This time, Naruto wasn’t ready for it--and it scared him. He screwed his eyes shut, body stiff with defiance as he waited for it to be over, and that seemed slow in coming. The blonde gasped for air and was promptly invaded.
Naruto struggled to keep himself in check, against the unfurling tendril in his stomach, of fear and excitement, denial and want. And his body was getting hotter, the feeling nagging, and reminding him that this was wrong.
But as a feverish state of mind clouded his vision and threatened to take over, he realized he still had control, and he would do whatever it took to maintain it.
A soft noise, a mix between a whimper and a moan escaped Naruto’s lips as Sasuke wedged a leg between his, rubbing against his undeniably hardening cock. And the increasing urge to throw his arms around the other, deepen the kiss, and grind down on that leg urged him to stop this.
Unable to pull away, the blonde gave the Uchiha an urgent shove and turned his head to the side. But Sasuke ignored it, reaching up to grab his hair and yank his head back, even as he attempted to move away from the door.
“Sasuke!” he panted, wincing as his head knocked against the doorframe.
“Nh,” the addressed grunted, sinking his teeth into Naruto’s neck.
“Sasuke!” he repeated, gasping slightly as the rough tongue smoothed over the irritated spot, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Nh?” he asked, savoring the taste of sweat and body salt.
“Stop.” The blonde hissed, eyes narrowed and pupils slitting.
Sasuke paused, glancing up.
“Not…. Now” Naruto managed, breathing heavily. But when the Uchiha didn’t move, he almost lost it. “Move, teme.” he snapped, pissed off.
The older man gave his hair a tug, as if saying, You’re clearly in no position to be giving orders right now, dobe.
And he lost it. Eyes red, teeth bared, he threw his weight at the other only to stop midair, and then resume falling, hitting the ground through a puff of smoke. Glancing around in bewilderment, he smacked his forehead with his hand, thinking, Of course! It was only a shadow clone!
--
The next day, Naruto crawled out of bed and dragged himself to a restaurant. Tired, hungry, and out of his mind, he took a seat at what he recalled to be Chouji’s favorite Barbeque Buffet. Placing an order, he waited until his waitress bowed and left, then placed his face in his hands, sighing.
There was a giggle and he glanced up to see the recently mentioned Akimichi a booth over, being fed pork by a very pretty girl. At first glance, the hairstyle made you think it was Tenten, but she was completely different. Half of her hair was up in two baos, one on either side of her head, and the rest of her hair hung down around her shoulders. But her features were blatantly foreign, her hair color a rusty, brownish, yellow, and when she flicked them over to cast a glance in his direction, Naruto found that her eyes were the same color.
He eyed her strange, would-be kimono and jumped when the waitress slid a glass of water in front of him.
“Sorry for the wait, sir. Your food is on its way,” She said diligently, bowing again. He looked past her at the stranger and noticed she had been staring, but looked away quickly. Naruto frowned.
“H-hai… Domo,”
She bowed again and left, hurrying quickly to a new customer to continue her long day of monotonous orders.
“Chouji-dono!”
Naruto blinked rapidly and found the new girl giggling uncontrollably as she held her sides and rocked back and forth in Chouji’s lap. He smiled widely and apologized, giving some flippant excuse. She dove her chopsticks for the last piece of pork—something Naruto knew Chouji found unacceptable—and made it. She smiled and proffered it to her friend, letting him take a bite. She waited for him to finish, and then made to give him the last bite, but at the last second made it disappear into her own mouth. Chouji retaliated by tickling her.
Thinking that he really was beginning to lose his mind, the blonde shook his head and looked away, rubbing his eyes. There was no way…
He looked back up again, and, sure enough, the giggling girl was still in the Akimichi’s lap.
“Oi, Naruto-kun,” he called.
“N-nani?”
“Come join us.” It wasn’t up for debate.
Naruto rose slowly, picked up his glass of water and clunked it down on their table as he sat on the bench opposite them.
“Ohaiyo,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Ohaiyo-gozaimasu,” Chouji replied jubilantly. “Naruto, this is… Sung” he continued, faltering over the sound of her name.
She giggled. “Seung,” she corrected him.
“She’s from…. K” he made a noise in the back of his throat like he was choking. “K…K….”
“Korea,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He can never pronounce it right.”
Chouji scowled, and Naruto realized that she had a very thick accent over her Japanese, like she has just learned it a couple of days ago.
“Sung, this is Naruto,”
“Hajima, Seung-chan,” he replied shortly, finding her name not as easy to pronounce as he had thought. He felt a sudden flare of sympathy for his friend.
“Hajimamashite, Uzumaki-kun,”
Naruto smirked slightly at her formality, not realizing that no one had actually told her his last name.
“Sung-chan is my fiancée,”
The blonde choked explosively on his glass of water and stared in utter astonishment at the couple. Seung had lost her giggling attitude and had turned a considerable red, while Chouji managed to look smug, yet somehow embarrassed.
“A—ano….” She started to explain.
“There’s no use denying it, I’ve made up my mind already.” He said stubbornly.
Seung turned to Naruto apologetically, “This is all so sudden…” she began. “I’m a medic nin from Korea. My parents are aristocrats who are in confidence with my lord, the emperor. Because we are weak and unready in the face of war, my parents have suggested to him an alliance between our two nations.” She took a deep breath. “An alliance in the form of marriage. So I was offered up, and I came here to find a husband to form the alliance. The Akimichis have been my…” She turned to Chouji and began speaking in rapid-fire Korean, though it was obvious by the look on his face that he didn’t understand a word of it. She stopped abruptly. “How do you call it…?”
“Foster family?” Naruto offered, useful for what might have been the first time in his life.
