A Single Act of Kindness
Sunflowers and Swan Plants
Naruto didn't expect things to change.
He really didn't.
So when Sasuke walked into class the next day and he didn't even acknowledge him; he wasn't surprised.
There was no wave towards his way like Shikamaru greeted Choji every day. There were no words of "Good Morning" like Kiba said to Hinata when he passed her to his seat. There wasn't even a glance his way like how Ino and Sakura look at each other sometimes instead of saying hello.
Sasuke just ignored him.
Like everyone else did.
What else was new?
So Naruto didn't understand why his stomach twisted in a pain that had felt like hunger, but he wasn't really hungry since he had just eaten some ramen before coming to class.
He could go out and catch some fish for dinner, and maybe then he could fill the emptiness in his stomach.
Sasuke always loved taking walks.
It was something his mother always noticed about him that no one else did, not even Itachi. Sometimes when he would get frustrated, a little sad, or even a little hyper—Sasuke would take walks.
"How was your walk?" His mother would always ask him. He never told her he was going on walks, but she always knew.
He'd always tell her "fine" or "okay" but never elaborated on it.
Around his old home there was a path that led outside of the village, and although Sasuke didn't live near his old home, he did know how to get to the path once he left the entrance to the village. The guards never questioned him as he passed them on his way out.
They use too.
Once he left the village and turned to the right, he would just walk straight until he found a tree bark with an "X" craved into it. Once he found the "X" he knew to turn left and go straight until the saw another "X" in which he would turn to the right. Once he walked for about five minutes, he would find the guided path.
There were a lot of trails around Konoha that most people did not know about. Most of the Shinobis were able to jump from branch to branch and did not use the trails (Although Sasuke was not able walk up the trees just yet, but he had a feeling that the branches from the trees had their own unique Shinobi trail marks), and he had never seen a civilian on the trails before that circled the village either.
Sometimes he felt like the trails belonged just to him.
Until, he heard something.
Whistling.
Sasuke had not made it to the second "X" just yet, and knew that it was never safe to leave the trail. Luckily Sasuke didn't care about safety and ventured towards the noise. As he started walking the whistling got louder and louder, the voice sounded young, almost familiar. If he thought about it, he knew for certain he had heard this sound before.
The first thing he noticed was a bright blonde hair and that stopped Sasuke in his tracks.
It was Uzumaki.
Uzumaki's back was to him, and that allowed him to duck behind bush. Normally if Sasuke saw the boy he would just ignore him and walk the other way.
Something was making him stay.
Uzumaki was still whistling to himself, and he was doing something that Sasuke couldn't see because of the bush he was in. He glanced over to the side, seeing a small bald spot, big enough that he could see, but small enough that the boy shouldn't notice him.
Moving over to the side as quietly as he could, Sasuke was able to see what the Uzumaki was doing.
If someone had told him that the strange kid in class that no one spoke too, who was always loud and annoying, who just didn't know when to quit when it was so clear he was just an idiot who would most likely never make it in the Shinobi world… was a gardener….
He would literally laugh, out loud.
He watched as Uzumaki was watering plants. They looked like herbs, although Sasuke wasn't quite sure. All the plants looked like they were being taken care of, each herb was grouped in the their own section, there were about five different ones in total it seemed. Although the ground was unleveled around them, the boy had leveled out the section where his garden was, the soil looked turned over, slightly wet. The plants were bright in color, in a spot where direct sun light could hit.
He wasn't sure if Uzumaki knew it, but the boy did whistle a lot. At school, his melody sounded out of place, almost hopeful, when he was outside looking up at the Hokage Stone Faces. When he was in class reading an assignment, especially if it was something he didn't understand, his breath would turn into a sharp, tense whistle.
He didn't even realize there were more then one type of whistle until that moment; until Sasuke heard the way Uzumaki whistled to his plants.
It was a catchy, happy, a tune that seemed like it could turn into a song.
