chapitre 1: being so different from the surface

Sasuke and Naruto - by far the most complex and twisted relationship in the whole series and also the one, I personally treasure the most. One reason why this relationship is of such intricacy and complexity is easily proved, but not explained. We just need to take a look at the fandom - believe me, this is rather interesting.

First of all, there is no real space between loving and loathing this relationship; fandom is basically split into three groups: Either you love Naruto and you don't understand why he goes so far for Sasuke; or you love Sasuke and you only find Naruto annoying to an extreme extent - and that's why you couldn't care less for their relationship. However, there is still a rather large 3rd group - you love both to bits and happen to worship those two together.

But even so, despite those groupings, one thing is for sure - you can't ignore neither of them, along with their relationship and rivalry - and that's the point. Their whole interaction is one of the key points of the series.

I will try to explain this now in the following 5 chapters, as it is not that easy to look through both of their personalities and their actions - but believe me, it is worth it. I honestly adore and cherish both of them as individuals, but their relationship just amazes me more and more from day to day.

Starting with the fact, that actually, they couldn't be any more different- Sasuke and Naruto that is.

One is called the genius, the one who gets everything right from the start, the one who gets all the attention, but doesn't give a fig about it. Sasuke had always been on top of the class, always having the best grades of the entire academy - not to forget he has also been the heir of the famous Uchiha clan, and thus he has been immediately recognised and acknowledged by everyone around him. He has been admired and idolized without him doing anything.

In truth however, Sasuke couldn't care less for all the attention he more or less reluctantly got; for all the attention Naruto had always wanted.

The other one is the village's most despised child, who desperately seeks acknowledgement and respect, the one who's hyper and a loudmouth. A loser, a failure, a nobody - this is what people had thought of Naruto. Noone seemed to care about him, everyone just tried to stay away from him - and this all, despite Naruto's efforts to gain respect and approval. Naruto was the one who kept working harder and harder in order to finally get acknowledged, in order to finally prove he was worth something.

Simply put, Naruto as the obnoxious prankster he appeared to be, was the polar opposite of the well-collected, cool A-class boy genius. While constantly trying to figure out what made Sasuke so different, Naruto kept trying and trying to catch up with the other one - and still was only able to watch his back. Sasuke had always seemed to be one step ahead of him, effortlessly advancing and capturing everyone’s affection.

But as mentioned above, to Sasuke all the people around him and feelings like love didn't matter anymore. Even at that young age he was being possessed by the thought of avenging his clan, of killing his brother. He, therefore, isolated himself and built up a barrier to prevent anything similar to a “friend” from ever coming close to him again.

Basically, he tried to leave everything behind that Naruto had wanted to achieve.

..and still, I dare to say they were the same.