Chapter 14

The feel of Naruto's soft hands on his cheeks faded and before their lips touched Naruto was gone and he was staring at his ceiling instead. He tried to squeeze his eyes shot to get back into the dream. He wanted to go back and was disappointed that he hadn't been able to kiss him. Sasuke's eyes flew up. Kiss him. He had wanted to kiss him. That couldn't be. Sasuke rubbed his eyes and tried to wake fully up. It was only an experiment it wasn't because he wanted it. He tried to convince himself but it was a little hard, when half of him was trying to creep further under the covers to get back to his dream. He had dreamed about him and not only that he had dreamed about kissing him. He mentally put another Yes on his little list.

Naruto was on his way to the training area. He was still fuming about Sasuke. How could it be that he ignored him for so long and then just suddenly shows up and acts like normal? He didn't need Sasuke, he could handle himself. A babysitter. How could Sasuke believe he would need something like that? He wasn't a child anymore, he was perfectly capable of protecting himself. It was early morning and nobody else was there yet. He went over to the wooden figure and began practicing some kicks and hits.

He had to get better, he had to. He could still feel how weak his body was. It still shook sometimes if he worked too hard or he would hit a little slower than before. He hated the fact that he could see some reason in what Sasuke was saying. He wasn't as great as before and he could easily strain his body on the more difficult missions. Sasuke was just so annoying and he didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right. Maybe if Sasuke had been there for him.. If he had helped him through the rehabilitation.. If he had wanted him on his team.. Then maybe he would listen to him.. but not now. Now he wanted to prove him wrong. He wanted to show Sasuke that he was fine on his own and Sasuke could just stay away and go back to not caring.

That was the worst part of it all. Either Sasuke should want to be friends with him or he should ignore him, this in-between was hard to take. He was now stuck in confusion, not knowing what in the world Sasuke was thinking. Why would he just seek him out and treat him like a child? He heard someone walking closer, but didn't turn. He was already panting softly from his workout and could feel the pain in his limbs.

"I think you should take it easy, it's obvious that your body isn't fully healed". The sound of Sasuke's voice made him turn quickly. Naruto dropped down to his knee and felt pain throb in his ankle. He clenched his teeth together and tried to get up. Sasuke was staring at him and was holding a hand out for him.

"Are you alright" If it wasn't because it was Sasuke he would think it was worry he could see in his eyes.

"I'm fine" Naruto said irritated and leaned against the wood figure. He tried to do it in a casual way so it wouldn't seem like he hurt himself.

"What are you doing here?" Naruto crossed his arms and glared at him.

"Just some training.. or am I not allowed to be here at the same time as you?" Sasuke went over to another wood figure and began to slowly kick the soft padding on the sides of the figure.

"Oh.. yeah, sure" Naruto blushed slightly. Of course Sasuke wouldn't come because of him, it was just to get stronger. Naruto kept leaned on the figure for a while, slowly trying to put some weight down on his foot. It was still a bit sore, so he sat down with his back towards Sasuke and wrapped sports tape tightly around his ankle. He got up again and his ankle was now able to support his weight almost without hurting. He went back to just practicing hits.

Sasuke glanced over at Naruto as he trained. It had seemed like he had hurt his ankle, but it seemed fine again. He was still a bit worried, he knew Naruto wasn't the best at taking care of himself and could be just faking it. His problem was just that Naruto seemed a bit hostile against him and wouldn't tell him anything even if he asked. Suddenly he stumbled forward almost falling onto the ground. He had apparently missed the wood figure and because of the power behind the hit he continued forward. He quickly got up and saw Naruto looking at him like there was something wrong with him. He was seriously getting effected by him, but he still didn't know how to stop it.

Sasuke noticed something was off. He didn't know what or how he knew, but something was off with Naruto. There was something wrong with the way he moved. He had apparently paid enough attention to Naruto to notice how he normally moved otherwise he wouldn't be able to sense it. This upset him. How much time had he paid attention to him unconsciously? Could Naruto really be that interesting... that his eyes would just seek him out on their own accord?

But even so, there was something wrong. There was the strain in his upper body. The hits came a little slower and hit a little softer, it wasn't something major and was probably just from overexertion because of being poisoned. It was something lower that had caught his eye. Naruto softly moved around as he hit, but there was some kind of limp.. a hesitation, almost like the body feared a specific move and hesitated with the movement. Maybe Naruto really did hurt himself, that could explain it all.

"Could you please stop staring at me all the time" Sasuke woke up from his thoughts.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Naruto blinked several times. He was completely taken aback, had Sasuke really been worried about him?

"I'm fine. I'm not your responsibility anymore, so just leave me" Sasuke noticed Naruto seemed more tired than angry. He didn't know how to respond to that, why did he feel like this if they weren't teammates anymore? Sasuke walked towards Naruto and squatted in front of him. He gently grabbed Naruto's ankle but before he could check it out, he felt a hand on his shoulder. The warmth from the hand seared down his torso and started a tingling in his stomach. The feeling reminded him of his dream and he couldn't help but to look up at Naruto's face and think about the kiss he never got.

"I'm fine, so could you let me go?" It took a while for the words to register in Sasuke's mind. Naruto frowned, but didn't dare to removed his foot by force, since it could get further hurt. Sasuke slowly released his grip and got up, he was now very close to Naruto's body and somehow that revelation made the tingling in his body worse. Naruto still had no idea what was going on in Sasuke's mind, but he was sure there was something wrong with the guy.

Sasuke calmed himself and left Naruto, it would be best to keep some distance until he found out how to control himself. He sighed as he remembered he had gotten three more Yes's since yesterday and now he could no longer deny that he probably had some kind of feelings for Naruto. Maybe he was really starting to fall in love with him. Sasuke rubbed his face. Great, just great.

I hope it doesn't feel like it's moving too slow? The story has gotten a lot longer than I intended, so I hope it doesn't feel like the chapters are boring or I'm writing to long about something unimportant. I will appreciate if people could write if it's fine so far or if I should change something.