HOWLING LOVE :.

Chapter 21 xx Confrontation

Sakura watched in mute horror as the blond nearly dismantled the office door set before him as he slammed it open so harshly that it made a resounding smash as it crashed into the wall on the opposite side. With the momentary obstacle out of the way, the reckless shinobi stampeded right into the room within without as much as a hesitation, leaving the rosette kunoichi to grapple to get a hold of his jacket to pull him back, though her attempts were fruitless. So instead she hissed something angrily under her breath before stalking in after him, choosing to hide her anxiety under an obstinate facade.

Her brow arched as she took in the odd scene splayed out before her.

It appeared the Uchiha had been asleep, at least until the blond had decided to smash the door open and parade inside as he just had. Sasuke was looking dangerously menacing, despite the fact that he was currently blinking back the tangles of sleep in which he had so rudely been aroused from. He was glaring daggers at the blond standing innocently before him, his bitter resentment seething from the dark scowl he had choking at the edges of his lips. His black tresses hung disheveled and tousled about the frame of his face from where he'd been sleeping on them, and his deep onyx hues looked dull and unfocused despite the glowerings he was shooting through them at the Uzumaki.

Sakura started when his eyes flicked suspiciously to her face and quickly dropped her gaze, only to peer up cautiously once more to find that he had returned to glaring at Naruto. Sasuke seemed as if he was debating whether or not to stand up, and sure enough he settled for something closer than his almost completely-reclined position. He sat up slowly, leisurely, before carefully swinging a leg over the edge of the couch so that it hung onto the floor while the other remained up on the cushions with the rest of him. Sakura noticed distantly that the tissue box she'd handed him not-too-long ago looked almost empty and was laying just a few inches away from one of his closed fists.

The blond took one step forward, and Sakura found herself freeze as she watched both of the males grow rigidly tense. Naruto seemed to be battling opposing emotions, his expression writhing between extreme anger and happiness. The result was the twisted, grim frown that he had stretched across his lips.

"Teme...." he finally breathed, azure eyes swirling. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to approach his teammate, but after a quick hesitation he broke into a wide grin before plopping himself on the opposite end of the couch from the Uchiha, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Sasuke had scooted as far as he could away from the blond and was glowering at the wall bitterly, arms folded across his chest. He had made no move to say or do anything, and Sakura found a wry grin spreading across her cheeks as she leaned into the door frame, watching the two of them react to one another with teeming interest. She raised a brow when Naruto's grin abruptly widened into a beam.

"Heh, just like ol' times. Sakura being pretty, Teme being an arrogant asshole, me being--"

"Shut up, idiot," snapped the Uchiha sharply, his neck snapping around so that the full force of his piercing glare fell squarely upon the blond's devious expression. It fell short, however, for Naruto's widened smiling seemed impervious to any sort of bad vibes, so the dark-haired youth turned away again, obsidian hues glinting resentfully.

"He speaks!" the blond shouted triumphantly, stealing a smug glance at the pink-haired kunoichi as she lowered herself into a sitting position against the opposite wall, holding back giggles as she went. "I honestly didn't expect it, someone go get the champagne--"

"Don't make me repeat it." The threat in his voice was blunt and unmistakable, though it occurred to the Haruno that he really had no means to back it up. A pang of guilt, only to be washed away when the blond spoke again:

"What would you do if I did, Sasuke?" Naruto's voice remained level as the amusement in his expression trickled across the corners of his very coy grin, and Sakura found herself grasping around idly for something to throw at the both of them. If this happy reunion turned into anything but that, she would see that both of them would be strung up as ornaments to hang up around the marketplace. She stifled another round of chuckles at the thought before returning her gaze to her teammates.

They were still grumbling lowly to each other, both of them looking extremely irritated. She would have thought that so many years apart under such... awful circumstances might have changed them, but the kids buried beneath each of their toughened skins never failed to show itself during their sibling-like bickering. The Haruno felt a pang of nostalgia as she realized that her old self would have most likely been nagging Kakashi-the-enforcer for them to stop like the little girl she'd been, but why call their old sensei when she could do the job so much better? She found her lips twitching into an unfeminine smirk.

"Both of you cool it!" she suddenly barked, "Naruto; stop provoking him. Sasuke; you two haven't seen each other in god-knows how much time, so would it kill you to at least pretend like you don't hate everything?!" She hissed the words dangerously, her thin fingers finally curling around a stray pencil laying beside her on the carpet in which she used to beam Naruto roughly in the head.

"Ow! What was that for, Sakura-chan?" yelped the Uzumaki, rubbing his forehead awkwardly as he inspected the pencil that had just recently bounced off his temple before glancing at her in mock distaste before breaking into a grin.

The pinkette mirrored the expression before her gaze flicked to Sasuke, who was smirking smugly at the wall in an effort to contain his amusement. Naruto followed her glance, and Sakura had only a second to react before a furious growl rippled from the blond's throat as he was suddenly lounging at the dark-haired culprit, grunting something incoherently as the Uchiha fended him off with an extended arm. The blond breached this defense quickly however and was able to land a fully-functional tackle, resulting in the two of them thrashing about before falling over each other onto the floor.

