No matter where you go, every town, village, or road-side inn has a history. Whether it is taught and known to all of its citizens varies, as does the accuracy of the story's details, but nevertheless, the story is there. Konoha's history is fairly typical for a ninja village. It began as a gathering place for a group of shinobi, many of them coming from older villages, and banding together silently in the heart of the Fire Country. (Which was why, after the village population began to grow and the First Hokage finally had to approached the region's feudal lords and become an official village, and part of the country.) And, as happens with most shinobi villages, after its location was revealed, it became a home to a large number of civilians. It was a necessity, as a certain blond resident would claim years later. After all, if everyone in Konoha were busy being sent out on missions, who would make the ramen?
Konoha was also, as many places supporting a healthy population of both genders often are, home to a large multitude of children. (Two schools were established to accommodate them. One was for the children of civilians who also wanted to grow up to become average, civilian chiefs, weapon makers, writers of explicate novels, or workers of whatever other trades might survive within the walls of a shinobi-based village.The other school, as could be predicted, was established for shinobi; The Academy.
The latter school was created first, for the simple fact that shinobi parents often raised shinobi children. Retired ninja would stay in the hidden village to teach them, and when they grew older hand over their development to other, more accomplished ninja until they were able to fend for themselves. But with the arrival of the civilian residents, another creature came. A creature that was so fierce, so unpredictable in its nature that even the beloved Hokage himself trembled before its wrath…
Stay-at-home-mothers.
On its own, a stay at home specimen is rarely anything more than a persistent, if wearisome thing. But the First Hokage quickly learned that they had a habit of finding each other and banding together to form a second, though unofficial, counsel all their own. And when they attacked, the First quickly learned that there was a terrifying power to their intensity that made him debate stepping up on his security methods for the Hokage building. A correspondence quickly sprang up between the Hokage and the Fire Country feudal lord(s) that carried on from the First's reign to the Second's. The Hokage had said that when he welcomed civilians into his village, he did not realize that a band of idle females could reek such havoc on his Academy, his regulations on shinobi conduct and uniform in public (a petition had been started banding one's right to carried blades more than six inches long without a permit!), and the lack of restrictions at the local bookstore.
The feudal lords had all written back with similar comments, that that was part of allowing civilians into his village.
The Hokage suggested that maybe he should have the civilians evacuate his village.
In response, the feudal lords had remarked that if he wanted to have the civilians recalled, he was going to have to come up with something better to say "than they annoy me."
When the Third Hokage came into office, he preferred to avoid fall outs with the parents of his non-shinobi residents. And so, his plan of action was one that came naturally to any man facing an opponent whose soul purpose for breathing was to nurture and develop the younger generation: he pointed them toward the school boards and told them to go nuts. Great changes followed in both of Konoha's schools. Pictures and practice models were brought into the classrooms to replace dried and preserved organs for students to study. New classes were introduced that at the time seemed strange to ninja culture, such as Ninja Dance class and Ninja Poetry class. And among other villages, Konoha began to earn the slightest bit of a reputation of being a pack of pansies.
Later, the Yondaime had had to have an armed guard on hand when he addressed the leader of this committee of over-zealous civilian parents to say that no, he could not put off the weapons training program until after students graduated from the Academy. After all, its purpose was to train ninjas!
It could also be noted, among skeptics, that this was the time that ninja such as Jiraiya and Orochimaru were at the Academy and that the changes in the shinobi schools stretched on until after other famous ninja like Hatake Kakashi, Maito Gai, and Ebisu graduated.
After the Yondaime's death there had been some worry about whether the Academy would revert back to its former ways before the civilian parental involvement had been severed, but luckily the Fourth had left some very firm laws regarding the matter.
However, through all the mess that developing the Academy had caused, one factor had always remained the same: the lack of excess teachers. The Academy, set up with the intention of turning small children into cold blooded killers almost as soon as the first clans started breeding, was small at first. Its sensei's were worn out or injured ninja who were no longer fit to take on serious missions, but also not quite yet useless to their home. With time, the position of teaching began earning more respect in the village, but the fact still remained that one did not become a ninja for the sake of teaching. Chuunin usually took on the teaching work, after careful testing and debate by their superiors. Following that came the careful placing of which age group and which personality type best responded to the teacher in question. Needless to say, the process took some time after the standards of teaching became a bit higher than finding somebody to sit in a room and explain the basics of killing to a cluster of eight year olds.
Iruka however, insisted that there were no problems with it. He claimed that any teacher would be perfectly willing to nod along with every task the counsel set for them to prove that they were ready to teach. A teacher should be the ideal, after all, and the ideal ninja followed orders. Faithfully and without question. So he demonstrated how he would react in certain situations, memorized and recited the Academy safety routines for the event of fires, earthquakes, or sudden invasions from foreign shinobi. He told his students that once, in a rather odd test that took place after his official final on the Chuunin obstacle course with Mizuki, he was even called out in the middle of the night to baby-sit a counsel member's children.
A few students in the back of the room at the time had snickered the word, "dope" at that, but went pointedly unnoticed.
And then, finally, he was allowed to try his hand at shaping the mind of Konoha's children. It was purely by coincidence that during the same year, the council was looking for someone who had just the right amount of patience and forcefulness to handle a certain problem that had sprang up… A problem that had blue eyes and a never-say-die smile.
At age eight, Naruto had already gone through several teachers at the civilian school, where the Hokage had tried to persuade him to stay the seven years before he reached the entry age for the Academy. Iruka had been slightly alarmed when he was told that he would have the Kyuubi vessel in his first class. When he asked about the state of his predecessor for curiosity's sake, he was told by the Third's assistant that the man wouldn't be able to for a while, but if he went to the medical center and asked around, he might have some luck with the nurses. Iruka was not comforted by that.
Hinata, also in that class, hadn't understood until years later what the tense looks that her teacher sent to their blond haired classmate meant. Of all the stories that Iruka had been willing to tell his class during his time with them, the story of his parents had pointedly not been one of them. Naruto's role in the class was to be a distraction, a clown, someone to make Iruka-sensei's face turn exquisite shades of white, green, and red, particularly after the unveiling of a certain voluptuous jutsu. Iruka's annoyance and frustration with the blond was excused by the few of his students who were observant enough at that point in time to notice it. In many cases, it was even shared.
So it was not surprising that Hinata's attraction to the blond was not immediate. At the age of eight, her first impression of Uzumaki Naruto involved seeing Iruka jump to his feet and bounce about their classroom while hurriedly pounding the edges of his hair against his shoulders to put out a tiny set of flames. Naruto had been standing beside Iruka's desk, clutching a candle, and staring wide-eyed at their sensei, as if he hadn't been aware that human hair was capable of catching fire.
