A/N - This chapter is dedicated to @/ClandestineCat from Archive of Our Own for absolutely making me cry like a baby with their comment. So far, you've been the only one who hit the target when it came to my portrayal of Naruto and how I write his character. In your words:

"...it seems to me like your own past negative experiences with writing this lovely fic have reflected in your writing of Naruto himself. Just as Naruto is using the hatred he receives to better himself within your story, you seem just as determined to write him a story he deserves, and you obviously think you've improved since your time off".

Every time I read it, I start to tear up again and again and again. I'm so grateful and happy to have readers like you. Thank you for being there for me and my many hiatus' and unexplained absences in the past. I will never be able to express my gratefulness to you @/ClandestineCat as well as all you readers who've been with me since the beginning and for those that have just joined the ride. Thank you <3

Naruto paused, arms outstretched in front of him as he braced for impact. He had, unfortunately, lost his concentration and was now falling back to the ground. Sure, the pain his back would feel would be something he'd feel for days, but he had done it. For just a brief moment, he'd finally reached the top of that damn tree!

At the last moment, the blond-haired boy had covered his head, protecting it as he finally hit the ground. Naruto let out a loud groan, rolling around for a moment as he recollected himself before sitting up and looking over at the dozing Nara, "Did you see me, Shikamaru?!"

"Uh-huh..." The other boy grumbled out, eyes drooping as he stared up at the clouds forming above them. It would probably rain tomorrow, he suspected.

He pouted, rolling his blue eyes before grabbing at his head in pain. "You know," Naruto started, "you could act a little excited."

"I will... when you can actually sit on that top tree limb by only walking up it, not running." Shikamaru peeked an eye open, lazily pointing at the abused tree, "Plus, look at it. You've practically burned the soles of your shoes into the trunk. You're still pushing out too much chakra when you run up the tree."

"But-"

"Lessen the amount a little bit more and you should be able to walk up the tree with no problem." He finished, not even catching the start of the other boy's sentence.

Naruto grit his teeth before taking a deep breath. There was a familiar feeling of failure starting to creep up at the back of his mind. "Shikamaru?" He started again.

"Hm?"

"Look at me real quick."

The black-haired boy lifted his head a little, propping his upper body up with his elbows, giving the other boy his attention. "What?" He blinked slowly, a little annoyed.

"Can you please help me? I can't do it..." Naruto asked quietly, glancing away before he could gauge his friend's facial response. His whole posture spoke volumes, hunched over with a sad gleam over his face, a defeated look in his sky blue eyes. "I guess I'm just jealous..." He admitted with surprising honesty, "You had only looked at the book for like, a second or something - but you were just magically able to do it! You keep giving these helpful tips but I can't do it."

Shikamaru stopped, paused, and really looked at the boy sitting across from himself. The poor tree that had been abused by the blond's chakra control exercises simply outlined his shrunken body, as if continuing to torture Naruto in his inability. "Look," The Nara heir began, sighing to himself, "The only reason I was able to do it was because I had been given lessons on chakra control before I even got into the academy. My old man taught me the basics of it, just enough so that I could use our clan jutsus. Most of the heirs in Konoha have probably been taught the same if I had to be honest."

"Oh, so it's because I don't have a clan that I can't control my chakra..." The blond-haired academy student grumbled to himself, frustration clear as day in his voice.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Shikamaru bit back before giving the other boy an exasperated look, "Stop being so troublesome for a minute and just listen."

Naruto pursed his lips in thought before sighing, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

"I know." He rolled his eyes, "What I meant by my earlier statement is that I've had longer training than you when it comes to controlling chakra. If it makes you feel any better, I wasn't successful in controlling my chakra for almost a week. You should be proud of yourself - you've been working on this for a day and you've almost made it to the top of the tree."

"But I still haven't gotten-"

He raised a hand, stopping him once more, "To put it in perspective, I don't think that, if I had to start over with chakra control exercises and the tree-walking one was my first one, I doubt I would have been able to reach the height you have in a single day."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh!" If Shikamaru had been closer, he would have probably smacked the back of his friend's head for being so dense, "Look, you're doing fine so far. You'll get there, I promise you. Maybe you just need an... incentive."

