A/N: Hey guys! Nope, not dead! Recently (sort of) I had my twenty-first birthday, which I stayed in and slept for, but after that, I've been doing what any emotionally non-existant, control-defunct psychopath who hit that magic number would do! Drowning myself in whiskey and bourbon! Sorry if I made you guys worry, but I've been struggling lately. On the upside though, I got more tattoos. So there's that. And I sat through Harvey about a week later... so yeah. Stuff happened.

: all shall be explained. Eventually.

Im Not Itachi: You aren't senpai. I'm not listening to you.

Sam: :P

SvalbardGirl: I don't speak, read, or understand Norwegian. So sorry for that.

Totalsolution: I understand and appreciate your input. Naruto will get an ass-whopping, from a few people actually, and everyone else will come back in full stop... eventually.

Chapter 54: Someone Who Cares

Every street in this city
Is the same to me
Everyone's got a place to be
But there's no room for me

An almost-four year old crawled out of a dumpster, holding a soggy, moldy half of bread.

"Better than nothing..." he muttered to himself as he sat down, leaning against the dumpster, rain pouring down into the alley to drench the small form.

As he bit into the loaf, he saw a family sitting in a dine-in, the parents on either side of their child, laughing together as they all ate a hot meal. And the moldy bread suddenly tasted that much worse.

Am I to blame?
When the guilt and the shame hang over me
Like a dark cloud,
That chases you down in the pouring rain.

"Did Kaa-chan and tou-san hate me? Did I do something wrong? Was I born weird?" the boy ruminated as he slowly munched through his little meal. He knew better than to scarf it down after last time.

"Did I do something I shouldn't have, so they abandoned me?"

It's so hard to find someone
Who cares about you,
But it's easy enough to find someone
Who looks down on you

As the boy sat there, moldy bread in hand, and drenched in [skywater] (A/N: this one might be a bit harder, and a lot older, but kudos if you know it.) he saw people passing by in the street outside his alley, many of them sending small glares his way, and spitting in his direction as they passed.

It's not what it seems
When you're not on the scene
There's a chill in the air
But there's people like me
That nobody sees so nobody cares

During the day, when Naruto was playing with the few friends he had, they would pass right by his alley, where another, older man was rifling through the dumpster, and they wouldn't even notice him.

"If you wait till five, they throw out all their old food," Naruto said simply to the man, before he ran after the small group who played with him out of pity.

Why is it so hard to find someone
Who can keep it together
When you've come undone?
Why is it so hard to find someone
Who cares about you?

Naruto was curled up in a quiet-ish corner of a brothel in the red-light district, sobbing silently to himself, so he wouldn't disturb anyone. He didn't want to get kicked out, because it was raining again.

A hand patted him gently on the head for a moment, before moving on. One of the girls showing a moment of kindness for the boy who sometimes slept in their den of debauchery.

I swear this time it won't turn out
The same 'cause now I've got myself to blame
And you'll know where we end up
On the streets that is easy enough
To find someone who looks down on you

"You little demon!" a haggard-looking old woman shouted as she chased a little blond boy with a broom. "This is the last time you deface my property! You can't stay here anymore!"

"But jiji paid for a whole year!"

"I don't care! I've had enough of you and your fucking paint!"

With that, she slammed the gate to the residence shut, effectively and loudly proclaiming Uzumaki Naruto as homeless, once again.

He could feel the villagers' smug pride and disdain for him drilling into his back. He stuffed his hand sin his pockets and began walking away.

"Didn't wanna live with termites and rats and cockroaches anyway."

A/N: a break from the current narrative, to try to get me back in the flow. Now, obviously I don't own the song (Someone who cares by Three Days Grace), and I cut out the chorus, because I'm lazy and didn't feel like thinking up scenarios for every single chorus line.