Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Sad isn't it? Anyway, mild violence and language in this chapter be forewarned.
"This is bad, very bad" Sasuke whispered no louder than a mouse to himself. Gradually the events of the night before began to flood back to Sasuke; Naruto had been thrashing about in his sleep, muttering about what Sasuke could only think was the night Naruto had finally found him in Sound. "The words he used, he must have been in so much pain, God how could I have put him through this" the raven contemplated. Much to Sasuke's annoyance, it seemed as though he was actually feeling some remorse for the events that led to Naruto's nightmare, and Uchiha's were never supposed to feel remorse.
Bit by bit Sasuke untangled himself from the blond so as not to disturb the young boy. He finally managed to completely disengage himself from Naruto and gently replaced his own body with one of the many pillows on the dobe's bed. Sasuke pulled the covers up over the blond and glanced at the clock.
"5 am, shit…" Sasuke hissed. He hurried to gather up his clothes, he would wash and return the sleeping attire he had borrowed to the blond sometime this weekend. Sasuke then did something very uncharacteristic of such a cold teen, he set Naruto's bedside clock for 7:45 am so the blond would have time to wash and eat before he had to get to the training grounds, as the raven haired male was fussing with the clock he noticed it had quite a bit of dust on it. "Seems as though the idiot doesn't know how to work the thing." After his preparations were complete he scanned Naruto's bedroom one last time, again noticing the certain musk that the blond emitted. Finally, being content that he was finished he moved towards his sleeping teammate, noticing how the boy's legs twitched in his sleep, like a dog, and he lightly brushed the bangs away from Naruto's face; again something very uncharacteristic of an Uchiha. Sasuke visibly winced when he thought about the statement he had just made.
"Well by far one of the more… interesting nights I've spent with you dobe" Sasuke snickered "man, you sure are a pain in the ass. Figures you would dream about me" Sasuke meant to laugh at these last few words, but found himself frowning instead. "I wish you would have never came for me, I wish you hadn't cared, but there's nothing I can do about those memories, I did my best before I brought you back, apparently I didn't do a good enough job erasing the past" Sasuke exhaled slightly, knowing that the blond couldn't hear his words of apology and regret. "I wish you could be happy again, I miss the old you, the one I lo…" Sasuke said the last sentence only in his head, he couldn't pull himself to ever say the words out loud, and with that the raven haired boy turned on his heel and left the apartment in a flash, leaving nothing but quiet in his stead.
As the door to blonds apartment closed, Naruto's eyes opened unhurriedly. A single tear welled at the corner of his left eye. Not only had he woken before Sasuke, but he had keenly listened to the aside made by the cold teen.
"How could I not care about you? Were you really looking for me before you left that night, or was that just a different past you were trying to erase?" Naruto spoke to the empty apartment, only to be answered in resounding silence.
Training that morning seemed especially awkward to Sakura and Kakashi. It seemed that while the usually quiet Sasuke was even more quiet than usual, his counterpart Naruto had stopped speaking entirely, a first for team 7 to have such a quiet day in the fields. Kakashi being the sleuth he was had decided that something of importance must have taken place between the boys, and as hard headed as they were each respectively, he got the feeling that there were some pent up emotions that had to be dealt with. So he did the only thing he could, he decided today was going to be strictly a one on one match between Uzumaki Naruto and none other than Uchiha Sasuke himself, hopefully the boys would eventually be able to sort out whatever was on each of their minds, and hopefully Kakashi would be able to watch the scene unfold.
The match between the two started out innocently enough, neither boy putting their full efforts into the fight, but it seemed that any time eye contact was made, sudden jolts of energy would spring into the young men and they would become exponentially aggressive in their own right. A hard right thrown by Naruto was easily evaded by Sasuke and the raven's retaliatory strike landed square in the chest of the blond teen, pummeling they boy back several feet, though without missing more than a very brief moment Naruto seemed to fly back onto his heels and go on the attack once again. After a minute and a half or so Naruto landed his first hit within the match, a well placed upper hand straight into the Uchiha's jaw. Sakura winced at the sound of bone grinding against bone.
