In Your Shadow

Chapter 4: Changes and Jealousy

Naruto woke up from the constant noise coming from his window. He sits on his bed and look at his window angrily.

"What the hell is that---!! Sai?" He instantly calmed down after seeing Sai standing outside. "Why are you here?"

Sai was a bit taken back by a quick change in attitude of Naruto.

"During a situation like this, he should end up screaming and shouting on me from waking him up." Sai thinks but just shrugged it off.

"Tsunade-sama calls for us in her office." He answered.

Naruto nodded after some time and stand up.

"I'll just change. Go ahead, I will just follow after." Naruto said and went inside his comfort room without giving a second look at Sai.

Confused, Sai just went ahead to the Hokage's office.

Once Naruto arrived at the office, Tsunade started explaining their mission. They are going to catch some thieves and retrieve a treasure from them.

"It's a C-rank mission. Do you have any question?" Tsunade ask.

Naruto remained silent. They were expecting something like:

"C-rank mission?! C'mon, give us something much exciting like A-rank or even S-rank mission!"

Or.

"Tsunade-obba chan? I'm too strong for that mission!"

Yet nothing come out from him.

"Should we proceed now?" He asked bringing the two back in reality.

"Ah, yes. You may go now." Tsunade answered and without saying anything more, Naruto turn his back and get out of the office.

Sai look at Tsunade with a concerned look while the latter just sigh and signal him to go after him.

Almost all of them noticed a drastic change in Naruto's attitude and behavior. For the first two weeks, they let him stay at his house and not send him to any missions even there are some that are particularly for him.

They are days he'll stay inside her apartment without accepting any visitors. They are times he'll stay outside near the Academy or in the hills. Either way, no one saw him smile again since that day. No one was able to talk to him about it again and even comfort him because everytime they tried to approach him, a rush of coldness flow on their system.

Naruto is slowly losing his warmth and brightness.

"Naruto, let's camp here for tonight. We are about to reach our destination tomorrow noon. According to Hokage-sama, the thieves are hiding in their hide out in the east part of fire country border." Sai stated as they stop from running through trees.

Naruto nodded and land down. He started getting stuffs to fix their tent.

The air feels so uncomfortable for Sai. It's unfortunate that he hasn't read about what to do if your friend is behaving differently so he wasn't so sure how to act around Naruto now.

"I'll go get some woods for the fire." Sai said waiting for Naruto's response but all he got was a simple nod. So instead of thinking about it, he just made his way to get some woods. When he came back, the tent is fixed and Naruto is sitting next to it.

He lit the woods and sit next to Naruto. Then silence filled the surrounding. It's pretty quiet and cold despite of the fire.

"The moon is so beautiful." It was Naruto who break the ice. Sai look at the moon and agree to him.