Sakura was laughing out right at the triumphant expression the blond was wearing as he rose to a crouch to survey his apparent victory, though she quickly choked on it upon noticing Sasuke's completely-blank one. She frowned, eyes darting over him until they picked up the sudden rigidness in his flat position, and the fact that he hadn't moved an inch upon the fall, where as Naruto had continued to shake his shoulders like the lunatic-best friend he was.

"Get off, idiot," Sasuke snarled abruptly through clenched teeth, though he made no move to push the blond away with either of his unused arms. The blond frowned and rolled to the side before getting onto his knees, confusion written clearly across his tanned face.

"Since when did you turn into such a sissy?" Naruto pouted blandly, crossing his arms over his chest as he surveyed his unmoving friend. Sakura watched mutely as the way he connected the dots in his mind became visible in the expressions upon his face. "Oh shit... My bad," he coughed out finally. Leave it to Naruto not to remember something so important that she'd told him five not five minutes previously...

"Idiot," Sasuke growled tersely, glaring sharply at the blond before returning his stagnant gaze to the ceiling.

"Shut up, both of you," snapped Sakura loudly, cutting off Naruto before he launched into another one of his retorts. First she addressed the Uchiha, who was now scowling at the blond from his unmoving position on his back across the floor. "You okay?" she asked quietly. When his glare flickered to her face and remained unchanged, she rolled her eyes before turning to the blond.

"YOU ARE AN UNBELIEVABLE IDIOT!" she screeched in his face abruptly, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. "I don't care if he was being an ass, you attacked him first and I am not happy about it. Apologize."

"Hey, don't get angry at me; you were the one who said he could try it--" he complained poutishly, throwing his hands up in mock innocence.

"Try what?! And whatever it is doesn't excuse you from apologizing for being the complete moron that you are--" she raged, eyes narrowing sharply as she was interrupted.

"You didn't exactly say try, but it was something like that. Chakras easy to use when you're angry and I thought this would do the job for Teme." He flashed another one of his grins, and Sakura resisted the urge to flat-out punch across the face.

Sasuke had sat up during all of this and was now glancing back and forth between the two of them with a cocked brow. "Chakra...?" he inquired lowly, eyes flickering to intercept the Haruno's gaze, narrowing slightly as they sought to coax the information out of her.

"Yeah, Sasuke-kun--" she started.

"What she means to say is that both of us want to see you do a Chidori; right now... Maybe over in the corner or something so you don't zap us, though," Naruto explained bluntly before jabbing his thumb in the direction of a corner behind them.

"Naruto, I was definitely not going to say that! That move is too advanced and requires careful chakra control--"

She almost yelped when a terrible screeching noise erupted behind her and upon whirling found that the Uchiha was holding up one of his signature balls of crackling electricity, looking completely unphased and nonchalant as he stared blankly at the two of them.

"What's so special about it?" he asked dully, his eyes flicking from the jutsu's shrieking surface and to their faces, his brow arched. Both of his teammates were nothing short of gaping.

"H-how did you do that?!" stammered Sakura, recovering quickly as she gawked at the amazing, aquamarine static.

"Same way I always do it..." he answered almost defensively before letting the blue chakra seep back into the rough skin of his hand until it disappeared entirely."Why?"

"Y-your main chakra channel runs through your spine.... I've never seen anyone do that before, and on their first try no less.... That's not even close to normal, being able to manipulate chakra again is supposed to take months, if not years of training and practice.... What did you do?!" she glared suspiciously at him, searching his dark eyes for any sort of hint she could find.

"Nothing." His eyes told a different story however, but they were twinkling deceitfully and the corner of his mouth seemed to twitch into one of his smirks before quickly phasing into a calculated mask.

"Sasuke?!" she glared defiantly at him, refusing to give in to those eyes. He'd done something, she knew he had, and no amount of his obnoxiously-seductive habits was going to keep her from finding out whatever the hell it was.

"Tch." His answer coincided with the time it took her to finally click, and she rounded on the dark-haired boy with fire storming through her olive hues.

"You were practicing, weren't you?!" she yelled, an impulsive fury writhing in her abdomen as she sought to expose him. "I get it now; that's why your stupid cold has been lasting so damn long, why you've been sleeping every minute of the day... You're supposed to be healing, idiot! Not expending as much chakra as possible whenever a nurse isn't looking! God.... and that's what you were doing in the garden that day, wasn't it? You had Kakashi help you make a frickin' bunshin and had it help you get down there!" she was ranting now, and both of the males sitting around her were staring at her with blank expressions, though Naruto looked a bit more confused than Sasuke, who merely looked annoyed.

"You-are-an-idiot!" she punctuated every word with a sharp jab of her pointer finger to what body part her of the Uchiha her hand could get too; forehead, chest, bicep, stomach, cheek. She faintly noted that Naruto was chuckling in the background, though she hardly gave notice.

