Coming out story.

[I am kind of proud of this story and it is important to me, because I think the topic is very important. Coming out is one of the most difficult things to do, and I applaud anyone who has had or will in the future have the guts to do it, if that is their sitiuation.
I hope no one becomes offended by what is written, said and done in this piece of fiction.
This fic was originally thought out as a one-shot, simply staying with Naruto's realizing he was gay, his, rather ungraceful, reaction and handling of the matter and telling his father, the first person. However, since you guys liked it enough for 10 reviews (WUHU!) I've written more and actually figured what should happen in the future, given that people still want to read it, and review. Comming out is a life-long process, and so it does make sense to continue, given my initial reason for writing this story.
Please read, enjoy, think, rate and REVIEW!]

This fic has been placed in the caring hands of my wonderful Beta; a heart-felt thank you for her hard work.
'Kimba LionHeart': http://anime2.adult-fanfiction.org/authors.php?no=1296868044.

Naruto's Coming Out Story II.


Naruto sat on his bed, thinking about the days to come. It was Sunday evening, and tomorrow he would have to face his demons – and Haku.

He had decided to start with apologizing to Haku, and then apologize to his teachers afterwards, because he could see himself in need of serious advice before facing Kakashi-sensei with an apology. Sure, the guy was lazy, always late, public pervert and notorious liar, but he was also a martial arts Master, and not known for his kind heart when it came to situations where someone had offended another or betrayed their trust in some way. Though, in the spirit of being strictly honest with himself, he was probably more afraid of facing Iruka-sensei than Kakashi-sensei. Iruka-sensei had been like an older brother, or an uncle, to him, and he had seen, and been the victim of, more than his fair share of Umino™-tirades, yelling’s and lectures. Also because he knew, just knew, how deeply he had hurt Iruka-sensei. Iruka-sensei could be quite an enigma at times; being highly emotional and harsh with students, yet caring and forgiving at other times. But he wanted Iruka-sensei to forgive him whole-heartedly; he wanted him back into his life. And that would take some work, but he was prepared to do it.

He was Naruto Uzumaki!

He sighed. How would he face his friends tomorrow? What if they could tell? Did he have an ‘I have now broken under the pressure of my own awfulness, and have now accepted my fruitiness’-glow about him? Or maybe just a gigantic neon-sign, proclaiming his newly accepted sexual orientation.

He mentally hit himself on the back of the head; this wasn’t the time to wallow in his own insecurity, he had to have a game-plan when facing Haku. He had to get three points across; He had been a jerk, he was truly and deeply sorry and he was begging for Haku’s forgiveness and friendship. The gay-thing was still on debate. He didn’t know how to fit it into his explanation without springing it on Haku and make it seem all about that and less about him being sorry and wanting Haku’s friendship back.

The next morning he woke with butterflies and nervous ticks. He took a shower, dressed and went down to eat breakfast with his father before Minato had to leave for work. He spilled milk all over the table when he reached for the orange juice, he placed his glass so far out on the edge of the table that it fell to its untimely death on the floor. At last Minato stopped the poor kid in his movement just before he was going to elbow the next piece of crockery over the edge, excused him from doing the dishes and sent him on his way. Naruto nearly forgot his bag, and walked with zombie-like speed to school, all the while contemplating his possible untimely death. He had been off from home 10 minutes earlier than usual, yet he still managed to reach the school just as the bell rang.

As he walked through the halls filled with running kids he greeted some of them as they yelled ‘good morning’; he was suddenly on high alert of his surroundings. Did they notice any difference?

When he reached his classroom, he walked in and sat at his usual place at the back of the class, next to Kiba. He high-five’d Kiba and listened half-heartedly as he started talking about his girlfriend. He looked around to the other guys, who were more interested in Kiba’s tale than him. At least most of them were; Shikamaru looked as bored as ever, Shino as passive as ever and Neji looked like it clearly just wasn’t worth his time. Chouji and Lee listened intently, at least Kiba had two thirds’ of his usual audience.

Naruto was way off in his own world inside his head, when he noticed that Shikamaru was looking at him. Crap, of course did the lazy genius notice that something was off, what did he expect? What he hadn’t counted on was the look Neji was giving him, like he was trying to read Naruto with his creepy lilac-ish silver eyes.

Aw crap, don’t psychoanalyze me today of all days, Neji!

Shikamaru may be a genius, but Neji could read most people like an open book; he was born to be a successful psychiatrist. Or a dream-breaking businessman, whatever he chose.

