Characters: Naruto, Naruko
Summary: A girl's body ought not to be needed to get others to look at him, except it is and Naruto doesn't know what to do.
Pairings: None
Author's Note: I find it amazing that the character filter now has Naruko U. on it, a character whom I'm assuming is the name of Naruto's Oiroke form. What I find so amazing is that there's a character choice for someone who isn't actually a character; it's just the form Naruto takes during the Oiroke jutsu. However, that serves my purpose well. This is Naruto at the very beginning of the manga, by the way, so keep that in mind if you want to snipe at me about characterization.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
For some attention, Naruto will do anything in the world, short of degrading himself to death. He who has always been ignored just wants someone to admit that they see him standing there. Is that so much to ask for? Is it so much to ask that he have their attention for just half a minute, maybe a whole?
Naruto doesn't think it is.
It's from a few discarded magazines that he gets the idea.
Naruto knows he doesn't really need to be looking at these magazines, even if no one's told him so; children just have both an instinctual knowledge of what's inappropriate and an inability to stay away from it. And from Naruto's point of view, if someone leaves a stack of magazines by a dumpster in an alley, then the magazines are fair game.
The moment he turns a page and gets an eyeful Naruto slams the cover shut and immediately drops the magazine, but the image of a naked woman is burned into his head and it won't leave.
Naruto considers himself traumatized for all of five minutes ("That's what a girl looks like under her clothes?") before he gets an idea and an evil grin splits over his face.
The form would be easily achieved with Henge. And if he's good at nothing else, Naruto is good with Henge.
It works. Oiroke no Jutsu is nothing if not effective. When in his alternate form Naruto is eye-catching, and all those who see him can't help but stare. Most men and some women become remarkably easy to manipulate and those who aren't may spit and holler and protest but at least they're paying attention. At least they're not acting as though Naruto doesn't exist. He's not invisible anymore, and that's all he asks.
But he starts to wonder.
If this is the only way he can gain the attention of others, if turning into a naked woman, modesty maintained only by steam, is the only surefire way for Uzumaki Naruto to get others to acknowledge his presence, then what is his value?
Naruto doesn't know, and wishes, beyond all else, that he didn't have to change his shape to get others to look at him.
And somehow, he always sees a round-faced, rosy-cheeked girl with blonde pigtails staring back at him in the mirror after he's used Oiroke. She winks and grins, just like him, but she's not him. She's the Naruto who can get others to look at her with no difficulty and never has to worry about being ignored.
Why does he have to be her to get attention?
It ought to be just him. He ought to be good enough.
But she's better, and Naruto doesn't know what to do.