She was beautiful and as beautiful as her name suggested. Lavender eyes that sparkled in the sunlight with black blue short locks of soft hair that shone like the night sky and pale creamy white skin as smooth as silk; these were the images that danced through his dreams every night. The black hair he had dreamed of touching was short yet made her seem more feminine in his eyes. Two identical trails off smooth black hair in sections framed that perfect heart shaped face with creamy ivory pink skin. A heart stopping smile full of sincerity that he had seen many times in real life and his dreams. Beautiful eyes perfectly matching the color of a perfect mother of pearl that held love for him.

Love for the unworthy. Love for him out of all the people. Him, the least likely to get any love. Hinata… sunlight and sunshine was her namesake and how utterly perfect and beautiful. She was sweet natured, determined and being near her made him feel unaccountably warm as only a cloudless summers day could. These dreams he had almost every night of Hinata were the happiest things he could think of. He would be lying if he said he hadn't had any of those dreams which meant a very icy cold shower while Jiraiya was still asleep but mostly they were things that by others standards could be considered mundane.

Most people might have thought dreams such as eating together boring but to Naruto spending everyday training mostly training on his own to come to an empty apartment was plain depressing. The idea of someone just for him, someone who would love him at all had been his dream and it had originally been the stem of his dream for Hokage until he found more honorable reasons to become the fire Kage. When he was younger he used to say he would become Hokage so people would respect him and he would show them all. Naruto now realized that had been a very selfish, immature point of view. The Hokage didn't gain power to serve himself but to protect the village. It may have been a part of growing up but to whatever caused the change in his being to stop those foolish self serving ideals he was grateful for. All he had ever wanted was to be loved and for some reason he thought being Hokage was the way to do it. Naruto knew better now. Love was earned through hard work and honorable actions, not bought with powerful positions.

Most of Naruto's dreams involving Hinata were of things that were extraordinary to him. Having never known the love of family or the gentleness of human beings in general growing up to be loved or some sign of affection was wonderful and new. Holding hands, eating together, hugging, touching, kissing and soft 'I love you's' whispered in each others ears danced through his mind in happy phantasmal, extraordinary fantasies. This one was no different. He could already see himself greeting Hinata at a beautiful home, still marveling that she wanted to be HIS wife, picking up a beautiful indigo black hair little boy with his blue eyes. Possibly a little pale eyed, blonde haired little girl. Family… such an alien, odd term to him. He understood the concept himself because he had spent many afternoons in the park, on the streets jealously looking at other kids with their parents. He never understood why other kids wanted to live on their own and the freedom of no parents when he'd trade his hiate (something he insisted they would have to pry from his cold, tightly clenched, dead fingers) just to spend one day with them.

Naruto knew he wasn't particularly sharp, especially when he was younger. But how in kami's green earth did he notice Hinata more while in the academy, or even after he left it? Naruto supposed it was because she was a quiet non-arrogant girl, a far cry from the other stick-up-ass jerks she had for a clan. Neji had proven to be as obnoxious as he had heard about the Hyuuga and Naruto was glad he had beaten the arrogance out of Neji during the Chunin exams. When Naruto had finally realized what a beautiful girl Hinata was he had completely screwed it up to hell and back. He had called her 'dark' and 'weird' because she always fainted all the time. Hinata had caught his attention during the Chunin exams when she had called him a proud failure and encouraged him when he was considering giving up. Naruto had never had someone encourage him before. It had always himself he had to encourage him. When he was down he had no one else to turn to anyways. There was Iruka sensei but Naruto found it hard entrust his feelings to others. Something he had been working hard to change. He had also never really thought about the shy kunochi before; after that he started noticing her more.

In the coming months before Sasuke's defection from Konoha he had found opportunities to talk with her or go on missions with her. He'd even gone and had lunch with her. He learned more and liked what he saw. She was strong and he couldn't fail to notice that she was beautiful. It was so damned obvious. What the hell had he'd done to not notice this? No one needed a brick in the head to notice how attractive she was. As long as he could remember Hinata had never laughed at him when he said he would become Hokage. Why had he never noticed her not laughing at him like all the others? Had he not noticed because he would look down at his feet when everyone laughed? She rarely talked with him but when she did it was nice and encouraging. Hinata had never hit him or called him idiot which was a startling change of pace considering his other experiences with girls.

