In the Mountains

Chapter Four

The next couple of days were the most boring days of my life.

I spent most of my time in the room, or in the lobby of the hotel, pacing. Iruka agreed that I should take walks, but only once a day for an hour.

That unfortunately meant I had a lot of time on my hands. Time I had no other choice but to spend thinking. Sure, I had some issues to think through, like ‘Should I ask what do they put in the chicken to make it so delicious or make a holiday mystery out of it?’ and ‘Am I gay now?’

The first issue was solved when I was unceremoniously kicked out from the kitchen before uttering a word. The second one was not so easy, mostly because Sasuke was not a girl.

If Sasuke was a girl, I wouldn’t have an issue to work through at all. It wasn’t as simple as that, though.

You see, I clearly remember the picture of Sakura and Ino in black lace that grew into an all-alone-and-getting-off fantasy. I had to concentrate for a bit, because some other images - involving Sasuke and white doctor coats - where trying to impose, but it worked just fine in the end. So, I’m definitely into woman, which is not a surprise.

Similar experiment involving Neji had ended with identical results. Not that I like him or anything, but as I said before, he’s good looking. Neji is a guy, though, so I might be slightly gay. I didn’t mind that.

But I didn’t want to be gay if Sasuke wasn’t a girl. See?

If he was a girl and I was gay, then I wouldn’t be attracted to him. As it was, I’m only slightly gay so it didn’t really matter what gender he was. I was attracted to him and nothing I tried, seemed to stop that from happening.

Old fantasies, along with the new ones I shaped from desperation, didn’t work for long. Trying to ignore Sasuke was harder then it seemed in the beginning, because I liked to sit in the lobby, and he had to walk through the lobby many times a day to do his job. I pretended to be busy with gazing thoughtfully through the window, or looking in a magazine (hopefully not upside-down), or picking my nails every time we crossed paths. The operative word here is ‘pretending’.

What I was actually doing was, in some circles, called ‘gathering intelligence’. It means, I was watching him very closely and remembering details.

Sasuke drinks lemonade without any sugar in it at all and much more lemon then it’s probably healthy; it will make him wrinkled years before his time. Actually, he might have already been wrinkled but you couldn’t really tell; after all he was always scowling and glaring. When you think about it, that stupid habit could be easily explained with his taste for drinks.

I couldn’t help but make faces whenever he would order a glass of lemonade, and whenever he noticed, he would – imagine my surprise - scowl and glare.

He was trying hard to break the habit of putting his hands in his pockets, but it wasn’t working. It was somewhat funny; I couldn’t help but watch him struggle and then wait for comprehension to hit when he lost, and had to pull his hands out of his pockets do something. The not so funny part came without much imagination, a foul mood that would follow, and was soon taken out on children and random innocent hotel guests.

He didn’t have the habit of pulling his hair out of his eyes, when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. It looked like he was trying to hide behind his bangs, which was stupid, because they were not even long enough to cover his face, not to mention his whole body. Once I caught him scowling at some unsystematically chosen thing, even though by every logical known to the humankind he was supposed to be as good as blind under his thick dark hair, I got it. He was spying on me! Through his bangs! The bastard!

I never had the chance to prove that, because it happened on Thursday.

And there was sort of one more issue to deal with. Do you remember that red head friend of Neji’s, Gaara? The one who wanted to spar and had two siblings with him when we met?

He was weird.

First time, I noticed, I was humming happily into my continental ‘pastry with jam and butter’ breakfast, when Ino said from the chair on my left:

“That guy is staring.”

“Uh-huh.” Sakura answered.

“This is getting ridicules.” Iruka added, mumbling and looking put out.

I looked up at them. They were all looking back at me. It felt as if had done something wrong, and I had no idea what could that be.

“What?” I asked, with my mouth only half-empty.

Ino, feeling obligated since she had been the one to bring the subject up, tried to explain, “That guy is staring.”

The problem is, that told me nothing more the second then the first time around. So I looked at her, puzzled, making her huff as if she was dealing with an ape that refused a banana for lunch.

“At you!”

“Why?” I asked, pretty sure that when you have no idea what’s going on, you should stick to simple questions. Someone would explain if you were pigheaded enough.

