Just Like a Girl

The eight-year-old girl kicked at a loose stone, her pale green eyes following its arc to the glassy surface of the lake.

Plop! Plip!

The first was the sound of the stone hitting the water. The second was the sound of water hitting stone. She raised her small hands quickly to cover her face and catch the tears streaming from her eyes, but nothing could muffle the sound of her sobbing. She fell to her knees and howled her grief into the ground.

"Sakura!" The voice of her best friend cut through her tears. "What's wrong? Did you fall?"

Sakura turned her tear-streaked face to Ino and hiccuped. "I-I think he hates me."

Ino stroked Sakura's bright pink hair gently to calm her friend down. Her blue eyes were concerned. "Who?"

"Sasuke-kun." This was said with a pathetic sniffle.

Ino stiffened. "Sasuke-kun?" she repeated, her voice foreboding. "You... like him, Sakura-chan?"

"Yeah..." Her tears stopped momentarily and she turned her tear streaked face to Ino. "No way." Sakura's expression turned stony. "Ino-chan, you, too?"

Years of friendship ended in that revelation while Naruto, hidden in the bushes, watched it all. He watched the girl he loved cry over the guy he hated and watched her hate the girl she'd loved for him. He shook his blond head. "That's just like a girl," he muttered before crawling out of his hiding place.

On second thought, maybe it wasn't the girls' fault. "Bah," Naruto muttered angrily as he stomped along the lake shore, "it's all because of that idiot Sasuke."

On cue, Sasuke emerged from the forest bordering the lake. He was surrounded by the usual gaggle of mesmerized girls, and Naruto only recognized him by his absurdly cut black-blue hair. First and foremost in the throng of girls was none other than Sakura, who had recovered from her crying stint and was complimenting Sasuke ardently. Not to be out done, Ino was adding new adverbs to everything Sakura said.

"Sasuke-kun, your shuriken jutsu is so awesome!" Sakura flattered him.

"Amazingly awesome!" Ino jumped in. "Marvelously awesome. Awesomely awesome. Show me how to do it sometime. Nee, Sasuke-kun?"

"Wha—!?" This from Sakura.

From Sasuke, there was no answer—not even a grunt or hmm. He simply looked bored. No, Naruto decided, it was less than boredom; it was indifference, apathy.

Naruto felt the tightly curled anger within him explode. "You!" he shouted, jumping in front of Sasuke's path. He pointed a shaking finger at his self-proclaimed rival. "You, you, you!"

Sakura rushed forward and knocked Naruto's hand out of the air. "Get out of Sasuke-kun's way, idiot," she shrilled.

Sasuke barely glanced at either of them. "You...?" he said.

"You have everything! How can you just—just—" Naruto was having difficulty putting his feelings into words. Sasuke had everything. He acknowledged nothing.

"Don't yell at Sasuke-kun," Ino and Sakura ordered together. They turned to glower at each other. "Don't copy me! Stop it! I said stop! Grr..."

Sasuke ignored the girls. His ink black eyes betrayed no emotion. "'Just'?"

Naruto grabbed Sasuke by the front of his shirt. He growled, "You have friends, family—everything. But you don't appreciate it."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He just pushed Naruto away, turned on his heel, and disappeared into the forest, hands shoved deep into his pockets. The gang of rabid fan girls disappeared after him. Sakura paused to throw a dirty look Naruto's way.

Naruto, obviously the loser in their exchange, resorted to pulling childish faces. "Fine," he muttered, turning away. "I don't care. I want my ramen."

_________________________________________

"Naruto?" Iruka asked, putting down his chopsticks and looking pointedly at Naruto's untouched bowl of ramen. "Is something wrong?"

Naruto sighed and stabbed the boiled egg in his soup over and over without really noticing. "Iruka-sensei," Naruto asked morosely, "do you think I'm cute?"

"Wha—" Iruka overcame his initial shock and cleared his throat. "Ah, see, Naruto, it's not a matter of... The thing is I'm your teacher... Well, it's not that I don't... But we... But you... We can't... I'm your teacher," he reiterated weakly.

Naruto turned to the teacher, confused. Then comprehension dawned on his face. "Ew, Iruka-sensei, that's gross! Not like that. I mean, what do you think girls think about my good looks?"

"Girls like Sakura?"

