The Seventh Seal

Chapter 4: Accidents and Revelations

Naruto was surprised by Sakura's ability to talk and ignore everything around her. He also noticed the annoyance on Fuu's face. Sakura continued on about how her training with Tsunade and how she had nearly perfected Tsunade's strength technique. While her improvements on medical jutsu were interesting for a little bit, it took what little concentration Naruto had to keep from falling asleep. Naruto finally started to call into question why he liked her in the first place. After about an hour of what was supposed to be a strategy session, turned into a personal story about how she had improved over his time away. Naruto didn't want to interrupt her for two important reasons. First, he didn't want to get pummeled and second he didn't want to be rude to his former crush.

Sakura's face turned from happy to melancholy. "Naruto, are you still going to go after Sasuke-kun?" she asked meekly.

Naruto thought for a minute and nodded his head. "Yes, Sakura-chan, we're going to go after teme," he replied in a near growl.

"You shouldn't call him that... He is part of our team and we should try to do everything in our power to bring him back," Sakura explained.

"You know..." Naruto started to say, but stopped.

"Know what, Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"He tried to kill me..." Naruto said in a dejected tone. Fuu began to rub his back in an attempt to soothe his discomfort.

"But you have that... you know... so you knew that you would be fine," Sakura replied happily.

Naruto's eyes watered at this statement. He realized that she was using him to get what she wanted. "Sakura-chan?" he asked.

"Yes Naruto?" She asked in reply.

"Do you like, like me?" Naruto asked, closing his eyes hoping against hope that she would answer 'yes'.

Sakura laughed at the question, but then answered, "Naruto, you know I like Sasuke-kun that way. You're just a friend and comrade."

Naruto stood up keeping his head down and hiding his eyes behind his bangs. "Thank you Sakura-chan," he said quietly. He then turned and left the ramen stand, Fuu followed quickly in his wake.

Sakura looked at the retreating pair with confusion, while the ramen owner and his daughter both shook their heads.

Naruto walked slowly up the stairs to reach his apartment. He put the key in and opened the door. Both he and Fuu noticed the thick layer of dust that covered everything. Naruto opened the window and created a couple of clones to help him clean. Fuu took some of the cleaning supplies and helped out. About thirty minutes later they had cleaned up the apartment and sat on his bed. Naruto was lying with his face in his pillow, just breathing slowly. Fuu had taken over a drawer in his dresser and then sat down next to Naruto. Unknown to him, she had sent out some of her bugs to inspect the place and they came back for reinforcements to eliminate a roach colony hiding in the apartment walls.

"Naruto-kun, I'm sorry..." she said quietly.

Naruto nodded into the pillow, but said nothing.

She rubbed his back and then kissed him gently on the cheek. "I'm going to get some food and then fix dinner. I know you need time to figure out what you're going to do. So I will be back in a little bit," she said warmly. He nodded at her statement. She left soon after giving him a warm hug.

He fell asleep quickly. Fuu returned to find Naruto face up on the bed with drool hanging from his mouth. She giggled softly, so as to not disturb him. She then got to the task of preparing dinner. Naruto woke to a delightful smell, while not as good as ramen, it was tantalizing. He got out of bed and moved to the kitchen and found Fuu cooking something. He slid in behind the green haired girl and wrapped her in a hug. She smiled and touched his cheek with her free hand, not taking her eyes off the food she was cooking. "Feel better, Naruto-kun?" she asked warmly.