Seven days vanished in a blur, leaving Naruto with empty hands and mounting frustration. His investigation had yielded nothing but dead ends. The silver lining—if you could call it that—was the unspoken agreement between him and Sasuke to orbit each other like wary planets, never crossing paths. But night changed everything. When Sasuke's consciousness surrendered to sleep, his body betrayed them both. Naruto would jolt awake at 3 AM, sheets damp against his skin, his body responding helplessly to the Alpha pheromones saturating their shared air.
Naruto had perfected a nightly ritual: creeping to their shared bathroom on silent feet, seeking desperate release over cold toilet until the heat beneath his skin subsided, then lying awake for another hour before exhaustion finally claimed him. He'd considered buying industrial-strength air freshener, but imagined Sasuke's raised eyebrow, the curl of his lip—another battlefield he couldn't afford to open.
So now he hunched in the corner booth of the off-campus cafe, fingers drumming against a chipped mug, watching the door for the only person who straddled the line between physician and surrogate aunt in his life—Tsunade.
Nobody remembered the name of the off-campus café, which suited Naruto perfectly. Between the sticky Formica tables, the ancient coffee canisters lining the back wall, and fluorescent lights that made everyone look jaundiced, it was the perfect place to disappear. His fingers couldn't stop tapping the mint tin in his pocket. The bell above the door jingled, and his leg jumped so violently he nearly knocked the table. Three false alarms in fifteen minutes. At this rate, his nerves would snap before Tsunade even arrived.
His thumb swiped the screen again—twelve checks, twelve minutes, zero messages. The battery icon blinked red, threatening surrender. Naruto abandoned the useless device and lifted his mug instead. One sip confirmed what his nose already knew: the coffee tasted like warm dishwater with just enough caffeine to amplify the copper tang of anxiety coating his tongue.
At 7:13 on the dot, the bell at the front door jangled. He didn't recognize the woman at first; she'd traded her usual white coat for a battered tan jacket, hair—bright as a warning flare—tied into a tight, severe knot. Dr. Tsunade Senju carried a battered leather satchel and the kind of presence that made the line at the counter unconsciously part for her. She spotted Naruto instantly, her eyes narrowing in a way that was all business and no affection.
She dropped into the seat opposite without so much as a hello. "You're an idiot," Tsunade said. Her voice, despite the gravel in it, turned every head in a ten-foot radius.
Naruto's shoulders dropped an inch. "Nice to see your bedside manner hasn't improved," he said, a grin spreading across his face as Tsunade's eyebrow twitched at the jab. "What was wrong with meeting at your clinic again?"
Tsunade leaned forward, voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "And what exactly should I write in your medical file? 'Chronic sniffles'? 'Monthly consultation for imaginary symptoms'?" Her amber eyes narrowed, fingers drumming once against the tabletop. "The system flags patterns, Naruto. You know this."
Naruto hunched his shoulders, palm sliding over the mint tin like a shield. His eyes darted to the windows, then back to Tsunade. "Yeah, well, sitting in public like this isn't exactly my idea of discreet either," he muttered through clenched teeth.
Tsunade slammed her satchel onto the table hard enough to rattle Naruto's empty mug. She unzipped it just enough to reveal the clinical gleam of glass vials nestled in sterile packaging. Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. "Kushina all over again," she said under her breath, the name like a prayer and a curse at once. "Same damn chin, same damn death wish."
That stung in the way only the truth ever could. Naruto faked a yawn and slouched, trying to look like he belonged here. "Can we skip to the part where you hand me the pills?"
"First lets go over your symptoms. Any changes?" Tsunade asked as she pulled out her note book, flipping to an empty page.
Naruto's teeth worried his bottom lip as heat crawled up his neck. After all these years of Tsunade knowing his most intimate biology, he still couldn't meet her eyes when discussing his omega symptoms. He shifted in his seat, suddenly aware of how the plastic cushion squeaked beneath him.
Tsunade's pen hovered over the notebook. Naruto stared at a coffee stain on the table, his voice dropping to barely audible. "My roommate situation is...complicated." His fingers twisted the napkin into a tight spiral. "He's an Alpha. Not just any Alpha—a dominate one." Tsunade's pen stilled completely.