"An incentive?"

The Nara paused, rubbing the back of his neck in thought before moving to sit up from his cloud-watching spot. He started gathering their things strung everywhere on the training grounds. All of Naruto's scattered books and papers that had been sitting in a pile were tucked into the folds of Shikamaru's arms before they were deposited back into the blond's backpack he'd brought with him.

"What... are you doing?" Naruto asked quietly, having been watching all the while.

"You'll see." He loosely explained, throwing his friend's backpack over his shoulders and grabbing their lunches that the two had brought with them. Shikamaru moved past the stunned blonde towards a new tree, one that was thicker and wider than the last one - a thought to give the previous one a break of sorts had crossed his mind. The Nara heir pushed chakra into his feet, walking all the way up to the highest branch that was thick enough to be sat on.

And now that he was up there, Naruto suddenly got it.

"This is your incentive!" Shikamaru called down at the blond, "If you want all your stuff back and want to eat lunch, you've got to make your way up here. Hurry up! I'm hungry; I might be so hungry that I eat your lunch!"

"Wha- Shikamaru!" Naruto sputtered out, eyes wide as he stared up, "Are you serious?!"

"I'm not getting down from here unless you pull me off this damn branch. Don't keep me waiting!" There was a playful smirk on his lips as he sat back and pulled out one of his friend's books. He opened to the first page and just started casually reading it. Shikamaru didn't understand what all the medical jargon meant yet but, if the blond kept him waiting for too long, he just might turn into a medic-in-training himself.

He snorted at the thought.

"I'll make it up there, just you wait!" Naruto shouted out, getting into position to run up the tree again.

"I'm already waiting, Naruto! Make haste." He grumbled to himself, hearing his friend fall back to the ground with no success again.

:::^^^^^:::

Shikamaru was, as ever, the laziest and most predictable of all the academy students in their class. Like always, if unprompted by anything mildly interesting, had caused the Nara heir to fall asleep. He hadn't realized it, as most do when it comes to unprompted naps - it must have been in between him making fun of all the weird words in Naruto's chakra control exercise book and getting lost looking up at the clouds showing between the tree's foliage.

However, as many Nara's before him have experienced and despised equally as much, his slumber was interrupted, albeit slowly, but interrupted nonetheless.

This disruption wasn't due to the dull ache and uncomfortable pain he felt in his lower back that was slowly becoming more and more prominent as he was waking up. The odd sleeping position most likely came from Shikamaru subconsciously sinking further down the tree limb he'd been perched on. It hadn't even been from how part of his face and the majority of his right arm had started feeling excruciatingly hot. Both parts of his body had been facing the sun in its downward path to kiss the horizon - he probably had a sunburn from it, if he had to be honest with himself.

What had actually woken Shikamaru from his nap was this deep, instinctual feeling that he was being watched for some time.

The academy student pried his tired eyes open and almost immediately startled completely off the tree trunk upon staring back into another pair of orbs. Actually, on second thought, he was totally falling off the tree, the Nara heir mused to himself as his body tilted off the branch. A simple noise left his lips in his shock, "Ah-"

Shikamaru's eyes made contact with the ground as his body fully slipped off the tree branch he'd been napping on mere seconds ago. If he were - scratch that. Falling from this height - which he was, mind you - he should probably expect to be seriously injured as his motor skills were still off because he'd just woken up. The black-haired academy student had resigned himself to this fleeting feeling and braced himself for impact as best as he could.

Which never happened.

Shikamaru's eyes that had closed upon his split-second realization that he was falling had finally reopened after he could no longer feel the wind in his ponytail. After a surprisingly long second, it hit him that there were hands clutching him from underneath his knees and pressing into his upper back. So that's why he hadn't met his doom and was writhing on the forest's floors in pain. Still, despite this, the only thing he could manage to say was a quick, "What?" Well, that was until he looked up.

