Naruto's popularity level in Konoha had risen since he had grown up from the hated, loudmouthed orphan (if one used the term "grown up" loosely). So it shouldn't have been much of a surprise when so many people found out about the blonde's new found relationship with Hinata. It had become official after Sakura had pounced on her teammate and demanded details on his trip to the ally behind the Yamanaka flower shop.
"It's not fair! Ino-pig was too busy yelling at Kiba to notice anything!"
And if the sudden burst of attention bothered Naruto, he certainly didn't show it.
"Well, first Sasuke-bastard tried to kill her team, than we..."
The fact that said attention was coming from more than just Sakura, also didn't seem to effect him. Wasn't it a given that girls would begin gossiping about the first couple to emerge out of their age group? Even if more than half of said girls had hoped to be one half of the first couple, it still offered hope for other couples now that a hole had been broken in the ice.
It also wasn't very surprising, judging from Naruto's close relationship with his old sensei, that almost all of the ninja instructors seemed to find out at once and began sending the blonde dobe smiles and knowing glances whenever his team passed by. It was understandable if Iruka bragged about Naruto's first girlfriend like any other proud father. Perfectly understandable.
And finally, if the HOKAGE decided that it was cute that her unofficial successor/pest had found some unfortunate soul who actually thought his over the top attitude was charming, well, that was okay too. Even if she decided to abuse her power by putting snide comments and jokes into Konoha's newspaper for the simple pleasure of hearing the blonde yell "BAA-CHAN!" when he came stomping into her office later. And as a result of her immature little game, that EVERYONE knew about the dobe's relationship, that was PERFECTLY FINE!
Sasuke was sitting up in the tree that Kakashi normally used when he appeared, while he mentally listed the little reminders of that day he went to the park. He was still in a way meeting at the bridge, only with a greater distance separating himself from his two teammates than before. He had decided to make the move the morning after Sakura had "pounced" on Naruto. It wasn't that the new friendship that seemed to spring up between Naruto and Sakura annoyed Sasuke, it was simply that he was used to bickering with the blonde in the mornings or having total silence. He might have been able to adjust to it though, if the whole of Konoha could just find another effing topic to talk about!
As if cued by some demented demon inside Sasuke's head, the sound of approaching voices reached him.
"SOOOO! Naruto, when are you seeing her again?" The loud tone of team seven's only female member carried her question over to bridge even before her head and that of her companion appear side-by-side from around the corner.
"Who are you talking about, Sakura-chan?" Naruto said, smiling with forged ignorance.
"You know who! When's the next time you and Hinata are getting together?"
From his vantage point in the tree, Sasuke was sure that no one below could see the glare that came onto his face. Here we go again...
"I don't know, tomorrow maybe..."
Sakura sent the blonde a mock glare. "Don't tease, just answer!"
Naruto pouted cutely. "Aw, Sakura, you're no fun."
"Naruto!"
Sasuke kept his attention trained on the blonde. Purely because he knew that the answer could end up effecting his day as well as the dobe's.
"We have a lunch date again!"
A lunch date meant that Naruto would be in a hurry to leave later, and that meant that his mind would be half on the time during their spars. Again. Sasuke's glare became venomous. Couldn't Hinata just take a sick day once in awhile? No wait, Sasuke decided that wouldn't do him any good either. Then Naruto was likely to spend the day yelling insults at Neji until he let him into the girl's room.
"Yo!"
Did he forget to list the fact that Kakashi had somehow developed a sixth sense for days that Naruto had lunch dates, when he was thinking about the effects of the case NaruHin fever his village seemed to be suffering from? And that the gennin instructor had taken to showing up almost on time so that his student wouldn't be late for the afore mentioned dates?
Would it be too out of character if Sasuke burned Tsunade's stupid newspaper company to the ground?
Their sensei apparently didn't see Sasuke's glare either as he went right into his morning announcements without even looking down to his pupil. "No missions today, so we're just training. Naruto, Sasuke you two spar." Kakashi paused in his instructions to take out his favorite book and find the correct page that he had last left off on. "Sakura fights the winner."
Sasuke hopped down from his place on the tree branch. Before starting off to the training grounds, he looked over his shoulder to where Naruto was just breaking away from their pink-haired teammate to catch up with him. Stupid dobe...
