He was hiding under the covers as usual. Maybe he was afraid of ghosts...

She took a deep breath, and whispered, "If you're...cold, we can...ano..." Naruto, after all, had disappeared.

There was a short pause, before Sasuke's muffled voice responded, "So you want to fondle me some more?"

Hinata felt her face burn. On the verge of crawling off to join Naruto in the wilderness, she saw Sasuke raise his sheets. She hesitated, then joined him beneath them, smiling as he lightly bit her nose and mentioned her pajamas weren't sexy enough.


Naruto trudged through the village of Sand, Sasuke and Hinata trailing after him, acting as nonchalantly as usual. Naruto twitched. He knew the previous night couldn't have been a dream, as he had awoken in the woods surrounded by foxes and saturated in deer urine. In fact, a friendly bear had attempted to drag him into its cave.

Naruto glanced back at the two, who barely made eye contact, and if that, only to exchange wary looks. They seemed to have gotten along fine training together the previous night. Are they or aren't they back together? Naruto wondered irritably. "We made it just in time," he said with feigned cheerfulness. Suna was far more peaceful than it had been during his last visit. No Akatsuki, no assassinations, no devastated fan girls sobbing into his chest...

And the Suna girls were extremely attractive. Naruto chuckled and waved as the women murmured over the two Konoha males. They made tigers gestures at Naruto and talked about what Sasuke could do with his sword. The girls were dressed scantily in the desert heat, their sun-kissed skin gleaming under the dawn.

Hinata looked at the ground, her cheek twitching. Even despite her irritation, she couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why Sasuke would choose her over girls like them.

In a matter of moments they reached their destination and were outside the Kazekage's office waiting for clearance to enter. A couple of guards stood along the corridor, and the occasional elder strolled by. The floors throughout the tower were of beautiful white marble stone, and the ceilings rose thirty feet above them. A few fans hung down from thin cords, sending a soft breeze toward the lingering Leaf shinobi.

"Geez, you'd think they'd never seen a cock before," Naruto mentioned as he pulled the package out of his backpack. At the sight of Sasuke and Hinata's deadpan expressions, he decided to shut his mouth.

The office door swung open, and Sasuke waited for Naruto to enter first. Hinata began to follow the blonde, when Sasuke grabbed her arm and pulled her back, mid-step.

Her back hit his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, his eyes drifting closed unbidden by him as he deeply inhaled the scent of her hair. "You're prettier than they are," he said blatantly. "I love you."

When Sasuke released her, he realized he had not chosen the best time to be nice. Hinata swooned.

Ignoring as the guards eyed them, Sasuke grabbed Hinata's arm and half-guided, half-dragged her into the office.

The office was almost identical to the Hokage's, with the same marble flooring that had been in the corridor. Behind the Kazekage's desk lounged Kankuro, feet on the table, picking his teeth, and looking even more out of place than redhead who was gazing through a window beside the desk. No one would ever admit it, but Suna was being run by teenagers. Gaara turned away from the window and allowed his stony eyes to sweep over his company. Sasuke released Hinata's arm, but continued to watch her from the corner of his eye. His gaze shifted to the girl beside Gaara.

"S-Sakura-chan!?" Naruto stammered.

The pink-haired girl gave him a smile. "Naruto," she said, as he closed in on her in an embrace, even lifting her up and spinning her around.

Gaara simply watched. Suna's Kage was everything he was said to be in the Sand and Leaf. Cold and frightening; handsome and exotic. His blood red hair hung in aqua eyes that were both dull and penetrating. The black rings around them, frightening and alluring.

Sakura pulled away from Naruto, returning his grin with one of her own. She seemed healthier than she had looked in a while. "Tsunade-sama sent me a day after you left. I'm surprised I got here first."

To this, Naruto blushed, but decided not to comment. He doubted Sakura wanted to hear about their drunken delay. Instead he said, "But why? I mean – we have the package."

At the mention of it, Naruto glancing down at the brown parcel in his hands, and delivered it to Kankuro, seeming to momentarily forget that Gaara was Kage.

Watching him suspiciously, Kankuro snatched the box, and stared intently down at it, his fingers trembling in anticipation. He inspected it closely for several moments, prodding it here and there, before throwing a nod to Gaara, who sauntered over.

"Just open it, dammit!" Naruto snapped. The curiosity was killing him.

Glaring at Naruto, Kankuro rose from his seat, watching as his younger brother replaced him there. Gaara took his turn to look over the package. Reaching into one of his desk drawers, he withdrew a letter opener, which he slid down the length of the brown paper covering. Beneath it was a white box, which Gaara carefully opened, to reveal–

Nothing! It was empty!

