Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ None the Wiser ❯ Channel 7 ( Chapter 9 )

Title: None the Wiser

Author: The Uke Reformation

Genre: Naruto

Subgenre: Romance/Angst

Summary: There are some things not meant to be said. There are some pasts that you cannot escape. Some people that will always hunt you down. And every once in a while, there are special students that reward you for all your teaching...SasuNaru, yaoi

Rated: R for harsh language, as well as sexual and mature content.

Author's Note: I am so sorry for taking so long! I wrote this FOREVER ago, and published it on ff.net - I forgot about this account entirely! (sweatdrop) Here you go…don't let me delay you any longer!

Note: Anal sex. It's the ultimate tough love.

Disclaimer: Copyright The Uke Reformation, 2006. All rights reserved.

None the Wiser

By The Uke Reformation

Chapter 9

“Channel seven and

doomed relationships. "

Naruto didn't pay attention to time very easily, as a general rule of thumb. It wasn't that he couldn't---he had one of the best internal clocks of anyone he knew, excluding Kakashi and Shikamaru who were weird that way anyway---it was just that he didn't. He never really took the time, or bothered to waste the energy on keeping track of time, simply because doing such never served an immediate purpose.

But he knew that he sat in the shower for hours.

By estimations that he and his friends would make later, he'd gotten home at around four-thirty, started his shower around four-forty-five and stayed there until around a quarter after six. He hardly knew that at the time, of course, but that probably didn't affect things much.

He had no idea when the water had gone cold, or when he'd shut it off. He had no idea what kept him there.

I should get up. I have to move.

But he didn't. He sat, curled in a tight ball with his legs up in front of his chest and his arms around them. He sat still as a stone carving, small and wet with tears and cold, soapy water. His eyes were red from crying, and every once and a while, he would start up again for no reason---except for how awful he felt in general.

His need to move, to get clothing on and dry out, was infinitely and effortlessly overpowered by the weight of his current state of misery. His mind was completely blank, even though it seemed busy, and he knew this because every time he came back from staring into space, the buzz would vanish and he would realize that he was not thinking anything at all.

So he simply sat there, unmoving and chilled. He couldn't will himself to do anything for any reason---a lethargy that he figured would probably lead to him dying---simply for lack of having anything better to do with himself. And that was the only thought that crossed his mind for a long, long time.

He was so sucked out of his body by stupor that he didn't find it hard to swing into that state in between consciousness; like a ghost, half-in and half-out of somewhere. He stared, blankly, at the dripping wet tile.

It wasn't hard to simply slip out of it all, at long last, either, and rot in the haze of sleep that overtook him eventually.

They were surrounded by darkness. Not him - they. He no longer pinned himself as a singular noun, even if it would never be the same. He was never alone. He couldn't handle being alone; not now and not ever. He had grafted himself into becoming one of the Ghosts before, under the same logic, but that held no weight any longer.

But then, nothing held any weight any longer. He was only sixteen, almost seventeen, and yet his life had been strewn in irreparable tatters all over the surface of his skin. Nothing held any meaning, or substance. There was no reason for him to live; no reason for him to die. He felt…nothing. No sadness. No tiredness. No thirst. No hunger. No anger or happiness. No need to do anything that wasn't automatic.

Letting this happen was pretty automatic, even if it had been years since Gaara had been allowed to touch him with any sort of tenderness infused with his brutality.

He was in too much of a daze to fight back, and as always it was his key disadvantage. The red head was ravishing his mouth without care, pressing them together, his grip on Naruto's arms tight. Under most circumstances - under soon-to-be circumstances - the blonde would've fought him, would've objected somehow.

But he felt nothing. The affection for Gaara he had nurtured for so long was dead.

Of course, he didn't fight anymore. As a broken soul, he had no business with having a definitive personality of his own. Any hopes, dreams, desires or passions he had ever had were vanquished, forever and always. He couldn't remember, exactly, what had happened in what seemed to be his past life, before he had been this way, but he didn't really care. It didn't matter, after all. He was empty. Numb. Bereft of everything.

It was a sociopathic way of survival, but he would not really hate that for a little while, still.

So he didn't move, didn't react, didn't feel, didn't participate in any of it.

He simply let it happen.

Gaara continued to suck at his mouth for a while, in an almost violent fashion that invoked a soft sense of fear underneath every other piece of him that he hardly felt and did not respond to. Eventually, the Sunahara tired of that, bringing his tongue up to bite at Naruto's earlobe. The boy - or perhaps he was a man, although the notion struck him as unlikely - moaned, because it was what he had been taught to do.

Finally, Gaara ended up shoving him down against the rectangular push Naruto had felt at the back of his calves, and the blonde toppled over upon it, with no sense of grace or dignity. The red-head was angry; he could tell. Even if emotions were not an article of trade he came by any longer, he was excellent at reading the emotions of others and the thoughts behind them, even if they weren't things that held much significance to him anymore.

Gaara was angry at him, though, and he couldn't understand why. This was what he wanted, and Naruto knew it by the way it took less than seconds for him to be trapped beneath the other boy's legs. He stared back up at him - he was breathing hard. That was a shame. They hadn't really done anything yet.

The backhand to his cheek didn't aid in his efforts to decipher Gaara's fury. He blinked slightly, feeling the pain as though he were thousands of miles away from it. It wasn't a foreign sensation at all, but it seemed far enough away that he could've pretended it was.

“Goddammit!” the red-head snarled.

Naruto stared up at him, unmoving, wondering what he had done in an uninterested fashion. He didn't speak, of course. Whores didn't speak if the dominant didn't exclusively tell them to. And his dominant had simply sworn for no apparent reason. That wasn't his business at all.

This seemed to drive the Sunahara even further up the wall, and his bright green eyes flashed. “Stop that. Stop it. Stop looking at me. Talk, goddammit! Tell me no!”

