"Why Kami?" cried Naruto as he ate lunch with Anko and Hinata. "Do you hate me that much? Why do I have to be stuck with Sasuke?"
"Hey Naruto-kun," said Anko as she put down her tea and then threw her last dango stick at a tree to create the Leaf symbol. "Are you done whining about this? It's starting to get on my nerves."
"Well," said Naruto as he brought a hand to his chin. "I was going to start listing the reasons why this is a bad idea; then I had planned on going over all the injustices that we have gone through in the entirety of our lives. Finally, I would have finished it all, by saying that we should be on the same team."
"I know how you feel," said Hinata as she put down her bento box. "I thought that the Hokage would put us all on the same team since we work so well together."
"I know Hinata-chan," said Naruto as he slapped his knees. "That's what I've been trying to get at. We work perfectly together. Hinata-chan finds them, I beat them up, and then Anko-chan ties them up and gets any information she can from them."
"You know me too well," said Anko with a blush. "But, I guess I can see why we are on these teams. Like Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino are on the same team because their fathers were on the same team and worked well together. I guess he's sticking with what works so he's doing it with everyone."
"I didn't know that about Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino," said an amazed Naruto.
"You slept through that lecture," deadpanned Anko.
Over on a different part of the academy grounds, a pink haired girl was crying her eyes out. She had not been placed on the same team as her Sasuke-kun, not only that, but also when she had asked to eat lunch with him, he just vanished. She felt like Kami hated her. (Really, it's just me.) Watching her were Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino.
"There, there," said Ino as she patted Sakura's back. "It'll be fine. Who knows, you might like your team."
"B-But I w-wanted to be o-on Sasuke-kun's sniff team," wailed Sakura. "I-It's not fair." Ino turned to the other two who were watching this and eating.
"Would you two help out here?" she asked/demanded.
"It's not like there is anything that we can do," said Choji as he continued to eat some chips. "It's the Hokage who set up the teams not us." Shikamaru sighed.
"Maybe you'll meet someone else," he suggested weakly. Sakura just cried harder and Ino shot him a dirty look. "Troublesome."
"I-It's not fair," whined Sakura. "How come Naruto-baka gets to be on the same team as Sasuke-kun?"
"Well, maybe it was because of the make-up exam he took," suggested Choji as he tossed his empty bag away and opened a new one. "Iruka-sensei said it was much harder."
"No way," said Ino. "He couldn't even make a simple bunshin. I bet he sucked up to the Hokage or something." She paused for a moment and then smiled. "Or maybe someone thought that he would make a good punching bag for Sasuke-kun." She laughed at that.
"Or maybe someone just wants him dead," said Sakura darkly, causing everyone to look at her. "My mom's always going on about how they should just kill him but no one can due to the Hokage. What if someone wanted him to become a shinobi so he could die on a mission? That wouldn't take too long since he is a talentless loser."
Shikamaru didn't say anything to this. If he had, it would have fallen on deaf ears. He had seen and heard this kind of attitude before. It was the strongest with the adults, and with the children there was a watered down version of it. In fact, even Iruka-sensei seemed to hate Naruto on the first day of class. What was most puzzling was that no one would ever give him a clear reason for this behavior. Ever his parents had tried to change the subject when he asked them one time. He wasn't so much of a friend of Naruto's but no one deserved to be treated the way that he was treated, at least, not without reason. So what was the reason that caused people to hate Naruto at the level that they did? Then he dropped his line of thinking as it was becoming troublesome and leaned back to stare at the clouds.