Chapter 4- Best Friends Forever!...?

Today was originally a wonderful day. A day destined for great friendship and team bonding. Birds would sing and waves would crash loudly in the background just to celebrate this day! All would be in awe of Team 7 and say 'Look, there's the famous and strong Team 7 that completed a hundred mission in a week!'.

That is, in Sasuke's opinion. However, once this beautiful morning devolved into a not so beautiful afternoon, Sasuke was getting a little anxious. Just a little.

"Where is our sensei?" Sasuke asked his teammates after popping his head out of the room and returning in disappointment for the tenth time.

Silence answered.

Sasuke sighed softly and sulkingly plopped himself onto the desk so that he was directly facing his two teammates. After the adrenaline of the morning had worn out, he felt a bit tired. Oh no, don't misunderstand, Sasuke was not unhappy. He was definitely happy with his teammates. Very happy. With whomever his teammate was. Really.

Sakura had this vibrant pink colour hair that looked like cotton candy although he didn't really like to eat sweet things like his aniki. She didn't smile enough though.

Naruto was…..

Naruto was quiet and calm.

Sasuke was sure he would get along just fantastically with his new team mates ! It was just that he had stayed up all night, thinking of his future teammates and smiling happily to himself. However, as he sat right opposite them right now, he couldn't help but feel a bit put off. Like when he expected to have fresh tomatoes as a snack but was given leftover tomatoes from the night before. Or like he certainly remembered his aniki promising to train kunai throwing with him and a day later his aniki insisted that he only promised to teach him how to bandage himself. Or like when…

"This chalk…such a beautiful while colour."

Sasuke broke out of his raging train of thoughts and blinked at Naruto who was suddenly standing in front of the white board.

Finally excited for some long awaited team interaction, Sasuke immediately jumped to his feet and scrambled to stand next to the blond boy. "Naruto-chan?" Sasuke chirped in earnest while he looked at the white chalk held in Naruo's hand. "Isn't it just white?"

Naruto's forehead furrowed in concentration as he squinted at the white chalk. "Not just white…" he dreamily replied.

And continued to stare at the while chalk without blinking his eyes for a minute.

Sasuke was a little disappointed. Just a little.

His temporary excitement crashed down like a tomato thrown down from the Hokage mountain. Spattered in red and goo on the chalk-dust-filled-floor of the empty classroom they were instructed to wait in for their never-going-to-arrive-missing-piece-of-team-seven-sensei.

What was so interesting about chalk? Flecks of white dust fell slowly and landed on his sandals as Naruto rubbed the piece of boring chunk between his fingers. Chalk couldn't talk. Couldn't give hugs. Couldn't throw a kunai. All it did was make a mess out of everything.

Sasuke had changed at the crack of dawn into his nin-clothing made by his mother by hand and had spent an hour walking back and forth in his house, smoothing down his clothes and cleaning his sandals. He even used a tooth pick to pick out every single piece of dirt riddled in his soles! He wanted to make a good impression on his future teammates and sensei. And now, that boring, flaky white dust was slowly floating its way down to his sandals….

"Naruto-chan, why don't we draw on the chalk board? I know a ton of games we can play. Have you played kunai, senbon and scroll before? Here, let me teach you…" Sasuke said determinedly, but of course in a friendly way (!), as he reached for the chalk in his teammates' hand. To Sasuke's dismay, Naruto slapped his hands away and held the chalk protectively to his chest.

"No."

No? Sasuke was shocked.

No one said no to him. Ever.

Well, maybe his aniki sometimes. Alright frequently. He always says no when Sasuke wants to train or spend time with him. Of course, Sasuke still loves his aniki.

But wait. Why no? Naruto didn't want to play with him? Was it something he did? Something he said? Was it his clothes? His shock was short lived and was quicly replaced with determination. He will show Naruto how fun it will be to play with him!

"Naruto-chan! Just give me the chalk! It will be fun, trust me!"

"Get your hands off it teme!"

Sakura swung her legs back and forth while she sat on the desk watching the two boys in front of her getting into a scuffle over a piece of chalk. To anyone looking at her expression, she looked annoyed and a step away from snatching up the white chalk and stomping on it to end the issue. However, Sakura was in fact just feeling a bit amused.

Sasuke was basically towering over Naruto, one hand gripping the blond boy's shoulder down while his other hand earnestly pulled at Naruto's hand to grab the chalk while Naruto laid below him with his back against the floor, one hand holding his precious chalk out of the way while the other was fervently pushing against Sasuke's chest.

Why, this scene looked exactly like something out of those love soppy romance novels Ino liked to read. Sasuke's wide shinny eyes and increasingly growing smirk of anticipation coupled with Naruto's reddening face and obvious growing fear.

