The Color of Love
Disclaimer; Obviously, I don't own Naruto, or any related characters. Just a happy little non-profit story right here. This is my first ever Naruto FanFic, so please be nice everyone! Bear with me.
Warning! Mentions of NaruSasu, very vague GaaLee and KakaIru. If you don't like it, for god sake turn back now, while you're still sane.
Naruto loved orange.
It was completely undeniable, irrepressible, inexplicable and also capable of blinding armies. The near-fluorescent fabric that made up his day-to-day attire was an eyesore that most chose to ignore, or try and block out at the least.
The color, to him, represented power, happiness, and also matched the incredibly powerful charka of his demon spirit, Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox. It was something he'd always liked wearing, looking at or coloring in with.
He liked white, he liked red, he liked blue, but he loved orange.
Sasuke loved black.
Black was never quite considered a color, but a shade, and often caused arguments about which was more true. It was the color of night time, it was the color of blindness, and it was the color of darkness.
Black reminded him of everything in his life he'd lost, and so wore it with pride, as though to prove it would not weaken him. He thought it was a powerful color, too, in the respect that it covers all other colors in it's pure, inky darkness.
He didn't mind a few other colors, like the blue of the ocean, maybe, but he loved black.
Kiba loved brown.
It was a dirty color, made up of hundred different other colors. To him, it was the mongrel color, lost among a flock of pure blues and yellows, clashing to make emerald greens. No one in class ever knew how to make brown paint, but Kiba did.
It made him think of mud, dirt, fur and tree-trunks. Things he saw every day. It was the color of some of Akamaru's fur, too. It was that funny, mongrel color, brown that no one liked. He thought it was the carefree color, the color of fun.
He thought grey was alright, but he loved brown.
Gaara loved red.
Red was the color of blood-soaked sand, he thought, and red was the color of anger. It was a pure color, tainted by nothing else, and the color people think of when they think of war and hatred.
He liked it because he did, and he thought there was no reason other than he liked it. It was the color of blood, of course! Why not like it? It was the color of the Kanji engraved into his forehead.
He didn't like color. He didn't like love. But he loved red.
Sakura loved pink.
Of course, what fourteen year old girl didn't? But she knew why. She thought about it a lot, when she was trying not to think of Sasuke. It was the color of her name, and her hair, and her cheeks when she was embarrassed.
She had always thought that pink was the color of love, there was no denying it was the color of Valentines Day, right? The day of love? It was the color of flowers and sweets and everything else she liked like that.
She liked the way a rainbow looked, but she loved pink.
Neji loved white.
It was the color of everything that made sense. It was the color of calm, and purity. White was completely untouched by any other color. White was good.
He thought of doctors and libraries and clouds and byagukan when he thought of white. Everything that was white was good, and everything that was good was white.
No argument, he loved white.
Shikamaru loved grey.
Though, he also found it much too troublesome to bother thinking about why. He guessed that it was an effortless color. If you ever needed to color something and didn't know what to do, just slap some grey on it.
It was the neutral color; one that was not dark, nor light, but both and neither at the same time. It wasn't any other color either, he thought, and it was good enough for him.
Despite how troublesome colors are, he loved grey.
Lee loved green.
Anyone and everyone who had ever seen Lee knew he loved green. He marched around in that latex suit, matching his almighty sensei's suit to a tee. He thought that it was the color of YOUTH and DETERMINATION and LEAVES.
Gai-sensei wore green, so of course it was a fantastic color. Konoha, hidden leaf village was surrounded by foamy oceans of green trees and grass. It was a fabulous color. So much so that Lee almost swooned just thinking about it.
Knowing that every color was fantastic in it's own way, he loved green.
Kakashi-sensei…
Did not have a favorite color.
Looking out over Konoha, seeing the thousands of unnamed colors, he found it difficult to choose which one was better than the rest. It was like looking out over a sea of fabulous students and telling them only one could become a jonin. It just was impossible, he decided, and left it at that.
The color discussion had been started over a simple task that several or more shinobi and kunoichi were engaged in.
'Re-paint the Targets.'
Naruto, of course, had immediately declared that he could paint a hundred targets without breaking a sweat. To prove this, he'd snatched up a paintbrush and began slopping on paint in thick daubs.
"Stop!" Everyone cried, "You're ruining them!"
