A note about the songs and chapter titles:
I hate songfics as much as the next person. This is not a songfic. Nor is it a one-shot. The chapter titles are the titles of the songs that inspired that chapter. The lyrics will be included at the beginning of the chapters, and are not interspersed throughout the text (which annoys me to no end). I was originally not going to do the music-thing, but I kept hearing songs that fit with the pairing, so bear with me. Eventually I may figure out how to make an online playlist with all the tunes, but I don't know. Depends on the piece's popularity, I guess.
Reviews are ALWAYS WELCOME! They keep me writing. Please tell me what you think about my writing and the story's plot. No flames, but constructive criticism is allowed and accepted gratefully.
Disclaimers: I don't own Naruto, nor any of the characters in it. I do not pretend to own Naruto. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? As for the music, I do not own it either. It is all the property of the respective artists, and credit will gived in each chapter for each song.
Alright, I'll stop blabbing and get with the story now...
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Prologue
(Cast no Shadow is property of Oasis)
Here's a thought for everyman
Who tries to understand what is in his hands
Walks along the open road of love and life
Surviving if he can...
-Cast No Shadow, by Oasis
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Umino Iruka had never met a child quite like Uzumaki Naruto. As the head instructor at the ninja academy of Konoha, he'd seen it all. But never anyone that even compared to the blond-haired boy that now sat before him, glaring at him defiantely.
"Naruto... I am going to ask you once more: WHERE did you hide my hitai-ate?!"
The boy answered with the typical reaction for a child his age, the infamous 'I dunno' shoulder shrug.
"You know where it is, now tell me!" he demanded, though in a voice that suggested he really didn't want to scold the boy.
The shoulders shrugged again.
"Naruto..." Iruka began again, exasperated. "Do you know why I'm so upset about this?"
The boy shook his head.
"My hitai-ate... Any ninja's hitai-ate, that is, is one of the most important things to that person. It tells anyone who sees you wearing it that you are a ninja, and that your loyalty is to the hidden village whose symbol is on your headband. The hitai-ate you stole from me is part of who I am. And I would like it back. Understand?"
Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment, as if, for once, he was actually considering what Iruka had said. After a moment he looked back up to Iruka and grinned hugely.
"Yeah, I understand, Iruka-sensei. I'm sorry I took it from you."
He reached back into the bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out a strip of clean navy-blue cloth emblazoned with a silver plate. A leaf was stamped into the metal, marking the hitai-ate as belonging to a Konoha ninja. Naruto handed it over, still smiling broadly.
Iruka was still a bit shocked that he had actually recieved an apology from the boy, who he knew to be without a shred of shame, and who was never sorry for what he did. Or, at least, he never showed it.
"Arigatou, Naruto-san."
"But I hope you know I'll have one of those for myself pretty soon, Iruka-sensei! Believe it, I'm gonna graduate this year if it kills me!"
Iruka smiled. Yep, still the same Naruto he'd always known.
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It wasn't too long before Iruka did find himself untying his hitai-ate from his head and fastening it on Naruto's forehead, grinning broadly as he told the boy to open his eyes. The look of wonderment as Naruto realized that not only was his sensei hitai-ate-less, but that he could feel the weight of the item around his own head. And even though Iruka was bleeding from a dozen different wounds, in more pain than he'd ever felt before, he couldn't help but grin joyfully.
"Congratulations, Naruto! You graduate!"
He then felt considerable pain in his back as Naruto lept on top of him and threw his arms around him in a huge hug. He winced a little but kept up his smile, and returned the hug as best he could with his wounded arms. When Naruto finally let go and stood up, he started jumping up and down excitedly, his face flushed and his eyes shining with happy tears.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..."
"Ne, Naruto! How about we go for some ramen, alright?"
He was answered by another YES! and barrage of 'thank you's that ended with Naruto leaning down and helping him to his feet.
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After stopping at a med-station and getting himself patched up, Naruto and Iruka danced and limped, respectively, to the place they both favored for their weekly ramen treat. Ichiraku's might not have been the biggest or nicest stand in town, but it certainly had the best food of them all. Especially their pork ramen. Iruka was in love with their pork ramen.
When they sat down, he ordered exactly that, a medium bowl of pork ramen, and Naruto got a large bowl of miso ramen, which he ate within 20 seconds and quickly hailed the owner for another. Iruka finished his a bit slower, and was done eating after the first bowl. His back was starting to really hurt him again from sitting upright for so long.
"Ne, Iruka-sensei?" He eventually heard Naruto take a break from eating and address him.
"Yeah?"
"Why are you being so nice to me, again?"
"What, you don't remember what I said?"
