Zero to Naruto!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Fairy Tail
Chapter Three: Effort x Change
The wind was nonexistent and the sunlight was scorching enough to burn her skin. She was standing right at the center of the train station, the place where she had told Naruto to meet her, and becoming the unwelcome source of commotion given how attractive she looked in the yellow sundress she was wearing, with printed faded pink camellias and puffed sleeves beautifying it further.
Naruto was still yet to appear and she had been standing there for about twenty minutes already. The sweat dripping off of her forehead was proof of that. She sighed and looked at her phone to read the time again then scrunched her nose finding that only five minutes had passed since she last checked it.
Through the numerous pedestrians walking down the road before her, appeared a highly arresting figure— not because it emitted unfathomable attraction or sparkly shades of neon, but because it was clad in a thick, baggy hoodie in the darkest shade of black, that too, under the bright daylight in the hottest time of summer.
And unsurprisingly, it was none other than Naruto.
Hands shoved inside the pockets of his baggy, black jeans. His usual pair of neon AirPods were flashy, as always and the way he walked— folded knees, bent torso and shoulders falling forward; was awful.
He spotted her standing with her arms folded up front and walked up to her with a look of annoyance visible on his face.
"Hey," he whispered when he was close enough to her. He was taller than her in high-heels, even with his slouching back, which made his bad posture even more apparent.
Sakura did not answer but pouted her lips in disapproval. A frown found its way to her face.
"What?" Naruto questioned after a brief moment of silence.
"What what?" She mumbled.
"What is wrong with you?" Naruto sighed and ruffled his hand through his hair.
"Do you know how unethical it is to keep someone waiting?" She said, sarcastically.
"Uh," he took out his phone from his pocket to check for the time, "11:24. I'm not that late," he nonchalantly replied.
She raised her eyebrows at his obnoxious responses, one after another, "well, I got here at 10:30 thinking that you, being the gentleman that you are, will get her before time as all gentlemen do," she argued.
"Then it's your fault for getting here early, right?" He questioned, unfazed.
Sakura sighed, palm hitting her forehead, "this, Naruto. This is what makes you, you."
"What does it mean?"
"Your first lesson for becoming a better version of yourself is punctuality," she explained, "on a date, the guy is supposed to get there before the promised time and stand there with flowers in his hands to surprise his date," she added, "ideally," after a short pause.
Naruto didn't answer her but stood there nodding his head as if he just wanted to get done with the motherly lecture and move on to the food part of these so-called 'dates'.
"Are you even listening?" She questioned, clearly frustrated.
"Yes, Miss know-it-all," he answered.
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Secondly, how are you wearing this… thing," she patted his shoulder to point at the hoodie he was wearing, "in this weather? How is it not killing you?"
He brushed her hand off, "I'm used to it," he mumbled, she barely understood but decided not to pry further judging by the darkening gloom eclipsing his countenance.
"Anyway, let's get going. We need to shop," she stated as she put her phone back inside her pink cross-bag.
"Why are we shopping? Aren't we supposed to eat on a date?"
Sakura raised her perfectly shaped brow, "you have a long way to go before you can take anyone to eat."
Reluctant and offended, he still decided to follow her. It was annoying since he had to skip breakfast to get here on time. He had overslept given the all-nighter he had pulled the night before to clear the final level of one of his trendy games. But again, Sakura was right when she said he needed lessons on becoming punctual.
(Scene change)
The mall right before his eyes was nothing short of extravagant. He had driven past it many times before, just that he never contemplated actually going in. He's always been the online-shopping kind of guy.
Sakura knew all the ways through it, though, and seemed to be very toasty about it.
"We will get you some new clothes, to start with," she stated, "I know a few men's shops around here."
"Why do I need clothes?" He asked, dumbfounded.
"Because you can't show up on a date dressed up like this ever again," she stated matter-of-factly.
"Fine," he uttered through frustration.
Sakura wasted some time here and there looking for clothes that would catch her attention until she brought Naruto inside an enormous clothing store. Without giving him any time to think, she started grabbing multiple clothes from clothing racks and counters and shoved most of them towards him to hold them. He was chin-deep in those clothes when she started pushing him towards a dressing room.
