Chapter Three: Cue This Space

Yujo stared. At the violet eyes that were presently staring back at him. They were kind of nice. In a strange way. The black as ebony and white as snow that surrounded those eyes were rather nice to look at also. But the smile caught at him. The smile was odd—half-cocked and waiting as if to see Yujo make the first move, gauging what Yujo would do. "Hi," the boy said under his breath.

And for once, for some strange reason, something compelled him to respond. Respond to this boy that he none but laid his eyes on seconds ago, when at times, he didn't respond to his teammates who he'd known for months—years, even, in regards to Hana and Natsu. "Hello."

The boy's smile broadened.

Somehow, it made Yujo say, "You have nice eyes."

Those lovely eyes widened. "Thanks."

And then Hana screamed, "What's wrong with you?"

Yujo and the boy turned. The boy seemed to give a little sigh. "Good God, Hien. Take it easy on him. Weren't we supposed to save the easy ones for Himawari to play with?"

"I know," the girl—Himawari—pouted, as she swung her tiny legs from the branch, crossing them and sitting there like she was sunning herself on the beach. "It's ladies first, Hien, you pervert bastard."

Hien was currently wearing an expression that Yujo equaled to a child who'd just had his coloring book stomped on. Hien—who currently had his hands wrapped around Natsu's throat, as Natsu thrashed and let out strangled shouts, flailing so violently that were Hien's hands to let go, he would most likely fall to the ground. "Aw, you always get first picks. You just use the fact that you're a babe so Rikachi and I never get any."

Himawari hoisted herself backward until the backs of her knees cupped the branch. She pushed and let go—hanging upside down like a bat, lustrous hair straight on end, arrowed toward the ground. "Be that way. And I told you I'm not a babe."

"What…" Hana's eyes had seemed to have widened so that they rims were trembling. "How can you…just talk like that—YUJO!" She turned to him, her face frantic. "Are you just—do something!"

Yujo merely looked at her. Indeed, he agreed with Hana's hysteria that these three shinobi they were facing were callous—callous to a point that they couldn't be considered children anymore. Not teenagers. Not young adults. They were more like monsters. But why did she turn to him? He blinked at her—her expression frozen, screaming silently. Couldn't she do something herself?

He turned to the boy with lovely eyes. Rikachi. "Tell your teammate to stop."

Rikachi just smiled. But Hien heard. He let go of Natsu—letting him reel backward and unable to stop himself because of the rush of oxygen that attacked him. Yujo watched as Hana their teammate by the arm, yanking him back onto a wide branch, one hand on Natsu's shoulder, looking strained as he regained breath. "Shit, sorry 'bout that." Hien grinned in a way that Yujo personally thought didn't look very apologetic at all.

Especially considering that Natsu now looked like a strangulation victim. Yujo tilted his head. Which he sort of was, Yujo guessed. Sort of.

As Hana geared her mouth open to—Yujo's prediction—spaz and shout and scream about how insane they were and how this was just messed up, Rikachi whispered, "Hey."

Yujo raised an eyebrow.

The violet eyes glittered. "What's your name? Was it Yujo like the girl said?"

He nodded.

"What's your clan name?"

"Nakamori." Yujo's tongue pushed the ring to the left. He felt Rikachi's eyes gather to watch the silver movement.

The violet eyes lit up. In recognition. Yujo had always hated it when that happened. "Ah. I've got a screamer, huh? You're quite, though."

"You've got?" He'd noticed that Rikachi's face seemed a few inches closer than when they'd started out.

A full on grin, now. "Yeah. I've got. Y'know?" Rikachi's hand went to his headband and Yujo's eyes stretched just the most infinitesimal bit at the fact that it was a Sunagakure symbol. He hardly had time to gather the words to ask, when the dark-haired boy with those lovely, calculating violet eyes grinned at him a last time before vanishing in a whirl of sand, along with his teammates.

Yujo was left there, watching as Hana and Natsu glared into the air—glared after the sand. He looked at Natsu pointedly.

"Nojiko hears nothing about this," was the reply. Natsu glared again, probably for idiotic emphasis.

"What?" Hana asked, her eyebrows furrowing a slight.