After that day, Iruka had made a point of wearing his hair in a very high ponytail at all times during class.
Hinata, like the rest of her class, quickly learned to follow along with her father's hints that she should avoid that boy as much as possible without causing trouble for her poor teacher. Hyuuga Hiashi was after all, one of the shinobi who had lived through the Kyuubi's attack on their village. Around Naruto, she smiled politely and avoided eye contact. When he said hello, she turned her head, just like everyone else did.
Nevertheless, when she heard of the scroll incident years later, she had stopped in mid-sentence while ordering her teammates lunch so she could listen to the story.
Iruka was a nice man, the sales clerk said. He was quiet, sensible, and they had all been sure that the hated orphan had failed the Genin exam. There was just no other way to explain how he managed to pass on the last day with record-low scores, and then suddenly he was best friends with the Academy teacher. When she caught up with Kiba and Shino later, cold ramen clutched against her chest, Hinata didn't even hear Kiba growl about what had taken so long, or Shino mumble something at him about how his impatience would one day get them all killed. She couldn't help thinking about it then, or the night after, or the night after that. Naruto thought that Iruka was the first person to notice him, the first person to care. But he was wrong.
Despite society's pulls, she still had him beaten by almost seven years.
It hadn't been love right away after she did acknowledge him, either. Hinata was certain that at one point she had envisioned Naruto as a living tribute to the "Hang in There" posters with the little kitten hanging onto a tree branch for dear life. It had been more of a subtle change, she thought, from a source of entertainment, to an inspiration, and then to a crush… But it hadn't happened all at once, as much as she would have liked to say so during the afternoons when she and Naruto were able to curl up in the park together during lunch, after Kiba and Shino had disappeared to whatever new training technique they had invented sometime last month. But it wasn't in Hinata to lie, even about something as small as the fact that at one time, her boyfriend had meant nothing more to her than a baby feline dangling his legs in the empty air as he struggled to pull himself up onto a branch that was always just a little too high.
The truth probably would have made Naruto laugh, anyway.
During their first year with Iruka as their teacher, there were still some rules that lingered on from the obsessive, stay-at-home parent's time that were enforced, and looked like they were going to stay that way. Such as a family member needed to be present when a child was admitted into the Academy to ensure the family's approval; field trips outside of school grounds needed to have permission slips sent out at least a week in advance; and at the beginning and end of the school year, a certain amount of time was set aside so that the parents could review the progress of their child. The last rule was one that was largely favored by both civilian and shinobi parents alike. During this time, the kunai and jutsu scrolls were put away, and instead the younger classes were instructed on how to cut out pieces of paper that vaguely resembled their animal counterparts, while their teacher prepared reports on his students from his desk.
Normally, it was not something that would cause much trouble, other than a bit of adjusting in some teacher's schedules to keep the time off from being completely wasted. Unless a teacher happened to be preparing for his first review night with a class that would have not one, but TWO leaders from major bloodline wielding clans coming into his classroom with no other purpose than scrutinizing his teaching skills.
For three whole days before that night, the future prodigies, geniuses, and the rest (Naruto) worked to clean the classroom, make decorations, and listened to Iruka outline what things they were allowed to say in front of their parents and what would earn them a swift slap on the back of their puny, little heads. The slap, naturally, was at the top of the 'Do Not Mention' list. The brighter students were able to recognize the cause of their teacher's distress, and even sympathize, on some level, while watching the brown haired Chuunin as he ran from one side of the room to the next in a thoughtless, nervous frenzy. The others, though, were at a loss. Some even began to think longingly back to their regular lesions, such as the one detailing exactly how to angle a necklace clasp into a child's ear to render it entirely and irrationally pain struck.
Towards the last day of Iruka's road to a nervous breakdown, the Chuunin's eyes were darting continuously toward the window as he tried to explain to every student, from Uchiha to Uzumaki, that a crayon was not to be held like a kunai or else it would break, and no, that did not mean that shoving it down your neighbor's throat would not result in a trip to the hospital.
Neji, a nine year old boy walking down the hall to use the bathroom, swore that when he looked through the open doorway into the underclassmen's room, he saw the irate Chuunin looking as if he was about to fling either the orange crayon in his hand or the blond boy seated in front of him out the window. Thankfully, since Neji had not mastered how to mold chakra yet, he was only walking on the first floor.
In Iruka's defense, he did have every right to justify the vein pulsating in the side of his head. Later that same day Neji had seen him, Chouji, in an amazing display of stealth that at any other time his teacher might have been proud of, had managed to mysteriously disappear around the same time that the refreshments for the upcoming night were supposed to have arrived. Sakura and Ino were in a corner of the room, drawing pictures and thankfully staying peacefully out of his way, though definitely not dusting the bookcase like he told them to. Shikamaru, who was supposed to have gotten a sponge and started cleaning the desktops with several other children, had instead snuck behind Iruka's desk and was resting his head on table top, scattering a once neat pile of test papers that his teacher had been hoping to have graded before the parents arrived. Sasuke was supposed to be vacuuming since he had insisted that he knew how when Iruka was assigning jobs earlier, but was instead busy standing in the middle of the room, of all places, trying to perform bunshin no jutsu over and over, while babbling about how his aniki had actually shown him how to do it. Where Naruto had gone, Iruka had no idea, which in itself was a reason to tear his hair out. There was also an energetic, brown haired little boy with teeth that he wasn't sure were suppose to be that pointed, who had walked in from another class to tell anyone who would listen to him that his mother had promised him that, one day, he could get puppy of his very own. But since Iruka's students each seemed to have found an activity of their own to do, and because they were all still at the age where they believed that the other gender was suffering from some incurable disease called "cooties," the anonymous boy ended up in front of one of Iruka's few students doing what that were cleaning the classroom like he was supposed to, Shino.
Hinata had been in her own corner of the room, washing the tops of her classmates' desks, being one of the four students that Shikamaru had left behind when he went to take a nap behind their sensei's desk. From where she was at that moment, she could see the louder, more outgoing girls hiding behind their bookshelf while they drew pictures and took turns ooing and ahhing at each other's work. And then, in the opposite direction, which Chouji's larger shape managed to hide her from view (he came back to class with a stomach ache and had been told to rest at his desk until it went away), she watched as the class comically crept about the room on tip-toes in the way that children's comic books showed them how to do.
There was a certain amount of amusement that came from being the only one who noticed when the blond haired boy began crawling toward Sasuke's desk and fiddling with the buckle on the other boy's school bag. During that time, they had only been at school together for a matter of weeks, too soon for the rivalry between the two boys to have started yet. Sasuke himself was across the room, having given up trying to execute the replication jutsu and instead joined Shikamaru behind their teacher's desk while he fished out a scroll on fire jutsu from one of the drawers. The class had already been informed by the then sociable Uchiha that he was learning how to do a very important jutsu that his family created.
