Left Behind
Life really doesn't stop. It doesn't care that you just had a mental breakdown, or if you're having a life crisis. Life could care less. And Naruto didn’t know whether he hated it or if he was thankful. But it wouldn’t make a difference in the end life would have kept going.
After having finally accepting the fact that he wasn’t happy with his life, Naruto had headed back to Aki-nee-chan seeking answers to questions that he had developed after his breakdown. He was confused as to why Sasuke leaving the villages affected him so much, yet here he was crying his eyes out for the Bastar.
Needless to say, he had been enlightened by his conversation with Aki-nee-chan.
He loved Sasuke.
That couldn’t possibly be the reason as to why he felt this way about his departure. It just couldn’t be.
“Aki-nee-chan doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Grumble Naruto as he cleaned his kunai. “It’s so not possible. I can’t love Sasuke, that bastard is unlovable. I mean it’s not like I want to kiss his stupid perfect face or anything. If anything I want to break his stupid face. We weren’t that close. Sure he risked his life to save me and I risked my life to save him but that’s what teammates do.” Naruto grinned and nodded to himself.
Not wanting to continue to think about the topic, Naruto packed his kunai and took to practicing his dancing. He was good, but he still wasn’t able to be as graceful as Aki-nee-chan when he danced. Plus it helped him improve his taijutsu.
Yet as he was practicing he could help but replay what Aki-nee-chan had told him. It was almost as if his mind didn’t want him to forget about it.
“Naru-chan you have to understand that you don’t get to pick who you love. And you love Sasuke Naru-chan.”
“ARGH! Stop it!” Naruto yelled as he pulled his hair in an attempt to stop his train of thought. “You don’t love Sasuke and you only hate that he left because he’s betraying the village. And you hate those that betray their villages because they're no better than Mizuki.”
At that moment Naruto knew that he should have gone to Iruka, he wouldn’t ask him any questions. Iruka would have just comforted him no questions asked.
//\\//\\//\\
“Naruto, Jiraiya wants to take you with him on a training trip for the next three years. And while I agree with him on this it’s up to you to decide if you want to do this or not. That’s why I’m giving you a week to decide what you want to do.”
As Naruto listen to Tsunade speak he couldn’t help but think that he doesn’t need all that time to make up his mind. His mind was already made.
He was leaving the village with Jiraiya for three years. Kami knows that he needs to get away from everything to clear his head.
//\\//\\//\\
“Are you sure you want to do this Naru-chan.”
“I can’t keep going on like this Aki-nee-chan. My own team isn’t talking to me, the village still hates me and I’m just not...I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I stay here.”
//\\//\\//\\
“Kid it'll be fun. We’ll be training and having fun while we’re at it.” Jiraiya said as ate his ramen.
After having told Tsunade his decision she had called for Jiraiya so that they could talk about everything that the training trip would entitle. They had since made their way to Ichiraku Ramen to have a much more personal conversation. And to be honest this must be one of the few times in which Naruto wasn’t slurping as many bowls of ramen as he could. In fact today the ramen didn’t seem as tasty as it had before.
“Of course it’ll be fun pervy-sage!” Naruto said as he shot a grin to Jiraiya.
“Brat doesn’t call me that!”
//\\//\\//\\
To be completely honest with you Naruto was never planning on telling the remaining members of team 7 that he was leaving. He had thought that the day that he left the village he could leave a letter with Granny for them and that would be the end of it. But he really should have known that things never go his way.
So when Kakashi-sensei finally managed to corner him, Naruto knew that this was the end of the fantasy.
“I heard some interesting rumors going around lately.” Kakashi-sensei started. His eye was closed in the same way that it closed when he was smiling, but Naruto knew that this sensei was anything but happy. “And I was wondering if you could help clear one of those rumors up Naru-chan.”
Naruto is stupid, no matter what others think, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t make stupid decisions; this is one of them. You see Naruto had been out in the forest meditating and he was really enjoying his peace and quiet, so he really didn’t appreciate the fact that Kakashi-sensei had interrupted that peace.
“There’s a lot of rumors going around Kakashi-sensei you’ll have to tell me which one you mean.” See that was a stupid decision on his part because he knew that Kakashi-sensei knew that he knew what he meant. But most importantly because he could have just come clean right then and there but instead he was playing dumb in front of the best shinobi that the village had.
Kakashi's posture changed from friendly to rigid in a blink of an eye. He was now steering at Naruto trying to decipher what he was playing at. “Ma Naru-chan you know that I don’t appreciate lied to."
Looking at Kakashi-sensei straight in the eye Naruto told him what he had wanted to tell him for quite some time now.
“And I don’t appreciate having to explain my actions to someone that doesn’t even take a fucking second to ask me how I’m doing. Let me tell you Sensei the fact that it took you finding out that I was leaving the village to talk to me out of your own free will just goes to show that you don’t care. And you know what I don’t care anymore. I don’t care that at one point I thought that we were a family because that’s obviously a fucking lie. I just don’t care anymore and because I don’t care anymore I’m leaving this godforsaken village for as long as I can.” Stopping to collect himself Naruto took that time to observe Kakashi’s reaction. And while Kakashi might be one of the best at hiding his emotions it was clear as day that everything that Naruto had just told him had affected him.
