Oh! Gravity...
By Aiya Nova
Set to a song I'm sure some will recognize. No real meaning behind it. Just a small story that seemed to flow from the words and rhythm, I hope the characters don't seem out of themselves, it's hard to predict what traits some may keep as their lives progress.
Regardless, enjoy. :)
/..
There's a fracture in the color bar
In the backseat of a parked car
The paperwork had piled up overnight, it seemed. Sunrise was hot on the moon's trail, pushing night off as day forcefully came. A flock of birds crossed the windows, in a reckless formation, and a tiresome flight pattern. One of them landed on the ledge of the open window, looking at the form laid across the table, swamped with papers that were spilling over onto the floor. With a twitch of its beak, the bird let out a screech that brought the Hokage to his feet. Literally.
By the liquor store where the streetlight
Keep you company 'til the next night
Grabbing at the edge of the desk furiously, he used it to fling himself at the window on his wheeled chair, slamming the window shut as the startled bird squawked and flew out of the way, clambering back into the sky dazedly.
"Damn messenger birds!" Cringing at the sight of the sun, the Hokage pulled his lopsided hat out of his line of vision. Glancing at the stacks of papers on the desk, some slipping to the floor as the desk grew further incapable of holding them.
"I see those papers aren't going anywhere." An annoyed voice from the doorway commented tauntingly. Leaning on one side of the doorframe, the leader of the Konoha Educational Association (AKA: School) and proud, but lazy, member of the black ops, Nara Shikamaru, stood staring at his polished katana.
In the same town, there's the same scar
In the same glow of the liquor store
"Guess not, you want to spend a night signing them all?! Approving every little thing in the village--"
"No one ever said being Hokage was fun." Shikamaru ran his finger across the glimmering blade admiringly.
"Not that I was expecting it to be." Naruto shot out of the corner of his mouth, choosing to stare out the window instead of his old teammate.
Shikamaru scoffed at the comment, tucking the blade back in it's sheath and turning to lean his elbow against the doorframe. "Yeah, right." He paused for a moment, glancing at the stack of papers with a crooked smile. "You're not a very good Hokage if you're letting a few papers get on your nerves."
By the freeway, where the headlight
Keep her company 'til the next night
Naruto fumed at the statement, he shot up, flipping his hat off and slamming it on the desk. He stared at Shikamaru hard for a second, but didn't retort as he pushed his chair back, and plopped upon it, now hidden behind the mountain of pages.
"Same old, same old. Another day, some more papers to file, reports to fill out, contracts and proposals to sign, and most of all, meetings with those old hags downstairs…" Naruto mumbled as Shikamaru clearly heard his head connect with the desk, seeing papers shaken off and scattered around the its vicinity.
Muffled from on the desk, Naruto commented dully on the state of things. "I hate gravity."
"Why's that?" Shikamaru had barely moved.
"Because, idiot, if it didn't exist maybe all these damn paper could just float up and never come back down."
Oh! Gravity.
Why can't we seem to keep it together?
Shikamaru snorted loudly, audibly unimpressed by his superior's intellect. "Then we'd all be like those papers, idiot."
Naruto raised his head, admired the rising sun, and wondered why his envisions of Hokage never included this much busywork. His organization was dreadful and he was never on time for anything. Hokage was a harder position to hold together then any.
Sons of my enemies,
Why can't we seem to keep it together?
The world was mess right now, and Naruto was a mess trying to fix it. Not only Konoha's problems, but all the other alliances too.
"Shikamaru, tell Hinata how desolate my condition looks, and that I'll have to postpone our lunch at Ichiraku's until I recover." Naruto announced dramatically, getting a smirk from Shikamaru.
"I'll tell you drowned under a pile of stress, I'm sure she'll understand." With a quirky smile, Shikamaru saluted his overworked superior, bowed, and left the room.
In the back room of the Pentagon
There's a thin man with a line drawn
As Naruto watched the dizzying amounts of paper sink to the floor, he slouched further into his chair, realizing the only thing keeping him here was his own laziness. Cursing under his breath, he grabbed another pen, whisked a paper out from wherever one lay, and began scribling ferociously.
With a red jaw and a red bite
Watch the headline on the next night
When he had finished nearly half of them, he realized how quickly the piles seemed to grow, and the same helpless, stressed out feeling he had before sunk back into place. Not only had he ripped through more then thirty mission reports--three ending in at least one death and he didn't even pay heed--but also more then a hundred pages of absolute pointlessness. He even encountered a proposal that a law be passed stating the illegality to bathe chickens in the hotsprings.
Frustrations growing, Naruto grabbed furiously at his hair, groaning as he brought his head upon the desk again.
Why this tragedy?
Why can't we seem to keep it together?
In the fallout, the fallout
We found out the hype won't get you through
As he heard the bustle of the city and the birds chirping gleefully outside, he began to think more broadly about why he was sitting in this chair in the first place.
We're connected, connected
I meant it, the hype won't get you through
This was nothing like had imagined it would be, not at all like the amazing, heroic dream future he had laid out for himself in the past. This was a world of responsibility, dependability, and most of all--hard work. He and hard work were no strangers, but this was not what he imagined. A desk job with the benefits of fame and ninja greatness. When would he get a chance to defend the village? Fight for the people he wanted to protect. Fight for his home, for all those heroic reasons?
Sighing as he grabbed the pen, Naruto glanced at the blue sky behind him before turning to the large, but lessened, mound of paperwork that all came with the job. Perhaps...Shikamaru's statement was meant to be taken to heart more then Naruto cared to admit...
"Gravity…" Naruto commented to the proposal before him, smiling crookedly as he did so, "…why can't we seem to keep it together?"