Chapter 2: Graffiti
I pick another picture, this one showing the three children sitting on a stone bench.
I caress the face of the boy in the forefront of the photo. Black hair, black shirt, hands inside white shorts; the boy's eyes are devoid of the usual glare sent to most people. Instead his black orbs are slyly looking at the photographer and his lips are quirking just the tiniest bit. His posture is relaxed, slouching with his right leg thrown over his left. Above him, sloppily painted on the wall, is the symbol of the Uchiha clan.
The boy in the middle is the exact opposite of the first boy in looks. If the first boy is dark, this one is the very essence of light. He wears a loud orange jumpsuit. His messy blond hair sticks up everywhere. He is squinting up at nothing, smiling like he has no care in the world. His feet are hanging just over the bench's seat. A spiral is painted above him.
A torn piece of paper is pinned by a kunai in the middle of the two.
The only girl sits at the far end of the bench. She wears a red, modified cheongsam with black tights. Her eyes are staring avidly at the dark haired boy. A soft flush appears on her cheeks. A circle with a dot in the middle like the bullseye of a target is haphazardly painted above her.
The late afternoon sun casts shadows behind their backs and shines off their head protectors that bear the mark of the Hidden Leaf Village…
Naruto hummed as he wriggled into a comfortable position, opting to pull up his legs and let his feet dangle over the edge of the bench he and his teammates were occupying. They were enjoying a brief break after a grueling half-day of training. Their teacher, Kakashi, had disappeared for a moment to get orders from the Hokage.
Naruto tried to whistle but ended up just puffing his cheeks and expelling useless air. He renewed his humming with vigor. He felt pretty good. The training had been tiring but satisfying. Kakashi-sensei had even lent them a scroll for a special jutsu. He glanced up at the piece of paper stuck on the wall they were leaning on.
"Hn. It's your fault, you know," said Sasuke, catching his look.
Naruto immediately went on the defensive. He moved his squinted eyes towards his rival and frowned.
"Hey! If you hadn't snatched it away from me—"
Sasuke glared at the blonde and replied with out-of-character childishness, "You took it away from me first, you moron!"
"Well if you hadn't been so selfish—"
"I was studying it, stupid!"
"You guys stop this!" Sakura tried to interject, but she was ignored.
"You didn't wanna share, you bastard!"
"You wouldn't have understood it in the first place, deadlast!"
"I would too! If you hadn't snatched it away from me I wouldn't have thrown that kunai at ya!"
"And thereby ruining a special scroll by tearing an important part off," Kakashi interrupted, suddenly appearing in front of the trio in a cloud of smoke.
Naruto eeped.
"Remember that you still have to pay for a replacement of that," the teacher added, although what could be seen of his face seemed to say that he didn't really much care whether Naruto paid or not.
Naruto mumbled something indistinct but stopped when Kakashi held up several cans of paint.
"By the way, we just got a mission to paint that hall over there. You have to finish it today—both the inside and the outside walls— so hop to it guys!"
Kakashi's uncovered eye arched up into a happy slit as his students grumbled but obeyed, taking several cans of paint and a brush each. He whipped out his trusted orange book and took a seat as he let the usual rants from his students wash over him like:
"Why do we gotta do stupid stuff like this" came obviously from Naruto.
"Shut up Naruto! Your whining is giving me a headache" went Sakura's normal response.
"Try not to mess up this simple task, deadlast" was Sasuke's usual one-two hit.
And the words flowed on and on.
The three trudged towards the hall used mainly for large gatherings of village officials. They stopped in front of the doors and studied it for a minute.
"Hmm…I think we should just start from various points inside and go on from there. Then we can do the outside after that," Sakura suggested. "What do you guys think?"
"Wow Sakura-chan, you're really so smart!"
Sakura flushed then looked expectantly at Sasuke. The dark-haired boy merely grunted before walking inside.
The interior of the hall was dark and somber with walls that had been recently scrubbed. It looked like another team had been assigned to ready it for Kakashi's trio to work on. The three children walked with catlike steps, the heavy atmosphere affecting them for a moment. Predictably it was Naruto who broke the silence.
