"…And this is the place where you can stock up on food. Most of the restaurants here are from the Akimichi clan and their foods are the best! But moving on, you wanted a ramen stand, right? There's Ichiraku's Ramen stand and it's right this way—"
"Hold it, what is that bastard doing here?"
Sakura blinked, momentarily confused before she recalled the only person in Konoha who could send the Senju howling for blood, then turned to where Naruko was gaping. The Uchiha fan emblazoned on the person's shirt and the spiky hair easily made her stand out among the crowd of moving people.
"What bad luck," grumbled Naruko, her mood worsening. "Come on, let's just go to the ramen stand. I can't stand to be in the presence of someone like her."
"She wasn't always like this, you know." Naruko stopped, glancing back at Sakura who was staring sadly at Satsuki's back. The raven-haired girl seemed to be doing grocery shopping by herself though it made Naruko wonder why she didn't just order her servants to do things for her. "She used to be very nice."
"Are you kidding me? Or are you talking about someone else entirely?"
Sakura shot her an admonishing look, continuing, "When we were kids, we could've been considered friends. She's very sweet, cheerful and talkative. She's never grumpy or bitchy like now."
"What happened?" asked Naruko, curious, whatever happened must be terrible for her to change so much.
"The Massacre." At Naruko's confused look, she herself looked baffled as she elaborated. "Haven't you heard of the Uchiha Massacre? Satsuki was the sole survivor, they say she watched as her family got slaughtered." Naruko's jaw dropped in shock but Sakura lowered her voice to a harsh whisper, glancing nervously at Satsuki. "They also said that… that her older brother did it. The person she wanted to kill, she'd said earlier, was Uchiha Itachi.
"I met him once, he's nice and quiet and Satsuki totally adored him, definitely not the type you'd peg as a murderer. He was always the talk of the town: the Uchiha prodigy, his good looks and prowess as a ninja and at the young age of thirteen, the same age as us now, made ANBU captain. But one day, he turned up and did this," Sakura shrugged helplessly. "Everyone talked about it, though we were careful not to mention it in front of Satsuki. I dunno, guess he just snapped from the pressure."
Naruko swallowed, she wasn't a sympathetic person by much because her life was considered good so she couldn't sympathize with those unfortunate kids; though there were a few downsides here and there. Her family was always moving from town to town and no kids would play with her with her strange whisker marks, then when her Mokuton manifested, she was too busy training. She had no dad, and the Kyuubi always whispered temptations in her ear, nightmares of what the Kyuubi had done constantly woke her up. And for her abilities, she was nearly kidnapped from her family, once!
But Satsuki's life… it sounded a thousand times worse than hers. She wondered, did her bitchy person originate from the fact she must protect herself? So that she wouldn't appear weak? Mechanically, with a new goal in mind to get to know her teammate better, she approached Satsuki who's back was still turned and she was buying tomatoes.
Sakura called her name but she shushed her quickly, making sure the two of them blend in the crowd as they caught snippets of the conversation Satsuki was having with the shopkeeper—a nice old lady who was smiling at the Uchiha as if she'd seen everything pleasant in the girl.
"…It's okay. You can have this for free. I don't want you to pay, after all, your clan has done much for our village. It's the least we could do to repay them by helping their last member, right?"
Naruko wondered if that was the right thing to say. She glanced at Sakura who was watching her. "Why don't you go on to the ramen stand first?" She suggested, keeping a close eye on Satsuki even as the crowd jostled her rudely. "Go on!"
She glanced back at the store where Satsuki was nodding politely as an old lady took the bag of tomatoes to weigh it. Abruptly, she looked right at her and the serene look on her face dissolved to be replaced by a scowl.
"What on earth are you doing stalking me?"
"I'm not, bastard!" She pushed her way through the crowd to get closer, she ended up standing by her side, her glare still intact and it made it extremely hard for Naruko to imagine a younger and smiling Satsuki; and the fact that people had seen Satsuki as pleasant was a joke. "Look, let's put all our first meeting—we got off the wrong foot there—behind us and start all over. My name's Senju Naruko, bastard, and you better shake my hand."
Satsuki scowled at her, uncrossing her arms. "If this is some sort of prank, idiot—" she trailed off, her eyes wary and stance guarded.
"Why are you insulting me, you don't even know me and you're treating me like this! This is prejudice, I demand justice—oh, hey, it rhymed! Wait, I'm getting sidetracked—" She cut herself off when she glanced down and saw Satsuki taking her hand tentatively, shaking it with the same hesitance of one who had trusted but had only received disappointment in return; their contact sent a jolt down Naruko's spine and it wasn't entirely unpleasant.
She softened slightly at this; maybe she wasn't that bad, once she got past that shell, maybe, just maybe, she'd be a pleasant person.
"Uchiha Satsuki, learn to use it instead of the nicknames you'd come up for me, stupid." The hesitance was gone to be replaced by dark humor, huh, it gave her hope that she was quite human after all.
"Then I would request the same of you," Naruko said, barely refraining from adding one of the many nicknames she'd come up with just for her. She'd never disliked anyone so passionately before meeting her.
