* 𝑵𝑨 - 𝚁𝚄 - 𝗧𝗢 !

random asks.⠀⠀/⠀⠀accepting.

“e-eh?!” itadori’s smile wavers for a split second as naruto’s words come out— all jagged and sharp, like a bunch of throwing knives at his skull! the finger that was extended to pet the little toad at his feet quickly retracts into his palm, and he straightens out, now eye-level with his friend. could he call naruto a friend yet? of course! even if he was huffing and puffing right now, that didn’t change the fact that they’d fought side by side, and shared lots— naruto-kun just was this kinda guy! much like fushiguro, they were both sorta very moody!

talking about fushiguro…

“just thought your little toad buddy was funny!! fushiguro-kun has a bunch of these guys too—” he purses his lips, before clapping his palms together, realizing he might’ve missed @osumaki’s point completely, when he told him about the situation being serious. yūji smiled an uneasy smile, pearly whites on full display.

naruto doubles back. " ah ! what the hell are you doing here ? " if gamatatsu has an answer, the toad has forgotten it, occupied instead with itadori's larger frame looming over him. kurama's vessel clicks his tongue, a swear sitting on his tongue. " i meant to summon ガマオヤビン , not you ... wait, itadori, why're you laughing ?! this is a very serious situation - ってばよ ! "

"Naruto-kun," Sai's quiet voice rolls out of him like a gentle wave, like the waves lapping at the beach, a few feet from soaking their toes. His hand is held up to shelter his eyes from the watery sun-- the day is overcast, but the light reflecting off the vast expanse of water before them is enough to make him squint. "It looks like it may storm. I can get us across if we're fast, but it may be safer to go to the town just south of here and ask if they might ferry us across."

A gust of wind, as if to punctuate his observation, blasts them with damp, cold air from the sea. Sai adjusts the heavy wool of his traveling cloak, and then glances at @osumaki out of the corner of his eye. His friend seems strangely nervous; though perhaps pensive is a better word.

"Are you afraid" and he uses afraid, even though he knows that's not what he means to say, because something about Naruto always makes him stumble on the worst possible word "to go to Uzushio?"

They've been hired by a lobby of local villages to clean out a nest of pirates holed up in the ruins of the village that once stood on the island across the sea. Sai is anticipating a fair bit of Uzumaki pain, getting stabbed (three point seven times more likely to happen to him when Sakura isn't around, go figure), with the inevitable conclusion of this assignment being Naruto talking the pirates into giving up their ways and rejoining society, some crying, whatever.

He isn't complaining. Any time he gets to observe Naruto seems like a worthy endeavor. He might just be the most alive person Sai knows, and Sai now knows quite a few people indeed. Sai often mimicks his mannerisms in social situations, which seem significantly less successful for him than they do for Naruto. Ah well.

it's an easy distraction for the task which lies before them. busy work, really, after taking down the akatsuki, but it's the location of the mission that makes it settle uncomfortable in his stomach. he doesn't know much about the uzumaki clan beyond what jiraiya had told him in the two years they'd spent traveling, and even that had been lacking. what he does know is that no shinobi should be scared of things that go bump in the night, as barked by lady fifth herself , and that no troubled mind will save him from whatever the hell they're going to encounter in the ruins of his clan's former home.

he wonders if they'll recognize him as one of them. he wonders who they are, these figments of his imagination. what is he so afraid of ? " huh ? " sai has been talking, but naruto hasn't been listening. " oh, yeah. sure. whatever. " he straightens out, giving the edge of his cloak a quick shake to see the sand fall from its hem. maybe it's better they enjoy the luxury of a little delay ; a stay at the inn with a hot meal instead of rations, as naruto tries not to worry about ghosts and yokai and whatever entities he's grown far more sensitive to after his training with the toads.

"Mmmh?" He peers at it muzzily, and then back to Naruto. "Thanks, th'ts really ... thoughtful."

He doesn't try to eat it, because he can't imagine how he would open his mouth wide enough to bite it, and then thinking about swallowing it whole makes him think about Orochimaru, which makes his stomach turn. The apple is tucked against his neck, and then his hand falls back to the bedspread.