Naruto had always been proud of being able to hide his secret from those two in particular, but now he suddenly doubted his alleged success, a lot. Luckily he didn’t have to talk with them, because at that moment their teacher had decided to walk in and start the day’s class.

He felt his shoulders loose a tiny bit of their tension as Neji’s gaze left him and focused to the front of the class. He himself couldn’t for the life of him focus on anything the teacher said, though that really wasn’t a new thing.

He wasn’t even aware that the morning had flown by that fast when suddenly it was lunch-time, and he could walk to the cafeteria with the guys at his side, not paying attention to Kiba’s endless talk about the big conspiracy of school, teachers, homework and the total lack of free time. Naruto didn’t participate in the babbling with his usual gusto, even though it actually had been him who started the conspiracy-theory at the start of senior year one particular morning, where he had had a serious sleep deficit.

They stopped on the way to the cafeteria and got rid of their books, but as they stood at Naruto and Kiba’s lockers talking, a girl walked up to them. She was a pretty sophomore, with doe-eyes and big breasts, and the other guys were practically drooling over her as she approached Naruto, with a tell-tale nervousness about her. Naruto’s stomach started churning, and he could practically feel the sweat start to gather in his palms.

She smiled at him and he soon realized that he would have to start the conversation since she seemed to have frozen up on the spot.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Hi.. Uumm..- I’m Cindy ..”

It was weird, before he had never had any problems with girls trying to ask him out, or with turning them down in a highly humiliating and entertaining manner, but it was as if his recent coming out and purging of his conscience to his father had somehow made him five years younger or, a less nice thought, had put it into stark contrast how horribly he had treated all of his former girlfriends and people in general around him. This reflection made him let her down gently, in a none-offensive or humiliating way.

It was apparent in the way that Kiba was gaping at him after she left, with a more dignified walk than any girl before her had been blessed with, after having tried to ask him out, when either he was taken or just didn’t think them pretty enough.

He tried to subtly avoid the eyes of his friends as he was about to make his way towards the cafeteria when a hand shot out and stopped him.

“What the hell went through your head, dude, she was banging, why did you turn her down?” Kiba had a look in his eyes that clearly showed that he suspected Naruto to have gone bonkers to have made such a decision.

“Yeah, well.. I just want a break from girls and all their crap.”

Kiba continued to look like a fish on dry land as Naruto walked around him.

He made his way to the canteen, and immediately started scouting for Haku among all the heads in the room, growing increasingly frustrated as he couldn’t spot him. He changed his scanner to beep at big guys and he rather quickly spotted Haku’s boyfriend, Zabuza. He started en route to their table, and as he neared he received increasingly weird glances, since it was well-known fact at the school that he had cut Haku off when he had come out, which had made him very unpopular with some parts of the school-population.

The school had split on the subject when Haku had come out and everyone could see his best friend turning his back on him; some people sided with Naruto, the larger part, and the other, smaller part, sided with Haku. They obviously thought that he was an asshole and a horrible friend, as he had been, so it had been a subject for discussion for quite a while. It had also shown people who would accept gays, and who wouldn’t. Those who thought Naruto a homophobic jerk had been very protective of Haku and others who came out, and they tended to group together in the canteen, sitting in the same area.

So Naruto felt a tiny bit like walking into the lion’s den, but he straightened his back and continued walking towards his one time best friend.

He stopped at the end of one of the tables, and had to pull himself together to even start speaking in the company he was in, having several distrustful eyes on him as well as some of badly hid resentment.

Naruto swallowed, “Haku, could I talk to you for minute?”

Good grief, he hadn’t been this nervous in years!

“No” came the gruff answer, though it wasn’t Haku who answered, it was Zabuza, looking quite a bit intimidating, “You can, however, turn around and walk your ass back to your friends.”

Naruto sighed. This wouldn’t be easy with Zabuza looming over him, obstructing any chance he might have of getting to talk to Haku.

“Hey back off, big guy, just want to talk.” Naruto held up his hands in a placating manner, looking briefly at Zabuza and then focusing solely on Haku, trying to appeal to him with his eyes.

Haku looked at Naruto for a nerve-wracking 30 seconds before nodding his head and starting to get up, “Where?”

Naruto made a downward motion with his hand to signal Haku that he didn’t have to get up, “After school, I’ll meet you up on the roof?” the same hand made an upward motion, a thumbs up to indicate the rooftop. Naruto really hoped he would agree; he didn’t want to talk about it now with all these people looking at them. “Just the two of us?”

