Notes to you: I must say, this is going well. I enjoy writing this every time.

Chapter 11

There was a loud knock on the door. "Naruto, are you there?" a feminine voice could be heard from the other side.

Naruto got up from bed to answer the door. Still clad in a T-shirt and boxers he undid the latch and opened it. The sun hit his eyes and he strained to see. "Hello?" His voice was groggy.

"Oh…" said Hinata standing just outside the doorway. "I was just wanting to see if… I mean Naruto… I don't want to impose… but…" She was lost for words, which Naruto didn't find unusual at all, given that Hinata had always been that way.

"Hinata, good! Look I just want to apologize."

Hinata looked startled. "That's not necessary!" Her voice trembled, and she tried to look anywhere she could but at Naruto. "I have to go."

"But you just got here, what did you want to say?" Naruto's eyes were still adjusting to the light.

"I have to go!" She yelled running off with tears in her eyes.

Naruto raised his shoulders in confusion and closed the door. The clock said 7:17, still too early to wake up on a day off, so Naruto decided to get back into bed.

"Who was it?" the other Naruto asked from the bed, just as groggy.

"Hinata."

"Well what did she want?"

"I don't know? She just ran off." he said standing over the other Naruto in the bed.

"Well come back over here Sakura clone. I'm not done sleeping yet."

"Me either." The sleepy clone climbed back into bed and they fell back asleep.

At Sakura's house:

An hour later, Sakura got up and got ready for her day. She got in the shower, and thought over the fight she had with Naruto the night before. "He had to be talking to the Kyubii. That's the only thing that makes sense." She let her thoughts linger on this awhile until she realized that she was ready to forgive him. "I mean he's stupid, but I really doubt he's that stupid…" She paused in her thinking, her head underneath the how water. "Please don't be that stupid Naruto-kun…" She got out of the shower, dressed herself, and started to leave her house.

"Are you leaving Sakura?" her mother asked.

"Yes Mom." She got her keys and other affects.

"Where are you going?" her mother was in the middle of cooking breakfast.

Sakura didn't want to be asked that question, as a result her response was hesitant. "I'm going to see Naruto… I'm going to try and get that whole thing last night sorted out."

Her mother stopped what she was doing for a moment and leaned around the corner from the kitchen to speak with her daughter. "Sakura, just remember, Naruto's a person… We all make mistakes."

"Thanks mom." Sakura opened the front door.

"Wait! Do you want something to eat first Sakura?"

"No I'm just going to get something fast on the way. Bye!" Sakura closed the door quickly to try and avoid her mother dragging her into a conversation.

"Oh. Ok! Bye Dear." she could hear coming from the other side of the door, as she walked away.

Sakura made her way down the street towards Naruto's apartment. "What if he wasn't talking to the Kyubii?" She asked herself.

"You think about him a lot." Inner Sakura interrupted.

"Well yeah I mean… I think… I love him." She said back.

"Let me clear things up for you girl. You do love him!" Her inner self folded her arms and started to laugh hysterically.

"Well! I mean!" Sakura was getting flush in the face just having her inner monologue. "I don't really know for sure!"

"Oh yeah? Is that so…? You thought about him last night the whole walk home. Then the whole rest of the night while you were trying to sleep. Then you had the dream about him… You know the kind of sexy one." Her inner self was grinning like an idiot.

"That was just a dream! It doesn't mean that-"

Inner Sakura cut her off however. "Yeah yeah, just a dream. But then you started to think about him when you first woke up… Do you get the point yet? He hasn't left your thoughts since you saw him last. That's not something you do for someone you don't care about."

"We WERE in a fight last night it's natural for me to dwell a little!"

"Yeah until you come to a plan of action… But you're worried that this isn't going to work out. You're afraid that you might lose him." Her inner self winked at her. "Because you love him!"

Sakura couldn't take it anymore. "Your right! Ok fine I love him… Jeeze!" Her thoughts finally gave her a bit of rest. "I love him…" She repeated to herself. "I love Naruto… Oh gosh that doesn't sound right!"

