A lot of this is lifted directly from canon. Sorry, but it needs to be done before we can move on!
And to the anon who mentioned that they were glad she wasn't besotted with him; she still likes him, she's just more subtle about it, since she actually knows him well this time. I think that's a little more obvious in this chapter. But you're right; if she was as obvious as she was in canon, this wouldn't work.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything associated with it. All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto and the other proper entities.
Summary: Sakura had been by his side since he lost his family, following him around since they were seven years old, trying to ease his loneliness in whatever way she could. He didn't even know why he allowed it. He just silently allowed her to claim the seat next to him at the beginning of every term.
Rating: M
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Pairings: SasuSaku / eventual light NaruHina
Rays of Spring Sunshine
Chapter Three
Neither Sasuke nor Sakura were impressed that they'd been saddled with the lowest ranking student in the class on their team. Sakura, while not really gifted in any of the shinobi arts, was at least intelligent—but Naruto was just as stupid as he was untalented.
"Ugh, why did it have to be Naruto?" Sakura whined at him as they left the classroom for lunch. Sasuke had planned to eat alone, but it seemed that Sakura was intent on following him, now that they were on the same team. If he ditched her now, she'd annoy him about it later. "Anyone else would have been fine. But Naruto…! 'Balanced teams', Sensei said." She scoffed. "This is your fault."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. "How is it my fault?" He demanded.
Sakura shrugged, playing with the ends of her hair. "You're a genius, right?" She reminded him. "So Naruto must have been put on our team to make up for your skill level."
"Hn." Sasuke scoffed. "He's stupid enough to make up for both of us." He agreed.
Sakura seemed not to have noticed the indirect compliment. "And I know I'm not anything special, so it's not my fault." She continued miserably, watching her shoes as they walked.
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You—"
"Sakura-chan!"
They both looked over their shoulder to see Naruto headed in their direction, attention focused entirely on Sakura. Sasuke stepped aside as the boy reached them, addressing the girl alone.
"Hey!" The blonde grinned at Sakura. "Why don't we eat lunch together?"
Sakura made a face. She disliked Naruto almost as much as Sasuke did. "Why would I want to do that?" She demanded, rudely.
Naruto looked a little disheartened, but didn't give up. "I thought we could… since we're on the same team, and all, you know?"
"No thanks." She turned to Sasuke. "Let's go, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke gave Naruto a look of distaste before moving to follow her.
"I mean, Sasuke can come too I guess." Naruto hurried to keep up with them. "You guys are friends, right?"
"Will you quit annoying us?" Sakura demanded, turning on her heel and glaring at the blonde. "Just because we're on the same team now doesn't mean we want to be friends with you!"
They left him behind at that. Sakura's ranting continued as soon as they were out of earshot. "Honestly, can't he tell when people don't want to hang out with him?" She demanded. "It's like no one ever taught him manners. I guess that's what happens when you have no pa—" she stopped herself dead in the middle of her sentence, but Sasuke knew exactly what she was going to say.
When you have no parents.
They stopped walking, and Sakura was suddenly anxious. "Sasuke-kun… I'm sorry, I—"
"You have no idea what it's like." He avoided looking at her. His voice was dangerously soft. "The loneliness that comes from—it's like nothing you've ever experienced. You always complain about your parents making you do chores, or your homework, but you…" he couldn't finish. It was something that really irked him about her; always had been. Her parents were good to her. Probably better than his father had been to him. They loved her and sheltered her and she took them for granted.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it! I—!" She grabbed his sleeve.
He jerked away from her touch, finally looking at her with a glare so dark it froze the words in her mouth. "You are so fucking annoying." He snarled. She jerked away as if burned, blinking tears away. He refused to feel guilt that he'd made her cry. Without looking back, he leapt into the trees. He ignored her calling after him as he sped away. He couldn't be around her now. He needed to hit something.
"Sasuke-kun!" She called after him, though she didn't pursue him into the foliage. "Sasuke-kun, wait!"
