Trust me, I'm lying

Chapter Two

"I'm home!" Boruto announced as he entered the front door, leaving it open for Saru to follow him.

"Brother, welcome home!" Himawari came down the stairs, smiling at her brother. She then turned and saw the other boy standing next to him and froze on the spot. Boruto tilted his head slightly and followed her gaze to Sarada.

"Ah, this is Saruhiko Haru, he's new at my school."

Sarada bowed slightly and smiled, "Please call me Saru, thank you for having me over." Himawari nodded, turned bright red and ran back upstairs.

"What's up with her?" Boruto wondered out loud as he made his way to the kitchen.

He started talking about some task or other that Saru could do for him but Sarada was not listening, not really. She stared in wonder at the house around her. This is the home of Naruto Uzumaki. The table where he ate, the sofa where he relaxed, the window where-

"Oi, Saru?" Sarada blinked at Boruto for that rude interruption of her day dreaming, "I've been calling you for ages." Saru nodded but said nothing, it was Boruto's turn to blink and turn away as he mumbled something about crazy new students.

"So, anyway - you can start by cooking us dinner. Something quick but delicious, that you can finish before my mom arrives from her shopping." Boruto threw himself on the couch, arms behind his head.

Sarada raised an eyebrow as she rested her bag on the couch next to his feet, "How do you even know if I can cook?"

He raised a questioning eyebrow, "Well, can you?"

Something suddenly popped into her mind, "Is the Hokage going to eat what I cook?"

Boruto frowned at her, "Are you one of those weirdos that are obsessed with my dad?"

"…No." Yes, yes she was. The blond's menacing look dragged the lie out, "Fine. The man is a hero! He literally saved Konoha I don't know how many times, he fought through injustice and prejudice all his life and now look at him!" She pointed at the family picture on the wall, "The man is a national treasure."

Boruto was arranging his thoughts neatly so he could throw Naruto-related-facts at his frienemy until they agreed about what kind of man Naruto really was. Himawari and her cuteness rudely interrupted him, "Saru-kun," she started, her eyes glowing, "Would you like to look through dad's old pictures with me?"

Boruto's plans came apart as he watched his very easily excited younger sister bring up an old picture album out of nowhere, run to them and indecently shove him out of the couch so Saru and her could sit. Himawari walked Saru through every single picture as if she had been there herself. They laughed together as the blue-eyed girl used day-to-day objects around her as props to describe her father's heroism.

The older Uzumaki pursed his lips as he felt an unexpected pang of jealously at his sister's and Saru's new found friendship. Saru was clearly too innocent to realize that Himawari never took such interest in her brother's friends, clearly this kind of attention was reserved for the good looking ones.

Their moment continued for what it felt like an eternity to Boruto, who was obviously not affected by any of this. His unaffectedness was actually very well proven by the fact he had now pealed about 12 potatoes for dinner without even knowing what he was going to cook. Well, whatever it was it would now have to include at least 12 pealed potatoes.

Sarada was unbelievably happy with Himawari. Unlike her brother, she was cute, friendly and seemed quite eager to impress. If only all the Uzumaki children were like that. Sarada flipped through album pages, asking her about little details that she seemed to know everything about. However, the closer they got to the end the easier it was for the young Uchiha to realize that there were no photos of her father in the album and very few of her mother, "Seems like there is quite a few famous ninjas missing in these pictures, though. Doesn't it?"

Himawari flipped her hair and gave her new friend an all knowing look, "Well, dad says some people are not deserving enough to get into his album so he keeps separate ones."

Sarada nodded and said nothing, trying to contain her disappointment. A few minutes passed with the other girl excitedly referring to her dad's war trophies; Sarada decided that was enough polite time given after their last conversation so she could make her way out, "I'm very sorry Himawari-chan, I have to go."

The blue-eyed girl blushed at the suffix and nodded. Sarada took that moment to grab her bag and quickly get out the door. Boruto dropped his pealed potato number 15 on the floor in surprise, "Where you going? You still haven't cooked dinner!" But the other was long gone. The blond stood abruptly and ran to the door, swiftly putting his shoes as he got there. As he was getting out his sister spoke,

"Hey, nii-san." Himawari winked and prodded herself into a fighting stance, fists up and all, "I will fight you for him."

Boruto rolled his eyes - as if she didn't know who would win that fight (definitely Himawari).

The blond jogged out the door and a few seconds later spotted Saru's little frame at the distance, he ran as fast as he could,

"HEY, hey, where do you think you're going? It's still servitude time!" Sarada could hear Boruto calling out as she increased her pace.