“Okay”

“Deal”

Haku sat down and peacefully started eating his food, and as Naruto turned and walked back towards the entrance of the cafeteria he could hear Haku’s friends and Zabuza in particular begin to object and ask for an explanation as to why he would even meet with the scum?

The rest of the day passed in blur where Naruto tried to think of something, anything that he could say to Haku that could somehow express his feelings and convey to Haku how truly sorry he was. Without any promising progress. He dodged his friends for the rest of the day, and at the end he bolted before they could ask him anything, and headed straight to the rooftop.

He took the steps two at a time before reaching the bleak grey steel-door that lead out to the flat top of the school roof. He pushed it open and walked out onto the tiled roof, heading for the opposite edge. He walked to the railing fencing in the roof, and sat down with a leg on each side of a railing-post, leaning his head forward to rest on the cold metal, in the hope that it might calm down his whirling thoughts.

He was so deep in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear the footsteps up the stairs, and only reacted when he was startled out of his head at the sound of the steel-door slamming shut. He turned to see not only Haku, but also Zabuza leaning against the wall of cement, looking at him expectantly. He swallowed as Haku stepped forward so that there was an equal distance between him and Naruto, and the wall he had left behind. He stood expectantly with one hand one the hip and looked like he was on the verge of tapping his foot in impatience. He cocked his head to the side, looking at Naruto.

“I’m here, what did you want to talk about?”

Naruto looked at Zabuza behind Haku for a few seconds, long enough for Haku to furrow his eyes and look behind him, before sighing and crossing his arms in front of him.

“He is going to be here, Naruto.”

Naruto turned back to overlook the view.

Aw, crap.

Maybe he should just jump from the roof and skip his confession-idea? It could hardly be worse or harder than telling Haku.

Zabuza made an impatient noise and started shifting around, clearly indicating his lack of patience and tolerance for the situation in general, and specifically at Naruto’s hesitance, as Naruto kept on dragging time out. With an intake of air Naruto pulled himself up and turned to look at his once-upon-a-time-best-friend.

He opened his mouth to say something, but his mind completely failed him, and just stood, not knowing what to say. It was a new experience, the feeling of being absolutely, totally blank.

“Yes?” Haku stood with an increasingly impatient look, moving his arms in annoyed motions.

When Naruto failed to say or do anything but remain silent, Haku turned and signaled to Zabuza that they were leaving, and to open the door, and suddenly Naruto finally found his voice:

“NO, wait! Please don’t go!” came the desperate cry, just a tad too loud to not be awkward.

Haku turned to a sight that amazed him to the bone. Naruto was down on his knees, bending forward until his forehead reached the dirty tiles of the roof-floor.

“I am SO, so sorry, Haku. I’m sorry about what I said, what I did, I’m sorry for being an ass, a shit-hole-friend, a turn-coat, for everything! I’m sorry.”

Haku was rooted to the floor, looking at his former friend bowing to him like their Japanese forefathers would have done to lords and daimyo’s. He didn’t need any specification to know exactly what Naruto was talking about.

“I didn’t understand back then, Haku, but I do now, and I can’t apologize enough.” Naruto’s voice had started shaking just a tiny bit, and he was secretly happy to have his head bowed, so that they couldn’t see the tears in his eyes. He didn’t know if it was enough. It was crude, direct and to the point, like he was. He had thought that some sweet words, nice phrases and sensitive wording would have given him an edge, a greater chance of forgiveness, but this was how it had come rushing out of his mouth when panic had made him yell embarrassingly loud after Haku, pleading him not to leave.

Haku stood, taking in the apology that Naruto was giving him with increasingly wet eyes, when it suddenly truly registered what the last thing that Naruto had said meant.

“You-, you understand? How could you- ...” A light bulb turned on his head, and a light of understanding entered his eyes, “You’re gay?”

Naruto swallowed, before nodding his head, still keeping his gaze firmly planted on the line between two cracked tiles.

Haku made an “ooohh”-sound and afterwards started rubbing his face with his left hand. He could feel his insides start to warm up to the blond still kneeling on the floor. It was a known fact that Naruto almost never apologized, ever.

Zabuza, though, wasn’t as easily placated, and started hammering Naruto in a hard voice:

“Oh, so now when you might have trouble with your own backyard, you want to come begging to those you yourself turned your back on?”

