Behind Innocent Eyes

The Bet

"Hey Kakashi-sensei, can you train me today?" A hopeful Naruto asked.

"No, Naruto, I told you. You have to work on that chakra control before I teach you anything. I'm training Sasuke today." Kakashi said casually as he and Sasuke left leaving Naruto and Sakura behind.

(Of course, you do because there's only one member on a team.) The blonde thought sarcastically. "Hey, Sakura do you-"

"No, I don't want to go out with you." Sakura snapped as she stomped away

"I only wanted to train not mentally scar myself." The blonde mumbled as he walked away with a look of disgust on his face. The thought of dating the pinkette made him feel physically ill. "Where exactly did she get the idea that I liked her? ... we never spoke before being put on team 7 and if I knew it would happen I would've blackmailed Jiji into putting me on a different team! Let someone else deal with this shit! ... and when exactly does this become teamwork? I don't see how it's possible when the only thing we do together is argue ... oh well ... I can go home and study up on some seals. My long distance eyesight is shot until I get used to sensei's jutsu anyway." Naruto said and continued walking deeper into the woods. He was about to reach into his pocket and pull out a notebook of advanced seals, but decided not to when he heard the sounds of fighting in the distance. He walked towards the sounds and came upon a training ground with four people, two off to the side and two sparing. However, each person seemed blurry ...

One of the people on the sidelines noticed him, "H-Hi, N-Naruto. W-would you like to j-join us?"

Naruto smiled as he recognized the timid voice and knew who it was even as his vision blurred a little more like it has been doing all day, "Hey, Hinata, I'd like that ... if it's alright with your sensei that is." The blonde grinned at the dark haired blurry woman.

Kurenai smiled, "Of course it is, Naruto. Oh, we haven't officially met yet. I'm Kurenai Yuuri the sensei for team 8."

Naruto smiled, (She's nice to me. Finally, a sensei not only competent, but open minded.) He thought. "Naruto Uzumaki, nice to meet you."

After watching the sparring match a little longer Kurenai told Hinata to join the fight with Shino and Kiba. That's when she noticed that Naruto was squinting, "Naruto, is something wrong with your eyes?"

Naruto stiffened and immediately tried to hide the fact that he was squinting, "No nothing's wrong ... I think I have an eyelash in my eye, that's all." Naruto said as he rubbed his eye pretending to get the fake eyelash and he relaxed when Kurenai turned her attention back to the match.

"I got to admit that new collar on Akamaru sure is cute. What do you think, Naruto?" said the jonin casually.

"Oh, yeah it's ni- ...shit ..." Naruto suddenly remembered that Kiba told him that dog-nin don't wear collars because the metal could flash and betray it's position to the enemy, but it was to late. Kurenai caught him. (Damn, I need to think of something quick.)

The jonin watched Naruto "Naruto, do you need glasses?"

(That's good! I'll go with that! If I play the neglected demon card Jiji will need to get involved and he can deal with it.) Naruto nodded and hung his head sadly like a child who was caught red handed.

"Then why haven't you gotten them?" The jonin asked.

(20/20 vision.) He quipped mentally before considering his cover story. Naruto frowned, he wanted to say that he already had them, but then he'd have to explain where they were now and that will lead to another can of worms. When in doubt blame reality. "I can't afford them." He said as a part of him was hoping she would act like Kakashi and drop it. However, he wasn't sure about how she'd react so he hoped the hokage wasn't busy right now in case someone came in with a complaint, which almost never happens what with his demon stigma. There were a couple people who cared enough to do that and he cared for those people a great deal ...