Chapter 3

It has been three weeks. Three weeks since Sasuke started to work for the Uzimaki and has changed in more ways than one. Examples: almost as tan as Naruto; greeting is family in the morning and when he returns home; muscles started to bulge out of his arms; he was a lot stronger now; and now he knew how to take care of his home without having to call a plumber anymore. Sasuke also has gotten so nice that Itachi wanted to go and greet the man who has changed his little brother.

Today, Itachi was doing that just now. He was going to drop off his brother and meet the blond man who has now become Itachi's best friend, but he was surprised that Sasuke said that they didn't need to leave until twelve-thirty. Taki was in the back seat, trying to contain himself from wanting to see Kyo. Sasuke was surprised when Itachi asked him if he could take his little brother to the orphanage so he could meet Naruto, but made no objections. Instead, he just asked what was wrong with his older brother and why he wanted to do that. Itachi didn't say anything, but kept driving.

"So," Itachi started, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "This Naruto guy, he seems… nice." That sounded so lame, especially coming from him. Sasuke thought the same thing by the way he was looking at the older raven, but nodded anyways. "How old is he?"

"Twenty-three," Sasuke replied bluntly. Itachi hummed.

"Hmm, only two years younger than me."

"You and Kyuubi are the same age."

Kyuubi? Who the hell was Kyuubi, Itachi thought frantically. "And who may ask is Kyuubi? One of Naruto's siblings?" Man, he was acting all suspicious and a doushbag. Something Sasuke was not used to.

"Yeeaaahhhh," Sasuke replied, longing out the word yeah. "Well, more like foster brother. You're acting weird and starting to scare me. Are you alright?" Sasuke finally turned his head away from the window to look at his brother oddly.

"I'm acting weird? You're the one acting weird all of a sudden!" That was it; he couldn't hold it in anymore. His little brother was acting un-Sasuke like and it was starting to scare him. One day, Sasuke was his anti-social little brother, then the next he becomes a brother who actually cares what's wrong with his older brother.

"What?"

Itachi pulled over to the side of the road so he could look at the younger raven, who was looking at his brother in fright.

"After working for that man, you've become too nice and I'm not used to it! You even know how to unplug a sink and how to fix a toilet, which by the way you would have never touch to clean it before!"

"Woah, holy shit."

"So you tell me what's wrong with you? I want to know what happened to my anti-social baby brother!" Ok, he said it and was glad he got his point across by the way Sasuke was staring at him with wide eyes and a look of surprise planted on his face. Itachi was panting heavily after his rant and waited for an answer from the young raven.

Sasuke's left eye twitched before he burst into a fit of laughter, which made Itachi's turn to be surprised. Taki was watching the whole ordeal take place in the car, panting and wondering what was going on. He was even surprised to see his master laughing so hard that tears started to leak from closed eyelids.

"I'm sorry! It's just that what you said makes me laugh!" Sasuke said between fits of laughter. "I've never seen you in such hysterics before!" His laughter become harder for a few more minutes before he finally calmed down, wiping off the tears on his cheeks. "Itachi, sure I've changed because that's the kind of work I have to do at the orphanage. As for the change in attitude, I learned that's I don't have to hold a grudge against anyone. Plus, smiling and laughing is easier than frowning and brooding. Don't get me wrong, I will brood once in a while, but I rather smile or keep a straight face than frown all the time. Now could we please go?"

Surprised and astonished by his little brother's answer, Itachi did what Sasuke asked and kept quiet the rest of the way, stopping at the small store outside of town that Sasuke said he needed to get; something Itachi had no idea what. When they got to the orphanage, there were tables out in the lawn, kids and adults everywhere, and a huge cake sitting at the end of one of the tables. Presents were piled high next to it. Taki was happy to be out and was lathered in attention.

"What's up with all the people and gifts?" Itachi got out of his car and looked around the place. There was a newly finished cement walkway (done by Naruto and Sasuke), a tree house towards the back of the house (made by Naruto and Sasuke), and a perfectly made flower bed (also done by Naruto and Sasuke).

"It's Ami's birthday today and Naruto said we're going out to town to hang out, while the kids and moms celebrate," Sasuke explained, walking towards the table with the presents and cake. A few of the single moms watched the two ravens with hunger in their eyes, wanting a taste of the two handsome men (or man and teenager).

"Oh."

"Sasuke!" came a small voice from a little girl with red hair, pale skin, and green eyes. Sasuke bent down after setting the bag he was holding onto the table and opened his arms to the running girl, who latched onto him. The young raven picked her up and held her in his arms with a genuine smile. "I'm glad you made it Sasuke-kun!"

