Chapter 3

Naruto thrust the towel at the curtain, keeping his gaze in the opposite direction, and his face flushed deeply. "Umm," he forced out, "I'll see you in the room."

Brain momentarily frozen, she reached out and snatched the towel form his hand. He ran out of the room to his own as the first few people started trickling in from dinner. Ino's brain gears were attempting to force themselves back in motion.

He saw.

He knew.

She was toast.

She dried her body and pulled on her pajamas. Keeping the towel around her neck, she pretended to be thoroughly drying her hair as she left the showers to give her shaking hands something to do. It sounded like someone called her name from the downstairs lobby but she didn't stop to investigate.

Once she was inside their room, she shut the door and took the towel from her shoulders. Naruto's face was still dark red, returning hers to the same color. He cleared his throat as Ino shifted uncomfortably in the silence.

"So…" he began, "Who are you, really?"

She swallowed hard, throat unnaturally dry. "Ino Yamanaka."

"Why are you here?"

"I…"

Ino stared down at her feet. "I can't tell you."

Naruto looked up at her, redness fading. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to tell the headmaster," he threatened.

"You wouldn't," she retorted with hollow confidence.

"Just tell me why you're at an all-boys boarding school."

Ino's face reddened further. "Not so loud!" She sat down on her bed and hissed, "You can't tell anyone, got it?"

Naruto folded his arms and legs where he sat on his bed. "Try me."

She fished out her cell phone and clicked a few buttons before holding it out to him. He saw a picture of a baby with light brown hair. "What about it?" he asked.

"It's a picture of my son," she answered, withdrawing the phone to stash away again.

He gaped at her. "What?"

She nodded. "So I had to change schools and this is the only one close enough that my parents could afford."

"So who's the father?"

Ino sighed. "I don't know."

He raised an eyebrow. "You don't know who the father of your own kid is?"

"It's not what you think," she groaned, knowing what he was assuming. "There was a party and I drank too much and I can't remember much after that."

Naruto stayed quiet for a long time. "So, what's the kid's name?"

"Riku Athrun Yamanaka," she answered.

He scoffed, "I guess that answers where you picked your name…"

Stringing her towel over the railing at the end of her bed, Ino opened the door. "So now you can go announce it."

Naruto shook his head. "No."

"What do you mean 'no'?"

"I mean," he said as he stood to close the door. A few seconds after it echoed shut, he repeated, "No."

He turned around and climbed onto his bed, pulling out his untouched homework.

"You're not going to bust me?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

"You're not reporting me?"

"Nuh-uh," he answered, pulling out a pencil.

"Why aren't you freaking out about this?" she nearly yelled out of frantic.

"Because my brain will explode if I think about it too much, so I'm not."

"I'm glad one of us is taking it lightly," she muttered, plopping down into her bed.

"Good-night," he said.

Ino sighed and crawled beneath the bed covers. "Good-night."

It took about an hour and a half for Naruto to finish his homework. Just as he turned off the lights with the decision to go to bed early, Ino woke up and gripped the trashcan. In three short heaves, her entire dinner was in the garbage. He woke up again at four in the morning to the sounds of her heaving.

Sitting up, Naruto turned on a lamp and rubbed one of his eyes. "Are you okay?"

Ino cleared her throat, leaning back to rest against the wall. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Do you need some water or something?"

She thought a moment before answering, "Yes, please."

Naruto dragged himself out of bed and, dragging an empty water bottle with him, he left for the bathroom. He found Sasuke was also in the bathroom, washing his face. "Hey, Sasuke. What are you doing up?"

Drying his face, he answered, "Bad dream. What about you?" He eyed the water bottle.

"Athrun is puking again so I was just getting him some water." Naruto turned on the cold water in one of the sinks. "What was the dream about?"

"Itachi again," he sighed.

"I thought you stopped having those with the counseling."

"So did I," Sasuke answered.

"Are you going to be okay?"
He nodded. "I think so. I don't think I'm going back to sleep for a little while, though."

"At least it's the weekend," Naruto yawned. Turning off the water and screwing on the lid, he said, "Well, I'll talk to you later. Sleep well."

"Yeah," he scoffed.

Naruto made his way back to his room. Ino was dry-heaving into the trashcan, turning over his stomach uncomfortably. "Ino?"

Once she stopped heaving and caught her breath, she sat back in her bed. "Do you have the water?"

He passed it to her, and she quickly downed half of the water. Naruto pressed a hand to her forehead. "Your fever seems to have gone up a little."

"Great," she groaned sarcastically, lying down in her bed.

"Just get some sleep," he advised.

"M'kay," she mumbled, already snuggling up to her pillow.

Naruto crawled under his own blankets and drifted off to sleep quickly. In the morning, he was surprised not to wake up to the sounds of heaving. He saw his roommate was sound asleep, as well as pale and sweaty. Deciding to let her sleep a little longer, he crept out of the room and to the lobby.

Chouji, Sasuke, and Deidara were sitting there already. The Uchiha was reading while the other two talked about something indistinct. Naruto took a seat next to Chouji on the couch.

"Hey," he greeted tiredly.

"Hey, Naruto," Chouji replied, "What's up with you?"