Sasuke was so wrapped up in studying the scroll, which Iruka hadn't noticed his prized student had found, that he didn't notice the often ignored blond crouched next to his desk smiling triumphantly as the buckle to the Uchiha's school bag slid soundlessly apart.
Hinata had seen this performance a few times before during the weeks since starting her formal education on Ninjutsu. So far, she secretly knew the reason behind the disappearances of one pair of sandals, nine packets of dried herbs, and twenty-eight fresh baked cookies (Chouji had been heartbroken that day), and why they all appeared in different locations. She suspected that other members of her class had a guess as to who the re-locator might be, but so far as she could tell, Iruka-sensei was not one of them.
One of her classmates shrieked, and for a moment, Hinata thought that someone else had spotted the blond's antics. Looking around a moment later, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the boy with brown hair from the other classroom had raced back into their room to talk to Shino, knocking into the bookshelf and nearly causing a potted plant to crash down on Ino and Sakura. Ino was yelling for Iruka to send the brown haired boy back to his own classroom.
Meanwhile, their blond classmate went on undisturbed, and hours later, Hinata thought she saw him grin when Sasuke found his lunch stashed in the corner under Shikamaru's desk, hidden right under his jacket.
When class was dismissed later that day, the students had quietly walked out the door, ignoring their teacher's slumped form behind his desk. His eyes seemed twice as large as their regular size and yet still seemed unable to see that the boy from the other classroom had snuck in again five minutes before the bell rang and hidden himself in the space between Shino's desk and Hinata's. The teacher was mumbling as she walked passed him, and for a moment she thought that she heard him saying her last name, then Sasuke's, then hers again.
At home, she wandered around the Hyuuga estate, not sure whether to will the time to go faster or slower. At eight, Hinata knew vaguely that there were things that her father expected from her performance at school, grades and progress reports. She wasn't the top of her class, like Neji's was in his, and she knew that her daddy would be sad when he found out Uchiha Sasuke was the number one instead.
Twice during her walk, she ran into her cousin. Both times she spent a minute blinking at his back in the distance before running up to greet him. But each time, the nine year old future prodigy turned around so suddenly to ask if there was something that he could do for her, that she was stunned into stuttering uselessly and shaking her head until she slinked out range of those white eyes. He wouldn't turn his back on her until he was sure that she was leaving. Her daddy told him it was rude to.
When they were children as surely as when they were teenagers, Neji was a mystery to his younger cousin. He was always quiet, courteous when necessary, distant when not. There were only a few times that she could say that she honestly sensed an emotion from him without doubting herself on its interpretation later. One of them was during their first Chuunin exam, when it was, obviously, different from the distant but still insistent sense of familiarity from her childhood that was fueled by little things that almost suggested friendship was possible between them. Like when Neji seemed to deliberately place himself between Hinata and her father when they walked back to the Academy in the evening, as if sensing his cousin's discomfort at having to go.
When they reached the school, Neji went on ahead to his classroom. Due of their family situation, Hiashi was going to review Neji's progress with his teacher as well after he was done talking with Iruka, which for Hinata might have been better or worse, after her father heard about her pathetically normal abilities.
Inside the classroom, the youngest Hyuuga present had watched her father nervously as he looked over the drawing she had made during the class time that was taken away from her normal studies. He didn't say anything to indicate whether he liked them, or even knew that they were hers, and that she would be taking them home with her when the night was over so that she could hang them in her room, or maybe present them to him as gifts. After a while, he had switched his attention from the art projects to her teacher, weaving his way around the parents clustered by Iruka, who had thankfully stopped foaming from the mouth before the parents began to arrive.
Hinata stayed by her father's side for as long as her tiny legs could stand before slipping away to the corner near the back row of student desks, where her classmates had more or less gathered. By that time, there was only one parent she could see who was still allowing herself to be led around the room by her excited little boy. Uchiha Sasuke was one of the few students who had been able to bring both of his parents to school with him that night, since most of his classmates either had siblings who were still in the Academy, or their parents simply had other things to do. So, while his father was standing guard by Iruka's desk and glaring down other parents insisting that the tests might have been wrong, and that their child must have scored higher, Sasuke's mother was still available to lather her youngest son with unfaltering attention.
Hinata couldn't help an envious twinge as she stared over her shoulder at the display of paternal affection as the Uchiha's mother stopped to give each picture her son pointed to an appraising look and murmur of appreciation.
Hinata didn't even notice that the other children she sat down next to were playing a game that involved a spinning plastic bottle and asking some question or other; she was too occupied watching the knowing, amused look that came onto Mrs. Uchiha's face when she pointed out two pictures to her son that displayed a blonde or pink haired stick figure standing next to another stick figure with black smudges of hair. Each drawn pair was surrounded by a multitude of purple and pink hearts of varying sizes.
Sasuke glared up at his mother in response and looked away from them indignantly, but his mother wasn't put off. She only messed his hair with one hand, and pointed to his next masterpiece, lips moving as she said something else.
"Hinata? Yo! It's your turn!"
Hinata was shaken out of her captivated state by Shikamaru's bored droll beside her. She had heard him talking earlier about how his parents were going to force him to stay at the school all afternoon until they arrived for the tour of his classroom. They thought that the extra time outside would do him good, though probably didn't know that the time was most likely spent lying on his back in the grass rather than running around with other children on the playground.
She blinked and looked around stupidly, counting the faces turned toward her, and feeling the heat increase in her cheeks. "I...um, I...?"
Ino, sitting across from Hinata, next to Shikamaru as their class setting chart had conditioned them to even outside of school hours, rushed ahead with the next question before giving the white-eyed girl a chance to admit that she didn't know what they were doing. Gesturing toward the bottled pointed in the Hyuuga heir's direction, Ino asked, "Truth or dare?"
She glanced down at the bottle, then up at Ino's face, then over to Shikamaru. She wasn't even sure which of the two she was supposed to answer.
She felt her face heat up, and she hesitantly answered, "T-truth."
The first syllable was hardly out before Ino snapped, "You have to say dare at least three times before you can say truth."
Hinata blinked, looking up at Ino for a second, and then immediately looked away from the fiery blue eyes that suggested anything that so much as suggested disagreement would have her pounced upon and beaten senseless within the minute. Hinata could still remember a poor girl from their flower arranging class who had come running up to their teacher crying that Ino had poisoned her for no apparent reason at all. Her eyes fell onto the bottle, clearly and unquestionably pointing at her, and she could almost hear the taunting "HA!" coming from it.
Shikamaru didn't even look up at her from where his head was resting on the desk. Even by that age, he had already developed the habit of boring easily. "How troublesome..." he murmured dully as he lifted his head for a second to rearrange his arms in a more comfortable position, "I don't know any good dares."