He does not, in fact, care to remember how exactly it was that he was injured once Naruto assures him everyone else is okay. Naruto wouldn't lie to him to make him feel better, though his awkward, guilty frown is not exactly instilling in Yamato a great sense of confidence. He reaches out again to try and pat Naruto on the shoulder or something, but he can't reach, and his arm flops kind of uselessly off the side of the bed. This dislodges the apple, which falls to the floor.

"Damn," Yamato mutters, "Damn, damn. S'rry. It was nice 'f you to bring me food. Fruit. Ha." Someone used to call him a fruit, affection warm on their tongue. Who was-- "Y'know, 'm a vegetarian? But I eat fruits too. I'll eat them all. Make Kakashi-senpai cut'em up f'r me to make up f'r..."

For... for something. Why was he mad at Kakashi now? For ditching him with a couple of loud-mouthed brats? He actually kind of likes them a lot, which he would be madder about if he didn't think Kakashi knew exactly what that was like. Damn.

" yer okay, " he finally decides, considering now whether to press the fruit firmly into the man's hand now, or to put it to the side for whenever he's better. yamato is rambling now, something about being vegetarian, which is awful because naruto can't imagine a life without chashu slices in his bowl at ichiraku, and doesn't that mean he could have been picking at the meat from captain yamato's bowl this whole time ? or maybe he just orders it without the toppings ... he needs to remember to ask on their next visit. but something is asked of him directly, and his eyes squint as though he might visually discern this verbal request through them. " open it ? what're you talking about, open it ... "

@osumaki

Gai laughs at the pouty child with two lives in one body. Naruto is scared of him? Gai is (self-crowned) Konoha's Sublime Green Beast, but he isn't a fool. He knows next to nothing about seals and real beasts, and he was there, watching, itching, helpless when that beast did what it did. That is scary, not two-hundred rounds around the village chanting mantras of hard work.

as the ramen establishment's most loyal customer, he usually occupies a spot at the counter for idle chat with teuchi and ayame, but finds it easier to sit at a small table set at the side of the building with company. a new part-timer had brought them their food just a few minutes ago. naruto can see her staring at them from the corner of his eye ... probably because he looks like a mess. he tries to grin. it's awkward. his eyes don't scrunch shut the way they do when he's happy enough to let his smile claim the entirety of his face. " what, you think i should go to her place and ask her to take me back or something ? " he contemplates it a brief moment, but drowns the thought in a spoonful of scalding-hot broth.

anyone who's known uzumaki naruto after the conclusion of the fourth shinobi world war knows he's fallen in love ... with love. it's been relationship into messy break-up into relationship since his seventeenth birthday, in some fucked up cycle of his adoration into her impatience with his dedication to training and ambassador duties into a separation that devastates him for weeks. it might be a little pathetic. " but y'know, nao-chan's not the type of girl who'd just change her mind like that. she's too stubborn. " he lets this unconvincing facade of nonchalance fall into a scowl, just briefly. blue eyes return to sasuke in search of something, encouragement or pity or perhaps some thread of affection he doesn't quite understand in its depth yet. still, he laughs, and it's a little more real this time. " bet you'd know a thing or two about that, huh ? " it's what had drawn him to her in the first place, he can acknowledge, that certainty in what she wanted. it's familiar, in a way. // @osumaki

this has become routine over the past few years. naruto would date someone, fall completely and utterly in love, then eventually the way of the shinobi would bear down on his relationship until it snapped-- at least it's that way when the girl isn't as emotionally aware as this one was. in most scenarios, civilians are simply not equipped to date them -- that's why most of them end up with other shinobi, he thinks -- but naruto's situation is a little more precarious than that. he's konoha's war hero, highly sought after and celebrated but that doesn't mean these girls understand him. they don't understand him the way sasuke does, that's for sure. now, sasuke liked to believe he wasn't a jealous person or even one particularly interested in what's going on in naruto's love life, but he doesn't like seeing him cry the same way he's cried countless times already. he loves love, but he doesn't know what he's looking for, doesn't know that he could have it so easily if he just opened his eyes.

