Gentle Caress

Runaways

It's said that everything happens for a reason. That our lives are already laid out in front of us. Others would believe that fate is a cruel mistress, one who loves to see people curse their rotten luck. But the reality of it is that we are fated to fail by our hands. That we will be drowned by our own flaws, and the only way to surpass our own flaws is to own up to them. To accept who we are and improve ourselves. To embrace the people around us who see past our flaws. Fate is a cruel mistress, but ignorance is the true reaper.

And it was fate that brought them together.

The moon popped out from behind a few trees, draping her beams anywhere they could reach. She watched as a boy sat alone in a park, her beams turning his blonde hair almost silver. The boy in question was half-heartedly kicking his legs, pushing himself on the swing. It swang a few feet above the ground, but it didn't do much to brighten his mood. Most people would be concerned to see a boy that young, alone in a park at that hour, but he wasn't just any boy.

His name was Uzumaki, Naruto. Konoha's infamous fox demon boy. And unlike most children, he wasn't afraid of being alone in the dark. It was quite the opposite, he enjoyed being alone at this hour. The moon and the stars looked beautiful, and more so when no one was there, trying to run him out. At this hour, there weren't many people out, just the occasional drunk who would stumble by. But the most they could do was throw insults and empty sake bottles at him. At a young age, Naruto had learned to get up and hide in the forest once he caught wind of one. They can't do anything if they can't find him.

To his left, he heard the slight rustling of leaves. His mind started to create a million connections of what it could be. Maybe it was Tora, the infamous demon cat. His eyes brightened up as an idea popped into his head. If he managed to catch Tora and bring her back, maybe they would realize that he was already a capable shinobi. Maybe they would let him live out his dream of being a shinobi without finishing the academy. Maybe it will make people stop looking at him like that in the streets. It was childish hope but that didn't stop him from trying.

So from his pocket, he pulled a kunai. Most of the kids in the academy were only allowed to use the wooden kind, but he had gotten his hands on the real thing when a nice girl named Tenten grew tired of him using his teeth to cut down his traps in the forest. He quietly inched closer to the bush, making light clicking noises. Cats come to you when they hear that sound? Right? "Tora? Come on out, kitty." If anyone heard his tone, they would have assumed he was ill, Naruto was loud, obnoxious, and annoying to most.

He pushed aside the leaves and was surprised to see that there was no cat there. Instead, there was a girl. She was crouched down, her teal eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and her pink hair had leaves and sticks poking out of it. "Oh? You're not, Tora. Sorry."

The girl looked up, just having noticed the boy. Her eyes widened as she tried to put as much distance between her and the blonde. "Don't look at me!" She had thrown her arms in front of his face, so she didn't catch his wincing. "I'm ugly!"

The boy squatted down, confused. "No, you're not. Who told you that?"

The girl froze. The other girls in her class often made fun of her, calling her ugly. She had started to believe it too, so the comment caught her off guard. "I- I'm not?"

"No."

"But- but my forehead's so big!"

The blonde tilted his head in confusion. "No, it's not. It looks like a regular forehead. Everyone else is just being mean." He held his hand out. "I'm Naruto."

The girl wiped her nose with her arm, using the other hand to take his. She let herself be pulled up to her feet. "Sakura." She took the time to properly take in his face, those whisker marks were impossible to miss. "Aren't you that fox demon boy that my parents always say to stay away from?"