[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.
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 III Naruto moved the piano bench for the fifth time, this time moving a tiny fraction of a bit further down the piano, making the moving of the bench completely negated, as he shifted a bit the opposite way in the seat. He flexed his fingers and shifted in the seat as he looked scathingly at the piano keys, followed swiftly by a similar looks to the music book. Damn rhythm. The left hand was so simple! How could he mess the right one up so much, when the left one didn’t really need his attention? He looked at the title of the piece,
SONATE – Sonata quasi una Fantasia. The Moonlight Sonata. He remembered the sound as the piece had once been perfectly played, the music flowing through the room, and him sitting there, entranced. He tried to recall that feeling as he once again placed his fingers on the keys and started playing. It flowed beautifully. His fingers smoothly moved as if by their own will, not necessarily guided by the notes he was reading on the sheet, but by memory. And then, just as last time, he crashed and burned the music horribly somewhere between the 12th and 13th bar.
Damn it!
If Beethoven was up there looking down at the people playing his music, he would be laughing at Naruto at this moment. Just as his father did whenever he caught Naruto particularly frustrated at a piece of music. It was still quite a mystery how Naruto had even learned to play the piano. For one; bad genes, his father was probably one of the least musical people in the world, he couldn’t keep in time with a beat or hold a note if the world depended on it. The second was that he had never taken any classes or had any ‘real’ training besides hovering around the piano whenever his mother had played.
His mother, Kushina Uzumaki, had been a gifted pianist. They had a piano in dark-brown woodwork standing in the guestroom; it was one of the only things left in the house that Naruto could connect to his mother through his memories. He remembered flowing read hair and a loud boisterous laughter filling the rooms of the apartment. But mostly he remembered her hands, how soft and elegant they were, their warmth as they held him or caressed him, the way they flowed across the tangents of the piano, producing the most beautiful music he had ever heard. He had been utterly fascinated with the piano as a child, but only when his mother was playing, or more likely, fascinated with his mother as she played the piano. The young parents had quickly figured out that each of his favorite-pieces corresponded with his different moods. The Moonlight Sonata had been one of his favorites. He had wanted to hear it when the cat had gotten ran over by a car.
He shifted a bit in his seat and tried again, but this time he messed up way before the 13
th bar.
“Arrhhgg!!” he half-screamed in frustration as he brought his hands down hard on the piano-keys. Stupid fucking shitty --!!
As he was about to kick the piano, the door to the guestroom opened and Minato popped his head inside and looked at Naruto and the piano he was violating.
“Something wrong, Naruto? Is the piano being cheeky again?” he said, not able to hide his smile. His son was undeniably cute when he was struggling with a piece of music. It was Minato’s favorite part of Naruto learning a new piece, besides actually listening to him playing it flawlessly in the end.
“As a matter of fact, -” Naruto ground out as he glared at his father and then turned to the piano. ”Yes,” kick, ”it” kick, “is” kick. But he didn’t kick it very hard, he couldn’t bring himself to kick the piano more and sighed as the frustration and anger slowly left him. He felt like a balloon that had had all of the air let out of it. Now he just felt miserable and lost again: The whole reason why he had started rehearsing this piece again in the first place.
As Minato watched his son half-heartedly kick the beloved piano and then deflate, he realized that there really had been a reason for Naruto playing this piece, however little he had learned of it yet. He sighed and stepped into the room.
“Something wrong, Naruto?” he said, this time serious as he sat down next to his son at the piano.
Naruto sighed and looked at his dad.
“I don’t know… I’m not sure what to do, Dad.. I apologized to Haku, and he forgave me and he is my friend again, and I don’t think Zabuza will kill me at first sight, but.. I don’t know how to tell Kiba. He is different. Haku is good with emotions and feelings and stuff; Kiba’s emotional understanding is like running head first into a wall.” He looked to his hands, “I don’t know how to tell him without him overreacting or something like that. It’s like he is suddenly some alien, and I don’t know how to speak his language…” He trailed off.
Minato looked at his son, seeing the fear that resided in him at the thought of Kiba turning his back on him.
“Well, Naruto.. Try thinking about it this way, you aren’t the biggest expert on emotions either, think about what made you scared when Haku came out to you.”
“Yeah, but I freaked because I was afraid of someone finding out that
I was gay, I kinda doubt that Kiba is moving to fruity-town” Naruto said.
