"But that was all I ever wanted..."

Smile

x

Naruto-centric

I don't like remembering my childhood.

Unlike other's, it wasn't all games and laughs. It was something that made me stronger: however, it was something I'd sooner forget than relive, because if I had to hate one thing for the rest of my life, it'd be being alone.

I was always, always alone and afraid. No matter what I did, or what I said, it was the same thing over and over again: insults, words I didn't understand, words I didn't want to understand, but all that had the same meaning.

(I wish you'd just die.)

They all turned there backs to me, with out even trying to know me.

They just assumed, hated me, for no reason at all.

It was lonely. I had no one to talk to, no one to play with, and no one to even try to care or understand or just merely be there. I was completely alone. And I won't lie and say it wasn't that bad, because it was. It hurt to be unwanted, shunned, exiled from others, for just being alive.

I had never been smiled at.

(But that was all I ever wanted.)

I wanted someone to take me out for ramen, someone to hug me and tell me everything was okay (even if they didn't mean it), wrap my wounds up when I got hurt and smile at me.

But no one would…

…because I was, in their eyes, a monster.

Equivalent to someone who only had evil intent; someone who would kill without hesitation or purpose; someone that could only be a killer; someone with out feelings.

If I had no feelings, then why did it hurt every time they called me names? Why did I just want to curl up and just cry? Did it really make them feel strong, and big, and bad to see me on the floor, bleeding? Was it worth it?

Because, at some point, it made me wish that'd I was dead too.

(Was it that hard to just look at me?)

But I refused to become the thing they hated so much. I refused to prove them right. I refused to give them a reason to call me a monster, to hate me.

I refused to be something that I was not.

So through all the insults, all the glares, and the pain, I smiled at them, so that maybe, one day they'd return it.

(Was it too hard to smile back?)

That was what I lived for, making people smile. I was a trickster by nature, after all. My mother was one I've been told…I didn't know that until I was older, though. Back then, I didn't know what words mother and father meant.

I pulled so many pranks, did so many stupid things I couldn't tell you how many if I tried, but every once in a while, some one's lips would just twitch and I knew they were smiling on the inside, at something I did.

(What was the point of living, in the end, if you didn't enjoy it?)

But it wasn't until I was about eight or nine when I learned about what a Hokage really was. Until that moment, I'd just thought it was someone who sat and took care of the paperwork that came with being a village. How wrong my reasoning was.

"What kind of ninja do you want to be, Naruto?"

"Pshh, definitely not one of your sort, Old Man. I don't like paperwork. I wanna be a great ninja, of course. Who doesn't?"

"A Hokage doesn't just do paperwork, Naruto, he protects the village in everyway he can. He's there to keep the people happy, even if it's doing something little, it's his job to keep people smiling the best way he can."

I don't think the old man knew what a big effect he had on me then, but it was right at that moment that I decided I wanted to be Hokage, because If I could, then I could keep them smiling, and happy, and safe. I wanted to become stronger so I had a reason not become what they thought of me. I wanted to prove them wrong, defy their voices and become everything they thought I couldn't become.

So I could protect them.

So I could make them smile.

(Because, really, it isn't that hard at all.)