Title: Rin

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Warning: Unbeta and horrible grammar. Language.

Chapter 31

The briefing was pretty similar like the genin one, the missions, team arrangement and the chuunin-jounin networks so we had knowledge and found a good pair for doing mission. The new knowledge was pretty useful and the rank of the mission also had been elevated from D and C rank type to C and B rank type. Occasionally the chuunin also would need to do the D rank type of mission with a group of genin. I wondered if Iruka would be pleased to hear this news. It wasn't that we weren't going to different way. We were still in the same village. I knew that was a clingy action from my side but, Iruka was my first real friend here and this was the first time we were separated.

Unknowingly I rubbed my chest. Worry and scare feeling about this new stage now had affecting me. Excited was one thing but worry was much greater. I might be considered coward now. Sighing, I looked forward and focused at the raven haired guy. Kurogame Muramu was one of the veteran jounin who had finished his explanation, behind him there was Shikaku. Our gaze met at the beginning of the briefing and he simply smiled at me. His presence in this classroom really did make me a little bit better. I looked down at the green jacket on my lap. Thank god there wasn't any mandatory need for wearing the flak jacket. It was big for my frame anyway.

Chouma waved me a goodbye as we stepped out from the academy ground and I waved back to him before went to the swing. I had promised Itachi to wait for him here and now I was worried. What I was going to say next?

Surprisingly the swing was preoccupied by a pair of couple I assumed by their not so obvious flirting on each other. I didn't see the guy but there was a girl who sat on the wooden swing. I held my laugh as my eyes caught with Kurenai's red one. The girl was blushing hard and I simply turned around and laughed softly in crouch.

Kurenai grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "Stop laughing, Rin! That's not funny!"

"But…but…haha…to see you flirting and then your surprised reaction…haha…it was priceless."

"You saw everything?" Kurenai asked.

"Ha…no." I stopped from my laugh and slowly stood up. Turning around and faced the raven haired girl, I grinned. "No, I didn't see everything; I just come out from the academy and in need for some shady place for a seat when I hear something-"

"You heard us!" Kurenai shrieked in horror.

I looked away and smiled innocently. "Just 'I like you too' part and 'be careful' part and also 'meet you soon' part?"

Kurenai rubbed her face with her hands. She groaned. "This…ugh…"

"Chill Kurenai…That's nothing to be embarrassed about."

The raven haired girl sighed in defeat and released her hands from her face. She shrugged. "We're just friends."

I nodded.

"We are good friends." She was really trying to convince me.

I nodded.

"Really Rin, don't just nod! Say something!" Kurenai groaned.

I grinned. "Yeah, I do understand, don't worry. My best friend is also a boy if you need some assurance." My mind wandered to certain ponytailed brunet.

Kurenai shrugged in relief and smiled. "Now that's nice to hear." She then paused and pointed at some direction. "Is that him? Your best friend?"

Slowly I followed her hand and found Itachi who stared at our direction. My eyes widened slightly and quickly pushed Kurenai to the swing. "Uh, no…um he is a friend too but not best friend…just go back to your good friend, Kurenai."

"Oh…" The raven haired girl trailed and smirked. "I never know that you like someone younger…Rin…chan…" She poked playfully on my waist.

Avoiding her finger, I huffed. "Just shut up Kurenai or I'll tell the whole Konoha that you're having a date here."

Kurenai stiffened and narrowed her gaze at me. "We're not dating, as I said earlier we are…"

"Yeah, yeah I got it, see you around," I said in hasty before quickly ran to Itachi, grabbing his hand and dragged him away from the place. While we on the run, I wondered who was Kurenai talking to? I let the question away from my mind as we arrived in front my apartment door.

When I decided to unlock my door then I realized that I held Itachi's hand for the whole trip. One of my hands was preoccupied with the flak jacket and the other was his hand. Feeling a blush and increasing of temperature on my cheek, I quickly released his hand and grabbed my keys from one of my trouser pocket.

"Oh, um Itachi…wait a moment. I want to put my jacket inside," I said as my hand worked on the door. Slowly I opened it and met with another surprise as I stepped in into my apartment. My eyes widened and my movement became stiff instantly I met with the silver haired shinobi who was reading Jiraiya's book in my house. "W-What are you doing here K-Ka-Kakashi?" I eyed him and quickly stared at the floor.

Damnit! I didn't have any plan to encounter that Kakashi and his Anbu persona so soon!

A lazy looked focused at my now pale face. "Stuttering on your first day as chuunin?" Kakashi drawled and waved his hand with the book. "I never thought you have this too."

