KK: Holy shit, my teacher should assign me essays more often! Last minute panic totally totally gets my muse going! Unfortunately I have barely started my essay, but whatever.

Word of caution: I haven't actually seen Naruto since the time skip and all I know is that a lot of characters are dead and some came back to life. That being said, I've avoided talking about a lot of stuff here just because I don't know what's been going on and I don't want to make an ass of myself. I'm just gonna say this particular one-shot takes place in the far future, 'cause that's when I'm assuming everyone knows about Naruto's nine-tail deal like everyone knows Pluto is no longer a planet.

Also, somewhat OOC Naruto. Because I can't write him. I only have angsty fanfic memories of him. Which is why this fic is all Kyuubi-Angst, although I'm guessing the fandom has gotten over this theme already... It's been a while.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto

A Memory

Yamanaka Ino angrily blew a lock of her hair out of her face. "Where is that idiot?" she muttered to herself, looking over several paper bags with supplies in them. "I told him to meet me here!"

They had just finished up a mission in Aya, and had split up to restock before they began the long trek back to Konoha. She planned to get back in about two days, but it would take longer if the sun set before they could get far enough. "Naruto!"

The mission, a simple infiltration and retrieval for the Duke of the North, had gone over pretty well. She wasn't very close with Naruto, but their teamwork had come along surprisingly easily. It was funny; they had fought so much as children, but now that they had matured, they were that much more responsible and cooperative.

Or so she thought. Where is he? Ino growled. If he got distracted and got lost…

"Hey, hey! No fair!"

Ino looked to her right, following sound of the indignant cry.

"I got you, onii-chan! You're it!"

There was Naruto, surrounded by several little children. Some of them were clinging to his legs and draped over his shoulders. They were giggling and Naruto was flailing in protest, but his eyes showed the amusement he was holding back. "You all ganged up on me! How do I defeat the tiny people of doom!"

"Hey, we're not tiny!" a young boy complained, pulling back from Naruto's leg. "We're big!"

"Don't be silly," the girl next to him scoffed. "Onii-chan's way bigger than you'll ever be!"

"That's not true! I could take him on!"

Naruto grinned. "Really?"

The boy got a good look up at Naruto, gulping slightly before nodding determinedly. "Y-yeah!"

Ino vaguely recognized that mischievous lop-sided smile. She had to hold back her own laugh when Naruto shouted, "Then let's see you take this!" As if on cue, all the children still attached to him jumped off and Naruto descended upon the boy that challenged him, and gave him a tickling session.

"H-he-hey!" the boy gasped while laughing hysterically. "St-stop that!"

"A true ninja doesn't give up until the enemy surrenders!" Naruto declared happily.

"I su-sur-surrender!"

Naruto retreated, a face-splitting smile on his face. "And once more, the Great Ninja Master Uzumaki Naruto defeats the enemy and saves the day!" He proudly stuck out his chest as the children cheered.

"The Great Ninja Master Uzumaki Naruto also forgot that he was supposed to meet the Beautiful Goddess Yamanaka Ino by the convenience store half an hour ago."

Naruto turned to his mission partner, his huge fox-like grin retreating to a sheepish one. "Ah, Ino! I guess I got distracted."

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I guess. We have to be leaving. We want to get back to Konoha before the Hokage begins to worry."

"Awww…" the children groaned, disappointed to see their latest hero go.

Naruto turned to them, raising his hands dramatically. "I apologize, fellow ninjas, but the Beautiful Goddess beckons to me! She is as cunning as she is wrathful, and even the Great Ninja Master cannot resist her wily ways!"

"Who are you calling wily?" Ino scowled. "And since you weren't any help, you're carrying all this stuff, you jerk!" She thrust the supplies towards him, who grabbed them with a comedic stagger, and stormed off. Honestly, it's as if he didn't play enough when he was a kid!

Naruto winked at the kids. "She's just jealous 'cause she didn't get to play with us. Try not to hold it against her." The kids nodded knowingly.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Even as a six-year-old, Yamanaka Ino had always been a selfish creature. She hated to see anything depressing around her, especially when she was having fun, because it would be a damper on her own fun. This was why she couldn't possibly ignore the little boy in the distance, who had climbed up a tree and draped over one of the larger branches and was staring down at Ino and her friends.

It wasn't that he looked lonely. Just that he was used being by himself. Ino couldn't help but be irritated. Why did Uzumaki Naruto have to be here? She remembered Yasinoshi-san, the grocer who was friends with her mom, talk about Naruto once. He was a bad boy, Ino knew. He was… what did Yasinoshi-san call him?

