Chapter 6:

Sasuke didn't stop running until he reached the edge of the village and scrambled up a tree. He was so embarrassed. He had just licked Naruto's face!

"Sasuke, where are you? What's wrong?" Sakura came down the road in search of him. She went right past the tree where Sasuke hid, not giving it so much as a second glance; something which Sasuke was very thankful for.

After a while, Sasuke finally came down. That was a close one.

"Oh, Sasuke?"

He jumped and spun around. Naruto was standing right behind him with his hands behind his back. Sasuke's tongue when numb in his mouth. What could he say to him?

"How's it going?"

Sasuke shrugged, unable to do anything else.

"So, you're doing alright, huh?"

Now he was getting annoyed. "I'm fine."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

"Oh. Ok, then." For some odd reason, Naruto had this strange smug look on his face. It was almost like he was trying to hide something.

Sasuke was suspicious. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" His smile didn't fade.

"You're acting weird."

"Am I? You're acting pretty weird yourself."

"I am not!"

Naruto's smile grew. "Really? So, you feel fine? There's nothing going on, huh?"

"Th- that's right."

"Nothing at all?"

"Right. Nothing."

He still had the I-know-something-you-don't-know look on his face that made Sasuke very uncomfortable. He was hiding something for sure.

"So…" Naruto rocked back on his heels. "There's nothing going on with you at all? You're A-ok, right?"

Annoyed, Sasuke snapped back, "Yes, I said! Would you just drop it?!"

"Would you be ok even if I showed you this?" Naruto pulled something out from behind his back. It was a big, blue yarn ball.

Oh, no!

Sasuke's human mind went blank and his cat mind took over. He stared at the yarn ball with big twinkling eyes. He stood very still, watching it. Naruto waved it in the air, shaking a strand of yarn loose. It dangled from between Naruto's fingers, making Sasuke twitch. Pleased with his reaction, Naruto tossed the yarn ball over to Sasuke. The Uchiha went down on all fours and started to bat the ball back and forth, thoroughly amused. Soon he was playing with it just like any cat would in his situation.

"Ah-ha! I knew it!"

Sasuke paused, a strand of yarn between his teeth. Naruto was pointing straight at him, finger trembling with every word.

"You are! You are a cat!"

Busted!

Hiding the ball of yarn behind his back, Sasuke tried to explain his actions without revealing the truth. "It's not what you think!"

"You're a freaking cat!"

"No! No, I'm not! I was just- I was- It's not- I'm not…"

"Then why were you chasing that yarn around like that?!"

"I- I was just… Well, you tossed it at me and I was… I was just trying to get it away from me was all and- and I got tangled up in it so I was trying to shake it off and-"

"Just how stupid do you think I am?"

"I wasn't sure." That may have been the first truthful thing he said all day. He knew that Naruto was an idiot, but he wasn't sure just how big of one he was. Too bad he wasn't as clueless as he thought he was, otherwise that would have made everything go by so much easier.

"Sasuke, I know you're a cat! Don't try to fool me. I'm not an idiot."

That was debatable.

With nothing else he could do, Sasuke folded and admitted the truth. "Ok, ok. I am, but it's not what you think."

Naruto put his hands on his hips. "Oh? You just said that I was right, now you tell me I'm wrong? Which is it?"

Sasuke avoided his eyes. "It was that stupid potion…" Sasuke told him everything and how Neji had also succumbed to its effects. After he was all done explaining, the predictable happened. Naruto was rolling around in the grass, laughing his head off. "Shut up!"

Naruto could hardly breathe. "You and-? And he… With the… Oh, my God, that's funny!"

"I said shut up!"

"Oh! That's funny as hell! That's just too great!"

"Shut up! Shut up!"

"Oh! My ribs!"

"SHUT UP!" Sasuke went over and kicked him.

Naruto rolled away from him, finally calming down. "I- I'm sorry...!"

"No, you're not."

"Yeah, you're right. Ha!" He wiped the tears from his face. "So, even Neji is like this? Oh, that's just too good. I love it!"

"Well, I hate it. And you have to promise not to tell anyone, got it?"

Naruto had finally stopped laughing. "But why? Wouldn't it be better if you told Grandma about this so she could cure you or something?"

"Yeah, after she's had a good laugh about it. For all I know, this stupid potion will wear off in a few days. I can wait it out until then."

Naruto raised a brow. "Really?"

"Don't give me that look. I can handle myself."

"Really?" Sasuke could detect some sarcasm in his voice. He hated being mocked.

"Yes, really! What would make you think that I couldn't?"

"The fact that you're still holding on to that yarn in your hand."

Sasuke looked down and saw that he was indeed still holding onto it. He shut his eyes tight and threw it into the trees. "That's totally different!"

"Is it?"

"Stop giving me that look! I told you, I can handle it!"

"Neji, we have to go! Neji?" Lee looked everywhere for his teammate. He was nowhere to be found. "Neji! Where are you?" A short distance away, he heard soft whimpering. Lee followed the noise and found Neji lying in a fetal position rocking back and forth. "Are you ok?"

He whimpered into his knees, "…dogs… too many dogs… dogs everywhere…"

"Neji?" Lee knelt down and patted his back. "Are you ok? What happened?"

Neji kept his eyes shut and rocked again. He was still in shock from earlier when he had jumped over a fence and landed in the middle of a pack of dogs getting ready to perform. That was terrifying. He had worn himself out from all the running that day and all the fear from his unexplained phobia had taken its toll on his body. Not to mention the fact that he had just spent his last nine hours wide awake for the mission. He was far behind on his sleep and exhausted from all he had been through that day.

