Chapter 6 - Display Matrix

Yukio was still living in Naruto's house, a few days later. In fact, June had passed into July, and he was still there, leaving in the morning for his training, and returning in the evening to go out to dinner with the Hokage, once he was done with his work for the day. It was as if he had always been there, after a while.

He had been assigned a sensei on the third day, after, on the second day, there proved to be a decided lack of teachers who could spare the time (or patience) for a sixteen-year-old newbie, all busy with their own genin or academy-level classes.

Naruto went to Shikamaru about this, afterwards. Why he did this was anyone's guess. Yeah, Shikamaru was his advisor for just about everything when Iruka was occupied, but still.

Shikamaru, of course, sighed when he heard the request. "You want me to what?"

"Yukio-kun needs someone to train him, 'cos there's nobody at the academy that can do anything," Naruto explained. "It won't be that hard."

Shikamaru sighed. Naruto had even bothered to visit him in his home, and on a Sunday, too… That was his day off, damn it. How bothersome. "I don't have time, Naruto," he said.

"C'mon, it'll be easy. He's really smart. No effort at all, y'know?"

"I don't feel like teaching anyone right now, thanks," Shikamaru replied, sighing. Again.

"But he needs a teacher!"

"Man, calm down already. Why's this kid so important, anyways? You're getting all worked up."

And Naruto stopped, and thought for a moment.

There was a strange, jingling sort of noise in the air, there in Shikamaru's living room.

Why was it so important that Yukio receive training?

"So I can achieve my dream, yeah?"

Everything else he just couldn't articulate.

"It's his dream, y'know," Naruto said. And there was that inspirational gleam in his eye, whenever he talked about stuff like that. "And as Hokage, it's my duty to help him reach that dream."

A fourth sigh. No use arguing against that logic… "Look, I'd help you if I could, but I just don't have the time. Shikake's keeping me busy as hell, and don't even get me started on all the trouble I get from Temari."

From the couch, a hand rose and fell. "Sup."

Shikamaru glared sharply at the space it left behind. She'd been there the whole time? Of course…

Shikake was fourteen years old, and had developed a lethal sense of sarcasm instead of the usual obsession with boys that most girls her age seemed to have.

(Shikamaru blamed her mother for making her so difficult to handle. Temari blamed her father for making her such a smartass.)

"Well then who the heck, man?" Naruto continued, forcing Shikamaru's eyes back to him.

"…why are you asking me? You're the Hokage, you have other people you can talk to about this."

"But I already asked everyone."

"Even Masao?"

Describing Masao as a pinch hitter was a both a gross understatement and an insult to his character. He was the temp of temps, the sub of subs, the king of the caller-in-sick. And now, mysteriously, he was the sensei of a genin team for some reason. There was a story behind that, but Naruto didn't have it just yet.

"Yeah, even Masao-kun, but he's gotta train his guys for the chuunin exams and he just can't do it." Naruto had his face screwed up, meaning he was either confused or concentrating. Or both. "Come on, Shikamaru, help me out."

"You should ask Benio-neesan." Shikake spoke, hanging backwards off the couch. She had a little knife or a kunai or something in her hands, attached to a chain that was wrapped around her right wrist. She was playing with it idly. So that's where the weird jingling sound had been coming from. "She shouldn't be too busy."

Oh yeah. Benio.

Benio was Kurenai's kid, a tall, strange woman that was beautifully dangerous, with a sharp nose and even sharper eyes. Naruto liked her a lot, to the point where he was half-considering naming her the next Hokage, once all was said and done, if only because she was the only jounin over twenty that came across as level-headed enough for the position. A weak reason, sure, but Naruto didn't really have anyone else in mind.

No, he hadn't forgotten about Konohamaru, but that guy… had different priorities, it seemed Not that Naruto had a problem with any of the things he did, and he thought that Yoh-chan was the sweetest thing, really, but he just didn't seem that interested in running a village, was all. He was practically living in the Land of Earth those days, anyways.

Either way, Benio would be a good person to ask about this. She was a jounin, but not attached to any sort of permanent project, like the Seal Rehabilitation Team, or ANBU or the academy. Why hadn't he thought of her before?

