Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Naruto never does his groceries during the day. Daytime meant more people, and more people meant dirty looks and nasty words.

So he carries his goods home in a threadbare pillow case, well after the sun has set, when the vendors are eager to get rid of their remaining produce. He’d ask for a bag to carry them in, but the vendors loved to charge him extra—it came with the territory of being the Kyuubi’s vessel. And a genin’s payroll isn’t exactly hefty, nor did the Hokage’s stipend cover much outside of rent and utilities.

He’s more focused on getting home as quickly as possible than actually watching where he’s going, so it’s no surprise that he bumps into someone. The stranger keeps walking as if he hadn’t noticed Naruto at all, even as the boy’s own shopping spills out onto the ground.

He chases after the cup ramen rolling away, though there’s not much he can do about the precious milk already soaking into the dirt.

“This yours?”

Naruto spies a man picking up one of his ramen packs, brushing the dirt off of it. He’s handsome and tall, with dark hair and just a hint of stubble. Naruto doesn’t remember seeing him around before.

The man offers him a kind smile, holding the ramen out to him. “Not a lot of nutrition in that sack of yours, huh?” The boy apprehensively accepts his ramen back, flinching when the other moved a little too quick.

“You want the rest of these?” The man gestures at a few lumpy oranges in his own cart. “I don’t think anyone else is going to buy them.”

“Oh?” Naruto eyes narrow. Surely this has to be some sort of trick. Villagers were never this nice to him. But the man is already placing the oranges in his pillowcase, and they don’t explode or disappear. They’re just regular oranges.

“Thank you, mister,” the boy says shyly.

“Mister?” The man repeats. “Jeez, that makes me feel old. You can call me Hanzo.”

“Hanzo-san,” Naruto’s shy smile turns into a grin. He’s found someone who didn’t talk down to him! What a great day! And then, because he’s a chatterbox by nature, he dares to ask, “How come you don’t have your cart over there, in the market?” Naruto points in the direction he’d come from.

“Ah, well…” Hanzo ducks his head self-consciously. “People don’t really like me. I’m not from around here, you see.”

“They all just suck,” Naruto laughs. “They don’t like me either.”

Hanzo tilts his head toward the boy. “Well that’s one thing we have in common.”

When Naruto shows up to training with a big juicy apple, it amuses Kakashi. Partly because it’s the first time he sees the boy eat something healthy for once, but also because the little shit was annoying his teammates with his snack.

“Wow, this is really good,” Naruto says with his mouth full, obnoxiously smacking his lips in Sasuke’s ear. The other boy flicks Naruto’s forehead, prompting the idiot to smear the sticky apple juice across the Uchiha’s face.

“Leave him alone, Naruto!” Sakura shrieks, pushing him away. “Where’d you even get that?”

“My friend gave it to me this morning, “ Naruto grins and puffs his chest out proudly. “Wanna share, Sakura-chan?”

“Gross, get away from me.” Sakura smacks Naruto’s hand away when he waves the apple at her.

“More for me, then.” Naruto shrugs. He looks around. ”Is sensei late again?”

“When is he ever on time?”

“We should prank him with stink bombs,” Naruto says, voice taking on a sly tone. His teammates turn toward him, clearly interested. Disguised as a civilian a few feet away, Kakashi flips to the next page of Icha Icha.

Silly genin brats.

“Yo, Hanzo-san!”

“Good morning to you too, Naruto-kun.” Hanzo greets. “Where are you headed off to today?”

“Just some boring D-rank mission,” Naruto kicks at the rocks on the ground. “I want to do something awesome. Did I ever tell you about that mission to Wave country? This big-muscular guy and his weird little friend tried to kill us, but I saved everyone, ya know?”

It’s become part of his daily routine to stop by Hanzo’s cart in the mornings, falling into easy conversation with the man. He learns more about his new friend: that he’d moved to Konoha from Ishigakure, that he had been a farmer his whole life, and even that he was once married—though he gave only a vague answer when Naruto had pried about what happened there.

Hanzo listens attentively as Naruto regales with him with the tale of his mission, albeit exaggerated. The older man lets him ramble on and on, even offering him some biscuits when Naruto mentions he’d skipped breakfast again.

“…then Kakashi-sensei was trapped in this water jutsu, and-” Naruto stops mid-sentence, pressing his lips into a tight line. “Agh, I’m doing it again, aren’t?”

“Doing what?” Hanzo shoots him a puzzled look.

“Sakura-chan always says I talk too much. People don’t like that.”

The man only shrugs. “Doesn’t bother me. I enjoy our conversations, especially since no one really stops to talk. I like your company.”

Naruto lights up again. “You do?”

“It’s not everyday I get to talk to a brave shinobi whose been in real scary fights,” Hanzo smiles. “Now, what were you saying about that water jutsu?”

The boy opens his mouth to answer, but then he hears Sakura’s high-pitched voice calling out to him from a distance.

“Oi, Naruto!”

Naruto smacks his forehead, finally remembering he had a mission to get to. He bids a hurried goodbye to Hanzo before sprinting over to his teammates.

“C’mon, we were supposed to meet Kakashi-sensei at the bridge five minutes ago,” Sakura says, dragging the boys behind her as she rushes to their rendezvous point. She spares a glance backwards. “What were you doing, anyways?”

“Just talking to a friend,” Naruto says. If he’s walking with an extra spring in his step, neither of his teammates point it out.

Nothing improves teamwork more than collective punishment. So when Naruto starts showing up late to training and missions, of course all three of Kakashi’s students are made to run laps around the training grounds.

“But you are always late!” Naruto whines.

“Another five laps for back talk.” Kakashi chirps.

They’re all exhausted and sweaty within the first hour. The hot sun is beating down on them, except for Kakashi, who sits in the cool shade of a tree. Naruto is grumbling under his breath the entire time.

“This is torture,” he groans.

Sasuke gives him a hard shove after Naruto tries to trip him again. “This is your fault, remember?”

“If you can still chit chat, ten more laps shouldn’t be too hard on you!” Kakashi calls out. Sasuke glares at Naruto.

“Don’t look at me like that, you were talking too.”

“Shut up, both of you!” Sakura hisses.

“That’s fifteen extra laps now!”

Hanzo is limping a few paces ahead as Naruto pushes the cart along a bumpy road. They worked well together, naturally falling into a smooth tandem as the older man steers the wooden vehicle through obstacles and potholes.

“I really appreciate the help,” Hanzo says. “Though I’m not troubling you too much, am I?”

“Nothing I can’t handle!” Naruto reassures him, wiping the sweat off his brow. He’s sore from yet another one of his sensei’s grueling training sessions, but spending time around Hanzo makes him feel a lot better about it. “How’s your ankle doing?”

“Should be fine in a week or so. It’s a good thing I have a big, strong man like you around,” Hanzo says teasingly.

“Hell yeah!” Naruto preens at the compliment. “I’m gonna be the strongest hero this village has ever seen, believe it!”

“Oh I believe it alright,” Hanzo chuckles, then points ahead. “That's us. Right there, just around the corner.” The pair slowly come to a stop in front of a small house. It’s away from the village’s residential area, and the man had almost no neighbours around him. Naruto wonders out loud if Hanzo ever feels lonely.

“Oh yeah, all the time,” the man tells him. “But it’s not so bad, having you around to talk my ear off. How about you? You live with anyone?””

Naruto shakes his head, sighing. “It’s less lonely with you around too,” he admits. Then he coughs awkwardly to dispel his brief moment of vulnerability, and is quickly distracted. “Oh, you have awesome plants!”

The boy peers through Hanzo’s fence to get a look at the healthy green leaves. He can see a vegetable patch from where he’s standing just outside the fence. But what catches his eye are the beautiful decorative shrubs that line the side of the house. Dark green vines creep up walls, dotted with pretty purple flowers.

“Gardening is a passion of mine,” Hanzo says. “But I won’t bore you with the details. I’m sure you ninja lot have a lot more interesting hobbies than minding plants.”

“Nah, I have a bunch of cactuses at home. They each have names, and I talk to them all the time. Keeps them happy, you know?”

“Oh? You should introduce me to them one of these days, then.”

Naruto would be happy to invite him over, but his stomach chooses that moment to let out an embarrassingly loud rumble. His cheeks immediately pink at the noise.

