Chapter Text
Naruto Uzumaki was always loud.
The thought hit Sasuke on this simple day of autumn. The leaves were sweating from the summer heat and it was warm for the season. Students around him were working on their clay sculpture. It was a simple, normal day in the Konoha kindergarten. Yet, this memory would definetly stay for a long time in the little boy’s mind.
Normally, the young Uchiha should have gone to the more prestigious school for the talented in the Sono district, but for some reason, his mother had fought tooth and nail for him to stay closer to home. Maybe Mikoto just needed to win this one? Her husband was a stubborn man, after all. He made all the important decisions when it came to Itachi. If losing this one meant keeping the peace… well, Sasuke was the price to pay.
So, Sasuke, the youngest Uchiha, got placed here, in this small facility closer to the family mansion. The Uchiha patriarch, didn't even budge when he heard the reputation of the school…
His wife was pleased. Itachi was on his way to become the greatest Uchiha of his generation. Fugaku tolerated it.
So, the young boy was set to go to the Konoha kindergarten before automatically entering the cursus to Konoha primary, middle, and high school.
Of course, Sasuke was too little, too young, too out of touch to understand what that meant at the time and the little man was excited.
On his first day of school.
He was ready.
His small black backpack on his shoulder, and his uniform on, he looked like the cutest little sailor to whomever would have seen him in the street.
The boy was very happy to start school for the first time. That was it! Today, and for the rest of his life, Sasuke could be like Itachi.
His mother had smiled lovingly, while his father had barely scoffed before retreating in his office under’s Mikoto saddened eyes.
Sasuke had not noticed.
At four years old, the young heir had already mastered the basics of what a kindergartener should know—after all, he was an Uchiha. School should be easy! Shisui and Obito had been sharing their homework with him, and Sasuke was ready.
His little fist were now clenching on the bag, as they exited the house. For a second, his feet would not cross the edge of the street, but the excitement got to him. He could do it. He would be a great Uchiha! Like Itachi.
School was the answer. He knew it. His backpack was black because he had wanted the same as Itachi’s had on his first day as well, his shoes, and his supplies had also copied the style of the oldest.
As they walk to school the young boy was ready to meet this wonderful place. This mystical land where Itachi, and his cousins were going to everyday to live adventures, while Sasuke was stuck inside… alone.
Mikoto had warned him that he wouldn't be in the same school his brother was. It was a little disappointing, but Sasuke had accepted his fate.
He was going to school, like Itachi. He would work hard and become the best, like Itachi.
With all the courage that the four-year-old could muster, he found himself quite rapidly waiting in front of the school’s gate, his hand gripping his mother's —Or maybe, it was she who was gripping him—.
There was nothing else in front of him other than the large gate.
As his mother embraced him one last time, he vaguely remembered thinking she had been too emotional for something as normal as starting school, but even later on that memory stayed blurry, just maybe a discrete worry on her lips.
Before leaving him, she waved and waited as he headed toward the main gate, where the kindergarten aides were welcoming the kids.
Unlike anyone else, Sasuke had not made a sound while walking to the door. Sasuke Uchiha was not crying. The desperate parents surrounding him would exchanged impressed looks as the four-year-old passed them by without looking up, themself trying to calm their child. Some of the instructor would looked at each other confused, but none complained.
Compared to him, everyone else seemed to be going through great pain. Sasuke just remembers blurry faces covered in tears. Some boys and girls whimpering without real coherence or words. All of these children felt so different from the ones he knew back at the Uchiha district.
The kids back home, they never cried.
It took not very long for Sasuke to make it to his class. By himself.
This is where he met him for the first time.
Naruto Uzumaki.
It was not cries, but screams that were coming from this child. The adults were trying their best moving around the blond who would not stop; they were trying to distract him.
Sasuke, at first, tried to ignore him as he noticed in big letters his name on one of the desk and headed there.
Naruto was not even next to him, and yet, it felt like it.
He tried to focus on his goal, having the best day at school.
From there, it was all a blur. Sasuke’s memories are still blurry of all the activities the kids did that day. Building this clay structure the teacher had told him too has probably been the hardest thing the four year old had ever done. Mind you, not because the task was difficult, but for the first time in his life, Sasuke had experienced what it was to have a headache.
On this first day of kindergarten, Naruto had cried. The entire day.
It was so much quieter at home…
His grand dreams of greatness for that first day had been destroyed.
At some point Sasuke had looked up from his again failed architectural prowess. The young boy, with his dirty blond hair, ugly teeth, and goopy eyes was here, crying for his mommy to come back; screaming for her as the aides were trying to calm him down. Sasuke, while confused tried not pay much attention.
This should have been fine… but contrary to the other kids, Naruto did not stop crying.
Many times, Sasuke thought the adults had finally calmed the boy, yet another scream would rise from the small body almost as soon as one was ending. Perturbating all the childrens, who all were more reckless.
Anything would trigger Naruto. The teacher’s voice would set him off. A stolen toy would anger him. At lunch, the boy started crying because his food was too hot. And before he realized it, the day was ending, and Sasuke Uchiha had done nothing that was worth showing to his parents.
Yet, that first day, when his mom came to pick him up and asked how school was, he didn't hesitate for a second.
"Fine"
He didn't want her to change her mind or take him out of class. He could still figure it out.
By the end of the second day, however, Sasuke Uchiha was certain of it.
School was hell.
And, Naruto Uzumaki was the loudest person he knew.
After some undeniable logic, Sasuke had concluded that it meant Itachi was going to hell every day with a smile on his face.
This was it. His own adventure. His challenge.
If Itachi could do it, then he could do it too.
