Thank you if you've stuck with me this far! Hopefully, the story will start to pick up, now that all my OCs are where they should be.

Forgery

Chapter Five

Let me tell you, if you've never shared a room before and haven't been to too many sleepovers, it's weird waking up to the sound of someone else's breathing. Luke and I had agreed to switch off. Since I'd gotten the bed the night before, he got it last night. Therefore, I was sleeping on the couch, which was old and still a little musty, but not too uncomfortable.

I remained where I was for a few minutes. The sun was already up, but not at quite the right angle to light up the room yet. I watched Luke sleeping peacefully for a moment before glancing up at the clock I'd set up the night before. I'm not the most technologically gifted, and apparently I had not succeeded in setting the alarm as I'd thought I had. It was almost eight. Damn. I'd promised Teuchi that I'd be to work at eight-thirty.

I got up as silently as possible. Knowing Luke, he'd probably be asleep for hours. I wasn't much of an early riser myself, but I didn't know anyone who could out-sleep my brother. That's why I nearly jumped out of my skin when a groggy voice murmured, "Where're you goin'?" just as I was about to walk out the door.

When I looked over (after I'd restarted my heart) I saw Luke propped up on one elbow, staring at me, half asleep.

"Work," I answered.

"Work?" This didn't seem to register with him. "But... you're too young to get a job..."

"Not here," I replied. Luke looked around, then out the window, then he sat up. He seemed to truly wake up then.

Okay, go ahead. Call me a coward, but I made some hurried excuse and rushed out the door before I had to see Luke's reaction. I still wasn't too sure about how he felt about this whole being transported to the world of his crazy sister's favorite anime thing. I've never purposely hurt my brother. But sometimes I just don't think things through. And then I get the two of us into trouble... a bit like this, only this time I (sort of) knew what I was doing.

But I would deal with that later. For the time being, it was so nice out! I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Since when had the air tasted this good? I judged it was early spring. I was in such a good mood, I nearly skipped to Teuchi and Ayame's stand. The effect this world was having on me really was amazing.

The old man smiled when he saw me. "Right on time," he praised.

"Reporting for duty," I answered cheerily.

He chuckled. "Well, someone's in a good mood. All settled in then?" I nodded. "That's good. And I've heard your brother showed up."

Wow, for such a big place, who knew Konoha was such a gossip pound? Though I suppose that was to be expected when you stood behind a counter all day, every day, with no one but the other villagers to keep you company. Sort of like a bartender, Teuchi was the perfect candidate for someone to spill their heart out to. Or just share banal everyday news. The sound of Ayame officially opening up shop jolted me out of my musings. The stand may have been deserted now, but they were sure to be busy soon. We didn't have time for small talk ourselves! Teuchi promptly led me around back to where a cart sat. It was piled high with ramen packages. I was in for a busy day.

"For your first service," Teuchi said, handing me a map. "When you're done with this, come back for the next one."

I looked at the map. There was a little you-are-here symbol and one big red line directing me to a destination not too far away.

"Wait a second," I said, my eyes widening a little. "This is all for one customer?"

The old man chuckled again. And Ayame, who'd come to stand behind him, laughed too. "Oh, you'll come to know him very well," she told me. "Naruto's our best customer!"

I don't know what my expression looked like, but my knees went a little weak at the sound of his name. Holy shit... I was going to meet Naruto!

I'm sure I had this really dopey grin on my face as I hauled the cart off and tried my best to follow Teuchi's map. I was walking on air. Luckily, I'd come to learn that it really wasn't too hard to find your way around Konoha, regardless of its size, so my distraction wasn't too detrimental. Like it was with any new place, the landscape just took a little getting used to, and I was pleased to note that some of the streets already looked familiar.

Before long, I found myself heading down a path that led to a more run down set of apartments. Frankly, they didn't look much different from the one I was currently living in. I soon reached the end of Teuchi's little map. I took a deep breath as I stood in front of what I hoped was his apartment. It looked like what I'd seen in the anime, at least, but I guessed there was only one way to find out. Simultaneously hesitant and eager, I knocked on his door.

I heard movement inside, and then Naruto himself, in all his obnoxious orange glory, threw open the door, looking surprised. I couldn't imagine he got too many visitors. I don't know if he noticed that I froze as soon as I saw him, but boy did his face light up when he saw the Ichiraku's cart.

"Wow! Old Man Teuchi said they would get the delivery service up soon!" He directed his wide, trademark grin at me. "Gee, thanks!"

"Oh, uh... yeah..." I mumbled. God, I was worse than Hinata! He began to pull the cart inside. Breaking the awkward silence, I said the dumbest thing ever. "Um, shouldn't you be in school?"

Ugh, why was I asking? One, he hated school! Two, it wasn't exactly like I wanted him to leave. It was just something to say, really. A dumb something to say. But to my surprise, his smile only grew. "We're starting late today because of the graduation test!"