“Would you like to come in for dinner?” Hanzo asks. “It’s the least I could offer after you’ve helped me with that cart.”

The boy looks up at the sky, which had darkened quite considerably. “I promised Iruka-sensei I’d meet him for dinner tonight. I really don’t want to get yelled at again for being late.”

Hanzo nods, understanding. “Another time, then,” he says, squeezing Naruto around the waist. The touch makes him inexplicably blush again, and he suddenly feels a confusing sense of giddiness and warmth.

It's silly to be so flustered, but perhaps it did make sense. Hanzo is a lot closer to Iruka or Kakashi’s age, but the man never treated him like a child the way his teachers did. Being around him made Naruto feel a lot older, cooler.

It was nice.

So when he meets up with Iruka-sensei over dinner he only finds himself half-listening to his schoolteacher. His mind wanders, occupied with thoughts of his new friend.

Kakashi stands over the blond genin lying spread-eagled, face-down on the ground. His other two students have already gone home. Sasuke had been extra prickly because Sakura was the one who caught Tora today. Of course the girl scampered off after him, trying and failing to make her crush feel better.

“That stupid cat is out to kill me,” Naruto says, muffled because his mouth is pressed to the grass. It’s over-dramatic, and not to mention, very unhygienic. The jounin pulls the brat up by the collar of his jacket, holding back a laugh when Naruto spits out a dandelion. “Please sensei, no more push-ups.”

“No more push-ups,” Kakashi promises. “You worked very hard today.”

“Does this mean I get a day off this week?” Naruto asks hopefully.

Kakashi rolls his eyes. “Commemoration Day is tomorrow. It’s a public holiday, remember?”

“Right. My favourite holiday,” Naruto says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Kakashi gives him a sympathetic head pat. He knows this time of the year isn’t easy on Naruto. But he knows what might cheer him up, so gives the boy a gentle hip-bump to get his attention.

“I got this for you.” Kakashi pulls out a small bundle of instant ramen packets, with all the limited edition flavours he knows Naruto collects. “An early birthday present.”

Naruto’s eyes grow wide at the gift, and he immediately snatches it from the jounin’s hands to clutch it close to his chest. The boy is practically shaking with glee. He prances around, suddenly bursting with energy once again.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re like, the best sensei ever! Next to Iruka-sensei, of course.”

“Gee, thanks,” Kakashi says dryly. “Don’t eat it all at once, brat.”

“I’m saving these for super special occasions,” Naruto tells him. “Or I can share this with Iruka-sensei…maybe.”

“Are you spending your birthday with Umino-san, then?”

“Nah, he spends the whole day at the cemetery,” Naruto says. “We get ramen the day after, when there’s less people out.”

Kakashi nods. He usually spends the anniversary of the Kyuubi’s attack at the Memorial Stone as well. While he had taken it upon himself to keep an eye out for Naruto on this particular day in the past years, he had suddenly been assigned a mission this time around. Kakashi feels unsure about leaving him, but he trusts that Naruto knows how to get himself out of trouble if he found himself in it.

“Take care of yourself, alright? No pranks or silly business.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know the drill,” Naruto rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Thank you for the present, Kakashi-sensei.”

Chapter Text

The mood throughout the village shifts on this day. Many are still mourning all the lives lost thirteen years ago. Others are celebrating the Yondaime’s sacrifice, remembering how he and his wife had given their lives to defeat the terrible beast that had threatened to destroy the village.

Naruto, for all his attention-seeking habits, knows how to go unnoticed when he needs to. He’s learned the hard way not to provoke the villagers during Commemoration Day. Seeing the jinchuuriki isn’t going to bring up good memories for anyone, and they are much more likely to take their grief out on him today if he were to be spotted.

He keeps his head down as he weaves through the streets, making sure his bright blond hair is hidden under his hoodie. He keeps to the dark alleyways, pressing himself as close to the wall as possible and not making a sound. The confusing network of passageways might be a nightmare to people who didn’t live in this area, but it had saved his sorry ass more times than he could count when he’d been running away from irate villagers.

The boy expertly maneuvers past the crowd unseen, moving away from the village center until he reaches the forest at the base of the Hokage Monument. Naruto puts his tree-walking skills to good use then, climbing up until he finds a thick branch he can settle down on.

And right on time, too. The fireworks display began just as he’d found the right spot. He hears people cheering in the distance as the pyrotechnics light up the night sky.

Naruto imagines they’re cheering for him instead. He pictures people singing him a happy birthday and giving him bowls of ramen for his birthday. And they’d tell him what a great ninja he was and how much they enjoyed having him around.

Eventually the fireworks die down, though Naruto knows it’ll be a long time before the people out on the streets disperse. He makes himself comfortable in the tree he’s sitting in, daydreaming about cakes and finding his long-lost parents.

Looking up at the night sky, he finds the brightest star and wishes that just this one time, he didn’t feel so alone on his birthday.

Naruto is suddenly distracted when he sees some sort of movement below him, and he tilts his head to get a better look. His spirit lifts when he recognizes the familiar figure.

“Hanzo-nii! Naruto calls out.

“Naruto?” Hanzo squints up at him. “What are you doing up there?”

The boy leaps from where he’s perched on the branch, meeting his friend down on the ground.

“What are you doing around here?” Naruto cheekily asks him back.

“Too many people out there,” Hanzo says, scrunching up his nose. “I’m not one for crowds.”

“Same here,” Naruto tells him. “So uh, you just decided to take a walk this side of the village?”

“What, am I not allowed to?” Hanzo says jokingly. Then he beckons Naruto with a head tilt. “Will you join me?”

Of course Naruto readily accepts. Hanzo is the only friendly face he’s seen today, other than when Iruka-sensei had checked in on him this morning.

“Got any fun stories for me tonight?” Hanzo asks.

Naruto enthusiastically dives into his latest pranks, down to every last ingenious detail. Hanzo laughs at all of his antics, not once telling him off for his delinquent behaviour.

“And, and then-” The boy cuts himself off mid-sentence to giggle hysterically at the memory. “Kiba let all fifty-four of their clan’s ninken out on the street to chase that cat! You should’ve seen-”

“Shhh!” Hanzo suddenly hushes him, pulling him behind a thick bush.

“What’s going on?” Naruto asks, only to have the man’s hand clamp over his mouth.

“Stay quiet,” Hanzo whispers, before pointing towards something ahead of them.

It’s a pair of men, obviously a little more than intoxicated. Naruto stills, watching as one of them pushes his companion against a tree. He’s not sure what to expect, but never in a million years did he guess they’d start kissing.

Naruto knows what the word “gay” means, has even thrown the word around to make fun of people before — until Iruka-sensei had smacked him upside the head for it. However this is the first time he’s actually seen people being, well, gay.

He bites his lip, watching as the kiss continues to grow more heated. It isn’t long before he hears strange noises coming from them. He knows it’s wrong to keep watching, but Naruto can’t tear his eyes away from the scene.

He feels very hot and tingly all of a sudden, and he doesn’t notice Hanzo moving his hand from Naruto’s mouth to his chest, pressing the boy closer to him. Naruto feels something stiff prod at his back, but he’s too focused on the way one of the men start to kneel.

“What’s he doing?” Naruto squeaks unintentionally.

“Who’s there?”

Hanzo is quick to pull them both down to the ground, safely out of sight. Anxiety and dread immediately douse the fire that had been building up inside him. If they were to find him, who knows what they’ll do? Naruto’s pretty sure he could outrun them, but Hanzo isn’t a ninja.

His stomach flips at the thought of anyone hurting his friend.

The couple, now spooked, are quick to leave the way they’d come. Naruto and Hanzo stay still for a few more minutes, only relaxing when the coast is clear.

“That was close,” Naruto sighs in relief. “They would’ve been really mad if they saw us.”

“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you,” Hanzo reassures him. Naruto can’t help but be touched, knowing that his friend, this civilian, would have stood up for him without question. He’s honestly a little stunned by this, only snapping out of it when Hanzo gently touches his chin to make Naruto look up. “Let’s get out of here, huh?”

This time Naruto accepts when Hanzo invites him home, because he’s not quite ready to go back to his own shitty apartment. They sit on the man’s bed together, talking about anything and everything that came to mind.