“No,” Naruto said, sounding akin to a robot. His voice felt as hollow as his being, raspy and sore from lack of use. This was the first time he'd spoken in perhaps two or three weeks. He didn't remember. It didn't really matter, of course. He'd long since stopped really thinking for himself, so talking wasn't a very necessary function.

Gaara smacked him again.

“No,” Naruto said, repeating himself as Gaara had told him to do.

“Goddamit!” Smack. “Don't do that!”

Naruto was silent again.

Smack.

“Like that!”

Nothing.

Smack.

“Stop!”

Smack.

“Listening!”

Smack.

“To me!”

Smack.

Smack.

Smack.

Nothing. Nothing except the darkness of a storage closet and labored breathing as Gaara half slumped, half sobbed over Naruto, who continued to lie motionless. The red-head was gripping his collar tightly, the dry-throated tears backed up by emotion but no hydration. Gaara, who had never had any desire to show his feelings, or given himself any reason to cry, had finally stumbled into an occasion to do so and was unable.

“Why…? Where are you, Naruto…?”

“I'm here, Gaara-sama.”

“Shut up! Don't call me that.”

Silence.

“Goddammit.” Gaara stared down at him for a few second before drawing back completely. “He killed you. He killed you, utterly destroyed you, completely and totally broke you into a thousand pieces. He ruined you, Naruto. He ruined you!”

Still silence.

“Stop listening to me!”

“Yes, sir.”

Gaara let out a yell of frustration, smacking him again.

This time it stung enough for him to actually blink.

That was all it took for the one breaking thought to pass through his mind.

God, I hate this one.

Oh, yeah… This was a dream.

He was dreaming about it again.

Why hadn't he taken his meds…?

“Because you're the biggest loser I've ever met. That's why.”

Naruto's eyes snapped open, meeting pitch black ones, and he became overwhelmed by emotion.

Sasuke smirked from where he sat casually on the blonde's stomach, black shirt hanging open to reveal pearly white skin. He reached forward to put two fingers to Naruto's cheek.

“You really are a moron.”

Strong hands encircled and clamped down upon Naruto's windpipe. A thousand memories of unbearable pain enveloped him. Couldn't breathe…couldn't breathe…couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe…so much pain, filling him, inside of him, violating him, ripping him open, biting into the wounds. So many times that the pain had been so overwhelming that he hadn't been able to say a thing.

No air…no air!

“Dead-last,” Sasuke chuckled, his eyes not his own, but clear and blue and paralyzing.

The figure on his stomach morphed again, into one with long fingernails and platinum blonde hair that flowed everywhere; hair that should've been dyed plentifully with blood, with a pair of orbs that sought it more than anything else. Those terrifying eyes that sought to destroy everything.

The eyes of a yakuza that was not a yakuza.

“Fight me…

Uzumaki.”

Naruto screamed for all he was worth as he was enveloped in a suffocating wind of dark feathers.

Honestly, it was the first time in a long while he'd woken up screaming his head off. For one thing, he was usually in a hospital bed, and for another thing it wasn't usually that dream that made him scream. Toss and turn, yes, but scream? No. He had plenty of other dreams to make him scream.

The one thing that did remain consistent was that he woke up with someone staring at him.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Naruto!”

One of the bad things about waking up screaming is that Naruto had trouble stopping. It was like getting on a rollercoaster: Where the sound would ache at the back of your throat and the top of your ribcage, but you could not release it because you knew that it would never cease, should you choose to do so. All those worst dreams would simply swim through his mind with an odd, nagging persistence, and if he was already screaming it was almost impossible for him to undo it.

Kakashi was weathered to the sound, but Naruto could swear that the fear for him that floated behind the scarecrow's one visible eye was just as thick and anxious as it had been the first time he'd ever done it; the first time he'd ever confided in anyone except Yohko afterwards, even though she had seen it all. He wasn't comfortable appearing weak to Kakashi, but in truth, he didn't have much choice in the matter.

He just screamed and screamed and screamed. And somehow, Kakashi had managed to get him an apartment where the neighbors were absent at all the right times---or at least paid him very little mind---so that when he stopped, no one was there that he did not want to be.

He huddled in on himself, wide-eyed and crying, as he hyperventilated. Truly, he was only working himself up again, and he knew it, but his arms were shaking so hard that he couldn't think straight. Kakashi reached to touch his arm, and he yelled defensively, still breathing hard, and the man leapt back in surprise.

He couldn't think at all, he really couldn't. He was so overwhelmed. Everything was pressing in. He bunched himself as small as he could into the corner of the shower, still sobbing openly. His mind was a mixture of terror and confusion - which are hardly pleasant things when kept an appropriate distance apart from one another - and he felt as if his insides were avalanching.

Kakashi reached forward again, finally succeeding in laying his fingers upon Naruto's arm.

“Naruto…” he said, the urgency in his voice apparent. “Naruto, calm down. Calm down, it's just me.”

“No…no…”

“Naruto…!” Kakashi took a firmer hold of his shoulder, shaking him slightly.

Naruto no longer hesitated to launch himself into what Kakashi was advertising.

After all, comfort wasn't exactly something to refuse.

He pressed close to him, burying his face deep in his shirt. He took great fistfuls of the dark cloth and held so tightly his knuckles turned white and he nearly lost circulation in his fingers. He cried big wet tears that made him look childish, and choked on them, which only made him seem even more childish. Hiccups wracked him and he made a vain attempt to smother himself in the fabric so that he would never have to be seen like this by human eyes. He felt as if he was nine years old again, but of course, he wasn't releasing everything like he had back then. Back then, he'd thought that death was the worst of everything. Back then, he'd been small and delicate and inexperienced in the ways of the world, which was hardly a description of him now. Now he had so much experience that it hurt, which made it impossible to release everything, and he wasn't going to attempt to delude himself into trying. Still, he was cold, and naked, and wet, and an unbearable mass of shaking, crying flesh.

And Kakashi simply sat through it all, taking Naruto into his arms and not saying another word, for what seemed to be both their sakes.

