Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, everyone's favorite oblivious blonde would have put two and two together about Hinata's tendancy to follow him around but faint when he talked to her ages ago, and gotten something other than three, five, or instant ramen.
Speaking of ages, that's how long I've been planning this: a NaruHina ficlet collection! –Lights fireworks fuses-
Sasuke: You do realize that you're standing right next to those, right?
So? What's your point?
Sasuke: … -turns around and leaves the room-
I wonder what's up with him?
-The fireworks go off, and a certain lacking-in-common-sense author goes flying-
I FEEL LIKE TEAM ROCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!
He was there again.
He was walking down the street.
She quickly ducked behind the building, hoping against hope that he hadn't heard her. After a moment, when she didn't hear him yelling at her to go away, she calmed herself enough to peek out from her hiding place.
It was crowded, but, as always, they avoided him. People stepped back, pushed others aside, even broke and ran in their urgency to stay far, far away from him. In a street full of people, he walked alone.
A kunai embedded itself in the bark of the tree, where several others already resided. The metal gleamed dully in the light of the evening sun, and she noted that the usually edges had been worn down to the point where it must have taken considerable force to bury it deep enough in the wood to keep from falling out.
They stared at him from what they judged to be a safe distance. He heard their dark whispers, their scornful mutters, and their hushed, angry words. The worst, though, were those that ignored him completely other than to stay away from his, who refused to acknowledge that he so much as existed.
Two more kunai found themselves stuck in the tree. The third hit the one of the already-thrown blades and bounced off of it with a clang, falling to the ground a few feet away. For a moment, he swayed unsteadily, staring down at the blade. She couldn't see his face, but she doubted that the trembling of his shoulders was due entirely to exhaustion. Nobody that exhausted could still be standing.
He had long since stopped asking himself why they treated him this way. It wasn't like there was a way for him to stop them from doing it. Them hating him was just another fact of life, like ramen taking three minutes to cook and the Hokages being heroes.
A few moments later, the boy's legs gave out and he fell.
Nobody hated the Hokage. The Hokage was the guiding light through Konoha's darkest times, its mortal guardian god during the harshest battles, and was willing to do anything for the village because they loved it.
She gasped, almost stepping from her hiding place. The ground around the much-abused tree was strewn with deflected and badly-aimed kunai. However dull their points were, it was still far too likely that he might have gotten hurt. He might—
And the village loved them
He struggled to his feet, his shoulders once more shaking, this time not so much with trembling as with labored breaths. He stood there, still swaying unsteadily, his fists clenched in determination.
One could almost hear a click as an idea came into being in the boys mind. He stopped, hardly daring to believe that such a thing could even be possible, that something like that could happen to someone like him.
She wondered why he always acted the way he did. Why he defied them, why he never backed down when arguing with them, why her refused to accept what they told and be done with it. And why, even when they pushed him to the ground and kicked him and spat at him and were about to walk away, he got right back up and grinned through swollen lips and black eyes, and dared them to just try and do it again, because the next time he'd be the one who pushed them to the ground.
Someone like him…They told her that she was weak, and she had fixed her eyes to the ground and nodded her silent agreement with their words, because that was what she did. She could never argue with them, because they were strong and would go on to do great things, while she was weak and would fade quietly into the shadows of the background if she was lucky. But he…
What right did they have to dictate who he was, anyway? They weren't him, he was. They didn't know how he felt, he did. And they definitely didn't know who he was, because they'd never bothered to see beyond whatever it was that they hated so much, to his true self!
… He never faded.
"I'm going to…" If they refused to acknowledge him as a person like anyone else, or even as a person at all, then he'd just have to become the one person who they'd have to acknowledge, the one person who they could never hate. And he could—no, he would do it! "…Receive the title of Hokage, datteybayo!"
They would have let him, even made him if they could have, but he never took the chance she had once longed for. Instead, he forced himself up from the shadows, forced himself to shine brightly, bright enough to make them stop ignoring him, if only to shade their eyes to keep from being blinded.
The street was silent, for a moment, as everyone turned to stare at him. Incredulousness, derision, anger… but for once in his life, no one ignored him. And that was more than he could ever have hoped for. "You all just watch!"
Uzumaki Naruto clenched his fists, and, with hands trembling with the strain of over-use, withdrew another kunai from his pouch and threw it. It hit the tree and embedded itself nearly two inches into the wood.
He cried with joy as he ran off, because he knew that they would. And even if they didn't at first, when he became Hokage, they'd have to.
Hinata, for the first time in her life, began to wonder if, since they were so very, very wrong about the boy in front of her, they could be wrong about her as well.
He'd make sure of it, datteybayo!-is slightly singed- Thank goodness for gravity, ne?
I'm not sure when I'll be able to get the next chapter up. My first priority is Baby Boom, not to mention I'll be out of commission for tomorrow at least. I'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled, and even I know my writing while I'm drugged might not be the best idea for the sanity of anyone concerned.
I'll try to keep this on a somewhat linear timeline, but there may be a chapter here and there that's out of order (i.e.: A chapter about when they were children after one about them getting married). I'll post in the authors note if that's the case, though
As always, reviews are apprieciated. Especially if they contain constructive criticism, or requests for future chapters!