Of all the chores that Sasuke had ever done to help his brother out, going to the market had to be one of the best. For one, the market was huge and interesting. Running through one of the biggest streets in Konoha, it was a strict pedestrian only zone during daylight hours: no carts, horses or rickshaws, not even wheel barrows were allowed. It meant that the entire street was always packed with people going about their daily shopping. The market was the number one place to shop for fresh food in Konoha, there wasn't much point going anywhere else when such a variety was on display at competitive prices at the market. Of course, packaged and preserved food was much better shopped for elsewhere, the market stalls didn't really have the facilities to store things like frozen food.

Sasuke liked the market for it's simultaneous sense of anonymity and familiarity. He could disappear into the crowd, if he so wished. But if he wanted to be welcomed like an old friend, all he had to do was visit one of the stalls that he had frequented since before he could remember. He used to go shopping with his mother all the time here. The greengrocer that his mother liked best always used to give him a tomato to eat on the way home when they were in season. Even after it, the stall owners his mother introduced him to were always nice. They treated him the same as ever, as if they sensed he was getting tired of other people's pity. They were sorry for his loss, not because they would miss the powerful ninja of the Uchiha clan like the rest of the village, but because they had called his mother a friend.

Today, however, Sasuke wished for anonymity. He was sick of trying to be friendly, seeing as it never seemed to get him anywhere. So when he glanced down at his brother's list and saw the collection of different vegetables that he was supposed to pick up, he did not turn west when he hit the market street, heading towards his familiar greengrocer, but east, to find a stall where no one would know him from a bar of soap, where he could shop in peace. Sasuke did not pick the first vegetable stall that he saw either. Picking the first one would only shorten the time that it took to complete this errand, and he didn't really want to head back to the house yet. He decided to push on down the street for as long as he dared to find the contents of his list. As long as he made it back just before four things would work out.

Eventually though, Sasuke did actually have to stop and actually buy the things on his list. He picked a stall at random that looked as if it had pretty decent produce and dove right in, picking out the things his brother needed and trying to catch the attention of the stall owner so that he could barter the price. Sasuke had grown fond of bartering: if he was lucky, he could manage to get the stall owner to throw in a couple of tomatoes for free as part of a deal. Usually it was pretty easy to catch a stall keeper's attention. They all liked it when a customer wanted to barter, it gave them an opportunity to get a better deal for themselves, or they saw it as an opportunity to gain a loyal customer who would come back again. But today, Sasuke just couldn't shift this particular stall keeper's attention. He was too focussed on a heated looking argument with another customer that Sasuke couldn't quite see due to a crate of melons blocking his view. He was about to give up and go to a stall where he could barter when he caught a snippet of the angry conversation.

"...but why, that guy-"

"That man was one of my loyal customers, of course I would not give the same price to the likes of you!"

"I get that, but why do I have to pay so much more than everyone else? You never know, I could become one of your loyal customers too!"

"As if I would let you shop here on a regular basis, brat!" The man scoffed. "Just pay the price I gave you. You won't get a better one around here, that's for sure."

"Can't you just give me a chance? I swear, I'm not gonna cause any trouble or anything!"

"Take it or leave it, brat." The man snarled. "If you don't want the cabbage, just leave. If people see you here I'm going to lose customers."

Sasuke fumed, backing away from the basket of leeks that he was examining with a scowl blooming across his face. He'd never heard a stall keeper being so rude in his entire life! It was like the stupid man was trying to drive away the poor customer that was trying to reason with him. It went against every business sense that Sasuke knew of. He whirled away from the leeks and marched around the crate of melons, ready to give the stall keeper a piece of his mind and rescue the poor sod that had tried to barter with the one keeper that had a pine cone up his butt.

The words died on his tongue as he swept around the corner to come face to face with a very crestfallen... Naruto. The boy in the orange T-shirt was already turning away from the stall, a tiny cabbage in his hands and the stall keeper standing behind him with a massive smirk on his oily face.

