutely - though his eyes were on Naruto. The raven closed the door silently and strolled up to the blonde. Naruto's azure eyes burned a hole through the book in Sasuke's hand. What the hell was he doing here? And with that book...? Didn't he have that yesterday?

"Dobe," Sasuke stood in front on his old teammate and snatched the squad assignment paper out of his hand. "We need to talk."

Naruto snatched the paper back - glaring evilly at the bastard. "No. We don't. Where's Kakashi?" He wasn't going to tolerate the bastard if he didn't have to.

"That's not important - and Yes," Sasuke breathed - inching his face closer to Naruto's. "I think we do."

Naruto held his breath - suddenly very aware of their proximity. Sasuke was practically hovering over him - making Naruto lean against his desk to keep some distance. He could see his own reflection in Sasuke's dark pupils - he was so close. What he fuck was he doing? Didn't he notice the classroom full of students when he walked in? Not like Naruto was complaining - but they weren't 'spose to be this close in public! They were only suppose to do things like this in privacy. Well - in the past - they were - because that's how Sasuke had wanted it. But - thanks to Sasuke - those days were over.

"No," Naruto hissed - his anger over-riding any other emotions that were brewing in the pit of his stomach - at that moment, "We have nothing to say to each other."

"You're such an idiot," Naruto was startled out of his anger when Sasuke suddenly leaned forward - And rested his forehead on the blonde's shoulder. Sasuke's hand came up to cup behind Naruto's ear - his thin fingers running through the blonde tresses on the nape of Naruto's neck. And - in his daze - the paper immediately slipped out of the blonde's previously clenched fist. It swayed back and forth as it slowly dropped to the floor - going completely unnoticed to the blonde. "It's important, Naruto... It's about you."

And the bastard always could find a way to make Naruto feel guilty.

A familiar tap of plastic against tile brought Naruto back to reality. He pushed the raven away - faster than he ever thought possible - when he recognized that noise as the sound of a pencil hitting the floor. He picked up the paper and ignored the blazing skin across his face as he pointed to the door. If he had spared a glance at Sasuke - he would have noticed the bastard looked just as confused as he felt. But he didn't care to look at Sasuke - because he had a class to teach. And the bastard had come in an distracted him for - only Kami know's why! And shit! If Sasuke hadn't made it more than obvious that there was something going on between them...

...Then Naruto wasn't in love with the bastard.

"I'm in the middle of teaching - see you later," Naruto said - just in case his signal hadn't been obvious enough. He could hear one of the more popular of Sasuke's many guttural noises - before the door slammed shut. He could translate it - because Naruto just happened to know 'bastard-speak'. And that particular sound had definitely been the equivalent to 'Whatever - bye'.

Which is kind of ironic, because that was entirely how Naruto felt.

"Sasuke Uchiha?"

Sasuke sealed the book and stuffed it in his vest - right before he aimed a glare toward the masked figure to his right. He then pushed off the wall and proceeded to walk away from the noisy ANBU. Wasn't it fucking obvious that he was Sasuke-fucking-Uchiha?

"Hokage-sama wishes to see you."

"What?" Sasuke grit out. He really didn't have the patience for this. What the fuck did she want now? He was busy.

"At once," the masked ANBU member enunciated. He said nothing more - before he vanished.

Sasuke cursed under his breath as he headed toward the Hokage tower.