A/N: I would like to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows as well as everyone that reviewed the last chapter.

Why did everyone stop playing with me?

It was a question that plagued Naruto's mind as another kid refused to play with her. It was only the tenth time that she went to the playground and all those nice kids she played with, were now making up some excuses about why couldn't they play with her. We have enough players. It was the same number of players from a couple of days ago, so how could they say that they have enough players? She knows that they are lying to her.

She just doesn't know why.

"Sorry." A boy said but Naruto doesn't hear the sincerity behind his words. Naruto just flashed him a smile, pretending to understand just how hard it would be to let them play with her. She could not even throw a tantrum because the mothers were watching them now. Their cold eyes daring her to make a scene against their kids.

She was going to show them that she was not a monster.

Naruto looked around for another playmate. Most of the other kids seemed to be avoiding her eyes, but there was one kid that didn't even seem to pay much notice to her. He was just focused on the sand pit, making some kind of building.

She didn't like playing in the sand, but if that kid would play with her then Naruto would learn to like it. She would do anything to have one solid friend, even if it meant doing things that she did not like to do. It would be like learning to like milk even though Naruto found it disgusting the first time.

None of the parents paid much notice of Naruto as she skipped towards the black-haired boy. What do I do to get his attention? He seemed to be really focus on his building even though it did not even look all that pretty. She could make a way better one if you asked her. She was very creative or so the Hokage would say whenever Naruto handed him, her latest artwork.

She didn't understand what creative meant.

"Can I play with you?" Naruto decided that the old tactic was the best way of going with things. The black-haired boy looked up from his sand building, eyebrows furrowed at the sight of her and she flashed him a hopeful smile.

He didn't answer her immediately. The boy just stared at her, or rather he seemed to be paying a lot of attention to her hair. It did not surprise her. She might be six but Naruto knows that no one in their village had her hair colour. The colour of the sun. She does not remember who says it but Naruto thinks it must have been a kind, old lady.

Her heart ached like it always did whenever she thought of that kind, old lady.

Naruto tilted her head and was about to walk the other way. No answer meant that the boy probably did not want to play with her, which was weird. Boys, usually, liked to play with her since Naruto liked playing with the mud and doing all the things that little boys do.

Was that why they stopped playing with her? Their mother didn't like the fact she could not even act like a proper girl, despite having this annoying long hair. Naruto attempted to cut it once but something always stopped her.

"I am building a sand castle, help me build the tower!" Naruto smiled happily even though in the back of her mind, she felt annoyed at the orders being thrown at her. No one ordered her around. Not now and definitely not when she grew to be wrinkly and old like the Hokage, but Naruto wanted to play with the kid.

She would swallow her pride if it meant that she could play with him.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto but you can call me Naruto!"

Never Naru-chan.

Naru-chan was just for the Hokage. Naru-chan was the special name given to her by the kind, old lady and no one had the right to call her by that name. Naruto was good. Naruto was still her name but it made her feel powerful, made her feel strong. Naru-chan was a weak, little girl that ran away from the orphanage and never looked back.

Naruto was a strong girl.

"Uchiha Sasuke." Naruto missed the slight reddening of his cheeks and focused all of her attention on helping Sasuke to build his sand castle. She never knew how many hours they spent making that castle or the amount of arguments they had of how she made the tower. Naruto only knew that she was happy to play with someone for so long and not have a parent ruin it.

It was only when the sun set down that Sasuke's mother appeared.

Even now when Naruto looks back, she thinks just how pretty Mikoto Uchiha was. In the eyes of the six-year-old, Sasuke's mother looked like a princess. But not a very happy princess. Princesses were always happy in the stories that Naruto read, but his mother looked like a woman that was always in pain.

She stared at the black-haired woman and waits for the adult to pull her son away from her. It wouldn't hurt me if she did it. It happened so many times that Naruto thinks she got used to it. Just a temporary playmate was better than nothing.

What the woman did next, surprised her.

"Sasuke-kun, won't you introduce me to your new friend?" His mother asked softly, causing her young son to flush a light shade of red. Naruto blinked and feels her heart fluttered at the mention of friend. She flashed a smile, not the weird one that she gave to the other adults, but the smile that Naruto always reserved for the Hokage.

The woman falters and Naruto thinks till this day that Mikoto Uchiha stared at her with both longing and sadness. It never made much sense until she left Konoha.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, believe it!"

Mikoto smiled but it was not a happy smile. It was not even the weird smiles that Naruto gave to people, but a smile that makes Naruto want to cry. She asks herself if it was possible for someone to make a smile that makes it seems like they were silently crying.

