A/N: No one's figured out the plot. Someone's told me to get rid of this apparently non-existent plot altogether. This chapter shall solve it all… Tsunade's the catalyst.

Too Many Interruptions
Chapter 7: Neji

Tsunade let a nervous Naruto through the long, twisted and confusing passages to her office. Firstly, he was worried about what she wanted to talk to him about, and secondly, he was worried about how he would ever find his way out of this place again. It would've been better if Sasuke was with him there and then, but then he'd have to tell his lover how lost he was—and he was certain that Sasuke would laugh at him for that.

When they finally reached the looming door, Naruto's stomach was tight with fear.

But what was there to be afraid of?

Tsunade turned to him and said, "We need to talk," when they entered the room. Naruto swallowed, now especially scared. The way she turned around all serious-like, it was as if she was a mother, about to ask her son about his sexual relations. He didn't really want to talk to the leader of his village about this sort of thing, but apart from Sasuke and himself, she was the only one who knew of their love and therefore the only one who could help with his plan…

"Naruto, why the hell do you keep it a secret?" she asked angrily, knowing full well that he knew what she was talking about. "Uchiha's reasons for secrecy are—well, they're not good!" she said, glaring at him.

Naruto knew this was coming so he'd had time to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to tell her. "Yeah, I know his reasons are pathetic, but he really doesn't want people to know." He shrugged, carefully cavalier, while in reality he was trying to think of a way to slip his idea into the conversation without causing a big splash. Like those in ponds when a frog tries to show off and jump onto the next lily pad but ends up taking a swim instead.

Tsunade shook her head. "And you're happy to go along with that?" she asked in disbelief.

"There's not much I can do about it," he said, turning his head to the side and smiling slightly. She frowned at him suspiciously.

"All right—all cards on the table," she said, slamming her hand down onto said table. "What are you planning?" She looked at him expectantly. Naruto took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, putting all the words in his head into the best order possible. It seemed to him that this was the turning point. There would be no going back after this.

Might as well just get it over with, he thought. He wouldn't be so nervous if the idea he was about to suggest wasn't so complicated. If she didn't agree with him, there was nothing he could do about it. But if she did agree, she would be a powerful ally. "Maybe we'd better sit down," he suggested, gesturing to the many chairs occupying the room.

"Oh my god," Tsunade said as she took a seat. "You're not about to tell me you're pregnant, are you?" she asked worriedly. Naruto took a minute to process the shocking question posed to him.

"No way! I'm a GUY!" he exclaimed, not liking where this conversation was going. "I just meant it might take a while."

"Oh," she said, leaving Naruto to wonder if he was at all feminine. "Well?" she continued. "I brought you here for a reason, remember?"

Naruto felt like every second was constricting his throat and stopping all the air from travelling through. When he was no longer able to keep the sensation at bay, he finally spoke. "I didn't like Sasuke at first."

"Most people didn't."

"Well, yeah. But then they got over his arrogance and were fascinated by him."

"I already know this, Uzumaki," she interrupted impatiently. "Skip to the parts I care about."

"I'm just putting it all into context," he said defensively. "Anyway, later, I heard about all that stuff that happened to his family but not the whole story—they were just rumours. And, well, working together… I guess I started to like him a little bit. After a lot of things happened, we sorta just got together. Admitted our feelings and… yeah."

"Touching story. But what's your point?" Tsunade said grouchily.

"My point is… he did what Itachi told him when that bastard killed their family then ran away. He really hated him. He became obsessed and didn't trust anyone. In his mind he built a wall of emotionle—le—le—leness—lessness—ness… uh…"

"Emotionlessness?"

"Yeah, that. Anyway, so this other Sasuke exists. The fake him—it protects him. People love it instead of him so when something bad happens, he's fine. 'Cause… he used to care.