"Hn." And she pulled her hand back, the tingling sensation leaving just like that.
"Ah… Satsuki-san?" The two clan scions turned; one with an easy grin and the other with a politely cold face. "Your order's here."
"That took a while," Naruko remarked as Satsuki hefted the bag off the counter. "Maybe you're getting old to work, don't you have any living relatives—Ow!"
Satsuki had crushed her foot with her heel as she bypassed her, she didn't even bat an eyelash when she did that. "Oh, my bad. I tend to ignore rude idiots who show no respect to senior citizens."
Naruko ground her teeth; all right, trying to get close to Satsuki may be hard with how she was acting but Senju Naruko never backed down from a challenge and Uchiha Satsuki was a walking mass of challenges.
"Hey! Come back and say that to my face, I dare you!"
The crowd who had been watching the Senju and Uchiha with interest started murmuring to one another; total strangers becoming friends in a second for the sake of sharing a juicy opinion. Amazing how great the power of gossip is.
"My… are they, you know, like that?"
"Ooh, they suit one another: both from powerful clans and good looks."
"I disagree, my son would be much better by the Senju's side."
What followed was a verbal war, but fortunately, it was not as drastic as one between Satsuki and Naruko.
***
It was the loud and sonorous ringing from the alarm clock which was screeching obstinately like a tortured owl and woke Naruko up with a start. Uncertain of her surroundings and still wrapped up in the heavy cloak of sleep, she cracked open an eyelid to study her surroundings.
Her clothes were thrown around messily and so were scrolls, her travelling pack and snacks. She didn't bother trying to clean her new apartment up—it'd go back to a mess in a week anyway—or even to pack her things. She didn't feel at home in this apartment at all, and Naruko was determined to spend as little time as possible in the cramped room.
In the end, she had to admit she was sorta a baby. She didn't like living alone or doing her housework; to her, the apartment was a temporary solution until her mother decided to face her fears and come storming Konoha to find her, and then she'd be able to stay with them again! (They could do the housework, though she pitied her sister who would be the one forced to clean things up after her and her mother.)
Another loud ring from the alarm clock pulled Naruko from her lamentation. Sighing, she slapped the damn thing off and slid out of bed. She felt like sleeping for another hour but if she was late, she knew Satsuki would just bitch at her and use her lateness as new ammo for a taunt.
The more time Naruko spent trying to analyze Satsuki's person—so she could actually understand her instead of having to be confused why, one minute she was an okay person and the next, she was someone Naruko would want to kill—the more frustrated she got because there just didn't see to be any other person under the mask.
But she shouldn't be wasting her time with thinking about how to make her tick for now, she needed to get to the training grounds for this test Kakashi-sensei had set for them and she had to be early or Satsuki would be on her again. Due to wanting to arrive early, Naruko skipped breakfast—not that she planned on listening to Kakashi-sensei's advice in the first place—but despite her best efforts, was still later than the other two girls.
Sakura greeted her cheerfully, waving at her and she waved back.
Satsuki, on the other hand, wasn't as nice. "You're late, idiot." What ensued was pretty much a verbal war, with Naruko giving up because she knew one of them had to give in the end. What bothered her other than Satsuki was the absence of her teacher.
Naruko threw herself onto the grass-covered ground, pouting. "Man, I'm thirsty after arguing with the ice queen for so long!" Her stomach growled, reminding her of something else. "I'm also hungry. I regret coming here so early." She glanced up at Sakura who was watching her intently. "Aren't you thirsty and hungry as well?"
"I'm on diet," the pink-haired girl replied simply. "And, no, since I didn't speak much."
Naruko groaned loudly. "Even water would be fine—"
"Here." Naruko blinked, looking up where the sky was blocked from view by a certain Uchiha. She scowled at her but the expression diminished when a bottle was pressed onto her forehead, the plastic surface cool against her forehead and she was aware that Satsuki's fingertips were touching her forehead.
"What's that?"
"A bottle of water in case you can't tell, stupid," Satsuki answered sardonically. "It's not poisoned, and not a prank either," she added after a moment of silence and hesitance on Naruko's part.
At the last statement, Naruko flushed, snatching the bottle out of her grip and sitting up so that she was eye-level with the crouching Uchiha.
"Heh. Like I'd be worried about something like that." She was predisposed to handle poisons; her mother made her take small amounts of a wide variety of poison so that she would be immune to them and even if she wasn't immune to a certain type of poison, the Kyuubi was there to dispel the poison so she was pretty much invulnerable to most poisons. But who knows what sort of poison an Uchiha would have on their person?
In spite of her reply and supposed immunity to poison, the Senju continued to eye the object suspiciously, wary, because there was this one time, one of the older kids had played a mean prank on her and poured salt in it.
"You're a bad liar, moron."
Why did Naruko get the feeling that she already knew her from the inside out? It was unnerving but in a way, it felt nice to have someone who understood her without having to say it in words. She wondered if this was a step in their fragile, starting bond. To get their friendship to work, she would have to be more tolerant and patient so that she'd open up.
"And you're not that bad yourself, princess-stuck-up."
"Shut up, idiot."
It was a start, but at least they were making progress.