Tsunade's pen scratched across the page, her knuckles whitening around it. She didn't look up. "And exactly how long were you planning to share oxygen with this Alpha before mentioning it to me?" The pen paused, hovering over paper. "You need to get out of that room. Yesterday."
Naruto's knuckles whitened around the ceramic mug. "Housing office shut us down. Twice, actually."
Tsunade leaned forward, a single crease appearing between her brows. "Wait—your Alpha roommate wants out of this arrangement too?"
Naruto's gaze dropped to the table. "We met when I accidentally crashed into him on orientation day. He thought I was just another Beta trying to get his attention." His fingers traced invisible patterns on the tabletop. "Trust me, he wants this arrangement even less than I do."
Tsunade exhaled sharply and leaned back, her chair creaking in protest. The look on her face told Naruto everything—this conversation was rapidly approaching its expiration date.
Tsunade's pen stilled. She tapped it twice against her notebook, then nodded once, decision made. "We're doubling your suppressants," she said, flipping to a fresh page and scribbling a note. Her hand disappeared into her case, emerging with something wrapped in brown paper. "And this—" she lowered her voice, "—is experimental. Blocks pheromone receptors not completely, but better then nothing." With surgical precision, she unwrapped the package and slid a slim white box across the table, her fingers never lingering on its surface.
Naruto's fingers trembled as he opened the box. Thirty blue pills stared back at him, each sealed in individual blisters beneath a pharmaceutical label so convincing he had to squint to spot the forgery. When he inhaled, the chemical tang hit the back of his throat, making his empty stomach roll. Tsunade slid a second container across the table—round, innocuous, like something that might hold mints.
He looked up to find her studying him, amber eyes steady as a surgeon's. Her mouth tightened at one corner. "Double your water intake with these," she said, tapping the blue pills. "They're stronger than before. First stop is your liver. I need you hydrated and sleeping properly. Any blood—even just brushing your teeth—you call my cell, not campus medical. Understand?"
Naruto swallowed, already tasting the chemical bitterness on his tongue. "Are you telling me these are going to kill me?"
She leveled a finger at him. "Not if you follow instructions. One every twelve hours, no doubling up. Do not take them with stimulants. And for gods' sake, if you start running a fever, you come in. The last thing I need is a dead Uzumaki on my conscience."
He nodded, pocketing the box with a sleight-of-hand that would have impressed any pickpocket. "Thanks," he said, and meant it, even if the gratitude stuck in his throat.
Tsunade leaned back, arms crossed. Her stare pinned him to his seat. "And let me make this crystal clear: missing even one dose could be catastrophic. You'll have maybe an hour before your heat hits—like a freight train." Naruto's face burned hot enough to feel it in his ears. His only experience with heat remained seared into his memory—the fever that had left him curled on bathroom tiles, whimpering, convinced his insides were liquefying. The suppressants had been holding back that tide for months now, a dam against biology that felt increasingly fragile.
Naruto's knuckles whitened as his fist clenched against the table. Tsunade's eyes flickered to his hand, then back to his face. She exhaled slowly, reaching across the scratched Formica to place her palm over his tight fist. "Remember," she said, her voice dropping to a gravel-soft murmur, "one phone call. Day or night." Something in her expression shifted, the clinical mask slipping just enough to reveal concern. Naruto managed a single, tight nod.
Naruto's lips quirked up at one corner, a flash of teeth breaking through the tension that had gripped his face moments before. "So basically you're my emergency pharmacy on speed-dial? Just call when I need a refill?"
Tsunade's face hardened. "This isn't a joke." The corner of her mouth betrayed her with a slight upward twitch. She exhaled heavily, shoulders dropping. "God, you're just like Kushina sometimes." Her voice softened around the name. "Fine. Since you're determined to play detective, you should know what you're walking into. The campus medical database has some concerning patterns lately—requisitions for genetic sequencing materials, hormone assay components, specialized chemical compounds. Someone's conducting off-books research, and I doubt they're preparing for finals."