"I'll pay it some other day." She called out.

"Well, you should really discuss this with your master before you-" As the girl sped up her pace the blond did the same, "My God, you're fast."

Sarada ran, Boruto followed. She had always been a fast runner but keeping her distance from the other was more difficult than she expected. They sprinted until Sarada spotted her apartment. Her initial plan was to hide and let the blond run past her. However, the idiot managed to trip on a rock and fall knees-first on the pavement. She took a deep breath to contain her annoyance and made his way to him, helping him up as he moaned and rubbed his scrapped knees.

"What was that? Why did you bolt?" Boruto asked, still trying to catch his breath.

"I'm just feeling tired after my second day in school ended up with a slavery contract." The blond gave her a self-explanatory look; she was not getting out of this so easily.

She had no patience for this right now, "Leave, Boruto."

"No, I've been running after you for the last 10 minutes, I want an explanation." Or some oxygen, whichever. He really felt about to pass out, "Just so we're clear I'm much better at running usually. Not so much at speed, but like – like endurance."

Sarada studied the scene for a bit and came to the conclusion that she could probably make it up the stairs and into her apartment before Boruto could recover from his current state of hyperventilation. She was wrong.

As soon as she turned around and started running again the blond groaned loudly in frustration but still followed her up the stairs and annoyingly stopped her just in time. Now Boruto had his hand above her head, planted on the door right over the second lock. Sarada stood in front of him, keys still inserted on the first lock. Damn her for being over cautious and locking both.

"So this is where you live." He was so close behind her that she could feel his still running-related heavy breathing.

Sarada tried not to get distracted by his closeness, making a point of sounding a stern as possible, "Yes, leave."

"Not until you tell me what happened."

"I don't need to tell you anything."

"I can be very convincing." Sarada was a hundred percent sure he was trying to threaten her with physical violence with that statement but considering their current position it was very hard for her to think of it like that.

He smelled the same as the day he tried to beat her up, she thought. Boruto was too close again; her legs refused to move, her head was spinning, her scarlet face must have been obvious if not for the fact that some running had just taken place. The man was way too stubborn for his own good.

Sarada understood there were not many ways out of this. She doubted she could get away with kicking him in between the legs again and she could not open the door while he had his hand over the lock. The other option was to play the sad card and just cry her way out of this, but she figured she lost enough pride today.

Boruto could feel this was an uneasy issue by how obvious it was that the other boy was weighing his options. Nevertheless, his curiosity would not allow him to drop it. "We can speak inside." He offered. The sudden mortified look that took over Saru's face made him even more curious.

The Uchiha girl on her side did not think that was a good idea at all. She did try her best to make her home look as manly as she could but the blond was much smarter than he let on and she definitely didn't think he would take her female reality very well.

"My dad was a traitor during the ward." Sarada blurted out, looking at the floor.

Boruto's hand left the door as he leaned back slightly; he was not expecting that answer for sure. He was expecting something among the lines of how he could not listen to Himawari blabber on and on, or how Saru stole something from his dad and wanted to hide it as soon as possible. What are you supposed to 'my dad was a traitor'?

"Uh- I, well - what happened to him?" There you go, eloquence in its prime.

"He died." Sarada said it in almost a whisper. She took a deep breath a turned to look at Boruto, keeping her face as straight as possible to make sure he believe her. Sasuke Uchiha was not dead, she was sure of that.

The reason both her and her mother stayed away from the village was so that he could see them more often, so they could try and be a normal family. It worked for a while but her father's missions kept him away from home most of the time anyway – for someone only considered a traitor by the village he was definitely dedicated. Sasuke had explained to her many times that Naruto tried his best to convince everyone of how good he was – the 'now' was implicit. He also explained that Naruto was an idiot and probably over did it by ignoring all the betraying he had actually admitted to doing and expecting nothing else than the whole village to treat him like a hero. Obviously, they were having none of that and so both sides came to the agreement that Sasuke would not be arrested as long as he worked towards the Leaf Village's well being while never actually stepping inside it. Her father considered this a fair point; Naruto apparently threw a fit about it and sulked for the next few weeks, causing a disgruntled council to promise to eventually consider Sasuke's return for retirement.

It still hurt her that her father's choices cost them a normal life at the village. It hurt more just imagining the pain he had been through being all-alone in the world, seeking revenge by killing his only living family.

Boruto watched Saru and he could see was aching. He couldn't understand if he felt breathless from running or if this feeling of powerlessness was making him suffocate.

