Disclaimer: Dun own. Well, I do have a Gama-chan to put my coins, but that's all.
i. the colors I don't know
Naruto wondered who was in charge of the color names put in the nail polishes. Seriously, the guy was extremely creative or absolutely gay. For instance, the one Sakura was using to paint his pinky, right now, was called "Hollow Sincerity". Really, Hollow Sincerity?
"I mean, Sakura-chan, this name makes me think of heartless cheerleaders and plastic girls in general", he said, thoughtfully, scrutinizing the little container.
Sakura didn't look away from his pinky nail, afraid she would miss a stroke, but answered anyway. "Because they're lying, egocentric bitches?"
"That, and because it's pink."
The last commentary was worth a punch in the left shoulder. Naruto would like to say Sakura's punches were light – because she's a girl and all – but he couldn't. They hurt a lot. " Ouch, easy there! I was not talking about your hair, tiger."
"My favorite color is pink, so I took offence. And stop treating me like an animal, or I'll go wild on you". Naruto smiled and moved his hand like a cat paw. "Besides, it's prejudice. Not all the cheerleaders and popular girls are lying, egocentric bitches."
Rolling his eyes, the boy moved to put his feet on the desk beside his.
"Hey, you said that yourself. I actually know some nice popular girls. Like Ino."
"Oh, yeah, right." Sakura smirked and used a little more force than necessary, missing the nail and painting her table. "Piggy is the perfect image of the Hollow Sincerity, Naruto. Give me your other hand."
Naruto resisted the urge to press on that matter. Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura were best friends since childhood, and still were. However, Sakura seemed to think she had to act like she hated Ino so both of them could keep their friendship. Something to do with reality check and healthy rivalry.
Ino, as the most beautiful girl of their graduating year, thought her best friend's attitude made her worthy of attention. So, the two kept bickering on the corridors when, in fact, they liked each other a lot. Girls were so weird.
Just in time, the voice of the Yamanaka floated from the entrance of the empty classroom.
"What are you talking about me there, Forehead?".
The girl waved her long, blond hair over her shoulders and walked through the desks to reach her own, behind Naruto's. Climbing over her table, she observed Sakura's nail work, interested.
"We were discussing color names, Ino". He had to talk before they did, or he wouldn't see the end of it. "Like 'Hollow Sincerity' and 'Summer Target'. I mean, it's just pink and orange, what's the point?
Both girls stared at each other, and the boy could almost feel the thoughts exchanged through their eyes: men are hopeless. Well, at least they were agreeing over something. "Naruto, it's they're not just 'pink' and 'orange'. There are lots of similar colors, and it would be so boring to have them named by numbers, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah, but the names could actually have something to do with colors! Like", using his free had, Naruto took one red nail polish from the many that were resting over Sakura's table. "--this one: Red String. I don't understand the 'string' part, but at least it says it's red."
After that, Sakura stopped to paint his ring finger nail abruptly, and Ino hovered over him like a spider.
"You DON'T know what is a Red String, Naruto? Are you serious?"
"We live in Japan, and you don't know about it?"
Feeling instantly irritated, the boy denied with his blond head, defensively. "Hey, I'm not entirely perfect. With this body and this brain, I had to have some defect, right?"
"Yeah, right, Modesty". Ino smirked. Then, she smiled and entered "girly girl mode". Naruto cringed. "Anyway, it's an urban legend—"
"It's more like folklore."
"Zip it, Forehead, I'm the one telling the story. So, there's this legend that's popular among girls our age, about a red string tied to our pink fingers."
Naruto's light eyebrows shot up and he opened his mouth to comment on that, but was interrupted by Sakura's pencil case sealing his lips. "They say everybody has one, and that the end of the string is tied to your soul mate's pinky."
Giggling, Ino clasped her hands together. She watched her friend expectantly, waiting for some kind of opinion, before she noticed Sakura was still preventing him to talk.
After the pink haired girl put her pencil case down again, the boy sighed, patient.
"Is that it?"
"What do you mean, is that it?"
"Well, it's a pretty lame story."
"It's romantic! That's why you don't have a girlfriend, you know?", Sakura said, exasperated.
