Chapter 14: Music

"Hmm..." The Kakashi double looked a round the familiar reception area of D.S. I, S.D.I now, he knew everything there was to know about this place as if he'd been there from the start. He didn't remember the roof being gone and steel beams protruding from the top of the building. From what he could see another floor was currently being added.

With Iruka in his arms he walked into the hallway that lay behind that door, taking the familiar path towards the man's room.

"Kakashi."

The copy looked back, Kiba was standing there with an expression on his face that looked as he was searching for something "Hey, have you seen Gaara? Naruto wanted me to check up on him."

"He's somewhere around here, don't worry about him." Kakashi said calmly, continuing on his path to Iruka's room.

Kiba peeked over his shoulder "What happened to Iruka? Is he alright?"

"A Demon, but he'll be fine after some rest. So keep it down."

Kiba was being rather loud, "Oh sorry about that...What did it do to you?"

Kakashi froze, Kiba noticed something was different about him, so quickly "What do you mean?"

Kiba pointed to his shirt "Your clothes look really dull now, and you smell like a demon."

'!' Kiba had seen right through him so easily, were his clothes that much of a give away? And did he smell that much like a demon, he hadn't even realized it...the real Kakashi had said something about him being a demon. At this point he didn't even know what he was, on one had he thought he was Kakashi, but there was the distinct detail that was telling him he wasn't. The demonic powers were a dead give away that he wasn't human, no matter how human he felt.

If Kiba learned of it, he'd be afraid, then he would attack, then things would start on a downward spiral... "...Acid, the demon produced Acid in it's mouth. Probably why I smell like this...I think I need to change clothes."

"Oh, make sense." Kiba shrugged and turned around, "I'll leave you to it then, If Gaara's alright then I got a lot of funds so spend."

The copy let out a sigh of relief, hurrying into Iruka's room before anyone else could see him and ask questions. The room was so neat, clean, organized, Kakashi crossed the room to the bed in the corner, laying Iruka down gently. Kakashi looked down at himself "Change cloths...right." With that thought, Kakashi left Iruka alone and headed for the real Kakashi's room just across the hall.

This room wasn't as neat as Iruka's but it was enough to be considered clean no matter how disorganized it was. He felt an inane sense of comfort here, home. Kakashi stripped himself of the vest, letting it fall to the ground behind him. He began to pull off the slightly gray shirt as he walked over to the dresser and started riffling through it for something acceptable to ware, preferably similar to what he had on. "Oh yeah...don't need these anymore." Kakashi looked down at his pants, quickly unbuttoning them and kicking them off.

This was the first time he got a full look at himself, how exactly identical he was. Every cut and scare Kakashi had ever received was visible and present, every detail of the man's body he had. He was starting to get a loathing for the man. Something to think about latter, now he just had to get dressed, he couldn't go around completely naked. As funny as that might be. He was in luck through, there was another set of the Jounin uniform here among other things, which the doppelganger quickly put on. He seemed satisfied with it, it wasn't dull like his last pair, these were perfect. And now so was he.

"You can't be serious."

The fake Kakashi flinched at the sound as he pulled up his mask, slowly turning around to see the real Kakashi standing in the doorway. Not looking at all happy. "You!" The doppelganger pointed an accusing finger at him "I thought I told you to stay away."

"What did you do to Iruka!"

"What the hell! I didn't do anything to him, a demon"

"A demon like you." Kakashi ran at the fake, ramming him to the ground and pulling a Kunai from his holder.

The doppelganger caught his hand before Kakashi could stab him, then he lifted his opposite arm in similar motion. In an instant Kakashi was mirrored with the doppelganger holding a Kunai that appeared out of nowhere. "What the" Kakashi fell backwards as the blade was drove into his shoulder. He rolled to the side and jumped backwards on to his feet. "How can you even dispute that your real when you just keep copying me?"

"If I wasn't real I wouldn't be standing here." The doppelganger threw the Kunai in his hand at Kakashi, who caught it and tossed it back along with the other one he already. Both of them plunged into both sides of the doppelganger's stomach, followed by a flow of blood. "And I didn't hurt Iruka!"

"The hell you didn't." Kakashi stomped down on to him, but the copy caught his foot and swept his other leg off the ground with his fist. Kakashi fell backwards, and as soon as he hit the ground the doppelganger sprang on top of him another knife in hand plunging down on his chest. Kakashi blocked with a Kunai of his own, both clashing together in a spray of sparks and scraped metal, pushing upward while the copy pushed down on him. Both completely equal in strength.

