Ino/Naruto
When at the Uchiha compound, she didn’t know why she was there or what all Sasuke wanted to talk about until she saw an open book there…one that made her pause when she saw it at the shrine she had been taken to.
“…What’s this all about, Sasuke?” she asks him at long last because she is done with him giving her the silent treatment.
“Ino, was your meeting with Deidara really only about him telling you being manipulated and kidnapped by my brother or was there something more to it?”
“How did you hear about that? My dad said we weren’t supposed to talk about it with anyone.”
“Naruto overheard Sakura talking about it to Kakashi sensei after he had learned of it from overhearing Shikaku and Choza speak on the matter when they were out training together. Now, tell me what really went on.”
She scoffs to this in response, “What makes you think I am lying about anything that happened?”
He points to the book while explaining to her with fury in his eyes, “I know you know about Uchiha mating tradition, so there’s no need to explain how arrangement works. What I do want to know is how the hell this happened.”
She flipped at the record and found Itachi’s name…with Deidara’s and her parents’ names there as well. It was an almost well done forgery…almost.
How this happened…she has a good idea as to how this could have gone down.
“Wait, why did you look in here?”
“Because I got Iruka sensei to sign his name right alongside Naruto’s name today. That was when I saw this and came to get you.” Sasuke is glaring her and had she been any other omega, she’d be cowering in fear from it, “How did this happen? Your brother hated mine way too much to ever do something like this.”
She decides then that a little bit of truth couldn’t hurt to tell Sasuke because she doesn’t believe he will drop this subject otherwise, “He told me he hadn’t been in the village ever since he left…he said that the only way I got his letter telling me to meet up with him that night was because of another Akatsuki member bringing it to my room on his request.”
The younger Uchiha loses all edge to himself then as he frowns, thinking it over, “Do you think this person could have written this down for him?”
“Yes, because that’s not how my brother writes his name.”
It’s something that is painfully true about her brother’s handwriting. She remembers as a kid that he always hand wrote notes on the bouquets that the customer would request to be put on it as a way to make people say something about him wasn’t beautiful.
(He had told her as much back then; looking back at it now, she realizes in hindsight this was one of the many signs of Deidara hating his beauty and desirability for the problems it gave him.)
His handwriting is truly ugly, she won’t ever deny it for his sake. It’s messy, big, and somehow barely legible despite being as big as it is. Forging his handwriting is not something completely impossible.
Though the only thing that makes her able to spot out when it’s genuinely something written by him is when he signs his name with little sparks around it. It’s how she could tell the letter she received was written by him.
Considering this, it was incredibly easy to tell this was a good forgery, but not quite good enough to catch the little quirks in his writing.
“It really is a forgery then?”
“Yeah. Even Sakura could have told you that.”
She could have—Sakura knew Deidara’s handwriting just as well as she did. Why he didn’t go to Sakura for this…well, she may as well, ask, “Why didn’t you ask Sakura about this? She could have told you everything without getting me involved.”
He huffs, muttering, “I only brought you here to get you to talk to Naruto again…he has been worried over Lee lately and he’s been wanting to talk to you, but you haven’t been around for him to do that.”
She winces internally, but doesn’t let it does show, “Where is he now then? I’m more than willing to talk to him now, but I guess…you know what? I don’t need to tell you this—I need to tell Naruto and Lee before whatever it is going on with him gets worse.”
“He should be around here somewhere, I told him where we going to be—”
They both heard it the moment it was exclaimed, “Ino, you actually came!” and into the shrine Naruto bolted at the sight of his friend, “It’s been forever! Is everything okay? What happened with your brother?”
By the time he got up to where they were at, he was hugging her tight, “You know what, never mind, you don’t have to tell me about that now! You can tell me later if you want.”
She sighs while hugging him back, “I’m okay, Naruto. It was just a lot to take in, that’s all. I needed some time to process it, but I feel better now.” she frowns when ending the hug, “Something’s going on with Lee, isn’t it?”
He releases her back and looks at her with a glow of dread in her eyes, “You heard, huh?”