If only Sakura had a camera…

"Give it to me!"

"Never!"

Crack! There was a sound of an opening door. Sakura immediately turned her head to the entrance of the classroom and the next second, a whizzing small thing flew past and plonked itself straight into the forehead of the figure standing at the door. Sakura noticed that the man wore a green uniform. Must be their late sensei.

Sakura turned her head to look at the two boys. Both boys were staring in horror at the door, their bodies frozen in their last action. From what she could see, it would see that the sound of the opening door caught them both surprised, leading to Naruto momentarily lapse of concentration in which he lost hold of the chalk and with Sasuke's insistent pulling of his arm like a gardener pulling out a weed, the chalk flew through the air towards the direction of the door…

Yes, that was it. Sakura nodded to herself knowledgably and gave herself an invisible pat on the head.

"…My first impression? I hate you all." said the figure at the door tonelessly. He stepped forward and glanced at the still frozen entanglement of boy limbs on the floor. His quick glance at their horrified expression and the amount of chalk dust stuck to their clothes made him raise his eyebrow slightly.

"Aren't you two a little too young to engage in foreplay like that? Children these days.."

Sakura gave a subtle cough and winced in pain immediately afterwards.

This day couldn't possibly be worse for Naruto. If he had just failed the stupid test as planned, he probably would be off in some woods collecting leaves or up in some tree staring at clouds. Not sitting with some idiot on some cold, rough granite ground. And that idiot tried to take his chalk away from him. And what happened? All that was left of it was pieces spewed over a classroom floor. Naruto scrubbed the ground his foot repeatedly, pretending that some silly smiling face was right under it when suddenly, the very ground he was grinding caught his attention.

Granite ground? An idea suddenly came to his mind. He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small chunk of chalk. It was what remained of his precious chalk after it went kamikaze into the man's forehead. Naruto lifted it to his eye and squinted. It should be enough. He then lowered his head and proceeded to draw on the granite ground.

Stupid teme. Naruto thought vehemently to himself. What was the point of drawing squiggles on the white board and play games? That was not art and a waste of chalk. Art was to create things that only the creator would understand and leave others to scratch their head in confusion.

Nartuo drew a swirl and blots and lines, whatever that came to his mind on the ground.

Now that's art.

Kakashi felt tired. No, seriously. He really felt world weary. As if someone throw the burden of the whole word on his shoulder. He know knew why the kages wore that ridiculous headdress. It covered their drooping shoulders no doubt caused by the endless headaches of everyday disasters.

"Sensei! Sensei!" tweeted the black hair boy as he lifted his head earnestly like a baby bird begging for food. "All you told us was your name!"

Kakashi coughed and looked the other way.

"Alright. Now it's your turn to introduce yourselves." He said, promptly ignoring the disappointed eyes boring holes into his book.

"Me! Me! Let me go first!"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the little squirt who was impatiently raising his hand.

Without waiting for any approval, the boy bounced up and starting chattering cheerfully.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke! I love my friends, my family, especially my aniki, who is a healer at the hospital. He is the best ninja in the world and I want to be just like him. He used to be in ANBU but now he is a medic yet he still manages to be strong and even helps out in high ranked missions! I want to be just like him but I don't want to do it myself but with my team. We are going to become chunnin and then jounin or perhaps just jump straight to ANBU and do S class missions and then at the same time we are going to train in healing jitsu so that we would be able to finish our mission and heal ourselves at the same time, just like aniki! I bet that we will surpass my aniki in no time and one day my aniki and I will be in the same team and we will complete the highest ranked mission and become the strongest team of all the nations and…"

Kakashi lifted his books to his eyes and sighed loudly.

"Ah yes, I have heard of you." Kakashi said loudly but could barely be heard above the boy's non-stop chitter chatter. "You are that hyper Uchiha kid."

"…and I love tomatoes but I prefer them raw because when they are cooked, they sort of lose that nice juicy raw flavor I like so I always ask okasan to just chop them up onto the plate. Sensei, you mean you have heard of me already?"

Kakashi quickly closed his book and patted, no, squished the Uchiha chatterbox on the head, forcing him to sit down and stop talking.

"Yes, well. Alright, who is next?"

Kakashi was not even a bit surprised when no one answered him. The blond kid had his head bowed down and was scribbling something all over the floor while the pink haired girl sat there watching him with a poker face.

He could feel the Uchiha kid trembling under his book, who was still being firmly pushed down to the floor, no doubt itching to inform him of every single life fact of his teammates.