"Naruto?!"

The boy's eyes snapped up in shock to stare at him. "Sasuke?!"

"What are you doing?" Sasuke wanted to know. It certainly looked like the stupid boy had bought the cabbage from the appallingly rude stall keeper. Sasuke knew that the dead last wasn't the sharpest kunai in the pouch, but this was ridiculous!

Naruto shifted uncomfortably, and his eyes flickered down to the pathetic excuse for a cabbage he had cradled in his arms and away. He refused to look at Sasuke again. "Just shopping." He said sullenly. He hissed the words a little, like he resented Sasuke's sudden appearance.

"Hnn." Sasuke snorted. "Well... as usual dead last, you suck at it." Sasuke snatched the cabbage out of Naruto's hands and marched straight back to the stall keeper. He shoved the cabbage into the man's surprised hands and gave him his best Uchiha scowl. "He'll have his money back, please." He said shortly.

Sasuke could hear Naruto choking in shock behind him, but didn't look back. He focussed on staring down the startled stall owner, a barely contained rage burning behind his eyes. Sasuke was a little tempted to activate his sharingan, just to freak the man out a little more, but then he realised that doing so was probably a little overkill for the situation at hand: the man had just been rude and overcharged a classmate, he hadn't tried to murder him.

The man frowned at him, like Sasuke was the one in the wrong, but nevertheless grudgingly ferreted around in the money pouch by his side and extracted a few coins. He tossed them at Sasuke with a glower, then rudely turned his back on them: a clear dismissal.

Sasuke clenched the coins in his fist and tried to ignore the bad taste in his mouth as he turned back to Naruto. The boy was staring at him in a mixture of shock and dismay, mouth hanging open like an imbecile. Sasuke sighed, walked over to him and pressed the coins into his limp hand. For a moment he was afraid the other boy was too far gone to keep hold of the coins, but his fist quickly closed around them as he continued to look at Sasuke like he had rolled up to him and offered him a ride in his solid gold chariot pulled by unicorns rather than just standing up to a rude man in a market place.

"What?" Sasuke said irritably, raising an eyebrow at Naruto.

Naruto shook his head, as if trying to shake away his disbelief. "Why did you do that?" He asked, eyes wide.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "That guy was rude." he said shortly. "A guy like that shouldn't have any customers, so I got your money back for you."

Naruto bit his lip. "But I really needed that cabbage!" He whined, not sounding thankful for the help at all. Typical.

Sasuke suppressed the urge to hit him. "That isn't the only stall that sells cabbages, you know." He pointed out. "We can go somewhere else."

Naruto looked at him for a long moment. "...we?" He repeated dumbly.

"Of course!" Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Do you think I'm going to let you go off on your own now? You've already proven utterly useless at bartering. Someone needs to make sure you're not cheated out of everything you own."

Now Naruto was looking at him like he had just told him that he was giving him the gold chariot and unicorns free as a spontaneous gift. Really, what was wrong with this guy?

However Naruto's look of joy changed quickly changed to a wary one. "Okay...If you want to... I guess..." He looked up and down the street, then sighed. "But you probably shouldn't."

"Why?" Sasuke frowned. He thought that Naruto would be pleased with this arrangement, shopping with company was always more enjoyable than shopping alone. Even Sasuke, the grumpy Uchiha, knew that.

"Because if I'm with you, the stall keepers are probably going to refuse you service too." Naruto replied miserably. "It took me half an hour to find that guy who was willing to sell me the cabbage." He scuffed his sandal over the pounded dirt of the street. "I think I'll just give up for today: I have plenty of instant ramen at home anyway." He grinned. "Instant ramen is way better than stupid cabbage anyway!"

