A/N: Um. hides in corner

Disclaimer: 'Naruto' (etc) belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and its other respected owners. It does not in anyway belong to be.

Notable - 26 June '05

She was sitting by the river that day.

In a white yukata, the pink petals of her namesake dashed at the ends and her sleeves, the red obi sloppily tied. The piece of clothing itself loosely hanging on to her small child frame; a tiny foot (the other with a sandal) lazily in the water swirling round. Her hands clutching the place where the wooden dock had lost the other.

She would have to walk home with one shoe.

It was O-bon. And she was terribly bored, the ceremony for her ancestors had hours ago passed and the brief festivity was gone. Leaving clean up an only option. But she was all too hot for that, the summer unforgiving and in its usual heights of heat.

She fiddled with loose strands of strawberry pink hair that had escaped the messy bun (tied with white thread her mother had bought just for the occasion from a priest) they tickled her face. She hoped her mother would not notice her gone, or least not her missing sandal when she returned. They weren't rich or of a noble status, but they weren't poor, so a scolding was all she would get for the lost shoe. At least she predicted.

A boy was soon sitting by her,

She jumped, startled. Who was so quite at such a time? (Ghosts inner Sakura mumbled)

"Kya!"

He didn't look over at her, it seemed loud noises did not concern him. His expression remained forlorn as he seemed to study his reflection on the water.

Sakura bit her lip. He could be a ghost, her inner voice prodded again with; some knowledgeable caution in her tone. It was getting dark, the sun making its way to the point of dusk. But… he didn't look 'see-through' (and all ghosts had to be 'see-through'), rather… very solid. And pretty. But she pushed the last bit aside, boys shouldn't be pretty (but he was). She was confusing herself. Inner Sakura was confusing herself. Or, confusing her.

She lifted her foot out of the water.

"I've lost one of my sandals," she said off-handedly, expecting the perhaps ghost boy to ignore her. He glanced over at her a bit alarmed at her presence, like he hadn't expected any one to be there at all (even if she had been there first).

She pointed to her un-sandaled foot. "The water took it away,"

Inner Sakura snorted. What kind of thing was that to say? To a pretty boy no less? And Sakura did agree this time, seeing the whole of his face and not just a side view. Pale skin and blue-black hair, facial attributes that would sharpen over time (need be, she had none and did not know that till later), the most noticeable of his features, black eyes she thought as well. But after staring for a bit she figured them shades of grey.

The boy said nothing. And his eyes seemed to check her over curiously.

"Why is your hair pink?"

Sakura was taken aback. (His voice sounded older than it should, but she found herself liking its temperance, how she could only glimpse the movement of his lips behind the shirt's high collar)

"Because it is," she somewhat muttered stating the obvious, self-consciously patting at the hair around her forehead. Most she knew didn't ask such a thing; they knew it was always like this. But she guessed the boy didn't know since he didn't seem 'from here' and that was alright. He had a new, an old feeling about him that made her feel at ease and a strange happy she couldn't distinguish.

He nodded seemingly understanding what she had said.

It was getting dark now. She stood up and made to leave, though she did not wish to, did not wish to leave the fleeting flashes of 'strange happy', but mother would worry. Glancing over that the boy, a blush decidedly taking over her face, she decided it would be best to leave however much she wanted to stay (the water was the colour of his hair now, inner Sakura softly said). She nodded to him as a good bye, chucking the missing-mate sandal into the mentioned water.

Her bare foot felt odd against the old wood and made less sound with out the sandals, but enough sound comparing to the quite boy's footsteps (which there had seemed to be none, but that was impossible, not making sounds when walking). She was half way down the dock when he called out to her.

"What is your name?"

She thought not to answer, but dismissed this as ridiculous. "Sakura. Haruno Sakura." Inner Sakura mentioned something about alias. Her back stayed facing towards him.

He walked to her; she could not help but glance back at the sound of him rising. His movement over to her seemed fluid and elegant for one so young and small. Was he not her age? Was he not a boy?

When he came across from her, he reached down and swiftly took off his sandals. In a few seconds, a white hand had the blue sandals by the heel straps and were placed hovering by her chest upfront. His feet were left in wraps that looked dark against the white of his skin. "Here,"

She took them as graciously as she could and put them on. They were loose (and Inner Sakura piped were hopefully not cursed, for wasn't that the kind of thing ghosts give someone? Cursed things?), but fit well enough.

Her face was surely redder. "Th-thank you," she stuttered, a hand going against her chest, the beating of her heart had suddenly quickened and she did not know why. Perhaps the shoes were cursed?

He nodded, something like a smile or smirk on his face and she was glad of it. This small thing that seemed like approval.

And she couldn't help but remained frozen to the spot as rather he left ahead of her, hands in his pockets, the moonlight glinting on his hair (the dark edges, sharp triangles poking from behind reminded inner Sakura sort of like feathers). The settled darkness contrasting the pale skin and white half of the fan-like insignia on his shirt's back.

It had been strangely quite, for no wind blew and it did not occur to her that night, to have asked his name. For she had his shoes.

The shoes she never returned.

They stayed for a long while in the back of her closet after that night. Collecting filtered dust from the wall's and door's cracks. She only took them out next summer wondering about their owner; with his shirt with the fan on it.

It was only later that she learned of its importance. Its meaning. That fan.

It held a name.

It held his name.

Uchiha.

Uchiha Sasuke.

(Inner Sakura was pleased about the sandals)