Maybe that was why Itachi was so strong… facing the hounds every day. Sasuke was sure this was a test. He went to school the next day with the same placid face.
Sadly for him, this was just the beginning of the longest trial he had to endure.
By the end of the first week, during their usual Sunday lunch, Sasuke was already exhausted. Yet, when his grandfather, Madara, asked him what great things he had done at school all week, Sasuke could only think of the constant crying, and could not remember a single lesson.
He had looked up in a contrived silence, while his brain was with difficulty, re-playing the event of the week.
This was already too long for the impatient men of his family.
Sadly, this very clear challenge missed, his one moment of attention this week from both his grandfather, uncles, father, and cousins had passed.
His mother had then spoken, at the silence of her youngest, tried to defend him, flustered. His father had looked at him with disappointment while changing the topic to one of Itachi's accomplishments, deviating the conversation.
Yet, Madara, who wasn't known for his tact, had brought it back, pointing out very clearly that: Now, he understood why Mikoto and Fugaku had decided on Konoha kindergarten for their youngest instead of Sono, where all the others had gone.
Sasuke remembers that night, Fugaku had been the angriest he had been that year, and it took Mikoto all the tears in the world to convince her husband not to homeschool Sasuke. He remembers having to fight tears as his father’s face would distort blurringly. Yet, everything was great in the world, Itachi had hugged him, he had told him about the one time he had single handedly saved Shisui from falling down the great tree in the third’s house garden.
Fugaku never asked again about Sasuke’s days and the topic would be avoided all together. When the question was asked, he would automatically shift the attention to more impressive market’s numbers, or Uchiha business. This probably could have been for the better… Yet every-single time, Sasuke could only clutch his little hand in desperate confusion. At his young age, he could not yet understand, and no word could yet describe to him his feelings of constant distress that these re-direction would take.
Sasuke was trying.
Every day.
Sasuke couldn't stand it anymore.
Every day, the whining of Naruto hurt his head, and while the young boy already knew all the things they should have been doing in kindergarten, the wailing of the blond seemed to always get in the way.
Sasuke, who had always hoped to go to school, was crushed.
Every day was a battle to hope for some sort of acknowledgment from his dad, from his grandfather… from Itachi, but as they had always said, an Uchiha did not go for anything less than greatness, and Konoha kindergarten was nothing more than dirt under all of their shoes.
Sasuke couldn't focus.
The same way the teacher had almost given up on Naruto, Sasuke had realized that he was unable to do anything either.
"Sasuke-kun, do you have a problem with the drawing? Please try your best. We can give it to your parents. They will be happy.”
Yet he had no talent for drawing, and he clearly remembered his mom smiling at his picture, telling him how much she liked it before hiding it away for Fugaku never to see.
"Sasuke-kun, do you know what this is? Can you answer the question?"
... But Sasuke did not want to talk. What was he supposed to say? And he slowly realized with horror that he didn't have enough words to express himself.
"Sasuke-kun? Do you want to play with the others?"
His head hurt.
"Sasuke, do you want to share your apple with Ino-chan?"
He didn't want to.
"Please, Sasuke-kun, do not isolate yourself."
He didn't want to see the others.
He wanted to succeed, to show his father he could be like Itachi.
His mother wouldn't say anything, complimenting him, but he could see it in her eyes when she was looking at his daily drawing or sculpture, exercises and numbers, with a slight worry.
Father be proud if he did this one right, right?
And to Sasuke, nothing could have been worse than thinking that his mother was disappointed as well.
“Are you having fun at school my love?” “Do you have friends, love?”
He didn't want to. His head was always hurting.
"Sasuke, do you want to share your apple with Ino-chan?"
No! Again, NO! Why couldn’t they understand!!
And one day, he realized that he was alone.
No one in his class wanted to play with him.
But he was okay…. He just wanted, needed to be like Itachi.
It was around that time that he realized that Naruto had stopped. The blond boy, after such a long time (At least infinity times five!), had stopped crying.
He came to class and didn't cry. He just stayed there, playing alone in a corner. It seems that the constant crying had also ostracize him from the other children.
Then Sasuke thought, foolishly, that maybe he could be friend with the lonely boy. Now that he didn't cry anymore, he wouldn't give him a headache, and he would just be there, drawing with him! Maybe he could even be better at drawing?
So one day, Sasuke, with all his courage, decided to go to the boy and ask him. His small backpack on his shoulder, a little bit nervous that day, he was ready to have his first friend ever.
But of course, nothing ever went the way that Sasuke Uchiha wanted.
He was too late.
That day, another boy had asked Naruto to play with him. Like every other person on Earth, that boy was probably better than Sasuke because, for the first time since kindergarten, Naruto had the brightest smile on his face and was already playing outside with the other children, leaving Sasuke alone with his ugly drawing inside the class.
That day, Sasuke cried. He didn't know why, or maybe he did. But he cried in his bed, under his quilt.
He did not notice the quick knock on his door, and the quiet step of someone walking in. He barely noticed, the bedsheet being moved, and he noticed at the last minute the hand that was placed on his head.
Yet, Itachi was here. Smiling… and Sasuke who never had the words started talking. Itachi listened for hours through the incomprehensible babbling of the young boy.
Then, Sasuke remembered how they flew away from the mansion all the way to the woods, where suddenly they were in the middle of a battlefield. Where, Itachi showed him how to draw dragons in the muds and how to construct a beautiful wooden sword, and Sasuke cheered up, laughed, and smiled happily, unaware that his brother would be severely punished for leaving his duties that day.
But Itachi was okay… And Sasuke too, because Sasuke had the most amazing brother on Earth, and he didn't need a best friend.