Hey everyone! This chapter is super late and I'm really sorry. I'll try to get the next one out sooner!
Um, I don't own Naruto. So don't sue.
Kakashi
"Hey, Naruto!" Alina pops up out of nowhere and latches onto his arm, grinning. "I'm not letting you go today!" He stares at her blankly. "You're going to spend some quality time with me! Okay?"
He doesn't say anything because it doesn't matter at this point.
"You barely show up to school anymore and when you do, you avoid Zach and I like the plague." Her grip on his arm gets tighter.
"I'm going to do better. Things should turn around for me." He tries to smile at her but it comes looking more sad than anything.
She doesn't even seem to notice. "Good! We've been so worried about you!"
He wonders how such 'worried' people don't even call his phone to ask if he's okay. He wonders how such 'worried' people don't visit him or attempt to communicate in any other form. He wonders how such 'worried' people would let him drown in his own problems.
He thinks about voicing this to the girl who's still blabbering about how much everyone missed him when someone runs into the side of him. He stumbles back a few steps and focuses on the man – teen – that knocked into him. He's startled to find the teen staring back at him with his grey eyes. That look is curious, as though the teen isn't quite sure that he actually ran into something real.
"Hey! Apologize for running into him! You jerk!" Alina comes to his 'rescue' stepping in between him and the teen and jabbing her finger into the teen's chest.
"Sorry." But the teen doesn't sound sorry at all, not that it's easy to tell with the monotone tone that came out. He looks like he's about to say something else when he changes his mind and steps back. "I have to…go." And then the teen is gone.
"What a jerk," Alina comments, latching onto Naruto's arm and smiling up at the blonde.
"He just looked a little lost. He was probably deep in thought."
"So? That doesn't give him any right to not apologize!"
"Alina." He looks down at her and has the urge to tell her to stop talking but he can't bring himself to. Instead he looks away and begins to walk home with her attached to his side.
"Are you coming to school tomorrow?" she asks as they approach his apartment.
"Yeah. I'll be there. Don't worry." He sticks his key into the knob and turns it, pushing open the door in the process.
"Okay, good." She stands there even as he steps inside. He turns back to her. She stares at him expectantly.
"Do you need something?"
"Well, I was hoping I could come in. You know, spend some more time with you." She flashes him a smile.
"It's been a long day. I have work to do and I'd really rather just be alone. I'm sorry." He starts to close the door but she puts her hands against it and shoves back.
"Please, Naruto! Don't shut yourself away! Talk to me!"
"You wouldn't understand even if I told you."
"Don't say that! You don't know that! Just talk to me!"
"I'm sorry, Alina, but I do know that you'd never understand." He closes the door even as she pushes against it and turns the lock so she can't barge in on him.
"Don't do this!" she screams from the outside.
"Go home," he tells her, turning and going into his room. He puts on his headphones and drowns out the world.
She catches up with him at the end of the day again, her hands latching onto his arm, her nails digging into his skin. He doesn't have to tell her that he's been avoiding her all her day; it's obvious. The anger in her eyes tells him exactly how she feels about him ignoring her.
"I came," he says but that doesn't appease her. It only makes her angrier.
"You closed the door on me when I was trying to help!" She lets go of his arm to move in front of him and block his path. Her eyes are brimming with tears. "You just…you just…how could you do that?"
"Alina, I need time to just mellow out. People aren't…I need alone time."
"Well, you don't get it by slamming doors in people's faces! In fact, by doing that people bother you more because they're worried!"
"I…I understand what you're saying. I made a stupid mistake."
"Don't just spew this crap at me, Naruto! You're such a – what does he want?"
Naruto turns and there's that teen from yesterday, standing there staring at him. He takes a step towards the teen, ignoring Alina's squawk of protest. "You ran into me yesterday."
"An accident," the teen replies.
"I don't think it was."
The teen smirks. "Who's to say it was or wasn't?"
"You took my wallet."
The teen actually laughs at that. "I needed a reason to talk to you again."
"I don't think that, 'I took your wallet yesterday and now I'm returning it' is really a good conversation starter. But that's just for future reference."
The teen hands him his wallet. "It was all I had. I didn't think that you'd actually stop and listen if I just walked up to you."
"Stop and…?" And all of a sudden it all just clicks. "No. No. Look, I don't want to know who you are or were or any of that. I don't want to know what we were, or who you were to me, or what I was to you, or what I did for you, or any of that. I don't want to know. If you want to be my anything, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way and get to know me all over again. And I'll get to know the you that you are now. But I don't care about that place we came from or the people we fought or anything."
Confusion and hurt flashes through those grey eyes before the teen recomposes himself. "You don't remember?"
"No, okay? And I'm tired of trying to. I'm…my life is being ruined because I'm trying to please you people. Well, not you, but…I'm not crazy!"
"I don't think you are, Naruto," the teen tells him.
"You don't even know me." There's a moment of silence and then Naruto sighs. "You don't know the me now."
"Are you really that different?" the teen asks.
Naruto runs a hand through his blonde hair. "I don't know, okay? If I'm anything close to what I used to be like, it's obviously not good enough for you people."
"It's still…it's still very nice to see you again."
"Look, I..." He trails off, glancing over his shoulder at Alina, whose foot is tapping impatiently. "I don't care if you want to, you know, be my friend. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with you hanging around. But…" He sighs. "But I'm not doing the whole memory thing. So you'll just have to live with me."
