Konohagakure.
The village hidden in the leaves.
One of the many hidden village's scattered around the world.
Home to most of the Shinobi situated in the Land of Fire.
On one of its many streets limped a small blond boy in a ridiculous orange jumpsuit, his left hand wrapped in bandages, and his right leg in a cast.
The blonde boy had just been released from hospital, well, actually he was kicked out but he was out all the same.
Earlier in the day he had met up with some of the more, unpleasant people who hated him.
But it didn't bother him, he'd take off the bandages when he got home, and the cast could come off in a day or two, and it wasn't like this was the first time this had happened to him, and nor was it the worst they had ever done to him.
But, as the little blonde boy limped along the street, ignoring the glares of everyone around him, he couldn't help but notice a shop across the street.
It was a small brick building, wedged in between a Shinobi weapon's shop, and the Akimichi Barbecue restaurant.
In a big blue banner hanging across the top of the beginning were the words " Panku's Tune's", withan assortment of musical note's painted decoratively around the words.
And on the door below was a sign that said "Grand Opening".
Deciding that he had nothing better to, the blonde boy walked over to the shop's window and peered inside.
His eyes widened at the assortment of object in that one small window, not only were there CD's, but there were instruments, lava lamps, earphones and a rack full of what looked like small plastic matchboxes.
Hoping that the grand opening sign meant the owner was from out of the village and didn't know him, he entered the store.
It took a minute for his eye's to finally adjust to the stores darkness, the place smelt like smoke, and the shelves and rack's around him were in a complete mess, everything was jumbled around, it was a mess.
And people call my apartment a pigsty, thought the boy.
He headed to the back of the store, looking for the owner.
The boy found him behind the service counter, his feet resting on the counter while he leaned back in his chair, his foot tapping to some kind of beat, the man was wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, his arms were covered in tattoo's and his face was full of piercing's, his black hair cut short., his eyes were closed.
"hello?" he called out.
The man didn't seem to respond.
"hello? Are you awake?"
still nothing.
He reached out to poke the man, but before he could, he found his small are in a vice le grip.
He looked to the man's face, the man's dark eyes staring intently at the blonde boy, after a moment, the man's intent gaze softened and he let go of the boy's arm.
"sorry kid, in a bit of a daze their, didn't hear you come in over the music, yeah?"
"what music?"
"hmm? Oh, err, 'take me out' by Franz Ferdinand, why?" he asked.
"no, how were you listing to it? I couldn't hear anything?"
the man pointed to his ears, the boy noticed the earphones, their cord leading down into one of the small plastic matchboxes sticking out of the man's Jean's pocket.
"what is that?"
"what? You never seen an mp3 player before?" the man asked sceptically.
The boy shook his head no."mp3?"
The man too, shook his head, and took the matchbox out of his pocket and laid it on the counter, pulled the earphones from his ears and handed them to the blonde.
The blonde looked at man in confusion, to which he mimed putting the earphones in his ears.
The blonde did so, but timidly, unsure of what was going to happen.
As soon as they were in the man pushed a button on the, "mp3".
'so if your lonely.
You know I'm here, waiting for you
I'm just a cross-hair
I'm just a shot away from you
the blonde boy was surprised at the music, but that didn't stop him from nodding his head to the beat of the song.
He saw the man smiling at him, who was obviously enjoying the music.
By the time the song had ended, the boy was tapping his un-plastered foot, banging his head, and doing little one legged jigs every now and again, and the man was laughing at the boys antics.
"I take it you haven't listened to much music before?" the man said amusedly.
The boy shook his head in excitement "no, never. But it was so cool!"
"well, you know you can buy one, their only 50ryu"
the boy seemed to think about it for a while.
But to but it I'd have to use the money the Hokage gave me for food, so if I buy it I'll have even less to eat, thanks to those overpricing villagers who hate me.
"and seeing as your my first ever customer, I'll even throw in this lava lamp for free".
"deal!"cried out the boy as he slammed down the wad a notes onto the counter
"nice doing business with ya kid" the man said as he handed the boy the necessary amount of change,"you can go pick one out now, oh, and by the way, the name's Panku, Panku no Hanran" the man introduced himself, holding out his left hand.
The boy grinned. "Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki", he said as he shook Panku's hand."nice to meet you".
"Same to you kid", Panku said as Naruto grabbed a dark blue mp3 and headed for the door.
"hey kid!"
Naruto turned to Panku.