Naruto, standing horizontally on the side of a tree, paintbrush in both hands and one clenched between his teeth, looked over to them. "Nandebayo!?" He yelled, before losing concentration, releasing the charka that was holding him on the tree from his feet and crashing to the ground in a pile of orange and swearing.
Sasuke folded his arms calmly and frowned up at the three targets Naruto had managed. "They're orange, teme. They'll blind us before we can hit them with anything." He complained, squinting and peering at the unpainted ones. "Besides, you're making a mess, and the old ones were black."
Shino, peering up through his glasses at the unpainted ones, made a noise of agreement. "He's right." He said simply, then looked back down.
"And," Said Sasuke, "Black is better."
"I disagree," Came a deep, foreboding voice. Everyone fell silent, turning their eyes to the boy who had spoken. "Red is much better," He stated, as though there was no argument, arms folded, as usual, dark, ghastly eyes glaring straight ahead. It was as though he didn't even wish to make eye contact with the lower forms. To Sabaku no Gaara, there could be no argument.
It took a moment for anyone to gather their nerves to say anything, but Shikamaru, shockingly, was first. "Just do them grey," He drawled, "That way we don't have to think about it, and we can go home. Grey is easy."
"Grey is TOO easy, I am thinking!" Came a loud, high-pitched voice. "I say we do them green! Green is the color of youth, is it not?" Lee puffed out his chest and brandished a paintbrush, slathered in green. "Let us all paint green rings of VICTORY onto our target boards!"
Everyone suppressed a groan as Lee began laughing triumphantly. It was difficult to say no, but Naruto managed, getting to his feet and flailing his orange-tipped paintbrushes at Lee, "Ne, I don't think so, Lee-san!" He exclaimed, "If they're green they'll be too hard to hit! Besides, orange is better!"
"No one wants orange, Naruto." Sasuke said monotonously. "Black is better, they were black before, therefore we are doing them black."
"Shikamaru's right, you know," Choji spoke up, through a mouthful of prawn-crackers, "Grey is close enough to black anyway, and it's getting kinda late," Shikamaru gave a slow, grateful nod to his large friend, "Besides, I don't wanna miss dinner."
Sasuke goggled at Choji for a moment, eyeing the chips already in his hands and wondering how he'd manage dinner on top of that, plus whatever he ate on the way home.
"White," Was Neji's idea, "Cut down the old targets completely, and just do white circles on the bark. It will look nicer, and tidier."
"Or if we had white targets, we could do brown circles, to match the trees." Kiba grinned, thinking himself quite clever. Akamaru agreed heartily, with two loud yaps. "Choji's right, too, I'm hungry," Kiba could sure go for some steak about now. Neji nodded in agreement. A harmonious idea, Kiba had thought of.
Lee, recovering from his idea being thrown aside so violently, puffed out his chest again and raised his voice above the arguing, "Green is leaves! Green is Konoha!"
"Shut up," Sasuke hissed at Lee, "No one thinks green is good but you!"
Lee retracted, looking hurt.
Gaara saw this from the corner of his eye and spoke up once more, "Devaluing other's ideas is weak. Uchiha, you are weak." He didn't move, only narrowing his eyes murderously at Sasuke. His brother, Kankuro, who had been standing behind him, alongside Temari, looked incredibly uncomfortable all of a sudden.
"Y'know, guys…I think we should just, like, do 'em black, since they were black before." He didn't care, honestly, and thought they would have looked better purple anyway, but he could feel Gaara becoming agitated with every new suggestion, and prayed to god he didn't drown them all in a flood of sand.
"Red is better." Gaara hissed, turning only his eyes to look in Kankuro's direction, as though he could see out the back of his head. (And it wouldn't surprise anyone if he could)
"Right, or red," Kankuro laughed nervously, quickly agreeing with his brother.
"I thought you weren't into devaluing colors, Gaara-kun," Sasuke taunted, fully aware of what speaking in such a way to the sand-demon could incur.
Gaara's hands twitched ever-so slightly and his fingers tightened on his arms. "Red is just...better." He breathed, daring Sasuke to disagree. Kankuro and Temari glanced at each other, looking near-panic. If they didn't leave or decide on a color soon, Gaara was going to go homicidal, and wipe out over ten of Konoha's finest ninja-in-training.
"Pink," Sakura piped up at last, raising her hand. Ino, next to her, scoffed.
"Forehead-girl, pink is revolting. Black," She swooned, looking at Sasuke, "Is much better."
