Naruto stared at the butterfly perched on his grubby little kid finger. He was filled with wonder at the prospect of flight. How did it work? How did a butterfly become a butterfly?
He had a lot of patience, he thought. His legs ached to run and skip but he felt glued in place as the butterfly slowly stretched its beautiful purple and pink wings. Oh, to fly!
The wind blew, fluttering the insect's dainty wings. His stomach flopped and he exhaled abruptly. The spell was broken and his fleeting relationship with the butterfly ended. With a handful of flaps it escaped his grasp and took back off. Naruto raced after it, giggling to himself and flapping his arms.
His feet never left the ground, but he would have sworn he was flying, too.
—
"Why does he play alone all the time, mama?" Sasuke watched with dark eyes as the strange little boy ran around all by himself flapping his arms. He felt her fingers gently ruffle his hair and turned to give her his attention.
"You know, Sasuke-kun.. if you'd play with him, he wouldn't be alone, eh?"
"Hn." He didn't need to be told twice. The only further response he offered was the pounding of his feet as he closed the distance between him and the small blonde boy.
—
"Hi!"
Naruto flinched. He was not used to being spoken to. He regarded the dark-haired boy with caution, taking in the slight bow and earnest eyes with a distrusting squint. "Ah… H-hi!"
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. And you are?"
So formal. "Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto."
He scratched the back of his head and chuckled sheepishly. Now what? He'd never gotten this far in a conversation before. Most people just ran away from him or called him a demon brat before turning away with a terrible expression on their face.
"Why are you always alone? Where's your Kaa-san?"
There it was. That uncomfortable feeling again. Except, this time, it wasn't because he was being left alone again. This time he was being reminded that he'd always been alone. "I don't know."
"Did you lose her?"
"I think she lost me. I been lookin', though. I always wonder if she's somewhere in the village… "
Sasuke looked sort of uncomfortable and kicked the dirt with his sandal. "Ano… Maybe we can look? I can ask my kaa-san to help us?"
Naruto felt his belly squirm. He bet it wouldn't feel this wiggly even if he ate a hundred earthworms. "Do you mean it?"
"Mean what? That I'll ask my kaa-san?" The boy's dark eyebrows were set kind of high over his eyes, a look that usually meant a person was sort of innocent.
"That you'll help me." He'd been lied to before. He was only 3 but he knew what it was to be tricked. Sometimes, he wondered if he could trick the whole world so people would stop trying to pull one over on him.
Sasuke laughed. It was a comforting sound. "Dobe! Why would I lie?"
Naruto laughed in return, relief flooding him. It felt good to laugh. It felt so good.
—
"Can't I just come home and take some of the weight off for you, ya old bastard?" Jiraiya stared at Sarutobi over a cup of tea so hot that it burnt his finger tips to hold it. He didn't mind the sensation.
Sarutobi sighed, like old folks are wont to do. There was a familiar and faintly pleasant sound of him slapping down the Laurel Horse tile onto the board. Jiraiya was winning.
"It is most unfortunate. Unless you can recruit someone to take over your post at this point… unlikely." Sarutobi dragged on his pipe and filled his lungs. A chakra augmented breath filled the small cubicle with his cloudy air. "Best to keep things—" Jiraiya shuffled a tile around on the board and Sarutobi winced. "Obfuscated. Don't you think? At this point in time?"
"Caution may be wise. But it is costing you more advantages than just this one, Lord Hokage."
The old man didn't say anything, just bit down a little harder on the pipe. Jiraiya could hear the grinding of his teeth. It pacified some latently resentful part of him, which made a different part of him feel guilty. Relationships were strange business.
"Were you aware that a crop farmer's son has joined my old friend's gardening club?" Sarutobi said it lightly as though he were discussing the weather, but Jiraiya knew that the old man was practically incensed. Wounded.
"I thought you told him to get rid of that garden, though?" Jiraiya knocked out a pawn and scraped it off the board. His collection of pieces had grown considerably. Sarutobi considered defensive maneuvers. "You are so used to defense that you have come to rely on it."
"Aa… The gardener was going to get rid of the old monkey, you see."
Jiraiya became still. Motionlessness overcame him like a frost, crawling across his body. Anyone else would have been confused by their simple talking if they were pressed against the cubicle of the small bath and gambling house. Jiraiya, however, had received the message as clear as day. Danzo Shimura had recruited Kakashi into Root and then at some point planned to assassinate Sarutobi.
"How did that monkey respond?"
"He hasn't yet. Needed to talk to a son about a thing or two first."
Jiraiya glanced back down at the board and realized he'd made an error in judgment. A promoted pawn was in a prime place to take a shot at his promoted silver. He thought about his next move.
"I think he may hire a new gardener…" Sarutobi tilted his head to the side and took a sip of his tea. The markings and wrinkles on his face looked deeper than ever. "What a waste. To find a new gardener after all of these years…"
Jiraiya nodded and exterminated the pawn that had crept into his path. "A waste indeed. Will you tell the old monkey that I will look further into that gardening club? I didn't know it had expanded so far…"
Sarutobi nodded. "I must be going, actually." He moved his tile.
The older man vanished with a pop, the very real pipe he'd been carrying clattering to the table. Jiraiya picked it up and took a drag before studying the board. He'd have won in five more turns.
—
Boop. I had zero ideas for this story. Just a bit of Drabble here and there. Then suddenly… an idea came to me all because I looked up the meaning again of someone's name. Ha. I have no word processor now so if something gets messed up or left out. D: Forgive me. Also idk how to play Shogi so I'm sorry if the exchange there made no sense. Forgiveeeeeeee.
