"Hey, Sasuke, you're my secret admirer. Aren't you?"

His steps faltered almost imperceptibly as he stopped short and tried to hide his emotions behind stolid walls before Naruto saw his utter surprise. "What?" he scoffed with a derisive snort, "As if I would do something like that."

"Yeah, that's what threw me off for a while," Naruto responded pettishly, "because it's definitely not something that I'd ever think you'd do, which is why I'm sure it is you."

"That doesn't even make sense, dobe."

Naruto bared his teeth as he stepped in front of Sasuke and glared up at him, "I told you before, teme, I'm not an idiot—I might be dense at times, but I'm not stupid."

He lifted a brow elegantly, looking arrogantly down at the blonde, how the hell is he adorable even when he's mad? "If you're so convinced, where is your proof?"

"I know you've been tailing me and you can't even deny it because I just caught you," he said, counting on his fingers as he spoke. "And I realized a few weeks after you showed me how to sharpen my shuriken that some of the ones I thought were new had the same sharpening pattern as the ones you did that night."

"You're basing this off of my sharpening pattern," Sasuke deadpanned, enjoying their little cat-and-mouse game as Naruto tried to get him to admit the truth.

"Not just that, no, that was probably the third thing that made me suspect you, but right after I mentioned never having a homemade meal, suddenly I'm receiving bento boxes daily—and always with the things I like."

"That's what a secret admirer does though," he argued stubbornly, but the mirthful look on Naruto's face told him it was a moot point to keep up the facade, "they'd be a terrible admirer if they didn't make you meals you like."

"Yeah, but ask anyone else who knows me and they'll tell you I like ramen and that's all they treat me to," Naruto gave him a pointed look. "And for a good reason because ramen is truly the food of the gods and it is my favorite, but the bentos left for me are balanced, healthy meals. The vegetables are always cooked enough that they're not fresh—which I hate—but they're also never stewed—which I hate even more. Plus, whenever I refused to eat a type of vegetable, those ones never returned in my lunches and they always knew when I was injured during training, which meant it had to be someone on our team."

"Sakura's on our team too," he muttered. 

Naruto nodded, "And that's why I wasn't sure if it was you or her until you answered my note. I know Sakura-chan's writing and that was not her handwriting. She always adds little hearts when she's writing to a friend, or to someone she likes, and that note was perfectly written. The only person I know who writes like that is Iruka-sensei and you, and I know Iruka-sensei isn't my secret admirer..." he shuddered at the thought before looking expectantly at Sasuke, "Please tell me it's not Iruka-sensei." 

He chortled at the thought of their former teacher wooing his most troublesome student, "It's not Iruka-sensei."

"So then it's you, right?" he pressed, all pretenses of jest gone as he searched Sasuke's face for the answer. "You're my admirer."

"Took you long enough, dobe," Sasuke haughtily said, a smirk sliding into place.

"I told you, I'm not an idiot! I'm just sometimes a little slow on the uptake."

"A little slow? I thought the bandages and salves made it obvious since I'm the one who was giving you those injuries in the first place."

"Bastard," he muttered, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face.

He shrugged, "I won't deny that."

The jesting ambiance disappeared as Naruto took a step closer, refusing to look away, "So does this mean you like me?"

Sasuke opened his mouth and then closed it again, pressing his lips together until they were a thin line. His body grew taut as he swallowed down the butterflies trying to escape and curtly nodded. Dread settled in when Naruto just stared back at him silently, as if processing his assent.

He moved another step closer, so close now they could share each other's body heat and Sasuke let out a shuddering breath as he forced himself to not move away. Their chests were almost touching and Naruto was so close that he could see the individual furrows in the blonde's eyes. "How do you like me, Sasuke?"

Sasuke leaned forward and pressed his lips against Naruto's, his hand coming up to cradle his cheek as Icha Icha Paradise taught him to do. He tried to deepen the kiss, moving his mouth against the blonde's and coquettishly licking his lips, but Naruto didn't respond. Whether that was due to shock or antipathy, he didn't know, but he slowly pulled away. "Does that answer your question?" he asked, almost inaudibly, before he made the tiger sign with his hand and disappeared with a whirl of leaves.

