Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ There's a Magic Spell in Smiles ❯ Something Out of Sight ( Chapter 2 )

Wow, I didn't think I'd get 38 reviews so soon. Thank you everyone who supported my anger against the bitch who told all gay people to go to hell. I'm not bent out of shape about it anymore, and because all of you are so nice and loving, I'm giving you chapter two a week early. Yeah, I meant to post this next week, but I decided against it… wheeee… anyways, thanks to everyone.

 

The Magic Spell in Smiles

Chapter 02: Something out of Sight

By Kyuubi-kun

 

Naruto had run until he found a small forest clearing - which bothered him slightly. This was one of the places that he and Sasuke used to train, even before their strange confession. It had so many memories of two teenage boys - known to the village as the genin Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke - laughing, fighting, and staying together to watch the moon and stars.

 

Naruto felt as though he couldn't enter it, so he stopped on the outreaches of it. He didn't need to really think about it to know that Kakashi was following him. The man had done this for the past couple of weeks. Naruto guessed it was on the Hokage's orders.

 

There was nothing Naruto wanted more than to be able to go into this field and back into a time when he was innocent - or as innocent as an orphan can be. Back before Sasuke had left or Sakura had deemed him insane. Back before the war with Sound or his promotion to captain of an Anbu team.

 

Before anything and everything…

 

Naruto wanted to go back to the beginning. He could remember the beginning - way back before the Uchiha Massacre and the Ninja Academy. The real beginning had been in a playground many years ago.

 

A young boy, not older than five, looked around him. He was confused, unable to comprehend why no one wanted to play with him. He felt sad as he sat on the old tire swing that no one would come near. He somehow knew it was just because he was there all the time. The tire swing was the only place where he could escape the insults.

 

But he never had anyone to push him, so he just sat there. The only movement was made from the wind blowing softly across the town, making the old tire sway gently.

 

Sunshine golden blonde hair topped the child's head as he looked around. Why didn't anyone like him? Was it because he had no parents? Was it because he didn't have anywhere to go? He didn't have anywhere to return to. No one wanted to take him into their home for a night, or maybe more. The Hokage had yet to be notified that the caretaker had made Naruto run away by trying to kill him when he was drunk.

 

No one thought it was very important to tell Sandaime that the boy was no longer at the caretaker's house.

 

After all, he was a monster.

 

Naruto didn't really know what a monster was - but he knew he was one. How, one might ask? He had never been called by his real name. He only knew his real name because of Sandaime - who was actually the only person who addressed him by Naruto.

 

Everyone else called him `monster.'

 

At first Naruto was pleased. He had heard a tall boy once tell his little sister `come on, monster.' The sister had gotten angry and she ran at her brother. He laughed and swung her into his arms in a bear hug.

 

So Naruto thought that `Monster' was an affectionate thing. Something like `honey' or `sweetheart.'

 

But now he knew better. He knew what Monster really meant. He didn't know why everyone called him that, but it hurt each time.

 

He was grimy and dirty and looked like a stray kitten.

 

He even had the whiskers.

 

But he was the stray that nobody wanted.

 

It had been nearly a month since his caretaker had come after him with the knife. Naruto's clothes would probably forever be stained with blood from where the knife had cut into him, slashing across his chest and stomach. The wounds had long since healed but the blood remained.

 

Naruto was too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice someone coming near him. It was another child. “Hello,” the boy said.

 

Naruto looked around him wildly before shyly pointing to himself and whispering, “Are you talking to me?” His eyes were wide and innocent. The other child smiled at him.

 

“There isn't anyone else here, dobe,” he said.

 

“I-I'm not a dobe!” Naruto stammered. He got a closer look at the other boy.

 

The child's hair was a midnight blue, bordering on black. Black eyes showed kindness to him and he had the palest skin that Naruto had ever seen. It was almost completely clean of dirt - which the Uzumaki found remarkable.

 

Naruto climbed off the tire-swing so that the two toddlers were standing on eye level. Well, almost eye level. The other was a few scant inches taller than Naruto.

 

“What's your name?” the other asked.

 

Naruto looked down as his feet. “Monster,” he murmured softly, a frown on his face. He felt tears prickle behind his eyes.

 

“Your name is `monster'?” the other asked, puzzled. “That's a strange name.”

 

“It's what everyone calls me.”

 

“I don't know why they do that… they must be meanies. If they're meanies, I'll protect you!” the boy vowed.

 

“I… I don't know you're name,” Naruto stammered. He had never had a conversation go on for this long. It pleased him as well as scared him.

 

“Uchiha Sasuke!” the boy proclaimed proudly. “I'm going to be a ninja, like my big brother soon!”

