The Boy in the Team

"Naruko Namikaze, Sasuke Uchiha and Shinku Haruno, you are assigned to team Seven. Your Jounin-sensei will be Kakashi Hatake."

A scream pierced the quiet silence of the classroom.

"All right! You heard that, Teme? We're in the same team!"

"Shut up," a grumbling male voice remarked.

"Ehi! You have to treat me nice! My mom said so 'ttebayo!"

He remained quiet in his corner.

This was a nightmare.

Had he really done that badly on the last test?

His crimson eyes looked down at the surface of his desk. Hibachi muttered from his side, warily eying him. "You sure got lucky, dude. Why the long face?"

Shinku tried a smile, which came out as thin twitching lips curled in a grimace. "You mean…except me being the dead last in a team with the daughter of the Yondaime and the son of the Police Chief?"

His voice came out barely as a whisper. "I'm screwed all over," he mumbled. "Dead. So, so dead."

Hibachi patted him on the back. "Come on pal, think positive. Your mother's bound to be happy."

"I'm in here because you wanted to become a ninja," Shinku muttered back to him. "Did you really have to guilt trip me in following you?" he looked intensively at his desk.

"Come on, it won't be that bad," Hibachi patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "At least you passed the exam."

"For all the good it did to me," Shinku muttered back as the last team formed. He heard the teacher's last words about working hard together, and then watched as he left. The Jounin-sensei trickled in one after the other, taking their charges. Hibachi waved goodbye to him, and then left with his own team —a perfectly normal, average team.

He was glad he brought a book when five minutes went by and 'Kakashi' still did not show himself. Shinku's face would have disappeared into the pages if he could have. His dreams of having a normal, every-day shinobi life with a couple of average looking ninja had disappeared into thin mist. Sure, his mother was probably going to be head over heels the news.

"Hey!" there it went, his peaceful life ended in that moment. "You another sulking bastard like Sasuke? There's enough Emo power already in this team with him. No more than one sulking Teme allowed, uh-uh!"

Shinku carefully brought his book slightly down, eying warily the blond haired girl and her bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle. Probably because she was excessively close, sitting on the row of desks just in front of him.

He hadn't even heard her move. Then again, he had been trying to disappear from existence. Maybe he was still in time to dig himself a hole somewhere.

"Ohi, you there?" she asked once more, going from curious to pissed off in less than a second.

"Y-Yes," he replied. So maybe it was more of a 'squeak' than an 'answer', but still. He was talking with the daughter of the Yondaime, so didn't he have the right to remain silent or something like that?

His eyes slowly moved back to the ink words of his book, only to find it gone. He flexed his fingers. He had held the book in his hands until a moment before, hadn't he?

"Now then," the girl said holding on to the book, his book, with a mischievous smile. "It's not nice to ignore someone when they're talking to you," she added. "And as I said, there can only be one sulking bastard in the team, and that's Sasuke."

"I can hear you, idiot," Sasuke replied calmly. "And that's theft, so give him the book back."

"Sheesh, keep your duck-butt hair-feathers down, Uke-Chan! I was just looking at it," Naruko rolled her eyes. "And just trying to make conversation…Kakashi won't be here for hours at least," she threw the book back into Shinku's hands, who hastily held on to it.

"And then he's going to ask us our likes and our dislikes, and so on. I know all about that stuff!"

Naruko finished stating that, before flopping down on the row of benches and bringing both arms behind her head. "Well, I'll let you two quiet guys fraternize first then. Speak about the length of your—"

"That does not happen," Sasuke retorted. "It never happens. Only in those trashy books you keep hiding in my room to put me in trouble with my mother do those things happen."

"Ehi! Uncle Jiraiya's books aren't trashy!"

"Then why don't you read them at home?" the Uchiha replied.

Naruko didn't answer, instead firmly starting to snore.

Sasuke looked in disgust towards the sleeping form of the girl, albeit there was hardly any true emotion behind it, before standing up from his spot and moving closer to Shinku.

Shinku swallowed the ball of saliva and nervousness he had in his throat, as the son of the Police Chief stopped just next to him. The boy extended his right hand.

"We're in the same team so we'll have to get along. You don't look as much of a pain as Naruko, so dead last or not, it's good to have you on the team."

Shinku nervously extended his own hand and lightly grasped that of Sasuke, before shaking. The moment done, Sasuke snorted as he stared towards Naruko's form. The girl's right eye was open as she stared intensively at the two of them.

"We are not going to measure our dicks," Sasuke stated plainly.

Naruko stared.

"We are not going to talk about our past conquests," he added then.

Naruko stared again.

"We are not going to speak of our sexuality or of our nightly activity. Get your head out of the gutter trash, idiotic bimbo," Sasuke snorted.

Naruko kept on staring.

"Ignore her," Sasuke added then, looking at Shinku. "She'll get tired in a few minutes if you don't say anything."

Shinku tried to smile, but the conversation died out like that.

It was, in one word, awkward.

That was how Team Seven began.

Awkwardly.

Author's notes

What I do is unforgivable.

What My Muse does is worse.

I did state I needed more angst, and so here we are…

A tale of Drama and Angst begins! *Not. For. The. Faint. Of. Heart*

The Reasoning: The original 'Boy in the Park' actually was not so much an Original as much as a decision to write an actually likeable Oc.

By writing that Oc, I tasted the waters.

So, I can write this now with relative mental fortitude and knowledge. The reasons why Naruto is Gender bent and there's no Sakura but Shinku isn't because I 'transferred' the characters. Shinku is the Male substitute of Sakura in a place where he could not be Rookie of the year (That spot is to Sasuke) Hence he had to be Dead Last. Hence there had to be a Naruko to be prime Kunoichi. Hence, there had to be a Yondaime/reason for Naruko to be prime Kunoichi. Hence, there could not be Uchiha Slaughter with Minato and Kushina alive.

Hence this tale begins.

Extremely logical.