Sitting alone on the bed in his dingy apartment Naruto stared at the plastered ceiling with wide eyes. It had been several hours after he had come home, and it felt like swimming out of whichever river in town Jiraiya had him chakra training on only to fall into the mucky banks. It wasn't an unusual feeling really; Naruto had been used to shifting through the morning bustle of the village full of it's claws and jeers. He was used to seeing outside himself and focus on the rusty shingles of a cafe, a tabby lurking down the alleyway spooked by the couple of kids playing ball down the street, and the way the sky above Konoha just seemed so blue. The kind of blue where you look into a lake and it's like a mirror.
In hindsight those moments were okay, because they were the prelude to something good. Naruto could stash himself away from the heated discussions between villagers and shinobi alike plotting to do whatever it was they wanted with his skin. Take safety in Iruka's weight against his forehead - loved, accepted. Protected in word and blood. Cared for, as he comes to be accustomed to waking up in the early foggy mornings where the birds are starting to creep out of their nests and everyone is still in their beds asleep. It's become routine - partial credit due to Kakashi's insatiable amusement to see his little ducklings suffer - to get up, shower, feed his lovely greenery collection by his bedside, slip on his jumpsuit too tired to zip it up all the way, and Naruto would head down to Ichiraku's to watch them open their small stand.
He's helped a couple times. Even served the shinobi guards that get of their nightly duty. They've grown used to the Jinchuuriki's presence and in return, Naruto, theirs. He feels like he's become spoiled, really. Instead of living down the street in the early afternoons after finally throwing away the last of his spoiled rations and waiting for Something, Naruto can exist in friendly passes with the old man, feel the warmth of Ayame's smile … she's grown more out of being a distant crush and more into his adoptive sister. He can also perch himself against the bar nesting his head into his arms and watch the nightly guards tell old mission stories or maybe give an arm wrestle or two.
It's a sense of home. A home the Ichiraku's with their hearty soup and Iruka and his awkward guidance introduced him to. Something he found in when he dashes off after slapping just over his tab on the counter, because finally he has the ability to afford it after saving up after a couple D ranks, and waits on the cold bridge til Sakura show's up with her clean hair and tired yet kind eyes. They've gotten closer since the Exams to the point where for a while they met up to train together in exchanges - Naruto will help Sakura with her stamina and wrestling moves since she can already pack a mean punch in, and Sakura helps him surprisingly with his history.
"I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but why not have me teach you more about genjutsu or chakra studies?"
It's not that Naruto isn't appreciative. They've come a long way from dopey looks, and punches in the gut to expressions of fondness, and pulling and twisting each other on the ground to one up another. It isn't love. Sakura being cast through the whirlwind that was the chuunin exams, her team's consistent hospitalization, and her own glaring faults only to find herself in the presence of Tsunade. They've taken a shining to each other, and Sakura sees that this woman is someone who she needs to be. It's a transition, and she's still a young girl after all, but the days of petty stabs between her and Ino are over, and Sakura is attentive of Naruto within his space rather than a distance. The self motivated goal in becoming a friend and powerful ally first rather than chase after love that bears fruitless.
Really, Naruto should've followed her example.
The shutters of his window shakes and the blonde gives a sniff, his face lightly stinging from the twitching muscles underneath. Naruto's lungs give a shaky exhale as his teeth dig into just below his inner lip, raw from the past hour? Two? He had run inside his slummy apartment and collapsed into his bed without checking the time, because right now Naruto can only consider the paint on his ceiling thats slowly been flaking off since forever. Falling apart from lack of attentive maintenance.
His wrist itches, and Naruto kicks his legs again feeling restless. His apartment has become unfamiliar again with how social his life has become, and he doesn't know how to feel comfortable again. Naruto doesn't remember the way back from the hospital roof top, but only the crushing feeling in his gut. Since laying down his insides have been churning. Breathe. Breathe. Breathbreahebreathe. His eyes burn, but it's been awhile since the lights have been turned off - no one is home, absolutely, because why else would anyone knock?
No. The apartment had never been home, but it was safe. Unlike the streets where the stoney faces would follow and places like Ichiraku's which had been safe until Naruto shared them. Shared them with him.
"Nothing more but the flies outside my window."
There's a keening noise sounding just outside his ears and Naruto digs his palms into his eyes just so the tears don't make it even to his cheekbones. Nothing. With his right hand drifting down digging into his coat near his chest has Naruto gritting his teeth as his toes spread out the blanket below him. Was it worth sharing this? Iruka saw it with Mizuki past his mask how wounded he was being cast outside the village circle. Haku chastising him and showing him a path of becoming more - a path that allowed Tsunade to see him so Naruto could protect, just protect.
Konoha wasn't a home, but with careful steps Naruto had turned it into a place where he could exist. He didn't have to think three blocks away, because he had the token of being chosen around his neck. A stepping stone of growth that Jiraiya had given him, and a shoulder to lean on from Sakura. He had had the pain and chemistry that was brewing between him and Sasuke until the other had thrown it off the table and Naruto could feel the shattering echo in his nerves.
Breathe.
The blonde fell back down finally gaining control of his breathe. Running fingers through the locks, Naruto curled in on himself gazing at the trinket next to his clock barely making out the shapes in the photograph through the dark. He had felt utterly mentally and emotionally exhausted wanting nothing but to sleep, and even that he couldn't have. How can you have a home if love was never there? How could Naruto protect and cherish something that felt nothing in return? That this bond he had been trying to nourish and had finally seemed to reach somewhere beyond the docks of Konoha's river amounted to nothing but spitfire and indifference.
Naruto found himself reflecting on the stock he had put into his newly adjusted disposition from the Wave mission finding himself stuttering. Everything he had built and fought for could easily turn against him at a moment's notice. One false step and Iruka would be back to seeing Naruto as nothing but the fox, Sakura deeming him to be nothing but a shadow in her life's corner...Sasuke was nothing special, but a prime example in showing just how fragile and fake this home had become. That anyone could use Naruto's bond with them against him or to their advantage.
It made him think of Gaara. Another heartache. Naruto had found himself considering that maybe the other Jinchuuriki had been right. That they were both monsters in this world incapable of being loved. Nothing but weapons and beasts, and that the only thing they could do was to make sure no one could reach their centers.
Eyes having drifted closed falling into a doze Naruto let his mind escape. He felt like he had before even attending the academy. Grasping for those fickle bonds with a distant eye on Uchiha in his age group. None enough to stop him from leaving the village on multitude occasions and feeling finally safe and free outside the walls of this prison. No eyes or hands but his own, and for once Naruto felt pity and understanding towards his prisoner that lay in his gut. To have no home, but to stay in a place filled with hate and deceit.
To be the flies outside a window or to watch them instead.
It wasn't a fate for him.