But just as it seemed the copy was overpowering him, the real Kakashi went up in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind an explosive tag. 'What!' It exploded in an even larger cloud of flames and smoke that engulfed the demon whole.

The real Kakashi stood behind, against the wall waiting anxiously 'Did it...work?' He waited as the smoke cleared away...The doppelganger was still there...only it was oddly different, except for the clothing the copy was still a mirror of Kakashi only in a dull and bland black and white devoid of any color

"Wha-what the..." The doppelganger looked down at his hands with eyes wide, a strange pulsing was pounding in his ears. But it died down as his body slowly but surely returned to normal. he seemed to be in shock, surprised and unexpectant of what had just happened. "I-I..." The doppelganger looked up at Kakashi, who seemed to be just as surprised as he was, and then disappeared in a blur of speed.

"He...left?"

! - ! - !

Neji read over the book intently with his Bakyugan, the book of demon arts changed when he read it with his blood line enabled. The text was initially the same, but details started to become different until whole meanings changed, the part visible with the Bakyugan was decidedly the true vision of the text. It made him wonder how something like this could be written, where the pages held invisible words. And who or what wrote it so that it only could be seen with the Bakyugan?

Neji was in his study now, a scroll on one side of the desk and the demon book on the other along with a messy disarray of notes and translation templates. Neji was copying key passages down in their entirety in the scrolls, mainly the jutsu since that was what this book mainly was. Things he'd have to learn later.

The next thing he noticed was that everything in each book connected to something in another, all of them seemed to be one large demon index holding techniques, Jutsus, detailed information but each book held one subject predominately. But the way the book was written made it hard to cross reference anything they were researching unless they read each book twice. It was also painfully vague unless the person had more specific information to search with, something none of them had.

"Huh?" Neji looked closely down at the pages of the book above the one of demon arts, he'd seen a reference to insects in a jutsu as the creator...when he cheeked it out in third book of the volume the first insect type he'd come across was amazingly similar to the insects he and Kiba had been encountering lately... "Translates to...Ju Kama Bugs..." He had a name... All he had to do was translate farther.

Ju Kama bugs, named because they fed primarily on JU KAMA Bakemonoboku Ganseki. Said to have numbers in the thousands, each member of the species are apart of one hive. Able to live for thousands of years from a strictly Bakemonoboku Ganseki diet, the whole swarm feeds once every 500 or so years and then goes back to it's hive. That's what it said roughly translated. "That doesn't explain why it's after us..." Neji looked up from the books and rubbed his head lightly, using his Bakyugan in this way for this long was giving him a headache. "The words Bakemonoboku Ganseki kept coming up...maybe if I look that up..."

Neji picked up a third book in from volume, roughly a translated one of items or artifacts. Sitting the book on top of the other two he started flipping through the pages that he'd referenced...JU KAMA Bakemonoboku Ganseki, an acorn from the Bakemonoboku in the form of a stone. The Bakemonoboku was a rare tree and the Bakemonoboku Ganseki held high levels of concentrated nutrients needed for the tree to grow after planting. Nutrients include chakra, ki, and arashi metsubushi. 'If that was the nutrients inside of it needed to for the acorn to become a sapling, I wonder what was in the full grown tree.'

With a diet like that then it was no wonder the Ju Kama bugs could live thousands of years and go for long periods of time with out eating. 'What about the tree?' The Bakemonoboku are rare because of the Ju Kama bugs that feed on their seeds have wiped them all out, it has large amounts of the highly concentrated nutrients that it gives to it's seeds. The tree has enrichment and healing properties...the rest didn't translate 'I need new translation transcripts.'

But why were the Ju Kama bugs after them, he'd remember seeing a Bakemonoboku sitting around though he knew he'd never seen one before from how it was described he was sure it would be distinct.

! - ! - !

"Naruto?" Neji emerged from his study with a horrible migraine, it wasn't an issue of using all of his charka on the Bakyugan it was how long he could stand it. 3 hours was his official limit. "Naruto?" Neji looked into the fourth row, following the trail of discarded books until he reached the orange clad blond.

Naruto was sitting on the ground with his back against one of the book shelves, still reading the same demon book Neji had given him with the translations scattered around him among other sheets with notes written in Naruto's sloppy hand writing. "Naruto, are you alright?" Neji asked "You haven't stepped out of this row since your last mission. And your messing up my library."