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Naruto's breath left in in one loud gasp as he hit the ground for the third time that day. Quickly, he jumped back onto his feet so that his sensei wouldn't announce that he had lost the match, turning his attention to locating Sasuke.
Naruto lunged to one side to avoid two shurikens that came flying at him. He sent one of his own into the bush that they had come from on the off chance that Sasuke would still be there, though it was unlikely. He had really gone too long without doing any serious training. Naruto couldn't remember the last time he and Sasuke had fought each other. The other boy likely would have already won by now if Kakashi hadn't threatened to keep the blonde after training if he couldn't last at least fifteen minutes against the Uchiha prodigy.
A fist came at the back of Naruto's head. He spun around and grabbed the arm at the wrist before it could be retracted, throwing the owner so that he would land in front of him. It didn't accure to him that Sasuke would never move so slowly during an attack until the clone illussion slammed into tree at the end of the clearing and disappeared in a puff of lavender smoke, and he was tackled from behind by another body. A chuckle reached his ear, andNaruto glared at the tree that he'd seen the fake Sasuke crash into. He hated it when Sasuke used clones! Not only was that HIS move, but unlike the bastard, he lacked a special genetic ability that allowed him to identify a copy from the original.
Naruto squirmed in the paler boy's hold, trying to find a way to break free. Damnit, did Sasuke have to go and develop a tight grip too! He could almost picture the smirk that he would see on the Uchiha's face if he turned his head. The arm around his waist tightened dangeriously.
Then suddenly the body was lifted off him.
"It's almost twelve," the happy voice of his sensei sounded, not far from where Naruto was still sprawled on the ground. He rolled over to see Kakashi restraining a very annoyed looking Sasuke with a hand gripping a generous amount of the boy's high collar. The teacher seemed oblivious to his star pupil's displeasure. "Dismissed!"
All thoughts of the match were quickly erased from the blonde's mind. If a small part of him didn't think that the gesture would cause Kakashi to release his hold on Sasuke, he would have jumped onto his instructor with a cry of, "ARIGATO, SENSEI!" Instead he had to content himself with smiling brightly and going to retrieve the weapons he used during training from the random places they had been thrown. That done, Naruto was ready to leave. When he turned around, he noticed that the rest of his team were nowhere to be seen in the clearing. That would have been nothing new for Kakashi and Sasuke, but where could Sakura gone? The blonde pondered this as he began his walk back into the village.
...Only to be stopped when he walked unthinkingly into something wearing a dark blue fabric of some kind. Since his head had been down slightly while he thought, his forehead protector was what hit the object in front of him. When no sound of annoyance or pain came at being hit with the metal object, Naruto assumed he hadn't been noticed and moved to go around.
A hand shot out a grabbed onto the front of his jacket after the first step, pulling him back so that he was almost smothered against what he realized was somebody's chest. "We weren't finished, dobe."
"Eh?" the blonde's head came up to met with a pair of glaring dark eyes. "Don't call me that, teme." Naruto noticed that when he looked up at the taller boy's face, his chin brushed against the before mentioned fabric. Pushing at the other boy's hand Naruto started to back away again. The small, observant part of his mind was surprised that the raven haired boy had initiated the contact. Even he knew that Sasuke hated being touched. "Besides, you heard Kakashi-sensei, we're dismissed!'
"I don't care." Sasuke made no move to get out of his teammate's way. Instead he shifted his weight to one hip as if extremely bored.
"I'm busy! If you still want to train, then spar with Sakura! She's gonna ask you to lunch anyway. Why she would want to date a bastard like you, though..." Naruto trailed off. He started to step around the Uchiha, unconsciously doing "the mature thing" and walking away from a possible argument. Iruka would have been proud of him, until... "SASUKE, LET ME GO!"
...Another Sasuke grabbed him from behind.
"I want to finish our match, dobe."
"Well, I don't! Now let me go! You're gonna make me late!" Naruto tried to reach his weapons pouch so that he could vanish the clone quickly, only to have another set of hands wrap around his wrist. "How many of these things did you make!"
"Hn. Not important." Sasuke said, clones dragging a very unhappy Naruto back to the center of the clearing.