Naruto learns that Hanzo is as generous with physical affection as he is with the verbal kind. He pets Naruto’s hair, even going as far to pull the boy closer when Naruto finds himself sitting between the man’s legs.

Nobody has touched him as much as Hanzo did. Most people are disgusted by Naruto, acting as if they’d catch some deadly disease just by being around him. Iruka-sensei is the only one who has ever given him hugs, but he’s never spent time in his teacher’s bed like this. He wonders if Hanzo would let him fall asleep here.

The thought is exciting…he’s never been invited to a sleepover before!

“Oh I didn’t know it was your birthday today,” Hanzo says, as soon as Naruto mentions it off-handedly. “Happy birthday! That makes you thirteen now, doesn’t it?”

“Mmm-yeah,” Naruto nods. “I’m practically an adult!” Hanzo laughs softly at this, but doesn’t try to tell him he’s not. The boy decides he really likes this guy.

“Hanzo-nii…” he asks, after thinking for a while. “What were those two guys doing out there? Are they…boyfriend and boyfriend?”

“Looked like it, yeah,” Hanzo laughs again. “It was pretty hot, watching them. Don’t you think?”

“Yes?” Naruto says, a little unsure. “But why were they making those sounds? It’s like they were hurting each other.”

“People make those noises when they do things that make them feel good. You know, like fucking.”

Naruto laughs at the vulgarity. It’s a word Naruto used a lot before, because he used to cuss all the time until Iruka-sensei taught him manners and “proper language”.

“What does fucking feel like?”

“Well it’s like-” Hanzo starts to say, then catches himself. “Ah, I shouldn’t tell. You wouldn’t get it anyway.”

Naruto whines. “Come on! I wanna know what the fuss is all about!”

“If I tell you, can you keep it secret?” Hanzo’s voice lowers an octave, and he bows his head to whisper into Naruto’s ear. “I heard ninja are supposed to be very good at keeping secrets.”

Naruto shivers, though he’s not really sure why. “Promise! I won’t tell anyone anything.” Hanzo hums in thought, then he relents.

“Well…there’s a lot of touching and kissing.” Hanzo says, slowly running his hands up Naruto’s back. “Sometimes on the chest if you’re fucking a girl.” He demonstrates this moving his touch to Naruto’s own chest, which makes the boy’s breath hitch. His mind swims and his body starts to feel hot again like it did earlier. “Guys prefer places much lower…”

Hanzo’s hands travels down to his thighs now, moving in a hypnotic rhythm . Naruto doesn’t know if he wants the feeling to stop or last forever. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. All he can register is Hanzo’s touch how it makes his thoughts scramble.

Should he stop this? The tips of Hanzo’s fingers are just barely touching the area Iruka-sensei had told him not to let strangers touch. But Hanzo isn’t just any stranger, he’s a friend, isn’t he?

Then the man finally presses down between his legs, and it’s like he’s been set on fire. His eyes roll back as something inside him surges. A choked groan makes it out his mouth, and he grips onto the man’s arms for dear life.

His vision whites out for a moment, and there’s ringing in his ears.

“That,” Hanzo’s deep, husky voice brings him back down to earth. “Is why people love to fuck.”

“Wha-what was that?” Naruto’s mind is still hazy, but an incomprehensible sense of guilt is beginning to creep in. He puts a shaky hand over Hanzo’s own, which is still between his legs. “D-did we do something bad?”

“Did it feel bad?”

“N..no?”

“Then we didn’t do anything wrong,” Hanzo tangles his fingers into Naruto’s hair, using his hold to gently turn the boy’s head towards him. “But you mustn’t tell anyone, okay? They wouldn’t understand. They might even hate you.”

“Hate me?” Naruto gulps. He suddenly feels very sick.

“But they won’t, because no one will find out.” Hanzo says seriously. “Our little secret, remember?”

Naruto does end up spending the night in Hanzo’s bed. But he lies awake for hours staring at the plain ceiling. He’s not used to sharing a bed, nor is he used to anyone holding him while he’s meant to be sleeping.

He thinks about what he saw earlier in the night, how the two men had kissed each other with such passion. Sasuke had been his first kiss, but that was totally an accident! And he’s daydreamed about kissing Sakura on the lips before, but he had no idea that kissing could look anything like he’d seen those guys do.

Suddenly he pictures kissing Hanzo and Naruto feels his face grow hot. He blinks quickly to rid his mind of the image. He couldn’t possibly have a crush on the man, could he? But he felt that fluttery sort of feeling as he lay in bed next to him.

Naruto knows what they did wasn't exactly right. But it wasn't that bad either, was it?

“Are you alright? You’re pretty quiet there.”

“Huh?” Naruto looks up from his ramen bowl to find Iruka looking over him with concern. The boy rubs his eyes and gives the man his best grin. “I’m great, sensei. I just uh- couldn’t sleep much last night!”

“Yeah, the activities were pretty loud,” Iruka says. “I hope nobody gave you any trouble.”

“I stayed out of everyone’s way and behaved myself, believe it!” Naruto assures him. Then, his thoughts betray him by recalling last night’s events. He feels Hanzo’s hands on him like a phantom touch, and he starts to feel warm again. Naruto takes a large bite of tonkotsu pork to try and distract himself.

“Say, Iruka-sensei…” he starts, but his teacher pokes him in the cheek as a reminder not to chew with his mouth full. The boy rolls his eyes, swallowing before he continues. “You don’t have a girlfriend, right?”

“No, why?”

“How about a boyfriend?”

The teacher chokes mid-noodle slurp. “B-brat,” he coughs out, wiping at his mouth. “Where are these questions coming from?”

“Just curious,” Naruto shrugs, hoping he can pass off as nonchalant.

“You better not be thinking about dating,” Iruka warns. “You’re only twelve.”

“Thirteen, actually.” Naruto reminds him hotly.

Iruka gently elbows him. “You’ll always be a cute little eight year old to me,” he teases. Naruto makes a noise of complaint, and decides to steal a dumpling in retaliation. Iruka lets him, like he always does.

Iruka clears his throat awkwardly. “Is there…a boy you like?” he asks quietly, and Naruto violently shakes his head.

“No, not at all!” The boy denies the insinuation emphatically, making a dramatic X with his arms as if it proved his point. “Eugh, im not gay. That’s gross!”

“Don’t say that, it’s rude!” Iruka chides, before his expression turns teasing and he wiggles his eyebrows. “Is it Sasuke?”

“I think I’m gonna vomit.”

Naruto groans as soon as he wakes up. He can feel the tell-tale stickiness in his underwear again, and jumps straight to a cold shower. The boy knows a little bit about puberty from the lessons at the Academy, and that these things are bound to happen at his age — but this has been happening almost everyday for the past few weeks now.

It’s mortifying.

He’s just about to leave when he takes one last look in the mirror. He hesitates at the sight of his hair. Would Hanzo think it looked messy? He fluffs it, then brushes it, then flips it this way and that before catching himself.

Why did he care so much about what the man thinks? Now he feels even more ridiculous. He gives up on trying to fix his hair, shaking it out before racing out the door because of course he’s late again.

“Heya, Naruto!” Hanzo calls out as the boy passes his cart. “Another mission today?”

“You know it!” Naruto comes to a sudden halt and back tracks a few steps to talk to his friend. Hanzo reaches into his sling bag, pulling out a big peach. The boy gawks. “No, way! Those aren’t even in season!”

“I’ve got my ways.” The man winks, tossing the fruit to Naruto. “Will I see you later?”

Naruto bites his lip, nodding. He’s been staying in Hanzo’s house more often, especially when training sessions and missions end earlier than expected. It’s where they play their “secret games”, as Hanzo calls it, involving rounds of strip-poker or similar activities. And the things that happen after that—well, they’re the reason behind many of Naruto’s wet dreams.

He feels that niggling sense of guilt again, hiding all of this from the people in his life, but he did promise Hanzo he could keep a secret. And if they ever found out…Naruto doesn’t even want to consider the consequences.

He pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind, taking a bite of the sweet peach as he goes on his way.

“You need to concentrate if you want to control your chakra,” Kakashi says sternly. He’s rarely impatient with Naruto, but the boy has been struggling to get this right for much too long. A few feet away down the river, Sasuke and Sakura are already throwing shuriken at each other as they flitted about gracefully on the water’s surface.

