~7 Deadly Sins~
Disclaimer: Kohaku and the woman are mine, that's it. :/
Rating: M
Pairings: NaruSasuNaru. Side Pairings: NejiNaru
Genre: Romance/Suspense/Drama
Warnings: Seme Naruto. Evil Kyuubi. Yaoi. Naruto may be a little OOC. He's going to get a tad dark-spirited. Cursing in this chapter.
Summary: Kyuubi sighed. "This is all your fault now, kit. For the next 7 days you will experience each one of the 7 deadly sins until you give into your true desire."
Edit: Bold is Kyuubi speaking. Italics are Naruto responding.
A/N: Trying not to make Neji crazy, haha.
Here we go!
Chapter Twelve: The Potion Part I
The potion sat untouched in the deepest of Neji's pockets, he had become so paranoid that he might lose it and someone would find it that he was compulsively touching it every second. He had trailed behind everyone from a good distance, including Naruto. The blonde himself had been very quiet, and his usual sparkling eyes were dulled down to a cloudy sky blue, but that might be because it was him accompanying on the trip, and not his cousin.
It also could be of the sneaky child who kept whispering to his other teammates' while pointing and laughing at the blonde behind his back. Neji had once tried to interfere but the children gave him such a look that he had to consider what had Naruto done to make them so angry and furious at him.
Of course he couldn't go and ask Naruto himself, the boy wouldn't speak.
This had put Neji's plan into a hiatus mode, because if Naruto wasn't being, well, Naruto then it would place Neji out-of-the-ordinary if he tried to get close to the blond. He would definitely notice the personality-change. And the potion itself worked differently from what you might read in a romance novel. Even Neji was confused when he learned about the rules the potion camewith.
"I can't give him the potion? What do you mean; I can't give him the potion?" Neji inquired, sounding gruff and anxious, wanting to be anywhere besides in a grungy dungeon asking a hag about a liquid.
The woman only snorted in return, looking over her dirty long fingers in fake nonchalant. "I mean, you can't just pour it into his drink and then give it to him, my magic doesn't work that way."
Neji gripped the bars of the cell tightly in frustration. "Then how does it work?"
"Well," the woman started, smirking softly in the dim light, "First off, if you want the potion to work, you have to give it to him directly by mouth. That means, you have to take some of the potion into your own mouth, and then kiss him, transferring the liquid into his mouth, this way, the potion will work only between the two of you, and no one else."
"That's ridiculous." Neji deadpanned, glaring hard at the old woman for coming up with the ridiculous pattern just to give Naruto a simple potion, now he had to kiss him to do it. The more the woman explained, the less appealing this entire ordeal was becoming.
The woman shrugged, not really bothering to help him understand, she continued talking. "I'm pretty adventurous, can't make all my magic so easy to use or it'd be stolen to often by fools." With this she started cackling loudly, alerting Neji's senses and speeding up his heartbeat.
If someone heard her, he might be discovered here, so he scowled and gave her a stern quiet sign, eyes threatened bodily injury if she continued to make noise, so she rolled her eyes but it silenced her laughter. He spoke up again. "So all I have to do is drink it and then kiss him?"
The woman frowned. "No. Doing that might just kill you."
"Kill me?" Neji echoed slowly being confused by goose-chase he was being led upon to understand just how this woman works.
"Yes, the potion contains some….chemicals that could be dangerous if ingested. So, you take a sip and coat your mouth with it, then spit out the excess. Then you have 30 minutes to kiss him or the potion will go bad. If that happens, just spit it out and start again." She explained cautiously, speaking slowly to mock him.
Neji stared blankly at her until she sighed and gave him a frustrated look. "What? You still don't get it?"
He shook his head. "No, I get it; the whole 'going bad' part is alittle disturbing though."
She giggled at this. "Well, toad's blood isn't the tastiest in the world." When she saw Neji pale in disgust she laughed harder.
"Just treat it like mouthwash, okay? That way you won't die." She said smugly, waving him away as if the conversation was long over. He paused to look at her once over before disappearing away from the dark cell.
Ever since then, Neji was on edge to remember not to swallow anything in his mouth, and it made him kind of wary since he wasn't used to so much liquid being in his mouth at one time without swallowing. He had already convinced himself that it was going to be worth it, but it still bothered a bit of his conscious that he would be going against his cousin's wishes to steal her only love, even if he was in love with him too.
Will that blond ever stop causing him and Hinata so much emotional distress?
"Did you hear me Neji? Neji?" Naruto waved a hand in front of Neji's face with an innocent stare in his eyes. Neji shook his head, trying his best to give Naruto what he thought was a soft smile. "Yeah, we did we stop?"
Naruto motioned around them. "Village is close by, so we can find an inn to sleep in instead of being forced to stay outside. Is that okay?"
Neji nodded, looking around for himself. The sun was already setting, casting an orange glow over the trees and shining over Naruto's tan skin. Neji sighed mentally. Maybe they could share a room and he wouldn't have to carry around a cup full of saliva anymore.
"Yeah, let's hurry." He nodded, starting up the walk again. Kohaku snickered softly to himself, casting Neji a mischievous look.
"Great, 'cuz boy am I starvi-" the series of kunai and shuriken deployed off into Naruto's direction, leaving the boy stuck to the ground in surprise. Neji acted quickly and stepped in front of him, deflecting the weapons with his own, and then activated his byakugan to look for possible enemies, ignoring the loud laughter of the children, but noticing the tight grip Naruto had on his shoulder.