Oh, right! "Hey, demon!"

No response. That got Ino angrier. How dare the demon ignore her? She was an angel – her father told her so – she couldn't be ignored like that! "Demon!" she called louder this time. "You, demon in the tree!"

She watched with a sense of satisfaction when he lifted his head and stared in her direction. He climbed down from the tree and walked towards her. "Did you call me?"

"I did," Ino sniffed. "Why didn't you reply before?"

Naruto shrugged.

"How rude!" She looked him up and down. "What's with those goggles?" she sneered. "They're too bright!"

Naruto sneered back at her. "I like them!"

The girl stuck out her tongue. "Well, I don't! Take them off!" She moved towards him and tried to grab it.

He stepped back away from her, slapping her hand away. "No way!" Ino pulled back her stinging hand, shocked.

"Hey!" a girl, Maya, yelled from her side. "You can't hit Ino-chan like that!" Her friends murmured angrily in agreement.

Naruto stepped back further, a flicker of fear crossing his face. "She tried to take my goggles!"

Maya stepped forward as well. "So? Ino-chan's right, those goggles are ugly! You should just listen –"

Ino blocked Maya off with her hand. "Stop that Maya. He's dangerous. I heard that he can kill us all in one shot! He could curse you!" Well, she didn't know for sure, but she knew demons could sometimes do that.

The silence was immediate. Ino felt proud to have gotten their attention. "It's true! He's a demon, I heard. A monster!"

"I heard that too!" a boy said.

"Me too!" a few others agreed.

"Aaah!" Ino screamed. "You can't eat me, monster!" She turned and ran away, and her friends followed her, laughing and shrieking, and Naruto was once again left to be by himself.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Ino's eyes shot open, the echo of her and her friends' laughter already fading from her head. She remembered that day. She had pretty much ignored Naruto up until that point; then, when she finally did talk to him, she had bullied him like that! God, how could she have been so horrible?

"Ino? Are you okay?"

The kunoichi sat up. "What time is it?"

"Almost five in the morning. I was going to wake you up in an hour."

Naruto was sitting off at a distance, taking the last lookout shift of the night. He stared at her concerned. "You look like you had a nightmare."

Ino looked away guiltily. "Something like that."

The orange-clad ninja nodded understandingly. "Wanna talk about it?"

"No," Ino said, shaking her head. "… I mean…" A mental image of Yasinoshi-san's kindly face floated through her head. Do you see that boy? It's best to stay away from him, Ino-chan, he's dangerous.

"…Yeah, a little."

Naruto patted the area next to him, gesturing for Ino to sit.

Ino joined him, but kept a respectful distance between them. She had known, ever since she found out about the Kyuubi, that Naruto had had a less than perfect life growing up. But she hadn't realized that kids like her had only made it worse for him. Still, it was obvious how much Naruto cared for Konoha. Somehow he had forgiven everything they had done to him, her included. Even though it was too late, Ino hoped she could still apologize, and get a little closer to deserving his forgiveness.

"Do you remember when I first talked to you?"

Naruto furrowed his brow and scratched his head. "Uh… no, not really."

Ino bit her lip. What she had done to him had been common enough that it wasn't even memorable. "You were in a tree, watching us play. I remember I hated your goggles…"

Suddenly comprehension dawned on Naruto's face. "Oh, I remember! I loved those goggles though, and you tried to take them. You got me so mad!"

Ino nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I was horrible."

"You were," Naruto agreed. "But we had a lot of fun, didn't we?"

Ino gaped at him. "Fun? What are you talking about?"

"Yeah, that game we played. Don't you remember?"

Ino frowned, wondering if they were remembering the same event.

"What do you mean?"

-.-.-.-.-.-

Naruto stood, bewildered, as that girl and her friends ran off. Irritation swelled up inside him. He was having a nice nap on that tree and they woke him up just for that? He ran after them, intending to give them a piece of his mind.

After a while though, he couldn't find them. Where had they gone? He wandered around for a while, and eventually he found himself near the academy. It was their day off, so no kids in sight. He turned around, ready to head back to Icharaku's. Maybe he could get Icharaku to give him a free meal…

There, in the distance, he saw the blonde girl running, and he was reminded of how he had gotten there. "Hey!" Ino looked at him, eyes widened, and she ran in the opposite direction.

"Wait up!" Naruto ran after her, hand outstretched.

She smirked, and ran faster.

Naruto growled, following her. They circled the schoolyard once, until Naruto finally caught up. He grabbed her ponytail, which flew behind her.

Ino yelped, lurching forward in protest. Her hair slipped out of his hand, and she fell forward, crashing to the ground.

