Akari Uchiha

Ch. 87 Apologies Everywhere

Naruto sighed and rubbed the back of his head, wincing painfully. 

Kakashi sensei still had it in him.

He slowly kept a cup ramen in front of the eleven-year-old self-declared Hatake sitting in front of him, and kept one in front of him. 

"It'll take three minutes to prepare. Don't open it before that."

Akari simply nodded in response, before fiddling with her ramen cup. Naruto saw her tense up when he took a seat beside her.

He was so bad at apologies.

But he was pretty sure his head would hurt a lot more worse if he went to Kakashi sensei again without making things right with Akari. 

It had been two days since he had seen her crying as she clung to her master and finally let all her feelings out. 

Naruto had thought that he'd just wait until Akari eventually came around like usual. But, he assumed, Kakashi-sensei knew his own apprentice way better than Naruto did, because the man somehow knew that that wasn't going to happen, and practically forced him to confront her. 

He also threatened him that if he spoke anything even slightly threatening her seal to explode, then he would personally end him. 

Hero of Konoha or not, that threat still terrified him. 

He was pretty sure Kakashi sensei had threatened Akari to be there too, because there was no way the brat would willingly come face-to-face with Naruto. 

He knew it when he saw her go out of her way to avoid him despite how hard he tried. And GOD was the brat difficult to track down. 

"Is not speaking to people your way of telling them that you're pissed at them?" Naruto finally spoke.

The kid hastily shook her head. She opened her mouth before hesitantly closing it again.

Naruto hadn't heard her speak to him in days. 

"I don't see you talking to me, though."

"You... asked me to not speak in front of you," the brat in front of him answered in a low voice, seeming hesitant.

"I- I didn't mean that!" Naruto struggled to look for words. He was bad at explaining stuff like this!

This wasn't working. Was there no way that he could explain himself-

Naruto's eyes widen slightly as a new approach came into his head and he turned towards Akari again after heaving out a deep sigh.

"Haru is your best friend, right?"

Akari froze, before looking at him and hesitantly nodding. 

"Well... Sasuke is my Haru."

Akari blinked, confused. "There's only one Haru," she said, sounding slightly defensive. Naruto face-palmed.

"What I meant is... what you feel towards Haru is what I feel towards Sasuke."

The kid in front of him nodded slowly, as if contemplating it.

"If Haru was to ever go down on a self-destructive path, then won't you try to get him to see sense?"

Akari looked down and nodded. 

"Exactly. I desperately want to bring Sasuke back. So when I realized that something that could've been so helpful for that was being purposely hidden away from me, specially by someone that I trusted, it pissed me off."

Naruto looked down at the table. "I got worked up and didn't even try to understand. I'm sorry."

Akari stayed silent for a few seconds, before hesitantly opening her mouth. "Can I say something?"