The final round of the Chunin exams were just a couple of weeks away now and Sasuke was training with Kakashi every day now so that he could also learn the Chidori.

Naruto had met up with an old sage that turned out to be one of the legendary Sannin and the guy agreed to train him since Kakashi was busy and Naruto didn't get along well with his replacement.

Since Shanan wasn't a part of the Chunin Exams this year, she took turns watching Naruto and Sasuke train. She was able to help Sasuke with his Chidori after he got home too, but not as much as she would've liked.

She was actually still having pretty intense headaches that had been getting worse each day and had been told that she was going to have to go back to the hospital soon so that they could decide if she needed some kind of treatment. She had hoped to at least be there to watch the boy's fights, but at this rate, she wasn't sure.

The boys tried really hard to take proper care of her, but they had also been arguing a lot lately, which was very unlike them, at least to this extent. Sasuke was usually the one to instigate it and Shanan was positive that it was the curse mark. And her headaches made it hard to know what to say to him about it, which just made her feel even more guilty.

Tonight had probably been the worst as far as their arguing had been. They were making dinner and were just fighting about every single little thing. Sasuke thought that everything Naruto was doing was the wrong way to do it.

The final round of the exams was tomorrow and Shanan decided to stay awake until Naruto had fallen asleep so that she could talk to Sasuke about it. Or at least try to.

But he had fallen asleep already too, so she had to wake him up.

"Sasuke," she whispered as she squeezed his hand. "Hey!"

He opened his eyes slowly and looked at Shanan with a bit of a smirk. "Hey..." he said coolly as though this were a regular occurrence.

She smiled at him and then remembered that she needed to have a serious conversation with him. "Hey. We need to talk."

He rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times and sat up with a sigh. "I know. I've been a jerk lately. I'm really trying not to. I promise. It's just really hard. Ever since..."

Shanan sat up and motioned for Sasuke to come and sit next to her.

"It's the curse mark isn't it?" she asked him rhetorically as he sat beside her.

"Shanan, he wants me to train under him. He said that I would go to him in search of power," he finally told her.

She looked at him anxiously.

"But I won't. I don't need power. He thinks that I wanna avenge my clan. That's what everyone just assumes of me, but I don't want to do that anymore. I have more important things to think about," he glanced at her as he said it, "and I'm tired of living in the past," he said as he squeezed her hand and kissed it.

Shanan put her arms around his torso and put her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad to hear you say that. I'd be really lost without you... Like," she started to tear up a little, but fought it, "I genuinely don't know what I would do if you left and I refuse to even try and think about it, because it makes me unbelievably sad," she said as she wiped a tear that had escaped.

Sasuke laughed a little and put his hand under her chin to bring her up enough to look into his eyes. "I love you way too much to ever leave you." He smiled and paused for a moment to make sure it sank in and brushed her cheek as another tear fell. "Naruto, too. I promise that we will all always be a family, no matter what. I'll work as hard as I need to to be nicer to Naruto. He's honestly been surprisingly patient with me about it all." He smiled at her again. "This curse mark means nothing."

Shanan smiled softly back at him and then laughed quietly before putting her head back onto his shoulder. "He really has been amazing lately. He's matured so much since joining Team Kakashi. I think you're rubbing off on him."

"No. That is all Naruto. I take no credit," he said as he yawned. "He really wants to be Hokage and he's getting used to having to put in the work."

Shanan nodded in agreement.

They stayed on the bed and fell asleep snuggled up close to one another. When they woke up the next day, they were laying down, still in each other's arms. As such, Naruto did nothing to help Sasuke to be less of a jerk that morning.