We were not supposed to be at the pond.
Technically, we were supposed to be at the training field, doing perfectly respectable Academy drills like normal future shinobi.
Technically.
"Tree-walking is boring," Naruto complained, kicking a stone so hard it skipped all the way across the surface of the water before plinking into the reeds. "We've been doing it forever. I wanna do the cool one."
"Tree-walking is not boring," I said. "It's important for chakra control."
"Control, shmontrol." He spread his arms toward the pond like a priest showing off a sacred altar. "Look at that. It's just sitting there begging to be stood on. It's rude not to."
The pond sat in a hollow behind the training fields, ringed with reeds and smooth rocks, surface still and dark. The afternoon light turned it into a dull mirror.
We were both in bathing suits—Naruto in loud orange shorts because of course, me in an old one-piece that didn't fit quite right, straps a little too long. My glasses kept sliding down my nose; the humidity wasn't helping.
"Do you even know how to swim?" I asked.
"Yeah!" Naruto said instantly, then hesitated. "Well. I know how to not drown."
"That's not the same thing."
"It is if you try hard enough."
I sighed and tugged my straps up again. Bare skin felt weird, like I'd forgotten my armor even though I barely had any to begin with. The air tasted like damp stone and algae.
"Okay," I said. "So. Tree-walking is just sticking your feet to something solid. Water-walking is making your chakra push down faster than you sink. Same principle. More timing."
Naruto blinked at me.
"That's not what you said when Iruka-sensei explained it," he said.
"I've had time to think," I muttered.
He grinned.
"Think less, do more." He bounced on his heels. "Watch and learn, Running Away Girl."
"That's not my name."
"Form of Running Away," he intoned solemnly, pointing at my face. "First form: Watching From Shore While Naruto Surpasses Her."
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He stepped to the edge of the pond, took a breath loud enough for me to hear, and slammed his foot onto the water.
For exactly half a second, it worked.
The surface of the pond dented under his heel like stretched cloth. His weight hit the chakra he'd shoved down, and the water held, rippling.
Then his focus wobbled.
His second step came down on plain, unreinforced water.
He sank with a splash and a howl.
"BLEAGH—"
I bit my lip to keep from laughing as he surfaced, hair plastered to his forehead, water dripping off his whisker marks.
"You're supposed to adjust it as you go," I called. "Not just kick the pond in half."
"I almost had it," he said, sloshing toward the shallows. "Did you see that? I was totally walking."
"You were totally stepping."
"Half a second is still a second," he argued. "Okay, your turn. C'mon."
"I'd rather watch you fail a few more times," I said.
"Scared?" His grin turned sharp. "Is the mighty Form of Running Away afraid of a little water?"
"No."
"Yes."
"I am not afraid of water, I'm afraid of drowning," I said. "Difference."
"It's, like, three feet deep," he said. "If you drown in three feet of water, I'm dragging your ghost around so you can be embarrassed forever."
"That's not how ghosts work."
"Only one way to find out."
I rolled my eyes, but my stomach was doing little flips as I walked to the edge. The water was dark enough that I couldn't see the bottom clearly. My reflection wobbled on the surface—hair messy, glasses crooked, narrow shoulders.
Naruto sloshed out beside me, dripping.
"Okay," he said, suddenly serious. "For real this time. Together. On three."
He held out his hand.
I looked at it, then at the water.
My heart picked that moment to pound loud enough to count as its own drumline. Being this close to him without the buffer of clothes and jackets and weapons made everything feel…louder. The air. The light. Him.
His chakra, especially.
It spilled out of him in a constant, messy leak, a warm orange haze that made the air around him feel like late-afternoon sunlight. I'd noticed it before, in training and missions and arguments. Today, with my own chakra simmering just under my skin, it was impossible to ignore.
I took his hand.
His fingers were rough and warm and a little bit calloused from too many kunai thrown wrong.
"One," he said.
Chakra. Foot. Surface. I tried to make my body remember the sequence.
"Two."
I let myself look straight at him, just for a heartbeat. The orange around him pulsed, bright and stupid and alive. Like every line of him was drawn in bolder ink than the rest of the world.
"Three!"
We stepped out together.
Water curved under my foot like cool glass. My chakra pushed down, spreading in a thin sheet, searching for anything solid. There wasn't anything, but the push itself bounced back, and that rebound was enough to hold me up for one, two, three—
"Oh," I breathed.
Naruto whooped. "See? We're totally walking! I told you—"
He turned his head to look at me, grin huge.
And noticed I was staring.
Not just looking at him—staring.
His orange aura flared in my eyes, bright and impossible. The whole pond felt grey-blue and deep around us, like a bowl. He was the only bright thing.
His grin faltered.
"What?" he said. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
I realized I was still holding his hand.
Heat rushed up my neck so fast it made me dizzy.
"You're—" I said, then stopped.
He blinked, cheeks already going pink just from the way I'd said it.
"I'm what?" he demanded. "Is there something on my face?"
"You're…" I swallowed. "You're orange."
There was a long beat of complete silence.
He stared at me.
"...That's it?" he finally spluttered. "I know I'm orange! I like orange! Everyone knows I like orange! You dragged me to a pond to tell me my favorite color?!"
"I didn't drag you anywhere," I said weakly.
"And what does that even mean, I'm orange?" he continued, flailing free of my hand to gesture at himself. His chakra wobbled with his mood, aura flickering brighter. "Like my shorts? My hair? My face? My—"
He squinted at me.
I realized, too late, that I'd just said something very specific about the way I perceived him, and now he was turning that same sharp, careless focus straight back on me.
His eyes narrowed, studying my face, my shoulders, the not-quite-right line of my swimsuit. The pond felt very small all of a sudden.
"Yeah, well," he said slowly, "you're—"
He leaned in a little, squinting harder, like he was trying to see something around me.
My entire nervous system screamed abort abort abort.
Without thinking, I snapped my foot sideways and kicked him square in the shin.
His chakra hiccuped.
He yelped, flailing, and his next step hit untreated water. His leg went straight through. The next instant he was under, arms pinwheeling, a spray of pondwater drenching my legs.
"GYAAAH—"
I staggered back onto the shore, heart thundering, face burning so hot it probably looked like I was the one about to explode.
Naruto surfaced again, sputtering and swearing, hair plastered flat.
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" he yelled, wiping algae off his face.
"You lost focus," I said primly, pushing my glasses up even though my hands were shaking.
"You kicked me!"
"You were staring," I muttered.
"So?" he demanded. "You were staring first! You can't just kick a guy for looking back!"
"Watch me," I said, folding my arms so he wouldn't see my hands tremble.
He glared at me for a moment, then snorted, something like realization dawning in his expression. His mouth curled into a wicked little grin.
"Form of Running Away," he said. "Second form: Embarrassed Girl Kick."
"If you name that, I'll drown you on purpose," I said.
"You can't drown me," he bragged, sloshing back to the edge. "We're learning water-walking. I'm gonna be invincible in ponds."
"Ponds only," I said. "Very specific weakness."
"Yeah, yeah." He shook himself like a dog, spraying me with droplets. I squeaked. He laughed. "C'mon. Again. And no kicking unless I'm actually drowning."
I hesitated, then stepped back to the edge.
"Fine," I said. "But if you stare, you sink."
He grinned, holding out his hand again.
"Deal."
His fingers were warm when I took them. His chakra flared orange around us, bright and clumsy and impossibly sincere.
We stepped out onto the water together.
This time, when I looked at him, I kept the word orange in my mouth like a secret, and focused on my feet instead.