Yori turned over in bed and was met with the form of Boruto.
"Hello there, Sunshine," Yori greeted, a small sleepy smile on his face, voice like gravel because of sleep. Boruto looked at the crooked canine that always stood out a little more when he smiled.
"Hey, Bunny. Did I wake you?" Boruto breathed, scooting closer to the warm body beside him. Even though it was summer time, the nights in Konoha were always chilly. Yori grabbed the blond by his upper arm and pulled him to where Boruto was practically lying on top of the brunette, as if he was a blanket. Their legs were tangled and Boruto enjoyed the scratching sensation of hair against skin against hair.
"Hm, feel free to wake me up any time," Yori grumbled, forcing his head in the small space between the blonds' head and chest. Boruto laughed lightly, an airy thing that seemed too loud in the darkness of the room.
Yori continued on, sleep making his words rush together a little, "You make me feel like a teenager again, sneaking into my room late at night." When Yori spoke, he blew warm air onto Boruto's cold skin, making it erupt into goosebumps and shivers to run down his spine.
Boruto rolled his brilliant blue eyes, though obviously Yori couldn't see it. "I'm really sneaking into your room by using the key you gave me." Yori chuckled at that.
In the silence that followed, Boruto believed that Yori fell back asleep. His breathing was even and deep and his legs twitched every so often. It reminded Boruto of the dogs he saw every time he and his mother went to visit her old genin teammate at the Inuzuka compound.
Yori's soft voice brought Boruto out of his reminiscing. "Why did you become a ninja?" His voice was curious, yet soft. The blond could tell that he was a hair away from dreamland. He probably wouldn't even remember this conversation in the morning.
Boruto lied there before untangling himself from the octopus arms of his beloved. He then lied on his back, trailing all the cracks in the ceiling above with his eyes. They were hard to make out in the dark, but they were there. Boruto practically had their locations memorized. Yori scooted closer to the young man in search of his body heat or maybe just because he liked him being there, Boruto didn't know. He allowed the brunette to lay his head on his shoulder and tangle their hands together.
"Both my parents are ninja. My mother was the heiress to the Hyuga clan; my father became the Hokage when I was very young. Their parents were shinobi and their parents before them. Becoming a shinobi was expected of me. There was really no other option for me." Boruto began tapping his fingers against Yori's soft hand beneath his. Yori shuffled, but didn't remove his hand.
"What about what you wanted?"
Boruto laughed a throaty laugh. "I think it's every small child's dream to grow up and become a ninja."
"I don't think people should trust the words of a child to decide what they want to be when they grow up," Yori muttered, breathe warm and tickling Boruto's small ear. "Last I knew my kid wants to be a tarantula even after I have explained to her time and time again that that is physically impossible. Children cannot decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives and be held accountable for it." Boruto stiffened beneath the sleepy form of his lover. Yori woke up a bit, raising his head to be eye level with the blond in his bed. "Oh, I don't want to fight, Sunshine. You can't say that you don't agree with me, at least even a little bit."
Boruto felt offended; here laid an outsider belittling his village's ways and their traditions. Yori didn't come from a ninja village so he couldn't understand their ways. Children entered the Academy at the age of eight to be young enough to be trained to be proficient ninja's so they wouldn't die easily in battle. It was harsh, but in his world it was a reality.
But Boruto could admit, begrudgingly, that Yori had a point. Why ask a child to decide their career— a highly dangerous one that usually ended in death or disability or insanity— when they could barely decide what they want from life? Was it right to ask a child to give up their whole life for the sake of the villages'? Becoming a ninja meant giving up your childhood; was it right of them to ask that of someone that was smaller than five feet tall?
Boruto willed his body to relax and when he was lying calmly again, Yori placed his head back in the crook of the blonds' neck. Yori's head was a little too big to be placed there comfortably, his day old stubble scratched at Boruto's skin in a way that the blue eyed Uzumaki couldn't decide if it felt nice or not, Boruto's head crooked to the side slightly in a way that would give him a cramp in the morning; Boruto wouldn't give this up for anything.
Boruto started talking. "No, you're right in a way. These kids that sign up for this lifestyle, they don't know what they are really signing up for. They know that they could die doing it, but they don't know about everything else that could happen— they could get tortured or lose their minds. They don't understand their missions could haunt them for years and the 'what if's could cause anyone to kill themselves if they're not strong enough. They don't expect to watch their friends die in front of them or have to place their morals to the side in order to complete a mission.
"Kids only see the glorified side of the shinobi life— the cool justus, the summoning animals, learning to fight with weapons, becoming some intricate part of the village. They see the honor it brings and the ability to protect their loved ones. They don't see anything else. They never dwell on the bad. Eight year olds ignore the negativity this life will bring. Or maybe no one explained it to them, thinking they were too young to hear the downsides of shinobi life, but they were old enough to decide this is what they wanted."