This was Boruto's problem. He cared too much; he got involved in everyone's pain and carried it with him. But that was before; when he became a teenager something just took over him and he decided the only way to become immune to everybody else's feelings was to become cold and detached, and it worked. At least it worked until this person in front of him that barely resembled a young adult was honest enough to bare his pain to a stranger. Boruto hadn't cared for so long he almost forgot what it felt like to be drowned by somebody else's emotions.

The blond stepped forward but his movements came to a halt suddenly - this was too much, he barely knew Saru, it was not his place to comfort him.

"I'm- I'm sorry." He said, leaving his arms to fall to his sides, "Who was he?"

'Your dad's best friend that he previously described as a shadow Hokage but could not be bothered to have one picture of him on his oh-so-important album of famous people' was what Sarada wanted to say. What she actually blurted out in a hurry was "Not important enough for anyone to know."

Boruto said nothing. Instead he kept staring at her with those big blue eyes, expecting her to continue. Sarada responded with a shrug, "It was a bit upsetting to remind myself that my dad was more part of the problem than the solution."

"Are you okay?"

Sarada looked at him in a new light. It was much harder to hate him when he was kind.

"I'm used to it." She said with a sad smile.

He nodded.

Boruto returned home and did a lot of deep thinking that night. He though through everything that had happened the previous night and decided that what Saru had told him was deeply personal information and that he should not show he had been affected by it or he would be breaking Saru's trust.

By this he actually meant he planned to continue to be the insensitive asshole he'd been before,

"Hello, slave."

"I have a name."

"Whatever. You should be proud of yourself, I'm on time today. That is how much of a good influence you are."

"You're here on time just to bully me? Aw, you shouldn't have."

Boruto ignored him and dropped a pile of books on him, "You can carry those."

"I don't think we have this many classes today."

"We don't."

Boruto turned his back and started walking with a pretty obviously miserable Sarada behind him. The day had barely started and she had already been condemned to hell.

Again the curious students stopped their conversations to pay close attention to Boruto's antics; most of the looked unsurprised.

"So," she started, "Made many people carry your books in the past?"

The blond turned back to give her a confident look, "This is just the price of being popular. People want to know about your life." Sarada was sure that meant to sound cocky but it came out in a much sadder tone than he intended. She guessed it would certainly cost part of anyone's sanity to be under constant scrutiny, be it at home by your parents or out in the world by everyone else. It made her feel sad for him, a feeling that was swiftly gone when her arms and fingers started getting numb with the weight of the books.

As they entered the main building a couple of guys walked past them, one of which shared a delightful "loser" comment towards Sarada that she didn't hear but worry not, it rang loud and clear on Boruto's ears, "Hello Bieber," the blond called out, Haven't learned what a man's hairstyle looks like yet?"

The guy's face turned bright red as he was reluctantly dragged away by his obviously intimidated friend. The Hokage's had a triumphant smirk plastered on his face as Sarada judged him and direly spoke, "Aren't you adorable."

"Mind your own business, slave."

"Is it the air around the school that makes you act like a retard?"

"You're my slave this week so you better behave."

"I might be a slave but my mouth still works you-"

Their bantering came to a halt as the tree stooges, as Sarada mentally named the Shika-Ino-Mitsu group (alternatively named Shinomi when she discussed them with Chocho), approached them. Shikadai was the first to notice the ridiculous amount of books the new guy was holding, "What's this?"

"This is Saru-slave. A new and improved version of old Saru." Sarada stared blankly at them as Boruto gave her a pat on the back strong enough to make the books sway in her arms.

"He looks impressed by the title." Shikadai said as Inoji laughed and Mitsuki maintained his same old creepy smile. The Uchiha wondered if anyone had actually ever bothered to tell him how freakish it was.

"Do I want to know what led to this?"

"Where to start?"

"Near the end, preferably." Sarada mumble as her words were drowned out by an unnecessarily loud and inaccurate description by Boruto of how Saru had specifically requested, no - begged - to be his slave so he could learn from the Great Master about how he could become the epitome of perfection and god-like flawlessness. She raised an eyebrow at the idiocy of his words but gave a background nod to his enriched vocabulary while describing fictional situations.

"Hey," Inoji interrupted, signaling his friend with a slight nod to a group of girls walking behind him. Boruto seemed slightly irritated by the interference of his very eloquent description but it dissipated instantly as he turned his attention to the girls.