“How should I know?” Ino demanded. Sakura snorted into her cup. Iruka hid his head in the newspaper, pretending that he wasn’t blushing violently.

Their combined reactions first made me confused, and then I spun around in one jerky, sudden move to look at the direction Ino was indicating earlier. Calm, green eyes met mine unblinkingly.

Not only was Gaara staring, he was doing it very deliberately without making any expression. Or blinking. I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing, but Sakura grabbed my arm and hissed:

“Quiet! He’s Neji’s friend, don’t make a scene!”

“I just wanted to ask him why he’s staring.”

“Then ask him somewhere else, not during the meal when everyone is here.”

Iruka was still trying to hide behind the paper. I started to doubt he was preparing himself to be embarrassed for my yelling. Yelling that never even happened yet.

Am I that predictable?

“Oh, who cares?” I sighed, feeling a little insulted. “Let him stare if he wants to.”

He apparently wanted to, and very much. Every meal he waited for us to come down, than took position across from me – because God forbid I have him hurt his neck staring - and locked his eyes on my face until I swallow too many half chewed bites and give up on a proper meal due to a sore throat.

Once when we found ourselves in the same room at the same time, by pure accident, I asked him what was so interesting at our table. I might have been a little too loud, people were turning in our direction with annoyed expressions, but Garra didn’t seem to mind. He answered:

“You are.” In the way that suggested I should have known that.

What I did know is, that wasn’t a completely sane way to tell someone you’re interested in having romantic relationship with them, so I decided to become even more careful and systematic in avoiding him. My tactic of choice was to convince myself that he had cholera; he was a bit pale, after all.

Avoidance in this case worked, because as soon as I saw any sign of him, I went to my room and locked the door. I was lucky Garra was a big fan of long, pointless walks in the afternoon, or I never would have found an opportunity to sit in the lobby. I had to go down for the meals, though, and then he would stare again.

Okay, so I lied. My days were not so boring after all.

Friday afternoon, a day before I was to start classes, Neji knocked on my door.

“Naruto.” He said, all serious. “How are you?”

“Emotionally traumatized.” I answered and then wanted to kick myself. I meant both about the disturbing habit Gaara developed and about my unholy inner debates. Luckily, Neji only knew about the first issue.

“I’m sorry about Gaara. He is… harmless.” The hesitation left some room for doubt. “I believe he likes you.”

“Oh, he definitely likes my face, can’t take his eyes of it for a minute while I’m eating. Let’s just hope he won’t try to take it home on a stick.”

Neji actually smiled, and it looked honest.

“You can not really blame him.”

“Oh, no, trust me. If I start walking around, looking like a Hellraiser wanna-be, I can most definitely blame him.”

“I meant, you can not really blame him for looking at you.”

“Oh.” I said, and looked carefully for any signs of fever or some other babbleish illness. “You’re right, I’m awesome!”

Neji smiled again. Something clicked in my brain.

It was a compliment. From a guy!

This is because they can sense my suppressed gay feelings, isn’t it? They, the guys I mean, can smell it on me, like girls can smell yesterday’s socks, and they become territorial or some crap. It has to be something chemical – I never bothered with that stuff, so I don’t really get it, but it was the only explanation I could think of.

I needed to do something about it. I couldn’t just let them do what they want. I couldn’t tell Gaara off, because he’s Neji’s friend and I didn’t want to get fired. And he made me a little nervous. I couldn’t tell Neji off, because of the same reason, and he just gave me a compliment, that’s not cause enough for me to snap. No matter how nice his smile was when he said it.

I needed to stop suppressing my gayness, and I needed to find a way not involve Sasuke in that.

“Can you take a walk with me? I want to talk to you about something.” Neji asked and then quickly added after catching a look of pure horror on my face, “Job related.”

“Um, right now?”

“Yes.”

“Can you give me fifteen minutes? I have to make a call. It’s rather urgent.”

Neji nodded and looked at me with some worry in his eyes.

“Of course. I will wait in the lobby.”

As soon as he closed the door behind him, I jumped for the phone, hitting my hip on the edge of Iruka’s bed in the hurry. Sakura couldn’t help; it was time for desperate measures. Few minutes later, voice of my only gay friend, Haku, sounded happy to hear from me:

“Naruto!”