"Come back any time, ever find any songs you want on your mp3, come tell me, I'll hook you up"
Although Naruto didn't really know what Panku meant by 'hooking him up', Naruto assumed it was a good thing and nodded his thanks.
The moment he was out of the store, he ripped open the plastic packet and grabbed his mp3, taking a minute to find where the earphones plugged in, he slipped on the earphones, and was greeted by the same song he had listened to in the shop.
And so, Naruto continued limping down the street, but this time with aa smile on his face, and singing along to music no-one else could her.
Naruto was happy, the music drowned out all the insults and seemed to make the glares he got less noticeable.
When Naruto finally reached his apartment, he had found out he had only four song on his mp3,
some song about a 'seven nation army',
some dude asking 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl'
and an ear-splitting, yet catch song about 'Black Betty', whatever that was,
and his favourite song so far, 'take me out'.
But he remembered Panku saying if he found any more he like, that he'd 'hook him up', which Naruto now figured meant put more song on his mp3.
Naruto had also read the small piece of paper detailing about what each of the mp3's buttons did, and how to charge it, which was basically just telling him to plug in the cord hat came in he pacted into a power supply and the other end into the mp3, something even Naruto could've worked out by himself.
"hey! You calling me stupid?" the angry blonde shouted.
Why yes, yes I am.
"God-damn author."
yes, well, anyway, as soon as Naruto was in his apartment, he cooked a bowl of instant Ramen, set up his new lava lamp on the coffee table, sat down on his ragged old couch, and listened to music for the rest of the day, never getting tired of any of the four songs.
And the next day, he went back to Panku's tunes, who was all-too happy to see him, because apparently no-one other than Naruto had even been inside the shop, and so he asked Naruto if he would stick up a few of the flyers he had made, and promised to put some more song's on his mp3 while he was gone, Naruto agreed immediately,he had torn his cast off that morning, and the bandage's were gone before then.
And so, Naruto ran around Konoha, sticking up flyers with glue, dropping some from the tops of buildings, and even managing to put some in coat pockets and purse's as people 'accidentally' barged into him while he was running.
And when Naruto got back to Panku's, his mp3 player had a dozen new songs! Panku said he was sorry he didn't put more but he was trying to only put the best on his mp3, and Naruto was happy with that, he had also give Naruto a bit of money, saying it was a thanks for helping him out.
And so it went, for the next year, Naruto spent nearly all of his time at Panku's tunes, helping out with small jobs, organising the shelves a bit, after a while, Panku's business picked up and a quite a few people became regular customers, of course, Naruto managed to stay hidden whenever there was customer, much to Panku's confusion.
Right now though, Naruto was sitting with Panku in the closed down shop, each holding an acoustic guitar.
"okay, now put you first finger on the second fret, and then your second finger on the fourth fret, good, okay, now, strum all the stings. Nice." Panku was teaching Naruto the basics of playing a guitar, who had insisted on learning once finding out Panku was a master.
Well, I think that's enough for today, you should go home and get some rest. You start at the academy tomorrow don't you?"
"yeah, hopefully its more interesting than these guitar lesson's"Naruto said in a bored tone.
"hey, your the one who wanted to learn kid, and remember not to touch that bandage, that tattoo took fucking age's to put there, so I don't want you screwing it up" Panku warned, pointing to the bandage on Naruto's left Bicep.
"yeah, yeah, I won't touch it, ill see you tomorrow afternoon then?"
"tomorrow afternoon it is" Panku agreed, as Naruto left his store.
Panku couldn't help but smile, it seemed only yesterday he was a hyperactive little knuckle head, but after finding out he was going to the Shinobi academy, Panku had immediately gone drill instructor on his ass, horrendous exercise, strict dieting, studying of the ninja art's. Naruto was shocked at the fact that the exercises he was doing was nothing compared to Panku's Nightly workout, and asked why someone who wasn't even a Shinobi was exercising like that, Panku had just said that he wasn't always a store owner, and left it at that, and changed the subject by saying that not even a Shinobi raised child wouldn't be able to do half the amount of exercise Naruto was doing, which had done the trick.
And after all this exercise and training, Naruto had finally calmed down enough to the point where Panku was unable to call him a hyperactive knuckle head any more, much to his disappointment and Naruto's enjoyment.
That kid is really something, a super human healing factor, a seemingly endless supply of stamina and his control over his temper has improved by miles. He'll make one hell of a name for himself. That's for damn sure.