“I’m trying my best,” Naruto grits his teeth as he wobbles again, seconds before losing his focus and plunging into the river.

“Tsk,” Kakashi folds his arms. “Again.”

Naruto takes a deep breath before stepping out onto the surface once more. He manages to stay on top for at least five minutes this time, but he’s underwater as soon as Kakashi tests his balance with a light push.

The jounin sighs, dragging Naruto to shore by the leg. He can tells Naruto is just as frustrated at himself as he is. The Chuunin Exams are coming up, and Kakashi had been convinced that his students would be ready. Now he’s beginning to think submitting their names to the Hokage might not be the right move.

Naruto is holding his team back, and Kakashi won’t stand for it.

“You’ve been distracted lately,” he says. “On top of coming in late to training and missions. Are you trying to let your team down?”

Naruto is immediately on the defensive. “Of course not!”

Kakashi crouches to meet his eyes, which remind him painfully of his own sensei. He softens his tone, reminding himself that Naruto’s trouble with chakra control has less to do with the boy, and a whole lot more with the Kyuubi living inside him. “You can do so much better than this. What’s up with you?”

Naruto is quiet for a long time, and Kakashi wonders if he’s ever going to answer. “I asked you a question, Uzumaki.”

“Sensei… Am I a bad person?” The boy looks at him, and the lost expression on his face makes something inside him twist.

“What, why?” Kakashi frowns at the unexpected question. “Has anyone been giving you a hard time?” He’s not above using his rank and reputation to scare villagers into leaving his genin alone. And it wouldn’t be the first time he’s done it, either.

“No,” Naruto says quickly, standing so he can shake his limbs out and put on a brave front. “Sorry, I was just being dumb. I’m ready to walk on water now. Let’s go!” He moves to jump onto the water’s surface again, but Kakashi stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Tell me the truth, Naruto. Is someone is hurting you or telling you unkind things?”

“No, I swear,” the boy vigorously shakes his head. “It was just a stupid question.”

“But you will tell me if there is.” Kakashi says seriously, leaving no room for ifs and buts. “That’s an order.”

“Y-yes sir.” Naruto swallows hard. “Can we get back to training now?”

It’s well-past sunset when Team Seven returns from their mission. Naruto is exhausted, but he only takes a quick shower before stepping out of his apartment again.

He takes the long route, away from the restaurants and bars that would have people milling about. Fortunately the back streets are empty tonight, save for a few stray cats digging around the garbage for food. It reminds Naruto of the time he used to go dumpster-diving for leftovers, way before he knew how money worked and how to use it to get food.

Now, Hanzo cooked dinner for them on most nights. Teuchi-san had begun to question why Naruto didn’t come by as much, and he had to come up with excuses each time. He missed ramen terribly, but Hanzo’s company just made him feel so much better at the end of long days.

“You look terrible,” the man says by way of greeting. “Rough mission? Was it that cat again?”

“Cleaning out a farmer’s animal pens, actually. With a whole lot of piss-mopping and shit-shovelling.” Naruto digs into the gyudon Hanzo had so graciously cooked for them. “I love animals but boy are they a lot of work.”

“Yikes, that doesn’t sound pleasant.” Hanzo settles into his spot next to Naruto at the kotatsu, using one hand to give the boy a sympathetic back rub. With the other hand, he presents Naruto with a small rectangular box. “For you. I realise I never did give you a proper gift on your birthday.”

Naruto blushes, remembering the events that did happen that night. He slowly lifts the box’s lid to reveal a single kunai. It’s different from the standard Konoha kunai one might find at the village armory. Naruto admires the way the light reflects off the shiny metal. “Is this really for me?”

“I had to pull a few strings to get this thing from back home, but I thought you might like it,” Hanzo says.

“From Ishigakure?” The boy is astounded by the present. “You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. You’ve grown to be someone I’m quite fond of.”

“You are…” Naruto blinks a few times, trying to decipher what the man meant. “…fond of me?”

Hanzo leans in, his hand sliding up to the boy’s nape. “Do you trust me?”

Naruto nods, even as he suddenly feels unsure. That’s when the man pulls him in for a kiss, and he freezes at the sensation of someone else’s lips on his own.

Before this, they’ve only ever touched each other. Naruto’s thought about kissing him before, even had dreams of this moment. He never thought that it would actually happen, and deep down he knows that it shouldn’t happen.

“Hanzo,” Naruto is breathless when he forces himself to pull away. “We can’t.”

“I’ll take care of you, Naruto. I promise.” The man strokes Naruto’s cheek with his thumb, looking at the boy like he’s something precious. Not once in his entire life has anyone looked at him with such adoration.

And just like that, Naruto crumbles.

Hanzo does so much more than touch and kiss him that night. And gods, did it fucking hurt. He wanted to beg the man to stop, but Hanzo was whispering beautiful things in his ear the entire time, was so gentle when he wiped Naruto’s tears away.

The whole thing felt like it lasted hours, but it could have been minutes. Naruto’s shivering and aching when it’s over. The scent of blood and cum fills his nose, but Hanzo carefully cleans him up with a damp cloth, before holding him close and telling him softly how well he did. How good he was.

“I love you,” Hanzo had whispered at one point. That’s another first. Naruto can’t remember a time when anyone has told him that.

He can barely keep his eyes open after, fatigue winning the battle against consciousness. He falls asleep wondering if this is what it meant to be loved.

Chapter Text

Kakashi’s genin argue all the time. It’s not uncommon for the boys to wrestle each other during training, driven by pettiness and rivalry. He’s learned to drown it out, seeing as they would always settle their disagreements eventually without seriously maiming one another. Besides, Kakashi was the same way with Obito at their age.

But he draws the line when Naruto suddenly starts whaling on Sasuke with a genuine intention to hurt the other boy. The jounin is upon them in the blink of an eye, ripping the nearly feral Naruto off the Uchiha who is now sporting a bloody nose and busted lip.

“Uzumaki!” The sharpness in Kakashi’s voice sobers Naruto, but barely. The kid is breathing hard, staring Sasuke down with a murderous glare. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“He’s a fucking bastard!” Naruto seethes.

Sasuke doesn't back down. “Go cry about it to your boyfriend, then!” This triggers another violent reaction from Naruto, who tries to launch himself at the other boy again.

“Enough,” Kakashi firmly holds the two apart, but Naruto yanks the jounin’s arm away from himself with a surprising amount of force.

“Screw you!” Naruto yells at him, and Kakashi almost flinches at the venom in his voice. “Screw all of you!” The boy sprints away without another word, leaving Kakashi well and truly perplexed. He can’t let the boy get away with such flagrant disrespect, but Sasuke is still bleeding.

“What. Happened.” Kakashi’s tone makes it clear he isn't taking any more shit today.

“I was joking. He was the one who took it personal,” Sasuke says defensively.

“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura looks completely torn. “You called him a really bad word.”

“I called him a faggot, so what? We say it all the time, even at the Academy.” Sasuke reconsiders. “All the boys, at least.”

Kakashi looks to the heavens for patience. “And why would you call him that?”

Sasuke takes to staring at the ground like it's the most interesting thing in the world. He shrugs, kicking at the pebbles around his feet.

“Uchiha…” Kakashi warns. “Do you know something?”

The jounin notices Sasuke's eyes darting consciously towards Sakura. Kakashi dismisses the kunoichi with a jerk of his head. As soon as she's out of earshot, he snaps his fingers impatiently for Sasuke to continue.

“The idiot’s been acting weird lately,” Sasuke mumbles, which is true. “So I tailed him after training yesterday…and I saw him talking to this guy. And they-” The boy shifts his weight uncomfortably. “I don't know. I was really far away — I must’ve seen something else.”

“What did you see, Sasuke?”

“I think I saw them kiss,” the boy confesses, still avoiding Kakashi’s steely gaze. “I wanted to follow them further but…it happened in Sector E. I got lost.” Sasuke admits the last part a little more quietly, embarrassed that he’d gotten lost in his own village.

It’s disappointing, but not unexpected. The Uchiha clan’s compound is located all the way across Konoha from Naruto’s neighbourhood, which was comprised of winding streets and a disorienting maze of back alleys.