"Woah! This place is so gloomy. Maybe we can paint it with some nicer color, orange maybe, to brighten up the place, you know?"
Sasuke snorted, choosing a spot to begin his work.
"I don't think the Council of Elders would appreciate meeting in a room painted in such a hideous shade," he said, putting on the first layer of white on the wall.
"Hey! Orange isn't hideous! It's a great color! It's one of my favorites!"
Sasuke spared a moment to glance contemptuously at Naruto's jacket.
"So says the freak who's color blind."
Naruto flailed his arms in annoyance. "You take that back! Besides you can't say stuff like that yourself because you like only boring colors like black or dark blue."
"I just happen to like dignified colors."
"Boring! Sasuke is boring!"
Sakura, who had been quietly brushing on the primer, suddenly stomped over and bopped Naruto's head. She had ignored the two when they started sniping at each other—that was just the normal way they could start anything—but Naruto's voice was really grating on her nerves!
"Sakura! Why'd you do that for!"
"Shut up! Just stop talking and start working!"
"But—but Sasuke started it!"
Sakura delivered another blow on Naruto's cranium.
"Well at least he's working." Sasuke attempted to appear busy as his teammates glanced at him. "You haven't even opened your can of paint. Now, get to work!"
Naruto decided that it would be to his benefit to obey his pink-haired teammate. Rubbing his much-abused head and muttering obscenities about evil bastards who suck up to people, he squatted and popped the lid off a random can and plonked his brush inside.
"NARUTO!"
The blonde started at Sakura's shriek, which resulted in canister tumbling to the side. Naruto cursed and tried to salvage the liquid pouring onto the floor. A dark shadow loomed over him just as he set the can upright once again. He cringed and looked up with dread.
"Sakura?"
"Hasn't anyone taught you how to paint before? Don't you know that you have to put on the primer first before the paint?"
Naruto frowned and eyed the cans of paint before him that all looked like white paint.
"Uhm…uhm…aren't they all the same?"
Sakura sighed crouched beside him pointing out the differences between the canisters.
"That one is called the primer, see it's written on the label. That goes first so that the wall be able to absorb the paint better and you don't have to use so much coats of paint. After putting that on, you use the real paint. If you can still see the grain of the cement after the first coat then put on a second layer of paint to even the color out."
Naruto stared at her with wide eyes. "You really know a lot of stuff, Sakura," he said, the awe in his voice extremely palpable.
Sakura blushed.
"Our house was recently repainted. I learned a lot because of that." She stood up. "Now, stop wasting time. If your brush even stops for a moment I will hit you again."
Naruto winced but nodded.
There was blessed silence for a while until Naruto noticed that he couldn't reach the upper corner of the wall he was working on. He looked around and noticed that both his teammates were using chakra to cling to the wall and solve that problem. Following their examples, he concentrated his chakra to his feet and climbed up with his dripping brush. When he had exhausted the paint off the brush he turned back down to get some more. What he saw when he turned around made his frown.
The lower part of his area had marks on them from his dirty sandals!
He heard a snicker to his side and glared up at Sasuke's smirking face. Then the dark-haired boy calmly walked back down—without leaving a single mark!
Naruto squinted at Sasuke's feet as the other boy hiked back up the wall clutching a newly opened can. When they were level with each other, Sasuke made a show of slowly lifting one foot and bringing it down about one inch off the wall, all the while looking intently at the spot he was going to cover.
"Hmp! Bastard!" Naruto muttered before adjusting his chakra so that his shoes didn't touch the paint.
Sasuke merely smirked in silent reply.
After learning the technique to working fast and avoiding sandal marks, Naruto opted to create some shadow clones to help him cover more area than Sasuke. The other boy, of course, didn't take this lying down. He also created some clones of his own to compete with Naruto's.
Sakura let them exhaust themselves, opting to labor on her own pace. She was just glad that Naruto had not started a paint-fight.
By late afternoon they had painted the whole hall, in and out.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei! We're finished!" Naruto yelled all the way from the building.