He watched at the blonde inspected his plants, very lightly touching them as he brought his face close to them. He couldn't tell if he was just looking at them or if he was smelling them too. The boy handled each plant with care, giving his full attention to each one.
The whistling stopped.
"There," Uzumaki had said out loud as he finished inspecting the last plant, "You all look big and grown! I did a fine job if I do say so myself. What do you guys think? Are you happy? Are you getting enough sun?"
He paused as if he was waiting for a response.
"That's what I thought, your Dad did a great job, I know you are suppose to be eaten now but I don't think I want to eat you. I just want to make sure you guys are being taken care of, but I know you can't live forever. Soon you'll go bad and you'll die anyway…" he paused, brining in a sharp breath that sounded like the whistle he would do in class, "Why did my Dad and Mom have to die?"
The plants gave no answer.
Sasuke knew he walked into something private then, something he wish he could walk away from, but if he made too much noise Uzumaki would notice him spying on him.
He had to admit, he never thought about why Uzumaki didn't have a family. He just assumed they died when the Nine Tails Fox attacked when they were babies. There were a lot of orphans because of that attack. Most kids though were being taken care of by an Orphanage or some kind of an adult.
Expect for Uzumaki.
And him.
Though, the Hokage did ask him if he wanted to go to an Orphanage. Sasuke said no, of course, he did not want to be reminded of his situation and be mixed up with a bunch of unwanted kids. Most of the kids in those places were civilians, not Clan Children, and did not have another option but to go to one of those places.
Sasuke didn't like to think about it, but things like finances would never be an issue for him. Since he was the last remaining survivor of whole Uchiha Clan, he was the sole beneficiary of everything they had.
There was so much money in fact that he was pretty sure he was the riches person in Konoha, maybe expect for the Hyuga Clan. So when the Hokage let him get the apartment in town, there was no argument to prove that he wouldn't be able to live alone. He would do just fine without any help. It was something Sasuke never talked about, but he knew that everyone else knew this fact about him as well.
So was Uzumaki the same as him then?
There were so many questions about the boy that Sasuke never thought to ask before.
Everyone just accepted Uzumaki was alone, and left it as that.
It was kind of strange.
Uzumaki stared down at the plants as if they were really talking to him, because suddenly the mood shifted in the air as the boy stood up and yelled out a cheerful goodbye to the plants and took off deep into the forest.
Sasuke waited until the boy was out of sight, before standing up and walked in the opposite direction.
It's easy to lose yourself.
Sasuke found the trail he use to walk, and although he knew the sites were beautiful around him; the hanging of the tree branches, the flowers along the trail, the way the trail dipped down a small hill and ended at a small lake. Sasuke walked along the water, ending back at the trail and back down along it. Although the sun was setting, casting a beautiful mix of colors in the sky, Sasuke didn't pay any attention to it. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings; he just lost himself in his walk.
Where is mind was, Sasuke didn't really know.
He just let one foot follow the other and he walked down the trail he memorized long ago.
He should have been paying attention.
"Sasuke?"
Looking up, his eyes caught onto a pair of blue eyes staring back at him.
Uzumaki.
Looking at the boy, the first thing he noticed how dirty he was. Some of it might have been from the gardening before, but the bottom of his pants were covered in mud. He was carrying a stick and tied to the end of it were a five dead fish.
In his other hand were herbs.
The ones from his garden.
He wasn't sure how to feel about it.
Instead of a greeting, he spent his time studying Uzumaki.
Uzumaki was shifting his feet, looking off to the side. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Sasuke was feeling the same way.
"Um," Uzumaki was not really looking at him, "Are you hungry again?"
Turning lightly away from the boy, Sasuke thought about what to say. He wanted to say no, he wanted to walk past Uzumaki and continue on his walk until he made it back to the entrance of the village. His plan was to go to the shop near his apartment and grab his dinner there.
His stomach growled, answering for him.
