Rain Made of Storms // Chapter 2 - Through the Frame
Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x female oc reader x Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto) 18+ explicit content
Genre: canon-divergent (aged up), hella slowburn, love triangle, angst, eventual smut, mystery, dark, psychological
Warnings: 18+—profanity, loneliness, social isolation, implied depression, brief bullying/mockery, references to bad home life, mild angst, idk canon-typical naruto stuff
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Chapter 2 - Through the Frame
Read Rain Made of Storm on AO3
Konoha is never quiet. It almost makes you uncomfortable.
The noise spills over itself from the moment the Academy doors open for lunch, bright energy fluttering beneath the afternoon sun. Students shout across the training yard with their whole chests, doubling over in laughter without apology or strain, arguing over kunai and lunches and who did the best during sparring practice. Their voices rise with the dust beneath their sandals as they scatter about the yard, shouting each other’s names and carelessly bumping shoulders every now and then. Their hands reach without hesitation. Their emotions flash between bitterness and laughter before you can understand how anyone survives being so visible.
You sit beneath the tree at the far edge of the yard—close enough that no teacher can accuse you of wandering, but still far enough that no one has to decide whether to invite you in. Your lunch is folded neatly over your knees.
This is the kind of alone you know best. Not loneliness so apparent that it creates a scene, but it’s not comforting enough to feel like peace. It’s just a space left open around you and your body, wide enough for others to overlook and narrow enough for you to pretend you chose it.
This isn’t the worst kind of loneliness.
The worst kind has teeth. It bites, and it hurts. It laughs in groups and waits for you to look wounded before it bites again. And this is quieter than that. This is the safe space you exist in—the kind people leave around a girl they do not hate, but do not desire either. A space wide enough to keep you separate and narrow enough to let everyone pretend that they have not done it on purpose.
… You’ve found that you’re good at letting things happen quietly.
Your mother packed your lunch too carefully again today, you notice.
Rice is pressed into a perfect square shape. Bitter greens are tucked beside salted fish. Eggs are sliced thin and arranged in a way that measures her care like neatness. It smells different from the lunches around you—sharper, more acidic, touched by spices no one in class ever names correctly. But it smells like home, sharp with that seaweed and brine stench that makes your classmates wrinkle their noses when they pass too close.
You used to hate that. Now, you only hate that you noticed in the first place. There was a time you used to unashamedly enjoy your meal, but you haven’t been able to openly since you joined the ninja academy at age fourteen, similar in age to the other students just joining.
You are picking at the edge of the rice with your chopsticks when something suddenly skids across the dirt and stops against the toe of your sandal.
It’s half-crushed and covered in dust. You stare at it.
A heartbeat later, a boy your age drops to his knees so suddenly in front of you it’s as if he has fallen out of the sky.
“Leave it,” he says to you quickly.
He has hair so blonde it’s almost yellow, a dirty cheek, and the desperate expression of someone trying to defend treasure that has already been tainted by dirty hands. Behind him, a few boys near the training posts start laughing.
“Too late, Naruto!” one of them calls. “It’s dirt flavored now.”
The blonde boy twists his head over his shoulder, face turning one shade more red. “Shut up! It could still be good!”
The boy scoffs, “It was barely good before!”
This boy—Naruto—squares his shoulders like he means to stand, like he intends to shout back, like he wants to turn this whole yard into a fight if that’s what it takes to make the laughter stop sounding the way it does. But his hand only closes around the newly browned rice ball, fingers pressing into the dirt stuck to it, and turns back to face you once more.
You recognize that reaction from all the times you’ve worn it yourself—not the anger Naruto hides behind blushed cheeks, but the pretending it doesn’t hurt.
He turns back and catches you staring, and for a second, his face changes. The scowl stays, but something behind it goes still, like you saw a part of him that was never meant to be revealed. As if being laughed at is one thing, but being witnessed by a stranger sitting quietly beneath a tree is somehow worse.
You should look away. It would be polite, after all you witnessed. It would be easier for you and him.
Instead, you glance at the rice ball in his hand.
“You probably shouldn’t eat the part with gravel in it.”
The boys behind him laugh harder, but Naruto does not. He looks down at the rice ball, lips pressed into a thin line.
He frowns, “What if I eat around it?”
“That depends on if you’re willing to take the risk, and how attached you are to your teeth,” you reply.
