Scars
At first it was just a curious question at the back of his mind--the kind that you think about just before falling asleep and forget completely by the time you wake up.
Why don't I have any scars?
It had never occured to Naruto to think of his lack of scars as an abnormality; he'd always attributed it to the skills of the medical staff of Konoha Hospital. Although, he couldn't remember them ever actually healing him, just bandaging his various wounds as quickly as possible and sending him on his way. He never really dwelled on the absence of scars though, as there were always new cuts and scrapes to take the place of the old ones.
Being a growing boy, he was always outside playing in the forests and inevitably getting himself hurt from his many daredevil stunts, but those injuries were often minor and didn't land him in the hospital. Hospital visits usually occured after after run-ins with drunken villagers.
All the villagers seemed to hate him, but they usually steered clear of him, prefering to whisper insults to one another and throw fierce glares at him from a safe distance. But the drunkards had no problems with approaching him, taking buried frustrations out on him in the form of violent beatings. He didn't know why they hated him, but he'd realized at a very young age that resistance was futile in those cases and he grew to be used to it, learning to focus on anything but the pain and that once he'd been hit a few times his body would go into a numb shock that didn't even register the rest of the blows.
He was glad that there were never any scars left from those particular encounters. He didn't need such constant visual reminders of what had happened glaring at him from his own skin.
But when he entered the Academy, the lack of scars began to bother him. The question that was once content to linger in the back of his mind became more and more prominant, more persistant that it be answered. All the other kids had scars. They delighted in showing them off and telling the exaggerated stories behind them. Naruto had no scars to show off though--no stories to share--and the differences between him and them that left him isolated began to irritate Naruto. Why wasn't he like the other kids? Why didn't he have any scars?
It got to the point where he needed an answer, and since he didn't have one, Naruto went to the only person other than the old man Hokage who ever showed him kindness--Iruka--because he was Naruto's sensei and senseis had all the answers.
"Ne, Iruka-sensei, why don't I have any scars?"
"Eh? What are you talking about Naruto? You have scars; they're clear as day."
"Where?" Naruto had demanded, checking over himself frantically. With a sigh and a bittersweet quirk to his lips, Iruka had trailed a finger across one of Naruto's cheeks. Naruto'd reached up and felt them--the whisker-like markings that ran alongside his face. They were scars? He'd never thought of them as such. No scars he had ever seen had ever been so artistically drawn. The marks had been there so long that he barely even noticed them when he looked into a mirror; he'd always thought he'd just been born with them.
But no, they were scars--Naruto's scars--and for awhile, Naruto was content. He had scars, six in fact, and they were the coolest scars out of anyone in his class, no contest. It didn't matter that he didn't know the story behind them; he would make up something new and more fantistical than the last each time he was asked. All that mattered was that they were his, that he wasn't so different from his classmates after all.
However, when he graduated from the Academy, he found out just how he got the scars, and he wasn't so happy anymore. Now a new question plagued his sleep-deprived mind at night.
I'm not really a monster, am I? These scars, they prove I'm human, right?
Finis.
A/N: This has only been sitting in my notebook for, oh, nine months maybe. Geez, I'm so lazy. I could give Shikamaru a run for his money. Review and tell me what you think, then maybe I'll post some other one-shots that are waiting patiently in my notebook.
-mH