"Hey, are you oka –"

"NARUTO!" a voice roared.

Naruto turned to face Iruka-sensei, who ran up to them, looking furious. "What are you doing, messing with Yamanaka-san like that?"

"Iruka-sen –"

"I don't need an explanation, Naruto, you're just being a prankster like always." He grabbed Naruto's wrist. "You're coming with me."

"Hey, wait!"

The teacher and boy looked at Ino, who had gotten up from the ground and was glaring at them. "You can't leave! We're playing!"

Several kids suddenly appeared from the bushes a few feet away. "Yeah, Iruka-sensei!" some of them called. "There's no school today, why can't we play?"

Iruka dropped Naruto's hand in surprise. "You mean this is all a game?"

Ino nodded. "Yup! He's a demon!"

"Yamanaka-san!" Iruka shouted, horrified. How had she known –

"What? He is!" Ino insisted. "Well, he was. He tagged me, so I'm a demon now."

What was this? Iruka was bewildered. These children…

"Okay, you guys! Naruto tagged me! I get to be a monster now!" She suddenly twisted her face into a grimace. "You better run, or else I'm gonna curse you all!"

The other kids shrieked gleefully, and started running off again. Ino looked at Naruto, who stayed behind uncertainly. "Hey! Why aren't you running? Aren't you afraid of me? I'm a better demon than you anyway! Watch!" She thrust her fingers forward in the shape of claws and jumped forward. Naruto jumped out of the way, alarmed, and began to run from her.

Iruka watched after them, stunned by the delighted expression on Naruto's face.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Ino stared at Naruto as they both remembered. As kids, they had lived day by day, and could barely discern one adventure from the next. She felt a pang of regret that she had forgotten Naruto so easily. She wondered if in another world, they would have been friends. As it was, they were only acquaintances, a friend of a friend, linked only by a homeroom in their childhood and the occasional low-level mission.

"You should have played with us after that?"

"I guess I got nervous or something. After a while it was too awkward to approach you again." Naruto thought back, vaguely remembering that somewhere after playing with Ino when some of the older kids tricked him into falling in a well and Iruka had found him two days later. But that wasn't really something to tell Ino, because it didn't really matter.

Ino looked away. "We should have noticed. We should have helped you."

Naruto blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You aren't a monster, Naruto!"

"Really? Wow! Thanks!"

Ino shook her head. "You know what I mean. We were so immature. Everyone should have known… what are you looking at me like that for?"

Naruto was smiling at her, in a sort of exasperated, pitying way. "Isn't this a little selfish of you, Ino?"

She flinched. "I…"

"I have good memories, Ino. You did too before you found out about the Kyuubi, didn't you?" He'd had conversations like this before, sometimes spoken and sometimes implied. As the whispers about his life-long secret had spread throughout Konoha, he began to receive numerous apologies from his friends, each one given in a unique personal way.

For example, Sakura-chan sometimes burst into his apartment claiming that the place was disgusting and move like a hurricane through it, organizing everything and when she left, Naruto found his kitchen magically restocked with vegetables and fruit.

Tenten slipped a few extra kunai in his purchases whenever he stopped by her parents' store.

Shikamaru, Chouji and Kiba renewed their childhood habit of playing pranks on the civilians of Konoha, inviting Naruto to take part.

Hinata and Neji invited him over to their mansion, treating him as an important guest and subtly showing the lower houses that Uzumaki Naruto was not one to be messed with.

It touched him, and he was truly grateful to have such a wonderful family. But he didn't like that they were beating themselves up over this. "Don't let that furball ruin your memories, Ino."

For a while, Ino was silent. Finally, "When did you grow up so much, dead-last?"

"Same could be said for you."

Ino reached out and cuffed him on the head. "Don't be stupid. I've always been mature."

"Hey! But you were just talking about – stop hitting me!"

"Because you're being annoying again!"

The sun peeks up over the horizon; a foundation for friendship starts to form, and another memory is tucked away, to be pulled out again and held and felt while eyes are closed and there is no sound but that of steady breathing.

KK: (Getting a little teary-eyed) God, I remember when I attempted a NaruIno multi-chap and failed miserably (even though it was my most popular fic, it was also my worst) and deleted it. They were my first crack pairing. Sigh.

Okay, so that's object number two on my list of goals! Two out of ten in two days ain't bad, huh? Wish it could stay at that pace.

P.S. Isn't it awesome that Naruto's VA is the same one for the latest new character on One Piece, Sabo? And it's funny because Sabo is the most mature out of his trio! I dunno, maybe I'm weird.