His mouth twitches. It’s so subtle you almost miss it, but it’s there. Small. Quick. Gone almost before it even has the chance to arrive. But you see it. Then he sits back on his heels in front of you, still holding the ruined rice ball, and looks at you like you have become something worth noticing.
“You’re weird,” he finally says.
You lower your chopsticks.
“Funny, ‘cause you’re the one eating rocks,” you quip back.
“I said around the rocks.”
“That does not make it better.”
“It makes it slower. It’s pointless.”
His eyes narrow, but not out of anger this time. More like concentration, like he’s trying to figure out whether you are making fun of him or talking to him, and no one has given him enough practice telling the difference.
He decides to grin. Wide, warm, and welcoming. Seems too bright for someone who was embarrassed a breath ago, and is too loud even before he opens his mouth.
Everyone knows Naruto Uzumaki, even the students who pretend not to. He is the boy who teachers sigh over before he even speaks. The boy who fills whatever space is left empty, not because anyone offers it to him, but because he seems to have decided silence is something he can beat if he is loud enough and fills that space. The boy who parents pull their kids away from without explaining why.
Still, he announces his name like he’s inviting you to a challenge, as if he expects you to flinch from it, or cower away, or get up and leave.
“Sena Hayama,” you reply.
“Sena…” he repeats, voice softer than it was when he announced his own name.
Your eyes drop to the ruined rice ball in his hand, then to the boys still snickering, then back to him. Naruto’s grip tightens around what is left of his lunch when he receives your stare, stubbornness hardening his mouth like he is seconds away from eating dirt just to prove he can.
A strange irritation settles in your stomach and robs some of your appetite. You don’t want to pity him because you would hate if someone pitied you, so you don’t give that to him. Instead, you look down at your own lunch, the rice your mother pressed too neatly into shape, the salted fish tucked beside bitter greens, the thin slices of egg arranged with a care that makes your insides twist if you look at it for too long.
You pick up a chunk of rice with your chopsticks and hold it out.
Naruto stares. You stare back.
“You’re giving me food?” he questions.
“No. I’m holding it in the air for decoration. I thought the scenery could use some.”
His eyes narrow again, but not with accusatory suspicion—not exactly. It’s something smaller than that. More careful. A small flame that longs to trust, but has been snuffed out too many times to count. Something more careful.
You glance at the dirt stuck to his rice ball.
“Because yours has rocks in it,” you deadpan.
“I said I could eat around them.”
“And I said your teeth would suffer.”
For a moment, his eyes meet yours. Then, slowly, like he expects you to snatch it away and laugh in his face, Naruto reaches out a hesitant hand and takes the rice from your chopsticks.
The boys behind him have grown quieter.
You can feel them still watching the interaction, their attention crawling over the space between you and him. It makes your shoulders want to raise and fingers want to fold back into your sleeves. Makes you wish you had kept your lunch to yourself and let Naruto eat gravel if he was so determined to make bad choices in the first place.
But Naruto doesn’t pay them any more mind.
He pops the rice into his mouth. Chews.
His whole face changes. You watch the color drain from it as his jaw slows while he continues the chewing motion.
Your stomach churns. You know that look.
You’ve seen that look countless times on classmates who lean too close to your lunch and wrinkle their noses before asking why it smells like that. You have heard the laughter that rolls over them like a wave that comes after. The snickers and jokes about seaweed and old fish and food that tastes like poor, low tide. The way your fellow students have turned a meal into proof that you are not from the place they have decided everyone should come from—Konoha.
Your heart begins to drop.
Naruto swallows with visible effort and points at the container with absolute seriousness, his face contorting into a look of genuine concern.
“That is the saltiest rice I’ve ever eaten,” he says, horrified and strained.
He reaches for his water and drinks like he has crossed a desert. You wait for the rest—the insults, the laughter, the look toward the other boys to make sure they heard him. But it does not come.
Naruto wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and squints at your lunch again, both suspicious and fascinated.
“Do you eat that every day?” he asks.
Your fingers tighten around your chopsticks.
“That means you hate it.”
“No!” he says quickly, voice cracking, then he makes a face like honesty is physically fighting its way out of him, despite his efforts to contain it. “I mean, it’s… weird.”
You lower your gaze to your meal. You’re not feeling very hungry anymore.