 

Naruto smiled and Sasuke smiled back. The Uchiha took Naruto's hand in his own and stared at the other boy. “You should smile more often,” he said.

 

“Really?” Naruto asked. “Bad things happen and when they do, only a fool can smile.” He had read that passage in a children's book and for some reason, he had remembered it.

 

Sasuke looked at him, before dragging the blonde over to where they could sit down under a large oak tree. “Didn't you know?” he asked, looking through the leaves at the sky above.

 

“Know what?” Naruto replied, curious as to what this Sasuke was getting at.

 

“There's a magic spell in smiles.”

 

“Magic… spell?” Naruto echoed questioningly. He was officially confused.

 

Sasuke turned to Naruto. “Yep! Whenever you smile, you can face the world and no one can hurt you! Whenever you smile - you can feel better about anything.”

 

Sasuke made smiling look so easy, as though everyone could do it. He seemed so happy, young and innocent… as though nothing could make him wipe that childlike grin off his face.

 

So Naruto had decided right then - that he would smile more often. That he would show the world that no one could get him down in the dumps. He would show the world that he wasn't a monster.

 

Naruto sighed softly, looking at the empty clearing. He couldn't walk there. That place… that time period where they had been friends didn't exist anymore. No matter how much he wished for it, wanted it, looked for it and fought for it - it was gone. There was nothing that could bring it back to him.

 

He knew that.

 

He had known that for years.

 

The days had passed quickly while he and Sasuke had trained together, or hung out together. Sasuke was responsible for making Naruto smile, even when he was a small child. Sasuke hadn't even known about his real name - he just knew that he wasn't a monster.

 

A mere toddler had done what hundreds of people could not. A mere toddler had shown the holder of Kyuubi the way that life could be.

 

And then that toddler had to break his innocent dream because of the older brother he adored.

 

Life is one ironic ride, Naruto thought to himself as he turned from the clearing. He could not bear to look at the ghosts that still haunted that clearing. He could not do anything to battle them. He was completely powerless in this situation. No matter what he said or did - he knew that Sasuke wasn't going to come home. Even though he could act hopeful in front of the world, deep inside, his mind believed that the only thing he had been chasing was an illusion of a past lost in time.

 

For the first time since he was five, Naruto felt what it was like to be truly hopeless.

 

Realizing that his thoughts were doing more harm than good, Naruto finally decided to call his shadow down from the tree branch ten feet behind him.

 

“Get your ass down here, Kakashi,” he growled out.

 

It wasn't long before the silver-haired jounin made his appearance at Naruto's side.

 

“How long have you known?” his ex-teacher asked as they walked along. Kakashi had to be the one person who didn't make a big deal about Naruto's habit of wearing a mask under any and all circumstances. Maybe it was because of Kakashi's mask - in which you could only see one-fourth of his face. Still, Naruto was grateful for his ex-teacher's silence.

 

“Since you began following me three and a half weeks ago,” was the blonde's response.

 

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, his eye curving up in what Naruto knew was an embarrassed grin. He couldn't help but smile at the older man. Kakashi hadn't changed much. That had always been a reason why Naruto liked hanging out with the man.

 

Kakashi was the one person in the village who hadn't changed. Tsunade had changed. Sakura had changed. Iruka had changed. Hell, even Konohamaru had changed.

 

But Kakashi had stayed the same.

 

“Ma, ma, it was orders,” Kakashi said.

 

“You don't need to make excuses, Kakashi. I already know Tsunade-baasan told you too.”

 

Kakashi grinned at the blonde's nickname for their Hokage. He was the only person who treated her with disrespect - save for Jiraiya - and got away without punishment, unless punishment was the countless bruises from her punches. But she was most casual around him and Jiraiya. Kakashi knew that.

 

“Well, so, why didn't you step into the clearing?” Kakashi asked. “You stood there for about a half an hour, not doing anything and then you turned your back on it.” He paused before adding, “It's not like you.”

 

“Why do you want to know?”

 

“Call it a teacher's concern.”

 

“You're not my teacher.”

 

“But I was.”

 

“And?”

 

“Tell me!”

 

“No.”

 

Kakashi stared at Naruto, a bored look in his eye. Naruto felt his spine tingle. Whenever that look came to Kakashi's eye, it meant that he was confident about what he believed the situation to be.

 

Kakashi stopped walking. Naruto walked about a foot before realizing his former teacher wasn't beside him.

 

“So it was about Sasuke.”

 

Naruto felt ice water wash over him at the name. No one had really spoken Sasuke's name besides him and Tsunade. Not even Kakashi. It was strange hearing that name again from someone else.

 

But the way that Kakashi had spoken made it seem as though he knew something that Naruto didn't. It was an icy tone, though only those who knew Kakashi really well could pick it up. Luckily, Naruto was one of those people.