"Ino-pig," Sakura huffed, "Pink is-"
"Pink is disgusting," Sasuke interrupted, causing Sakura's face to fall in wide-eyed disappointment. "Ino agrees with me. Kankuro agrees with me. Shino aggress with me. We are doing them black!" With that, he reached into one of the many buckets at their feet, pulled out a paintbrush, slathered with black, and jumped into the air, landing nimbly on a branch beside a target.
Everyone save Gaara and Shino, both of whom were never very vocal, erupted into a heated argument. Shouts of people's favorite colors and pleas to stop arguing could be heard all the way down to the forest entrance, where Kakashi, Asuma, Gai, Iruka and Kurenai were all sitting, enjoying a little card game.
Kakashi heard it first, perking his head up to listen more closely, and raising a hand to silence his fellow teachers. The other four paused, listening intently. Each could hear the rabble just as clearly as the last, and their faces fell a little in annoyance. The break had been fun while it lasted, right?
Gai was the first one to act, of course, jumping to his feet and striking a powerful, heroic stance. "The students require our assistance!" He declared, and vanished in a puff of smoke before anyone could say any different.
Iruka and Asuma got up simultaneously and jumped into the trees, both wanting to see what odd teaching strategy the Green Beast of Konoha was going to try next.
Finally, Kurenai looked at Kakashi silently, raising an eyebrow. She knew the only student of hers who could be causing trouble was Kiba, and told Kakashi this through eyebrow language. She also told him that she wasn't getting up just to yell at a bunch of squabbling pre-teens, and that Naruto probably caused the fight in the first place.
Kakashi sighed in defeat, knowing she was right, (even though nothing had been said? Bloody ninja) and got to his feet, walking slowly into the trees reading his Icha Icha book as he went. Kakashi-sensei did not hurry for such things. Not when his book was just getting to the good bit,
Kurenai sighed in relaxation and lay back on the cool grass, putting her arms behind her back and smiling to herself, breathing in the remains of Asuma's cigarette.
Back in the clearing, everyone (save Rock Lee, of course) had been incredibly startled by the sudden appearance of Mito Gai. The muscle-bound, green clad tower of youth had his arms thrown wide and his head bowed, as if to say 'enough!' through dynamic posing. Everyone froze on the spot.
"Sensei!" Lee cried ecstatically, waving down from his precarious position, being held up by the throat by one of Karasu's many arms.
"Lee!" Gai cried, and for one terrifying moment, everyone thought they were going to hug; sunset and all.
Kankuro quickly flicked his fingers to the side, forcing his puppet to fall limp and return to him. Lee fell to the ground, landing on his knees in the midst of several shinobi, caught mid-battle. Every eye in the area was fixed on Gai and Lee.
Lee scrambled to his feet, throwing himself at the feet of his sensei and bowing deeply. "Sensei!" He cried again, happy that his all-knowing sensei had returned to restore rightfulness, youth and peace to his squabbling friends.
"Lee," Chortled Gai, standing up straight again. Lee stood up, too, bringing his huge, watery eyes up to look at his sensei. Gai ruffled Lee's hair in a fatherly manner, and clapped him on the shoulder.
Lee nodded, and saluted hugely, with a loud, "Sir!" He turned and stood next to Gai to stare out over everyone with those round, obsidian eyes of his.
"This!" Began Mito Gai dramatically, "This, is an example of passion! You are all so youthful you cannot contain your love for color and beauty! It is wonderful!" He had streams of tears pouring down his cheeks, a massive toothy grin on his face.
"This is unproductive." Gaara stated darkly, arms still folded, eyes still blank as ever.
"Now, now, young one!" Gai exclaimed, tears entirely gone, as though they had never been there, "That is not the voice of youth!" Lee nodded several times, making little noises of agreement. His sensei was smart indeed.
Suddenly, making every proverbially crap themselves, Akamaru began yapping loudly. "What's that?" Kiba asked his faithful friend, receiving several responding yaps, "Someone's smoking??"
"Asuma!" Gai declared, pointing into the trees with a grin, "You sly devil!!"
Asuma and Iruka dropped from the trees to land behind the group, causing them all to turn their face from Gai, around to look at the newly arrived sensei. Naruto, who was sneaking up the tree where Sasuke had jumped up, tried to turn and look too, but lost his balance and fell for the second time that day. Iruka sighed in irritation.