“But not bad weird. Just, like—” he frowns, searching hard to find words he clearly does not have, honesty winning the battle. “Strong weird.”
You look back at him despite yourself.
“Strong weird?” you question.
“Yeah,” he nods, more confident now that he has invented a new category to log your lunch inside that doesn’t openly imply it’s unenjoyable or different. “Like it punches your mouth.”
For one second, you forget not to stare at the babblingidiot before you.
Then a laugh slips out of you.
And Naruto’s face brightens like he has won a prize.
“What?” he exclaims. “It does!”
“Food cannot punch your mouth,” you correct.
“Maybe your mouth is just weak.”
His jaw drops, faux offense playing on his features. Someone snickers behind him, but this time it does not feel sharp. Neither of you look away from the other.
Naruto points a defensive finger at you. “My mouth is not weak.”
“You almost died from rice.”
“Nuh-uh! I didn’t almost die!”
“I did not! I was only surprised!”
You should regret giving him any, but you don’t. You can’t. Not as warmth begins to creep from a dark pit deep in your stomach and spread through your veins, washing throughout the rest of your body.
Naruto stays crouched in front of you for another moment, still looking at your lunch as if it has personally challenged him to a duel. He shifts, drops his bottom fully onto the ground, crosses his legs, and sits across from you with the sort of confidence that implies he has mistaken your temporary tolerance for him as an invitation.
You stare at him. He stares back.
“What are you doing?” you inquire.
“Because you’re doing it here.”
Naruto looks around the small patch of shade beneath the tree, then back at you, unimpressed and seemingly amused.
“Is this your tree?” he interrogates.
“That’s not how that works.”
You open your mouth to say something back, then close it.
There is a particular kind of mental exhaustion that comes from realizing someone is too stubborn to be reasoned with and too simple to be manipulated, and that is Naruto Uzumaki. He sits before you with a smudge of dirt on his cheek and zero sense of shame whatsoever, holding the ruined remains of his ego like he has not just been laughed away from the rest of the crowd in the yard.
He also doesn’t look uncomfortable, which is the strange part.
But he does look practiced—like embarrassment is a coat he has worn so often he no longer bothers shaking it off in public.
You break eye contact first, looking down. It feels rude to keep staring at him like this. So close. However, Naruto seems to take that as victory. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and peers shamelessly into your lunch again.
“So what else is in there?” he asks, eyes skirting around the container.
“You always answer like that?”
“You always ask stupid questions?”
His grin snaps back into place fast. “I didn’t hear a ‘no’ in that response.”
“You didn’t hear a ‘yes’ either.” You fight the urge to roll your eyes, suppressing a soft smile.
“Too late. You already ‘maybe’d.”
You pause, forearm resting on your thigh, chopsticks hovering over the egg. “In spirit?”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means what I intend it to mean.”
You look at him properly again, unable to stop yourself. Something about his presence is magnetizing, pulling your eyes back into his despite how much you try to look away. To not be seen.
He just speaks with such absolute certainty that, for one second, you almost understand why everyone finds him exhausting. It’s not only that he is loud, it is that he insists on existing at full volume even though clearly no one is wearing ear protection. Actually, it’s especially then that he insists on operating at maximum capacity. Like the world is a door that keeps slamming shut with his fingers on the frame, and he has decided that the only solution is to shove his whole body through the doorway.
But it is also difficult to deny the way he stirs your spirit that has been dormant for years.
Across the yard, the boys who once laughed at him have gone back to their own lunches. Their attention has moved on, careless now that there is nothing left to poke fun at. Naruto doesn’t seem to notice their absence from the way he keeps looking at you, or maybe he notices too much and knows they’re already gone, but refuses to show it.
He picks at a grain of rice from his sleeve and flicks it into the dirt.
“Why did you steal someone’s lunch?” you ask.
Naruto perks up immediately. “I didn’t steal it.”
“You were running with it,” you point out.
“And what point is that?”
“That if someone leaves their lunch where anyone can grab it, then technically they’re asking for it to be grabbed.”
You exhale heavily through your nose. He holds your gaze for three more entire seconds before his expression cracks under the pressure of your gaze.
“Okay, maybe that one got away from me,” he confesses.
“The guy said I couldn’t catch him.” He shrugs.
“So you stole his lunch?”
