Boruto always wondered why the Hokage's office was so plain. Were all the past leaders of Konoha this stingy with decorations, or was it just his father? The walls were so plain, the only thing on them pictures of the Hokages of Past, seeming to fade into the sand colored walls. Boruto glanced over at his father's desk and noticed the only thing really decorating the furniture were piles of paperwork; the parchment in question haphazardly strewn across the oak desk, covering the keyboard to his computer. Only one corner of his father's desk was neat, the back right corner that held two stainless steel picture frames.
Boruto knew one of those picture frames held a copy of the picture that was in their living room of his fathers genin team; Uncle Sasuke looking like he would rather not be there, Aunt Sakura blushing and looking like she had the team of her life being next to the black haired shinobi, Kakashi giving off the aura that he would rather be out fighting S-ranked nin than babysitting three hopeless genin, and Boruto's own dad an orange glaring monstrosity.
The other picture was of their whole family from at least ten years previous, Boruto and Himiwari climbing on their father who was smiling widely, their mother looking on while radiating a sense of happiness and pure love. Boruto could barely remember those days, back when his father was just a jonin impatiently waiting his turn to wear the hat, but he could remember the warmth of his father's presence being there to tuck him in at night. Boruto wondered if Himiwari could remember those days, or was their father always stuck in his Hokage role in her mind, the two interchangeable, no difference between the position of kage and her father?
"Boruto, are you even listening to me?"
The blond winced at his father's accusatory voice, knowing he was caught doing something the elder did not like.
"Of course I was," Boruto nonchalantly drawled, moving to lean against the old oak desk, careful not to knock anything off so he wouldn't make his father more annoyed with his mere presence.
His father sighed and rubbed his temples, artificial arm moving minuscule slower than the original blood and bones one on his left arm. Boruto wondered if anyone else noticed or was it just his mind playing games on him?
"Boruto, you're not listening. Again," Naruto growled out, clearly frustrated. Boruto didn't move any muscle in his face, just simply shrugged. Internally, he wished that his father's advisor was here to dispel some of the tension between father and son like he usually did, but alas, Shikimaru was out and about, doing who knows what. The young suspected he was probably doing his job.
"Is that chair even comfortable?" Boruto asked, glancing toward the old olive chair his father sat at that dwarfed his large father and made him look like a toddler sitting in a seat proportionately made for adults.
"Damn it, Boruto, I didn't call you in here to talk about my chair." Boruto wondered why he could always aggravate his father so quickly. It seemed like every time he was in his father's presence he did something or another to set him off, incapable of keeping the peace between them because of his very existence. Whenever Naruto would see Himiwari, a grin grew across his face. Whenever he spotted his eldest child, he always looked like he grew a migraine. Bolt tried to not let the observation affect him.
"Then why did you call me in here?"
"I have an assignment for you."
"I thought I was put on medical leave," Boruto sneered, suddenly enraged at the remembrance.
Naruto ignored his sons' tone of voice and addressed the question itself. "I am putting you on light duty as of today. This is a D-ranked mission with a low chance of you getting into any fights."
Boruto jerked, posture stiffening. What his father just said was a slap to his face.
"A D-Rank? I'm not a fucking genin anymore."
"You've proven to me that you can't be trusted to go on any mission that may put the lives of your teammates in danger. You cannot blame me for this, Boruto. You've brought this onto yourself."
Boruto felt the familiar sting of tears coming to his eyes, but he willed them down. His father was hardly ever home enough to see him smile, he would not allow the man to see him cry.
The Hokage wasn't even looking at his son, shuffling the papers on his desk around to have something to focus on other than the son he couldn't even relate to anymore.
The blue eyed twenty-year-old walked over to the wall of windows in the North side of his father's office. In front of him was the stone faces of all of Konoha's kage's— the first, Hashirama Senju; the second Tobirama Senju; the third, Hiruzen Saratobi; the fourth, and the father his father never knew, Minato Namikaze; the fifth, Granny Tsunade; the sixth, a reluctant Kakashi Hatake; and finally his unreliable father, the man married to the village more than his family, Naruto Uzumaki. Boruto wondered if the Hat was cursed, all who wore it had to give their lives for it, be it metaphorically or realistically.
"This isn't a punishment, not necessarily…" Naruto sighed. Boruto watched his father in the reflection of the streak-free glass in front of him, the mirror image making him feel detached from the scene himself, as if he was watching it through a television or computer screen. Boruto could pretend this all was some bad soap opera, not his own life. "Your mother and I are concerned for you. There is something wrong with you and you won't tell either of us… Taking this mission will allow you to prove yourself to me that you can perform your duty as any other shinobi can: with a clear head. Boruto, that last mission you went on… if you had been thinking a little bit more clearly you would've come back fine…"
"I came back fine," Boruto muttered, in a staring contest with his father's stone face.
"If Sarada and Mitsuki weren't there you would've come back in a body bag!"
The Hokages gruff yell caused Boruto to pause and the world around him stilled, like someone had hit the pause button on a video game and he was nothing more than a two dimensional character forever trapped in a algorithmic hell.