She never lost patience with him and encouraged him. Naruto had offered training time with her when he found her at Ichiraku and she blushed heavily and said yes. She had actually explained genjutsu in a way that he understood and didn't think he was an idiot for not knowing. She definitely wasn't loud or bossy like Ino and Sakura and she didn't wear ostentatious clothing like the other girls. He preferred it that was though, Hinata was beautiful enough that she didn't need flashy clothing or jewelry to look good. She was a mystery and he couldn't stop thinking about her. He thought the way she would poke her fingers together was weird, now he thought it adorable. He was delighted when they would go on missions together because it meant spending time together. Before he knew it he loved her and she was firmly stuck in his heart.

He was horribly shy and could never work up the courage to ask. Even the idea of asking her left him red faced. Uzumaki Naruto, apprenticed to Jiraiya the toad sage sannin, frog summoner, future toad sage and future guardian of the toad summoning contract, savior of wave, moons, shadow and Konoha countries, defeated Garaa, targeted by Akatsuki, demon container of the Kyuubi; master of the Rasengan and shadow clones, Is afraid to ask a girl out on a date. Go figure.

Naruto is never a coward if he can help it so he was coming around to gathering his courage and asking Hinata out. So of course the universe in all of its vindictive glory decides to make Sasuke defect from Konoha.

That mission had really left him rattled and filled with self doubt. Yet Hinata had came to the hospital and said he did well and that she was sure he would be better next time. Just Hinata being around was enough but her confidence in him made him bursting with happiness. Realizing he needed to get stronger Naruto had resolved to track down pervy sage and beg for training. No sooner had he thought that when Jiraiya made his vow unnecessary by showing up on the back on Gamabunta's younger brother in the dead of night by the hospital and offered to be Naruto's master in an apprenticeship.

Of course all excitement was drained from Naruto when Jiraiya not so tactfully explained that Akatsuki wouldn't remain dormant for much longer. Sooner or later they will come to kidnap him, drain the demon from his body killing him in the process and leave it to rot for maggots to devour without a second thought. Naruto had to leave Konoha on a two and a half year training trip to become strong enough to avoid that grisly fate and he would never get to ask Hinata out. Naruto was unhappy at the fact that he could not in good conscience tell Hinata his feelings and expect her to wait if she shared his feelings. Naruto was happy to get training and the chance to become strong enough to bring Sasuke back, but at the price of a chance with vivacious Hinata? She was attractive, pretty, and kind and other guys had to notice. In all likeliness he would come back to Konoha more than a match for Akatsuki and see he on the arm of some rich prestigious clan heir… Jerk.

Naruto had often wondered if he had somehow offended the unversed in a past life and that they had decided to have him reborn and kicked around like a helpless puppy. He had dismissed this notion as ludicrous but the moment he realized that he would have to leave Konoha for 2 and a half years leaving Hinata to fall in love with other guys, he seriously considered it possible. His parents and a chance at family had been violently killed in the same attack that led to him become a jinchuriki and spend the next 10 years in complete misery. The world was cruel he had decided.

It was warm hugging and kissing Hinata in his dream and allowing himself the illusion she loved him in his dreams; if only for a time until reality returned in the form of his waking hours of course. In a way it was cruel and tearing him apart from the insides, to have these dreams. He would temporarily get what he wanted most of all but then he would wake up with the cold stark reality that Hinata wasn't and would never be his slapped right in his face. The mere idea of Hinata not loving him made his heart burn and his throat tight. The idea of what he knew -not thought- knew would happen when Hinata found out that he was a jinchuriki nearly cracked his heart.

In reality Hinata was beautiful, sweet, kind, and loyal and could make him happy. So of course she was beyond his reach and would never love him because he was a jinchuriki; Demon marked and unlovable.