She nods and he in turn has a certain despair that she’s not used to seeing in her friend, “Well…I talked to granny Tsunade: she did do everything she could to try to change the laws so Lee could be taken out of his home, but the elders refused to change anything about them, saying that ‘tradition needs to respected no matter what’ and ‘changing the law would violate the rights of the clan to practice their tradition’. It’s total crap! Tradition should never come before someone’s safety, but they don’t care!”
This is making her flashback to what Deidara had told her about the village elders, specifically this Danzo fellow…she’s positive he’s the one who pushed for this the most, “It really pisses me off because Lee deserves so much better and I’m really afraid for him.”
Ino won’t deny the same thing; she may have never met his mother, but anyone from his clan having any sort of custody over him is enough to make her skin crawl, “That’s terrible! Poor Lee, he shouldn’t have to go back to her if he doesn’t want to!”
“Right! Ah but those idiots actually want to take him out of Guy sensei’s home and put him back with his mother right away now that she has a place of her own to live in! It’s such bullshit, Ino, I swear!”
Naruto then pulls out something from his pocket, “I saw this here at the compound when I was waiting for you and Sasuke to come back. I thought of Lee right away—I think he’d really like it.”
She looks at it and finds a blank envelope with a blank piece of paper, “Why do you think he’d like it?”
Can anyone blame her for thinking this was a strange gift to give to a fellow omega going home to his horrible mother?
“Because I know he likes Gaara and as much as I don’t like the guy, I think it’d make him happy to write at least one letter to him before he gets sent back.”
“You think he wants to write to Gaara? Are you sure about that? Did he say anything to you about it?”
Naruto shrugs, grinning slyly at his own sleuthing skills, “No, but I caught onto it pretty quickly when you were dealing with the brother drama: when I went to Guy sensei’s place one time, I overheard him asking about the damn bastard and when he said ‘why don’t you write to him if you’re feeling that glum over him’, Lee changed the subject right on the spot in the most awkward, Lee way possible. I talked to him about it, and he seemed a bit jumpy on the subject, a bit too blushy too…so even though I really don’t like the guy for him, I may as well do one thing to make him happy before he has to go back to his mom’s place.”
Hearing this makes her smile, allowing her the freedom to say without feeling any of the weight on her shoulders ever since she saw Deidara when replying to him with a smile, “That’s actually a great gift for him then…I think I’ll get him one too before we go to see him. I think that will make him really happy.”
“…It would!” Naruto cheers with wide joyful eyes and a pep to his little jump, “Let’s get going then! We have a friend to see!”
Before she could reply, Naruto went over to his boyfriend and kissed him, “Goodbye, Sasuke…don’t forget about our date tonight!”
“I won’t.” he seemed so confident yet Ino got an aura of insecurity within the alpha, making her wonder what could be going on with him…along with the question of what exactly was this date Naruto had planned for them, “You two go and see him already; the poor guy needs you two more than anyone else now.”
“We will!” he grabbed Ino’s hand, grinning all the while, “See you tonight!”
When they’re away from him and past the gates of the compound, Naruto lets go of her hand and Ino feels the need to pry a bit, “Naruto…what kind of date are you planning for Sasuke tonight?”
“Oh it’s nothing big,” he starts, which has Ino thinking he’s going to take him out to eat ramen, only to be disproven when he continues, “He’s going to be spending the night at my place with Iruka and Kakashi sensei tonight.”
“Are you two going to share a bed?”
“Eh, Kakashi sensei and Iruka weren’t really okay with that because we’re dating, but he will be able to sleep in my room, on a mattress on the floor though!”
This is shocking to Ino because she didn’t take Iruka or Kakashi sensei to be the types to allow Sasuke to spend the night at their place in Naruto’s room.
“That’s cool, but I didn’t think they were that open to that sort of thing.”
“They aren’t, but that’s what the power of my convincing skills are for!”
Now she wants to know what all he did to convince them of this, but then he went on to tell her without any prompting.
Naruto was bouncing off the walls with excitement at the idea of it and who could blame him, really?
Sasuke had asked him the most romantic thing ever, something that really proved they were a serious couple meant to be taken seriously by everyone around them, “Naruto, do you want to spend the night at my place tonight? You can sleep with me in my bed and I’ll cook anything you ask me to.”
“Really? You want me to spend the night at your place?” he had paused when taking it all in a bit more, wondering afterwards, “Why though? Is this some Uchiha alpha and beta thing I’m not getting?”