When he found nothing, he deactivated and relaxed, glaring at the genin in anger of an explanation. "What's the meaning of this?"
Kohaku was the first to talk, clicking his teeth in aggravation. "It would've worked if you weren't in the way, baka!"
Neji widened his eyes and turned to Naruto who looked surprisingly guilty.
"You were aiming to attack Naruto with dangerous weapons?"
Kohaku nodded, pointing at the blond angrily. "Yeah, and it would've worked, so next time, just stay out!"
Neji shook his head. Now wasn't the time for a good explanation. He looked sternly at the three children. "No more games or I can promise you that someone might not make it through this trip completely unharmed." He flashed his kunai at them in warning. They stiffened and glared, but seemed to get the message as the turned their backs on the two and started heading towards the village gates.
Neji turned to Naruto. "Are you okay?" Naruto nodded.
"Thank you, I shouldn't frozen up like that, it was dumb." Naruto looked down forlornly; Neji sighed and patted his head.
"Come on, we'll talk about this later okay, just go catch up."
Naruto nodded and ran ahead. Neji began to jog up too, until he remembered about the potion still in his mouth, or rather, tasted it.
Throwing up on the side of a dirt path wasn't his proudest of moments.
Luck did turn back to Neji's side when he chose to sleep in the same room as Naruto. Granted, he was nervous when he learned it meant keeping all 3 mischievous brats in one room without supervision, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
Until he realized that after Naruto showered he wouldn't speak to anyone, not even when Neji tried to start a conversation. He figured it was because of the incident with the kids, but when he brought it up, Naruto flinched and didn't want to talk about it. So, after another bout of toad's blood puking, Neji relented to go to bed, the potion bottle safely under his pillow along with standard kunai and shuriken.
Sleep was beginning to claim Neji's conscious when Naruto spoke up, quietly, that it took Neji a few moments to process what he said, and then respond to it.
"I did the wrong thing," Naruto whispered, without moving, he laid on his side, facing the wall.
Neji stopped for a moment, turning on his side to get a look at Naruto, meeting his back. "What do you mean?"
"That child is right to be mad at me, I-I did something terrible…" Hiccups and sniffles ensued and Neji shot upright in the bed, moved so that he hovered over the tiny boy, scared the boy had broken down. He wasn't good with crying people, especially someone like Naruto. "What…what did you do?" Neji's eyes furrowed, this time Naruto turned over to face him, watery blue eyes racking his heart.
"I stole from his mother. I stole a sapphire, their sapphire. His sapphire. That was their life-saving money…and I almost took it all away from them."
He didn't immediately respond, because he had no idea what the blonde was talking about, but also because he wasn't sure of the right thing to say to him, who looked so sad and in pain that he was getting more and more concerned for him. If Neji waited any longer to respond, he was almost certain his body would only try to envelop and hold the tinier boy until the tears were gone from his eyes. He sighed and blinked his pale eyes before speaking. "You know, however bad this may sound, I'm sure you didn't mean it right?"
Naruto nodded, sniffling and wiping his nose gently, making Neji's insides tingle and crawl with the urge to touch the blonde, but he forced himself away from the idea but opted to continue hovering over him on the bed.
"And if whatever you took was already returned, I think they'll have to forgive you sometime."
Naruto shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes again. "No! You saw him! You saw them. They hate me for what I did. How can I call myself a ninja when I steal on the job?" Neji was finding it more and more difficult to console the blonde. He was running out of safe words to use.
"Just because you made a mistake doesn't mean you aren't a ninja. You are a ninja, because of how you carry yourself and others, and it will be no different with those children, and they will see who you are. But remember that they, well, he, is still a child, so you have to show him who Naruto Uzumaki is." Neji breathed evenly, his mouthful leaving Naruto speechless for a moment, but effectively dissipating the returning tears.
Eventually, Naruto nodded his head slowly in a gentle agreement. "Yeah…I guess."
Neji allowed himself a small victorious smile. "Good."
Silence fell between them and Neji found himself lost for a while staring into Naruto's puffy eyelids to beautiful blue stones, and he wondered for a moment if the gem he talked about looked anywhere near as bright as his eyes were.
"Hm, Neji?" Naruto fidgeted, shaking Neji out of his stupor.
"Yes?"
"I'm...I'm really glad I chose you to come with me, I don't know if I could've gone through it without you being here."
And Neji swore he felt his heart beat quickly at the pink dust that settled across Naruto's shy face. He simply nodded and let his eyes drift down to the exposed and very luscious, inviting looking lips that were parting slowly with his breathes. Naruto was aware of where Neji was paying attention to and blushed darker at the notion of Neji actually kissing him…well…it wasn't such a repulsive thought, but it did bring unsettling to his stomach, enough so that Naruto faked a cough to get the Hyuuga's attention.
Neji nodded once more and then climbed away from Naruto to his side of the bed, heart racing for all its worth, and he cursed himself for not having the potion on him then, because it would have been the perfect time for him to claim those lips.
Naruto smiled.
"Goodnight Neji."
"…Goodnight Naruto."
I know this is really tiny but originally this was a 4,000+ word chapter, I thought it would be better for me to split it up, into two, maybe three. But I needed to update.
SO! Questions, Suggestions, or just tell me if you loved/hated it,
Review for me!