When Hattori Zenzou first met Sarutobi Ayame, she was just the weird new girl in his father's dojo. The first thing he noticed about her was her violet hair, but that wasn't too weird, considering Wakikaoru's pink locks. In fact, nothing was too weird about the girl, especially when he compared her to the other students at the Oniwabanshu – except maybe the way her eyes gleamed and cheeks reddened in too much excitement. Zenzou understood that being a ninja was one of the biggest dreams of a child – that was the only reason he was still going through training, after all – but it really wasn't that special.

"Hello and welcome, Sarutobi-san!" he heard Wakikaoru say, loud enough for the entire class to hear. Zenzou knew the girl did it on purpose. It might not seem like he could see well through the thick fringe covering his eyes, but it was clear as day that Wakikaoru was trying to keep up her nicest-in-the-class madonna appearance. Still, the entire class stopped whatever they were doing, because that was how it always was with Wakikaoru.

Sarutobi nodded at the pink-haired girl, and Zenzou was relieved to see that the gleam in her eyes and the blush in her cheeks had been replaced by a simple polite smile. He wouldn't know what to do if the girl was stupid enough to fall for Wakikaoru's tricks.

"You know, Sarutobi-san is really kind of long." Wakikaoru paused, and underneath her smile was a small smirk. "Can I call you Saru-chan?"

"No," Sarutobi replied quickly. "Don't call me a monkey."

Zenzou rolled his eyes when some spectators gasped. And if Wakikaoru was surprised that someone had talked back to her, she didn't show it.

Instead, she laughed. "But it's kind of cute! And I think after a few months of training, you could be like a monkey, too—"

"No means no!" Sarutobi's voice sounded deeper when she got angry, which was weird, because when other girls Zenzou had met before then became angry, their voice sounded higher. "It's either Sarutobi or Ayame or Sacchan, or just don't call me at all."

Zenzou grinned very widely at that. No one in the class – or in Japan, really – had ever been direct with their anger at Wakikaoru. (She's just the cutest little thing, how can anyone get angry with her? he overheard an old lady say once, but Zenzou thought she might just have been senile and delusional.) He himself always simply ignored her whiny voice, choosing not to get involved, or being too lazy for anything else.

Granted, some kind of rivalry started between the two girls, but Zenzou thought it was just a girl thing to make enemies on your first day.

Within a month, Sarutobi Ayame became one of the most promising students at the Oniwabanshu. Second to you, of course, his old man said, but that didn't matter if he'd been training for years and she a mere month. The girl, Zenzou hated to admit, beat him in speed, and hid better in kick-the-can, which his old man continuously praised her for. Sarutobi also had good aim.

She did, until her eyes started to go bad.

After three weeks of throwing a kunai at a human cardboard cut-out everyday, Sarutobi could hit a stationary heart 9 times out of 10. It was a statistic that made some people in the class jealous, like Wakikaoru, who wasn't so good with the kunai, but could somehow throw roses accurately 8 times out of 10. So when one day, Sarutobi got the kunai onto the heart only once in ten tries, everyone knew something was up. Naturally, they all thought it was just a bad day.

But it wasn't. It kept happening over the next few days, and even worsened; by the fifth day, she could get a kunai into the cut-out beside her own target.

Zenzou's old man had talked to Sarutobi privately, and from what he could gather, the girl was in dire need of glasses. She said she would get them soon, and until then, she would just have to put up with it. The same applied to everyone, and Zenzou had a gut feeling it would be a dangerous few days until Sarutobi got glasses.

And it was. They were being taught how to tie ropes around people quickly and effectively – the ninja way, as Gou had dubbed it – and were on a trial run with assigned partners. Zenzou could tie Matsuo up with no sweat, even when the boy wasn't rattling on about statistics, and Wakikaoru always managed to untie the ropes Seki cast around her. Sarutobi was partnered up with Shuwa, and before anyone could blink, she was already tying the knots of the rope.

Onto a tree.

It was strange enough that almost everyone stopped and watched. Sarutobi was skilled with rope-tying, but…

"Sa-Sarutobi-san, what… What are you doing?" Zenzou's father mumbled.

The girl paused. "I'm tying a rope around Shuwa-san, like I've been told."

"Oi!" Shuwa yelled. "That's a tree you're tying that rope around! That's not even funny, Sarutobi-san!"

"Oh? Hm," Sarutobi had stepped away from the tree, and was walking towards another tree nearby. She bowed deeply.

"I apologize, Shuwa-san. You and the tree looked very similar."

"Oi!" Shuwa yelled again, more exasperatedly. Laughter filled the dojo's backyard, but Zenzou only sighed.

