I'm so glad that I was finally able to finish this one-shot. It does contain some language and themes of homelessness, bullying, and stealing. Although it's not explicit, if that is not your cup of tea, just click the back button. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the story. :)

My name is Naruto Uzumaki.

I have no shoes.

All the other boys do.

When the sun blazes down scorching hot and I have to jump around just so my feet don't burn, I notice nobody else does. The other boys laugh and run around with their shoes slapping against the ground, stirring up small clouds of dust, and I try to do the same. But pain shoots up from my feet, so I don't run, I skip and dance on my toes, and the boys laugh harder.

"What are you skipping around for? Eh, Naruto?" a boy asks cocking his head to the side with a smirk. His has tan skin and dark brown hair, and a dog is sitting at his feet, growling. Inuzuka Kiba.

Before I can grumble out a reply, another boy shouts, "Yeah! It looks like you're trying not to piss!" His eyes are opal and he has long, black hair tied into a braid. "It's ok, go to the potty, you baby," he sneers. Hyuuga Neji.

Two other boys walk up with a soccer ball, and glance at me. "So troublesome, if you gotta piss, go piss," one of them sighs. With black hair in spiky ponytail and bored eyes, he shifts the ball back and forth between his feet, without another glance my way. Nara Shikamaru.

I don't! It's just that the ground is hot! I think angrily, but the boy beside Shikamaru coughs and glances at me again, and I decide not to voice my thoughts. "I-Ino's dad owns a flower shop a ways down the street. They have a bathroom. I'm s-sure they wouldn't care if you go," he mumbles softly. Light brown hair, chubby, with a quiet demeanor gives the boy a much kinder light than the others. Akimichi Chouji.

I like it better when it rains. Not only do I not have to shuffle around because of the heat, but the boys never come out to play when it rains. But sometimes I wish they did. Just so I wouldn't be alone.

When the streets turn to mud, I dance and laugh and run around like the other boys do in the sun. I race down forgotten alleys, and pretend others are chasing me, playing tag. But soon the rain stops. The mud dries on my feet. The boys come out to play. So I jump and skip and dance as the sun beats down on me. Burning. Boiling. Killing.

I have no money.

All the other kids do.

When an old, cranky lady chases me down the street, because I stole a few steamed buns, I know that other kids have never gone through something like that. The other kids sit in restaurants and get to eat hot food. They eat fresh food. They eat good food. So I try to be like them.

I sit in a ramen shop and order bowl after bowl until I'm so full I can barely move. But then they ask for money. I have no money. So instead of being like other kids who get to walk out of the restaurant after they're done, I get thrown out. I land on my butt and the old man who runs the place yells at me to never come back. This doesn't happen to the other kids.

"Look at that loser," scoffs a girl, "can't even pay for a few bowls of ramen." The girl giggles, her blue-green eyes darken in disgust, and she cocks her hip out. After pulling her long blonde hair back with a ribbon, she points at me and fails to suppress another array of giggles. Yamanaka Ino.

Another girl laughs along with Ino. "Looks like he can't pay for nice clothes either," she groans. Her beautiful pink hair and bright green eyes doesn't mask the ugly look on her face as she offers a glance my way. She frowns deeply and wrinkles her nose as if she just smelled something rotten. She turns away from me and begins whispering to Ino, indicating that I am no longer of any importance. Haruno Sakura.

With matching eyes to her cousin, Neji, and short blue hair, a shorter girl mumbles, "I-I don't think money m-matters that much, if you're a g-g-good person." She glances at me and her ivory cheeks turn red as she ducks behind another girl. She then peeks out at me from behind the girl and offers me a small smile. Hyuuga Hinata.

"Of course money matters!" shouts the girl in front of Hinata, she turns to glare at the smaller girl before shifting her gaze to me. With dark brown hair pulled into a bun, and equally brown eyes that bore into mine, she leans close to me. "If you don't have money, you can't get anywhere in life. That means you're going to stay right here, in the dump, like the trash you are," she growls. Then she walks away and the others follow. Mitashi Tenten.

It's nicer when all the shops are closed. When the shops are closed I can eat as much as I want without everyone glaring and snarling at me like I'm some kind of pest. When everything is closed, I don't need money to get what I want, I can just sneak in and take it. Of course, they notice that half of the supplies are missing when they open up again, but I'm long gone by then.

But sometimes I don't get away in time. Sometimes I get caught and have to listen to people bitch and whine and yell about how horrible I am for stealing. So I just tune them out and pretend to listen by nodding my head every time there is a pause. It doesn't matter. I just go to a different shop the next time they close and steal from there. But I realize, eventually, I'll run out of shops to steal from.

I have no home.

All the other people do.

When I wander around at night and search for somewhere to sleep, sometimes an abandoned building, or a pipe forgotten on an old construction site, I understand that nobody else does. Other people spend chilly nights curled up with blankets in front of a fire. Other people are content to stay inside, protected and safe, and are not keen on allowing anyone to disrupt or intrude. So when I lean precariously off the edge of another building to peer through windows, I realize that other people do not have to. They do not have to, because they are already in a home, and have no need to risk anything looking at another.

I look into one window too long and someone inside catches my gaze. An elderly woman shuffles over and opens the glass to gander at me. For one moment I think of the impossible, that maybe she'll invite me in, and we can chat over a warm cup of tea. But instead she frowns at me and waves her arm. "You go on home, now, I don't want any trouble," she shouts, her scratching voice violating my ears like sand paper. Bitch.