He was still angry when the lunch block ended, and they trekked back inside to be introduced to their jōnin instructors. Sakura seemed to sense the dark aura around him; she sat as far away as possible on their three-person bench, as close as she could get to Naruto without touching him. The blonde seemed confused by this at first, but Sasuke caught him looking between the two of them; Sakura was peeking at him through her hair out of the corner of her eye, face miserable. It was obvious that they'd had a fight.
The other teams were handed off to their jōnin senseis with minimal fuss. When the last one had left the room, Sakura raised her hand. "Um, Iruka-sensei…? Where is our sensei?"
Iruka sighed. "He's probably running a little late." He said apologetically. "I have to go report to the Hokage. You three can wait here. He'll probably be along soon."
He left. The three of them spread out around the classroom. Awkwardness abounded. Sasuke radiated hostility; Sakura was anxious enough that she needed to pace. Naruto was simply impatient.
Within five minutes of being left alone in the classroom to wait for their jōnin sensei, Naruto was complaining, loudly, that he was late.
As five minutes became ten, and then thirty, and then two hours, Sasuke was getting ready to kill the stupid blonde. Sakura's voice was getting grating too, as she alternated between scolding Naruto and joining in on his complaining. Sasuke folded his hands and rested his chin on them with his eyes closed, willing their sensei to hurry up and appear already, before he set fire to them both.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Sakura demanded.
Sasuke looked up from where he was contemplating a scuff on the classroom floor, scowling as Naruto dragged a stool over and jammed a blackboard eraser into the top of the door. "Idiot." He sneered. "Do you really think he's going to fall for a stupid kid's trick like that? He's a jōnin."
"I'm just teaching him a lesson for making us wait!" Naruto declared, pointing dramatically at Sasuke. "I'll make him respect me, dattebayo!"
"You're just asking for trouble, Naruto…" Sakura planted her hands on her hips.
Sasuke's eye twitched. Was the kid serious? Sasuke had known Naruto their entire academy life, and the guy couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. There was nothing worth respecting about him, and he'd just opened his mouth to say so when he heard someone come to the door.
As the door opened, the three genin watched, almost in slow motion, as the eraser fell through the air and smacked against the jōnin's head. A cloud of dust erupted and settled on the man's silver hair as he eyed them, unimpressed. The eraser fell to the floor with a clatter.
Naruto laughed uproariously, rudely pointing at their sensei. His other hand slapped against his side as he tried to breathe.
Sakura stared, dumbfounded, looking torn between fear of repercussion and laughter herself.
Sasuke just stared at his new sensei, almost twitching in his disbelief. This was a jōnin?
The man stared Naruto down as his laughter died, single visible eye narrowed. He was clearly not amused.
"S-sorry, Sensei… we tried to stop him…" Sakura tried, inching toward Sasuke.
The man eyed her, then Sasuke. He stepped into the room and drew himself up to his full height. "As far as first impressions go," he said in a lazy drawl, "I hate all of you."
"Yeah, well, you were late!" Naruto argued.
The man shrugged. "Well, follow me." He turned on his heel and disappeared back into the corridor.
Naruto and Sakura scrambled to catch up, the latter looking back over her shoulder to check that Sasuke was following. He fell into step behind her as they followed their sensei through the Academy, wondering where he was taking them. After a few minutes of silence, they emerged onto the rooftop, blinking in the mid-afternoon sunlight.
"Well, take a seat." The man waved to the stairs that led to the garden beds. The three of them perched as instructed, and he leaned against the railing, watching them. "I suppose we should all start by introducing ourselves." He drawled.
"Introduce ourselves?" Sakura blinked at him. "What should we say?"
He shrugged. "Your name, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, hobbies… that sort of thing."
"Can you go first?" Naruto piped up. "We don't even know your name."
"Me?" His single visible eyebrow went up. "My name's Hatake Kakashi. I don't feel like telling you what I do and don't like. I've never really thought about my dreams. And, well… I have many hobbies."
"He only told us his name." Sakura complained at Naruto, who nodded, dissatisfied.
"Now, you guys." Kakashi gestured to Naruto. "You first."