"Cool. I'll go ask her, then!" Naruto said, and was out in an instant with a bright, quick thank-you. Shikamaru stood in the doorway stiffly, watching him leave.

"Yo-ou're welcome," Shikake said, after a moment, in a mock sing-song. And then she disappeared again, messing with that thing on the chain, whatever it was. She was always playing with little things like that.

For the sixth time, Shikamaru sighed.

The things he had to put up with.

Benio, as it turned out, was more than happy to begin the lessons with Yukio. She showed up at the door of her apartment when Naruto came to ask her, sleepy, short hair in her eyes, in boxers and a wife-beater. She agreed to start with him on Monday almost immediately, now if the Hokage would please excuse her, and she closed the door and went back to whatever sort of guest one had over while one was still in one's underwear. Naruto could hear her apologizing as he walked away.

Man, the way that Yukio's eyes lit up when Naruto told him the news.

And Benio rather liked him, which helped things considerably. Though, embarrassingly enough, she had thought that Yukio was a girl at first, and was halfway through complimenting him on his lovely red hair before he said anything about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I am so sorry," Benio said, covering her painted mouth with her hands. "I promise, I won't make that mistake again, Yukio-kun."

"…uh, sure… Let's… just start training, then, yeah?" Yukio said, his face as red as his beautiful hair.

So what if he was kinda small for his age, yeah?

(Even though he was only a hair shorter than Naruto was. But Naruto was already on the shorter side.)

So what if he had a girly face?

(Though if Yukio's hair were any longer, then it'd be so much more embarrassingly obvious.)

Benio apologized again. Really, if she had offended him…

But she hadn't, not really.

So they got on with it.

He learned far better than anyone had ever expected.

"I hardly know where to start with him," Benio told Naruto, one particular evening, about a week later. "It's like he knows everything already, or he knew it once, and I'm just reminding him of how it all works. Oh, I don't know, I'm bad with words."

Naruto just shrugged, smiling, and listened to Yukio recount his progress in the evenings when he came home, and they were both in the house.

Well, one night, he wasn't in the house. He was on the roof.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this ninja stuff," he said, with a grin.

"Get down from there, you," Naruto said, echoing his smile.

It was only natural that the rumors started spreading almost immediately.

After all, when they weren't training or working or otherwise busy, Naruto and Yukio were together. Eating ramen, laughing, smiling like they were sharing some private joke.

The prevailing theory was that Yukio was the result of some sort of tryst out in the Land of Rice between the Hokage and some country woman, and that Yukio had somehow found out and come back to Konoha for… whatever reason it was that he would come back to Konoha. To get to know his dad, maybe? To blackmail him? Whispers and half-reasonable assumptions were swapped like snacks at lunchtime.

Naruto had no real children of his own. No, the child he had over in the Land of Demons with that priestess didn't count, as she was a purely political creature.

So, to make up for it, Naruto instead made himself a family of friends, and the children of friends.

The current generation of jinchuuriki, for example. They practically were Naruto's family, from the way he went about treating them. He'd made it his personal mission, once all the tailed beasts were rounded up and returned to the countries they belonged to, to ensure that the children they were sealed into were given the love and respect that they deserved. Nobody could really argue with that.

Boy, did that ever work out well. It still wasn't easy, being one of those rare nine (especially for Kemuri, that poor thing), but Naruto made it easier. One could bet money on him always being there shortly after a sealing, with a hug and a genuine reassurance that everything would be okay from there on out.

Well, except for Morizuru. But that guy was a special case. And Naruto still kinda liked him, anyways, despite what he was. Er, used to be.

…yeah, it was kind of weird, talking about Morizuru. Which is why he was a special case.

Though there was Hyuuga Andou, the young son of Hinata, who refused to say anything about who the boy's father was.

The public smiled smugly, telling themselves that they knew better, despite her firmly-pressed lips. It was so obvious, what was going on between them.

(Though certain parties also suspected Kiba, or even Shino as the father. But Hinata certainly wasn't saying, and neither were they.)

Andou was fourteen-going-on-fifteen years old, with dark hair and pale eyes and a great love, a great hunger for order and bureaucracy. Even though he had the Byakugan, and, as a result, flawless vision, he just seemed to be the type who would wear glasses, and his bangs were cut sharply and cleanly.

