ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍʏ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛɪꜰᴜʟ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ
ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ɴᴏ ɪɴꜰʟᴜᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏɴ ᴏᴜʀ ᴇʏᴇꜱ
ᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴏᴜʟꜱ ʙᴇᴀᴛ ᴀꜱ ᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ ᴏꜰ ᴏᴜʀ ʟᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘🍥༓🍥∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
"Have some fun and loosen up, Uzumaki! What fun is it to live if all you live in is fear?"
Y/n Hakura...
Yesterday morning. The Hokage office. A toad with a message burning its back.
Naruto slumped against the front door.
That. It's only memory he didn't want. He wouldn't have it. He couldn't.
Tanned fingers rubbed the leftover syrup of a melted popsicle between them, Naruto appreciating the diversion their stickiness gave.
Two clear-wrapped blue raspberry popsicles. Snapping sticks made for sweltering, sunny afternoons. Tints of candy blue staining wood.
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The hum of a moth-dancing streetlamp doused his head.
And there he was, back on that bench.
No matter how hard he tried, he had no other choice. That one memory scorched all the others. The more he ran, the worse it reminded him. Receipts of a bag-full ramen purchase decaying—a popsicle in his hand, the center of gravity.
That damned morning. A room stuffy of people and mourning. The last words of his mentor seared on the old frog.
"Jiraiya-boy has died in battle."
He was slipping, yet still. Unbearably still. Waiting and not waiting at all. For what, he wasn't sure.
A vicious loop of yearning to not feel and sleep. Begging to stay alive. Survive the next day. Exhausted and hungry. Awake and bearing no appetite. This battle canceled itself out multiple times while questioning its own reality.
Did it really exist at all?
Was this real?
Naruto's feet took him away from the door.
A habit. Thinking, then moving from the spot he'd thought in, a subconscious attempt to escape—a cultivated tendency to leave behind any grief upon the place he'd amassed it in.
A dying attempt.
This time, they carried him to the living room.
The blond Genin stopped at the glimpsing eyes of another.
You.
He took a breath, his only sense of comfort available in you alone.
You were his home, and he needed you.
A motioning hand broke him from his spell.
"Here," you said, patting the spot on the couch beside you. "Come and sit."
He listened without further word; the cushions supporting his severed bones. Auburn shoulders returned to their hunch gained this morning and sagged lower, like they bore more after going out.