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" He brightened in an instant, fiddling with his hitai-ate. "I like instant ramen, but I like the ramen Iruka-sensei buys me from Ichiraku's even better! I hate the three minutes you have to wait after pouring the hot water into the cup. My hobby is eating and comparing ramen! And my dream," he announced dramatically, "is to surpass the Hokage, and get everyone in the village to acknowledge my existence!"
Kakashi eyed him impassively before turning to Sakura. "Next."
"I'm Haruno Sakura!" She chirped. "I like… um…" she cast her eyes around, landing on Sasuke before sliding away. He pretended not to notice, even as he felt his cheeks warm ever so slightly. She made things weird when she did that. "Spending time with my friends. My hobbies are… reading, I guess? And my dream is…" her eyes landed on Sasuke again, "for everyone I care about to be happy."
"And your dislikes?" Kakashi gave no indication as to what he thought.
"Naruto." She answered with certainty, causing the boy in question to deflate with disappointment.
"And you?" Kakashi asked Sasuke.
He didn't raise his face from where his chin rested on his folded hands, elbows propped up on his knees. "Uchiha Sasuke. I hate a lot of things, and I like nothing in particular." He could practically feel Sakura's disappointment radiating off of her. "And I don't consider my ambition a dream, because I will make it come true. I will restore my clan… and kill a particular man."
Despite the warm, sunny day, the atmosphere seemed to drop a couple of degrees. Naruto was edging away from him, unease written all over his face. Sakura openly stared; he had never revealed these plans to anyone, not even to her. Not that anyone had ever asked; he'd never really gone out of his way to invite others to ask questions about his future.
Kakashi eyed him. Sasuke could feel his heavy scrutiny. Then, all of a sudden, he changed tracks. "Good! You're all very distinctive and interesting. We'll have our first mission tomorrow."
"Yeah?" Naruto perked up. "What kind of mission?"
"We'll do what we can with only four people;" Kakashi shrugged. "A survival exercise."
"A survival exercise?" Naruto repeated, confused.
"I thought it was meant to be a mission?" Sakura complained. "We've done plenty of exercises in the Academy!"
"This is no simple exercise." Kakashi dismissed her complaint.
"Then what kind of exercise is it?" Naruto asked.
Kakashi laughed. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him.
"What's so funny, Sensei?" Sakura demanded.
"If I tell you, you'll only be disappointed." Kakashi chuckled. Then, he stopped. With a completely flat voice, he told them, "Of the twenty-seven graduates, only nine will be recognized as genin. The remaining eighteen will be sent back to the Academy. So, this test is extremely difficult, with a sixty-six percent fail rate." They stared at him in disbelief, and he laughed at them again. "See? I told you you'd be disappointed!"
"That's not fair!" Naruto burst out. "We've already passed the graduation exams!"
"Those?" Kakashi shrugged. "They're only meant to select the ones with the potential to become genin. I'll be deciding whether you pass or fail. Bring your complete set of shinobi tools. We meet at training ground three at five tomorrow morning." He let them stew for a few moments, before he said, "Okay! You're dismissed. Oh… and you should probably skip breakfast. You'll throw up."
He disappeared into a puff of smoke, leaving them on the rooftop.
Sasuke would not fail. While Sakura and Naruto fretted about what kind of test it would be—"He said 'survival test', right? Maybe he's gonna knock us out and leave us in the woods to find our way back?" "Don't be stupid, Naruto, he wouldn't be allowed to do that."—he clenched his hands. This was just one more hurdle. One more test to see if he was any closer to being strong enough to kill Itachi. He would pass. Failure was not an option.
He became aware of the other two staring at him in concern. "What?" He snapped. He was still pissed at Sakura for her comment earlier.
Sakura smiled nervously. "Do… you want to walk home together?" She asked, a little hopeful.
"No." It was a stupid question. She lived in the middle of town; he lived to the east, near where the old Uchiha district was. They would both be going completely out of their way to walk the other home. And besides, he wanted to get some training in. Whatever Kakashi would have them do, he would be as prepared as possible.
"Oh, okay." Her face fell.
"I'll walk with you, Sakura-chan!" Naruto chirped, bright eyed and eager.
Sakura sniffed. "No thanks."
So yeah, canon-heavy this chapter. Next chapter not so much, I promise!