Note from the Author: Once upon a time, I loved SasuNaru. Then, I went through an obsession with Samurai Champloo, and loved MugenxJin. Then I started to role-play as Hinata Hyuuga on LiveJournal (http/communites. and since I spent a lot of time flirting with Gaara-san, I fell for GaaraHin. THEN … out of nowhere came this weird urge to write NejiHina. In the midst of writing a NejiHina story ("Connected"), an author named Lotus Aia reviewed one of my MugenxJin stories, and I went to her profile and looked at her writing. It turns out that she writes mostly KakaIru and SasuNaru. And they're good.

So I would first like to blame on and dedicate this story to Lotus Aia. bows

And about the actual story – it's not really a chapter story. It's pretty much a series of one-shots and two-shot drabbles.

I did delete this story and resubmit it. Deal. :shrug:

You can laugh, you can feel fine, you can dance with a little twist …"

Naruto was manic.

Well. More manic than usual.

He was trying-to-train-is-completely-useless manic.

Sasuke stood on the training grounds, a vein throbbing in his forehead, watching his teammate run around him. At some point, he began to turn as Naruto did, on the point of one toe, and his hand found the back of the blonde's head. Naruto didn't even realize Sasuke was guiding his path until he slammed head-first into a tree and fell back.

"Sasuke-teme!" Big blue eyes glared up at the Uchiha.

Sasuke smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Not much of a ninja, are you, dobe?"

Naruto growled and leapt at the dark-haired boy, crashing to the ground on top of him. Closing his eyes, he just laid there, catching his breath with his head on his friend's stomach.

Sasuke's fingers found Naruto's hairline and the fox child looked up at him. "Naruto, can I ask you something?"

"Hum?" Naruto purred as Sasuke's fingernails skimmed across his scalp.

"Why are you so happy?" he asked softly. "Or … how?"

Naruto settled his chin into his friend's shirt, studying his face.

"You have no family." Sasuke continued. "You've never had a family, and no one's ever treated you with kindness. How do you get up every morning and be happy?"

"Well," Naruto rolled over on his back, propping himself up on his elbows, thinking, "I'm not like you. I never knew my family, so I can't mourn for them and I can't miss them. And I think," he paused as if collecting his thoughts, "I think they would have wanted me to be happy." He smiled wryly. "I think they'd be proud of my joy."

Sasuke offered what smile he could, and pulled Naruto up to his rest against him. "I think they'd be proud of all of you."