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"Sasuke! I can kick your ass later, just let me go meet Hinata!" Sasuke heard his captive yell at his back again. He ignored it. He'd already allowed the blonde to neglect their rivalry enough in the past few weeks. The Hyuuga girl could wait. "...Please?"
Sasuke spun around and glared at the struggling blonde when he heard the last word. Naruto NEVER used please while speaking to anyone, especially him! That was another part of their rivalry, One Shall Use No Manners While Addressing The Other. How dare he break another rule now, just so he could go see her!
When they reached their destination, Sasuke's clones looked at him for further instructions on what to do with their huffing, though now still, charge. Sasuke must have fumed over the "magic word" a moment too long, because Naruto's left hand, the one not being held hostage by the second clone, ripped into his weapons pouch and grabbed a kunai before either of the clone's could notice. Because the dobe was right handed, a fact both Sasuke's assistants were aware of, neither of the clones were harmed by the poorly aimed attack. Just startled into letting go. Naruto jumped back, shouting the name of his favorite jutsu, so that a pack of six Naruto's landed together on the ground.
Five of the clones pounced on the clone Sasukes, while what Sasuke took to be the original came running towards him. He felt a smirk come to his lips.
About time, Dobe...
Sasuke dropped into a defensive stance before the blonde reached him. Not seeing another blonde slip away from the group attacking his two clone's and inch into the forest around them. When the blonde he was fighting went up in smoke at the first prick of a kunai on his arm, Sasuke's anger came back full force. His eyes changed color as his sharringon activated, which he probably should have done the minute he brought the dobe's favorite move into their match. Instead, he'd gotten away from him! SASUKE!
Sasuke felt a growl rumble through his throat. That settled it.
Hinata had to go.
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Sasuke fallowed Naruto's chakra trail after he reached the village. He'd reached his decision on the matter of the dobe's love life, and that was he couldn't have one. Sasuke had goals that required him to get stronger, and if his sparring partner was too busy fawning over the first girl to bat her eyelashes in his direction, how the hell was he supposed to do that? No, there was simply no way Naruto could divide his attention and still give Sasuke the challenge he needed to become stronger.
Unfortunately, Sasuke doubted that his teammate had the mental capacity to understand the logic behind this when he told the dobe that it was over between him and Hinata, so he decided that he just wouldn't tell him. That brought him to his first problem in developing his plan of attack. How does one chase off a somebody like Hinata? The girl LIVED with Hyuuga Neji! It went without saying that his normal tactics for handling females wouldn't work. The future clan head had likely built up an immunity to cold stares and death threats by now. So that brought Sasuke back to fallowing Naruto's chakra. If he couldn't use his old methods, he would just have to learn some new ones. By spying on the girl until she revealed a weakness that he could use against her.
Not stalking, mind you. Uchihas never stalk.
It was a widely known fact that Konoha's loudest ninja talked about only four things without the aid of specific prompting. Those four things were perverts, defeating Sasuke, becoming Hokage, and ramen. Especially ramen. Sasuke was surprised when the blonde's trail lead right past Ichiruka and down the street toward that same park that he had gone to after leaving the mess at Ino's a few weeks ago.
Sasuke had to stop for a moment. That funny little bug in his head was telling him that that clench was back in his chest. He shook himself.
He knew from his past experience that he wasn't going to be satisfied with not hearing his teammate's conversation, especially not with the mission he had given himself. Masking his own chakra, Sasuke hopped up into the trees to find the village's favorite couple. He'd need to find them without being seen, and though the dobe was an idiot that wouldn't detect him, he held Hinata in a higher esteem. One must never under estimate the enemy.
The need for parks in his village had always escaped Sasuke. Why would somebody want a large section of town devoted to shrubs and flowers and monthly trimmed trees when there was a perfectly good forest in any direction around the village? It didn't accure to him that civilians might not be comfortable with the idea of running into a bear while taking their dog for its nightly walk.
When Sasuke came to the end of the chakra trail he looked around but couldn't see his teammate or Hinata anywhere. The chakra was still around him, and from what he could tell, the source was close, but...Sasuke began to wonder if he had somehow given himself away to the Hyuuga girl, when two different chakra registered in his mind. Naturally, he was in a park and any number of shinobi could be walking around, but these two were very close...and familiar.