Sasuke quickly sprung back from the hit he sustained to land quite a heavy kick to the blonds' exposed ribcage. At the sound of one or more of Naruto's ribs splintering Sakura plead for Kakashi to end the match, but the fox of a man only grinned and solemnly stated "Let them be, it's just starting to get good!" With that the blond immediately disappeared, leaving and extremely disgruntled and confused Sasuke standing alone on the training field. "How the hell could he get past my Sharigan?" and with that Sasuke noticed that the ground beneath him quaked ever so softly, he grinned and jumped as high as he could into the air to avoid one of Naruto's better known tactics. Sure enough a blond cannon shot through the floor and Sasuke successfully dodged the boy as he flew beyond Sasuke's head, with a hearty punch the raven hit the blonds head but when the blond seemed to dissipate the revelation was slow to cross Sasuke's mind.
"What the fu.." was all the raven could manage to say aloud before he was grabbed from behind in a vice grip of a hug. "It was a set up, how had I not seen it?" not realizing that he said the words out loud Naruto was quick to answer him with a chuckle "Hey I'm not the only one that paid attention to Lee's fighting ya know…" and with that Naruto spun as fast as he could making sure to hold the Uchiha in his grasp with all the strength he could muster. As the two quickly returned to earth Sasuke knew that the fall was going to hurt, bad… but he also made quick note of Naruto's poor sense of positioning, it seemed that the blond didn't understand the opponent's head was supposed to make contact with the ground first in order to be fully effective, and seeing as how Naruto had placed himself about an inch or so further up than Sasuke, he was going to invariably injure himself in the process as well. Sasuke hated to think he would win on such a small technicality, but a win was a win, and an Uchiha didn't have any other options, there was no word for 'losing' in the Uchiha vocabulary.
At the end of the raven haired boy's thought he and the blond met the earth in a booming "THUD" at this sight even Kakashi had to flinch when he saw the crash, he let the dust settle before he made an attempt to move. As Kakashi swaggered over toward the crater in the center of the field, he instantly noticed the odd position the two had landed in, each boy face to face with his opponent, and with arms barely draped over the others chest and side. The exact same thought did not escape Sasuke as he was the first to open his eyes and survey the scene "Just like this morning, how ironic" he said this only to himself. Next it was Naruto's turn to open his eyes, he studied the scene as well and wondered how he had ended up in the position he had. His eyes roamed the bruised body of his teammate and he couldn't help but imagine what he must have looked like if Sasuke looked that bad. As Naruto ran up Sasuke's figure and visa versa the two boys locked eyes.
Cobalt eyes met Onyx and world seemed to still, both boys started deeply into the other's soul as though searching for some truth to what laid behind those mysterious eyes. In unison each boy thought to himself "Why does this have to be so hard?" Kakashi, beside himself with amusement let the boys stare at each other for a few moment's, giggling to himself, and laughing quietly at the perplexed look which un-gracefully marred Sakura's face, before he decided to cough ever so slightly to gain all three member's of his team's attention.
"Very good Sasuke Kun, Naruto Kun, I think that's gonna be enough for today, I realize that I called you in on your day off, for that I apologize, but to make up for it, I am going to give you Monday and Tuesday off, sound fair?" Kakashi slowly panned the stunned looks of his team member's and decided their silence was good enough for him. Without skipping a beat Sakura asked who Kakashi would declare winner of the match, for a moment the jounin stood motionless, looking as though he was tallying some secret score board in his head, and after a few moments of crushing anticipation he declared "The winner is… neither of you, tie match" and with that he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving three thoroughly upset teens in his absence.
"What a load of shot" exclaimed Naruto he stated with anger as a mask, but within a flash it was gone. Suddenly it seemed as though Naruto remembered the position he was lying in and he quickly jumped up so as to brush the dirt from himself. Sasuke doing the same could only contemplate how he could murder his teacher in his sleep and leave no evidence.