The blonde laughed, "Geez, don't you ever eat?"
"Shut up," Sasuke crossed his arms.
Uzumaki frowned at him, "If you're gonna be a jerk, just forget it."
Uzumaki turned to walk away.
He watched as the boy walked away from him. Sasuke allowed his mind to draw a blank once again, losing himself as he let his feet guide him to where they wanted to take him.
His feet were venturing off the trail.
They were following Uzumaki.
Sasuke never walked off the trail until today. He wasn't in an exploring mood the last few months, but he knew the boy he was following was the type to get them lost. He thought about that, remembering the scenery around them. The first turn they made away from the trail there was a bush of red berries. Walking down a short hill there was a kunai thrown against a tree, it was not a kunai from their village. Turning to the right, he noticed a broken tree branch that had recently fallen.
They kept walking, deep into the forest. Climbing over logs and dunking under tree branches. Sasuke was almost regretting walking this far into the forest without knowing where he was. He made sure to keep his eyes on Uzumaki, not losing him as they walked together in the forest.
They made it into a little clearing into the forest, it had looked someone had been there before. There was a fire pit in the center of the clearing with a log to sit on, there was make shift wooden shelf over the top of the pit to place a pot on top of. There was a pile of rocks, looking like a make shift shelter, and a small creek towards the back.
There was another garden to the side.
A garden filled with flowers.
Naruto placed the stick into the ground, letting the fish dangle from the stick attached to it. Walking over to the rocks, he moved one to the side, removing a pot and a small bottle of soap. He turned his head, watching as Sasuke walked into the clearing.
"Can you get the fire wood?" Uzumaki asked as he walked over to the creek and bent down with the pot and soap in his hand, "I gotta clean this."
"Sure," Sasuke responded, turning back into the forest.
Naruto was surprised to see Sasuke out there in the forest. When he came out here, he wasn't use to seeing other people.
That was the reason he came out here after all, to avoid their gazes.
He wasn't sure why he said Sasuke's name when he saw him walking on the trail. He never saw anyone use those old trails; he would always walk past them as he created his own paths. Naruto was always good with his memory, and once he found a spot he liked he never forgot how to get there. He never figured that someone like Sasuke would be taking a nature walk.
He didn't know why he asked if the guy was hungry, and after telling him to shut up he didn't know why he was even following him out to his favorite spot. This spot was the first time he meet Hokage-jiji here; it was special.
It was the first time he had ever eaten with anyone, to have a conversation while you ate was truly a remarkable thing.
He had hoped that the old man would come back here and join him again.
That's why he kept coming back.
To pass the time, Naruto started to plant some flowers to the side. He had never planted anything before, so when he was able to afford some seeds he went into the Yamanaka Flower Shop to buy a certain kind of flower and plant he read about before in a gardening book. He would have bought the book, because he wanted to read more about gardening, but he was only able to read a section of it before Ino's mom told him to leave to shop.
So he waited and made sure to buy the seeds when it was just Ino in there, which was only for ten minutes around noon while her mother went to eat. She had yelled at him while he was buying the seeds, telling him he was too dumb to take care of flowers and plants and that they would die under his care.
It was better to get picked on by a classmate then to pay while an adult was there.
Classmates didn't know to raise the prices on him.
So he just put up with it.
He let his mind wander on the adults of the village and their eyes, and he let his mind stay there. He didn't know why he thought about it as often as he did, but he couldn't help himself.
He just wanted to know why they hated him so much.
He heard footsteps walking into his campsite, almost forgetting that Sasuke was there. His classmate returned with an assortment of firewood, setting it down near the pit.
Naruto walked back towards the pit, placing the pot on top on his make shift shelf over the pit and bent down as he started to build the fire buy grabbing the sticks that Sasuke brought, "Can you prepare the fish while I make the fire?"
