Waking from a dreamless sleep, Naruto assessed his surroundings. He was not one for waking up near dawn, but something had triggered his internal alarm. Kiba, Akamaru and Dai were splayed out on their beds like starfish, with the former two drooling onto a pillow. The messy-haired blonde looked up to find Soba, cross-legged on the floor in her pants and an undershirt, eating ramen. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to remain slightly creepy by watching her stuff her face in the early morning light, or whether to get up and try to befriend her. Being ever the gentleman, he opted to be creepy for a little while longer; he pulled his covers up to his nose so she wouldn't be able to tell he was awake. Soba slurped up the rest of her noodles, wrapped her top around herself and left the room. Naruto popped up into a sitting position, trying to see where the kunoichi was heading. He rolled out of bed as silently as possible and grabbed his jacket before walking outside after Soba. Her long strides kept her a fair distance ahead of Naruto, but then again, he was trying to be sneaky. He just wasn't quite sure why he was doing that yet. She walked down the main dirt road like she was traveling a practiced path. Naruto watched from around the corner of a building, finding that she had gone to a street vendor to buy food.

Soba was more relaxed early in the morning, which is probably why she wasn't anticipating Naruto's presence to pop out at her so suddenly.

"Good morning, Soba-chan!" Reflexively, Naruto's surprised teammate grabbed for the katana that wasn't on her back. It took her a split second to realize she wasn't going to be attacked. Naruto beamed, but Soba's facial expression was somewhere between horror and confusion.

"Did…did you follow me?" She stuttered, pointing from the vendor to the direction they had walked from.

"Well, you woke me up because you're up way too early and the ramen smelled good, so I-" Naruto's words rolled off of his tongue almost all at the same time, and he avoided eye contact. Soba raised a thin eyebrow.

"So you followed me. Did you think I had more ramen in my back pocket?" She tilted her head to make eye contact with him. Naruto's eyes were completely round when she caught him with her gaze.

"No?" He was really hoping that she would be pleased to see him, not angry. He did technically follow her without her knowledge, but that wasn't the point. "But do you?" Soba blinked, reached into her satchel and pulled out a cup of ramen. She pressed it into Naruto's chest and while holding it there, she stared him in the eyes with an undecipherable expression. The man's eyes flicked from the ramen, up to her, and back again. He noticed how long her hair was when the wind picked up, so instead of grabbing the cup she was still holding to him, he watched the strands flutter in the wind. Naruto noted that she was actually beautiful when she wasn't in a rage.

"Naruto. Naruto? Naruto! Hello?" Naruto snapped back to reality and realized that the two of them were still standing at a street corner, a cup of ramen between them. Then Soba noticed they were staring at each other. Then Naruto noticed they were staring at each other. Then they stared at each other some more. Soba, horrified at letting her guard down, broke the spell.

"We need to get back and wake the other two."

"Uh, heh, yeah! Thank you for the ramen!" Naruto grabbed the food from her and they walked back in silence.

When they returned to the room, Dai and Kiba were already awake and dressed, and Akamaru was busy playing with a stuffed chew toy.

"We were wondering where you two had gone! I though Soba was going to go bury you somewhere so you'd stop talking!" Kiba looked at Naruto and laughed, but he was only half-joking. He was still scared of Soba because she reminded him of his mother. Dai was desperately trying to suppress a smile so that his sister wouldn't think he wasn't on her side, but he was so delighted to see her looking a little less composed. She tried to distance herself from Naruto and bring herself back to the cool, collected Soba of last night, but it was a little harder now. She cursed that messy blonde for being really hard to dislike; there was something so warm and familiar about him. Naruto was just standing in the doorway, grinning like he had nothing to lose.

"I still need him for recon." Soba pulled her hair up into a bun quickly, tying her forehead protector around it. "I have food, so grab something to eat. We're going to be splitting up several kilometres west of here, so I want to set out our plan for the next few days before we leave, too."