"So what did you think Sakura-Chan? Did I do great or what?" the blond happily chirped the words, which surprised both Sasuke and Sakura greatly, seeing as though only a day or so before Sakura had flatly stated she didn't think much of the sun flower boy. In order to save face Sakura quickly piped up by saying Naruto had done very well. As well as Sasuke, to which only the blond seemed to beam with happiness. The three teens collectively decided to find some shade in which to cool off from the match. Sakura however sat a foot or so away from the boys, more so in hopes that she could sit in the sun and warm herself, it was October after all, but also in attempt to avoid the harsh smells which seemed to be emanating from her teammates.
The first few minutes were spent in an almost quiet reflection. Sakura longingly gazed at Sasuke through wide eyes, trying her best to drink up any feature of him she could glimpse at. Sasuke brooded with his eyes closed, the only thoughts running through his mind were "looks kinda cute" and "Why won't you leave? I …I… Love…" he questioned himself thoroughly "what could that possibly mean?" all the while Naruto rested languidly against a tree thinking intently about the Uchiha's cryptic words from the morning.
Moments later the Uchiha did something so out of character, so unlike him, that not only Sakura but Naruto had to question the raven again as to whether or not they had heard what the Uchiha had said correctly. "I said… I'm tired, hungry, dirty and I want a bath, so why don't we hit the springs then grab some lunch." After this he hastily added "are you people deaf?" Sakura's mouth hung low on her face, not only could she not believe the words which had some how seemingly escaped her Sasuke's mouth, no that she could possibly understand, what was even more astounding was Naruto's answer… "Sure why not, I'm pretty worn out myself, I think a bath and some good food would do me some good, but your buying teme" and with that both boy's stood and began to walk away. Sakura could only think to herself that this had to be some kind of a nightmare and any minute she would be woken by her mother who would say she had been screaming in her sleep, but no, as the images of the boys became more and more distorted and shrunk further away into the distance, Sakura realized she wasn't dreaming… she was in hell itself.
It was odd, but Sasuke couldn't help the smirk which tugged at his lips at the picture of Sakura he would forever hold in his mind, gaping like a mule, priceless didn't even begin to describe the moment in time for Sasuke. True it wasn't 'normal' for him to show any friendliness, but somewhere before leaving the idiot's apartment that morning, and being thrust into the ground at break neck speeds, the raven haired teen decided he was going to do what it took to prevent any more of the dreams which plagued his teammate. Now he didn't want to be misunderstood and have anyone believe that he cared for the well being of the dobe, no that wasn't it at all, he just couldn't bear the thought that it was his fault that blond was having a difficult time, and an Uchiha would not let a problem they had created fester, oh no, Sasuke would fix the idiot some way or another, so he could go back to being indifferent about Naruto's existence, just like it had been before. "Ah simpler times" Sasuke sighed heartily. "Weirdo" was all Naruto could mutter.
Walking no more than a foot away from Sasuke, a seemingly oblivious Naruto wondered what the sudden display of kindness from the bastard could mean. "Could he be trying to kill me to 'erase' the past like he was talking about? Nah, even he's not that much of a bastard, but still, why do I get the feeling that there's a lot more going on here than I understand, something's definitely wrong here, but hey what can I do, I'm getting a free steam and a free meal, the rest can come later I guess." In the time the two males had been lost in thought, they had walked to their first destination, the springs, here they could unwind and hopefully remedy some of the problems they were having within themselves. Before they walked into the bath house, each boy glanced to their teammate and could only think "I'm going to figure out what happened, no matter what" and with that the boys entered the springs and prepared themselves for what answers laid ahead.
Next Chapter: Hot springs and embarrassing scenes? Someone says something they'll regret, and an 'accident' leads to a crestfallen teen.
Remember I'm just like any other writer, more reviews means faster updates, I'll fill you in on why I was so late with this chapter next time.