Chapter 2
Months later, after teams had been divided, and many had gone on several missions, squad seven sat in their clearing; enjoying their lunch. Sakura and Sasuke were leaning against separate trees with Naruto lying on his stomach, in between, enjoying cold instant ramen since they didn't have access to hot water during the day. Naruto looked at Sakura, then Sasuke, then Kakashi, who was up in one of the trees, and then back again at all of them; none of them saying a word…
"Okay, I can't take this quiet, anymore! What's going on?!" He burst. They all broke their hold and looked at him after his outburst.
"Nothing." Sakura replied. "We were just being quiet, today. You could've said you wanted to talk."
"Great, cause I wanna talk." He sat up and grinned, bringing a groan from Sasuke. "So who do you think that girl was?" He asked with a mouth full of noodles. Sasuke and Sakura looked at each other confused for a moment, not remembering who he was talking about. "That girl we saw going into the school after us…" he continued.
"Oh…are we still talking about that? That was, like, 3 months ago." Sasuke commented.
"Yeah, Naruto. She was probably just from a lower grade and missed a few days." Sakura added.
"But she was pretty…" Naruto pouted.
"And I'm not?" Sakura asked. Naruto froze and had no idea what to say. He looked at Sasuke for help.
"Don't look at me. I didn't start this. You're the one who wanted to talk." Sasuke told him.
"Relax," Sakura told him as she playfully hit his arm and continued eating. "I'm just messing with you. Hey, Sensei! Are you sure you're not hungry? My mom gave me some extra dumplings for you." She called up to the tree where Kakashi was quietly reading to himself. He gently jumped down to them, never breaking eye contact with the pages of his book.
"No thank you. But tell your mom I appreciate it." He told Sakura "I'm actually expecting someone…" He continued as he lowered his book and looked towards the bridge back to town from the training grounds. "Ah, there they are!" Kakashi stowed his book in his pocket and jogged off towards the bridge. The other three leaned over, straining to find out who he was running to, only to see Iruka, at first. Kakashi stopped in front of him, with his hands on his hips and they could hear the two senseis faint laughter.
"Why's Iruka here?" Sakura asked
"I don't know…"Sasuke faintly replied as they soon saw a small figure emerge from behind Iruka.
"Oh, shit." Naruto yelped. The three snapped back into their original positions, wide eyed. "It's her…"
"You've got to be kidding me." Sakura exclaimed
"Oh, man. What if this is like Beetle juice? Say her name three times and she appears…" Naruto commented
"But we don't know her name…" Sasuke stated.
"Then why is she here right after I mention her? Explain that!" Sasuke furrowed his brow and looked to Sakura who shrugged her shoulders with a 'he's got a point' look. She set her food down and leaned back over to see.
"What are they doing?" Naruto asked
"Just talking…" Sakura replied
"Really? That's it?" He got back up and crawled over to look. "Why are you here…..?" He whispered to himself
"You two are pathetic." Sasuke said, taking another bite of his food.
"She's coming over here!" Naruto alerted
"What?!" Sasuke exclaimed with a mouth full of food as he jumped up and crawled over to see.
They saw Kakashi and Iruka still talking on the bridge as the girl walked slowly towards them, stopping halfway. She looked at them, gripped her hands together, and looked back to Iruka. Him and Kakashi turned to her and Iruka gave her a thumbs-up, to which she gave a timid okay, back and looked back to the three. She took 2 more steps and stopped again, looking back to the two senseis. Kakashi looked at her, the 3 students, back to her, and raised his hand; signaling for her to wait for him. She nodded and lowered her hands to her side, doing as she was told.
"I guess I'll have to go introduce her." Kakashi said turning back to Iruka, on the bridge.
"Yeah. Thanks for volunteering. I was worried she'd have to wait until the next round of students." Iruka said
"Honestly…I lost a bet with Kurenai. But we'll see how this goes."
"Seriously? Look, please don't treat this like a lost bet. I really think this'll be good for her."
"I promise I'll be good." Kakashi joked "But how does this work? I've never witnessed a 4-member team, before, let alone taught one."
"It starts with this." Iruka replied, handing a stack of papers. "They're your logs. Fill them out every day, and give them back to me at the end of the month. I file them with the hokage and give you a new set. It's not too hard."
"Great…" Kakashi groaned at the papers. Meanwhile, Chihiro stood in the middle of the field, feeling the heat of the sun on her face and while this was such a nerve racking moment, feeling grateful for an opportunity she wasn't sure would come.
"Oh, I think she's gonna do it on her own…" Iruka whispered, pointing to her and Kakashi turned to see her slowly head over to the group. She gave a quick nod to the three, before heading over to sit under a separate tree, putting in a set of earbuds, and fiddling with her shoelace. The other three simply stared at her for a second before snapping their heads back to the two senseis.
"Never mind…" Iruka sighed.
"The hell is she doing?" Kakashi turned back to him.
