Fox and Hound: Introduction
Random Rambling: Here is a quite angsty, I suppose, KakaNaru two-shot.
I dedicate this to all the readers of BCD, here you finally get some KakaNaru slash
Warnings: Rated M for a reason, people. This contains Yaoi. Slash. Boy on Boy loving.
If you do not like that, please click the back button instead of complaining at the end.
You were warned; if you still want to read it, go ahead.
Disclaimer; do you think Masashi Kishimoto would write this? Good, neither do I.
Naruto belongs to him, this plot/Story belongs to me.
Now read ;)
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Fox and Hound: Introduction
Apathy
ap • a •thy - ap-uh-thee
-noun, plural – thies
Absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
Lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
Also, ap • a • thei • a, ap • a • thi • a
Stoicism. Freedom from emotion of any kind
- Synonyms 1. Coolness. 2 See INDIFFERENCE
- Antonyms 1. Ardor, fervor.
Indifference
In • dif • fer • ence - in-dif-er-uh ns
-noun
lack of interest of concern
unimportance; little or no concern
the quality of condition of being indifferent
mediocre quality; mediocrity.
- Synonyms 1. INDIFFERENCE, UNCONCERN, LISTLESSNESS, APATHY, INSENSIBILITY all imply lack of feeling. INDIFFERENCE denotes and absence of feeling or interest; UNCONCERN, an absence of concern or solicitude, a calm or cool indifference in the face of what might be expected to cause uneasiness or apprehension; LISTLESSNESS, an absence of inclination or interest, a languid indifference to what is going on about one; APATHY, a profound intellectual and emotional indifference suggestive of faculties either naturally sluggish or dulled by emotional disturbance, mental illness or prolonged sickness; INSENSIBILITY, an absence of capacity for feeling or susceptibility to emotional influences.
- Antonyms 1. Eagerness, responsiveness
Fox
A blonde shinobi aged 19 is standing at the bridge where he and his team used to meet back in his genin days, the nostalgia which would usually overcome him, or any other person in his situation, never coming. He looks at his surroundings, his gaze apathetic, his eyes so void of any emotion that, it seems, they might just drag you in if you dare to look into them.
In the ninja world people like – not to such an extent as the blonde, but resembling him – the teen are not uncommon; it is a known fact that the shinobi are merely tools, not having any emotions is the simplest way to get through life, but for those who know the blond for who he used to be the change is so extreme that it nearly seems the male is not the same person any longer; it's almost terrifying to see what has become of him.
The teen standing at the bridge used to be, according to anyone who knew him before his world became the living hell that it is now, Konoha's number one most hyper-active knucklehead ninja, now he is but a shadow of his former self. The boy is completely apathetic, indifferent to anything, even the missions he undertakes do not matter to him anymore, the lives he take don't seem to bother him like they would before, and the only reason he still does take missions is that he hopes, so dearly hopes, that on one of the missions something will happen and he will die, but alas no. Death seems not to be meant for him; his whole life a wish for death has been hiding in the deepest, darkest part of his mind, even when he was younger, however happy he seemed he often thought, in his lonely hours, of how much easier it would be for everyone if he was dead - everyone including himself – although he would try his hardest to push that thought away and rather attempt to lead a happy life like when he was younger.
There are several reasons he is not dead yet, he supposes, the most obvious being the demon sealed inside him. The demon that will not let him die. Then there is the fact that he has unfulfilled promises that come to haunt him in the very moments before he is supposed to die, every time, and he subconsciously defends himself, killing the enemy and returning back home to his failed life yet again. There have been occasions when he's returned to Konoha on the brink of death; bled out, poisoned, torn to shreds – but he is always saved by the woman that has taken him in as her little brother, and when he sees those sad, brown eyes looking into his, telling him that he still has things to live for, he almost feels. Almost, but not quite.
He walks slowly towards the central part of the city. As he passes Ichiraku's, a place he often used to dine before, he lifts a hand to wave to the owner and his daughter to be polite, he no longer has any kind of relationship with them, in fact it's been more than two years since he last talked to either of them. He keeps walking, occasionally making a left here and a right there until he ends up outside a run-down apartment building; his apartment building. The blonde walks slowly up the stairs – the elevator is broken - until he gets to the sixth floor, taking a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door, slamming it closed behind him as he enters the dirty, run-down, two room apartment that has come to be his home. A home, nothing more, nothing less, simply the place that he goes to sleep at night whenever he is in Konoha, other than those few hours each night he tries to stay away from it as much as he can, he doesn't like it there. Not that he cares, no, but that place which he has always lived holds so many traces of his past that his apathetic self would prefer to avoid, not one for reminiscing.
