Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
(And also I don't own the title either... It was provided by the wonderful notawordsmith :D Thank you!)
Life's Lessons
A young Naruto bounced through all the shortcuts, excited to buy his tea… he really needed to stock up. He had nothing left, but he had his money so he'd be okay as long as he got there before the shop closed. He arrived at the shop and burst through the door, the bell ringing frantically as he tread in dirt from the street, beaming from ear to ear and racing straight for the ramen first. He'd need seven-
"Naruto!" A hand grabbed the back of his jacket, pulling him up on to his toes. Naruto's eyes widened in fear and he looked up. All he saw was the shopkeeper. He grinned and waved.
"Hey, old man! I'm gonna get the really good ramen this time!" the man frowned down at him, looking angry but… smug? He marched the blonde back to the door and roughly shoved him out of the shop. Naruto looked up at him confused, a slight pout forming. "What'd you do that for?"
"Read the sign, kid," he spat the last word and pointed to the sign. Naruto wasn't too good at reading so he squinted at the sign in concentration.
"No… chil… child… children… allo… allowed… uns… unsupery… unsuperv-"
The man grunted and grew impatient. "It says, no children allowed unsupervised by an adult, idiot."
Naruto blinked and laughed, "Yeah, right, c'mon this isn't funny… I gotta buy my food for this week." The man did not laugh, he just simply walked away. Naruto stared into the shop and then smiled, thinking up a plan. He'd just ask the next adult who came by to go with him. He waited for about twenty minutes when finally a woman walked by.
"Hey! Hey, lady!" Naruto tugged at her arm and she looked down in surprise. The surprise soon vanished and what was left was the usual look of contempt, but Naruto wasn't phased, "Hey, could you watch me while I shop, 'cause I gotta buy my food, right? But I can't go in without an adult. Could you supervise me, please?"
The woman snorted, "Where are your parents?"
"Um, I don't have them…" he stated matter of factly. "So, can you watch me?"
The woman sighed and crossed her arms. "How much money do you have?"
Naruto grinned sheepishly and took out his frog wallet. He held out the money he had in his tiny, right hand and grinned, "I've got 3000 yen!"
She sniffed, "And where did you get all of that money from?"
"I get it from the Hokage!" Naruto beamed. "He gives it to me 'till I can pay for myself, 'cause I'm going on important missions and stuff really soon, I bet I'll get an A rank mission by the end of next year and then I'll be the youngest Hokage ever!"
The woman remained stoic and simply snatched the money from the blonde's hands and went into the shop, "I will shop for you, but you may not follow me inside."
"Thanks, lady!" Naruto shouted. He grinned and waited outside excitedly for his food. He was starting to feel hungry now. He couldn't wait to sit down and eat his ramen!
Half an hour later, the woman reappeared with a bag of shopping, but proceeded to walk straight by him. The grin fell slightly and he tugged at her arm again, but she pushed him away, almost sending him flying to the ground. He looked up at her, completely dazed, but then grinned.
"It's not funny you know? Can I have my food now, please?" He grinned a winning grin, but she wasn't smiling back.
"You can have yourfood when you pay for it with yourmoney!" she snapped. He wrinkled his nose in confusion.
"Huh? But that is my money! I got it from Hoka-"
"And Hokage-sama got this money from the people of this village who pay their taxes. This is mymoney, and I never agreed to paying to keep youalive!" She hissed. He blinked. What were taxes?
The grin still hadn't left his face, "But-"
The woman turned and stalked away and Naruto followed, the pout coming back when he finally realised she was serious. She'd spent his money to buy herself food and she was getting away, "Hey! That's my-"
Suddenly, she turned and her arm caught his cheek. He went crashing to the ground and before he could get up to follow her, she'd disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the crowd. He stared with his mouth open, his eyes wide. Now he had nothing… no money or food for a whole week…
"Hey, I know how to throw kunai now! I totally would've got you if you hadn't been a girl!" he called angrily. The crowd turned momentarily to show him their cold, uncaring gaze and Naruto pulled himself from the ground and began sprinting home, his path lined by hostile villagers.