Itachi watched as his little brother walked away with the little girl in his arms, blinking a few times in astonishment. Sasuke never showed any kind of interest towards children, neither did he even like children. Okkkkkaayyy, he is officially freaked out now. A body standing next to him brought him out of his stupor. He was going to snap at the person for invading his personal space when he got a good look at the person standing next to him.

The man had short, spiked, red hair, one blue eye and one green eye, tan skin, and defined muscles. The green polo-shirt squeezed his torso, making him look hot. The leather pants hugged his ass and thighs, making Itachi almost drool at the sight. The combat boots with white skulls made him look a punk, which was probably why he was wearing them. An earring hung around his lobe as well as his upper ear and a skull choker was wrapped around his neck like a collar.

"Hello, I'm Kyuubi. I never saw you before, you Sasuke's brother?" God, even his voice sounded sexy, and that smile! This redhead was defiantly a fine catch.

"Yesh, I mean yes, yes I am," the raven said with a blush. Mentally saying yum over and over. "And you must be Naruto's brother." The redhead nodded and smirked at the blush on the raven's face. "I'm Itachi." He stuck out his hand and Kyuubi took it, both blushed as their hands clasped each other and glanced away from each other. "So, I hear that there's a party going on for a little girl that lives here."

"Yeah. Little Ami is turning six today and this is her first girl/boy birthday party…"

"…"

"…"

"You wanna get out of here and go into town with me?"

"Yeah." Both of the men left hurriedly to the car to get away from the many children before they wig out. The car quickly drove out from the driveway and out into the road. Sasuke watched his brother and Kyuubi drive off with Ami still in his arms. They looked at each before shaking their heads at the same time.

"See ya Ami," Sasuke said to the little girl as he and Naruto got into the blond's car. The girl waved good-bye and the two were about to drive away when Ino suddenly jumped onto the hood of the car, trying to stop them from getting away. She slid off the hood and stood by the driver's window after Naruto rolled it down.

"Are you guys going into town?" She asked, looking at the man nervously.

Naruto nodded. "Yes. Wait, let me guess… Maxi with the wings, thick?" Sasuke looked at Naruto oddly, wondering what they were talking about. "And some aspirin?" This just made the raven even more confused. "Oh! And no tampons."

"Yes, you got it exactly right. I'm glad you've been remembering," Ino praised him. "You two be good and I'll see if I can save you two some cake." She waved them off and let go of the car. Naruto sighed in relief and drove off, writing down the new grocery on his grocery list.

Sasuke sat their in silence for a few minutes before finally saying, "What's a tampon? And what the hell is a Maxi with wings?" The question made Naruto stare at the raven oddly and sweat drop. "What?"

"Before I answer any questions, let me ask you this… do you know what a period is?" Naruto asked, looking back towards the road with a 'poor-man' look on his face.

"A dot that you put at the end of a sentence?"

The sweat drop grew and Naruto let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, do you really want to learn about this? I mean, you should have learned a few years back. I figured it out myself when I saw a blood stained pad in the trash that came from one of my foster sisters." He shivered at the memory and did not want to talk about it.

"Learn about what? Blood? Pads?"

"You see, when a girl turns into a woman, they go through something call a period. And a period happens once every month that lasts for a whole week. And they have to wear pads to keep from getting their underwear stained. Shall I go on, this is very uncomfortable for me."

"Yes, please go on. This is new and interesting to me." Sasuke was looking at Naruto intently now.

"Well, a period is when a woman bleeds through her vagina. Well the blood builds in the uterus and then bleeds through the vagina when the woman isn't pregnant. Do you understand so far?"

"So far. A woman builds up blood in the uterus and then bleeds the vagina when a woman isn't pregnant. Why?"

Naruto could not understand why Sasuke wasn't as disturbed as he was by this conversation. "Well, the blood gathers and builds to get ready for when a woman gets pregnant. But when the time is up and the woman isn't pregnant, it needs to be filtered out of the body before it can build up again; and they get cramps during their periods. But a woman can still get pregnant even during her period. Now do you get what I'm saying?"

Sasuke was blushing heavily and a look of embarrassment came across it. "Yeah. So they wear these pads to keep from getting stains on the underwear?" Naruto nodded, god, he felt like he was lecturing a twelve year old girl. "And what about tampons?"

"They're like a rolled up pad that they shove up their vagina with a string hanging out to pull it out when they need too. Now can we please stop talking about this, it's embarrassing." Naruto wanted to curl up in his sock drawer and hide away from the world forever.

"Sorry about that, I guess I never really paid any attention during health classes." Sasuke looked down at his feet, a blush and sheepish look on his face.

"It's ok, soon you're going to tell me that you don't know what sex means." Naruto couldn't help but laugh at that, but soon quieted down and coughed at the glare the raven was giving him. "I'm guessing you don't."