In reality he had few friends. He had Kiba and Akamaru, Shikamaru, Choji and Ino, Sakura, Neji and Lee, Shino, Kiba and hopefully Hinata.

His friends would spend time with him but at the end of the day would have to go home to their own families who would welcome them home and they would say 'tadaima'. And talk about their day; they would talk about new moves they had mastered, they would talk about new clothing they had gotten, they would talk about their teammates and funny things they had seen, they would talk about how happy they were to have friends and family, they would even reminisce with each other about the past. They would smile at each other, and share their food. They would argue about chores or whose turn to take out the garbage. They would spend time together and get on each others nerve and boss each other around. They kiss and make up eventually. They go to celebrations and family events together happy with holidays. They at least knew the names of their parents and if their parents were married.

Everyone was happy because they weren't lonely and they had each other.

Whereas Naruto…

Naruto would go home to nothing... would have no one to say 'welcome home' to him, there would be no point in saying 'tadaima', he would have no one to talk to, no one to smile at, no one to share his food with, no one to argue with about chores or whose turn to do what, no one to annoy, no one to boss him around or answer to and no one to apologize to. There would be no new years, Christmas or even valentines for him. Naruto didn't even know the names of his parents and for all he knew he could be a bastard child.

He was unhappy because he was alone and had no one.

It was just Naruto.

It really was just Naruto and its sad how quickly he had become certain that it would always be this way. He had come to think of this as a fact of life like the clouds were white and black while the birds migrated south for the winter.

In reality he would have to watch his precious Hinata get married to some rich clan heir and brag about her kids. No, wait. Not brag. Hinata would never brag because she was too charming and good natured to brag. She would talk about an accomplishment of her child with right amount of motherly pride. She would be marrying someone else nevertheless and he would be helpless to stop it. Naruto would hide his feelings, plaster on that horrible mask of a smile he had created and mastered long ago to hide his feelings, and hope he didn't burst into tears from the injustice of it all. Kami help him if he got an invitation to her wedding and he had to go with a smile on. Naruto hadn't smiled a true happy smile in a long time.

He had tried giving up ridiculous childhood dreams like parents. When he was younger the idea of parents had taken hold of him and he was obsessed. Wasn't it natural though for an orphan to have this obsession, this need for certain knowledge? Who was he? Who were his parents? Was he ever wanted? Didn't they have a plan in case something happened to them? Were they married happily? Or were he the drunken mistake of a one night stand his mother didn't want and he was convenient choice for a host? This idea stung most of all but the mind can be so cruel when you spend long hours of the night thinking of all possibilities. He was seven when he came up with that idea and the desire to know his parents died soon after. He dreaming of family had never brought him happiness anyways so why bother with it? He didn't know what was crueler; the idea the occurred to him when he was seven or when he was twelve and found out he was a host for the Kyuubi. He had been lying awake for quite awhile processing everything that Oji-san had told him when his mind turned back to parents for some unidentifiable reason...

0o0o0o0o0o

"Why did you create the law about me old man?" eyes wide and still slightly shocked from the explanation the Sandaime's had given to him. Naruto was so incredibly young and was having last ditch efforts by hoping some people would jump out of a closet and shout something like "you're a gullible sucker to fall for that one kid". No one did and Naruto was forced to accept the horrible truth.

"Because I wanted you to grow up happy and treated normal Naruto. I wanted to make sure you had friends and people who cared about you." His gruff old voice was tired and even older than he was; his eyes filled with… pity? Naruto didn't want pity. But he didn't have a choice did he? No. He never did. It was always someone else making decisions for him. Always someone else.

0o0o0o0o0o

"I wanted to make sure you had friends and people who cared about you" which meant to Naruto's young mind that being the Kyuubi host meant you wouldn't be loved if anyone knew about the Kyuubi. Upon further reflection he found this idea to make more and more sense. Hadn't every adult and teenager old enough to know about the Kyuubi's fate made it clear they detested and hated his very existence simply because he was a host for the Kyuubi? Which meant every person who didn't know before and liked him would hate him once they did find out. The more he thought about it the more convinced he was. It's why Hinata knowing about the Kyuubi terrified him so much after all.

