Oh, how deeply I apologize to you all. I have no excuse; I was just being lazy. It was shounen month, then shoujo month, then yaoi week, so I simply didn't think of the story at all. It wasn't until shia-naru reminded me of the loooooooooooooooong delay I've put you guys all through. Soooooo sorry! _

But, honestly, thank you all for being so patient (or just forgetting about the story in general) and following. There were so many follows in my absence that my laziness is too strong to name you all, but I love you for following! Muah! xoxoxoxoxo It's not as long as I originally wanted it to be, but I promised Friday, and I must fulfill it (though it's 12am).

Also, I caught up to Naruto (which I must disclaim, because I don't have to patience to dedicate 678 chapters to ninjas), and I'm going to probably ignore the whole [DON'T READ THIS SENTENCE IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP] Sasuke-Naruto-spirit-chakra-brothers-sage-thing for the story or maybe not make a big deal out of it. Not sure yet, kinda wasn't expecting it (though I probably should've, oh well).

Anyway, please enjoy my baby! I tried making it long enough that no one will want to kill me until next week (...or the week after)! 3

Chapter 3: What's Hidden in the Cracks

Before long, everyone arrived and all was wholesome entertainment again. The house filled up with everyone's smiles and best wishes and, since having moved to the house, Naruto found that this was the liveliest it's been.

Ino managed to bring along her famous potato salad, along with a flower arrangement from her shop as a present. Choji, simply being his regular endearing self, brought some health tablets to compliment the ten jumbo bags of chips he gifted. TenTen came with a wonderful antique katana for him to put on display in the house. Lee gifted Naruto with a custom-made gree training suit that has his name embroidered youthfully on the back. Sakura brought Naruto a month's supply of instant ramen, god bless her soul. Kiba almost gave Naruto a puppy, but that plan was thankfully thwarted by his lovely wife Hinata, who told him Naruto was rarely home to ever take care of the child. Instead, they settled for a portrait of all of he Inuzuka family dogs to hang... somewhere.

Once everyone arrived, they all moved towards the backyard to enjoy the sunny setting and smell of nature. Of course, on a mission, the smell of nature is all you're surrounded by, but rarely was it accompanied by the serenity they all felt at this moment. Unlike in missions, they could get back to just chatting and eating mindlessly.

And if anyone was unsettled by Sasuke's slightly happier aura and Naruto's slightly tighter smile, there was no indication of it.

Even is the glances Sasuke would throw at Naruto every two minutes had become something of the norm for the group after the years, today his eyes held a spark in them. Some sort of hope replacing the usual confused irritation they were used to seeing. If Naruto's discomfort weren't blatantly obvious to even Lee, Sakura would have immediately bombarded the two with questions excitedly over this new development. As it stands, though, the eager pinkette would have to stick to pretending to pay attention to Ino.

Meanwhile, Naruto flipped burgers like there was nothing else in the world to do but that in a meaningless attempt at soothing the endless amount of doubt circulating through his brain. He weighed the pros and cons of trusting Sasuke again over and over, only half paying attention to his surroundings. Cooking to him worked in that similar therapeutic way meditating helped others sort their thoughts. No one could bother him when cooking, and neither did they want to unless they risked starving.

'How did we use to even talk before?'

With your mouth, dumbass.

It took nearly all of Naruto's strength not to twist at the smart-ass remark he recognized all too well. Inwardly groaning at the interruption to his thoughts, Naruto managed to play off his eyeroll as a shift in attention. Skillfully, he turned the burger in the far right corner of the grill.

'Ever heard of a rhetorical question, ya annoyin' fox face?'

Don't blame me. Even you should realize how stupid that sounded, The beast sneered at the twitch that found its way out Naruto's mask of indifference. Kyuubi just loved getting on the child's nerves.

Like an echo in his head, another beast growled within the recesses of Naruto's mind.

Shut the hell up, Kurama! Your voice is as annoying as your entire existence. He couldn't say he was surprised at the Ichibi's follow-up outburst as was the routine response whenever Kyuubi decided to talk. After becoming the Sage of the Six Paths, even if it was only a temporary transformation to defeat Madara, Naruto found it hard to get rid of those voices in his head.

While the nine beasts usually chose to mind their own business and were able to shut him out at all, whenever they did decide to talk it was mostly all at once. Not long after Shukaku's outburst, all beasts began taking sides between the two and so ensued the pointless banter in the blonde's hand. Were it not for the fact that the same often happened to Bee, Naruto would have just assumed he was schizophernic. All too soon, he felt his head pounding and mood darkening.