"Well, think of one!" Ino said, nudging the side of her dozing classmate's head with the point of her elbow.
Shikamaru grumbled something to the desktop beneath his mouth. Hinata thought that she could understand the word "troublesome" linked to "females," but waited quietly, head bowed, for Shikamaru to either pass on his turn or Ino to force out a challenged for her to do.
Ino, meanwhile, watched her future teammate's head resting on his arms while she waited impatiently for the game to go on. Beside her, Sakura had turned around to glance over the Chouji's shoulder to watch their raven haired classmate energetically talking to his mother. Chouji, unable to sit next to his friend because of a pushy blond girl shoving him aside to sit their first, had taken the closest one he could get, which happened to be beside the pink haired girl. Ino's head turned after five seconds to stare at the object of her childish affection as well, before she tore her eyes away and announced suddenly, "I know the perfect dare!"
Shikamaru cracked one eye open for a second. "Great for you…"
Ino ignored him. "You," she said, stabbing a finger into the air between herself and Hinata to get the attention of the other players who might have begun to drift away from their game during the pause, "I dare you to go talk to the weird kid."
Hinata blinked, then on impulse, glanced over toward the grown ups, and where her father was still talking with her teacher. Even the grown ups would know about the "weird kid." Even if the parents of a child in an entirely different class were to come into their room and over hear the game, they would know. And every child in their classroom knew that it was dangerous to talk about him from the way their parents herded them away from him on the street. And so, at Ino's dare, the other children seemed to look back two the two girls by the table in union.
Hinata's face had darkened to a deep cranberry color. "I…I…uh—"
"You can't force her to do that, she might get in trouble!" another voice came up in Hinata's defense. Sakura, at eight years old, was still concerned mainly with her appearance. That wouldn't change until years later. But because of the teasing that other girls had put her through because of her forehead—which Hinata really didn't understand, it seemed normal enough to her—had left the pink haired child with a certain sensitivity toward others more timid than herself.
Sakura's dislike for her blond male classmate wasn't yet as strong as it would be at the beginning of their teammateship. It was too early for that too. But Sakura was known for being everything that her parents wanted her to be, which included avoiding contact with certain people her parents encouraged her to, another thing that wouldn't change for years to come. The weird kid was exactly the same thing to Sakura as he was to Hinata: someone to look at, laugh at when safe, but not associate with. Like the people they'd see at a circus sideshow.
Hinata didn't speak to Sakura very often. Ever since the pink haired girl had become friends with Ino, they had managed to scare her just the tiniest bit when they ran into the occasional disagreement.
"She has to," Ino said back, "its Shikamaru's dare!"
"But, Ino, you just made it up," Sakura said, her voice firm but not as harsh as it would be when she and her future rival were older. The words "pig" and "forehead girl" were never used in their arguments at this point in their friendship.
"He wasn't going to make one," Ino insisted stubbornly.
"Yes, he was!"
"No, he wasn't!"
"This is troublesome…"
"Be quiet!"
"Ino, don't be so mean…"
Hinata couldn't remember exactly how long the argument went on, worthy of one of Konoha's future brightest students, and a lover of winning a good, loud debate. It ended when Chouji, leaning across Sakura's lap to reach his friend, finally roused Shikamaru by persistently poking the other boy in his side. Yawning widely without covering his mouth (his mother would spend two years drilling basic manners into her son before he would expend the energy necessary to simply lift his hand), he muttered to the air in front of him, "Why don't you just go with her?"
The two girls sitting next to the Nara blinked in turns, just as stupidly as Hinata must have each time her cousin asked her, 'What do you want?' that afternoon.
Sakura was more out going than Hinata, but still on the recovery from her shyness during the Big Forehead Girl incident, and so it was Ino who asked her future teammate, "Who do you mean?"
Shikamaru's head was already re-settled into the cushion of his arms on the desk's surface, and needed to be prodded again by Chouji before he would frown and open his eyes again. "I don't know," he grumbled. Then pointing a finger that was only slightly more angled toward one girl than the other, he said, "You."
Ino beamed.
"What!" Sakura cried back, only a little too loudly for her regular image as the nice and somewhat timid girl. Even as the offending finger dropped back down and then curled back to reform the comfy little nest around its owner's head, she was snapping, "You're just going to let her take over your dare like that!"
Hinata, sitting on the opposite side of Shikamaru, was convinced that she saw at least three parents turn their way.
Shikamaru, a little too used to hearing the sound of an enraged female than what was healthy for an eight year old child, didn't even flinch at the roaring tone. Without opening his eyes, he answered, "Yes."
Sakura's eye made a movement that might have won her the award for Konoha's youngest ninja to ever display the Eye Twitch of Irritation, but before she was allowed to form a more compelling response to disentangle her from Hinata's dare, Ino leaned in close behind her. "You're not trying to get out of the dare, are you Sakura?"
Hinata thought about reminding the blonde girl that she was the one that was supposed to be doing the dare, but decided not to when she noticed the locked eyes of her two female classmates. Later, she admitted to herself that maybe she hadn't really wanted to be sent out alone to talk to the weird kid. Incase her daddy came looking for her.
However, when she was taken by the hand and half dragged by an indignant, stomping Sakura five minutes later, she didn't think of being relieved so much as keeping up with the other girl's steps with out hitting her knees during her "angry walk." She had no desire to be the target of lingering frustration as they walked down the rows of desk and toward the classroom door to sneak outside. But when they were nearing the doorway to their classroom, Sakura suddenly pulled back. Hinata, who had been looking down toward where her fingers had found a loose string on her shirt and were steadily pulling it free, bumped her forehead into the back of her pink haired classmate's head before she noticed, and then began to stutter an apology before a squeeze on her hand told her to be quiet.
"Uh…Uh…A-After you, Mrs. Uchiha!" she heard the girl in front of her say. When Hinata looked over Sakura's shoulder to see what stopped her, she was greeted by the blue shape of a tall, ankle-length skirt, and the sound of a woman's voice saying gently down from above their heads:
"Thank you very much." And then more softly to someone on the other side of the skirt, "See, honey? Those girls are nice—"
"Mom!"
After the mother and son had passed, Hinata was ready to go on with their dare. However, when she looked toward her classmate, she found Sakura wearing a vacant, dreamy expression on her face as she stared through the now empty classroom door. During the moment before animation returned to the rosy haired eight year old, Hinata mused that back on the children's corner, poor Shikamaru must have suddenly found himself being pushed away from his desk with a very enraged Ino standing over him for not choosing her when the dare was set. In her mother-in-law's opinion, it was always better if a girl was "nice," wasn't it?
