(A/N) This is my first story, so criticism is welcome. In this Naruto already knows about being a jinjuriki, but that is it. No one knows he knows.
Iruka being worried with some of his students mental and emotional well being, namely Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata, went to the Hokage with his concerns. With the help of Inoichi Yanamaka, they decided to have the class write a paper on something that greatly worried or upset them. The paper was mandatory, but presentation was optional. Both the Hokage and Inoichi would watch the presentation from his scrying ball and later read through the papers. This way the children who needed it would get the support they needed.
Naruto sat in his chair and wondered if he wanted to read the paper that he had wrote late last night when the feeling of being alone was always the strongest. 'If they don't like it, then it's their fault for asking us to write these stupid papers about our feelings.'
In the front of the class Makoto was finishing up her paper about being worried about her closest cousin one day not coming back from a mission. Her choice of subject just made his resolve strengthen.
'That was the last of them.' Iruka thought while double checking the amount of papers on his desk. 'Well, except for Naruto.' Glancing up at the boy, who had been strangely quiet and subdued since class had started. While it was possible he might be reading his paper to the class, Iruka doubted that. Unsurprisingly most people had forgone reading theirs aloud and instead just turned theirs in. It was a good chance Naruto just decided this was another assignment he wasn't going to bother with.
"Did anybody else want to read their assignment to the class?" Even with his doubts Iruka still asked and was promptly surprised when Naruto raised his hand. "Oh, well come stand to the front of the class Naruto."
Naruto could tell that Iruka was surprised that he had did the assignment and tried not to let that or the disbelieving whispers around him get to him. He walks his way to the front of the class before he loses his will to do this.
Standing to the front of the class so that Iruka and the class would be in his view, he swept his eyes over them before looking down at his paper. Taking a deep breath to center himself, he opened his mouth and proceeded to pour his soul out.
"Everybody should know by now but I'll let you know again. I'm an orphan. I've never known my parents; I've always been alone. Some would have you believe that losing someone hurts more than never having them."
Sasuke sat up straighter and started actually listening, recognizing his words he had spew to Naruto in anger when he was younger and the memory of his family dying fresher. He wanted to see what Naruto would say now.
"I have no idea if that is true, but when I feel like falling apart, when the weight of the stares become too much and I try to imagine my parents comforting me … it's an entirely hollow experience." Voice cracking on the last part of his sentence, he took time to take a deep breath and get his emotions under control.
Hearing the emotion overwhelming him everybody who wasn't listening started to, even Shikamaru picks up his head to watch Naruto. At his desk, Iruka is paying rapt attention to Naruto, a sinking feeling in his stomach that this would further change his perception of Naruto.
"Having childhood memories of parents who love you, siblings who are always there for you, cousins to play with, or anybody who shares blood with you that cared. I would trade anything for that, even if the happy memories are accompanied with an aching loss, it would be a welcome feeling over the hollow nothingness that I feel. I have no one, nothing happy to remember. All I have is the pain of being ignored, abused, forgotten, and ridiculed." Naruto's voice becomes rough with resign and pain.
Those who had ever made fun of him for being orphaned or felt jealous that they had to deal with parents and he didn't, squirmed in their seats.
"I always hear people talk about their first memory being their parents smiling down at them or a sibling playing with them. My first memory is of the pillow that someone used to try and smother me with and then the aching loneliness I felt when the person who saved me just looked me over with their eyes but didn't touch me to ensure I was alright."
Gasps of horror went through the room at the thought of someone trying to kill you being someone's first memory. Some of them had the beginning of tears in their eyes. Looking up at the class for the first time since he started reading Naruto ask them a question about something he had learned.
"Did you know babes can die from lack of touch and affection?" Not waiting for a response he went on. "Nurturing and loving physical touch is vital for children under the age of five. It helps the brain learn empathy and to associate human touch with pleasure." Looking at the faces that were stuck between horror, sadness and disbelief, he swallowed the lump in his throat and looked back down at the paper in his hand.
"My earliest memory of human physical contact is the back of a hand across my face when I was three and I tried to play with the other children at the orphanage. Sometimes I wonder how I survived," Pausing and pushing against his emotions, he finished his sentence with a hollow voice, "… sometimes I wish I didn't."
Someone in the room stifles sobs, he doesn't look up from his paper to see who.
"I used to want to become the Hokage because that would make the whole village my family and then I would never be lonely, I would protect them and die before I let harm come to them. Now I don't know what I want to do."
The people that had ridiculed him for his dream felt shame overcome them. Kiba especially, who knows the importance of family, felt like burying himself from the amount of shame he felt.
"Tomorrow though I'll slap on my smile and I'll be fine, because I'm always fine, always happy." He lets a wry smile spread across his face. "The things that people believe so they can keep the wool over their eyes are funny to me." Iruka flinches, knowing he is guilty of this. "This is the confessions of a lonely boy who doesn't have anybody, doesn't have anything."
Walking over to Iruka's desk he puts down his paper and leaves the classroom. Leaving the classroom full of people in vary degrees of shock, shame, and sadness. They all were left to reevaluate their opinions on not only Naruto but their village and their family. Many of them would go home in tears and hug their parents and be nicer to their siblings. They will reprimand their parents if they say anything bad about Naruto, shout and scream at them that he was put through enough. The one who don't have anybody to go home to with reminisce on the good times and be grateful they have good times to think on.
In the office of the Hokage, two men sit in grim silence. One thinking about the horrors that a young boy suffers though yet hasn't been broken, and what he could do to keep the boy from losing himself to the sadness and pain. The other filled with guilt about the life Naruto had to live, about the things he didn't know Naruto had gone though.
'How many times was he beaten on and almost killed before I was able to look into his wellbeing myself.' Looking at the picture of the man that was both his successor and predecessor and he wonders if Minato would have changed his decision that night if he had known the horrors that his son would go through.
Naruto sat on the top of the Fourth's head and looked down on the village as it starts to rain. "I wonder if this is what you wanted? If this is how you wanted it to be."
If anybody in the village looked at the Hokage Mountain that day they would tell you it was like the Fourth was frowning in displeasure at the village while crying tears of sadness.