A/N: Well, it's been ages since I've written anything Naruto related, so it came out really short and kinda confusing, at least to me.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn´t belong to me.
Here he was, thirty years old, still waiting for the vague illusion of a friend, with a thousand unrealized dreams and the haunting guilt the deaths of his friends left behind. He was nothing but a joke, a sad, pitiful joke that still clung to the hope that his once best friend would come to his senses.
And as he stood in front of the memorial stone that bore the name of his loved ones, he thought back to better days, days in which there was innocence still in his heart, days in which Kakashi-sensei, still alive, seemed to forget everything but the Icha Icha book in his hand; days in which Baa-chan would drink herself to oblivion; days in which Ero-senin, would look at him as if seeing a long lost son; days in which he thought Sakura actually liked him; days in which he was still unaware of the attraction he felt for a certain black haired traitor.
When he was fifteen he saw Sasuke again, not in the circumstances Naruto would have liked to, but, still, Sasuke was there and the blonde's heart jumped in joy when he got a look at those impossibly black eyes; but that day marked the start of a gruesome war between the Akatsuki and the ninjas of Konohagakure. Most of his friends had died during battle and the ones that didn´t die were permanently scared.
All that remained of Konoha after the war were ruins and the small dock he had seen the Uchiha for the first time. He had nowhere to go, and much like the white haired sannin, he traveled the five countries, sometimes disguising himself, others not even bothering. For almost fifteen years, he had refused to go back to his home village, wanting to forget that it had ever existed, but now that he was back, in front of the monument dedicated to those who gave their lives for the village, the memories were strong enough to make the now jaded man fall to his knees.
He wanted to cry and yell at the injustice of it all, the names of his comrades shouldn´t be here, Sasuke was supposed to be back, he should´ve been able to avenge Jiraiya´s death, he was supposed to become Hokage and be admired by all. Things shouldn´t have turned out this way.
He wanted to hate Sasuke, he really did, but it was impossible, he was sure that if the raven came back, he would accept him, no questions asked, he would tell him how much he had missed him, and how he was glad he was finally back; but Sasuke would never come back, he knew, at least the Sasuke he knew would never come back; and that broke Naruto´s heart over and over again, the Uchiha was only a mere shell of what he was in the past, hate had corrupted him.
So now Naruto wandered through the once lively streets of the Leaf Village, looking for a sign that said that this, was all a dream, that he was still twelve and still in the academy, not in a barren land filled with dreadful memories.
Liked it, hated it, review