Sasuke felt his mouth drop open as a horror filled realisation dawned on him. He had grossly misunderstood something here. For some reason, Naruto wasn't welcome at the market. Why, Sasuke had no idea. Sure the boy was a prankster, but he'd never heard of stall keepers barring anyone service before. Sasuke felt horrible. Naruto had been trying half an hour to buy a single measly cabbage, and was just about to succeed when Sasuke had swooped in and 'rescued' (screwed things up for) him. His gut churned with shame. Why did he always have to screw these things up?!

Naruto just grinned at him, and casually tucked his hands behind his head. "Thanks for telling off that stall keeper though!" He said cheerfully. "That was seriously cool. No one's ever done that for me before!" Naruto nodded at Sasuke. "See ya at school tomorrow then-"

Sasuke reached out and grabbed the back of his T-shirt before Naruto could slip away. He wasn't sure why he did it, but he did. It probably had something to do with the bubbling sense of guilt that had welled up inside him.

"Wait." Sasuke said. "Don't give up yet, stupid. Come with me." He tugged Naruto until the confused boy was walking west down the market street in step with him.

"...don't call me stupid..." Was his only muttered response.

The two walked down the street in awkward silence, neither knowing quite what to say to the other. Sasuke was kicking himself for calling Naruto stupid. He hadn't meant to, it had just kind of slipped out. He was beginning to see exactly why he was so bad at this whole friend-making thing. Naruto was making him nervous. He was trailing along just behind him, silent for once in his life. Sasuke wasn't quite sure how to cope with a quiet Naruto. It was like trying to cope with a green sky or a stupid Itachi. Anxiously, he wondered if he had somehow irrevocably hurt Naruto's feelings by calling him stupid. It wasn't as if he hadn't called him stupid before... was he just being paranoid? Or was this just one time too many?

Finally, they arrived at the stall that Sasuke had been gunning for. He forced a smile on his face, nodded at Naruto encouragingly and boldly walked up to the brightly painted stall stacked high with crates of vegetables of every kind.

"Hello Auntie Marika!" Sasuke called out to the plump woman tending to a stack of carrots. She turned around at the sound of his voice, beaming from ear to ear.

"Sasuke!" She called out in delight. "Shopping for your brother again?"

"Yup." Sasuke always found himself slipping into childishly cheerful speech patterns whenever he came here. He still wasn't sure whether he found it annoying or comforting.

Suddenly Marika jerked, like something invisible had slapped her across the face. Her eyes widened, and she stared blankly over Sasuke's shoulder like she wasn't quite sure what to do next: run or hide. Sasuke did his best to keep his smile on his face, though he was slightly unnerved by this flinching behaviour: he'd never seen Marika act like that before.

"This is my friend Naruto." Sasuke said calmly, gesturing behind him. Naruto had hung back when they got to the stall. He too, looked like he didn't know whether to run or hide. "I told him that I shop here 'cause you always have the best stuff."

"Oh." Marika said timidly. Carefully, she straightened herself out, took a deep breath and shot a hesitant smile at the boy behind him. "Hello there, dear. Are you shopping today as well?"

Naruto stared at her in shock. He'd crept up closer to Sasuke until he was almost clutching at the back of his shirt. Sasuke looked behind him to raise an eyebrow at the startled boy, and Naruto flushed red. He turned to Marika and bobbed his head in a bow. "Hello." He said politely. "Yes, I am. Sasuke ran into me further up the street." He gulped nervously, and not for the first time in the last fifteen minutes or so, Sasuke wondered why Naruto seemingly walked on eggshells around shopkeepers. Shouldn't it be the other way round? What happened to 'the customer is always right'?

"How nice." Marika smiled a bit wider. Whatever hesitations she seemingly had about Naruto, his polite greeting had certainly done something to calm her nerves. "What can I get you boys?"

Sasuke handed over the list that Itachi gave him. It was far easier to just let Marika collect the things he wanted rather than hunting all over her stall for the various bits and pieces. Marika took the list and eagerly started bagging things up for him, chatting about her small grandson as she did so. Sasuke smiled and nodded, asking polite questions when needed. Naruto just stuck to Sasuke like a limpet, silent and unsure.

