As soon as the rain has stopped, Naruto grabs his backpack and heads towards the library. He runs all the way there; his brain literally won't let him walk slowly. He's jittery with energy and he has to use that energy for something, otherwise he'll explode.
Kakashi wants to take him with him. It almost doesn't feel real. Naruto will have to ask him again when he wakes up, just to confirm that he actually said that. Is he sure he wants Naruto around? Is he really sure? Is he really really sure?
Will he still be sure when he realizes how bad Naruto is at ninjutsu? And at lying? Iruka-sensei once said he wouldn't trust Naruto to take on an undercover mission, or any type of mission. Pretending not to be a missing-nin sounds like an undercover mission, but harder and more dangerous. What if Naruto just sucks at it?
Well, worrying about it won't solve anything, he tells himself sternly. He'll just have to study like crazy.
He tightens his hands around the straps of his backpack, feet splashing in puddles as he sprints through a busy street. He almost bumps into a couple of people; someone snaps at him to watch out, but he finds that it doesn't sting like it normally would. Pretty soon, he'll never have to see any of these people again. He's going to disappear and never come back, so it doesn't matter what they think of him.
They'd probably be happy about him leaving, too. That idea does sting, a little. He doesn't care about the opinion of some passerby on the street, but it'd be kind of sad if nobody missed him at all. Will Teuchi and Ayame think of him from time to time? Will his classmates – the ones that aren't annoying – give a damn that he's gone? Will Iruka-sensei? Or the Hokage? Or will they just be glad to be rid of him?
The library is within sight now, and the thoughts dissipate when he tries to remember where he put the list of books he's supposed to get. He finds it in the pocket of his jacket. Holding the list in his hand, he steps into the library. The librarian raises an eyebrow at him and looks pointedly at his sandals; Naruto quickly backtracks to wipe the mud off his shoes, and the librarian's disapproving look disappears after that.
There aren't any other people within sight, though Naruto can hear a couple of voices whispering in the back. One of them is talking pretty loudly – he's about to get an earful from the librarian for sure. Naruto makes sure to steer clear of them, before he's caught in the crossfire and gets yelled at too.
He goes over to the section about chakra first, because it's the farthest away from the group. Kakashi asked for "every book about chakra he could find", "the more complicated, the better". Naruto takes one look at the bookshelves and decides that all of these books are complicated; he can't read most of the titles. It'll take a while to figure out which books will be useful to Kakashi.
With a sigh, Naruto dumps the most complicated-looking books onto a table and flips through them one by one. If he can vaguely understand what the book says, it's probably not complicated enough for Kakashi. If he doesn't have the slightest clue what the book is about, then it's good.
He's about halfway through when the loud whispering on the other side of the library becomes loud normal-talking – something about how you can only work hard if you like the goal you're working towards – and the librarian walks over to scold the guy. Naruto listens, grinning to himself. It's kind of rare that someone else gets in trouble, instead of Naruto himself.
There's some snickering in the group as the librarian walks away again. "Told you so, sensei," one of them teases, and the guy who was talking loudly makes a bit of a defeated noise. Maybe the group is a genin team? At the very least, Academy teachers wouldn't be okay with being teased like that, so this guy must be some other kind of sensei.
Naruto shakes his head and returns his attention to the books. It doesn't matter who those people are. He'll probably never see them again after this.
He finishes up sorting the books by their usefulness, and he returns the least useful books to the shelves. By then, the group still hasn't left, and they're sitting smack in the middle of the section for genin, where Naruto needs to be. Naruto eventually decides not to wait it out, and he resigns himself to the task of dealing with people.
Surprisingly, the group greets him politely – once again loudly, but politely – as he walks by, and leaves him alone otherwise. Naruto's assumption about them being a genin team seems mostly correct; there's three kids and one adult, and the kids are a couple of years older than Naruto is. One of the kids is wearing a Konoha uniform, though, so she must already be a chuunin.
