"Oh!" Someone appeared in the doorway and Sasuke had to refrain from punching the man in the face. Not in front of Naruto. "I'm so sorry. We lost track of time. I was supposed to meet you here."

"What's going on?" Sasuke demanded. The little fox seemed to be wanting to know the same thing as he growled at the intruder from his place near Naruto.

"This apartment is crumbling and it needs some serious repairs," the man says nervously. "We figured that since we were going to need to work on it for a while, we would just move Naruto to one of the upstairs apartments instead."

"I can't afford those," Naruto said as he stood up from his place on the ground. He was upset, but he didn't want to let the villagers know how weak he was. He already allowed some of it to spill when he divulged his secret and he wasn't going to allow them to have anymore of him so that they could break him again.

"It's the same price," the man said, which it really is. He had been previously charging Naruto the more expensive prices of the better apartments on the top floor until now so Naruto could actually afford the better ones. "I'll take you to your new apartment, if you'll just follow me."

Sasuke wanted to say no, but when Naruto looked to him to see if this was a good idea he couldn't get himself to do it. He nodded his head and allowed Naruto to pass him out of the apartment, but he remained close behind him just in case somebody tried something.

The building owner took them to the top floor where all the best apartments were, and showed them to the first door on the right. It was certainly not as rundown as Naruto was expecting, but he felt bad for being suspicious of his landowner's motives so he kept his mouth shut about his worry that this was all just another plot to hurt him. Sasuke kept quiet for a similar reason, but he swore to himself that he would make the landowner pay if he made Naruto suffer anymore.

The moment the landowner opened the door and they walked inside, the lights came on and Naruto jumped back into Sasuke while the other stiffened. All the people of the building seemed to be there, plus some of those who lived nearby, and they were all smiling as they welcomed him home. Sasuke had his kunai out and wrapped in front of Naruto before he could even process the fact that no one inside the room was armed. None of them even had so much as a kitchen knife in their hands, but Sasuke still took a moment to be able to force himself to drop the weapon because Naruto wasn't calming down.

"Go in," the landowner urged them somewhat awkwardly. None of them were sure how Naruto would react, but they were lying if they said that they weren't expecting something very similar to his reaction. They had been too cruel to him in the past for him to not be cautious. It probably wasn't the best idea to throw a surprise party for him, after all, but they were determined to see it through if only for the sake of convincing Naruto that they meant no ill will through this entire endeavor.

"We got you presents," one of the villagers pointed to the pile of boxes wrapped in different birthday wrapping papers off to the side.

"You didn't have to do that," Naruto said immediately, but his eyes only darted over the presents for a second before he returned them to jump back and forth from each of the faces of the villagers. They didn't look like they meant him any harm, but Naruto wasn't willing to take that chance.

Sasuke wasn't either. He made sure to stay by Naruto no matter what. He wouldn't let any of the villagers get between them even if they tried, which, luckily, none of them did. It wasn't until later that Sasuke would realize that the reason they stayed away was because Naruto was clinging to him with such white knuckles that it looked like a child holding onto a safety blanket.

When the party finally wound to a close, it was because it had gotten more and more awkward the longer people stayed, and not because people were getting tired. Naruto was getting more and more stressed with all these people around him and any time one of them talked to him, he jumped even if he saw them coming. It was rather disconcerting to them all because none of them wanted to be the cause of Naruto's discomfort. The original reason that the villagers decided to stay despite the obvious awkwardness was because they thought prolonged exposure would calm Naruto wrong. They forgot to consider his prolonged exposure to them all turning on him in a heartbeat, though, and soon realized that Naruto was not going to calm down no matter how long they stayed their. Not to mention the fact that the little fox on his shoulders seemed to be glaring at them all and he snapped at anyone who got too close. They bid their farewells and made their exit quickly when they finally realized this and, the moment the house was empty of everyone except Sasuke and Naruto, Naruto collapsed on the couch.

"I'll go get you something to drink," Sasuke said in the hopes that that might calm the other, but the moment he turned to go, Naruto's hands shot out and clung to his shirt.

"Don't leave me!" Naruto's eyes were wide and frantic as he looked up at Sasuke. He had been moved out of his apartment without his consent into a place that he was unfamiliar with and had had to deal with several villagers acting nice to him, all in one night. He just wanted some sort of constant in his sight while he tried to adjust.

Sasuke nodded and sat down next to Naruto. Even he hadn't seen the extent of what this whole thing had done to him. Naruto was still looking around with frantic eyes like something was going to come out of the walls and try to hurt him. His eyes especially kept going to the stack of still unopened presents by the wall. They were the most unknown things there and they had the potential of being the most dangerous.

"Maybe we should open them," Sasuke suggested. He didn't like how the villagers were acting, even if they were truly trying to be nice since they still didn't seem to be taking Naruto's feelings and fears into account, but leaving that stack of unopened presents against the wall seemed to be even worse than just opening them and getting it over with.

Naruto's eyes snapped over to Sasuke before he looked down at his lap where he was running his hands nervously through Kyuusuke's. He wanted to say no, just in case there was something in there that might hurt him so that Sasuke and Kyuusuke wouldn't be in line of the blow, but he also didn't want to take on the task of opening all of them without someone there with him. Who better than his crush to protect him?

Sasuke stood to bring the presents over little by little in order to make the pile seem less intimidating, but Naruto followed him so instead they moved to the table where they were stacked and slowly dug into it. Most of the presents, Sasuke noticed, were actually house-warming gifts, there were dishes and pots and even a new alarm clock, but there were also several gifts for a ninja. Some of the boxes were filled with more clothes from the same store that Naruto got the original three outfits and some of them were filled with new weapons. There was so much stuff that Naruto actually found himself calmed down and even excited to open the next thing.

It was about halfway through the opening that they found themselves out of room for all the gifts where they sat so they had to put them all away before they could dig into the rest of them. Sasuke was happy to find that Naruto was no longer clinging to him, though he did miss the touch somewhat, and Naruto was just excited to open more presents. He hadn't understood before now why everyone was always so excited to receive gifts from people, but now he understood it.

This had to be the best day of his life.