And we are back! This is chapter four; hope you're all enjoying what's happening so far and we hope to hear from you after this!

They're Drifting; I'm Staying

Naruto, I am becoming annoyed.

Not with you, that boy. The young male in your group is beginning to irritate me with his acts of kindness. I admit I am jealous of the whelp, he can do a lot of things I can't at the moment and that is what annoys me.

It makes me happy to know that he is unnerving you, you're becoming suspicious, but yet deep down I see you are flattered and maybe even proud. After all, you're promise is close to being complete.

Twenty days have gone by Naruto, and I have never felt as anxious as I do now. I will finally have my own body, and I will finally be able to see you with eyes of my own! I will not have to peak through your eyes to see your face in the mirror now.

But I now that my coming into the world will bring you pain and I do not want that to happen. You know this too as well, you can already feel your muscles straining when you should be fine.

... There is another reason to my annoyance... why, out of all the humans in this village, did that brat decide to linger? What does he hope to accomplish by staying with you, because he surely can't be expecting to be with you. He better not be expecting to stay with you.

I know you are feeling lost Naruto, and you think that everyone is flowing away from you, they're drifting further and further ahead. But you don't have to fight against the current to catch up to them Naruto, because if you just look behind you, I'm always there, staying at your pace.

I truly care for you Naruto, and I will always stay with you to give you strength. Stop worrying about them leaving, because... they're not, they are merely viewing the world at their own pace. When you're ready to venture out yourself, just remember I'll be there for you, when you fall behind I'm always that helpful voice to get you back on your feet.

So stop feeling so depressed, it's becoming contagious.

"...Worrying about them leaving... they're not... merely viewing the world at... own pace...... stop feeling so depressed... becoming contagious..."

Naruto opened his sleepy eyes in confusion. Was it just his imagination, or was that person speaking to him again?

He let out a loud yawn and raised his arms high above his head to pop the aches out of his back. "Naruto?" He paused with his normal routine of scratching his head and looked over across from him. Two black eyes stared-no-bored into him, causing him to shiver. Confusion was becoming prominent, though still he had to look for it to see it.

"Hmm?" He finally replied.

"It's late." The other whispered in an indifferent tone, "You should be sleeping."

Naruto let out noise from deep within his throat, sounding much like an annoyed feline, "You should be sleeping too. You look like you've been up longer than I have."

The other shrugged and turned his head away, as if silently saying 'what does it matter?'

"Sasuke..." Naruto started warningly, "You haven't slept at all, have you?"

Naruto smirked at the guilt and embarrassment filling Sasuke's face. But concern soon overrode his inward gloating party; his friend wasn't sleeping? Has this happened more than once, was he going to die!? He read somewhere that if a person refuses to sleep their body could just suddenly shut down, was this going to happen to Sasuke?

Naruto missed the flame behind the black eyes currently avoiding him. Sleeping? How could Sasuke sleep, when he had an art piece lying across from him?

"Sasuke..." Naruto said again, "Go to sleep, we don't need watch duty on a camping trip with five year-olds." And I don't want you to die from lack of sleep. He added silently.

Sasuke obediently laid down, not before giving Naruto an annoyed glare and slid the top of his sleeping bag over himself, concealing the small smile that had made it's way to his face. "Good night Sasuke." Naruto yawned, copying his actions.

"Good night... Naruto."

And here is the ending for chapter four! I would just like to take the moment to apologize for the long wait some of you had to suffer. Reasons were simple, I was away on a vacation with a friend of mine for a week (might I add it was a camping trip and it rained the WHOLE week), when we returned, I was feeling most certainly rotten, and spent at least two days fully engrossed in my original works. The last reason? FF.N would not let me upload!! Everytime I tried (I tried it five times uploading it in different document formates) it said I had an upload error, as you can see, it's fixed now.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and chapter five is on it's way soon!

Please review and leave your comments, as I previously mentioned, I love hearing them.