Naruto sat at the booth in his kitchen, bundled in a very, very large lemon-yellow towel that Kakashi had seemed to conjure out thin air. Kakashi seemed to do that a lot - conjure things out of thin air, that was. Yellow wasn't exactly his color, but it wasn't too hard on the eyes. And he was dry, at least. That was a nice, and relatively alien feeling---him having sat in a shower for so long. The cushion beneath him was a very satisfying change of pace, too.

He let his legs swing, out of habit, where they dangled underneath the table, while he stared nonchalantly at the cup of tea in front of him, playing with the string of the bag that floated inside, leaking brown. He glanced over at Kakashi, who was pouring hot water into a mug of his own.

Naruto sighed, muttering to his friend as he turned to stare at the wall, lifting the steaming cup to his lips. “I'm sorry, Kakashi.”

“For what?”

The tea scalded Naruto's tongue a little as he gnawed on the rim, eyes swirling with some unknown, deeper matter. His thumbs drummed against the pale china for a moment. He set his jaw and swallowed a bit more tea, thinking on that.

It was a very good question, truth be told - Kakashi helped him so often, to apologize for his own incompetence once was hardly enough. They'd attended the same elementary school, not that they'd necessarily hit it off as the best of friends at that point. Kakashi was, after all, many years his senior, which made (in the earlier years) the whole process of getting close to him awkward.

Middle school had been different. Way different. He'd come to accept that his relationship with Iruka had been life-altering, as far as self-revelations went. He'd finally found a friend after so much time of being alone, and started to see Yohko in a similar light; instead of her playing as his surrogate mother---whose role it was to simply keep him out of trouble and help him stop crying about it later---she became a genuine companion on top of her being family.

She and Iruka became well-appreciated siblings instead of parents, playing their way into being permanent fixtures in his life. For once, he'd had a real sense of stability surrounding him - no more moving, no more hand-to-mouth, no more lonely days of laughing by himself. He'd become as happy as he acted: A healthy, regular prankster of a child that got bad grades but was smart anyway, and all right with it even with the scoldings he was promised.

And so, their friends had become his friends. He'd come to accept that he just hadn't been born at the right time - that the majority of the people who truly understood him were older than he was. And that was all right, because they were the coolest people he'd ever had the privilege to interact with. Iruka had been the first to introduce him to Kakashi; it wasn't as if they were best friends, but Kakashi was someone they both looked up to, and he seemed to live up to their expectations quite well.

First impression were, by no means, though, the way one should've judged their relationship. Going by his own memory (although Iruka now adamantly denied it had happened this way) the first time he'd met Kakashi was by the older one introducing him to the pavement and telling him to take his clothes off, and them kicking him hard in the ribs when he didn't fight back.

“Saying stupid things doesn't get you attention,” the scarecrow had said to him in a sinister tone, both eyes (they were both still good back then) pinning him in one spot,”it just makes you look stupid. Moron. Use your brain.”

Yohko had shown up by then, of course, along with everyone else that usually toted themselves along in her wake, and nearly ripped the man's head from his shoulders…but that was a different story.

And somehow, from that moment onward, their relationship developed quite smoothly. Quite sporadically, Kakashi was just…there all the time, as if it was simply his place to be, and had been all along. It took a fight to convince Naruto that he could trust the silver-haired boy, who was older than him by about three years, with everything he could've ever dreamed up.

It was a very weirdly established relationship, but the fact that Kakashi just kept showing up pretty much assured everyone around them that it was less than temporary.

That being true, a lot of the bad things that had happened to Naruto over the years had affected Kakashi almost directly.

And so, Naruto figured that there were a lot of reasons to apologize for.

“Everything,” he said finally. “Anything I've ever needed to say sorry for.”

It was Kakashi's turn to look thoughtful as he stared out of the small window over the sink. When he did speak, it was in a soft, serious manner---the words carefully picked so that they would sound as sincere as they were meant to sound.

“You haven't needed to say sorry to me for a very, very long time.”

Naruto sipped at his tea carefully, eyes solemn.

Yeah, and every time you deny that it's necessary you only make me all the sorrier.

Kakashi looked over at him, and their eyes met for a brief moment. Naruto let the man analyze his blank exterior, picking it apart and piecing it back together, trying to understand it better through dissection. There wasn't a lot to be understood, though, with the walls he so heavily surrounded himself with, and he was relatively certain Kakashi knew it.

Sure enough, the scarecrow let it slide, turning back to stare out of the window.

“What were you dreaming about?”

“In the shower?”

“Mm.” Kakashi nodded.

“I don't remember a lot.” He wasn't skirting anything, really. There were vague concepts that interacted with it, things he could remember feeling, but the tail end of the dream specifically he couldn't remember in the smallest bit of clarity. It had had something to do with Sasuke, but he couldn't even recall what exactly, except that it had been very…

…uncomfortable.

Kakashi eyed him with slight suspicion.

“What do you remember?”

Naruto glanced over. “Was I talking?”

Kakashi was quiet for a while before he replied.

“…You kept saying Gaara's name.”

Naruto watched him, gone silent. Kakashi turned to him.

“That again…?”

“You say that as if it was the only one.”

To that both of them had very little to talk about, and it was good, because Naruto didn't particularly like the topic of discussion.

Kakashi coughed dismissively.

“Was there anything else?”

Sasuke.

Naruto bit at the edge of his mug. “No,” he said. “Nothing else.”

Kakashi nodded, softly. “Are you all right?”

“…Yeah. I'm fine.”

Kakashi nodded again. They both knew the statement wasn't half true, but it was ritualistic of them to act as if it was.

“Do you want to see him?”

“No.” Naruto shook his head, firmly.

“He's worried about you.”

“Exactly. And thus, I have no desire to see him.”

“None?”

“None at all.”

At least that wasn't a lie. Gaara would make things worse, and Naruto knew it full well.

Kakashi nodded.

