When Madara was eight, there was a game that became popular with the Uchiha children. They filled up buckets with water and placed apples in them, and putting their hands behind their back and using their mouths and teeth to get them out of the water.
At first, he observed with a scowl and disdain. It was ridiculous, watching the kids act so foolishly, getting wet and looking stupid on purpose. But after a while, he started to see the smiles on their faces were radiating happiness, and their laughter rang out.
Madara felt jealous.
He'd never had the opportunity to feel as free as that before, nor did he particularly like the idea of publicly making a fool of himself.
So Madara did what any embarrassed eight-year-old shinobi would do. He stole a basket, went down to the river, filled it with water, found a hidden area in the forest and gathered apples.
Madara spent weeks alone in his little grove, his head bobbing in and out of the bucket.
Weeks. Actual weeks.
And he never once managed to capture an apple.
Weeks.
At eight-years-old, Madara had already - unfortunately - killed people. He'd been called a genius, a prodigy. Yet he couldn't figure out a way to bite an apple. Just one.
What was wrong with him!?
Madara took out his frustration by building structures made out of the hundreds of apples he'd collected. He didn't really know how he'd managed to find so many, but somehow, he'd found himself surrounded by apples of all shades and colours: bright red, green, yellow-green, red-pink.
He quickly gave up trying to bob for apples, becoming far more interested in building his little city made of the fruit.
It wasn't until he'd managed to build a small fort out of the apples that he noticed the little girl staring at him, through the trees giggling behind her hand. He froze with wide-eyes and stared at her, panicked at what to do. Looking around, he looked strange, completely insane. Even he could admit that. There were apples everywhere, organised into ordered rows and stack neatly to create structures representing buildings.
"Wh-who are you?" Madara asked her girl nervously and defensively, crossing his arms over his chest in the way he remembered his father did.
The girl, with long, silken black hair, dark eyes and rose-red cheeks dropped her hands from her face smiled brightly at him.
"I'm Matsuri. Who are you? Apple boy?" She asked cheekily.
Madara huffed, feeling defensive in his panic.
"I'm not Apple Boy," he said glaring. "I'm Madara."
Matsuri's eyes widened slightly and Madara felt smugly satisfied that she knew who he was. He expected some reverence, being the son of Tajima, the clan leader. To his surprise, Matsuri began to giggle again.
"What are you doing?" She asked, taking little steps closer.
Madara's face burned red.
"Nothing," he snapped. "Mind your own business."
Matsuri pouted.
"You don't have to be so mean," she sniffed. "Stupid Madara, stupid Apple boy!"
She picked up an apple and threw it at him. Madara ducked and the apple flew past him, hitting a tree trunk and landing in the clearing. He watched, horrified, as the apple rolled and rocked over the tallest construct he'd made, which resulted in a domino effect of the entire village of apples he'd created being destroyed.
Madara and Matsuri stared at the devastation with shock.
Little did they know, the apples would be the beginning of a lifelong friendship, but it would take another year of Matsuri's determination before she broke through Madara's hurt, embarrassment and anger about her destroying his secret apple village.
But she had blackmail for the rest of her life, so it didn't bother her at all.