When Sakura's smile began to shrink back down to its normal size again, Hinata quietly asked if they were still going to go outside to find the weird kid. As they went, Sakura tried to pretend that she was interested in conversation as they passed down the hall, but Hinata was able to see every time her green eyes darted forward to snatch a glimpse of Uchiha Sasuke trotting along to keep up with his mother as they made their way downstairs and into the schoolyard. Of course, Hinata didn't say anything to indicate that she knew what her companion was doing. Even at eight, Hinata knew better than to come between a female classmate and her crush-observing. Though later she would wonder just how Sakura and Ino managed to get as far into their friendship as they did without noticing that their dream husbands were the same person, when it was so obvious to someone like her.
Why they were going outside, Hinata had not been entirely sure. She did know that she hadn't seen the abnormal blond boy inside the schoolroom with the rest of their class, and that even if Ino hadn't notice, Shikamaru certainly wouldn't have sent her out looking for someone who wasn't there. Sakura also seemed to know where she was going as she led the Hyuuga along, making idle comments about the new colors that the hallways had been painted in over the summer, and how her mother had promised her a surprise if her grades were good. She didn't seem to have any doubts about where they were going, but Hinata had to wonder if that could be at all credited to the black haired figures walking down the hall ahead of them.
They followed the Uchiha until they reached the exit, and Sakura suddenly pulled back on Hinata's hand to make her stop. She blinked questioningly at the other girl, but was told not to answer by a finger place firmly in front of the other girl's lips. She gestured with her head for Hinata to look in front of them, where the lady Uchiha could be seen bending down to gather her youngest son into her arms near the doorway.
"Are you tired, sweetheart?"
Her son was in the middle of a yawn, uncovered like Shikamaru's, that made him look like a little kitten stretching its jaws. Even so, after it passed he shook his head from one side to the other in response, making his ungelled hair flap freely around his face as he did so.
His mother only smiled in response though, holding the little boy close as she turned and began walking toward where the schoolyard gates led out into the street. As their forms grew smaller as they walked away, Hinata heard faintly, "Your father and I are both very proud of you, honey."
Sasuke murmured something back to his mother that was unintelligible for a child standing as far from the pair as Hinata and Sakura were when they approached the doorway. But she was able to see the contented smile that came onto the young Uchiha's face as he nestled into his mother's shoulder, completely unaware that only a few weeks later she would be gone.
Hinata turned away from the two Uchiha before they left the schoolyard, stepping away from her pink haired classmate as she began scanning the playground for the blond haired weird kid. She couldn't think of a reason why he wouldn't be in the classroom with everyone else, but she found him all the same, sitting on a lone swing tied up to a tree across from the Academy doorway. The light from inside the building threw a rectangular shape of yellow-white onto the ground leading out to him, reaching just far enough to touch the tips of his sandals. The swing was swaying idly as an early autumn breeze blew into the Academy courtyard, making the leaves that had fallen ahead of time dance and scrape against the concrete parts of the playground. It blew directly into the weird kid's face, but the blond didn't blink, he was staring toward the gates with the same hollow expression that Hinata occasionally saw on Neji's face around Christmas time.
By that point, Hinata had seen the blond haired boy only a few times outside of school. Not enough to have learned his name, or dream, or that his favorite food in the whole wide world was ramen noodles with barbequed pork. She knew that his favorite color was orange from their art projects, and that he was the one that made Iruka-sensei stutter and make the class laugh, delaying their lessons for a few minutes at a time. She had watched him for those reasons, but she was sure that even so she would have noticed if she saw an emptied expression on the boy's face in class. She was sure…
A tap on her shoulder and a gentle tug on her hand brought Hinata back to the schoolyard, where Sakura was standing on the Academy steps, waiting for her to follow her as they continued on with their dare. It was mid October, and the fast approaching autumn made the air chilly as they stepped away from the Academy building's warmth, but Hinata decided abruptly after a leaf crunched under her foot, that the temperature dropped lower when a pair of curious blue eyes fastened onto them. As they looked, the unusual expression from moments ago disappeared from the small boy's face.
As they came closer, Hinata felt Sakura's steps slow down, becoming reluctant now that they were so close to the object of their dare. When they reached the tree with the lone swing tied to it, they were walking side by side in their hesitant pace, and Hinata imagined that the other girl used the memory of her beloved's angelic, happy smile to create one on her own face when they finally stopped in front of her future teammate.
"Hi there!"
Hinata watched as the curious expression on the blond haired boy's face immediately jumped into a large, crooked-toothed smile in response to Sakura's standard greeting.
Sakura squeezed Hinata's hand and, head angled a little downward out of habit, she offered her own, quiet, "Hello."
"Hi!" the blond boy answered back, smile growing excitably as his swing wobbled to a stop.
Hinata glanced over her shoulder, compulsively looking to see whether anyone was there watching them with the weird kid. It was another habit, one that she comforted herself for by saying everyone shared. Talking to the weird kid made grown ups angry for some reason.
Sakura, gracefully ignoring the urge, held onto Hinata's hand firmly as if to say 'You're not going anywhere.' When Hinata turned back around, it was while listening to the other girl say cheerfully, "Mind if we sit here?"
The weird kid look back at them and for a moment Hinata thought that the blue eyes darted back toward the Academy door too, though why the weird kid would have that habit was beyond her. But even as he did, he said, "Okay!"
Sakura sat down in the dirt in time with his response, smoothing the legs of her pants under her and tugging on her white eyed companion's hand to make her do so as well. The final version of their dare, as told by Ino before Sakura had grabbed Hinata by the arm and stomped off toward the classroom door, called for them to spend a minimum of five minutes talking to the weird kid before they could come back to continue the game. Though considering that the children had not yet been taught how to tell time during their first year of traditional schooling, the two eight year olds couldn't be sure how long five minutes was.
Ino was very good at manipulating Sakura as a child.
After sitting down, a moment of silence passed before the blond haired boy wiggled out of his place on the swing to join them on the ground. "So…" Sakura finally broke the silence after a moment had passed of the blond looking at both of them with the same smile on his face, and Hinata staring at the dirt. "What are you doing out here alone?"
Naruto didn't show any outward signs of faltering, though inwardly, Hinata choked on the word "alone." What else would he be?
"Nothin'," the boy answered back.
Sakura didn't do anything more than smile politely in response. Hinata felt another squeeze on her hand and took it as the other's way of reminding her that she was the one who was supposed to be doing the talking in this dare. But Hinata only needed to look up once at the endearingly large blue eyes focused on her face, before she ducked back down. Stammering, she forced out the first polite sentence that she could form in her head, "D-Don't you w-want to show your p-parents around?"
"I don't have any."
