Author's Note:
Welcome to my second one-shot – my second fanfiction altogether. Having received a review made me feel somewhat proud, so I decided to give it another try. I hope you will enjoy it. Please review afterwards, if you have liked it, if you haven't or if you found mistakes you want to point out.
Warnings: This story is set in a realistic environment, thus it's AU. It also contains hugging – who'd have guessed? ;) - and will be finishing up with light shonen-ai. So if you don't like that kind of stories, please seek another story that fits your preferences more. ^^ As there is violence implied in a flashback, this fiction is rated T.
Disclaimer: Naruto ain't mine. Also, the 'Free Hugs' movement wasn't created by me, but in my opinion, it's made of epic win. Consider this fanfiction somewhat like an expression of reverence.
Please note – I know that there are other fictions who deal with this topic! I wrote this independently of the other ones, I have only researched them after I was done and every similarity was unintentional. If they ever should be extremely alike, I will take this story down immediately.
Crash.
Shit.
Slowly, Naruto pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing his head where it had crashed into a shelf. No more would he put on his damned shoes while standing! He had been able to slip on his right sneaker without further problems. When he had tried to tie up its counterpart, however; hopping awkwardly on one foot, he had lost his balance and crashed head-first into the shelf he kept a few photographs on. They now found themselves mostly on the floor, a few with ugly fissures in the glass of their frames. Naruto successfully repressed the urge to tell the world his opinion in words that would have put a sailor to shame, instead he sighed, placing the photographs in a messy pile onto the chest below the shelf. He'd care about that later.
After he had put himself into a standing position, he zipped up his favorite hoodie, – it was black, speckled orange from the paint he had used in his kitchen – grabbed his keys and left his apartment. He had to go to Sakura and Lee's; after all, they had invited him to dinner and what man would he be if he missed an opportunity for free food? Even though he loved cooking himself, Lee was a freaking genius when it came to culinary arts and his curry was to die for. No wonder Sakura had chosen to finally date him after the man with the 'biggest eyebrows of Konoha' (that was a self-proclaimed title!) had wooed her for two years straight, Naruto thought, chuckling to himself.
But Lee's amazing curry wasn't the only reason he was looking forward to meeting his two best friends. The three had known each other since high school and had become close over the years. During his freshman year, Naruto had shared his love interest – but over the time, the little crush on his pink-haired friend had slowly faded into something rather resembling brotherly affection. It was gone for good after he had realized that his attraction lay with his gender – after that, he had shared his love interest with Sakura. Before she and Lee had started dating in the junior year, she belonged to the horde of fangirls that surpassed each other in subtlety to gain the attention of one Sasuke Uchiha.
Oh, damn. Sasuke. Naruto noticed, while stepping out into the crisp air of the evening, that he missed the one answer Sasuke had given to most of the things he had to listen to – 'hn'. He wondered for a brief second what that stuck-up bastard was doing now. In high school, the man with the important name had basically given everyone a cold shrug and focused on his own business. At least Naruto had managed to sometimes talk to him instead of picking fights. Speaking of fights – they had fought a lot, bruised each other a lot and sat next to each other, brooding over detention a lot. And, as Naruto grimly remarked, it was Sasuke who had won the majority. Damn that ice-prince.
But what was he thinking about the past? Glancing on the watch, he noticed that he had ten minutes until he was supposed to be at his friends' house. Had he really stood outside of the house for five minutes, done nothing but reminiscing? This time, Naruto didn't suppress the cursing, but he did so at an appropriate volume. Deciding that he would take his bike, he walked over to his Yamaha – painted in black and orange and grabbed his helmet from the saddlebag. Although he hadn't much gas left, it was enough to take him to his friends. And be punctual.
After some encounters with Sakura's fist, he didn't really want to be punched again for being late.
