"So, you wanna sleep over?" Sasuke asked, regaining his composure.
"Sleep over what?"
"You know, stay here for the night."
"I'd be troublesome, though!" Naruto replied, worried.
"No you wouldn't! Come on, surely you want to! We can even have a proper breakfast in the morning!"
"I-I guess so..."
"Great, you'll be with me in my room!" Sasuke decided, dragging his kohai up the stairs.
"Sasuke, why are there books in your room?" Naruto asked.
"For reading, obviously!"
"Reading?" Naruto replied, a look of disgust coming over his face.
"Yeah, we can read one together, if you want."
"Eh? Umm... Maybe you should read it alone..."
"Why?"
"Well... I sort of... Get paper cuts really easy, and..."
"You heal a fast as a flash of lightning strikes the ground."
"Yeah, but it still stings!"
"You didn't mind getting hit with a kunai!"
Then, understanding rammed into the youngest Uchiha.
"Naruto... Can you read?"
"Of course I can read!"
"Okay, spell 'luck' for me, then."
"Ah-erm, okay... Luck... L-U-S?"
Of course! Realization was dawning on Sasuke like a spreading fire by now. He couldn't read. He hadn't had anybody to teach him!
"L-U-C-K," Sasuke corrected. "Luck. You're in luck right now, kohai. It seems there's more than fighting I have to teach you."
Naruto turned red, embarrassed about the fact that Sasuke seemed better than him in every way imaginable.
Sasuke had to admit, Naruto had a good memory when it came to literature. Sasuke and him were reading a book together in a single hour.
"The cat stared up at the sky, red as fury in the afternoon," Sasuke read. "The clouds faded into dark as up above calmed into a soothing purple."
Naruto continued, uncertainly; "The cat felt so insig-insig-insignificant compared to it, despite the muskells-"
"Muscles," Sasuke corrected his pronounciation.
"Mmkay... Despite the muscles rippling freely under his pelt of soft fur."
"The black hairs blended with the night," Sasuke continued, "and he stood in the shadows as to defy the moon's wish to reveal him."
"Try as he might," Naruto took over, "there was one able to sniff him out. 'Raminus,' she called softly, in a voice to rival the summer winds, 'come out, I can sense your presence.' The black cat known as Raminus nodded, gaz-gaz-"
"Gazing."
"Gazing at the white fel-fellin?"
"Feline."
"Feline with bright golden eyes."
"That's far enough for tonight, I'm exhausted!" Sasuke yawned.
"Me too," Naruto agreed.
Sasuke awoke only when he heard Naruto getting out of bed. "Naruto?" he gasped quietly as he saw his friend get up, seemingly sleepwalking towards the staircase. "Naruto, watch out!"
He didn't fall.
Sasuke gaped as Naruto bent down and sniffed the ground, eyes wide and alert. He seemed conscious of what he was doing, yet...
Those wide and alert eyes were red and catlike.
The blonde snatched air off the ground and immediately made as if gulping it down before stepping past Sasuke back to the sleeping back he had been using and falling back asleep. Sasuke proceeded to wake him up, only to see the eyes returned to their normal blue.
"Eh? What happened, Sasuke?" Naruto asked, before noticing that his stomach felt hungry and unsatisfied. "Umm… Did a wake you up? Sorry, I can't help but do that at night, for some reason when I'm half-asleep the mice in my apartment look so tasty, and then I wake up realizing there are rodent guts in my stomach and I- Oh, please don't tell anyone that I do that at night! I'll do anything!"
Sasuke nodded, over the shock by now, and merely remarked, "It might have to do with a clan trait, like the Inuzuka's relationship with dogs. It isn't like you can help it."
Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. "That's reassuring... Thank you, Sasuke!"
"Any time," Sasuke laughed, silencing himself to keep from waking Itachi. "Just warn me next time if you know you have some strange trait like that, 'kay?"
"You got it!"
"Gakkis," Itachi hissed from the doorway, "It's midnight! Let me get some sleep, would you?"
At that, Sasuke laughed madly.
Naruto smiled slightly, finally realizing just how fun it was to be, in Itachi's opinion, a gakki.
"I hate siblings... And their friends…" Itachi sighed, walking back to bed.
"Naruto, come on! We're going to buy you some halfway decent clothing, like it or not!"
"And I don't like it!" Naruto insisted as Sasuke dragged him along. "They'll yell at me again!"
"Don't you want to look halfway presentable for the academy exam tommorow?"
"Yeah, but-"
"We're going!"
"I don't have any money!"
"I'll pay for it! I need to get something for myself, too, as a matter of fact..."
"But Saaaaaaaaasukeeeeeeeeeee!"
They entered the store, nobody daring to yell at Naruto when the Uchiha was on his side.
That didn't stop the deadly glares, however.
"What's your favorite color, Naruto?"
"Orange."
"Yeah? Well now it's red. What self-respecting ninja wears orange?"
"I do!"
"Well, now you're wearing something more shinobi-like," Sasuke replied. "So pick something out. No orange!"
"But Sasuke-"
"No orange!"
"Teme..." Naruto muttered crossly as he combed through a bunch of red outfits. It wasn't orange, but it was close. Sasuke purchased the clothes for both of them using his allowance while Naruto shyly avoided the shopkeeper's 'Get out of here, pronto,' stare.
"Come on, let's go back to my house to change. You should really start wearing red, black, and blue... Orange just isn't suited for a ninja."
"Neither is pink, and Sakura wears it!"
"Sakura's a girl!"
"So what?"
"The shade of pink she wears is closer to red than pink, dobe!"
Naruto couldn't argue, Sakura's clothes looked more red than pink.
After getting back to Sasuke's house, they put the outfits away to save them for the next day, and trained. "Hold your kunai properly, kohai!"
"I am! YOU'RE the one who has it wrong, sempai!"
"Dobe!"
"Teme!"
It was the next day. (Naruto had slept over at Sasuke's again.) The graduation exams.
Both walked together, Sasuke wearing a shirt with a slightly large neckband in dark blue (the same clothes he wears in the anime). Naruto was wearing a red sweater of his black T-shirt with long sleeve and a blue line underneathe the zipper. His pants were a solid red.
"I don't like red as much as orange, 'tebbeyo!"
"Ninja don't wear orange!"
"Hmph!"
After sitting down next to each other (Naruto nervously edged away from the angry/jealous girls), the exam started. Sasuke, of course, came back into the room wearing a Konoha forehead protector. Naruto smiled, reassured, and went inside.
A few seconds after a bunshin attempt...
"YOU FAIL!"
"Surely we could pass him, Iruka, he DID manage to replicate," Mizuki insisted. Iruka came back with an argument about how Naruto's clone was useless, and Naruto sadly left the room, disheartened.
"So? How was it?" Sasuke asked. "It's gonna be awesome to be a Genin, huh?"
"Sasuke..." Naruto growled. "Shut up."
Sasuke froze.
He hadn't passed?
"But... How come you-"
"I can't do a bunshin. I just can't, it's the one thing I could never get right!" Naruto replied, tears leaking from his eyes as he ran away from Sasuke, ashamed of himself.
"Naruto..."
A/N What's gonna happen now that Sasuke learned of Naruto's failure? And what about when Sasuke and Naruto go after that scroll only to find out the dark secret haunting the poor blonde?
That's right, everybody.
What will Sasuke's reaction be when he learns of Kyuubi?