The old man never had told him about his parents no matter how much he begged when he was little. Naruto asked for even the smallest bit of information like whether he looked anything like them. The Sandaime would just smile sadly, chuckle and say:

0o0o0o0o

"I'll tell you when you're older Naruto."

A few minutes later.

"Am I older yet Oji-san? Please? I want to what they were like!"

He chuckles. "No, Naruto. You'll have to be much older than that".

0o0o0o0o

But Sarutobi never did tell Naruto anything about his parents. He would just laugh, as if it was funny Naruto didn't know his parents and say something like "when you're older Naruto." "Another time perhaps Naruto". Eventually it didn't matter to Naruto that he was twelve without parents and now fifteen. Old man third was dead and Naruto didn't have any interest in parents anymore. Naruto had raised himself from the scared, helpless little boy in the orphanage to what he was now. Besides, even if he was interested in knowing his parents names only Sarutobi Hiruzen knew who his parents were. That information died the day Orochimaru killed him.

Parents… they were really an unimaginable and strange concept. They didn't exist for Naruto. To him parent was folklore, sort of like the boogeyman under your bed or ghost stories. Other kids had them and talked about them. They were things he never had and couldn't imagine having. He thought of all his friends back in Konoha as family but that was the closest he had.

So why had Naruto been laying in bed, unable to sleep still trying to process the idea his body contained the first and most powerful malevolent entity within his body, suddenly struck by an idea of why the third Hokage never said anything about his parents? He hadn't thought about his childhood dreams in years of some faceless lady coming to get him from school and walk him home or a cool guy calling him 'son', offering to train him. It was simple but it made sense to his mind. Naruto had been told they died when he was born on the day of the attack. So why wouldn't the old man tell him anything? They were dead so what was wrong in telling him anything? What if his parents were alive but just didn't want the "Demon child" for a son so they left him behind and left Konoha? This idea also brought him pain so once again he swiftly discarded the childish dreams of parents once more.

Naruto was five and a half when he left the orphanage. He was living on the streets by then. He had been rescued from the orphanage and the old man had ordered someone to help Naruto get an apartment. No one did and Sarutobi didn't know until Naruto was eight. So Naruto lived on the streets. The streets were hard places to live and it was no place for babies Naruto had decided. So he grew up a little at least. He gave up wishing. That was for weak that weren't willing to work hard for what they wanted. He gave up dreams for the most part. They were nice but they didn't get him food. He gave up hope and opted for sheer stubborn determination. Hope was more like a passive version of wishing and was really just a lazy version of wishing where you didn't even acknowledge that you were wasting time in dreamland. Naruto had forbidden himself from crying or feeling sorry for himself when he turned five. If he did burst into tears those would be the first tears he had allowed himself in eleven years. He hadn't cried since he was five years old. There were a few close calls when he had nearly cried but had managed to force them back or distract himself. Those distractions came in the form of training himself into the ground or mastering a technique. Naruto had gotten quite a few distractions from training a full two and a half years.

However returning to Konoha had made him want Hinata more than ever. And it broke his heart that he could never ask because he knew sooner or later she would know of the Kyuubi and come to hate him.. Returning to Konoha represented that heart break. It represented how lonely he would be again once he had to return to his empty apartment. At least that's what he thought at first. Naruto had promised himself he'd ask Hinata out on a date once he got back to Konoha and be as happy as he could for as long as he could until Hinata found out. Naruto knew it would hurt when she found out. Naruto lived in fear of the day the rest of the Konoha twelve found out about the Kyuubi. It was a complex with him. It terrified him. He would be alone again. Completely and irrevocably alone. 'never go back' was what he swore to himself when he realized that team seven considered him a friend. 'I'm never ever going to go back', to the loneliness, the empty silence that was his previous non-existence. He would do anything to keep them from finding out. He didn't care if he had to lie until they ripped out his tongue, he didn't care what he had to do but he was never going back to being alone. He was going to date Hinata and love her till she found out, that way he could have been happy for once.

