Chapter Three: Going Places
I will not say
that women have no character; rather,
they have a new one every day.
-H. Heine
Iruka has never disliked a student so much.
And he can't even fathom why.
Maybe, he thinks, it is because Shindou had everything he did not have – a home, a father, a family left alive. Shindou had that, and he left it for some intangible dreams. But even when Iruka thinks about that, there's no bitterness in his heart. Shindou's eyes are straightforward, and his smile is always tinged with weariness. Sometimes – even though Shindou has left for this intangible dream with more conviction that Iruka ever hopes to have – sometimes, Shindou looks as if he is carrying all the weight of the world on his shoulders.
No – maybe hate is too strong a word. But Iruka can't stand Shindou for some reason. There is something uncomfortable, something that does not feel right. There is something that is wrong about the boy, and it puts him on edge.
When he is teaching, Iruka finds his eyes drawn to Shindou, who is all of a sudden not as completely brilliant as he seemed when Iruka tested him. Not a genius, as he expected, but an ordinary, hard-working boy. When the children are out playing and Shindou is somehow at the gravitational center of the students, smiling and bright and a sun in all respects, Iruka feels perturbed.
(Later Iruka remembers that the gravitational center of everything is supposed to be a deep, endless hole, which draws all things toward it, by which all worlds will inexorably fall.)
In all honesty, even before she befriended and came to know them, Naruto never thought that Hoshina and Tsuki would become ninja. Sure, they were in the ninja Academy, but it was widely known that the ninja Academy is better in all aspects of education than the civilian one, and those that can test into it do.
They were both flawed, too flawed to become killers. Hoshina was much too impulsive, always procrastinating, and never wanted to sit down (or stand up) and learn something. Tsuki was so passive – though others called him kind – that he lacked even the drive to get angry with somebody who had hurt him for absolutely no reason.
Naruto first encountered them while they were completing a punishment, moving at the pace of snails as they wiped down the Academy's southernmost wall.
She stopped and watched them, thoroughly amused by their actions. Brown-haired Tsuki moved lethargically, as if he was afraid of finishing the work, and red-headed Hoshina was constantly breaking away from the wall to examine something that had caught her eye. "You're never going to finish at that pace," she said. And then, insanely, she picked up a rag, dipped it in the bucket, and began helping them. To be honest, Naruto finished most of the work herself, but ever since that first tentative contact, they'd developed into friends.
So much so that now, after their inevitable failed final, Naruto approaches them. She sees the look on their faces – an identical look, copied and pasted like a spotless Bunshin – one that speaks of resignation to something they all knew would happen all along.
"Well, it was a good experience," Hoshina says like an excuse, as Naruto approaches them. "Ninja schooling is much better than civilian anyway, and dirt cheap if you're under a certain income level to boot, so even though I was never going to be a ninja, it was a good choice." She smiles, but it looks sad and painful and angry at the same time. "Plus, if I passed and had to study under that batshit loco teacher, I'd go nuts myself!"
"No worries there," Naruto deadpans. "You're already crazy. Can't get much more than this." Hoshina laughs, a short bark of just-starting-to-heal laughter.
"I dunno," Tsuki says, his voice lighter than his expression. "That teacher was either smoking something or belonged in a psychiatric ward." The teasing note is there and his eyes are less solemn, and Naruto is so glad for it she giggles. "He basically told us only the two people who managed to steal bells from him were going to pass, and then after the test he told us we were all supposed to work together to get it? Like, what the heck, man! Is this a ninja team or an unconditional support group? Why don't we just all sit in a circle and share feelings?"
Naruto takes a step away from the heavily breathing, fuming Tsuki. "It's okay, Tsuki," she manages to squeak out. "I mean, you had plans besides becoming a ninja, right?" For a moment, Hoshina stops laughing and Tsuki looks away to stare into space. Naruto knows immediately that she's said something wrong, so she backtracks quickly. "And there's always the Corps. They don't have Jounin sensei assigned to them, but they rotate through a lot of teachers and might honestly be better learning."
"My parents won't fund the Corps. According to them, it's not being a real ninja anyway. They think I've wasted enough time already, and they barely allowed me to take the Genin team exam. Since I failed, it's time to man up and join the family business." Tsuki's tone is bitter.
Funding reminds Naruto that she doesn't have anybody backing her. And Iruka asked her to go talk to him about it. But Iruka can wait, because Hoshina is starting to look teary again and Tsuki is staring off into the distance and she feels like they're about to break.
If only she had some people-glue, so she could patch them both together.
But Naruto doesn't have any tape meant for hearts and dreams, so she decides her arms will have to do. She crushes Tsuki in a hug, and Hoshina joins it not much later. None of them cry. It feels wrong, like grieving for something that had died long ago. And Naruto knows it's cruel, because though Tsuki and Hoshina never expected to be ninja, never really held the dream in their hands, somewhere along the way the dream pulled them into its hands, and now the hopeless hope is crushing them. None of them cry, though not for lack of feeling.