“All right.”

There was a long, quiet peace that settled awkwardly around them, then, and it lingered until Kakashi spoke again.

“You won't let anyone help you on this, will you?”

“What's that?”

“Uchiha.”

“Mm.” Naruto sipped his tea, glad for something to preoccupy himself with so that he might not face the conversation entirely. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at him, noting the practice as easily as a fish swims, but not announcing his distaste for it.

“You should, you know.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“You're a wreck.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“I'm fine.”

“No, you aren't. You know it and so does everyone else.”

“I'm fine.”

“That's a lie.”

“No, it's-”

“Yes, it is.”

Naruto growled his anger into his cup, sipping at it more heatedly. Kakashi didn't give the man time to ignore him.

“We could easily get him transferred out of that class.”

“No, we couldn't. I'm the only ninth grade history teacher on campus.”

“His grades are good enough; we could move him up.”

“Put him in sophomore level?”

“He is fifteen, after all.”

Naruto blinked.

“…What?”

“I've been researching.”

“I got that much. How the hell could he be fifteen?”

“His parents put him through kindergarten late.”

“When's his birthday?”

“What does it matter?”

“You're lying, aren't you?”

“I'm not.”

“You are so. Why would anyone put Sasuke through kindergarten late?”

Kakashi shrugged. “I don't try to delve into motive.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I didn't, in this particular case.”

“Why not?”

“There wasn't any need. The point is: He's older than we thought he was. It would be easy to put him in honors classes.”

Naruto drummed his fingers against the china of the mug.

“I don't like that idea,” he said, finally.

Kakashi nodded, shrugging. “I didn't think you would. You have an option now, though.”

“I don't want him put in honors classes.”

“He's smart enough.”

“I wasn't debating that.”

“You can't keep him down simply for the sake of attempted triumph over him in civil matters.”

Naruto sucked at the glass.

“Yeah. I know.”

dogEred signed on at 4:05:00 PM.

BANGUZUMAKI signed on at 11:13:13 PM.

dogEred: Sensei!
dogEred: !
BANGUZUMAKI: hey aka-chan
dogEred: :D
BANGUZUMAKI: ;
dogEred: How are you?
BANGUZUMAKI: ima lright
BANGUZUMAKI: and u
dogEred: I'm doing good!
BANGUZUMAKI: good
dogEred:
dogEred: …But your typing sux, sensei. xD
BANGUZUMAKI: o I kno
BANGUZUMAKI: XD
dogEred: XDDD
BANGUZUMAKI: now u kno why im not a englir teacher
dogEred: XDDDD You spelled English wrong. XDDDDD
BANGUZUMAKI: o shoot XDDD
dogEred: Lol!
BANGUZUMAKI: heh
BANGUZUMAKI: hey, akamaru
dogEred: ?
BANGUZUMAKI: can u stay a bit after class tomoro
dogEred: Sure…!
dogEred: Did i do something wrong?
BANGUZUMAKI: no no
dogEred: OK, good.
BANGUZUMAKI: i just wanted to talk to u
dogEred: Well, sure!
dogEred: Oh, wait--
BANGUZUMAKI: what is it
dogEred: Mom wanted me to come home early tomorrow…
BANGUZUMAKI: ah
BANGUZUMAKI: u'll have to go then
BANGUZUMAKI: cant let ur mothe down
BANGUZUMAKI:
dogEred: !
dogEred: You could come with me!
BANGUZUMAKI: oo
dogEred: Yea!
dogEred: Ttly!
dogEred: It's just work, after all.
BANGUZUMAKI: oO R u sure…?
dogEred: Positive!
dogEred: OK, I g2g, sensei, but you can come home with me tomorrow, K?
BANGUZUMAKI: Ok…
dogEred:
dogEred: Bye sensei!
BANGUZUMAKI: sleep well aka-chan
dogEred:

dogEred signed off at 12:37:58 AM.

Naruto could've gotten a degree in denial. A PhD, even. It was something he was very, very good at, whether that was a good or bad thing. It wasn't as if he was ignorant - quite the opposite, really, but that's what made him so good at denying things. He was so perceptive that it made it easy for him to ignore things that he didn't want to think about: feelings, past happenings, current happenings, his relationships with certain, unmentionably annoying people.

Denial was simply one of Naruto's many talents. His forte, even.

Akamaru liked Haku. Naruto didn't know why that made him as nervous as it did. He had no idea how that led to him needing to talk to either of them, but - as if by magic - he seemed to find himself half-stumbling into both of them the day after he had first brought it up at all.

Nothing struck him as very out of place anymore. Of course, his life itself was rather out of place. He hadn't asked for it to be that way, but it was and he knew it full well. But, for that being true, everything had turned explosive since Sasuke had come along and screwed with everything. Naruto had come to blame every misfortune that befell him on the ebony-haired demon-spawn that haunted him so, mostly because most of them were, indirectly, the Uchiha's fault.

His noticing the object of Akamaru's affections so recently wasn't in the least, but, out of habit, he blamed Sasuke anyway, and had absolutely no qualms about doing so; it renewed the flaming hatred in his veins in a very bad attempt at patching himself up. He wasn't very good at patch jobs, or he wouldn't need all the medications he took, but that didn't stop him from trying.

He didn't have to deal with it, and he really had no desire to; the Sasuke matter, that was. It would rear its ugly head problematically every few minutes or so, but he was determined that whatever he felt about it was private and to be kept to himself. This wasn't going anywhere, and that was final. What was to go anywhere, anyway?

Nothing, that's what.

Yes. Denial had to be Naruto's forte.

But back to Akamaru and Haku...

He didn't know why it should concern him that Akamaru should fall for the boy. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with him. In fact, Naruto had trouble finding much that was wrong with him: He was beautiful, he was extremely intelligent, he was a gentleman to say the least (assuming you didn't get his gender mixed up, in which case he would've been a gentlewoman, instead). He was honest and trustworthy, and certainly friendly enough.

