Love Through Negotiation «COMPLETED»

Chapter 3

Naruto didn't get very much sleep. There were a lot of reasons for that, the most obvious one being that he didn't even get to his new home until midnight. The second most obvious was because he didn't want to brave the darkness of the halls and risk running into the crazy super-sharp-nail lady and risk his genitalia, so he pulled a few somewhat uncomfortable chairs together and slept on them opposite Fu. However, the third most obvious reason why he didn't get much sleep was the thing that kept him up the longest, strangely enough, and it was him doing something he usually didn't like doing.

Thinking.

And the more he thought about his situation, the more scared he got.

It got to the point where he was planning out how to approach Tsunade, when to approach her, and what to say to her in order to do anything from getting someone else to replace him, all the way to maybe just a roundtable bodyguard system in place. Futile as it might have been, and even he knew it was, he was mostly doing that to actively not think about the huge bombshell that was dropped on his head by his mentor.

He was the son of Minato Namikaze, the fourth Hokage, and Kushina Uzumaki, the second Jinchuuriki? Well, that explained the whisker marks at least. On one hand, it was nice knowing who his parents were, but on the other, every time he thought about it, more questions just popped up in his head like mole hills. His brain was eating away at itself trying to make justifications for any of the reasons why he had to suffer and it just couldn't. Nothing that made sense anyway.

And thus, he only truly fell asleep around the 4 o'clock mark. Unluckily enough for him, Temari was a morning person, and she didn't get much sleep either thanks to a certain lady ninja from rock belting away through her nasal cavities. So around 5 o'clock, he awoke to the sound and smells of bacon sizzling on a pan in the kitchen that was directly across from the living room.

One hour of sleep a happy man does not make.

Naruto sat up, smacking his lips together to get the feeling of sleep bile off his tongue and immediately winced. The morning sunrise was in perfect view of the living room window and also at the perfect height where it blinded him sitting up. He tumbled off the couch and walked over to the kitchen, where Temari was poking at the strips of meat.

"Hey Temari," he muttered as he nosed through the fridge.

She was wearing felt pajamas with patterns of weasels flying around on it. "Hey Naruto," she replied flatly "Want me to throw a few strips on for you too?" She was asking more out of politeness rather than intimacy.

"Yeah," he said quickly, still blinking the light out of his eyes. "Thanks."

"Don't… mention it," she said lowly as she reached for more pig meat. The pan's sizzling exploded in intensity when she put the new ones on. "You a morning person too?" she asked.

Naruto shook his head emphatically. "Nope. Didn't sleep well."

Temari nodded knowingly. "Mmhmm. Someone needs to get that girl some sleep plugs or something."

Naruto's face scrunched in confusion. "What? No, I mean, I was sleeping over there," he pointed to the 'bed' he was using as a sleep surface. "I was awake because… stuff."

"Stuff, huh?" Temari asked in an almost mocking tone. "Because that's not vague."

"I was… thinking, okay? You weren't?"

Temari shrugged, putting the pieces of bacon that were ready for consumption on a plate with a paper towel on it. "I was trying to blot out the sounds of a lion's death throes coming from Kurotsuchi's room. But, yes, I guess that contributed to it."