Naruto made his cup of ramen and kneeled down by the table where the others were. Soba was continuing her breakfast with an apple, slightly frustrated that she missed her morning workout in favour of a ridiculous encounter with the blonde sitting by her. Her face settled further into a scowl as they progressed through breakfast; she couldn't let her guard down again.

After they had eaten, Dai spread a map across the table so they could begin strategizing for the days ahead. It took the team very little time to finalize the plan, as Soba had already prepared a strategy. She made sure to pack them some food for the journey, brushing off Dai's 'thanks, mom.' Soon after, they paid the owner of the guesthouse and took off, the rising sun at their backs.

It didn't take the group very long to travel the few kilometres to their breakout point since they were energized from a good sleep.

"Dai, Kiba," Akamaru interrupted Soba with a bark, "-and Akamaru, you three are going to head southwest from here until you trace the route. When you do, radio in. Naruto and I will be observing Kurosawa Yoru's activities. I want to have him in our custody in four days, maximum, and the major supply line shut down. Above all, be careful, since we don't know anything about the missing-nins Yoru's hired. Anything before we split up?" Soba looked at each member of the team in turn, but they were all shaking their heads. "Let's go!" Dai smiled at his sister, who shoved an extra snack in a pocket of his vest.

"Be safe, imouto!"

"You too, niisan!" Soba nodded at Kiba, who responded in kind.

"We'll see you in a few days!" Naruto said, waving bye to the pair and Akamaru, who had already set off in a run. Soba turned to Naruto.

"Are you ready to go?" He nodded, grinned, and then leapt onto a branch above them.

"It looks like you're not, though!" Naruto let out a bark of a laugh as Soba joined him on a branch. She opened her mouth to say something scathing, but thought better of it. They leaped from branch to sun-dappled branch at a brisk pace, which made the both of them warm up considerably. It didn't help that Soba had her thick green cloak tied around her neck, but there was no room in her satchel because of all the food. She reached back into her pack, pulled out a lollipop and shoved it in her mouth. 'That's a start,' she thought.

As they moved steadily to their destination, Naruto kept trying to come up with ways to replicate his and Soba's interaction in the morning. He wanted to talk to her for two reasons: one, he was sure he would explode if they were in silence for three days, and two, she seemed like maybe she could be sweet, deep down. People did often tell him he saw the best in others, which sometimes led him to trouble, but it's this same attitude that got his best friend Sasuke back to the Leaf. Soba wasn't quite as complicated as Sasuke, but if he could make him come back, Naruto would make her come around.

An hour later, the blonde was ready to talk someone's ear off because he kept changing his mind about what to say to Soba, and had not said a thing. She, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content just listening to the wind rushing through the forest and the birds chirping. He attempted to turn his head slightly so that he could take a look at her without her noticing. The moment he so much as moved a millimeter from his status quo, Soba looked over, an enormous lollipop puffing out her right cheek. Her facial expression suggested she was expecting him to speak, but Naruto couldn't think of a single thing to say. He drew his lips into a thin line and half-smiled. He was trying to make what he thought was a neutral facial expression, but it ended up looking like he was experiencing constipation that he was vaguely pleased about. One corner of Soba's mouth twitched as she tried to suppress laughter and keep her composure. She waited until Naruto had turned back around before stifling a guffaw. In trying to inhale quickly, her lollipop slipped down her tongue and towards her throat, so her attempted subtlety turned into violent, rasping coughs. She had to stop abruptly on a large branch. It took Naruto a moment before he realized what had happened and he had gotten way ahead of where Soba was stopped. He turned on his heel and bolted back, landing next to her.

"Are you okay? What happened?" She was leaning with arm on the trunk of the tree, bent over and shaking. Naruto put his bandaged right hand on her back gently, bending over to look at her face. She righted herself, and Naruto saw that she was crying and gasping. "What's wrong?!"

Thanks for reading! As before, comments and constructive criticism are appreciated :)