"So how is your work at the Academy going Sasuke?" Marika asked as she moved to weigh out the peas that Itachi wanted. "Still top of the class?"

"Of course." Sasuke said smugly. "How could I not? Nii-san's been helping me train."

"Oh, of course, of course. I think it's lovely that your brother has been spending more time with you recently. I kept telling Mikoto: Itachi's too young to be working all the time. It's nice that he's settled back down into regular jonin services."Marika brushed the peas into a bag and twisted it shut, placing in in a bag with Sasuke's other purchases. "And what about you dear?" She smiled encouragingly at Naruto. "You go to the Academy with Sasuke right? How's your school work going?"

Naruto, taken aback at suddenly being addressed, looked frantically to Sasuke for help. Sasuke wondered how he could act so confident and loud at school, yet completely crumble in this relatively minor social interaction. Feeling merciful, he threw the poor boy a rope. "Naruto's in my class." Sasuke said. "But he's dead last."

Naruto scowled at him. "I'm not gonna be the dead last forever!" he retorted. "I'll get better, just watch!"

"I suppose you are okay at taijutsu, at least." Sasuke admitted, turning back to Marika. "He beat one of the Nara clan kids in a spar last week."

Naruto turned bright red. "That... That wasn't really anything." He said lamely, for once in his life he wasn't jumping at the chance to brag about his jumped up feeling of greatness. Sasuke wondered what was wrong with him. "You know Shikamaru, Sasuke, he's really lazy. He just wanted to get the spar over with so that he could sit down."

Sasuke shrugged. "Yeah, but most of the time Shikamaru does that by skipping class or by going for a quick knockout. Last time you sparred, he gave up because he saw that he wasn't going to be able to win against you quickly 'cause everyone knows that you have freakish stamina. So he gave up rather than commit to an extended fight."

Naruto frowned at him, still not convinced, but Marika was the one that spoke up next. "Besides, a win is a win dear," She winked at him. "If the Nara boy was fool enough to give up, then I'd just run with it. Using determination and stamina to force an opponent to surrender can be a good fighting strategy in its own right. You did well to use them to your advantage."

"Auntie Marika was a Jonin before she gave it all up to run the stall with her husband." Sasuke told Naruto. "So she knows what she's talking about."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Thank you!" He gushed, his usual grin spreading across his face. Sasuke could feel the boy's walls slowly falling.

Marika waved a hand at him. "Don't mention it." She said. "It's every ninja's duty to give out a bit of advice every now and then to the younger generation. But I wouldn't take my words as gospel, It's been quite a while since this old lady has been in a proper fight!" She cackled heartily and handed the bag full of Sasuke's vegetables over to him. "Now, what can I get for you... Naruto..."

Sasuke and Marika looked at Naruto as he squirmed under their questioning stares. "Uh..."

Sasuke sighed. "You don't have any clue, do you?"

"Hey! I... I... sorta... no. Not really." Naruto deflated under their looks. "I wasn't really sure if anyone was going to sell me anything. So I just figured I'd come and see what I could get."

"Where do you usually get your vegetables if you don't get them here?" Sasuke wanted to know. "Just get what you get when you shop there."

Naruto's cheeks flamed up again. "I... I don't really shop many places..." He admitted quietly. "The convenience stores let me come in and get stuff as long as I'm quiet... but they don't really have vegetables..." his eyes roamed over the overwhelming choice of greens in front of him.

Marika just stared at him. "But... how do you eat your vegetables then, if you never buy any?" There was an edge of horror in her voice, and Sasuke was starting to feel a similar feeling.

Naruto shrugged. "Sometimes I eat ramen with vegetables in it."

Sasuke and Marika just stared at him for a long, long moment. Then they looked at each other. Then they looked back at Naruto.

"No wonder you're so thin!" Marika said mournfully.

