Do You Remember Love

When Sakura saw Naruto walk into the classroom that morning, she wondered why he had even bothered to come, since he had flunked the academy graduation exam in front of the entire class just yesterday. Shikamaru ended up voicing her thoughts for her, and Naruto merely gave him a detached grin as he pointed at his official Konoha forehead protector.

He had somehow become a ninja. But that wasn't the only thing that Sakura had noticed that was different about him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something definitely off about him. He seemed tired, not his usual energetic self. Most likely he had to pull off some incredible stunt to prove his worth as a ninja and earn that forehead protector no doubt. Perhaps that was it, he was just tired, that was all it was, so she just shrugged it off and turned her attention towards Sasuke as usual.

Hinata, however, was much more observant. She noticed that Naruto's usually vibrant sky blue eyes looked as if they had aged over a hundred years over the span of just one night. There was no longer that youthful twinkle, now there was only weariness.

Her observations were cut short when Iruka entered the classroom and announced that he would be giving them their team assignments that day. Hinata, of course, silently prayed to be teamed with Naruto, while Sakura and Ino, on the other hand, were quite blatant about their own desires. Hinata, however, would not get her wish.

Sakura cheered as she was placed on Team Seven with Sasuke and Naruto. Naruto, however, was oddly silent, grim even. Hinata had thought that Naruto would have been happy to be on the same team with Sakura, but apparently that wasn't the case. Not that she was complaining or anything, of course. Naruto's lack of interest also did not go unnoticed by Sakura.

Once all of the teams had been formed, Team Seven was the last remaining to be picked up by their new jounin sensei. Sakura shot Naruto a cautious glance and found him leaning backwards into his chair and contemplatively staring up at the ceiling in silence. He looked as if he were deep in thought, something that Sakura never would have thought possible for someone as vapid as Naruto.

"Sasuke-kun... what's up with him?" she whispered, nodding over towards their unusually quiet teammate.

Sasuke clearly couldn't care less. "Maybe he cheated to earn that forehead protector and now he's feeling guilty about it," he shrugged.

Naruto then sighed as he got up to his feet. Sakura and Sasuke watched out of curiosity as Naruto placed a chalkboard eraser above the door. Sakura figured that there was nothing wrong with him if he still had the guts to play pranks.

"You shouldn't do that to our new sensei," she scolded, despite the fact that she actually did enjoy pranks like that.

Naruto then glanced at her for a brief moment with a pair of eyes that reflected the most complex turmoil of emotions that she had ever seen. In that sea of blue was a roiling mixture of love, loss, grief, defeat, loneliness, she could go on until she had run out of words in her vocabulary. Or had she just imagined it all? The eye contact had only been a split second after all. He then gave her a small smile before returning to his seat.

And then, to Sakura and Sasuke's surprise, Kakashi fell for Naruto's prank. Naruto didn't seem all too surprised though, nor did he even look the least bit amused.

After a little grumbling from Kakashi, they all found themselves up on the roof for self-introductions. But before they had begun, Naruto asked Kakashi a question that neither Sakura nor Sasuke could make any sense of.