Work Text:
He looked around the class to distract himself, his pen abandoned somewhere under his desk after he had kept dropping it deliberately, to pass some time.
Most of the students stuck to a simple family tree with three generations; them, their parents and their grandparents. The assignment was not that serious, after all, just an activity to make history class a bit less boring.
Sakura beside him was already done with her three generations, and had moved on to decorating the tree with leaves and what so not. She kept chatting with Ino meanwhile, about annoying family gatherings and forced dinners together with relatives. About how they hated it so much.
Naruto thought he couldn't care less about her chatter, but seeing Sasuke's glare behind her sent a wave of negative emotions through his chest.
Maybe he was a bit offended by her talk after all, he came to realise.
Naruto's attention was subsequently dragged toward the Uchiha's tree, a surprisingly long and detailed map, that could have easily reached the first Uchiha ever. Sasuke's gaze -after he was done staring holes into the back of Sakura's head- was fixated on the bottom row of his paper.
In a neat handwriting, his parents' names were written carefully, two branches growing from the middle of where the two names met. At the end of the second branch, Sasuke drew the kanjis composing his name with ease.
Naruto took note of how his classmate had left the spot underneath the first branch empty, and while no one ever told Naruto what exactly had happened to the Uchihas, he had an inkling idea of the horrific massacre that took place, and who was behind it.
The hatred in Sasuke's eyes when he stared at the empty space was something else, it sent shivers running along his spine. Naruto realized deep in his chest at that moment, that Sasuke was sinking into the darkness, and that if no one interfered, if he didn't interfer, they might lose him forever.
But beside hatred, the loneliness that was buried under the layers of anger and sadness was something that connected to Naruto on a spiritual level. It made him feel less lonely, and in a twisted, selfish way, even happy, that there was someone other than him that understood this feeling, and had to live with it everyday.
The childish part of him thought that they could have a stronger bond, that they could even be friends, one day. Yet another part of him, the competitive and proud part, wanted to prove himself to Sasuke. Wanted to show him that they were equal and similar. He wanted to show him that he would become the future hokage, regardless of what anyone said about him.
Yet from all these parts, the broken and depressed part of him, the one that was born from the villagers' harsh words and painful stares, won, making him avert his eyes away from Sasuke's pained expression to not relive his own.
To his right sat the shy Hinata, who clumsily drew a fairly big tree with two main branches. He caught with the corner of his eye Neji, that sat behind her, who was staring at her branches with forrowed eyebrows and a frown.
A glimpse at his paper told Naruto that Neji had drawn the exact same tree, but with one branch seemingly taking much more space on the little piece of paper than the other. And while the bigger branch was more detailed and thorough, strokes of furious ink covered some parts of it, as if he had lost his temper for a second while drawing it.
A sharp glare from Neji made Naruto avert his gaze once more, scanning the rest of the class.
Kiba drew two parallel trees, and while one seemed to belong to his family, the other ended with the name Akimaru, which could only mean that the other one was a family tree of their dogs.
Shikamaru had his head resting on a hardly started drawing, seemingly asleep, with Choji beside him eating a bag of chips, having apparently given up on both the assignment and waking his friend up.
Lee was having a heated argument with Iruka-sensei a few rows beneath, about why it makes sense for him to draw Gai-sensei's family tree along with his. Shiba was standing right behind their teacher, muttering that he would need alot more space than that to be able to draw a tree of all his bugs, but went unnoticed by the arguing duo.
Sighing loudly, Naruto finally turned to his own paper. A small, shy 'Uzumaki Naruto' was the only thing sloppily written at the bottom. The empty space seemed taunting, staring back at him with snarky eyes similar to the ones that looked down on him everyday on the streets.
He had to have parents, biologically speaking. He knew that. It's just that no one wanted to tell him anything about them.
He thought about Jiji for a second. Should he write his name as a grandparent?
No, that would be ridiculous. He was the third hokage, he had his own grandson, he was a respectable shinobi in the eyes of the village, he couldn't tarnish that reputation by connecting him to someone like himself, let alone that he definitely wasn't related to the old man.
Naruto leaned down and picked up his pencil from the floor. He had just a single clue about his parents.
Uzumaki.
There got to be something he could find in the library about the surname. Were they a big clan? Or just a normal shinobi family? Had they any special inherited jutsu? But even if they did, he would never be able to learn it, either way, so it didn't really matter.
He drew two lines connected with his name, he had no idea if both his parents were Uzumaki or just one of them, but he wrote Uzumaki on both ends. He had no other options, and it was not unheard of that one parent took the other's surname after marriage anyway, so he can always pretend that that was what happened with them.