"How have you lived to be eight idiot?" Sasuke shook his head. "It's amazing you haven't dropped dead. Haven't you ever heard of scurvy?"

"What's that?" Naruto asked innocently. "Is that a vegetable?" he frowned. "What's it taste like?"

Sasuke was starting to despair for the universe. He wanted to go stick his head through a wall, but there wasn't one nearby. Instead he just covered his face with one hand and slowly shook his head. Meanwhile, Marika was hastily explaining that scurvy was a sickness that people got when they didn't eat enough fruits and vegetables.

"Oh." Naruto exclaimed. "That's okay. I don't get sick."

"Everyone gets sick now and then Idiot." Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Especially if they never eat any vegetables."

"Well, I don't." Naruto sniffed. "Besides, I'm trying aren't I? The old man said I should eat vegetables, so I came down here to see if I could get any."

"Your grandpa gives wise advice." Marika said with a nod. "You should do as he says and eat more vegetables."

Naruto looked at her in confusion, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. "Anyway, so I came down to the market to see what I could get. I figured I'd learn how to cook it once I got it. I have a cookbook the old man gave me somewhere."

Sasuke shook his head. "I can't believe you came here with that sort of flimsy plan." he muttered.

Marika ignored Sasuke and turned her attention fully on Naruto. "So, seeing as you've never really cooked anything like vegetables before, you'll probably want something that's relatively easy to cook up." She turned to survey her stall with an experienced eye.

Sasuke and Naruto watched her with interest as she picked up various things, then put them down, thinking all the while to herself.

"Well..." She finally turned around. "There's always stir-fry, it's pretty easy to cook, and you can put pretty much anything in it." She plucked a pad from beside one of the crates and started jotting things down. "We'll start you off with some carrots, some beans... ooh, and you can't go wrong with a bit of cabbage." She plucked the vegetables out of their crates and gently put them in a plastic bag, which she handed over to Naruto. She then ripped the top page off her pad and pressed it into Naruto's hand with a smile. "I've written down the instructions on how to prepare the vegetables and how to cook them together in a stir-fry. You might need to pick up another couple of things, but you should be able to get them at a convenience store." She smiled down at Naruto, who looked overwhelmed with the kindness that Marika was giving him.

Sasuke couldn't help but smile too. Marika looked like she was completely over whatever misplaced suspicion she'd had of Naruto. He was glad that he'd thought to bring Naruto over to her, there was no way that someone who had been such good friends with his mother would have acted the same way towards him as the rest of the stall keepers seemed to.

"Now, Sasuke dear, your total comes to 158ryo, Naruto, yours is 45ryo." She grinned at Sasuke. "And don't try to argue me any lower Sasuke, you know I'm already giving you boys my special price."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and handed over the money. "I'm not smart enought to bargain with you auntie." He said wickedly. "You'll cheat me out of everything!"

Naruto just stared at her and dumbly turned over his money as well. He stammered his thanks, and Marika told him firmly to come back to her stall next time he needed vegetables.

"Just ask Sasuke to bring you back if you can't find me." She said cheerfully. "This market can be a bit of a labyrinth sometimes!"

Sasuke promised that he'd bring Naruto back with a grin. Somehow he thought it would be fun to drag Naruto back here to watch Marika nag him about eating more greens; it certainly beat her nagging him.

Naruto saved his frown for when they had bid Marika goodbye and were walking away down the market street together again.

"What?" Sasuke asked.

"She was... nice..." Naruto said slowly. He was looking down at the change that Marika had given him when he had paid in wonder. Sasuke couldn't help but notice that the entire bag of vegetables that Naruto had bought off Marika cost only a little bit more than that runty cabbage that he had almost bought off the other stall keeper.

"You sound like you've never met anyone nice before." Sasuke joked. "Don't worry, the whole world isn't like that nasty stall keeper from earlier."

"Of course I've met nice people!" Naruto said forcefully. "The old man is really nice!"