"U-Uh…"

"What's wrong Rin?" Itachi poked his head into my house. Ah…Now they met each other.

Sighing, I gave and opening so that Itachi could come inside my place. Kakashi stared at the new comer before he spoke out the next thing.

"So you have a friend from Uchiha clan."

"Not a friend, there are others too, from my class," I replied and pulled out my feet from my sandals. "Kakashi meet Itachi and Itachi this is Kakashi. I don't know how he comes in here," I shrugged at my lame explanation.

"One of your windows is unlocked. Make sure it locked next time," Kakashi said calmly before focusing at the raven haired boy.

"Play nice now you two," I said and hurriedly went into my room and closed the door. Sighing once again, I pinched my nose bridge. "What the hell is happening here now? I hope Iruka isn't home now."

As if the brunet knew I spoke out his name. Iruka's voice was heard from behind the door. Knowing that brunet, he would simply enter my house as his own when the door was unlocked.

"Hey Rin are you home? I've met Chouma earlier so…Uh…Hello Kakashi-san and Itachi-kun."

I sighed and shrugged before stepped out from my room. The flak jacket already rested on my bed.

"Hey Iruka, what's up," I said and looked at Iruka with a look 'go back now and come back later'.

Iruka grinned half heartedly. "I want to talk about the team formation but it seems that you're busy, we'll discuss it later."

I nodded. "Okay, Iruka see you later."

The brunet quickly left my apartment after giving a good bye and went to his place, while I looked at Kakashi and Itachi.

"Um, what do you want Kakashi?" I asked and picked up the orange book before keeping it on the small book shelf in the living room. I hoped that Itachi didn't see it.

"I just want to see the new chuunin," Kakashi answered simply and looked at the opened window. "I've seen the other so I want to make sure about your status. So, congratulations."

"Thanks," I said and stood silently. Now what? I was out from my questioning mind when Itachi spoke for the first time after he entered into my unit.

"Rin, are you done?"

Turning to him, I nodded. "Yeah, I'm finished with everything here."

"Let's go," The Uchiha said and pulled my hand.

"W-Wait a moment," I said and looked at Kakashi. With a trying glare, I grunted. "Just get out from my place and close the window."

Kakashi casually closed the window and locking it before he walked to us. "Nah, I'll use the door."

It was awkward! Very awkward! While I was walking in pair with Itachi and our hands intertwined with each other, Kakashi was simply following behind us. I tried my best for became relax and enjoying the trip but with the bored look on your back wasn't really comfortable. It felt like he was acting as a babysitter to us! We suddenly stopped in front of convenient shop. I stared at its entrance before looked at Itachi who remained indifferent. He rarely spoke after I dragged him away from Kurenai and now with Kakashi tagging along…I groaned internally.

"Itachi, why are we stopping here?" I asked and looked at the shop again. Actually I didn't know what Itachi would like to do at the moment.

"Mn…there's promotion for canned coffee for this week," Kakashi read the promotion banner on the shop wall.

Shrugging, I stared at him. "Why are you following us?" I asked with a hint of irritated with his action.

Straightening himself and looked at my eyes, we had a brief staring contest. Then his single eye rested at Itachi's and my hands. Humming slightly he spoke out his mind. "I see that you two have a deep relationship."

"Wha-"

Itachi tightened his hold on my hand and I simply shrugged. We didn't even answer Kakashi's statement and after a moment, the silver haired shinobi became bored, or so I thought as he went into the shop with mumbles about coffee, promotion and save money. For a jounin, he was pretty cheapskate. I bet that he had a lot of money from the high ranking mission and anbu works too. Ah, I really need to lay out some plans for my next encounter with Kakashi as the anbu guy. A light pull on my hand made me looked at Itachi.

"Let's go," He said calmly.

I nodded and let him showed the way. At least Kakashi wasn't going to follow us anymore.

We ended up at the top of Hokage great stone faces with packed lunch from yakitori shop and dessert from dango shop. Slowly and reluctantly Itachi released his hand from mine and I looked away and sighed. The whole trip was embarrassing. Most of the people around us squealed and chuckled softly at our hands. But meeting Gai at the yakitori shop was a real disaster. With his loud voice he praised and congratulated us for entering a youthful relationship. Almost everyone in the shop had looked at us and congratulated us. I couldn't even say anything since I was stunned and surprised while Itachi simply stayed silent and nodded occasionally.

Slowly I looked at the Uchiha boy. "Um, Itachi what are we doing up here?"