" no, idiot. " he snapped a little harder than he intended to -- maybe it's the thought that she could change her mind and take him back that bothered him, or that he's advocating for something he doesn't even want that made him grouchy, but he's quick to rein it in right after. He separated his wooden chopsticks, leaned over his own bowl of tomato miso ramen, and contemplated his next words carefully. " i'm saying that you shouldn't give up on being her friend. sometimes the best way to love someone is to respect it when they make a decision you don't like without making a scene."

sasuke isn't clairvoyant, but he's pretty sure he knew the reason why nao-chan has turned his love away ; for him it's obvious, so it must be to at least some of their mutual friends, that naruto was looking for something that he will never find in another person for as long as he tried. sasuke moved to take a mouthful of ramen, only to stop in his tracks and drop it with a splash that speckled his clean white shirt with broth when naruto said his last sentence. he would know a thing or two about that, and therein lies the problem.

he quiets only at this abrupt request, suddenly shrinking inwards. " huh ? well, uh ... i don't really remember most of it. " if he's turning red, it's certainly not from embarrassment. it's the heat of ichiraku's ramen broth warming his cheeks, or the flare of kurama's familiar chakra as the bijuu stirs within his seal. certainly not because that damned letter sits tucked away in his jacket's inner pocket, searing its brand into his heart, or that sasuke is asking him to recollect its contents so casually. " ah, it was kind of like ... i was happy i got to spend this last year with you, but i don't think this is gonna work out. a - and i think your heart belongs to someone else already, and i hope that person can give you the happiness you deserve. well, something like that, anyways ! it was kinda short. she didn't even reply to what i wrote in the last letter i sent her, y'know. "

🏥 for captain yamato o7

Yamato's arms are limp on the crisp white sheets, like two bloodless calf's legs; too-long and clumsy and awkward. His nose itches. Kakashi-senpai had helped him sit up and fed him a few ice chips before someone had come and gotten him for... some reason. Yamato can't remember, because they have him totally fucking loaded on the good painkillers.

It's been a long time since he's been in the hospital, he'd forgotten how awesome a hefty dose of hydromorphone feels. He isn't even mad that he's been abandoned sitting up in his hospital bed, and that he's awake instead of asleep. Staring at the ceiling he thinks: I could be awake or asleep, it doesn't really matter to me. Perhaps he even says it aloud, but it doesn't matter much because he's the only one in the room. Maybe Sakura pulled some strings and got him a little privacy. He wishes there was someone in the bed next to him for him to talk to.

His eyes slip closed, and when he blinks them open next the sun has changed position slightly and there's a puddle of drool on his chest where his chin had been resting, and where the sun has slipped further from him lingering in the shadows is a bright smear of orange-and-yellow-and-black, and that smear resolves itself into the familiar face of Naruto wen he comes closer, looking a little sheepish, and a little pale.

"Nr'to..." the attempt is a little pathetic, but he doesn't care enough to wince. "Timeizit?" The blankets are a little too heavy, he's hot suddenly, and tries to push them down. His hands don't do much more than twitch, probably on account of the fact that a swipe from an earth ninjutsu had broken nearly every bone in his ribcage. Sakura had been very displeased. He does not remember the journey back to the village, if that's where they even are. He thinks so. He thinks Kakashi was here. His fingers twitch, but he's too out of it to sign and Naruto doesn't know Ro-code anyway. "'Veryone OK?"

that had been about twenty minutes minutes prior. naruto is half asleep against the wall until he sees something move in his periphery. " yamato-taichou ! you're alive, huh ? " he creeps forward, somewhere between relieved and nervous. he's not sure how much the guy remembers of the mission before naruto's shadow clones had to haul his ass back to the village ... if yamato can recall scolding him too many times about keeping his voice down throughout the trip back home. if naruto's eye-roll and cheeky little, " yeah, yeah, " had registered before the attack.

@osumaki

‘  okay, why is everyone hugging all the time around here ??   ’