AN: This just a little breakup chapter between arcs because the next one has a large time skip in it to move the story along a bit. Also I've started rewriting the first few chapters so expect the first chapter of the story to have been overhauled by the time this chapter is up.

Chapter Title: "Good"
Arc 5

"Sasuke."

"What?"

"You're really hard to talk to, y'know that?" I said earning a trademark 'hn' from my teammate. "I have a hard time trying to do anything social with you when you won't even open up with us all that much."

"What do you want to know then?" he turned to me the normal passively annoyed look gone and a somewhat more open expression where he had a raised eyebrow that basically asked me to shoot back with something.

"Alright well I wasn't expecting that… uh give me a moment..." damn, I actually hadn't expected this. "So… what's it like being a part of a clan? I know that's a loaded question that has a lot of connotations and all, but like, I've never experienced anything like that- Hinata is our closest example but her dad is stuck up and every time I see him and Neji I want to break their faces, so I don't get very far in the place."

There was a long pause as he seemed to think about it, something about the way he closed his eyes and took a long deep breath and stretched a little was… well he looked relaxed for once. I was happy knowing that even with a possibly strenuous question he was over all relaxed while hanging out with me in the yard, Mum was inside with my sister and dad was working.

"Well, think of it like having your entire family, from parents to thrice over distant cousins, aunts and uncles all around you living within the same neighborhood so you see them all everyday."

"Right I think I get it." I replied thinking about what he said as I looked down at my scared hands and forearms.

"Anything else? I'll let you off with one more question." Sasuke's voice came out fairly casual for him at least.

"One more huh? Sounds like a decent deal before we have to get back to training.'' We had taken a break from Sensei's chakra nature training that we had a month left of before the Chuunin Exam. "would you let me get away with asking my final question later? Or is it a now thing?" I asked in case I came up with something in a few days that I wanted answered.

"No." his answer was firm and immediate. "You asked me to open up now, so I'll answer now unless you can beat me in our next spar." he said smugly adding on to it.

"Right… you're on." I thought about it for a few more minutes but was interrupted when Mum came out into the yard where we were sitting on the veranda.

"Oh? Don't stop on my account you two." she said sitting on the leather couch behind us with a cup of coffee and a book.

"Uh… what were we talking about again?" I looked at my teammate with my brow raised and he just gave me a look that radiated 'are you serious right now' and I was in fact serious, I forgot what we were talking about. Seeing mum threw me off some, for whatever reason.

Rolling his eyes he ignored my question and laid back casting his gaze to the sky and I heard mum stifle a small laugh presumably at my expense.

Time passed and we just sat quietly enjoying the time off, I had suggested it to him while Sensei took up focusing on Hinata's training letting us do our own thing. So much of our time was spent just going all out on one another in spars or all gas no brakes on our chakra nature training, again this was our down time or whatever so it was nice to actually take a break even if Sasuke had been against it at first. As per usual he had wanted to run himself into the ground like he had at the beginning of our training where he kept being sent to the hospital for it all, though I suppose I wasn't any better a lot of the time seeing as I do the same with my aunts training.

Eventually I figured out what we had been talking about and started thinking about my final question for my teammate, there was something that I was curious about.

"Sasuke."

"What?"

"How do you keep motivating yourself for what you're aiming for? Like do you ever sit there and think 'why the fuck am I really doing this?' or do you ever wake up and sit there for an extra half hour asking yourself how far you have left to go?" I've had some trouble motivating myself on a normal day, so I was curious as to how he dealt with that sort of thing. I know I;m probably more throttled by these sorts of thoughts- but I wanted to hear about what it's like for him.

Mum seemed to put her book down for a moment to listen in on what her boys had to say, she always said that she loved Sasuke as her second son and enjoyed treating just like she does me and 'Tsuki.

"That's..."

"Hard to answer? Or did you think I'd ask about something else?" I asked as his voice trailed off and he seemed to think about it.

"Yeah, I have those days." he basically whispered, clearing his throat he looked to the clouds in the sky. "If I'm honest, I measure myself against you and Sensei." Sasuke paused for a second collecting his thoughts. "Sometimes I feel like even Hinata has had more growth than me, not to make her out to be weak, but because her style doesn't really let up for much improvement from just learning it and mastering it."

"I-" Sasuke was cut off by Mum speaking.

"You boys are always so caught up in getting stronger that you don't see how strong you already are." Her words sounded somber. "You're far too caught up in what's going on years from now instead of what's happening now."

"..." Our resident Uchiha was quiet as he thought about what Mum said.

She stepped down to where we were and picked us both up into her arms and she hugged us."Just take some time off for a bit and watch the world go by a bit every now and again, alright?" both of us agreed to what she said.

"Thats what the flowers are for after all, so go and get Hinata and take some time off to get rid of all this tension in your bodies." Kaede stated after letting us go and being very clear that time off was now mandatory.

[Mandatory relaxation]

We were now a few hours down the line, we had arrived at the training ground maybe twenty minutes after Kaede seeing to our conversation about motivation, but the problem came from the fact that Sensei and Hinata were sparring at a speed that made the mock spars we did normally look tame by comparison. Though it reminded me of the time I watched Uncle Toyohisa spar with Ume and they- well they were forced to stop because if it had continued they would have blown up the neighbourhood.

Back to why our teacher and dear princess had taken so long, the answer is actually kind of boring. I said something when we entered the clearing and Sensei took his attention off of her ending with her knocking him out with the thirty-two palms when she hit his chakra points. So then Hinata freaked out about it as she realized we had shown up as well, we dragged Asuma off to the hospital and I dumped him at the front desk and just said that there was a training accident before walking off to do this team bonding mandatory fun Mum wanted us to do.