"I do, kind of... but why all of a sudden like this? You used to always just yell at me... and now you're doing all kinds of stuff for me."
"Naruto, it took me awhile to realize it, but you remind me of myself when I was younger. The only reason I was so strict with you was because I thought it would keep you making the same stupid mistakes that I did when I was your age. Now I see that it would have been better if I would have just showed you a little kindness... I guess I forgot that that was all I really wanted when I was your age."
"Oh. Well, thank you."
"For what?"
"For caring about me. It's kind of new for me."
"You're welcome. And thank you, Naruto, for helping me see what an ass I was being," he said with a smile.
The smile was returned.
It was replaced by a look of wonder as a young couple walked up to the shop and took a seat. The woman had on a shirt that wasn't really a shirt so much as something that slightly resembled a shirt but was really just a small piece of material, and a skirt that was much the same. The man was built like an ox, and though he wore the hitai-ate of Konoha, he looked nothing like the typical picture of a ninja, with bulgy muscles that made him look much too bulky and slow by ninja standards. Most nin were slimmer, with a balanced look that hid how strong they really were... With the exception of the Akimichi clan, Iruka added to himself.
Iruka watched in amusement as Naruto tried to hide the fact that he was ogling the woman, who'd taken a seat only a stool away from him. He was so intent on staring that he left his steaming ramen untouched, very un-Naruto like. With a smile, Iruka nudged Naruto with his elbow.
"Ne, Naruto... It's not polite to stare," he said, grinning at the furious blush that crept up Naruto's face as he whipped his head around to face Iruka. A moment later, the boy was grinning like a fiend, his typical, toothy, little-kid smile that made Iruka happy every time he saw it.
"She's so hot, Iruka-sensei," he whispered, although when Naruto whispered, it was like any other person's regular voice.
Iruka chuckled under his breath at the incredulous air in the boy's voice. So the kid was finally starting to be interested in girls. That was a new development, one that Iruka was happy to see occurring. It was important that a kid his age stopped training long enough to deal with changing emotions and the like. One thing that made him opposed to the young age at which ninja began their training. But he made no reply to the boy's comment other than an amused laugh.
"What?" Naruto questioned. "She is, isn't she? Don't you think so, Iruka-sensei?"
"Sure," he replied, though in a uninterested voice. "But look at the guy she's with. I'd stop staring if I were you; he'd crush you like a bug if he caught you looking like that."
Inwardly, he praised himself for the quick cover-up.
"Whatever," Naruto said, refocusing his attentions on his ramen, which he attacked immediately. Iruka, however, could see the mischievous smirk on the boy's fox-like features.
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"So, Iruka-sensei," Naruto began after they had paid and begun their walk home from Ichiraku's. "What's the real reason you're never interested in any of the women we see when we're out?"
Iruka flushed red, thankful that the darkness hid his sudden discomfort at the topic of conversation.
"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.
"See, you're nervous now, sensei! There's a reason why you never like looking at the women. You always have an excuse. I wanna know why!"
Damn that kid, damn him and his damn perceptive nature! Now he was really getting nervous.
"What?... I... All the women we met were trashy!" he blurted, not knowing what else to say. He kept looking straight ahead, determined to get home before the situation worsened.
"No they weren't! There were a lot of classy ones!" Iruka stopped up short as he suddenly found his way completely blocked by the short kid in orange. The boy leaned in close, one eye squinted, as if examining him. A smile crossed his face as he stepped back and folded his arms across his chest a moment later. The smile widenened into a triumphant, toothy grin.
"Iruka-sensei, you don't [ilike[/i women, do you?"
"What! No, where the... What gives you that... What do you think you're doing, saying that?! Of course I like women, I..."
The sly grin continued before him, unchanged by his embarrassed spluttering.
"Stop looking at me like that! And get out of the way, it's getting late and my back is killing me..."
The boy stood unmoving.
Iruka opened his mouth, and then stopped. He had been about to say how horrible it was to accuse him of being like that, but... That would be insulting himself, and he couldn't bring himself to say it. He'd already come to terms with what he was, he knew how he felt. The only trouble was what other people would say if they knew. And damn it, Naruto was figuring it out. No, scratch that, he already had.
He gave a defeated sigh, and stood uncomfortably before the younger boy who'd managed to figure out what he'd been working years to hide.
"Okay, Naruto, you've got me. I, uh, I don't like women..." Amazingly, it actually felt better to say that than it had to try and hide it.
"Knew it!"
"Naruto, you can't tell anyone. I don't want people to know that I'm... like that."