So far, the evening went well. Naruto's face was still in one piece, thanks to him being on time, and the curry was almost finished. Sakura was leading him around the apartment he stared at in quiet admiration. As the three of them were still students at the small-but-surprisingly-renowned Konoha University, they had all lived in the student housing up to a certain point of time. Well... to be honest, Naruto still lived there, except for the week-ends he spent at the house of his former guardian Iruka, but Sakura and Lee had decided to move in together and rent a little apartment. Contrary to the jokes Naruto had constantly pulled, it wasn't decorated in bubblegum pink – Sakura's natural haircolor had always caused small commotions about how that one was naturally possible - or an obnoxious shade of green – Lee's favorite. The living room was mostly green, yes, but in a tasteful, lighter shade, matching Sakura's eyes. Together with the white walls and the dark, wooden furniture it left a pleasant impression.
„Stop gaping like a cow in the spotlight" Sakura laughed, slapping the blonde man on the back - causing him to wince. That woman constantly underestimated her power. „Lee's probably done already, wouldn't want to get that curry to freeze, right?" Naruto grinned, calling out a „Hell yeah!" and dragging the pinkette back to the kitchen.
As Sakura had predicted correctly, Lee had already put the bowl with the rice and the one filled with curry onto the kitchen table. A very delicious scent of various spices filled the room, causing Naruto's mouth to water instinctively.
They sat down, a devious grin spreading on their faces almost involuntarily when they remembered a little tidbit from high school. Sakura looked at the two men whose concentration was trained on the steaming food. „Three, two, one" she counted down before doing the same thing as the other two did – grabbing the bowls and piling up food on their plates as fast as they could so they could start – an eating competition.
For possible watchers, this would probably sound childish, but the three had often found great amusement seeing the others imitating hamsters while stuffing rice into their cheeks or – an accident that Naruto had pulled once due to his clumsiness – hitting the plate in such a weird angle that the contents of it splashed onto their faces.
After about fifteen minutes, the bowls were scratched out and empty, rice scattered over the table and sticking to each person's hair. Lee had somehow managed to put three helpings into him and recieved a kiss from his girlfriend as a 'trophy'. Naruto, though, seemed a bit exhausted, wiping his brow before snatching the rice out of his hair. „Congrats, Fuzzy Eyebrows" he exclaimed happily. „You gotta give me the recipe of that curry. It's food fit for the gods, believe me." Lee simply snickered. „No way in hell, my youthful friend!" He had had adapted a funny way of speaking when he was younger, deriving this from a show about the super-hero Might Guy. By now, Lee was using it in a more joking way, but it was still the first thing associated with the black-haired man.
„Meanie." Naruto pouted, before remembering that he had something he wanted to tell the two. „Wait a second, guys... let me think..." he mumbled, pressing his thumbs onto his temples. „Don't hurt yourself, Naruto", Sakura retorted dryly. „While I am studying medicine, I've enough to do in my clinical practice in school." Cracking open a blue eye, the blond glared at his friend, when he finally remembered." „Ah! I have it." A smile spread on his face, already having forgotten the playful insult. „You guys know the 'Free Hugs' movement?"
„The what?" was the only answer.
For the first time, Naruto knew more in a subject than his two friends – okay, besides botany, but that one was because he actually studied it.
„The 'free hugs' campaign was founded by some Australian dude named Juan Mann, who was feeling down after he had to go home from London because of some personal stuff and no one was there to fetch him. And he desperately needed a hug. So he made a sign on a piece of cardboard saying „Free Hugs" and held it up in the busiest street of his hometown. At first, he had been ignored, but he thought that people sometimes needed a hug and hey – someone had to start it. It was a raving success and it has spread all over the world by now!"
Sakura and Lee glanced at each other before finally realizing what his true intention might probably be. „So you want to do this, right?" The blonde nodded, a bright grin spread over his face. „But I don't want to do it alone. Do you wanna-" his question was cut off by his two friends who, having stood and walked over to him, pulled him into a bear hug.
They knew what had been Naruto's intention to join the movement and hug people. For all the time Sakura and Lee had known the blond, he had been the personified sunshine, constantly smiling and doing what he could to other people. It had taken them a while to see behind the mask and realize that it hadn't been always that way.
In the small village Naruto came from, a serial killer had committed his crimes around the town during the time Naruto was born. When Naruto was four, he had fallen, breaking his arm and thus stayed in the local hospital for a few days. When his parents came to bring him home, the engine of their car had a breakdown halfway back to their house. A horrible thunderstorm had been raging outside – the reason for his still existing fear of tempests – so his father decided to go out searching someone who could jumpstart their car.