Yujo thought that although he'd never liked girls before, he could learn to like Hana. Because he also thought that maybe she didn't count as a girl. Yeah. Hana really didn't count as a girl, because she didn't quite figure into Yujo's mind as one. She never seemed to want to change him. Even though she more than seemed to be infuriated—as everyone else was—over his self-induced, ridiculously adamant silence.

That was more than he could say about his used-to-be-Academy-classmates.

So maybe for now, he could be nice. Natsu was annoying, after all. "Nojiko should know."

"How come you have to talk when no one wants you to, but you never talk when everyone's fed up with your shut-mouth?" Natsu scowled, his hand flying to his throat and rubbing at the bruises.

Although he knew neither of his teammates could see it, Yujo felt his expressionless expression ripple just a bit. Only a bit. Sometimes Natsu being Natsu did that to him. He knew that Hana got along far better with Natsu, but that was probably just because he talked. He'd noticed people liked people who talked better than people who didn't. Which was understandable, if you squinted at it from the right angle. Yujo wrapped his tongue around the ring. "They were from Sunagakure."

"That's why I think Nojiko should know," Hana said quietly, her eyes looking discreetly from Natsu to Yujo. "But…they could be here because…well…the exams."

"We'll be pummeled." Yujo nodded after his words.

Natsu whipped around and looked at him in a pained sort of way. "Dude, that's not even funny anymore. Not that you ever were, but seriously. Why d'you have to say crap like that? I know you're all emo and doom-and-gloom and shit, but it's like you don't even like being on a team with me and Hana."

Yujo continued to hold his expression. He knew the minute he really looked at Natsu that this one wouldn't have what it took to understand. Hana was a definite possibility, but Natsu was a never. Never. People like Natsu—like Naruto—couldn't understand. So why bother trying to get him to?

He glanced to Hana. She sort of tugged one side of her mouth to the side and shrugged lightly. Yujo knew when it was time to leave. When Natsu was too much for Hana's presence to temper down, it was time to leave. And he did. He cocked his head to the side in acknowledgement to Hana, blinked at Natsu, formed a hand sign, and then he was gone.

Hien let his tongue curl out against the corner of his upper lip, right hand around his left to steady the slow movement that was him kunai-carving a few or so profanities for kicks into the wall of the room he and Rikachi were given in the inn they were staying at for the exams. Maybe if he got into a right mood, he'd manage to come up with a third-person passionate declaration of love that he could use to desecrate the space of floor beneath the end of his futon.

His cousin had resorted to watching him and trying to guess what he was going to carve before he finished. Before about ten minutes ago, Rikachi had had his ear on the north wall, listening through the screen and trying to glean something from the Himawari-Kankuro-Temari tirades that were currently taking place. And the occasional rustling of movement from Gaara that came from the other side of the south wall.

After those first ten minutes, Hien knew Rikachi would tire of listening to the tirades. As from personal experience, he himself had determined the stages to a two-sided (sometimes three-sided) battle amongst the sane (or however close to it) children of the Kazekage. And the good parts never last more than fifteen minutes, with ten being the average.

Stage One consisted of Himawari slamming the door closed (sometimes in Hien's face), and turning to her older siblings, usually either screaming at them to sit down or dangerously hissing at them to listen up and listen well. And that would garner a few choice words from Temari about how little sisters should listen themselves instead of always thinking that others are wrong and never she herself.

Stage Two consisted of Himawari's (in Hien's opinion) rather brilliantly constructed clever putdowns, and then Temari shoving Kankuro into the battlefield for a go.

Stage Three was always a recuperating stage, as Kankuro seemed to anger Himawari far less than Temari for reasons that Hien really didn't understand as Temari had a more sensible brain on her shoulders and since Himawari always seemed to love logic and all that gloomy stuff, Kankuro should anger her more. But he didn't. Meaning Himawari would calm down enough to reason a bit.

Although as far as Hien was concerned, if you wanted to win a verbal battle with Himawari, getting her riled up as much as possible was in your best interests. An awfully angry Himawari could usually see and think nothing but red, whereas a calm Himawari was just plain dangerous. Using Kankuro to calm her down was a stupid move. But. Hien wasn't the one playing the game.

