Fire: Me again! For returning readers, thank you for coming back for the second chapter of Wait for Me: Leaving. For new readers, I hope you enjoy my story. And to those who have sent reviews, I really appreciate it so keep them coming.

Sasuke: (surprised but trying not to show it) People actually read your story and reviewed...?

Fire: Yes... (turning back to the audience) Recently, I've been facing the dilemma of how often I should post. It seems as if most writers out there posts their stories about once a week or once every two weeks. Please send me an email, or a review–whichever one is easier for you–and let me know your opinion. I can post as frequently as once every day, but I'm trying to lean away from that although it is hard to wait the entire seven days before I can post the next chapter.

Sasuke: It's fine the way it is...

Fire: We're going to let the people decide! (turning back to the audience) Well, enough of my babbling. I forgot to write down the legend last time so here it is. I don't plan on writing it again for the next chapters.

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Legend:

regular text

"spoken text"

'thoughts'

flashbacks

Kyuubi's speech

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Chapter 2: Realization

Naruto couldn't believe his ears when he heard the news. With his mouth hanging slightly open, he could only stare at the slightly embarrassed expression on Sasuke's face. It took him a moment to compose himself and wipe the drool that had escaped from his open mouth. "Say that again?" He had to hear it again, just to make sure that his ears were working properly. He would give it the benefit of a doubt that he might have just been daydreaming a nightmare.

"Sasuke-kun and I are dating!" Sakura said happily with the same voice that she would have used to announce an engagement. She tightened her grip on the dark-haired boy's arm as she received the reactions of the people around her.

Naruto felt his heart freeze over. The world turned black and the spring–which was around him a moment before–shattered and crumbled to the ground in pieces. He had heard correctly the first time. He wasn't just hearing things.

"Masaka," Ino said as she looked from Sakura to Sasuke. She was very reluctant to believe any of this. Sasuke didn't look too happy about that arrangement. "You've got to be kidding me, forehead-girl!"

"Yeah," Chouji said as he munched on another handful of potato chips. "Sasuke hates your–!" His head shot forward as Neji slapped him from behind. That wasn't something that Sakura needed to know.

"W–we're...very h–ha–happy for you, S–Sakura-chan," Hinata said, her eyes lowered and her forefingers pushing against each other nervously as she spoke. A boyfriend was something she could never bring herself to think about...especially not a boy like Sasuke.

And during all these rounds of congratulations, Naruto was still frozen in his shattered world. He didn't know why, but his heart was bleeding. "I–" the blond stopped as he heard his voice crack. He took a deep swallow before speaking again, hoping that that was enough to clear his voice because he was certainly too nervous to loudly clear his throat. "I'm happy for you." He turned around and walked away before they could see the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

Naruto wiped furiously at his eyes, smearing them from his face. 'You promised yourself that you won't cry anymore, baka!' He scolded himself as he half-walked, half-stumbled toward his apartment. But, the gripping pain in his chest, and the freezing darkness that surrounded his heart were persistent masters that wouldn't allow him any action other than tears at the moment. "Naruto, you really are an idiot," he said to himself as he staggered against the cool wall of a supposedly friendly-looking building. At that moment, everything seemed to be against him, so he wasn't too sure if the building was friendly or not. He just slumped to the ground, the heels of his palms buried in his eye sockets.

The blond sat there, empty of everything. He didn't know how long he sat there, just that the sky darkened overhead and soon there were no lights out. He didn't know why he was sitting there, and he didn't understand the pain that had seeped into his chest. All he knew was that he didn't like it, and that he wanted it to go away.

Hey Kit! It's dark. Let's get home now. I have no intention of dying of a cold. That would certainly be embarrassing. The Kyuubi and his jinchuuriki...dead because of a cold. Kit! Hey Kit!

But, not even the cries of the Kyuubi could pull him out of his sorrow.

Sasuke watched as Naruto wandered away. He thought that the dobe was going to fall over from shock; he was staggering that much. The dark-haired chuunin didn't know why, but a pang of pain shot through him at the sight of the blond walking away from him so disappointedly. At that moment, he wanted to grab hold of the blond, to explain to Naruto that it wasn't true, that it didn't mean anything. He was only dating Sakura because he felt guilty for hurting her before. She wasn't really his girlfriend. It was only ONE date!

Everyone else could go to hell for all he cared. He just wanted Naruto to know the truth!

But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to run forward after the blond.

'Doushite? Why do I want to explain it to Naruto so badly?'

"Chikusho," he swore as he turned away from the crowd. He pushed Sakura aside as he walked away from the Rookie Nine and Gai's team that surrounded the 'new couple.' He felt so constricted inside. He felt so...suffocated. Why?

