Dedication: To Emily, Les, & Sara - I'm glad you're real.
Disclaimer: I do not [nor pretend to] own Naruto; similarly, I do not profit off it.
Notes: Potentially a drabble series, all based on Road to Ninja AU. Everyone seems to be focusing on the Sasuke-Sakura portion, so I thought I'd give Naruto some attention. :)
Enjoy!
It is breakfast.
A bowl of rice sits at his left elbow, chopsticks held like weapons in his right hand, and a small platter of fish is placed perfectly in the middle of the table.
He doesn't even like fish.
(Ramen for breakfast, ramen for lunch, ramen for dinner - "Sakura-chan, I can see those vegetables behind your back. Don't you da- You contaminated it!")
But his chopsticks dip into the middle of it, draws out a section, and drops it in his bowl.
"Naruto! There's a line of food going from the plate to your bowl!"
Smack .
He rubs the back of his head, scowling. "That hurt!"
"Then I did something right, eh?"
There's a chuckle to his right as his father, in a flash, sits down next to him. "Don't you think it's too early in the morning to upset her?"
Spitting around the fish and rice in his mouth, Naruto informs him, "She's always upset ."
They both get hit for that one.
It isn't like they couldn't have dodged it; they're both elite shinobi, the Hokage and his son, one of the top jounin in the village.
Even if he still lives at home - the bastard has no right to talk. He is never going to leave the Uchiha compound, and Naruto has plans to beat him at sparring today, so there will be no room for his smooth mouth and all those fangirls .
He shudders.
Looking around the room, at the yellow-painted walls, the shining copper-bottomed pans hanging on the wall over the sink, and his parents, both very much alive and very well, Naruto has this disturbing sensation of unwellness.
It's not so much that feeling that this is all so very new to him, but an unshakeable knowing that he is used to being alone.
This hand carved table that his father had made his mother in one of his many overt gestures of affection is no more real than Sakura-chan's romantic feelings towards him; the walls are the color of wishful thinking, and the food on the table is everything Iruka tries to feed him.
He can feel the grain of wood against his fingers, the way a loose splinter digs in to the pad of his thumb, but his mind - there's an overwhelming sense of familiar loneliness.
But this is everything he has ever wanted.
Naruto thinks - knows - he has never wanted anything more than this table and the family life and history it bears.
Not even to be Hokage.
It's hard to choke down the rice now.