Naruto only thanked the heavens that his escape came to him in the form of reality. He started back into the picnic, realizing everyone had stopped to stare at his agonized look.

"W-What happened, Naruto-kun?" came the shy and concerned question from Hinata, her eyes finally able to look him directly in the eyes after years of trying.

"Eh, nothing happened. Just frustrated that even in my head I can't think properly, haha," joked back Naruto, knowing that no one really understood what he meant by that. Shikamaru gave him a knowing look as he passed by him. He was sweet, really. The blonde had come to recognize that habit the brunette had of moving to a closer proximity in moments like this to show that he was worried about him. He gave the overly concerned man a reassuring smile and went back to the almost done meat in front of him.

Aww, look at him, sharing a moment with his boo, the beasts all cackled in unison, only being so united when it was at the blonde's expense. Now is the moment when they hug and proclaim how they'll always be there for each other...

"...You guys fucking suck."

Nah, we'll leave that all to you, boy.

Barely surpressing his growing blush, Naruto directed his attention back to the current source of his problems: Uchiha Sasuke. The black-haired man had been staring at him for the past hour, as if concentrating on a task so difficult it could determine the fate of the world. Their eyes met, turning their surroundings into white noise. A silent conversation passed between them until Naruto averted his eyes as Sakura called for his attention.

"Hey, Naruto! Rumor has it around the village you've got yourself a girlfriend." The woman held him by the arm to prevent the man from avoiding the topic. She knew how dodgy the blonde could be.

Naruto let out aloud laugh, a knowing glint in his eyes as he answered.

"I don't have a girlfriend, Sakura-chan."

"Don't lie to us, blondie!" Kiba stood up from his chair and draped an arm over the still grinning man's shoulder. "We're not stupid enough to miss the signs. You've been skipping out on group nights lately and don't think we didn't notice you bought a house with an extra room!"

"Dogbreath, in case you haven't realized by now, I'm a ninja, hence I have missions. Our hangouts just so happen to clash with those. And is it so bad of me to want a house I could actually proudly have friends stay over in?" At the last question, the blonde made sure his blue eyes widened more so than usual, enough to cause to perspiration around the corners, and looked straight at Kiba. Unable to produce a rebuttal, the dog lover slumped his shoulders and grumbled off to his wife.

"No!" a shout sounded from behind Naruto. "That can't be all there is to this." Ino had a hard time believing her favorite blonde other than herself was still single. The ninja had gotten so good looking as the years went by that he even developed a pretty big size of admirers. Sure, it wasn't as big as Sasuke's, but it was rapidly getting there. What with his capabilities and charisma to perfectly enhance his looks.

Speaking of Sasuke, Ino glanced to the growing darkness coming from the person-slash-demon next to her. She had noticed the Uchiha's irritation started with the lover's conversation and her inner fangirl rejoiced. He was already in the house when they arrived, meaning Naruto let him in of his own free will, meaning they had made up—meaning finally things were getting juicy again!

Yes, she figured it was probably something a bit less related to her fantasies, but a girl could indulge a little longer.

Meanwhile, the raven couldn't believe how agitated he was becoming at the topic. Of course he felt happy for his best friend—though the blonde begged to differ—having found someone that loved him. He knew how badly the jinchuuriki longed to be loved and appreciated. And the blonde deserved everything if not more of the love he got after all he went through for the village.

This, however, made things harder for the Uchiha. In his improvised plan of gaining the blonde's trust back, he already had to consider the difficulty with missions and group nights getting in the way. Now, he had to factor in the appearance of a nuisance lover taking up his time. The thought of having to share his already limited time with Naruto had Sasuke clenching his fists under the table.

Putting his palms up in a placating manner, Naruto calmly regarded his curious group of friends. "Geez, calm down. I most definitely do NOT have a girlfriend. I promise. I have no idea where you've been hearing these rumors and whoever it is spreading them has a wild imagination. On a very related note, I heard Shino got a girlfriend. Is that why the hoe decided to miss my Naruto's Spectacular BBQ Housewarming Extravaganza? Can I kill him once?"

"Oh, don't think you're getting out of this yet, you-Yeah, I think bugboy did find someone. I saw him with a purple haired girl the other day." Sakura started after claiming a seat back at the table. Distractedly, she grabbed some of the chips and threw them into her mouth.