Uchiha Sasuke was many things, but a coward he was not and if he just happened to be later than his other two teammates for the first time ever, it was wholly coincidental and not because he wanted to gauge Naruto's reaction with witnesses before being alone with the blonde.

It was a strike against his pride already that he had run away after kissing Naruto, but he couldn't hide the blush that threatened to turn his face into a tomato and had rushed home to lock himself away from prying eyes as he tried to think through his next step. That led to him receiving an inadequate amount of sleep as he tried to work out his plan to ensnare Naruto, but Naruto was so unpredictable, Sasuke wasn't sure if he would be able to plan in advance.

He straightened his back and squared his shoulders as he approached his teammates, but his eyes were only looking at Naruto and his reactions. If he doesn't give me an indication that he was pleased with my advances, then I won't take this courtship any further. "Hello," he murmured quietly as Naruto stiffened.

"Hi, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura chirped, hands clasped behind her back as she leaned towards him with a flirtatious smile.

And here I was thinking she was finally giving up... He nodded curtly towards her, but waited silently for Naruto to greet him, or at least look at me.

Naruto kept his face turned away, giving Sasuke a half-hearted wave over his shoulder as he gruffly said, "Mornin', teme, you're late."

"Hn, I'm still here before Kakashi-sensei."

"Well, I guess even the best of us can oversleep sometimes," he crossed his arms and leaned against the bridge railing. "Was there something that kept you up all night?"

"Maybe," Sasuke answered, even-toned and much more calmly than he felt. Naruto refused to turn towards him, refused to meet his eyes, or give him any indication how the blonde felt about their kiss and he could feel the anxiety and agitation crawling over his skin. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he looks at me, really looks at me. I want to wrap my arms around him and hug him until he understands my feelings, and I want to kiss him again—with tongue.

Sakura looked between the two boys, the air between them more awkward than it had been in months, and tried to piece together just what happened in the span of eighteen hours. "Did you two fight?"

"No," Naruto said, but it sounded querulous and surly, as he kept his back to Sasuke.

"Well, you two were fine yesterday and I know Sasuke-kun went home yesterday, so what did you do, Naruto?" she demanded as she set her hands on her hips, "Did you pull a prank on Sasuke-kun and make him mad?"

"No!" he barked, turning around and pointing an accusatory finger at Sasuke, "He's the one who pulled a prank on me!"

Sasuke blinked, "I don't pull pranks."

"Then what do you call it? Doing...that," he gestured ambiguously with his hands between them, "and disappearing right after."

He paused, feeling his cheeks redden as he recalled their kiss, "Hn."

Naruto hid his face again, but not before Sasuke caught sight of the furious blush on his cheeks, "Seemed like a pretty awful prank, I never hurt anyone with my pranks before, they've always been harmless except for that one time I accidentally painted that cat, but that's it!."

"Dobe," he softly laughed as Sakura looked at him wide-eyed at the rich sound, "I was trying to be cool."

"Cool?"

Sasuke shrugged, "It was a cool exit at least, right?"

"W-wait a minute..." Sakura interrupted, looking between the two boys suspiciously, "You two hung out last night? Sasuke-kun, I thought you went home and Naruto, I thought you were having dinner with Iruka-sensei."

"Oh, I did do that," Naruto said, averting his eyes away from Sasuke once again, "but I ran into some trouble last night and Sasuke stepped in to help."

"I thought he pulled a prank on you?"

He glanced shyly at Sasuke through his lashes, "Apparently, that was just a misunderstanding... right, Sasuke?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, sincerity coloring his words, "I meant all of it."

Sakura was thoroughly confused, but whatever Sasuke meant by that seemed to matter a great deal to Naruto because he relaxed and blew a breath out slowly. It was quite obvious whatever was happening between them, she wasn't privy to, and that bothered her tremendously. She wanted to be the one who knew Sasuke the best, but even with all of the information she had gathered as the Co-President of the Uchiha Sasuke Fan Club, even she didn't know Sasuke could laugh like that.

