"Oh," I answered the door and saw Sakura standing there, "Sakura! What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see if you were okay," she smiled, "we're teammates, I… I was worried about you…"

"Come in," I moved to the side so she could step into the house, "Kakashi went out to get groceries… he was supposed to be back half an hour ago."

"Sounds like him," she laughed.

"You didn't have to come here to check on me, we're supposed to meet for training tomorrow."

"I know…" she sighed, "but we couldn't hang out yesterday and, honestly, I was actually looking forward to doing something together. Not many of the girls here are very friendly because they all like Sasuke, we view each other as rivals and don't let ourselves get too close to each other…"

"Oh," I frowned, "so you don't have many friends?"

"Right," she blushed a little at having admitted that.

"Well you have me now," I smiled and walked into the kitchen.

"So… you really don't like Sasuke?"

"Not right now, and, even if I did end up falling for him, I wouldn't try to take him from you. You saw him first, right?"

"I think we're going to be great friends!" she shouted.

"Yeah!"

"What's with the mess?" she looked shocked, there was flour all over the kitchen.

"I was, uh, baking, I was going to make cookies next, want to help? It would make up for me not being able to go out the other day."

"Sure," she looked at the paper where I had the recipe written down.

"And you can even give some to Sasuke."

"Cha! These will be the best damn cookies he's ever had! But… what if he doesn't like cookies?" her face fell.

"Then we try something else next time!"

"Yeah! Let's get started!"

We were both excited when we started and we were making a huge mess in the kitchen. We made so many cookies that we could have given one to almost every person in the village.

"Do I even want to know what's going on in there?" Kakashi asked when he walked into the house and saw the flour in the other rooms, "oh, Sakura, when did you get here?"

"She got here a while ago. She came over to see if I was okay," I smiled at him.

"Well at least you're getting along. And you two can be the ones to clean this mess up," he sighed and set the groceries on the table, "Shade, you can make supper too."

"I can't cook," I pouted.

"What do you mean you can't cook?" my brother sighed.

I tapped my head. "I can't remember anything, remember?"

"I could stay and show you," Sakura volunteered, "if you don't mind, Sensei."

"Pleeeeaasseeee?" I looked up at Kakashi with big eyes.

"It's fine with me," he sighed, "as long at her parents know."

"Oh," Sakura smiled at me, "I told them I was coming to see you, and they know that something had happened to you yesterday, so they said to stay for as long as I needed."

"Yay!" I jumped around the kitchen but rammed my side into an open drawer, "ouch…."

"Are you okay?" Sakura looked at me.

"Yup," I squinted when I poked my side with my finger, "perfectly alright."

"You're kinda accident prone, aren't you?"

"Maaayybeeee," I stuck out my tongue.


I can't remember what Sakura said the dish was called, but it smelled really good. It had beef and a lot of other things in it. She wrote down the recipe for me so I could make it again one day. When the food was done, I set the plates on the table. Kakashi was already sitting down, but he was still reading his book.

"Hey," he reached toward me when I grabbed the book out of his hand.

"No reading at the table."

"Fine," he turned his attention to his plate, "this looks great you guys."

"Thanks," I smiled, it was the first time I remembered cooking anything and Sakura had actually let me do most of it. She explained how to do everything then why things had to be done a certain way. She said I did really well!

I looked over at the only friend I had so far. I was glad she wasn't as annoying as that Ino girl seemed, but she seemed to have this weird fascination with my brother. She kept staring at him. I wasn't really sure why. What's she doing? I asked myself. She hadn't touched her food yet, she was just watching Kakashi. We both jumped when there was a knock on the door. We turned to the door for a moment and Sakura was frowning at my brother when I looked back at her.

"I'll get it," Kakashi stood up; he was already done his food.

"What's wrong?" I asked once Kakashi was out of the room.

"I wanted to see what his face looked like…"

"Oh," I frowned, "actually, he even wears the mask when it's just the two of us… and I haven't paid much attention when he takes it off to eat. I'm not sure why he wears it."

"Really?" she sighed, "I was hoping you could tell me why he never takes it off…"

"I guess I'll just have to have you over again, see if we can't get a look at his face!"

"Alright," Sakura smiled, she seemed to like the idea.

"You have another guest," Kakashi walked in, followed by Iruka.

"Cupcake? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see if you were getting used to life in the village," he smiled at me and Sakura, "I'm happy to see that you're already making friends."

"Yeah," I smiled, "I really like it here, and Sakura said she would show me around tomorrow. We were supposed to do it yesterday but there wasn't a chance after we were done training."

"That's great," he smiled.

"Yeah! Do you want something to eat?"

"I was actually on my way to meet up with a few friends but thought I'd stop by for a quick visit."

"Oh… have fun with your friends!"

He nodded before leaving and I could hear Kakashi and Iruka whispering in the other room before Iruka left.

"Why do you call him Cupcake?" Sakura looked at me.

"It's what I called him when I was little," I laughed, "I didn't actually know his name and, well, Cupcake was good enough for me."

I explained my brief time in the village to Sakura, but it didn't take long; I had only been here for five years and I only remembered some parts of that. I remembered my brother, Iruka, the creepy man in the green spandex suit and the bad haircut. Oh, and I vaguely remembered the two guards who found me at the gate, the Hokage said their names were Izumo and Kotetsu; they used to play with me once in a while and help me when I got lost, but they were usually pretty busy.

I also told her about what happened yesterday. I told her everything I could remember about the man who had tortured me to make me listen. I couldn't remember who it was, but I thought that I could recognize him if I ever met him again.

In return, Sakura told me about her childhood, about how all of the kids picked on her because of her big forehead. Shortly after she had finally found a friend a friend in Ino, she was left alone again. All of her friends turned their backs on her because they all liked Sasuke.


"Thanks for coming over," I smiled at her.

"It was a lot of fun," she stiffened slightly when I wrapped my arms around her, but she slowly relaxed into the hug, "I can't wait until training tomorrow, it will be first time we get to train with you!"

"And I'll get to see what you guys are really made of!"

"It's already dark," Kakashi walked into the room after Sakura was gone, "follow her to make sure nothing happens."

"What?"

"Make sure she's safe, even Konoha can be dangerous at night," he leaned against the wall, reading his book, "think of this as extra training: if she notices you, you fail… but if you can get all the way to her house without her noticing, I won't make you cook tomorrow."

"Challenge accepted," I ran toward the stairs, heading for my bedroom.

"Where are you going?" I tried to picture my brother with a confused look on his face.

"It feels sneakier if I go out my window; I feel more like a ninja this way!"

I could hear him chuckling quietly as I shut my bedroom door. It took me a moment to get the window open, the lock was stuck. But, when I finally got it open, I jumped onto the roof and started running in the direction Sakura had gone.


You know, when I started writing this, I told myself Shade wouldn't become friends with Sakura or Ino… I really can't stand those two! But now Sakura is Shade's best friend and I have a plan for Ino in the future… my plans don't usually work out…

So, I'm really sorry it took me so long to update this, I was having problems writing… but I'll try to get the next chapter up soon!

kishe- OMF I'm sorry it took me so long… I was hoping to have it up sooner than this!

MrAzazael- I'm glad you liked it! Ugh, and I'm so sorry for the weird time skips… the think I was using to signal passing time didn't copy over, and I didn't realize that it didn't work :/

I really hope you all like it and I would greatly appreciate it if you would review!