FicWad

Standard disclaimer applied. I don't own Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, or any of the other ninjas from Masashi Kishimoto's amazing mange series.
~

Parthenophobia: fear of girls
Philophobia: fear of being or falling in love



Sasuke’s POV:
I think I have parthenophobia, because I’m afraid of girls.
Ever since my family was murdered, I have never liked socializing. Or people in general.
Especially girls. Girls are the worst. Always freaking out whenever they get within a mile radius of me, always swooning over me. I swear, I’ve got about twenty million fangirls... (and I’m only twelve!) give or take. Maybe more.
And I don’t even want any attention like that! I want to be recognized by my strength, not my looks. I would be more than happy if nobody ever payed any attention to me at all.
I haven’t met a single girl in my entire life that is attracted to me by anything other than my looks. Ever. And the worst part is that I’m on the same cell as one of them...
Sakura Haruno. She’s just like the rest of them: too giggly and always looking for my approval. It’s not like she’s not pretty or anything, but I don’t look for much in a girl. If she’s tough, pretty smart, and has at least a little bit of talent, she’s okay in my book.
But of course, it’s not that simple.
Girls never think that way. They think boys like only looks. As if. I see Sakura always trying to look her best and neglecting to do her best in front of me.
It’s annoying.

She is kind of annoying. I said it, and I mean it.

But she’s annoying in a sort of cute, endearing way.

...

Forget I ever said that...















Nyctophobia: fear of the darkness
Asthenophobia: fear of being weak



Sakura’s POV:
I’m a coward. I saw it when I was reading a book about phobias: nyctophobia, the fear of the dark. And it’s true. I am.
I feel so stupid for being scared of the dark, just like a little kid. But it seems so vast and it makes me feel so alone... I’m so stupid.
And being shunned by Sasuke doesn’t help at all. I don’t want to be one of his million gazillion fangirls, but I just can’t help it! Whenever I get near him my head goes fuzzy and my mouth goes dry and I act like a total fool.
I’m a ninja in the Hidden Leaf Village, and the only one of my friends who is single. It’s just not fair! Ino is going out with Shikamaru, who seems nice enough, if not a little lazy. Hinata is dating Naruto, who I’ve known for almost forever and is a major prankster. We’re all jonin now; the highest you can get before becoming Hokage.
I love hanging out with my girlfriends, reading new books in the library (I can NEVER get enough knowledge... there’s so much of it!), and training. I train all the time now. I guess it’s because I want to be strong enough to protect all of my friends, and strong enough to be able to compete with Sasuke. It’s not like he flaunts his strength or anything, but I know for a fact how far out of my league he is in just ninjutsu alone.

The craziness all started on the chakra color-coding day.

