It was two days after his last meeting with Naruto and Itachi had finally come to a decision. Today he was going to confess to his brother. He had call in sick at the office and he would tell the truth to Sasuke when he woke up.

Itachi had been sitting in their kitchen since 4 in the morning playing all scenarios in his head on how Sasuke would react, but he felt like none of them seemed accurate. Sasuke would definitely not cry. Well not in front of him. He could scream at him maybe? Ot throw something at him? Maybe he'd just leave the room and come back later to talk about it.

Itachi shook his head and stood from his chair. He needed to distance himself from the situation. The more he dreaded this, the harder it would be when the moment really came.

He decided to do some things he had not done in a while. He took out some milk, flour, and eggs and started to make some pancake. At least this would keep him concentrate on something else, and maybe the smell would convince Sasuke to get out of bed. It was already 10 am and still no sign of him.

Sasuke had spent the entire night sitting on the dock outside the house. His date with Naruto - he was definitely calling this a date now - had bring him a lot of energy and he could not sleep at all. It had been the same yesterday, but tonight instead of staying in his bed waiting for sleep, he had decided to go outside and to bring more content to his novel.

He had been working on Naruto's idea of just making the break out a side quest and it was coming out wonderfully. He had laid another draft during the course of the night and written two other chapters. The ones he had already written still fitted with the story since they were mostly introducing his character and the place of the intrigue thus he would be able to show that to Kakashi at their meeting today.

The meeting was set for 2 in the afternoon and Sasuke was pretty confident that it would go smoothly. This idea was new, not predictable, and since he had been in a really good mood all night, not that dark. He was feeling a lightness in his chest, it had been a long time since he had felt this way about something he was writing. The last time was probably while writing his third book four years ago, when the novelty of being a writer was still thrilling to him.

He looked at the sun and decided that it was probably time for him to head back inside. It was getting pretty high in the sky after all and he did not want to be late for his meeting.

As he closed his laptop, his cellphone vibrated on the dock. Maybe he was already late and Kakashi was calling him to sermon him. He was surprised, pleasantly surprised, to see that the ID number was not Kakashi's but rather Naruto. He was calling a lot sooner than what Sasuke would have guess.

"Hello?"

"Uhmmm.. Hi! It's Naruto."

"Hi. I'm surprised to hear of you so soon."

Naruto laughed awkwardly on the other side of the phone. "Is it a bad timing? I was told that waiting too long was not a good idea."

Sasuke almost laughed at the nervousness in Naruto's voice. "I thought you would have called yesterday."

"Should I have? Damn, I should have listen to Sakura but I was so busy… But I did thought about calling you, you know?"

Sasuke smiled. "Naruto your timing is just fine, relax."

"I'm perfectly relax."

"Of course you are. So why are you calling me?"

"I wanted to ask you on a date?"

"Oh. Did you now?"

This was fun. Sasuke had been really nervous when he had told Naruto to call him but now that he was on the phone with him, he could see that Naruto's nervousness overpowered his own and it kind of relaxed him.

"Yup! I definitely did." Naruto was vigorously shaking his head behind his phone.

Sasuke decided to take the reins of the conversation instead of making more fun of him. "Alright, when are you free? Dinner, lunch, or breakfast?"

"I was thinking about something a little less conventional." Seeing Sasuke being open about the idea of a date had made Naruto more confident.

Sasuke rolled his eyes wondering what kind of idea the other had in mind. "I'm almost scared."

"Don't be! It's going to be great. Are you free Saturday night?"

Sasuke hummed softly in approval. "Sweet! Text me your address and I'll pick you up at 6. And don't eat!"

Sasuke was definitely smiling as he said goodbye to Naruto and started to type his address. When he looked at the time after sending it, he thought that he should definitely get ready if he did not wanted to be late to his meeting.

When Sasuke entered the house around 11 am, he was surprised to see that Itachi was still home. Even more surprising was the fact that he was making pancakes, lots of them. There was already three plates with easily ten pancakes on each.

"Why are you making pancakes?" Sasuke asked from just behind Itachi's shoulder. He could not help but smirk when Itachi nearly jumped upon hearing him.

Itachi had been waiting for Sasuke, but he was definitely not ready for him to appear out of nowhere right behind him. That was why he was going to put the fault on his surprise. It had just slipped out.

"I have cancer."

Sasuke did not move for a fraction of second and then he started laughing hysterically. He laughed for what seemed to be a long time but was probably only a couple of seconds.

"Wow." He said out of breath before walking out the kitchen towards the front door, his laptop still under his arm.

Itachi slapped himself on the forehead as he heard the door slammed. That was not how it was suppose to happen. He threw the frying pan on the ground and cursed.

"Fuck!"

Naruto was feeling great and it was really hard to hide it from Konohamaru when he came in his office to give him some files.

"You're glowing." Konohamaru said.

Let's change hard for impossible.

"I'm not!" Naruto replied still smiling.

"Did you have sex?" Naruto frowned at Konohamaru's question, making him laugh.

"Good it worked. Now keep that smile off your face 'cause your patient is here and she's already crying." Konohamaru said more seriously.

"Tenten?"