But the jounin grows increasingly uneasy. Naruto is way too young to be having these sorts of relationships, and it obviously had a negative impact on his behaviour. “Did you at least see who he was with? One of the other genin in your year?”

Sasuke’s frown deepens. “N-no. I didn’t recognize him. He was older, like… your age?”

Kakashi’s blood turns to ice.

Naruto doesn’t know where he’s going, just that he needs to get as far away from his team as possible. So when he starts running, he doesn’t stop. When his chest starts to ache from exertion, he pushes as much chakra as he can to his legs just to keep going.

Eventually he finds himself in the forest again, near the spot he’d picked to watch the fireworks on his birthday. He slumps against the rough bark, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. His eyes prickle with tears as he remembers how angry he’d been at Sasuke, at his sensei. The anger made him say and do such terrible things to the people he cared about. It was as if all the hurt had built up in his body and exploded the moment Sasuke had called him that word.

Even now, after he’d run so far to hide away from them, he still felt that same anger boiling just under his skin. But…under all that rage, what he truly felt was shame.

Shame at knowing that Sasuke’s accusations was correct, shame at everything he’d done with Hanzo, shame at the thought of everyone finding out about his secret. It gnaws at him from the inside, knowing that all he wanted to do right now was crawl into Hanzo’s bed and ask the man to make it all go away.

He hated himself for it — for being addicted to Hanzo’s affection like this. But the man made him feel good, both physically and emotionally. So what if it hurt every time they had sex? Being in Hanzo’s bed meant that he was wanted and desired by someone. What was a little pain, if it meant being loved?

He hugs his knees close to his body, burying his face in them to muffle his pitiful sobs. Hours pass like this, not that Naruto really cares. When he finally lifts his head, the sky has gone dark and the sound of crickets fills the air.

“Naruto?” someone calls softly. The boy looks down to see Hanzo wandering the woods looking around, presumably for him. He quickly drops from the branches he’d been hiding in, landing rather ungracefully behind the man.

“Woah!” The man whirls around, quickly steadying him. “You scared me!”

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

Hanzo shrugs. “You didn’t show up tonight. I got worried, so I came here…it’s where I found you last time.”

Naruto’s bottom lip starts to quiver at the thought of his friend being worried about him. “Hanzo…they found out. I don’t know how, but S-Sasuke knew, a-and-”

“Ah fuck,” Hanzo says, and Naruto shrinks away from the man’s ire. Then the man grips his shoulders tight, almost shaking him. “If people know about us, they’re not going to like it. They won’t understand what we have. We…we can’t stay here.”

Naruto’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“It means we have to leave…leave this place, this village.”

“I can’t leave my team!” The boy takes a step back. “Iruka-sensei—he might understand. If we just explain really well-”

“Listen to me.” Hanzo’s hold tightens, fingers digging painfully into Naruto’s skin. “They already reacted badly, didn’t they? That’s why you were hiding here.”

Naruto swallows. Sasuke was making fun of him earlier. And the way he told Kakashi-sensei to go screw himself was unforgivable. Of course they’re definitely angry now, but running away? Surely he can’t leave his precious people just like that?

Hanzo cups his face, pulling the boy’s attention back to him. “I love you, and you love me, don’t you?”

“Yeah…” Pleased by this, Hanzo kisses him deeply. Naruto’s eyes close as he loses himself in the feeling, opening his mouth to let the man have his way. He loved Hanzo, but the thought of abandoning his teammates was gut-wrenching. Could he really…?

“Get away from him!”

Someone jerks him backwards, and he opens his eyes to find Kakashi slamming Hanzo into a tree.

“Don’t hurt him!” Naruto screams. He tries to get in between them, but there is someone holding Naruto back.

“Naruto, he hurt you,” Iruka says into his ear. “Don’t you understand?”

“No, you don’t understand!” Naruto fights even harder to get out of Iruka’s grip. “I love him!”

Kakashi brutally pounds into Hanzo’s face once, twice, and Naruto chokes on the intensity of his killing intent. His friend is now a blubbering mess on the ground, but the jounin only continues to drive his fists into Hanzo’s body.

“No, no, no!” Naruto is wailing now, tears streaming down his face. “Please… he didn’t do anything wrong!”

His sensei doesn’t seem to hear him. Naruto can see the unbridled fury in his eyes as he raises his fist. This time, it’s illuminated by sparks of lightning. Naruto lets out an anguished cry.

“Stop!” Iruka calls out, and the jounin’s fist halts just inches above Hanzo’s chest. “This won’t help Naruto.”

Hanzo can only whimper, curling further into himself. Naruto wants nothing more than to reach his friend, but Iruka’s iron grip doesn’t let up. He thrashes, clawing and biting at the older man, but Iruka only holds on tighter.

Just then, a cat-masked ANBU drops onto the scene with a small pug right at his heels.

“Senpai, we just searched his house. Naruto’s scent was all over it,” the ANBU reports. “And we found this,” he holds out a blood-stained piece of cloth.

Naruto’s breath catches as he recognizes his underwear from the night Hanzo had first fucked him. The man had insisted that he leave it, promising to take care of its disposal. What was it still doing at his house?

Kakashi groans, forcing himself to pull back and step away from Hanzo. Then he punches a hole straight through a tree. He harshly kicks Hanzo’s battered body towards the ANBU. “Take him away, now. Before I change my mind about killing him.”

The interrogation room is small and dingy. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting harsh shadows over the peeling paint on the walls. Ibiki eyes the prisoner, cuffed to the rusty table, like a predator would watch its prey.

They brought Hanzo in the night before, wounded and bleeding. The blood has since gone crusty and dark from hours in the cell, and now he just looks absolutely pathetic sitting here in front of Ibiki.

The interrogator takes a long drag of his cigarette. When he exhales, the smoky wisps hang like ghosts in the air. “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that? If Hatake had his way, you’d be nothing but blood and organs splattered on the ground.”

Hanzo sneers. “I didn’t do anything Naruto didn’t want me to do.”

“How’d you coerce him, then?” Ibiki asks. “Drugs? Genjutsu?”

The prisoner had the audacity to laugh. “I didn’t need that shit.” He smiles and his bloody teeth glint in the harsh light. “I just gave him what he needed most.”

Silence fills the room as Ibiki waits for the inevitable punchline.

“Love,” Hanzo says. “And I was real tender with it too.”

Ibiki doesn’t give the man a reaction. Instead, he gestures to the open folder on the table. “Says here you’re a civilian, and you moved here eight months ago from Ishigakure. Tell me, what does your village want with the jinchuuriki?”

Hanzo spits blood on the floor. “No idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Why Naruto?” Ibiki presses.

Hanzo smiles to himself as if he were recalling a memory. “It truly was innocent at first.” Then his expression morphs into one of hunger, and he slowly licks his lips. “But he was just so kind…and pure. I had to make him mine.”

Disgusting, Ibiki thinks to himself. This man was claiming he didn’t want Naruto for political gain or power, just his own pleasure—he’s not sure if that made it worse.

Someone knocks twice on the door. It creaks open, and Anko steps in to pass Ibiki a scroll. “A letter from Ishigakure, sir.”

Now Ibiki is a seasoned veteran in his field. His ability to detect even the subtlest shifts in tone and expression allows him to see right through the most convincing liars. He takes one final inhale of his cigarette, burning it down to the filter as he dissected the prisoner with his eyes.

Reading the short message on the scroll, it only confirms what he already knows: that there is no liar before him tonight. Just a sick piece of shit who liked to touch kids.

“You really do like ‘em young, don’t you?” Ibiki says, extinguishing the cigarette on the table. “Exile from Ishigakure was too merciful a sentence for you.”

“Call me sick in the head for wanting him,” Hanzo says. ”But I can’t be worse than the rest of this fucking village.”

“Motherfucker,” Ibiki mutters, standing up.

The prisoner sneers. “His favourite colour is actually green, did you know that?”

“We’re done here.” Ibiki tilts his head toward the one-way mirror. “He’s all yours, Hatake.”

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

Naruto sits in silence, glaring at the blonde doctor in front of him. This is the third doctor he’s seen in two days. The boy is tired of the poking and prodding, the endless tests and uncomfortable questions. Now he just wants to crawl into a hole and die.