Her husband comes to stand beside her, and barely even looks at me before aiding his wife's comment. "You better get out of here, son. It's getting dark. Go home," he states as calmly as if talking about weather, and pushes his thin, wire glasses up his nose, and guides his wife away. Then he closes the window. Bastard.

Other people already have what they need. Shoes. Money. A home. A family.

I have no family.

I have nothing.

So I sit at the only ramen shop that hasn't decided that I'm some kind of imp or demon, and stare at my bowl. Teuchi-san, the owner of Ichiraku Ramen, gives me a strange look, and begins to comment, but more customers rush in, and he's gone to the other end of the booth by the time I glance up. I sigh, moving my chopsticks around in a small circle before shoving some of the noodles into my mouth.

While the ramen is the best in town, and Teuchi-san and his daughter Ayame seem to be the only people who give a shit about me, it's not open all the time. I could stay till closing time, and still have to be ushered out into the heat or the cold, only to wander around till daytime and come back when it opens.

What kind of life is this? I wonder, stirring my ramen absentmindedly. What's the point, when nobody cares about me?

My downtrodden thoughts are interrupted when someone sits beside me and Teuchi-san bellows out a greeting so loud that I'm sure people heard it on the other side of town.

"Iruka! It's been so long! How are you, my friend?" Teuchi-san questioned, and the man shifted, his hand coming up the scratch the back of his head.

I glanced at him. He was tan, his black hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and a kind smile lit up his face. What was most noticeable was a horizontal scar that was carved across his face, just below his eyes, and over his nose. Teuchi-san didn't seem to mind it in the least.

"I've been well," Iruka stated, "although the kids keep getter harder and harder to control," he ended with a chuckle. Teuchi-san laughed along with him, and even a short burst of giggles could be heard from Ayame in the kitchen.

"Yes, well that's what happens when you are a teacher," Teuchi-san commented, his laugh dying, and he glanced at the menu. "What would you like?"

"I'll have your biggest bowl of miso ramen," Iruka replied with a smile.

"Coming right up!" Teuchi-san shouted, and all the other customers laughed. It was like this every day. Teuchi-san and Ayame being loud and joyous, customers talking to each other about their day, and the whole stand was filled with a warm, cozy feeling not just because of ramen. But my spirit wasn't lifted much by it. Maybe it was time to finally just give in. Give in to what, I wasn't really sure.

"Why so down?"

My eyes lifted from my bowl to the man beside me, Iruka. The kind smile he had given Teuchi-san was now directed at me, and I shifted slightly in my seat. I wasn't used to people being so nice.

"Nothing," I mumbled, glancing back at my bowl, and shrugging my shoulders, "just having a bad day."

Iruka sighed, but it sounded more like a hum to me, his voice low and vibrating in the back of his throat like the buzz of a bee. "It happens to the best of us," he commented.

I dropped my head. "I'm certainly not the best," I mumbled.

To my dismay, Iruka caught what I said, and replied with "well you're not the worst, are you?"

A laugh–too high, too squeaky-bubbles out of my mouth before I can stop it. "That's not what everybody else thinks. They think I'm a monster."

I look back at my bowl, and stir the noodles around a bit before taking a giant bite. Surely, this Iruka wouldn't be interested in talking to me anymore after hearing something like that.

"Who cares what everybody else thinks? What do you think?" he asked.

I jerk my head around to stare at him, choking and sputtering all the way, before swallowing the noodles. "What did you say?" I gasped.

Iruka gave a short laugh at the lone noodle still hanging from my mouth until I slurped it up. "What do you think about yourself?"

After wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I thought hard about what he asked, and then answered. "I think everybody else is wrong. I'm not a monster. I'm not a nobody. I'm gonna be somebody someday. Then they'll be looking stupid 'cuz everyone will respect me and like me." I nodded, as if affirming my ideas with not only Iruka, but with myself. I believed I could do it. I could be the best.

Teuchi-san sat Irukas' bowl of ramen down in front of him, but the man didn't even notice, he was looking at me.

"I'm glad you think that way about yourself. You know, you remind me of myself when I was your age. People brought me down a lot, but I just pushed forward and became better, happier. Now I have friends who help me when I feel sad or angry."

Iruka then turned to his food, and said a small prayer before breaking his chopsticks apart and digging in.

"Well I don't have any friends to help me," I grumbled before taking a bite.

"Hmm," Iruka mumbled around the noodles in his mouth, "I know we just met, but how about we have tea after finishing our ramen? My good friend Kakashi was going to meet up with me, and I think it would be nice for you to tag along." He swallowed and glanced at me with a smile. "What do you say?"

I slurped the rest of my noodles and gazed at the man next to me. Iruka wasn't offering me to come with him because he was making fun of me; he was doing it because he genuinely wanted to get to know me. Although I was slightly nervous, I knew that this was the first time anyone had really paid attention to me-in a nice way-other than Teuchi-san and Ayame. It was worth a shot.

"Sure," I replied with a grin. Without any warning I saluted Teuchi-san and the other customers, and jumped off my stool. I ran towards the teahouse down the street. I heard Iruka chuckle and put some yen down on the counter before jogging after me. He caught up quick and we laughed and rough-housed all the way down the street.

As we jumbled into the teahouse out of breathe, but somehow still laughing, I realized that I might have something. Something new and exciting. Something happy and that I desperately needed, but didn't realize before. I don't have everything, but now, I think I have something.

A friend.