New Beginnings NOW COMPLETE

Iruka left the two students alone in the kitchen to work on their homework.
Nico looked over at Sasuke and laughed. He was wearing a purple shirt.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“What did I tell you about purple?” she asked giggling.

He looked down at his shirt, “I like this shirt.”

“It’s still the colour of sexual frustration,” she said teasingly.

“Wow I sure came in at the wrong time,” Naruto commented as he walked over to the fridge, “All I heard was sexual frustration.”

Nico looked at him and laughed, after all who wears purple pants?
Sasuke could almost see the glint in her eye, “So did you know that purple is the colour of sexual frustration?”

Naruto choked as he drank out of the milk carton and Sasuke turned bright red.
Nico just laughed.
“Naruto I hope you aren’t going to put that back in the fridge now that you’ve contaminated it,” Sasuke said crossly.

“Of course not!” he said a little guiltily, making the other two teenagers certain that he had been about to do exactly that.

“Hi I’m Nico,” she said brightly standing up and walking over to the blonde, “I’m in some of Sasuke’s classes.”

“I think I saw you at the arcade last Friday too didn’t I?” Naruto asked curiously.

“Yep, showing my cousin how we do things outside the city,” she smiled.

“So what is orange the colour of?” Naruto asked cheerfully.

“That’s a very good question,” Nico said.

“And?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she grinned, “But I’m sure it has a very good answer too. Well I’d better go home, it’s my turn to help with dinner,” Nico said wrinkling her nose, “Unless you want to help me with my English…”

“No that’s ok you can go. I wouldn’t want Ria coming after me,” Sasuke said in mock seriousness.

She sighed, “Fine then be like that see if I care.”
She packed her books up and put everything back in her bag.
“And I’ll leave the two of you to work out your sexual frustration,” she grinned and ran.

“NICO!!” Sasuke bellowed after the hastily retreating girl.

Naruto turned red and laughed nervously, “So Sasuke….since when do you have friends? And fun friends at that.”

“Since Nico won’t leave me alone,” he growled, “I’ve tried ignoring her but it just makes her worse.”

“I don’t know, the pair of you look kinda cute together,” Naruto said slowly.

The Uchiha felt a strange pain in his chest, “She’s a friend Naruto. Just a friend.”
The brunette boy stormed up the stairs and flopped onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow.
Kinda cute together.
Why did those words affect him so much? It was true he had no interest in Nico as anything other than a friend, and he was pretty sure that the fact that she stubbornly insisted he was gay meant that she had no romantic designs on him either. Which was good because it meant there was no weirdness, aside from the usual that is, after all Nico carried weird around with her like a personal cloud. Her family was sweet and all but not exactly normal, if Naruto had a family that is how he would imagine them.

“Hey Sasuke,” Naruto said softly from the doorway, “I’m not sure what I said to offend you but I’m sorry ok?”

“Hn,” Sasuke said from his position under the pillow.

“We missed you at lunch,” the blonde ventured.

Sasuke glowered into the pillow. Yeah sure they had, especially with that stupid girl slobbering all over his Naruto.
“Ah shit!” Sasuke said into the pillow. That was not the first time he had thought of him like that.

“What’s wrong?” Naruto asked walking over to the boy’s bed side.

“Stupid fucking thoughts keep fucking…” Sasuke ranted into his pillow.

The blonde leaned on the bed next to him, “What did you say?”
The other boy shot up and gave him a quick kiss on his half open mouth.

“I need to think,” he said running out of the room.

“Damn confusing bastard,” Naruto said with a slight smile.


Sasuke’s head was reeling as he climbed the familiar backyard tree.

“So, ready to talk yet?” Kakashi asked him from Naruto’s branch.

Sasuke groaned, had he actually named the branch?
“Figured it out have you?” the jounin asked in a conversational tone, “I wondered how long it would take.”

“What do you..”

“Please, I have been watching the two of you together since you were put into my team. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” Kakashi laughed, “To be honest I thought Naruto would have figured it out long before you.”

He sat and ignored the suddenly talkative teacher. He could not ever remember having a crush or any liking towards any girl. Ever. Although he had never felt attracted to another guy either if he was entirely honest.

“No you’re not asexual Sasuke,” the older man told him with a grin, “Maybe you’re Narutosexual.”