The teen puts his equipment down by his bed, pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it to the pile of dirty clothes lying by his bathroom door, then walks slowly into the kitchen. He opens the fridge, looking through it before he pulls out a carton of orange juice and an apple that he bought yesterday – he's stopped eating ramen too, that which used to be his favorite food, rather sticking with the healthy alternatives, he is a shinobi after all, enjoyment has no place in his life. A melancholy smile graces his lips for reasons he does not care to think about as his eyes pass the picture of Team 7, the only trace of his past that he's kept, then he walks back into his bedroom/living-room, sitting down on his bed as he eats. When he's done eating he finds a new tee from his closet, black like most of his clothes nowadays, and puts it on before he again leaves his apartment.
He heads out, unsure of where he's going or what he is doing, nodding in acknowledgement as he passes old acquaintances – Neji, Shikamaru, Hinata – yes, acquaintances are what they are to him now, nothing more, nothing less. Back in the day he would have called them friends, but not any longer, he only speaks to them when they occasionally go on missions together, which for his part is seldom ever since he made the rank of a hunter, he prefers working alone. When he walks into the missions office Iruka sits there, the chuunin smiling at his former student and 'adoptive son' desperately reaching out to the boy, any reaction from the blonde's would be good enough, but nothing. Not even the one who was always there for him can seem to get even the slightest twitch of his lips any more; he hasn't really smiled in so long.
The blonde quickly takes a folded paper out of one of his pockets, opening it up before he puts it on the desk before the tan male, saying his greetings and formal pleasantries before he turns his back on the man and leaves, not seeing the sad look in the scarred man's eyes or the single tear trailing his cheek.
Once he's delivered the report of his last mission, that was the purpose for his going out, he doesn't know what to do, letting his feet take him where they want. He ends up in a small meadow. A stone on which several of his former friends names are engraved stands in the middle of this small sanctuary, the memorial stone. There are so many names on it, he thinks to himself, why not mine too?
He reads the many names on the dark grey stone, tracing those of the ones he knew gently with his fingertips; Sasuke – yes, the Uchiha prodigy was killed, by him in fact, it's a long story, perhaps he will think about it some other time, but not now. Jiraiya, the man who was like a father figure to him, but who gave his life in the great battle of Konoha and the Akatsuki, the reason he chose not to feel. Yondaime, not that he knew the man, but he was his father, and the blonde, had he been his old self, would wonder how different his life could have been, but he doesn't care to waste energy on wishful thinking. And then there is Kiba, the boy was one of his closest friends when he was alive, who died on the very mission when he killed Sasuke…
He doesn't want to be there any longer, doesn't want to see all those names out of fear that if he stays his memories will come to haunt him, and he knows that if his memories come to him, then so will his old dreams, and when he thinks of his memories and dreams it hurts. It hurts so much; that is why he has chosen not to feel.
He turns around and starts to walk, only to notice a familiar shadow standing at the end of the woods surrounding the small clearing, rain starting to fall from the heavy skies above as he hears his name being said in a familiar voice.
"Naruto."
Grief greef
-noun
1. Keen mental suffering or distress over affliction of loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.
2. A cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.
-Idioms
3. Come to grief, to suffer disappointment, misfortune, or other trouble; fail
4. Good grief, (used as an exclamations of dismay, surprise, or relief)
-Related forms
griefless, adjective
grief • less • ness, noun
-Synonyms 1. Anguish, heartache, woe, misery; sadness, melancholy, moroseness
See SORROW
-Antonyms 1. Joy.
Sorrow
sor·row sor-oh, sawr-oh
1. distress caused by loss, affliction, disappointment, etc.; grief, sadness, or regret.
2.a cause or occasion of grief or regret, as an affliction, a misfortune, or trouble: His first sorrow was the bank failure.
3. the expression of grief, sadness, disappointment, or the like: muffled sorrow.
–verb (used without object)
4. to feel sorrow; grieve.
—Related forms
sor·row·er, noun
sor·row·less, adjective
—Synonyms 1. Sorrow, distress, grief, misery, woe imply bitter suffering, especially as caused by loss or misfortune. Sorrow is the most general term. Grief is keen suffering, esp. for a particular reason. Distress implies anxiety, anguish, or acute suffering caused by the pressure of trouble or adversity. Misery suggests such great and unremitting pain or wretchedness of body or mind as crushes the spirit. Woe is deep or inconsolable grief or misery. 2. adversity. 4. mourn, lament.
Hound
Memories; they are all that he has, all he won't let go of. They're what keep him human.
He's a shinobi: a killer, a tool. He's killed so many, taken the lives of so many loved ones, and in his sleep he sees them yet again; waking in a sweat, his heart pounding in his chest. He looks at the clock on his nightstand, the green numbers telling him it's 6.15 am; he's still got an hour till he needs to get up.