Minato couldn’t help but smile a bit at his son’s choice of description of his sexual orientation. “That is true my very own little fruity-basket -“ Naruto interjected a ‘
Dad!’, “but my point was that you two are very alike in your personalities, so he should respond pretty much in the same way you did.. or would have, in his situation. Make him see that you are telling him because you trust him and he is your best friend. Just be honest with him, and try no to panic or overreact.” He paused for a second and then said, while a smile slowly spread across his face, “I don’t know how I didn’t realize before that you were gay sooner, you’re a raving drama-queen sometimes.”
“I am NOT a drama-queen!” Naruto half-yelled, just before catching himself and narrowed his eyes at his father. “Annoying and teasing; that’s very helpful, while your son is in a state of emotional crisis! Now leave, evil father, you’re not really helping me with all your nonsense.”
Minato smiled at him, slapped him on the back and left the room. As he started walking down the hall to his Study/Library/The-Place-Where-Random-Stuff-Is-Dumped he heard the sound of Narutos fast-track version of
Für Elise. He smiled, his kid was back.
Naruto snorted and then sighed at his father’s back as he closed the door. “Crazy old coot.”
He turned to the piano again and started the first thing that came to mind, and he could see his fingers playing through
Für Elise at a speed that was both reckless and not flattering to the piece at all. But it matched his inner-circus. He had just finished with the popular part for the fifth time and was considering actually playing the next bit when there was a sudden loud bump on the floor. He stopped and looked down, but saw nothing. He furrowed his eyes, but started grinning, even laughing when there was a loud bump again, and he heard a vague voice yelling;
“Brat! Stop playing that damn piano!”
More loud bumps, and he knew what, or rather, who it was. It was an old lady who lived downstairs to them, and she had never approved of his late-night piano-playing. She would use a broom to bang upwards into her ceiling and thereby sending him the message that the nightly music wasn’t all that appreciated.
He smiled at the floor and started playing the same piece again, going in circles and repeating that same famous part of
Für Elise again and again, only faster. And louder.
Next morning he walked to school with butterflies raving in his stomach. He only mentally called them butterflies to fit the expression, in all honesty it felt more like eagles or badgers, tumbling around in there. The entire darn zoo would be moving in soon.
He walked to math-class and sat down at his desk. To his surprise Kiba was already there, sitting at his respective desk. His brown hair as shaggy as always, tattoos bright and red, marking his face in a way that made him look hot and dangerous, his uniform-jacket unbuttoned and his collar half up ways, shirt rumbled, but still tight enough to hint at the muscles underneath.
Kiba was frowning for all he was good for at his math book and then switching focus to his notebook, and then back again. Naruto managed to forget his nervousness and today’s mission. This was Kiba’s Very Serious Homework-Face. It only came on when there was something he REALLY didn’t understand. True, neither Naruto nor Kiba were born to be math-Einsteins, but usually they were only as confused as they allowed themselves to be. In other words; it all depended on whether or not they had actually read and done their homework. He tilted his head to read the book upside-down and quickly realized it was the homework for today about graphs. He had made his own graph, and was pretty sure he had done it right; his data had been relatively straightforward.
“What’s wrong with it, man?” Naruto asked, suppressing laughter, but Kiba only frowned even more and shook his head at his graph.
“I don’t know, dude..” Kiba sounded exasperated and deeply confused at the same time. He took his assignment and held it in front of his face, looking at it critically. Then he turned it sideways, as if looking at it from a different angle would somehow make it make more sense.
Naruto couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that.
A voice came from the door, “It won’t make the graph any better by turning it sideways, Kiba.” It ended in a long, heartfelt yawn.
“I wouldn’t be so sure Shika, maybe dogbreath switched the X and Y-axes,” Naruto couldn’t help but laugh and even Shikamaru smiled a small smile as he dropped his bag carelessly on the floor, and flopped down into his chair. He stretched in a way that made everyone of his muscles bunch and un-bunch, yawning in a way that seemed to rivet Naruto’s eyes to his jaw-line and then unceremoniously pillowed his head in his arms on his desk and exhaled slowly, as if he had just scaled Mt. Everest. Then he sunk into his favorite half-asleep position and started breathing in a slow regular rhythm.
“Let me see, Kiba” Naruto said, turning his focus away from the peaceful Nara, as he took the sheet of paper from Kiba and looked at it himself. He couldn’t help but laugh again at the mess of a graph, not really sure what it was supposed to show but having a hunch that it didn’t do its job very well. He turned it to the side as Kiba had, and as he continued he managed to have almost turned it all the way up-side-down when a voice cut through his morning-workout of stretching his neck in strange angles to follow the graph on its rotation.