When he was younger, he would often play in Naruto's office, sorting paperwork. Surprisingly, he did something of a better job at organizing everything than most of the staff, which Naruto found hilarious and endearing, and left Kakashi wondering, "Where was this kid when I was Hokage?"

He was now an intern at the Hokage Manor, to no ones' surprise. And Naruto utterly doted on him, often eating lunch with him in the break room. He and Yukio were introduced on his fourth day in Konoha. Andou had to leave early, but he assured Naruto, later, when delivering the usual pile of homework, that he found Yukio very charming, before pointing out that Ibiki had sent out another memo about that crime family, the Taki Syndicate, so it was probably important.

One could go on for hours about him and his students, and how deeply he had grieved for Shusuke, when he passed. And how worried he had been, when Murasaki very nearly followed in his wake. And she never really was the same, never was really quite there after that, but that just seemed to make Naruto love her all the more. And maybe that was why she wasn't as messed-up as she could have been, some people speculated.

Maybe that was why she had made such an upset at her chuunin exam debut the following year, with that technique of hers.

Even if she tended to just wander around in graveyards and the Uchiha Memorial, these days, but still.

And this was saying nothing about the hundreds of children at the academy who adored their Hokage, whenever he came by to visit and make the occasional speech - well, if you could call them speeches - about how precious friends were and the power of love and how everyone was very special and a genius in their own way.

Naruto was very good at giving those speeches, not so much because he was particularly good at oratory, but because he was always sincere. And, hey, it had been working for him, and the majority of the world, lately.

Logically, Yukio fit right into the formula. A young boy, full of potential and fire, with a similar personality to Naruto's… Of course he'd be "adopted" in no time at all, into Naruto's little family.

But, see, it was the whole "similar personality" thing that was fueling those rumors. Among other things.

Because it would be a stretch to say that any of the current jinchuuriki resembled Naruto at all, except maybe Tonbo, the bug-catcher girl with the beetle inside of her. And Andou was all order and planning, while Naruto was all spontaneity and chaos. And Murasaki was sleepy and strange, and Masao was careful and constant, and Shusuke…

Well, Shusuke had been similar, too. But not as much as Yukio was.

And Shusuke had had black eyes, black hair, an angular chin. Yukio had a round face and red hair, and blue eyes like a cat's, or a fox's.

And Shusuke didn't end his questions strangely, yeah? Just like Naruto always seemed to end his sentences in his own way, y'know?

And good lord, all that ramen.

And the two of them had connected over literally a handful of hours, practically no time at all, with no pretense, no introduction, just a chance meeting in the hallway.

It couldn't have been a coincidence.

Which was why the rumors were spreading, instead of confining themselves to the usual corner of gossipy housewives, who were always tittering on about forbidden babies and illicit romances. And even the most level-headed of individuals were starting to wonder what was really going on.

Chief among them, of all people, was Sakura.

She just didn't understand it. She had borne witness on more than one occasion to Naruto's astonishingly quick friend-making skills, but this was something of a new record, attaching himself to a person so very quickly. He'd taken the boy into his own home on his first night in Konoha, for goodness' sakes!

And she was more than a little suspicious of the uncanny resemblance thing. And she hadn't even believed it, at first! She had to seek the boy out, see him for herself, before she could draw any conclusions.

…damn, if he didn't look a lot like Naruto.

But, see, that was the thing that didn't make any sense.

If there was one thing she knew about Naruto, it was that he was a genius at friendship, but an absolute imbecile at love. Seriously, the guy would not know romance if it punched him in the face.

Which it had, repeatedly.

…but that was another matter entirely.

No, the thing was, it hadn't been as noticeable when he was younger, but as he had gotten older, it just was more, and more, and more pronounced. It started to get really obvious after Sasuke and Ino had gotten married all of a sudden, and then Lee went and tried to propose to her in that ridiculous manner, and then it seemed like just about everyone was getting married.

Even Ten Ten and - of all people - Sai had settled down. Together. No, seriously. Though those two were a… strange case. Sakura had been in their house, once. It felt like a museum: very clean and very cold and very full of art. It surprised her very little that they didn't have children.

