Blind To It Before

Title: Blind To It Before
Rating: R (for now)
Warnings: None yet

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Chapter 3 – Glowing Embers


Word spread quickly through the Konoha village of the latest team to fall victim to a Sound attack. Whispered rumors of deadly musical weapons, new chemical-based attacks, and even absurd stories of summoned acid-spitting lizards circulated throughout the gossip hot-spots. The wagging tongues got even worse when news spread that the attack's main victim was being placed under care of his own private nurse. The housewives and grandmothers of the village had a new local drama to watch unfold: the injured shinobi being nursed back to health by his childhood crush.

Hearing Sakura enter his room was always the highlight of his day, and the sound of squeaky wheelchair wheels excited him even more. "Naruto-kun," Sakura addressed him, trying to sound as natural and cheerful as she could, "you've been released. Time to go home!" She leaned in to help slide his leg, which was wrapped in a solid cast from the knee down, off the bed so he could get into the chair.

He turned his blank gaze toward the sound of her voice and gave her a puzzled look, as if he wanted to ask something but decided against it. The familiar grin spread across his face as he lifted his weight onto his good leg and allowed her to help guide his body into the wheelchair. "All right! I was getting sick of hanging around here, it's so boring! Now I can get back to my training, and eat ramen whenever I want, and before you know it I'll be back on missions!"

Sakura frowned as she turned the chair out the doorway, "Naruto-kun, you won't be doing any of that. Tsunade-sama has given strict orders that you are to rest and heal your leg at least before you resume training. And as for missions, Tsunade-sama said you're out of commission until we figure out how to restore your vision."

Naruto scowled, "There's no way I'm gonna let two and a half years of training go to waste! I don't need to be able to see to be a great ninja!"

The wheelchair stopped mid-hallway as Sakura walked around to stand before Naruto and lean down, staring him directly in his unseeing eyes. "You may not listen to Tsunade-sama, but you will listen to me." Her tone was cool, almost threatening, causing Naruto to gulp in fear. It took him a moment before he chuckled, and grinned up at her.

"You're right, Sakura-chan, but you can't keep an eye on me forever. As soon as I'm out of here and back home, I can do whatever I want! Maybe I'll stop at Ichiraku first..."

"I'm going home with you." Her words snapped him out of his planning, causing his mouth to hang open in a state of shock.

"S-Sakura-chan...y-y-you don't have to. I mean, thanks for the concern and all, but you've got a job here. And besides, I can take care of myself. And...um..." His stammering and rambling continued all the way to his apartment, stopping only when she unlocked his door with her own set of keys. The former bachelor's pad, was now clean and well arranged to accommodate his condition. The stacks of magazines, discarded cups of instant ramen, and other random tripping hazards had been cleared out to leave an easily navigable path throughout the entire apartment. "Sorry it's so messy..." he muttered, unaware she had been in there a day earlier to clean everything up.

Sakura giggled a little, "I did some cleaning before bringing you back. I can't very well report to Tsunade-sama that my first full-time patient got re-injured tripping on a pile of ramen bowls, can I?"

Her words caught him off guard again and he nearly fell trying to get out of the wheelchair. "A-are you serious, Sakura-chan? I mean, about taking care of me? You really don't have to, you know. See, I can manage to get around in here just fine!" He groped about blindly for the armchair that used to sit in his small living room, and had been relocated to the other side of the window.

She steered him in the right direction, forcing him to sit with a gentle shove of his shoulders. "Naruto-kun, I was assigned to you by Tsunade-sama herself, there is no arguing with her decision. For the next few weeks, I'll be helping you adjust to getting around without your eyes, as well as making sure you heal those injuries. And I mean it, NO TRAINING." He scowled again, fidgeting uncomfortably, remembering the kind of glare that most likely accompanied that tone of voice. As if she could read his mind, she replied to him again with that same nagging tone, "And if you think you can do it behind my back, think again. She assigned me to you full time."

This statement was the breaking point for Naruto; he broke out in a spastic display of stammering, incomplete words, and incoherent stuttering until finally he slumped over in his chair, panting for breath. When he calmed down a bit, he finally managed to speak in a complete sentence, "So, you're going to be...living here?"

She nodded in confirmation, then realized he couldn't see her and spoke up. "Yes, the hospital has prepared me for the arrangement. I've got medical supplies, as well as a budget for food and other living expenses for the rest of the month. Believe it or not, Naruto-kun, you've become a valuable asset to Konoha, and Tsunade-sama doesn't want to take any chances of losing you. She's working on finding a solution to your injury as we speak, and until she notifies me that she has succeeded, you're in my care. Got it?"

