AN: Hashirama and Madara's backstory was definitely one of my favorite parts (if not my absolute favorite part) of Naruto. I especially think their story reads a lot like a gay coming-of-age narrative, though I doubt it was intentional on Kishimoto's part. But...the forbidden friendship...the feeling of isolation from their families and the sensation that nobody else understands them but each other... It feels like Kishimoto wrote a gay allegory by accident.

This is pretty much canon-compliant timeline-wise, with the dialogue for some scenes taken verbatim from the manga. Uh, I haven't actually posted fic in 5 years so I can't remember if disclaimers are still a Thing. So, uh. Naruto isn't mine.


Hashirama squinted through the trees at the figure in dark clothing next to the river. The kid couldn't have been far from his age, and though he was too far from him to see his expression, Hashirama could tell that he was frustrated. Hashirama watched him try to skip the rock another two times, another three times. He still couldn't get it across, and his movements became more and more impatient. Hashirama inched forward. While he knew he was quiet, Hashirama was surprised that the boy on the riverbank didn't notice him approaching.

The boy began to talk to himself. "This time," he promised, panting slightly, "I'll make sure it reaches the other shore."

Hashirama's stone skipped onto the river from behind him and all the way across. The boy turned quickly. Up close, Hashirama could see the sweat on his pale face and his messily-cut hair. His eyes were very black and, in that moment, suspicious. The boy didn't say anything, which Hashirama thought was fair enough. He decided to speak.

"You need to throw them with a little passion," he said. "That's the trick behind it." Hashirama could see that the kid had passion. He just wasn't using it right. Hashirama wouldn't have decided to step in if he couldn't tell that the boy should have been able to do it.

The other boy got angry at that, which Hashirama was expecting. "Duh! Like I didn't already know that. I could get it across just fine if I was really trying."

Hashirama repressed a laugh.

"Anyway," the boy added, "who the hell are you?"

Hashirama hadn't thought it through this far, but he decided to be as blunt as possible. "Hmm... Right now, you could say that I'm your rival in rock skipping." He smiled. "But I've already gotten mine to the other side!"

"That doesn't answer my question!" the kid retorted. "Who the hell are you?"

Hashirama scrolled through a list of fake names in his head, then ditched the idea entirely. A rival deserved to know his name. Part of it, at least. He suspected that the boy was also a shinobi, though he couldn't be absolutely sure. But he knew that if the other boy was a shinobi, he'd realize Hashirama was one too as soon as only one name was given.

"You can call me Hashirama. Probably best if I don't give you my family name."

He saw something in the kid's brain click. He knew. "Huh. Hashirama." The boy reached down to the riverbank to find another stone to throw. "Take a close look, 'cause this time it'll reach!"

Something about the boy's posture changed. Hashirama could see him holding the rock less like a stone to throw across a river and more like a shuriken. There were a few plops! as the stone nearly made it across, but it sank just an arm's reach from the far shore.

The kid paused for half a second, the weight of his failure clearly bearing down upon him. But he redirected his frustration quickly, craning his neck around to scream at Hashirama.

"ASSHOLE! You stood behind me on purpose, didn't you?! It's so obvious that you're trying to distract me!" Hashirama threw his hands up. The boy continued. "I can't even take a leak if someone is near me! That's how aware of my surroundings I am!" Accusatory fingers pointed at Hashirama.

I managed to sneak up on you just fine, Hashirama wanted to say. But he didn't want to make the boy even angrier quite yet. Instead, he felt a little wave of guilt wash over him.

"Forgive me..." What if he really had distracted the boy? What if it really was his fault? What if the boy really was sensitive and had even felt Hashirama's presence in the forest behind him and had thrown badly because of-

"Uhhh... No need to get all emotional and stuff..." He paused awkwardly, and his face softened. "I mean... I kind of have this bad habit of making excuses when I—"

"No need to explain," moaned Hashirama. "Your ego is just so big that you have a god complex..."

The boy snapped again. "Why you...I can't even tell if you're way too sensitive or just a smartass..."

Hashirama returned from his brief stint of guilt a stronger, more confident person, laughing loudly. "One thing you should be able to tell is... You're no match for me when it comes to rock skipping!"

"Keep gloating and we'll see how well you skip across this creek!" exclaimed the boy, jaw dropping in anger.

"Forgive me...I've clearly upset you...You can throw me across this creek to make up for it..." Oh no, he'd upset the kid again...What if this time was really the end? What if he'd just flushed away any chance of keeping this rival, this friend-to-be-no-more...What if he had ruined—

"Jeez, you don't need to cry about it…"

"I just hope...that I don't drown before I make it to the other...side..."

"Man, you're pissing me off!" hissed the kid.

"If you say so..." Hashirama hung his head.

"Hold on!" exclaimed the other boy as Hashirama began to shuffle away.

Hashirama, having made an astonishing recovery, replied. "You want me to leave or not? Stop being so indecisive..." He turned.

The other boy's attention was no longer on him; something in the stream had caught his eye. Hashirama didn't need to stare at it for long to know exactly what it was. He forgot that he'd been leaving and darted halfway across the stream to the body, focusing his chakra underneath the soles of his feet. The corpse was barely beginning to rot, though drifting through the water hadn't done it any favors. Hashirama tried to hold his breath and to not look too hard at the face.

