soulmates: Sun and Moon

authors note: alright, this chapter is where we meet the magenta love, though Naruto just doesn't know it yet that it's sasuke. and yes each nine lovers is a different type of love but i won't post sasuke's true type until much later. -.o the others though will be given out.

responses:
xgangsofasiax> thankie! ^^ tomorrow i'll put up two if i can as well.
mykonosparadise> yes and out of that nine he's gotta decide whether which one is right for him. XD

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Magenta...

Shizune closed the store an hour after the boys left and tidied up the store front. Sweeping and checking to see if young Konohamaru and his two young friends didn't snatch anything again. Some shuffling and moving about in the other half of the store made her want to see what Tsunade was doing.

Entering through the curtains Shizune glanced at the table where a book-bag sat with clothes and various items inside. Tsunade was in the back making louder noises. "Are you going somewhere Tsunade?"

"Yeah, I gotta do some research elsewhere for a few days to extract my revenge... I'll be back real soon though."

Shizune's eyes fell on the candle burning on a shelf. It burnt extremely slowly... but already it was reaching the Magenta coloured string. No doubt the boy would meet one of his lovers this very day. "Aren't you going to stay and help Naruto out through this crises?"

"What on earth do you mean? I'll be back soon! He can handle himself." Tsunade appeared with a small aquarium of slugs in her hands. She gave her assistant a calculating look. "Unless you know something I don't?"

The girl blushed. "Well yes... earlier I snatched a bit of Naruto's hair from the pouch on the candle to do a bit of practice with my advanced Taro and Stone combination work."

"And?" The woman seemed anxious not just on how her apprentice was doing, but was also curious about Naruto at the same time.

She frowned. "Well Naruto is in for a nasty surprise or maybe I didn't place everything correctly. I could be in the wrong."

"Hm. Let's both have a look and see."

The two of them went back into the front and glanced down at the area near the register where Shizune had laid out cards and stones.

"You did the cards in the correct order. You've got the hair in the center and the stones fell in the correct piles. What is the matter?"

"Look at the stones more closely..."

Tsunade bent down to read a few of the stones which each had different letters forming Kanji names in little piles. Each pile represented a name to each of the nine lovers. Tsunade frowned and her eyes widened. She looked to another pile and glanced at all the others. With each new name her eyebrows rose higher up into her hairline. She stood back and blinked. "They're all boy names..."

---------------Naruto's Apartment...

Grinning Naruto stood and lent back to pop his vertebrae. He gave out a long happy sigh and looked about. They had been cleaning up his apartment since the last hour. Iruka had gotten off work and met him at his small flat with some cleaning supplies.

Already it was improving. The windows were open for fresh air, furniture moved against one wall as the rugs were rolled up. Trash had been picked up and thrown away. Iruka had been determined to go ahead and renovate his apartment no matter how the blond complained. So far Naruto had scrapped the ugly wall paper off the walls, cleaned out the refrigerator and just finished scrubbing the wooden floor from its mold and splinters. Iruka himself had gone to the laundry mat already, cleaned up Naruto's room and bathroom. Even ripped down the curtains and dusted the whole place after sweeping.

The door opened and Iruka entered after taking down the heaps of trash to the dumpster. With both hands on his hips he eyed the place. "Tomorrow I'll have a plumber in here. Other then that I think I can paint the walls and get Kakashi to give you a new floor."

Naruto frowned. He really didn't want his father and his friend to fuss over him so. He liked it but didn't want the man working so hard for him. "What's wrong with the floor?"

With a horrid face Iruka looked from the disgusting wood to the boy in shock. "Everything."

There was no changing the mother-hen's mind. Naruto looked about. "Well... I can paint the walls. Really."

Shaking his head Iruka's frown deepened. "Oh no-no-no-no. Naruto it's not that I don't trust you with paint it's just..." Iruka blinked. "I just don't trust you with paint."