How could he say no? While his childhood crush on Sakura had pretty much faded to a great admiration and respect of the kunoichi, he was still elated that she would accept the Hokage's orders and personally take care of him. Still, there was a nagging voice in the back of his mind, not only warning him that this was a dig at his pride, having to be taken care of, but also that it could prove troublesome with the two of them living in such close quarters. Part of his anxiety over the latter issue was relieved as he heard her move to the bedroom and sit down on a bed that was obviously not his. Even in the short time he had been without sight, his other senses were already starting to compensate for the vision loss. The telltale squeak of his lumpy old mattress was absent as he realized she had sat down on a bed the hospital must've furnished for her.

The first day in the apartment was spent getting used to the new situation the two teammates found themselves in. Sakura helped Naruto navigate the new layout of the two small rooms as he slowly learned the nuances of his new arrangement. There were a few near trips and knees colliding with various objects, and his first trip to the bathroom was less than pleasant from Sakura's standpoint. He'd have a lot of training to do if he was going to have a shot at ever re-learning to hit the toilet bowl, let alone throw a shuriken straight.

Finally exhausted, Naruto collapsed on his bed, thankful for the welcoming squeak in its rusty old springs. "You sure this is okay for you, Sakura-chan?" he questioned, scratching absentmindedly at his cast, which he could tell was nearing the end of its use due to the intense itching.

She pulled his hand away to stop his scratching and handed him his crutch, "I think we did rather well for today and it's time for a bath."

Naruto's brain nearly shorted out from her suggestion and he was caught in another outbreak of stammering and freaking out. "B-but, Sakura-chan, w-we can't just go into the public baths together! I-I mean, what if someone sees us?"

She laughed and picked up the bucket containing their bath gear, "Well, for one, we are going to the hospital's baths, which are designed for these types of situations. And number two, I am a nurse, you are my patient, so there's nothing wrong with it and you WILL act that way, understood?" Even with the confidence in her tone, inside Sakura was dreading this part of her job. She knew full well Naruto couldn't see her, but the thought of being in the same bathing area at the same time was enough to set off warnings in her head. The thoughts that surfaced were quickly crushed by her constant reminding that this was her job as a medic-nin and Tsunade had trusted her to take care of every aspect of the job to the best of her abilities.

Naruto, meanwhile, had contemplated her words, turned various shades of red, and then calmed down and tried to put on his most normal facade as he limped along next to her. With one hand on his shoulder to guide him, many of the villagers on the street took notice and did begin concluding that the two were in fact a couple. Rumors had a nasty habit of spreading quickly through Konoha and within hours, it was nearly everyone's business that Naruto and Sakura were not only living together, but also apparently bathing together as well. The two most stunned by this turn of events were the infamous Rock Lee, whose infatuation with the pink-haired kunoichi had turned into a mutual friendship that still yearned for more, and Ino, the best friend-turned-rival who couldn't believe that Sakura had landed a boyfriend before she had.

As neighbors whispered to neighbors, Naruto and Sakura were blissfully unaware of the gossip surrounding them as they disrobed in the changing room of the hospital baths. Sakura was secured in a towel before noticing that Naruto was having an issue pulling his traditional orange pants off his cast-laden leg. She stooped down to help him, finally succeeding in leaving him in nothing but a cast and a pair of dark blue boxers. Blushing slightly, she handed him a towel and told him to call for her when he was ready.

Moments later, Naruto was seated on a bathing stool with the towel draped over his lap and a plastic bag tied over his leg. Sakura stood next to him, hesitant of discarding her towel at first until a few more waves of her hand before his unseeing eyes reassured her. Placing the towel aside, she sat next to him and handed him the shampoo bottle and placed a basin of cold water by his feet before attending to her own hair. Naruto fumbled around a bit but got his hair washed and rinsed before Sakura could finish with her own needs. She paused mid-wash to guide him to the location of the soap, which he managed to fumble with, drop and lose in a matter of seconds. He began groping about looking for the loose bar as she sighed and rinsed the lather from her hair. As she moved to retrieve the soap, his searching hand came in contact with her inner thigh, causing a scream, a slap, and a clatter of buckets and various bottles. Naruto recoiled, unaware of what just happened, only that he had touched something soft and as a result, now had a stinging pain on his left cheek.

She was near screaming and throwing her bucket at him when she came to her senses and remembered that he could not have seen what he was doing. Forgiving him this time, she apologized and resituated them, leaving the rest of the bathing session to be conducted in awkward silence. It wasn't until they reached the apartment that Naruto spoke up. "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan. Whatever I did, I didn't mean to, I swear."

She handed him his pajamas and began changing into her own, turning her back to him in learned modesty. "It's okay, I overreacted, I forgot that you can't see. We'll just have to be more careful next time." She crawled into her bed and turned out the light, "Good night, Naruto-kun."

He finished with buttoning his nightshirt and turned his head toward her side of the room, clenching the hand that had come in contact with her body that day. "Good night...Sakura-chan..."