Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-sensei

Kisu

Sasuke was staring at the blond in front of him as he was talking and laughing with the rosette. Kakashi was standing beside him, giggling behind his book. Sasuke just ignored him.

He had just finished another dozen or so D-rank missions today. He thought he had helped a lot of genins by doing the most boring and annoying missions for them. Even though he had been an S-class nukenin, he was now confined to do a genin's job.

As irritating as it was, it also had a right feeling to it, somehow. Partly because he felt like he was making things up to Konoha, but more importantly he felt like he was redeeming himself (even just a tiny bit) from Itachi's death.

Itachi had wanted him to return to the village and Sasuke knew he'd made the right decision. More so than ever when he had realised his feelings for a certain someone. He hadn't known that his teammate had been so important to him. Especially these last couple of months.

He saw how Naruto was wiping away tears from laughing so hard. He looked over to the cause of his happy-tears, who was laughing as well but in a less exuberant way. Sakura held a hand on her stomach and laughed out loud, genuinely amused.

Sasuke had been afraid that with his return Sakura would be the one, along with Ino, that could make him regret his decision of returning. He'd been quite surprised to notice how much she'd changed.

Of course she had been glad that he'd had returned and hugged him and what not. But she wasn't at all the fan girl from years ago. It was as if she'd matured a lot and by now, one and a half year after his return, he knew this was true.

He knew she still loved him, not even in a different way than before his leaving, but she now knew you couldn't impose your feeling onto someone, like she used to do; especially not on Sasuke.

Sasuke hadn't been allowed to do the simple D-rank missions on his own. Someone had to accompany him, just in case… Mostly it was someone from his own team, sometimes when they couldn't come with him, it was Shikamaru or Yamato.

When Sakura was his supervisor, Sasuke had come to see these changes of her the most. She acted normal around him, like she would with others; she was herself. And because of that, they had been able to grow closer; their friendship was deeper and friendlier so to speak.

Suddenly Sakura noticed Sasuke staring at her and she stroked a lost strand of hair out of her face.

"Want to do more missions?" she asked.

Sasuke snorted. She already knew the answer anyway.

Sakura smiled back at him.

"Let's get something to eat!" Naruto said excitedly.

Kakashi looked up as well. "Sounds like a plan." He saw Naruto's mouth open to let out the word for his favourite food. "But no ramen." Naruto pouted.

"I know some cute new restaurant. I don't think you have been there before." Sakura looked around.

"Okay," everyone agreed and followed her into the village; away from the training ground.

-x-

Sasuke was staring at his empty plate. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, staring. Probably because he had a lot on his mind.

About 4 months ago he'd come to realise that he had feelings for Naruto; that he liked him more than just a friend or even more as a brother like Naruto had called him over 5 years ago at the Valley of the End.

It had taken him 2 whole months to realize that he actually felt more than just 'liking' Naruto, another few weeks to figure out what that meant to him and about a month of trying to find out what the blond felt for him. The conclusion until now was that Naruto was oblivious to his feelings and probably didn't know how he himself saw the raven; what he meant to him. This in combination with some other things had resulted in some restless nights in the past few weeks as he couldn't stop thinking about the blond jinchuuriki.

He'd caught himself trying to be around Naruto as much as he could and trying to touch him, his warm and surprisingly soft skin, in some unnoticeable ways.

He sighed as he thought what it would be like if this would continue for another few months.

Naruto was talking to Kakashi now, who was telling him to finish his vegetables. His hair seemed to radiate like the sun even inside the restaurant, Sasuke noticed. And the way his lips moved when he talked… They didn't completely close as he stopped talking.

Sasuke mentally shook his head and sighed again at the same moment Naruto pouted and crossed his arms in front of his chest; persistent not to eat the poisonous foods.

He turned to look at anything else other than Naruto to distract himself and ended up with Sakura as she was folding her napkin in some origami flower.

He sat there like that for quite a while it seemed and he was almost startled by Kakashi when he suddenly touched his shoulder as Naruto and Sakura had already left the table.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Hn." He stood up and ignored Kakashi's eye upon him.