"Err, romantic? Where? I mean, let's imagine the string is there, right? But we can't see it, so we'll never know if we are dating or marrying the person tied to us. And even if we could actually see the string, we could follow it our entire lives and never find anything. What if the girl lives across the sea, or is already married? Worse: what if she's in comatose state, or dead?"
Ino blinked her surprise with the long answer, thinking about it for the first time. Sakura choose to ignore it. "It's a legend, Naruto. It's not supposed to be logical. Most of our traditions are not logical, but you participate, right?". Before he could answer, the pinkette took his other hand and started to paint his other pinky using the "Red String" nail polish. "Anyway, I know I wouldn't mind if my string was tied to Sasuke-kun's finger."
At that, Naruto frowned, and so did Ino. The blond opened her mouth to scream some obscenity, but was interrupted by Naruto's innocent question.
"Who's Daisuke?"
"It's SASUke, Saaaaasuke-kun!", Ino's hostility turned to her other classmate instantly, who had a confused expression on his face. "Oh, come on, you don't know who is he?"
"Err, am my supposed to?"
Taking a bright yellow flask from her nail-polish bag, Sakura started to paint his middle finger, impatient. "Uchiha Sasuke-kun. He's about our age, too, but goes to Oto Gakuen."
"You mean that super-duper elite school near Konoha Gakuen? The one for geniuses and all that crap?"
"That one". Ino grinned. "He's a mathematical genius, won a lot of awards since he started studying there. I'm surprised you don't know about him, he's famous among the schools in this district."
Naruto blinked. Then, he smiled.
"Well, maybe I forgot him, too."
Both girls became tense instantly.
"Oh, dang. I'm so sorry, Naruto", Sakura started, wearing an unhappy expression.
"Yeah, sorry, blondie. It's just… You came back, and it's like you were never gone, you know? Okay, maybe we had to reintroduce ourselves and all but, after a few months, everything just went back the way it was before you—"
"I understand, girls. No need to fret", the boy smiled even more and used his chin to point towards his captive hands. "But, Sakura, it is better you finish your nail-polish sample project there as soon as you can, 'cause P.E. is almost finished and I need to go home early today. Grandma's birthday and all."
Sakura looked torn for a second, but nodded, grinning weakly. "Okay".
--
Once upon a time, Uzumaki Naruto woke up in a hospital with a blank mind.
Apparently, he was inside this really old building during one of Tokyo's most vicious earthquakes ever. No need to tell the building fell over him, of course, and he was basically dead when the firefighters took his body from the collapsed concrete. The doctors told him all that, and even more things about his fractures and how amazing was his healing process and how he was a breathing miracle.
Unfortunately, they couldn't tell him who he was and where he came from. They couldn't even tell how old he was. Weeks passed by before someone claimed to be his relative – and that was when his perverted grandpa appeared.
In spite of having an obvious case of amnesia, Naruto never had any problem remembering his "first" encounter with Jiraya. The old man was tall and wore traditional Japanese clothes, which clashed spectacularly with his long white hair. After seeing his grandson in the hospital bed, full of tubes and curatives, he laughed out loud and said:
"Let's go home, brat."
Naruto went home with him. It was a two store house, big like it was built for two entire families. The place was old enough to have more than two hundred years, but was clean and had a pretty garden. Waiting inside the house was the other part of his family, his grandmother.
Tsunade also left a strong impression. She was beautiful and had a powerful voice (not to mention her stupidly big breasts, like airbags). She also hugged him dearly when he entered that unknown place.
The two familiar strangers proceeded to tell him his own life. He was Uzumaki Naruto, age seventeen. Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, his parents, had died seven years before. Naruto himself had chosen to use his mother's maid name because he was already the mirror image of his father; so, he wanted to keep something of his mother, too. He was finishing his last year of high school in Konoha Gakuen, and wanted to be a photographer. Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba and Nara Shikamaru were his classmates and close friends.
And that was that. At first, Naruto was surprised his life had been so small, and thought the emptiness he felt was because of that. However, he soon noticed that human life was so much bigger than any small summary.
It frustrated the hell out of him.