"Glad you finally noticed! It's good because I love him too you know. I liked him a lot longer than you though."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, remember when you got assigned to team seven? And Naruto was placed on your team? When he pulled that stupid prank, where he set up the chalkboard eraser to hit Kakashi's head?"

"Oh my gosh!" Sakura laughed to herself. "Yes I remember that. I still can't believe that it actually worked!"

"I liked him from that very moment."

Sakura pondered upon this briefly. "You mean a part of me liked him since then?" Sakura realized that she was in for the long haul at that moment. She liked him since they were kids, even if she didn't act like it, she knew that she loved him, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that he loved her. These facts finally put Sakura's heart at ease. "We'll get through this. We can get through anything."

"Damn straight! Now go get him girl!... Um, but first, donuts."

Sakura's mouth started to water immediately. "Yes donuts." The tone of her voice was creepy when she turned her gaze to the nearby shop.

At Naruto's apartment:

Naruto drug himself from bed. He couldn't get back to sleep after Hinata had came by and woke him up. He released the clone and sat up on the edge of the bed. "That didn't work as well as I had hoped…" he was still groggy from a night of uneasy sleep, and the memories from the clone came to him, which only made the stress of it all even worse. "Ok that's new… Now I know what it's like to be afraid that I am going to fondle myself all night long…" he covered his eyes and fell backwards. "Ok, I guess I won't be doing that again…" he lay there, hands on face for near half a minute before continuing. "It's no match for the real thing… Oh well, I'll just have to settle for subpar sleep until Sakura's mom is ok with me sleeping over."

"Or you could just sneak into her house." the great fox broke into his thoughts. "You are a ninja after all."

Naruto uncovered his face excitedly. "Yeah! That could work! I just have to make sure that I am out there before anyone realized. If Sakura slept half as bad as I did last night, she would want that too! Thanks Fluff- I mean Kurama."

The nine tailed beast leered at him from his cage. "I'll let that slide… but only because you caught yourself."

"Right, sorry." Naruto got out of bed and turned on the lights. His memories and the clone's were mingled together from the haze of waking up. "I wonder what Hinata wanted… It's odd that she just ran off like that without saying something…" He couldn't put his finger on why, but knew something wasn't right.

The kyubii broke into laugher. "You seriously don't remember Kit?"

Naruto squinted as he put on his clothes. "You know something."

Kurama laughed even harder. "I'm not saying a word! This is too good."

"Oh come on, I thought you agreed to help me!"

"Yeah I did, but there isn't much any advice I can give you will do about this. I'm just going to sit back and watch. I'll help out if I can, but I don't think I'll be able to."

Naruto couldn't figure out what was wrong no matter how hard he tried. He wracked his brain trying to think of what it was but nothing came to him. "I guess I'll just have to wait and see." He changed his train of thought. "I hope I can make things right with Sakura today."

At the donut shop:

Sakura had gotten an excessively large bag of donuts. She knew it was important to watch her figure, but that doesn't matter when a girl's got to 'get her food on.' She stuffed another one into her mouth, enjoying each bite, but something was irritating her. She could hear other people in the shop whispering around her, and that dreaded feeling of paranoia, the feeling that they are talking about you set in. She looked around the store at all the people, and when her eyes met with another person that was trying to keep their conversation private, they looked away a giggled.

"What is going on?" she asked herself with a mouth full of fresh pastry. She looked around the donut shop for answers, but none came. She went into the bathroom to see if there was something wrong with her clothing, a mismatched piece, or perhaps toilet paper clinging to her foot. But she only found that her outfit, made her look particularly cute that day, although this did nothing but increase her sense of self doubt. "Something is going on here…" She tried to ignore it as she left the store. Even outside though all of the kuunoichi her age were giving her strange stares. She continued walking down the street towards Naruto's apartment, trying to figure out what was going on, that is until she ran into someone she knew that was giving her the same look. "Hi Temari."

Temari tried to avoid eye contact as best she could. "Oh, hey Sakura. Good morning."