As he sits up in his bed, the silver-haired male moves his gaze from the clock to the two other objects on his nightstand; two pictures. The picture closest to the clock, the one on the right, depicts the team he was on from he was a genin until he became jounin, god how he misses those days. He never had an easy life, he thinks, he never knew his mother and his father – the legendary white fang of Konoha – committed suicide after a mission that took a, to say the least, completely wrong turn, leaving him to fend for himself at an early age. Ever since his father's suicide he has chosen to live by the rules, at least then he has something, an anchor for his sanity, so to speak. He looks at the faces in the picture, at those faces he will never see again; no, even his own will no look like it did back then even thought he is the one who ought to have changed the least.
He smiles a melancholy smile as thoughts of what his life could have been pass through his mind, quickly chasing it away. He does not wish to think that he could have been happy, he doesn't deserve it, and it hurts. The faces in the picture smile at him, making him hurt all the more; a young girl, himself and another boy. Both those two are gone now, the boy is dead. Uchiha Obito, his best friend, is dead, the boy died saving him. The girl, Rin, he doesn't know what happened to her; she disappeared on a mission never to be seen again, assumed dead. She was the one who have him Obito's present, a sharingan eye. As he looks to the top of the picture, the mismatched eyes seem to sadden even more, a low sigh escaping his lips. He looks at their sensei, Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage, his blue eyes seem to – still, even after his death – look straight through the male's soul, his blonde hair making him look so much like a certain, other blonde. Uzumaki Naruto, his son.
The man, who is in his mid-thirties, turns his head slightly to look at the picture to the left; again he sights. Also in this picture there are four people, himself and the team of genin he was assigned to teach, to take care of. If he was one for emotions a tear might have escaped his eyes at this point of time, but he is not, and it doesn't. Instead he keeps looking at the picture. He takes a look at himself first, he looks quite the same as in the older picture, the only difference is that in the more recent one he is holding a bright orange book – the title reads "Icha Icha" andsomething he cant work out, and the slight hint of a smile beneath his mask is not real like in the old photo.
Moving along he looks at the three twelve-year olds, the girl first. She looks so happy, so sure of herself, and if he looks away from her pink hair she reminds him of Rin. Then he looks at the boy with jet black hair and black eyes. Uchiha Sasuke, the boy who became a traitor, and he frowns as he looks to the last pre-teen in the picture, thinking of how much grief the raven has caused him, and still is causing him.
The last person in the picture looks so much like his father it's stunning, and although he does not carry his father's name it is not hard to see that Naruto is the Yondaimes legacy. The widely grinning blonde in the picture has changed so much it's causing quite a lot of people to worry for him; Uzumaki Naruto is but a shell of his former self. The man, who used to be his teacher, hasn't spoken to him in ages, he is not proud of it, but that is the way things have turned out.
As he continues to ponder about the blonde, the man's eyes again strife his clock; it's now 7 am and he decides to get up. Time passed so much faster than he thought as he was thinking back. He shoves the nostalgic feeling out of the back of his head and puts on his clothes slowly. When he's dressed he walks into his kitchen, preparing himself a quick meal consisting of two eggs and some toast before he locks up his apartment and goes to the missions office to hand in the report for the mission he just returned from. He's back on active ANBU duty now.
When he enters the dull building that is the missions office he notices a couple of familiar faces; Genma, Izumo and, of course, Iruka, who works there. He looks at the younger male, smiling as he walks towards him, but as he gets closer he sees the sadness in the man's eyes, the traces of a long gone tear that has rolled down his cheek leaving the skin looking slightly different due to the salty liquid. He hands the report over to the chuunin and tries to make conversation; he can't stand to see the male in such a state as he is now, and has been for quite some while.
After some minutes of unpleasant, uncomfortable conversing he gives up, walking away with tired steps and heading out into the daylight again. He finds one of the many bars of Konoha and goes inside, settling by the counter ordering some sake, giving the bartender a 50 percent tip simply because he doesn't want the change. As he drinks he can't help thinking about Iruka, it's been close to a year since they broke up – they were too different – but he still thinks about the younger male, worries about him. Although he knows that it would never work out between them, and that the male has moved on – he's seeing Shizune now (yes, he's bi) – he can't help but feel his heart wrenching every time he sees the male looking sad, which has been often as of late although he doesn't know why – probably something to do with Naruto, he thinks to himself.
Once he's finished his sake he gets up and leaves, heading for the place that binds him to this village that he lives in, the memorial stone, where his heart and soul are trapped in the names of his comrades that are etched into it. It only takes him minutes to get there, but when he's standing at the edge of the clearing he sees a familiar person walking away from the stone, hesitating before he calls out.
"Naruto." The blonde looks up, avoiding his eyes.
"Kakashi."
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Random Rambling: The Yaoi comes in the second chapter.
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