Looking down as she was, Hinata was not able to see the boy's smile temporarily leave his face, but she did hear the change that was in his voice that made it clear the subject was not up for further discussion. Sakura, entirely unbothered by the demons that consumed Hinata whenever she met a new person, was far more likely to have seen any strange expressions that might have come onto their classmate's face. The other girl took back command of the conversation as smoothly as a small child was capable of doing a second later with, "Why don't we play a game?"
"Okay!"
While Sakura withdrew a pencil that she must have had stored in her pocket incase of emergencies (it was rumored that if the weird kid bit you, you would sprout whiskers and fangs, and be forced to run away from home), the blond boy scooted closer to them. He watched as the pink haired girl drew lines in the dirt, two diagonal and two horizontal. When she looked up, she said, "Alright, we'll play tic-tac-toe."
"Um…" Hinata thought about pointing out that tic-tac-toe was only a two person game, when Sakura raised the hand that she was still holding and disentangled herself. Pressing her pencil into the now free palm, she said:
"You two go first, I'll play the winner."
Hinata stared at the pencil in her hand, momentarily stupefied.
"Do you want to be Xs' or Os'?"
"Um…I'll b-be Os'." Hinata leaned over the board that Sakura had drawn in the dirt, though her shadow blocking off the light made it difficult for her to see the lines. She scratched a large circle into what she hoped was the middle box, and then sat back to sheepishly offer the pencil to the blond haired object of her dare.
But for some reason, the boy didn't take it from her. Hinata felt her face began to heat again. Immediately, her mind shot back to her question from a few seconds earlier, and she felt a pang of guilt. He would be mad at her…?
"Well?" Sakura's voice cut through Hinata's jittering nerves. The pink haired girl was staring expectantly at the blond, waiting for him to take the offered pencil.
The weird kid, who had been looking strangely down at the object being offered to him, smiled a little crookedly toward Sakura. One of his hands came up behind hid head to lightly scratch at the hair there. "Uh, well, heeheehee, I, uh-"
Sakura cut in with only the slightest amount of impatience leaking into her voice. "It's okay if you lose. We won't tell anyone."
That won Sakura a much more familiar look from the boy, one that was more often used when Iruka-sensei would ask their class if anyone needed extra directions and stare directly toward the blond boy sitting in the back row. Snatching the pencil from Hinata's still outstretched hand, the weird kid bent over the board, and mumbled, "I'm not going to lose…"
But then when he sat back on his legs again, Hinata leaned forward to make her next move and saw a clumsy, but notably circular shape in the top right box. She merely looked up at the blond haired boy in confusion, while Sakura, frowning over Hinata's shoulder, didn't waste a breath. "Baka! You're supposed to be Xs'."
There was a pause, during which Hinata sat back and waited for her blond classmate to respond. She thought for a moment that the other eight year old was gapping at them, but if he had been, it was quickly covered by another wide smile. "Heheh, I knew that…I was just showing her what she could do for her next move…"
He pointed a finger in Hinata's direction, and Hinata suddenly remembered that the weird kid didn't know her name. Or anyone else's for that matter. Nobody ever played with the weird kid. Then another thought occurred to her: if the weird kid never played with other children, and if he didn't have parents to entertain him at home, who would have been around to teacher him about games like tic-tac-toe…?
"Of course I know I'm Xs'!" the blond boy across from her was saying, announcing his statement to the area above their heads. "Xs', yep. I'm good at being Xs'. In fact, I love them…"
Hinata began to hold out the pencil for him to try again, then looking down at the board, thought better of it. Hastily drawing back her sleeve to keep it from touching the dirt, she leaned forward with her pencil and drew large, clear X in the bottom left box, exactly the place where she could have made her next move to win the game if Sakura let her count the weird kid's "suggested" move. She tried to make the letter as clear as possible, so that the scarred eight year old she was playing against would be able to see the difference and hopefully understand the game without verbal instructions.
When she sat up, she tried looking at the scarred boy, but her face began to burn up nervously, and so she drew back shyly. "Y-You can try th-that move."
Hinata could see the other child squinting in the dark to see what she had added to the board. She felt herself blushing so hard that she was curious why blood wasn't seeping out her pores when the blonde sat up straight and declared the move perfect and claimed that it was exactly what he would have done himself.
On the sidelines, Sakura muttered to herself that that wasn't how they were supposed to play the game, but she didn't tell them to start over. The pink haired girl was probably beginning to think that their time limit had to be close to over by now, or maybe that "five minutes" was exactly how long it took to drag a class freak and a timid clan heiress through a semi-social encounter.
"So…" Sakura said while the object of their dare was drawing out his next move. Sakura, despite the future mannerisms of her crush, never did like silences. "What are you doing here if your parents are…gone?" the last word was spoken at a whisper. Children, even in a ninja village, were still reluctant to openly talk about death to one another, in case some evil spirit might decide to show them exactly what it's like.
"Iruka-sensei walks me home," the eight year old said easily as he drew away form the board. He offered the pencil to Hinata, but kept his eyes on the pink haired classmate talking to him.
Uncaring or perhaps unnoticing of the weird kid's shaky grasp of the game, Sakura went on talking, "Why? Do you live with him or something?"
"Nope," Hinata heard the weird kid say as she drew her next circle in another of the boxes. "The old man makes him walk me around the village everyday. He thinks I'd get in trouble if I went out alone."
That made sense, in Hinata's opinion. The boy in question had on one occasion managed to release all the cats down at the local pound on garbage day. For the entire day there were Genin teams running around Konoha trying to round up the stray felines, all of which had a big yellow tag attached to their tails with a sluggish drawing of a fox sticking out its tongue. Hinata remembered how Neji had let out the shrillest sounding scream she had ever heard when a full-grown male cat jumped onto his lap when he was sitting under a tree on the Hyuuga estate. It was before he had developed his Byakugan. Hinata had never heard his voice so high since.
Sakura, though, must have either forgotten the cats incident or not been directly effected by it. She asked, "What? Why would he do that?"
In response, the blond shot the pink haired girl a look, head cocked a little to one side and one eyebrow raised in a way that suggested she had just asked a rather idiotic question. "To get home."
"Why? That takes so long! Can't you at least go through the village instead of around it?"
Again, the blond's face took on that expression where he seemed to want to say 'Duh!' "The old man says it's dangerous to walk through the village."
"Oh."
Hinata held out the pencil again for the weird kid to take his turn at filling in a square on the board. She watched his hands move, trying to guess by where he put his X whether or not he understood the motive of the game. She noticed that his fingers weren't exactly right on the pencil when he held it, and that even when monitoring his hand closely, his letters still seemed to come out sloppy and deformed looking. It seemed odd for someone at their age, but she didn't say anything. He was making an X in the top middle box, knowingly or by chance, blocking Hinata from drawing an O there that would have won her the game. She could still win if she took the space in the left bottom box on her next turn. But it seemed like it would be a shame to. Really, the weird kid wasn't doing that badly for someone who didn't know how to play…
He didn't look at Hinata when he handed her the pencil. Instead, his blue eyes were still fixed on Sakura. A pretty, shimmering figure with the light from the Academy doorway behind them reflecting off her hair and giving her a rosy glow.