Kakashi had been there when Sasuke had returned and had been to all his hearings and seen how gruff he'd reacted. How after the jail period it had seemed to have intensified, but how slowly his angry facade had dropped and had been replaced by the face Kakashi had known from the Sasuke from his genin team. As he had been able to do missions and be around his old team almost every day, he had become friendlier; it had done him good.

Kakashi had actually seen him smile not even a month ago during their team training. But these past few weeks he seemed to start holding back again. Kakashi was afraid he was regretting his decision of coming back to Konoha. Especially with all the frustrating chores he had to do far below his abilities.

Kakashi had been, just like the rest of his team, surprised but very glad when the raven had returned out of his own free will, nonetheless. He was glad his team was back together and he could see the impact it had had on his students and even on himself. Perhaps he'd been to blind, because of this, to be able to look neutrally at the situation. What if Sasuke was planning something?

He was almost certain that this wasn't the case, but even the Sandaime hadn't seen coming what Orochimaru was actually doing.

He sighed as he followed Sasuke out of the restaurant to join the rest of team Kakashi. He decided he would have a short talk with Tsunade about this... in a couple of days, or weeks even. He wasn't very eager to do this. Besides, he had no real evidence this was true. Instead he grasped his green book and started reading to distract his thoughts.

Sakura hit him on the arm. "Kakashi-sensei! You can do that at your home."

"Where are we going then?" he asked back. Sakura's stern face became a frown.

She sighed. "Still, you can do it when you arrive at your home."

Kakashi smiled and actually closed the book, but didn't say anything.

"Wow, never thought I would live to see the day..." Naruto started amazed as he watched Kakashi putting away his perverted book.

Sakura smiled. "Oh, no-" she suddenly inhaled and stayed standing like she remembered she had forgotten something very important.

"What, Sakura-chan? Is everything alright?" Naruto asked concerned.

"Could it be?" She seemed to be talking to herself. Naruto's right eye narrowed in suspicion. Sasuke just stood staring at her with an almost blank face and Kakashi tilted his head ever so slightly.

Sakura stared at the white haired man and pointed to him. "Could it be you have a girlfriend?"

Surprised faces looked back at her; well Kakashi and Sasuke were just pulling up an eyebrow but Naruto certainly was surprised.

"Is it true?" he asked Kakashi.

Kakashi sighed and put his hand in front of his little exposed face and shook his head. "No," was all he said.

"Ow," came the almost disappointed voice from Naruto.

"I really thought..." Sakura said quietly, almost mumbling, and she started walking again.

"Hmpf," was Sasuke's only reply to this all. He was too busy thinking about his dilemma to really be interested in what was said.

Perhaps he should tell Naruto how he felt or should he just wait until his feeling were returned to him? The only thing wrong with the last plan was that Naruto could be very thick when it came to feelings towards him.

He said his silent goodbyes to Sakura and Kakashi when they split up to walk to their homes. He and Naruto continued their way (their apartments weren't that far from each other) and he started walking beside Naruto instead of slightly behind him.

Naruto was talking to him, but he actually found it hard to listen to the story and instead just nodded or scowled occasionally. Naruto appeared unaware of this. But on a certain moment he didn't give an answer on the right moment and Naruto stopped walking. Sasuke's shoulder brushed against Naruto's and he turned to the blond.

"What, dobe?" Sasuke asked as Naruto stared angrily at him.

"You're not even listening, teme. If it's boring to you, you can just tell me."

Sasuke just stared back with his almost expressionless face, which wasn't such a good idea.

"Are you even feeling anything at all? You just look like how Sai used to be. Can't you smile once in a while? Aren't you happy to be back?" The last question had been the one that had been bothering the blond the most and Sasuke knew this by the tone of voice he had used to ask it.

Sasuke sighed and showed a small smile, how could he explain he was happier than he had ever been since the death of his clan. Naruto had no idea of how he felt.

But the way he had sighed with that smirk on his face had been enough for Naruto, who had taken this in a completely different way than Sasuke had intended.

Sasuke felt a fist connect with his stomach and he doubled over slightly out of surprise from the blow. It wasn't unusual though, this fighting, they fought about a lot of things all the time. It was just their way of... expressing themselves, Sasuke thought. But he wasn't just going to let Naruto have his fun, so he kicked back. Naruto ducked just in time and stormed forward, pushing them both into a deserted alley.