No, not a single tear comes out, no matter how much Naruto wants one to.
It's a little later before Naruto remembers Iruka and the Very Serious Funding Issue. And then she wishes she didn't, because just thinking about money makes her head start to ache.
"Shindou-kun," Iruka says, his voice very serious, the wrinkles around his eyes grave but kind. "The Academy has some rules, and while Minai-san and I have waived them for you for a little while, we can't allow you to freeload off of the funding for the Academy anymore. You've been living in the dorms for the scholarship students and the Academy has been footing your food funds, but we can't do that anymore. This means that you're going to have to find a place to live, get your estranged family in on the game plan, or somehow get into the top slot of your class for scholarships."
Naruto stares at him blankly. While she knows it can't go on for much longer, it still hurts a little. Even though she knows they have perfectly legitimate reasons (and the Academy is used to receiving the scholarship fund for use on other things, since a clan-sponsored child usually takes the top spot) – even though intellectually she knows all these things, it still feels like betrayal.
She nods at him, and manages to say, "Can I have a bit of time to think about it?" Before unceremoniously leaving her seat and running out the door. The halls are just about deserted, but her mind is so full.
"Never show your true potential until it's worth it. It's suicidal," Saeki says. "Top slot of your class," Iruka booms over her voice. Nonoko, turning to her with wide eyes, almost shouting, "We can lead the ninja world!"
And her own voice, telling herself that for Mae and Saeki and Nonoko, she will conquer the world and hold it safe in her hands.
And then there's Nonoko's voice again, so loud and real that for a second Naruto is fooled. She doesn't know what Nonoko's voice is saying, but just the sound of it brings her moving feet to a stop, her pounding heart to a murmur. Naruto is fooled, and she stops by the door (even though it's impossible) and for some reason somebody has set up a genjutsu there.
Because Nonoko is in the classroom.
Nonoko is in the classroom, in the Academy, right in front of her, almost as if she never left.
It's not until Nonoko looks up with a puzzled expression that Naruto realizes she is halfway across the room. She almost throws herself at her very first teacher with abandon, almost starts crying, almost talks before her mind stops her and warns her that something is very wrong.
Nonoko smiles, but it's a puzzled smile. And it's a slow, painful, twitchy smile. To Naruto, it feels like it takes hours for Nonoko's cheeks to bunch up, for the corners of her lips to tilt skyward. When she talks, it is a stuttered question. "He-Hello?"
Naruto backs away, stumbling over the suddenly solid air, over her suddenly senseless feet, grasping at words that just aren't there. She fumbles and then something spills out of her mouth – "Do you recognize me?" – and the confused look Nonoko gets drags her heart down, down, down. Sudden adrenaline courses through suddenly cold veins. She brings her hands up but her fingers do not cooperate, and fumble the sign, but her chakra knows anyway and she sends out a short, compressed chakra burst, just like she's practiced.
The illusion doesn't break.
The nightmare is still there.
Nonoko-sensei doesn't recognize her. And there's something else, something deeper wrong about Nonoko's slackened face and her dull grey eyes and the slant of her mouth. As Naruto watches, Nonoko's face convulses again before settling into a painfully happy expression.
"Y-you are Sh-Shindou-kun, right?" Nonoko, says, stumbling, her voice coming out in hesitant gasps.
Naruto barely has the presence of mind to spit out a quick reply. Then her feet carry her away, out of the classroom, away away away. Far from here.
Again she is running.
There's a buzzing in her head, and a fire in her lungs, and a pain somewhere not in her body. There is Nonoko and Iruka and money and death and Saeki and Mae all in her head, jumbled in a cataclysmic mess, too many thoughts for her to think.
There's too many thoughts and Naruto can't think.
She pauses, panting, at the door of the apartment that isn't really hers.
She pauses and thinks about what Saeki said. Never show your true potential. She pauses and thinks about Nonoko, about how the administration hates her and by-the-Great-Sage it's all her fault that Nonoko, who was so beautiful and wonderful and alive became like this. She cries for her, and for Saeki, and Mae, and everything else, and it hurts even more because none of them are there to wrap an arm around her and whisper words she can't hear into her too-short hair.
Being alone hurts too much, so Naruto closes her eyes, reaches out, and feels the whole world, blue and green and color, alive all around her, just like Nonoko taught her. It reminds her that she is not alone. It reminds her of what is beautiful.
She feels the answer.
If she can't show her true potential, then she'll just have to manage to stay a step ahead. A whole step ahead. Several dozen more. Somehow, she'll just have to stick at the top slot in her class, outperform, and still have something left over.
And if Nonoko is broken somehow, she'll just have to find a way to fix her, and protect her, and make sure nothing like that ever happens to anybody she loves ever again.
Naruto sighs and opens her door. It's her apartment, and it will stay that way.