Naruto looked up "Sorry."

Neji knelt down next to Naruto and picked up some of his notes... "I'm impressed, someone like you has done so much hard work." Neji ran his finger over the messy script as he read, decoding Naruto may have actually been harder then the demon language. "You translated this part wrong."

"What?" Naruto leaned to the side so that the paper came into his view.

"Change these 5 letters...switch this word...here, now it's fixed."

"Great, now I only have too check out 200 possible things." Naruto sighed.

Neji looked over the boy going back to work, he still looked like hell... "Naruto, your getting punchy. Go get something to eat and some sleep and you can pick up where you left off later."

Naruto shook his head, "I can't right now." He said, looking back and fourth between the book and the translations.

Neji gave him another over look...then he looked away. "Your not getting anything done this way, go."

"I can't"

"You don't have a choice, go."

Naruto looked up at him questioningly "Are you...kicking me out?"

"Yes." Neji said plainly "Food, sleep, now." Before Naruto could get another word in, Neji picked him up by his jacket collar and started dragging him towards the door "Your too messy anyway, I hate my things being in disarray."

"Neji!" Naruto struggled furiously but by the time he stared putting up a decent fight he was already flying out of the door, and then having it shut in his face.

! - ! - !

"..." This wasn't working, his concentration was shot and he knew it... Gaara opened his eyes to the view of blue waters rushing down on to his head and shoulders from the waterfall he was sitting under. The same waterfall. It was hard enough to concentrate here in the first place, but he found it impossible now, to many things were going through his head.

Everyone was telling him not to leave...but it was getting harder and harder to listen. He was putting all of them in danger... he was putting him in danger, and he'd kill himself before he ever did that again... Just stop thinking about it, for now just stop thinking... Gaara sighed and tilted his head back, letting the water run over his face and through his hair, then he looked down over the side of the rock he was sitting on. This was the first time he ever really paid attention to his reflection, those dark lines under his eyes that had been fading were starting to return...

He just sat there...alone... it was amazing what things started running through his mind. Most of which he didn't care to remember or think about and forced him to try and clear his mind again. But one thing did stick out, one thing that he remembered oddly well...it was about when he left for Konoha to find Naruto. He started thinking about things people did and he told himself that he'd try out music, he also said that he would try making some himself.

! - ! - !

After a few minutes of mindless running, his mind started to think again on it's own. He couldn't stop it, so he just gave in. He tried to think of something other then what he had been thinking of since yesterday. Maybe he could do something that didn't result in pain on himself and/or others.

Music maybe. There isn't a person that doesn't like some type of music. All he had to do was find that type. Or better yet he could learn how to play an instrument, something like that was time consuming and took practice and hard work. It would take years to master. It was perfect. And if he mastered one instrument, he could start learning another. He could even learn to sing…

The thought of that was laughable, in fact it almost made him laugh. The thought of himself singing was hilarious…Well, apparently mindless thinking had it's upsides, who would have thought.

Music…that seemed realistic, he would have to try it one day. But he decidedly first would have to find something he liked. That would involve him actually listening to it first, he never actual listened to any music in his life. Sure he had the chance, but he didn't bother with something that seemed trivial and.

! - ! - !

...Should he? Why would he? What was the point of something so mundane, time could be better spent then doing things like that...what things? Were things like listening music just done to pass time? Other things could be done to pass time, like games, from what he had seen they were a lot more enjoyable then listening to a series of sounds and noises ...He'd never actually been involved in a game so he didn't know how true that statement was.

Gaara picked himself up, jumping off of the vacant stone and back on to the bank of the river. Standing up strait and strapping his gourd back on to his back, he started on his slow trail to Konoha. Training was obviously in impossibility today, and his mind kept coming back to that thought of music. If doing what he was about to do would help his concentration then the sooner he could get this stupid curiosity out of him the better.

! - ! - !

Iruka's eyes shot open and he sprang upward from his bed. His head shifted around frantically, his eyes scanning his current surroundings. "How...what happened?" Iruka rubbed his head, happy to see that the dizziness he'd experienced before passing out was gone. But so was the copy...and he was back in his room.