Naruto's smile turned coy and he scratched the side of his cheek with his pointer finger, softly laughing as he leaned back against the railing so he could still see Sasuke. "Next time, don't disappear on me like that."

Next time...

The words echoed in Sasuke's mind as Sakura continued to solve the tension between them, but it was enough to solidify the raven's decision to accept Naruto's proposal. He's not offended by my touch, he's not angry about the kiss, and he admitted he was okay with same-sex partners. It's more than I had hoped for, and if I'm reading him correctly, he would be accepting of an official courtship agreement.

"What did you two do?" Sakura asked, eyes alight with curiosity as the awkwardness disappeared and was instantly replaced with a charged atmosphere as the two shinobi seemed to have entered their own world.

Naruto impishly grinned, "That's a secret, sorry, Sakura-chan."

"Sasuke-kun!"

"It's a secret," Sasuke repeated, his gaze warming as they met vivid blue.

Sakura stuck her bottom lip out in a pout as she crossed her arms irately, but while she knew she might be able to sweet-talk Naruto eventually into telling her what it was they did, Sasuke wouldn't give it up for anything short of death regardless of how ridiculous the secret was or wasn't. "Fine, it's probably something gross anyway," she said before smiling sweetly at Naruto. "But speaking of secrets, did your admirer leave you anything else today? Another note?"

"Oh, um..." Naruto ruffled his hair and embarrassedly tittered, "hehe, no, they didn't leave anything today."

"What, why?" she exclaimed, grabbing Naruto's shoulder as she looked at him with concern. "So you don't have a lunch today?"

"Yeah, that's okay, I can just grab something from the convenience store later."

She narrowed her eyes, Naruto was exceedingly calm for someone whose secret admirer had suddenly just disappeared. He had gloated every day about the mystery person who kept bringing him food and supplies, bemoaning the fact that he didn't know who it was, so to suddenly be unconcerned must mean... "Wait, do you know who your secret admirer is?"

"Uh..." his eyes slid automatically to Sasuke and his cheeks turned red as he remembered the kiss they had shared last night.

"Oh my god, you do know!" she squealed, grabbing Naruto by the hands as she leaned in until her face was directly in his, "Who is it? Was it Hinata like I thought?"

Sasuke felt anger bubble up at seeing Sakura touch Naruto and moved before he was even fully conscious of it to grab Sakura by the forearm, pulling her away as if she weighed nothing. Of course, it helped that as soon as he touched her, Sakura practically went into a catatonic state and moved wherever Sasuke forced her. "Leave him alone, Sakura," he said lowly, menacingly, as the kunoichi shivered at that midnight octave that had crept into his voice.

"I-I didn't mean anything by it," she said as tears collected at the corner of her eyes. "Why are you so cruel towards me, Sasuke-kun?"

"I've told you, you're annoying."

Something felt different about the words this time and Sakura felt her heart aching in a new way she didn't even know was possible. There was a finality in his voice this time, as if she had pushed him too much and crossed a line that she could never uncross.

"Sakura-chan—" Naruto started, trying to intervene between them, but Sakura shook her head and roughly wiped away her tears.

"It's okay, Sasuke-kun's right, I've been annoying you both." She forced a smile and clasped her hands together, taking stock in the way she had been acting up until now, "It's not my business who your admirer is and I shouldn't be prying into your life when I haven't done anything to gain your trust."

"What are you three doing? Why does it look like you are acting out a tragedy play?" Kakashi asked, as he stared down at them from the tree he stood on.

"We were just talking," Sasuke intoned, moving to stand next to Naruto in a subtle claim that Naruto was his that had Kakashi raising his eyebrows. He scowled back at their sensei, but he couldn't quite keep it in place now that he was filled with pleasure that Naruto was reciprocal to his advances.

"Hmm...just talking? Okay, well, today you will be undergoing a new training exercise I've created for my favorite genins."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "We're your only genins."

"And may you be the last," Kakashi added, placing his palms flat against each other before bowing his head in silent prayer.

"I'm not sure if he's hoping we do so well that he will be able to turn down any other teams or that we do so badly that the Hokage will never ask him to do it again," Sakura said with a shake of her head, her voice still tight from trying to not cry.