"Athrun kept waking me up when he was puking last night. He doesn't look much better than yesterday," he yawned. "I wish there was something I could do to make him feel better."

Tobi came running in out of nowhere, giggling childishly, and tackled Deidara in a hug. "How about telling his parents to send Starbursts?" he suggested.

Deidara pushed his friend off casually, as if he were brushing off a stray pillow that had been thrown at him.

Chouji said, "Tobi's on the right track, though. Why don't you call his parents and ask what they give him when he's sick?"

Naruto rolled this over in his brain as Tobi sat on the arm of his side of the couch. He ignored the upperclassman even as his hair was toyed around with child-like wonder. "I don't know…"

"Or at least get him some soup or something," Chouji advised.

"Do you think it'll help him?"

Chouji nodded confidently.

Sighing, Naruto said, "All right, then." He stood, accidentally knocking Tobi backwards with the motion, and headed back to his room to dress. Ino was still soundly asleep as he snatched her cell phone and found her mother in the contact list.

"Hello?" a woman's voice answered after two rings.

"Hello, is Mrs. Yamanaka there?" He spoke quietly to not wake his roommate or be overheard.

"This is she. Who is this?"

"My name is Naruto. I'm a classmate of Ino's. She's really sick and I was wondering if you'd know of anything that could help her get better."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine, but she's been puking a lot and she has a fever," he assured.

The woman paused to think. "Well, if she was at home, I would give her a lot of hot tea and make her chicken noodle soup if she felt up to it. Otherwise, I would just give her a lot of hot tea since it's easy on her stomach and keeps her hydrated."

"Anything else?" he asked, glancing over at Ino and watching the blankets rise and fall with her breaths.

"Nope, that's it. She does the rest on her own," she replied. "So, Naruto, how do you know Ino?"

"I'm her roommate," he answered.

"How many people besides you know who she is?"

"Nobody and I'd like to help her keep it that way. If I do this, do you think she'll be okay to return to school Monday?" Her secret would be out if the school doctor had to thoroughly examine her.

"Most definitely," she said. "How is she? I'm kind of worried about her, between you and me."

"She's a little quiet at times, but she seems fine to me. She gets along pretty well with my friends and me."

He heard her faint sigh of relief, "Good, I'm glad."

"It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Yamanaka, but I have to go before I get in trouble."

"I understand. Thanks for calling, Naruto."

Naruto ended the call, turned it off, closed the phone, and put it back where he found it in Ino's possessions. He immediately retreated for the cafeteria and fetched a large cup of hot tea and returned to his room. Gently shaking her shoulder, he coaxed, "Ino, wake up. It's almost ten-thirty."

Her eyes opened and searched her surroundings while they focused. "What?" she asked.

"I brought you some hot tea."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Are you serious?"

"What else would I have in this thing?" he asked. "Now, sit up."

Ino sat up slowly, running a hand through her untamed hair. She took the cup from him. "Uh, thanks." The sleepy gears in her head didn't seem to know what to think of it.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like crap, but better." She took a long drink of the hot tea. "I think I need another shower."

Someone knocked on their door.

"It's open," Naruto called.

Deidara opened it and sighed. "Can you give me a hand? Tobi hid a jumbo bag of Starbursts somewhere and I can't find it."

Naruto sighed, "Yeah, sure." He joined Deidara at the door and said, "Athrun, just yell downstairs if you need anything. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

He didn't meet an answer as he left the room. Finding the Starbursts proved to be a more difficult task than he thought. Once they had turned the room upside down with no luck, Naruto watched Tobi sitting on the floor in a fit of giggles.

"Where is it, Tobi?"

"I'm not telling," he chimed. Spotting a mass of lumpiness under the front of the upperclassman's shirt, he commanded, "Stand up."

"No," he giggled defiantly, knowing he'd been caught.

"Deidara, it's in Tobi's shirt."

"You mean we've been looking for that damn thing for the last three hours and he's had it the entire time?" he roared.

Tobi scrambled to his feet and made a run for it, one hand holding the hidden bag in place. "Mine!" he declared.

Chouji blocked his path when he came to see what Deidara was yelling about, giving the two blonde boys the opportunity to tackle Tobi to the ground. Other students walked out of their rooms to be spectators to the commotion.

"Give it to me!" Deidara ordered, wrestling Tobi on the ground.

"I don't want to!"

"Hand it over!" Naruto grunted as his hand was shaken loose.

"It's mine!"

Deidara ripped the bag free and held it out of Tobi's reach. "Not anymore, it's not."

"But I want it," Tobi whined, "You never let me have Starbursts!"

"You know how you get when you eat Starbursts," Naruto sighed, "And it's a little more than we can take."

Walking up the stairs, he knocked on the closed door of his room, leaving the upperclassman behind to pout. There was no answer, so he opened it carefully. Treading quietly, he entered the room to find his roommate fast asleep on top of her neatly-made bed.

By appearances alone, he could see a lot of improvement. Her skin had regained some of its normal color and there was a lack of sweat shining on her skin. She seemed cold, though, without the heat of her blankets.

"She'll get sicker that way…" he thought aloud to himself. Naruto plucked the top blanket from his bed and laid it awkwardly over her.