Sasuke was barely able to hold himself up as Naruto had thrown all of his weight into the attack. He shoved Naruto off of him and Naruto balanced himself but couldn't avoid Sasuke's fist in his gut. Sasuke grabbed his shoulders. Suddenly it hit him... What if...? No, that would be stupid even for him. But still, what if he just...?

Sasuke had set his mind and pushed Naruto against the wall in the alley. Naruto expected another punch and closed his eyes in advance, but instead something entirely different happened. Something he had absolutely not expected. What he felt instead were… Sasuke's lips?

Naruto's eyes flew wide open as Sasuke was kissing him on the mouth and suddenly it became very hard for the blond to think with Sasuke standing over him, his hands resting beside his shoulders against the wall.

Was this like on the academy, an accident? Had Sasuke somehow tripped and then their lips had… accidentally met? But why wasn't Sasuke pulling back then?

Naruto stood there, stiff as a board, not knowing what to do; but at least one thing was sure: he wasn't pushing Sasuke away.

Then finally after a few moments, Sasuke moved. But instead of pulling away he pressed forward and began shifting his head as he kissed Naruto more intensely. He was beginning to wonder if this had perhaps not been such a good idea after all. Naruto wasn't reacting in any way; he was just… in shock? No, not shock, it was more astonishment. So Sasuke was still unable to determine what Naruto thought of him; he didn't pull back from the kiss, but he wasn't responding either.

It seemed, to the both of them, like they stood there in this kind of awkward position (to them) for hours; just staring at each other - wide, big blue eyes into narrow, steady black orbs. Sasuke carefully nibbled on Naruto's lower lip. He even began to wonder if the blond hadn't had a heart attack and was actually death by now.

As a last resort to trigger Naruto into moving, Sasuke brought his hand down to Naruto's arms. First just gripping his shoulders; no response. His neck; no response. His chest...

Naruto blinked and suddenly gasped as he broke free from the kiss. Sasuke pulled back ever so slightly, black hair and blond mixed as their foreheads nearly touched.

This had been a bad idea, Sasuke thought, but just as his mind began to form all kinds of stupid excuses to explain this situation, one even worse than the other, Naruto grasped his upper arms, his eyes averted to the ground. He could feel Naruto's breath in his face.

Sasuke's heart started pounding. He thought he was going insane. What did Naruto think about him? And he certainly hoped his almost desperation wasn't showing on his face. He seemed to have lost his ability to control his emotions along with the kiss.

Naruto was confused, and that was an understatement. His poor brain couldn't handle the situation. He had absolutely never considered Sasuke as something more than a friend or brother. And now he was kissing him, deliberately; Naruto couldn't deny anymore after such a long kiss that it had been an accident.

But beside the confusion and the astonishment there had been something else. Something he had never experienced before and that was why he had such difficulty understanding the situation. He had felt weird churns in his stomach- he had felt... happy? No it was different, better, but still similar at the same time. He couldn't think, why had his brain given up on him? He really needed it. Why couldn't he just shove Sasuke aside? As a result of being in this literally thoughtless situation, he could only do one thing: follow his instinct.

And so it happened that he pulled a surprised Uchiha (to say the least, he had more or less given up hope after such a long time of silence) to him and kissed the raven back. Though unlike Naruto, Sasuke recovered extremely fast. His hands found blond hair and grippbed into it as he felt Naruto squeeze his upper arms. They closed their eyes and just stood there kissing, for eternity. Until...

A very loud scream echoed through the alley. Out of alarm Naruto and Sasuke pushed each other away so fiercely Sasuke almost bounced against the other wall; both looking around with startled faces.

Sakura had stopped screaming and held herself up to the corner of the building, her mouth wide open. She had never, ever in her entire live expected to see something like this; Sasuke and Naruto kissing each other... and liking it, so it seemed. She couldn't move.

Sakura's scream however had done wonders to Naruto's stunned brain from a few moments ago. He turned around, ready to jump away. Sasuke made a weird move to grasp him, but stopped himself. He didn't dare to stop the blond with Sakura around and before he knew it he was left alone to stare back at the frozen rosette at the beginning of the alley.