“And this is why nobody comes to you with issues,” Sasuke said gritting his teeth.

“Yeah well Iruka’s busy cooking dinner he can smooth things out later. I’m just here to see how many funny faces I can get you to make.”

“Sasuke, Kakashi, dinner’s ready!” Sakura called out the back door.


“So Sasuke… Nico seems nice…” Iruka said awkwardly.

The Uchiha snorted, “Nice? She’s about as crazy as they come.”

“She reminds me of Naruto,” the teacher said taking a mouthful of food.

“Only about ten times more embarrassing,” the brunette boy said taking another bite.

“She’s nothing like me,” Naruto said, outraged.

“Dobe, she’s loud, obnoxious, weird, stupid-”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Iruka told him disapprovingly.

“Why not? I’ve already told her she’s loud and annoying. And would I have had to help her with her homework if she wasn’t stupid?” the Uchiha said rolling his eyes, “She knows what I think about her.”

“You helped me with my homework,” Naruto said defensively.

“You really do walk into these things don’t you dobe?” Sasuke said dryly.

“Oh, right,” he said blushing.


“We’ll clean up tonight,” Kakashi said decidedly looking at the surprised students, “Why don’t you all go do homework or something.”

Sasuke walked distractedly out the back door and the other two ran up the stairs before he changed his mind.

“Now, what’s wrong?” the silver haired man asked looking at Iruka.

“What do you mean?” Iruka asked evasively, “What makes you think something is wrong?”

“Honey you’ve been avoiding me ever since we went camping,” he said wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist.

“Well you haven’t taken the mask off yet,” the brunette said defensively.

“I haven’t had a reason to,” he replied sadly.

Iruka pulled away and started washing up, “Please don’t make me feel like the bad guy here.”

“Who said there was a bad guy?” Kakashi asked softly, “Please just tell me what’s wrong. I’ve been trying to work it out but I can’t. One moment things were fine and the next they weren’t, what happened?”

When Iruka turned around there were tears in his eyes, “I didn’t ask for this and I’m not suited to it. I shouldn’t be here, you know that. If anything happens I’ll be the damsel in distress waiting for someone to come save me. I don’t know why they sent me on this mission in the first place!”
He turned back to the dishes with renewed vigour.

Kakashi slid his arms around the brunette’s waist and rested his chin on his shoulder.
“You’re here because I need you here, and so do the others. I can fight and handle all of that side of things but we would have destroyed the house and starved by now if it wasn’t for you. We need you to be practical. I need you,” he pulled down his mask, “Iruka honey, I can’t do this without you.”

“Please don’t call me that. It only makes things harder,” Iruka said quietly.

“What do you mean harder?” the jounin pulled back and turned the other man around to face him, “Make what harder?”

“This whole thing, the whole time I’ll be wondering when we’ll be called back, dreading that moment.”

“You don’t like Konoha?” he asked, confused.

“I love Konoha but I… I don’t want to go from having you to not having you. It would just be too hard. So please just don’t,” Iruka said sadly turning back to his washing up.

“Who said you wouldn’t have me?” Kakashi asked, surprised.

“As soon as we’re back home everything will go back to the way it was and I will only ever see you in passing or when we come into conflict about our team. It will be hard enough to go back to that without you making things worse,” he explained, concentrating on the dishes.

“Leave those bloody dishes alone and talk to me! Do you really think Sakura would be able to go back to squealing over Sasuke? Do you really think Sasuke and Naruto’s relationship will ever go back to how it was? This whole trip is changing everyone and I don’t think anything will be the same by the time we go home. Sasuke might be able to but I won’t be able to go back to hiding,” he pulled off his mask and threw it on the floor.

“Do you really mean that?” Iruka asked softly.

“Of course I do. I’m not doing this because of where we are or what we’re doing, I’m definitely using the opportunity but hey, who wouldn’t?” he grinned and Iruka felt himself smiling too, “I really do care about you Iruka.”
He pulled their bodies together and let their lips meet gently.

“Do you really care about me?” Iruka asked in an innocent tone.

“Of course I do,” Kakashi said warily.

“Enough to help clean up after you volunteered us?” the brunette asked flatly.

“Lets just say that I care about you a lot but, some things are just impossible for me,” there was a puff of smoke and Iruka was alone.

“KAKASHI!!!”