Ramen Clouds

Um…this is my first Naruto fic so…reviews would be helpful? Through to story I'm gonna try and keep their personalities cannon, but I fear it's gonna get a little OOC eventually. Sorry? Please review if you want me to write the next chapter!

How can he be so happy all of the time? I asked myself for the billionth time, while I watched the laughing blonde haired young man, standing with a group of other young chuunin. He always seems so…so carefree. I had known Naruto long enough to know that he was anything but carefree. There were times when his now wide, innocent blue eyes flared with such rage and sadness that you felt that it would swallow you whole. He also knew that Naruto had had a hard life, and that anyone else in his position would have eyes like that all the time. But not Naruto. His eyes were usually so bright, and gleeful. My own eyes are nothing like that. I realize that they are hard, and cold. That's all they had been for a very long time, and I had no desire to change them. But…it might be nice…just to see what having eyes like that was like. Just once.

"What are you looking at me like that for?"

His voice snapped me out of my reverie and I blinked at him for a moment, rather bewildered.

"No reason." I said softly before slipping away to someplace quieter.

Where I found myself was a soft grassy knoll. It was a gentle place, a place for relaxation and reflection. I came here quite often, as it happens. I flopped down on my back and sighed deeply. In front of people I would not usually show such lack of composure, but my little hill didn't mind, I'm sure. I closed my eyes and willed my mind to be blank.

A few moments later I felt another person come. They came in a very un-ninja like fashion, walking slowly up the hill. At the top, they flopped down and sat crossed legged next to me, not saying a word. After a few moments of easy silence the unnamed person spoke to me.

"It's a nice place, isn't it? Do you come here often? …I never see you."

It was Naruto. I supposed I shouldn't be surprised because he came here quite often…almost whenever he wasn't at Ichikaru, training, or on a mission. It wasn't that Sasuke was stalking him or anything creepy like that. He was just…good at not being seen. And if Naruto didn't even know what did it matter? Right?

Except that today he had miscalculated. Naruto was here…just sitting next to him, looking at the clouds.

"Hey…there's one that looks like a cup of Ramen! See? See?" I had to smile just a little at Naruto's joy at this simple cloud. Looking up at the sky I noticed that there was a cloud in the shape of a cup of ramen. I just couldn't help myself…like doom bubbling over my laughter spilled from my lips! I didn't laugh! But apparently I did…I kept laughing, my cheeks growing hot and my breath running short. I couldn't believe myself! Then Naruto started laughing with me! Just a couple of fools…I thought while we lay gasping for breath on the grass.

Out of the blue I felt a soft, gentle hand lightly touching mine. Some time during our idiotic merriment his hand had fallen onto mine. It was nice though...physically it felt rough, but there was a sort of delicacy to his hands that my awkward, too large hands had none of. Very suddenly Naruto flipped over so that he was hovering over me. Gently he pressed his soft lips to mine…and then he just sort of vanished. He was Konoha's number one ninja in surprising people after all.