Standing up Naruto sighed before speaking again. “I’m done Sensei and I’m sorry things turned out this way. Goodbye Kakashi-sensei.” With that being said Naruto left without once looking back.
Yet had he just looked back once he would have seen how broken Kakashi was by all of this. But most importantly because he had the feeling that this was the last time he talked to Naruto in a long time.
//\\//\\//\\
When they left the village there was no one to send them off. It could have been that it was because they left at the dead of night. Or maybe it was because Naruto had said his goodbyes to those that really matter ahead of time. But in the end, no one was there to send them off and to be honest with you Naruto was thankful for that.
Naruto couldn’t help but think that if Sakura had been there to send him off she wouldn't have asked him to stay and he would have said yes. But the thing is that Naruto was drowning. He was drowning and if he stayed any longer in the village he was sure that he would never surface again.
But when he took his first step outside the village without Kakashi or Sakura by his side, that was the moment in which he felt the freest. The freedom he felt at that moment was enough to almost bring him to tears.
“You ready brat.”
“Ready as I’ll ever be Pervy-sage.”
//\\//\\//\\
They had been traveling for a little bit over two days when a thought struck Naruto. While he had thought that he had said his goodbyes to everyone he held dear, there was one person that he forgot about.
“Hey, Pervy-sage you think we can stop by Suna?”
Jiraiya who had been rambling about all the beautiful ladies they would meet stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to look at Naruto who had also stopped walking, trying to figure out why the sudden question.
“We could make a quick stop. But why the sudden desire to stop at Suna kid.”
“Well you see I um made a friend during the chunin exams and I just wanted to let him know that I was going to be away from the village for a while.” Naruto had been fidgeting with his sleeves not really wanting to come clean as to who his friend was.
Naruto wasn’t ashamed to admit who his friend was, nor did he want to keep it a secret. It was just that he didn’t feel like answering the question that Jiraiya was going to ask.
“And who’s your friend?”
//\\//\\//\\
Suna, the village hidden in the sand, was nothing like Konoha. That was to be expected, but in his head, Naruto always thought that all the villages were the same. Yet here he was walking down the street market not having to worry about putting on a facade. Nobody knew who he was or what he had sealed inside him. It wasn’t only that, because he knew that for Gaara this was his personal hell. There was something freeing about the openness of Suna that made him feel lighter.
“Brat does your friend even know that you’re here?”
Of course, Gaara didn’t know he was coming, and if he was being truthful Naruto was pretty sure that Gaara also didn’t know they were friends. But Jiraiya didn’t have to know this. “Kind of. He knows my chakra signature.”
Jiraiya was giving him the stink eye, probably because Naruto hadn’t let him run off to the nearest bathhouse. Naruto had told him that he was only going to say his goodbyes and they would be on their merry way in less than twenty minutes tops. That had been an hour ago.
Because they both were to busy trying to mind control each other by getting into a staring contest, they failed to see a certain redhead making his way to them.
“Naruto.”
//\\//\\//\\
“They let you leave?”
Gaara didn’t know what to think. He knew that Konoha and Suna weren’t a perfect copy of each other, but they do share one belief - to keep a firm grasp on their weapons. Or at least that’s what he thought until now. Gaara was lost as to what this meant.
“Yeah but it's not like they were happy about it, you know.” If Naruto was being honest the council was not thrilled by the idea of him leaving the village at all. Baa-cha had to pull authority on them in order for him to be able to step foot outside the village.
Gaara stared at Naruto, he didn’t know what it was but something had changed in his fellow jinchuriki. “Why?”
Naruto glanced at Gaara from the corner of his eye. He knew what his friend was asking but he didn’t really want to voice the answer out loud just yet. “Well you know they can’t really control me if I’m not in the village. And for all, they know I could end up deserting while I’m a-”
“Why did you ask to leave.”
Neither of the two spoke for a long time after that. Naruto because he didn’t want to answer and Gaara because he thought he had pushed too much. It wasn’t until Naruto realized that what he was doing to Gaara was the same thing that Sasuke did to him.
“I couldn’t take it anymore and after a while, all I wanted was to disappear.”
Gaara nodded, after all, if anyone understood what it felt like to just want to fade away it was him.
“Not because of how the village treated me, their words stopped hurting a long time ago. Sasuke left you to know. Deserted the village in search of power. And after Sasuke left nothing was the same and I couldn't seem to accept that this was the new normal. Not without it feeling like I had up on Sasuke. I guess that being there felt like I was underwater. After a while, it felt like I was running out of air real quick with no way to reach the surface.”
//\\//\\//\\
“You love him.”
“Love? I can’t really call it love. Love means that what I felt for him was something that was supposed to fill me with happiness. That this love was supposed to make the loneliness go away. So no I wouldn’t say that I love him...but if things had taken a different route maybe it could have been love.”