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Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, then I would've made Itachi love me...

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Chapter One

The Innocent

Uchiha Itachi is six years old, and a very talented, yet lonely kid. His father was going to enroll him into the Ninja Academy soon, but he wanted some friends. Being the child prodigy of the town wasn't all that much fun, especially when you don't have any friends.

One day, the third Hokage went to visit Itachi's father. They seemed highly suspicious to Itachi, since they had to talk quietly in a separate room from the rest of the family, and they had to close the door shut. Unknown to them, Itachi had become so curious, since they did this quite frequently, that he had started to eavesdrop on them.

Itachi

'I hate it when father and Hokage-sama start to talk in that stupid room. I must find out what they're talking about!' I thought as I stuck after them and tried to hear what they were talking about. I heard father and Hokage-sama talking about an orphaned child prodigy that was the same age as me. 'I wonder if he would be my friend...' I guess I had wondered about all the possible things that we could possibly be doing, and my mind and attention wandered off for so long that the door I was leaning on opened and I fell onto the floor in front of the Hokage-sama and my father. 'Uh-oh…'

"Itachi, what are you doing?" father asked me.

"Uhh...I...uhh...was wondering why you keep walking off and talking secretly in a different room, that's all," I stuttered.

"Oh, well, we didn't want to wake up your baby brother, Sasuke," father replied.

"Oh." I had guessed it was a reasonable explanation...I looked up to see that father and Hokage-sama whispering about something to each other.

"Say, Itachi, do you want to meet a new friend?" father asked me.

"Yes, of course!" I definitely wanted a friend, I was felt really lonely, and I could sure spend time with someone out of the house. It sucked to be the child prodigy of the town! It wasn't any fun, and it made me extra lonely.

"Well, you can come by my place tomorrow if you like, and I'll introduce a new friend to you," Hokage-sama said.

"Yay!" I bowed and ran off happily to tell mother about the great news.

For the rest of the night, I was wondering what my new friend would want to do. 'Is he really active? Would he want to play tag? Or is he really shy and calm?' I kept asking myself a lot of questions about my new friend. I even stayed up halfway through the night thinking about him. It was so late that I decided that I should get some sleep or I would look really shabby the next morning when I meet my new friend.

The next morning…

I was up not much later than the break of dawn. I was so excited that I barely got any sleep the night before, but I was so energetic that it didn't seem to bother me. My baby brother Sasuke kept looking at my strangely at breakfast, but I couldn't blame him because it was the first time that I ever acted like that in my life! Even mother and father kept staring at my strangely, but I didn't seem to have noticed...

"Do you think that we should tell Itachi now?" mother whispered.

"Nah, I think we should keep it as a surprise," father whispered back.

I was so excited that I didn't even notice that my parents were whispering to each other because I was hurriedly eating my cereal. Before I even knew it, I was finished my food, and I put all my dishes away into the sink. Then I quickly slipped on my sandals, and ran out the door.

A few seconds later, I walked back in and wondered why my parents were still sitting at the table. "Uhh…father, are we going now?" I asked curiously.

"Slow down Itachi! I still have to finish my breakfast too!" father chuckled.

"Oh. Sorry." I leaned against the open door, letting the gentle morning breeze blow through my hair.

After a few minutes, father had finished, and gotten up from his seat. I looked up at the sound of his chair scraping against the floor.

"Ok Itachi, let's go!" he said.

"Yay!" I ran out the door, looking back every once in a while to see whether father was still in sight as I walked to Hokage-sama's place. After a ten minute walk or so, we arrived at the front doors of Hokage-sama's place. It took us a while to get in, but we did manage to get there quick enough before I burst with excitement.

"Good morning, Hokage-sama!" father and I said in unison, except I sounded more cheerful and excited.

"Good morning to you both!" Hokage-sama smiled down at me. "So are you anxious to meet a new friend, Itachi?" he asked me.

"Yes." I tried to hide how excited I was, except it sounded more like I was laughing.

"Tsumi, you can come out now," Hokage-sama said.

I was shocked to see that a girl stepped into the room. "Itachi," said father, "meet your new friend, Tsumi."

