It was Unintentional

CH-2

Later that day – 5:53 PM

Naruto took a deep breath to steady himself, he hoped he wasn't too informally dressed, all he had on was a black short-sleeved t-shirt with the Uzumaki swirl on the left sleeve in his favourite colour of orange, beige cargo pants and a pair of white sneakers. But then again maybe he was over thinking things, maybe she really just did want to congratulate him on the promotion to Tokujō and it wasn't really any kind or formal date at all. Steeling himself, Naruto reached up to rap his knuckles on the wood of the door of Kurenai's apartment several times.

Nearly a minute passed and he was about to knock again when the door opened to reveal none other than Kurenai Yūhi, Naruto inwardly sighed in relief when he noticed she was wearing a simple yet nice looking dark red v-neck with a modestly high cut and dark blue denim Capri pants and her regular shinobi sandals. She also seemed to be going without make-up today, or at least she was going for the 'natural' make-up look. Naruto couldn't really tell the difference. He did notice that she was fidgeting with the clasp of a necklace that consisted of a decently sized tear drop shaped amethyst on a white-gold chain. It didn't really go with her current attire, so Naruto guessed it was probably something important to her, maybe a gift from Asuma shortly before his death at the hands of Hidan.

"Hi, Naruto." She smiled warmly.

"Hey, Kurenai-sensei. Need some help with that?" He asked, gesturing toward the necklace.

"I'd appreciate that." The crimson-eyed woman let out a small sigh of relief and turned around while pulling her hair to the side to allow Naruto access to the infuriatingly small mechanism.

Kurenai felt a chill run down her spine as Naruto's fingers brushed the back of her neck. Although much to he displeasure his touch was gone almost as instantly after she first felt it.

"All done." He said. Kurenai turned around to stare at the blond shinobi in half-sincere amazement, it usually took her ten minutes of fighting with the stupid thing to get it right whenever she had a chance to actually wear it.

"I might have to call you every time I need help putting on a necklace, it always takes me forever."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and chuckled somewhat nervously at her joke, causing his companion to just grin at him.

"So, where are we headed to?" He finally asked.

"Tonight is your night, remember? Your choice."

Naruto looked thoughtful, naturally his first instinct was to make a bee-line directly for Ichiraku, but Kurenai was going out of her way to hang out with him tonight so he should at least pick somewhere a little nicer than a small ramen stand. Then he remembered a place Jiraiya had told him about years ago, he just hoped it was one of the places that had been rebuilt in roughly the same spot after the village was destroyed.

About fifteen minutes later, after a little bit of searching around, the duo arrived at the new Shushuya and were seated at a table in a corner out of the way of the main traffic, which was a littler higher than during the day given the time, but the food rush-hour of mid-afternoon had since died down considerably. When they had arrived Kurenai inwardly sighed in relief, she was fully expecting to be seated at Ichiraku's with a wall of empty ramen bowls between the two of them by this point. Even more surprising still was the fact that Naruto had actually ordered some sake along with their food. Shortly after the waiter left the blond's sombre mood from earlier in the day returned, eliciting the same frown from Kurenai once again.

"So what's up with you and Sakura?" She openly broached the subject, "You've mentioned she turned you down before but I've never seen you so gloomy about it."

Naruto sighed yet again, much in the way he did when she brought this up during their earlier meeting. Deciding to just go ahead and lay all his cards on the table, it would probably just make things uncomfortable if he brushed Kurenai off or told her it wasn't any of her business. Plus if there was one thing he learned from his genjutsu training, she was a very persistent woman when she wanted to be.

"Ever since I got back from that mission to get Sasuke a few weeks ago she's been cold to me and Kakashi-sensei. Sakura blames me for the Teme's death."

Kurenai just looked at Naruto, she was fully aware of the mission report and thought he was trying to pull one over on her. Naruto noticed the message she was conveying and moved to defend himself.

"I was the one who killed him, but I didn't have a choice!" He looked around and noticed he'd attracted the attention of some of the other patrons before forcing himself to calm down and lower his voice, "The mission was to bring him back dead or alive, we tried convincing him first but just like when we fought at the Valley of the End he wouldn't listen. That bastard was so wrapped up in his own hatred and convinced he was above us just because of that stupid Sharingan and his family name he attacked us and killed the squad captain before we could even react. After he took out the rest of the team I had no choice but to fight him."

Naruto bit his bottom lip obviously trying to tame his emotions, "I didn't want to kill Sasuke, but he didn't leave me any choice."

Kurenai just looked at her companion sympathetically, she'd certainly been there before. When you couldn't land a debilitating hit without killing a target you didn't particularly want to kill was not a pleasant feeling at all, even less so when you considered that person a friend. Or at least they used to be your friend. But that only partially explained the drama with the pink-haired medic, her infatuation with the angsty youth was no secret, but it was also obvious to anybody with a sense of humanity that her and Naruto had grown much closer since that traitor ran out on Team Kakashi. She figured it would only be a matter of time before Sakura came around and realized what she had. Any girl in Konoha would be lucky to have Naruto, he was one of the strongest shinobi the village had to offer and he was always putting others' happiness before his own. That and he was quite handsome, over the year's he'd become almost like a carbon copy of his father, save for the shorter hair and whisker marks on either cheek Naruto and Minato could even pass for identical twins if it weren't for the obvious age difference and the fact that everyone and their cat knew Naruto Uzumaki was the son of Minato Namikaze, the infamous Yellow Flash of Konoha.