"I didn't know you had a grandpa." Sasuke said, suddenly interested in Naruto for the first time. From the small bits of knowledge that most people had picked up just from hanging out with him all the time at school, he knew that Naruto was an orphan, but he didn't really know much else. He hadn't really cared before now. Now that he thought about it carefully though, it would make sense that even if Naruto didn't have parents, he had to have a grandparent of an aunt or something, after all, who looked after him otherwise?

Naruto made a face at Sasuke's statement. "The old man isn't my real grandpa." Naruto said. "He checks up on me, and he found me my apartment when I left the orphanage, so he lets me call him that."

"Oh." Sasuke trailed off. So it was true: Naruto really was totally alone in the world. Sasuke wondered for a moment how that would feel. If Itachi hadn't saved all the others, and if somehow he was left alive, the last Uchiha...

"-so he tells the chunin off whenever they forget to tell him that I dropped by to see him, and he tells me off for trying to sneak past the chunin guards all the time, but it's all fun and games, you know. I think they secretly like it." Oh. Naruto was still talking. Sasuke frantically tried to tune back into what the other boy was saying. "The old man tells me that I shouldn't prank the guards, because they're just doing their job protecting him and all, but it's really tempting, you know-"

"Wait." Sasuke cut him off. "Your 'old man' has guards?" He blinked at Naruto in confusion. What kind of guardian did Naruto have? Some sort of clan big shot? What if it was a yakuza boss or something? He'd heard yakuza sometimes hired ninja as guards.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Duh, Sasuke. Of course he has guards! He's the Hokage after all!" Then Naruto carried on walking normally as if it was everyday that people had the Hokage as their legal guardians.

Sasuke just stared at him for a while. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something about it, but then he shut it again. For once, Sasuke just felt like going with the flow. So Naruto called the Hokage, the most powerful man in the village, one of the most powerful men in the world, 'the old man'. Huh, that's okay. No big deal. Sasuke just shook his head and moved on.

Sasuke walked with Naruto for quite a way even after they left the market street. To his surprise, Naruto was actually quite fun to talk to. He nattered away at top speed about anything and everything, and he didn't actually require Sasuke to say much at all, which suited him just fine. He actually managed to learn a thing or two from Naruto's stories. Like, for example, the fact that the Hokage had a soft spot for chocolate fudge. Naruto often bribed him with it to get out of trouble.

Eventually though, they reached the spot where they had to part. Naruto's apartment was in the denser, cheaper part of Konoha, while Sasuke's place was nearer a lot of the lesser used training grounds in a firmly middle class section of the village. Naruto hesitated just as he turned to leave, biting his lip and staring at Sasuke thoughtfully, like he wanted to say something.

"What?" Sasuke asked.

"Uh... earlier..." He trailed off. "When you said to Marika-san that I..." He bit his lip again. "... You told her that I was your... your friend..." Naruto was looking firmly at the dirt between his sandals.

Sasuke blinked. Did I say that? All of the colour drained out of his face as he realised that he did. Right when they'd arrived at the stall, Sasuke had pointed to Naruto and introduced him as: '...my friend Naruto...'. Sasuke felt a little ill, and he found himself staring at the ground too. "Uh... sorry..." he muttered. "I didn't mean to just assume..." He trailed off, feeling stupid. He'd had such a good time talking with (and mercilessly teasing) Naruto that he'd utterly forgotten what an absolute klutz he was at social interactions and friend-making. "...I mean... It was rude of me to just introduce you to other people as my friend, when you don't want to be, but..."

"What makes you think I don't want to be?" The quiet voice that interrupted him sounded absolutely nothing like Naruto.

Sasuke looked up in shock to see Naruto standing straight in front of him, bright blue eyes staring evenly at him. There was something in his expression. It was something different than Sasuke had ever really seen in Naruto before. It was a mixture of honesty, nervousness and hope. From the churning in his own gut, Sasuke knew his face was probably displaying the same sort of emotions.