He was met with bright blue eyes that stared into his own onyx ones. It took a second and a few long blinks to recognize the little skies staring at him as the one and only Naruto Uzumaki. Shikamaru traced his face marking, noticing the way the boy's blond hair framed his round face. He paused after noticing that Naruto was looking down at him - currently, Shikamaru was taller than his friend so, how was the other boy staring down at the Nara heir?

His eyes flung wide open, trying to recollect himself in a less panicked demeanor. "Naruto!" The black-haired academy student practically shouted out, "you're upside down!" Shikamaru's eyes flickered quickly from where the other boy's feet were flustered directly underneath the tree limb the Nara heir had fallen from before bouncing back to their position with a renewed sense of panic. The way Naruto's back was arched forward, neck craning to keep level with Shikamaru's head, looked like a painful position. And the amount of raw strength the other eight-year-old was showing was astounding.

To Shikamaru's surprise, the blond was still holding him in his arms, cradling the Nara heir close to his chest to prevent him from hurting himself should he fall from this height.

"Well, yeah." The blond-haired academy student laughed heartily, responding to his friend's shriek. Now that Shikamaru was getting a better look at his friend, he could tell that Naruto was looking rougher than the last he remembered him being before his unprompted nap.

"You're still upside down!" Shikamaru waved a hand between themselves and, loosely, towards the forests.

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows, shifting the other eight-year-old in his arms for a better grip, "Uh, isn't that the point?" The black-haired academy student groaned loudly, smacking Naruto's forehead with the back of his hand. To the Nara's surprise, he still didn't lose his concentration and control over his chakra. "Geez..." He grumbled out, pouting a bit, "Don't just hit a guy like that..."

"Sure, whatever, you troublesome brat. But can you - I don't know - move so we're not literally hanging from a tree?!" He clung closer to the other boy's chest, the ground looking tauntingly up at their position. It was starting to give Shikamaru a fear of heights. "You could drop me at any second and I don't really feel like falling right now." The black-haired boy buried his head into his friend's neck, no longer having the stomach to look down.

"I won't drop you, Shikamaru, promise!" Naruto beamed down at him, still upside down.

"Naruto, please!" There was a little bit of panic in his tone but Naruto let it slide, for now.

The blond laughed heartily, pulling the Nara boy impossibly closer before starting to bend his knees. Shikamaru could have laughed at the face of concentration on his friend had it not been for the fact that he jumped off the tree branch. It wasn't his proudest moment when a very high-pitched shriek left him, not willing to look at the world spinning around him - the sky and forest floors merged. The blond-haired academy student twisted mid-air before making contact with the side of another tree before bounding back to the tree that he'd been practicing chakra control on and settled Shikamaru on his feet by all the stuff the Nara heir had stolen to use as an incentive.

Ah, the thing that had gotten him in this situation in the first place.

"I hate troublesome people like you..." Shikamaru grumbled out, hand placed delicately over his racing heart.

Naruto pouted, crossing his arms over his chest, "What? I don't get a 'thank you' for saving you from falling off a tree limb?"

He leveled his onyx eyes with the other boy, snorting after a second of mutual staring. "Fine." He glanced away, "Thanks."

"Good enough!" The blond clapped his hands, all of his pouty attitude gone within a second as he plopped down across from Shikamaru. He reached for the paper bag that had his lunch in it, digging everything out, "I'm practically starving! Only took another hour before I made it up here but man, waiting to eat that long was practically torture!"

He rolled his eyes, his chin sitting in his palm, "You're insufferable."

"Oh hush, you love me!"

"As if."

The forest went quiet as Shikamaru went back to staring at clouds and Naruto quickly devoured his food. That was until the latter, with a mouth full of food, pointed at the other boy and said, "Hey, don't know if you've noticed but your hair is falling out of your hair tie."

And, just like that, the panic had somehow made its way back into his body.