He never came back.
It probably was Naruto's luck that he was sleeping in the back of the car so he hadn't to witness how his parents were murdered horribly by the serial killer. It was his luck that he didn't wake when the killer took a knife and cut six whisker-like streaks into his face and a crude spiral into his stomach before he vanished for good.
When Naruto awoke, however, a small mass of people had gathered around the car; blood splattered everywhere in its interior. And he had screamed and screamed until a man with long, grey hair opened the car, pulled him out and proceeded to soothe him.
On that day, he got to know the first of only three persons he would call family ever again – Jiraiya Gamano, writer of the infamous Icha Icha series of porn novels. The other two were his wife, Tsunade, and the other orphaned boy they already took care of, a teenager named Iruka.
The people in his village were cruel to Naruto as soon as they realized that the murderer – called Kyuubi for the pictures of kitsune he would leave on every crime scene he left – had vanished after the murder of his parents. Coming up with a weird history of how Naruto had been involved in everything, they started to harass him in every way they could, going so far as to try and kill him when he was walking around unprotected. Thankfully, his new 'family' decided to move away before the villagers could act out what they had often sworn to do to him and left it for the big city of Konoha.
Until high school, Naruto had received psychological treatments, but the event hadn't made him a bitter, depressed individual like one would have guessed. He thought honorably of his late parents, holding a picture of them as the most precious possesion he had, and vowed to them to become strong and happy, as they would have wanted him to be. That vow made it possible for him to realize that it was best for himself to laugh when there were no tears to cry, to make people smile – because it made himself smile. With every smile, every nice comment he received, every friend he made his own smiles became more genuine.
He never gave up.
His way of life affected everyone, his strength made people find confidence in themselves. It was this weird power Naruto seemed to possess that made Lee confident enough to ask Sakura out, and her confident enough to overcome her silly crush on Sasuke and say yes. They somehow knew that it was, after all, Naruto who had brought them together and they had vowed to help him on his conquest to help himself by making others happy. And if this was the way he wanted it to do, they would help him.
That was the reason why the three were now spending their free saturday at the Central Station of Konoha, holding up simple signs made from cardboard on which they had scribbled „FREE HUGS" as legible as possible. It was a busy day as always, with all kinds of people bustling around. Children clutched the hands of their parents, eyes wide drinking up every single detail of the masses of persons in the building. Time seemed to slow down for the old people peacefully strolling through the station to buy newspapers or a snack, while it was accelerated for the men and women in formal attire who raced to their respective trains, yelling business lingo into their mobiles. A smell of rust and rain mixed with ink and the warmth of freshly baked bread rolls wafted through.
Yes, a train station was a special place, a knot of a billion threads of lives that crossed for a brief moment, only to depart in the unique direction each and every of them would take. It was just the right place for participating in a movement with a goal – waste a few seconds on a hug and make the day a bit more friendly.
Naruto grinned happy when he pulled his friend Kiba into a bear hug. The dog-lover and his girlfriend Hinata were on their way to a random little town where Kiba's family was living to visit when they had seen Naruto, Sakura and Lee standing in a fairly central spot, waving their sign advertising hugs around. Well, if they already gave it... „How's it goin' with your thing?" Kiba wanted to know, getting three thumbs up and happy smiles in response. While Naruto explained, Lee used the opportunity to kiss his girlfriend until she giggled.
The idea of the blond was a complete success. Although they had to wait a few minutes, they got the first opportunity to hug someone when they met an old woman who had missed her train that would have brought her to the marriage of her only granddaughter. She had desperately needed the embrace, she explained later, before setting out to find the next train departing in the direction she needed to go. Afterwards, more people approached them. They had hugged a class of little pre-schoolers including their teacher – whom Lee knew and revealed as his neighbor, Kurenai Yuuhi. As soon as they had been out of listening distance, he revealed to them that she was expecting a child and it was still a secret – even her fiancée didn't know yet.