All the stages after that were just run-ons. Meaning Rikachi had just heard Kankuro's lazily quirky voice bring Himawari's temper down over ten notches, and meaning that Rikachi also must've sensed an easy victory for their female teammate. Really. If they were her siblings, they should know better.

Hien didn't think she was that hard to figure out at all. Quite easy, if you knew how to look. But then again, although he knew that Himawari was far from right in the case of her older siblings, her older siblings were also far from right. It always seemed as though they only ever pulled the 'We're family' strings when they were in grave danger of actually being physically (Gaara) or mentally (Himawari) assaulted.

Not that Himawari made it any easier. But Hien understood her version better, y'know, since she was his teammate and all.

Or maybe it was because she was hot.

Yeah. That was probably it.

Yujo shut the screen doors behind him, and looked out at his room. It was the traditional style all the ninja clan's houses were put together, and although most of his siblings and cousins had managed to convince their parents to let them renovate into Westerner's rooms, Yujo blatantly preferred things the way they were. It was easier that way—and the fluorescent lights had always given him a headache. Lanterns were calmer.

The contents in his room were put together like a clinic—clean and detached. His bed off to one side, his wardrobe to another, a mirror to the left of the shoji doors, a bookshelf filled to the brim on the right, and a desk beside the window on the south wall.

Yujo folded his legs behind him and collapsed on the cushion, leaning his elbows on the desktop. His window was closed. Someone must have come to his room and done that. He always left it open before he left. Always. He also never used the lock—the lock that'd been installed after his father, head of the clan, had just about had a stroke after hearing about Hyuuga Hinata's kidnapping all those years ago.

Yujo didn't really care. No one had ever tried to kidnap him. Whether that was an insult or a compliment, he wasn't quite sure. Maybe Hinata had just been cuter.

He stood up and crossed over to the nightstand, and lit the lantern with the matches set to the side. It barely illuminated the room—there was another lantern on his desk for when he needed to work, but the average amount of light any other person needed (as Hana was always telling him) was devastatingly bright to Yujo. It made him irritable.

He fumbled with the locks on the window for a bit, before thrusting the small doors open, and resting his arms on the ledge. He'd taken a four-hour detour after departing from the scene, leaving for the outskirts of Konoha—the very fringe of the village's forests and spent those aforementioned hours deforming the landscape. More or less, he was sure he'd been out far enough that none of the nearby villagers had heard him.

Yujo leaned farther out the window and glanced down, hands wrapped around the edge to steady himself. In the night, he could make out the barest outline of the window below him. He could hear the familiar murmur of low voices, obviously male—familiar as a whole, but he only knew the speaker of one of the two—and the rustling of clothes. It wouldn't be long now.

On cue, seconds later, and a young brown-haired man—most likely a Chunin—dashed out the window and disappeared into the thicket of trees. Almost directly after, Yujo saw Nojiko, leaning shirtless out the window. Or more accurately, Yujo saw Nojiko's mess of black hair, and the rivulet of muscles on his naked back.

"Hey," he called down mutedly. "Move back."

At the sound, Nojiko turned upward, rolling his entire body around slowly enough that Yujo could watch how his broad shoulder blades rippled beneath the skin—made even more flawless in the semi-darkness. Nojiko grinned, leaning back against the windowsill now, in order to look at Yujo. "Waiting and watching again, huh?"

The corner of Yujo's lips tugged upward slightly. "Vice versa. Now move."

Nojiko laughed a hushed laugh, and then disappeared back into his room. Yujo put his index and middle finger together, pointing straight up, and gathered the rest of his fingers into a fist, concentrating chakra into the soles of his bare. With an exhale of breath, he vaulted over the windowsill and walked down the wall of the building, sliding easily into Nojiko's bedroom window.

His sensei grinned again as the chakra dissipated from Yujo's feet. As always, Nojiko's bed was wholly rumpled—sheets and clothes thrown about. The lanterns were lit brighter than in Yujo's room, and scrolls—furled and unfurled—were messily laid around the desk. In the midst of the somehow charming chaos, Nojiko sat on the bed, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs.

Yujo sat at the desk. "They get younger every time."

"Hm? How d'you mean?"

"That one was a Chunin, wasn't he?"

Nojiko moved a hand up and propped his cheek against it. "Maybe." He raised an eyebrow amusedly. "He was a Jonin in bed, though."