“Yes, exactly!” She said. “My foster family, while I have been presented to many eligible suitors. But the more time I spent with my family, I found the one I wanted most was…” She turned to him, “Chouji.”
He looked proud, but still ruffled.
“We haven’t told our parents yet, but we hope they will approve.”
“Good luck,” he muttered.
“Thanks,” Seung replied, accepting it gratefully. “And you, I hope your love it accepted as well.” She smiled.
“N-Nani? Love?” he asked.
Her smile faltered slightly, before she realized what was going on. “I think you know what I mean.” She said simply, leaving him to figure it out for himself.
“Er… thanks.” He noticed his waitress holding his order and looking about for him. He waved her over to the new table; she asked if she could do anything else for him, and when he shook his head no, she bowed and left.
He sighed and thought deeply about what Seung had meant by ‘love,’ surely she couldn’t have meant Sakura, that girl had crushed him the instant she had seen Sasuke’s face. He shuddered silently. Sasuke. Just the boy’s name was enough to send his head reeling. He felt like he had aged several years in the past week. Naruto lifted his chopsticks to his lips and took a tentative bite of his food, chewing slowly as he mulled over her words. Love… He couldn’t think of anyone he thought of that way. He thought of last night and the back flips his stomach had done… Speaking of Sasuke. The blonde wondered what the other man was doing at the moment, unable to stop himself from thinking of him.
“He’s standing right outside the window.”
Naruto flinched and jerked his head towards the window, and looked, eyes wide, to find nothing but an empty clearing; he scowled and turned back to Seung.
“What?”
She giggled loudly, “You think about him a lot, you know.”
“And you would know this how?” he demanded.
She frowned immediately and looked away.
“What, are you trying to tell me you can read minds or something?”
Seung shook her head reflexively, and then slowed, trying to phrase it appropriately. “Not minds—hearts.” She said instead. “I can read the thoughts written in a person’s hearts. If I were to read minds, I would never understand what is going on, because a person’s thoughts can cloud their judgment, and emotions. I only read true, raw, emotion…..”
He picked at his food.
“So lemme get this straight… You know that I’m in love… and the one I think about a lot is Sasuke…”
Her mouth quirked slightly. “Sure.”
He frowned at her, “So what is it, then? If that’s not?”
“I never said it wasn’t!” She said, throwing her hands up in defense,
Naruto huffed indignantly.
“Sorry, Naruto…. Sung does this when she feels like meddling in people’s lives…. She likes to give answers, but she aims to make you more confused than when you started…” Chouji explained, delicately placing one very large hand over Seung’s mouth.
“No, it’s okay, I need this,” he said, waving him off. “So I’m right then?”
“About what?” She asked as soon as her mouth was free again. She turned to Chouji, grinning, “I’m sorry, I can’t help it… and he’s so easy to confuse!” She giggled.
“Am I in love?”
“You’re starting to get it!” She exclaimed, clapping. “But you’re almost there. You’ve almost got the question.”
“‘The question’?”
She nodded exuberantly. “The question. The one EVERYONE wants to know.”
He blinked. “Wait, you mean the meaning of life? How would you know that? Is there a god? Can you read his mind?”
She rolled her eyes, “Minus 50!” She eyed him. “Think, Naruto-kun. What were we talking about?”
He hesitated. “…That I’m in love?”
Seung nodded again, slowly this time. “There you go, now know that you only get one question, so make any uncertainties into statements until you find the question you’re looking for.”
“..I’m in love.” He corrected himself. It was still practically a question.
“Good; now your question.” She had grown very still quite suddenly, and her eyes were beginning to drift closed.
The blonde thought hard. If he had been thinking about Sasuke, then wondered where he was and she answered his question, then stated that he thought ‘about him a lot,’ then… She must have meant Sasuke. There was no use asking that as his question, because somehow he knew that what she wanted was a more general question to which there was one simple answer. He knew what she wanted him to ask.
Who am I in love with?
Though he had taken a deep breath, and his mouth had opened to ask it, he couldn’t make it come out. Instead, he changed his tactic. “What is love?” He asked.
Seung had opened her mouth and began to answer, “Uchi—” When she realized that that was not what he had asked. She smiled. “Now there is a question. In all of my years, Naruto, I’m sure I haven’t met one quite like you.” She reached across the table and took one of his hands in her own. “Love is the extremely ridiculous attachment that one being has for another, built on memories they have for each other. It is an emotion; an indecent hormone which invades and corrupts the brain, a completely illogical and irrational emotion. But it is uncontrollable, uncontainable, undying, and completely, utterly, and one hundred percent critical for human survival.”
Naruto blinked in surprise and pulled his hand back from hers. He had thought he had known what to expect, a dictionary/textbook definition like ‘a connection or relationship between a man and a woman,’ but she had made no such statements, and he knew that somehow, in some, strange way, what he thought of Sasuke fit neatly into her description. But was he really in love with him?
“Do I—,”
She cut him off shortly, her eyes flashing, “You’ve asked your question, now scat. I don’t want to see your face for a very long time,” She said, smiling. “And at least not until you’ve gotten your own mess straightened out. Or Chou-kun and I have the wedding—whichever comes first.”
Naruto nodded and stood, slowly wandering out of the restaurant and entirely forgetting his plate and bill, though Seung herself would pay the waitress for him.
He had much more to think about.
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Chapter notes: Update!!!! Whoo!!!!! I know it's been FOREVER, but I've finally gotten it! Not to mention I have the time to keep updating again! I hope you guys are still alive enough to read, lol. Here goes! New OC in this chap. If you guys have noticed, I've made it a personal goal to break my word count record every chapter. 2,197 words this chap!!!
{Insert witty disclaimer here}
Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto
No copyright infringement intended.
Chapter end notes: Comment if you ever need any translations.
Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto
No copyright infringement intended.