Fortunately for him she thawed very quickly from her frozen state and ran away. Now he really was left all alone in the dark alley.

It had been over a month now. Kakashi just knew something had happened a month ago. His team had come to the training field, avoided each other's eyes and Naruto had been blushing quite a lot. Yes, Kakashi had noticed something had happened a month ago, he just didn't exactly know what.

What he did know, was that it impaired their ability to work as a team. Sasuke probably wasn't very far from being allowed to do higher ranked missions, so they had to train to become the team they were. But lately it almost seemed like Sasuke was the most talkative out of the three; at least he tried to have conversations with the other two. Sure, Naruto still talked quite a lot, but compared to what he used to be, it was almost quiet. Even Kakashi had to admit he kind of missed the loudmouth.

The jounin thought this drawback of talking was of course caused by this 'thing' that hung between them, but also had to do with the fact that Sakura was actually scolding Naruto on everything he did wrong in her eyes. They had grown together so much in the last few years and it seemed it had disappeared in an instant.

The third reason had to do with the fact that Naruto somehow refused to say more than five words to Sasuke. This was rather strange. They didn't even fight anymore, not verbally nor physically.

And if that wasn't enough, something remarkable had occurred; Sakura wasn't speaking, not even looking at Sasuke anymore. She was ignoring him and Sasuke even seemed to regret that, somehow. Fortunately Sakura had slowly come around from this last point in the past week.

It was safe to say that Kakashi was at a loss. So he had decided to give them a choice today. Or they could talk this out themselves and solve it in the next week or he would get involved. Simple as that. He'd had enough of this 'thing' between them.

When he arrived at their training ground, his team was already there and he kind of missed the 'you're late' as the now typical silence hung in the air.

As he was about to ask what was going on, so he could give them the choice, something happened he hadn't seen in a long time. Naruto looked over to Sasuke, Sasuke looked back and Naruto gave him a small smile.

Kakashi almost lost it. What was going on? He looked over to Sakura; she looked over to the other two and then back to Kakashi, like everything was back to normal even though her look still held a fraction of... jealousy? Kakashi's eye narrowed. Could it be...?

"Sakura, come with me."

Kakashi looked over to Sasuke as he asked Sakura the question.

"Sure." Sakura followed Sasuke past the tree line and Kakashi followed them with his single black eye until he couldn't see them anymore. Then he turned to Naruto. He seemed concerned.

Really? Could it be Sakura had finally swooned Sasuke over? Was this the 'thing'? Had Naruto been angry at Sasuke because he had gotten Sakura's love? And Sakura could only loudmouth Naruto as he kept saying stupid things to Sasuke and about their newfound relation, while Sasuke just pretended everything was fine?

Kakashi thought about how Sasuke had been staring at Sakura a lot lately (not knowing that it had always been preceded by a look to Naruto as Sasuke had just been trying to distract himself). Almost everyone knew how Naruto felt about Sakura; of course he wouldn't just accept this. Yes, his theory actually sounded very reasonable for his team.

He looked at Naruto and Naruto looked back questioningly. "What?"

"Nothing." Finally he could get back to his peaceful reading without worrying about his team. The problem and the 'thing' were solved.

Naruto shrugged as he saw Kakashi get his orange book and began reading. He had actually noticed Kakashi hadn't done that a lot lately. He turned his head back to the forest on the training ground.

A few days ago he'd finally come to the conclusion that he did feel something for Sasuke and it had nothing to do with brotherly love. He actually though he really liked Sasuke; enough to tell him so last night.

He'd gone over to Sasuke's apartment and had rather nervously entered the building after Sasuke had noticed someone had been standing in front of his door for a long time. After stuttering for a moment he'd grabbed himself together and had told Sasuke he would like to try to be together with him. Sasuke had actually hugged him, hugged him! He still couldn't believe it; it made him blush only thinking back about it.

However, Naruto had told Sasuke they had to talk to Sakura. As genuinely shocked she had been when she had seen them kissing in that alley, Naruto thought she'd sort of come to accept the situation. Sasuke had said she had probably always known that it could be that Sasuke would not choose her in the end and had a 'built-in safeguard' (Sasuke's words, not his) to protect herself from this. However she was still shocked it hadn't been another woman though and sort of blamed Naruto because she didn't knew what else to do.