"I want to celebrate your promotion alone with you, Rin," Itachi said and paused as he placed down the food on the grassy ground. He looked up and smiled warmly. "No one really come up here only few nins on patrol are around. So basically we are alone here."

Casually he pulled my hand and we sat beside each other. I looked forward and saw the whole Konohagakure.

"Wow, I can see the whole village from up here."

"I want to share this view with you. To remember what is the most important to us here."

Smiling I looked at the raven haired boy. "Thank you, Itachi for sharing this precious view with me."

"You're welcome, Rin." Itachi looked at the village. "Now you're a chuunin. Your responsibilities will become larger than previously."

"Yeah." I nodded and looked forward. "Looking at the peace up here really make us want to try harder to protect it."

"Mn…Protecting what's important is the ninja's job," Itachi said softly and looked at me. "Rin, can I lean on your side?"

I raised my eyebrows and stared at Itachi. Something had happened? Slowly I closed the gap between us and let the younger boy leaned himself to my side. He rested his head on my shoulder. Sure, he did grow up but he was still shorter than me.

"Something happened, Itachi?"

"Mn…"

"Want to share it?"

"…"

"Don't keep everything to yourself Itachi. I'm here to listen everything from you." I smiled slightly. Just like what you did to me before, I said silently in my heart.

"Just stay beside me, Rin."

"…Okay…"

"Rin…"

"Yes?"

"What do you mean, when you said that I'm a friend but not best friend to your friend earlier?"

I stared at my lap. "Um, you're special friend?"

"I like it," Itachi said softly and leaned more.

We sat silently and stared at the view, enjoying the calmness. After a few moments of silent, Itachi spoke out something general.

"The night view is also nice."

"Really?"

"You should walk around the village more, Rin," Itachi said and slowly raised his head from my shoulder.

"Sure, I'll do that later," I said and looked down at our hands.

Itachi followed my gaze and grasped tighter my hand. "You don't like it?"

Slowly I looked away and stared at the village below. "Um, just hold my hand when we're alone?" Realizing what I had said, I quickly spoke out some explanation. "Ah…Um…I mean when there are not many people around." I turned at Itachi and chuckled softly. "I don't want to hear Gai-senpai again anytime soon. It was…Ugh…" I sighed and shrugged.

"Understood. He is pretty loud fellow nin," Itachi said calmly and I simply stared at him. So I wasn't alone when I felt Gai was loud. Too loud actually.

We grinned at each other and chuckled lightly before stopping it and staring at each other.

"Do you like Kakashi-san?" Itachi asked the question which I believed he had for a moment in his mind after the sudden meeting and I quickly averted my gaze away from staring at his face. How I was going to answer that? I didn't like Kakashi but his other identity and after knowing that they were the same person, I didn't really know anymore. I hate Kakashi for keeping me from advancing in my career and for comparing me with his dead team mate but I didn't hate his Anbu persona and I liked him…

"…No…I just…"

"It's okay, don't answer it, Rin," Itachi said in hurry and picked up the food. "Let's eat before the food becomes cold."

"Sure." I grabbed the food from Itachi's hands and looked at him opening the lid. Itachi was scared with my answer? I shrugged and slowly opened my food container.

I was munching the rice when Itachi asked another question.

"That orange book at your home, is that porn?"

Chocking on your lunch was terrible sensation. I was going to blame Jiraiya-sensei about that book and telling Fugaku-san about keeping his reading material at safer and unreachable place.

Iruka rubbed and pinched his forehead while he was staring at the window in my small living room. "Entering from your window? That Kakashi-san is pretty um…rude? And Itachi-kun was here because you dragged him from the academy ground."

I shrugged. "Yeah…"

"Wow, you really do have weird relationship with genius here."

I frowned and ate a mouthful of warm ramen. I brought the ramen as our dinner on my way back after some spending time together with Itachi. I didn't really want to consider that as a date or something like that since we didn't really made our selves clear with our relationship. I shrugged while munching my food. Actually the reluctant came from my side. I wasn't really sure what Itachi was to me and with Kakakshi…ugh the Anbu guy in the picture, now I really confused!

"Rin, stop glaring at your food, it's not proper," Iruka said and picked up his bowl for slurping the soup. I looked at Iruka and swallowed my food.

"Iruka, have you ever like or love someone?"

Instantly I regretted asking that question to the brunet. Slowly I raised my hand and wiped my wet face with ramen broth before sending a sharp glare at Iruka. Surprisingly Iruka stayed still with a deep blush on his face instead of panicking after spraying a mouthful of ramen broth to your dinner mate. I blinked and stared at the brunet.