All of the ninjas (little kids, big kids, senseis, everybody) were called to the front of the Hokage’s office early one morning. I had barely just got up, and all I did was throw on a t-shirt and yoga pants, run a brush through my hair, and hotfoot it before I was late. I’m sure I looked like a mess, but Ino and Hinata were nice enough not to say anything (to be fair, they didn’t look all that glamorous either).
“What do you think’s up?” I whispered to Ino, listening to the uneasy muttering of the giant crowd of sleepy ninja.
“Beats me, but I’m leaving if this takes too much longer.” She yawned widely.
Suddenly Lady Tsunade opened the doors to her office and shouted, “Hello, everybody, thanks for coming. I have a new machine here-” she gestured behind her where two men were hauling a huge hunk of metal out of the building, “-that makes it a lot easier to sort ninja into categories by chakra color.”
The mob of people murmured amongst themselves. “Chakra colors?” “Never heard of it...”
“There is a whole chart of different colors, and you will get individual training according to your color. Some colors increase your jutsu power, and some hinder it. If you would all form a line in front of me, we will begin.”
A sloppy row on ninjas is what appeared soon after that. Tsunade sighed heavily, and I giggled at the exasperated look on her face.
One by one, Tsunade scanned this long metal thing up and down the ninjas, and one by one hands them a piece of paper from one of several piles. Some look happy. Some look short-changed.
Ino prances up, is scanned, and is handed a piece of paper. As she passes me, she whispers “I got blue!”.
I see Sasuke walk up, all annoyance and indifference, and avert my eyes so I don’t blush. He gets scanned, and Lady Tsunade raises both eyebrows.
She looks surprised, I think.
He walks away after she says something in his ear. He doesn’t look like he cares very much.
I step up onto the platform, stomach tingling with nervousness. Tsunade smiles at me encouragingly and I let her pass the metal wand over me.
I feel a strong surge of electricity for a fleeting moment... and then it’s over. I sigh with relief and look over at Lady Tsunade, ready to receive my color.
I stop cold at the look on her face...
It’s shock, pure and simple. She’s staring at the machine interface in total, utter shock.
The crowd murmurs curiously. “What’s up with the Hokage...?” “Why doesn’t she move along?” “Hurry up already!!”
She slowly reaches to the furthermost pile and hands me a brochure. She shoos me off the platform with a distracted flick of her hand, muttering something like “two of them... two in one village... bad, bad, very bad...”
Shaken, I melt into the crowd, trying to find Ino and Hinata. I didn’t know what was wrong but I had a bad feeling about it.
Unable to find my friends, I quickly left the crowd and ran back to my house, head spinning with troubled thoughts.
Shutting my front door behind me, I gratefully listened to the beautiful silence of my empty house. Sometimes I liked the quiet. Sometimes I hated it. See, my parents both died when I was young, so I grew up in the silence.
Sometimes it’s very lonely.
Something fluttered to the floor and settled there. I realized that it was the pamphlet the Hokage had given to me. With trembling hands, I pick it up and open it.
It says: “Chakra color: gold.”














Sasuke’s POV:

Tsunade looked surprised when she scanned my chakra color. What’s so weird about gold? I’d heard of chakra colors before somewhere, but I knew nothing about them.
The brochure said that it went (lowest to highest): orange, yellow, green, white, red, blue, purple, silver, gold. That seems kind of stupid, if you ask me. Why not just do it by the regular rainbow?
So gold is the highest one, huh? I suppose that’s good, if it will make my jutsus stronger. I left after I got my color, not bothering to see what other people got. I knew Naruto got red only because he screeched it in my ear after he was scanned.
I went home and was sitting on my couch when I saw Sakura run straight into her house, guard completely down and looking anxious. She could have easily been ambushed by a number of things... not that I cared.
Right?

Whatever. I don’t care. End of story.

I received a letter that night from the Hokage, telling me to meet her at 6 ‘o clock the next day in front of her office.
Great, another early morning, I thought, irritated. I had enough trouble sleeping with all the nightmares I’ve been having lately. I never slept well anyways (I usually preferred training at night to sleeping), but the nightmares were really annoying.
They’re hard to remember. I think I remember something about fire.























Sakura’s POV:

Getting up at 5 ‘o clock for the second day in a row was torture. I mean, the sun wasn’t even up yet! It’s cruel.
I pulled on a light blue tank top and a pair of dark yoga pants. As I ran a comb through my unruly hair, I slipped my sandals on and wondered why in the world Lady Hokage was summoning me to her office at this ungodly hour.
I quietly opened my front door and peered out over the dimly lit, deserted street. No one was awake yet. Across the wide strip of tar was Sasuke’s house, and further down was Ino’s. Naruto’s was fairly close by, too, and I knew that Hinata would be there with him. It seemed like she never stayed at the Hyuuga estate for more than an hour these days, preferring to sleep on Naruto’s couch.
I jumped when I heard another door open. Who...?!
I looked, and the freaking Uchiha god was walking out his door.
Yes, that’s right. I was surprised too.
Okay, that’s a slight understatement. I gasped, lost my footing on the steep stairs leading up to my little porch (way smaller than Sasuke’s porch, I may add), and fell ungracefully on my face.
When I slowly looked up, face burning with shame, I saw two feet. Standing in front of me.
Yep. My humiliation was now complete.

To be continued...