#simi says

coincidentally i think i was dreaming this while you were having feelings about the live action naruto actors so i dunno. some kinda cosmic connection going on here. anyway. i only dreamt the baseline of this, i expanded (a lot) since then. picture the following:

naruto wanting to become the meijin, the best karuta player in the world, so he’s acknowledged by the world. he plays it once at elementary school, iruka teaches him and gives him a karuta deck and recording, and naruto who lives in this tiny, dingy one-room place practices it so hard every day. (side note: once iruka finds out that naruto lives in a really shitty place he has naruto come stay with him!!!!! because student-mentor bonding.) and iruka introduces naruto to kakashi who is the head of their local karuta group/club thing ... and kakashi complains that teaching naruto will be such a hassle but takes him under his wing anyway. 

and that’s where naruto meets sasuke who is a little rising star or something with absentee family and wants to shoot through the ranks so he can finally play against his brother. sasuke and naruto do not get along: naruto thinks sasuke’s his eternal rival or something and sasuke thinks naruto is hella annoying. 

meanwhile back at school, sakura is in naruto’s class and has a total crush on sasuke which is why she plays karuta (at first) so that she can play in the same club as him and he’ll notice her. she has these daydreams of being the queen while sasuke is the king. ~ naruto has a crush on her and when he sees her at the karuta club he’s just!!!! floored and so excited. sakura thinks he’s a dork but practices with him. he does not think sasuke -- who happens to be in the neighboring elementary class -- deserves her affections. this leads to an unfortunate encounter where he busts into sasuke’s class during a lunch break and loudly announces as much. or something along those lines. anyway. 

hinata!!!! comes from a politically influential family that practices karuta as a way to stay in touch with the roots or something. she’s not the best at the game but she loves the poems. little her is starstruck by naruto whenever she sees him. one time after class (this is before naruto stays with iruka) naruto complains that his cassette player is broken and he can’t practice and she!!! super shyly leaps at the chance to help him. so she goes with him to his place and she reads the poems so he can practice and they eat ramen together and it’s great. later, in high school, during the tough matches naruto’s thoughts will drift back to the times they had in that room .... and it inspires him and helps him win!!! also: hinata is the one who tells iruka about naruto’s living conditions. naruto doesn’t find this out until high school. 

also little team 7 group matches while they’re still being ‘taught’ by kakashi!!! (who i can imagine has teaching methods like suou. “here, have a hot bun” to all the nice ladies and death glares to everyone else bc he can?)

anyway fast forward to high school where sasuke’s transferred schools and naruto is determined to rise through the ranks so he and sasuke can meet during tournament matches. sakura is also determined to do the same. at the same time she’s also working on a track to becoming a doctor -- tsunade is her high school mentor. her bff ino is not super hot on karuta but she is big on fashion and helps sakura with her kimonos all the time. 

naruto forms the karuta club in their high school and then get all the konoha kid members, so: hinata comes to read the poems and shikamaru is an ace player when he wants to be. he’s got huge potential to become the meijin ... but he doesn’t want to be it so he slowly crawls through the ranks. (he does, however, love beating temari and making her frustrated. ino and chouji play group matches with him vs the sand siblings and they have the tendency to win. drives temari insane.) tenten and neji and lee are the team that works ever better than inoshikachou but they also see each other as fierce rivals, so they always push each other to be better. tenten is a hella sneaky trickster when it comes to playing karuta, she does mind games, lee just POWERS THROUGH IT and neji is an amazing player because he’s been practicing all his life bc of his family. sai plays casually but really he just likes the artistry of the cards. he plays with sakura and naruto in group matches sometimes. they work well together when they aren’t bickering -- kakashi and yamato sometimes wonder if they work better than naruto/sakura/sasuke. hmmm. food for thought, senseis, food for thought. then there’s kiba who is naruto’s number 2 rival and shino who likes strategizing more than he likes playing. cool.

also eventually naruto has this come to jesus moment where he realizes that it’s in fact hinata that he adores, because it’s always moments with her that he thinks about when matches get tough or he needs inspiration and he always sees her as a shining example of good karuta and he associates her with the poems and i just. naruhina feels. hinata reading the poems, loud and clear and strong, and naruto memorizing the way her voice sounds and the little inflections so he’s always able to get the cards first.