Ｉｎｓｅｃｕｒｉｔｉｅｓ

Fourteen

Aside from his stunning good looks, Neji Hyuuga was known around Konoha for being short-tempered-not that he was villainous for it, just that everyone knew not to bother him whenever it was evident he was in no good mood. Aside from that, he had always been calm, quiet, and chill-his judgy, angry looking demeanor making him the only thing that made him unapproachable if one didn't know him well enough.

And while Neji knew that he had quite the temper, nothing and absolutely no one could prove him otherwise when he says that Naruto was worse.

Once a carefree, smiling idiot, Naruto had developed a terrible temper that once rivaled and had now surpassed that of Neji and Gaara, a close friend of theirs who was nowadays depending on prescribed medication to calm him down.

Naruto in his childhood years was pure. He was happy, full of curiosity, light-hearted pranks, and overall goodness. Once the thing happened in his early teen years, everything in him changed. He began rebelling, mostly against Minato. He started off with a lot of friends, Neji recalling Sakura and Ino being some he could remember. When the thing happened and Naruto began changing, he lost more than a handful who then turned against him. The Naruto now could only count the number of friends he has on a single hand, one of them being Neji himself, Gaara, and Shikamaru, though Neji had to wonder if Shika ever cared about being friends with anybody. It used to be those three plus Kiba, but Neji was at most ninety-percent sure Kiba had lost that title.

Having gone through what he went through as a kid, losing his friends, and having to deal with the repercussions of his past made for a bitter, angry, and impatient Naruto who had no time to deal with anyone's bullshit and especially when it came to touchy subjects such as his mother.

So when Naruto had come home that day and told him of the events that happened throughout the day over a cig, Neji was... shocked to learn that Naruto hadn't gone and ripped this Sasuke's head off at that moment. No, not even that would be enough. Neji had sort of expected Naruto to tell him how he decorated the school bathroom with the guy's blood and entrails for the things he said.

Sasuke Uchiha. Neji made a mental note to remember the name for when the next time he ever went to school came.

"And you just left him there?" He asked, watching Naruto get up from his spot on the couch to look through the fridge. "You didn't beat him up- I mean, what happened?" It was just so... oddly unusual. Someone said things never said about his mother and Naruto just... let them live? Impossible.

Naruto, finding nothing, shut the fridge door and leaned back on the small kitchen island. "Wasn't worth it."

"Wasn't worth it..." Neji echoed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Naruto... the things he said..."

"Aren't true. He knows nothing," Naruto finished. "I have other things to worry about."

Other things to worry about, Neji just couldn't wrap his head around it. What could be much more important than to push aside such insults to his mother? Unless... Neji's eyes widened, realizing what the day it was and how stupid he felt then and there.

Naruto's birthday was near.

And this could only end in two equally bad scenarios: either Naruto, putting his pride aside, begs Iruka to look into his mother's location only to come up empty-handed and thus making Naruto ten times a walking ball of rage, or he skips all of that and goes directly to a walking empty shell all too willing to be filled with anything. While Neji doesn't mind the occasional fuck, drug, or rampant drinking, he very much prefers Naruto to not take that route, but he also doesn't like seeing Naruto get his hopes up only for Iruka to tell him he couldn't do anything.