Sasuke had proposed that he would talk to her and tell her he'd advanced Naruto first, that the blond was not to blame. Naruto had wanted to come, but Sasuke had talked him out of it; surprisingly easy Naruto thought. He was a bit concerned about that, but that was something to think about some other time.

Naruto suddenly realised he hadn't heard if Sasuke would tell Sakura about what Naruto had come to tell him yesterday evening.

Before he could hurt himself with this thinking process, said teammates came back from the forest and Sakura looked a bit lost in thought. Sasuke walked in front of her.

"I remember I have to do some boring missions," he said.

"Okay," Kakashi said as he waved his hand, not even looking up from his book. Sasuke strolled away.

Sakura walked over to Naruto. "Would you please walk with me to the hospital?"

Naruto blinked a few times, looked over to their sensei, who was giggling again. "Sure, Sakura-chan."

They walked in silence at first, but Naruto just couldn't keep his mouth shut. He glanced at Sakura before saying, "Sorry about last month."

Sakura looked over to him, green met blue. "Me too," she said after a while and gave him a small, uncertain smile. Naruto smiled back.

"Let's just get things back to how they used to be. You're very special to me," Naruto said quietly.

Sakura stopped walking and Naruto stopped beside her. She raised her hand up to come and lay on Naruto's whiskered cheek. "Yeah, we've been through so much together."

"Exactly."

Sakura let her hand fall and hugged Naruto. It had been a rather quick hug, though. Sakura let go and smiled. "See you on our next mission." She walked through the gates of the hospital and was gone.

Naruto smiled. Finally everything could get back to normal, with the exception of one small thing. Okay, it wasn't small at all, it was huge. His smile became a big grin. Who would have thought; him and Sasuke, together? He certainly hadn't.

As he had started walking again he suddenly found himself near Sasuke's apartment. He could go over there; he knew Sasuke didn't have any missions to do today. Otherwise he would have asked one of them to come as his supervisor.

Naruto walked over to the right apartment and knocked on the door. Immediately the door opened and Naruto jolted back as he hadn't expected Sasuke to come to the door this quickly. Like he'd been waiting next to it.

"You want to give me a heart attack?" he asked as his eyebrows furrowed together.

"Course not; I was just very near the door."

Naruto raised an eyebrow and gave him a suspicious look. Had he been standing next to the door the entire time?

They walked inside and sat down on the couch in Sasuke's living room.

"What did you tell Sakura?" Naruto started, not being able to hold it back.

"What really happened when I kissed you and that noting has ever happened neither before nor after that."

"Ah." So he hadn't told Sakura about yesterday evening.

An uncomfortable silence fell in which Naruto started shifting. The shifting irritated Sasuke. Why couldn't he just sit still? He was the only person capable of entering sage-mode; he was a master at sitting still. However in daily life Naruto sucked at sitting still.

Sasuke slowly reached with his hand to Naruto's thigh and moved closer, bending to Naruto.

Naruto turned his eyes down to his hands in his lap as he felt Sasuke getting closer. He gripped the fabric of his pants more tightly. A blush crept up his face. Did Sasuke want to kiss him?

Sasuke was now leaning against Naruto's shoulder and didn't move for a while. Naruto tried to look everywhere except to Sasuke. Then slowly Sasuke reached up a hand and softly laid it on Naruto's chin. His hands felt cool and soft. Naruto could feel himself getting warmer in the face. He opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but closed it again.

Sasuke was mesmerized by Naruto's moving lips and his cute blush, which made a slight tint of pink creep up his own face. He liked the touch of Naruto's skin, like he had wanted to do for so long now.

He moved Naruto's head so he was facing Sasuke now. Blue eyes were still not meeting him.

"Eh, Sasuke?" Naruto asked softly, biting his lip.

Sasuke stopped breathing for a moment and then he withdrew his hand. Naruto slowly looked up to Sasuke until their eyes met. Sasuke had a grin on his face.

"Hn?"

Blue and black were locked to each other, unable to break away. For a moment there, time seemed to stop as everything around them disappeared from sight and they only had eyes for the other.