“I have to stop suppressing.” I told him, before he can sidetrack me into greetings and politeness. “How do you get out of the closet?”

“What!?” He asked, uncharacteristically loudly.

I wanted to be patent, but Neji was waiting, so I had also to be quick. What came out of it was this:

“When you came to us and told us you were gay and everything, you said you’re getting out of the closet. How do you do that? Am I supposed to let my hair grow long now? Wear women clothes? Do I have to say why I’m doing it?”

“No, no! What? No!” He said helpfully. “Are you gay?”

“I don’t know… maybe…slightly.”

“Slightly?”

“Well I still like girls.”

“But now you like boys, too?” He asked, much calmer now and maybe a little amused. “I should have known, after that party.”

That did not sound good. I don’t always remember things I do at parties, not if enough alcohol was involved, or people that I trusted to help me home were there.

“What party? I never liked guys before, how would you know?”

Haku hesitated for a moment. Then he said:

“Um. There were some things you said and did. At Kiba’s birthday party.”

“Things?” I repeated, hazed. I did things?

“Don’t worry, no one else saw, just Sakura and me. And, uh... Kiba. He panicked a little, but luckily forgot due alcohol poisoning.”

“Kiba?” I prompted, feeling even hazier and somewhat cold.

“He forgot, don’t worry.”

“He forgot what?”

The pause seriously scared me. It made me hold my breath and squint.

“You groped him.”

Something disturbingly like a suppressed memory flew before my eyes. When we were standing very, very close, Kiba seemed to be, after all, taller than I am. I said carefully:

“That… doesn’t sound too bad.”

Another pause. Fuck.

“You also offered him a blow job as a birthday present.”

I closed my eyes and leaned on the wall with my right shoulder. Then I squeaked:

“Offered?”

“And then tried to take his pants off, but we stopped you.”

How will I ever look Kiba in the eyes again?

“Sakura and you? Or Kiba and you?”

“Kiba was pretty content to let you do as you wished. He thought you were Ino. At first.”

How drunk was Kiba if he couldn’t recognize me? Hell, how drunk was Kiba, if he thought Ino would ever do that for him?

…I don’t think I like what that sentence says about me.

“Why has no one ever told me?” I demanded.

“We were afraid you’d let it slip in front of Kiba. You know what he’s like about that.”

Yeah, Kiba was homophobic, even though he was denying it passionately. He would actually jump away from Haku whenever they accidentally ended up less then three feet apart each other, like some stupid sitcom comedy.

“Okay.” I said, trying to get back the conversation on track. “What am I supposed to do? How do I get out of the closet?”

“Naruto,” Haku said, carefully taking in the condition of my heart. “Is this about Sasuke?”

Haku was a friend from collage, but I mentioned Sasuke often enough for him to know who Sasuke was. I haven’t talked to him since I came here, though.

“You talked to Sakura?”

“Yes, she said he’s there.”

I raised my chin, even though there was no one to see it, and announced proudly:

“I’m suppressing him successfully.” More or less. “But the others can smell it.”

I could hear the sigh on the other side of the phone.

“You’re in one of those overdramatic periods, right? Just breathe deeply and it will go away.”

“It won’t. He’s the doctor here. He won’t go away.”

“So this is about Sasuke.”

“I…” If I couldn’t tell Haku, then I couldn’t tell anyone. He knew how to keep a secret, and more importantly, he wasn’t here with us. “Yes, it’s about him. Partly. Mostly. He’s married, so I can’t have him involved. I just want for this weird guy to stop looking at me. I think he will stop if I stop suppressing my gayness.”

“Is he bothering you? Or is he just looking?”

“He…” I said, thinking of what Neji said earlier, and how he gave me a really nice smile. Maybe he was just trying to flatter me, to distract me from Gaara, but still. “They smile and stare and say things with their eyes that I don’t want to think about.”

“Things like what?”

“Things like ‘don’t waste that butter on the bread when we can spread it all over your asshole’.” My insides cringed in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. “I told you I don’t want to think about it!”

