After Obito befriended me, I started to leave my depression behind. He would show me things that I didn't know about before, and made me think in a new way of life. He gave me the feeling of being excited for the next day, as if he couldn't wait to take the next step towards being Hokage. I joined the Ninja Academy and gained skill rapidly. Even the teachers said that I could graduate within one year if I keep on escalating that fast. I started to slowly wear more colorful clothes and meet new people. Some of them were Obito's friends and some were new ones I made at the Academy. I wasn't a very popular or outgoing person, but there were many that were as quiet as me, and even more orphans from the war. I fit in with my new family. Sumiko was sweet and open-minded, the father, Norio, was not as mean as he first seemed, just stubborn. They also had a little child called Akeno, he was 3 and very sweet.

Like that a simple, life-changing year passed for me. I turned nine and celebrated it with my friends and family, and with mom and dad watching from the heavens. With everyday that passed I got more and more connected to Obito. And I believed that he was connected to me too.

On the day of graduation, I was very excited. I hoped that the next day I would get paired up with Obito, and I didn't care who the other person would be. That day that we were going to be separated into teams, me and Obito sat next to eachother. I was scared that he would be paired with someone else, and that he would get new friends and leave me.

"Congratulations on Graduating!" Our sensei said as he entered the room." I know that you will miss Academy life very much, your friends, classes, and obviously teachers. But each one of us has to go off in their separate way. Some of you may quit being Shinobi, some of you may become Chunnin, or anything else that you want to happen." "HOKAGE!" Obito shouted at sensei."SHUT UP OBITO WE ALL KNOW YOU WANT TO BE HOKAGE!" The teacher barked right at him. I buried myself in my hands and wanted to disappear because of how much Obito embarrassed me, but at the same time I was blushing so much. This is what I loved about Obito. He was proud.

"Anyway," Sensei kept on talking," We will divide you into teams. Team #1, Chiba, Shino, and Rikaku…" After this I already zoned out. I could hear Obito sitting next to me, fiddling with his thumbs as if he can't wait to see who he teams up with. I looked over to him and saw that he had a wide smile on his face. He was so excited for something I feared. I didn't want to have to maybe leave Obito. It was too scary of a thought. I looked down at Obito's thumbs, it was somewhat funny how he moved around so much. He was the opposite of me, he was a yellow puppy and I was a black cat. Then I saw Obito suddenly stop fiddling, and he moved his hand over to mine and held it. When I looked up at him I saw that he was looking back at me. His face was filled with excitement, but at the same time it was saying 'don't worry, we will always be friends.' That relaxed me so much, I closed my hand around his, and looked towards the front to listen to the teams again. And that was perfect timing.

"...Team #7, Maito Gai, Sakuza Katsuo, and Uchiha Rika. Team #8…"

I wasn't with Obito. Obito was going to be with a different team. Not with me. He was going to be with somebody that I might not know. He might get new friends, different friends than me. He might change and leave me behind. Thats all that I could think. But then I looked at Obito, who was looking back at the front, and it relaxed me. I looked at my hand that was holding his, and I made me feel as if our friendship would never be hurt by this small separation. Then I heard what team he was in.

"Team #10, Nohara Rin, Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi…"

I had no idea who they were, yet.

That night, after we all met up with our Jonin and talked about who we are, what we like, what our hopes are, we all went home. Of course, Obito went home with me. He kept talking about how nice Rin was, and how annoying Kakashi was. He said that Rin and Minato, their Jonin, thought that he could be the next Hokage, but Kakashi told him that it was a stupid idea and that he would never reach such a level. He told me that Kakashi was a weird one, that he wore a mask on the bottom half of his face, and that Obito wanted to see what was underneath, then he started hypothesizing about what Kakashi hid under his mask. Through the whole thing I was mostly listening and laughing, because I didn't want to tell him that I wished I could be in his team or that I hate mine.

A week later, Obito told me that our team and his should have a hangout. So we chose to go out to eat at the closest ramen shop. The most annoying part was that I had to ask Gai, who was the most loud and obnoxious being on earth.

"OHHH!" Gai shouted into my ear when I asked him about the hangout,"Kakashi's coming? Now we can have a ramen eating match to see who has to most YOUTH SPIRIT!" I took that as a yes and asked no more.

We met up at Ramen Ichiraku, the best ramen shop in Konoha. I came with Gai and Katsuo, and Obito came with Kakashi and Rin. Rin was a sweet girl who had brown hair down to her shoulders and two purple stripes on both sides of her jaw. I had black hair down to my hips and dark eyeliner. She wore her forehead protector on her forehead (an ironically unusual place to wear it). I wore my forehead protector around my waist, like Gai does. The only thing that we had the same was that we wore mostly black (I wore all black). Kakashi was a grey-haired guy with a mask covering the bottom half of his face, I could totally see why Obito tried to imagine what was underneath. He wore a black bodysuit with grey shoulders and a brown x on his top.

After a long talk with Rin, I started to really like her, although I didn't get to talk to Kakashi though because he was having a ramen eating competition with Gai, which Kakashi didn't even compete in, for he didn't eat any ramen (due to his mask). Apparently Obito was disappointed, he said that it would've been a good opportunity to see what was underneath the mask.I was disappointed because most of the night all Obito did was stare and talk to Rin. This is why I didn't want him to join any other team.

Rin was a sweet girl, she cared about everybody and tried to get everyone into the conversation, even Katsuo, who was surprisingly quiet. I could see that Rin would be a good healer. Kakashi was really quiet and relaxed, he kind of reminded me of myself. After we finished eating our ramen, me and Obito started heading back to the Uchiha family. The whole way back he was talking about Rin, and how nice she was, truthfully I was jealous.

I started to hangout with Obito's team more. The pros were that I got to be with with Obito a lot more time, and that Rin was fun to talk to, she accepted my silence and how Obito calls me, 'goth'. The cons were that I had to watch Obito flirt with Rin all the time. He didn't flirt with her straightforwardly, but I could see that he really liked her. Kakashi was ok, I liked talking to him because he was quiet. But this was most of our conversations:

Me: "Hey."

Kakashi: "Hello"

"Me: "..."

Kakashi: "..."

Then we mostly sat there quietly. I was kind of like an agreement, we acknowledged each other with silence. It was actually kind of nice, to know you are being social while being anti-social.