“Even I didn’t think you could make that much of a mess out of such a simple graph, dead-last.” Sasuke Uchiha’s voice cut like ice through him, but even though the tone practically smothered his face with insult, he still felt warmth shoot through him at the other boy’s voice. Naruto looked up at Sasuke who had stopped just inside the personal sphere of his desk, looking as perfect and unreachable as always, his hair and eyes the darkest of midnight-black while having that special shine of blue at times in the morning light.
“I didn’t, bastard, it’s Kiba’s.” he snickered.
“Hn.” Sasuke snatched the sheet out of Naruto’s hand. Ignoring Naruto’s indignant “Hey!” he proceeded to give the graph a cursory look before handing it back to Kiba with a smug look.
“Truly a work compatible with your abilities, Inuzuka,” he said and turned to go to his desk.
Naruto made himself look away from Sasuke’s ass that he had been covertly staring at as the other walked away, and turned to look at Kiba.
“Don’t you have anything to say to the bastard?” Kiba said as he gesticulated to Sasuke who had taken his seat on the other side of the classroom.
“It’s not my graph he is insulting, idiot, it’s yours. Besides.. I’m sorry man, but it is really that bad. I have no idea what it’s supposed to show or what data-set you chose,” Naruto snickered a bit at the end, though he tried to look supportive.
Kiba groaned and let his head fall to his desk’s surface, his voice muffled by his arms.
“I’m really screwed, aren’t I?”
“Yes, yes, you are my friend, you are screwed in the truest sense of the word,” Naruto said sunnily as he patted Kibas back and smiled one of his giant smiles as he noticed more of his friends arriving.
“Why is Kiba screwed?” Chouji asked as he sat down and started ruffling through his bag for his morning-snack.
“His graph looks like it was drawn by a five-year-old and no-one can see what it’s supposed to show,” Shikamaru said as he lifted his head to give Chouji a smile before laying it down again, a very satisfied look on his face as his shirt cushioned his head.
“I am sure it is not that bad! Kiba is in his springtime of his youth and-” Lee began before being cut off.
“Lee, Kiba is always in his springtime of youth that does not enhance his math-skills in any way.” Neji said as he sat down, his bangs swishing forward, momentarily covering his eyes from Naruto’s gaze before flicking it back, first making Naruto focus on his wrists, admire the tendons and muscles of his forearm and finally leading his up the bicep to his shoulders, neck, jaw line to the handsome aristocratic face. Damn. Neji smirked at the groaning form of the Inuzuka who had taken to barricading himself with his textbooks.
“He’s not even defending himself?” Chouji said, surprised enough to pause in his eating.
“It’s that bad” Naruto answered as he tore his gaze away from Neji’s face, looked at Kiba and chuckled.
“Guys, could you be a bit more sympathetic?” Kiba complained.
“No.” they said in unison as they laughed at Kiba.
Naruto snatched the graph out from under Kiba’s arms and let it pass around between the group as each commented on what they thought the shape looked like the most, and which way graph should actually turn.
As the teacher walked in and class started, Naruto felt uplifted. He could momentarily forget about his own dilemma, and merely join the guys in teasing Kiba about his graph.
Though as he thought back, it might not have been the greatest of idea’s to tease Kiba with his graph today of all days. If he was supposed to tell Kiba today, it might be considered a strategic failure on his part.
The teacher had walked down each row, collecting in all the assignments, commenting on how many were missing, the usual round of excuses from the guilty ones and started introducing the new topic, factoring. Naruto felt his attention fail his academic education even more than it usually did in math and he started staring out the window, watching the clouds drift by as he tried to figure out the best way to tell Kiba. He shouldn’t make too big a deal out of it. And he shouldn’t make it too obvious that he wanted to talk to Kiba alone, it would make the others suspicious. So it had to be done in a discreet way, in a private place. But how exactly was he supposed to manage that… Neither of them were exactly discreet by nature and if he took Kiba with him away from the others, they would probably follow and spy on them. So.. somewhere in transit.