"Oh, come on, Iruka-sensei, just say it. You're gay. But, why're you acting like I'm gonna hate you now? It doesn't make me hate you, as long as you don't like ME like that... Because not only would that be uncomfortable for me... It would be pervy and wrong." The boy shuddered.
Iruka found himself finally able to smile, his nervousness lifting slightly. He even chuckled quietly at Naruto's last comment.
"No, Naruto, I don't like you like that," he said, still laughing as he said it. "I agree, that would be totally pervy and wrong."
They found themselves both laughing at that.
"Good. 'Cause then it would be like my older brother was hitting on me, or something. Ugh..." He shuddered again comically.
Iruka laughed along with him, though the boy's last comment touched him. Naruto thought of him like an older brother? That warmed him inside, making the smile permanent upon his face until he walked alone into his 5th story apartment and headed to bed. Naruto looked up to him. Respected him.
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A week later, after a rather rough week of teaching that had been made worse by the soreness in his back and arms, and by his having to take over some of Mizuki's old students after his colleague's recent arrest, Iruka found himself once again, walking home from the ramen shop with a hyper-active, blond genin. The boy was in the middle of rambling on and on about how his new sensei was so lazy, always late, and on and on. The only thing that caught Iruka's attention was when Naruto brought up the fact that his new teacher, Kakashi Hatake, had fallen for a simple prank Naruto had pulled on him.
"What?" he asked, surprised that such a famous, powerful ninja would fall for something like a childish prank.
"Yeah, I put an eraser up between the door and the wall and he walked right into it! I was laughing so hard..."
"That old trick? He seriously fell for that?" Iruka knew the prank well, having pulled it on more people than he could count when he was Naruto's age.
"Yeah! But it didn't do much since his hair is already grey..." The boy's tone dropped to something of disappointment.
"But that's still awesome he fell for it!" Iruka felt himself slip back into the child's part of his mind, the part that had yet to mature enough to disregard the humor in such pranks. Ordinarily, he would have rather jumped off a bridge than encourage Naruto's pranks, but now that Naruto was no longer his student... He held his hand up for a high-five at the simple, yet brilliant trick. Naruto leapt a little off the ground and slammed his hand against Iruka's, grinning furiously. Iruka reached his hand up and fondly ruffled the boy's hair, now with a grin similar to Naruto's plastered across his face. He chuckled as the boy ducked away, his face taking on a comical pout at the gesture.
"So, what we've discovered so far is that your jounin sensei, supposedly a genius, the great Hatake Kakashi, fell for a little prank that I could've spotted a mile away?" Iruka felt an almost smugness at this. So what if he was a chuunin teacher. Teaching taught you to look underneath the underneath, and to develop a sort of trouble-radar that had yet to fail him. He knew it was childish for him to be thinking about wanting to out-do someone so much his surperior, but it'd been awhile since Iruka had let that childish bit out, and it felt good to let down the serious facade he'd built up over the years.
"Yup! I wonder if he'd fall for anything else..."
They walked the next few blocks with Naruto listing off different pranks and Iruka vetoing the bad and praising the good. It proved hard to come up with something good enough to really mess with the jounin, but in the end, Iruka suggested a brilliant scheme that got Naruto all excited and bouncy again. It took him a full minute to calm down enough to continue the conversation. Having decided on the prank, Naruto changed the topic to something else he'd been wanting to talk with his sensei about.
"Ne, Iruka-sensei, you need to get a boyfriend."
The comment was so sudden, it caught Iruka way off guard.
"What?!"
"You need to get a boyfriend."
"What tells you that, all of a sudden, I need a boyfriend? And, besides that, I don't think my personal life is any of your buisiness!" As he said this, his voice took on his 'stern-teacher' tone. But it did make him smile inwardly that the boy was concerned about him.
"You're lonely."
Why on Earth was this tiny, obnoxious, blond Kyuubi-container so damn perceptive?!
"What? I have friends! And..." But he couldn't really think of anything to list off, so he repeated, flustered, "I have friends!"
"Like who?"
"Like M-" He'd been about to say Mizuki, but after the recent incident with the scroll, he didn't really count anymore. "Uh, Kotetsu-san and Izumo-san, and... Genma-san...uh..." Damn it.
"Iruka-sensei, you're not really friends with them. You just know them. You know every person in this village by name, and they all know you, but you're not friends with any of them! And I don't count 'cause I'm pretty much family."
It took a moment for Iruka to even begin to process the younger ninja's words. But before he could reply, Naruto was waving and dashing towards the door to his apartment building, calling back to Iruka.
"Well, g'night, Iruka-sensei! Thanks for the ramen!"