I felt my stomach flutter a little. So that was today. I noticed now that he was wearing his goggles, which should've been a dead giveaway.

"The test is today?" I repeated.

"Yup! Remember the name Naruto Uzumaki, because after today I'm gonna be the most amazing ninja in the Hidden Leaf Village!"

I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "I'm sure you will be," I told him sincerely. He would become a ninja... just not the way he expected to...

I realized that I was kind of just awkwardly standing there so I made some mumbled excuse and left. Teuchi had already received his payment in advance. Unfortunately, I had no excuse to stay. It was time to pick up my next delivery.

Perhaps the reality of having a real job and real responsibilities should have weighed me down a little, but my mind was buzzing. Had that really just happened?! Now that I wasn't face to face with him, it easily felt like meeting Naruto could have been something I'd only imagined. (Amazing, how fragile reality can seem.) I worried that I would wake up from this dream soon. It was just so hard to believe...

Believe it, I told myself. I giggled as I walked back to Ichiraku's. Well, I wouldn't say 'walked'. The cart considerably lighter, the skip in my step had returned.

To be honest, the rest of my day wasn't anything special. Thankfully, everything ran smoothly after that. I found everything with the map I'd been given. I was done for the day around noon, and Teuchi treated me to lunch. It made me sort of sad that Ayame and her father only really got one filler episode dedicated to them. They never showed just how nice some characters are!

"Well, I guess that's that," said Teuchi once I'd handed my now-empty bowl back over the counter. "It's probably going to be a little slow going until we get the word out about the delivery service. But I can already think of a few regulars who'll be keeping you busy."

"Glad to hear it," I said, genuinely excited at the prospect of getting to know some of the other villagers. (When had the idea of being social started to seem like something worthy of excitement?) "I'll see you two tomorrow morning!"

It was still early into the day, but I was free to go. Except I didn't really have anywhere to go. So I sort of just wandered towards the general vicinity of my apartment.

I was tempted to go look for the academy and try to sneak in to watch the graduation ceremony... but I figured I'd tested my luck enough for one week. I didn't want to linger on this... but the ease with which the Hokage had accepted our story, even if it did match up, was a little unsettling. I mean, he had the safety of every single person in this village to think about... Even if they were living in a time of peace, surely it wasn't the norm to just accept outsiders carrying vague letters in.

I've never had a spectacular attention span. For this reason, it was hard for me to stay worried about anything for long. This was also the quality that led to some of my more hastily made mistakes. Something shiny overhead caught my eye, but it was gone by the time I looked up. And for a minute I was sure it was a ninja. But hey, could it hurt to check? I began walking towards what I thought would be his general route.

Now I know what you're thinking. Wow, this girl must have a severe case of ADD or something.

Well, I almost wish I could contradict that, but since I've never been officially tested... Anyway, my friends (as well as the bullies for that matter) kind of just got into the habit of calling me a diptard whenever I had one of my "moments". I don't know how they came up with it or if the word has any actual meaning, but I've heard, "God, Carly, you're such a diptard sometimes!" enough to get the gist.

Luke had often said something similar, but in a more subtle way. In fact, Luke was often the one who kept me on track, kept me focused. The only schedules I've ever been able to stick to have been my anime ones.

So, this fake route led me to Luke if you want to get right down to it and not go through all the other shiny distractions I thought I saw. I'd left him some money so he could go buy himself whatever he needed. I hardly expected him to just sit around the house all day. But it was still a bit of a shock to be strolling down an unknown street and only to end up finding my brother at the training field.

Geez, did every street lead here? Or was I just even worse with directions than I'd thought and missed a few things that should have been familiar? This time the field was oddly deserted. In fact, Luke was the only one in sight. And he had a soccer ball, which I must say made my day considerably brighter.

Maybe this isn't true, but I'm pretty sure that just about everybody has tried out a sport from one time or another. (Whether by choice is another matter entirely.) Even the people in Naruto. Remember all those kids messing around with a soccer ball in Gaara's memories? (I so would've played soccer with Gaara!) I supposed this was just another instance of watching cultures interact. For every quality of this world that was very traditionally Japanese, there seemed to be another quality that definitely seemed to have a European influence.

Anyway, Luke and I had tried out many sports, throughout our childhood. Though not always at the same time. Early on, I believe our dad had been the one encouraging our involvement in team sports and all that, but we tried to keep up with them ourselves after his death. However, they didn't always last as long for us as they did for others.

Whenever Tyler got sick again, everything around our house and our lives kind of froze. One day we'd be star examples of the hard-working athlete. The next we suddenly forgot to stay after for practice. Or we'd find ourselves moving around Tyler's hospital bed on Saturday morning instead of at our game or meet where we were supposed to be. All the coaches had no choice but to cut us, and any practices done by ourselves were decidedly less enthusiastic.