The silence stretched around them for what felt like eternities. Galaxies were born and died in that time, whole civilizations thrived and fell, and the sun finally fell in love with the moon.
After a while, Yuri asks, "Would you have chosen a different path for your life? Would you have become something else?"
Boruto responded in a voice laced with heavy emotion, "No."
Two days later, Boruto is walking down the street to his appointment, his father by his side, sans Hokage robe that would make the two stick out from the crowd more than they already did. Actually, Boruto was walking with a shadow clone of his father's, not the real flesh and blood version of him. Boruto wished he would have become numb to the feeling of being second place in his father's life, but he has come to learn that some feelings won't die; they fester and live inside you forever.
"Thanks for coming with me dad," Boruto told the figure walking beside him and forced a small smile on his face. They both knew that he knew that it was a clone. The clone of Naruto wondered if his son had always been like this; always attacked his parent's weak points. HE wondered if Bolt ever treated his mother like this, with too sharp words and deadly looks. He knew that his son didn't. Bolt was a momma's boy through and through.
"Anything for you," Naruto smiled back, and Boruto was led to believe his father was widely smiling because he meant it. Naruto had perfected the fake smile years and years before his son was born. The older blond wondered if it was his fault that his kin didn't know him well. Most day's he felt like his childhood friends knew him better than his own son, but they also had the opportunity to grow up alongside the jinchuriki. His son only saw him as his good for nothing slightly absentee father who spent all his hours away from the family he created and instead devoted all his time and energy to leading the village.
The blonds' both moved down the street, finally approaching the discreet looking brick building in front of them. Boruto messed with the portable game console in his hands; for some reason he couldn't leave it behind. Not today.
The Hokage stuffed his hands in his pockets, years of uncomfortable kage situations making him not show his nervousness. "Let's go inside," Naruto said, moving foreward and extending his arm to grasp onto the steel handlebar on the entrance door. Boruto grasped his arm before he could touch it, though.
"No, you can go back to the Tower," he told his father, not looking at him.
Naruto stiffened. "Bolt, I told you that you won't be alone in this. Your mother and I will help you through it. We will be beside you in this."
The young blond shook his head, hair ruffling in the motion. Naruto noted that his sons' hair was getting past his shoulders. Maybe he would wear his hair long like his eponym. Naruto would like that; it would be like a piece of Neji lived on.
"No, this is something I have to do by myself," Boruto stated confidently, before he reached for the door handle. When his hand made contact with the steel, he said, "You can dispel the clone now." Then he went inside the building so he wouldn't be late to his therapy appointment.
Naruto stood there, looking at the blurry figure of his son through the frosted plane of the glass door, the younger man talking to the receptionist. Naruto could barely hear the muffled voice of his son.
'He's more like Neji than I ever thought he'd be,' Naruto thought to himself, then he dispelled in a puff of smoke.
Yori and Boruto had made plans to meet at Ichiraku that evening after his therapy appointment. It would be the first time they actually made plans to meet up somewhere instead of just stumbling upon the other.
"I think it is really good that you're finally going to therapy," Yori had told him the night before as he held the blond in his lap, both of them sitting on the balcony of his room late at night. This time they weren't smoking, just enjoying each other's presence and the stars above them. "It's hard to open up to someone that you pay to analyze every word you say, every tick of your face, every emotion you convey. It's a hard thing to go through and I'm proud that you are trying to better your life and overcome the obstacles set in front of you."
Boruto was now approaching his father's favorite restaurant. He spotted Yori standing out front, smoking a cigarette.
"I didn't know you smoked," Boruto stated when he got closer to the brunette. Yori shrugged and threw the cigarette onto the ground before stomping on it and putting it out. He turned around to open the door for the young blond man, leaving the cigarette on the ground in his wake.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me," Yori stated as he followed the Uzumaki through the doorway. "There are also a lot of things I don't know about you. Sometimes even after a lifetime, you still don't truly know the other person."
Boruto rolled his eyes before telling the hostess in front of him that it was only going to be a party of two and yes, a booth would be okay.
The two slip into a booth and a waitress rushes over quickly and takes their drink order, while gushing at Boruto.
"Aw, you've grown up so much! Your father is in here all the time, and he never brings you even though I always tell him to," the waitress says like she's known Boruto since he was born. She might have; his father used to take the whole family to Ichiraku all the time when they were younger. The visits came to a full stop when Naruto became Hokage, but it seemed that he had enough free time to grab meals without his family.
Boruto buried the dark feeling deep inside of him and made a note to talk to his new therapist about it on their next appointment.