The doctor is unfazed by the dead air, content to let the office clock tick away the seconds. Her icy blue eyes scrutinize him. Whatever she finds, her expression does not reveal.

Another minute passes. Naruto blinks. He suddenly feels very, very tired.

“Remember, nobody is angry at you. We just want to understand what happened.,” she tells him. “How did you and Hanzo become…close friends?”

“He was kind to me. Kept me company, fed me…” Naruto says. “We talked every day.”

The doctor nods. “And when did the relationship become physical?”

“It was Commemoration Day…my birthday. We started talking about, er, fucking. A-and then...” Naruto swallows. “That’s when he..”

“Did you tell anyone about this?”

“No… but it wasn’t wrong if we were friends!” Naruto says quickly, even as he feels the guilt threaten to crush him. “He told me that people wouldn’t understand, that they’d hate me if they found out.”

“But you’re doing very well, telling us these things now.” The doctor gives him an encouraging smile, the first hint of emotion she’s shown since Naruto had stepped into her office. She pulls out a piece of paper from her drawers, showing it to him. It’s a diagram of the human body. “Can you show me where he touched you?”

The boy looks at the picture, then shrugs. “Everywhere.”

“I see.” The doctor, very slightly, purses her lips. “And did he have sex with you, Naruto?”

Naruto lapses into silence once more, thinking about all the times Hanzo had fucked him. How many times he had woken up in the man’s bed with dried blood between his legs. He would always swear to himself that it would be the last time, but then he’d start to crave that feeling of being desired again. And the pleasure that came with the pain.

You’re beautiful, Hanzo told him once. So perfect…

The doctor clears her throat, bringing the boy out of his thoughts.

“Thank you Naruto, that will be all for now,” she says.

“Wait, wha-”

“Kai.”

Naruto slips into unconsciousness, and Iruka catches him before he slides off the chair.

“I apologise, I had to use the jutsu. He was uncooperative with the investigation.” The doctor sighs, a weary sound. “I’ve sifted through his memories as well… To be honest, Umino-san, the things he’s experienced may affect him permanently. I can’t say exactly what the long-term effects might be, but it doesn’t look good.”

“I understand, Doctor Yamanaka,” Iruka says quietly. He glances at the silent, stony figure leaning against the wall. Kakashi hasn’t spoken a word since he’d returned from T&I. Iruka can see the stains on his vest and the dark crusted flakes under his fingernails, but neither he nor the doctor ask about it.

He does not know if the jounin had already killed the monster who did this to Naruto. As much as Iruka wanted him dead and gone, he worried how Naruto would react. The kid would blame himself for whatever happened to Hanzo, and at this point it would absolutely ruin him.

Iruka busies his hands by lifting Naruto onto his back. The only thing he can do now is take the boy home to rest. He thinks about what to say to him when he wakes up, but comes up blank.

How is he supposed to explain this heartbreak to Naruto? That whatever he’d mistaken for love was nothing more than a sick web of manipulation and abuse from someone he genuinely cared about.

How would the boy ever trust anyone ever again?

A storm rages over Konoha.

The sky is an ominous grey, lit up only by the flashes of lightning that come every so often. The deafening claps of thunder make Kakashi’s ears ring. Sheets of rain poured relentlessly, soaking him to the bone as if the heavens itself were unleashing their wrath upon him.

Not that it was unwarranted.

The jounin is folded in front of the Memorial Stone, chest to his knees and forehead pressed to the ground in a deep bow. He murmurs words of self-condemnation and penitence like a prayer offered, almost delirious with contrition.

For hours, he begs the late Minato and Kushina for forgiveness—for his failure to see the signs of Naruto’s suffering. He’d known something was off, seen how the boy’s behaviour had changed, and still he didn’t do enough. He failed to practice what he preached: to see underneath the underneath.

His hand finds the tanto he’d placed at his side, the same blade that his father had used to take his own life. He rubs his thumb over the wooden sheathe that encased the sword.

Kakashi finally raises his head, staring numbly at his own teammates’ names etched into the Memorial Stone. If he went out the way he planned, his name would never join theirs. But perhaps that is just as well, he didn’t deserve that privilege.

“Sensei?”

Sakura’s voice snaps him out of his spiraling thoughts. He turns to look, finding her and Sasuke awkwardly standing together under an umbrella.

“Haruno, Uchiha,” he says. “What are you two doing out in the rain?”

Sasuke looks at him like he’s crazy. Maybe he is. He feels like something in him had snapped when he caught Hanzo in the forest with Naruto, and there was no way to go back in time to make things right.

I love him, Naruto cried out that night. The memory is one that would haunt Kakashi for life.

“Kakashi-sensei, did someone hurt Naruto-kun?” Sakura asks tentatively. While Naruto’s case had been handled with the utmost privacy, of course it wouldn’t take long for his teammates to put the pieces together. These two didn’t graduate at the top of their class for nothing.

“Yes,” the jounin answers, plain and simple. Sasuke clenches his jaw, balling his hands into fists. Sakura is visibly troubled by the fact.

“Then tell us what to do, sensei,” the kunoichi says. “Tell us how to help.”

“Tell us who hurt him!” Sasuke demands, ready to fight. But Hanzo has been dealt with, and Kakashi knows the challenges to come can’t be faced with jutsu or weapons. He opens his mouth to answer, but shuts it again when he realises he has no idea what to say.

But his two genin being so ready to jump to Naruto’s defense, despite the differences and conflict amongst themselves — it shakes Kakashi out of his self-pity and guilt.

So he tries.

“We need to do better as a team,” Kakashi starts. “We have to pay attention, care more about each other, so that we can protect each other…or none of us are worth calling shinobi.”

Chapter Text

There are plant pots along the windowsill, inhabited by various tiny cacti. A bright green frog purse sits on the kitchen counter. A bright orange jacket hangs next to Iruka’s own chuunin vest. Someone had to keep an eye on Naruto at all times, and he decided the boy might as well move in.

Tonight Iruka sits hunched over the dinner table, grading papers. It’s a poor distraction from everything that’s happened. Tearing his hair out and screaming himself hoarse is tempting, but that would disturb the boy that’s supposed to be sleeping in his bedroom.

On the best days, Naruto was needy and clung to his side like velcro. He would whine non-stop about being bored because the doctors had prescribed a mandatory break from shinobi work, but all he wants is to go back to doing missions, please Iruka-nii, please!

But there were bad days as well, when the boy would just be so angry—at Kakashi, at himself, at Hanzo, or at the whole world. That’s when he would be closed off and resentful, barely speaking a word. It was frustrating for Iruka, to see Naruto hurting so terribly and not being able to help.

The schoolteacher hears his bedroom door open. He looks up to see a surly blond padding over to him. Iruka knows that look, and braces himself for the whirlwind of emotions that is about to come.

“I want to see him,” Naruto says.

Iruka immediately shuts down the idea. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“But he’s my friend,” Naruto pleads. “He didn’t mean to hurt me, I know it.”

“Naruto,” Iruka pinches the bridge of his nose. They’ve been over this before, but he forces himself to be patient. None of this the boy’s fault. “He was a grown man who knew exactly what he was doing to a child.”

“But I’m not a child anymore!” Naruto stomps his foot. “I’ve had sex-”

“Rape,” Iruka says. “What he did was rape.” The boy starts shaking his head in denial, but Iruka pulls him closer by the hand. “I know he was…”good” to you. But an adult cannot sleep with a k-…someone your age. It’s wrong.”

“But I let him,” Naruto is absolutely stricken with guilt, and Iruka can see it plain as day in his eyes. He wants to correct him, but words are just tumbling out of Naruto's mouth now. “He’s in trouble and Kakashi-sensei tried to kill him but it’s my fault because I never asked him to stop touching me, never told him ‘no’, I just-”

Iruka makes a gesture with one hand, the hand sign he always used to get his pre-genin class to quiet down and listen. Naruto mimics it almost instinctively, biting his lip to stay quiet. He’s still a wreck, but at least his focus is now on Iruka. Under different circumstances, the chuunin might’ve laughed at how effective the trick still was.