"You doubt my ability?" His voice didn't shake or waver, but it was quieter than his usual tone.
"I doubt your will to live."
The words created a still in the air, a prayer to a forgotten god, a worry from a father to a son.
They stayed like that for moments that created years in their minds, father and son facing away from each other; father with his shaking hands crumpling important documents, worry lines etched on his face like cracks in a war torn earth; son unblinkingly stuck in a staring contest with the overwhelming presence of his father in stone.
A bold knock came from the thick door, knocking father and son out of their little world. Naruto laid the papers he was crinkling down on the table and tried to smooth it out as best as possible. Boruto kept staring out at the stone faces.
Shikamaru entered the room, and immediately sweat dropped at the tense atmosphere he had just walked into.
'What a drag,' The brunette man thought.
"Naruto, you've got a meeting with the elders in five minutes," Shikamaru said, walking up to the blonds desk and dumping the papers in his hands onto the already sky high pile. Naruto groaned and hung his head in defeat. He could fight in a war, but he couldn't fight his paper work.
"Alright, alright," Naruto said before addressing his kin. "Boruto, your mission is to keep an important business man from Getsugakure out of trouble."
Boruto whipped around to glare at his father. Shikamaru sighed and ignored the two blonds, preferring to let them duke it out between themselves instead of getting involved.
"I can't believe you're putting me on babysitting duty."
"You will not be babysitting Yosano-san, as he is almost twenty years your senior. You will guide him around the village and answer his questions. You will also be the only guard we assign him, as he has elected to forgo obtaining them."
"Can't you give this to someone else?" Boruto whined, plump pink upper lip curled in disgust. That turned out to be the wrong thing to say.
"Boruto, I know I am your father, but I am also your kage, so you will show me some respect. You will take the mission I decide to give you, or you will take no mission for the next year. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama." And with that, the young blond angrily bolted from the room, leaving his father with the echos of a slammed door.
Naruto jumped to his feet and yelled after his son, "Wait, you need your mission information— and he's gone." He slumped down into his seat, placing his head in his hands. "Were did I go wrong?" He muttered to himself. Shikamaru wasn't sure if he was supposed to have heard the last bit, so he didn't reply.
"Shika, send the mission information to my son somehow. Through ANBU black ops, his mother, your son— hell, send it through a carrier pigeon for all I care. Just make sure he gets it."
Shikamaru nodded in response. He watched his old friend pick himself up, brush off the cold solder he got from his son, and continued with his life, pretending like it wasn't killing him to not follow after his son.
Shikamaru believed that becoming Hokage was the worst thing Naruto had ever done to himself, but he could never tell the blond that.
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
"Now that that is settled, send in my next appointment."
When Boruto become of age, Hinata was relieved when her oldest child decided that he was going to keep living with his family. Hinata always worried over her son, as some times he tended not to think things through. She half-believed he would spend all his rent money on video games and would then be kicked out to the streets, his pride not letting him ask his parents for money or a place to stay. The blue-haired woman knew that her son always felt like he always had to prove something to her husband and their village.
Hinata was not quite sure that he stayed with them because he loved his family, or he still wanted someone to feed him and wash his laundry.
Whatever his real reason for staying was, she was glad he did, since then she could watch over her oldest and try and smooth any hurt feelings between father and son. She could not figure out how almost every single conversation the two blond loves of her life ended with hurt feelings and angry words, but it did. Hinata sighed. If only her son had obtained her understanding soul, one that Himiwari seemed to have inherited. She wondered if the reason that father and son couldn't get along was because they were too close in personality. She would never tell them that, of course.
Hinata knew that her son had another fight with his father after he had come home in a huff, ignored her greeting, and closed himself in his room for the past four hours. He did not even come out for dinner, which was saying something about her son.
Hinata knocked on the young man's white painted door, plate of dinner in her hand. "Boruto?" She called out.
"Come in," a muffled voice responded. Hinata entered swiftly. Her son's room was neat, an entire childhood of being scolded by the blue haired woman made the blond clean his room before it got too bad where he had to hear another lecture from his normally soft mother.
Boruto was lying in his bed on top of the blue comforter, bed messily made, face in his pillow, portable game console in his hand. It was the same one from his childhood, the old version that he refused to part with and only played when he was sad, the old games being a comfort. Hinata assumed that the games themselves reminded him of simpler times.
Hinata walked to his side table, clearing off a little room to stably place the plate full of food down to where nothing would slide off the plate. Hinata turned to look at her son before sitting on the edge of his bed, blue comforter crinkling under her weight. She placed a thin hand on the blonds' head, running her hand through the silky soft locks. Her gold wedding ring seemed to glow in the dim light the lamp set off.
"Your hair is getting so long," Hinata stated. Boruto nodded, his now shoulder length hair adjusting to the movement.
"Your uncle had such beautifully long hair," Hinata nodded, reminiscing about her deceased cousin with a pang in her heart. "He didn't tell anyone, but he spent a good portion of his mission money on hair products."
