Title: Orchestral Infatuation

Authoress: Ira Vehementi

Warnings: eventual yaoi (I'm sorry, it might take me a couple chapters to get to the yaoiness you all love and cherish), OC who does not hook up with any of the series characters but shows her face from time to time, AU, and some OOCness that I'm apologizing for in advance. And language.

A/N: This chapter makes me sort of mad, because it could've been SO much better, but it isn't. But yeah, I have no creative juice, and my next vacation from coding is in... uh... four weeks. And I'm not really into waiting four more weeks to replenish my creative juice, so I was like, "eh, what the hell, why not." And this came out! ergh! If it doesn't make sense, yes, I know it was badly written, and no, the next chapter won't be and retarded as this one. Hooray!

Thank you all very much for your reviews. They're super special awesome. And of course for favoriting this story or me (GO YOU!) or having story alerts or anything of that nature. : D

o0o

In Which Hiding Is The Only Solution

Naruto didn't know where he was. He could've known, but he was too busy thinking about what Kaida had said.

He knew Kaida wouldn't lie to him about serious matters. She wasn't a liar, not when things were grave. When push came to shove, she could be really truthful… completely trustworthy.

Then again, Kaida had never searched him out to tell him anything. Ever. She did know he stayed after on Tuesdays for the People Watching Club, didn't she? Kaida would never talk to him, Sakura, and Sasuke, then drag him off to talk, would she?

But she had. Could Naruto believe what she said?

How did she know about yesterday? How could she have known and even known how he went about thinking about what he'd seen— how?! Naruto had known that the dark haired girl was smart, but… it was baffling! Did she know him that well? Or was this all just for spite...just because Kaida didn't want him thinking they were friends or something...

Who was lying to him? Kaida or Iruka? Why would they lie to him? Didn't they like him? God, it burned, it burned so badly to be lied to. Not that it hadn't happened before...

Naruto plunked down on a bench and looked around. He'd never been to this part of the city before...even if it was his hometown, he didn't stray very far from the downtown area and home. Right now, he wasn't sure what area he was in, just that there were a lot of buildings and a lot of trees.

Iruka and Kakashi. Naruto rolled it over in his head. Wasn't Kakashi straight-- never mind Iruka-- Kakashi had to be straight... he read porn!

Uh, hello...gay porn... Naruto thought suddenly. Does Kakashi read gay porn? Then he punched himself in the leg. "I'm not even going to think about it!" he decided aloud.

"Think about what?" asked a very familiar voice. Naruto jumped a foot and whirled around.

"Neji!" He cried. The gray-eyed boy nodded slightly, but then curiously asked again:

"What don't you want to think about?" Neji set down his clarinet on the bench and sat down next to Naruto, who immediately sat up straighter. Something about the way Neji carried himself made Naruto think of an adult-- someone who had it all together all the time. He wondered if Neji had ever been childish. It was almost unimaginable... gray eyes pored over him, silent and awaiting an answer Naruto didn't have and couldn't give.

"It's uh... nothing." Naruto grinned. "So what are you doing here? Do you live here?"

Neji frowned. "I don't live here." He said. "Some distant relatives of mine live here." He eyed Naruto. "It's not the best part of town. What are you doing here?"

"Uh..." Naruto blinked. "I.. nothing."

Neji frowned deeper. "I don't believe that." He said coolly. "I don't believe you're here for nothing."

"What? Why not?" Naruto pouted.

Neji frowned. "You're not a good liar." He murmured.

"I'm not?"

"Not at all." Neji said. "You're awful at it." He frowned again. "So what's on your mind?"

"...You know Kiyohiko, right?"

"Kiyohiko? Yes."

"What do you think of her?"

Neji looked out into the park at some kids playing. "She's sort of..." He drifted off, looking slightly confused. "She's alright, I suppose." He said, finally. "She's tempermental and she can be edgy. But she knows what she's talking about, and she knows what she wants."

"Do you think she's truthful?"

"Yeah." Neji said. "I worked with her once last year. She's just as truthful as anyone else."

Naruto blinked. "Do you like her?"

Neji shrugged. "I don't know her that well. Why all the questions?"

"...Kaida told me something today. I don't know if I should believe it or not. She said... she said..." Naruto felt a little self-concious. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" Neji gave him a look, and Naruto sighed. "She said I was spoiled."

Neji just looked at him. "You came out here because of that?" He rose an eyebrow. "You're lying again."

"I'm not."

"There's something more, isn't there... something else Kaida told you that you're not comfortable with." Neji looked away. "You wouldn't come out here because of an insult. I think I know you well enough to say you're stronger than that."

"Stronger..." Naruto repeated softly. "Me?" He shuffled his feet.

Neji nodded. Naruto uncomfortably looked at his hands until Neji cleared his throat. "My cousin." He said, abruptly. "Not Hinata, but my distant cousin lives here." He paused. "His name is Haku."

"Haku?"

"Yes. You and Haku are similar. Not personality wise, but... in that you're both very secretive." Neji frowned. "So people have to know you very well to understand that something is wrong with you." Naruto stared at Neji, surprised. "Haku recently lost his eyesight." Neji offered suddenly. "And it occurred to me that I haven't seen him in a while. But..." Neji frowned. "He's very important to me. When I was younger, he made me feel... human."

"Human?" Naruto asked. "What does that mean?"

