Disclaimer: Naruto belong to Kishimoto.

04. Sweet

He could never see the logic behind eating sweets. They give nothing in the way of nutrition, except maybe short bursts of crash and burn energy. Oh, and cavities.

Which is why he isn't the least bit surprised to find out that Naruto likes the stuff. It comes with the territory of being a knucklehead, Sasuke supposes, that the blonde doesn't know enough not to eat what's not good for his health.

Lately though, Naruto has been consuming copious amounts of zenzai and Sasuke doesn't know what to make of it. If he had thought that seeing Naruto eat ramen every day was nauseating, seeing him inhale red bean soup, of all things, is worse. Much worse.

At least he doesn't have anything against salty foods.

It reaches the point that he couldn't take things lying down anymore. He has to take matters into his own hands.

And so one day, after they stopped for lunch to take a break from their D-rank mission with the resident problem cat, Sasuke approaches Naruto just as the blonde is taking out his bento (zenzai no doubt).

Naruto eyes him warily as if he would snatch his (sickeningly sweet) snack away. Sasuke ignores the look and nonchalantly sits beside the Dobe (not too close, though, he wouldn't want to catch stupid).

"That's zenzai." Sasuke begins, giving the food a look of distaste.

"Yeah…" Naruto squints at him, trying to figure out his purpose no doubt.

"You've been having that for a while now." He continues.

"Yeah…" Naruto glances doubtfully at his bento. "You…you didn't poison it did you?"

Sasuke sneers. He wouldn't be caught dead opening a bento with sweets in it.

Naruto gauges his reaction and grins. "Yeah, I didn't think you did." He pops the lid open and takes out a spoon wrapped in white tissue.

Complete with pink hearts printed on it.

Wrongly interpreting his look of disgust as that of envy, Naruto chortles at him. "If you ask nicely enough, I'd take pity on you and give you some."

Still looking at the tissue with hearts on it with revulsion, Sasuke thinks that he has been going at this in the wrong way. He very much doubts that Naruto owns tissue, much less one with hearts on it.

Come to think of it, does Naruto even have enough intelligence to make himself a bento of zenzai? Sasuke wonders as he watches Naruto's appalling eating habits and comes to the obvious conclusion.

"Who makes you that every day?"

"Hinata-chan," the blonde genin says simply, bits of the gooey stuff dribbling down his chin.

And like a bad movie replaying in his head, he remembers that day in the training field. It happened some time ago and the experience was too bizarre to even dwell upon (because really, him giving advice on how to properly court Naruto is like dealing with Kakashi's tardiness, you have to get over it quickly otherwise you'd go insane) that he almost forgot it ever happened.

He should have known his good deed would come back and bite him in the ass.

The blonde slurps on as Sasuke gets up and walks away. "Teme! Where are you going?"

Sakura, who is sitting a little ways off (and isn't acting like an annoying gnat for once), looks up from her lunch when he passes. "Sasuke-kun, we're not done with the mission yet!"

"I'll return." He tells her. He'd heard the saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but this is too much. This is what he gets for trying to help out. Irritation towards silly crushes, red bean soup, and cavities spur his steps.

Sakura and Naruto watch him walk away and exchange puzzled looks.

"What's too much?" Sakura asks, having heard Sasuke's mumbled thoughts.

The blonde shrugs, "Something about crushing a man's stomach before he eats too much red bean soup and has cavities…?"

They both glance at Naruto's bento, filled with said soup.

"I didn't know zenzai causes cavities." Naruto exclaims to the ensuing silence.

Sakura slaps her forehead.

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A/N: If you're wondering why I chose zenzai to irritate Sasuke with, it's because Naruto and Hinata both like it, or so Narutopedia says.

I'm kind of disappointed with the poor turnout of reviews for this story, but then I didn't really expect to land multiple reviews on the get go, especially with a drabble story like this one. Anyway, a huge thanks to my three lovely reviewers, michioka, Stride Gum, and FallenRaindrops!

Also, to those of you who are wondering if the characters would remain eleven-year olds in Akai Ito, the answer is no. I plan to follow the story line so that means that they'd grow older sooner or later, plus we can't really have true romance if Sasuke and Hinata stayed eleven.

Thanks for reading!