She only learns when she is older that it was possible.

"What a pretty name for a very pretty girl."

Naruto blinked and smiled widely at those words. Most of the adults never called her that word and the adults that were nice, would describe her as cute but never pretty. She never even consider herself to be all that pretty, not with the mess that was her hair. But if a very pretty woman like Sasuke's mother called her pretty, then she must be pretty.

It would be only years later when someone else would say that Naruto was pretty.

"Uzumaki."

Naruto stopped in her tracks at the sound of her last name being called out by a familiar voice. She only knew of one classmate who would use her last name without any honourfics. Her lips twitched downwards as the memory of last night and the information spilled by her clones replayed in her mind. She forced herself to smile widely and clicked her feet together before twisting her whole body to look at her classmate.

"Asshole."

Todoroki raised his eyebrow and tilted his head in confusion. If it had been anyone else, Naruto would probably think it was cute how confused he look, but she wanted to rip her classmate apart. Not only did he question her clone that seemed ready to swoon over the boy. I thought clones were supposed to be copies of myself! I definitely don't swoon over the bastard! But he must have told Aizawa-sensei about her use of her clones.

She didn't even understand why he would do it or why he even gave a damn about where she was.

It was none of his business.

"You are angry."

Naruto dropped her smile and glared at her classmate. "Well I'm definitely not a ball of sunshine."

Her classmate did not flinch at her glare. He did not even react to it and Naruto found that was even worse. Everyone flinches whenever I throw a glare at them. Even Sasuke knows better than to piss me off. Why was he not even scared from her glare? She had years of practice and experience of making that glare, but her classmate acted like it was not even scary.

"Your clone told you everything," Todoroki guessed. What else could I be angry about? There was nothing about her class that makes her want to snap. Bakugou was another story entirely. The boy had always rubbed her off the wrong way with his constant desire of finding ways to irritate her.

"It is none of your business to know where the hell I was," she snarled. "I have my damn reasons for…"

Todoroki walked up towards her and stared at the happy students walking towards each other. He kept his eyes fixated on them, lowering his voice to a volume that could only be heard between them. "You are my classmate."

So what if I am your classmate? Most of my classmates in Konoha gave a shit about where the hell I went. Hinata cared but she was her best friend. The closest thing Naruto could ever call a sister, because sisters defended each other and cared for each other. Sasuke cared too…but in his own way. He was a bastard, greedy at times, but he cared in his own way.

It was just too bad that he decided to show how much he cared only after his father was dead.

"Classmates don't ask about the whereabouts for their other classmates," Naruto declared.

Todoroki shook his head. "It is enough reason for me to wonder why you would skip school after three days."

"Really? So you decided to tell Aizawa-sensei that I was skipping school." She didn't know what was about Todoroki that made her want to snap like this. It would make sense if it had been Bakugou. The explosive teen had a way of rubbing everyone the wrong way. But Bakugou would never consider going to Aizawa. He would have made a huge scene by telling their classmates that she skipped school.

Todoroki had confronted her about her use of clone and it would make sense if he had been the one to tell Aizawa-sensei that she was skiving school. How else would Aizawa spot the difference between her clone and herself? Her teacher could claim to care her, but care couldn't come after just a few days. It took Iruka-sensei years to care for her…so how could Aizawa-sensei care after three days?

Her clone couldn't have acted too out-of-character and Aizawa-sensei had only known her for a few days. He didn't know her personality or anything like that. So how could he spot the difference? Only explanation had to be Todoroki.

"I didn't tell him," Naruto stopped walking and swirled her head at Todoroki. The boy stared back at her with blank eyes. "You would have gotten into trouble if I told him, so I kept it quiet."

Wouldn't that make life easier? Assholes with Todoroki's background always had something to prove to someone. It was always to get the attention of their family, no matter how much it hurt the people around them. Smartest in the class. Best shinobi in the class. Naruto shook her head and gritted her teeth.

"If you didn't tell him then how would he figure out that I was skipping school?"

Todoroki regarded her. His mismatch eyes lingered on her hair, moved passed the whisker marks decorating her cheeks and landed on her eyes. Why does he always look at my eyes? It wasn't the prettiest eyes. Sakura always had prettier eyes, greener than the greens of Konoha, and Ino's eyes had always been unique. When Naruto compared her eyes, it just didn't seem like much.

Of course Naruto would never admit out loud, it would mean admitting weakness and she was anything but weak.