"Try them on one by one!" She exclaimed from outside the door after shutting it on his face.
It happened too fast for him to understand but all he did was let out a defeated sigh and do as he was told to do.
Sakura waited outside the dressing room for Naruto to make his appearance but the boy took longer than a bride would on her wedding day. She looked at her phone again to check the piling notifications. The time kept ticking as she got down to answer her emails, while Naruto took his leisurely time dressing up.
After a few more minutes, Sakura heard the door unlocking. It slowly flew open to reveal Naruto appearing like a different person— completely unrecognizable. Sakura let out a small chuckle at the realization of how her hunch about the boy has been right all along.
"See! I told you it's absurd!" Naruto yelled, implying at the fact that she has just giggled a few times looking at him, thinking that he must be looking like an idiot.
"No, no, no," Sakura smiled, "come out here and see yourself again," she called him out to grant him a better self-image, looking through the spacious mirror fixated at the front wall.
He was dressed in an ebony denim coat with metallic details and belts around the sleeves. Underneath it, he wore a viridian cardigan below which, a white dress shirt wrapped his skin. Dark jeans and black leather boots added five stars to his look that got completed by the green woolen muffler around his neck.
"Can you see the change in yourself?" She questioned while he turned right and left in front of the mirror, as if unwilling to leave even one side of him unseen.
"Not really…?" He answered in a questioning tone, fixing his jacket collars.
"Ugh," she groaned, "I can though. You know? Third-person P-O-V?" She stated, "oh wait," she stood up from the stool she was seated on, "if we fix your posture, maybe you will."
She pushed her palm against his back as if forcing it forward and tried to pull his shoulders back, only for him to slouch back after a momentary change.
"That's just how my bone structure is, Sakura!" He exclaimed.
"It can but fixed, first of all," she said, raising a finger in the air, "secondly, no one's born with it and I'm guessing you've ruined your spine with all your slouchy chairs that you sit on playing video games!"
She made sense so Naruto didn't bother arguing.
"I watched a tutorial about fixing bad posture," she mumbled, "hey Naruto," she grabbed his shoulders and pushed him to a wall.
"What are you…?" He questioned, startled by the sudden close proximity.
"Try aligning your spine and shoulders with the wall," she told him, "and keep your face up. Look right in front of yourself."
He did as he was told. A little embarrassed by how he had misunderstood her close proximity and was greatly thankful that she didn't notice.
"Now keep your back and shoulders like they are, walk forward and look at yourself in the mirror."
He could see her grinning in the mirror when he watched his reflection standing tall right before his eyes.
"Hmm I do appear different…" he whispered in a barely audible voice and luckily, Sakura didn't hear him.
"How do you feel about it now, huh?" She questioned.
"Fine, I guess? But keeping this up is tiring my muscles out," he verily stated
"Well, it does take a lot of practice," she reasoned, "Alright now, go try on the others," she demanded and shoved him inside the dressing room again.
Next, he came out wearing a loose-sleeved white, crew neck shirt with a green gilet on top and black accessorized sweatpants. A chain hung around its left front pocket and a pair of white shoes completed his look.
Sakura, once again, criticized some aspects of his dressing like how he didn't unfold the collars of his gilet correctly while she pridefully took credits for his beautified glory at some places.
Then he came out dressed in a loose yellow V-neck shirt worn over a skin-tight white half-sleeved shirt. He wore a dark denim Capri below with a pair of black and white sneakers. A red muffler around his neck completed his look.
After a while, he came out wearing a green western shirt on top of a back Henley, paired with dusty-brown straight pants and black strapped sandals.
Sakura snorted her nose at his choice of colours when he wore green for the third time but decided not to push matters further since he looked good in green. Not that she'd ever admit it to his face.
"Ain't that a lot of clothes for an image change?" Naruto asked when they left the cash counter.
"Huh? It's nearly not enough and we're coming back here in a few days!" Sakura informed. He sighed.
"Anyway, let's hurry up to buy my clothes," she continued.
"Wait. Why are you buying clothes too?" He questioned, perplexed.
"Because we are in a shopping mall?" She stated, unbothered.