She will keep her word.
The first time Iruka has something tangible, something beyond a feeling, it is ironically a success. Shindou Toshiro is a shooting star and his meteoritic rise to the top starts precisely after Iruka talks to him about the scholarship position. Somehow, his next test scores are all perfect – with one question missed on one of the tests, but on that he earned the extra credit. Somehow, he is suddenly much better in the classroom spars. Somehow, his chakra control improves to the point where Iruka can't believe it's the same boy who was only mediocre a week ago.
Even Minai comments on how "It's lucky Toshiro-kun picked himself up and rose to his true potential before time ran out!"
There is something wrong with the picture, but for the life of him Iruka can't understand. Shindou Toshiro is still the center of the classroom, only now he's a smart center and even motivating previously unmotivated friends to work hard. He's a perfect student, a teacher's pet, a kind of charismatic leader that Iruka had always wished for in the classroom. He is helpful, kind, and diligent beyond the likes of even Uchiha Sasuke.
But why the sudden change? Iruka knows that Shindou Toshiro is hiding something, but he cannot fathom why.
Iruka knows he was right all along – that uneasy feeling – but he still does not understand.
So Iruka finds himself watching Shindou Toshiro more, and the more he sees, the more uneasy he is. Something is wrong. Something is strange. There is something about Shindou Toshiro that is just off. Something even beyond the test scores, which Iruka finds himself proud of and wanting to explain away. There is something in his movements, something in his face, something in his smile.
It eats at him, that something.
It kills him, that something.
Sakura knows it is love.
She knows it like she knows everything that is true. She knows it better than she knows her textbooks, better than she knows her equations. Haruno Sakura knows it's love, because her heart tells her so and the stars tell her so and his smile tells her so, and if this isn't love she doesn't even need to know what love is because this is wonderful and happy and buoyant and she could just float away on wings made of her own lighter-than-air feelings.
The grass is green, the sky is blue, and she is in love with Shindou Toshiro.
And Ino is too. Sakura has always been what Ino is, ever since Ino saved her – not that she will ever admit it – and just once, just in love, she wants to be better than Ino. She wants to show Ino that she doesn't need that help anymore, that Haruno Sakura can stand on her own two feet, that she's not lesser, she's not the pitiable girl who needed help anymore.
Besides, Shindou Toshiro (Toshiro-kun, she giggles in her own mind, Toshiro-kun, Shiro-kun… Shindou Sakura. Ooh.) makes it so easy to love him. He's nice, diligent and smart, and a good sport about everything. He's friends with just about everybody in the class, even Uchiha Sasuke – or at least Sasuke-kun doesn't mind him. Everybody knows Sasuke-kun is like, the second-hottest. Maybe even first, but he's way colder than Shiro-kun.
(Not that Sakura really knows why she calls them hot. Isn't it a temperature? But Ino does, and so she does too.)
She giggles again, this time aloud, and as the subject of her love walks in the door she summons up all her courage in a blast and calls out before she can lose her nerve, "Hi, Toshiro-kun!" She can't find it in her to call him Shiro-kun yet, though he said they could when he introduced himself eons ago. Ino titters beside her like she's an idiot for even trying, but she holds on to her smile still.
And Toshiro hears her. He looks up and smiles, dazzling and cute, and it breathes confidence into her. "Hey, Sakura-chan," he says easily, and part of Sakura knows it's just because it's in his nature to be familiar and friendly and accepting, but the other part of her thinks it's a victory and lets out a victory cry. Some other part of her feels the acknowledgement in his however brief glance and smile, and that part just wants to laugh and scream and shout. She's buoyed up by warmth, by feelings she never knew she could feel.
For once in her life, Haruno Sakura feels superior.
Ever since she told Ino she was a rival, and an equal, Ino had grown more distant. Cha, it must be because she realized I'm stronger than her, Sakura thinks to herself, I don't need her anymore. I don't need her pity. I don't need her help. I don't need Ino, Shannaro!
Some little bit of her – some misguided, dependent bit hurts, but it's healed over by the echo of Toshiro's words in her head and the image of the smile on his face. She replays it over and over in her head, and the warmth rises, bringing her up with it.
Sakura falls in love with him all over again.
The first time Naruto talks to Uchiha Sasuke, she's scared shitless.
It's not of him. And it's not of anything really tangible. Honestly, Naruto knows she should not be afraid (It's like a new beginning and it's okay if Nonoko doesn't remember her because she remembers Nonoko and it's okay if Nonoko doesn't recognize her because she loves Nonoko) and Sasuke finds her right outside the disabled teacher's door, shaking like a leaf.
When she sees him, she prepares herself for the questions. She scrambles for answers. Her heart pounds even more furiously in her throat, against her skin, trying to tear itself away from her fear.
But he just stands there.