But that was the thing. Even with Haku having all of those things going for him, and Naruto's undeniable like of him, the teacher held seriously negative stance when it came to things between him and the Inuzuka. For one thing, he hardly knew her from what the blonde could tell. Haku was relatively nice to people, even if he didn't know them, but on matters of romance, Naruto had no idea where he stood…and he doubted Akamaru did, either.

For another thing, Naruto couldn't tell if Haku was really who he acted like he was. The boy wore a mask if he'd ever seen one, and he had a bad feeling about what they might find behind it. He hardly suspected anything as dark as self-mutilation, but death could've played a part in it. He wondered if what Akamaru had was a classic case of `schoolgirl,' and was just in love with what she wanted to see, or thought she saw.

He hated when he spotted relationships like that, and they were everywhere. Superficial and unglued, model popular children get-togethers. `I like you, you like me's that really only amounted to `I like what I see, I assume you like what you see's, and held about the same weight and meaning to them as tissue paper. And it was even worse when it was that way, but one-sided, in a way that the opposite party only realized when it came down to saying `I love you'. Those got really messy, really fast, and Naruto had no desire to get himself into the middle of something even similar.

He also had the sneaking suspicion that Haku was gay.

It wasn't like he had extensive evidence. There was no such thing as `gaydar', because there was no longer any way for you to know for sure. But as a homosexual man himself, he had eyes for such things. Simple little gestures that he noticed just because they were things that he did too; seeing bits of yourself in other people is easier than seeing them for who they are, after all.

Guessing another person's sexual preference was sticky business. There was the constant possibility (and overall likelihood) that someone would take offense. If it wasn't the person themselves, it was the girlfriend or the boyfriend or the family or the in-laws. If you were going to hazard it, someone had to be mad at you afterwards, just by the nature of the thing. You could never be certain you were right, after all - with all of the crap the media put out, Naruto was amazed there was anyone in the world who could watch television and still argue being straight. Everyone you ever saw on any idiot box was pretty and perfect and willing. So how were you supposed to know for yourself, much less for other people?

Then again, though, if you had good reasoning - and an eye for it (an eye for what exactly, he had not a clue) - you could keep it to yourself and see to what degree it held true. And there were a few dead giveaways that Haku just might be into boys, rather than the good-sized group of females that seemed to fawn over him so shamelessly. A lot of them Naruto could pick out in Sasuke too, actually, and even if he wasn't half going there, he knew for certain that Sasuke had to be bisexual at the very least. (Or maybe he just enjoyed pinning him to random walls and ripping his guts apart? Naruto wouldn't put it past him.)

Just little things - little things he knew that he did whenever he was trying to be non-conspicuous. The overlookable fact that his eyes would linger on boy speakers and pass over their bodies in a more analyzing fashion than they did when they rested on girls. His aversion of being touched often by either gender, whether the contact be friendly or otherwise. (Naruto had found that people either swung one way or the other with that - they either liked it too much, or liked it too little.) That he just subconsciously paid them more apt attention than was normal. The fact that he looked and acted the typical feminine roll of a homosexual had absolutely nothing to do with it. Naruto knew full well how easily boys tended to sound or look gay, even if they were born and bred homophobes (which far too many of them were for the same reasons).

He couldn't say it for certain, of course. He did hate saying things for certain, after all, and there was no way he could really back such an accusation as of yet. To his credit, he had heard the rumors about Haku going behind the AM-PM with seniors for pennies on the dollar, but he didn't like rumors much either, and he didn't really feel like bringing it up with him to see if it was true or not. If it was, it was purely his business and no one else's; and if it wasn't, he would probably never get around to hearing the whole story. It took years if you did it that way, and he figured that what Haku did outside of school didn't much concern him or anyone else, as a few nameless second-years had found out after he'd awarded them a cruel smile and detention for gossiping.

They'd complained, needless to say - quite piteously, even - but Naruto had done careful research to trace the buzzing to its source, and hardly had a temper or ear to hear them out. Sasuke had put him in a bad mood this year, and besides that, he really did hate rumors. More than quite a great assortment of spiteful things, he hated rumors. (It was brought to his attention often how many of those spiteful things originated among teenage girls, but this was far from the point.)

Had it been another teacher, the detentions probably wouldn't have been assigned in the first place, and the punishment - if there was any - would've been much less severe. But it was Naruto. And to go against Naruto was to go against an army of associates and friends he had at his side. Everyone was willing to subside to his judgment and deem it legible, simply because of how strongly he felt on the manner, and how far he had looked into it.

The girls were unhappy with him. But that didn't cramp his style too much.

Heartbreak on Akamaru's part might, though.

Truthfully, he was very worried over it. Not to the point where it kept him awake - despite long bouts of insomnia that would visit him sporadically, Naruto was constantly fatigued by the tumultuous goings on of his loose sense of self and sanity - but to the point where it clouded his thought process very effectively.

That made teaching - and thinking coherently - a difficult process, to say the least.

He caught himself stopping in the middle of the lesson again. He groaned, reaching up from the lectern to pinch the skin just above the bridge of his nose, before dragging them back through his hair. Two dozen eyes blinked at him, ebony among them; Sasuke had returned ten minutes into the class period, giving no excuse for himself as he sat down. Since then, Naruto had found himself being thrown off tangent with ease, not to mention losing sight of everything completely, trailing off into nothingness as he had just done.

“Sensei…?” Akamaru asked from her place in the front row. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Naruto…you look like shit.” Haruno Sakura swung her legs from where she sat on top of Naruto desk. Iruka's class was on one of their many fieldtrips and, as usual, her parents had not allowed her to go. Naruto had specially requested her presence throughout the day, and Umino and the rest of her teachers had agreed to it, so long as she did the work that was required of her. So far, though, she hadn't managed to help him as much as he'd have liked.

“Don't swear,” the blonde muttered, automatically. The cherry-blossom frowned at him in a chastising manner (`You're one to talk') but said nothing in reply.