Naruto jumped in his seat, upsetting his bowl of ramen and spilling it over his legs. Luckily, it had been sitting there for so long that it was only lukewarm. "H-How did you know?" He gaped at his unexpectedly intuitive teacher as he wiped ineffectively at the wetness.

"Well, it's kinda obvious. I mean," Iruka corrected himself hastily upon seeing Naruto's horrified expression, "it was just a random name."

"Oh, I see. Haha, like Iruka-sensei could tell what girl I liked, haha!"

Iruka's eyebrow twitched.

"Anyways..." Naruto sighed. "What do girls see in him? That idiot Sasuke. He's not so perfect. He definitely isn't as good-looking as me."

Iruka was tempted to disagree. Sasuke was possibly the most attractive eight-year-old boy the teacher had seen since Itachi. Not that he was attracted to eight-year-old boys. That would get him fired. But if it were for Sasuke... "Well," Iruka said quickly to avoid that train of thought, "Sasuke, he's a bit special. His clan, you know, the Uchiha. It only follows that he'd be a genius. It's a pity what happened."

Naruto's ears pricked up. "What happened?" He was eager for any information he could use to blackmail the Uchiha. "Something bad? Something shameful? Something unspeakable?" he suggested excitedly.

Iruka looked uncomfortable. "All three."

Naruto frowned slightly. "Is it that 'bathing in blood' thing I heard you and the other sensei talking about? Does that make you a better ninja?"

"You were eavesdropping on us, your teachers?"

"Er... not at all! But that's so gross. Bathing in blood." He shuddered.

"Naruto, could you mean the 'bloodbath'?"

"Maybe. But that's still disgusting."

Iruka sweat dropped, marveling at his eight-year-old student's stupidity. How was he supposed to explain something like mass murder to a boy who thought bloodbaths would improve one's ninja skills? He took a deep breath. "It was a massacre. Of Sasuke's entire clan." Seeing his pupil's dumb look of confusion, the brown-haired man simplified it to: "The Uchiha clan was killed off, all except for Sasuke and... the one who did it."

Naruto's blue eyes widened with shock, horror, and comprehension. "No way... How come I didn't know this before?"

"Er..." Iruka had nothing tactful to say to that. The only possible answer was Because you're an idiot, Naruto but Iruka wasn't in the mood to insult him. Thoughts of Itachi in all his glory had flooded Iruka's mind, and the besotted man couldn't even form sentences.

"Who did it?"

"Itachi..." Iruka moaned. "Wait? What?"

"Who did it?"

"Oh. Someone very close to Sasuke." Someone very good looking. Someone entirely too sexy to not be evil and twisted. "His brother, Itachi."

Naruto's small hands gripped the counter painfully. "I-I'm done eating, Sensei. Thanks for the treat." He staggered away from the shop, shaken. For the first time, his bowl of ramen went untouched.

___________________________________________

Naruto kicked pebbles into the pond, watching them splash into the water with nervous disinterest. Every few seconds, he glanced around him hopefully and, seeing no one, shot another small stone into the water. Today, he told himself with each falling stone. I'll do it today.

Then he heard it: a scream of high-pitched laughter that could only belong to Sasuke's fan girls. Today, I won't run away. He'd been thinking the same thing for days. But today he would act.

Naruto squared his narrow shoulders and turned to see Sasuke emerging from the woods, surrounded by frighteningly devoted girls.

"Sasuke-kun, do you really like girls with long hair?" Sakura squealed, flipping her mane of pink hair, which was nearly half a meter longer than yesterday. Naruto wasn't sure, but he suspected a Hair Growth Jutsu might have been involved. Girls.

"Ha, you'll need more than hair to catch Sasuke-kun's eye," Sakura's ex-friend taunted. "He wants girls with class."

Sakura flushed until her face was an even darker shade of strawberry pink than her hair. It almost matched her outfit. "Yeah? Then I guess you've got nothing to give him, Ino-pig!"

"What was that, Forehead-girl!?"

Naruto barely heard this fanatic and senseless argument between former friends. His attention was focused on the blue-black-haired boy walking in front of them. Sasuke no longer looked bored or indifferent or apathetic. To Naruto, the unfortunate Uchiha now seemed to exude an inescapable aura of loneliness. Parentless, friendless, alone. Just like me.

