Only Fools Fall For You (SasuNaru)

• Part 8 •

His stomach lurched forward as everything spiraled in his vision. Two bodies tumbled down the stairway painfully with injured shouts before Naruto finally hit a wall with another yelp. The second boy came crashing down into the blond's side, forcing all the air from his lungs with another agonized cry.

"Fucking hell, Naruto!" Kiba coughed as he rolled to his side to give them some space to breathe. "Where's the... damn fire?"

Naruto choked pathetically while clutching his sides. Even though he was sure that they had stopped falling the world around him refused to cease moving under him. His eyes wandered around in a stunned panic before focusing in on a more composed Kiba as he knelt down next to him. "Whoa... You don't look so hot."

"You flatter me," he managed to wheeze with another gasp for air.

"No, I mean it. Your head is bleeding," he retorted before another coughing fit. "I'm going to go get help."

It was annoying. Even though he was still fighting desperately to catch his breath and there was a splitting pain in his head, he could not shake the feeling of Itachi's hand against his face. This was the kind of feeling he was trying to run away from but even in the midst of injuring himself and his classmate the feeling still remained. The encounter was so disturbing he didn't even bother to look where he was going before he collided with Kiba at the top of the stairway.

Nausea began to make his stomach clench as he forced down the urge to puke. Black circles appeared in his vision and grew rapidly the more he tried to shake them away. Kiba said something else, but it sounded too distorted for him to make any sense of it. That was the last thing he remembered before he let himself fall into a deep state of unconsciousness.

"What... doing?"

"Wait... think... waking..."

Naruto couldn't help but wince as he tried to force his eyes open. He could feel a soft pillow under his head and a comforter covering most of his body.

"Naruto?" the sound rang painfully in his ears for a moment before his eyes focused in on Neji, Shikamaru, and Kiba.

It appeared as if he was still in a dorm room because everything around him looked like a part of a small apartment.

"Where..."

"My room," Neji answered as he put a hand gingerly to Naruto's forehead. "Be still. I'll go get you some water."

He nodded feebly, looking at the two other boys. "What happened?"

"You tell me," Kiba replied as he crossed his arms. "I was about to go downstairs when I hear someone running and when I turn around you crash into me and the rest is history."

"I'm sorry," he said croakily. He hadn't been in his right mind at all.

"Don't worry about it," he sighed. "What were you running for anyways?"

"Or from," Shikamaru added thoughtfully.

Stop being observant. "I... was just in a hurry to get to the dining room."

"Well, at least the cut on your head wasn't serious," he shrugged sympathetically. "But I still can't believe that Neji carried you all the way back up here."

"He... did?" The blond felt his face flush momentarily as the dark-haired boy returned with a glass of water.

"Drink it," he ordered softly. "When was the last time you ate?"

As Naruto sat up to take the glass he felt a familiar spinning sensation resurface and he fell back onto the bed with a groan. "Uhnn..."

"Too long," Neji answered sternly as he set the glass on a nightstand. "Would you gentlemen be so kind?"