And it's strangely familiar, so déjà vu that Naruto remembers the time when Yamanaka Ino told her about Sasuke's family and Sasuke overheard. He avoided even the sight of her for days, even though they'd been getting along-ish as competitors for the top spot in the class listings (posted every Monday on the school's bulletin) – of course, getting 'along' with Sasuke constituted of not being glared out of the seat beside him.
And finally she'd found him, confronted him, and just stood there before him. She didn't have any words, and she just wanted him to know that she wouldn't ask any questions, that he wouldn't have to tell her anything until he wanted to.
As she watches his impassive face, searching his posture for something, anything, she finds herself relaxing.
Uchiha Sasuke is just there. Just there. No questions, no words, no nothing. Not confrontational, not judgmental. Just there.
And she's not scared shitless anymore.
She nods, briefly, trying to keep her composure when normally she would've started talking already. And it is ironically Uchiha Sasuke who says the first word that passes between them. He smirks a little, starts to walk away, and then, like an afterthought, tosses over his shoulder, "Dobe."
For a few seconds Naruto scrambles through all her interactions with her only competitor for the scholarship position, trying to understand what the sudden insult could mean. Then she remembers that sometimes friends call each other names and though she doesn't quite understand, she calls after him, "Teme!"
She doesn't stay long enough to see his response, if he has one, because she opens the door and walks in to meet Nonoko for the very second time.
Iruka has a couple theories regarding Shindou Toshiro, and they're all so outlandish he doesn't like to think he's thought of them – just for his own self-esteem. One involves the late Yondaime, because of the curious sunshine color of Shindou's hair and the depth of his blue eyes and just the look of his smile and he has to stop thinking about it or he'll start thinking his ridiculous theory is a truth. Another has to do with demons in disguise. One even has to do with poor old Nonoko-sensei, though he's sure it's just Shindou's nature to be nice, even to the mentally broken and senseless.
When Iruka starts thinking about spies undercover from Iwa, he knows something must be done.
Iruka knows that he has to do something, but he isn't sure what until he finds Shindou wandering around the halls of the Academy apartment complex after school hours one day. Many of the teachers also live in the building built for Academy staff and scholarship recipients, as it's close to the school, cheap, and of a quality above a teacher's pay grade.
Shindou looks up, his face a mask of embarrassed sheepishness. "I lost my key," he blurts quickly, and Iruka is suddenly hit by how normal the boy's voice sounds. It used to have the rich texture of a politician's son, or a noble's accent, but the formerly overwhelming texture has dulled to a slight exotic tint – of course, he supposes to himself, children learn quickly.
Children forget quickly.
"We'll get you a duplicate one," Iruka starts, then realizes what a perfect opportunity this is and rapidly switches gears, "tomorrow. The Academy is locked up at night, and I'm afraid we can't get at it until it opens in the morning." He is startled at how easily the lie slips out of his mouth, how thoughtlessly he includes the false reason.
Iruka doesn't expect it of himself. And Shindou apparently doesn't either, because he accepts the statement casually. "Alright then," he says, "I guess I'll just go see if I can room with Minai-san."
Immediately, Iruka has the feeling of something wrong, something he can't place, that same nagging feeling that he always seems to get when he is around Shindou Toshiro. He thinks about it for a couple seconds. Minai, as everybody knows, moved back after her demotion because her salary couldn't keep up the high-end apartment she had near the merchant sector. But that's not the problem here.
Ah. The problem, Iruka belatedly realizes, is that Shindou is an adolescent male child and probably shouldn't be living with unrelated women. It's funny – and it nags at him, that funny feeling, it shouts and it screams and it's just at the edge of his mind – because for some reason Iruka has never thought of Shindou as a prepubescent boy. And he knows this is important, and he almost knows why, but his mind shies away from it as if it is something he doesn't want to know. Maybe it's his maturity, he tells himself, he's just not somebody you think of as prepubescent, he thinks, and leaves it at that. Still, the thought hovers at the edge of his mind, tipping on the verge of his tongue.
"I'm not sure if that's appropriate," he says slowly instead of the thing on the tip of his tongue, and watches realization dawn on Shindou's face. It's funny, he thinks again, because Shindou didn't find it strange either.
Funny.
Iruka smiles and adds, "You can stay with me instead," though the words taste funny on his tongue. Shindou hesitates and he adds, "Hey, I'm not that bad." Neither of them laugh so he continues awkwardly, "I'll treat you to some dinner first. Ichiraku sound good to you?"
Only when they are seated in the stand with four steaming cups of ramen before them does Iruka wonder why he is so desperate to find out more about this elusive but open boy. Just curiosity alone cannot open his wallet. There is something about him that is so remarkable, so reliable, so familiar that it calls to Iruka. Again Iruka thinks of the Yondaime, but quickly pushes it out of his mind. No, it's not one of his wild theories but something tangible about the boy's eyes, something in his face, something in the way he speaks that draws everybody inescapably toward him. Iruka remembers mid-mouthful that gravity does not discriminate, and Shindou is the black hole center, and he is prone to falling as well.