After staring blankly after the blond head that soon disappeared inside the door, Iruka walked the short distance left until he reached his house deep in thought about what Naruto had said, walking up the 5 flights of stairs in a sort of thoughtful stupor. The idea that he really didn't have any friends plagued his mind ceaselessly, and when he finally lay down in his bed, he still couldn't get it off his mind.
Naruto was right. He did know everyone, every student, every parent, every colleague, and even Hokage-sama, but he couldn't call even one of them his 'friend.' Wow, that was depressing... He was usually so wrapped up in either teaching, or working the mission room, or training, or eating ramen with Naruto, that he hadn't ever realized this rather obvious fact. He kind of felt like a loser, a loser who had no friends but still ended up doing favors for almost everyone. Damn.
Since when was Naruto one to notice this sort of thing? Or has he just always been like this and I've not noticed it before...
He'd always been friendly with people around town, and he could name each of them on sight. His students trusted him and liked him, but teaching six-year-olds to run with pointy metal things was quite different from having a beer with some friends. The Hokage was more of a father-figure than anything else to him, just as Naruto was more of a little brother. He knew the teachers at school, and he talked with them all in the break room, and he knew every shinobi in Konoha from working in the mission room. And yet he still had no real friends.
Damnit, Naruto! I was having a good day up 'til now...
This left him, however, with a difficult question: How on Earth does a twenty-five-year-old chuunin go about 'making friends.' And with whom? The idea was pretty intimidating, now that he thought about it. He certainly couldn't just walk up to someone and say 'Hey, will you be my friend?' Or could he?... Nah, he'd sound either desperate, or like a five-year-old, and he was neither of which. Okay, maybe a little desperate, but he certainly wasn't going to advertise that.
He ran through a mental list of possible friends.
Izumo or Kotetsu? No, even though they were his age, he wasn't particularly fond of either of them.
Genma, then? Or maybe Namiashi Raidou? But they were jounin, way higher ranked than he was.
Sarutobi Asuma, Kurenai, or Anko? What about that big guy, Ibiki? No. Again, jounin, and he doubted they'd even acknowledge his existence, let alone make friends with him.
Uh... Maito Gai? No. Just... no.
That left him with... nobody. Except... Kakashi-sensei! No, Iruka, damnit, he's a jounin too, and an anti-social genius at that. No.
This left him with his self-esteem at rock bottom.
What was I thinking, nobody wants to be friends with me. I'm just Iruka-sensei, that nice teacher and the guy who always accepts the mission reports. Not a guy to hang out with, just another person to say 'hi' to in the village. Plus, does being friends mean I have to come out to the person, or what? Especially if it was a guy... That would be awkward... Damn, damn, damn... He didn't like having a problem like this that he couldn't solve...
Needless to say, it was quite a while before Iruka got any sleep that night.
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Something was bothering Kakashi, keeping him just as sleepless as Iruka that particular night.
Something new, unknown, foreign, something he wasn't quite sure how to deal with.
It had been bothering him for a week or so now, ever since he'd gotten that new team of his.
It was... weird.
It was different.
He wasn't sure exactly what to call it, but he was sure it fell somewhere within the descriptor of 'loneliness.'
He didn't like it. It scared him to think that he was having emotions like that. He had shut those all out, he was sure of it. He was cool, composed, brilliant, strong... there was no such thing as feelings like... 'loneliness.'
Yet here he was, perched on his roof, losing sleep over it.
He was sure it had set in after he'd first met his team. Maybe it was because they reminded him so damn much of his old team. Haruno Sakura, now she was just like Rin had been, always chasing after him, blind to anything Obito tried to tell her. Naruto, he was Obito reincarnated, with his optimism and hard-working attitude. And Sasuke was the mirror image of himself, acting cold, unfeeling, and with the strong belief in his surperiority to his teammates. Or, at least that was how his team had been in the beginning. He hoped that Team 7 would end up as tight as his old squad had been.
That was it. This new squad was reminding what it had felt like to have friends. To have someone to confide in, to talk to, to just hang around with. Someone to care even a little bit about you. He'd shut that out since his team had broken apart. And now, damn it, he was missing it.
Unfortunately, now, he was lacking even moreso in the social skills department than he had as a child. How did one even go about making friends? He didn't know, but now, he was strangely determined to find out, because this new 'loneliness' was eating away at him and he had to get rid of it at all costs.
He sighed, and ducked back inside his window, making his way to his bed. He lay awake for quite some while, unable to sleep at all, mixed thoughts of his new squad and his old one filling his mind. It was driving him absolutely insane.
Hn.
'Loneliness' sucked.
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...Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say
Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay
Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say
As he faced the sun he cast no shadow...