"WHAT!"
Kakashi flinched and rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well, I just think it's really important to develop all your skills individually as well as in a group."
"But sensei!" Sakura protested, looking slightly worried. "We're just genjin! The possibility of running into problems on, even a C-class mission, are--"
"I'm very well aware of the circumstances on each of the missions Iruka-sensei and I chose out for the three of you personally," he tried to look reassuring. At the mention of personally chosen, Sakura seemed to calm down slightly. At the mention of Iruka, Naruto went into a question frenzy.
"Then what kind of missions are they? Are they important? How long will each take? Is one more important than another? Does Iruka-sensei agree to this too?"
Kakashi tried to stretch his already-considerable patience a little further for the blond: "Naruto, you know that I don't need Iruka-sensei's agreement for anything, because you are no longer his students, you're mine. But," he saw the hurt look crossing Naruto's face, "I did consult with him on each of your missions, and none of them are too hard or too easy," he threw a look to his third student, who snuffed and turned away once more from the conversation, "and they can be finished in around the same time-frame."
"Well, alright…" Sakura still looked doubtful. Naruto had turned to their silent teammate and was no longer pelting Kakashi with questions, so he thought it would be a good time to hand out the assignment sheets. He did so. Sakura, like the dutiful shinobi she was, took her sheet, read it over twice, nodded, and waited for further instructions from her teacher. Naruto hadn't been paying attention after the initial barrage of questions, and so Kakashi had to roll up his mission sheet and bop him over the head with it to get his attention. Naruto wrinkled his nose at what his paper said, made a 'che' sound in his throat, tucked the paper into his jacket and proceeded to look sulky. Sasuke took his wordlessly, glanced it over, inclined his head toward his teacher, and stood up straight from leaning against the tree they had met under.
"I'm going to get ready," he said quietly and started down the path toward the inner workings of Konoha. Sakura, who was faster on the uptake than her blond counterpart, blinked and looked over at their teacher, who was trying to sneak away unnoticed.
"Kakashi-sensei," she said a little too sweetly and Kakashi knew he'd have to put up with answering questions or face the wrath of a girl in love. He decided a few minutes of quick torture couldn't kill him… "Why does Sasuke-kun have to 'get ready' for his mission? Anything 'special'?" Kakashi swore, nothing got past this girl. If she could focus on something other than the dark-haired Uchiha, she'd quickly rise to the top of the shinobi ranks.
"Nothing important," he tried to shrug off-handedly. "I just sent him down the road to the town in the valley."
"The valley?" Naruto stirred out of his thoughts. "Why does that bastard get to go to the valley?"
"Because, if I let Sakura go, she might get attacked by bandits on the way, and if I let you go, no offense, the negotiations wouldn't go so well," Kakashi answered as bluntly as possible. It was the only way to deal with these three quickly sometimes.
"Negotiations?" Sakura raised an eyebrow and Kakashi inwardly sighed.
"Look, why don't the two of you just go and ask him yourselves? I'm late for my meeting with the Hokage anyway," he glanced back, hoping the building wasn't suddenly closed and his only means of escaping the questions was gone. "See you; good luck on your missions." And with a whirl of green leaves, he was gone. Sakura made an annoyed face and turned to Naruto.
"Well?"
"Well, what?" he blinked up at her.
"Don't you want to know what Sasuke's mission is?"
"Not particularly," he lied.
She rolled her eyes (she knew him better than that): "Well then, what's yours?"
He rummaged in the folds of his jacket and came out with the already-crinkled paper. "It says," he scrunched his nose, "I've gotta help with construction of the new playground."
"That sounds important," she tried to sound cheerful. Naruto hated being giving crap missions, and she kind of had to agree with him on that point. "Better than mine, anyway. It just says I have to escort someone around Konoha for a couple of days."
"Pfft," he jammed the paper into his jacket again. "Sasuke's such a lucky bastard."
She knew she wasn't going to win this: "Maybe you can ask him to bring you back something from the village or something."
"Nn," he stood up and brushed himself off, a brief flicker of something deeper than his normal face showing in his eyes before he turned his head to her and gave her a wide grin that screamed emptiness. "Right then! I'll go bother him some before he goes! Later, Sakura-chan!"
And with a wave, he ran off. Sakura watched him go, an orange streak across the otherwise-unbroken green of the training grounds, with her mission statement clutched to her chest. Sometimes, just sometimes, she felt a little sad for Naruto, and she couldn't explain why…
"Sasuke!"
"Che," he finished stuffing his secondary change of clothes into his pack as the blond tumbled through the door of his house. Annoying…
"Ne, Sasuke!" he peeked over the raven-haired boy's shoulder to watch what he was doing. "How long do you think this mission's gonna take?" Sometimes the best method of getting rid of someone annoying was to ignore them. Then they got annoyed with you and left you alone. "Do you think you could bring me back something nice? Huh?" Obviously, Naruto had missed the memo for getting rid of annoying people.
