Just Like Me
Annmarie Aspasia
The first time that Naruto realizes that maybe he doesn't have to be alone is also the first time he sees Sakura. He doesn't even try to approach her that day- he just climbs onto a low tree branch and watches her swing from the swing that is his. It's the only one in the village that isn't part of a set- he built it himself, because the parents always chased him away from their children. He doesn't see why they deserve to soar into the sky anymore than he does.
Sakura-chan is alone, just like he is.
The next day, he walks up to her. He makes a bit of a fool of himself, babbling and laughing, but he can hardly help it. He's just so excited to be talking to someone without parents chasing him away or other children taunting him. He smiles a lot- he's just that way- but his smile has never been brighter than it is the first afternoon he spends with Sakura. He's never played with anyone else before, he tells her with a sunny grin.
Naruto decides that he's going to marry Sakura the first time he sees her in a pink dress. It's very different from the red clothing she usually wears, and she looks very, very pretty. He's made up a new game that he wants to tell her about, but Sakura tells him that her aunt is getting married, and so she can't stay. She promises to play with him the next day, instead. Naruto stares after her, his expression full of surprise; no one has ever promised him anything before. Quietly, he makes his own promise to her.
Naruto cries for the first time in nearly a year when, a week later, some of the other children find him and Sakura playing by his swing. For the first time, they leave him alone- instead, their insults are focused on Sakura. At first, Naruto expects her to simply shrug of the taunts as he so often does, but she begins to cry. You must be more desperate than we thought, Sakura-chan, to play with that annoying brat, the bullies screech. Naruto's vision blurs as Sakura storms away from him, and again the next day, when she doesn't come back. Sakura never plays with him again.
He feels as if it might not be so bad to be alone again, when, a few days later, he sees Sakura with her new friend. Naruto is a little sad, of course, but mostly he's glad that she isn't alone anymore. The sorrow that she's not like him anymore, not alone, is drowned out by the joy that she isn't alone. He doesn't want her to feel like he always does, if she doesn't have too. He wonders, briefly, if maybe Ino would be friends with him, too. Then nobody would be alone. Before he even tries to approach the girls, Naruto remembers how people teased Sakura for being his friend, and realizes that he could only hurt her by being with her. His head only hangs a little as he walks away. Sakura has gained the acknowledgment she needs to be happy- maybe, someday, he'll find somebody strong enough to acknowledge him no matter what everyone else thinks.
Naruto vows to become Hokage a year later, on his first day at the ninja academy. Iruka-sensei gives them a very stirring lecture about the past and present Hokages of Konoha, and he silently promises to become that powerful someday. If he were that powerful, he wouldn't need to find someone stronger than him to acknowledge him- everyone would have too. Surely a Hokage is never alone. It is only later, as he snuggles into the blankets on his dilapidated bed (it would be awfully awkward to have someone else tuck you in, like he hears parents do) that he realizes that Sakura might not be ashamed of him anymore if he can become Hokage.
He nearly gives up his dreams the first time he comes in dead last in the academy exams. He just can't seem to figure out how the other students do so much better than him; they have the same lessons he does, after all. It is only has he is walking home that he notices Shikamaru and his father strolling out of a weaponry shop, and he realizes that the other students' parents probably train them outside of class. That afternoon, he goes out to the training grounds on his own for the first time, and trains until it is too dark to see anymore. He is sure that the other students don't spend as much time practicing as he does, but he has to work extra hard since he doesn't have anyone to help him. As he walks through town after practice, he sees Sakura trying to throw kunai into a log, and doing a rather poor job of it. He remembers that her parents can't help her, and almost offers to train with her, before he remembers that she doesn't want to be seen with him. He jogs the rest of the way home and collapses into bed, exhausted.
When Naruto is told about the bunshin no jutsu, he feels a thrill of excitement that he tries to squash, knowing it's a bit pathetic. Even being stuck with oneself for company has to be better than being alone all the time, he thinks. He swears to master the jutsu in record time, and he barely sleeps that week because he practices so hard. Only Sakura-chan looks as if she might be working as hard as he is, and this time he doesn't fight the thrill of excitement he feels. Maybe they'll come in first and second place when Iruka-sensei tests them on their jutsu! When the rest of the students form a perfect clone each at the end of the week, and his jutsu still looks more like a dead stuffed doll than a person, he gives up. Maybe he's meant to be alone, he sighs. He never practices bunshin no jutsu again, even though his instructors tell him too.
His life is always somewhat of a give-and-take. Naruto's whole world lights up the first time Iruka-sensei takes him out for ramen. He's never eaten with anyone before, and he practically strangles Iruka-sensei with his hug of joy. The next day is the first time he ever feels jealous of someone; the Uchiha prodigy, who is already everything Naruto wants to be, has taken something else from him. It's not enough that stupid Sasuke is the best fighter, the best at jutsu and has his own posse of obsessive fangirls, but he had to get Sakura as well. Naruto doesn't talk to her so much more, because it bothers her so very much, and it reminds him that she isn't like him anymore. She isn't alone. He promised to himself that, once he was strong enough to protect her and not embarrass her, he was going to go back for her. Stupid Sasuke had somehow gotten there first, it seemed. He vows, furiously, that he will surpass that stupid bastard, because he'll be damned if he doesn't deserve just as much as that stupid Uchiha.
The first time Naruto thinks that he might really stand a chance at making friends is the day he is assigned to a genin team. So what if he carries the Kyuubi, which isn't his fault and isn't something he can change? These people don't know it- well, Kakashi-sensei probably does, but at least he is only ignoring Naruto instead of looking at him with those awful, cold eyes- and maybe they can be friends. Maybe he can Sakura can be friends again, because she has to be with him now, whether she likes it or not. He just has to find out what she thinks of him, and then he will go from there.
When he finally finds her, she is alone, just as she had been when they were children.
"Ne, Naruto, why me? I mean… I was so awful to you when we were children, and you always liked me anyway." Nineteen-year-old Sakura pushed her feet off the ground, causing the swing to rock a little. Naruto's blue eyes looked up from his seated position on the ground and met her own.
"Hn? What are you talking about, Sakura-chan? You were just like me."
~Annmarie