It was surprising for them how many people gladly accepted the opportunity to get a hug. This little action was the only thing it needed for some people to talk weights off their chests that were unimaginably heavy. Many stories were shared with the three young adults, creating a certain feeling of pride inside their hearts. Pride for being deemed worthy enough to become a part of the lives of complete strangers, pride for the knowledge shared with them.
When Kiba and Hinata had left – more or less running because the last call for their train was already being made – Naruto suddenly had a little fit of imagination. Laughing to himself, he turned to his friends. Lee just let go of a young girl, who giggled when she had to leave his embrace, earning herself a death glare from Sakura. „You know, guys, I wonder what Sasuke would say to our idea. You got an idea?" The couple shrugged. „The only thing coming to my mind would be Shikamaru. He'd probably only groan 'Troublesome' and get back to sleep through his springtime of youth" Lee replied, grinning at the memory of their lazy companion from college. He would probably be lying in a field somewhere outside the city now, watching the clouds pass on the endless blue sky.
„Why don't you ask him yourself?" Sakura asked suddenly, discreetly pointing at a person passing through the masses of people in front of them. „He's approaching us at eleven o' clock." Naruto's head immediately whipped to the direction indicated and, when he found where Sakura hat spotted their former classmate, his blue eyes widened. He knew that he himself was quite small for a guy, but he hadn't remembered Sasuke being that tall. The way he wore his head – black bangs falling in a way Naruto could describe merely as „duck's butt" - was still the same, but it had grown along with the whole person. He wore a black suit with a not-quite-appropriate t-shirt, „The plural form of 'people' is 'stupid'" printed on it in bold white letters. The advantages of having an influential name. As he talked business loudly into his mobile phone, he didn't seem to notice who he was approaching.
But damn, Naruto could only think, feeling a soft blush creeping up, Sasuke looked fine.
He only noticed that Sasuke really wasn't paying attention to where he was going when the black-haired man collided with him, sending them to the floor. He alertly grabbed Sasuke's phone that was flying through the air before it could shatter on the ground. While his blush intensified, the only thing he could think of made him chuckle. „And you called me a moron."
„What the-" Sasuke blinked shortly before realizing on whom he was currently lying before scrambling up. „What are you doing here, dead-last?" When he saw Naruto still lying on the floor, stretching out his hand in which his mobile phone was held up, he grabbed it, pulling the smaller man up. As he took his phone, he nodded to thank Naruto for catching it, but cursed when he realized that his dialog partner had hung up.
„Well, he who can read certainly has an advantage" Naruto replied laughing, waving his sign in front of Sasuke's face. „And as you have walked into me, you have to endure this." Sasuke glared at him, but – to the surprise of all the three – didn't make an objection to walk away.
Naruto stepped forward, placing his arms around the shoulders of the other. After a short second, the embrace was reciprocated. They stood like this for a while – a while longer than the previous hugs had lasted, Naruto noted – before pulling away. His own face burnt, he knew it. But when he studied the face of the other, he gaped again – could that be ...?
But before he could look more closely, Sasuke hung his head so his hair obscured his eyes and cheeks. He yet didn't hide the small, but genuine smile he had on his face. „Thank you, Naruto. See you soon." was the only thing he said before turning around to leave.
Naruto turned, dumbstruck, to look at his friends who had the same stupid 'what-the-hell' expression on their face. But it wasn't only because Sasuke had behaved so unlike himself, hell, even smiling, but also because he had such a weird feeling in his stomach. It wasn't quite unpleasant, yet, for he felt that it said that Sasuke had spoke the truth and they would meet soon again.
Footnote:
Thank you for reading this fanfiction.
It has another purpose to it other than telling you about the movement of 'Free Hugs'. There are things that can't be said with words merely, but rather have to be conveyed by actions. A hug is only one possibility, but it is probably the one that carries the most exemplary amount of positive emotions. It comforts during sadness and sorrow, brings people closer when done affectionately, shows friendship and is filled to the brim with love. Whenever it may be, it is not avoidable that people will depart from each other – to hug someone in such a situation is not only a way to bid farewell to someone, but also to handle it, as you receive someone's heartfelt affection.
By sharing your happiness, you can bring smiles on the face of other people. By making someone's day a little better by making them smile, you can give every day the chance to be the most wonderful you have ever had.