"Either option is acceptable to me," he shrugged, "but the outcome depends on how well you do on this exercise."

"What kind of training exercise?" Naruto asked suspiciously, they had since learned that their sensei had a strange sense of humor and an even stranger way of training them.

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled in a cheerful smile, "I'm glad you asked, Naruto-kun, because all you have to do is evade being caught by Sasuke. You and Sakura, you can either hide together or split up, but you have fifteen minutes to hide and then you will have two hours to avoid capture. If Sasuke captures you before the time runs out, then he wins, if you evade him for the full two hours, then you win."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, distrust clear, as he tried to understand just what was going through their sensei's head. It was too perfect of an opportunity for it to just be coincidental and the little V sign Kakashi flashed him only confirmed his suspicions. "What about lunch? Can we eat first?"

"Oh, but Naruto doesn't have lunch!" Sakura said before grabbing her gear pack, "I might have some rations bars left though, if that's okay with you."

"That's unnecessary," Sasuke murmured, a slight blush dusting his cheekbones as he pulled out two bento boxes and handed one to Naruto.

Her mouth fell open, looking at her teammates with new eyes at the way they sat with their shoulders and knees scarcely touching, and she gasped. The shy glances and blushing suddenly made sense as she swallowed, "Sasuke-kun, a-are you...perhaps, Naruto's..." she let her voice fade out, remembering that she had just said she wouldn't pry, but the creeping blush on both their faces confirmed it without words.

"Sakura?" Kakashi asked, jumping down from the tree to check on the obviously distressed kunoichi, "Are you ill?"

"Um, Sensei, I-I'm sorry, but I'm suddenly not feeling well," she said, wrapping an arm around her abdomen as she bowed in apology, "May I go home today?"

He nodded, "Go rest today, but I promise you that tomorrow will be twice as punishing."

"I understand, thank you," Sakura whispered, picking up her pack and hurrying away. Sasuke had bruised her heart many times and even stomped on it a few too, but this was the first time it felt like it had actually broken.  She needed some time to pick herself back up away from her teammates and other inquisitive eyes, time to lick her wounds and mend her heart before she could smile at them and pretend it didn't hurt.

Kakashi watched Sakura leave before turning to the two shinobi, Naruto was already halfway through eating his lunch as Sasuke ate at a slower, more methodical, pace. "Womanly cramps, be glad you two will never have to deal with those. I've heard they're awful."

Naruto choked on the too-large bite of food he took and hit himself in the chest with his fist a few times before it went down properly, "Hey, we get cramps too! Just the other day, I had a huge cramp in my leg that I thought I was gonna die from."

"Don't ever say that to a woman, Naruto, it's a good way to get slapped," he sighed, shaking his head at the blonde. "You have ten seconds to finish your lunch and get moving, remember, you only have a fifteen-minute head start over Sasuke."

He shoved the mostly eaten bento box towards Sasuke, wiping the bits of rice that were stuck to his cheeks off with the sleeve of his jacket, and grinned, "He won't catch me, I can promise that."

"Dobe, don't go making promises you can't keep," Sasuke scoffed, watching as Naruto tapped the toe of his shoe against the bridge deck. I want to kiss him again, he thought as the blonde licked his lips, I wonder if I can demand a kiss if I'm the winner.

"Oh, we'll see," he threw Sasuke a boyish smile and winked, "don't think I'm going to go easy on you just because you brought me lunch."

"You can use your shadow clones into the forest, but not on the way out," Kakashi said, that smile quickly turning into a scowl.

"Sensei! That's not fair!"

"This exercise is about stealth and cunningness, there will be times when you will deplete your chakra to the point of death and you will be in enemy territory," he explained as Naruto sulked, eyes downcast at his censuring. "You will need to have these essential skills that can get you safely out of danger without the use of chakra. It could save your life, so—no shadow clones once Sasuke enters the forest after you."

Naruto took a deep breath in, crossing his arms over his chest as if he were thinking whether or not to accept it. Not like that would make a difference in the decision, but it at least made him feel better, "Okay, fine, but I'll still kick Sasuke's ass."

"Your time starts...now," Kakashi