Though, there were exceptions. Kiba was still perpetually single and ridiculously grumpy about it, but still hopeful that he'd be as successful at finding a mate as Akamaru (and his many, many, many progeny) had been. And the situation with Shikamaru and Temari was… complicated, to put it politely.

Nobody knew what the hell about Shino, but somehow, he had managed to reproduce.

And Chouji had taken his sweet time, as well, but eventually settled down with a woman named Chun, who was a cooking-nin with a heart as big as his was and a head of height over him, to boot. It was a curious and wonderful trick of fate, as well, that her much-younger brother, Haruhi, had come to meet Benio.

"Wouldn't that be something," Chouji had once said, to Sakura, with a warm chuckle. "I'd have Asuma-sensei's daughter as my sister-in-law, if they got married."

But Haruhi and Benio had been together for three years with no signs of marriage.

(Rumors said the only reason why they weren't already hitched, despite their living together and obvious devotion, was something to do with Haruhi's birth certificate, or some other legal knot, but those were just rumors, anyways.)

But, the fact remained. When everyone else was off making families and having children, Naruto was still single, smiling like always, apparently quite content with his situation.

And when Hinata had Andou, and when those rumors took off that it had been due to Naruto fooling around with her, Sakura had gotten to the point where she could just about dismiss them without a second thought.

…just about.

Because, for one, she had never seen a half-Hyuuga with a Byakugan, and Andou had the beautiful, unsettling pale eyes of his mother's clan, undeniably.

…then again, she had never seen a half-Hyuuga period. They just… didn't seem to exist, within that clan.

Which supported the second, lesser piece of evidence: that it would never be allowed, otherwise, a little half-Naruto-half-Hinata child. She just got the feeling that the Hyuuga elders would ever so strongly object to letting Hinata marry - much less have children with - someone from outside the clan.

Even Neji had married a Hyuuga woman, a quiet soul from the Branch family whose name Sakura could never remember. And Sakura had thought, for sure, that he'd have chosen otherwise, especially given the things she had heard about him, over the years. But there it was.

And then there was the fact that Naruto just seemed so oblivious to the fact that Hinata liked him so much.

(Even though her admiration became quieter and quieter, as years went by, as the two of them grew slightly closer, through his work, through her son.)

That almost made it less cruel, less heartbreaking. Almost. But all the more confusing, in a way.

When Shion and the dignitaries from the Land of Demons came with their suggestion, since they hadn't yet found an heir for their priestess (nudge, nudge), for a more physical sign of a union between the two countries (hint, hint), and since Naruto had so graciously promised to help make this possible (yeah, you) they had to rely on a (ahem) "sample" provided by Naruto to produce the child, because he just didn't seem to understand that you had to have sex to make babies.

…okay, so maybe that was a slight exaggeration. He was more than aware of where babies came from. And he was more than happy to help make the baby, but he just… wasn't willing to go through the usual motions in making it. Which he apologized for, but refused to back down from.

Which was kind of funny, really, considering that sexy jutsu of his.

…then again, the things that Konohamaru had done with it, in the years following, made that initial creation seem absolutely tame in comparison, much less the rumors of the things he had come up with that people hadn't really seen. Rumors from foreign countries he had visited, especially the Land of Earth. Sakura had never seen anything personally, but…

Konohamaru had just been acting oddly in general, those past few years. Going off on foreign missions that Naruto couldn't remember assigning, hanging out in the lobbies of love hotels and… certain bars, always claiming "research" when approached, scribbled notes from "interviews" in a memo pad in his pocket. He had even spent a year or two in an energetic semi-internship at the hospital, mainly in the OB-GYN ward. Sakura had allowed it, because he didn't seem to have any… bad intentions, when he asked her about it - and besides, what was there to peep at in an obstetrics ward? - and because he had turned out to be an eager study and an excellent nurse overall, by the end of it.

And then there was the time, five years previous, when he had just completely dropped off the map for months and months, and it had Naruto just worried as hell.

And then there he was again; he just showed up one winter morning at Kurenai's house with little Yoh in his arms, saying she was his daughter and he wanted everyone to meet her. Happy as everyone was to see him again, it was undeniably strange.

And it was suspicious as all heck when people asked him where he had been and he just said "Somewhere;" why he stayed bundled up in heavy clothes, even though they had the heat on; why, when asked about who Yoh's mother was, he simply replied "It's… complicated," with a dramatic flip of the voice.