"Hey, what's your name?" Hinata heard Sakura asking the question while she was debating over whether of not she wanted to take the space that could win the game or whether to settle for a tie. Would Sakura mind…?
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" the boy supplied without hesitation, and then a second later, he added in a whisper, as if it were still a debatable secret, "I'm going to be the future Hokage."
In their class, the word "Hokage" was still a vocabulary word that would be covered in the months to come. But unlike Hinata, Sakura was at that time one of the few children who were well informed enough to know the word's definition already. So when she answered back, possibly thinking that the other eight year old was joking, she playfully added onto the end of her name, "I'm going to be the future Lady Uchiha!"
Naruto didn't ask what that was, or show any sign of realizing he was being humored. He merely smiled at the tone, happy to have someone responding so enthusiastically to him for once. Then a silence began to form, and both the boy and the pink haired girl tuned to look at Hinata, clearly waiting for her name. Hinata began to sit back up, a pair of big, eager-to-trust blue eyes focused on her. "I…I…" her hand clutched the pencil to her as blood rushed to her face yet again. She couldn't remember how many times she had blushed that evening. "I am…"
"There you are."
Hinata felt her eyes widen at the sound of a familiar voice behind her. She was also able to see the same thing happen to Sakura in front of her. A large shadow blocked off the little light that managed to reach them from the Academy building's doorway, and Hinata paused in her already weak sentence as she turned to look at its cause. At the same time, a pair of hands hooked themselves under her arms as her father bent down to pick her up. And while blinking up at him, Hinata could only think comically, that in the odd lighting, he looked faintly like Mrs. Uchiha with his hair let down the way it was.
He father was saying something to her as he turned away with her body held against his shoulder, but she only understood, "…Neji's waiting."
She wouldn't know until later that he had taken a quick glance at her friends before picking her up. Sakura, he must have heard about from Iruka. She was the brightest girl in their class, and easily recognizable by her unique hair. But he had also looked over at the little boy, sitting in the dirt wearing worn, old clothes, and holding the pencil that she must have dropped with its ruined eraser.
She didn't see how Naruto had looked before her father picked her up and tucked her against his shoulder, but she was able to see the little space under the tree as she was carried away. Faintly, she heard Sakura say, "Okay, let's set the game up again. I'll be X's this time…"
Even as Sakura spoke, her head was already angled downward, hands stamping out the board from the first game and preparing to draw a new one. She didn't see the expression on the blond boy's face, or how his smile became frozen for a moment. At eight years old, Hinata didn't know how to recognize when someone's eyes glossed over or unfocused, or how they could look at you and seem like they weren't really looking at you when their attention went inward. Hinata only knew that the smile became less big, and the weird kid seemed to be looking after her as her daddy held her close, and that somehow the effect made her feel…sad.
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That was the night that Hinata first started looking for something other than a source of amusement in Naruto. Affection wasn't involved, just a curiosity that later became a feeling of sympathy when she discovered that under the weird kid's hilarious failures in the classroom, there was a genuine effort being made to improve. She could relate to that. Then later, a crush had started to develop, after they had gotten older and she had spent more time than she thought she would watching the unfailing determination in her classmate and his desire to learn from his errors rather than be discouraged by them. She had glimpsed the part of the weird kid that didn't involve an overwhelming smile or loud proclamations.
By the next day, after they first brought their parents in to interrogate Iruka about their progress, Sakura, the girl who had come outside seemingly without purpose to talk to Naruto, had already been transformed into a goddess in the rejected blond's eyes. Hinata told herself that of course Naruto would have remembered Sakura instead of herself. Even if her father hadn't come out looking for her, the pink haired girl had been the one to draw the attention, while Hinata just watched and dumbly drew circles in the dirt. She kept watching all the same. Hinata didn't have a chance to talk to the blond boy again for years, though that was credited largely to her own shyness, and a little to intimidation. She had been right when she thought that her father wouldn't like her playing with "that boy."
In the present, at age sixteen, Hinata was walking down the hospital hallway with Sakura once again at her side. This time there wasn't a dare in place, only a mutual desire to get home and rest since the Fifth had told them that she was too tired to oversee their exam today. In her arms, Hinata carried the bright orange jacket of the former "weird kid," which had been left behind when he suddenly decided to go running after his best friend and rival. She would have to return it to him later.
She reminded herself that Naruto had noticed her eventually, with a small intervention from Neji. She had finally gotten to a place where she could be close enough to see Naruto whenever she wanted, and know that he would be happy to have her with him. Unfortunately, it had come at a rather inopportune time with her exam. Over the last month, her time was effectively eaten up by her need to study. Save for the lunch dates that she was still able to keep with the blond, but all too often, Kiba and Shino decided to stay with them during those hours.
And, now that the test had been extended, there would also be…
Looking out a hallway window, Hinata paused before turning a corner. She had just been looking idly around when a sudden flash of bright orange had caught her eye from the streets below. Searching the sidewalk across from the hospital, she tried to find the unusually bright shock of color again. She found it easily when two pedestrians below suddenly lunged out into the street, one leading the other by the hand. A small smile came onto Hinata's face the way it did every time she thought of her still-new-enough boyfriend.
He stood out less than he usually did without the aid of his jacket, but even so the orange pants were still bright enough to catch her attention from the second floor of the hospital. From there, she was able to follow him with her eyes as he darted back onto the opposite sidewalk and began pulling his charge in the direction of the part of town where she knew Ichiraku's could be found. The way that he moved down the street, too eager to walk peacefully behind larger groups of people when he could weed his way through, was so different from her. She always went slowly and took care to avoid accidentally bumping into other street goers by staying close to buildings.
Naruto's companion, though it should have been obvious from earlier, took Hinata a moment to identify. Uchiha Sasuke, she had noticed once, had a different way of getting from one place to another in town too. He walked at his own pace, never running, with his eyes set levelly on whatever it was he was looking for. He didn't take notice of the people around them, but let them scramble around him as he made his way through crowds. Hinata inwardly thought that it would be perfectly in character for the Uchiha heir to master the art of fazing through people who weren't able to get out of his path quickly enough for his liking. But at the moment, the cool stalker was being forced to match his polar opposite's pace as Naruto raced around the other pedestrians with the Uchiha's pale hand held tightly in his own. It actually looked funny to see Sasuke hurriedly dodging people as his teammate's sharp turns attempted to swing his body first in one direction and then another. He was a good ninja, capable of doing it, but the look on his face made it clear that he wasn't enjoying the exercise. And from where Hinata was standing, it looked as if Naruto was completely oblivious.
