Himitsu na Bunshin

Chapter 1

The room was cold. Its owner found this strange since it was the hottest time of the year. He shifted again but still couldn't sleep. He moved again to lie on his back, facing the moon-lit space of his room, and sighed a long breath. This was getting nowhere. No matter how much he tried, no matter what pose he tried, he still couldn't sleep. And the chill he felt around him frustrated him even further.

But he knew the reason to all that.

It was the loneliness.

Even though it wasn't like in the old days when he had no friends, he still felt lonely nowadays. During day-time, everything was fine – he laughed and messed around with his friends, and even hit on Sakura a few times. Everything was fine. Yet, when night came and everybody went to their homes and families and maybe even their boy/girlfriend, he felt that loneliness creeping over him. The steps he took towards his empty apartment were heavy. He felt a chill tingling on his skin and stabbing him in the heart. He wanted someone to come and shield him from that chill with a hug. But no one came.

He needed somebody.

But he was all alone.

Naruto sighed again. He couldn't understand it. What's this feeling? Why now? Why did he need it so much that it kept him awake at night?... Why did it leave such a horrible void in him?... His hand absent-mindedly moved to touch his stomach. The whirl-crest he knew was there made the skin hotter. So he withdrew it and left the hand hanging off the edge of the bed.

He looked up at the empty ceiling, and let moments pass. The bed beneath him felt so big and spacious in contrast to his small lean form on it. It had too much room for just one person. It told him too that there was someone else needed there.

He turned over angrily and pulled the thin cover over him.

"There isn't much choice, is there?" He asked himself in a sad tone. He sighed again and put his fingers together to perform the seals. "Himitsu na bunshin no jutsu." (Secret shadow-clone technique).

A puff of smoke appeared under the blanket, and revealed another Naruto as it faded. The new Naruto sat up, bringing the covers off the real Naruto. He smiled down at his creator and waited for him to speak. The blond boy that was still lying on his side smiled weakly at him and whispered a small 'hi'.

Despite looking like a normal kage-bunshin or a simple bunshin, the Himitsu na bunshin was different. It was Naruto's invention as a cause from the loneliness that killed him at the recent nights. The himitsu-na-bunshin was different in two basic things – chakra and mind. It still depended on the creator's chakra; which meant that if it performed a jutsu, the chakra for it would be taken from the one who summoned it, unlike clones from the bunshin techniques. And while bunshins from other techniques had no independent mind and were all connected to the source, the himitsu na bunshin had its own consciousness, and worked on its own mind. Naruto speculated it was actually the subconscious part of his mind in that clone. That was why there were times he argued with the new Naruto, disagreeing on certain things. And that was the reason for its secrecy – because nobody would want to hear about a bunshin that disagrees with you.

However, there was another reason it was so secretive – its real purpose.

The blond boy, lost in his angst, yearned for someone who could give him love, unconditional love, like a parent. He needed to be held and patted. So he created this bunshin, and the bunshin transformed into the closest thing he got to that kind of thing – to the people who felt fatherly to him – Iruka-sensei or Kakashi-sensei. There were times he even made the other Naruto transform into an imaginary figure he thought his mom would look like, with wavy blond hair and soft blue eyes, and a pair of red lips to kiss the top of his head. The bunshin suggested Tsunade-baachan as the motherly figure, after recalling her warm kiss on his forehead when Naruto and Jiraiya had come to take her back to Konoha, but Naruto refused fearing of the freaky-lady's reaction if she ever found out.

"I…" Naruto began, looking away from the replica. At times like this, he hated his own image. He was pathetic, and the himitsu-na-bunshin only showed just how much. "…I need love. Real love… I need…" but he couldn't finish the sentence; he didn't know how to explain it. It was impossible to explain such a void in one's heart.

Luckily, it was himself he was talking to, and the other knew exactly what he was talking about.

There was a new puff of smoke and the bunshin changed its form to a pretty pale-eyed girl with short blue hair. "Naruto-kun?" Hinata called him with her tiny voice. But Naruto refused, dismissing the girl as weird and not right for the moment.