His eyes wondered to the inside of the room, studying the ceiling intently and slowly drifting from person to person, lingering on Kiba, Shikamaru and Neji before he realized something. He had actually been checking his friends out all morning. The revelation had him short of breath for a moment. He had always secretly appreciated how all of his friends looked, except Lee but those bushy eye-brows would put anyone off, if he could just remove the head and the style of clothes, then he knew for a fact that Lee had a well-trained body underneath and stamina to brag about, though he didn’t. But it was almost as if after he had come out to his father that he had truly acknowledged what he did, it felt like a thin veil had been removed from his vision and he could suddenly
really see the people around him. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to gather himself and his thoughts, telling himself to focus on the task at hand, not the class, but telling Kiba. But he felt his eyes drift to and eventually staying on Sasuke. He couldn’t help but study the raven as the other kept his gaze forward, but clearly didn’t pay attention. He really did look good in profile. Bastard. But hot as hell.
He started when suddenly the bell rang and everyone started getting up.
Had an entire class really passed with him just staring at Sasuke?! He panicked just a bit, both at the very notion of his getting lost in looking at Sasuke, but also at the idea someone might have noticed, before getting himself together and slowly started packing up his untouched paper, books and pens. He put it carelessly into his bag, timed his exit with Kibas and tried to lag behind in the most natural way possible. When he came to his locker he stopped.
”Hey Kiba, wait up, I just gotta get something from my locker,” Naruto called after the brunette, he dropped his bag by the lockers and opened it, rummaging around inside the locker, pretending to be looking for something.
“Uh, sure” Kiba said and walked back to Naruto, leaning against the wall of lockers.
“Umh… I was thinking about something..” Naruto mumbled slowly as he leaned even further inside the metal box, messing around with the papers and things inside, absently making some of them slide out and flutter to the floor.
“Yeah?” Kiba said after a while when Naruto didn’t continue.
“Well.. There’s something I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you about…” Naruto trailed off again, unsure of how to say it, feeling his throat clog up, and his face heating up, suddenly very glad that he was such a big wuss that he had resorted to hiding his head inside his locker.
“Well, could you do it faster the cafeteria-cue is just getting longer, it’s troublesome to stand around longer than necessary.”
Naruto started at the sound of a different voice and as he straightened up he slammed his head into the top of his locker, right at the edge, and the metal door, yelling at the pain that shot down and seemed to be cracking his skull open.
“OW!! Shikamaru, don’t fucking scare me like that!” Naruto exclaimed backing away from his locker, cradling the back of his head in his hands. He looked to Kiba. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
“You know he was walking behind us from the room, what difference does it make?” Kiba said, confused as he looked at the blond, who by now had tears in his eyes.
“Nothing!”
Everything, all the difference in the world! “It doesn’t matter, s’not important. Ooowwww, my poor blond head!” Naruto continued whining as he slammed the locker closed, as if the small act of violence would transfer pain from him to the metal box and picked up his bag.
He had walked a couple of steps before he realized he was walking alone. Naruto looked back at the two others. “Coming or what?”
Both Shikamaru and Kiba were looking at him with strange expressions on their faces.
“But, didn’t you want to tell me something?” Kiba said questionably.
“I’m telling you, it’s not important, now can we get a move on! I’m hungry!” Naruto said, faking his usual impatience as he started for the cafeteria with the two others following uncertainly behind him.
Coward! -----
Review-responses! BabyIn-A-Corner - I'm guilty of one of the worst crimes - making you wait. I am so sorry!! But thank you so much for your review!
Kitsune Paws - Oh god, more spelling-errors.. yes, just keep'em coming. Thanks for pointing them out, please keep doing that! I didn't mean to undermine how difficult it is with the family, I merely wanted to try a different point of view, but I understand you, I myself haven't told my family either, though I'm not
that afraid that they'll disapprove.
morlana - Hopefully in a good way, yes? :)
Greyspell - Thank you very much! I think there is a need for more of those stories around, but maybe I'm just a sucker for a bit more realism in stories.
RayPhoenix - Yes, there aren't many of this kind around, as far as I've seen on AFF. Hope you enjoy!
rfawf - Here you go! :)
vernajast - jerk!Naruto is a rare sight in fan-written stories, but like you, I can see him turning out this way if he was sufficiently insecure about something. And wow, at your story. How did your mother take it, if I can ask?
EVERYONE - Thank you
SO much for reading,
reviewing and rating! I hope you like my continuation, though it took me a hundred years, plus taxes, to get it up, I hope it is still a story that interests you :)
I actually
do know where I'm going with this, it's just a matter of making the characters do as I say, and then figuring out how to get them where I want them to be.. It's not easy, I tell you..
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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.