The rumors that people made up afterwards about him and about Yoh made shivers run up Sakura's spine. That sort of stuff was impossible. Even with a sexy-no-jutsu.

(And besides, after Sakura insisted on performing a check-up on Konohamaru and Yoh to make sure they were healthy after having been missing for so long, the only thing she could walk away saying was that Yoh was a perfectly healthy baby girl, and Konohamaru was a perfectly healthy adult male.)

…yeah, back to Naruto.

Some people said that Naruto was so unwilling to, ahem, be with the priestess, Shion, because he was saving himself for Sakura. Which just made her laugh because, by the time the whole thing happened, she had long since been married to Lee, Sakari was almost three years old, and Kenji was well on his way. What was there to save for?

Others - mostly younger girls - said it was because he was saving himself for Sasuke.

…Sakura wondered where in the world those ideas came from. Ahem.

And others still, a vast majority, in fact, said it was because he was saving himself for Hinata. Just in case.

This, Sakura could almost believe, and it absolutely broke her heart.

(Hinata, unlike her widowed sister, had never even been engaged.)

All of it just made Sakura feel so sad for Hinata, for so many different reasons, when she sat back and thought about it. Especially on the darker nights, after long days at the hospital, when she could think of nothing but her work, when she started thinking in terms of injuries and genes, when she started wondering if the Byakugan was a dominant or a recessive trait. The Hyuuga clan certainly wasn't letting them do any research on it, citing clan secrets, and there were laws that protected those secrets, so all she could do was speculate.

And if those genes were recessive, if those pale eyes could only belong to a child born from two Hyuuga and two Hyuuga alone…

Goodness, then she certainly didn't blame Hinata for wanting to keep her mouth shut, if that was the case. If any of that was the case.

Poor thing.

It almost seemed happier, in a bitter, synthetic sort of way, having that wordless possibility of Naruto as the father of her son.

And for those who knew better, the way he seemed to keep himself for her, waiting for a day that would never come.

And then Sakura would just start worrying about Ino, when she began to think about Hinata's sadness, and she'd just draw closer to Lee, across the bed from her, feeling his warmth, just incredibly thankful.

…so, clearly, it just didn't make sense. Naruto was just downright incapable of fathering children - after all, what else could it be?

But Sakura was pretty good with likenesses - and she had seen Naruto's own daughter, and she looked almost less like Naruto than Yukio did - and Yukio was just suspicious. All of this was.

Still, she wasn't the best. So she went to get the best, to try and clear some things up before she had to do anything drastic.

Because, obviously, talking to Naruto wouldn't change a damn thing. He'd just get confused and flustered—deliberately or not, she didn't think she'd be able to tell, when it came to this.

So, instead, she went to Sasuke.

Sasuke, of all things, was actually being sociable and easy to find, those days. Which baffled and delighted Sakura, in that order.

She knew that giving him a team of genin to train was a good idea. It just took a little time. And Ino seemed so cheerful lately, in a way, with him out of the house so much. That was more than worth the wait, seeing her, her kids in such a better way. Especially with the chuunin exams coming up.

She sought him out around lunchtime, taking a break from her shift at the hospital. She found him treating his students to rice bowls at a restaurant near the training grounds, all but him looking slightly fatigued, sweat making their skin glow.

"Fancy seeing you here, Sakura," Sasuke said, without looking at her.

"Oh, hi there, Chief Medical Officer, ma'am!" Kyou added, waving at her. He had rice on his face. "What brings you here?"

Sakura waved back, an awkward laugh escaping for a moment. She knew Kyou through his father, a tailor with a permanent smile, who made or altered most of her family's clothes. Which was something of a necessity, given how very small Sakari was, and how very tall Kenji was, and how very useless Sakura was with a needle.

(Not to mention the fact that the green legacy unitard had to have come from somewhere. Guy was still incredible friends with Kyou's grandfather, the originator of the piece.)

"Sasuke, can I talk to you for a second, privately?" she asked.

"I'm eating. What is it."

Sociable, yes. Polite, hardly. "Just a favor I want to ask of you."

"You can ask me now, can't you?"