“It was not your fault,” Iruka tells him slowly, willing every word to sink into Naruto’s stubborn brain. “You may have allowed it, but Hanzo should have known better. He was punished because of his actions, not yours.” The older man wishes he could physically take this burden of guilt off of Naruto’s shoulders. “None of this is on you.”

“He told me that he loved me…” Naruto’s voice comes out as a pained whisper. “Why can’t I be loved?”

“Oh, Naruto,” Iruka’s heart breaks all over again. “You are loved. By me, your team…There are people who care about you.”

“How could they? After everything I’ve done?”

“After everything that’s happened, you are still brave, and kind, and good,” Iruka will remind him over and over again if that’s what it took to squash all the doubt and uncertainty in his head. “Nothing, nobody, will ever change that.”

When Naruto returns to training, he acts as if nothing happened. As if he hadn’t punched Sasuke so hard the other boy had bled, and then disappeared for over a week following that. He greets Sakura enthusastically, then pokes fun at Sasuke for his hair.

The other two don’t know how to react, shooting baffled looks at Kakashi. He can tell his students are itching to ask questions, but he had warned them not to press Naruto about what happened. The boy would share when he is ready.

For now, Kakashi simply welcomes Naruto back to the fold. He is a little out of practice, but he jumps back into his training with a renewed sense of passion. He even goads the Uchiha into some friendly sparring.

Although Naruto seems alright now, Kakashi knows this is just the calm before the storm. Iruka had advised the jounin to watch out for the boy’s unpredictable mood shifts—and sure enough, it doesn’t take long for the mask to slip.

One day, after a simple mission, Naruto insists on getting some extra taijutsu practice in. Sasuke stays behind as well, not wanting to be out-trained. It seemed harmless enough at first. But Naruto continues to attack the training post like it had personally aggrieved him, even as his form and stance start to deteriorate.

“Idiot, you’ll hurt yourself if you continue like that,” Sasuke scolds, sounding a bit like Sakura. The Uchiha had flopped to the ground in exhaustion a half-hour earlier, and is now watching Naruto with a combination of concern and exasperation. Though he attempts to get through to the blond, the training post is the only thing that exists to Naruto now.

“What wrong with him?” Sasuke asks Kakashi.

“Let him be,” Kakashi answers. Naruto needs this, so he doesn't stop the boy just yet. “You can go on home. It's late.”

Sasuke shrugs. “Not like anyone’s waiting for me,” he says, and stays right where he is. They watch Naruto together. Neither Kakashi nor Sasuke know exactly what to say to him to make things better, but they don’t leave. At least this way, Naruto can be as angry as he wants, but he doesn’t have to be angry alone.

Naruto had moved on to slashing at the post with his kunai when Iruka shows up to take him home. The chuunin frowns at the scene, but he doesn't look surprised. Then Naruto makes an uncoordinated lunge at his target, almost taking his own eye out with the kunai.

“Alright, that’s enough for today,” Kakashi is next to him at once, steadying the boy with a hand on his shoulder. The jounin notices that Naruto immediately slips the kunai back into his pouch. He doesn’t miss the fact that it’s not the standard Konoha kind.

Alas, one battle at a time. He focuses on Naruto’s hands instead, and starts to wrap the boy’s battered knuckles and fingers in gauze. “Sasuke-kun is right, you know. You’ll hurt yourself really bad if you keep on this way.”

Naruto nods, but his eyes are unfocused, like he’s not really seeing Kakashi in front of him. The jounin wordlessly finishes up with Naruto’s hands, and is about to let go when the boy’s fingers tighten almost imperceptibly.

“I would never have run away with him,” Naruto mutters, mostly to himself. Kakashi taps gently between his brows as he tries to bring the boy back from wherever he’s gone. Naruto blinks at him, looking drained but otherwise slightly more present. “Never,” he repeats.

“I know.” Kakashi doesn’t ask him to explain. Doesn’t need to.

Iruka leaves with Naruto, and Kakashi takes Sasuke home. The two are quiet for most of the walk to the Uchiha compound. They may be ninja prodigies in their own right, but conversation has never been one of their talents.

“Sensei.” Sasuke pauses when he reaches the gates. “It wasn’t my fault, was it? Because I told?”

“You did the right thing,” Kakashi assures him. “Naruto just needs time.” Sasuke doesn’t look completely convinced, but he doesn’t ask any further questions. The jounin watches him enter the gates of the Uchiha compound. He walks alone down the road lined with once-proud homes, now falling into disrepair.

Kakashi begins to think.

Solitude is a rare comfort nowadays.

It’s ironic how much Naruto hated being alone before. Now there’s not a single moment of the day where Iruka or Kakashi-sensei isn’t hovering nearby. And they keep looking at him with that same expression on their faces, like they’re expecting him to fall apart at any moment.

Naruto puts on a brave face for his teammates, even when he feels like there’s something rotting inside of him. Maybe he’s doing a terrible job, because there seems to always be an air of caution whenever they approach him. Kakashi-sensei doesn’t ruffle his hair anymore. Iruka-sensei hesitates every time he reaches out, only giving feather-light touches to Naruto’s hands or shoulders. Even those don’t last for more than a few seconds.

You can touch me, I’m still the same, Naruto wants to scream at them. He wants to run into Iruka’s arms like he used to when he was younger. But he doesn’t, because the thought of doing so also makes his skin crawl. At night he can only shrink into himself as he vows never to let anyone touch him ever again.

On an afternoon he’s feeling especially sick of it all, he sneaks out the bedroom window while Iruka is buried in student essays. He doesn’t have a destination in mind, but his feet take him back to that spot in the forest, where Hanzo’s blood still stains the roots of a tree. Not far away another tree with a gaping hole where Kakashi had put his fist through the trunk.

He remembers how close his jounin sensei had come to killing the man. If Iruka hadn’t stopped him, his friend would have been dead.

But Hanzo isn’t a friend, is he? At least that’s what everyone is telling him. What the hell is a friend supposed to be, then? Is he to assume that all kind strangers have ulterior motives? It’s a jaded way to view the world, and Naruto hates that this is his life now.

“Oi, dobe.”

Ugh. Privacy has truly become a luxury. Naruto rolls his eyes, turning around. Even Sakura’s presence is not enough to stop his lip from curling. “Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around? It’s the weekend, leave me alone.”

Sasuke makes a face, even as Sakura holds her hands up in a placating gesture. “We just wanted to check on you. See if you’re doing alright, after…whatever it is that happened…”

“Hn,” comes the Uchiha’s signature grunt.

“I’m fine. Sorry for worrying you all,” Naruto says. The reassurance sounds flat, even to his own ears. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and turns back toward the tree. He doesn’t trust his face to stay neutral.

Naruto knows he is the problem, the elephant in the room that everyone has to tiptoe around. But he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge his teammates, even as the silence between them grows awkward. It’s like he and Sasuke have switched places. All he wants to be left alone but his teammates are bent on torturing him with their presence.

“Did your stupid boyfriend break your heart or something?” Sasuke asks, tactless as ever. Sakura winces, bracing for Naruto’s reaction.

The blond hadn’t been expecting such a direct question, but he should’ve known Sasuke would have gone straight for the jugular. Naruto tamps down the familiar rage building up inside him. As much as he’s tempted to punch Sasuke’s face in right now, he doesn’t want to actually hurt his teammate again. “Kakashi-sensei beat the shit out of him, actually. His blood is still there, see?”

Sasuke cranes his neck to survey the stains, then the hole in the other tree. “Because he hurt you?”

“That’s what they’re saying.”

“That man you kept on hanging around? The one with the fruit cart?” Sakura asks. She looks a little green when Naruto looks back at her. “Gods help me… That’s so messed up. And so illegal. Are you…okay?”

Naruto’s eye twitches. He really*, really,* doesn’t want to fight with his teammates today, but they are making it very difficult to stay calm.

“What is it that girls do after a break up?” Sasuke wrinkles his nose. “Eat ice cream and cry? Is that what you want to do?” Sakura gapes at the Uchiha as her face turns red. Naruto thinks she might beat him to the ‘punching Sasuke’ idea.

The question is so rude and stupid in that unique way that only Sasuke can be, all Naruto can do is stare. And then he stares some more when he realises that the Uchiha is serious. He’s trying to help.