Naruto cringed on the inside at the near-truth of that statement.

“Almost, but not really. I want to apologize to Haku because I wasn’t a good friend to him back then. I knew that I was -…” Naruto couldn’t pronounce the word; it was making it too tangible, too real, “at the time as well, that was why I did what I did. I was scared and confused, I was too scared to come out back then as Haku did, I didn’t know what to do. I panicked.”

“Oh, so because you were too chicken-shit back then, he should forgive you now?” Zabuza said in an angry tone.

Naruto swallowed a giant lump down and tried to will the gathering tears away.

“Uhm-”

“I forgive you.”

The abrupt answer made Naruto lift his head to look at Haku with big teary eyes, where a single tear finally had fought its way out onto his lashes and dripped down onto his right cheek.

“Really?” he was embarrassed at the slightly creaky sound of his voice.

Haku smiled a tiny smile, and said “yeah, really.”

Naruto sprung up and embraced his friend with enough force to knock Haku, and himself with him, down onto the floor, where Haku suddenly had a lap full of shaking, crying blond. Naruto had his knees on the ground, arms thrown around Haku, clinging to him like his life depended on it.

Zabuza made a noise, and moved as though to remove Naruto from Haku’s person, but Haku shook his head, and brought his hands up to return the embrace. Zabuza rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

After 5 minutes he started tapping his foot and looking at his wristwatch, even though he actually didn’t have anywhere else to be. He didn’t like the blond, he didn’t trust him. Haku had been devastated back then, and he couldn’t fathom how a simple apology was enough to have the blond back in Haku’s good books. Blondie hadn’t even asked for forgiveness, he had just apologized and gotten it. But as he looked at the two friends reunited after years of being apart, he could feel his anger start to redirect from Naruto to society. If Naruto hadn’t been so terrified of his peers’ reaction to his sexual orientation, then Haku would never have gotten hurt. He could understand the blonde’s fears, and why he had been afraid to come out, but he still couldn’t stop the anger from bubbling up whenever he though about the state Haku had been in just after Naruto’s betrayal. Because that was what is was, a betrayal of trust and friendship.

But now, when he witnessed the love and desperation with which they held each other, he could see that Naruto had missed Haku as much as the other way around, missed the friendship and support they had had in each other.

Naruto’s breathing pattern had slowed down and he could see how the blond was trying to rail himself back in and establish some sort of dignity around his person after the embarrassing outburst of feelings and shame.

Naruto stood up and tried to breathe calmly as he held out his hand to help Haku back onto his feet.

He was forgiven. It was strange, how he had expected something monumental to leave the burden he felt he was bearing, and it hadn’t, yet it had. He couldn’t understand all the things he was feeling, but he was sure of one thing; he was indescribably happy to have Haku back. And he knew what that came with; he would have to win another person over as well.

He turned to look at the giant, who looked more impatient than any child could have done. Naruto walked over to Zabuza and held out his hand.

“Peace? Truce? For now. Maybe even .. friends?” he was hesitant, but knew in his guts that this was important.

Zabuza looked like he was considering the offer and paused before taking Naruto’s hand in his.

“Peace. Friends? .. Let’s see for now.”

Haku gave Zabuza a look that clearly spoke his mind: I have forgiven him, so why can’t you?

Zabuza shook his head, he clearly didn’t think this was the time to discuss it.

Haku sighed and said in a calm tone: “We’ll talk about it at home.” His tone changed and he turned to Naruto, “For now -”

Naruto looked surprised at Haku.

“How are you going to tell your friends?”

Naruto felt like he had been punched in the gut. Really? Now? So soon?

It was like Haku could read his mind, or maybe he just read Naruto’s very open facial language which spoke volumes.

“You have to. You can’t live a lie forever, Naruto.”

“Sure, but how about next week?”

Haku gave him a stern look, and Naruto shrank in a bit on himself, looking like a kid knowing he had done something wrong.

Naruto shifted on his feet.

“At least tell one of them.”

“Well, I think two of them already know, they are kind of geniuses and probably figured it out on their own, so --”

“That does not count, Naruto. You have to tell it to someone, it’s called coming out for a reason, you can’t expect someone to drag you out of your closet.”

At Naruto’s silence Haku made a swift decision: “Tell one person. Start there, tell your best friend.”

“Already have,” Naruto said with a crooked smile.

“No, you idiot.“ Haku couldn’t help the warm feeling in his stomach at that, but he just laughed a bit and then sobered up. “One from your little club”

“Fine, fine.. I’ll tell Kiba.”

