Sometimes, when Naruto had been younger, he would sit at the playground and watch the kids play with one another. Since normally he was loud and boisterous, no one seemed to notice him when he made an effort to fade into the background and stay silent, a rare occurrence.
He watched as they played, casually pushing and shoving one another, laughing together and making jokes.
It hurt, sometimes. But Naruto didn´t know how to fix the hurt, so he just pretended it didn´t. How does someone fill this – this weird gaping hole that he was in his chest anyway? It´s not like there was an actual hole that he could just stuff with his blanket. It didn´t work that way.
Naruto watched as the parents came to take their children home when dawn came as well – did he have parents too? Did they not like him? Naruto waited many dawns at the playground, but there had never been an adult who looked like him and had taken him home. There had only been gramps, once, when dawn had long passed and night had fallen. Gramps told him he´d been up too long, brought him back to his home and then left again.
Once, Naruto had watched as a kid fell on the playground and started crying. He puffed his chest at that and turned to look away. Were it him, he wouldn´t have cried about something like that.
That was good, right? Gramps said not to cry too often, because adults don´t like crybabies. Had he been a crybaby when he was a baby? Is that why his parents left?
Naruto doesn´t cry either way, believe it!
He only looked back when he heard the crying ebb down and watched as a very pretty woman kneeled in front of the child and gently stroked her cheeks, wiping the tears away with her thumbs and whispering soothing words.
It was the first time Naruto had seen something like that, and he ended up staring for so long that the kid noticed and started crying again, causing the pretty lady to make an ugly face at him and pick her daughter up to leave.
When Naruto had gotten home, he´d laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
His hands slowly came up to his face and his nose and whiskers scrunched up, trying to remember how the woman did it, before his right hand was on his left cheek, and his left hand on his right. His fingers curled a little and he tried to cup his face, but twisting his elbows like that was a little uncomfortable. His thumb started to move, slowly at first because that´s how the woman had done it, and Naruto flinched at the sudden feeling of soft fingers tracing his whiskers.
Sure, they were his own, but somehow it felt a little bit like someone else was doing it. Especially when he closed his eyes and imagined a very pretty lady with a bright smile and blonde hair just like his in front of him. Maybe she had whiskers too? Or had his dad been blonde instead? Maybe they both had whiskers.
The thought made him giggle slightly and he continued to stroke his own whiskers, relishing in the feeling of his warm hands on his face.
This felt nice. Naruto could understand why the girl had stopped crying. If he were to cry – which he would never, believe it! – then he would have stopped too.
He doesn´t know for how long he keeps going, but after a while his fingers are tired and the warm feeling of his hands on his cheeks suddenly fade. Suddenly it´s not so much fun anymore and it keeps getting harder to imagine the pretty lady with shining blonde hair. She starts flickering away when Naruto can´t keep thinking about her anymore, so he stops. If she disappeared because he chose to, it would hurt less.
When Naruto goes outside again he was tempted to try and pretend to cry. Maybe someone would soothe him. Because doing it by himself feels so… wrong after some time. He wants someone else to do it, but he decided against it in the end. They would only laugh at him, so he doesn´t.
Time passed and the gaping hole in his chest doesn´t go away. Naruto´s pretty good at pretending it isn´t there, though, so no one questions him when he just runs outside and disappears for a few minutes to try and cup his own face, since they just think that he´s up to some sort of prank. It helps, temporarily.
Then, Naruto gets his team.
He doesn´t like it. He doesn´t want to be on a team with stupid Sasuke, even if Sakura is there too. She doesn´t like him, Naruto knows that because he isn´t stupid, but like with everything else, he pretends not to notice and only advances forward with his attempts to bond with her.
It doesn´t work.
Sasuke is an annoying bastard. Naruto doesn´t like him or his stuck up attitude. Nor does he like how he treats Sakura and literally anyone else.
But what he does like is that Sasuke dislikes him. Which, alright, is probably really weird. But Naruto knows that Sasuke doesn´t dislike him the same way everyone else does. He doesn´t like Naruto because he thinks Naruto is stupid and incapable. Not because he thinks Naruto is a monster.
Naruto knows that Sasuke has seen real monsters. Monsters that killed his family. Monsters that were his family. So he finds comfort in the fact that the bastard is just really rude in general and not just to him. It´s the only reason why he still tries to bond with him, since he knows that if he can convince Sasuke that he´s better than him and not just stupid, they might just become friends.
He might just become Naruto´s first friend.
Either way, Naruto doesn´t like Kakashi all that much either.
He´s weird, and always late to all the team meetings. He never tells them anything about himself or says what he really feels. Naruto can tell, because sometimes he just feels really sad.
The blonde is sure no one else can feel it, because when he asked Sakura about it, she had just called him an idiot. But sometimes, Kakashi-sensei feels like a grey storm cloud. Sometimes it´s so dense that Naruto has to resist the urge to go away and hide. He knows it would probably make the cloud worse too, even if it seemed to be there every time Naruto was near Kakashi.
Kakashi-sensei just doesn´t look at him, you know?
He looks at his hair, at his jacket, sometimes at his hands or maybe past him, but never at him. Never into his eyes or at his face.