"Gai, encouraging fighting is no way to show them the point of this task." Iruka said seriously, "I would have expected better from all of you," He said, turning his eyes on each and every student in front of him. "Better teamwork! Better resolve! Better initiative! What I see now is a rabble of irate, and admittedly idiotic, teens, arguing over colors. What I want to see, in the next five minutes, is a team of chuunin soldiers, putting their heads together to sort out this idiocy! Starting now!"
The mood went from tense listening, and humble acceptance of their discipline to a flurry of movement as everyone scrambled to gather in the middle, releasing each other from whatever jutsu they'd preformed before Gai had arrived and start potting how to do the task 'like a team of chuunin soldiers.'
Gaara was the only one not to join the huddle, and Iruka noted this immediately and moved to stand beside the scowling sand-nin.
"Go on, Gaara, this is a group task." He encouraged, smiling kindly at the frightening boy.
Gaara didn't move a muscle, only opening his mouth slightly to make a grunting noise of disapproval. His face was set, and his arms were still folded. 'Group', 'team' and 'resolve' were all stupid words to Sabaku no Gaara. They were weak words, and allowed everything he stood for to fade away; existence, power, chaos and death. As a group, an individual becomes merely a part of the collective. Gaara didn't like that idea one bit.
Iruka wasn't unfamiliar in the clockwork madness of Gaara's brain, and looked over the scene in front of them. "You know…without you, they probably won't pass this task." He smiled knowingly, "I'm pretty sure Lee-san doesn't like failing something; especially something as stupidly easy as this."
Gaara's jaw tightened and he turned his eyes to the jonin beside him, "Bribery," He breathed, but dropped to his knees beside Kankuro to oversee the plans they had so far anyway.
Everyone was gathered, now, including Sasuke (who still looked pretty grumpy), on their knees in a large circle, drawing plans and ideas in the dirt. "I say we just do what they originally were, like Sasuke said," Hinata suggested softly, peering at the wonky-looking diagram of the clearing they'd drawn together.
"I agree, even though Sasuke was being a big jerk," Lee said, smiling, grateful that peace had been restored, "As it is the simplest choice, and the best, no matter on preference of color."
"I disagree," Naruto huffed, "I reckon we should all just go to a target each and do whatever we want to it." It was childish, and sounded like it would look ridiculous indeed, but it caused a stir between the group.
"That could look pretty neat," TenTen decided, eyes glittering with inspiration. "I mean, it could be just this one clearing of all cool-looking targets. Like some sort of memorial to teamwork!"
There was a murmur of agreement among them, and Kiba spoke up. "All for making a huge mess of this place?"
"Hai!" chorused everyone in the clearing. Kakashi, who had just sauntered in, glanced over to Iruka and raised an eyebrow. Iruka just shrugged and nudged Asuma, who shrugged too. Gai, on the other side of the group, stood with his hands firmly on his hips, grinning proudly down at the youthful display in front of him.
Within moments, everyone had chosen a target, a paint bucket and a brush, and ran up the tree to start working on their masterpiece.
Naruto sloshed huge amounts of orange and yellow onto a target, making it look more like a sun than anything else, laughing as he worked. Sasuke glared over at the noisy knuckleheaded ninja, dashing neat circles of black onto the faded target he was working on.
Gaara was standing on the bottom of a branch, upside-down, violently flicking red paint at the wooden enemy in front of him, painting in large, slashing motions.
Sakura and Ino were working on a joint project (Ino having given up on Sasuke's idea for the time being) decorating the entire board they'd gotten pink, before painting a purple flower in the middle as a bull's-eye. By the end, it would prove to be the most 'girly' target there; as pointed out (loudly) by Naruto, earning him a punch over the head from both girls.
Neji, as he'd suggested before, had torn down the worn old circle of wood and begun carefully producing a set of perfect white circles on the bark, with a small white spot as the center. Shino peered over at Neji's from his perch and asked him how on earth he was meant to hit such a tiny bull's-eye. Neji responded by asking Shino how on earth he expected to pick up girls wearing such ridiculous underwear. Shino disliked byagukan, and Shino disliked underwear shopping.
Kankuro had his tongue between his teeth, painting elaborate mauve designs which spiraled outwards from the center of his masterpiece, and, when asked later, would describe it to be 'the most ultimate test of vision accuracy of all time.'
Kiba had doused his board in white, then shoved a brown-tipped paintbrush in Akamaru's mouth and instructed him to paint. The two hung precariously from their seating, Akamaru tucked in the front of Kiba's shirt, leaning out and flicking his head from side to side, in a mauled attempt at painting, while Kiba directed him, laughing wildly and swinging his legs.