"It's hard to keep up with," Boruto said, wincing as his mother found a tangle in his normally silk hair. Hinata nodded as she undid the knot, causing her son to wince as she tugged too hard on his scalp. "But I don't know… I like it. It sets me apart from dad and even granddad."
Hinata nodded, knowing her son struggle to become himself in a world that saw him as a clone of the previous Namikaze generations.
They sat in silence for a while, just enjoying each other's presence. Boruto loved that his mother would never push subjects and always knew when to be quiet; a skill his father hadn't figured out, even in his old age and kage status. Himiwari was more like her father in this aspect; a nosy little sibling that was always in her older brothers business. Hinata knew that if she waited long enough, her son would confide his problems in her. Forcing him to talk about them would just make him clam up more.
Eventually, he started talking. "Mom, how come whatever I do, it's never enough for him?"
Hinata began braiding her son's hair, up then under, up then under. "Don't ever believe that he isn't proud of you— because he is. He just sometimes… needlessly compares your generation to ours, which doesn't help anyone. They were two separate times. Your generation has experienced a lifetime of peace— or as close as we can get in this world. Your father and I's generation was built on bloodshed— the entire genocide of an influential clan except for one child, a time where the Hyugas sealed anyone considered to be in the Branch family, and your father… grew up hated by the entire village and vowed to become the Hokage to prove himself to those who doubted him, tore him down. Your father just wishes you would push yourself harder and not just focus on things that come easy to you. Your father spent years and years training to be the best he could be, but you tend to give up on things you cannot easily figure out. I believe he just wishes you were a little more like him."
Boruto glanced at his mother, a cold look in his eyes. "I guess me and him will always be at war."
Hinata sighed before placing a light kiss on the top of her sons head. Standing up she said, "You and him may go different about it, but you both just want you to be the best you can be, in everything. You guys are on the same team, but have different ways of how you should reach your goal. Your father is not the enemy; he just wants what's best for you."
The blue eyed young man nodded, but Hinata knew he was nodding to get out of this conversation, not because he believed in her. Hinata sighed.
"Eat your dinner, I hear you have a mission tomorrow," She said before reaching into her purple jacket and pulling out the mission scroll, tossing it at her sons prone figure on the bed. It hit him in the back with an "oof!" causing the mom to giggle lightly.
Hours later when she opened her son's door at midnight to check to see if he ate, she noticed that the plate of food she graciously brought him had not been touched at all.
Boruto was late.
Boruto was fucking late for this genin level mission. His father was going to strangle him with his bare hands when he found out.
Boruto hadn't woken up to his alarm clock, which was a surprise since the thing is as loud as a herd of elephants, but he had trouble chasing dreams last night, which explains the dark circles under his eyes. When he finally awoke, half an hour late, he didn't even have time to shower or eat breakfast. He changed as quickly as possible, untangled his hair from the braid he slept in, and left a laughing Himiwari in his tracks and an exasperated mother serving food on the kitchen table.
His father was not at the table, so Boruto assumed he had spent another night in the Hokage tower, like he did most nights.
Running down the street toward the front gate, dodging all the citizens of Konoha, Boruto thoroughly checked that he had his kunai and his mission scroll on his person. He was relieved when he felt their familiar weight on him.
'I'm lucky that our house is only a seven minute run to the front gate,' Boruto thought to himself as he spotted the gate, quickly coming to a stop, dirt trailing behind him, two marks in the normally flat earth below. Boruto was only breathing a little bit harder, years of endurance training making his race against time manageable.
Boruto noticed a still figure leaning on the wall by the entrance, already having gotten past the gate guards who verified his work visa. All of a sudden, Boruto remembered that he had no idea what the man he was supposed to be babysitting even looked like. Boruto cursed himself for not looking at the mission report more thoroughly. He quickly grabbed the scroll from his pocket and scanned through it, but he couldn't find a description of the man anywhere. The eighteen year old sweat dropped, damning whoever created such a half-ass mission scroll. In his mood, he didn't notice a figure approaching him until he was two steps in front of him.
"I assume you are the one that's supposed to keep me out of trouble," a smooth voice stated, causing Boruto to jerk his head up and stare at the stranger in front of him. A man with brown hair and brown eyes was in front of him. He must have been around Boruto's parent's age, the laughter lines and crow's feet giving away the passing time of his life.
"Yori Yosano?" Boruto asked, and for some reason, when he made eye contact with the man whom he was supposed to look out for, he blushed slightly, rose dusting his cheeks. The man in front of him grinned widely, showing off white teeth, the canines slightly crooked.
"The one and only, kid."
AN: Hey guys : ). I haven't written and published a fanfic in so long, but I love my baby Boruto and decided to fuck it and create a ff of my own because he didn't have enough love on here yet. I hope to update every Monday, but sometimes life or writer's block may get in the way, but things happen and I will try my hardest to update this piece of trash as much as possible.
This is going to be an angst-y fic, be warned. And yes, Boruto will be in a gay pairing with an OC. A lot of OC fics are women, and I wanted to go in a different direction than that. Also, that boy ain't straight.
If you have any questions or comments, please PM me or review.