Monster

As a child, Naruto could not comprehend the looks that people passed him (it wasn't as if he got much practice with them). He lived most of his life in solitude, shoved away at home with his dilapidated refrigerator and a drab houseplant as company. Shunned from any human contact and hiding away in the shadows, he wondered if he really existed at all.

(He heard that they hated the "thing" living inside of him. As a child, this was another thing that he could not comprehend.)

One time at the Academy, he remembered attacking a boy for calling him a freak. It was probably his first day, he didn't remember, but what did remember was the look of horror that spread over the boys' mother's faces and how much his bare skin stung from her erratic and half-crazed attacks.

(Monster, they called him.)

Naruto didn't know what he did to make people hate him.

He remembered clearly the first day that Iruka-sensei came into his life. Iruka was a new and struggling teacher, desperate to make amends (though for what, Naruto did not know). Iruka had treated him to ramen one day (though why, Naruto did not ask). They didn't talk, but Naruto got the message.

He remembered as a child that he had looked at Iruka and concluded that he too had a monster inside of him. He had that same hungry look in his eyes that Naruto had. He felt the same pain that Naruto felt. And sometimes, when no one was listening, he'd fall silent too (and it didn't take long for Naruto to figure out that Iruka's silences were the most haunting silences that he had ever heard so far).

Naruto concluded that he and Iruka would make a good team.

(Naruto also concluded that, if Sasuke let him, they'd be a good team too. But Sasuke had yet to find his monster. Naruto was willing to wait.)