"Is she new?" He asked turning to Shikadai. It was really useful to have a genius with a memory of an elephant on your side at many times, however Boruto seemed to use it for all the wrong reasons.

"No, but that is certainly some late maturing."

"I'm up for that."

"What is he doing?" She asked Mitsuki whom despite his obviously peculiar ways still appeared to be the most mentally stable.

"He's hitting on her," "Have you been living under a rock?"

"He seems really… into it."

"He is."

"Are you sure he doesn't know her?"

"He doesn't."

"Oh my God, is he going to kiss her?" If any guy would just walk up to her and in less than one minute tried to kiss her he would find out what it felt like to have his head smashed against a wall.

"What's with all the questions?"

Careful, Sarada. Your girl is showing. "I'm a feminist."

"I value my breath so it would be nice if you didn't take it away every time you walk by."

The girl giggled, Sarada looked for somewhere to barf.

"Please tell me this is not a once a day occurrence."

"It's not." Mitsuki helpfully offered, "It's an average of three times a day occurrence."

'I don't think I can manage this three times a day' Sarada thought as she tried to remind herself this was not a completely unexpected behavior and that the Uzumaki was an idiotic bully so she should really start lowering her conduct standards for him.

"He can't possibly find the time for this three times a day." Or pull off the imagination for the corny lines. "Do we even have that many girls in this school?" She would try to figure out the math later.

"Well, one of three is usually towards Sumire."

Sarada remembered that name, she was sure Chocho had introduced her before, "The class rep?"

Shikadai shook his head, "I never saw him look like that, barely able to concentrate, stumbling, forgetting his words."

Inoji laughed, "It was amazing."

Shikadai shrugged, "Puppy love."

Sarada was about to ask for more details when the bell rang and the girl next to Boruto giggled her goodbyes. He strolled back the group, a confident grin on his face as he combed his fingers through that perfect hair of his. He turned to Sarada, "Impressed, little boy?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, "Grossed out."

The blond's expression turned sour but Mitsuki interrupted by pushing them both softly towards the classroom, "Let's try not to be late for class for once in our lives, shall we?"

Boruto turned away from them with an angry huff and walked faster towards the classroom. He sat down and shortly after Sarada came in, dumping all the books on his table. Mitsuki again sat in between them, Inoji was in front of him and Shikadai to his left next to the window, with Sarada behind him.

Konohamaru didn't take long to come in and start the class. A couple of hours passed and Sarada's attentiveness in the teacher's words declined.

She spotted Sumire at one of the front desks and wondered what is it about this girl that turned the powerful, confident and loud Uzumaki into the shy little boy that Shikadai described. The class rep was pretty, she had to give her that. Her face seemed like a cut out of a magazine, her purple hair was neatly braided and she seemed to have a lean looking body.

"If you're wondering what's so special about her," Shikadai started, in the most bored whisper that a human had ever uttered, "She told him no."

Sarada was about to ask him to go into details when she felt a piece of paper knock her in the head. She swiftly turned to glare and saw Inoji winking at her, leaning halfway down his chair as he seemed to always sit in class. She opened the wrinkled piece of paper: 'I still think it was the legs', it said with a little long legged Sumire illustration at the bottom, complete with an ogling Boruto face. Sarada tried to look at the purple haired girl's legs but Sumire sat all the way down the front right corner, in front of Chocho, and it was hard to tell from this distance how good her legs looked.

Maybe Boruto would look at her the same way if she had legs up to her neck.

Sarada flushed dark red at the thought. What was she thinking? Why would it matter it Boruto even looked at her? She was playing a boy for heaven's sake, she had enough to worry about without having anyone look at her legs under the purposely-loose dark fabric of her male pants. She shoved Inoji's note into her pencil case as if it was the sole cause of her line of thought. Really, she would not ever have wondered about Boruto looking at her legs if it wasn't for that note. Maybe. Probably. Whatever.

Mr. Konohamaru's voice woke her from her daydreaming as he asked for Sumire to come up to the board and complete one of the problems he had written down. Sarada immediately looked from the corner of her eye to Boruto only to see him half asleep on his table, absent-mindedly spinning a pen, not looking the part of the head over heels boy she was expecting him to be.

The rest of the morning went by slowly once Boruto suddenly realized during their morning break that it would hilarious if Saru would laugh every time the teacher asked a question. Sarada nearly collapsed at his idea; she had never, EVER, misbehaved in class. Boruto helpfully offered a much worse alternative to his previous idea in which she would have to wink at the teacher every time he looked at her. Laughing it is then.