Haku was laughing on the other side of the phone. It wasn’t very funny, in my opinion but it made me feel a little better.

“What should I do?” I demanded anyway.

“If you don’t like anyone else aside from Sasuke, then there is no need to get out of the closet. Just stay in. Ignore the knocking.”

“But they stare! They can smell that I’m suppressing gayness and it is in their nature or something to stare at me?”

“Stop saying that, you sound ridicules. He probably just likes you. Do you like him? At all?”

I thought about it. Gaara was definitely good looking; there was no doubt about it. I liked his hair; so brightly red. But do I really think I could kiss him? I wasn’t sure. He made me nervous. I said carefully:

“He is… weird. I never really talked to him.”

“Maybe you should. Figure it out, and if you like him, then think about closets and woman clothes.”

“Oh. I don’t really have to wear flowery dresses, do I?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, thank God. I have to go now, Haku. Neji is waiting for me.”

“Okay. But, Naruto?”

“Huh?”

“If you do start liking that guy, or someone else, just ask them out. Iruka and Sakura won’t mind, they just want you happy.”

“Okay. Bye now.”

“Call me!”

He missed the point, if he thought I was afraid of Iruka’s and Sakura’s reaction. But his words made me think. I did say that having someone to distract me from thinking about Sasuke would be good, didn’t I? Maybe I should give it a try, and get to know Gaara.

After all, he was so odd; he might even not like me at all like that, and I’m just making an elephant out of a fly. Maybe this was his way of making friends. Oh, who knows, he was rich - maybe he wanted a personal martial arts trainer.

Neji was waiting for me when I got down. He led me out of the hotel and down the meadow toward the park, and I followed, even though technically we were walking together. He set the pace that clearly said he definitely had something on his mind; it wasn’t just a simple walk.

We were quiet, I was still thinking about things Haku said. I wasn’t too distracted to miss the opportunity to enjoy the park, though.

I’ve seen it before, on short walks Sakura and Ino took with me. Neji led me deeper into the trees. Hotel was far behind us when we took a path heading out of the park, with a small house on the end of it.

Only when I noticed that we are heading directly toward it, the red alert went off in my head. I asked suspiciously:

“Neji? Where are you taking me?”

Neji stopped and turned to me.

“That,” He said, pointing at the house in front of us. “Is one of my family’s summer houses. My sister is spending most of her summer there.”

His sister, Hinata. With her husband.

“As much as I would like to see your sister again, why are we going there now?” I asked, afraid my voice spoke entirely different things then my words, like ‘I really, really don’t want to see your sister, damn it!’ I did want to see her, just not like this. Not as Sasuke’s wife, no matter how much that would help my ignoring attempts.

“I’m not taking you to see my sister, I’m taking you to see Sasuke.” Neji explained.

That made things worse. Oh shit, I was thinking, on the edge of panicking. Neji knows!

That, of course, made no sense, because if he knew, I would be half way home by that point. Not beaten, though, because let’s face it – it’s Neji. But most definitely fired. He would have no reason to take me to see Sasuke.

“Why?” I asked after couple of seconds that took me to process all this.

“Look, Naruto…” Neji started and then paused, as if he was trying to decide how to phrase what he wanted to say. “I talked to Hinata, and to your friends. Sasuke and you obviously don’t get along very well. I need to know if I can leave the two of you alone in the same room with the kids.”

I felt slightly insulted. It was like was saying he doesn’t trust me to do what I was paid to do, as if didn’t trust me to take my job seriously. My voice was probably louder and rougher then I would have liked when I said:

“I told you I would not allow it to become a problem.”

“Even if he provokes you?” Neji asked. I wanted to answer but he waved it away. “It is not that I don’t trust you, I just need to know for sure. Sasuke has a temper, and you are not the most tranquil person yourself. If you two can spend an hour together in the same room and nothing happens, it would help me not to worry about it anymore.”

What I was supposed to say? Nothing that would help, and apparently nothing that would talk him out of it, so I just nodded and started walking down the path again.

The sooner we get this over with, the better.

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This is the first part of what was supposed to be the forth chapter, but it was so long I had to split it in two. It shouldn't be too long before the second part (as the fifth chapter) comes out.