And Naruto has to laugh, the first time he’s done so in a long time. He doubles over, clutching his stomach. All he feels is dread every time he wakes up. Everyone has been acting weird around him, and his first love has damaged him in a way that feels forever irreparable…yet Sasuke here is treating him just the same, by being the bastard he always is.

His teammates look bewildered watching him cackle away, like they don’t know whether to laugh with him or take him to the asylum. It just makes the blond laugh even harder.

“I do want ice cream, actually,” Naruto says eventually, giggling and wiping tears from his eyes. “But I’m not gonna cry about it.”

“Sure you’re not,” Sasuke says. Sakura’s mouth opens and closes like she wants to say something, but then she gives up. The behaviour of teenage boys is truly beyond her.

The eat their ice cream on the empty playground. Well, nearly empty. There’s a pug in a silly blue vest wandering nearby that Naruto tries to chase.

“Leave it alone,” Sakura admonishes him. “It’s probably someone’s ninken.”

They chat in between spoonfuls of frozen custard, filling Naruto in on the things he’d missed while he’d been away. The blond is still subdued, but he feels a lot lighter now. It helps that his teammates know at least part of the story. They’re no longer look at him funny, trying to figure out what’s wrong with him.

And he does end up crying, just a little. Sasuke says something stupid again and Sakura knocks him on the head for it. It’s the first time the Uchiha is on the receiving end of her irritation, and the fearful look on his face is enough to make Naruto laugh again.

Sure, it feels like he’ll never be the same person he was before Hanzo. But today Sakura nags at him like she always does, Sasuke is still an asshole, and he breathes a little easier because of it.

Sakura takes her leave when the sun begins its slow descent. Sasuke and Naruto stay on the playground for a while longer. They silently compete with each other to see who can reach greater heights on the swing set.

Sasuke wins that one.

“Hey,” Naruto lets his swing slow to a gentle rock. “I’m sorry for punching you really hard the other week. But also, you were being a huge jerk.”

“…Sorry.”

The blond snorts at the apology, but he had long since forgiven Sasuke anyways. Naruto scratches his nose as he continues to think. “Sometimes…I don’t know if I actually want to see him again. Have you ever loved someone who turned out to be a terrible guy?”

“Hn.”

“I still look around for him, even though I know I won’t find him here. I hate that feeling, like he’s just lurking around in the shadows, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Naruto glances behind him to check if anyone might be listening in on them. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Do you ever think about running away and leaving it all behind?”

Sasuke simply shrugs. “All the time.” He understands Naruto, always has.

Kakashi finds himself at Iruka’s window late at night. He’s made sure that Naruto is fast asleep before knocking on the glass. Iruka is startled for a second, but recovers quickly. Lesson plans forgotten, he opens the window for Kakashi.

“How is he?” The jounin asks, giving Iruka a quick once over as soon as he’s inside. There are dark circles under the schoolteacher’s eyes, and the downward tilt to his lips now seem to be a permanent fixture. He fidgets with the pen he’s holding.

“Slightly better, on most days,” Iruka tells him. “But still…he won’t let go of that damn kunai. He was hysterical when I tried to take it away.” The chuunin leans tiredly against the wall. “There are still times he stops talking. He gets lost in his own thoughts, and I just know he’s remembering everything.”

Kakashi sighs. He turns his head to look at the Hokage Tower, visible from Iruka’s window. Resentment leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “When did Konoha stop being a safe place for its children?”

“We can build walls, put weapons in their hands, and teach them how to fight…and for what?” Iruka mutters. Reality hangs like a heavy cloud in the room. As dangerous as it was outside the village gates, it was hardly safer within them. Naruto is shunned by society for a choice his own father made for him. Sasuke comes home to ghosts every night, nursing thoughts of blood and revenge.

“You know this village isn’t good for them,” Kakashi says carefully, gauging the chuunin’s reaction. Iruka is quick to realise where this is going, and he casts a somber look toward his bedroom where Naruto is sleeping.

“I…don’t disagree.”

“The Sandaime has given me permission to train the genin outside Konoha,” Kakashi continues. It took more convincing that the jounin would care to admit. It’s a preposterous idea, one of the village’s best jounin leaving with the last Uchiha and the jinchuuriki. He knows the Hokage had intended to use his students to put on a show for the Chuunin Exams—after all, part of the exam’s purpose was for hidden villages to demonstrate for the daimyos what they are capable of.

Maybe the old man was feeling graceful, or perhaps the Hokage felt responsible for the horrors that occurred in the village under his watch. Whatever it was, it moved him to allow Kakashi to take his students away from here, on the condition that the jounin return with powerful assets for Konoha’s military.

“When do you intend to leave?” Iruka asks hesitantly.

“In three days. Before the foreign delegates arrive for the Chuunin Exams.”

“For how long?”

“It’ll be more than a year, maybe two,” Kakashi tells him. No better time to rip off the band aid.

“Shit,” Iruka mutters under his breath. “Shit. Shit.” The jounin gives him a few minutes to process. Kakashi is aware that Naruto cares deeply for Iruka, and it’s obvious that the feeling is not one-sided. It takes a while, but Iruka finally lets out a shaky exhale. “I hate it, but you’re right. Staying here will do them more harm than good. This is…this is what’s best for Naruto.”

Kakashi knows this is not easy for Iruka. He scratches the back of his head self-consciously. “I must say, Naruto is very lucky to have you as his guardian.” When grief had forced Kakashi to distance himself from Naruto, Iruka had stepped up and cared for the boy. Despite his rank, Kakashi feels almost unworthy as he stands here in front of the chuunin.

“Some guardian I am.” Iruka gestures at himself with a self-deprecating smile. He takes a step back from the window, looking toward his bedroom again. He doesn’t have much time left with Naruto.

“You’ve been good to him.” Kakashi tells him. “For that I thank you, Umino-san.”

“I-” Iruka starts to say, but the jounin is already gone.

The decision to leave isn’t a difficult one for Sasuke. When presented with the chance to escape his haunted home to become stronger, the Uchiha immediately seizes the opportunity.

Naruto, on the other hand, approaches the idea more hesitantly. The thought of leaving Iruka is a painful one. But walking through the village these days is like like walking through a minefield. Any time he passes a man that bears a passing resemblance to Hanzo, he’s struck with an ache deep inside that he just can’t shake.

With Sakura, Kakashi knows it may be unfair to ask her to uproot her entire life and leave Konoha. The kunoichi has friends and family here, and Naruto’s abuse nor the Uchiha massacre have anything to do with her. She could choose to find another teacher to train under, and Kakashi would not fault her for it.

But he finds her standing at the village gates with to her teammates, where he’d instructed them to assemble before dawn. The wind still carries that biting chill, and even the birds are quiet. The only ones seeing them off is Iruka and the sleepy guard manning the gates.

“This is your last chance to turn back,” he tells his genin. “When we leave, we won’t be returning any time soon.”

Sasuke shifts impatiently, more than ready to go. Naruto lifts his head from where it’s buried in Iruka’s vest. His eyes are wet but he shows no sign of changing his mind. Sakura takes one look at her teammates, and Kakashi can see the moment her resolve hardens. But even with the determined set of her jaw, he can tell that she’s nervous at the prospect of venturing out into the unknown.

It makes her decision to come mean so much more.

“Stay out of trouble, alright? Follow your jounin-sensei’s orders, no matter what.” Iruka squeezes his arms around Naruto one last time. He gives the boy a tearful smile before letting go, but his expression is firm when he addresses Kakashi. “Protect them, Hatake-san.”

Kakashi has come up short many times as Team Seven’s leader, and he’s not arrogant enough to swear it won’t happen again. Outside of Konoha, they’d be vulnerable to dangers they’ve never faced before. But he would lay down his life for his students if it meant they’d return safe and alive. “I promise.”

And with that, he leads his team out of Konoha.

After a few hours, Sakura stops looking back. Then Naruto says something silly that makes Sasuke crack an honest-to-gods smile.

Kakashi can sense that a weight has begun to lift from their shoulders, and he takes it as an affirmation that he’s made the right decision. Minutes later, he feels a light tug on his back.

It’s Naruto, looping the straps of his jounin vest around his fingers. The boy looks up at him with his big blue eyes, and Kakashi sees a light in them that he had feared was lost forever.

“So, when are you gonna teach us an awesome jutsu, sensei?”