"Neh, Sakura--"

The pinkette delivered a swift jab to the blond's forehead before he could continue to speak and then turned back to prodding the Uchiha angrily.

"I don't need your input, Naruto. I was worried sick because he needed to train even through he can't even walk."

"I can walk fine--"

"Shut it, Uchiha." She gave one final prod to his shoulder, only to have Naruto push her shoulder at exactly the wrong time, throwing her off balance so that she plummeted down--

And face-planted against Sasuke's chest.

The Uchiha let himself blink as a momentary lapse in his blank facade, unable to find a suitable reaction to the fact that the kunoichi had fallen right on top of him, her face a mere hairsbreadth above his as she lifted it. If he'd been a completely masochistic person, he would have pushed her off without a second thought and then would have added a snide remark in just for kicks. On the other side of the spectrum, if he'd been a touchy-feely sort of person, he probably would have been all smiles and taken the perfect opportunity to kiss the lips that were suspended just out of reach...

Sasuke was stuck right in between those two polar opposites, and, unable to decide which path to go waltz towards, he merely seated himself right where he stood and did absolutely nothing except stare blankly into her large emerald orbs.

She flushed scarlet and leaped off like she was on fire before scurrying back a few feet looking absolutely horrified.

Naruto was chuckling loudly to himself. "Ahaha, sorry Sakura-chan... That... Hah, his face... your face.... Haha, good times."

"It happened a second ago, idiot," Sasuke growled brusquely, throwing a haughty glare at the blond as he sat up.

"Stop calling me an idiot, teme," snapped the blond shinobi, throwing a glare at his teammate.

"Hn."

"THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD."

"Guys, stop it..." muttered the pinkette quietly. Both men snapped their heads around to look at her and, to her surprise, remained silent. She found a faint smile fluttering across her lips. How Naruto's cobalt eyes seemed to swell as they met her gaze and he cracked one of his usual grins, and how Sasuke's onyx hues seemed to gain this little twinkling glint when she turned to look at him.... They were her two most favorite people in the world, and she would sooner die than risk losing either of them.

She smiled back at them before leaning forward and wrapping an arm around each of their necks affectionately. Naruto chuckled and leaned into it before jabbering away about something needless, and Sasuke... Well, Sasuke didn't resist.

And that was good enough for her.

A/N:

I love Team 7. With all of their Narutard-goodness. :3 Kishi really needs to have a reunion in the manga, starting now. As cool as Naruto-kun is, he's kind of hogging the spotlight; like a lot. And his over-epicness it boring me. D: I think the time calls for.... *drumroll* SASUKE & HEBI. Or Taka. Or whatever he's calling it now. o.o Really, is it that hard to come up with a name that sticks? Like, like team OWNAGE. *cough* Well, maybe not that exact name... but yeah.... .___.;;

I realize that I keep ending my chapters with sentences that would be perfect for ending fics.... And I'm using all of the good ones, which is really BAD, because when the ending finally comes, I'm not going to have any cliche lines to end it with!! TT____TT I'M SO ERIWy7OIEFi79NDALFDSNARFEN. *cough* :D

Sorry for this late update, I've had the worst and most busy week of my life. No joke. Science Fair projects were due yesterday, and I procrastinated until the last week as always, which I shouldn't have done this time. I was up until at least 1:00am every night this week working on it... God it was awful. ANYWAY~ It's done and turned in and absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way, and it sure as hell better get an A, or I will seriously be pissed. D:

SOFTBALL IS STARTING ON MONDAYYYYY! I'm so excited yet so incredibly NERVOUS. w;; eirounqbifwerbweirjnhucwkad. :D YAYY

Sooooo I've done several things today that were midly interesting. After sleeping in until noon, (which was wonderfully refreshing I must say,) I went for a really long walk with a couple friends and my dog, (who almost knocked over this pregnant lady which was EXTREMELY embarrassing,) and then I hung out with them for a while before going home to chill, (because everyone needs alone time.) Anyway, I started reading D-Gray Man, or whatever its called because my friend recommended it to me. Okay, repetiive much? I don't think I've ever read a manga that managed to repeat so many things so many times OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I GET WHAT AN AKUMA IS DAMNIT, STOP EXPLAINING IT. Yeah, that was my reaction, basically. But the art was cool, and Allen, (though his name doesn't fit him at all,) is adorable so I think I might read a bit more before making a verdict. So after that I watched the first few episodes of Smallvile because it was on TV, and I learned that it is probably the most awkward show I have seen. Ever. So I stopped watching that and read a bunch of SasuSaku fanfics, which was really entertaining. And then I couldn't find any more good ones, so I decided I should probably get to updating me own.... So I did.

END OF MY DAY. :] Sorta. Anyway sorry for ranting, and thanks to those of you who actually read it. xD And if you haven't, don't feel the need to. *yawn* I probably will win something for "Longest and Most Pointless Author's Note Ever. :D ". Beat that. :P

As always, thank you so much for reading, and please REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Thank you!

--xxIndigo