It was quiet for a moment before the two of them burst out laughing. Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Yeah I do suck at painting." Their laughter became soft giggles and the two looked about. Naruto more lost, but Iruka seemed to have the whole scene of the place worked out in his head.

"Alright this is enough for now. Go put on a new shirt and let's go get us some ramen."

"Hell yeah!" Naruto ran to his room pulling off his black t-shirt and throwing it across his bed. His father frowned when he saw this from the room's doorway. The blond snatched an orange muscle shirt from the top of the piled clothes in a hamper.

"I'm going to have to get you a dresser... this place was a real dump Naruto. You better keep it organized after I finish it up."

"I will." He put on his shirt and shuffled a hand his pocket. A second later he pulled out a chain he had found earlier while cleaning. Placing the ring on it, he put the chain around his neck and hid the ring underneath his shirt. Something somewhere he had read that lucky charms were supposed to be touching skin and close to the heart. Or maybe that was something else? He had forgotten.

"Good. Because if you don't then you're coming right back to living with me. I will enforce order first hand on you."

Naruto paled.

"And don't think I won't come over and have a peek to see if you're doing well. You better keep this place in top shape."

The blond nodded his head more determined.

The small family walked the streets back towards Reed Street. It wasn't really a far walk at all from Naruto's apartment. Now at four O'clock pm, they entered Ichiraku, taking off their shoes at the door, and took up seats on the floor in a very traditional environment. They had already ordered when Naruto told Iruka about his encounter with Tsunade -keeping out his run-in with the shark and mysterious man in trench-coats. He didn't want the elder to have a heart-attack at his own stupidity.

Iruka was skeptical about the whole idea of meeting nine lovers that he had supposedly his whole life to meet now crammed into one month.

"Even if it does work. And I'm not saying it won't!" Iruka held up his hands in defence at seeing Naruto's frown. The elder was more practical but knew that his child deep down wished that all fairytales were real. He'd have to try and not squash the boy's dreams... too hard. The boy did need to learn didn't he? "Even if it does work, don't you think that you're cheating in a sense?"

Thinking about this Naruto frowned. "I guess... but I don't want to spend my whole life searching for the right person." The blond straightened in his seat. "I want to spend my whole life with the right person!"

Blinking in surprise Iruka watched as the young waitress arrived and placed down the bowls of ramen. Of course Naruto scarfed down half the bowl before she even had a chance to walk back across the room. Iruka then smiled at Naruto's words. When had his little brat grown up so much? Had he been there when Naruto became so romantic in a way? Was it his own influence?

Naruto slurped down the rest of his meal and beamed at the other who hadn't touched his own bowl. The blonde's eyes turned pleading and Iruka gave in, shoving his bowl in front of the cheerful boy. "Go at it. I'll be right back."

Breaking a new set of chopsticks Naruto looked up as Iruka stood. "Where are you off to?"

"Just to the restroom. I'll be back."

The second bowl disappeared like the first and Naruto sat back with a lazy smile. He let his eyes wander the family restaurant reminiscing on how Ichiraku had first started out as a small stand just outside an onsen further out of town. The old man had made some good investments and opened up on Reed Street where most locals go to enjoy themselves. Like the old-fashioned bakery owned by Chouji's family, or Iruka's famous herbal tea. Even Tsunade got a lot of business! Naruto wished that some day he too could open up a shop on Reed Street, but most of all he wanted to publish a book. A good book, one that would make him proud of being an author.

Just then his eyes fell upon another male around his age. The boy wore pricey clothes; just a pair of tight jeans with a long-sleeved white shirt that was open at the collar and came down crisscrossing underneath his stomach. At least the male wore a black shirt underneath to keep from exposing a well-toned body. But really the quality screamed expensive. Naruto could even tell which shoes were his by the door! Nice polished black ones that matched his dark hair.

When the boy turned to look over his shoulder at the front door Naruto almost gasped aloud. So similar was this boy to the mysterious man in the alley Naruto wondered if maybe they were related in some way. His interest spiked.