Naruto reached across the table and gripped her hand, his fingers cold against her warm skin. "Do you think—" his voice caught, "—could Kurama be involved somehow? As a participant?"
Tsunade's eyes darkened. "Not likely. Kurama wouldn't touch a registry project with a ten-foot pole. If he's somewhere on this campus, he's got his reasons for staying hidden." Her grip tightened around his fingers until he felt bone against bone. "Listen to me. The medical building? Off limits. And Orochimaru? That man's been circling the registry's watchlist for years. If he catches even the faintest trace of what you are—"
Naruto extracted his hand, a cold sweat breaking across his palms at the thought of tomorrow's biology lecture. "I've got this under control," he said, the lie bitter on his tongue. "Just need to buy myself some time."
Tsunade's eyes narrowed to amber slits. "You think Orochimaru is someone you can outmaneuver? The moment he catches your scent, you'll be strapped to a lab table with your genetic code splashed across his monitors." She rose from her seat, tugging her jacket straight with one sharp motion. Her fingers clutched the leather strap of her satchel until her knuckles blanched. For just a heartbeat, the clinical detachment in her face cracked. "Naruto." His name came out rough, like it had scraped her throat on the way up. "If anything happened to you—" The words hung unfinished. She looked toward the window, jaw tight. "I've already buried enough Uzumakis." She squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. "And frankly, the death certificate alone would take me weeks to falsify."
He flashed a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You can count on me."
She left with the same force she'd entered, a small storm wrapped in a jacket. The bell at the door chimed her exit, and for a moment Naruto watched the empty seat across from him, trying to map out a future that wasn't shaped by threat assessments and organ failure. The mint tin in his pocket suddenly felt a thousand pounds heavier.
Naruto tipped his cup back for the last bitter dregs, then slid the pill box beneath his textbooks where it disappeared like a secret. Rising from his chair, he swept his gaze across the street outside—checking for watchers, for followers, for anyone paying too much attention.
The café door jingled shut behind him as Tsunade's warning echoed in his mind: avoid the medical building, steer clear of Professor Orochimaru. He grimaced. His schedule for tomorrow morning already had him walking straight into the snake pit.
—
Across the narrow avenue from the café, Sasuke sat motionless at a battered metal patio table, his posture the picture of casual indifference, the top half of a newspaper screening his face from view. Through the window's warped glass, he watched every movement inside: the way Naruto hunched protectively over his drink, the restless jitter of his leg, the darting glances toward the street. Sasuke catalogued these details with clinical detachment, the way an ornithologist might note the agitated posture of a rare bird before a storm.
Sasuke had been tracking Naruto's movements since dawn, cataloging each deviation from routine with clinical precision. The idiot was behaving more erratically than usual—a fact Sasuke noted purely as an intellectual exercise, of course. Uzumaki represented a variable that refused to be constrained by predictable patterns, and Sasuke despised unsolved equations.
He'd deliberately submitted his housing application past deadline, calculating that the remaining pool of roommate candidates would be predominantly Betas. Unlike Alphas with their territorial posturing and grating volume, a Beta roommate would provide the silent deference his work required. The possibility of being assigned an Omega hadn't even factored into his calculations—statistically improbable to the point of absurdity.
The charade was almost insulting—Naruto's attempt at passing for Beta was like watching someone try to hide an elephant under a handkerchief. Yet despite the transparency of the deception, he'd still chosen this university, of all places. Sasuke found himself grudgingly intrigued. Even more irritating were the midnight hours when Naruto would attempt discretion in his self-pleasure, unaware that Sasuke's senses had been trained to register even the slightest disturbance. What truly vexed Sasuke, however, was his own inexplicable lack of disgust at these activities.
A blonde woman stepped into the café, jolting Sasuke from his reverie. His eyes narrowed behind the newspaper. Dr. Tsunade Senju—last seen commanding a packed auditorium at the Uchiha Foundation Symposium with charts of Omega endocrine systems projected behind her—now slipped into a corner booth wearing jeans and a worn leather jacket. The incongruity struck him: a world-renowned researcher on Omega biology meeting secretly with an undergraduate in a dingy café. Fascinating.
