Disclaiming banner: How could I possibly have any claim to rights over Naruto? I'm not Japanese for starters.
A friend suggested I write about how Naruto couldn't possibly be all right in the head after living the childhood he had. This is what came out. She was a little disturbed. ^_^
Crqcked
Naruto liked getting attention. He was good at it. His early childhood consisted almost entirely of getting his care-takers annoyed enough to speak to him. But there were times when he didn't want a single human eye on him.
On those days, he went into the woods and tore the legs off insects.
The practice had come to him so gradually he wasn't exactly sure when it became a habit. But he did it almost everyday until he got into the academy after the Old Bitch.
It was around his hat phase too, come to think of it. In his four-year-old brain it made perfect sense that it was his hair that the other villages hated. It was a weird yellow, and he didn't have a comb so it never looked like any of the other kids' did. So the hat was perfect.
And being in the park was awesome, too. Fresh air, cool breeze; squirrels fucking in the trees. Early summer meant rummaging for mushrooms in the undergrowth before the berries came in. His care-taker wouldn't feed him until later in the day so the morning was spent outdoors finding stuff to eat or annoy.
The bird people were prime targets for the latter. Some of them must not have had enough to do because they would bring binoculars and just watch the birds fly around. Those cocksuckers never found any birds to watch when Naruto was around because he always chased the damn plague-venders off. Stupid birds eating up his bread. The bird-feeding people were way better than the bird-watching people. They always had bread or seeds and weren't quick enough to catch him. A lot of them were old bastards.
None of them were ninja. Easy pickin's, if it weren't for the Old Bitch. Looking back, she probably wasn't that old, but she was a retired ninja, and that made her act ancient. And twitchy. And mean. The first time that they met in Naruto's park he knew that it was going to change everything.
She started by yelling at him to leave. That was okay, most adults yelled at him and she only seemed to show up every once in a while towards the end of the day when he was going home anyways. It didn't take long for her to start throwing stones and other stuff at him. Then her friends started showing up to throw stuff at him too.
He'd understood hatred, and anger before. They taught him helplessness. So it was natural that when the Bitch and her assholes showed up and claimed the park for themselves, Naruto ran until he could find something to take his helplessness out on.