This is just a one shot I wrote at 2am. So sorry for any major grammatical errors. I spell checked, though! Hope you guys enjoy this little, sad story.
Diclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Everyone Knows
When young students graduate from the Ninja Academy, they are separated into three-person teams. That's the way it's been since the beginning of Konoha itself. Despite any differences the twelve-year-olds might have, they always become a family. The three become everlasting friends, and sometimes more than friends. They will always understand you because your teammates are the ones who trained with you, bled with you, bled for you. No matter what happens throughout your entire life your original teammates are always the ones you can count on.
Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji know what that means. They know that no other ninja could understand them better than each other. Just the same, Neji, Lee, and Tenten know the feeling, despite Neji and Lee's contradicting personalities. So do Hinata, Kiba, and Shino. Team 8, Team 10, and Team Gai know this philosophy just like any other group of shinobi.
But everyone knows about Team 7. Everyone knows what happened to them.
It's not a secret anymore.
Everybody knows about the tragedy of Uchiha Sasuke. The Uchiha massacre is public knowledge, as is Sasuke's desire to murder his own brother. All the shinobi know that he left the village looking for power in the form of a snake sanin and dark corridors. Even the children in the academy today know Uchiha Sasuke as the traitor, rather than Itachi.
The entire village knows that Naruto is a Jinchuuriki and that Kyuubi, the nine tailed fox, lay inside him. They know that he lived on the streets as a child and that townspeople beat him in alleyways. They know that Naruto was bright and grinned and made people hope, despite all that.
The shinobi of Konoha know that Sakura was the brightest konoichi of her year and that she was beautiful. And they know that she would have been better off in any other team than in the one she was placed. Whenever he name is mentioned, a certain amount of pity follows it.
And everyone knows that Sakura loved Sasuke. They know it was real love too, not some childhood crush that faded with time. As the years passed, her friends easily saw her true affection for Sasuke.
But Sasuke loved Naruto, and nobody knew that until much later. Naruto himself didn't even know of that love until many years had passed. Sasuke had always loved Naruto because Naruto was the only person who could make the cold-hearted Uchiha feel again.
And Naruto loved Sakura. That much was easy to see, from the way he constantly asked her out. Sasuke was his best friend, or so he thought, for a very long time.
The loves were all there, sugar coated with simple, everyday lies. They were children, after all.
Sasuke's betrayal stretched the team's relationship more than anything. It was the first knot in a flawed tapestry, so to speak. Sasuke left because he didn't want to suffer the sight of Naruto everyday. Naruto left Konoha with Jiraiya because he felt so bitter at Sasuke and Sakura's sad expression ate away at him. And Sakura trained harder than she ever had, trying to pound away her feelings.
And so, Team 7 separated.
Then, Naruto came back from training and he didn't love Sakura anymore, but he couldn't figure out why. And Sakura found that Naruto was hansom and strong. Her heart reached out for someone other than Sasuke for the first time.
Some would say that Naruto realized he loved Sasuke when Sasuke finally returned to Konoha. But really, everyone thinks that it happened when Naruto saw his friend again for the first time in years, at Orochimaru's hideout. It happened when Sasuke stood ever so close to Naruto and threatened to take his life.
When Sasuke returned to Konoha, he had killed Itachi. Sasuke was lifeless, or so the doctors say. He was a living corpse, with blank, tired eyes, and a slow walk. Because Itachi had told his little brother something that would drain the life from Sasuke completely. He couldn't even find it in himself to love Naruto anymore.
The members of Team 7 were no longer far away from each other, but they were more distant than ever before.
Naruto died before he became Hokage. The Kyuubi's chakra overtook his body and caused organ failure. Naruto died pale, coughing up blood, and in a hospital bed. Sakura clutched his hand and wept all the while. Sasuke stood in the corner and watched blankly as the blonde died.
People still talk about what happened when Naruto flat lined. Sasuke started screaming. They say it sent chills down the spine of every nurse in the hospital. It was the most horrifying sound they'd ever heard. Sasuke wept and clawed at his face until blood ran down his cheeks. He rammed his side into the wall until three of his ribs broke. It took eight shinobi to hold the Uchiha down.
Sasuke didn't recover after that. They were forced to put him in an asylum with cushioned walls. To this day, they say he's in there, arms retrained in a straight jacket, screaming until blood comes from his ripped throat.
Two months after Naruto died and they put Sasuke away, they found Sakura hanging from her ceiling fan, a bed sheet wrapped around her pretty neck. Her apartment was flawlessly clean and up kept, like she spent far more time there than she should have. There were tear stains on her cheeks and she wore a bath robe. There wasn't a note or final message. She was just dead.
Naruto and Sakura were eighteen years old when they died. They were still children, really. And Sasuke will never be able to leave the asylum. He'll be there until he is old and grey. And he'll most likely die in his little white room, still screaming.
All of Konoha knows what happened to Team 7. They were the unlucky ones, the team that went completely and utterly wrong.
The shinobi of Team 7's time spoke of the three with pity. They brought them up when everything else seemed down.
"I just can't tell if Shikamaru likes me!" Ino would say to Chouji.
"Yeah, but at least your not Sakura," he would reply. They both would nod, and the conversation would move on.
New genin teams looked at Team 7 like a jinx. To speak their names at all was to damn your own team to abomination. The school system couldn't even use the number '7' anymore because of what happened to that generation.
Your teammates are the people you can count on for the rest of your life. They are your best friends.
But that wasn't what happened with Team 7.
Everyone talks about Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura's tragedy.
And everyone knows.
Well there you have it. Please, please review! It makes me feel good inside when you do!