And if their conversation is a bit tilted, like a game of cat and mouse, it just makes it more fun.
And if Shindou includes Old Man Ichiraku in the conversation as easily as if they were a trio of friends, and Ayame-chan later when she comes out, Iruka does not look away from the gravity happening before his eyes.
And if Shindou gulps down his three bowls of ramen and then wipes his mouth daintily, almost like a… and Iruka's mind stutters again, he evades the answer there almost willingly.
When they are done and back in the apartment complex only three blocks away, Shindou pauses in his story about the rat in Nonoko-sensei's classroom and how he valiantly captured it with two pieces of chalk and a poster off the wall and Iruka makes a mistake. Iruka makes a mistake because he asks his first real question of the night, and it slips out of his mouth before he can stop it.
"How do you know Nonoko-sensei, Shindou-kun? Why did you go see her?"
The look on Shindou's face transforms him.
Iruka turns away and quickly unlocks and opens his door, trying not to notice how his hands are suddenly trembling – trembling. He doesn't understand; or rather, he understands all too well and he doesn't want to. He walks in and turns on the lights and says, quietly, to his neat room, "Come on in." He's startled by his own words, because the words that he thought would fill his mouth were more along the lines of never mind or sorry, you don't have to answer that. He is startled and he can't find a way to take it back.
Shindou brushes past him, moving quickly, and this uncharacteristic rudeness is disconcerting to Iruka for a second. The boy darts to the screen door opening to the balcony and opens it. He turns his head back and calls, "Thanks for the meal, Iruka-sensei. I can get back to my room from here."
Iruka recognizes the escape, and he's glad for it. He's glad for Shindou's escape from his own mistake. He's glad for the smile on the boy's face. It's a normal smile: the toothy, scrunched-up-eyes, too-wide grin that looks somehow charming on his face. The one that shines at the center of the classroom, daily.
And all of a sudden Iruka is not glad, because he never realized how fake it looked. How practiced.
Then Shindou is jumping across the railing of the small balcony and Iruka doesn't move to stop him, doesn't even call out to be careful, bound in place by a smile and the look of betrayal on Shindou's too-young face.
Yamanaka Inoichi is startled when his lovely daughter Ino comes to ask – no, demand that he teaches her the clan techniques. Rather, startled is a pithy word for it. What Inoichi feels when he looks into her determined cyan eyes (no boring color like blue, but a beautiful cyan, just like her mother) is a grand concoction of little things. There is a little pride and a little happiness and a little brightness, but also a little worry and a little fear and a whole lot of things he can't even bring words to.
But Inoichi was not the Head of Intelligence for no reason, so he shoves all the feelings aside and smiles. "Is there any reason why?" He asks.
And Ino, who is so much like her mother (because both of them love to brag, though in front of them Inoichi calls it "having pride") jumps on the opportunity to explain. "Well, Shiro-kun asked me," she begins, and despite the fact that Inoichi always tries to hear his girls out completely when they talk (lest he face their wrath), he is so surprised that he preemptively interrupts her.
"Shiro-kun?"
She pouts but does not yell at him for the interruption, which to Inoichi is the first red flag. "Yeah, that's Shindou Toshiro to you. He's my friend," she says, adding unabashedly, "and my future husband!"
Feeling more than just a little animosity towards this Shiro-kun already, Inoichi says, "I thought you liked Sasuke-kun?" The Uchiha, at least, was a known quantity. (And so antisocial that the Uchiha was unlikely to take his Ino away from him.)
"Dad!" Ino yells. "That was months and months ago. You're getting old!"
Inoichi nods very seriously and squats down to put himself at her eye level. "That's right," he says, "Daddy is getting old, so you have to remind him who Shindou-kun is. Remember way back when you liked Sasuke-kun and I asked you to tell me one bad thing about him for every three good things you came up with?" Inoichi still remembers some of the things Ino came up with, things that made him proud of how observant his daughter was. He'd even added some of the things she said to Sasuke's psych evaluations. But Ino only looks at him now, her expression vaguely horrified. "Can you do that again?" He prompts.
Ino nods slowly, and starts rather exuberantly: "Well, Shiro-kun is super smart. He's at the top of our class, so he's even smarter than Sasuke-kun, and he reads all the time. And he's really nice, too, and he cares about everybody, even Forehead-girl – I mean, Sakura. He doesn't like it when people fight and he always helps us with our homework if we ask and he says hi to everybody and he remembers everybody's birthdays and even knows all the names of Yakumo-kun's pet fish even though one of them dies at least every day, that's how crazy nice he is. Shiro-kun is so good at chakra control, even though us girls are supposed to be better, and he almost always wins in classroom spars because he does really inventive things that nobody else sees coming and-"
"One bad thing for every three good things," Inoichi reminds her, because it looks like Ino isn't going to run out of steam anytime soon. Ino closes her mouth and looks at the ground. To Inoichi, this is flag number two. His daughter has always loved speaking, and blabbers on both when he wants her to and when he pleads for her to stop. He bends down even further and tilts his head up so he can look her in the eyes. "Ino," he says, quietly, "Nobody's perfect, and that's okay. Surely there's something."