Sasuke looked down at him, then to the fish, before looking back down at him again. Naruto waited for him to answer, but after a few moments of Sasuke looking at him, he realized something. Tilting his head to the side, he asked, "Um, do you know how?"
Sasuke crossed his arms and looked away from him.
That answered that.
"Oh," Naruto didn't realize that preparing fish was something that people did not know how to do. Especially his classmates. They would have to find their own food on missions after all once they became Shinobi.
It was common knowledge to him.
It was kind of a strange feeling, knowing something that the great Sasuke didn't know how to do was something an idiot like him knew how to do.
He kind of wanted to make fun of Sasuke for it.
But he didn't, instead he asked, "Can you make the fire?"
He saw Sasuke's body tense at the question, trying to turn his head even further away from him.
Naruto wanted to fall over. He wanted to laugh at the Know-It-All who, in fact, did not know it all.
Instead he tried his best to smile kindly, "Can you fill up the pot with water?"
He noticed as Sasuke tried his best not to look at him as walked past him, grabbing the pot, and walked towards the creek.
Naruto placed all the firewood together into the pit; he walked over to the nearest tree, ripping a piece of bark from the tree. Bending down, he pulled a handful of dry grass from the ground. Walking back to the pit, he grabbed his notch that he always placed between the rocks from his pit. Piling the grass on top of the bark and under his firewood, Naruto took his notch and placed it between his palms, spinning the wood into the bark until it caught fire. Blowing onto the flames to make sure they do not go out, he placed the small flame into the pit and continued to blow until it caught fire.
He lifted his head, his eyes glancing behind him to see Sasuke watching him from behind. Sasuke turned away when he glanced up, offering him the pot.
Naruto rolled his eyes, not understanding what this guy problem was. If he wanted to learn how to do it he should just ask.
"You can put the pot down, I have to prepare the fish first," he paused, almost afraid to ask, "Do you know what mushrooms are—"
"If I knew you were going to ask me to do all this stuff I wouldn't have bothered to come," Sasuke snapped.
"Geez," Naruto sighed, "All you gotta say is that you don't know."
"Shut up."
"I don't get how you don't know this stuff," Naruto mumbled, "I thought you lived alone, you should know how to do this kind of stuff."
"I said shut up." Sasuke hissed, literally hissed at him.
"Fine, I'll shut up," Naruto stood up, "I'll go get the mushrooms."
Naruto walked away from the campsite and into the woods.
Once Uzumaki was away, Sasuke glanced down at the fire.
He could have used his Fireball Technique to create a fire, but although he technically knew how to make a fire, he only knew how to create the technique as an attack; he didn't have the control to make something small to catch a fire.
He never really thought about using that technique as anything but an attack.
It was embarrassing to admit.
He knew it was a bad idea to come here.
He didn't know why he felt embarrassed but he didn't like the idea of Uzumaki knowing how to do things that Sasuke didn't know how to do.
There was a painful reminder in his heart in knowing that Uzumaki had been alone a lot longer then he had been.
He always had a mother to make his meals for him.
Ever since she died, he had been buying all his food from the shop near his apartment. It never crossed his mind to make his own meals.
How did Uzumaki learn to do all this?
Turning away from the fire, Sasuke's eyes caught to the flowers off in the distance. Walking over to them, he bent down to look at the garden. Once he got closer he realized there was only one kind of flower and one kind of plant in the garden, a yellow round plant he had never seen before, and Sunflowers. He also noticed a few butterflies floating around, touching down and resting on the yellow round plant.
The garden here looked like the herb garden that Uzumaki was at before. The soil was worked and the ground around the garden was even and turned. It looked like it was in a good spot to get sun, he assumed, but the sun was almost gone and the sky was turning into night. He could see the bright yellow of the Sunflowers catching the reminding light into the sky.
Why did they always meet at sunset?