"So, you do have someone special."

"Um…Uh…Um…Mm…"

"Iruka?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"Who's the special one in your eyes?" I asked and smirked.

"Uh…Hey I sprayed the broth on you! Sorry Rin! I'm sorry! I'll clean the mess!" Iruka suddenly realized what he had done and quickly went into my kitchen to grab the rug.

I pinched my nose bridge and groaned.

Mei Mei was three years older than me thus that made me the youngest in the three man cell for the mission. We chatted a bit at the Konoha main gate while waiting for the jounin who were going together with us. We received the news about having a mission from a bird messenger on early the morning. Mei Mei was aiming to be a weapon specialist and she was collecting any weapons she could found in order to expanding her arsenal list. The girl had a dark brown hair just like mine except that her hair was longer nearly reaching her waist and she put it into nice and neat braid. There was a nice small purple ribbon attached at the end of her braid making it look pretty cute and matched with her light purple outfit which composed with very long sleeves traditional Chinese clothes for woman which was similar to the ghost outfit in the Chinese movies. Unlike the ghost who was wearing skirt underneath the cloth, Mei Mei didn't wear anything like that. She simply wore a black legging since the cloth itself was pretty long nearly reaching her knees. And that ribbon actually coated with poison. I shrugged once I learned the knowledge.

We were exchanging our words about hair care products when a loud voice greeted us.

"Good morning my dear youthful team mates! Here I'm Maito Gai, ready for the mission!"

I groaned silently and shrugged. Exchanging a pitiful look with the gate guards, I faked a cough.

"Um, Gai-senpai…What's the mission?"

"Oh Rin! You're…" Gai paused and stared at my face. "So you're a chuunin already?" He asked calmly.

I nodded.

Gai blinked and nodded. Slowly he placed a hand under his chin. "Now I understand why…"

"Why what Gai-senpai?"

"It's nothing important," Gai pulled out the mission scroll and read the content. "So there are two chuunin who are going with me, first is you, Rin and second is Mei Mei."

"Yes, that's me," Mei Mei answered and smiled. Gai nodded and explained to us about the mission.

We were going to the nation border between Fire country and Wind country to do some patrol at one of the check point since there was a report about suspicious activity near the area. The mission was focusing on information gathering and any form of battle or fighting should be avoided. It was a stealth mission even on our land.

Mei Mei and I nodded at the explanation from Gai and he was the captain for the mission. Surprisingly, he didn't show his loud and over youthful expression once he was in mission mode. I was glad about that since I believed that I couldn't stand his loud persona for whole two weeks together. I shuddered at the scary thought. This was my first mission as a chuunin and I was pretty excited about it until Gai arrived. And now since he was in mission mode now, the excitement came back. I smiled.

We had arrived at the surveillance tower after two days of trip from the main gate. At the tower there were two Konoha nins who were worked there as border guard. They greeted us and explained the situation. Gai had huddled us for a discussion and he decided for three shifts for a day. Each of us will working around the tower for eight hours per day for two weeks. One week had gone by without nothing unusual happened around us except for few merchants from the Sunagakure passing our border.

Mei Mei was catching up for some sleep when I decided to get some water from nearby river. It was early morning of the day and Mei Mei had the after midnight shift. No wonder she was tired. Gai was doing his shift about one hour ago and the other two nins stayed at the upper level of the tower.

"I'm going to get some water," I said at Ran who was climbing down the stairs.

The raven haired man nodded and walked into the small pantry. "Be more careful when you're at the river. Last night it was rain pretty heavy."

"Okay."

Reaching the river after repeating action of entering and exiting bushes, I stunned when saw the fast water and its level. "Wow, now I'm scared," I said softly and shrugged.

Crouching carefully on the riverbank, I pulled up my long sleeves and dipped my arms under the cold water before splashing a bit onto my face. Shivering slightly, I repeated the action until I felt totally refreshed from my earlier state which was tired and drowsy. This mission was really tiring after changing shift from day to day. Picking up my water canteen, slowly I dipped it under the water and let it full. While waiting for it, my eyes narrowed as I felt a weird chakra sensation from behind. Swiftly I threw out several shurikens at the direction and stood up, facing at the place where the shurikens stuck. The water canteen I threw it on the ground nearby my feet.

"Ow, what I told you earlier about your deadly aim?"

"You!" I gasped and my eyes widened.

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