But there was a time when Tyler was doing really well. Like, he was healthy for a really long time, by his standards. And Luke and I tried soccer. We were there for the whole season! We weren't able to go back next season, but that's a little beside the point.

While we each had our favored sports, we'd both really gotten into soccer. Perhaps it was the feeling of stability that we'd really enjoyed, but I try to avoid psychoanalyzing myself if I can help it. At any rate, even though we never went back to play on an actual team ever again, it was a great way to blow off steam to just go kick a ball around a field.

I raced over to him, and he smiled when he saw me. He didn't even say anything to me. We just started playing. It was the first time we'd been so totally in-sync in a long time.

It was basically a one-one-one game. It was pretty fair since neither of our offense skills were much to speak of. Luke was an amazing goalie, but during times like this he didn't get his usual advantage of standing in the goal, getting to watch the whole scene unroll in front of him. And I don't like to brag, but I was a pretty kick-ass defender. But Luke was faster, which made my job a lot harder.

I don't know how long we chased each other back and forth across that field. (Which seems a lot bigger when you're running across it.) Sometimes one of us would come pretty close, but no one had scored when our game came to an abrupt stop.

Luke got really close to where my 'goal' was. If he got to this point, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get one on him to neutralize the score again. So in a desperate attempt to keep things equal, I slide-tackled. This was risky because, like I said, he was faster and if I didn't jar him as badly as I was hoping to he'd be able to get to the ball much faster than I would. I was hoping to go with the usual element of surprise. After all, he knew it was a risky tactic, too.

So when I slide-tackled and the ball slid out of his control, I felt triumphant. It had worked! A little too well. I heard him suck in a breath as he went down with me.

We got pretty tangled trying to right ourselves, and if it wasn't my brother I was down on the ground with, it would've been pretty awkward.

But anyway, it got so that his sneaker scraped across my forehead. And when we sat up, there was blood running down one side of my face from a small cut right above my right eye.

"Oh, crap..." Luke said when he saw.

I gingerly touched my finger to the spot, but since my hands were fairly coated with dirt, it stung.

"Double crap," I said, a bit annoyed with myself. I didn't know how else to dab at it other than to use the collar of my shirt. So I did just that.

Luke, noticing my dilemma, took off his own shirt and handed it to me. Because for him it's sociably acceptable. (Damn you, genetics...)

Needless to say, his originally white shirt was soon very pink. Who knew such a small cut could bleed so much? Realizing that we had no band-aids at home, my brother and I trooped back into the marketplace to buy some. I wish I could say that we did this casually, but we got quite a few strange looks. What with my brother shirtless and me holding his shirt up to my head, the blood splotches clearly visible.

Once we walked past a group of teenage girls and I swear I saw them go all heart-eyed over the sight of him. How creepy! Why is it that most teenage girls will swoon over any male without a shirt on?

One of my friends had a poster of a real actor without his shirt on, and she kept going on and on about how 'dreamy' he was. All I could do was think, why? because he's half naked? But, I digress. I waited while Luke went up to the counter with the little box of band-aids in his hand.

It was then that I ran into Iruka for the third time since my arrival here. Or rather, he ran into us. He stopped at the sight. "Whoa. What happened?"

I reckoned he saw miniscule injuries like this all the time, so I just sighed and said, "My brother and I may have been taking our game a little too seriously."

I told him about how we'd met up and how Luke had bought a soccer ball. He smiled, though he seemed to be a bit sad. "Well, I suppose it's good that you found him."

"Yeah," I said as Luke walked back to me and handed over the box. Then he seemed to take notice of Iruka while I gave him back his shirt.

They shook hands and introduced themselves, Luke shooting me a curious look, but directing his words at Iruka. "Nice to meet you."

Luke, never known for self-consciousness, put his shirt back on, bloodstains and all.

"Is everything alright?" I asked finally. I couldn't get over how cheerful Iruka normally was. The cheer that was mysteriously lacking at the moment.

The teacher made an attempt to smile, but it still came out looking a little melancholy. "Oh, yes. It's just... we had the graduation exam today. Every student passed... except for one."

"Oh..." He must have been down because he'd had to fail Naruto. I guess I couldn't blame him. There was no way for him to know what would happen tonight. "Well, don't worry. I'm sure everything will turn out fine."

He smiled sadly once again, not nearly as sure of this as I was, and walked away.

Luke must have noticed something was off because he kept looking back and forth between me and Iruka's retreating figure. "What's going on?" he asked. "It's just one insignificant kid, right?"

I didn't quite know what to say, so I just laughed.

Review please!

Ugh, I'm not too pleased with this chapter. Probably because it was written in short bursts, most without much inspiration so a lot of it came out sounding awkward and... not right.

I don't own Naruto!

Revised April 8, 2016.