Naruto hadn't seen Sasuke grin... no, smiling very often. But he'd certainly never seen this kind of smile before. Sasuke's eyes seemed friendly instead of lonely or hard; they were soft and happy. He couldn't help his mouth from opening up a bit.

"Never mind." Naruto smiled back.

Everything was back to normal again and Naruto started fiddling once more. Sasuke just watched him silently.

Eventually Naruto couldn't take the silence any longer and asked, "I'm a bit- a bit thirsty, you?" Naruto looked up to Sasuke questioningly.

Sasuke stood up with a 'Hm' (a confirmation) and went to the kitchen to make some tea.

Naruto started looking around the apartment. He had been here before to pick Sasuke up for missions, but now he seemed to be looking at the house in a slightly different way. He noticed Sasuke had only two plants in his living room, one in each window: a normal cactus and a cactus with small red flowers.

Sasuke came back into the room and put the two glasses of tea on the low table.

"You only have two plants, both cacti," Naruto stated.

Sasuke followed Naruto's gaze to the windows. "Yes, they're easy plants to keep alive." He looked back to Naruto. He didn't know Naruto liked plants. He only had one big plant himself.

No, that wasn't true. Now that he thought about it, he remembered Naruto actually had a lot of plants hidden between his rubble and other stuff all over his apartment.

"You like plants." It wasn't really a question nor a statement.

Naruto nodded. "I like watering and taking care of them."

"Hm." Sasuke grasped his cup of tea.

Naruto started stirring his own tea as he kept looking to the plants and outside.

"I can't keep anything else alive," Sasuke suddenly admitted.

Naruto pulled up his eyebrows for a second, not knowing what he was talking about until he noticed he was still talking about the plants.

"It's not that hard, you just have to water them regularly. How come you can't do it? You seem to be so orderly."

Sasuke shrugged. "They just die."

"I can help you with that," Naruto smiled as he leaned back into the couch. Naruto was finally becoming more relaxed Sasuke noticed.

"I like forget-me-not's," Sasuke almost mumbled.

"Really?" Naruto raised an eyebrow and grinned.

"Hn," Sasuke grumbled as he turned away, a bit embarrassed.

"They are not really indoor plants, you know?" Sasuke didn't turn back to face Naruto. "You know that right?" Naruto tried to look at Sasuke's hidden face, but was unable because of the black strands of hair. So he started laughing. "No wonder they died so easily."

"I never had them inside," Sasuke protested, looking back to Naruto. But Naruto could tell he had.

Still laughing Naruto turned to face Sasuke and considered him. "Though they are outdoor plants as well, I think you would like cornflowers."

Sasuke just stared back.

"What?" Naruto asked as he kept staring.

"I just never seen this side of you before. Makes me wonder what else I don't know," Sasuke said as he got a bit closer again.

"Well, I don't think there's much else," Naruto said as his eyes narrowed to thin lines and a smirk on his face. "I just don't talk about it a lot."

"Try never."

Naruto smiled and took a sip of his tea. "And you? You got some sinister hobbies I don't know of?"

"Not really."

"Tell me~," Naruto sang as he put his cup of tea down. Sasuke just stared at the table.

They talked some more about all kinds of things that Naruto wouldn't really remember the next day, but he knew he'd been having a good time as well as Sasuke.

"-so then ero-sennin told me he would take care of things. All he did was going straight for the ladies and started flirting around. I swear he took at least half my money during that time doing his 'research'!" Naruto pouted at the memory. "But I don't think the women appreciated his moving around them and neither the men he was ignoring. So a fight started and ero-sennin actually got beaten up by this brunette. Haha," Naruto started laughing. "All that just because a small frog escaped."

Sasuke's mouth was curved up a little, happy; but Naruto couldn't tell if it was because of the story or just because he'd had that smile on his face for a while now. He didn't know Sasuke was not so much interested in the story itself (though he did listen), but more in the way Naruto was moving and telling.

Naruto's laughing was gradually dying down and was replaced by frequent giggles and snickering. He turned to Sasuke with a big smile. "He caused me quite some trouble back then." He turned to look outside.

Sasuke could see Naruto really did understand him now, unlike at the Valley of the End. He did know what it was like to lose someone close to you.

"Tell me what happened."

Naruto turned to face Sasuke with a confused face. "I just did, didn't I?"

