It was really strange rereading this part of the story. There is this one girl in one of classes that if you made her laugh hard enough that her vein actually starts to show at her temple.

Thanks to: Brandon, KinkyK and JazzyJ, and Shimaki-33

Insert usual disclaimer about the Naruto series

Thinking

"Talking"

Naruto tried by all means to escape his fate. He struggled against Shino's hold and now even Sasuke started to help Shino carry Naruto. By some miracle, they got the door open in one piece and shoved Naruto in with Sasuke walking in close behind.

"Well, look at who we have here," A woman's voice behind a large oak desk responded as Naruto's voice bombarded her ears.

"Hey Tsunade-baachan!" An awkward smile graced his lips.

"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" Sasuke could see a vein pop out of Tsunade's temple as a dangerous projectile was aimed at the blonde's head. Tsunade didn't look a day older than her late twenties and all, but Sasuke just couldn't believe that. Perhaps she is using de-aging cream or possibly getting plastic surgery…that must be it considering how large her breast are.

"Sorry, sorry! I forgot sheesh," Naruto sneered with tense shoulders. This was one woman you just DO NOT want to get on her bad side.

"Now, what exactly are you punks doing here?" Tsunade tapped the rim of her coffee mug as she started to take a drink of what was actually sake. That was until Shizune came in to hand the principal more papers and attempted to steal the alcohol away. Tsunade ignored her.

"Well, you see… we kind of…" came Naruto's shaky reply. Sasuke merely rolled his eyes at the idiot and finished his sentence for Naruto.

"This dobe here and I had a fight in Kakashi's classroom." Sasuke stated clearly and without hesitation.

"Sasuke-teme!"

Tsunade just sighed at the sight of these two. Sasuke looked as calm as usual with the hint of coldness he held to all who did not know him. He took in all the insults Naruto threw at him with adding in his two cents back at him with an occasional insult. "THAT IS ENOUGH FROM THE BOTH OF YOU!" Naruto fell silent as Sasuke continued to stare at the older woman "Naruto, you know better than to fight at this school, but since I am in such a good mood today, you will receive detention for about a week. As for you…?"

"Uchiha Sasuke"

"Sasuke, you will get off with a warning since you just started today, but I do not want this to incident to ever reoccur at this school again. Do you hear me?"

"What? Why does this jerk get to go off with a warning while I get a lousy detention?" Sasuke merely chuckled underneath his breath as Naruto further amused him with his fiery personality.

"Naruto! You're lucky to even get off with a detention. I could just give you a suspension or even expel you if you would prefer those options any better?" Tsunade put her fore finger and thumb at the bridge of her nose to stop the oncoming headache.

Naruto slammed the door behind him to end his dramatic exit.

"Excuse us for taking your time Tsunade-san," Sasuke mumbled before he left the room to find Naruto. He couldn't find Naruto in the empty hallways until a sunny blotch of yellow disrupted the sea of white walls and navy lockers, "Dobe, wait up."

Naruto's pace did not slow down one notch. Naruto actually continued to speed up in order to avoid Sasuke until the blond found an irritated Uchiha right next to him easily keeping up. "What do you want teme?" Naruto spitted out as he put as much hate as he could into those few words.

"Well, all I wanted was to talk, but you kind of punched me in the face before I had the chance."

"You deserved it-"

"Why? Is it because I left?" Sasuke force himself in front of Naruto and imprisoned him against the wall to stop him from going any further. The blonde's wrists were pinned with nowhere to go but face Sasuke now. "You know I didn't have a choice in the matter," whispered against Naruto's ear.

"Of course you did! I don't need to explain myself to a bastard like you anyways!" Naruto shoved against Sasuke as hard as he could until his limbs were free and ran down the hall Kakashi's classroom. The raven stood all alone as if Naruto had laid another gut-wrenching punch to his face.

The next block was full of nothing but anger as Naruto blew off his classes and detention for the day. He left a note one Shizune's desk to notify Tsunade of his leave of course. It didn't say that much besides the general, 'I am going to detention tomorrow instead,' kind of message with just a few choice words here and there. He didn't want to deal with the rest of the five periods he had left. Most projects were probably going to be handed out tomorrow anyways, so why bother coming on Mondays?