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura called out from behind, and he heard her, but he wasn't going to go back. He wasn't ready to face her yet. He needed to be alone. "Sasuke-kun!"

"Ha! Forehead-girl isn't even important enough for Sasuke-kun to acknowledge!" Ino giggled to the side but was interrupted by a smack from Sakura. Ino was one to talk; Sasuke ignored her too!

In fact, Sasuke was ignoring everyone at the moment. He wanted to be alone, alone with his thoughts. 'Or...with Naruto.' The thought surprised him for a moment before he brushed it off. He had wanted to be with Naruto lots of times before. This was no different. Naruto was his teammate. Naruto was his training partner. Naruto was his best friend.

He had to find Naruto.

But, his feet wouldn't listen to him. His feet took him home, and Sasuke found himself wandering around his home again, restless. He was an animal in a cage who couldn't seem to find a way out. He wanted to talk to Naruto, but the apprehension in his heart, the thoughts of doubt in his mind wouldn't allow him to seek Naruto out. And he didn't know why.

All this confused him. It confused him even more the next morning, and the morning after that, and soon, he just stopped seeing Naruto altogether.

He had always thought that it was impossible to avoid the blond completely, but after two months, he realized that he had actually managed it. They didn't have missions anymore because of the drought in missions, and Kakashi-sensei seemed to have gone missing altogether. It was supposed to be the chuunin's job to teach at the academy, but there was no shortage of teachers, so that was out of the question. Without Kakashi-sensei, Team Seven just slowly ceased to even get together anymore...not even to train.

But, Sasuke knew that he couldn't just keep avoiding the blond. He could do it for a month–or in this case, two months–but he knew that he couldn't do it forever. Konoha was only so big...and after those two months, they found each other again.

Sasuke was walking through a busy section of Konoha with Sakura at his side. Lately, he had found it impossible to go anywhere without finding the pink-haired kunoichi at his side–not because he wanted her with him, but because she found him wherever he went.

He was out buying food for the house. He had opened the fridge this morning to find it empty, bare of everything except for a lonely box of baking soda. So, he had thought to get some food to fill it up. What he hadn't expected was to see the blond-haired chuunin there as well.

His heart pounded erratically in his chest as he met the beautifully clear sapphire eyes of the blond-haired shinobi. 'Did I just think that his eyes are beautiful! Chikusho...what's wrong with me?' Sasuke had to look away immediately, one hand clutching his chest as the other smacked himself in the head. His body was out of control. He had no idea why he was acting like this. It was only Naruto!

"Sasuke?" Naruto had seen him! "Daijoubu?"

Sasuke slowly lifted his head up to look at the blond. It was such a long time since he last saw him. It felt like an eternity. He never realized how much he wanted to see him until then...to talk to him until then. 'Then, why can't I say anything to him now?'

The dark-haired chuunin's eyes were wide, making even his pitch-black eyes shine with light for a moment. "N–Naruto," he said slowly as he looked into the other boy's eyes. His mouth was too dry to say anything else.

"Naruto-kun, I haven't seen you in such a long time!" Sakura interrupted Sasuke before he could say anything further. "How have you been?"

And Sasuke couldn't help but glare at his 'girlfriend.' He didn't know why, but at that moment, he was filled with such animosity toward her that he almost stabbed her in the neck with a kunai. In fact, he had to use almost all of his willpower just to stop his hand before it could reach the little beige kunai pouch behind him, the pouch that he always carried with him, just in case he came across Itachi. He didn't want to run into his brother without at least a few weapons on hand.

"Funny...uh...meeting you here," Naruto said with a wide grin that hid his discomfort expertly. His voice was a little nervous as he raised a hand behind his head to scratch a spot that was suddenly itchy. "What...a coincidence." His voice was slow as he tried to figure out what to say, but then, it wasn't that hard to think of what to say. 'Say anything but the fact that you were following them,' his mind instructed. 'I wasn't following Sasuke! That's it. I wasn't following him at all!'

"What are you doing here, Naruto-kun?" Sakura's face was beaming as she asked the question.

'Poor unsuspecting girl,' Sasuke thought bitterly as he mentally shook his head at the girl's naive words. He knew why Naruto was here. Naruto was here because he was jealous of him. Naruto was here following Sakura. At least, that was what Sasuke thought. No matter what excuse the blond might make for being here, he couldn't possibly be shopping for real food in the open-air marketplace. Sasuke knew better. The blond chuunin didn't eat anything except for ramen.

"I...um...I was shopping for food. I thought that it would be nice to put some..." He looked around for the closest food item that he could find. That would best explain why he was in this part of the market, considering how the marketplace was enormous, and it really would be a huge coincidence to find all three of the members of Team Seven in the same small part of the marketplace at the same time without actually having planning to do it. "Squid!" He grabbed the nearest squid from the stand at his side.