"Shut up dobe, I know what sex is. My parents lectured me about that." He shivered at the lecture and shook his head to be rid of the memory. "Anyways, what will we be doing out in town today?"

"Well, I was hoping to go to my favorite ramen shop in the mall before going too the arcade."

Sasuke sighed dejectedly and let his head thump against the window. "Games? As you've seen before, I'm very good with my hands." Naruto chuckled and said nothing as he pulled up to the mall, parking as close to the entrance as he could. "And what else will we be doing in the mall?" They got out of the car and headed towards the entrance.

"I don't know, we can look around and go to whatever spikes our interests." Naruto smirked and led the raven haired teen to the food court on the very top floor. The blond ordered miso chicken ramen for the both of them and talked as they waited for their meals.

"Are there any book stores that I haven't seen yet?" Sasuke was more interested in books than anything else in the mall and wanted to go to a book store he hadn't been in a million times. He probably shouldn't have said that because of what the blond said and took him next.

"I can think of one," Naruto replied mischievously, slurping up the noodles hungrily. Sasuke was afraid at first, but soon calmed down.

And just like that, it was back. Sasuke was terrified to even want to step fifteen feet from it. But the pushing and shoving from Naruto made him want to kill him before he set foot in that kind of book store. He did not want to be found by his friends in a gay book store with a blond that is gay. Sasuke tried to shove back from his fate, but with Naruto being persistent, there was no way around it.

Finally in the store, Sasuke was dragged to the romance section. And the blond was piling books upon books into his arms. The teen was about to fall from the load of books and angrily called for Naruto's help. Feeling sheepish, Naruto put most of the books back and kept a few in the raven's hands that he said were his favorite.

"Why are you getting these for me? I'm not gay," Sasuke hissed, shoving the books into Naruto's hands. Naruto shoved them back.

"I'm buying these for you just in case you want to know how to have sex with a man if you're ever curios," Naruto hissed back. "These are probably what turned me gay; Iruka's lover was reading the Icha Icha Paradise gay series and it got me curious, so I read some of them and started to read other gay books." He pouted at the glare he was receiving and crossed his arms.

"And you're telling me this because…?"

"Because it's just in case you ever get curious. Now come on, let's go buy them. You don't have to read them until you get curious." Naruto now had a pleading look on his face and Sasuke instantly fell.

"Fine, you can buy them for me if you want, but I'm probably never going to read them," Sasuke grumbled, following after the happy blond. The man behind the counter gave the two a bored look and ignored Sasuke, who was underage to even be in there.

Rounding up the amount and putting the books in the bag, the counter-man gave the bag to the blond and the change. Sasuke was sp embarrassed that he wanted to go and hide from the world even more than before. But he was happy that they were leaving… or that's what he thought until Naruto dragged him to the back of the store to the manga and comic section. He picked up several and put them in the raven's hands. Sasuke tried so hard not to look at what the blond was getting now, but his curiosity got the better of him.

He peeked at the cover almost had a nose bleed at what he saw. On the cover of the comic book were two naked men, a blanket covering up their lower regions. One had orangish color hair while the other had blue hair. Their bodies were flushed up against other as they looked sexily out onto the viewers and readers. And Naruto wanted to get this for him?! Oh the agony!

By the time they finally were done with the gay book store, Sasuke was carrying two bags full of what Naruto liked to call 'Forbidden Love Stories'. By now, Sasuke was about to faint from all the blood rushing into his head from embarrassment. Naruto was smiling away, going into another shop that sold costumes. Why the blond was going in there was beyond Sasuke. And why the raven was following him was beyond him too.

"Naruto, what are we doing here?" Sasuke finally got up the courage to ask.

"I was gonna pick out some vintage costumes for Kakashi. He'd give me over seven hundred bucks if I did. Why he can't do it himself is beyond me," Naruto replied with a grin as he looked at a leather bondage suit. "Hey, this'll be perfect for Iruka! He was always complaining on how he never got to be the seme in this way before. He also said that Kakashi needs to be punished." The evil grin on his face made Sasuke shudder at what the blond might have been thinking.

Naruto brought the suit off from the hanger and several others before going to pay for them. The woman behind the counter gave the two boys quizzical looks as she registered them and put them in a paper bag. What made it even more embarrassing was that Kiba, Neji, Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro not to far away at the Hot Topic clothing store. If he was lucky, Sasuke could easily sneak away from the store he was in now and pretend he was never in there.

