Window
Summary: It's Naruto's birthday. Naruto tries to hide his bouts of insanity.
Angst! One-shot
It was the tenth of October again.
It was early morning, but already people were up and running. Shopkeepers busily strung up festival lights and set up the funfair's booths. Every year, they did this, to honor their late Yondaime and celebrate its defeat.
A drunken mob wandered the streets, hollering unintelligible words. One was carrying a fox soft toy by its tail, but it had been treated so badly it looked more like a lump of orange fur. Then he threw it to the floor and stomped on it.
A young boy, no more than 11 years old, kneeled on his bed, watching them safe inside his room.
His hair was a wild mop of yellow hair, but his bangs hung down limply. Dim blue eyes gazed at the mob gathering beneath the window.
They were brandishing sticks and rocks and they laughed and joked and taunted him merrily.
The young boy's hand went to his stomach absently.
A large rock hit his window, easily cracking the recently repaired glass. The boy was not startled.
He reached out, and traced the jagged cracks on the window.
His hand moved up from his stomach to his heart.
Another rock landed on the window with a piercing crack.
The window was nearly shattered now, holding together with the last bit of its strength.
The boy smiled. It did not reach his eyes.
"You can try to glue the pieces back together and they come and break it again and again…Each time it gets weaker and weaker…"
A small shard fell out of the cracked web.
"One day it'll shatter. Then you won't be able to glue them back together again…'' the boy whispered, a smile still adorned on his face. He continued to sit there, unmoving. He did not react when the window finally shattered and some of the glass shards pierced his skin.
The mob went away when the sun rose, and then a horn was sounded to signal the official start of the celebrations.
Sunlight streamed into the room, rays bouncing off the shattered glass.
The boy carefully pulled out one of the glass shards in his skin, observing it detachedly. The wound promptly closed as the shard left.
The boy looked at the sparkling shard with detached interest. A drop of blood lingered on the edge of the shard.
The drop of blood teetered for a moment, than decidedly let go. The thin bed sheet soaked it in, a dark red flower blooming.
"Naruutooo!" A shrill shout came from downstairs.
The young boy blinked.
The same voice repeated the shout.
The boy slowly got off the bed, dusting the shards off his clothes. He walked to the mirror and stopped.
Then he slapped himself.
He stood there silently for the moment, recovering from the pain. Then he looked up, blinking furiously.
"Smile," he demanded.
Dim blue eyes gazed back at him.
"Smile," he repeated.
Slowly, a strange sheen covered his eyes, glazing over.
"Hey baka! Are you up there or not!" the girl screamed.
"Coming!" the boy shouted back, his face falling back into the well-worn grin.
He gamboled to the window, thrusting his upper body out of the square hole of a broken window.
The girl didn't see the glass shards pierce the palm of her teammate. Nor did she see the small, slightly masochistic smile behind the big farce of a grin.
"Hey, Sakura-chan, how did you know I lived here?" the young boy shouted.
"Huh, baka, I should have figured you lived here in the first place. You must have broken the orphanage's manager eardrums to get him to let you get a house of your own!" the girl shouted back, arms akimbo.
The boy's smile did not falter, and only tightened. He rubbed the back of head, a standard motion for him.
Sensing her teammate was not going to respond, the girl shouted again.
"Since Sasuke-kun is training so hard, I didn't want to disturb him. So I'm left to go with you, baka. Hurry up. The festival has already started and I don't want to miss anything."
"No thanks, Sakura. I thought I'd just stay in today," he replied.
The girl opened her mouth to shout something but abruptly paused, as though something was amiss.
"Are you feeling okay today, Naruto?" the girl asked, a suspicious frown etched on her face.
"I'm fine. Better than ever," Naruto shouted back, leaning over as though to prove his point. His bangs fell over his eyes.
"It's his birthday, Sakura. You've disappointed him," another voice came from the girl's left.
"Sasuke-kun! You came!" the girl squealed, promptly forgetting what the dark-haired boy had just said.
"Don't touch me," the dark-haired boy told her roughly, and snatched his arm away.
"But Sasuke-kun..." the girl begged.
"The dobe has feelings too," he said.
Both of them looked to the window to see their teammate's reaction.
But the window was empty.
"Dobe..." the boy muttered, and made his way up the wall to the window.
The girl stayed behind, confused and furious.
The dark-haired boy climbed into the room, hiding his temporary shock at the room's state.
"Get out, teme," the blonde said, his back to the boy. The blonde was sweeping up broken pieces of glass.
"Naruto, ignore the stupid girl. He, I even got you a present, dobe," the dark-haired boy said, taking a food coupon out of his pocket.
"It's okay. You can keep it."
"Naruto, look. You can tell I'm sorry; don't give me this load of crap," the boy raised his voice.
"I know you're sorry. I don't care if you're sorry. I don't care if you're not sorry. I didn't even realize it was my birthday today. I forgot. Sakura forgot. So what if you remembered. I'm sorry too. So just leave," the blonde said, carefully dumping the glass shards into a bin.
"You're sorry?" The dark-haired boy was suddenly unsure of himself and his best friend (though he would never admit that fact).
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for Konoha."
"Konoha?" the dark-haired boy said in confusion.
"I'm sorry that they are all going to suffer when their crazy little fox breaks down and rips off the damn seal." The blonde dumped the last of the glass into the bin. The glass tinkled.
"What?" The boy asked, not with shock, but with the politeness when one had been unable to hear what another had said.
"Nothing. Thanks for the present," the blonde said. "Just leave it on the bed."