Thank you to everyone who reviewed!!! I really hope you'll all continue to review even though I'm not responding to you each individually (I feel really bad about not doing that for the last couple of chapters...). Maybe I'll have time at the end of this chapter to respond to you all :) thanks!

Warnings: Hopefully you know them by now...

Disclaimer: Yes, yes. I do not own Naruto, but the butler is mine x3... (And so is some of the character modeling in this chapter... heh heh)

Parings: Like every other chapter... and hopefully you've read every other chapter .

Recap:

"Please Sasuke! We won't have to stay long. I-I want you to meet her..." Naruto's gaze shifted downwards.

Sasuke's heart melted at the site, and even though he wouldn't admit, he felt himself hit bottom. He would do anything to see Naruto smile...

"Of course we can," Sasuke said with a soft smile.

Naruto's gaze lifted to meet Sasuke's and his eyes were ten times brighter. A new happiness came to him. And Sasuke was dead jealous.

Good Night My Knight!

Chapter 8: Enter the Gardener: Shikamaru! And Sasuke meets...!

Naruto anticipated the next day with all his heart. He could finally see her again. It hadn't been long since he was away from the forest. But truthfully, before he'd come to the palace he actually hadn't seen her in... three weeks was it...?

He missed her badly.

Sasuke had seen the loneliness that filled Naruto's eyes while he'd been talking about this mysterious person from Naruto's past, and Sasuke became curious... but also extremely jealous.

xoxoxox

Naruto was out walking around in the gardens again. After getting a tour of the old castle, it was much easier for him to find things to do and not have a fear of getting lost. He was lying on a stone bench under a giant oak tree when he heard some sort of muttering coming from the other side of the bush next to him. He strained his ears to hear words instead of grunts.

"Stupid... bothersome... Itachi... bastard..." Was all Naruto caught of the mutterings.

Naruto stood up from his place on the bench and used it as a step stool kind of thing to look over the giant bush. He caught a glimpse of a boy maybe one year younger than himself. The boy had brown hair and lazy looking eyes. He wore and tan-green outfit and was carrying a bucket filled with garden type supplies. He kneeled next to a rose bush and pulled on a pair of working gloves. He let out a long, dragging, lazy sigh and looked up to the clouds above him. Naruto was about to get down to go ask him what he was supposed to be doing when the boy caught sight of him.

There was an awkward silence. Naruto was thinking he'd been caught, but doing what he didn't know.

"Uh... Yo." Naruto said in a bit of a nervous tone trying to break the silence.

"Hn." The boy looked at Naruto closely, "You must be that new guy, ugh... how bothersome."

"Wh-What! What do you mean by 'bothersome'!?"

"Tch, like it matters. I have... work to do." The boy seemed to have trouble saying the word 'work'.

"Ne! You could at least tell me your name!" Naruto said with a huff as he got down from the bench and ran around the hedge to face the boy face to face.

"Shikamaru."

"My name's Naruto!"

"Hn. Nice to meet you, I suppose."

"Heh." Naruto gave him a grin before looking up to the sun that was just about to set on the horizon.

"Isn't it a little, late to be trimming rose bushes?"

"Yes. It's very late... but Itachi yelled at me for not doing my share in work... I'm always slow with things like this. I don't enjoy doing work like this..."

"Then why do you have to work now?"

"Because he told me to get it done by tonight or he'd fire me..."

"So just get a different job."

"I can't. This is the best job I can get and we need the money."

"Oh..." Naruto looked back up to the sun again, "Well Shikamaru... It was nice meeting you but Sasuke told me not to be late for dinner so I've gotta go. I'll see you around sometime!"

Naruto waved as he started to jog towards the castle. Shikamaru gave a slight wave back as a thought ran through his head.

'Annoying... kind of...' 1

xoxoxox

Naruto was basically skipping back into the castle while he allowed his thoughts to wander to tomorrow. He was so hyper infact, that he almost crashed into the owner of black hair coming the opposite direction.

"Watch where you're going, dobe."

"Sasuke!" Naruto said, slightly startled from not seeing the ebony haired boy, "Don't call me dobe, bastard!"

"Don't call me bastard, dobe."

"Grrr..."

