The morning after their date, his father was eating breakfast at the kitchen table, a relic of the past. His mother was smiling widely as she made breakfast in the morning, a lightness in her movements. They had a simple breakfast of eggs and bacon before Naruto had to get up and go off to work. With a sad smile, he kissed his wife goodbye (which lasted for a little bit longer than their children really wanted the kiss to last, but Hinata giggled when he pulled away), and walked off out the door and into the rising sun, to go to his job that never waited.
Hinata watched her husband walk away and Boruto noted that she had this wistful look on her face that just killed him. She looked sad in her happiness. Boruto understood how one could feel both at the same time.
She knew, like her children knew, like the village knew, that husband and wife didn't have much time to be together, Naruto always entangled by his job. The older blond was hardly ever home, hardly ever around his family, spending all his time away and in the Hokage Tower. The Uzumaki parents would go on a date once every couple months, husband hardly having any time to call himself away from his job. He left his wife alone more often than not, a wife waiting patiently at home to welcome her husband home whenever he did so.
Boruto wonders if she ever regrets it, and thinks she must. Who would want to live a life where your husband has no time for you and has priorities above you? Maybe she even regretted him and Himiwari, two people that would keep her attached to him forever.
Boruto clenched his fist tight, and quickly excused himself from the table before he did something drastic, like break a plate or his mothers feelings. He planted a kiss on Himiwari's scarred cheek, and one on his mothers lightly lined forehead, and rushed out the door. He had training to get to.
He thought of taking a ride on the top of the train to get to the training grounds, but decided against it. He wasn't in the mood for that today.
He trudged through the streets filled with the regular morning crowd, large groups of people on their way to their jobs. Boruto wondered if they all thought the Hokage was a family man or if they understood all he gave up in order to protect the village. No one could understand the hell that position put them all through; a mother who had to wait and wait and wait forever only scraps of affection from her love, a son who could not tell anyone the last time his father spent time with him alone if Boruto hadn't initiated it first, and a daughter who pretended that everything was fine but every night when she set the table for four and only three sat down she acted with the feeling of something crucial being missing.
The people of the village Hidden in the Leaves didn't understand; they couldn't. They hadn't given up their father for the good of the village. They hadn't pretended to understand in the light of the day but stayed awake at night and thought 'maybe if I was a little bit better, my father would make more time for me'.
Parts of Boruto believed that his father had enough time for his family and only pretended to be so covered in paperwork that he didn't have time for anything else. He was scared that his father, somewhere deep down in the older man in a place he wouldn't even admit to himself existed, resented his family. Boruto knew that his father grew up an orphan and so desperately wanted a family of his home, one he could come home to and rely on.
Boruto has come to understand that sometimes dreams do not end up being how the dreamer wants them to be.
A sudden hand placed on his shoulder made him jerk and reach in to his kunai pouch before he was stopped by a sudden grip on his upper arm.
A familiar voice made him relax. "Boruto, relax, it's just your sensei!"
Boruto forced a fake smile on his face and Konohamaru smiled back, wide and blinding with closed eyes. Boruto was glad that his sensei wasn't the best on reading peoples' emotions; or maybe Boruto was too good at faking his happiness. He didn't know which would be worse.
"Ya know, it isn't good to have your head up in the clouds all the time," Konohamaru-sensei admonished, gripping the shoulder of the kid that used to call him 'nii-san'. Konohamaru missed those days when Boruto and Himiwari were little tykes that couldn't even walk yet and who used to light up when they saw their Konohamaru-nii-san. He was pretty sure that if Boruto had the opportunity, the blond boy would push him into the open mouth of a volcano.
Boruto swatted his sensei's hand from off his shoulder and Konohamaru pouted in the childish way of his.
Boruto got this far away look in his eyes, like he was seeing things that no one else around him could see. Konohamaru got concerned when Boruto got that look; he was always scared that Boruto would stray to a place that he couldn't bring the blond boy back from.
"Do you think love is worth it?" The question in and of itself caught the brunette off guard, causing him to miss a step and stumble a bit. Boruto continued on walking, not waiting for his sensei to catch up.
"What do you mean is love worth it? Worth what?" Konohamaru asked as he jogged to catch up to his student.
Boruto shrugged. "Like, is love worth everything that comes with it? The ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, and everything in between."