"Because their eyes looked different from yours, Uzumaki." Todoroki began to move and Naruto puffed her cheeks before dashing to catch up with the taller boy. I am not short but he makes me feel short with his legs. She grabbed hold of his shoulder. The boy stiffened slightly as if expecting her to hit him, which was weird.

She was furious but not furious enough that Naruto wanted to beat the crap out of him.

That honour was left to someone else.

"My clones are me!"

Todoroki took a deep breath and shook his head. He turned his head around, mismatch eyes gazing at her and the blonde folded her arms against her chest. Unlike him or the other members of her class, she did not have a Quirk. If Naruto did have one, then she wanted one that allowed her to read minds.

It was honestly difficult for her to read what was going through his head.

"Your clones acts friendly to everyone," he explained quietly. "Their eyes shined differently from your eyes…like they are not afraid to trust people."

Oh, not this bullshit again.

"What? You also think that I have a phobia to the idea of trust? Let me make one thing clear: Uzumaki Naruto is not scared of anything." She dared him to challenge her claim. How could she be scared of an idea? If it was ghosts then yes, she was terrified of them. The idea of never being able to eat ramen was another thing for her to be scared. But trust? There was no way she could have a phobia of an idea.

It made no sense and it made seem like she was weak.

Naruto Uzumaki was not weak.

"You isolate yourself from everyone."

I have to work to survive and no one really wants to get to know me. She stopped herself from spilling those words to her classmate. It had been one thing to say those words to Aizawa-sensei. The man had gotten her in a bad time when she felt safe in the apartment that Ero-Sennin helped her find in this country. She wanted to scream at him at the time, but Eri had been on the other side of the door.

So Naruto had no choice but to lower her guard slightly.

So she did the next thing that she was good at and that was lashing out at people. It was a trait about herself that made her childish as Kakashi-sensei and Sakura liked to tell her, but Naruto had never really been a child. There was no better way for her to unleash her anger.

Not unless she listened to the dark voice that lingered inside her head, but Naruto refused to listen to that sinister voice.

"Me? What about you?" Todoroki blinked and Naruto held her head high. "It has only been a few days, but you haven't even attempted to make friends with any of our classmates! Don't preach to me about isolation when you are doing the exact thing."

Todoroki kept quiet and regarded her. There was no lashing out or anger, not even hurt radiated in those mismatch eyes, and Naruto wondered if just maybe she went a little bit too far with her words. But then she remembered how Aizawa took away Eri from her, forced her to stay at home and only allowed her to sent a clone…because you need to trust me, Uzumaki. He talked to Aizawa-sensei about something that was not any of his business.

She does not believe one bit that Todoroki didn't talk to Aizawa-sensei about herself.

"I don't know how to make friends."

Naruto blinked and blinked as her classmate stared down at her. I am joking. She waited for him to spill those words to her, but Todoroki just stared at her. He looked uncomfortable for admitting those words, but all Naruto could think that it was an act. Todoroki was a pretty boy. The kind of boy that the girls in the Academy would have wanted to date and the boy that all the boys would have wanted to befriend.

He is bullshitting. He wanted to wiggle his way out of her anger and to calm her down by pretending that he didn't know how to make friends. Naruto opened her mouth to tell him this, only to close it when Todoroki says:

"My father never allowed me to spend time with the other kids, Uzumaki. I am not lying to you."

It was hard for her to know whether Todoroki was telling the truth or not, but the anger in his voice at the words my father made Naruto think that maybe, just maybe that he was telling her the truth about his past.

"He sounds like an absolute asshole."

That was the end of their conversation.

My father never allowed me to spend time with the other kids, Uzumaki.

Shouto could only stared at the large cafeteria in front of him. He doesn't understand what made him decide to tell Uzumaki about the small fact about his life with his father, but it irritated him that Uzumaki would think that he lied about his ability to make friends. His eyes darted around the numerous classmates scattered around the cafeteria, feeling almost out of his depth as he tried to think of what to do.

Do I just go up to them and ask to sit with them? He looked at Midoriya and his group of friends, before flickering his eyes to Kaminari and his group of friends. It made his legs wobble slightly at the thought of interacting with them. What would they even talk about? Kaminari and Mineta focused so much on the female anatomy that it made him feel queasy. Bakugou was just too loud for his taste.

He didn't even know how he feels about Midoriya. The boy seemed to have a very special relationship with All Might, something that he picked up from observing them interact. It probably was because their Quirks were similar. But not many people had Quirks similar to All Might, maybe they were related.

It was possible that Midoriya was the son of All Might.

