Title: Winter's Love to Summer
Summary: Kakashi's students have grown. Kakashi loves Naruto, but Naruto loves Sakura. A song-lyric competition. An unexpected truth came out, and Kakashi tells Naruto his feelings… but… One-sided Narukaka, Yaoi, Angst. AU. Character Death.
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Kakashi's ideal of a good morning was waking up to a dark sky, the clouds dense and covering the sun's luminous rays, and maybe a light rain shower to adjust to his morning mood. After that, if the jounin in a good mood, maybe a breakfast consisting of a glass of milk with a side of half-cooked eggs and two slices of bread. Sitting next to the window, watching the scenery of the light showering, enjoying the breeze of the wind fluttering his untamable hair, eating while reading Icha-Icha Paradise, Kakashi would enjoy a day full nothing but laziness.
What he DID not like was waking up with his eyes closed, but still unable to stop the penetration of the sun's bright hot rays, making his corneas hurt like hell, and all because of a familiar voice shouting, "WAKE UP, PUP!"
Under different circumstances, he would have ignore the voice, (thanks to all the years of having to put up with Gai's and Naruto's vigorous yelling).
TOO BAD IT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO HIS EAR!
"Pakkun…Shut up…" He whined, his right hand searching for his shuriken-covered blanket before pulling it over his head, only his white spikes could be seen. Pakkun, who had been sitting on the blanket, was sent toppling onto the floor because of Kakashi's action, making the dog barked angrily. "Pup! Stop being lazy and get your ass out of bed right NOW!"
"…No…" Came the lazy response beneath the cover.
"Dammit, Pup! Get up! I'm hungry…" Pakkun said, finally telling his master his intention of arousing Kakashi from his slumber, even though he was walking on thin ice. He and the pack were quite aware of Kakashi's malicious morning mood, having live with the pup since he was little. The jounin have moods that rivaled that of a pregnant woman, a trait that he inherited from his father (though very, very few people knew about that) Pakkun knew that since the boy live strictly by the shinobi code, he'd hidden his face behind a mask, locking away his emotions. Which made it harder for the kid to control his feelings, because he locked them away instead of facing them like normal people do…
On the other hand, whoever said Kakashi was normal?
Barking once again before deciding that he was never gonna make the pup wake up, Pakkun walked through the bedroom and into the living room, where the rest of the pack were waiting.
"Is he up yet?" A silver fur dog with a tuft of brown hair on top of his head asked, yawning, his tail twitching.
"No. He doesn't want to wake up. Lazy brat…" Pakkun muttered, jumping onto the head of a large bulldog wearing a spiked collar.
"Again?" Shiba asked, before turning to growl at Guruko, who was nipping at his tail.
"You have got to be kidding me." Guruko whined, still biting the sliver-fur dog's tail, oblivious to the tail owner angry snarl. He yelped as Shiba tackled him, sending them sprawling onto the wooden floor.
"Will you two stop that?" A brown dog wearing sunglasses, Akino, yelled irritably at the two. The two stopped bickering, looking at him.
"But he started it!" They pointed at each other.
"I don't care who started it! Just be QUIET!" Akino said hotly. Shiba and Guruko glared at each other before turning their backs, muttering, "Fine."
A dog with bandages wrapped around his head said, "You don't to do that, Akino." He tilted his head, "I mean, they have a good for doing so. Kakashi haven't feed us in days, for Kami's sake!"
"I know that, Uhei…." Akino sighed, calming down. "But they're acting as if they're the only who's starving here!"
"All right you lot," Pakkun interrupted. "Instead of acting like idiots,-"The pug ignored the glares-"How about figuring out a plan to get some food for all of us without the pup's help?"
Silence.
"How about we just open up the food cans ourselves?" Guruko suggested.
More silence.
Bisuke cleared his troat. "Uh… Guruko. I think you forgot one tiny little detail. We don't have thumbs to use the can opener."
"…Oh..." Guruko muttered, deflating.
Suddenly Bull barked, startling the others. Pakkun looked down at his face. He said, "What?"
"AROOF!" The huge bull dog barked again.