“Sensei,” Chouji said from the back. “Do you have a hang-over?”

The class laughed collectively, and Naruto chuckled too, caught up in it.

“No. Thanks for asking. You fail.”

The class laughed again and Naruto beamed out at them, happy for their company at least, even if he couldn't really think.

“Okay. Somebody help me remember what I was talking about.”

Chouji did it hurriedly, flushed from the failure comment, which was something amusing and substantial in its own right. Naruto had the feeling that the boy really did have an interest for the subject as much as he tried to act otherwise around his friends. The blonde kept his bright blue eyes trained on him as the boy slurred and flattered his way through a bit of information about the founding fathers, and then nodded, forcing himself back into the gist of the lesson plan.

Acting okay when nothing was, was hard on him. He knew it plenty well, from the knots in his back to the pain in his temples and the distraction that deadened him. Everything in him was tired, overused and worn. He tried; he tried every ounce of his best to be happy and fun to listen to. And he was…to everyone who didn't really know him that well. To the ones that did it was like hearing glass break - empty and sad and final, like death incarnate.

His reactions were weathered, so much so that when the bell finally rung and he waved everyone out the door (a little too enthusiastically), it was all he could do not to collapse onto one of the tables and go to sleep. He could've, had he really wanted to. He had second period prep, after all. But he didn't, because the few manners Iruka had branded into his brain wouldn't allow for it.

“I'll come get you after school, sensei!” Akamaru said off-handedly as she left, a broad smile on her face. He nodded, and then found himself realizing exactly what was on his mind as it stared over at him with dark eyes. The rest of the class filtered out of the room, leaving them standing, facing one another, like cowboys about to draw, or something to that effect. They looked like hey would've gladly shot each other, truth be told, but as it were, they had no means of doing so.

Sasuke simply stared at him and he stared back for a long while before speaking. He knew the perplexed look Sakura was giving them without having to face it, and figured he'd best rap this up quickly before things got out of hand, and the girl had to witness their attempts to verbally strangle one another.

Naruto turned back to the papers spread out across his lecture stand, stacking them so that he might avoid the boy's eyes. “Consider yourself free of my oppression this afternoon, Uchiha-san.”

Said student seemed to go particularly sour at the formality of his tone, although Naruto doubted anyone but him would've ever noticed, unless Sasuke was particularly close to anyone he didn't know about, who would've chanced recognizing the stiff way he held himself now. Somehow, he doubted that too.

“On what grounds, may I ask?”

“I've made arrangements to speak with Inuzuka-chan on private matters.” He glanced up, stuffing the papers into the cubby he was provided beneath the slate-like table surface of the platform. Sasuke looked positively murderous, for such a stoic person. Something boiled beneath his skin but he ignored it with every particle of his being, noticing that it felt like something a little less than loathing.

“I'm sure you understand.”

There was no question, but the bitterness between them lingered. Naruto couldn't decipher the look Sasuke was giving him for the life in him, which was slightly threatening, but it seemed like something that authentically translated the thoughts of both parties.

Why the hell are you looking at me like that?

It couldn't be…

Naruto chuckled then, losing his sense of having a witness for a moment. That was ludicrous. So much so that he felt the need to voice it.

“Jealous?”

Sasuke watched him for a second, before answer quite bluntly.

“Yes.”

Naruto twitched slightly as the boy turned on his heel and pushed through the door.

“Have a nice day, then, sensei.”

It was a cruel and ironic day, seeing as it came from the mouth that had so easily ruined any chance that Naruto would have one any time soon.

Sakura blinked, bright emerald eyes wide, questioning and childish as she watched Naruto try to go back to moving around like what had just taken place hadn't, indeed, taken place. The moment was dead to him, he said to himself, and he pushed it away from himself forcefully, going back to rummaging in order to keep his perplexed mind as busy as he could.

“What was that about…?”

“Nothing important.”

“Something about it has you worried…I'm not stupid, you know.”

Naruto nodded absently. “Mm.”

“Does he…” The cherry-blossom peered at him. “Does he…like you…?”

He shuddered. “No.”

“You don't think so, at least.”

“Sure. Let's go with that.”

“Hm,” the girl said, kicking her legs back and forth, back and forth, putting her finger to a corner of her mouth as she thought on it. “No…I've seen the ones that like you like that, and he definitely seems the same, that way. What if he really does like you and you're just not acknowledging it?”

Naruto twitched again.

“That,” he said, chewing at the skin of his lower lip, “is precisely what has me so worried.”

“Explains a lot,” Sakura said, still kicking her legs.

The Inuzuka Animal Shelter was a mismatched, out-of-the-way sort of place in Noe Valley, and had it not been so far from his own home near the Kubome, Naruto probably would have frequented it, simply because of the magnetic effect such places seemed to have on him. It seemed small on the outside but wasn't really, a one-story sanctuary for strays and veterinary clinic that both Inuzuka parents, and their eldest daughter Hana, managed. The twins managed the cages and orientation of the Shelter's inhabitants to humans.

Naruto had always felt a strange attraction to strays; animals (and humans) with no place to belong and no home to return to. The Shelter had plenty of them, of all varieties: cats, rodents by the ton, birds that bit, a raccoon with a missing leg and a gorgeous pair of swans that had been illegally imported into the United States. And the dogs. There was a countless number of dogs, and the entire facility was full to the brim with them. It was obvious that neither child had been lying in saying that they liked dogs. To the contrary, both seemed to know each individual as a very old friend.

Akamaru was crouched over a German Shepard pup, stroking its belly, while Naruto struggled to keep a large golden Labrador-pitbull mix from unseating him, laughing hard as the dog washed his face thoroughly with its tongue. The girl smiled over at him as a shorthair terrier came over to beg for her attention by tugging at the jeans she wore. (She'd changed upon there arrival at the home - both had: Kiba was across the way, herding about what seemed to be a pack of collies and the like.)