Both Sakura and Sasuke visibly sweat dropped. 'Squid? In ramen?' They both thought the same thought as they looked at the incredibly conspicuous boy.

"Y–yeah, squid," the blond said as he turned to the seafood merchant. "How much is it?"

"About eighty thousand yen for that one," the man said as he looked at the incredibly large creature in Naruto's hands.

Naruto paled visibly at the price. "Ano...too pricey for me," he said as he carefully put the squid back.

"Guess you won't be able to eat squid with your ramen after all, Naruto-kun," Sakura said as she smiled at him. It wasn't a real smile. She was only putting one up so that she could ignore the thought that was forming in her head. She didn't really want to think that he might be following her around out of jealousy for Sasuke being her boyfriend. That was just creepy. 'Now, go away! Leave us alone...'

"Guess not," Naruto said as he smiled the big foxy smile that he was so well-known for.

"Well, let's find you something else to put in your ramen," Sasuke said, a rare sentence from the ever silent Uchiha. He didn't want Naruto to go yet.

'Sasuke! Why didn't you make him go away!' Sakura almost screamed when she heard Sasuke's comment, but she continued smiling and followed after them, careful not to lose them in the crowd.

"O–okay," Naruto said slowly although he was sure that he wouldn't be able to buy anything. He didn't want to tell them that he didn't even have his wallet on him. He wouldn't be able to keep up the charade that he was here to shop if he didn't even have his money on him.

Naruto really wanted to get away from them. He felt a little guilty for spying on them like this. And a very good shinobi he was...getting caught like this. Shinobi were supposed to be stealthy, and he had just failed thoroughly and miserably at that, even if Sasuke and Sakura were two of the most talented...two of the smartest shinobi in his graduating class.

But, he just couldn't bring himself to get away from them. They hadn't all been together for such a long time. Okay, he knew that it was only two months, but it felt like forever to him. At least Sasuke and Sakura had each other. He had nobody.

And he had really missed Sasuke...

"How about this, Naruto?" With a pleasant smile on his face, Sasuke pointed to a small slab of meat in a butcher's window. It looked to be pork.

Naruto smiled back at the dark-haired shinobi. It felt so natural to be shopping with him. It felt as if they have been doing this forever. "It looks good...Sasuke." It felt as if there were just the two of them here in this entire market, and for a moment, Naruto was content.

"Well, buy it then," Sakura interrupted, breaking the two boys out of their own little universe.

It was Naruto's turn to glare at Sakura this time, but unlike Sasuke, he didn't have enough time actually glaring at her to even think of hurting her. He was too surprised by the fact that he was even glaring at her. This was Sakura-chan he was glaring at, not Jiraiya, or Kakashi-sensei. This was Sakura-chan! What was he doing, glaring at her?

But, he knew what he was doing as soon as his eyes darted to Sasuke at Sakura's side.

'Damn it all,' he thought as he realized what was wrong with him. He had tried to ignore it...all those weird thoughts that had risen into his mind over the last two months, and even before that. But he felt his heart quicken and knew that he couldn't hide it from himself anymore. He was in love with Sasuke.

'Kuso! Kusokusokusokusokuso!' Sasuke thought as he saw Naruto looking at him with his wide blue eyes. 'Why does he have to be here? And looking at me with those eyes of his!' Sasuke thought he was going to have a heart attack. His heart hadn't slowed down once since they ran into Naruto. If he didn't slow it down soon, he was going to explode.

"Sasuke-kun, daijoubu?" Sakura looked at her boyfriend worriedly. He was just standing there, staring at Naruto with a beaten look on his face.

Sasuke snapped out of his trance immediately and turned to look at the pink-haired kunoichi. "Hn," he said as he turned and walked sharply away. If Naruto was going to shop, then he wasn't going to be here to watch it. It was that simple. He had his own things to buy, and there was no way that he was going to do it with both Naruto and Sakura there. That was just too complicated.

"Yarou," Naruto said passingly as he realized that Sasuke was just going to walk away...and after brutally ignoring Sakura-chan's question too.

At that, Sasuke turned back, his Sharingan flaring up brightly for a moment before vanishing at the sight of the blond's wide grin. That was what Naruto was hoping to do, and he had accomplished it. For just a moment, there was the familiar air that surrounded them all those years ago when they all first came together to form Team Seven.

"Dobe," he said before turning away again. He walked away before he could allow himself to think of anything more to say to the blond. That would only give him more of an excuse to stay around, and that would defeat the whole purpose of getting away from him in the first place.

