Body Heat

17 | glowing eyes

A/N: Please be advised, Chapter 17 is 17+ like rated R or M or E, whatever. Enjoy my first smutting attempt! Cheers to my sprint partners for everything.

{sasuke}

"Good god, I'm so full." Sasuke sighed heavily, leaning back against the dishwasher. His voice had been soft in the face of all the charge that the air carried, it had kept him from sitting down. Sasuke couldn't bring himself to settle enough to be really relaxed, only enough to portray a semblance of it.

The atmosphere had been slowly twisting and turning on itself all night, from the moment he approached the building at the start of the evening, all through their pre-dinner discussion, and the dinner, and on the way back, all the way up to that very moment.

Even though his antsy regret had been eased by Naruto's breezy take-on-the-world attitude, somehow, the air had turned from a soft pleasant sparking in the background to thick marshmallow gooey ness that he was finding it hard to breathe through.

Naruto's replying grin was pleased; the praise seemed enough to make him fluff him up like the pancake. "Thanks!"

"Where did you learn to make pancakes like these? How are they so good?" Sasuke let Naruto relieve him of his plate, the blond dipped his face a tad too close for the plate-taking to be anything but a hoax to get into his personal space.

A stolen kiss and he was gone, still shirtless and tan skin, maneuvering around all the items in the kitchen he expertly avoided. Sasuke wondered for a second if he would be able to continue the conversation.

"Oh, uh, it's because the banans add a natural sweetness, and I know how to pick the best banans!" Naruto turned to the sink with the dishes, running some water over every utensil used, to clean them on the spot. "I made street pancakes for roughly eight to nine months before I moved here."

Sasuke paused for moment, going from sharply amused about the use of the word banans by Naruto instead of bananas to surprise. "What? Where?"

"In Bangkok."

"Are you kidding me?"

Naruto chortled at Sasuke's tone. "No. That's why they're so good. These babies never failed to bring back customers, and then some. Kept it open twenty-four-seven, made a killing in six months. Enough to pay for my ticket here."

Sasuke's jaw actually worked loose. "You saved for airline tickets by selling street pancakes."

"It was time to get away, and Sakura said offered spot me on my first two months of rent. So I came to town, worked coffee shops and theatres for at least groceries until I met Itachi last year and you can probably guess the rest."

Sasuke sat there looking at yet another olive branch by Naruto. A piece of his recent, uncomplicated history. "I'm studying for the law entrance exam."

Naruto glanced at him again, the small smile on his face, taking a seat at the back of his mind. "Oh yeah? How come?"

Sasuke saw no reason for subterfuge. "I know enough of the inner workings of one criminal syndicate to probably dismantle all of them."

Naruto stopped short. "For real?"

"Yes."

Naruto paused in the middle wiping his hands. "But why study law for that? There are enough lawyers out there..." Naruto's head tilted in puzzlement.

"I'm not trying to put my family in the crossfires." Sasuke reasoned. "My priority is that they're protected."

"That's kind of a long game you're playing." Naruto's eyes followed Sasuke as walked over to the sink and fixed the tap so it wasn't only half shut. "Don't you think that, at least in witness protection, they'll have some safety?"