"Are your parents fighting again?" Konohamaru asked, concerned. When Boruto and Himiwari were little, Naruto and Hinata went through a little rough patch, constantly fighting. Well, their fighting was more like angrily training together, Naruto loudly arguing, and Hinata giving her husband the cold shoulder (Naruto could deal with yelling, but the cold shoulder did him in easily, especially when it was from the love of his life). Boruto had gone to his 'nii-san' with the concern of his parents fighting and he was plagued with the idea of his parents possibly getting a divorce. Konohamaru put a quick stop to that train of thought and forced Hinata and Naruto to get their crap together.
"I didn't know that my father was around long enough for them to fight," Boruto muttered, which earned him a swift smack to the back of his head.
"Your father has given up so much for this village; show him a little respect," Konohamaru growled out, defending his hero to his own son. Boruto rolled his eyes at the jonin, but kept his mouth shut overall.
Konohamaru sighed, rubbing his brown locks roughly. "Back to your question… Is love worth it? It depends on what it is and how much you love the person. Sometimes you date someone romantically for a long time but they end up not being the love of your life. You can't control your emotions and the length of time your with someone doesn't dictate how much you will end up loving them. I've seen people get married after two weeks of being together and they are still happily married. I've seen people be together for six years and they break up over something stupid, like a bento and they seem happier single than they had been at any point in their relationship." Konohamaru shrugged. He didn't really understand the ways of the heart.
"Do you have any personal experience?" Boruto asked, eyebrows wiggling. Konohamaru blushed violently and cuffed the chunin on the back of his head.
"Me and love never seem to work out. I would say that we are two strangers that never meet on the train."
"Are you trying to tell me you've never been in love before? You're like, what, thirty and never been in love?"
"Like you know anything about love. You have less experience with women than I do," Konohamaru shot back, a pout on his face. Boruto shrugged and nodded, Konohamaru was right. He probably didn't know exactly how right he was, though.
Boruto ignored the opening he had gotten to open himself up to his sensei and instead decided to taunt him. "I don't know, Aunt Hanabi gets rather red faced when you're around… Hey, if you two get married you will become uncle Konohamaru."
Konohamaru turned bright red and stutter, tugging at his blue scarf nervously. Boruto laughed and forced himself to forget about his issues with love.
After training, team Konohamaru decided to get some food. They were all sweaty, covered in twigs and dirt, and reeked and they decided to assault the noses of those around them and get lunch. No wonder a lot of civilians didn't like the village ninja— they were obnoxious, pretentious, and reeked.
They all decided to go to Ichiraku Ramen, Konohamaru wanting a taste of the past and his students really didn't care where they were taken as long as they were fed. Konohamaru cursed his students every time he looked into his wallet, which felt lighter and lighter as the days went on.
Konohamaru ordered Pork Ramen, Sarada chose her favorite Miso Ramen, and Boruto ordered Kagoshima ramen… Mitsuki, like always, didn't eat anything but sat there with a smile on his face.
Boruto waved around his chopsticks in the air, poking them at his blue haired friend. Sarada popped a vein in her forehead and quickly stole the wooden sticks from her tan teammate's hands. "I'm confused; do you eat? Or do you have a really strict diet? How does being an artificial human differ to being born the good ol' fashion way?"
Konohamaru swatted the back of his students' head for asking insensitive questions. Boruto grumbled and rubbed his head in defeat and reached his hands out to steal his chopsticks back from his female teammate. Sarada also wanted to know the difference between artificial humans and regular humans, but she let it go. Mitsuki would probably not answer the questions anyway, forever a mystery to his closest friends. Sarada thought it must be lonely to keep so much away from the two people that were supposed to always have your back.
Their ramen was placed in front of them with a flourish, a new waiter whose name Boruto already forgot smiling widely at them and telling them to enjoy before quickly running off. Konohamaru and Sarada quickly dug into their noodles while Boruto used his chopsticks to stir the fine noodles in the broth absentmindedly.
Konohamaru slurped up a noodle, spraying little droplets of broth across the table and on those surrounding him. Boruto wiped the droplets from his face. His sensei noticed that he wasn't digging into his food with the usual gusto he usually did. "Boruto, is everything alright? I know ramen isn't necessarily your favorite food, but you usually eat it. Is something wrong? You've been acting strange lately."