Ino sighs and sits heavily on the ground beside the tulip patch. Inoichi finds himself surprised, again, because he knows how much Ino likes it when she's taller (and therefore "better") than her father. But she's consciously lowered herself. For Inoichi, it's the third flag.
Ino looks out over the flower garden to their house and flower shop and then back at her father. When she speaks again, it is in a quiet voice. It is in the voice that she used to use to ask her father for favors.
"Daddy," she says, gently, "have you ever liked something so much that you wished it was perfect?" Inoichi makes to talk but she cuts him off, "Have you ever liked something so much that, even though you know in your mind that it can't possibly be perfect, you still don't look too closely at anything that could be wrong, because you want to believe that it is?"
Inoichi looks at her daughter, looks into her serious cyan eyes – more serious than he's ever seen her, and cannot find any words to say.
She continues, "It's not just me either. Everybody likes him a lot. He even went and befriended Nonoko-sensei, and everybody knows she's kooky. But since Shiro-kun is so nice to her, and he honestly cares about her so much that sometimes everybody goes and eats lunch with her. He got Shikamaru to study, Daddy. Ever since he transferred in last year…" She pauses and recollects. "I don't know how to say it," Ino admits, "But if you knew him you'd know what I'm talking about. There's just something about him that shines."
Something about his daughter, something about her voice or her words or her eyes – something terrifies Inoichi. It terrifies him to death because she is changing and transforming and he doesn't even understand why.
And he wants to hate this Shiro-kun, but he can't. Because Inoichi remembers feeling like that, like that man could never fail. And even though he wants to tell his daughter that all this trust, all this love is just going to hurt her, he cannot find the words because he remembers the comfort of that total conviction that that man, at least, could do no wrong. That he would follow behind him forever. That Konoha would always be bathed in such sunshine.
But Yamanka Inoichi also remembers that Namikaze Minato fell.
Naruto does not mean to hear them talking. And in fact, she doesn't listen at first.
But something catches her attention. The names click in her mind and she is suddenly running to the rhythm of the not-true-not-true words and her own heart beating violently against her spine, against her throat, against her whole world.
Tanto-sensei says: "I just heard. Are you going to the memorial service?" A heavy silence. "Are you okay?"
Iruka-sensei says: "It's just… always sad to hear about these things, you know? Nara Tomo was such a good student."
Tanto: "She was kind of quiet, but smart in that Nara way. You never expect that kind to fall."
Iruka: "I hear it was in defense of her teammate? An Inuzuka, right?" A pregnant pause. "Well, let it never be said that she was anything less than loyal."
Tanto: "It's the best way to die."
Die.
Die.
Die.
In fact, Naruto has almost forgotten. In fact, she wants to forget; she wants to lose herself in him.
Minai loves him. Nonoko is just a broken but lovely lady to him. His world is composed of laughter and smiles, of the kids in his class and doing the best on the next test and working and playing in often unequal parts.
But the hidden truth is always sitting there, in her mind. She is not him. Minai hates her, and she knows it's because of what happened to Minai after she ran away. Nonoko is her first teacher, and it's all her fault that the closest thing she had to a mother now can't even speak in complete sentences.
And none of them are her friends. None of them have ever even heard of Uzumaki Naruto.
She sits down heavily on the floor and lets the burning tears escape the barrier of her eyelids. She lets them run down her cheeks. She lets them splash on the floor, on her legs, on her hands. She cries for Tomo and Shuuka and everything she still wants to forget. Even Mae and Saeki. They make her life so hard – they make it so hard, because otherwise she might be able to forget and let go and just be Shindou Toshiro (even if a little traitorous part of her head says that they are what make him, as well). But there's a distinct difference, because Shindou is made of up of other things as well: new friends and smiles and no secrets at all.
How long, a little part of her asks, How long has it been since you last cried? And she is breaking down again, dripping and leaking apologies to them, to all of them, and telling them she doesn't want to forget, she won't forget, she'll never forget. Telling them even if it kills her, she'll hold that pain close to her heart.
Shindou Toshiro is made up of smiles and sunshine and frivolously important things, but Uzumaki Naruto – Naruto is composed of tears.
Nara Shikamaru finds himself, once again, at cousin Tomo's grave. Tomo was seven years younger than the next youngest Nara child, so she ended up taking care of all of the "Nara babies," as she called them affectionately. Even though Shikamaru was smarter, even though he knew he was mature for a child, that difference of two years and maybe something about the way Tomo held herself overshadowed his mind.