Lee stroked his back in a calming manner. "Come on. Our mission is over. Gai-sensei said that we could go home now."

That made him feel so much better. But his legs still wouldn't work. They still felt like marshmallow. He looked up in time to see Lee crouching down in front of him with his back turned.

"Piggyback," he explained. "Hop on, Neji."

He had lost plenty of his dignity that day but not that much. He still had plenty left to politely decline his offer. "No, thank you. I think I can walk on my own now."

"If you are certain…"

"Quite." Neji straightened up and started walking on his own in front of Lee.

What a day!

"What?!" Neji all but screamed. "How could you tell him?! Whatever happened to keeping this quiet?!"

"I'm sorry! He just found out so I had to tell him!"

Neji threw himself onto Sasuke's bed. "I hate you!"

"Same here."

Neji turned his head, resting the left side of his face on the mattress. "I mean, how could you do that? You just told Naruto- Naruto! Of all people, why did it have to be him? He's going to tell everyone!"

"No, he won't."

"Then he's going to take pictures and sell them!" Neji buried his face.

"I doubt if he even knows how to hold a camera. I think we're good."

"Then he's going to come by here and harass us about this whole thing."

Sasuke gave it some thought. "Now, that he would do."

"See? What did I tell you? We're screwed!"

"Hi, Kitties!" Naruto popped into the open window with a huge grocery bag. "How's it going?"

Neji shot a look, not at Naruto, but at Sasuke. "I thought you locked your doors."

"That's a window," he pointed out.

Neji turned away.

Sasuke then turned to Naruto. "What's in the bag?"

He chuckled gleefully. "I got you some stuff!" He dug through the bag and pulled out every item as he named it. "I got you some tuna, sushi, milk, more fish stuff, a toy mouse for you to play with and some more yarn!"

Sasuke's eye twitched. "You've got to be kidding."

"What?" Naruto actually had the nerve to look puzzled.

"Why the hell did you buy that stuff? Like we'll actually play with cat toys! You're such a moron."

"But you played with that yarn ball back at-"

"That never happened!"

Sure, it didn't… Wanting to tease his rival, Naruto fished out a nice round yarn ball and tried to entice him. He tried handing it to him, but Sasuke knocked it out of his hand. But even that wasn't enough to crush Naruto's spirit. He simply went down on his knees to pick it up.

"Are you listening to me?" Sasuke sat on the floor and tugged on Naruto's sleeve. "I said 'are you listening to me'?! Are you deaf, loser?"

Not even Sasuke's favorite nickname for him could wipe the smile off his face as Naruto tried a different approach. He started to roll the yarn ball back and forth with the tip of his finger. "Yeah, I'm listening."

"Good. This is important." Sasuke's eyes caught sight of the rolling yarn ball, but tried to ignore it. "You understand that no one can know about this, right? You haven't told anyone, right?"

"You're like a broken record. No, I haven't told anyone."

"And you promised you wouldn't, right?"

"I promise already. Don't you trust me?" Naruto pushed the yarn across the floor with his finger.

Sasuke's eyes drifted down to it once more and watched it roll. "It's not that I don't trust you or anything. It's just that you can be a real pain sometimes, you know? You're so childish and can't be trusted when it comes to keeping a secret."

"I resent that! I can so!"

Sasuke's eyes followed the yarn. "I mean it. I mean, the second you found out about us being turned into cats and all, you've done nothing but tease us."

"Whatever do you mean?" he asked innocently while rolling the yarn a little closer to Sasuke.

"I mean like bringing us milk and cat toys. That's insulting! We're not really cats! We'll change back soon, I'm sure of it. All we have to do is wait it out and everything will be yarn- I mean fine! Fine! I said fine!"

Naruto's smile widened. It was working. Sasuke was already getting distracted. He rolled the yarn a little more, shaking a strand loose. It slapped against the floor every time the yarn ball rolled from one side to the other.

Sasuke's dark eyes never left it for a second, but still he continued to speak. "It's bad enough that you know. I don't need Sakura to know, too. She'd have a field day! She'll try to cuddle me and hug me! It's embarrassing enough just being this way; I don't need people drawing attention to it, too! I know how much she's yarned- yearned for something like this to happen. Her and Ino always rounding- er, hounding me… It's pathetic how they roll and… rolling round… across with... little tiny string just- Stop that!"

"What?"

"That! Stop doing that!"

"What?" Naruto rolled the yarn a little more.

"You know damn well what you're doing! Stop rolling that stupid thing around like that!" Sasuke's eyes followed it. Back and forth, back and forth. "St- stop… Stop it...!" he said more to himself than to Naruto this time.

Naruto giggled. This was so much fun! He rolled it to the left, then right, and then left again. Sasuke's round eyes followed it wherever it went, mesmerized by it. It rolled over here then there so wonderfully. After what seemed like hours, Sasuke's resistance finally fell and he gave in to feline desires. He poked the yarn with his knuckles. Naruto pushed the yarn over to Sasuke and watched him bat it back and forth. Engrossed in his new toy, Sasuke rolled over onto his back and tossed it up in the air playfully. He gnawed on a strand and tugged at it.

The blond ninja sat back and watched with a big smile on his face. Just seeing the dignified Sasuke rolling around on the floor playing with a yarn ball brought him such joy. Oh, how he was going to have fun with this!

Poor Sasuke. But he's so darn cute! XD

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