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I DIDN'T KNOW YOUR BUG WAS RIGHT THERE!"
Apparently, when Naruto said he was meeting Hinata, he meant that he was meeting Hinata and her team. Sasuke moved a little deeper into the park. He saw Kiba a Shino standing unusually close to one another, one glaring through pitch black sunglasses and the other's face red enough to hide the colorful streaks on his cheeks.
"WELL, YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT SAYING SOMETHING BEFORE -I DO NOT HATE BUGS!"
Sasuke gave his surroundings another look. The signatures of the two ninja he was looking for were very close, and with the presence of the other two ninja, the risk of being spotted was greater.
"Shino's been a-a little d-disoriented since the 'incident.'"
...It has already been mentioned that he was an Ex Number One Rookie, right?
Sasuke looked down. It would seem that while he had been look at the area around him, he had failed to consider that the two he was looking for might have been sitting under him.
"You mean they don't fight like this all the time?" came from the crown of golden hair- which was all that Sasuke could see of his teammate.
"Well -a, no."
A disappointed sigh came from the blonde.
And then, as if the Kiba felt obligated to contradict the dark haired girl, "I DO NOT HAVE SIX NIPPLES!"
"Their so cute like this though!" Naruto said brightly. Hinata's head turned in his directed, and from the brief glimpse he'd gotten of her expression, the girl was thinking something like "What did you say?" Naruto didn't see this. "They fight just like a couple!"
It was a very good thing that the two under him were not known for their detection abilities, otherwise they might have heard the straggled syllable that escaped Sasuke when he started to say "WHAT!"
Kiba might have heard. The dog-nin started to turn his head in the direction of Sasuke's tree. But he was saved by Shino saying something in his apparently so-quiet-only-a-dog-can-hear way, because Kiba immediately turned around and shouted, "LEAVE MY MOTHER OUT OF THIS!...WELL, DUH! A FEMALE DOG, WHAT ELSE!" An eyebrow rose as the dog-nin took a moment to ponder something. When Kiba apparently solved whatever puzzle he was thinking of, he screamed, "THAT WAS LOW, SHINO!" Promptly, he followed the statement by throwing himself at the addressed bug-lover. Shino avoided this by simply side stepping.
"See?" Naruto, bringing Sasuke back to the conversation that he could at least fallow clearly since both participants spoke at the same volume. "They're so into each other when they're arguing that you can just SEE them kissing and making up at any minute!"
"I don't know, Naruto-kun. They really don't argue like this very often."
"But that just makes everything more intense when they do!" Naruto's voice was surprisingly happy while defending the idea of a lover's spat.
Hinata made a sighing sound before cuddling into her boyfriend's shoulder. The remains of their lunch lay forgotten on the grass in front of them. "But wouldn't it be better to never fight with the person you love, Naruto?" she said sweetly, more confident with the way she spoke now that she and Naruto had been talking on a daily bases for so long.
"Eh?" Naruto's arm went around the girl's shoulder without his noticing. "But if you're not fighting to hurt them, wouldn't it be okay?"
Lost in the comfort of finally having the right to enjoy Naruto's warmth, Hinata absently nodded her head. "Uh-huh..."
"Besides, what's the point of being with someone different from you if you never clash? It would be awkward!" Naruto said, not noticing that the person he was "arguing" with was no longer listening. Naruto's rant on the pros of healthy arguing went on. Sasuke kept himself alter for the first fifteen minutes, switching his attention between the fight between Kiba and Shino, which eventually led into a regular brawl after the quieter of the two said something in his soundless way that apparently crossed some very important line that Sasuke wasn't aware of, and the one sided conversation below. By the time the group spilt up, Sasuke had learned only one thing: Naruto was either a complete idiot, or a complete hypocrite.
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After Naruto had left to met with his old academy teacher at his favorite restaurant (despite having just had lunch), Sasuke continued to fallow the Hyuuga girl. He was still wary of her two teammates, but since neither appeared to have noticed his presence, he didn't take any extra precautions. The group walked each other home, first going to Shino's house, where the other two were met with glares from the woman who answered the door (possibly from knowing how traumatized her son had been after the slaughter of all the bugs that had been on his person during the "incident"). Then to Kiba's, where the brunette was heard complaining about stupid beetle lovers sending stupid flees over to his house. Then Hinata was left alone.
