Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ the ceremony of sealing ❯ depression ( Chapter 4 )

Naruto didn't go to school for the next month. Everyday was the same. Arashi left for work early in the morning while Naruto slept. Naruto woke around noon and spent the day sitting on a swing in the yard.

 

The once happy boy was now silent, sullen, and depressed. His blonde hair no longer stood in tall spikes, instead the drooped in front of his eye. Whenever Arashi asked him a question, Naruto answered with a shrug of the shoulders.

 

No one ever saw him smile; he brought new meaning to the term `silent as the grave'. Arashi was worried, Naruto hardly ate and he was getting thinner and pale, acquiring an almost pinched look in his cheeks. Dark circles were shadowing dull blue eyes, telling Arashi that Naruto hadn't slept in weeks.

 

Once Arashi decided to find out if Naruto really was sleeping at night. On a quiet Thursday night, Arashi stood out side Naruto's room and activated the Byakugan. Inside his room Naruto sat on his bed staring out at the moon from the window. Arashi could see the picture frame of Keoko on the swing in the yard in Naruto's hands. The Hokage almost hoped there would be tears, but there weren't. Naruto was silent still.

 

When Naruto returned to school, many of the children wondered why he didn't respond to their teasing. Some even went so far as to eat Naruto's lunch in front of him. Naruto didn't seem to care anymore. Arashi couldn't even tempt him with miso ramen. At school Naruto sat in a corner his arms wrapped around his knees, not uttering a single syllable. None of the children could get him to play, not even his cousin Kiba. When the sensei asked Naruto to solve a battle tactic, Naruto drew diagrams on the board instead of talking.

 

Because he was so worried about Naruto's health, Arashi arranged to have Naruto visit psychiatrists every week and psychologists as well. Nothing worked, if anything, Naruto seemed more withdrawn than ever.

 

Naruto ate about once every week and that was scarcely enough food to feed a mouse. Two months after Keoko died, Naruto ended up in the hospital from malnutrition. The medics had to tie Naruto to the bed in order to feed him. It took two hours for Naruto to eat a single bowl of miso ramen. Soon Naruto stopped fighting and let the medics feed him, but he still wouldn't talk.

 

Arashi felt so bad for Naruto, he searched everywhere for a jutsu that could revive a dead person. There was no such luck.

 

Three weeks after Naruto was admitted to the hospital, he tried committing suicide; using a knife he had stolen from a medic a few days before. Naruto looked into Arashi's eyes, with a pleading expression, it seemed to say `let me go I am miserable please.'

 

Arashi sat by Naruto's bed every night while Naruto tried to sleep. Even in the hospital he couldn't sleep, his eyes haunted by a terrified look that seemed to suggest that if he fell asleep then something bad would happen. Naruto even wrote a note to Arashi.

 

Otosan,

Please get me out of here. The medics are mean and I don't want to die here like okasan. Please, I promise to be good, you will never have to tell me to be quiet. You wont have to worry about my grades just please let me out of this hospital.

 

For Arashi, that was the last straw. He burst into tears and hugged Naruto close.

 

“Naruto, I couldn't care less about you being noisy or your grades, I care about you. You are the only thing in this world that keeps me from losing it completely. That's why you're here. You don't remember, but you got really sick with pneumonia and you would have died if I hadn't brought you here. I care about you so much. I will do everything I can to get you of here. Just don't scare me like that, I was afraid I was going to lose you.”