Shikamaru sees some of his other cousins there sometimes, or Uncle Tasha, but he always waits a respectful distance away so they can talk to Tomo alone.
But the girl standing before Tomo's grave is not one he recognizes. She has a strange dress on and a very large sunhat hat that nearly covers her face, but he catches a sight of startled blue eyes looking straight at him and hair like gold. His first thought is Ino, but all at once, he knows it's not true.
Then she is running off, skirts flying in the air, and her back is too strangely familiar. It reminds him of somebody and he can't figure out why.
And when Shikamaru goes nearer to Tomo's grave, he finds the usual assortment of flowers, the daily bar of chocolate from Uncle Tasha, and a peppermint candy. Every night, Uncle Tasha comes to burn everything up so the smoke can float to the sky where Tomo is.
How strange, Shikamaru thinks. Maybe Uncle Tasha missed it from yesterday. Then he takes a peppermint candy from his pocket – Tomo's favorite kind – and lays it beside the other one. He clasps his hands and bows three times.
Then, because there is nothing to say and the silence is too profound, Shikamaru talks about his class. He talks about how Chouji eats in the back of the room and they always try to pick the side of the classroom opposite of Shindou, because Iruka is always looking at Shindou. Things happen on the other side of the classroom, Shikamaru says, and he likes it that way. He has the vaguest feeling that Tomo is scolding him, telling him to put himself out there more.
Eventually Shikamaru gets tired of talking and his voice is hoarse and he's tired of trying to keep Shindou out of this private conversation, even though Shindou seems to make space for himself wherever he goes.
Shikamaru does not admit to himself, even in his mind, that he is sometimes jealous of Shindou's drive. That sometimes he wonders at how the boy embedded himself everywhere, even in his best friend Chouji with that bag of chips and a couple exuberant words and the (accepted) invitation to go running together. Chouji, running! Shikamaru still can't quite believe it. And he doesn't think that he can convince Chouji to go running, either.
But Shikamaru admits something else, out loud, something even more secret than that.
"I think you'd like my classmates. Especially Shindou," he says to the stone. "He reminds me of you, sometimes."
Shikamaru's voice doesn't break down on the last word. It doesn't, really. And he doesn't cry.
Really.
Naruto is walking slowly, balancing her cafeteria food on one arm, when she hears the scream.
The Academy is always filled with noise. Somewhere, there is always a class playing, children laughing and screaming. The individual classes are small, but there is a graduating class every two months, so the Academy has plenty of people in it.
There is always noise, but when Naruto hears the scream, she recognizes it.
The recognition is terrifying, and all at once she has dropped her tray and is sprinting down the hallway, heart pounding, chakra pumping through her veins in lieu of oxygen. She can't breathe. She can't think. She can't do anything but run as fast as her feet can take her. Naruto arrives sat Nonoko's door in too-long moments to find her sensei on the floor, convulsing, and she turns cold.
Didn't Saeki teach her first aid? Didn't the classes cover this? There's something she can do, something she should do, but Naruto is frozen in place, stuck hoping it's just a bad dream. There's no adrenaline in her system. There's no visible enemy. There's nothing she can do.
"Shindou-kun?" A startled voice says from behind her and she turns, meaning to face the speaker, but her eyes won't move from Nonoko. "What are you doing here?" She recognizes him – it's Takimoto, the severest teacher and teacher of advanced mathematical studies. Since most ninja hopefuls only learn rudimentary math, focusing instead on rhetoric and physical techniques and chakra, Takimoto has only one class rotation and often substitutes for sick teachers. His class, Naruto recalls, is somewhere in this hallway.
Seeing that she has no response, Takimoto makes a small dissatisfied noise and stalks through the doorway. "Go to my room and get the small red bottle in the second drawer on my desk and a water bottle from the closet." He pins down Nonoko's flailing arms, and when Naruto hesitates, barks, "Hurry!"
Naruto scampers out the door and down the hall. She doesn't remember where Takimoto's room is, but she finds a metal plate with the leaf insignia and "Takimoto-sensei" carved in it hung on a door three doors down the hall.
She bursts into the room. There are two students inside, working out of thick textbooks, and only one glances up at her when she runs to Takimoto's desk and begins opening his drawers. She finds the red bottle easily; it's a dark crimson that stands out against the pale brown wood of the drawers. The student watching her speaks up suddenly, startling her. "We're out of water," he says. "And all the water bottles are in the teachers' lounge. You'll have to go tell Takimoto-sensei that."
"What?" It takes her a second to process. The other student looks up from the textbook – math, Naruto can see the problems now.
"It's Nonoko-san, right?" The boy frowns and furrows his eyebrows. "You gotta feel sorry for her."
"Do you know what happened to her?" Naruto asks quickly.
He looks at her, and she looks right back at his eyes. "My mum said it's cause she mixed with the wrong sort," he said finally. "She got involved with the wrong people."
