Zenko; Guardian

Dangerous Taste

The next morning, Naruto watched as Sasuke tried again with the tree with waiting for Kakashi. He reminded the boy, "Sasuke. We got things to do after this so don't tire yourself out,"

Sasuke waved his hand without looking at him, "I'll be fine,"

Sakura yawned on the side, leaf on her forehead, "Kakashi-sensei is so annoying... She huffed, "I bet the real meeting time isn't even 5 in the effing morning!"

Naruto nodded before sitting down and started talking to Minato about this Fuuinjutsu experiment that he was thinking about. They went into a lot of tangents and theories, exercising their Seal Masters skill at thinking up the improbably and trying to make it real. Naruto was thinking of a more secure communicating channel and thought that perhaps seals that work like radio waves but only using chakra would work. Replacing the radio waves with chakra using special seal matrix sounded like a brilliant idea...

Sasuke stopped once he a felt a familiar strain on his chakra and decided to relax and recuperate. He then saw Sakura staring at Naruto who seemed to be...meditating?

He sat beside, "What is he doing?"

She shrugged, "That weird in his head space thing. I don't know. He always seemed to get lost in his head randomly. Do you think he's...you know?" She made a motion with her finger on the side of her head. He scowled at her and she raised her hands defensively, whispering, "Hey, I'm just saying! I mean, I have never seen anyone spend so much time just...staring at nothing,"

He rolled his eyes, "Or he could just be meditating,"

Sakura pursed her lips before staring at him. Sasuke felt like sighing. Even after a month working together, she was still all over him. It was more tiring than flattering. He wished that she will be more serious with her Kunoichi training. Had she been more serious with the training Kakashi was giving her, she won't still look so skinny. He had seen a few Kunoichi around and they all have at least a semblance of lean muscles on their arms. Sakura still looked too soft there and he worried that if she got into a fight, they'll just snap her arms.

She opened her mouth and Sasuke prepared to say no...when more teams showed up. Fortunately it wasn't Yamanaka Ino's team. She was just as bad as Sakura, being clingy with him. But at least she came from a clan, which meant that one of her parents would be pressuring her to train more. Sakura's civilian family was too enamoured by the idea of romancing a Shinobi to really understand the danger of putting their daughter up for this.

Kiba yawned, too sleepy to say anything more than a lazy wave of hello. Shino immediately checked on the trees for bugs, as was his habit since Academy. Hinata, on the other hand, stared at the meditating Naruto before sitting beside him and...stared at him like Sakura stare at Sasuke. Which was weird. In some circle, she was considered as icy as the rest of her clan. But she was still softer than them so they just called her Shirayukihime behind her back. She wasn't close with the other girls as she was more focused in her studies as Kunoichi. He had at a least a modicum of respect for her work ethic.

But now?

It was a little jarring to see her behave like a normal girl. She was always so stiff and polite, though kinder than her clansmen. Yet she had no qualm at beating down her opponents in class. Ironically, beating them down was her idea of kindness. But right now, she was all soft and melting before the meditating masked boy. The light in her eyes obviously infatuation.

Sakura whispered, "Did you see that? I have never seen Hinata like this,"

He hummed, "Hn...it's weird..."

Kiba randomly joined them, "You think it's weird? It's weirder for us. I have never seen her blush as much as she did when he came around,"

Shino hummed, "She is so sweet even the butterflies can't resist her. The reason why is because there are butterflies flying around her head,"