Tsumi stepped forward, and looked just as shocked to see me. We stood there for a while, staring at each other as if we didn't know that another gender existed.

"H-hi," I said shyly as I looked down. I felt myself blushing, because it seemed to be the first time that I ever talked to a girl my age.

"Hi," Tsumi said.

"Well, you two can run along now," father said. "Hokage-sama and I have a lot of work to do, so you can come back to meet us here around dusk."

"Yes, father," I said. I turned around and walked out the door, eyeing the girl strangely as she walked beside me.

We walked out of the building, and then down the street, slowly and silently. I guessed I should break the silence, so I tried to start conversation.

"Umm...what do you want to do?" I asked her politely. She looked up from the ground.

"Don't know." Her answers were short. She didn't seem like a person that liked to talk; she was just like me. "So I hear that you're supposed to be really smart, and the child prodigy of the Uchiha clan, eh?" she asked me.

"I guess...it's not all that fun though, I never actually had any real friends," I confessed.

"I know how you feel." I looked up at her with a confused expression. "I'm supposed to be a child prodigy too, but I don't know where I came from, or what I'm supposed to do. I was orphaned and discovered by Hokage-sama."

"Oh." I guess there was more to this girl than I expected from an ordinary girl. 'Maybe we could get along?' I wondered. "So...what do you want to do?" I asked her again.

"Do you want to hang out around the park? I really want to know more about you," she said sweetly.

"Uhh...s-sure?" For the first time in my life, I stuttered, and I felt my face turn red.

So we walked to the park, and I saw Kakashi-san running off on another mission, I guess. "Wouldn't it be great to become a shinobi?" I asked Tsumi.

"I always wanted to be one, I mean, I don't really have anything else to do in my life," she replied.

"Oh." And I always thought that becoming a shinobi was just a job and for fun. I never thought that someone would actually become one to live off it.

So we arrived at the park after a bit of silence, though we didn't really do anything for the next two hours or so because we were too busy talking and finding out more about each other. I treated her to some ramen for lunch with some of the money that my parents gave me, and then we were off running around on the streets of Konoha, hand in hand, laughing and having the time of our lives.

At the end of the day, we walked back to Hokage-sama's place where Tsumi was staying. Father and Hokage-sama were already waiting for us at the doors, but looked rather surprised to see that Tsumi and I were already the best of friends as we walked towards them holding hands.

"Well, looks like you two got along well," father mused.

"Definitely," Hokage-sama added.

Tsumi and I just smiled back at them, still holding hands, which father and Hokage-sama seemed to have noticed. I watched curiously as the two of them started to whisper to each other.

"Well, Tsumi, we should let Itachi and his father go now," Hokage-sama said to Tsumi.

"Yes, sir," Tsumi said. She turned to me and kissed me on the cheek. I felt my body heat rise as my face turned a deep shade of crimson. Father and Hokage-sama chuckled. "Bye," Tsumi said to me.

"B-b-bye," I stuttered back to her, still stunned at what just happened. Tsumi let go of my hand and smiled at me as father lead me back to our home.

"Will I ever see Tsumi again?" I asked father eagerly.

"Of course you will. Hokage-sama and I have arranged that you two can go out and have fun again tomorrow, since we have some business to finish," father replied with a smile.

"Yay!" I cheered, earning a look of confusion from father. "Umm...never mind," I said as we walked back home.

For the rest of the night, I kept thinking about what Tsumi had done earlier before. 'I can't believe that she kissed me...even if it was on the cheek,' I kept thinking over and over for most of the night. 'And how we held hands...' everything kept reminding me about Tsumi. 'Could I...no, that can't be it, she's just my friend...' I trailed off. 'But it has only been one day...what am I thinking?' I lay down on my bed and pulled the sheets up to my chin. 'Oh right, I get to see Tsumi tomorrow...' I caught myself thinking about my new friend again. 'Damn, why do I keep thinking about her? Could it be...' I smiled to myself and closed my eyes to slowly drift off to sleep, waiting for the new day.

TBC