"Hn," said Gaara, as Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata cringed, unable to believe that they had travelled five days to deliver an empty box to the Kazekage. Just as they began to wonder which of them Gaara would throw the letter opener at, Kankuro chuckled.

"Very well. The guards will take you to your rooms," said Gaara monotonously.

"Our rooms?" said Naruto in confusion.

As Gaara turned his attention to some paperwork on his desk, Sakura answered, "We're here to stand as Konoha representatives," she said, seeming intrigued by their confusion.

"I see you brought your dates." Kankuro smirked at Hinata in approval. "And not the Nara? Very good."

Sasuke's cheek twitched. "What are you talking about?" he said, with mechanical patience.

"Your Hokage didn't tell you? About tonight? It's my little brother's–"

It was then that Gaara stabbed his desk with the letter opener, suddenly looking psychotic. Kankuro released an awkward chuckle, but Sakura excitedly continued.

"A Kage's birthday is a big affair in this country. There will be representatives from nearly every other ninja village – and cake!"

Her comrades stared at her, dumbstruck.

Birthday? wondered Naruto.

Party? thought Hinata.

This was the mission? Sasuke scowled.

"Leave. Now," said Gaara. The Kage took a deep breath, before looking up from his desk. "Wait..." he said slowly. "The women. You stay."

Naruto glanced uncertainly from the smiling Sakura, the sweating Hinata, the smirking Kankuro, the twitching Sasuke, and finally to Gaara, who had begun to nonchalantly remove his clothes. "Er..."


Sakura's fist collided with Naruto's head. "We weren't doing him sexual favors!" she spat.

Naruto groaned as he rubbed his abused skull. "But...I thought – since he's Kage…"

"He just wanted us to check some fractured ribs. With Shukaku gone, he's a lot more vulnerable to injury."

Naruto released an awkward chuckle. "I knew that," he lied.

Sasuke simply eyed Hinata, who was smiling at the bickering pair.

The four had taken refuge in Hinata's room, hiding from foreign shinobi who were eager to challenge the three that were being called "the new sannin."

As Naruto sunk to the floor, still clutching his skull, Sakura stood over him, not noticing as the blonde looked up her skirt.

Sasuke drifted to the bed, and dropped to it, admiring how comfortable Hinata's mattress was. He secretly wondered if they would be able to test it out later.

Hinata took a seat on the foot of the bed by his feet, feeling out of place with team seven. Sakura had mentioned that Tsunade had sent a number of nin in addition to them to represent Konoha. She wondered if Kiba and Shino were among them, and wanted to ask, but Naruto and Sakura were still talking.

"So far I've seen ninja of the Grass, the Cloud, and the Waterfall villages..." Sakura mused.

Naruto playfully smirked. "I can take them on," he said, earning himself another hit in the head.

"We're not here to fight!" Sakura yelled, horribly contradicting herself as she began to stomp him to death.

"Stop hitting him," Sasuke groused.

Three pairs of eyes turned to the Uchiha as he sat up.

"Oh?" said Sakura, twirling around, and causing Naruto a minor nosebleed.

"Isn't his brain damaged enough as it is?" said Sasuke, knowing not why he was defending Naruto, just that ever since he and Hinata had gotten back together, he was a little more reluctant to abuse him.

"Oh, Sasu-chan, you do care!" Naruto cried.

The corner of Hinata's mouth curled upwards. Sasu…was a really cute nickname. She froze when a streak of pink and blonde flew past her.

Naruto was suddenly straddling Sasuke and pinning his arms to the mattress, while Sakura had her arms wrapped around Naruto's torso, trying to pull him off. Sasuke glared heatedly at the two, eyes flashing dangerously, and Hinata panicked. What's going on?

Naruto clarified. "C'mon Sasuke, give me a kiss. You know you want to."

Hinata reddened.

"No Sasuke, don't kiss him – kiss me!" said Sakura, causing Hinata to gasp.

Hinata took a few deep breaths, confused about the tic that had developed beneath her eye. She made a mental note to see Tsunade when she got back to Konoha; all this twitching couldn't be healthy.

"C'mon Uchiha, you have to kiss one of us!"

She had never seen the three of them so off-guard. They were practically–

"Kiss me!"

–siblings.

"Me!"

"Me!"

"MEEE!"

Hinata silently promised not to come between them again. "Can I kiss him?" she asked.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura blinked. After a moment, the Uchiha lightly smirked.

Hinata stood up and approached the head of the bed. She leaned down to Sasuke, and the two shared a single, chaste kiss. Afterwards, they simply stared at one another, before Hinata looked back up to meet the gawking faces of Naruto and Sakura.

She blushed. "Problem solved."