Sighing, Sasuke turned to get his weapon holster from the top of his dresser. "What do you think this is, dobe?" he shook his head. "A pleasure trip?"
"Well, if I were going, I'd take my time and try to see everything!" Naruto plopped down on Sasuke's bed like he'd been invited to do so. Sasuke felt his left eyebrow twitching slightly. He ignored it.
"Well, I don't care what you'd do, Naruto. I'm not you," the slightly-taller boy yanked the bag away from Naruto, who was already peeking inside of it, and went over to the closet to collect the last of his items before heading out. If he left this afternoon, he could be halfway to the village by nightfall, in the village itself by sometime late morning, get the damn medicine that apparently the hokage needed, and start back that afternoon--
"Bastard." He wasn't sure he had heard it right the first time. Turning from the closet, Sasuke caught a glimpse of Naruto's face reflected on the glass of his bedroom window. Was he--? "You're a damn bastard, Uchiha!" he shot off the bed, storming toward the room door. "I just wanted…! I wanted to…! Agh!" Naruto threw his arms up and stomped down the hall toward the front door. "Forget it! See you when you come back, asshole!" The door slammed, rattling the panes of glass in their frames and knocking over one of the two framed pictures he had on his bedside table. He heard the glass crack. Hesitating for a moment, Sasuke glanced the way the blond had trampled out of his house and then scooped up the bronze picture frame. His graduation picture of Team Seven. The glass was cracked in half, splitting the picture right down the middle, tiny spider web cracks blurring Sakura and Kakashi's faces, leaving just he and Naruto unobstructed. His lips twisted in a slight grimace and he set the broken frame down, shaking his head slightly.
"Forget it," he spoke aloud, and it made him feel better. But only slightly. Sasuke hoisted his pack onto his shoulders, double-checked to see if he had everything, and left when he was sure he wasn't forgetting something. Still, as he walked toward the path leading out of town, he felt a nagging in the back of his mind. He tried to shake it off as he left Konoha: You're just on your first solo mission; it's nerves. Relax. That would have worked, if Sasuke's subconscious hadn't already figured out what had gone wrong.
Dammit, that's three times now.
Naruto stopped in front of the apartment complex for the third time that evening and shoved his hands in his pockets, slouching his shoulders. The setting sun warmed his curved back and made his shadow look like something his friend Shikamaru could conjure up with one of his family's shadow-manipulation jitsus. But that was only a temporary reprieve from the thoughts that had been bothering him since Sasuke had left this afternoon. I shouldn't have acted like such a spoiled brat, he scuffing one foot over the dirt path and watching his shadow-foot do the same thing. No wonder he thinks I'm so annoying. I am annoying. He sighed and scuffed his foot again and this time something clinked.
"Clink?" Naruto blinked and knelt down to brush aside some of the dirt he had kicked. It was a small silver key on a simple ring with a tag on it. The tag had a simple paper-fan symbol etched on one side of it. Uh-oh. This is Sasuke's apartment key… He must have dropped it on his way out of Konoha. Naruto considered slipping it under the door, but came to the conclusion that idea was just stupid as he climbed the stairs to the second floor and turned left to get to Sasuke's door at the end of the hall. I could leave it on top of the doorframe… Only it didn't take a genius to find a key up on top of a doorframe, and if someone broke into Sasuke's house while he was gone, Naruto himself would feel responsible--
"Well, there's only one thing to do," he whispered with a faint grin and slid the key into the lock, flipping back the tumblers and turning the silver knob, opening the door to Sasuke's apartment. He closed the door behind him and stood in the dark foyer for a few seconds, a little shocked at himself for doing something like this so abruptly. Oh well, it's done now. Indeed. Naruto stepped inside. Not knowing where to go really (and he couldn't find the light switch because it had gotten a bit too dark, and he had never really stayed in Sasuke's apartment any longer than a few minutes, and that was only a handful of times) Naruto let his feet take him down the short, clean hall to the only room in the house he knew: Sasuke's bedroom. Everything was neat and tidy and--is that glass on the floor?
It was. Naruto felt a flush of guilt as he knelt beside the bed and tried to figure out where the shards of glass had come from. That must have been when I slammed the door earlier. But where…? The picture frame on the tabletop in front of him. A picture of him. And Kakashi and Sakura too. But they were almost non-existent beneath the tangle of spider-web cracks spread across the remaining piece of glass in the frame. Shit. He'd broken something important.
