Wouldn't You Like To Know

Finally, an update! My sincerest apologies for taking so damn long; it looks like the only people in the Naruto-verse who come easily to me are Iruka and Kakashi (and how I adore them). It does become easier with time, though. I am just happy to be able to deliver this to your (hopefully) waiting eyes.

I do not own Naruto, but if he'd teach me how to harness my own inner demons, I'd be...thankful.

***||***

Black was his favorite color.

It was the color of stealth, of silence, of ultimate isolation, something he desperately craved, something he almost never got. He longed to wear it like a panther wore its fur, muscles rippling sleeky underneath, claws just barely peeking out of paws that could land as softly as a butterfly upon the ground or crush bone after a hard landing. He wanted to run like that cat, hunt like that cat, be like that cat.

Damn that Hyuuga. I always get poetic and philosophical after visiting with him.

In the presence of his fellow stoic, admittedly beautiful jounin (though it will take ripping my toenails out to ever make me say that out loud), he always found himself delving into a region of his mind that only saw action when he was in danger of his life; his creativity.

Contrary to popular belief, geniuses did not always know the answer to everything. In a situation where one wrong move could potentially make or break one’s mission (and back, or neck), brilliant minds often did what less brilliant ones did, which was pull a solution out of one’s ass and prayed to Kami-sama that it would work. The general motto behind such a strategy was “whatever works, use it.”

As strange and roundabout as the conversation with Hyuuga was, he did make one important point; I should be happier than I am now.

When Sasuke had been thirteen and angsting, he had already determined that if he was going to find his happiness, it would not be found in the arms of far-too-willing females all clamoring for his body (not that thirteen year-olds in general really know what to do with those bodies, unlike now). Women had aggravated him back then, and as he had aged, the childish pursuit had become under a wholly adult pastime; stalking.

Instead of women leaping at him from out of nowhere in order to touch him, he had them hiding in bushes taking photos of him. Some of them are disturbingly good at it as well. If I were so inclined, I’d ask an ANBU trainer to ask some of the girls about their techniques, since half the time the only way I know someone is watching me is by the faint sound of their repressed squeals. It was not only highly disturbing, but extremely distracting as well. The girl from yesterday...I could have killed her had my aim been for Naruto’s vitals. How stupid could they be?

Given that today he noticed considerably fewer young women gawking openly at him than usual, he was forced to conclude that they weren’t, at least, suicidal. If more of these crazy females were ninja, information would move faster than at the crawl we’re presently forced to deal with.

Presently, though, he had to admit that there were few times that he could claim had ever truly made him happy to be in Konoha, much less pleased to be alive, and only one or two of them featured members of the opposite gender.

After reaching his home, he stepped inside and carelessly stripped down to his boxers, grabbing a book on pressure points from his bookshelf before settling into his bed to read it.

I’m going to avoid thinking about my life for a little while longer. For now, it’s better to focus on how to most effectively take someone out without killing them.

***||***

The sun is out today. A wicked grin found its way onto a perpetually smirking face. It’s warm outside. The grin got wider.

This can only mean one thing for me to do today...bask in it.

Naruto would never know for certain, but he suspected that though he only actually “spoke” with the Kyuubi when desperate for chakra to save both their lives, some of the likes and dislikes of his unintentional boarder must have leaked through to influence his own personality. He enjoyed meat more when it was raw than when it was cooked, he often hunted fish with his bare hands instead of with the more traditional kunai and net, and on any warm and sunny day, he absolutely had to go outside and enjoy it.

Such as today. Dressing himself in the briefest outfit he could step outside in without getting shrieked at for heinous exposure (tank top, shorts, towel...aww, screw the footwear today), he headed out for one of the best places to catch sun that he knew about; the small meadow adjacent to the training grounds. It was guaranteed to always be sunny there, as he had found on numerous occasions.