Neji shook his head. "I used to play my clarinet all the time. I'm from the branch family of the Hyuugas... we only have a set of jobs we're allowed to work in. Hinata... Hinata is part of the main branch. She's able to do a lot of things, and she chose music." Neji sighed, his hand running over his clarinet case. "I was young. I had to prove somehow, at the time, that I was better than Hinata was. Although I loved her very much, I wanted to prove that the branch family could be better than the main family. I played the clarinet everyday..." a pause.

"Then what?" Naruto prompted.

"Well, I became very proficient..." Neji said. "And I was somewhat proud of myself. But in that time I'd grown... stony. That's how Haku put it when we first met."

"Stony." Naruto murmured.

"I didn't like Haku very much. He isn't like Kaida at all, but they're sort of similar too... Blunt would be the best word. He doesn't care if you're uncomfortable with hearing things, he'll tell them to you..." Neji sighed. "He would tell me things I didn't want to hear. Like that no matter how hard I tried, I could never be a part of the main family. Like the fact that I'd become so unattached to people that it was a burden to talk to me sometimes." Neji sighed. "I hated him, when I was young."

"You don't hate him anymore?" Naruto asked.

"Well..." Neji sighed again. "It took some time to build up the courage to overcome it. But Haku has this male nurse Zabuza... He's not really a nurse. He's more like Haku's guardian." Neji hesitated. "He told me about Haku's real family, the one that had been killed. He's not a Hyuuga, really..." Another pause. "In any case, Zabuza was hired to watch over him. It was something that my mother's family argued about very much. Zabuza isn't very trustworthy, but for some strange reason, Haku trusted him. Zabuza was the one who told me that maybe Haku didn't have any other choice in how he acted. He said that Haku's world might have been destroyed the day his parents died... That his world was no longer a spectrum of colors, but just black and white. Things are what they seem to be."

"So... so Haku only... tells it like he sees it?" Naruto queried.

Neji nodded. "Exactly. Haku doesn't say things to be mean. He says them because he sees them and believes that they're true. And sometimes they are, and other times they're not. He's not a sage, but he's not dumb either." Neji looked at Naruto. "Kaida is something like that. She is capable of differenciating, but sometimes it's just easier for her to tell it like she sees it. With her own additive sarcasm, of course."

"But what does that mean? Is she right?" Naruto asked.

"You tell me. Do you think you're spoiled?"

"I'm not... I mean, I'm sort of spoiled... I...Well, I do run away a lot... but ... Iruka wouldn't lie to me, right?"

"He's human." Neji said, his eyes wandering off. "Humans are prone to lie."

"But Iruka is..." Naruto frowned. "But if he has lied to me all this time, why? Why did he lie to me all this time?"

"He's just like you." Neji said. "Scared."

"I'm not scared!"

"Then what are you doing here?" Naruto fell silent. "You're afraid that the truth won't be what you want to hear. You know he's lying. You put that together yourself." Neji looked back at him. "You knew all along that there was something going on. But it took you this long to come face to face with it, and now you don't want to take it by the horns and own it."

"But...But..."

"I understand that you want to believe that Iruka isn't lying to you." Neji said gently. "But you need to come to terms with the fact that everyone has their secrets, and there are always things that you will never tell someone... even if it means making someone you trust very much upset. You can't because you're afraid, and you're afraid because you think it'll change the way someone views you or destroy a friendship...Don't you have something like that, Naruto?"

Sasuke... Naruto thought, closing his eyes tightly. "I...I think so."

"If you think Iruka's secret hurts you, you shouldn't run away from it." Neji said. "You should go up to him and ask him why he'd deliberately hurt you. Because he must known that it would hurt you eventually... Don't you think?"

"I..." Naruto murmured. "I think Iruka... I think Iruka cheated." He blurted. "I think Iruka got me into Konoha. I don't think I got in on my own..."

"Why is that?" Neji prompted.

"Because Iruka's friends with Kakashi..." Naruto murmured, dropping his eyes to the ground. "Kaida said they were more than friends."

"But do you believe that?"

"I believe that there's something going on... but I don't know what. It's been happening for a while... and I just ignored it."

Neji nodded. "So." He said raising an eyebrow. "What are you doing now?"

"I'm... I'm not helping myself at all!" Naruto slammed his hand on his knee. "All I do is run away. But I don't want things to change, Neji, I really don't!"

"But they have changed already." Neji pointed out. "Before, you knew, but you turned a blind eye to Iruka's behavior. And now, now you're hearing things that you need clarified. If you run away from this, don't you think Iruka's going to continue lying to you? Don't you think you'll end up depressed?"

"I don't want anything to change." Naruto said sullenly.

"Unfortunately," Neji said, rising up off the bench and starting off towards some buildings, "Change has already begun."

It was very dark when Naruto got home. Iruka had left the lights on and Naruto could see him pacing in the living room. Spitefully, he thought, Serves you right. and then immediately thought, Why would you lie to me?

He looked down the road. Gaara's house was right down that way... he could easily turn and walk away. He could easily pretend nothing had happened. He could do that. It would be easy... just steps. Twenty steps, thirty steps, did the number matter at all if it meant he wouldn't have to deal with this situation?

Neji had said that Iruka must have known, as some point, that his secret would hurt Naruto. He said that Iruka was deliberately hurting him. But what would Neji know about Iruka? Nothing. He knew nothing. He just assumed, based on the information that Naruto had given him...

Naruto had assumed, based on the information given to him, that there was something wrong. He took one step forward.

It was high time he made that something right again.