Iruka pulled himself out of bed, moving curiously to the doorway with careful steps. He opened the door and walked out into the hallway 'I really am back...but how? Did he...bring me here?' Iruka thought, still looking around carefully, 'Or did someone rescue me?' Iruka closed the door behind him and leaned against it, he wasn't dizzy but he was weak from being poisoned.

The bite hadn't been in contact long enough to give him too much of the venom so not much happened but the weakening effect. "...I'm confused...where's Kakashi?" Iruka pushed himself off the door and slowly began to walk down the hall in his search for answers, but he noticed something... Naruto, just ahead of him, was walking in a dead pan manner to his room. "Naruto?"

Naruto turned and looked at him, he had deep bags under his eyes from sleep deprivation for who knows how long and he looked weaker then Iruka was from no food at all. No energy, none what so ever, completely un Naruto like. "Iruka? Huh?"

"Naruto, what's wrong with you?" Iruka forgot his current problem at the sight of Naruto, quite frankly he looked like hell.

"Neji kicked me out." He said bitterly, pounding his head against the wall, "I don't need this right now..."

"Naruto, have you seen..." Iruka paused, looking over Naruto's face carefully...He was so... "You look like hell...you need a break anyway, how about we go out for some ramen?" He could figure out what happened latter, he wasn't dead and he was relatively alright. Besides, Naruto needed somebody to help him, he couldn't keep going like he did. And Iruka was just the push he needed to get him back on track.

"Really?" Naruto stopped pounding his head and looked up.

! - ! - !

Gaara almost felt silly walking into this store, then he realized this wasn't the first time in fact now that he thought about it he felt this way many times before. Only then he hadn't realized it, now he was keenly aware of his emotions. The downside of being humanized by Naruto, damned human emotions, they were like hell nowadays. But it was easy enough to push it back to the point where it was no longer there.

He'd stopped back at SDI and left his gourd in the lobby, it was easier to move with out it. He opened the glass door and walked inside of the Konoha Record Store and stared at the mounds and mounds of CD's that were everywhere in a sea of colors and square shapes. "..." The task ahead of him seemed tedious, something annoying that he'd rather not do, sampling all of this music just to see what it was like and get rid of this curiosity. His concentration was at stake, he'd never get that nagging thought out of is head if he didn't.

So after giving a considerable amount of money to the owner, and being allowed a CD player and permission listen to anything he wanted to without being disturbed, Gaara went to work...deciding to chose a few out of the labeled genres before getting to details. So he ended up with 10 cds to start with.

"What's the difference between all of these...it's all just sounds."

Gaara found a rather secluded place in the very back corner of the store and picked up the first CD...flipping it around and looking over each inch, first genre "Country?" whatever this was. He opened it, or at least he tried to open it, but he found the thin layer of plastic covering it that surprisingly hard to get through. He couldn't grip it, his nails didn't seem to be effective, he even tried scraping the bottom over the edge of table. "I've never seen this type of plastic before...government issue? Possibly these CDs need to be kept fresh...?"

Finally Gaara got frustrated in his attempt to open it manually and just tore it open with his sand. Already thoroughly annoyed, Gaara nearly cracked the CD putting it place, then shoved the headphones over his unruly red hair and pressed play...

! - ! - !

"A demon is after you?" Kisame inquired curiously "I guess it's really happening." He laid back against the soft grass along the familiar rolling planes out side of Konoha, a completely secluded area though it was thousands of acres wide. He'd taken this path on his way to the Mist village in his attempted rescue of Itachi from Akatsuki as ironic as it was. It didn't go so well especially since Konohamaru was with him, he nearly ended up dead and came inhumanly close. He was sure he'd crossed that line a few times during that time.

"Yeah." Konohamaru sighed, sitting down next to him with a loud thud. After scrubbing the blood off of him and changing cloths, into some of Sasuke's old ones no less, he'd headed off to find Itachi and Kisame. Sasuke wasn't all that happy with his choice to leave, he wanted him to stay so he could protect him, so that he could make sure he was really alright. Sure Sasuke would be a little mad but he was always so cute when he was like that, he always wondered around mindlessly when he was worried.

"So is that all you came here to tell us?" Kisame asked, "We could have figured that one out by ourselves." He was still a little tired and easily aggravated, but that wasn't saying much because he always had little patience. He glanced up at Itachi who was sitting behind him, the same stoic expression he always carried.

"No..." Konohamaru looked directly at Kisame when he said this. "It called me Reedamaru."

That seemed to catch their attention, Kisame sat up "What?"