Shikamaru declared designing something 'too troublesome' and given his grey-filled paint bucket to Choji, who proceeded to dash the kanji of 'food' onto the target and laugh. Shikamaru had sighed, wondered how many people would goggle stupidly at the ridiculous display of color and artistry, and asked Asuma if they could go home yet.
'Rock Lee, pillar of youth, artist in the making', was Gai-sensei's new title for his beloved student, as he laughed proudly over Lee's messy, yet determined, green creation.
Temari's creation, however, was nothing to be laughed at. Somehow, she had managed to paint a warped portrait of her brother's laughing face; Kabuki paint and all. She then proceeded to paint red circles, complete with the bull's-eye between the Kankuro-portrait's eyes. Anyone who laid eyes on it knew immediately who'd painted it, and it made Kankuro admittedly squeamish for the next few nights.
Hinata's design was definitely the best. Everyone agreed, her pretty little flower target, painted entirely from sky-blue paint was the nicest thing in the entire clearing.
When at last all the targets were complete, the gathering of shinobi and kunoichi stood back a little, to admire their work. There was paint everywhere, on everyone and everything. Kakashi lifted a finger and casually wiped away a smear of yellow paint that had dripped onto his exposed cheek.
Looking up, Naruto grinned proudly. "We did it!" He declared, "Dattebayo!"
"There's still one target left," Sasuke noted, pointing up to the lone thing, high up in the top reaches of a tree. "Who's going to claim that?"
Naruto glanced over at his black-haired friend, squinting grumpily at him, "I dunno, how about you take it? Your first target was so boring, try and do something more interesting this time!"
Sasuke peered at Naruto for a moment, a small grin creeping across his lips. He knelt down, grabbing up several buckets, and jumped up to the target, landing deftly in front of it, on a branch, and beginning to paint.
Everyone arched their necks upwards, to try and see what he was doing. It didn't take him long, and soon, the smug Uchiha had landed back on the ground, placing his buckets back down gently. He looked to Naruto for a moment, before moving closer to his loud mouthed friend. He lent in, whispering quietly, "Is that interesting enough?" He asked.
Naruto, blushing furiously, stared up at the target, squinting, trying to see what Sasuke had done. Grunting in irritation, he jumped up to see, almost slipped, waved his arms about for a while trying to regain balance…then looked to the target. He gasped, cheeks flushing red, as he saw what Sasuke had done. It was a squat little caricature of Kyuubi, the demon fox, grinning in an eerily familiar way, with the words 'Dobe, I'm hungry. It's late. Come to Ichiraku with me; my treat', scrawled hurriedly across it.
Naruto gave a sharp noise of shock and tore the board from the tree in one swift movement. Breaking it in half quickly, he jumped back down, glancing at everyone else. They all seemed to be talking among themselves, so he gave Sasuke a quick nod, before demanding in eyebrow language that they burnt the wooden note immediately.
"Is it time to go, yet?" Kankuro whined, "I'm so hungry I could eat an army!"
"Looks like you've done that already," Temari hissed under her breath, eyeing her brother's stomach, causing him to blush with anger.
Iruka clapped his hands together twice, demanding all eyes on him, "Teamwork is essential for survival! Remember that on the way home, dismissed." There was a deafening cheer as everyone rejoiced in the task being over at last. The three Sand-nin vanished quickly, followed closely by Choji, Lee and Kiba (all whom had to appease their growling stomach's demands.
Eventually, Sasuke and Naruto were the last ones left.
"How hungry are you?" Sasuke said carelessly, looking over to Naruto.
"Uh-"
"I'll take that as a very, hurry up." And before the blonde shinobi could protest, his black-haired friend was gone.
Iruka yawned absently, watching the final of their student take off into the distance. "Look at this crap. I should have just told them all to do what Uchiha Sasuke said- he had the right idea."
Kakashi shrugged looking over where Gai had been. The exuberant, green clad man was long gone, along with Asuma. "You know," He mumbled, tucking his Icha Icha book away in his pocket. "I'm kind of hungry too."
Iruka's eyes widened, a dark blush crossing his cheeks.
"My place, or yours?"
END
Reveiws make the world go 'round lovlies! I'd like some CONSTRUCTIVE (note the word constructive, not just blatant abuse and/or flaming) critisicm. This isn't my best story, nor is it very long, but flaming sucks, okay?