Boruto and Yori quickly scan the menu before ordering. Boruto chooses the beef ramen, the same thing he's ordered since he was a tyke. Yori ordered the Spicy Chicken. The waitress smiles wide and goes off to place their orders with the cook in the back. The two men turn to each other now that they don't have to pay any attention to the world around them.
"How was therapy?" Yori asks, genuinely interested. Boruto notes that his hands are crossed together and that his pinky nail is bitten down shorter than all the others. Yori must be a nail biter.
Boruto shrugs as he messed with the chopsticks in front of him. He breaks them apart and then rubs them against each other, the friction ridding the thin pieces of bamboo of any extra wood bits that are sticking out.
"It was okay. Today we just went through an assessment. It took a lot out of me though, ya know? Like after years of this shit piling up, finally letting it out is excruciatingly exhausting."
Yori nods like he understands and Bortuo thinks he might. Yori was right when he said earlier that they didn't know each other that well. Even so, Boruto's soul felt like he has known Yori since his soul was created, thousands and thousands of years before.
"You're very strong, Sunshine, don't forget that," Yori stated, not moving his eyes from the man in front of him. Boruto blushed and fidgeted in his seat, not used to getting so much positive attention from someone that wasn't his mother. Usually people (aka his father, his friends, his parents' friends, his extended family, the people of Konoha, etc) point out things that he does wrong, so he wasn't used to dealing with someone being so positive toward him.
"How was work?" Boruto blurted out quickly, face flushed red. Yori laughed and the throaty noise lifted Boruto's spirits. He hadn't been joking when he told the older man that the day had been exhausting on him. All he wanted to do was to go home and nap, but he didn't want to miss any time with the brunette in front of him.
Yori slammed his face against the table. "Don't remind me of that hell," He grumbled. "I almost got in a fist fight with a coworker because he said something rude about the character designs for the side characters." Boruto laughed at his beloved's distress. Yori shot him a mock glare, brown eyes twinkling in the dim light of the ramen restaurant. "Be quiet you, you don't understand. Your job requires you to get into fist fights with people."
"Fist fights? The shinobi forces of Konoha have more fighting style than a civilian bar fight," Boruto said, curling his upper lip in a fake look of disgust. Yori stuck his tongue out at the blond in front of him. "How old are you again?" Boruto joked.
"Eat shit, Sunshine."
The two broke out into laughter, which was much louder than any of the tables around them.
"Boruto?" A voice coming from outside of their table asked, breaking both men out of their little world. They turned to look at the figure of a black haired girl with ink eyes and red glasses standing at the end of their table. Another girl came up, snacking on a bag of taco flavored chips, her dark skin and her larger girth (at least larger for a ninja) made people draw the conclusion that she was a Akimichi. Of course with Yori being an outsider to the village, she just looked like a regular girl to him that must really love potato chips.
Seeing Chocho and Sarada made Boruto's whole world come to a full stop. How would he explain Yori? It didn't make any sense that he was eating dinner with an older man who wasn't a ninja. He couldn't explain this away, other than telling them the obvious, which he wasn't ready to tell. Would he ever be ready? Could he ever tell the people he loved his preferences? That he didn't want a wife and a whole herd of children with his features, he would rather have a husband and adopt a whole herd of children that didn't look a thing like him (either way, he was getting a whole herd of children, dammit)? Could anyone else understand that the love he felt for another man— this man who was seated in front of him in particular— wasn't disgusting, wasn't abnormal but instead completely natural and the easiest thing he has ever experienced in his short eighteen years?
"Boruto?" Sarada asked again, snapping the blond out of his internal panic. He turned to look quickly at Yori, who had his face leaning on his hand, elbow on the red countertop, and a sad smile perched on his face. Boruto quickly turned to look back at his teammate, finding Yori's face hard to look at.
"Hey, Sarada," Boruto greeted, fake smile perched on his face, forcing his voice to be warm and welcoming. Sarada's all seeing eyes seemed to look into his soul. Boruto shivered.
"Who is this? Why haven't you introduced your childhood friends to the nice piece of man you're eating dinner with?" Chocho asked between potato chips. It seemed like the bag never ran out, which was funny because whenever Boruto ate potato chips half of the bag was pure air.
Yori laughed while Boruto inwardly grumbled about Chocho hitting on his man.
"Hey, sweetheart, name's Yori Yosano," Yori greeted Chocho with a bright enough smile to make the dark skinned girl blush. Boruto turned to glare at Yori, who shrugged his shoulders.
"What did you order?" Chocho interrogated the brunette man.
"Um… Spicy chicken?" Yori said, but it sounded more like a question. He turned toward Boruto and raised an eyebrow as if to ask 'What the heck is with this girl?' Boruto just smiled.