"Going home, mate?"
The direct question made Naruto stop thinking about his recent – and only – past to look behind and throw a toothy smile. Kiba was walking fast to reach his friend, his dark hair still wet from the shower after soccer club practice.
"As soon as possible. 'Baa-chan will kill me if I'm not in time today."
Kiba's slit eyes twinkled.
"There's going to be cake? Aw, man, your grandma knows how to bake a cake, I tell you". Naruto could almost see his friend drooling. "It's decided, I'm going with you."
"Be my guest. I won't take any responsibility."
The metro was full of people as always, but it wasn't so hard to walk toward the platform.
"You know if the train will take too long, dog-breath? I'm not used to go home this time; I usually stay until late with extra tutoring and all."
Kiba frowned at being called by his despised nickname, but looked at the huge clock over the platform and nodded. "More ten minutes, tops."
Naruto sighed. He would be late, after all. Sakura had to try all those strange colors in his fingers, hadn't she? Now he looked like a rainbow. Why couldn't she do that on her own nails?
Since Kiba had started a very intense Tetris game on his cell phone, Naruto had nothing else to do than look around and observe people. It was his personal hobby, to memorize faces, clothes, voices, interpret body language and humors. There were always people running, or walking slowly, or waiting for something.
Each of them had a story of life that couldn't be summarized in a few facts, no matter how boring their dreams and personalities may be.
The white and blue uniform on the other side of the platform caught his attention.
"Oi, dog-breath. What school is that?", he pointed. There were two girls, both of them with reddish hair, wearing purple skirts and white blouses; the five boys near them wore dark-blue pants and white shirts. The clothes were elegant and seemed expensive.
"Ah, that? Oto Gakuen. We had a joint sports festival some days before you, err, you know, earthquake?"
Smirking, Naruto rolled his eyes. "Very articulate."
"Go die. Anyway, you participated during the basket competition. It was cool, even though we lost."
Nodding, thoughtful, Naruto watched the students of Oto Gakuen talking among themselves on the other side of the station. He scrutinized the scene, looking for some kind of familiarity or nostalgia. Maybe he knew those kids, in his other life? Would he ever remember if he had?
A pair of dark, dark eyes looked back and, suddenly, Naruto felt like a thunderbolt.
"You know the ghost over there? The one with dark hair that looks like a duck but? That's Uchiha Sasuke. I'm sure you heard about him, because the girls talk about the asshole all the time. He played against you during the basketball match and, man, both of you looked ready to rip each other's throat with the ball."
Naruto blinked. The dark eyes – Uchiha Sasuke's eyes – were gone, and the boy on the other side was talking calmly with the long haired, handsome teen beside him.
Okay, that was weird. He was starting to imagine things. What the doctor had said to do during those lapses, again? Write a diary?
"Do I know him?"
"No idea. You vanished soon after the end of the festival and next think I know you were in the hospital half-dead. But don't worry, 'cause—Oh, shit, is that a dog?"
Kiba pointed, and Naruto looked down. There, in the rails, was a white dog, no older than a puppy, jumping and barking. People were talking and watching the scene, and the nearest policeman was almost jumping down to take the animal when the speakers announced the arriving train.
"Fuck!"
Kiba darted past Naruto and ran blindingly through the yellow line painted on the floor. "Kiba, wait!".
The dark haired boy jumped to the rails with no hesitation and ran to the dog while the tunnel started to tremble. Scared, the puppy bit Kiba's hand when he approached; taking the chance, the boy embraced the fur ball and started to go back quickly.
Naruto had already made his way to the yellow line and knelt to help his friend.
"You insane imbecile, fuck you! Get here already!"
Putting the puppy inside his shirt, Kiba grabbed his friend's hands and tried to climb.
"It's too… Shit, I can't climb, you asshole!"
"I'll pull you up, just hang on!"
Damned Kiba, damned greased floor! Naruto continued to pull, trying not to hear the sound of the approaching machine. He couldn't stop looking, though, when the strong light illuminated his sweaty face. Bright, bright, even brighter, until his eyes could only see whiteness.
Great, we are going to die, was the last thing Naruto thought before time stopped.