Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Just a very short one-shot I wrote for the heck of it, a young Naruto character study of sorts.
Never Quite Happy
Demon brat.
Monster.
Anger. Hatred.
He refuses to cry. The saltiness of contained tears in blue eyes stings, but he will not cry, not in front of them because he knows, in the way that he knows he does not belong, from their hostile glances and whispered insults and words that he doesn't understand but hurt all the same, that they would like nothing better than to see him cry, scared, miserable.
He does not know why they hated him, yet still the hateful glares had followed him throughout his entire three years of life, hurting, crushing, suffocating him.
But he is a stubborn little boy and he refuses to cry, despite the unshed tears in sky-blue eyes and the broken heart he hides.
Unconsciously, he clutches the small white teddy bear (a present from a nice old man with red robes and a wide hat and kind smile) closer to his chest because it is the only thing he can hold onto, and he grasps it like a drowning man clasps even a straw in the tempestuous ocean, in hopes of salvation.
It is warm against his chest, like his heartbeat.
Sleep.
It is his refuge, where he feels safe and secure, his own personal haven that no one else can find. Sometimes, he imagines he hears a soft voice that he may or may not remember, soothing, calming, loving.
Or sometimes he pretends there are two people there for him, like there are for most other children. Two people to laugh with him, play with him, even cry with him. Two people called (and the word trips uncomfortably, untried over his tongue when he whispers them into his blankets at night, but not aloud, never aloud) mother, father. They will hug him and smile, and kiss his blonde hair and love his blue eyes and dark whisker-marks.
Sometimes, he feels someone stroking his head, softly, tenderly. But when he wakes there is no one there, just the traces of a half-remembered dreamland.
He is almost, but never quite, happy.
End.
Please review! Te amabo.