As he looks for the books about henge, Naruto watches the team from the corner of his eye, both out of habit and out of curiosity. He doesn't see genin teams very often, but the ones he does see always have an undeniable air of coolness about them. They're skilled enough to graduate from the Academy and to survive their first few missions, and that changes something in their vibe somehow. They carry themselves like they know they should be looked up to.
This team… does not have that air of coolness at all.
One of the genin is doing one-handed push-ups on the floor; the other genin is sitting at a table. Both of them are intently looking up at their teacher, who is still in the middle of his whispered speech. The chuunin is reading right next to them, in the middle of a mountain of books, completely stone-faced, her glasses slowly slipping down her nose. Judging by the fact that her teammates aren't distracting her at all, this must be a regular occurrence.
It's their teacher that draws Naruto's attention the most. Naruto might've found him cool, if he wasn't so distracted by the guy's eyebrows and blindingly-green clothes.
Naruto is still staring, trying to figure out what the Hell to make of this, when the teacher notices him looking. Naruto automatically flinches back underneath his gaze, but the teacher only gives him a blinding grin.
"Hello there," he says, and he has such a booming voice that Naruto has to do his best not to flinch back further. "Did my words inspire you, young man? You're welcome to sit and listen."
Naruto is already looking for the nearest exit. "Uhm." He has no idea what to say to that. "I wasn't, uh…"
"Don't let him intimidate you, kid," one of the genin says – she doesn't stop doing her push-ups. "Gai-sensei is just being intense because we're trying to choose our jutsu specialties, and he's trying to catch us up on all the preparation the Academy should've taught us."
"He doesn't want us to pick something that'll make us unhappy," the other genin adds. The chuunin just keeps reading. It seems she's already picked her specialty; from up close, Naruto can see that all of her books are about medical ninjutsu.
"Exactly," Gai-sensei agrees with the genin. "It's never too early to learn about the importance of mental health for shinobi. If you'd like to join in, please do."
Naruto somehow feels like he's being mocked, but the guy seems so sincere – he has no idea what kind of answer he's expecting. Naruto picks the safe option and tries to get himself out of this conversation as quickly as possible. "I think I've already mastered the art of not doing stuff that makes me unhappy, thank you very much," he says. "Anyway, I don't have time. My teacher sent me to get some books for him, so I'll be going back to the Academy as quickly as possible."
Gai thankfully seems to believe him, or at least he's perceptive enough to see that he doesn't want to talk. "Very well!" he says. "May I give you just one piece of advice?"
Naruto shifts on his feet. "Uh, sure."
"It is very difficult to see the difference between choices that will make you happy for a short period of time, and choices that will make you happy for longer," Gai says, "especially when you're as young as you are. Try to make choices that will make you happy in the long run, would you?"
"I'll… try?" Naruto says, and Gai nods approvingly, and Naruto grabs his books and gets the Hell out of there.
He sits on the library's roof for a while after that, to try and wrap his head around what just happened. He's not really the type to reflect a lot, but Gai's advice is stuck in his brain the way popcorn kernels get stuck in teeth. He stares out at his village, at the familiar rooftops, the busy street, the faraway Hokage Rock with his dad's face on it.
"Make choices that will make you happy in the long run…" Will leaving Konoha make him happy for a short time, or for a long time? Will it be better than staying, or does it only seem that way? He was wondering whether Konoha would miss him if he left – would he miss Konoha? He's not happy here now, but is there a chance he could be eventually? Is there a chance he could find his place in this village, where the Hokage lies to him and almost everybody hates him? Is there a chance they could forgive him for whatever it is that he did? Could he forgive them?
He doesn't have any answers to that, so he heaves himself to his feet and dusts off his pants. There are a lot of things he doesn't know, but Kakashi said he would help him put together the pros and the cons of leaving. For the first time, Naruto sort of understands why Kakashi insisted on having that conversation.
With that, he grabs the library books and gets down from the rooftop.