Sasuke turned a page of the paper, eyes never leaving the reflection in the café window. Tsunade wasted no time, berating Naruto in a voice that could have cowed most grown men. Naruto endured the barrage with his trademark stubbornness, though the microexpressions—the clench of his jaw, the way his fingers danced along the edge of the mint tin in his pocket—betrayed nerves bordering on panic.
The exchange lasted seconds. Tsunade's fingers released a small box that slid across the wooden surface, disappearing beneath Naruto's palm with a casualness too deliberate to be genuine. Sasuke recognized the choreography of practiced deception. Through the warped glass, he observed Tsunade's lips moving rapidly while Naruto lifted the lid just enough to peek inside. Despite the distance, Sasuke could identify the pale capsules nestled in plastic—hormone suppressants, undoubtedly. When Tsunade tapped her own throat and made an exaggerated swallowing motion before patting her stomach in a maternal gesture, Sasuke nearly scoffed at the elementary pantomime. Even a child could decode such obvious instruction.
But it was Naruto's reaction to the warning that intrigued Sasuke most. When Tsunade leaned forward, voice low, Naruto shrank into the collar of his jacket, the animation draining from him all at once. Sasuke could not hear the exact words, but he read the fear in Naruto's body language, the tremor in his hands as he returned the box to his bag. Tsunade's manner softened for a moment, hand resting over Naruto's in a rare show of human contact, and the touch seemed to ground him. It was the kind of exchange a mother might have with a reckless child—a dynamic Sasuke found both alien and faintly distasteful.
The meeting ended abruptly. Tsunade stood, issued what Sasuke could only imagine was another withering command, and swept out of the café. Naruto lingered, staring at the place where she'd been, his thumb worrying a thin business card between two fingers. He hesitated, then drained the last of his coffee, shouldered his backpack, and scanned the street before slipping out the back.
Sasuke snapped his notebook shut. His fingers lingered on the leather cover while his mind drafted a report he had no intention of filing. The facts stood in stark relief: an unregistered Omega masquerading as a Beta, exhibiting unpredictable behavior patterns, maintaining clandestine contact with a specialist in Omega biology, and clearly operating outside legal parameters. Any one of these would warrant immediate notification of registry officials. Yet as he mentally arranged these observations in sequence, an irritating question kept disrupting his conclusions. What would drive someone to hide in plain sight at Konoha Elite, of all places? The institution's surveillance systems were legendary, its compliance with registry mandates absolute. Logic dictated that only something of extraordinary importance—perhaps even desperation—would justify such a calculated risk.
Naruto darted across the street, hunching as if the wind carried something more dangerous than autumn chill. The rectangular bulge of the mint tin pressed against his jacket pocket with each hurried step. He kept his gaze fixed on the pavement, moving with purpose until reaching the first alleyway, where he pivoted sharply and disappeared into the labyrinth of narrow passages threading through the weathered buildings of the old business district.
Sasuke considered following, but the day's observations already weighed heavy. There was enough here to build a case, but not enough to understand the why. And for reasons he could not articulate, the why mattered more than it should.
He folded the newspaper, tucking it beneath his arm, and slid a five-dollar bill under the lip of his abandoned cup. Then he stood, stretching the stiffness from his limbs, and turned his gaze to the horizon where the campus buildings loomed against the low sun. The mystery of Naruto Uzumaki would not be solved in a single afternoon, nor was Sasuke certain he even wanted it to be. He felt, for the first time in years, the faint tickle of anticipation—a puzzle with more pieces than picture, an opponent whose next move was as unpredictable as his own.
Sasuke's footsteps echoed against the pavement as he left, his mind already plotting access to the registry's database for traces of suppressant shipments or unusual medical requisitions. Yet beneath this calculated plan lurked the certainty that no report would materialize from his keyboard tonight. The equation remained unsolved, variables still unknown, and if there was one thing Sasuke Uchiha could not tolerate, it was an incomplete puzzle laid before him.