"He told me once: after the day his family was murdered, he went back to his house and opened the door and imagined his mother saying 'welcome home, Sasuke.' But, of course, she wasn't there. And that hurt, and he didn't want to hurt, so he stopped caring. It's like he's just paused his heart—not his actual heart," Naruto added, remembering Tsunade was a healer and might take it the wrong way, "Or, like, frozen it. Anyway, he told me all this and that's when I met him. The real him. Sasuke Uchiha—he does care and he's completely wonderful," Naruto said with a laugh. "That's the Sasuke I care about. The problem is, he hates that true him. I dunno; maybe he thinks he's weak or something, but—"

Tsunade sighed loudly. "You were right; this is going to take a while."

She stood up and walked over to a nearby cupboard to pull out a small bottle of sake. "Now I'm okay. Continue," she ordered, sitting down again and taking a sip from the bottle.

Naruto did as he was told. "Right. Well, he's popular and lots of those pink things like him."

"You mean girls?"

"Yep."

"I think only Sakura is pink," she mused.

"Same dif. He doesn't want to lose all that and start again." After a moment of confusion, he added, "Again." He paused briefly, and then continued to explain. "He's already lost everything once. He just wants it all to be okay. His imaginary wall was supposed to be only a temporary thing while he was grieving but now it's stuck and he's scared he can't be Sasuke in front of all those people. He thinks it's too late."

"Ah, I think I get it." Tsunade nodded sadly. "You disagree, don't you? So you've been setting him up?"

Naruto half shrugged, half made a positive gesture. "I've been trying. It's this jutsu which gets people to go in a particular direction or have an urge to do something. They think they have a reason, but in reality, I'm placing witnesses all around to see the real Sasuke; show Sasuke he can be himself and to like the true him, too.

"Take you, for example. You like Sasuke, don't you?"

She only had to think for a second before answering, "Yes." Then she frowned. "You didn't use that jutsu on me, did you? No, you couldn't have; you called for a healer after your back got hurt. I came because of that."

Naruto smiled mischievously. "But why you and not one of your assistants?"

"So… you did use it on me?"

"It's not very powerful; I can only nudge people in the right direction. The good thing about that is it's pretty much undetectable. So I did use it on you—a bit."

Tsunade nodded in understanding. "Right, right. So that incident with the bush was part of your plan," she presumed.

He answered, "That was an accident."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence for a while as Tsunade thought about what Naruto had just told her. He'd obviously thought it through very thoroughly. And he had all the information so he could put it all together. The only other person who could do that would be Sasuke.

"You know him so well," she said in wonder.

"I love him," Naruto answered as though it was the simplest thing in the world. Then there was that awkward silence again.

"So… uh… that's why it's always you… on top?" Tsunade asked, almost hesitant despite the alcohol aiding her confidence.

Naruto wondered for a brief moment why she would ask such a question before shrugging as he realised she was drunk and subsequently would do whatever she wanted. He answered, "Uh… well, actually, he doesn't really need much encouragement." He scratched the back of his neck. He supposed he was relieved that he'd finally told someone but that didn't stop him from being so embarrassed he could hardly move. It helped that Tsunade would probably not remember asking that question when morning came and she was less drunk.

"All right—leave now." Tsunade leaned back on her chair and drained the rest of the sake in one gulp. Naruto didn't need telling twice. He left.

"You know where the ramen shop is, right?" Naruto asked, holding the phone closer to hear Sasuke's reply.

"Yeah—you've taken me there often enough, I could find it with my eyes closed," Sasuke answered in his usual irritable way.

"Meet me there in an hour," Naruto told him, hanging up shortly after and putting his phone in his pocket. He walked into the pet shop across the road, which just so happened to be called "Crow Pet Store," smiling at the thought of what Sasuke's reaction would be when he revealed the big surprise.

– One hour later –

Naruto waited patiently, sitting on the ground just outside the brightly lit ramen shop which he was a regular visitor to. The gift he'd bought for Sasuke was wrapped up in many large blankets and was leaning against the wall so that the weight from its many coverings didn't cause it to topple over. It was early afternoon so there were many shoppers milling about the relatively busy street.

Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head sharply to see who'd startled him and laughed at his own stupidity when he realised it was just Sasuke. "Didn't scare you, did I?" the dark-haired ninja teased, taking his hand off Naruto's shoulder for fear that someone would notice his gentle treatment of his rival. Naruto pouted and stubbornly took Sasuke's hand, shooting a glare his way as a dare for him to undo the gesture.