"Not about that." Sasuke's smile was gone and replaced by a serious look. "To Konoha; to you."

"Eh, I'm afraid I still don't understand," Naruto said scratching the back of his neck.

Sasuke was silent for a few seconds, looked down to his legs as they were pulled up to the couch into a casual sitting position."Nobody really told me what had happened to Konoha before I came back; just that you had defeated Pain." He looked back to Naruto as the blond slowly dropped his hand.

"No one?" he asked.

Sasuke shook his head lightly. "I didn't really have anyone's trust yet, back then."

"Ah."

"Or now," he mumbled, not really sure why it had even left his mouth in the first place. He supposed being around Naruto had this effect.

"What?" Naruto hadn't heard him.

Sasuke just looked up to Naruto to wait for him to start telling and after a minute or so, Naruto did. How he hadn't been there at first, but he told him what he'd heard from others. How Kakashi had died, that when he came to the village he'd fought Pain. About almost losing himself to the Kyuubi because of the things Pain had asked. That he'd somehow come back from that (he for some reason couldn't tell Sasuke about Yondaime) and his talk with Nagato.

"And then when we were rebuilding Konoha, just before you came back, we met up with Tazuna-jiji and Inari."

"Really?" Sasuke asked, not very curiously, but with a monotone voice.

Naruto nodded. "They asked for you, so I guess we will have to visit them sometime," he said with a smile.

Sasuke just stared back, not sure how to react to that. And in the silence a soft rumbling was heard.

"Ahaha," Naruto laughed awkwardly as he rubbed his neck again, eyes squinted to thin lines. "I guess I'm hungry from all the talking."

And then another rumbling was heard and Naruto's awkward laugh became a smile. He pointed to Sasuke. "You too."

Sasuke turned away a bit, to look to his left instead of Naruto. Naruto just watched him as his smile slowly became a grin; his eyes were still sparkling.

Suddenly Sasuke turned back to him, which made Naruto look up to the raven's eyes.

"Do you want to... go out?" Sasuke asked, a slight tint of pink creeping up his otherwise perfect straight face. He had actually wanted to formulate his sentence in a slightly different way, but he supposed he just couldn't. Those words were not supposed to come out of his mouth, after all.

"Eh, sure? Where do you want to go to?"

Sasuke kept silent for a few minutes. He hadn't expected Naruto to say yes. He didn't think Naruto wanted to do anything together outside of the house yet; in the 'open'.

"I don't know," he finally admitted.

Naruto looked out the window. He was surprised to see that it was almost evening already. No wonder he was hungry. Had they been talking for this long? They had never, ever talked for this long. So alright, he'd done most of the talking, but he'd never heard Sasuke pronounce this many word in one conversation; not even in an entire week.

"Let's eat something first."

"Sure."

"Ramen," Naruto happily sang as he stood up from the couch to walk to the door.

-x-

They had eaten ramen, as Sasuke had been unable to talk the blond out of this, and were now walking with filled stomachs through Konoha as the sun began to sink lower and lower.

"So, you know where you want to go already?" Naruto asked.

"No, but walking is fine with me. I like walking."

"Ah," Naruto said, turning away.

"I-I know a nice place to go to," he said after a moment.

Sasuke turned to him, but Naruto was still looking in front of him. Sasuke waited for him to tell, but nothing came and Sasuke began to wonder if he'd changed his mind. Perhaps he just wanted to go home already. They had been around each other for a rather long time, especially for a mission-free day like this. Perhaps this day had lasted long enough for Naruto, even though Sasuke would like it to last a little longer.

"Don't laugh, okay?"

Yeah right, Sasuke laughing... Sasuke just looked back to Naruto with his neutral face, like always, trying to keep his thoughts hidden.

"You know what?" Naruto said as he considered Sasuke. "Close your eyes."

A thin, black eyebrow rose up. "Hn?"

"J-just close your eyes." Naruto was blushing again. Sasuke sighed softly and closed his eyes. Hoping Naruto wouldn't just run off or something.

He felt a hand gripping his own and Naruto started walking off, soon it became running. Sasuke's heart was beginning to beat a little faster. It was quite exciting to follow Naruto blindly, putting his trust in him, while holding his warm hand.