She looked at the three young faces that were, by now, staring at her curiously, cautiously, eagerly. For some reason, she just didn't feel comfortable asking for this in front of them. "Just come over here, it won't take more than a minute."

"More than a minute? I don't have much time to spare."

"We're on a very strict training schedule, ma'am," Kyou added, nodding.

Sakura sighed. Did he have to be such a child about this? "Look, it's about Naruto. You can spare a minute for him, right?" She could say at least that much.

Sasuke finally looked at her. "What about Naruto?"

"Look, just come with me, okay?" she said. She put her hands on her hips, her stance strong. "I don't exactly have all the time in the world, either. I have to be back at the hospital in twenty minutes."

He sighed and set his chopsticks down. "Lead the way."

So, she did. Just a few feet away, out of earshot of his students, but close enough so he could keep an eye on them.

"So, what's this about Naruto?" he said. He stood with his weight on one foot, tapping the other in his obvious impatience.

"Well, it's not so much about him as it is about that kid he's taken in lately. Hanamura Yukio, that red-haired boy," she said.

"Ah, yes. That boy. I've seen him around," Sasuke said. "Naruto's certainly attached to him." Every word was saturated with dry disapproval.

"Yeah, I know," Sakura said. "So you've heard the things that people have been saying about him, right?"

Sasuke's eyebrows knit together, his mouth tightening. "You didn't pull me aside just to gossip, did you?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Please, what do you take me for?" She crossed her arms, presently, glaring at him. "What I mean to say is, have you heard the rumors that Yukio-kun is his son or something?"

"Well, of course. That's everywhere."

"Okay, good."

There was a moment of silence, and she blew a bang out of her face.

"…again, did you pull me aside simply to gossip?" Sasuke said, glancing at his students, who were still hard at work, eating. "Because I could care less about any of this."

"Ugh, no, that's not it," Sakura said. Why was it that she was always so tongue-tied around him? What was she, thirteen? "Okay, fine, listen, can you just… do a facial comparison for me?"

Sasuke blinked, slowly. "A what."

"I know what your eyes can do, so do you suppose you could compare their features, give me… a rough percentage of resemblance?" She waved her hands around, spreading her fingers wide as she tried to explain herself. "You know, between Yukio-kun and Naruto. It'd help more than you probably think."

And then Sasuke laughed at her. His laugh was hard and cold. "You honestly think that's reliable?"

She glowered, taking a few deep breaths. Easy, Sakura. "Well, yes, considering you have that whole photographic memory and such," she said.

"Resemblance is entirely subjective. What my eyes see makes no difference," he said. There was something like a growing darkness in his voice that she was almost familiar with. It worried and frustrated her. "The boy may look like him, but it's probably no more than a coincidence."

A pause. "A coincidence? Honestly? You call that a coincidence?"

She saw something like a shadow fall over his face. "A coincidence makes the most sense," he said. "Besides, do you honestly think that Naruto would go off and have some illegitimate child with a woman out in the country?"

Sakura had been telling herself the answer to this question all day. "No, obviously, but Sasuke, I just want to see-"

His eyes spun, red and full of anger. "Then it's just a coincidence."

She gulped.

Regained her composure.

What was his problem?

The question remained rhetorical and unvoiced.

"Regardless," she continued, green eyes hardening, "even if Yukio-kun isn't his son, there's the possibility that maybe he's… some sort of… distant relative." Her words came slowly, as if she were dragging them towards herself, away from him. "That's worth looking into, isn't it?"

"Then what do you need me for?" Sasuke said. "You have tests for that sort of thing, don't you?"

"Well… I wanted to see if I wasn't imagining things," Sakura replied. "You've got the best eyes in Konoha, Sasuke. I just wanted to make one last check. I mean," she added, hastily, almost insincerely, "it's medically unethical to do tests without a reason."

He sighed. "I honestly do not understand you sometimes." He stood there for a few moments. "Are we done here?"

She sighed, too. "Yeah, we're done."

"Mm." Sasuke put his hands in his pockets, and swiveled on his heels, walking back to his students. "Oh, by the way," he said, throwing his voice over his shoulder, but not moving his head, "do tell me how those blood tests of yours go."

Sakura had to count to ten. Breathe in, breathe out.