He burst into his room and flung himself on to the bed, checking his wallet one more time, just in case he had anything left. There was nothing. He pouted as his stomach growled and he rubbed it. He could survive without food for a week, right? He had some stuff left… not much, but something at least. And he had lunch given to him at school, so he'd be able to eat then! He grinned and spent the rest of the night watching a cartoon on TV, before falling asleep wrapped in his blanket on the floor in front of it.
Three days later and Naruto had been living off those crap school dinners they always got. It wasn't much and it tasted disgusting but Naruto had never eaten food faster, and that was saying something. Iruka had noticed this. He watched as the young blonde slurped everything down in under thirty seconds and frowned. Usually he had to almost force him to eat the slop- he shook his head, the food.
Come to think of it, hadn't he heard a stomach growling earlier?
"Naruto?"
"Hai?" A bit of food dribbled from his mouth and he grinned and licked it back up. Iruka blanched but continued.
"Does it taste different?"
"No way! It's still as gross as ever!" He pouted. "It tastes like what frogs eat or something… I'm just hungry, that's all."
"Hungry, huh?" Iruka knew what it was like to be an orphan. He knew the small amount of money given to cover the week's food shopping, he looked at Naruto critically, "Did you go shopping for your food this week?"
The boy's expression became thoughtful. Iruka didn't even know he could make such an expression, "Well… kinda…"
"Kinda?" Iruka's eye twitched, "Uzumaki Naruto, you should buy food every week! No wonder you've been falling asleep so much this week. How much have you eaten?"
Naruto grinned sheepishly, "Uhh… whatever I got for school dinner all this week… oh and some like cereal bar thingies…"
"And…?" Iruka prompted, but the silence that followed and Naruto's embarrassed grin told him what he needed to know.
"Why haven't you eaten anything else?"
"'Cause I don't have anything."
"Nothing?"
"Uh-uh!" Iruka's eye twitched again.
"Did Hokage-sama give you your money for this week?"
"Hai!"
"What did you do with it?" He demanded. He'd obviously spent the money on something else.
Naruto blinked and shrugged, "Some lady took it."
Iruka's eyes widened, "Some… lady… took it?"
"Hai…" Naruto replied, in an exaggerated voice, as though Iruka was stupid.
"Why?"
"I dunno… she was saying stuff about taxes and how it was her money… but it wasn't… it was my money! But I guess she needed it, right?"
"Who was she? What did she look like?"
Naruto blinked and quickly lied, "I don't remember. And even if I did, a ninja's supposed to love the whole village no matter what! You said that! It's one of the rules!"
Iruka didn't answer. He wandered away to the front of the class, in time for the bell and began teaching.
It was Friday night and that was the night everyone who was anyone went to the park to play, so Naruto naturally ran after all of the other kids, hoping to join in today… or at least just tag on and annoy them enough so that they let him stay.
He realised maybe it was a bad idea to use so much energy, since his stomach grumbled badly as he walked home and now he had the whole weekend without food to look forward to. He pushed open the door and wandered inside, thinking about his bed, when he smelled something… something delicious!
He skidded into the kitchen and saw a bag of shopping, a note, money and a bowl of ramen waiting on the counter. He grinned and practically dove at it, slurping it all down so fast it was as though it had never been there. He beamed and patted his stomach, satisfied at last. He put his bowl in the sink and picked up the note curiously.
To Naruto, please tell others when you have a problem like this. This bag is your groceries for this week. Please keep the money in a safe place and save it so that you won't end up in such a situation again.
It took him a good while to read the note and he pouted when he saw there was no signature, but he had a good idea who it was.
That night he went to bed with a full stomach and in the morning he turned up extra early for school and even brought a cool rock he found on the way to give to Iruka-Sensei. His teacher thanked him for the rock, but didn't say anything more about what had happened. Although, the genuine smile he gave Naruto was more than enough to confirm the young blonde's suspicions.