On closer inspection the blond watched the others gestures. The raven-haired male seemed to be edgy as if he was expecting someone to appear. When the waitress came over he kept his head down as to hide his face from her and mumbled a drink order. Naruto caught the confused expression on the boys features as the person flipped through the menu... it was as if he hadn't been here before and didn't know what to order at all. The waitress arrived again with his drink.

"Would you like to order now?"

"Yes... something good..."

"It's all very good sir. We make our recipes from scratch."

The boy frowned, put out with having to choose something he did not know much about.

"Miso pork ramen!"

Dark blue eyes met light blue as the male jerked his head up when Naruto approached.

"Miso pork ramen is my favorite. It's very good."

"Is that what you wanted?" The waitress addressed the other.

After a slight hesitation the male nodded, thankful that the situation had been resolved. He stiffened though as the blond sat down across from him. Only when the boy sent a smile at the wealthy noble did he relax somewhat. This blond did not know who he was. Relief flooded through the raven.

"Hey I noticed you didn't seem to know what you wanted to try. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

Naruto's smile grew. Who knew he could still make friends with complete strangers after his hard break-up with Sakura? Of course something about the male across from him sent a weird fuzzy feeling running through his body. He almost felt giddy... maybe it was the fact this person was totally new to him? "You know, you're well dressed even to be dinning here at Ichiraku. That's a designer top isn't it? You must have a good job."

His mouth twitched almost blossoming into a small smile. It was nice having such a ridiculous conversation with someone you didn't know. Most where he worked weren't like this at all. There were sometimes that he wanted to take a breath and just relax from everything. "I work two jobs actually."

"Wow really? When do you get the time to relax?"

"Well... on weekends really."

"Anywhere particular you like to go?" Naruto was starting to get extremely excited. He didn't know why, but having a new friend could be fun. Someone who was more responsible then Kiba seemed practical for him since the jerk kept bringing up Sakura in foul ways. He couldn't take Kiba at long periods.

"The Hebi Club."

"Oh? I haven't really gone to the club that often. In fact it's been a long while."

"Hn. Then what do you do on your time off?" Shoulders becoming less tense, he gave a small smirk. Faintly he noticed that the blond was leaning a bit toward him. A rush of warmth came from the other as if the boy himself was a large heater. It was nice and a bit too distracting, especially when the jabbering teenager wore a muscle shirt with loose jeans clinging desperately to stay up on sloped hips. He had to tear his eyes away from the patch of teasing skin to listen carefully to the other or end up being a fool lost to words.

"Just reading and writing a bit. I help out at the library a lot and it can be quite fun reading about all kinds of things."

"Naruto?" Iruka appeared with his cellphone out. He was a bit taken aback to see Naruto chatting with another young male at a different table.

"Oh. Yeah?"

Holding up the phone Iruka pointed towards the door. "Jiraiya just called from the house and asked me to pick up some things before I get there."

"Uh, okay." Naruto had no idea what this had to do with him.

Iruka's eyebrow twitched. "You're coming with me young man."

"What?" He whined.

"I am not letting you stay in your apartment tonight. You're coming home with me. Come on let's go."

Naruto twisted around to see the other boy frowning. "Um, I'll see you at the club tomorrow night! Bye!" The blond jumped up and ran off after his short-tempered foster parent at the door. They put on their shoes and headed out.

Not ten minutes later Iruka asked, "So who's your new friend?"

The blond blinked.

"You forgot to ask him his name didn't you?"

Naruto's eyes widened and he groaned. "I forgot to ask him his name!"

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alright sasuke is our magenta lover... dude... thing... person.

anyhow! next chapter will be naruto at the club. whooohooo... meh. okay i might post two chapters up tomorrow like i did yesterday, one in the afternoon and one at night. it depends on how much of a roll i'm on. okay thanks for the great posts and later!!!