Hinata made a disappointed expression before transforming into the pretty pink-haired Haruno Sakura. As the misty smoke around her faded, the blond boy became more nervous. "No way." He said lowly. "I would never use her like that. It's indecent." Although Naruto's nature was often described as wild and perverted, he still had respect for people, especially if they meant something to him. Sakura was his first love, true; but she was also a friend he didn't want to dishonor.

The bunshin changed back to its original form, his face wearing a distressed look, which was soon mirrored by the one who made him. Going through his mind, he had another idea and he changed again.

"Naruto." A low voice called out to the boy still lying on the large bed. The dull blue eyes moved slowly to see who it was this time. The voice didn't sound feminine at all. And truly, the figure there wasn't female, but a rather harsh male. Dark black eyes stared back at Naruto, framed by pale skin and black hair. It looked misty and blue in the dim light of the silvery moon. He sat there on his knees, like a wise elder.

"Yeah right…" Naruto almost snorted, curling on his bed to an embryo-like position. "Like Sasuke's ever gonna care for me… All he does is call me stupid and dobe, patronize me, and then walk off like nothing happened…" He sighed and hoped the bunshin wouldn't try to talk again with Sasuke's voice. It pissed him off just to hear his voice, just for the habit of hearing that voice call him things he didn't like.

"Is there really nobody out there for me?" Naruto asked, turning his face to the pillow with the intent to drown himself in it. He thought about it not once – killing himself. Although it would look stupid - the wildest punk in Konoha, the one who always held onto life so hard and made everybody in the village acknowledge his existence whether they liked it or not, the one with the wildest biggest smile ever, suddenly committing suicide and vanishing – despite all that, he still felt like it was a necessity during these long lonely nights.

The puff next to him didn't even distract him from his train of thoughts, but the absolute silence that followed did. He dared a glance from the corner of his eye. A kanji, written in thin streaks of crimson over plain white surface, reading the word "Love", met his blue eye. Ironic, Naruto chuckled as he closed his eyes. He shifted again on the bed, the sheets gathering around him like water. He opened his eyes once more, taking in more of the figure the himitsu-na-bunshin had chosen.

Matching red hair fell on top of the symbol. The short bangs of hair ended right above a pair of sea foam green eyes, accented in their paleness by black lining around them. With a small nose and mouth and plain white skin, the boy's face looked like the face of a fragile china doll.

"Gaara."

He said the boy's name as he turned to lie on his back again. The said boy looked down at Naruto, his eyes clear of any emotions. He sat there quietly, dressed in the clone's pajama which was one or two sizes too big on him. Gaara was skinnier than Naruto, therefore the clothes were unfitting and slipped off, exposing a pale shoulder.

The logic of it was perfect. Gaara was like him, suffered for the demon inside him like him, lived in solitude just the same, and every time the blond came to think of him or see him on a rare occasion he felt a connection. There was a mysterious bond between them.

Even now, when it was only his replica wearing the redhead's form, Naruto could feel it.

The fake redhead slipped into the bed beside the blond.

As he did so, Naruto felt heat spreading across every place in his body that came in proximity with the other's body. Gaara lay close to him, so their noses were only an inch away. It was quite an intimate proximity, and it would have unnerved the blue-eyed boy, had he not been the one asking for it. Their eyes met and for a long moment they just stared at each other. Naruto felt a sort of weakness in his heart. There it was again – the pain of loneliness in those dull green eyes. Was it because it was his replica wearing Gaara's form, or was that the pain he remembered seeing there? He could not tell; and the more pain he saw there, the more he couldn't look away.

In a few minutes, his eyes were falling shut. The last thing he felt before falling asleep was the movement of limbs not his own around him, moving to wrap around him, taking him into the embrace he longed for.

Naruto at last fell asleep.

On the next day, Naruto felt much better, and everybody could see it. His grin became even wider, and something in his eyes made the ocean blue hue seem deeper and clearer than ever. Also, when evening came, it didn't sadden him like it had any night before. His apartment didn't seem so lonely anymore.

A genuine smile graced his lips as he walked home. It was the smallest of smiles, but it carried great significance.