"I understand."
"Do you?" But at this moment Alina latches onto his arm, giving the teen a fake smile.
"I'm sorry to break this up but we actually have somewhere to be." She begins to tug Naruto off in the other direction.
"Tomorrow then?" The teen sounds hopeful. Naruto looks back and nods.
Alina rounds on him the minute they're out of the teen's sight. "Since when have you been into men?"
He blinks stupidly. "What are you talking about?"
"I saw the way you looked at him! And the way he looked at you! The two of you were flirting! I know flirting when I see it! I mean, since when have you even liked men like that!"
"I…I don't…I wasn't flirting with him…"
"Is that who you've been spending all of your time with?"
"I just met him, Alina. I don't even know his name."
"A likely story! So how long have you two been going out? Huh?"
"Alina, you're being ridiculous." Naruto turns from her but she grabs his arm.
"I want to be part of your life again!" she yells.
"And you can be," he tells her, prying her off him, "but you have to understand that sometimes other people will come first."
"Like that boy."
"Yes, like him. There are just some people in this world that have priority. And I'm sorry, Alina, but you're not one of them."
She flinches like he's hit her. "But we…we're best friends…"
"I'm sorry." He walks away from her and she wants to scream, wants to cry, wants to call him back and yells at him for being such a jerk but she can't find it in her to make a sound.
He skips school. He doesn't want to see Zach or Alina, doesn't want to deal with teachers and work. He's fairly certain that his parents know he's missed more than just a couple days but they haven't brought up the subject and he isn't willing to go there.
"You shouldn't be skipping school." He'd been waiting for the teen across the street from his school, not knowing when the male would be arriving to talk to him.
"You shouldn't either," he counters, standing up and facing the teen.
"I dropped out," the teen replies, shrugging. "Can't be skipping if you don't attend."
"I suppose that's true." There's a lull, a silence. "I don't know your name."
The teen laughs and extends his hand. "I'm Kayden."
"Kayden." Naruto chews on that name for a while. It's different, he thinks. "Would you like to get something to eat?"
The waitress shoots them a funny look as she takes their order – she's probably wondering why they're not in class – but she doesn't say anything to them and walks away. Naruto takes this moment to really eye the teen in front of him. The male has silver hair – a weird color by anyone's standards for a man so young - and dark brown, almost black eyes. His skin is pale and it looks soft.
"Does my appearance bother you?"
His cheeks flush slightly and he ducks his head. "No. You're…you're very attractive." His cheeks darken even more. "You're the first one I've met that's my age."
"Just how many of us have you met, Naruto?"
He looks up into those dark eyes. "Just a few. Maybe five or six or seven."
Kayden leans forward, elbows on the table. "Five or six or seven? Naruto, I haven't even come across one other person."
"I can introduce you to all of them. Well, since you already know them it's not really introducing, is it?"
"Who do you know?"
"I don't want to talk about this, Please, I already told you that I…I wasn't getting involved with those memories anymore."
The waitress comes by with their drinks. "You had the-"
"Who have you been with, Naruto?" The teen's outburst startles them both. The waitress looks from one to the other before scurrying away.
"Neji," he blurts out. "Kiba, Gaara. Akamaru. Sasori. Deidara." And then he buries his face in his hands because he doesn't want to think about any of those people anymore.
"I'm sorry, I…with Sasori and Deidara I can see why you don't want to know who I am."
"Are you like them?" he asks. "Are you…did you hurt people like they did?"
"We all hurt people, Naruto, it was our job. But I'm not like them. I wasn't like them. We were on the same side. We were-"
"Stop!" Naruto yells. People nearby shoot him funny looks. "I don't want to know! I don't ever want to know again! Don't you get it?"
Kayden places a hand on his. "Naruto, I understand where you're coming from."
The blonde scoffs. "No you don't! You think you hurt because I don't remember? You don't fucking know how much I'm hurting! None of you people get it! The only person that understood was Gaara, and he won't talk to me because I did what you people are all trying to do! I fucked up his life!"
"Naruto, please, calm down. Why don't we go somewhere else? I'll take you out and we can get ramen." The teen places money on the table for everything, even the food they haven't gotten, and ushers the blonde out of the restaurant.
"I don't even like ramen!" Kayden looks absolutely stunned at this outburst. "Don't you get it? I'm not who you think I am! I'm not who you want me to be! I'm not even a poor copy! I'm my own damn person!"
"I'm sorry," Kayden murmurs, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to be hurt. I'm sorry."The teen pulls him in for a hug and Naruto sobs into his chest. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
So, that's the end of that chapter. I know that a few of you are probably like, "Uh...nothing happened, except Naruto had an emotional breakdown" and well, that's kinda the truth. But, let's be honest, his life is a big mess. He's allowed to cry when people push his buttons like that.
Oh, also, Kakashi (Kayden) should be appearing more in the future chapters because he is the closest to Naruto's age. Remember, Neji is like 30 and has a job, Kiba and Akamaru are about 12, Gaara doesn't want to talk to him, and Sasori and Deidara...don't want to talk to him either. So, it's up to Kakashi to be his new bestest friend!
That's really all I have to say at this moment. If you have any questions, comments or concerns (or complaints even) tell me about them in a review or in a PM or whatever suits your fancy.
But, uh, please, do leave s review.
And have a nice day! Or night. Or morning. Whatever you want to be nice!