Konohamaru's face tightened. "Fine then. From here on out, we're rivals."
"No."
Konohamaru crossed his arms. "What do you mean, no?"
"I'm not your rival. I'm not your friend. I'm not your anything." Udon pushed him. "I don't care about you, okay?"
---
It was Udon who had registered for the chuunin exams with a completely different team. It was Udon who had, in response to Moegi's awkward stammers and backhanded-over flower, promptly crushed it. It was Udon who had indifferently consented to allow his new teammate's arm to drape over his for the entirety of the first portion of the exam and much of the second, hard as the terrain made it.
It was Udon whose mouth was pressed into a thin line after witnessing Konohamaru give Moegi a slightly longer than necessary victory hug.
His aforementioned teammate, seeing this, promptly arranged for them to be locked in a closet for several hours. In hindsight, this was probably not the best move.
---
Moegi returned from the closet with her hair down from its usual ponytail, looking, oddly enough, slightly disappointed.
"Um...how was it?" a girl asked her shyly.
"Boring," Moegi responded diffidently. But she continued to pursue him for some time after that.
---
Udon quickly became popular among the older ladies as well as those his own age. He had, they would say, an adorable habit of rubbing his finger across the bridge of his nose. And he made a point of smiling as often as possible.
But anyone who saw the rare flashes of anger in his eyes when Konohamaru was mentioned, or the set of his face when he proclaimed, "I don't care about that girl," would have a hard time reconciling it with the awkward, sweet boy he appeared to be.
There were a number of people who could have told Udon that he was doing a miserable job of not repeating history, but they were all too busy trying to fix their own mistakes to notice his.
---
Konohamaru failed the second stage of the chuunin exams three times before he turned fifteen; does not work well with others was scrawled across every one of his files.
It was strange, because he'd always had high marks for teamwork in the Academy.
---
"I'm thinking of cutting it short," Moegi said, tugging at her hair, now pulled into a tight ponytail; she considered herself too old for the pigtails she had always worn before.
Konohamaru wrinkled his nose. "Don't do that."
She cocked her head to the side. "Why?" she asked.
Konohamaru hesitated a moment, then broke out into a big grin. "You look prettier this way, Moegi-chan!" he exclaimed.
Moegi blushed. In the end, this was what bothered her the most and why she ended up avoiding Konohamaru for a week.
---
Sakura knew enough about the former Team Konohamaru to understand who Udon was talking about when he proclaimed, "I don't care about her, I told you. She's just annoying." to the crowd of boys around him.
"Try knocking her out," she said dryly. "That always works."
She regretted saying it--it was neither wise nor true--but no one seemed to have understood her, so it didn't really matter in the end.
---
In the weeks following the chuunin exams, Moegi cut her hair short, bought new clothes, and learned to say "the sexiest kunoichi in preschool" in a way that was actually rather charming.
When she appeared the next year sporting her new look and a set of genjutsu to match, she was quickly offered not only the chuunin title but an apprenticeship with one of Konoha's top kunoichi, which, after a moment's hesitation, she quickly accepted.
---
In the days immediately following Uchiha Sasuke's defection, when Udon had been quieter than usual and Ebisu had watched them all like hawks, Konohamaru had taken to wearing orange and eating nothing but ramen, proclaiming himself to be "like Naruto."
By now, he'd grown too old to believe in feeble mimicry, in the promise of Ichiraku and fluorescent jumpsuits. In that respect, he was perhaps more prescient than his teammates.
---
Seven years after his defection, three after his murder of Udon's parents, Uchiha Sasuke finally returns home. His teammate Uzumaki Naruto does not. For the first time in three years, Team Konohamaru wears identical expressions of anger on their faces.
It makes no difference; they still sit at different sections of the stadium at his trial.
---
Sakura is surprised to see Moegi on her doorstep, if only because she has been occupied with her own team for the past few weeks. Moegi looks up at her for a moment and says, "Do you love him more?"
"What?"
"Uchiha Sasuke. Do you love him more than Naruto?"
"Of course not," Sakura says. "Why?"
She looks at the expression on Moegi's face, and wonders whether the other girl has done something neither wise nor true as well.