“It is, actually.” he pushed himself off from the tree he had been leaning against to meet his eyes with a certain intensity he hadn’t seen in him for a long time, “An Uchiha alpha or beta shows their intent on mating an omega or beta by spending a month living with them, sleeping in the same bed as them, all while avoiding having sex with them to prove that they intend to have a mating relationship built on seeing their mate as their equal, someone they love and respect dearly to not become a mush of base instinct desires around.”
“Whoa—wait, do you want me to stay with you for a month?”
“…I was hoping you would, but I figured I’d try to break it to you easier by asking you to spend the night at my place. I promise, I will prove to you how good of a mate I will be and how worthy I am of you if you let me.”
Naturally, Naruto reacted by impulse, “Of course I’ll live with you for a month! It’ll be like a fun practice run of us being mated together, what could be better than that!”
“Great; I’ll be sure to pick you up from your place at seven. See you then, Naruto.”
“See ya, Sasuke!” Naruto immediately rushed home and went to his place to go pack up the essentials he’d need for a month of living with Sasuke, not knowing that he had drawn the attention of his adoptive father and sensei with his dead set focus on packing up his things.
While he was packing, he had been interrupted by Iruka’s wary commentary, “Naruto, what are you packing for? Are you needed for something with Jiraiya?”
He shook his head while trying to choose between two shirts, “No! I’m going to be staying at Sasuke’s place for a month and I’m having trouble deciding between which one of these shirts I’d like to bring.”
Iruka immediately enters the room fully, leaving the doorway to face his son as he tries to make a decision, “A month? You can’t stay with Sasuke alone for a month!”
“Why not?” Naruto frowned, setting down the shirts in a bit of anger, “We already spent the night with each other numerous times on missions and the Chunin exams. What’s so wrong about it now?”
“You weren’t alone with him there! You had Kakashi, Sakura, and other people at times. It wasn’t like you two were living two like a couple planning on mating soon—”
Iruka pauses, his eyes full of realization then, “Are you planning on mating him, Naruto?”
“I mean…it’s not like I want to be with anyone else.”
“But you’re twelve! You’re too young to know that!”
Naruto growled in response, not liking what he was hearing from his usually understanding parent, “You don’t know that!”
“I do,” he isn’t backing down on this or trying to be diplomatic about it, which is a shock for him to see, “I get it—it’s easy to think about mating and fantasize about a future together when you’re young, but it’s not realistic. People change as they grow up and go through certain milestones and experiences in life. How do you know you’ll want to be mated to Sasuke five years from now? How about ten or twenty? How do you know things between you and Sasuke will always be as stable as they are now?”
“I don’t care if things change over time or if things aren’t always stable! I wouldn’t mind mating Sasuke someday after everything we’ve been through together and will be through together in the future. You’re acting like I’m going to mate him now or something when I’m not!”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I am. Sasuke’s only doing this to show how good of a mate he will be to me. It’s more like something to look forward to in the future.”
He didn’t know why he thought that would work, but it didn’t. No, Iruka didn’t budge from his initial position, “I don’t care what his intentions are—you’re too young to be living alone, with your alpha boyfriend, for a month. You’re both too young to be talking about mating or thinking about it; you two should be more focused on being kids on your time off from missions than trying to enter adulthood as soon as possible.”
Of course, Naruto being Naruto, didn’t take this well either, “What the—you gotta be kidding me! Kinda hard to focus on the whole being a kid thing with the sort of life I’m entering. Besides, I don’t complain whenever you got out on dates, so why are you complaining about this?”
“Because those are two completely different things—I am an adult going out on a date and coming home to you. You are talking about leaving this home for a month to live with your boyfriend without even bothering to ask me if I’d be okay with it or not.”
He blinked and decided on the spot, “Too bad, I’m gonna live with Sasuke for a month!”
“Naruto—”
“Is there something going on here?” he had been wary when Kakashi sensei inserted himself into their argument and for good reason too, “I keep hearing something about Naruto spending a month with Sasuke—is this right, Iruka?”
“Yes, it is.” he answered with ease despite the tension that still lingered between them, “He didn’t talk to me about it when he got home, he just started packing instead and if I didn’t come in here to ask him about it, I probably wouldn’t have ever heard about it from him.”
