The Senju Prince & The Last Uchiha

"…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 Haruto 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 Haruto, his 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." Haruto 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 Haruto 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 him 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 Haruto, curious, whatever happened must be terrible for her to change so much.

"The Massacre." At Haruto'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." Haruto'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."

Haruto swallowed, he wasn't a sympathetic person by much because his life was considered good so he couldn't sympathize with those unfortunate kids; though there were a few downsides here and there. His family was always moving from town to town and no kids would play with him, then when his Mokuton manifested, the nature marks, he was considered too girly to play with them. He had no dad, and the Kyuubi always whispered temptations in his ear, nightmares of what the Kyuubi had done constantly woke him up. And for his abilities, he was nearly kidnapped from his family, once!

But Satsuki's life… it sounded a thousand times worse than his. He 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 his teammate better, he approached Satsuki who's back was still turned and she was buying tomatoes.

Sakura called his name but he 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?"

Haruto wondered if that was the right thing to say. He glanced at Sakura who was watching him. "Why don't you go on to the ramen stand first?" he suggested, keeping a close eye on Satsuki even as the crowd jostled him rudely. "Go on!"

He 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 him 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!" He pushed his way through the crowd to get closer, he ended up standing by her side, her glare still intact and it made it extremely hard for Haruto 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 Haruto, bastard, and you better shake my hand."

Satsuki scowled at him, 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—" He cut himself off when he glanced down and saw Satsuki taking his 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 Haruto's spine and it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

He softened slightly at this; maybe she wasn't that bad, once he 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 him hope that she was quite human after all.

"Then I would request the same of you," Haruto said, barely refraining from adding one of the many nicknames he'd come up with just for her. He'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," Haruto 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 his foot with her heel as she bypassed him, 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."

Haruto ground his teeth; all right, trying to get close to Satsuki may be hard with how she was acting but Senju Haruto 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 daughter 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 Haruto.

***

It was the loud and sonorous ringing from the alarm clock which was screeching obstinately like a tortured owl and woke Haruto up with a start. Uncertain of his surroundings and still wrapped up in the heavy cloak of sleep, he cracked open an eyelid to study his surroundings.

His clothes were thrown around messily and so were scrolls, his travelling pack and snacks. He didn't bother trying to clean his new apartment up—it'd go back to a mess in a week anyway—or even to pack his things. He didn't feel at home in this apartment at all, and Haruto was determined to spend as little time as possible in the cramped room.

In the end, he had to admit he was sorta a baby. He didn't like living alone or doing his housework; to him, the apartment was a temporary solution until his mother decided to face her fears and come storming Konoha to find him, and then he'd be able to stay with them again! (They could do the housework, though he pitied his sister who would be the one forced to clean things up after him and his mother.)

Another loud ring from the alarm clock pulled Haruto from his lamentation. Sighing, he slapped the damn thing off and slid out of bed. He felt like sleeping for another hour but if he was late, he knew Satsuki would just bitch at him and use his lateness as new ammo for a taunt.

The more time Haruto spent trying to analyze Satsuki's person—so he could actually understand her instead of having to be confused why, one minute she was an okay person and the next, she was someone Haruto would want to kill—the more frustrated he got because there just didn't see to be any other person under the mask.

But he shouldn't be wasting his time with thinking about how to make her tick for now, he needed to get to the training grounds for this test Kakashi-sensei had set for them and he had to be early or Satsuki would be on him again. Due to wanting to arrive early, Haruto skipped breakfast—not that he planned on listening to Kakashi-sensei's advice in the first place—but despite his best efforts, was still later than the two girls.

Sakura greeted him cheerfully, waving at him and he waved back.

Satsuki, on the other hand, wasn't as nice. "You're late, idiot." What ensued was pretty much a verbal war, with Haruto giving up because he knew one of them had to give in the end. What bothered him other than Satsuki was the absence of his teacher.

Haruto threw himself onto the grass-covered ground, pouting. "Man, I'm thirsty after arguing with the ice queen for so long!" His stomach growled, reminding him of something else. "I'm also hungry. I regret coming here so early." He glanced up at Sakura who was watching him 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."

Haruto groaned loudly. "Even water would be fine—"

"Here." Haruto blinked, looking up where the sky was blocked from view by a certain Uchiha. He scowled at her but the expression diminished when a bottle was pressed onto his forehead, the plastic surface cool against his forehead and he was aware that Satsuki's fingertips were touching his 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 Haruto's part.

At the last statement, Haruto flushed, snatching the bottle out of her grip and sitting up so that he was eye-level with the crouching Uchiha.

"Heh. Like I'd be worried about something like that." He was predisposed to handle poisons; his mother made him take small amounts of a wide variety of poison so that he would be immune to them and even if he wasn't immune to a certain type of poison, the Kyuubi was there to dispel the poison so he was pretty much invulnerable to most poisons. But who knows what sort of poison an Uchiha would have on their person?

In spite of his 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 him and poured salt in it.

"You're a bad liar, moron."

Why did Haruto get the feeling that she already knew him from the inside out? It was unnerving but in a way, it felt nice to have someone who understood him without having to say it in words. He wondered if this was a step in their fragile, starting bond. To get their friendship to work, he 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, stupid."

It was a start, but at least they were making progress.