She didn't reply, instead returning to the hospital, making a mental note to visit Naruto later in the evening, so she could catch them both together.

Silently, Sasuke returned to his own table.

"So what was that all about, Sensei?" Sunao asked, slice of beef dangling from her chopsticks. "Something wrong?"

Sasuke did not answer, instead picking up his own chopsticks, and carefully, disaffectedly, returning to his lunch.

A number echoed and repeated endlessly in his mind.

Fifty percent, fifty percent, fifty percent.

And he'd been trying so hard to keep thoughts like that from poisoning his mind.

At least it was Naruto's issue.

Not his.

"So what did you say this was for, again?" Naruto said, as Sakura swabbed the inside of his arm with rubbing alcohol.

"Just following a hunch," Sakura said, carefully speaking, carefully preparing the vial to collect the blood in. Yukio watched, eyes wide.

"What sorta hunch?"

She paused and, instead of replying, stuck the needle into his arm. "Ow, hey! At least give me a little warning, y'know!"

"Quit being such a baby," Sakura replied, sighing, watching the blood flow into the little glass container. "I'm just going to be testing yours and Yukio-kun's blood for certain substances." She removed the vial, filled a second one, and after removing the tourniquet from his arm put a piece of gauze on the hole she had left in Naruto's arm, though she knew it'd be gone in seconds. Force of habit. "Okay, Yukio-kun, your turn."

"What sorta substances?" Naruto said, narrowing his eyes, tilting his head. "Like, germs and stuff?"

"…no, not germs. Goodness, Naruto, how long has it been since you've gotten sick?" Sakura said, and wrapped the tourniquet around Yukio's arm. Naruto shrugged, honestly not remembering.

"So what else can you test blood for?" Yukio said, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Oh, lots of things. Making sure your cells are healthy in general; chakra saturation, in some cases." Genetics; paternity, too, but she didn't want to mention any of that just yet. Sakura looked into Yukio's eyes, but he refused to look back. Man, they looked like Naruto's. "You've had blood drawn before, right?"

"Uh… yeah, like, a few times," he replied. He glanced downward. "You think I'm sick, or something?"

"No, no, I think you're perfectly healthy," Sakura said. The application of alcohol. "There's just gonna be a little poke, okay?"

Yukio nodded, with his eyes closed. She was very gentle. She took the vial, the needle, and collected his blood in it. She filled two more - just in case - before removing the tourniquet, the needle. "There we go, all done." The application of gauze, a bandage. "Thank you, Yukio-kun."

He nodded, opening his eyes, shrugging once her hands were off him. No big deal.

"So, lemme get this straight," Naruto said. His expression hadn't really changed. "You're gonna test our blood for chakra stuff?"

"Well, and some other things," Sakura said.

"What sorta things?"

There were times when Yukio sounded astonishingly like Naruto.

"Listen, it's nothing for you to worry about," Sakura said, giving him a soft smile. "Really. It's a routine test, I've been meaning to do it for a while."

What, she really had.

He shrugged, and she tucked the vials away into the case she had brought them in.

"So you be sure to tell me what the heck the results are, y'know?" Naruto said.

He'd asked a lot more nicely than Sasuke had. "Well, yeah. Of course I'll tell you." And besides, no matter what the results were, they'd be worth talking to him about after the fact. "It'll take a few days."

"That's fine. Oh, you going?"

Sakura, picking up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder, nodded. "Yep. See you later, you two."

And she left, the answers to all of her questions safely packed away, waiting to be decoded. She could hardly wait.

No more sleepless nights, no more silly rumors.

Yukio didn't feel like going out to dinner, that night. But he and Naruto managed to amuse themselves with a spectacular failure of a meal, one that burned and crackled in more ways than one. It tasted horrible, but at least it was fun to make.

Yukio helped, but he ended up burning most of the stuff Naruto told him to handle. "Sorry, I'm not really good at this… I guess only girls are really good at cooking, yeah?" was his explanation.

"Oh, what's that? Only girls are good at cooking?" Naruto said, grinning. "That's not very fair, is it? And for the record, I don't think my cooking's that bad, y'know..."

They laughed, though Yukio's was more out of relief, rather than humor.

He was actually something of a decent cook, even though he stayed well out of the kitchen at home.

But cooking was still for girls.