As he walked out of the school grounds without anyone noticing, Naruto was trying to figure out where to go. He couldn't go back to his house. That would be the most obvious place for anyone to find him at. He couldn't head to his favorite coffee shop and book store. They're probably closed until lunch time.

In the end, Naruto ended up going to work extremely early. His mind dozed off as he walked in a familiar path to Crimson Tales. Most of his thoughts were consumed by Sasuke and that stupid fight they had. He would have had bet that he could of won if only Kiba had not of interfered.

Kyuubi was in the front like usual as he talked to his guest with a kind voice reserved only for his lady customers while the rest of the male employees entertained the small crowd they had gathered. Golden eyes smiled at Naruto as he walked in and excused himself from the customers to talk to his most beloved person.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school dreary?" Kyuubi purred. Naruto couldn't tell if he was pissed or happy…probably both, but Naruto rarely came in during school hours. Kyuubi was just going to have to deal with him for the next eight hours or so until things calmed down long enough to go back to the apartment. With a lazy sigh and tired posture, Kyuubi handed Naruto the keys to the locker room, "Go put on your uniform in the back and come help me with our 'lovely' customers."

Naruto did what he was told, but for some odd reason he actually liked working with the boss and helping with the customers. No one would hassle him here and he actually got a good amount of tips from the guests. He swore he kept on seeing Kyuubi eye him from afar but accused his imagination for overreacting. For all the times Naruto came in too early for his shift, Kyuubi always noticed how the boy would lock himself in a shell of depression. The customers received the best treatment, but Kyuubi knew exactly what was going on behind that mask.

The crimson man cursed this Uchiha for whatever problems he always causes in his wake. No one ever gets away from harming one of Kyuubi's family members, blood related or not. Kyuubi shook his head as he gave the extra change to the woman in front of the cashier.

Work turned out well enough that Naruto was able to earn twice the amount of money he would receive in one day. Unfortunately, Kyuubi commanded him to finally go home and get some sleep considering Naruto did just cover his shift with the addition of the morning. Naruto had not realize just how long he was at Crimson Tails until the sun outside the clear windows turned a deep orange hue.

"I'll see you tomorrow boss," Naruto slipped on a jacket he had left in the locker about three days ago.

"You don't have to come in tomorrow, kit."

Naruto paused with an arm halfway through the battered sleeve, "I want to. I mean, yeah, its work and all, but I enjoy being here. It's as if the worries just being here with you and the crew. Beside, the extra hours I work could go to another day when I really need it, right?"

"…Fine, but you do know you can tell me what is going wrong at any time? All right?"

Naruto was taken back by the statement. Kyuubi was never as nice before. Most of the time, he usually teased him but here he was. Naruto pinched himself to make sure he was still awake. His eye twitched at the sudden short-lived pain. "What is going on Kyuubi?"

"I should be asking you that. It has to do with that Sasuke, doesn't it?" Insert those quiet little crickets that only make noise when the situation could explode with the smallest of sounds.

"Oh and I will be late tomorrow because I have detention!" Naruto shouted which gain some attention to some of the nearby customers.

"Don't sound so happy about it! Just get out of here," Kyuubi scowled at the blond but then gave up, "though what did you do this time to earn this detention?"

"Punched Sasuke in the face," Naruto couldn't help but grin and laugh maniacally out the door as Kyuubi continued to laugh his lungs out.

Naruto took out his cell phone down the street to see that little miss Sakura blocked up his voicemail. Again.

Message one:

"Naruto where are you? We're at lunch and I can't see you anywhere! I heard you got into a fight with Sasuke. Is that true? Sasuke won't tell us a thing and he keeps asking where you are! PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE!"

End of first message which were basically the same as the rest with a few exceptions about not fighting and how worried she is with Sasuke. Blah, blah, blah…

Instead of calling Sakura, Naruto turned on his computer as he heated up some leftovers from work. He logged into his account and typed in his password on yahoo once the browser started up. With a mouthful of pasta, the blond clicked on the single link that leads to his only new message. Lately, Naruto had been on the computer too much to be healthy.