Chocho nodded in approval. "Good choice. I trust a man who can handle spice."
"How do you know Boruto, Yosano-san?" Sarada asked, pushing up her glasses on her nose, the lenses reflecting in the dim light. Boruto started sweating at the dreaded question. He turned toward Yori with a pleading look on his face.
Yori stared at Boruto, and then looked at Sarada. With an unwavering expression he told the young girl, "Boruto and I met through a mission. He was assigned a mission to show me around Konoha, as I am an infrequent visitor and your village seems to change every time I come back. I decided to take him out to dinner to show him my gratitude." Boruto sighed at the excuse that was wrapped in truth. It would be easy to remember and this way he didn't have to admit to his two girl friends that he was on a date with another man. He probably should tell his parents he was gay before it got around all of Konoha.
"Wouldn't the mission money be gratitude enough?" Sarada asked snidely.
"Sarada!" Boruto exclaimed, surprised at his normally calm teammates rude comment. Yori just laughed and waved Boruto's concern away.
"It probably would have, but Boruto seems to be a nice man. He deserves a little extra every once in a while." Boruto blushed brightly at Yori's nice words. Yori's leg extended into the blonds' section beneath the table and interlaced itself with the sandal covered ankles. Yori shot the blond a quick smile and wink.
"Boruto being a man? Psh," Chocho declared as she finished her chips, holding the empty bag tightly in her hands before handing it to a passing waitress who took it kindly.
Boruto turned to Yori. "Chocho is my least favorite friend, below even Inojin."
"Fuck you," Chocho said good naturedly, rolling her bright yellow eyes.
"Boruto, why are you placed on medical leave for the second time this month? You don't look hurt," Sarada asked, bringing the two out of their mini fight.
Boruto bit his lip. He didn't know if he should tell Sarada the truth. Would she treat him like a child? Would she see him any different? Would she stop relying on him in the field if she found out how unstable he was mentally?
"Some wounds aren't physical," Was the cryptic answer the young blond settled on. Sarada's black eyes widened before she nodded. He didn't know why he worried; Sarada always understood. She understood having an absentee father (which his was nothing in compare to her father being gone for the first eight years of her life) and she always understood the pressure placed upon her because she had powerful parents too. It made sense that she would understand this.
Also, Boruto heard that her dad had a time of insanity and he bet she knew about that.
"Sarada, we've gotta go meet up Inojin and Metal," Chocho whined, starting to drag her smaller friend to the exit. "Bye Boruto! Bye Tosano-san!" Sarada waved at the two men and they smiled and waved back at the retrieving figures of the girls.
"It's Yosano— oh, whatever," Yori yelled after the girls.
The waitress brought over the two steaming bowl of ramen and the men dug into the bowls in silence. Boruto winced at the amount of salt in his ramen broth. He seemed to be the only person who ever thought that Ichiraku ramen wasn't perfect.
"They're nice girls," Yori said as the blond in front of him took another bite, noodles falling out of his mouth. Boruto hummed and nodded, slurping the noodles up, getting little droplets everywhere. Yori wiped one from his face.
The two sit there in silence, the only noise is the tables around them and the sound of Boruto slurping up noodles, a complete 180 from how they acted before Sarada and Chocho interrupted them. Yori used his chopsticks to stir around the thin noodles in the yellow broth and he asked, "Are you fine, living a life that's a lie? Are you really fine with your friends, your family not knowing who you really are? What happens when everyone's expecting you to settle down with a woman and start a family? Are you going to pretend then, too?"
Boruto stilled. After he swallowed all of the noodles in his mouth, he took a drink of the cola he had gotten along with his ramen. "I don't wanna talk about it," He eventually asserted.
Yori nodded, expecting that answer. "Someday you will have to face all these things you are pushing to the side. When that happens it won't be on your terms and you will wish that it had been. You're friends and family will love you no matter what. The question is when will you love yourself?"
Boruto didn't respond and the two finished their meal in silence.
Hey guys, how about an early update : ) I know that this is only like the third shortest chapter, but I had wished for it to be longer. Oh well, it had to be stopped here. What I'm planning on next won't necessarily fit in this chapter very well.
How did y'all like it? I'm pretty sure the Depression™ problem in this story is solved. Pretty much from here on we are going to go through the Yori issue with a splash of Daddy issues.
There will probably only be fifteen chapters or less in this story, so don't think I'm going to be dragging it out forever.
Also, I have gotten a job recently, so hopefully I have enough free time to be typing out these chapters because they really don't take me that long to plan and type, but it might take me longer than the one week deadline I usually have. I'm not expecting it to, though, so y'all shouldn't either.