He didn't argue, just went along with her.
(Scene change)
Sakura stood inside the dressing room wearing a mauve mini-skirt and a puffy-sleeved cotton ivory shirt. Flat red pumps completed her look as she let her pink hair down.
She didn't know what made her so embarrassed to walk out of the door. Maybe because her long-time crush and the number one pro-gamer was standing outside, she felt nervous.
But she took a deep breath and reminded herself that its just Naruto and walked out, still shyly.
Naruto was stunned to see her at first glance. Even though he's always known she's beautiful, this was just a little… different.
"How do I look?" She asked, timidly. Something he didn't know she was capable of manifesting.
After a brief moment of silence, "you look… good," Naruto responded.
She didn't say anything next just quietly walked back inside the room. After that, she tried on a few more dresses; a violet gypsy with black denim skin-tight pants and purple sandals, a maroon peplum with furbelows and fringes paired with white straight pants and a pair of black leather boots and finally, a blue tuxedo with a denim Capri paired with white peep-toes and a marbled pendant around her neck.
All of her appearances were followed by a brief pause from Naruto, accompanied with obligated words of praise to clear out the awkwardness and unease.
Naruto didn't understand it himself but decided not to think too hard, either.
(Scene change)
He waited for her in the parking lot as she took her leisurely time to find a few more things that she needed. Now that he took a better notice of his surroundings, he could see that the place was filled with couples and people his age. He's always known that this is what young people do for fun, just that he never imagined the crowds to be that large.
From the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of a familiar flash of white hair. Instinctively, he turned his neck into its direction to spot Mirajane in a loose, turquoise halter. He was surprised to see her there but what shocked him, even more, was the handsome, blond man walking beside her. He looked older, a late college student or maybe a working adult.
Naruto watched as he opened the gate to the passenger's seat of his car for Mira, for which she thanked him and settled inside. It was strange for him to watch his senior like this since he'd never expected it coming. He let out a sigh because again, it's not like it was any of his business.
"Hey," Sakura's voice pulled him off his train of thought as she handed him a paper-wrapped bagel, "what?" She blurted when he stared at her dumbfounded.
"Are you really capable of being nice?"
"I just don't want you to die on me then get labelled as a serial killer or something," she joked.
"Fair enough," he said, biting on to the item.
"Can you hold on to my bags for a sec?" She questioned, "I gotta get something to drink,"
"Oh. yeah sure," he answered smiling as he took a hold of her shopping bags.
"I'll be back in a minute," is what she had stated but it had already been about forty five minutes and she was yet to make an appearance. Naruto had called her over and over but she hadn't been receiving his calls.
A hundred different thoughts ran through his head as he worriedly kept on searching for her whereabouts.
He tried calling her again and this time, luckily, the dial tone could be heard at least.
Much to his surprise and relief, she picked it up.
"Hello?" He heard her voice on the other line.
"Where the hell are you?" Naruto frantically questioned.
"I got home, like, half an hour ago," she stated, nonchalantly.
"What?" He hissed out, speechless.
"Oh. I just remembered. Could you bring my shopping bags here to my house for me?"
Naruto quietly gritted his teeth then glanced at the numerous bags in his hands. He couldn't get home holding all these without being questioned.
"Fine." He whispered after a while and hung up, immediately.
Author's note/Rant:
Some of you reviewed stuff like "no one would listen to someone who did xyz to them" Well, sorry to say but that is just you. The reason why he couldn't completely hate her because he knew his shortcoming subconsciously and had no good reason to deny her rather forceful words. Well, I am not asking you to like my story but I have heard this similar thing over a decade when it comes to Naruto fandom. 'Oh she is so mean why doesn't he just punch her bla bls' You guys don't understand how human feelings works you have the fantasy of 'perfection' in your head that you project as the norm. I will tell you this, girls or boys are not perfect and some people loves those imperfection. My stories simply tries to project that. If you prefer girls or boy who are 100 percent loyal and always nice and has no flaws, I suggest learning to code because only a robot will be able to match those. Not humans and certainly not my imagination aka this story.
Rant over, Review if you want cry over it trying to prove me wrong if you prefer. Bye!