The next thing I'm going to post will probably be the next chapter of LoM. So keep an eye out for that, it's almost finished. :)

"Who Needs to Know?"

Prompt- Naruto and shame

He had a secret, it was hard to keep too because he wasn't exactly the type of person to be quiet and actually keep secrets. He had never had secrets until now anyway. In fact it had always been other people keeping secrets from him. He was more of the type of person to let everyone know everything, every thought as it came to him. Whether that was because he was just an open person or whether it was because he just wanted everyone to know everything from a deep seated need to feel connected he had yet to decide. Or rather he really didn't want to think about it. He hated being psychoanalyzed.

He was that kind of person. Whatever that meant.

So keeping this secret was especially hard, but he had to do it. For once he wanted people to keep out of his business and that meant that people now wanted to know what "was wrong with him". It figured that the one time he wanted to keep something to himself people were all over it like flies to a picnic. However letting people know would not only make him the laughing stock of all Konoha but it could also hurt his chances of becoming Hokage. It was that serious. And he didn't want to be an embarrassment. Especially to himself.

It wasn't even that he hadn't tried to fix it, but problems like that just didn't go away if you ignored them. In fact, now that he thought about it, ignoring things like this only made the problem worse. These sort of problems came back and stayed around for a while, like bad neighbors.

He wanted to ask someone about it, but what could he say? It was plain embarrassing; the problem itself and the fact that he couldn't manage it himself. He could only imagine the looks on everyone's faces. Kakashi-sensei, Yamato-taicho, that Pervert Sannin and that bastard Sai. He hated the thought that all those guys might look down on him if they knew. He definitely would not let anyone know, he'd rather turn himself in to the Akatsuki first... Well not really but that wasn't the point.

He had a vague suspicion that Iruka-sensei knew. But Iruka always seemed to know everything anyway. Especially how he was feeling, he was pretty sure that if anyone would understand it would be Iruka-sensei. But better safe then sorry. He hoped that if he never brought it up then Iruka wouldn't either. Even though he was dying to tell him and try to work out some sort of plan, but he didn't want to risk it.

Though something like this was hard to ignore and just not talking about it wouldn't be enough in the long run. Would Sakura...? No, she'd probably hurt him for being such an idiot.

He could make shadow clones like no tomorrow, and he could manipulate them fine, and not just his sexy ones. Jiraiya had told him he thought that this was easier for him because they were actual copies of his body and consumed massive amounts of energy rather then plain manipulated energy as illusions. It was the manipulating small amounts of power that got him every time. He just wasn't the manipulative type, it didn't click in his brain or something like that.

So to get to the point and be honest he still couldn't make a normal bunshin. He couldn't make substitutes either.

But nobody had to know that. It was his own dirty little secret.

Ok! Raise your hands, be honest, how many of you thought I made Naruto a baby-daddy? Ha. Dirty little secrets...