"Yeah, It attacked me again this morning..." Konohamaru started to divulge into the details of his last encounter with the mysterious demon, Kisame seemed more concerned about Konohamaru, Itachi was thinking more about this demon... "That's what happened..."

"Damn." Kisame looked a little uneasy after hearing this, to think something was actually after the boy, something this dangerous. Something he couldn't protect him from, Kisame remembered the last encounter when Konohamaru was trapped in a place...that didn't exist, and attacked by demon foxes...that also didn't exist. The injuries from the whole thing were real enough though, Konohamaru still had scares.

Itachi looked at Kisame, his eyes doing the talking instead of his mouth. Kisame understood, they weren't sure that they wanted to tell Konohamaru that Reedamaru was actually his father. The same father who tired to kill him and who they killed in turn. "Konohamaru, this isn't a demon."

"Huh?" Konohamaru looked up questioningly, "Then what is it?"

Itachi hadn't gotten that far, all he knew was that this didn't have the characteristics of a demon. Not even the poltergeist type. This was something completely different, and it had a grudge against Reedamaru that it planed to avenge through his son. "I'm not sure."

"..." Konohamaru dropped his head, he was really scared now... "What am I suppose to do? I...don't know if I can go back...it's going to keep trying until it kills me." Konohamaru knew that much, the attacks on him had been getting substantially worse. First it attacked him in his sleep, which had been painful, then he was attacked on a mission, which had nearly killed him if not for Itachi and Kisame's intervention. And the most recent that had served to nearly scare him to death, literally, he now knew how that was possible.

Kisame pushed himself up until he was standing, then drew his sword from his back and leaned on it. "Don't run from it, that's what it wants." Kisame said firmly, "You have to go back and fight it."

"Fight it?" Konohamaru let his head hang lower, "How can you fight something like this."

"Come on, you haven't even tried." Kisame said. "All those times, why didn't you?"

Konohamaru turned away, but before he could even notice his action Kisame demanded that he look him in the eye and give him an answer. "...I...was scared, but even if I was, there was nothing I could do to stop it anyway."

Kisame snorted and rolled his eyes, Konohamaru was Konohamaru after all...Kisame pushed his Samhada into the ground just deep enough for it to stand on it's own, then he sat down next to Konohamaru. "You want to know the trick to getting over fear?" Kisame asked.

Konohamaru looked up at him intently and nodded anxiously "Yeah."

"You do what your afraid of and get the courage to do it afterwords."

"What?" Konohamaru's face strained in to a confused expression, "That doesn't make any sense. It should be the other way around"

"Should be shouldn't it, Life's a bitch huh?" Kisame smirked, showing off his shark tooth like canines. "So your going to have to fight it sooner or later."

There was no way out of this, even if he didn't want to Kisame would make him face this anyway. "Guys help me? Tell me how am I suppose to fight this thing? What can I fight it with?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Aww man...you gotta help me out. Please Boss?"

"Well if your going to wine about it, I'll see if I can get you some weapons that might help you..." Kisame was a weapons expert, when he made Sahamada he was skilled enough to give it Chakra removal abilities. And that shaving instead of cutting property didn't happen on it's own. He could probably make something that worked against sprits "Hell, I'll make you some."

"Really!" Konohamaru's face brightened considerably "Can you train me too?"

Itachi glanced over at Kisame, who just shrugged and nodded.

! - ! - !

Music... how could an assortment of organized sounds and voices be so...interesting, enjoyable actually. As confusing as it was music seemed to invoke some type of favorable reaction in his mind. He'd sorted almost completely though the things he didn't like and what he did, a lot of it he didn't like, but there was almost an equal amount that he did.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been here, 3 hours at the least. He wasn't opposed to sitting in this corner longer and continuing to listen, but on the other hand he didn't want to, he'd be more comfortable in his room. So with a decision reached he pulled the headphones down around his neck and stood up, leaving the CD's he didn't want and taking the ones he did, along with a few others he picked up randomly.

! - ! - !

It didn't take long, in fact it happened surprisingly fast. Soon after Iruka had treated Naruto to some ramen and they'd returned, Naruto went strait to sleep despite his tries not to. Iruka sat quietly in Naruto room, resting on the boy's bed with his back against the wall and his arms resting lazily behind his head.