He was sure it wasn't a girl thing to mistake a human for a tree. In fact, he was sure it was just offensive – whether to the tree or to the human, it depended on the circumstances.

Zenzou's ninth birthday was held in the dojo, because that was where his (only) family and most of his 'friends' were.

By that time, Sarutobi was well-settled into the ninja class, and wearing glasses. Many times, Zenzou had overheard some of his male classmates talking about them as her charm point or whatever they described it as, and frankly, it gave him chills down his spine. Those boys were disgustingly early in entering the hormonal stages, and he wished they would just stick to Jump. The world of ero wasn't quite ready to welcome them yet.

He'd gotten some weird presents that year: a star shuriken that looked like it was from Maruto, nine roses from (whom else but) Wakikaoru, and some flower hair clips from Sarutobi. However, the somewhat insulting gifts didn't matter so much when Zenzou found his old man's present: a year's subscription to Weekly Shonen Jump. It was the best birthday he ever had.

Or it would have been, had they not played pin the tail on the donkey.

It was like a tradition to play that game during birthdays, because, as his old man had said, it honed the senses other than sight and a ninja's skills and accuracy. Besides, he also said, who doesn't love pinning that tail on the donkey with a sharp kunai?

Zenzou went first, and managed to pin the tail on the donkey's head. It was probably luck, but he liked to think it was from experience; he had lived virtually his entire life visually impaired anyway, because cutting his hair was just too much effort.

Matsuo had predicted an 18.42% chance of getting the tail on the donkey, and managed to pin the tail on the paper door on the other side of the room. Wakikaoru, as expected, had failed to get the kunai anywhere near, but she brought out a rose from (a magical secret hedge in) her pocket and got that directly on the donkey's ass. There was plenty of applause, and it quickly got to her head: Wakikaoru started to laugh hysterically and arrogantly. Somehow, it caused Sarutobi to volunteer to go next, proclaiming that she would beat Wakikaoru.

Sarutobi took off her glasses, and Zenzou's father put the blindfold over her eyes while handing her a kunai. Zenzou didn't think the blindfold was really necessary, since Sarutobi without her glasses was virtually blind anyway. He started to walk away, because Sarutobi without glasses was danger, and he really didn't want to get involved. The girl was spun around thrice, and she immediately threw the kunai.

Suddenly, Zenzou let out a bloodcurdling scream as he crumpled to the ground. No one really saw the kunai whiz past, but when they realized what had happened, it was too late.

The kunai had lodged itself straight into Zenzou's ass.

"W-Wrong ass, Sarutobi-san!" Zenzou's old man said, running towards his son. "Donkey ass, not human ass!"

"Get it out! Get it out get it out getitout!" Zenzou screamed. Someone else in the party joined his screamfest.

"I'm sorry," Sarutobi said with a straight face.

"He's going to get hemorrhoids!" Matsuo yelled. Everyone started to yell, too.

"That sounds terrible!" Wakikaoru cried.

"He's going to die!"

"Hemorrhoids!"

"Do you even know what hemorrhoids are?!" Zenzou yelled, after the kunai was finally taken out, bloody and sharp.

"Zenzou…" his old man started to say. "I… I think you do have hemorrhoids now."

The boy paled, and turned to Sarutobi, the cause of it all, who was putting on her glasses without a care. Zenzou glared. Sarutobi probably used the damn game as an excuse to torment me, he thought. That sadist!

As if reading his thoughts, Sarutobi Ayame turned towards Hattori Zenzou and sneered.

"Happy birthday, Hattori-kun."

She never let him live it down.

And it was impossible to, anyway. The hemorrhoids stayed with him until he met her again at age twenty-five, and they'll probably stay with him to the coffin.

He can just imagine the perm-haired samurai and the girl with violet hair speaking ill of it at his funeral.

22/08: I actually started this fic way back in June, but I could not be stuffed ending it. So I made it a birthday fic. Just goes to show how much I procrastinate, I guess.

Characters you may not know:

Wakikaoru - the only female member of Shinobi 5. She had the poison roses and stuff.

Gou - the Shinobi 5 member who could clone himself. In the manga, he did the technique, but the real Gou looked sick (from curry) while his clones were totally healthy.

Shuwa - the really muscly member of Shinobi 5. His special technique in the manga was, you guessed it, swelling up his muscles. Completely useless dude.

Matsuo - the Shinobi 5 member who ran on and on about stats. He predicted that he was gonna get his ass kicked in "the next frame," but his ass got kicked in that frame.

*Maruto is supposed to be a parody of Naruto, if it wasn't obvious.