Canon Side-Story: To Do List, Making Friends

To Do List side stories are a series of side stories that are largely spoiler free, about Sakura following through with the stuff she decided she wanted to do during Arc 5.
In today's option, she tries to make friends!
This will have a Pt 2 that enters the voting pool.

This was voted on by the $10 patrons.

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Sitting at her writing desk, twirling a pen and staring down at some paper, she can’t help but mourn how simple and small her list of options is.

See, nothing’s made it clearer than she doesn’t have enough friends like making friends recently. It sounds counter intuitive, but it turns out getting a little social time has revealed to her that she’s quite lonely. It’s like when you don’t think you’re hungry but then you eat some toast and suddenly you’re very much interested in more toast.

The first list to look at is the melody of hearts list, as it’s heavily implicative that those people at least like her.

Naruto

Lee

Sasuke

Ino

The Third Hokage

Kakashi

Tenten

Hinata

Ami

Haku

There’s just, there’s issues with most of these?

She’s already friends with Naruto, Sasuke, Lee, Tenten, Haku, and Ino.

She has no intentions of hanging out with the Hokage or Kakashi…

Which leaves Hinata and Ami.

Hinata’s always been rather off putting for her. Maybe she’s shy, maybe she’s mean, but absolutely none of her previous attempts to make nice with her have resulted in much but feeling awkward and alone. Then there’s the whole fiasco the other day with Hinata, she really doesn’t need to be thanked ten thousand times for what her parents did, that’s just, no.

And Ami, uh… No.

She’s good. She’s not dumb enough to go meet her previous bully and make an honest plea for friendship. She’s not sure why she was on the Melody of Hearts list, in fact she met her at the festival - well Ino did - so she clearly had a date already.

Okay, that leaves her with zero options. Forget the paper, she can ask around and see who needs a friend, maybe she can provide a pity friend while gaining a pity friend, do some kind of symbiotic friendship thing.

First, she’ll ask Naruto, he probably has someone in mind.

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“Hey, Sasuke has goggles like that.” Sakura points out, looking at the young boy’s forehead and how it’s covered by glass and plastic. His brown hair is a little unruly, it reminds her of Naruto, but then this was Naruto’s suggestion.

“I’m only doing this because the Boss told me to.” Naruto’s suggestion has his arms crossed, his bright yellow shirt hanging off his shoulders. Konohamaru Sarutobi, the Hokage’s grandson, is Naruto’s suggestion. She’s not so sure about making friends with random kids, but then she is Good With Kids, and if nothing else, being friendly with someone related to the Hokage will probably get her a little leeway. Maybe. That’s really not her motivation, but it’s a nice plus!

“You really respect Naruto,” she observes with a bright smile, “me too, wanna talk about him?”

“Yes! You’re his teammate right? Tell me about the Boss!” Konohamaru jumps in the air, throwing a fist up.

Things Naruto’s done that are cool… Excluding the Kyuubi for obvious reasons, she decides not to include that she lives with him for now, training is boring and not worth mentioning. Ah, she’s got it! “So we fought a vampire on a recent mission, and Naruto was so awesome! He created like a million clones and used them to wade through the blood pool-”

He listens attentively, and she feels she’s done a great job, his wide eyes and fascinated awe filled smile are more than enough. She finds she’s wiggling all the way home!

She later receives a formal request from the Hokage not to tell gruesome stories to his grandson, though Konohamaru starts visiting the house to talk to her and Naruto so she gains a friend! This is a win!

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“Hello, Hanabi!” Neji had a weird recommendation.

Why did she ask Neji again? Still, she leans into it and waves as best she can to get her attention.

“Who are you and why are you talking to me?” Those eyes make it clear who this is, though she’ll admit staking out the Academy to talk to a little girl as she leaves class is very awkward. Neji said she was super awkward and needed to talk to people!

“Neji said that I should-”

“Put respect on his name,” The little black haired girl snaps at her, “branch family Hyuga are infinitely better than you, you should know your place.”

“Errrr, is he? Hinata’s main branch and she was my classmate for a while, I don’t remember the part where she lectured me about how much better she is.” Sakura reaches up to scratch her cheek. Damn-it Neji, this is such a bad recommendation!

“Hinata is a failure, and should not be counted in the data pool.” The small girl stomps her foot on the ground, glaring daggers at her. “Are we done?”

“Uh, I just wanted to say hello.” Sakura says.

“So we’re done.” She has nothing to say while the small girl walks away, leaving her behind to feel bad about herself.

“Wow, it's been a while since that happened.” It reminds her of the Academy, and her attempts to make friends when she was also a little girl. That kinda dismissal happened kind of a lot. “Okay, next person on this list has to be my age.”

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Spiky black hair with a cloth above his nose.

Dark brown hair that covers one eye and a headband that makes his Konoha headband look a bit like a beanie.

The gate guards, also known as the eternal protectors of Konoha, are Kakashi’s recommendation.

So here she stands, at the gates, right next to them awkwardly watching them check papers and make jokes at each-other’s expense. She wanted her age, but they’re quite a bit older than her.

Izumo and Kotetsu, she thinks their names are. Uhhhh-

“Kakashi’s not here, you can go home.” Izumo - she thinks - says to her after a while. “I know he gave you a mission or something to familiarize yourself with the gate.”

“N-no, he um, I’m trying to make friends,” She explains, clapping her hands together, “he said you two were lonely.”

“Right, and the answer to that loneliness is a little girl,” who she thinks is Kotetsu snarks, “tell Kakashi his joke is very funny, but you should go meet other Genin.”

“Like who?” She asks, eyes lighting up. That’s an idea! What if she goes and meets other Genin!

“Uh.. I think the Nara and Akimichi heirs are your age, why not go share a meal and nap with them? Sounds low maintenance to me.” Izumo gives her a great idea.