"I don't know. It's this damn program. They've always kept her away from the other kids, so I don't think she really knows how to socialize." They both looked back to the 3 curious faces. Kakashi motioned to them to go to say hi and watched Naruto slowly crawl over to her, while still looking at Kakashi. The blonde stopped and sat at the tree next to her, never looking away from his sensei.
"Damn, this is awkward…" Kakashi commented, going to lean on the rail, tucking the papers under his arm, with his hands in his pockets. Iruka joined him and sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"You know what's funny?" Iruka asked, Kakashi still looking at his team.
"What?"
"I've been telling Naruto about this thing for years…" Kakashi's face quickly snapped back to Iruka
"Why would you do that? You know that's classified." Kakashi strained
"Would you relax? He's a kid. He thinks it's a story." Iruka reassured him, looking caringly towards Naruto and Chihiro, then back to Kakashi "I practically raised both of them."
"Well, you better hope he keeps thinking that," Kakashi told Iruka, "because I'm not saving your ass."
"I know."
"Oh, her birthday's still a ways away, but what do I do about that?"
"I'm not sure what's gonna happen. Just make sure she's at the hospital by 11:30pm."
"Got it. Well, I should go." Kakashi stood back up from his lean and started back over to the group.
"Wait…" Iruka called. Kakashi turned back briefly. "Was there ever a time when they didn't know who it was?"
"Yeah. Right before her, actually." Kakashi replied. "They searched every baby for 30 years and never found it. I'll call you later and tell you everything, sweet cheeks."
"Funny…" Iruka chuckled. "See you…"
Kakashi ran back over to his team and put the papers in his sack. "Play nice." He said, pointing at Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura. "Alright! Everybody, this is Ch..." He looked over and saw her still playing with her shoe lace, before reaching over and taking her ear buds out.
"Hey..." she pouted as he stashed them in his pocket.
"As I was saying..." He continued. "This is Chihiro Koyomada. She's...well, she's one of us, now"
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked
"I don't know how I can be any clearer, Naruto. She's part of the team." Kakashi replied as Chihiro gave a shy wave to the others. "Chihiro, this is Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha." Each raised their hand to their introduction. "There was an issue with overcrowding, so it took a while to get her into a group. But everything's sorted out, now, and she's with us. We're gonna have a pleasant first day and I will repeat, again: play nice."
"So how come we've never seen you around, before?" Naruto asked as Kakashi took his seat.
"Well, like Mr. Hatake said…" Chihiro started
"Please, call me Kakashi Sensei." He insisted.
"Oh, okay. Like Kakashi Sensei said, there was an issue with overcrowding, so Iruka Sensei would homeschool me. Sometimes he would even have me come to school, after classes got out. I mean, I know it was you three who saw me at the school, awhile back." She answered, to which the team looked down, slightly embarrassed. "It's kinda hard to miss when you hair looks like the sun logo of the lodge, by the front gates."
They realized she was talking about Naruto, and Sakura burst out laughing. She got up and went over to sit on the other side of Chihiro. "You and I are gonna get along, just fine. Ooh, I like your necklace." Sakura said, pointing to a small pale peach colored gem on a yellow gold base with a thing yellow gold chain, around Chihiro's neck. "Where'd you get it?"
"Oh, this? It was my mom's." Chihiro replied.
"Was?" Naruto asked
"Yeah, it's just me. They died when I was a baby."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I kinda feel like an ass, now." Sakura said.
"No, it's okay. Really. I don't remember them, at all."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. It's fine."
As the day continued on, the initial awkwardness faded and was slowly replaced with comfort. Chihiro continued to tease Naruto, but a playful way that even he thought funny. Sakura was more than ecstatic to have another girl in the group and even Sasuke had moved closer to be a part of the conversations taking place.
"Maybe this won't be so bad." Kakashi thought to himself, watching his students appear more and more like lifelong friends. But he couldn't help but notice how much Sasuke and Chihiro were looking at each other and how quickly they would look away when they caught the other looking. He gave a slight smile and thought "Oh, this is gonna be fun."
At the end of the day, Kakashi dismissed them to go home and as they left the clearing, he really felt like this would work. Sakura even ran back and stopped Chihiro. "Hey, do you wanna come over and spend the night at my place, tonight?" She asked
"Really?" Chihiro asked
"Yeah. I have extra pajamas you can borrow, too."
"Sure." Chihiro answered with a big smile.
"Great! Let's go!" Sakura grabbed her arm and they ran off into town.
Kakashi watched them and at that moment his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, saw Iruka on caller id, and answered. "What?"
"How'd it go?" Iruka asked, sounding a little frantic
Kakashi gave a dramatic sigh. "Would you stop worrying? It was good."
"Really?"
"Yes. It was a little rough, at first. But, I mean, Sakura just invited her to spend the night, tonight."
"Oh, thank god. That's great." Kakashi could hear his relief. "So what do you think?"
"I really think it's gonna be okay. Oh, but you're never gonna believe what I saw…" Kakashi replied with clear excitement in his voice.
