greetings, mortal beings. I'm back! i had writers block,followed by shit, and i nmay not upload for a while after this... oh well.

After Sakura left, I fell back on my bed and thought about my other teammate, my best friend, my crush. So he had eventually realised that the Hyuuga girl had liked him, huh? I wondered if I could have had him if I hadn't left. Then I dismissed that idea. I did not regret what I had done. Best not to think of what might have been, then. I groaned and turned on my side. That idiot would be here pretty soon, if I remembered correctly.

Sure enough, there was a rush of air when the window opened and Naruto stepped into my room. Grinning at me, he came and sat next to me, asking, "Hey, what did you and Sakura-chan talk about? Anything interesting?" I looked at him and then said, "Hn."

His grin just got wider. "So she told you all the latest gossip, huh?" I blushed slightly at that, feeling embarrassed that I had been caught and shocked that he figured that out from one grunt.

"No, I'm not psychic, and I may be good at understanding grunt language, but honestly I know Sakura-chan, she talks a lot so…" he trailed of, shrugging. I felt my lips twitch at that statement, and was unable to resist retorting, "Your one to talk, Dobe." He glared and shouted his usual response of "Don't call me that, teme!" effectively breaking the ice.

We spent a while talking about everything that had happened. I was surprised to realize that in my absence, Naruto had become smarter. Not by much, true, but it was possible to hold a sensible conversation with him. He was a sage now, and a fuuinjutsu master. That had to have improved his brain cell count. He of course, knew everything about me, due to my status as missing nin, but it was fun to share stories of training (in his case) and psychotic fangirls (in my case, but he sympathised).

Before leaving, he decided that the next day he would reintroduce me to society; aka, the rest of the Konoha twelve plus my replacement in Team 7. Great. I'm jumping in joy. Note the sarcasm.

Of course, it's hard to resist my teammates – Naruto, because he seems to have some kind of special ability to convert everyone to his way of thinking and make everyone follow him, and Sakura because she's strong. And since it was Naruto, we met at Ichiraku's for ramen, where we were treated to the sight of Rock Lee playing knight in shining armour to the girl serving us – Ayame.

It was weird to be surrounded by people laughing, chatting and almost everyone had a girlfriend/boyfriend. The few that were currently alone were with people who were either on missions or were not in the group. This meant Shikamaru, who everyone knew was with that Sand konoichi was sitting next to his teammates, who were holding hands and snuggling up to each other. Not that he seemed to care. Actually, I was pretty sure he was sleeping. Nudging Sakura, I pointed at him discreetly. She smiled and nodded. Yup, he was fast asleep. Lazy dude.

Kiba and Shino were alone as well, because their girlfriends were on a mission (Hanabi) and not actually in the group (Hana). My eyes felt like they were going to pop out when I saw Hyuuga Neji kissing his teammate Tenten. Turning away quickly, I watched in morbid fascination as Naruto said something to Hinata which caused her to blush, and then said something else with a mischievous grin. The girl couldn't take the overload of blood to her head and fainted. Naruto caught her with practiced ease and held her up until she woke up. No one seemed to care, though Neji looked up from kissing Tenten to glare at Naruto.

"It happens a lot." Sakura said, smiling. That's why no one noticed. Konoha ninja were weird. Then again, I was a Konoha ninja…

It was actually like being transported back in time, I mused, watching Kiba and Naruto have an eating contest, and Ino and Sakura argue good-naturedly. Hinata was still a shy quiet girl, Shikamaru was still a lazy genius, Chouji still ate a lot, and Shino was still a creepy dude in weird stalkerish clothes…

And then I watched in complete surprise as a little kid with red eyes appeared and shook Shikamaru awake, shouting, "Shika-sensei! We have to go for missions! Come on!" Shikamaru rose and muttered something and then walked away, waving. I looked at Sakura, who was smiling. She turned and said, "That's Kurenai and Asuma's kid. When Asuma died, Shika swore to look after Kurenai and Sayuri. He even became a Jounin so that he would get her on his team." I nodded. So apparently Shikamaru had changed. I heard a voice firmly tell Naruto and Kiba to eat slowly or they would get a stomach ache. To my surprise, the voice which answered wasn't Naruto's but Kiba. "But I eat like this all the time! Why would anything happen to me now?" Naruto answered, "Idiot! She didn't mean from natural causes; she meant that if you ate like that in front of her, she would make sure you got a Stomach ache. Most probably by punching you." Wondering who the person who got away with threatening Kiba and Naruto was, I looked and almost had a heart attack when I saw Hinata nod at Kiba, whose face paled. Fine, so Hinata had changed as well. At least Shino was still the same- at that moment a beautiful girl who was recognisable as an Inuzuka by the marks on her cheeks walked up and I watched in shock as Shino left with her. That was probably Hana. Ok, so everyone had changed, becoming worthy Shinobi of the Leaf. I wasn't sure if I was the same Rookie of the Year I had been. Many looked like they could beat me easily – not that I would ever say that in front of anyone.

I sighed when I reached home. Tomorrow, I was to be evaluated to see if I was fit to be a ninja of the Leaf again. Fun. I sighed and gave in to sleep. Tomorrow would be (quoting Shikamaru) troublesome.

And there is the next chapter. Review please.