Naruto was laying across him, his head resting in Iruka's lap. He finally looked peaceful, Iruka was thankful for that. When he woke up Iruka was gong to make sure he helped him so he didn't starve an exert himself like this again. The man couldn't help but muse on how amazing Naruto's determination was. Iruka smiled and let one hand come to rest on the boy's head "You really did it this time Naruto, I guess you really do want to worry me to death."

Naruto grumbled and shifted in his sleep "...Iruka...I'm sorry..."

He was awake? No, he was barley conscious. Iruka ran his fingers messagingly through the boy's hair in a comforting manner. "Why are you sorry? There's nothing to apologize for."

"Uh-huh." Naruto rolled over sleepily so that his face was pressed into his stomach. "I was...I made you worry, and a disappointed you a lot."

"Is that how you really felt?" Iruka asked questioningly, but kept his voice low "You don't have to worry about that."

"I..."

"Go back to sleep, you can't work for 2 days strait with out a break at least."

! - ! - !

This room was bare, nothing but a bed and a single dresser. That was it, this place was completely devoid of decoration, of anything special, of self, of soul. It was just cold, distant lonely. Not even a picture. Gaara didn't seem to think anything of it, nor did it mind or notice. That impersonal emptiness was now filled with something of Gaara's personality, the boy dumped the 29 CDs in to a scattered pile on the ground. Then he set his Gourd, which he'd retrieved from the lobby, in the corner.

He was crossing the room towards his bed when he stopped halfway on the hardwood floor, deciding it was better just to sit on the ground near the CD then to carry them all over that way. He crossed his legs, slid the headphones over his ears and picked up the first CD out of the pile he hadn't listened to yet. What genre was this? What the hell was R&B? Time to find out.

! - ! - !

After an hour or so, Gaara had somehow changed from sitting upright to laying in a disorganized heap on the ground surrounded by a disorganized heap of cases. With his eyes closed, he reached down blindly to the CD player on his stomach and pulled out the current CD, then tossed it out an open window as he'd done with 2 others. Some things he didn't like.

So far he'd gone through at least one thing from every genre, and he'd liked at least one artist from each. And their were many more to go. At the moment he realized that only through the quiet pause of changing CDs could he noticed a certain things, "You should consider announcing your presence in some way when you enter a room." Gaara said still without opening his eyes, he already knew it was Sasuke.

Sasuke looked down on Gaara from the bed, "You look like you've been busy."

"You could say that." Gaara reached to his right, his hand landing on a deliberately placed Kunai and holding it up to an already lifted CD case, slicing thinly through the plastic and then returning the blade to it's spot as the covering fell off. He started to think that a plastic this hard to open could be put to other uses "Konohamaru?"

"He ran off some place." Sasuke said plainly, which was why he was here wandering around like this.

Gaara inserted the CD and pressed play, what genre was this? Gaara opened his eyes and glanced at the case, Rap? What the hell is this? Once again it was time to find out.

Sasuke still watched him, if this wasn't an odd sight then he didn't know what was. Even doing something so uncharacteristic, the way Gaara laid in an uncharacteristic manner so characteristically still and solemn. Even doing this he still managed to make it seem Gaara-ish.

With a shrug he left Gaara's room... Back to wondering.

! - ! - !

It was strange how music effected a person, some music made him feel saddened, other made him want to move around, at most it made him want to tap his finger to said beat. He wasn't even going to think about what some of the other songs did to him. Gaara pressed stop, he'd gone through this CD already, he didn't like this particular song so it was better to go on to something new.

Gaara opened his eyes to find another CD, but he found himself looking up into large blue eyes. "Hi." Naruto yawned sleepily, "What cha doing?"

Gaara pushed the headphones down off his head, "Listening to music." He said, looking cautiously at Naruto.

Naruto sat down next to him. "Can I hear?"

"Um...sure." Gaara handed him the headphones and Naruto carefully put them on.

"Is this...your first time listening to music?"

"Basically."

Naruto looked around at all of the CDs scattered around, he figured the ones in opened cases were the ones he liked and the small pieces of broken ones that had missed the windows were the ones he didn't. "So what's your favorite song?"

Gaara thought about it as he heard the headphones blaring from above around Naruto's ears, "Too many to choose...Are you alright?"

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, just taking a break. What about you?"

"Fine."

Naruto lent downward and gave Gaara a kiss. "Make sure you tell me when you finally do pick a favorite song."

"Alright."

"Promise?"

"..."

"...I better get back to work then..."

! - ! - !