Silently and quickly, Sasuke ran out of the store as fast as he could and began to walk casually away from the costume store. Naruto ran after him, confused at why the raven wanted to get out of that place quickly. But when the blond saw what Sasuke was walking towards (more like who), he got the jest and murmured to the raven that he'll be at the small hardware store down the crowded hallway of the mall. And with that, Naruto was gone. Sasuke was happy and walked over to his friends in Hot Topic.

"Well what do you know, it's Sasuke," Kiba said with a grin. He came up to the raven and punched him lightly in the arm. "It's been three weeks man! That Naruto guy must be working you hard! Look at that tan!" Neji nodded a greeting and agreement at the tan on the used to be pale raven.

"You're right, you're not the pale ice princess any more," Neji said bluntly. "What's with the bags and what are you doing having a day off?" Sasuke shrugged.

"A little girl at the orphanage had a birthday party at the house, so there were too many kids and people to do any kind of work," Sasuke replied. "He's a pretty nice guy." Temari completely ignored the answer and went back to Sasuke's new form.

"Look at these muscles. If you weren't a stud muffin then, you are now," Temari said as she felt his biceps, oh-ing at the rock hard muscles. "Who is this guy that made you this way? I've got to meet him!" She grabbed his shoulders and shook the raven, demanding to see Naruto. Gaara stopped her before Sasuke's head rolled off and kindly asked where the blond slave driver is.

Temari was a slave driver herself and Gaara's older sister. She had blond hair set up in a weird hairdo with four pony-tails instead of two like a regular would. Her eyes were a dark shade of blue and completely different from her younger brother. Her outfits screamed ass-kicker. She wore a camouflaged shirt with black long-sleeves, black pants, and combat boots today. The spiked collar around her neck was also intimidating to everyone around her except for her friends.

"Where is he?!"

"In the hardware shop," Sasuke replied. His friends were surprised that he no longer wore a scowl on his face wherever he went and was actually being civil. "Want to come meet him?" Even though he was still embarrassed, he started to calm down when his friends didn't ask him about the books.

"What's with all the books?" Kankuro asked suddenly.

Ah shit…

"Uh, nothing! They're not mine, defiantly not mine. Actually, I was just holding them for Naruto while he went to the hardware!" Sasuke spoke a little too soon, spiking up their interests. But they didn't say anything and left it alone.

"Riigghhht, shall we find this Naruto guy?" Kiba butted in, wanting to be apart of the conversation.

Sasuke sighed in relief and led them to the hardware shop down the small distance of the hall. The raven instantly spotted the blond talking to a white haired man, who had a head band covering his left eye and scarf covering half of his face. He had on a brown coat with the police symbol on the side. The white-haired man bowed at the blond after Naruto gave him the bag that had all the costumes in it, much to Sasuke's relief, before turning to a silver hair woman after the man left.

As the man brushed past them, he waved at Sasuke and Sasuke waved back. His friends were confused by this and feeling the confusion, Sasuke answered their mental questions. "He's Kakashi, used to be Naruto's guardian along with Iruka." The raven haired teen walked into the store and made his way to the blond and the woman.

Seeing them, Naruto grinned at the raven and patted his shoulder as he continued to speak to the woman. "And this is the guy I was talking about. Sasuke, meet my old foster sister, Miki. And are these your friends Sasuke?"

"Yeah. This is Temari, and her younger brothers Gaara and Neji. Dog-boy is Kiba, and Neji is the brooding one to my side." Sasuke pointed to each of his friends as he said their names. Naruto greeted them all with a nod as did the others. "It's nice to meet you Miki."

"Nice you too, Sasuke and everyone," Miki replied with a grin. She was a beautiful young woman with her short-cut silver hair, yellow eyes, porcelain skin, and petit form. She wore a lime green, short, sleeve shirt that stopped at her mid thighs, dark, navy blue skirt, and shin-high boots. They weren't high-heels, but they were still cool to catch Temari's eyes.

As the girls talked, the boys talked their manly-talk.

"So… Naruto, I hear you've been Sasuke hard," Kiba said, looking at the blond man with a questioning look. "How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm twenty-three," Naruto answered with a grin. "Hey Sasuke, why don't you spend time with your friends while I catch up with Miki. I know we were supposed have a boy's day out, but you should spend time with your friends. And Miki and I have a lot of catching up to do. Do you mind?"

Sasuke shook his head. "No, I don't mind. Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Do you need a ride?"

"No, I can catch one with these lugs."

"Kay, see you tomorrow." And with that, Miki and Naruto said good-bye and left, hand-in-hand.

Looking back to his friends, Sasuke lifted an eyebrow at the looks they were giving him. "What?"

"Nothing," they all said at the same time and walked out of the store.

A/N: review! Thanks for the reviews too. I have exciting news; we have a family of beavers down the road in the ravine (if that's how it's called). See you all later.