"What makes you think I don't want to be your friend?" Naruto repeated seriously.

It took a while before Sasuke could form a coherent thought. Maybe it wasn't a quiet Naruto that was the most unnatural thing in the world, serious Naruto was far freakier. That was weirdness on par with humans breathing water, not air, or a cheerful Itachi that cracked bad jokes all the time.

"I... I didn't think you'd want to be... because no one else does..." Sasuke said.

"But..." Naruto frowned at him. "But you're the most popular guy in our class! You could have tons of friends if you wanted to!"

"You really don't know anything, do you?" Sasuke huffed. "I tried to make friends. It just didn't work. Either they annoyed me, or they thought I was stuck up... or scary..." He thought about the boy that he broke the nose of three weeks ago. The boy still flinched if he came close to him. "I've tried everything. I couldn't figure it out. Then I realised that the only reason that they all like me is that they think I'm cool and aloof – mysterious, you know. They don't actually want to be friends with me, they just want to admire how good I am at stuff."

Naruto's serious face disappeared in an instant to be replaced an unimpressed smirk. "Tough at the top, is it?" he asked smugly.

"Oh shut up Dead Last!" Sasuke snapped back.

Then the two boys grinned. Somehow the sly jabs and insults that they'd always flung around like water at each other didn't feel much like insults anymore. Sasuke wondered what that meant. Had something changed?

Naruto stuck his hands in his pockets, plastic bag of vegetables swinging on his wrist as he hummed a cheerful tune. Serious Naruto was gone, thank goodness, and crazy, wild Naruto was back. Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief. A crazy and wild Naruto was something he could deal with.

"So... see you at school tomorrow Sasuke?" Naruto asked casually, turning around to start the walk back to his apartment.

Sasuke grinned. "Yeah, see you tomorrow Naruto." he made to turn around too as Naruto started to walk away, then he thought of something. "Hey!"

Naruto turned back to frown at him. He was already halfway up the street.

"You'd better cook that stir-fry of Marika's tonight!" Sasuke yelled out to him. "'cause you need to bring the leftovers for lunch tomorrow as proof that you actually ate the vegetables!"

Naruto's grin spread wider than Sasuke thought was possible and he stuck his tongue out in reply. Sasuke poked his tongue out back, basking in the small moment of childishness. Then he turned and started walking down the street towards his home, an unknown, but surprisingly warm, feeling growing in his chest.

A/N:

So here we are, the next chapter! Finally we get to see Sasuke making some progress in his little friend-making mission. I know you guys probably guessed that Naruto would be the one that Sasuke ended up friends with in the end. I hope that Naruto didn't end up acting too out of character in this. I tried to write him as his cheerful, somewhat stupid self, but I've never really been that good at writing those kinds of characters. I've also tried to take into consideration the fact that Naruto and Sasuke are still only eight years old. Just like the fact that Sasuke's personality is a little different because the massacre turned out very differently, I'd like to think that Naruto would be a little different even at this stage in the AU. Though it may be a very small thing, in the manga I noticed that Naruto's friendship/rivalry with Sasuke really started in the first spar that the two had after the massacre (that's when I'm assuming it took place). Before that spar, Naruto viewed Sasuke as someone cool: someone that he would have liked to be friends with. After the spar, Naruto realised that Sasuke was fixated on something else far beyond him in hatred, and decided that he was going to be rivals with him rather than friends due to seeing that Sasuke would never give him the time of day. Sasuke's trauma affected Naruto's behaviour towards him, and most likely spurred Naruto into becoming a little more obnoxious too. Since that spar never happened like that in this story, Naruto and Sasuke aren't as antagonistic towards each other, and Naruto is still holding onto the hope that he could make a friend, rather than throwing all of that to the wind in order to get attention through pranks and misbehaviour. That's just my theory anyway, the chapter I'm talking about in the manga is 538, if you're interested.