"Fuck!" His face flushed a deep red as he hastily pulled out the hair tie, hands scrambling to keep all his hair from falling too far away from his standard ponytail style. It was slipping from his fingers, dark hair poking his eyes and touching his chin - wrong, wrong, wrong - and he couldn't fix it!

Hands touched his wrists, warm and soft; it made Shikamaru pause as his dark eyes flickered up. Naruto looked curious but with a hint of concern, "It's okay. Just turn around, I'll fix it for you. You're gonna get your hair all tangled up if you keep doing that."

The Nara heir searched for any malintent directed towards his hair but, when he found none, silently turned around. His hands retracted shakily to rest uneasily in his lap, his hair matted and wind-blown with the hair tie still stuck in there somewhere. "I'm sorry I freaked out..." Shikamaru managed to mumble out weakly when he felt kind hands run through the strands of his hair, finding the hair tie and pulling it out without tangling his hair any more than it already was.

Naruto carded his hands through the silky black hair, slowly starting to collect all the strands into one fist, "You don't need to explain yourself to me. I think out of everyone, I'd be the least likely to react badly against you and your hair." There was a hint of a smile to his words that the other boy caught easily.

"I know, but... not a lot of guys are weird about their hair to the extent of, well, you know-" He waved a hand loosely before it fell slack back in his lap, feeling his friend's nails scratching his scalp rhythmically, "It makes me look like a girl - I could just cut it, but I like it this length."

"I don't think it makes you look like a girl." Naruto's voice was a whisper in his concentration, starting to finally tie the strands together in the boy's usual ponytail.

"Of course you don't think that - we've known each other for a while!" Shikamaru bit back before pausing, his body heavy with a deep sigh that left him, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout. I just- Gah, why am I even trying to explain this?!"

"If you don't want to tell me, that's okay - you don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with." The ponytail had been finished after he spoke, sitting back.

The black-haired academy student turned around, eyes shiny, "I was bullied, okay? By the other kids in my clan. My hair used to be much longer than this - I cut it because of those kids and I regret it every day but I can't bring myself to let it grow or cut it any shorter. This ponytail is the only thing that keeps those kids at bay... for now."

Naruto stopped, eyes searching his friend's face. "Shika..."

"Please don't pity me." His voice was weak and hoarse-sounding, "It's nothing for you to be worried about, I just-" His words were cut off by a body slamming into him, arms wrapping around him tightly in a warm, unexpected hug from an exuberant blond.

"I would never pity you for something you couldn't control. If anyone in Konoha knows how you feel, it would be me." Naruto said, head tucked in the crook of the other boy's neck, "Even before we were friends - hell, even before we had spoken a word to each other, I had never thought you looked like a girl. If anything, you're one of the most handsome guys in class!"

"W-What?" Redness darkened on the boy's face, unable to reciprocate the hug in his shock, "Don't lie to me, Naruto..."

"I'm not lying, Shikamaru." He hummed, pulling away from the hug a bit without his arms leaving his friend's side, "Whether your hair is up or down, long or short, you'd find a way to make it look good."

"...really?"

"Yeah." Naruto looked up, miniature skies being held hostage by onyx.

Shikamaru scoffed, his cheeks still a rosy red as he pulled the other academy student back into a tight hug, head resting on his chest, "Thanks. No one's ever told me that before. That's the first time I've ever been called... h-handsome by anyone other than my mom." He pulled away completely this time but their arms lingered around each other.

"Well," He started, a thoughtful look on his face, "you should be called it more often." He tried not to let the flush reach his cheeks but it was inevitable.

Shikamaru smiled softly, eyes narrowed in thought, "Will you be the one who'll call me handsome 'more often'?" He made air-quotes around those two words before settling down again.

Naruto could feel more heat rising on his face and down his neck - as if it were physically possible - and felt his mind halting. Blue eyes gazed into black ones for a few seconds as a small smile appeared on the blond-haired boy's face, "Only if you'd like that?"

He looked away, placing a hand on his face as if trying to rub away the blush, "I suppose I would."