How to Break a Mask
Author: Kinomi Akai
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner, but I would eat Kraft Dinner - of course I would, I'd just eat more!
Summary: An incident at the festival on Oct. 10th reveals that there is a lot that everyone doesn't know about Naruto. Smart!Naruto, Sasunaru/Narusasu, Rated M to be safe
Pairings: Sasunaru/Narusasu, mentions of KakaIru, as of now.
Warnings: Shonen-ai, yaoi, boy x boy, whatever to want to call it. Sakura "bashing" in earlier chapters.
Author's Note: SOOOO. It has been way, way, way too long, and honestly, I have no excuse. Well, I do, but they're not any good, and you have better things to do with your time than to read all the excuses I can come up with.
I have edited the story, and I'm a lot happier with it now. I found the motivation in myself to keep writing after I read some reviews I got. I'd like to thank YaoiFanGirl5678; even though it wasn't a long review, it gave me a lot of motivation.
All I can say is that I'm really sorry, and that I intend to start taking my writing seriously. I have a lot of stuff that I want to put up here :)
"Blah" – talking
'blah' – thinking
'blah' – Kyuubi talking
Last time:
They exited the restaurant and looked at the booths that were nearly finished being set up. As they walked by, looking for something to do, the citizens of Konoha were fuming. The demon-boy hadn't shown his face on this day since when he was five, and they had taught him a lesson, a very significant lesson, and it seemed he hadn't learned. They looked to one another, silently communicating, thinking the same haunting thought; how shall we discipline him this time?
Chapter 4: The Bathroom
The first thing they did when they walked out of the restaurant was follow Kakashi to a stand right across the street, where he bought a great amount of food.
"Didn't we just eat...?" Sakura mumbled. Kakashi's eye curved up, and he turned and spoke to her:
"You can never have enough snacks!" He said as he paid for the bags.
"Oh, okay," she said.
Kakashi discretely passed a bag into Naruto's hand before turning and continuing to walk like nothing happened. Naruto was shell-shocked.
'Did he just...?'
"I told you he wasn't as dumb as the rest of them,"
"Oi, dobe! You coming?" Sasuke was looking back at him.
Naruto shook his head and hurried to catch up to his team. "So where are we even going?" Naruto finally spoke up.
"Hokage-sama is giving a speech, a few more minutes walk from here. It's starting soon," Kakashi remarked.
They walked until they were almost right in the middle of the festival, which only made Naruto even more paranoid.
There was a stage of some sort, and everyone seemed to be standing and waiting for something. Securely in the middle of his team, Naruto took a sad moment to look around, and think that if he wasn't himself, he could have had a lot of fun at this festival. The decorations were detailed and beautiful, and decorated with the symbol of Konoha. There was music and chatter and in spite of the somber occasion, everyone had put all they had into making this a happy occasion. Naruto felt a lump in his throat. He really, really didn't belong here.
The crowd was pushing now, as the time ticked closer to whatever would happen on stage. It was only a few minutes before that actually happened, but by then Naruto was feeling very claustrophobic. Sasuke was still on one side, which was fine, but he didn't know the person on his other side. But the man knew him. He caught his gaze and immediately looked to the floor. The restrained fury in his eyes said the man knew Naruto very well.
"Kakashi-sensei?" He half-whispered, since Tsunade had started talking. Kakashi managed to look reproachful, even with half of his face covered.
"Yes, Naruto?"
"I really need to, to go to the bathroom." 'Just let me go already!'
"You can't wait until after the speech?" Sakura hissed, peering around.
Sasuke was giving Naruto an odd look, but said nothing.
Kakashi sighed. "Just go."
"Thank you!" Naruto nearly sprinted out of the crowd. He didn't know where the nearest bathroom was; he didn't really care, to be honest. It's not as if he really needed to go, he just needed to get out of there. He felt total relief, until he realized that he was completely alone now, with no one except for the villagers.
"Kit...keep moving." Kyuubi said, and Naruto didn't have to be told twice.
Sasuke excused himself from the same crowd with a single word.
"Bathroom," he said, and Kakashi gave him a look, but nodded.
Naruto had been acting strange all day - and not his usual dumbass strange. Naruto was no stranger to daydreaming, but he had been completely out of it all day, and Sasuke had come near to shaking him to get him to focus. He had barely smiled all day, and his jokes had been even more weak than normal. Not to mention that thing with the food. He might have bought it, with Naruto's legendary appetite, if not for the fact that Kakashi-sensei clearly didn't. So why did Naruto lie?
Sasuke was going to find out.
Naruto, on the other hand, was nowhere near a bathroom. He walked briskly, because running would make him look like he had done something and he didn't want to give the villagers anymore incentive than they already had. His eyes were darting around, trying to find a safe place that he could lay low in for a while. There were some villagers that did not turn as he passed, not noticing him at all. But there were a great many who did, and a great many who he feared.
The villagers of Konoha weren't normal enemies. In spite of his shitty childhood, he really did love it here. He wanted to fit in and be part of the family, and sometimes he almost felt like he was - and then a holiday would come up and slap him in the face with the fact that he was still alone. So he couldn't fight back - not while they still hated him - because then he would never be part of the village. He would just be the monster who hurt them again, but even worse, they wouldn't be wrong about this monster: it would really have been Naruto, not Kyuubi.
Not to mention the council, which he had learned way too much about when the Sandaime was still alive. If an enemy ninja didn't kill him, the council would probably end up doing the job, and he didn't want to give them any reason to speed up the process. God knows they had an awful history with listening to all sides of a story.
His walking sped up.
"What are you going to do when your team starts looking for you?" Kyuubi, who had been silent most of this time, asked.
'I have no idea. But that's the lesser of two evils.'
"Do you even know where you're going?"
'I'm heading to the apartment, it's the safest place. I'll tell my team that I got lost or something, and that was the only place I knew wh-' He felt an arm grab him.
Naruto looked up and saw a large, middle-aged man. Naruto hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings enough.
'Fuck.'
"Going somewhere?" The man asked, and Naruto's heart started beating twice as fast. He was suddenly aware of all the other villagers that had stopped what they were doing. They started to approach him, casually. There were no stands around here anymore, no innocent people who would ask why adults were circling a child.
Naruto swallowed. "J-just going home." He cursed his stutter, because it made the man smile.
An elderly lady, who would look kindly by any other circumstances, replied, "Why don't we help you make it there?"
"No thank you," Naruto responded, a little too quickly. "I'll be fine." He said, trying to remove the man's arm without showing the panic that was quickly consuming him.
"Now, now, that's not polite. You should treat a lady with respect, it was very kind of her to offer that." The grip tightened until it was painful, "I think you need to be taught some manners."
Author's Note:
Cliffie :) I uploaded this as soon as I finished it, to prove I'm still alive...ish. I'm going to continue as soon as I can, and try to update as soon as I can. I really do want to finish this story, although now I realize how big it's going to be, with everything that I want to do.
I have a lot of other stories in the works, that I'll start uploading...maybe. I want to see how things go when I try to work on more than one story at a time.
I want to give a HUGE thank you for everyone who kept me on their favourite or alert list, who reviewed even after they saw how long it had been since I posted a new chapter. I haven't been in the Naruto fandom in a while, but I'm going to try my hardest to get back into it.
Till next time,
- Kinomi Akai