Most would think of this as an unwholesome plan and a recipe for tragedy and heartbreak. Naruto agreed but as long as he managed to be happy and have the one thing he truly wanted for once, the heartbreak would be worth it. He was damaged that way. A poor self image, baggage and emotional abuse from an early age had made him damaged goods and Naruto knew it. He just thought he hid it better and would work through it himself. He also figured he was use to pain, rejection, disappointment, being stepped on, bitterly biting back tears and hiding his feelings so why not one more crack in his heart? He had already had it shattered like glass, bruised, beaten for no other reason than 'I felt like it', isolated and trodden on more times than he could count. All he had ever wanted since he fell in love with Hinata was Hinata and her love. It wasn't so unreasonable to get some amount of affection from her was it? As long as he was on his was to a hellish eternity of loneliness, and pain he might as well try to be happy during the journey. He had sworn never to go back and while he might get to keep the Dubbed "Konoha twelve" as his friends he would loose Hinata and would never know the joys of fatherhood.

He was a week's travel from Konoha and he would soon be asking Hinata out. Eventually she would find out. Ero-sennin had been trying to convince him that the Konoha twelve would not hate him because of the Kyuubi. Perhaps he would try to convince Baa-chan that she should tell Hinata. How stupid really. Naruto knew better. Akira had proved him right. But for now he was content with the illusions his dreams provided; that Hinata loved him and all was happy.

Of course no one can really escape reality for long and it was to the blinding light of early morning and ero-sannin snoring that Naruto woke up to. Looking around he saw the fire had gone out. The rocks surrounding it were covered in ashy, blackened scorch marks. The birds were singing. His sleeping back was warm and as he sat up part of it fell off, he regretted doing so. It was damned cold this morning. Squinting Naruto looked at the sun to find out what time it was. Surprised to find out that it was seven o'clock Naruto was dismayed to find out he had slept way in. standing up, dropping the sleeping bag, he ignored the shivers and got dress hastily. He retied on his forehead protector and glanced over to the perverted hermit.

He's still sleeping? Naruto thought with chagrin. How am I going to get any training or at least some travel time on the road if the lecherous lazy ass is still asleep? Considering his options Naruto opted for a hit and run option. Naruto put on his shoes because was going to need them very, very soon. Grinning his mischievous evil grin from ear to ear, Naruto readied himself. Rearing back his leg Naruto aimed and kicked hard for the unfortunate soft back side of his soon to be awake teacher. Curse words and death threats poisoned the air after Naruto as he took off running with an extremely please expression on his face.

And the day had begun.

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Dear readers:

Revised at last, revised at last! Hello people! I'm back, large and in charge. … lolz. Listen to me I sound like I went to a motivational camp for creative writing fat kids. But I Am in charge of at least my writing. Now why the long hiatus? There wasn't one. I would have had more chapters out by now but I got a little smart with my mom and she… er- confiscated my computer. Yes ladies and gentlemen. Make fun of me if you will. Ill admits it. I got grounded by my mommy. 4:45 Am exactly! It is way to damn early to be this excited about getting my computer but I don't give a damn because I'm celebrating my newfound writing freedoms once more. Yippie! ^_^ Ill be working on revising the next few chapters and getting around to rewriting news ones. *Giggle* I seem to be writing more angst and drama into my stories as of late. If I'm not careful pretty soon it will be like a Korean soap opera complete with identical twins and gangster fighting over each other.

Some of you might have notices I talked quite abit about Naruto's past. The reason for this is simply that Naruto's entire emotional standing, self image and mental processing is based on his past. some of you also might be concerned that I'm making him seem to dark or depressing. I'm trying to go for real and realistic emotions, thoughts, feelings, and reactions here for all of my characters. I've read stories where someone's family died and they didn't even express sadness about it. The person just writes "- feels sad. next day-" and that's it. That's all the person writes on the emotional and mental standing of the person. I want to explore why Naruto is the way he is. I want to show my take on Naruto's feelings based on his past, and not make him a retard with the emotional range of a teaspoon that kishi like making his seem as.

Sincerely hope to be updating again soon

-He will knock four times