Yujo merely commenced to lap at his lip ring. "Older men go for the same type?"

"Is that so? I'm actually really young, in citizen terms, y'know," Nojiko said, chuckling at the back of this throat. His eyes darted from Yujo's gaze to Yujo's lips.

"Yes. But not in shinobi terms, right? Eighteen is just a bit younger than average. And every single one that comes out that window has brown hair and he's younger than you." Yujo tilted his head with a prompt sort of expression. He gave his ring another thoughtful stroke of the tip of his tongue. "Anyway."

Nojiko stood up, and began to pick up the clothes and right the sheets. "Anyway what? Girl problems, now that we're on this subject? Hana appears to be the only girl that can stand you, y'know. You were pretty chummy today."

Yujo blinked, and said, "Even in shinobi terms, you're too young to talk like that."

"Yeah, yeah. So what's up?"

"Why did you register us for the Chunin Exam?"

Nojiko paused mid-action, bent over halfway to reach for a fallen pillow. Painfully slow, he straightened. Paused again. Turned to look at Yujo with those blue eyes—so blue, they were electric, almost unnatural. "Because I think you're ready."

"Rephrase. Why did you register Hana and Natsu?"

The Jonin smiled in the same painful way that he'd straightened up. "It's a team thing, remember? I registered the team."

Yujo looked up at him, full-faced and steadily. "Goes back to the original question. Why did you register us?"

"I go back to my original answer. Because I think you're ready."

"No. You know that I'm ready. You know that Hana and Natsu aren't."

Nojiko closed his eyes. Opened them. Sat down in front of Yujo, legs crossed and hands folded. "Look. I know that even my own students know I'm too young to be dealing with this kind of shit, but I know what I'm doing. If I were to let those two mature first before taking the exam, that'd take at least another year and a half's worth of missions to get up to at least the B ranks. The Chunin exam is as good as a high A ranked mission—and I don't want to wait for them to get a grip on life. Even though I know you don't believe me, I do know them. I've gotten to know them. And with their kind, you've gotta hit fast forward and pray to God."

"You're cruel."

"No. I'm realistic." Nojiko's hand fell onto Yujo's head with a soft plop. "And the fact that you think I'm cruel just proves how you're going to do some fast forward growing up, too."

Yujo ducked out of the contact. "Hana and Natsu will be demolished. And I'll be demolished attempting to keep them from being demolished." He frowned. "It'll be all your fault. I hope the guilt gnaws at you when we die."

Nojiko blinked blankly at him. And then laughed. "Yeah. All right." He sighed as the laughter calmed into a highly amused grin. "Now, for my duties. Have you eaten yet?"

"I ate."

Another sigh. "When, Yujo?"

Silence.

"Yujo."

"I ate an onigiri for breakfast."

Nojiko heaved a third sigh. "Go eat, you anorexic freak."

"I'm semi," Yujo said, defensiveness creeping into his voice.

"Calling it semi-anorexic is really pushing the definition of the term." Nojiko stood and offered a hand to pull him up. "C'mon. Take it."

"Don't you have any food in your room?"

"Like hell, I do. It's summer—the fruit flies start coming in. I can only do it in the winter, dumbass. Now get up, and feel lucky that I'm still willing to make you something at this time of night. And after I just fucked, I'm dead tired, y'know. Now stand."

Yujo allowed Nojiko to yank him up by his malnourished arm. "Can you make me chicken katsu?"

Nojiko would've sighed a fourth time, but he felt that if he sighed every time Yujo was exasperating, he would be sighing every other intake of breath. So the Jonin settled for looking wearily at Yujo—slightly amused, but wearily all the same. "Fine. It might take some time to heat up the grease, though, since it's fried. You could've just gone to a stand, y'know."

"Yours is better."

Nojiko rolled his eyes. "No it isn't."

"An opinion can't be wrong. Rephrase. I like yours better." Yujo flipped his lip ring to the left for good measure.

Nojiko had to crack a smile at that. He ran a hand through his hair and led the way to the hallway. "Well, c'mon then. Clock's ticking, and if we can, I went to get in and out of there before Amaru takes the kitchen by storm." He glanced at the clock on his desk. "We've got two hours."