Naruto then went to stand next to the large bundle with Sasuke. "Happy just-felt-like-getting-you-a-present day!" he said.

"Seriously?" Sasuke asked happily.

Naruto just smiled and removed the blankets. The gift chirped.

Sasuke's face lit up like those lights on police cars. "You bought me a bird?" he said, smiling so wide that an emu could fit in his mouth—figuratively speaking. He was so happy, his brother could kill his entire family again and he wouldn't care. There was just him and Naruto and a beautiful orange and blue budgie. His heart felt whole for once.

His eyes connected with Naruto's and he saw his happiness reflected in the blue. He understood—Naruto was only truly happy when he was happy. Sasuke felt exactly the same way.

He didn't care that he was in a public place and that anybody could see him. For the first time, he just let himself fall into Naruto's arms as the blonde brought their lips together with passion and victory raging in his eyes. Sasuke let Naruto's mouth claim his own, far too distracted to wonder why Naruto felt like he had won.

Naruto lifted one of his hands up to stroke Sasuke's cheek, aching to feel more of his soft skin, while he used the other to grip Sasuke's hand tightly in his own. The two men enjoyed a few more seconds of their contact before…

"Hey! Naruto, Sasuke!" someone called. Said ninjas broke apart, looking around guiltily for the source of the interruption.

Neji walked over and it was clear from his face that he'd seen everything. "Oh. My. God," he said, absolutely shocked.

"It's not what it looks like," Sasuke defended quietly.

Neji stood in front of them, eyes wide and mind obviously working quickly. All of the other people in the street were just going about their business—either they hadn't noticed Naruto and Sasuke kissing or they just didn't care. But Neji had noticed. And he probably cared enough to tell everybody they knew. "Oh. I get it." He nodded understandingly. Sasuke frowned slightly, a little confused.

Get what? Sasuke wondered. The sentence just didn't quite fit the context. Was there something gong on behind the scenes that he didn't know about?

"You both leaned in at the same time to look at the bird and accidently missed and kissed each other, right?" It was both the longest thing they'd ever heard Neji say and the stupidest.

"What?! No!" Naruto exclaimed in disbelief.

Sasuke glared at him before declaring to Neji, "Yes, yes. That's exactly it. You took the words right out of my mouth."

Neji nodded and then wandered off somewhere in search of Tenten. He was in need of something to do now that he realised Naruto and Sasuke's actions had not amounted to anything of significance—supposedly.

Were all the people in this town suffering from stupid disease?

Naruto slapped his forehead. They were all deliberately making up ridiculous stories to deny what they kept seeing; trying so hard to ignore him and Sasuke's relationship—even when they started kissing in public, there was still some dumb excuse.

Time to kick it up a notch, Naruto thought. These people needed some hard evidence—literally.

A/N: Does that help with the plot situation? I just felt better having a reason for this strange story. The reason why everyone is making up completely stupid excuses is because they beleive there is no way in hell that Naruto and Sasuke could ever be together. At all. Ever.
This chapter was late because it's nearing exam time. On a happier note, I'm getting a computer soon so I can type up my own chapters (in white so no one else can read them) then give them to my beta reader/best friend to beta read/best friend them.
By the way, I put that "crow pet store" thing in for my other best friend because she put a reference to me in her story so I did a similar thing.

BR/N: When I was typing this up, the 's' key on my laptop was broken. Actually, it'd been broken for quite a while, though up until last Sunday it'd still been useable. But then I had to take off the key completely 'cause it just wouldn't click into place anymore, so I had to press down twice as hard whenever I wanted an 's.' Damn, do you know how often you need to use the letter 's' in a paragraph? It didn't help that you need two of them just to type Sasuke's name. Anyway, I fixed it a few days ago and it's fully functional now. How, you ask? Well, I had to sacrifice my 'z' key in the process. I took the insides out of that one and transferred them into the 's.' Like an organ transplant, you know?