"That player! I totally saw him with some brown haired chick just yesterday!" Ino further went on to mention the list of other girls their resident sociopath was seen associating with.

Kiba grinned proudly at no one in particular and added, "Damn, bug boy's getting some."

Thankfully having dodged that bullet, the blonde escaped the rant by grabbing an empty tray and heading back into the house. He loaded the tray with more meat and whistled a tune, failing to catch the entrance of another person into the kitchen until they were right in front of him.

Looking up, his gaze was immediately caught by the same pair of dark eyes he'd been having a hard time acknowledging. Out of force of habit, Naruto felt compelled to avoid them before remembering the recent turn of events. Hoping he didn't look as out of sorts as he felt, he opened his mouth.

"Can you grab the extra sauces and drinks and help me take them back out?"

Onyx eyes flickered for a millisecond in relief, and Naruto inwardly startled at that, before they went back to their usual nonchalance. It seemed the Uchiha also had no clue how to proceed with the sudden change in their relationship.

"Hn," was the man's only response before he went to pick up the aforementioned items. Sasuke could not express in words how the tension left his shoulders once he came to the revelation that Naruto wasn't going to ignore him in public. While not the casual chatter he aimed at, it was a considerable step up he could work up from.

The simultaneous bulging of everyone's eyes once Naruto and Sasuke entered the backyard with Naruto actually beside Sasuke and not way ahead would have been a comical sight were Naruto not currently avoiding eye contact with them all. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sakura opening her mouth before being stopped by Ino's hand on her shoulder. Naruto gave the fellow blonde an appreciative smile and the woman returned it with her own understanding one.

Wordlessly, the two men went towards the food table and silently placed everything down. Naruto muttered his thanks—eliciting further eye popping looks—and Sasuke simply sat back down.

Whether he meant to cut the awkwardness or was honest-to-God hungry, no one protested Lee's shout for food as he ran to Naruto.

"My good friend, I thank you for bringing with you more meat which was necessary to fill our youthfully bottomless stomachs. The sauce had regretfully run out before you so graciously provided us with another! You truly are the definition of a youthful comrade!" Eyes blazing with admiration, Lee hugged the life out of Naruto before TenTen managed to pry the green ball of excitement off of the blonde.

That was all it took to get everything to go back to the norm.

Before they knew it, the sun was already beginning to set and the time came for all of them to start making their way back home. One by one the guests started to leave the house, throwing casual remarks to Naruto as they left. One even suggested that the next event at Naruto's house would be a rave and to spread the word to all the inhabitants of Konoha.

Naruto very politely told Kiba where in his body he could shove that idea.

Sasuke lagged behind until they were all outside and he was the only one left inside. At the door, he turned towards the host. Making sure to keep a calm façade, the raven asked a question that had everything curious enough to stay behind to hold their breaths.

"Want to spar a bit tomorrow morning?"

All expected Naruto's usual cold shoulder to Sasuke's usual attempts to get alone time with Naruto. After all, this had been the norm for three years. The blonde's hesitation was evident, even to the usually oblivious Rock Lee. Blue stayed locked onto black as a silent exchange passed between them. No one expected the small stretch of whiskered cheeks as those blue eyes seemed to have been satisfied with whatever it is he was looking for in Sasuke's eyes. Hinata's gasp was barely audible as Sasuke felt his own heart stop for a few seconds. While he was still regarded warily—that much was obvious, they've been on good terms for less than five hours—he could see in his old friend's eyes a small spark of friendship. That same spark he regarded everyone with, that he had not been graced with for a long time.

While Naruto still could not yet trust how strongly Sasuke felt about their friendship, he realized that the raven was indeed trying to reconcile. They weren't going to be like before, but giving Sasuke a chance wouldn't hurt him like it did once.

"Sure, let's meet at the old training grounds. No one uses those anymore after the academy got new ones." The blonde then proceeded to close the door after everyone was gone and clean up the mess his friends left, his smile slowly becoming smaller as he worked.

At least, it couldn't hurt as much when he was prepared for it.

Right?

Thank you for reading, my tomo!

How was it? Feedback, please. Tell me your opinions, predictions, objections (flames not appreciated or accepted)

Like I said, the chapter was supposed to be longer originally, but because I felt I was writing so much, this felt like the best place to end it.
By Monday (night, maybe), I plan on having Chapter 4 done since it's basically the second half of this one and then some. Goodnight bubus! 3