“Man, she just adores you, sensei.”

Naruto coughed, rubbing the dog's floppy ears with a grin. “Yeah…she's a sweetie. What's her name?”

“Nonki,” she said, without missing a beat. “She's been here around three months - Kiba brought her in off the highway after some jackass hit her with a car. Tags, but they were too old…we think the owner moved and couldn't keep her, so they left her here. It's a shame, especially when we're talking about Nona-chan, isn't it baby?” The dog trotted over to relieve the girl's upset expression with some well-placed licks. “It's okay though…I think my brother likes her a lot. She's really shy around loud people - which is why it was such a surprise when she latched right on to you - but she and Kiba-niichan get along real well, so I don't think we'll try adopting her out.”

Naruto nodded, smiling and patting the dog's head. Nonki wagged her tail hard and came back to nuzzle his hand. “He'll take good care of her, I have no doubt.” He glanced over at Akamaru with faked annoyance. “…Are you suggesting that I'm loud, by any chance?”

The girl laughed, openly. “Only a whole lot!” The puppy she'd been ignoring for a few minutes crawled into her lap, barking at the terrier, who jumped but stuck around stubbornly. She waved them apart, still laughing at the notion of Naruto being anything other than obnoxious. The teacher laughed as well, agreeing with her.

“So,” she said finally, looking over at him. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Naruto did his best to avoid blanching. He didn't like it but they had to talk about this. He needed to see how deep in she was, just for his own curiosity's sake, but at the same time he needed to make sure he didn't over impose his position, or get in too deep. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.

That was oddly ironic, seeing who he was to Akamaru and what he had come here to discuss.

She blinked over at him and he sighed, deciding that bluntness was his best friend at this moment.

“Akamaru…do you like Haku?”

A blush immediately bloomed out over the girl's nose and cheeks, bold and unyielding to any of her indignant attempts to smother it. Naruto figured that was enough of an answer to his question but it wasn't as if you could just walk away from such a conversation, having started it yourself.

The girl sighed after a small silence and smiled shyly to herself, entwining her hands in front of her knees.

"You noticed, huh?"

Naruto ruffled the hair of the shepherd who came to him for attention, now.

"Yeah, I did...I'm sorry, it's not really any of my business-"

"Don't worry about it sensei." Akamaru directed her smile at him now. "You're my teacher. Of course it's your business."

Naruto nodded, feeling guilty but returning the smile. "Thank you."

Akamaru nodded, still blushing. Naruto progressed with as much caution as he possibly could.

"How long have you-"

Akamaru took the puppy from him, seeming to need a way to distract herself. Naruto didn't mind, seeing as it was better than he delaying the conversation or twiddling her thumbs. She rubbed behind its ears and he noticed how jittery she was; how much the subject matter excited her. Even if Naruto was, by far, her superior, it was typical female behavior to enjoy talking about the object of her current affection.

That made him worry.

"Oh, I don't remember exactly...we kept bumping into each other at really awkward intervals. There was this one time late last month that Kiba and I had been arguing...I was crying and I went to the arcade down the road to ease my stress a little bit and I lost track of this guy..." she rubbed the dog's ears in a motherly way, expression soft. "Haku-san just came out of nowhere and helped me look for him...then he helped me stop crying and told me I was a smart person, even if I didn't think so." She buried her face in the puppy's fur, blushing. "It was so nice..."

Naruto chuckled. "Haku's a very kind person, isn't he?"

Akamaru nodded rapidly, getting swept in it and turning to him with a broad grin. "He really is! He's so nice to everyone around him, and yet so mysterious...I don't know anything about his home situation or anything, or really anything about his past, but I really like him anyway! He's so pretty and quiet and...and..." She trailed off, her entire face gone pink, looking out at the courtyard full of dogs.

"Haku-san wa...that is...saa...Haku-san wa...anohito wa hontÅ ni hontÅ ga suki da na." That person is the one I really, really like.

Naruto sighed, trying to be happy for her. Trying was, of course, the key word there.

This was bad.

If what he suspected was true, this was very bad.

"Are you sure?"

He wondered if the seriousness of his tone would make Akamaru flinch. It was unreasonably cold, even though he hadn't meant it to be. She didn't though. She remained motionless and smiling for a moment before looking over at him.

"Yeah. I am."

Naruto swallowed hard, trying very hard not to let his discomfort show. That was very, very bad.

The phone ringing shrilly from the other room made him jump. Tsume, the two siblings' mother, leaned her head through the awning of the doorway that led out to the cages, peering around. She was a fearsome looking woman with hair that seemed spiked, eye-makeup to rival an emo kid, and a no-nonsense aura around her (Naruto could understand Akamaru's admitted fear of Tsume's wrath). She wore a lab coat and waved a cordless phone in her hands.

"Naruto-sensei," she said, calling his attention to him. "Someone's calling for you."

"Eh...?" Naruto blinked. What the heck?

"A man named Hatake Kakashi," Tsume said, opening the cage door and moving the dogs away with her foot almost dully. "You ought to talk to him out near the entrance - the dogs make quite a racket on the phone lines."

Naruto nodded dumbly. Kakashi? Why was Kakashi calling him at the Inuzuka residency?

How would Kakashi have known to reach him at the Inuzuka residency...? It wasn't as if he had felt obligated to tell anyone where he was going because it wasn't a big deal and it wasn't going to take very much time, so he hadn't. Maybe Yohko had panicked...? That wasn't like her though.

He took the phone from her fingers and walked down the hall out to where the entry way was. He leaned against the front desk and shrugged the receiver to his ear, looking over the room.

"What is it?"

"Are you close to a television?"

Naruto tensed at the sound of Kakashi's voice - tightened and serious. He felt himself go cold, his stomach twisting into knots. Kakashi only spoke like that when...

Oh no...

Kakashi only spoke like that when something was wrong. Really wrong.