"No one knows it, but the weird-ball-looking plant is called Swan Plant, which I think is a weird name," Uzumaki said behind him. Sasuke turned his head to see the boy walking towards him with mushrooms in hand. The blonde bent down next to him, looking at the flowers, Sasuke turned to face him as Uzumaki talked, "Ino works in the flower shop and didn't even know the name of them," Naruto gave the garden a tender smile, "They are really weird looking, and that's what I like about them, but they have a very important job. They help the Sunflowers grow stronger. I read about it in a gardening book. I kind of think its kind of nice, knowing that the Sunflower will grow up and become stronger because of a weird-looking plant like Swan Plant. Plus, there are always butterflies around which is really cool."
Sasuke didn't know how to respond. Instead, he turned back to look at the Swan Plant.
Maybe… Sometimes… People need help to become strong.
"I'm gonna make dinner," Uzumaki said after a moment, "I'll let you know when its ready."
They ate in silence.
The fish was good, but a little bland. Same with the mushroom soup. Although Uzumaki knew how to cook, there wasn't any flavor like his mother's cooking. Sasuke couldn't complain though, for catching the fish and preparing them alone in the middle of the forest, it was better then he expected it to be.
Uzumaki caught five fish; he let him have three of them.
It was nice.
He only knew Uzumaki to the annoying kid in class who always wanted to pick a fight with him. When he wasn't yelling his head off saying he was better then him, he was pulling pranks around the village. Everyone seemed to think poorly of Uzumaki.
Did anyone see the Uzumaki in front of him now? The kind of kid who offered someone he hated a bigger portion of his dinner to them?
The more he thought about it, the stranger it was that he had no friends.
Why did that bother him?
"So," they were almost done with dinner and he hadn't really said a word to the blonde. Sasuke knew that it was rude to do, so he tried to think of something to say. Uzumaki's head shot up, eyes wide, almost eager for a conversation. Feeling the pressure to say something worthwhile, Sasuke looked down at the food they were eating, "How did you learn how to do this?"
"This?" Uzumaki asked, not understanding.
"This," Sasuke gestured towards the food they were eating.
"Cook?"
Sasuke wanted to roll his eyes at all the questions; instead, he shook his head confirming.
"I dunno," Uzumaki shrugged at the question, "I just… Figured it out."
"Figured it out?"
"Yeah. I mean…" Uzumaki looked away, his shoulders slumping slowly as he brought a hand to his stomach, as if he was clenching to something that hurt, "When you're hungry and have nothing to eat, you just… Figure it out I guess."
Sasuke didn't have a response to that.
They didn't stay long at the campsite after that. Uzumaki had cleaned up the area around them before they had left. Sasuke had felt like he was in the blonde's home, standing awkwardly waiting for him to be done, since he did not know the routine of running a campsite. Sasuke did put out the fire as Uzumaki washed the pot and put it back into his make shift shelter for the pot as he placed it inside with the soap.
Sasuke followed Uzumaki out of the campsite and back to the trail that they found each other on. They didn't talk during the remainder of the walk, and when it came time for them to part ways, Uzumaki gave him a wave goodbye.
Sasuke waved back.
And for a short while after their first meal, they would have meals in the campsite often together in the future. Conversation in time became easier as the Sunflowers and Swan Plants grew side by side one another, they started to grow together as well.
Yet, Sasuke was never able to find the herb garden again.
The next day at the Academy, Naruto didn't expect things to change.
He really didn't.
So when Sasuke walked into class and glanced over towards him and gave him a single nod as if he was telling him "hi," Naruto was surprised.
Sasuke never greeted anyone.
This was new.
He wanted to give Sasuke the biggest smile he could muster and say hello back. Yet, Naruto knew that Sasuke might not like that and didn't want to scare him off.
So instead Naruto gave Sasuke a single nod back, as if he was telling him "hi" as well.
Naruto didn't know what this feeling was in the pit of his stomach, but it felt like butterflies were dancing around inside of him. He felt like he was out of breath, but in a good way.
Is this what it felt like to have a friend?