"You're... a shinobi?" the other boy asked from the bank.

Hashirama was too distracted by the arrival of the corpse to reply properly. He sighed. "So the war's finally reached these lands…" He knelt down to look for something to indicate the dead shinobi's identity. A symbol on the man's armor revealed that he was of the Hagaromo clan. He'd been Hashirama's clan's enemy. "It's best if you head home," Hashirama said to the boy on the riverbank without looking up. His mood had changed completely; being with the other boy no longer felt like a much-needed distraction from his worries and duties. "I should probably leave as well." He hopped across to the other side of the river opposite the boy, who hadn't moved. "Later."

Before he could vanish into the trees, he heard the other boy. "Um..."

Hashirama turned to face him.

"I'm Madara..." He paused. "Not giving your surname to a stranger is basic code of conduct for a shinobi..."

As Hashirama had assumed, Madara had known immediately. He laughed. "Heh, I figured you were one too."

He took a last look at Madara before running back through the forest. He was left with a sensation that he was going to see him again, as unlikely as it was. There was something alike to Hashirama about him, though he couldn't tell what.


Hashirama knew that his father would wonder where he had been. He began to plan his lie on his way to the Senju campsite. It couldn't be too elaborate, but he had to say enough to make it believable. On some instinctive level he felt that he could not let anyone know about Madara, as though the short afternoon he'd spent with him was a secret that he could never share. Moreover, he knew that the risk that he was from an enemy clan was huge. He knew, logically, that it was unlikely that he'd ever get the chance to speak to Madara again—off the battlefield, at least—yet some part of his mind warned him not to tell anyone, just in case. Just in case he saw him again, or just in case he'd made some enormous mistake in trying to befriend him instead of trying to figure out which clan he was from.

He waved at some of his clansmen who were guarding the campsite as he made his way to the tents.

"Hashirama!" Itama exclaimed excitedly, approaching him on sight. Kawarama was behind him. "Where were you today? I missed training with you… Training with Tobi is good too but he gets mean after a while…" Itama's nose wrinkled.

"I was checking out some trails," he said, thinking quickly. "Remember? Those trails we were talking about earlier this week?" It was only partly a lie; he'd been exploring the trails before he'd returned to the creek. He'd been to that creek before. He reached down to ruffle Itama's hair with one hand and Kawarama's with the other. The wound on Kawarama's cheek was hidden by clean gauze, but Hashirama still felt a twinge of shock. His brother's wounds still surprised him each time he saw them, despite Kawarama's assurances that he didn't mind that he was going to have a scar.

"Did you find anything interesting?" asked Kawarama.

"Not really. I guess it's really pretty by the river. Not that that's important. I did see a body, though, floating down the river. From the Hagaromo clan. I saw the crest on the armor. I didn't know that the Hagaromo came this close to us." Hashirama frowned. He had tried to avoid thinking about the dead shinobi on his way home, though in recent weeks he'd seen corpses nearly every day.

"They attacked us three days ago," commented his father from behind him, taking him by surprise. "That must have been when that man was killed. There are rumors of them associating with the Uchiha," he added.

Uchiha. Hashirama remembered Madara and compared his face in his mind to the Uchiha he'd seen in battle. His pale skin and choppy black hair did seem common among the Uchiha, though he obviously couldn't be sure. Plenty of people, even Senju, had those features. He quenched the train of thought immediately; it was silly to assume someone's clan just because of things like hair color.

"Father, what did the scouts report today?" Hashirama asked.

"Same as yesterday. We lost a few soldiers, though we took out more of theirs." His father said this as naturally as he might have if Hashirama had asked about the weather. He knew that his father understood the impact of the losses of their clansmen as anyone, but his seeming detachment still made Hashirama feel strange. He wondered if he had known any of the shinobi who'd been killed.

"Who?" he asked, fearful of what he was going to hear.

Hashirama was somehow relieved when he realized that he didn't personally know two of the dead shinobi, though the third had been his second-cousin. He'd played with her when he was younger, though she'd been two years older than him. He tried not to think about it for very long. With all of the topics that he was trying to avoid in his mind, he could barely remember to think about anything else. Upset, he made his way to his father's tent. "I'll be back for supper," he said to his father and brothers.

Tobirama was sitting on the floor on top of his blankets when he entered, cleaning his weapons meticulously. "Hey," he said.

Hashirama kicked his sandals off, sat down on his own bedroll next to Tobirama's, and let his head flop down onto his pillow.

"I said hi," Tobirama reminded.

"Hi," Hashirama sighed. "I don't really feel good." He hardly ever felt good these days, though the same was true for everyone else in his clan. Today, though, felt especially terrible.

"Sorry," Tobirama said. He didn't usually have a lot to say when it came to how people felt; he wasn't as perceptive as Kawarama or as outgoing as Itama. "I'll spar with you after we eat, if you want."

"Sure…" Hashirama replied. "I was going to take a short nap now. Can you wake me when it's time to eat?" He had been awake since before dawn after sleeping poorly.

"Sure." Tobirama returned his knives to their sheathes and got up. "Bye."

Hashirama didn't resent his brother's company, but in that moment he was grateful to be alone. It was too hot for blankets, so he took off his vest, curled up, and tried to sleep a little.