One day, a random student from Suna Prepatory emailed him while on one of the chat rooms. The guy didn't type as much as a normal person should to keep a conversation going, so Naruto decided to email him directly everyday. After a while, they both seemed to talk to each other more often despite how little the guy wrote compared to Naruto. All he knew about the guy was that his name was Gaara, he was about sixteen years old, and he kept most things to himself because of his childhood. Naruto never pressed matter too far knowing how scarring a person's childhood could be.

Naruto clicked the reply button and started typing away.

The mail was general enough not to annoy Gaara but satisfying enough for him to let out some steam. He discussed how horrible that Sasuke Uchiha was and how the fight ended up in a detention for him and a warning for Sasuke. Naruto could have sworn the impact of Sasuke's body left a bruise or two. As the blond absentmindly rubbed at him aching stomach, Naruto apologized for always complaining to Gaara. Naruto added in for good measure what was so important about the last letter. The redhead had mentioned about something that would soon involve the blond but excluded just what the situation was. Knowing Gaara well enough, he would have just forgotten to even tell him what was going on. With a final click, the message was sent.

Naruto logged off for the night and scanned over some random fan fictions before he needed to go to bed. All his homework was finished over the weekend, and he would just have to wait until tomorrow to get his missing assignments. As the computer bored him, Naruto decided to just turn off the device all together and grabbed his iPod while walking in his apartment.

The apartment was not his home. It was merely a place to live with its small bedroom, simple kitchen, and just the bare essentials. At least the blond was lucky enough to afford his computer, TV, and an iPod just to entertain himself with though the cable was flaky and money for rent was a bit too high for something as shabby as this.

The first song appeared bright on the screen. His "American" list started off with a loud crash of the last song before "The Stone" by Ashes Divide switched over. Out of all the happy songs it could of turned to, it just had to be something completely the opposite. The cell phone on the counter of the kitchen looked as forlorn as the promise of a worried Sakura called to him. It was around ten at night, but she always picked up. No matter what.

The device rang once…then twice until a shrill voice broke the calm of his apartment, "Naruto! Are you okay? Where were you?" Naruto could swear she sounded too much like her mother and it bugged him to no end.

"I am all right Sakura. I just went out for a while and didn't come back."

"Nothing to worry about…you got into a fight with Sasuke and there's nothing wrong! Don't you lie to me Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto heard her take a deep breath before she continued, "You really shouldn't be causing so much trouble. Weren't you supposed to go to detention anyways?"

"I'm heading there tomorrow. Tsunade baa-chan won't mind as long as I go to detention a few times. You know she loves me too much to really do that much."

"You shouldn't be saying that about our principal! It is disrespectful! You better be at school tomorrow and face this problem head on. Resolve this already and move on!"

"What do you think I am doing?"

"Nothing! You place all the blame on him, and yet you haven't even bothered to blame yourself."

"How do you think it would be like now? He left me! Us! How can I forgive someone who didn't even want to speak to us?"

"Don't you mean you? All of us knew that he probably wasn't going to bother with us about transferring to SA or even apologize for it. Like I said before, get over it already and make up. You're acting childish!"

"…Bye Sakura," Naruto groaned and closed the phone as he took in everything. They weren't expecting anything from Sasuke. How could they say that? They were his friends too, but what did she mean? A headache was starting to crack at his temples as he walked back the few meters to get to his room and grabbed a new pair of ragged clothes from a small drawer.

Naruto changed out of his clothes and brushed his teeth before staring at the reflection looking back at him. He pulled at his skin in a weird way, trying to see the many way skin could stretch. The dark blue of his eyes destroyed any chance of another color occupying the space. After ruffling the already messy hair of yellow, he jumped on the bed with a loud groan of protest coming under him.

His iPod continued playing even throughout his conversation with Sakura. "Better Think Again" flitted across the mini device as heavy guitar solos assaulted his eardrums. Was his iPod trying to tell him something…Naruto was fed up with the depressing screaming scene and flipped to his normal, safe jpop. "Kitto Daijoubu" numbly through one ear and out the other as Naruto went straight to dream land.