"You have an idea?" Pakkun questioned. The pack looked at the bull dog expectantly, their eyes shining.
A whimper.
"You want us to…."
Bark.
"….get someone to open the cans for us?"
Bull nodded.
The dogs looked at each other.
"Well, it's better than nothing, I suppose." Shiba shrugged. "At least better than waiting for that brat waking up."
"Yeah." Bisuke agreed.
Akino nodded.
"But who we're going to get?" Uhei asked, walking to the front door of the apartment. The rest followed.
"Naruto Uzumaki." Pakkun answered.
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Naruto, to say the least, was not happy with his day. Two weeks before, he got Sakura, the woman of his childhood dream, to go out with him for dinner. Man, even though the woman was slim, but boy, can she eat. His wallet, Gama-chan (Yes, he still kept the wallet even after the years) which had been full loaded, was reduced to a frog who had not eaten for years!
This is why he was left currently in his predicament.
"Uh…So…hungry…" Naruto mumbled, crawling from his bedroom's floor into his kitchen.
He gingerly got up and opened one of the cabinets. Dust flew and a spider crawled out. Naruto irritably flicked at the creature and looked inside before groaning. Nothing. No food.
The ANBU member bumped his head against the wood.
Sighing once again, Naruto made up his mind to never take Sakura out for food again at a very expensive restaurant. (Well, unless someone else was with them, so Naruto would dump the bill on the person's lap)
The blonde's stomach growled, yelling at his master to go and GET SOME FOOD!
"…Shut up…" Naruto growled in return, turning to raid the fridge. To his surprise, there was a small container sitting in the far corner of the otherwise empty fridge. Grabbing the tupperware, he opened it and found a half-eaten riceball. To anyone else, it would look unappetizing, but to Naruto right now, it looked like a food that was sent straight from the heavens above. Licking his lips, the blond picked the riceball and slowly lifted the food to his mouth, as if treasuring something utterly precious.
Just as he was about to pop it into his mouth, a loud noise suddenly erupted in the room, followed by clouds of smoke and several cursing. Naruto was so surprised, he accidentally tripped on his own two feet, sending his riceball flying over his head.
GULP!
"Aroof!" Naruto stared in horror as his riceball went through the jaw of what he could describe as a bear, a big and fuzzy bear wearing a huge spike collar.
"NO!" All the occupants in the room jumped as the blond let out a huge wail. Stream of tears began to flow freely from the blonde's eyes, streaming down his reddened cheeks. He curled into his ball and began to sniffle from hunger, grief and sadness.
The dogs stared blankly at the blond. Uhei whispered to Pakkun, "The kid is supposed to be an ANBU?"
The pug sighed. "Yes."
"Then, we must have missed the memo about ANBU members can be melodramatic nowadays." He watched Bull attempted to comfort the blond with a hug and successfully managed to crush the blond with his body weight. Only a tan hand could be seen beneath the big ball of fur, which desperately began clawing the surface of the floor. Pakkun could vaguely heard Naruto's muffled cries for help, but ignore it, favoring the idea that the ANBU might need a little more comforting from the bull dog.
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After they managed to get Naruto up and about, Kakashi's summons dragged the protesting blond through the streets, explaining their situation. When they passed in front of the Yamanaka's Flower shop, Ino, who was sweeping in front of the store with a broom, raised an eyebrow at the sight of the ANBU member being pulled forward by eight dogs. When she noticed Naruto's pleading gaze, she rolled her eyes, figuring that the jinchuuriki had gotten himself in trouble with his former sensei. Again.
When they stood in front of Kakashi's apartment, Shiba pushed the door open, and the rest of the pack followed in pursuit with Naruto behind them. The ANBU mumbled curses about 'evil monster devils dogs which eat people's riceball' under his breath, taking a good look around his former teacher's apartment. In all his years of being under the man's 'guidance' (for the lack of a better word), he had never been to Kakashi's home before, and seeing the small apartment for the first time, the part of him that thought he knew all about the ex-member of the ANBU crashed into a million pieces. He had imagined that Kakashi was a man of fancy life style; the man's slender fingers and trimmed fingernails proofed him that much.' What kind of man has long, woman-like fingers anyway?' Naruto thought, as he looked at his rather big and plump ones. As ninjas, he knew that personal hygiene is sort of a big deal, but he didn't think one could have the time to go for a manicure. Except for nobles and pansies, shinobi really couldn't care less about how their fingers will look like. Oh,no no, they were too busy fighting to keep the fingers attached to their hands. Naruto would rather like to have all his fingers (or any other body parts) attached to his body, thank you very much.