"Sasuke," Naruto said as he stepped into the Uchiha's path. He stuck out his hand.

"What?"

"We're just alike. You and me. We don't have... anyone..." Naruto waggled his fingers, indicating that they should shake hands. "So we should be friends."

Sasuke looked from Naruto's proffered hand to his hopeful face, his usually dour expression unreadable. "...What?"

Sakura smacked his hand down, looking territorial. "As if! Get out of Sasuke-kun's way, loser."

Naruto tried to ignore her, but his face started to crumple. His blue eyes found Sasuke's black ones and, almost pleadingly, he tried again, "Friends?"

Sasuke said nothing. He didn't even move. His eyes remained fixed on Naruto's trembling hand.

"Sasuke-kun won't be friends with a loser like you, Naruto!"

The golden-haired boy stared at Sasuke's unresponsive face for a full minute. Then he retracted his hand and, before anyone could see the shameful tears falling from his eyes, he fled into the woods.

Sasuke watched him go, feeling a heavy feeling of sorrow and something else descending on him. He sat down where he was, Naruto's words ringing in his ears. They were alike? Naruto was alone, everyone knew this, and the look in his eyes was of longing and loneliness. Did Sasuke, self-proclaimed avenger that he was, have those same eyes? Was he, despite the abilities, despite the praises, despite the girls constantly surrounding him, just as alone? Probably.

"Sasuke-kun?" The voice came from very far off. No, wait, it came from right next to his ear. He could feel hot breath against his cheek. It creeped him out.

Sasuke stood and, shoving away whichever girl had breeched basic personal bubble etiquette, took off into the trees. Tracking the blond-haired boy was painfully easy: There was a clear trail of broken twigs and over-turned leaves for Sasuke to follow. It led him to a group of stinted trees and, lying at base of the most wizened one of all, a huddled mass of orange. He observed it in silence and then asked, "Naruto?"

The orange blob quivered and a tear-and-dirt-streaked face emerged. "S-Sasuke?" He sniffled. "Go away."

"You fell?"

"Go away."

"Can you get up?"

"GO AWAY!"

Sasuke sighed deeply and, surprised at himself, held a hand out to the wreck on the ground.

"Sasuke," Naruto warbled as Sasuke pulled him to his feet. His arm slung over Sasuke's shoulder and most of his weight on the other boy, Naruto managed to take several limping steps. "This is what friends do, right? They help each other out? Or is that the servant of Naruto-sama? I knew you always admired me, ha!"

"I'll drop you, idiot," Sasuke warned. Friends? Friends. Friends... forever? Sasuke shook his head and quelled that thought. It was something only a girl would say.

"Hey, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted in his typically loud fashion, causing Sasuke to frown at the damage to his eardrum.

"...What?"

"Let's be friends forever."

The dark-haired boy deadpanned. "Loser. That's just like a girl. Not to mention it's gross."

"I'm gross!? You take baths in blood!"

Sasuke dropped Naruto afterall.

The blond yelped, clutched his ankle with both hands, and glared at Sasuke from his undignified sprawl. "What was that for!?"

"Have you been spying on me?"

Ugh. This is grossly awfully written. It's been sitting on my jump drive since Tsubaki's Apprentice's birthday two years ago (I think) when I wrote this for her birthday. And then didn't give it to her. Because I was, and still am, not content with how it turned out. It's one of my first attempts at fan fiction and my absolute first attempt at NaruSasu... -dies inside-
I am so sorry, Taytay! It sucks. Here's the concise version of it:

A boy and a boy and a girl and a girl and a pervert
The two boys realize they are very similar
They become friends
The first boy also realizes just how
Gross the ninja's world is, after all they bathe in
Blood

You'll have to forgive my heavy-handed attempts at symbolism. And my rather poor attempt at a friendship story. And the odd ABA structure. And my lack of originality. There are probably hundreds of stories just like this. Hopefully, you'll have so enjoyed my own version of a friendship between Sasuke and Naruto that you'll disregard the existence of 100 other such stories. I'm sorry. -dies again (outside?)-

Any thoughts in the form of reviews would be very much appreciated. But please keep in mind this is undeveloped and two years old and greatly unchanged from its original form due to my inability to read it without flinching and wanting to crawl in a hole.