Naruto walked home with a big bag of groceries in his arms. Sakura had paid for all of the food as an apology for Sasuke's behaviour, even though there really was no reason for it–Sasuke was usually mean to him anyway–but she insisted with such an apologetic look on her face that he couldn't really turn her down.

The blond dumped his bags on the table before beginning the chore of putting them away. He sighed deeply as he closed the fridge, shutting himself off from the newly bought food inside. He didn't like to think about it, but he seemed to really be thinking about Sasuke lately, and it was beginning to annoy him. It wasn't as if he never thought about Sasuke before. In fact, he used to think about the dark-haired boy a lot, but now, there seemed to be strange thoughts about him floating around his head.

"Baka na Sasuke...has to invade my thoughts," Naruto mumbled to himself as he sank into the living room to stare out the window. He had images of Sasuke floating through his mind, and they weren't the usual images of a broken and beaten Sasuke, and a triumphant Naruto. "Dammit all!" He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hand against his face. He had to try to shut it out!

"Naruto," a cheerful voice came from the open window near his head.

Naruto looked up to see an upside down Iruka-sensei climbing into his living room. "Iruka-sensei?" Naruto had half-expected to see Kakashi-sensei there, even if the grey-haired jounin has been missing for two months. Kakashi was the one who always climbed into his apartment like that. He never even knew that Iruka would climb into a building like that. He had always taken the brown-haired academy teacher for someone who would more likely walk through the front door. "What are you doing here?"

"I promised Kakashi that I would drop by to check up on you," the man said as he sat down at Naruto's side. The blond shifted over so that the brown-haired man could sit down. "Besides, I was wondering how you were doing as well. I haven't seen you around for almost two months."

Naruto sat up slightly before falling back onto the couch. He didn't know what to say. He had thought that no one would really care how he was. He had forgotten about Iruka in his two months of isolation. "Leave me alone," he said as he rolled over, turning his back on the man. He didn't really know why he had said that. Maybe it was because of all the thoughts of Sasuke that had clouded his mind lately, but he really did want to be left alone. "Onegai, Iruka-sensei, just leave me alone."

For a moment, Iruka looked at the boy who lay with his back toward him before rising from his seat. "Of course," he said, just a tiny bit depressed before heading back to the window. "I'll check up on you again later."

Naruto felt the man's chakra fade from the room before he allowed himself to sit up with another deep sigh. He was so... He didn't know what he was. There was just an emptiness within him, and he couldn't even find a mission to distract himself from it.

"Sasuke," he whispered to himself as he stared down at his empty hands. He couldn't be in love with the dark-haired chuunin. Not with Sasuke! It was too strange. It was surreal. "I'm not in love with him," he decided, sinking himself into comfortable denial. "He's just my best friend, that's all." His face contorted as he tried to think of an argument to back up what he had just said. 'I'm in love with Sakura-chan.'

If you love her so much, why did you snap at her? Admit it; you're in denial, Kit. You want to be with that dark-haired boy. The Kyuubi was intruding on his thoughts again. Just admit it already and we can stop sulking around the house, and we can go kill that little pink-haired kunoichi.

'We're not sulking around the house!' Naruto couldn't believe that the Kyuubi would saythat.'I'm not in love with Sasuke! And I'm definitely not going to kill Sakura-chan!' Killing Sakura-chan? That was another one of the Kyuubi's twisted ideas of fun.

Says the naive little boy...

'Urusai!' Naruto shut his mind off from the Kyuubi, or at least, shut his mind off as much as he could from a demon who shared his mind with him.

So touchy lately... the Kyuubi complained, rolling his eyes mentally at Naruto's words. So restless... You wouldn't be restless if you were with Sasuke.

"I said shut up!" Naruto shouted aloud as he pushed himself up from his couch. It was true. He wanted to go and find Sasuke now, but he wasn't going to do it. He wasn't going to act on it. If Sasuke knew, it would only be worse. They hardly even talked to each other anymore. He didn't want to alienate him all together.

Naruto sighed as he sank back down into his seat on the couch. No, it would be best if he just let Sasuke enjoy his new life with his girlfriend...without him. They seemed happy together anyway.

'So...why can't I stop feeling so...' He wiped the tears from his eyes. He felt so broken inside.

End Chapter 2

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Fire's English tidbits for those who care:

In case you haven't noticed, I use 'toward' instead of the more popular 'towards' and although I know that this might annoy a lot of people, it is correct English grammar. If any of you are shouting "WHAT!" don't be too shocked. I'm just used to the American spelling used in the USA which use 'toward' instead of 'towards' which is predominantly used in Great Britain and Canada. Sorry if it's causing any inconvenience.