A low whine reached his ears, joined by seven more.
"Alright, alright," Naruto sighed, stomping around the apartment to look for the kitchen. When he found it, he darted around the old wooden table that seem to be tilted from the weight of an empty bowl located on its surface in the middle of the room, and began rummaging through the cabinets and cupboards.
"Hurry it up will you, Naruto?" Guruko whimpered, both his paws holding his stomach as if to comfort its vigorous growling.
"I am hurrying! Have a little more patient will you?" The ANBU snapped back, eyes narrowed into slits as he focused on the task at hand. It seems ironic, Konoha's Number One Most Hyperactive Ninja telling someone else to be patient. Naruto, however, was quickly losing his. One empty cupboard after another, he wondered if Kakashi forgot to restock his food supplies, or he was being cheap so he could save some money to buy a new porn book.
Naruto mostly guessed it was the latter.
Releasing a growl, he turned to the pack of dogs that were huddling in the middle of the living room. Pakkun, noticing his glare, answered back with his own solemn expression. "What?"
Naruto didn't say a word. He merely pointed to the kitchen.
Pakkun didn't seem to get him. "What?"
The jinchuuriki narrowed his eyes further, while his finger still pointing at the kitchen's doorway.
The pug sighed. "Naruto, we don't have time for charades-"
Finally, the Uzumaki exploded, his face literally blistering with anger, a vein threatening to burst on his forehead, looking exactly like Umino Iruka when he's yelling the whole class of academy students. "WHO'S THE HELL PLAYING CHARADES? I'M SAYING THERE'S NO FOOD IN THE KITCHEN!" It then trailed off into mindless ranting that the dogs don't seem to take much notice from. They have worse from that Haruno girl. After he was quite sure that the blonde was finished, as presumed from his panting, Pakkun chided. "Of course there's no food, Kakashi's sealed them away in a special storage as to preserve them longer. You'll need a key to unlock it, which unfortunately, I can't seem to find it. The brat seems to relocate it elsewhere after that last…incident." He shot a meaningful look at Guruko.
Guruko stared back at him innocently.
Naruto gave them all one long stare before his anger dropped completely. There's no use getting worked up over these mutts. He'll lose all his energy sooner or later. "Okay, fine. Then, we'll need to wake up Kakashi-sensei and ask him where the key is." He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if to thwart off another troublesome headache. As if being an ANBU isn't stressful enough…
The dogs happily nudged him upstairs, leaving the blond no choice but to follow. Pakkun showed him the door to Kakashi's bedroom, muttering courageous words that Naruto couldn't seem to understand the reason for. As he pushed the bedroom's door open, he stepped into the room, all the while hearing the dogs whispered in the background.
"Poor kid… He's gonna die at a very young age."
"May he have all his organs attached."
"I'll miss him."
"I hope his soul will find peace in the heavens above."
And suddenly Naruto got a very, very, very bad feeling about this.
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Author's Note:
I'm sorry to everyone who's been waiting for this chapter. It's just that school have been interfering with a lot of my fanfiction life. Like for example, this Chinese New Year's Holidays, my teachers had given me a mountain of homework that just keep getting bigger no matter how many homework I'd completed. So, sorry! (bows)
Anyway, I somehow managed to complete this one, and I think I like this chapter. Represent all my hard work! (Get shot)
Review, to find out if Naruto'll survive the next chapter or not!
Naruto: Why does this girl keep bothering me? (run away) WAIT FOR ME, MY BEAUTIFUL RAMEN!
Me: OH NO, COME BACK HERE! (chase after him)
Kakashi: … (still asleep)