Why me, Hokage-sama.? Kakashi thought to himself wearily. "Alright. You, blond boy."

As expected, there was no response except for quiet scratching sounds against the pavement.

In the end, Kakashi just yanked up the blond boy's hood to stop him and finally got a name, who gave him an annoyed look and muttered a name before his eyes were glued back onto the….whatever-it-was-in-white-chalk on the ground.

Yes, Kakashi knew everything about Naruto beforehand. He wasn't that dense. Really. He even heard of the current 2nd black sheep of the Uchiha clan, right after Shisui. The Sasuke kid could literally give Shisui a run for his money very soon. Kakashi was thankful that the last member of his genin team seemed somewhat normal.

Alright. Fine. Haruno Sakura was comparatively normal to Naruto and Sasuke. That is, if you disregard her answers to his 'What do you like and hate' question.

"Hate trees."

"Hate helping people."

Something that looked like a frown appeared on her stoic face and Kakashi swear he saw her flick her eyes at the blond-boy-engrossed-in-the-floor. Was that a glare? Was there some animosity between the two? Kakashi recalled giving his student's background sheet a glance. There was no mention of any feud between any of them.

And just when Kakashi was planning to wrap up this dreadful day as quick as possible, the little jinchuriki just had to open his trap right at that moment.

"Sakura, can I have a piece of your hair? It would look great with my latest project at home. Pink Dragonfly on Mudpie Avenue."

Kakashi wondered if the 4th Hokage would rot in his grave if he knew his son was being head smashed into a tree by a pink haired girl while a Uchiha boy cheered from the side shouting "Go Team 7!".

Well at least the 'violent tendency' on Sakura's sheet was accurate.

Sakura was seriously considering going into the library and thoroughly perusing all the rules and regulations regarding genin teams. She wanted out.

Naruto was fine, really. Alright, he wasn't fine all the time. The fact that he wanted to take her hair and shove it into some mud pudding did not go well with her. Mind you, Sakura would have loved to cut off her hair, but her mother loved her hair very much and would practically cry if she lost a single strand.

Sasuke? Sasuke was plain too noisy and nosy.

Sakura had high hopes for her sensei. Genin team senseis were always jounins, one of the elites of the ninja village. She heard quite a lot about jounins and ANBUs from the Uchiha boy (which was basically 'My aniki skipped jounin. My aniki used to be ANBU. My aniki is a healer.')

Now, she wondered if the Hokage paid a small amount of money for people to be genin team leaders. A very small amount.

The day after being introduced to her teammates and her sensei, her sensei subjected them to a test involving two bells. All three immediately went in search of a spot to hide. Sakura situated herself near some larges bushes. She preferred not to hide in a tree. Yes she hated trees but no that was not why she wasn't hiding in one like her other teammates were likely doing.

She preferred bushes.

Bushes were closer to the ground.

Besides, most ninjas would automatically check the trees first for an ambush.

She was ready to wait patiently for an opportunity. Unfortunately, Sasuke was the first to break out. After an hour of watching her sensei Kakashi stand in the middle of the clearing reading some sort of book, Sasuke popped out of the tree next to her and blew a ball of flame at him.

And then proceeded to shout out "Alright Sakura-chan, Naruto-chan, time to show him our team moves!"

Obviously neither Naruto nor herself decided to answer his call. She wasn't surprised when Kakashi performed a jetsu and Sasuke was suddenly buried into the ground, leaving only his head to stare indignantly at Kakashi.

Sakura inwardly sighed at the scene. And she thought great ninja clans taught their children better.

In the end, Kakashi called a break to this test and tied Sasuke to a pillar while giving two lunch boxes to Naruto and her before poofing away to kami knows where.

Sakura stared glumly at her lunch box with grilled squid (too chewy), broccoli (too chewy) and red rice (too chewy). She could feel her jaw cry in agony at the prospect of some hard chewing and shivered. Sakura lifted her lunch box to a sniffling Sasuke, indicting with her head that he should have it all. She saw Naruto from the corner of her eye placing the lunch box on the ground near Sasuke and heard him mumbling about going for ramen since they weren't going to pass the test anyway.

Just when Sakura planned to drag Naruto back by the collar, their sensei proofed into existence with crinkled eyes (his mouth was non-existent due to being covered by some cloth) and announced that they had team spirit.

Both Sakura and Naruto stared at Kakashi with confusion while Sasuke cheered vibrantly from his post.

That was why the Hokage gave out genin teams for money. The Hokage didn't pay people to be a team leader. Oh no, obviously, mentally retarded people paid the Hokage money instead to be a team leader.

One big family of happy mentally retarded people. Just the way Sasuke wanted.