Naruto means to hold his gaze, but she can't. So she says to his shoes, "Thanks for letting me know."
When she runs into Nonoko's classroom again, Takimoto looks up and makes a little disappointed noise. "We're out of water, aren't we?" He asks, rhetorically. He stands and Nonoko quivers. "Come here, Shindou-kun. Make sure she doesn't hurt herself. I'll be back in a minute." Naruto rushes over to hold Nonoko's arms down, dropping the red bottle on a desk, and Takimoto leaves at a brisk walk.
Nonoko is murmuring to herself, talking in strange, halting tones. Naruto bends closer to hear and suddenly Nonoko is shouting again. "Hate!" she yells, and then quiets to a whimper, "I hate… you." She looks up blankly at the ceiling, her arms twitching, and says, "Naruto." Naruto's heart stills at her name, aloud in the air for the first time in years. "Naruto," Nonoko says again. Then, distinctly though painstakingly slowly, "it's all… your… fault."
The strength goes out of her arms.
"Why… me?" Nonoko cries. "I didn't… want… this."
Shindou fades, and all it leaves her with is Naruto and the tears. Except Naruto feels her world shaken. Naruto feels her sky falling. Because somewhere in her heart, Naruto always believed that Nonoko loved her.
Her tears fall on Nonoko's face, on her neck, on her hands. She drips. It's disgusting. She can't stop. She has food on her legs from when she dropped her tray. She's a mess.
She's a mess and Nonoko hates her.
Then Nonoko looks up again. Her eyes are grey, like steel, like bad weather coming. "No," she says. "No…I'm sorry." She stills, and her body stops convulsing. Naruto, head bowed, eyes closed against the tears, hearing her first teacher whisper brokenly and so softly it may just be her own imagination, "I love you, Naruto. I'm sorry. Stay safe."
Naruto does not hear Takimoto come back in with the water. She watches but does not see Nonoko swallow it obediently and go limp. She moves and goes to the bathroom to wash her face and clean herself up but she does not think. She does not know what to think. Naruto is afraid that if she thinks about what just happened, her barely mended world will break into pieces again.
It's easier to hold herself together by pretending nothing happened.
Naruto needs something to be easy.
But when is anything ever easy?
And is anything easy even worth it?
Iruka's palms sweat as he sits, tense and upright, in the chair by the hallway that leads to the Hokage's office. He is sure that the secretary is laughing at him in her head as she flips through what looks to be a fashion magazine. Some strange part of his mind provides Iruka with the information that all the real paper-pushers (of whose ranks Iruka was, for a short time, about to join) are housed elsewhere and this lady is probably some kind of high-ranking ninja pretending to be bored.
He still feels like she's laughing at him.
Finally – finally, footsteps sound out in the hallway, and an ornately dressed foreign-looking man walks in to the waiting room. He does not even spare Iruka a glance, but Iruka catches the way the ambassador's eyes stray to the woman, who is now twirling her hair coyly, and downward. "You can go in now," the secretary says.
Is that mirth in her voice?
Iruka almost runs out of the room. But then, realizing he is approaching the Hokage's office, he slows down and tries to compose himself. It's just a yearly meeting, after all. Iruka always had to hand in reports and go talk to somebody ranked high in the education ladder. He just has the fortune to meet with the Hokage this time, because his class is the "clan class" and their graduation is coming up in just six months. After a minute of too-fast breathing, he realizes it's not going to get better, swallows his heart, and opens the door.
The Hokage smiles benignly at him. "Iruka-san," he says, and his voice is warm. "Come in, sit. How are you? How are the kids treating you?"
Iruka smiles shakily. He sits. "I'm fine," he says. "The children are great, they're a joy to teach."
"Really? I must get you to teach Konohamaru's class, then," the Hokage says. Iruka's heart jumps in his throat again. "You'd surely change your mind. He's such a brat." The Hokage laughs to himself and shakes his head at the papers on his desk. Iruka laughs too, startled, and the sound of his laugh is squished and vaguely irritating, even to him, but he finds himself relaxing.
"Tell me about the children and how well they're learning," the Hokage finally speaks, after a moment of shuffling through the class portfolios – Iruka recognizes them. "I hear this year somebody managed to obtain the scholarship?"
Suddenly the doubts rise again. Iruka knows he's supposed to tell somebody about Shindou – no, that's not probably the girl's name – about her deception, but for some reason it feels like a secret he should keep.
Old loyalty rings out true.
"Actually, that's an interesting story," he says. "There's more to Shindou Toshiro than there seems to be, even at first glance…"
She opens the door to two familiar faces – one she sees every day, and one she never wished to see again.
"Naruto," the Hokage says.
There is nowhere to run.
Author's Notes:
Thanks to shewhoflies - none of this is possible without you. And thanks to you, yes, you - the readers who click and favorite and alert and review. You give me some hope.
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12.01.13 Edits (Word Choice)
Liffae ^-~