“Great, tomorrow?”

“I think I need more time to come up with a game-plan, -“ Naruto hesitantly said, stalling for more time.

“You don’t need a 'game-plan', Naruto” Haku interrupted, “You never follow them anyway, just do whatever feels right.”

Naruto bit his lower lip, looking at Haku with semi-puppy-eyes.

“No, Naruto.” Haku couldn’t help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Naruto made a sound like a mix between a sigh and a moan of frustration, clearly giving up his goal of making Haku surrender to the blue eyes of his usually fail-proof puppy-eyes-look.

“Okay, okay, fine ..” Naruto surrendered to the might of Haku’s will. “Can I bring up a different topic than my de-clossetination to my dear friends who didn’t mind that I turned my back on you because you were gay?”

Haku chuckled, “Sure, what?”

“Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei.”

That put a damper on the mood. Haku rubbed his brow.

“Game-plan now, please?”

Haku sighed, “Okay, game-plan.”

They talked a long time on the roof; Zabuza even joined in and added his two cents. Of course, those primarily consisted of pointing out how much of an idiot and emotional jerk Naruto was, and how improbable it was that Iruka-sensei would just magically forgive him like certain other weird people had done. And that he was in considerable danger of bodily damage if he expressed his want for forgiveness and friendship to Kakashi-sensei in an any less than submissive, apologetic, scraping and bowing manner. This resulted in an argument between Naruto and Zabuza, ending abruptly as the sky opened and started pelting the world with big, fat rain-drops, drenching all of them in a matter of seconds.

Naruto groaned. He hated being wet. He heard laughter and looked up at Zabuza, who was looking at him with mirth in his eyes, looking like, well a fish in water. He looked perfectly comfortable, being soaked to the bone. He narrowed his eyes on Zabuza before looking at Haku, who stood there looking with smiling eyes on his boyfriend, who was obviously enjoying the rain a great deal more than any of the others. Naruto shook his head at the apparent madness and went for the door, moving inside and into shelter.

Crazy person, why did Haku like him again?


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Review-responses!

BabyIn-A-Corner - Thank you for being my first reviwer! Yeah, Naruto had some serious soul-searching to do.
Angel - That's the sad truth about life, when we find ourselves backed up in a corner, we lash out.
KiaraNxiar - Thank you!
crayonbox - Thank you, I tried my best. I hope he liked reading this, even if he didn't review, as long as I hit the mark :)
KingCobra - Well, here it is!
RasberrySakura - Only time will tell.
the_lost_ogg - Yeah, usually I also have a hard time accepting jerk!Naruto, but like what you pointed out in Shippuuden, as well as the beginning of the series, he can be obnoxius and asshole-ish if he can't see another way out. I think we have a tendency (me included, ups..) to make Naruto slighty Mary Sue-ish, and make him 100% good guy, when I think he's got a dark side too. Thank you for the compliment!
Rasha013 - There is that tendency as well where I live (the girl on girl-thing), but very few actually are gay or bisexual. I'm so sorry to hear that it went so bad with you and your girlfriend, hope it is better now? Yeah, I wanted Minatoo to be understanding, and have his social life hang in the balance instead, because the angry-parent-thing has been done before, and it is the other risk that mostly has me holding my breath.
Zimmrie Kanoah - Here it is, here it is!! *waves white flag*.
Kitsune Paws - Ups, thank you for catching that mistake. If you spot any other mistake, please point them out with a big finger, or a large red circle or something! Yeah, some people might overlook the fact that he actually told his father because of the asshole-ish way he behaved to Haku and his teachers, but that's part of why I put it together like that. Wow, my first notifier-wanting-person! I feel like I should give you chocolates or something XD


EVERYONE - THANK YOU for reading, and to my reviwers - THANK YOU for reviewing, there wouldn't have been a chapter two without you guys. Seriously. I'd just have left it at one chapter, because that was the plan from the beginning. The same applies to the probability of a chapter III, I don't want a specific number of reviewers, merely the sense that people are interested enough to leave a comment. Sorry if that sounded.. demanding or spoiled, but this fic solely lives on the attention you guys give it, so I'm just being honest XD.

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I hope you enjoyed. I'd love if you would REVIEW and leave a comment on my writing, but also on coming out in general. Whether you opinions are from personal experience or simply your thoughts, I'm interested.

Love Mulle.