“Yeah, that does match with what I’ve been hearing for the last few minutes from this room.” Kakashi sensei meets Naruto’s gaze then and asks him in all seriousness, “What were you planning on doing after you packed your bags?”
“Heading out to Sasuke’s place with my stuff so he wouldn’t have to get me at seven.”
“I see…what you do think would have happened during this month long stay together?”
Naruto paused and thought it over some, “I don’t know. I know we’d be sharing the same bed and he’d be cooking anything I wanted him to.”
Kakashi sensei hums to this in response, “Ah, so you don’t know what living together for a month would actually entail, huh?”
When he didn’t have anything to say to this, his sensei shrugged, “I may as well fill you in then: it would mean having to live with Sasuke through the day to day life activities that affect every young couple. He would do things differently from you, you would do things differently from him, it could lead to some tension between you after a while that ends up in a small quarrel in a best case scenario or a major fight in the worst case scenario.”
He hadn’t thought about that, “What you found to be a cute quirk could turn into something irritating when living together without the buffer of having someone else there, you could find there are issues in the relationship that you didn’t notice when in the stages of puppy love, or you could discover that you don’t want a mating or to be with him anymore. Without the saving grace of coming back to a separate home at the end of the day, all of the above could happen and you could come to resent Sasuke, thus leading the end of your relationship with him.”
Naruto immediately hissed to this, “Who’re you to say that stuff, sensei! You’ve never even dated before; I highly doubt any omega would be dumb or self loathing enough to let you touch them!”
(He didn’t this, but Iruka was dying from embarrassment on the inside after hearing his son say this.)
“Now, Naruto, let’s not insult any omega here. People cannot help what they like or don’t like. What can be helped is not letting you destroy what you have with Sasuke now by doing something as stupid as living together when you’re both still very immature and haven’t even had a heat or a rut yet.”
Kakashi was prepared for it when he did snap, “I am not immature!”
“If you weren’t, then you have told Iruka right away about your plan instead of trying to run off. Tell me, did you ever think about telling him anything of this when you said ‘yes’ to Sasuke’s proposal? Did you carefully weigh the pros and cons of living together? Did you think about whether or not your relationship with him could handle such a situation or did you agree without thinking everything through first?”
The young omega admits with a bit of a shameful flush to his cheeks, “No, not really—I just agreed without thinking.”
His sensei put it down brutally to him then, “Then you aren’t mature enough to last a month living together with him. In my experience, the less mature a person was when living together with their partner, the more likely it was their relationship ended on very bad terms. So try to keep this in mind when thinking about doing such a thing again in the future.”
Naruto sighed in defeat then, knowing his sensei was right and not wanting to lose what he has with Sasuke, “Alright, I’ll wait to live with him…but what should I tell Sasuke when he comes over tonight to get me?”
“Tell him you thought it over more when discussing this with us and came to the conclusion that you’re too impulsive and immature to live together with him for a month. Knowing Sasuke, he’ll be upset, but that’s alright; you can make it up to him by having him spend the night in your room, on a mattress on the floor for a whole weekend.”
“You mean it?” his eyes brightened to the news and he thinks his sensei smiled then, “I do, it’s only fair—right, Iruka?”
Iruka didn’t see too much wrong with this compromise, “He has a point, it is only fair.”
That and he knows Sasuke isn’t some sneaky perv who would try to lay a hand on Naruto in his sleep.
“Great, I’ll be sure to tell him when he comes over!” he cheers, but then Kakashi suggests something to him, “Naruto, have you heard from Rock Lee lately?”
“No…why? Did granny Tsunade manage to change the laws so he can stay with Guy sensei?”
Kakashi is silent, leaving Iruka to break it to him gently, “You should go see her yourself. A lot has happened and she really tried her best, but I’m afraid she couldn’t change anything for Lee’s sake.”
Naruto is seething, his fists clenched tightly while he coolly announces to the adults in the room, “I have to go see the old lady. I’ll be back before seven, but if I’m not, please explain everything to Sasuke for me.”
“I will, Naruto, there’s no need to worry.” Iruka said while watching his son exit the home in a determined rush he hasn’t seen in a long time.