Untitled Intermission

Naruto, second in the line of ducklings, was having a hard time concentrating on the mission at hand. While he would normally take this opportunity to watch the slight wiggles of the back side of Sakura’s more adult curves, he couldn’t help himself from shoving his hands into his pockets and walk with a slump with his eyes to the ground, kicking along a little piece of broken stone pavement that he had found to distract himself. Sakura gave a peek back, also expecting to be watched by Naruto’s perverted eyes, but was honestly a little surprised and disappointed when she saw that he wasn’t. To even more of a shock to her, Sai was had stopped to read one of the advertisements that was posted on a decorated tree.



“What are you reading, Sai?” she asked, causing Sai to look in her direction. “Hm? Oh. There is a demonstration tonight…”, he said, turning his focus back on the poster. While there wasn’t a picture of the actual artist on it, the whimsical inking of bamboo and animals similar to his own drawing style scattered the poster board. Naruto had stopped too, walking over to stand close to Sai, squinting as he read the name of the artist. ‘..Shiro…Ishi…Shiroshi?”, he asked, having no clue to who that was. “Who the heck is that?”



Sakura all but screamed, running up and pushed both Sai and Naruto out of the way as she fawned over the poster. “SHIROISHI!” she squealed, hoping up and down in a joyous motion. Yamato just sighed, walking over at his own pace to his group. “That’s the one that hired us for this mission. He has reason to believe that he’s in danger…”, he muttered, shaking his head at Sakura. “Sakura and I will meet with him. Naruto, Sai, I need you two to scout the area. Keep your ears and eyes open for anything you might hear and report back to me in 2 hours, understand. “



“Yes”, they both said in unison as Sakura was pulling their Capitan along. She didn’t want to keep her sweet, sexy Shiro waiting too long; after all, this was a mission of great importance and life or death. Surely, millions of fan girls, including her, would just die if anything happened to him. Naruto watched them go before turning to Sai. “…About earlier…” he began but stopped, since he was talking to air. “Eh? Sai? Sai?” he called out, looking around, but the artist had already managed to sneak off on his own again. Naruto gave about his 50th heavy sigh of that day before taking a few leaps to a nearby rooftop to scout around for any potential dangers that posed threat at the moment , be it a drunken fight, a women screaming about being felt up, a kid crying over candy…or Sai ignoring him.



Naruto’s heart felt heavy in his chest as he thought about what could possibly be going on between him and his teammate. He made it perfectly clear that he did not want a type of relationship that was clearly defined as say ‘boyfriends’, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be ignored either. He wanted Sai to open up and be more honest with him, but he wasn’t sure if he was willing to give the same gratitude. Perhaps Sai already knew this…which is why he was acting the way it was. Naruto just wished that he would be given five minutes to apologize…

“I should kill you right now for letting your guard down”, a voice spoke to him from behind, making Naruto jump and nearly fall off of the rooftop. “S...Sasuke?!” he yelled, before getting a hand slapped around his mouth.