Shouto shook his head and fixated his eyes on Uzumaki. The girl seemed to be gobbling up her ramen like there was no tomorrow. Of all the options that he had, Uzumaki was his best option. They could talk about the project that Aizawa-sensei assigned them to do. It escaped his mind to talk to his classmate about it on their way to class.

He placed his tray of soba on the table, pulled out a seat and asked. "Is this seat taken, Uzumaki?"

"Go ahead," Uzumaki said reluctantly, slurping her noodles. Shouto sat down and knitted his eyebrows together as his classmate continued to gobble down her food. How did he start a topic? Did he first talk about parents? Wait, no it probably was a bad topic to begin between then. His classmate was an orphan and the thought of just talking about his father made his skin crawl.

It probably be better for him just to get to the point.

"Uzumaki, we need to talk about where and how we are going to do the project."

His classmate slurped, blue eyes never leaving his own eyes. "Simple solution: I do my part at my apartment and you do your part at your home."

Why would he even think that Uzumaki was going to make things easy for him?

"We need to collaborate and consolidate everything by Sunday night," he points out to her. "The project is due on Monday. Why don't we start after school…"

The blond-haired girl put down her chopsticks and shook her head. "Got work."

Doesn't she have someone that can take her shift? It wouldn't be a big deal. He stopped himself from saying those words to his classmate. Uzumaki would think he was being a busybody if he asked the question. She would say something to try and annoy the hell out of the both of them.

He would just wait till Uzumaki trusted him and then asked why she wouldn't even consider just switching her switch with someone else.

"Then how about during your break at your work?"

Uzumaki blinked and then stared at him like he was insane for even suggesting the idea. "You want me to do a damn project during my break? Do you know what break means? It means I relax and don't do anything that requires any physical or mental work."

Shouto frowned and realized just what Uzumaki was trying to do to him.

"Then how about after your work?"

He was not going to give her the chance. Shouto would look for any chance not to be at home and for any chance to get his classmate to trust him.

"No can do," his classmate said with a fake cheer to her voice. "I have somebody to visit and I can't afford to not visit them. The sames goes for everyday!"

Shouto frowned and rubbed the sides of his head. Uzumaki has an excuse for all the reasons that she doesn't want to do the project alone with me. He wanted her ability to make excuses when it came to his shitty man. There had to be a way to corner his classmate into doing the work with him, a way that didn't involve him bringing Aizawa-sensei into the middle of this.

"When is your day off?"

"Sunday," Uzumaki answered reluctantly. Her eyes brightened and Shouto felt a sense of dread for what was about to be said. "But I have got an apartment to clean and so many other things to do…why don't we do it in your house?"

"No!"

Uzumaki tilted her head and her blue eyes shone with mischief. Shouto felt his stomach becoming weird as his classmate clapped her hands together, tilted her head and said. "Is little Shouto-kun scared that Daddy might have the wrong idea about his classmate?"

He was not scared of his father but…

"Don't call me that."

Grey eyes flashed before his eyes and Shouto clenched his hands into a fist.

"What? Shouto-kun?" Uzumaki smiled widely and Shouto was taken back when he saw the triumph in her blue eyes. She wants to use that nickname to get her way of us not working together. His cheeks began to heat up as the girl continued to chant the nickname to him. She wanted to annoy him, to make him snap, so that he could leave the topic alone and they would never interact again.

He was not going to fall for her trick.

"If you call me Shouto-kun, then do I call you…Naru-chan?"

Uzumaki spluttered and flushed a deep shade of red. Those blue eyes that was usually filled with sorrow and mistrust, now came blazing to life. Anger radiated from them, reminding Shouto of the ocean. Two people can play the same game. Shouto had never been childish before but Uzumaki made him want to act like a child.

It scared him just how much Uzumaki could affect him.

"Don't ever call me that."

"You don't call me Shouto-kun then I won't ever use that nickname," Shouto offered. "And you stop making excuses on why you can't work with me."

His classmate narrowed her eyes. "I will agree to the first but I will only agree to work with you if we do the project in your home."

Glee shone through those blue eyes and Shouto knew that his classmate believed that she won in their battle. It seemed like she think that nothing would make him be willing to come to her offer, not when he did not like his father. Not when he wanted to have just a few hours away from the shitty man.

He was willing to come to a compromise.

"Fine, we can do it in my house but Uzumaki…my father isn't an easy man. He might ask questions."

His classmate blinked but the shock faded and a fake smile plastered on her face as her blue eyes filled with mistrust.

"He won't be the first father that I pissed off."

A/N: Please review and tell me what you think about this chapter. What do you think of the interactions between Todoroki and Naruto?