Naruto knows that they all think he´s stupid. But what they don´t know, is that he knows a lot about people. He can tell when they´re sad or angry without even looking at them, the same way he can tell whenever Kakashi has that weird aura around him that suffocates Naruto.
So Naruto can tell that he´s hurting Kakashi-sensei.
He doesn´t let it get to him – it does – and just smiles it off like he always does, believe it!
Until it all falls apart.
It was Kakashi who asked about it first. Naruto stayed behind when Sasuke left and Sakura immediately skipped after him. Kakashi had been long gone, well, at least Naruto thought he had been, but suddenly he was there. Naruto could tell because that weird aura was suddenly back where it was, even if he couldn´t see Kakashi himself.
He turns his head and seconds later Kakashi came out from the small forest area where they had been training moments prior.
Naruto stiffens at the suffocating feeling again and tries to turn away, but it doesn´t work. Normally, he ignores it and instead focuses on Sakura´s aura that always feels like and giddy because Sasuke is there too. But now both of them are gone and he doesn´t have anything to focus on.
“Yo, Naruto-kun. You´re not going to join your team?”
“Nah, not today.” Is all he managed to choke out, because somehow it´s worse today.
Kakashi hesitates and takes a step back, but it doesn´t help. Then there was a moment of silence and Naruto shifted from one leg to another, smile beginning to twitch at the corners of his mouth and hands clenching in his pockets.
Then it´s gone.
Naruto doesn´t manage to hide the gasp of surprise when he doesn´t feel the cloud anymore, eventhough Kakashi is there still. His reaction is obvious and he turns to stare wide-eyed at his sensei in surprise.
Kakashi seemed surprised too, because he tilted his head to the side, but didn´t step closer.
“Better?” he asks, and Naruto doesn´t know how Kakashi knew that he was feeling weird around him, but he nods still.
It´s only then that the jonin steps closer, but before he can even reach Naruto, the blonde blurted out a question out of pure impulse, unable to keep his mouth shut.
“Why do you not like me?”
That makes Kakashi freeze and he stays where he is, a few arms lengths away from his student.
“I do like you, Naruto-kun. You´re my precious student. What makes you think that?”
And Naruto doesn´t like how his voice sounds, because it sounds like he´s trying to talk to a wild, injured animal. Naruto isn´t an animal. He´s not the stupid fox inside of him. People have to stop treating him like a ticking time bomb because of it.
He snaps.
“You do! You never look at me. It´s like it hurts you when you do. And you have this weird cloud around you whenever I´m near you! It´s obvious, you know?!”
Kakashi takes it in stride however and only tilts his head, visible eye narrowing in question. “Cloud?”
Naruto just keeps going, now that he´s already started. “Yeah! You always feel sad and angry whenever you´re around me! It feels weird, believe it! If you hate me that much, just say it to my face!”
He doesn´t notice the small flinch from the silver haired man. Nor does he notice how hard Kakashi is trying to keep his chakra in check right now.
Emotional sensing from chakra. Uzumaki genes or Jinchuuriki traits?
Kakashi doesn´t ponder too long, but what he does do is let out a small curse at the fact that it had taken him so long to realize. He knows his own feelings well, and he also knows just how overwhelming they can become, but he didn´t know hoe emotional sensing worked. He could only imagine Naruto feeling all the guilt inside of him that always reappeared, because Naruto simply reminded him of every single one of his failures.
Obito, Minato and Kushina, Rin.
But Naruto doesn´t know it´s not really his fault. He only senses that feeling seemingly directed at him and makes his own conclusion, that, to Kakashi´s horror, isn´t even that far off.
Naruto is breathing hard by now, eyes pinched close. He doesn´t want Kakashi to hate him. Doesn´t want anyone to hate him, really. But somehow it´s just worse when the silver haired man does it.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere there´s a hand on his locks. Naruto opens his yes abruptly to find Kakashi crouched down in front of him, a smile on his face. But this time the corner of his eyes was crinkled as well and he felt like a lighter cloud that even let a few rays of sunshine through.
The gloved hand was ruffling through his hair and Naruto found that he very much liked that feeling. It filled the hole in his chest better than the cupping-his-face-with-his-own-hands did, somehow. He subconsciously leaned into the touch and Kakashi doesn´t stop just yet, which feels really nice.
“I don´t dislike you Naruto-kun. I don´t hate you either.”
And it´s the same voice again, but this time Naruto can excuse it because of the giddy feeling he gets when the hand ruffles his hair.
“Remember that, alright?”
Completely against his will – Naruto realized with dawning horror, that right at that moment, he probably wouldn´t have refused anything that Kakashi told him to do. Maybe it´s because he doesn´t want to ruin the chance of feeling this again, or because he doesn´t want this nice feeling to stop. The hole in his chest isn´t so empty and hurting anymore and the cloud around Kakashi is lighter. If he argues, is he going to lose that? – Naruto nods.
Then, just as suddenly as it happened, the hand was gone again.
“I´ll see you tomorrow at training. Ja ne!”
It almost felt like the man was fleeing, but Naruto was still too caught up in the giddiness that he felt after this entire interaction.
Maybe Kakashi doesn´t like him – even if he said he does, but Naruto can´t be too sure – but if the blonde kept thinking back to this moment, where the cloud wasn´t as suffocating and the man had actually looked at him once, he can forget about it and continue to pretend like that isn´t the case.