Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

I hate being the Hokage's grandson.

It's not that I don't love my grandpa, because I do. He's always laughing and I look up to him a lot.

But there's a difference between my grandpa and the Hokage. He taught me that himself.

"When I'm with those I love, I can be Sarutobi," he once said, smoking on his pipe as he sat me on his lap, years ago. "But when I step out into the world, I'm the Hokage, the strongest ninja in the village."

And then he looked at me and smiled. "But I prefer being a grandfather the most."

I didn't quite get it then. How could you be someone somewhere, and another person in a different place?

It didn't make any sense to me.

But then people started looking at me like that.

At home, I could be Konohamaru, just a regular boy who wanted to be a ninja.

Outside, I had to be the grandson of the Hokage. In their eyes, I was nothing but the Hokage's son. Not Konohamaru, but the grandson of the greatest ninja of the village.

They even thought I should be Hokage, when I grew up. So people were always watching me, and whenever I did anything even slightly good, they would tell me I could be Hokage, that I would be Hokage.

So I thought I should be one, if only because everyone else thought I should.

It was cool for the first few weeks, when everyone would flock to me and ask me questions about my grandfather. Everyone wanted to know me, to watch me, to talk to me. And I had stories about my grandfather, and not all of them... well, as dignified as he might want you to think.

The one with the ladies bath and his lost pipe still puts me in tears when I think about it.

Hokage my grandpa may be, he's nothing when faced with naked women.

Speaking of naked women, I can't believe Naruto managed to knock my grandpa out with the Sexy no Jutsu.

I've got to try that out sometime.

Who'd have thought the great Hokage would be felled by a genin's own personal jutsu?

Naruto... he was different, from the moment I saw him. If only because no one else could talk to my grandpa like that. Or me, for that matter.

And I liked it. I liked the fact that if I was a complete and utter jerk, he would tell me straight.

The difference between Naruto and everyone else was, Naruto was real. Naruto was true.

He wouldn't lie.

He wouldn't pretend he was my friend, wouldn't pretend he knew me.

He was so different that I couldn't help but follow him. I wanted to know this person who could stand up to my grandfather and tell me I was an idiot.

When I followed him though, I saw. I saw the way people would purposefully look away and move as far away from him as he crossed the street. They whispered words like "demon", "evil", and "dangerous".

I couldn't believe it.

I knew those people. Some of them were really nice people, always smiling at me and offering me a spare sweet or wanting to talk with me.

But those same people looked at Naruto with hate and fear.

And I saw he didn't care. He heard them, saw them, but stared back defiantly and kept walking, head held high.

He wasn't afraid to speak his mind, and he wasn't afraid of what other people thought.

Grandpa couldn't say everything he wanted, couldn't be what he wanted because he was Hokage, because of everyone else.

Naruto was strong... maybe even stronger than grandpa, because no one's opinion held him down. Naruto knew what it was like to have everyone look at you and think they know you, think they have all there is to know on you-

And be completely wrong.

I think it was about then I realized I'd found my hero.

Naruto could understand. Naruto had the same dreams as me, knew how it felt to have people place their own opinions on that dream.

But where people told me I could do it, when Ebisu-sensei continued to push me, telling me I would be Hokage, no one told Naruto he could.

But he said he would anyway.

He was strong... stronger than anyone I knew.

I thought Hokage was something I could get, like a toy. But to Naruto... to Naruto it was different. It was an honor, something to be worked for.

The difference between what I thought Hokage was and what Naruto thought was so different. And I knew he was right, that what I had believed was wrong.

Naruto was what I wanted to be. Someone strong. Someone right.

So I vowed that whatever he did, I would do. He would be my model for being Hokage, not my grandfather.

I would surpass him, like I would surpass my grandpa. That's when I knew I was the best, that I was worthy of being Hokage.

I wanted to be a Hokage who wasn't bound by anyone, who did what they thought was right, and to Hell with anyone else.

I wanted to be Naruto.

Also... I wanted to see the look on grandpa's face when I use the Sexy no Jutsu on him.

Author's Notes

Konohamaru feels a bit too mature, but then again, he's being trained to be a ninja- i.e., to fight and to kill.

I purposefully made him a bit blind to Naruto's flaws. He is, after all, a child.

To forestall any requests for me to do a character, most characters will get their moment. Hinata is a later chapter, to answer a reviewer. Some characters I don't have plans for- Kankuro, Tenten, and Gai are some of the bigger ones. But if you ask before the storyline passes their moment, I might be encouraged to write those chapters.

Up next- Tazuna.