Sakura let the tension build between them by staring at her silently. "What's wrong? You look nervous."

Temari attempted to push off the comment. "Nothing, just a normal day. I've got a lot of training to do… you know?"

Sakura's gaze intensified. "Ok…" The pink haired girl waited for Temari to respond.

"Well I really have to get going Sakura, it was nice seeing you!"

"Temari wait!" Sakura stopped her as she tried to walk away. "Are you sure there is nothing that you want to tell me?"

"No… If anything happened… I would think you would be the one know best… Um, I'll see you later though right?"

"Sure, have a nice day…" Sakura was unhappy with her answer.

"You too Sakura." Temari turned around to walk away and scrunched her face. She didn't want to be the person to confront Sakura over what half the kuunoichi were talking about, the fact that Hinata saw that Naruto and Sakura had 'slept' together. And she tried her best to make a graceful exit, even though she failed miserably at trying to keep the secret a secret.

Sakura stood there, angry at the response she was given. She knew, that Temari knew what was going on, and was not pleased that even trusted friends wouldn't let her in. It was getting on her nerves that people were acting that way. She couldn't help but wonder what was going on while she continued to Naruto's place.

At Naruto's apartment:

Naruto sat there still impatient as the noodles in his instant ramen were too hot to eat. "Why does it always take so long to cool down?" He rolled his head back and shook it in eager anticipation. He grabbed his spoon and tried the hot soup again. It was the third time that the contents of this particular Styrofoam cup had burned his mouth. "Grr." He groaned in rage. "I just want NOODLES!"

"Naruto? Open up!" He could hear Sakura yell as she knocked on the door.

"Sakura's better than noodles anyway… even if she is still mad at me." He said to himself quietly and got up to answer the door.

When he opened it Sakura was standing there nervously with a half eaten bag of donuts in her hand. "Good morning Naruto-kun." She smiled and tried to play things calmly.

"Good morning Sakura…" He tried to keep things from going over the edge as well, but couldn't help but bring up the night before. "I thought that you would still be mad… over the whole thing last night."

"Well I did want to talk about that… can I come in?" She asked politely.

"Yeah, I'm just going to let you stand out there in the cold." Naruto said sarcastically. "No Sakura, you can come in anytime you want, you don't even have to ask."

Sakura let out an uneasy chuckle "Ha, thanks Naruto-kun." She was grateful to hear him say something that showed his affection.

They sat down at the kitchen table and Naruto tried his noodles yet again, and much to his disappointment they still burned his mouth. He sighed heavily. "Can nothing be easy today?"

"It's not all bad Naruto. In fact… I forgive you for what happened."

Naruto was stunned. "Wow! That was fast… I mean you… really?"

Sakura's head dipped a little to the side, but she looked him in the eyes. "You already said you were sorry. That, and I was thinking last night, and your comment didn't make any sense."

Naruto shifted his eyes back to the ramen in front of him. "Oh really… what do you mean?"

"Naruto-kun?" She asked kindly. "Were you speaking with the kyubii? I don't even know if you can do that, but it makes sense in the context."

Naruto was surprised for a second time. "You figured that out?"

"Well it wasn't easy… I don't think anyone else would have either… Let's just say I had a hunch." She didn't feel like going over the fact that she commonly spoke to her second mind, and that that is what lead to the assumption of Naruto's ability to speak with the nine tailed fox.

"Alright, yes I can talk to him. He's not quite the same creature that destroyed the village all those years ago either. He's actually… well he's still a jerk, but I don't think he's interested in murdering anyone anymore." The fox rolled his eyes at the comment.

"Wow, that's strange. I always just thought of him as the incarnate of evil."

"I can't say he wasn't at first…" Naruto didn't want to continue this line of conversation for the sake of keeping Kurama from screaming at him. "But yeah I don't think he's all bad now."

"Weird…" Sakura let things sink in for a second. "So what were you guys talking about last night then?"

Naruto's eyes shot open wide. "Oh that… Ha…" He was trying desperately to avoid telling Sakura that Tsunade had intentionally set them up to be together. "We were talking about… some book I read."

