This is my second one-shot on this site and a companion to my ongoing multi-chapter fic Regressed, which I really should be working on… Anyway, I'd suggest reading what I have out of that before reading this to avoid confusion. Finally, to preemptively clarify, this takes place some time between Naruto meeting Kurama and the Uchiha Massacre.
It has been remarked by some that the clothes make the man. Though for most people this is likely an exaggeration designed to make them buy expensive suits, in the case of Uzumaki Naruto, it applies. For all his personal ups and downs, his sense of style had never been the best, and it was only lack of funds that had kept him out of the dangerous waters of ugliness up to this point. It was luck, then, that put him in the Hokage's office one seemingly innocuous day.
It was a chilly fall afternoon in Konoha and Naruto had remarked offhandedly to the Sandaime that he was beginning to get too big for his old jacket. Sarutobi Hiruzen had paused in his paperwork and noted to himself that all of Naruto's clothes were looking a bit small. He told his small friend that the next day, they would go out and buy him some new garments. The boy hadn't seemed very eager at first, wincing at the mention of shopping, but after realizing that he would be with the Hokage, and therefore relatively safe from mistreatment, he quickly warmed to the idea.
Now, he found himself in a small, well-organized clothing store, carrying a large pile of pants and shirts as he perused the small but varied selection of jackets and winter-wear the place had to offer. Suddenly, his eye was caught by a jumpsuit the likes of which he had never seen. And no wonder, it was bright orange and blue, slightly puffy-looking and definitely too big for him. He needed it, and put his accumulated clothing pile do so he could pick it up and further understand its glory.
'No.' 'Awww, but I like it. Come on Kurama.' 'No. I don't care how few people know I'm sealed in you, I'm not letting you wear that… thing. It's as much for your good as mine.' 'You're never any fun.' 'Bite me, midget.' Naruto put aside the dispute between roommates and frowned at the gloriously hideous textile abomination. His expression was contemplative for another moment before he turned to the Hokage. "What do you think, Jiji?"
The elderly shinobi smiled and looked at the monstrosity dubiously. "Naruto, you wish to be a shinobi, correct?" He nodded, clearly not seeing how the obvious answer to the question applied to the current situation."Well, a shinobi has to be able to disappear. It would be very hard to do that in full neon orange." The diminutive blonde hung his head, not liking how much sense that made. "But I don't have anything orange yet and I really want to wear something that color. It just feels… appropriate. I mean, I'd wear yellow, but I've already sort of got that going on, so…" Sarutobi nodded as Naruto looked up at his spikey blonde locks and turned to the other jackets on the rack. "Hm… would this be good?"
He picked up a jacket of about Naruto's size. The boy's eyes lit up and his mouth formed a wide, marveling grin. "Cool!" He quickly forgot the neon jumpsuit on the rack as Hiruzen smiled and motioned toward the changing rooms at the back. "Well go on, try everything out." The boy grinned and ran to the door, nearly buried under the pile of clothes he once again carried.
Meanwhile, the Sandaime looked around the shop. For a moment, he made eye contact with the young woman manning the cashier counter (Hana? Eh, he'd remember later). She quickly became uncomfortable and looked away. He just smiled and made a mental note to send some discrete monetary assistance to the establishment. From what Naruto said, it was one of the few places that hadn't tried to throw him out or over-charge him for things. Without some help it would be out of business in the next few months.
Hiruzen frowned as he thought of the village's treatment of Naruto. He wasn't completely happy with how he'd only become a truly active factor in Naruto's life after his strange circumstances were revealed as even stranger than could have been imagined. It made him feel manipulative and fake. Normally, that wouldn't have fazed him; in his youth, he had been a ruthless politician and shinobi, hidden agendas were just another part of the job. In this instance however, there was a child involved; the lonely orphaned son of a friend and peer no less. Somehow, it made him feel like he needed a long hot shower.
A few more minutes passed before Naruto walked back out of the changing room. He dumped about half of the pile he'd picked out and came back wearing the jacket. It was mostly mottled shades of gray with darker, tiger orange patches on the shoulders and lining the zipper with the customary red swirl pattern on the back. It wasn't too flashy, but still fulfilled the color requirement, and in the old man's opinion looked much better. "Are you sure this is okay, Jiji? It looks expensive." Sarutobi smiled sadly to the boy and mussed up his hair. "Oh, I have too much money anyway. Besides, I only get to spend time with you every so often, I might as well do something nice for you while we're together."
After a slightly awkward, but friendly experience at the checkout counter, he walked Naruto the few blocks back to his apartment and said goodbye, feeling strangely content. It had been a good day so far. 'Now if only someone would invent a machine to do paperwork for you, I'd be a truly happy man.'
Meanwhile, Naruto opened the door to his small apartment and made to put his coat… somewhere. He came to the sudden, if obvious realization that this was a brand new completely unstained article of clothing that the Hokage had bought him. As a matter of fact, all of the bags he was carrying were full of clothes he would hate to see get unnecessarily messed up. His normal policy of dropping clothing on the floor wouldn't serve him very well here.
With a sigh, he put the coat back into the bag and surveyed his small apartment, frowning. It was, to put it simply, a giant cluster-fuck. Empty ramen cups, candy wrappers and dirty laundry littered the floor. What little surface space he had was similarly covered, the counter of what he referred to as a kitchen looked especially sticky and disgusting. Something terrible seemed to have curled up and died in the trashcan. This was no way for someone who would one day become Hokage and defeat the Masked Man to live.
With another resigned sigh, he went to his room, put the bags of clothing carefully on his bed and started cleaning, bending down to pick up a pair of underwear and the accompanying pair of pants. 'Now, where did I put that hamper thing?'