For The Love of Family (Naruto Neglect fanfic)

Chapter 23: "The Chunin Exams, The start of everything" Pt. 3

Resuming where we left off, Sasuke and Lee had their youthful battle! The four of them were unaware of Lee's true strength, but he handled Sasuke with ease and made an absolute fool out of the arrogant Uchiha. For Naruto, Naruko and Sakura, this was an unexpected turn of events. It was ridiculous to watch the all-powerful Uchiha be dominated by a green-loving, bowl-cutting taijutsu specialist, and it certainly damaged Sasuke's pride and ego.

Lee didn't even have to use any ninjutsu at all, just pure taijutsu! It was really lucky for them that the person who called himself Might Gai, had stopped Lee before he used his special move on sasuke. Otherwise sasuke would've been injured badly and it could result to them forfieting the exams due to one of their teammates being injured. After a weird interaction with the two green Taijutsu users, the girls were pretty much Traumatized from Lee and Gai's 'intimate' hugging session. They all pretty much agreed that it was Lee's father since they were both the same in terms of clothing and haircuts and how the way they both act. Before leaving, The Uchiha promised Lee to have a rematch again at some point in the future, which Lee agreed to have a rematch as well.

"Hn! Remind me of that fight again and I will burn your corpse till there's nothing but ash." Sasuke coldly said as he glared at Naruto with a look saying 'I dare you to say that again'.

When Sasuke threatened to harm him, Naruto groaned a little but then shrugged it off. One thing Naruto had always thought about after seeing Sasuke's constant facial expressions was that he hadn't seen him genuinely smile for once, or even be happy at least. "Geez your always no fun sasuke, I mean, do you even know how to smile? And I mean not the smug face or the evil smirk you sometimes do, but an actual genuine smile, can you atleast smile as if your happy for once?" Naruto asks.

"Shut up dobe, we're here, don't do anything stupid." Sasuke says, ignoring naruto's rant about smiling or something that he said earlier.

As they got closer to the room, Naruto sighed. Sakura and Naruko were a bit ahead of them, so it was fortunate that Sakura didn't hear him make fun of her attractive companion, Sasuke-kun, or else he would be getting hit upside in the head right now. When team 7 got to the front door, Naruto stopped and stood motionless for a brief while. The other three noticed this change in behavior and became curious as Naruto had been zoning out for the previous few hours. They were a little concerned because they felt that the hyperactive knucklehead wasn't acting like himself at the moment, and it was terrifying to see him act this way.

Sasuke didn't express it, but the three of them gazed at Naruto with obvious worry in their eyes. Sakura's eyebrows wrinkled at this; she knew her blond friend was having problems, but she wasn't sure if it was related to his previous sickness or something else. She was the first to move, approaching Naruto and trying to jolt him out of his reverie.

"Naruto, hey Naruto, hello...?" Sakura waved her palm in front of Naruto's face in an attempt to wake him up, but she was having no luck. She was beginning to become increasingly concerned. Since she still cares about him despite her hatred for him.

"Guys, I think there's something wrong with Naruto." Sakura adds, turning her head to look over towards the other two.

Naruko worriedly said, "I wonder what's making him zone out like that." At first, she assumed that he was just overthinking things and getting nervous for the exams because it was his first time taking them, she understood that, because she too was also nervous since this was also her first time, but that wasn't the case at all—Naruto never displayed any signs of anxiety or nervousness—instead, he was quite confident, which was the exact opposite of what she thought. So what was causing him to zone out like that?