I have some exams and busy times ahead, this is to sate your thirst for a while, a two-shot. See you at MCM Expo if you're there, I'll be Misa (sat) and Orihime (sun)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

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Fake

I don't know how I realised, no-one said anything to make me understand, or forced me into thoughts. It may have happened slowly without me knowing, no it didn't happen slowly, it was sudden, almost like an epiphany, but it wasn't life changing. Maybe I already knew but had been deluding myself about it.

Nothing special happened, nothing out of the ordinary, it was a normal day, I was with my friends, well the people I associated with back then. I thought they were my friends but looking back, none of them were, not with anyone, you can't have real friends when everything is fake. That's what I realised.

Fake.

We were all fake, even me, everything I thought I knew, it was fake. Their smiles and laughs, even Sakura's designer handbag, we were so fake.

I'd heard people say it before, but it had never made any sense to me, spoilt little rich kids were evil and fake, only looking out for themselves and not really seeing the world around them. Were we really that deluded? And unfortunately it was true, we were. I thought I had a perfect family and lifestyle, my mother was a successful model when she was younger, my father owned a great company which gave us the security and wealth we had. I even had a doting older brother, he was a genius he already had achieved several degrees and masters, and was currently touring the world. I myself have also been proclaimed a genius; I am currently in the last year of sixth form before I go to university. But I have the highest grades out of the whole school, the whole county even, and I did my math A level not one year ahead but two years, and my chemistry A level a year ahead.

But that's all a delusion.

My mother was once beautiful, now she clings to the past like her 10 am cocktails. Endless amounts of plastic surgery to bring back the beauty she once had, what my father married her for, my father and her have nothing in common, there is no relationship, she throws herself into not so secret affairs with young men. My father is a workaholic, doing everything to keep his business thriving, he has no interest in his family, I can't even recall when I last saw him for longer than 30 minutes, or had a conversation with him. The company is his baby; I'm only here to take over it, since Itachi won't anymore. Itachi my older brother, he was a genius, forced into his talents, then he rebelled against his future, he's touring the world, but not like father describes, as if it was some wonderful business trip to broaden his horizon and acquire new skills. Itachi has left our family; he couldn't handle being pressured into what he had become, a mere puppet for our father to mould as he wants, another version of himself. And now that Itachi has escaped his grasp, he is doing it to me.

I'm not a genius, these grades do not come to be easily, it is not natural, father employs tutor after tutor, extra lessons which take up my entire time. Even now, I have a private tutor for further maths, and business studies, my own private university in my study. At university I can live life as I want, it is the freedom from my family, do to as I want. But that's not true either, I will still be controlled there, and after, I will join his company, work my way up, become partner, then when he retires I will take over. I will be just like him, living for the company, probably married to a woman I don't love, then to have kids and force them down the very same path I am on. Like some sort of vicious cycle.

Everything is fake, the superiority of this school, the excellence of its staff, even its excellent students. Money is poured into this school, they can claim anything they want, or get away with what they want.

I gaze around, all I see is fake, the people around me as I walk, all nice sweet smiles at me, they want me to believe them kind? They want to be my friend?

No

They couldn't, they are all fake, they see my name, they see my good looks, but they don't see me. I ignore all those around me, then I stop.

I see him, it's like a breath of fresh air, he doesn't seem to fit in with the fakeness around him, the only real person in this world of lies. Even though his hair is blond and his eyes are blue, surely they must be fake; he's from Japan, but still.

I can't quite place him; I can't dismiss him as fake. His laugh is so real, not faked or forced at all, even his eyes smile. He is real. I continue to stare, the eyes eventual stop smiling and a slight frown covers his face for a moment, before a smile crosses his face. Those eyes that lit up so brightly dimmed, looking around uneasy, he looks like a trapped animal, like he didn't understand where he was.

It is with some unexplained sadness that I realise, he is fake too, but he knows, he is like me, we see the fakeness but we can't do anything about it.

But that makes him all the more real to me.

And I smile the first real smile I have since I was a young child.

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thoughts?