Sasuke had a strong urge to slip out of his hiding place and outright attack the lone figure for hogging all of HIS dobe's attention for the past few weeks. The blaring simplicity of this plan (which could rival the one he'd used when he decided to throw himself at his brother after seeing him for the first time since the murder of his clan), made Sasuke surprised when he found himself actually considering it. But then that thought had to be dismissed as he saw Hinata pass through the after-school area for academy students. Because of Sasuke's own early exposure to the brutal side of ninjitsu, he refused the idea of attacking the Hyuuga in front of a herd of nine years old. Unfortunately, attacking after the girl left was vetoed out when he realized that the reason the girl had taken that route home was to pick her sister out of the play area.
Hyuuga nine year old...murdered older sister...Hyuuga pint-sized avenger. Bad idea.
Sasuke started to fallow the girls again, though now he more or less knew that his mission had been a failure. Soon the girls would reach the Hyuuga estate, and then where would he be? Outside with no answer to his problem, and no chances of stealing Naruto's attention back.
"SASUKE-KUN!"
And then right on cue, one of Sasuke's fangirls called out to him. Perfect! Today was really going great for him... He let himself slow down a little when the cry reached him again, this time bringing with it the absent realization that he recognized that voice as the one belonging to his female teammate. But just to be sure, he turned his head slightly to see if he could catch a reflection in the window of one of the buildings he was passing. His skills really hadn't been what he thought they were for the past twenty-four hours. He blamed it on sleep loss and whatever unknown disease was causing random contractions in his chest.
"Sasuke-kun!" his name came a third time. Sasuke saw Sakura jogging to catch up with him with the cheery, hopeful smile that he knew she saved just for him, on her face. He braced himself for her to latch on to his arm when she came to a stop.
"I was busy at lunch today, so I didn't get to talk to you!" She said happily to his back. Sasuke didn't move to turn around. He wasn't in the mood to be polite right now. Maybe the part of him that wanted to jump Hinata was still hoping to hurt someone, even if it was only emotionally.
But Sasuke forgot that he was always cold to his female teammate, and that she would take his bad mood as a regular one. As she came around to stand in front of him, she didn't even flinch at the cold stare he fixed on her. Instead she went right on talking as her hand moved back to the little pouch she normally carried her weapons in. "I wanted our team to get together today, but I completely forgot when I promised I'd help Ino clean up that mess behind her shop, and then Naruto was seeing Hinata..." Sasuke raised an eyebrow, his way of saying "What are you babbling about?" when Sakura whipped something flat out of her pouch and shoved it into his chest with surprising speed. He wondered if she had carried the piece of paper where a normal ninja would have store a kunai on purpose, so that his hand would impulsively spring to snatch the "weapon" out of her hand.
Sakura was still smiling. "Happy anniversary!"
Sasuke blinked. He looked at the object in his hand and noticed that it wasn't a box of baked cookies or any other form of a meaningless fangirl gift, but a colorful envelope, the kind usually used to house a card.
Oblivious to his confusion, Sakura went on talking. "Can you believe it's only been three years since Iruka divided our class into teams? It seems like longer, doesn't it?"
Sasuke didn't say anything return. After all, he remembered the day his team was created. It was when he decided that Naruto stood out amongst the rest of the village. He didn't dislike him like he did other people. He flat-out HATED him. All because a careless classroom shove...
"We didn't really do anything the last few years, but we're all closer now, right?" Sakura went on, talking fast. Her smile was becoming a bit more nervous now, unable to read the Uchiha's cold expression. "Naruto, uh, played that trick on me, remember that? I'll never understand how he was able to catch you off guard like that."
And that had been when he decided that he couldn't just hate Naruto, he was going to have to pay attention to him. Comparing that to the present situation, Sasuke decided that he hated Lovesick Naruto more than any other.
"Heh, I was so angry at him after that..." Sakura said, filling the silence. Sasuke didn't look angry at her presence anymore...more like he wasn't aware of it. She forced her smile to stay cheery as she waited for a response. Normally she would have been told to go away by now, so that was something...wasn't it? She made herself laugh a little. "I thought I'd always hate him for that one."