But as it so turned out, Nakamori Amaru was two hours early. Like Yujo, like all Nakamori, he owned the trademark endlessly green eyes with just the slightest haze of cloudiness in them, and rich brown hair. On Amaru, the brown hair was left to grow long over his eyes, over his ears, tips touching his shoulders.

He was raiding the refrigerator. Naked.

"Look at that," Nojiko said sarcastically, went straight to the stove, as Yujo took a seat at the table. "I get a free show, Yujo. And right after some little Chunin had whacked me off, too."

Amaru leaned against the island's countertop and looked at Yujo, grinning from ear to ear. "Baby cousin. Good evening, there."

"It was." Yujo made a pillow with his arms and gingerly rested the side of his head down.

Nojiko flipped on the pan, and turned around to wait for the oil to heat. He watched distastefully as Amaru violently transferred pieces of leftover tofu and rice from his bowl into his mouth. "Shouldn't you be fucking somewhere?"

"Nope. The one scheduled for tonight had to go on an emergency mission. Somewhere in the waterfalls, so she won't be back for a while." Amaru made a face that Yujo supposed was intended to come off as tragically distraught, but knowing his cousin and his cousin's hormones at their sixteen-year-old-full-throttle-blast, it came off more as tragically horny. "And she had such nice legs."

Nojiko's voice seemed to gain sarcasm with every word. "See? This is why I told you to have back-ups."

"Brilliant point, my good man," Amaru said cheerily, taking a swig straight from the sake bottle. He hovered pointedly over Nojiko's shoulder as the older man began defrosting the chicken, and cracking the eggs for the batter. "Speaking of fucking, how was your night, my dear little homo?"

Nojiko snorted. "You can't say that. You fuck boys, too."

"No. Boys fuck me." Amaru grinned.

Yujo felt something inside him wither and die at the tone of his cousin's voice. Probably his purity.

Although that probably went a long time ago—maybe around eight years ago, when Yujo had been deemed old enough to spend time with his cousins, and bond with them because he was the future head of the Nakamori clan and all. Or it had been so quoted from Yujo's father, at least.

After all, Yujo's childhood memories were filled with Maru-nii's playtime fun. Since just because Amaru had been eight at the time Yujo was four, didn't mean Amaru had been any less promiscuous than he was presently. If anything, it simply had proven the immorally horny young man he would grow up to be. Along with conniving and more-than-likely evil.

There were more than enough examples. One of which included the time that Amaru had shoved Yujo's sippy cup as the four-year-old was attempting to drink from it, and thus spilled juice all over the toddler's clothes—which then meant that Yujo would have to be stripped naked, and await his nurse for a bath. And that had given Amaru the chance to steal his little cousin's clothes, hide them, and then make fun of Yujo for being such a klutz and naked, until the little boy cried.

There had also been the time when Amaru had stolen Yujo's clothes while they were playing in the steaming rooms of the Nakamori Manor's baths. The time when Amaru had shoved Yujo face first into the dusty dirt when the younger boy had tried to join his older siblings and cousins in shinobi training. The time when Amaru had touched Yujo's little, underdeveloped cock and told him that someday, if he trained it well enough, it could shoot like a canon. The time when Amaru had pinched Yujo's cheeks so hard they bruised—and then promptly pinched Yujo's other cheeks.

All in all, the lesson Yujo had learned through the years was that whenever he saw Amaru walking down the halls—

It was time to run.

In the opposite direction.

Fast.

Amaru sidled into the chair beside Yujo, and scooted his seat until they were shoulder to shoulder, and if Yujo looked down, he'd be able to see Amaru's perfectly displayed erection. "So," the sixteen-year-old murmured in a mocking singsong, "I heard the exams are coming up soon. Ready to be traumatized?"

"I won't be traumatized." Yujo had long since learned that his silence wouldn't cut it with Amaru. Knowing the bastard, he'd most likely pry Yujo's mouth open and reach down to the Genin's vocal chords himself.

Amaru let his eyes fall half closed and leaned over the table, face tilted against one palm, smiling up to Yujo like a sleepy Cheshire cat. Without taking those eyes from Yujo's (determinedly) deadpan expression, Amaru called out to Nojiko, who was currently deploying the chicken breasts into the pan, "Hey, baby cousin here is getting kinda hot, don't you think, sensei?"