"No wonder he didn't come to say goodbye…" he murmured and began scooping up the shiny slivers from the floor. "Ow!" One of them jabbed into the meat of his palm and drew a thick bead of blood. It's because I can't friggin' see in this damn house. Well, leaving the glass on the floor was out of the question--what if Sasuke stepped on it when he got back? And, since it was kind of late already, and he was inside, Naruto had kind of figured he'd sleep in Sasuke's bed (only tonight) and wouldn't that be nice to wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, and step on pieces of glass? Nope, couldn't wait for tomorrow. "Ow! Dammit…" Another jab, another small cut, this time on his thumb. He sucked the pad of his thumb briefly, screwed up his resolve, and grabbed most of the glass pieces in both of his hands, reaching over and dropping it in the trash bin that was next to the bedside table. Lucky Sasuke was tidy, huh? Grinning humorlessly, Naruto went back to feel around for the smaller shards.
"Oy, Sakura-chan!"
"Ah, Naruto! How's your mission going?"
"Yeah, great, whatever. You know where I can buy glass for a picture frame?"
"Glass for a frame?"
"Yeah, not too big. Just this much." He held his thumbs and pointer fingers in two separate L-shapes and held them eight inches apart.
"Erm… I think they sell frames in that shop there," she pointed back over her shoulder at a pawn shop. "But I don't know if they sell glass individually--"
"Okay! Thanks, Sakura!"
"Naruto? Did you hear a word I said? Naruto! …Oh honestly, what does he need glass for, anyway?"
He had dropped his damn keys somewhere. The landlord didn't have them, so no one had turned them in, and he was almost positive he hadn't lost them along the two day trip, so then, where the hell were they? Sasuke went up to his apartment anyway; maybe he could trace some chakra someone may have left behind? But when he got to the door, he didn't need to do that. What the--? Cautiously, he opened the door and peered inside.
"Naruto?" he called. Silence greeted his call, but he wasn't mistaken: a bag was propped against the island in the center of the kitchen area, and an orange jacket was poking out of the top of it. But why was Naruto here? And where?
Soft snoring answered the second question. He placed his pack down on the armchair by the door and approached his bedroom quietly, pushing the door open gently so it wouldn't' squeak and wake up his room's occupant…which was not him. The blond lay on his side, the moonlight coming through the window making his golden hair shimmer surreally, breathing softly as he slept. Sasuke noted with slight curiosity that Naruto's hands were bandaged. And in another second, he knew why: the shards he had left on the floor were gone and there was a new pane of glass in the bronze picture frame. Sasuke didn't quite know what to say (or do, for that matter). He started by taking Naruto's shoulder in one hand and shaking him awake…not as roughly as he was accustomed to, though.
"Naruto," he whispered. "Hey, Naruto?"
"Nn…? Sas…" he let his blue eyes open slightly. "Sasuke… welcome home…"
Sasuke blinked, taken off-guard for a moment. Then he sat down on the mattress next to his teammate instead of kicking him out of the bed (which, by all rights, he should have done).
"Do--" he started, caught himself, and shook his head. "Naruto, why are you in my house?"
"'Cause you left your keys in front of the building like a dumb-head," Naruto giggled sleepily and Sasuke had to admit that was the first time someone had ever called him a dumb-head. "An' I didn't want anyone mean coming in here and messin' up your stuff, so, I came in and there was glass on the floor." At this point, he sat up a little bit and glanced down over the edge of the bed, then up at Sasuke and gave him a sleepy grin. It made Sasuke's heart squeeze warmly in his chest. "I picked it up. Hurt," he held up his bandaged hands and the black-haired boy took the injured hands in both of his before he knew what he was doing. It startled him.
"You…" he tried to talk past the sudden lump that was welling up in his throat.
"So glad you're back, Sasuke," Naruto smiled at him and whatever apprehensions ha still had at this point melted away under the blazing warmth of that smile. "I wanted to 'plogize," his brow furrowed slightly. "I was acting stupid; I'm sorry."
"No…" Sasuke managed to get out, releasing Naruto's hands and standing. "I was short with you. Sorry."
"Mm." There was that smile again. Sasuke couldn't look at it; it made him weak in the knees. "S'just the way you are, it's cool."
"You can go back to sleep there," Sasuke turned toward the door, "I'll sleep on the couch, but only tonight. After that, I don't want you in my bed ever again."
"You sure about that?" For a moment, Naruto sounded horribly coherent and Sasuke whirled around, his cheeks tinged a very interesting shade of red indeed, his mouth open to retort, but Naruto had rolled over onto his other side and snuggled down into the comforter.
"You have a nice bed," he mumbled from a state halfway between sleep and wakefulness. "G'night, Sasuke…and welcome back again…"
Then he was breathing deeply. Meanwhile, Sasuke had temporarily forgotten how to do so. Sucking in a lungful of air, Sasuke turned and walked out of his bedroom, for once, slightly okay in the fact that he had just lost. Lost what, he wasn't exactly sure…but he certainly hadn't been the winner in that little exchange.
Dammit.