 

Naruto removed his mask, staring at Kakashi coldly. “What makes you think it was anything like that?” he growled in a low voice.

 

He had never wanted to come to this conversation with Kakashi - who had always been angry that he couldn't have the chance to just pack up and leave in search of the Uchiha. Unfortunately, things kept him here all of these years. He regretted not going though. Naruto knew that.

 

“Your reaction to my words,” Kakashi answered softly.

 

Naruto's voice caught in his throat as he realized what the man said. With a heavy sigh, he leaned against the nearest tree, sliding down it to sit on the ground. His mask lay in the dirt beside him and for once he didn't care.

 

Kakashi took a seat at the tree across from Naruto's, to give the blonde his space.

 

“I've always wanted to ask you this,” the jounin said. Naruto stiffened. He knew what the question would be. It was something he had been dreading for years. “What exactly was Sasuke to you?”

 

Yes, Naruto had been right. It was the question that he hoped never to answer.

 

“Sasuke was everything to me,” Naruto whispered. His voice was soft, childlike and hesitant. He didn't meet Kakashi's eyes when he spoke. He felt ashamed, sadly. “I loved him. I loved him more than anything. He was the person in my life who had always been there. Not many people know… know when I first met Uchiha Sasuke. It wasn't at the academy.”

 

“When was it?” came Kakashi's voice. He felt his heart ache, just hearing the tone of his former student's voice. The blonde's voice was soft and slow. The childlike tone of the voice didn't match the current body of the teenager at all. Kakashi's eye looked at Naruto, recalling when Naruto sounded like this all the time instead of just when he felt completely vulnerable. He listened to Naruto closely, as he saw the boy was about to reveal something that almost all who knew him had wanted to learn for five long years.

 

“We were five. It was during the three months I lived on my own, on the streets. My caretaker had tried to stab me with a knife, so I left. I ran away. When I met Sasuke - I was at the tire swing in the park. The one they recently tore down. He asked me my name. I told him it was `monster'. Everyone called me that, so I was more used to hearing that than `Naruto.' Sad, huh?” He tried to smile now, but found he couldn't. “Sasuke told me that there's a magic spell in smiles. I believed him.” He paused, a sad smile finally making a place on his lips. His eyes were soft and kind, not at all like they had been for many years.

 

Kakashi thought he saw the twelve-year-old boy he had taught shine through the seventeen-year old body in front of him.

 

“Sasuke's the reason I even made it to the Ninja Academy - he's the reason I ever wanted to be a ninja. I didn't have the dream of Hokage until I was about eight. I wanted to be a ninja when I met Sasuke, though - just for the chance that I would see him again.”

 

He laughed a little, but Kakashi wasn't fooled. He knew the sound of that laugh - a laugh one only makes when one is close to crying. It's a defense that makes the tears go away, but when the tears are adamant - they will always fall.

 

Just like Naruto's were right now.

 

“How…? I haven't cried… since the day… that Sasuke left,” he murmured to himself. “How… can this be? I… I thought I was strong.”

 

Kakashi stared at Naruto as he watched the crystal tears flow down the boy's cheeks, making the blue of his eyes shine in each tiny drop. When the sunlight filtered through the leaves and touched one drop with its light, the effect was blinding.

 

Kakashi didn't know what to do. It had been a long time since he had comforted someone - even though he had been a surrogate father to Naruto and Sasuke, he still had never seen them break down. And when he had - there was that one time, but for a different train of thought - they would always bat away his help and put their masks back on. Naruto wasn't making either move.

 

So, Kakashi was stuck for what to do. Hesitantly, he reached his hand up and put it on Naruto's head, ruffling the blonde locks slowly. Naruto's big blue eyes, which had lost so much of the innocence over the past five years, were brimming full of his forgotten twelve-year-old self.

 

“Ma, ma,” he told the boy. “Don't worry. These things have a habit of working themselves out in the end.”

Naruto just glared at him. He knew that these things only worked out in movies. He doubted they would work out in real life.

 

 

Kyuubi-kun's Korner!

 

All right everyone, there's chapter two. You got to see a bit into the past of Naruto and Sasuke and the entire reasoning for the title. I would do a review answer session but I'm lazy and I don't feel like doing it right now, so I won't MWA HAA HAA. Anyways, yeah, you all will be able to see Sasuke in Chapter 3, so don't worry about him. Originally, this was supposed to be part of chapter one, but I didn't feel like it. Also it didn't fit the poem that the titles make together. So if you read the titles of the chapters, you'll get a special work of mine that's written only for this fic. In fact, it was written especially for this fic.

 

Love you all