Kakashi looked up and sauntered over to his students. He eyed the freshly painted walls and nodded in approval.
"Good work."
Naruto beamed as if the words were meant just for him.
"Wait for me here while I report to the Hokage and get your payments."
Kakashi disappeared in his usual way leaving the three to clean up. Afterwards they gathered all the canisters together and headed off to sit at the bench where Kakashi had waited.
Exhausted from using too much chakra, Naruto opted to stay quiet rather than annoy his teammates. After a while his eyes drifted towards the piece of paper still stuck on the wall. Then his eyes went back to the cans of paint that they hadn't used up. Glancing from canisters to the wall, his eyes lighted up with glee. He giggled as he pushed off his seat and ambled towards the painting materials. His two companions eyed him warily as he retrieved a brush.
"What are you up to now Naruto?" asked Sakura.
Naruto just grinned, his eyes turning into slits. He took a moment to stare at the blank, dirty wall. A sudden image of the spiral on his belly came to him. He opened a can of paint and skipped up on the bench with it.
His companions stood up and edged away from him as they caught on to what he wanted to do.
Dipping the brush in paint, Naruto he began to draw a squiggly spiral on the wall. Finishing with a flourish, he stepped down and admired his handiwork.
"Why a spiral?" asked Sakura.
Naruto just snickered and offered the tools to her.
"Didn't you get punished for painting those things on the faces of the Hokages?" Sasuke asked, shaking his head at the blonde's antics.
Naruto stuck his tongue out in reply before looking back at Sakura.
"Go on Sakura! We can each draw one."
"But what if we get in trouble?"
"We won't! And it's not like this is the Hokage mountain! This is just a wall. We'll just leave a small reminder that we were here!"
Still Sakura hesitated. Naruto opened his eyes wide and stared at her with pleading blue eyes. When she still wouldn't take the proffered things, he slowly opened his mouth to try another tactic to persuade her. He ended up squawking when a pale hand suddenly snatched the two items from his hands.
Huffing in disgust at what he was about to do, Sasuke dipped the brush and quickly drew his clan's symbol to the right of Naruto's sign. When he finished, he all but shoved the can and brush towards Sakura.
"Just do it already," he growled. "The deadlast will just pester us until evening if you don't."
He then proceeded to glare at his design, refusing to look at the brightly smiling Naruto or the shocked Sakura who followed his example and quickly sketched her family's symbol on the other side of the spiral.
Naruto pouted a bit at the fact that Sasuke only had to do it before Sakura agreed with the prank. But his mood lightened up rapidly when he saw the three symbols side by side by side.
He took the can and brush from Sakura and put it beside all the other stuff, putting the lid back carefully. Then he stood between his teammates.
The three spent several quiet moments looking at their creation before sitting back down. Sakura took her chance to ogle Sasuke, who looked bored with the world. Naruto began thumping his feet in time to whatever song he was composing in his head.
Kakashi arrived not long after. He immediately saw the new art on the wall. He quirked an eyebrow at three, then whipped out a camera from one of his vest's pockets.
Sasuke was the only one who noticed him. The boy raised an eyebrow at his teacher. Kakashi's eye twinkled merrily back at him. The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes before smiling slightly.
Really! Their teacher was such a kid inside!
I can't help but laugh as I gaze at the photograph.
That was a great afternoon to truly bond. Only meaningless words were said but the experience was enough to acknowledge that each person cared for the other.
I paste the photograph.
Summer, Konoha, First year as genin.
Author's Rant Corner (ARC): I've neglected this for so long ever since I started Daddy Rooster Head, but some of you said to continue this, so, your wish is my command.
This series is based on the posed pictures that're usually drawn at the start of each new chapter of the manga. This one is from Chapter 7.
I get my inspiration from my scanlated copy so if you wanna look, just download 'em or something. Sorry, I don't really have a good copy of each pic that I'll be going over. Also, each story might jump in time sequence and place. Every chapter is supposed to be random.
Anyway, with that said, hope you enjoy this series!
-Dragon