They had been close to some training fields and Sasuke was sure they were running through and past a few of them. They were more out of sight that way.

"Jump," Naruto told him and he did as Naruto guided him through the air. They landed on a steep underground and he had to jump a few more times.

Now Sasuke couldn't really figure out where they were anymore, not completely sure of the directions they had jumped into.

After running some more Naruto finally slowed down. Sasuke could feel cold wind blowing around him and his hair was fluttering around his face, as well as his clothes.

Naruto guided him a little further and then pulled him down, so he sat down on the hard ground.

"You can open your eyes."

When Sasuke opened his eyes he saw a most beautiful sight. The sun was going under and he was looking out over the orange and red coloured city. He couldn't say anything for a moment as he was mesmerized by the sight. There were still some people walking around, just dots from where they were sitting. The wind was blowing through the forest, making the leaves of the trees turn different colours in the setting sun.

Eventually he was able to divert his look to rest on Naruto, who was unconsciously fidgeting with his pants and swaying his legs slowly back and forth over the edge as he looked over Konoha; his yellow spikes and the ends of his headband swaying with the wind and the sun reflecting in his eyes.

"You come here more often, don't you?"

Naruto nodded. "I like sitting up here. It's so calm and quiet." He turned to face Sasuke. "And to watch where I do it all for." Sasuke understood he was talking about his dream to become Hokage.

"But why this place?" Sasuke pointed down to the spike where they were sitting on.

Naruto shrugged.

Sasuke looked over to the other head's of the Hokages; Tsunade to their left, Sandaime, Nidaime and Shodaime to their right. He let it go and turned his look back to the leaf village.

They just watched the sun go under as the wind became colder. Sasuke moved closer to Naruto, as he was still warm. Naruto understood what he was doing and got closer to Sasuke until he could lean against his shoulder.

"You cold?" he asked.

"Hn," was Sasuke's only reply as he turned his head to Naruto again, watching him only move his eyes over the city.

Then Naruto glanced at him and slowly turned his head. They were looking at each other with very, very little space between their faces. The blush was immediately back on Naruto's face and Sasuke smirked as he thought of how often that had happened this day already. Slowly he closed the distance between them.

Their lips touched and this time Naruto didn't freeze up. He returned the kiss, hesitantly at first but soon with more confidence, and the blush spread. He closed his eyes and so did Sasuke.

Naruto felt an exciting feeling coming from his stomach and lower region, but he tried to focus on the kiss instead. He just hoped he was doing it all right.

Sasuke's hand, which had been placed behind him, moved over to grip Naruto's shoulder and squeezed the fabric of his jacket.

Sasuke pulled back a few centimetres, with his headband touching Naruto's, just to get back into kissing him again as Naruto was the one moving to him. Sasuke had just wanted to be sure Naruto wanted this as well. To get rid of this tiny thought Naruto might not want this.

After a couple of minutes Naruto pulled back; very red in the face now. They were both breathing a little faster than normal.

Finally Sasuke spoke. "That was better than last time, right?"

Naruto looked up to Sasuke, who had a pink blush himself. Naruto nodded quickly. Sasuke's hand was still on his arm and his face was very close to the other.

He couldn't help his mouth forming into a smile as black orbs were sparkling as they moved over his face. He just knew he wouldn't regret this. He was still nervous and a bit afraid about this new kind of relationship, but in a good and more or less exciting way. He'd never expected anything like this to happen in his live, had never really considered it.

He liked it... a lot.

Black hair was blowing into his face as a smile had formed behind it.

"Yeah, definitely."

Owari

Background info:

In the story of Byouki and this oneshot, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke are 18 years. Sasuke came back after Naruto defeated Pain. He was already on his way to Konoha in the manga (only then to kill the elders) instead he really wanted to return after killing Itachi and being told the truth by Madara.

He had to stay in jail for half a year, was on probation for the next four months and couldn't do any C or higher rank missions for the year after that. We are now in the oneshot at a year and a half since Sasuke's comeback (6 months before Byouki).

He had to attend three hearings since he came back, one immediately after he came back, the second after the half year jail period and the third after the probation.

Oh, and yes, there is some OOC-ness from Sasuke, I know.