New Kid

Ask Me Again!

Naruto woke up he was hearing a weird noise. A noise he hasn't heard in so long it was a vacuum. Naruto smiled, his grandma was home early and she was cleaning.

That's so different, a good different.

He turned his whole body and watched Sasuke, he slept with his lips slightly parted, he didn't snore and he looked so peaceful. People may say others look younger when they sleep, but right now. Sasuke just looks like Sasuke.

Without the thoughts that consume him while he's awake.
Naruto wondered what he looked like when he slept. Does he look younger, are his eye lids slightly open just a little bit but still noticeable if you look.

Does he snore and not know? Why can't Naruto live a life of sleep. Being awake but having a blank mind, full of dreams that seem so far away.

Something different, what's so wrong with that?

Why is different always the first to get ridiculed, all Naruto's life he has never once not liked someone or something that was different. Why is that.

Naruto quietly scooted off the bed and walked into his bathroom. He washed his face and walked back out. He felt sticky he didn't know why, maybe the sweat? Probably the blood.

He walked out of his room and downstairs. He wasn't sure if his grandma came home and saw that he was here or if she even talked to Sasuke.

He rounded the corner and at last his feet touched the carpet. His grandma wasn't in the living room and the vacuum was sitting in the middle of the living room the cord still plugged into the wall.

He walked into the kitchen and stood there. He seemed to be in a walking daze, he knew where he was, he knew he was in his house. But his mind wasn't there.

He was standing in the high school hallway. He was listening to the cameras taking pictures, he was listening to the people talking about him. He was standing in that hallway helpless.

Without his knowledge the tears were forming his hands were shaking he shut his eyes. He wanted to be else where. He didn't want to harp on this. But the longer his kept his eyes the harder it was to open them.

He was back in his middle school body hearing all his old school peers call him names. He walks through the hallway pretending he can't hear them, like his ears can turn off and on at his will.

He is feeling the anger boil up in him, and sit there in the pit of his stomach. Do they understand what's its like to walk what feels like an endless path full of hate.

The trees on this path call you names, the grass is too good for you to walk on so you walk on the gravel. The gravel hurts your feet after walking on it for so long. But you can't get off this road and you can't float away into the sky because the sky is laughing at you.

It's laughing because you can't fly, you can't touch the sky. You can't leave this hate, you need to live with it. The hardest part. Accepting what others can't and trying to find a way to make it so they can accept you without them ever seeing who you are.

Naruto came back to senses when his grandma put her hands on his shoulders, she was kneeling in front of him and telling him breath. Was he not breathing?

"Naruto" she said loudly. Naruto nodded his head, he was here.

"I'm here" he breathed, it felt nice the air filling him. He almost forgot he was alive. If that makes sense. He was Naruto. And he was here.

"Why are you home? What happened." Tsunade was over dramatic sometimes but now it felt like her worries were appropriate. He appreciated it.

Naruto wanted to tell her everything, he wanted the whole story told. He wanted her to hug him and tell him he would be okay. That's all he wants.

Naruto shook his head and smiled. "I'm fine grandma! I was just thinking."

Tsunade seemed skeptical, there was something Naruto wasn't telling her. What could she do? If he isn't going to talk, he isn't going to talk.

Naruto's mind was repeating the same thing over in his head 'ask me again. Please ask again.'

"I'm making soup for lunch, is that okay? Will Sasuke be joining us as well?"

Naruto's smile faltered, but he quickly regained himself. "Yeah! I'll go wake him up" Naruto did a small wave before leaving the kitchen and walking back to his room.