He tried so hard to imagine what they looked like, but he didn't have any reference but himself, so they always ended up as one older and one feminine versions of himself, both with wild blond hair and sky blue eyes.
In his head, he imagined his mother to be so kind and gentle, caressing his cheek until he fell asleep, or hugging him tightly while he cried. His father would be strong and loud like him. They would spend their days running around the house and training together. His father would teach him cool moves and attacks to impress his classmates, while his mother would bring them food and sweets while they laid exhausted on the grass of their yard.
He stopped his trembling hand that held the pencil by grabbing it with his other one. He blinked away the wetness gathering in the corner of his eyes violently before anyone could realize his distress. He couldn't show weakness infront of his peers. And he doubted anyone would actually notice, let alone care.
Only, while he was distracted by gathering his scattered emotions and stilling his shaky hands, he failed to realize that Iruka-sensei had given up on arguing with Lee and had his gaze trailing on him instead.
It was only when it got too quiet that Naruto snapped out of it and looked around. Everyone for the most part was still busy with their trees, only Shikamaru was keen enough to catch the subtle atmosphere change of something being off. Seemingly awake now, even when he tried to make it seem like he was still napping by still having his head down on his arms, Naruto could still see him sneakily peaking from between his folded arms.
Naruto felt the intelligent gaze on him, suffocating and intese. He felt like a puzzle being figured out, and he didn't like that. He was supposed to be the class clown, the goofy one, an open book with nothing to read between the lines.
Iruka-sensei was also staring at him, not with the usual disappointment, but with something more akin to realization, and maybe some guilt?
Naruto decided he was not having that.
"Ah! This class is so boring!"
That earned him a few hateful grimaces from the classmates who were actually enjoying the assignment and didn't want him ruining their class for his selfish reasons.
Maybe he was indeed being selfish, robbing others from their experience of the joy of having a family, just because he was bitter he didn't have any.
Yet at that moment, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Naruto stood abruptly up, his paper abandoned on the desk and hands behind his head to hide their slight tremors in the bush of his hair, as he made a quick dash heading to the door, going around the seats, from the back of the class, to avoid passing by his sensei on his way out.
He half expected someone to stop him, or Iruka-sensei to grab his arm and lecture him about respect and whatsoever, but he released how grateful he was that no one did only when he slid the classroom door closed and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
Now that he was alone, his shaky breath and his watering eyes made him aware of how much this must've upset him. It was weird, sometimes, how he was not entirely aware of the magnitudes of his own feelings. Was he just dumb, or was everyone this emotionally unstable?
He took a couple of breathless mouthfuls of air, trying to calm his burning lungs. He had to get away before someone opened the door and witnessed his shameful panic.
He's a man, he's a shinobi, he's old enough not to cry over a stupid assignment. He's the future hokage, for God's sake! He can't start sobbing in the middle of the academy!
'It's okay, Naruto. I'm here with you,' the female version of him said in the imaginary scape of his mind.
'You'll be fine, son. I'll always be here to help when you need me,' the older version of himself echoed right after.
He let only one tear slip, before he dried his eyes with one swift sweep of his sleeve, and marched on towards the Hokages' stone faces to give them a proper and colorful renovering.
****
The next morning, Naruto found himself early in class. He simply couldn't sleep that night, so he had nothing better to do than start preparing himself for school rather early, but he had not expected he would be the only one this early.
Not even Iruka-sensei was here yet.
Naruto dragged his feet to his desk in defeat. Nothing to do now that he was already here.
He threw his bag rather harshly and plopped down heavily, placing his arms on the desk and burying his head into them, not unlike how Shikamaru did yesterday.
Yet when his hands slid slightly on the unsteady surface, he realized that there was a paper on his desk.
He stole a lazy glace at it before it dawned on him that it was yesterday's tree. Had nobody bothered throwing it away? And they call him lazy... tsk tsk.
He lifted his arms away, ready to turn the papper into a ball and play basket with it while trying to make it reach the bin from up here, but his eyes caught something.
Something that was not there before.
It was written with a red pen. The same one the teachers always use when grading exams. He would know, because his exam consisted almost entirely of these ugly red marks every single time.
It took him a minute to register, being too groggy and grumpy and simply... taken by surprise.
It was only 3 words. But it made him instantly awake, all sleepiness flying out of the window. It made his heart flutter and his blood rush in his ears. He took in every letter avidly, as if he had been deprived, as if he had been waiting his whole life for this moment.
In a sense, he probably had.
In neat red letters, just above the surname he had written connected to his own name stood;
'Minato' and 'Kushina'
And just next to his own name, circled with a sole bubble with no lines connected anywhere, it read;
'Iruka'