Absently running along the footpath leading to it at an easy lope (a normal person’s sprint), the smile on his face grew wider as he caught the quickly-stifled looks of admiration directed at various parts of his body.

Naruto’s self-esteem had grown a great deal within the past couple of years, along with his body. It had been more than vaguely traumatic to not only be one of the most disliked people in the village at twelve, but also one of the shortest as well. The training trip with Jiraiya had done a great deal to rid himself, once and for all, of the baby fat that, seemingly, had been hell-bent on staying on his face and some portions of his body. During that time, his body had also decided to award him for his diligent milk-drinking by growing.

It hadn’t stopped until he had reached a more than appreciable height of nearly two meters tall, as tall as Kakashi was if the added height of the hair was not taken into account.

Upon his return to the village, he had gone from annoying-but-powerful-and-hated to one of the village heartthrobs. After he had figured out what all the extra, positive attention was for, he found himself becoming more confident, because there were few things in life that were more satisfying than being found attractive.

I can certainly see why Sasuke-teme and Neji aren’t happy with all that stalking, though. My fan club, if I have one, is still somewhat bound by childhood behavior and really old peoples’ anger about the Kyuubi to talk about me openly. He knew that it was far from gratifying for either the Uchiha or the Hyuuga geniuses to be followed, photographed, constantly ogled and objectified by the many women (and from what I’ve been hearing, a few men) that couldn’t get the two off their minds.

Either way, I’m glad that I’m better-liked now than I was before. It makes buying food and stuff a lot easier when the granny in the grocery shop is too busy staring at what exposed skin I display to increase the prices. Hell, if anything, for me, she drops them!

Reaching the field and inhaling the fresh scent of sun-warmed earth and grass, his grin faded down into something a great deal smaller, but no less full of good humor. He spread the towel on the ground in an appropriate spot (don’t want to crush the flowers, after all), then unceremoniously divested himself of shirt and shorts until all he was wearing was a modified, near-skintight pair of briefs in a startling shade of green.

Flopping down back-first onto the towel, he had to stifle a small moan of contentment even though there was no one around to hear it. The purr that came out of his throat, however, did not get cut off, because he was not even aware that he was making the sound in question.

Warm...quiet...peaceful... Closing his eyes, he felt the sun caress the delicate skin of his eyelids, the less fragile flesh of his face and the far-from-frail body he had worked so hard to earn like an old friend reaffirming that Naruto still existed. Watching the yellow light behind his closed eyelids, he felt himself becoming less aware of the brightness of it. His last thought, before he drifted off into a doze, was one he wasn’t entirely expecting.

I should get Sasuke and Neji out here. They could use more sun...

***||***

Something I don't think I'll ever understand is why, when I am writing Sasuke and Naruto (or even anyone younger than, say, Iruka), I have to strive for humor in a way I don't otherwise find myself doing. While I don't mind writing angsty things, I do not want this story to go in that direction, and often I have to fight it out of the dark recesses of mild depression using tooth, nail, and overly sharp spoons from my campus cafeteria.

Bah. Perhaps after this story (or even during it), I'll write a darker story to get it all out of my system.

Still, quite frankly, what Naruto is going through pertaining to his physical appearance is something that hasn't really been covered in the manga, and I find that annoying. Sasuke was a beautiful child (and often I berated myself for finding a barely-teenage male attractive), but Naruto wasn't as overtly good-looking. Heck, he was cute, but it was more in the child range than in the desirable adult one. So, after he aged up (if you're not familiar with the events after The Valley Of The End, FORGIVE ME FOR SPOILING), he looked...really, really good. He became handsome, he got taller, and he's considerably less immature about things than before.

It is only natural that he begin to recoup some losses in the area of his feelings through others appreciating his body. Hell, I sympathize with him. I myself have only now started to like my body for its appeal, and for someone like Naruto, it was going to have to happen sooner or later.

Critiquing is welcome, as are random tidbits of information. Will you gift me with such?