"How can you expect me to answer any question you ask when you throw so many at me?" Boruto angrily asked, stabbing the pork bits in his bowl and ripping them to shreds. Mitsuki studied him unblinkingly from across the table, unable to express the concern he had for the recent actions of his beloved sun.
Sarada glanced into her bowl, half empty in her after training calorie intake. She looked so sad, and Boruto knew it was because of him. It was always because of him. "We're worried about you. Something's wrong and you won't tell anyone. We care about you and you won't even share with us your problems."
Boruto turned his sadness into anger; he always knew how to deal with anger, but sadness stayed in his bones for years and years. He'd take anger over sadness any day. "Is this some sort of intervention?" He growled out, tight grip on his chopsticks causing him to crack them down the middle, wood splintering in his hands. He dropped them on top of the red tabletop, suddenly not hungry. He didn't like ramen that much anyway; it was always too salty for his preferences.
"Your actions on the last mission dictate we should give you one," Mitsuki stated, not looking away from the blonds' blue eyes. He noted that his words caused anger to flare up in the Uzumaki's eyes. He must have said something wrong.
"I'm not talking about it, end of discussion."
Konohamaru slammed down his chopsticks hard against the table top; when their sensei got angry for real, he meant business. All of his students had their heads down in submission, nervous about what he was going to say. "Boruto, the shit you pulled on the last mission could have caused you to die. Hell, you doing what you did could have could have put everyone else on the team in a dangerous situation."
Boruto sat in his seat, head down, tan fists clenched tight. He didn't look up at anyone and he didn't say anything. Konohamaru sighed; once his student put his walls up it was hard for anyone to break them down.
"Boruto, we only worry about you," Sarada said, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his wrist. Mitsuki smiled and nodded from his spot next to the ink haired Uchiha. Boruto jerked his hands away and slid out from the booth.
"I'm not hungry anymore," The eighteen year old muttered, throwing a couple bills on the table before assuredly stalking out of the ramen restaurant, a confident step in his walk. His teammates and sensei watched him walk away. Sarada looked downcast and Mitsuki wasn't portraying much emotion, though they all knew he was feeling similar to the girl of their group. Mitsuki was always sensitive to Boruto's feelings.
Konohamaru kept his eyes on the door, even minutes after the retreating figure of the blond. "We can't help him unless he wants it," The brunette adult reminded his group and himself as he turned around to face them all, twirling around the noodles in his soup, not necessarily hungry anymore but not willing to let Ichiraku ramen go cold. Sarada and Mitsuki nodded their heads in understanding and they all tried to ignore the hole in their group that fit Boruto's presence.
Boruto was mad and hungry and upset. He didn't want to go home to eat because he knew that if his mom saw him in the state he was in, then she would ask questions and he would give her answers he didn't really want to give. He was the only person who needs to carry the weight of his problems. He would not let anyone else be weighed down by them. It was his punishment to bear them alone.
Boruto was stumbling down the sidewalk, lost in thought, not really looking at where he was walking. He went with the flow of the crowd around him. Someone called out his name, a deep and oddly familiar voice, so Boruto jerked his head up from where it was looking at the cracked sidewalk when he walked and his blue eyes were met with the concerned topaz ones he saw in his dreams.
Boruto stopped and so did Yori, them breaking up the flow of the sidewalk, ignoring the dirty looks the strangers around him were shooting them.
Yori looked the blond up and down and then said, "Wow, you look like shit."
Boruto stilled at the unexpected sentence, and then he laughed. Most people had been treating him with kid gloves, like he was some glass figurine that would break if they breathed wrong near him. Yori was an outsider, one of the few people he interacted with that had not known him his whole life. He enjoyed the freshness Yori gave off and he caught himself wondering why all people couldn't be more like the older man.
"My entire team just ganged up on me for stupid reasons; you could say I feel like shit."
"Did you deserve to be ganged up on?" Yori asked, eyebrows raised. Boruto huffed out in frustration and started walking down the street again, Yori trailing behind him.
"Not you too," Boruto grumbled out, running his hands through his growing blond locks. He grunted when his fingers were caught on a small tangle that was hiding near the nape of his neck.