"Come on, dobe... you don't want to miss dinner. Or do you?"

Naruto snapped out of his glare, "No!"

"Then you better hurry up." 2

xoxoxox

Sasuke awoke the next day to find that he was laying on something very warm... and it moved slightly too...

Naruto.

Sasuke opened his eyes to see that his head was on Naruto's chest and the dull th-thud th-thud th-thud of Naruto's heart could be heard beating inside. Sasuke closed his eyes and listened to the addictive rhythm for a while before remembering what he'd promised for that day. He told Naruto he'd take him to the forest. And so he should.

Sasuke gently began to move. He lifted his arm from Naruto's stomach and tugged his leg free of Naruto's. After successfully getting up out of the bed, he stood up and stretched. He took a quick shower 3 and got dressed into dark pants and a dark blue top. He looked for his outing cape before remembering it was downstairs by the door. He was about to go out to wake Naruto when he heard a deep yawn from behind him. Sasuke turned to see Naruto sitting up in the bed, stretching and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"G'mornin' Sasuke..." Naruto said sleepily.

"Good morning." Sasuke walked over to wear he'd laid out an outfit for Naruto and picking it up, he threw it at Naruto's head, "Hurry. The sooner you're ready the sooner we can leave to see your friend."

Naruto's face lit up and he quickly jumped up and went to change. They set off to the forest as soon as Sasuke told Itachi they were leaving.

xoxoxox

They walked through the town and down to an old river. The river was maybe ten feet wide and only two feet deep in most areas. The trees were tall and a luscious green. The grass was soft under their feet. Naruto had told Sasuke that it wouldn't take more than twenty minutes to get to where they would find her. And he was right.

It had been fifteen minutes of walking when they came upon a giant lake. It was near the waterfall 3. Naruto's face broke out into a huge grin.

"We're here." He said stopping to admire the beautiful water and the heart soothing sound of the waterfall crashing upon the rocks.

"It's beautiful here..." Sasuke commented.

"Yeah..." Naruto's voice was soft.

He had truly missed the forest. Sasuke almost felt bad for making him leave it.

Naruto's face scanned down around the rocks at the base of the waterfall and soon he saw what he was looking for.

"Come on, Sasuke! There she is!" Naruto said grabbing Sasuke's wrist.

"Huh? Where?" Sasuke tried to look down to where Naruto had pointed but couldn't look away from where he was walking for fear of slipping on one of the rocks.

They reached the bottom quickly and Naruto began tugging fervently on Sasuke sleeve.

"See her! Look!" Naruto said pointing again towards the bottom of the waterfall.

Sasuke looked up quickly remembering why they were there. He saw something orange sitting by the waters edge. As they grew closer to the small thing he saw that it was a young fox. But it was different. It had nine tails.

"Kitsune!" Naruto called out.

The foxes ears perked up at the sound and its head quickly turned towards them. With a flick of the fox's tail a woman appeared in its place. The woman was maybe two years older than Sasuke and Naruto themselves. She quickly stood up from beside the water and ran towards Naruto. As the came together they embraced each other with a hug. The fox-girl had bright orange-red hair and yellow eyes. Her skin was a light olive color and she had a big toothy grin much like Naruto's. Her cheeks had the same strange whisker scars across them and she had long white nails.

Sasuke's jealously was ever present as he watched Naruto embrace the girl and nuzzle his face into her shoulder but he realized that she acted more like a mother to him than anything else. She suddenly looked over to him and kept the grin on her face as she looked at him. She tapped Naruto and pointed to Sasuke.

"Oh! Kitsune, this is Sasuke! Sasuke, this is Kitsune!"

The fox-girl, Kitsune, walked over to Sasuke and stuck out her hand.

"Its nice to meet you Sasuke-kun."

End Chapter Eight:

I know that was kinda a sucky place to end it but I'll make up for it later ok? :3 Please review! I'll love you forever!

Oh yes! And cookies to everyone who guess The Kyuubi!! Now if you'll excuse me... it's rather late. G'night.

Anukis

PS. Forgive me again for not being able to reply to my wonderful reviewers ;-; I truly am sorry... also I didn't proof read this so forgive the grammar errors and/or spelling mistakes, hopefully they're not too bad :).