"Uh..." He was nervous, now. This wasn't good. He took the phone a bit away from his mouth and shouted down the hall, trying to keep himself from seeming as restless as he felt now. "Naa, Tsume-san? May I use your television?"

The woman replied with a loose, swift tone. "Sure - it's in the cabinet behind the desk!"

Sure enough, as he slipped the wooden coverings open the black screen reflected his worried face back into his eyes. He took the phone to his ear again, pressing the on switch. He was fighting very, very hard to stay calm, which was very hard with the way his throat was constricting.

"Which channel?"

"Seven. Get there fast."

Naruto jabbed the keys down as quickly as he could manage, feeling as if he might irreversibly fumble sometime soon. It was difficult to keep the phone from falling with it balanced upon his collar and both of his hands occupied, but somehow he coped with it. Something was very, very wrong, for Kakashi to be talking like that. The numbers in the corner blinked as the channels flipped by, before seven was highlighted in blue.

Naruto stared at the screen, his eyes wide and tinted with the color the glared at him from the screen.

An anchorwoman occupied the wide oak desk, with brown lips and skin and greasy looking black hair, her hands folded neatly in front of her. She was progressing onwards from a story about wine and prisoners to the big story of the night, which scrolled beneath her. A logo in the bottom right corner of the display rotated slowly. "Channel Seven News" it said. It would've all seemed ordinary if Naruto hadn't been so overpowered by the moving image that soon enveloped the entire monitor.

"...crowds, just after emerging from his home in Japan for the first time, last week, since his retirement six-and-a-half-years ago. Mr. Tazuna, who lost his son-in-law, the ever-popular GÅki Kaiza, to hit men of the opposing political party two years prior to that retirement, had this to say to his rallying supporters in Washington."

Tazuna was unmistakable with his glasses, wide girth and dark grey hair. He stood, tall and strong-looking, in front of the masses, dressed in a starched suit to match his beard, hands folded behind his back as his voice boomed out, his English flawless except for an almost unnoticeable lisp that undermined his 'r's and 'l's.

"These past few years have, indeed, been difficult for me; as I'm sure the press was informed this morning, my daughter and her son Inari's location are still unknown. But, with that hardship and difficulty has come serious insight on my part. Inspiration and ideas as to how I can continue to make the world a better place, and enable even the weakest of people with the ability to defend themselves and form their own beliefs. I want a happy planet for my grandson's memory to cherish, and for what would've been his children to play in. I want safety and security for those who do not know what it is.

"I will not give up the fight! These are my dreams, and I am going to find a person who can work with me to make sure that they are secured. I will not rest until we have created something admirable out of our Mother Earth. I plan to complete my building in San Francisco, and it will act as a beacon of hope for people everywhere! It will as a beacon for everything this country stands for! Freedom of oppression! Freedom of fear! I will not give up the fight!"

He had begun to gesticulate widely as his speech became more emotional, and now he jabbed the air with his meaty fist to better punctuate his determination. The crowd exploded with uproarious applause.

Naruto stared.

Kakashi's voice on the other end of the phone startled him out of a daze. The man was quiet, seeming contemplative for whatever his reason was. Personally, Naruto couldn't find much about the situation that was worth contemplating.

"He's got some nerve, mm?"

"Oh my God."

The receiver loosed itself from Naruto cold, clammy fingers and hit the floor with an angry clatter. He stared, gaping, unmoving, and unable to believe what had just happened. That...oh God...it couldn't be. Tazuna couldn't possibly...

"That mother-fucking bastard."

His blood twitched with agitation and a dire need to scream.

That asshole.

He stared at the screen a while longer before glancing down at the phone and bending jerkily to pick it up. He did not rise again, however, his knees giving out as he flopped onto the floor. Asshole. Asshole. He couldn't do that. He couldn't...

"He can't do that!"

Naruto's voice was hot with fury, loud and obnoxious and unrelenting. Kakashi sighed, voice becoming much more appropriate in regards to the situation. Naruto didn't care if the tone made him feel like crying. There was no fucking way Tazuna could get away with this and not - at the very least - make them both very, very angry.

"He can't fucking do that!"

"I know."

"He's endangered all of us by doing this, Kakashi! It's his own business if he gets himself off-ed, but he's deliberately drawing us all into it by coming here of all places! He can't do that! He's putting us all in danger!"

"Watch the rest of the report, Naruto."

He really didn't need to tell him twice. The sound of gunshots, however faint, coming from the speakers, made him jump to attention.

The clip was blurred, filmed unprofessionally, with a date and time blinking across the top, courtesy of the camcorder. However, it clearly showed a grinning Tazuna, surrounded by bodyguards, as he descended the steps of a private jet liner. The bang rang out and he toppled, screams rippling out of everywhere.

Naruto's eyes were wide with associated memories.

"...taken today, by a spectator, shows us Mr. Tazuna's new predicament. Although police report that the wound to the man's shoulder was far from lethal, the perpetrator has not been found. He is currently being housed at a local hospital..."

The drone of the woman's voice nearly drowned out the unneeded explanation.

The blonde had stopped thinking a while ago.

"Kakashi...he's killed us."

"I know."

"Kakashi...he's killed us. All of us. His own grandson. All of us."

"He's staying at the Kubome, Naruto."

Naruto just sat there and tried to breathe. In, out. In, out. Why was that so impossible right now?

"Has...has Yohko...does Yohko know?" He was choking on air and his own words.

"Yohko is the one that demanded I call each one of your student's houses in order to figure out where you were. She's frantic."

"Frantic?"

"Tazuna isn't the problem. Not directly, anyway. He may or may not have killed us by coming here, but that's the least of our worries right now."

"What?"

"Naruto...Inari's gone."

End Chapter 09

I am so sorry for neglecting this account for so very long! Only the people who have so eagerly jumped on the bandwagon reminded me - I really do apologize. The tenth chapter will circulate in short order…please bear with me. … Somebody called my story brilliant. (blush)

--Lady Lamb

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