Sasuke's head went to one side, only a small way so that Sakura wouldn't notice in her scramble for words to say. Naruto's prank when their team first came together hadn't work out for him...but then, Sasuke didn't have the same intentions in mind as the dobe had. And it wasn't a bad plan to start with, he reasoned with himself. And if he just developed it a little more...
Sasuke smiled, or more likely, smirked. And if he completed this plan, he would always have the comfort of knowing that he had succeeded with the same method his rival had screwed up.
"Sasuke-kun..." the Uchiha's thoughts were cut off when a warm body suddenly latched onto his. In his thoughtful state, his defenses had been put down, leaving his body open to his female teammate's uses. And granted, he should have known better. Years of fangirl devotion should have taught him that trusting anything with breasts was a bad idea, but the pink haired girl didn't seem like she was going into a glomp-the-sex-god mode when she was reminicing...
He also should have been used to the surprisingly strong grip of a female admirer by now, courtesy of the same fangirls. But, he reasoned, he was used to the attack on his arm, not a full frontal assault that pressed the girl's form against his own from shoulder to knee.
"And then when I saw you afterwards...I'm really sorry about what I said about Naruto, and his...family," Sakura said softly. She had seen the smirk and taken it as a sign of affection, thus justifying the hug in her mind. "And then just saying it all in front of you! You made me think about it later, and...do...do you still hate me, Sasuke-kun?"
Sakura, Sasuke suddenly noticed, was still in conversation with him, and thought that he was still listening. Well, at least that meant that his teammate hadn't crossed over to the rabid dark side of fangirldom. But still, he was forcing himself not to throw the strange body off. It was reasonable for someone who had spent over half their life alone to resent sudden and uncalled for (from his point of view) full-body contact, right?
But the mind of a genius never stops working. And even with the discomfort, increased when the girl stopped talking and continued to cling onto him while she waited for his answer, his brain was still thinking about Naruto's plan. And what accured to him was that Naruto never received much contact either. Developing complete.
Sasuke put his hands on either of his teammate's shoulders and pushed her off of him as gently as he could. She did show up just in time to provide him with a plan, one that he would still have time to carry out tonight if he hurried. He kept his face emotionless when he looked at the girl. "I don't hate you anymore, Sakura," he said in his normal, bored tone. She wouldn't be able to rub anything extra into his words that way.
She gave him a relieved smile at that. "Would you like to get dinner in that case?"
"No." Sasuke started to turn, but seeing that the girl's face became ashen again, he said over his shoulder, "I already have a date." Rather than waiting for Sakura's reaction, Sasuke took off. It was getting dark, and if he was going to have Konoha's favorite couple broken up by training tomorrow, he would have to hurry.
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A/N:
Hi! I just finished re-reading this chapter. It had a lot of missing words in it, so I'm actually glad that I decided to repost the first few chapters. I only have one more before I reach the point where uneraseablesin became my beta, and then I'm done with reposting.
And Also, just because of the warning, I'm going to leave my old author's note for this chapter up:
Hello! I'm sorry that it took me so long to get this chapter up. Originally I was going to start the MPREG part of the story to get things moving, but then I thought that some of the people reading this might not like the idea of reading a het lemon (you know, since Naruto and Sasuke both kinda...don't have a womb...or ovaries...). So, I took Sasuke's 'plan' and decided to put it in its own chapter and threw Shino and Kiba into this one to make up for the lost pages. If you don't want to read the lemon, I suggest waiting for chapter five. See? no reason to flame me!
Also, about Sasuke's last name...I got another correction for how to spell it, so I went and checked it out. The manga, the anime, and most of the google searches used the "Uchiha" spelling, so that's what I'm going to use. If anyone would like to help me out with spelling and such...and anything on the Hyuuga family would be greatly appreciated!
Okay, so I guess that's all I got to say in this author's note, except THANK YOU REVIEWERS! I've received eight reviews! That's the most I've ever gotten a story. And thank you people that read this story but don't review, too! Thanks to FF's funny little status system, I know exactly how many people read chapter two and I have an increditable urge to go out and do good deeds because of it.