"Your friends are just concerned for you, and I'm starting to think they should be," Yori said, pressing his hands in his pockets. Boruto opened his mouth to tell the brunette that everyone should just stay out of his business because he didn't ask for them to be in it in the first place. Yori cut him off with a raise of the hand; long fingers catching Boruto's attention, making his mouth get dry. "However, I do not know your friends or the whole situation around them 'ganging' up on you, so I cannot properly figure out who is in the wrong here. Let's just get off the topic because you obviously are about to blow a gasket if we keep talking about this."
"At least you know when to move on," Boruto muttered, licking his lips. Yori watched his pink tongue trace the boy's lips, and he gulped. Boruto smirked when he saw the reaction the older man had when he did something as simple as lick his lips, it gave him a kind of high knowing that he could affect a man in such a way (especially since the man was Yori). Yori blushed when he noticed the younger male's smirk and Boruto swore his heart became lighter.
"You wanna get some lunch?" The older man asked, looking away from the Uzumaki boy as he spoke, the rose tint on his cheeks seemingly tattooed there. Boruto thought that his face was made for blushing; it complemented the man's skin tone so well. Yori turned to him and raised an eyebrow and Boruto realized he had taken too long staring at the older man and not answering him. It was Boruto's turn to blush a bright fire truck red, and Yori laughed at him, a heady thing.
"Are you ever going to answer me?" Yori asked, laughter catching. Boruto stuttered out a 'yes' and Yori smiled and grabbed his wrist and dragged him down a side street.
"Let's go to this restaurant I found down this way," Yori laughed as he led him to a barbeque restaurant on a side street. The building was a nice red color outside with a brown interior. They were sat down quickly by an uninterested waiter who didn't even tell them his name. Yori was too distracted by the beautiful aura Boruto was giving off to notice the waiter's standoffishness.
They quickly ordered pork and Boruto noticed that it was one of those barbeque restaurants where the costumers cook the meats at their tables. Chouchou and her dad loved going to these kinds of restaurants and Boruto made a mental note to bring his darker friend to this restaurant whenever he ran into her next. He hadn't hung around her in a while; he should make more of an effort to see the friends that weren't in his team.
The waiter unceremoniously set down the plate full of uncooked meat on the table and darted away as quick as he possibly could. Boruto grabbed a slice of meat and placed it on the small grill in the middle of the table, the meat a familiar sizzle to his ears.
Yori leaned his light face in his hands. "How come no waiter has given us drinks either time we went out? How am I supposed to have a good date when I am parched?"
Boruto stilled, all his fears on love from the beginning of the day resurfacing. "Is this what this is, a date?" He began breathing heavy and he felt slightly light headed.
Yori stilled as he was reaching his chopsticks over to grab a piece of raw beef. Boruto unfroze as he smelled his meat starting to burn on the grill, flipping it over shakily. Yori placed his next to the others on the grill, meat a vibrant red in comparison to Boruto's charcoal over cooked piece. "It is a date only if you want it to be one." Yori watched as Boruto nervously pulled of the piece of beef before it was ready to get off the grill. Boruto didn't even eat it; he just stabbed it nervously with his wooden utensils. "I'm sorry if I read all the signs wrong, I thought it was mutual." Boruto looked up to see the defeated image of Yori in front of him, shoulders down and head bent foreword.
Boruto was quick to reassure him. "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong; I am interested. I just have some… problems with the concept of love and romance."
"Don't we all?" Yori asked as he flipped his piece of beef on the grill, perfectly browned on one side.
"It just never works out right," Boruto muttered, running a hand through his blond locks. Yori looked into the beautiful blue eyes of the boy who was quickly holding his heart. Yori wondered if he would ever be able to get it back.
"Even if it doesn't work out all happy go lucky, isn't it worth it that it made you happy, even for a little while? Sometimes it's not about the ending, sometimes it's about the journey," Yori said as he checked the bottom side of his beef slice (which looked perfect) before reaching over the grill and placing it on the plate of his date. Boruto blushed, then looked at the beef, then looked at Yori, then back at the beef, then back at Yori. Yori gave him a soft smile and Boruto pushed all the doubt he had about love from watching the deteriorating relationship of his parents deep down inside him. He wouldn't let his doubts of the future affect the now.
Boruto lifted the beef slice that Yori had cooked for him to his mouth and popped it in, blushing at the wide grin Yori had on his face.