"If I was your sensei," Nojiko retorted calmly, "I would beg the Hokage to put me out of my misery and kill me." He patted the chicken down with a spatula.

Amaru pouted. "That's harsh, sensei." He turned his gaze back to Yujo, and something in Yujo screamed at him to back away and wait for his meal to be ready somewhere far from his cousin. "Hey…I wonder if you can get hard now."

Yujo made to jutsu himself out of the room, but Amaru was a Jonin—and thus, quicker. A hand grabbed the space between his legs and squeezed. Yujo's teeth dug into his lip, and a sound that he sorely intended to silence slipped out of his mouth.

"Ooh, it looks like you can," Amaru practically giggled, at the same time Nojiko whipped around with a plate filled with chicken and rice, clanging it onto the table in front of Yujo.

Nojiko sighed. "Leave him alone, Amaru. He's twelve."

Yujo frowned inwardly, taking up his chopsticks. And that was supposed to mean…? What, exactly?

Amaru pouted again, looking up at Nojiko through his lashes. "Yeah. And you're eighteen." A dramatic roll of his eyes. "But you hardly act like it." He grinned. "That is, unless you count that once—"

"Did I put too much salt on it?" Nojiko cut in, taking a seat at the table and watching Yujo eat away.

Yujo raised his eyebrows, and tapped his chopsticks against his top front teeth. "You fucked Amaru?"

Nojiko winced at the phrasing, and muttered, "Briefly."

Which made Amaru roar with laughter. "How do you fuck someone briefly?"

The glare Nojiko fixed upon Amaru was withering.

Amaru looked away in amusement, settling for placing his head in his hands and glancing up at Yujo from beneath. Yujo met his cousin's eyes when the smoke from the crossfire seemed to have cleared, and around a mouthful of rice, he let out a breath of something like relief. Because as much as Amaru would probably someday kill him by way of heart attack, Amaru was really the only family member that hadn't ended up being the cause of why Yujo found it so traumatic to speak in excess to anyone save for Nojiko.

And even though Amaru was most parts irritatingly frightening, the other, rare parts were parts that Yujo held tight and close.

Nojiko was family—family, because Yujo's very first memory of him featured a miserable ten-year-old boy, holding his little brother (just a few years older than Yujo) by the hand, and standing in front of the Nakamori household after they'd just been told that their father had died and they were now orphans, come to live with their late parents' closest friends.

But Nojiko wasn't family like Amaru. Yujo couldn't look into Nojiko's eyes and see a replica of his very own green eyes staring back at him, and grinning with all the gall in the world.

"Hey," Amaru said quietly, with that precisely aforementioned grin, "Did you know that the Kazekage's kids are going to be in this exam? Word is that one of the girls is super hot. If you fight her, introduce her to me, sometime, all right?"

Yujo sighed, but he smiled. "Yeah. Sure." It was the least he could do. Y'know, after all the trouble and painstaking detail Amaru had put in to telling Yujo about the birds and the bees seven years ago, when none of his siblings or cousins or aunts or uncles or parents wanted to.

Although, he was sure that Amaru had had far too much enthusiasm doing so.

Then again, knowing his cousin, he probably had enjoyed it.

The bastard.

A/N:

Himawarixxsandz: So, this was really mostly Yujo/Nojiko/Amaru character development, wasn't it? Like I said, I can write straight characters in the same way any normal, non masochistic person can tear out their eyeballs. It hurts a little inside. And as it's all angst in Compelled, I have to take out my homo-ness here. The thing is, Amaru was meant to be an utterly minor side character who pops in every five chapters. But after talking it out with NTspaz, he turned into a major character, AND gay. Er, bi. I meant for him to be the usual straight-perverted-all-over-boobs-and-bums kind of guy, but instead he not only turned out bi, verging closer to gay, but he turns out to be a freakin' uke, too.

Not that I have anything against ukes (because I adore them, especially if they can kick as much ass as the seme), but previously, Amaru was as much of an uke as Kurogane from TRC is. And when Amaru told me who his seme was going to be, I think I had an epilepsy seizure.

NTspaz: eh, well, nothing much to say really. Yep, yep, they're all freaks... and I'm still spazzing at my stoopid power outage. Keep reading!