Konohamaru nodded before leaving the office.

Naruto didn't know why he had asked. Tenten was the only patient he saw on Wednesday. He usually spent all his Wednesdays and Thursdays reviewing his cases, analysing his current ones or studying the new one. However, Tenten was only free to visit him on Wednesdays after school, thus he made exceptions for her.

Tenten was an important witness in a trial against an Italian mob boss. The man had abducted her when she was 5 and had raised her as his own daughter, with success, until the day when she saw him kill someone in cold blood. She had been 14 and had run away to the nearest police station.

That was three years ago and she was still under witness protection as the detectives on the case tried to gather more proof to incriminate her adoptive father. She was living in Kingston under a fake name and could not leave the house where she was assigned unless it was to go to school, or once a week, to come see him.

Naruto was about to stand up and go ask Tenten to come in when a someone knocked on his office and entered it. It was Asuma. He was the detective who had first took Tenten's deposition at the station. They had sent him and his partner, Kurenai, as bodyguard for Tenten. They were also her parents in the eyes of the school she attended.

Naruto stood up to shake his hand and asked him what was wrong.

"Sorry, I know we're early but her school called us saying that she would not stop crying and asking to talk to a certain Naruto so we picked her up early to bring her here."

"Do you think something important happened?"

"Man, I have no idea! I don't speak teenage girl. Even Kurenai doesn't know what to do and she used to be one."

Naruto chuckled. "Alright, I can manage teenager jargon."

They both got out of the room to find Tenten clinging to Kurenai while in tears. Tenten almost jumped on Naruto when she saw him arriving. Kurenai looked relieved to pass the crying girl over to him.

Tenten hugged Naruto as hard as she could and he replied to her embrace. Konohamaru was looking a little awkward at his desk and seeing that they did not seemed to be moving, he picked up his laptop and went inside Naruto's office, closing the door behind him.

Tenten watched him leave, seaming to get calm enough to try and speak.

"I just…" Tenten sniffed and started sobbing again. "I thought I was finally happy! That I finally had my shit together. But all the shitty things have to happen to me!"

"Did something bad happened at school?" Naruto asked as Tenten tried to wipe her tears on his shirt.

"Yes. Something so horrible that I feel like dying."

"What was it?" Kurenai asked softly.

"He… He…" Another wave of tears seemed to hit her.

"Take all the time you need Tenten, it's alright to cry." Naruto said.

"He left me!" Tenten almost screamed in Naruto's chest.

"Wait, what?" Kurenai asked.

"Neji broke up with me."

"The fucker!" Asuma mumbled.

Naruto mentally sighed in relief. It was only teenage drama, nothing really big. She had not witnessed another murder, or been bullied. Nothing too traumatizing.

"He sais his family would not allow him to see someone like me and that I was not worth fighting for since I wouldn't even go on a date with him. It's not my fault if there is a mass murderer after me! I want to go out with him, I just can't go out at all."

"Did you tell him that it was because your parents were strict about letting you go out?" Naruto asked.

"Yes!" Tenten exclaimed. "But he just said that no parent would be so strict as to never let their kid out."

"Coming from a guy whose parents try to control his personal life…" Asuma said.

"I know! He's such an ass!" Now she looked really mad. Well better anger then tears Naruto thought.

Tenten finally let go and sat down on the floor. Naruto did the same as Asuma and Kurenai sat in the chairs nearby. She looked at him, almost pleadingly.

"I just want a normal life Naruto. I want all this shit to end, I don't wanna wake at 24 without having lived like a normal person. I couldn't have a real childhood, why can't I at least have this? I wanna go out with friends, have a boyfriend, miss curfew, and have real parents. Parents who love me and want what's best for me! Not a parent who train me to be a great swordswoman and then murder people in front of me!"

"You will have that!" Asuma exclaimed from where he was sitting.

If looks could kill, the one Naruto gave to Asuma would probably had him dropped dead. You don't go and lie to traumatized kid. Even after her little fit, Tenten was still a mature young woman and lying to her was not a good idea. It could make her resent him for doing the same thing her supposed dad had done.

Tenten was about to be 18 and once the trial was over, the government was probably going to give her some financial aid to start but after that she would be on her own.

"Look Tenten, you did not have it easy in your childhood, and even today you're living the hard way, but except for the fact that you have two nice officers following you everywhere. This is as real as it gets." Naruto looked over at Asuma and Kurenai. "Maybe you guys could make some arrangement for her to get out sometimes on weekend, I'm pretty sure it would help her a lot. Just having friends over at your place or sending her to a friend's house could be really good. It does not have to be a really public place. I think Tenten is smart and careful enough not to endangered herself." He winked at her and she smiled.

Asuma sighed and whatever it is he was about to say was cut out by Konohamaru coming loudly back in the room saying that Itachi had an emergency.

Sorry for being late guys! My boss was on vacation last week, and this week she took a sick leave because of some heart problems so today was my first day off in 13 days. I did not have any chapter ready so I wrote all day long! I hope you enjoyed it. We will see a bit more of Sasuke's feeling in the next chapter, and it's bad.

There should be a new chapter in two weeks(hopefully). See y'all!