"Why were you thinking about a book while I was talking to you? Was I really that boring?" Sakura took offense at what he said.

"What?! No Sakura, you're always the most interesting and beautiful thing in my life… I just…" Sakura smiled lightly at his sweet comment, but her eyes wanted him to cut out the bullshit. "It was a really good book. Ok?"

Sakura rolled her tongue along her bottom teeth. "What book was it?"

"Icha Icha tactics?" was unfortunately the only book Naruto could think of.

Sakura sighed. "Make out paradise… Really? Naruto… I know that Jiraya's filth wasn't on your mind last night… And it really hurts when you lie to me… It makes me feel like you don't trust me enough to tell me what's going on in your life." Sakura's tone completely changed, and her words echoed how she truly felt. It was only made worse by the fact the Temari had just earlier done the same thing.

Naruto saw the saddened expression on Sakura's face and was disheartened by it. "I'm… I'm sorry Sakura. I kind of want to tell you what's going on… but I promised someone I wouldn't talk about it…"

Sakura pursed her lips. "That's a lot easier to accept then you lying to me. But it still doesn't make me comfortable knowing that you're keeping secrets from me."

Naruto looked at her, mad over the fact that he told Tsunade that he wouldn't talk about it. It ate him up inside seeing that he had hurt her, and the feeling kept growing until he decided he would not stand for it anymore. "You know what? Screw it! I care about you too much to keep stuff like this from you. Tsunade intentionally blinded me to get us to hook up! There I said it."

Sakura's expression completely changed when she heard the words. "That bitch!" She stood up and yelled, then immediately realized how Naruto felt last night.

"I know! Right!" Naruto got up and walked around the table to Sakura. "…Are we ok now?"

"That… Bitch…"Sakura had not yet broken her line of thought.

Naruto grabbed Sakura's hands. "Sakura… I'm really sorry I hurt you… I need to know we're ok."

Sakura smiled with compassion in her eyes. "Yes Naruto-kun… We're ok." She pulled him into hug that lasted quite a while.

"Good." Naruto said, and he pulled his head back to look at her. When their eyes met they could see the passion burning inside each other. They pressed their mouths together gently, and splayed their lips to meld them together. When they pulled back, each of them could see the other wanting more. They leaned in more invigorated this time. They sound of their breaths interrupted the frequent wet lapping, that they were both enjoying. It was wonderful, passionate, and tender, until Naruto's stomach growled from hunger pains.

They broke their faces apart laughing a little, but kept the hug. "You must be hungry."

Naruto giggled mildly. "Yeah, I've been trying to eat theses noodle for like five minutes."

"You want a donut instead?" She grabbed the bag and offered him one.

"Both actually sound SO good right now." Naruto took one of the pastries from Sakura, and grabbed his cup of noodles from the table. "Let's sit on the couch."

"Ok." She said more cheery than she had been all day. She got a mischievous look in her eye, as they walked over and sat down on the small love seat next to each other. "You better eat fast, because I want to make out more when you're done." She bit down on the tip of her thumbnail suggestively.

Naruto's jaw dropped, and he returned the same mischievous expression that she had given. "Alright I'll hurry up." He looked at the donut, then at the noodles, then back at the donut. He went to put the donut into the ramen.

"No don't do that! That's disgusting." She put her hand over her mouth and tried not to imagine the flavors combined.

Naruto looked at Sakura desperately. "I'm sorry Sakura… I have to… it's the fastest way!" She watched him eat the disgusting mix of noodles and pastry. "Oh gosh." He interrupted his own eating. "It's terrible." He had difficulty gulping it down, though I didn't take long to finish. However it was in no way an appealing sight. "Ok done!"

"I don't know… that kind of killed the mood."

Naruto was on the verge of being angry when he said "I did that for you!"

Sakura snorted as she laughed, and looked away for a second, then she brought her eyes back up to meet his. "Ok… You win." She grabbed his whiskers and pulled him in.