Konohamaru considered the new student was perhaps just nervous about his questions and laughing was a not-so-surprising response. Soon he was annoyed and reprimanded the boy, who then seemed to be on the verge of tears so he rapidly gave up on that and decided to ignore the laughing. The teacher finally noticed a clearly amused Boruto, snickering constantly, finally realizing this was somehow obviously related to the well-known troublemaker. That earned the blond a slap to the back of the head and a stern warning before the students left for lunch. Boruto tried his best to look innocent but the teacher knew him for too long now and seemed almost immune to his charm. Almost.

"Explain to me again why you didn't get anything more than a warning after all that?" Sarada angrily hissed as they came out of the classroom and made their way to the canteen.

Her classmate shrugged with a smirk, "It's all about the charm, Saru. You'll never know what that is." Sarada was about to voice her discontent but decided this will probably only increase her odds of crap jobs in her remaining time in the agreement. Once they entered the canteen she spotted Chocho sitting with her friends and started to make her way towards them. Boruto stopped her, pulling her by the back of the shirt, "Saru-slave, you're having lunch with me. And by that I mean, go grab me my lunch."

She glared at him, fighting the urge to just punch him in the dick as she had done before. Sarada kept her glare as she walked away to grab their lunches. When she walked back Boruto demanded that she cut his food for him and waited for her master to finish eating before she started her own meal, as he might need assistance at any time. She felt her eyebrow twitch but nodded.

Fortunately Boruto ate like a bear and finished his meal in about 3 minutes. He then mentioned how disappointing it was that Saru had brought fruit for his own desert instead of a chocolate pudding that the blond was craving for after finishing his own.

Sarada took the chance to dig into her food, as Boruto was busy bullying some juniors out of their desert while Inoji and Shikadai laughed at his antics.

Eventually she noticed Mitsuki watching silently with that creepy smile of his.

"What?" She said, but with her mouth so full it sounded much more like 'wuaumth?´

"Boruto," He started, "He's a good guy once you get to know him."

Sarada swallowed her food and huffed, "All I heard was he is a jerk but you'll get used to it."

"He has a lot of pressure to be like his father so his anger comes out in curious ways."

"He's a bully, they all come with daddy issues."

"I think you can be a good influence on him."

Sarada huffed at that, "His father is the Hokage and he can't change him. What can I do?"

"You don't seem as impressed by him as everyone else."

Sarada snorted, "He's a little broken boy that spends his time tormenting others."

Mitsuki nodded, "You see him for what he really is, what else do you need?"

She pointed a fork at Mitsuki, "I'm not going to make him my charity case. You seem to know him better than I do."

"I do. I've known him forever and I can tell you he wasn't always this cruel. He used to be very kind. He changed." The blue haired boy continued to look ahead, "Imagine how happy the Hokage would be to see his son return to his true potential."

'You manipulative little son of a- breath, Sarada.' She stopped her line of thinking, reminding herself she was the one that appeared to have anger issues now.

Sarada's thoughts were again rudely interrupted as she felt a familiar arm fall on her shoulders. Boruto had propped himself next to her as he loudly stated something about Saru now needing to refer to him as 'your highness'.

The rest of the day followed exactly as anyone would predict. Boruto managed to think of the most humiliating activities in class to test both Sarada and Konohamaru's patience.

"To spare you the details, let's just say there was a lot of whistling, pretend-crying and idiocy involved, mom." Sarada spoke as she threw herself on top of her bed, still holding her bag in one hand and her phone in the other.

"Are you enjoying it?" Sakura tested, regretting her earlier cheerful tone as she had asked, 'How was my boy's first day?' with a clear overdose of enthusiasm.

"Well, I haven't been punched in the face yet so everything is super-duper."

"Sarada…" Her mom spoke with a warning tone.

Sarada sighed exasperatedly, "I'm fine, mama. Everything's intact." 'Except my dignity', she mentally added.

That night Sarada went to bed making a mental list of the reasons why all this had been a terrible idea. She then recalled all the crap she went through the whole day but for some reason Boruto's smile kept popping up in her mind and interrupting the mental list she was making of all the reasons that boy is going to hell. 'I have to try harder to hate him', she thought as she fell asleep.

To be continued...

Hello, just a small side note: this story is set in the normal Naruto universe but with a twist. After the war people are no longer trained to be shinobi in a way to avoid further violence. As such, the Academy is now a regular school.

Sakura did not return to the village after Sarada's birth so Sasuke could see them more often (as he is not technically allowed to be there).