Since seeing the weird kid on the swing outside their old Academy, Hinata had wanted to be closer to Naruto. He had always been so eager to accept someone new into his circle of friends in a way that Hinata suspected was rooted in the loneliness from his childhood, but somehow, it seemed that Sasuke had been the first one to take the blond up on his offer. Besides Iruka that is, who Hinata suspected was viewed more like an uncle, or maybe even a father, rather than as a close friend. In a way, she could almost be jealous of the Uchiha for that.
On the street, just as Hinata was beginning to turn away, Naruto rounded a particularly sharp corner that Sasuke had to put up one of his arms to keep from losing balance when he was pulled along. Pausing to stare as the Uchiha heir disappear, she frowned. Was Sasuke wearing a white boxing glove?
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((crickets)) Is there anyone out there who's still waiting for this story to update?
I'd like to thank my beta, Unreasonable Sin, for getting me back into working on this story. This was genuinely a fun fic to write, and I feel a little guilty for neglecting it for so long. After all, if it weren't for Family Matters, I wouldn't have gotten into writing fanfiction at all (and geek that I am, that has become a large part of my life.)
So if anyone out there is still interested in reading more of this story, I'm back! And I promise to try and keep this story steadily updated (though it has a nasty habit of growing longer in my head. Stupid plot bunnies...)
Now then, they were mostly written last year, but here are the review responses:
False-Image Well, I did update, though nothing new really happened in the story. The next chapter will have the real update in the story. Promise.
Now, then. If you'll excuse me, there's a KisaIta AU drabble calling my name. ((walks away whistling))
Nekotsume Well, I think you've read just about everything I've written by now. I'm glad that you like this story too (Tsunade's scene with Sasuke is still my favorite so far too XD; oh, poor Sassy...his brain is going to implode eventually). And yes, in this story Naruto didn't go through his training time with Jiraya. I actually started writing this fic before I was up to date with the Naruto story, hence why it's so horribly out of tune with the time skip. But all well, it's a comedy, right? And those don't always have to match up so long as they can keep readers amused.
silverluna I did update. : ) Though, I'm willing to bet that you meant for the story to actually make a little progress when you asked for one. Next chapter I'll pick up with the boys again, I swear!
BoredAzn Indeed, it's very confusing. Especially if you're up to date with the manga...that what I get for getting over excited and writing a story without waiting to see what things would be like after the time skip. I'm glad that you were willing to bare with it enough to find the story interesting though. Thanks. : )
mkh2 lol, actually I didn't think anyone would notice. I changed it when it occurred to me that I was using the name "crinklescofftrip" on every site I post to except for this one.
pie-chan I updated! And look, character development! (seriously though, I real update will be out next chapter)
Decapitated Marshmallow ((points upward)) There's more.
tea Thank you. : ) And I like you name. Tea is awesome.
Khaz Okay, glad you want me to. : )
Taiy-Chan ((giggle)) Poor Sasuke has gotten himself into a sticky mess, especially when Neji finds out.
The Thief of Kuronue's Sister lol, well I hope you didn't rush through reading all those chapters. It took me awhile to get an update out, eh? I'll try not to make the next gap between updates so long, if people are still actually waiting for an update out there.
fluffypup I did update, though not really as soon as I would have liked. ((nervous behind-the-head-scratch))
Yume wo Nozomu ((blush)) You reallythink I've been keeping him in character? I was getting worried that the hissy fit in the stairwell was pushing it a bit. But don't worry, I'm going to try and make a point of avoiding crying. Just because he's knocked up doesn't mean he's not still Sasuke, eh? And yeah...I can't stand the mpreg-Sasuke-got-raped fics. I mean, COME ON! It's SASUKE! Maybe Itachi could rape him, but really, what arethe chances that Itachi would want to rape FEMALE!Sasuke?
minn yun ((blink)) Wow, I'd forgotten how long your review was. lol. An overly active little Uzumaki jr? Poor Sasuke would be groaning with pain! But I suppose that might result in a nice Aw-Sasuke-Needs-Me-to-Take-Care-of-Him! scene...so long as it involves Naruto instead of Sakura. I'll see what I can do. I think that there will bea fewmore chapters before I have a time skip though (gotta let Naruto know what's going on, and add a little more stress to poor Sassy-chan's life ; P), and then we can get to some of the more "fun" parts of the pregnancy. And get a little closer to the J.I.S.S.P.A!
Lost nin#1 lol, yes Naruto will get very, very confused by the end of this story. But don't worry, he wont be running around thinking, "Strange...why does Sasuke's baby have blond hair?" I have the chapter that he finds out during set up in my head. It should be sometime in the next four chapters or so (hopefully they'll be out soon).
akilana Thanks for your energetic review, I hope you're still interested inreading more of the story.: ) Unfortunately, Naruto and Sasuke wont be hooking up in the next couple of chapters, this kind of thing will have to be approached delicately, you know, with the whole tricked-you-into-nailing-me-to-your-couch-while-I-was-pretending-to-be-your-girlfriend bit.
digi-girl You're right, Sasuke doesn't seem like the type to cry. He'd just be very upset about it, and try biting a hole through his lip before saying anything. He may be the one pregnant in this story, but I still think that he would have all of his stereotypical tough-guy walls up. : ) I've read the first couple of chapters of Self Reliance. It seemed like a really good story (and Sasuke was in character! At least up until the part that I left off on).
Adhenefallen Thanks. : ) I hope that you're still willing to read on after that outrageous lack of updates that came up during the school year (life's a pain in the arse sometimes, isn't it?). Though I'm sorry to say, it will be at least three or four chapters before Naruto even figures out his rival's pregnant.(That's what he gets for running after angsty teammates when he's supposed to go meet with the Hokage, eh?)
Cyndi1 : ) I have Naruto's realization scene (at least for the part where he discovers that Sasuke is pregnant) all planned out in my head. It should take place in the next four chapters or so.
permetaformGai buying baby clothes? XD I can see that! He's definitely a candidate for a J.I.S.S.P.A. member! Even if he's not having a baby himself, I can imagine him volunteering to assist with the Planting of New, Youth Flowers! And displaying his support for the Modern form of reproduction. As for Naruto displaying sympathy pains...that idea didn't even occur to me: ) I might steal it though, after Sasuke gets a little farther along. Maybe right before he finds out who the real father of his rival's baby is. (And I think it would work, because even if he doesn't KNOW his role in Sasuke's pregnancy, they're still best friends, and Naruto would want to be as involved as possible with helping Sasuke set up his new family).
Now, then. If you'll excuse me, there's a KisaIta AU drabble calling my name. ((walks away whistling))