“That is not the same thing, Naruto.”
Naruto huffs, but there is no real anger in it. His shoulders loosen by degrees as you continue talking to him, the embarrassment around him settling into something more easygoing, bright, restless, and hungry for engagement. You notice he seems to like arguing when it does not end with someone actually upset with him and telling him to leave.
You’re used to silence being the safest answer. Used to swallowing words before they can become trouble. Used to watching rooms before entering them, measuring moods before speaking, learning which questions make your father’s jaw tighten and which ones make your mother’s soft smile twitch at the edges.
On the other hand, Naruto does not measure anything. He just reaches and exists loudly and without caution. And somehow, despite how often the world keeps slamming the door on his fingers caught in the door’s frame, he doesn’t stop trying to make it through the threshold.
“Hey, Sena,” he says, recovering with impressive speed, “you’re in Iruka-sensei’s class, right?”
“Well, you’re bad at it.”
“I’m actually great at it. You’re still talking, aren’t you?”
And now you’re silent, because he is right. Naruto sees the realization settle on your face and beams.
“Then maybe you should reflect on that.”
“Oh,” he considers this for less than a full breath before continuing. “No thanks.”
The same laugh you’ve been suppressing threatens the back of your throat again, but you press it down before it can escape. You’re not sure why you’re fighting it. No one at home would scold you for laughing. Not exactly. Your mother would probably even smile if she heard it. Your father might even soften if the house was already in a forgiving mood.
But laughter doesn’t feel right. It feels like a loose thread; pull one, and the whole thing may come undone.
You place your chopsticks back in the container and look away, unable to meet his eyes.
“Sometimes,” you quietly reply.
“No, it means sometimes.”
His question is not cruel nor interrogative, which makes it worse. He asks it the way he asks everything, with no sense that some words need to knock before they have permission to enter the atmosphere and be spoken to another. He just opens the door and walks right in, muddy sandals, childish innocence, and radiant energy, all without apology for taking up space while spouting the first thing that comes to his mind.
Your grip tightens around your chopsticks for a moment.
Across the yard, you can see a group of girls laughing over something one of them said. Near the steps, two boys trade pieces of their lunches. Someone else loudly calls another’s name, and a response comes instantly, easily, as if being wanted by a friend is not something that has to be earned.
You look back at Naruto, a heavy, familiar feeling you’ve grown accustomed to but have not been able to name weighing your frame down.
“Do you, Naruto?” you ask back.
His face changes—only slightly, but enough that you know you have hit something in him. Perhaps even the same thing he hit inside of you.
Then he grins. But it’s too wide. Too fast.
You don’t believe him. You think he knows you don’t believe him.
For one moment, the two of you sit beneath the tree with the lie floating between you, small and obvious and unnamed by either of you. The warm breeze makes it dance a performative, rehearsed routine, one you’ve grown familiar with yourself.
You look down at your lunch and pick up another piece of egg with your fingers, chopsticks forgotten in the container.
“Do you want this or not?” you ask with a sigh.
Naruto blinks. The grin settles into something more genuine.
“You’re giving me more?” he muses.
“Well, you keep staring at it.”
“You’re hungry,” you emphasize. “And obviously so.”
His mouth snaps shut. That, too, is answer enough.
You hold the egg out before you can think better of it, and Naruto takes it less carefully this time. No joke first, no snatch, no loud declaration that he deserves it. His fingers brush the edge of yours for a split second, warm like the chakra you feel brewing within his body, then pops the egg into his mouth.
His eyes widen. You brace for another impact.
“This one’s good!” he exclaims.
“Yeah, but it’s good egg.”
“No,” he insists. “It’s different.” He points at the rest in your container like he’s presenting evidence before a council to be judged. “It tastes less angry than the rice.”
Despite your efforts, your mouth curves up. Naruto sees, and his whole face lights up.
For the first time this afternoon, the space beneath the tree doesn’t feel quite so isolated.
Then Naruto ruins it. With impeccable speed, too.
“So Sena,” he says, leaning closer with the kind of seriousness that makes you suspicious before he even opens his mouth properly. “Are you always this mean?”
“I literally gave you my lunch, Naruto.”
“Yeah, but you were mean about it.”
“That’s because you were annoying about it.”
“You were going to eat gravel.”
“I was going to eat around the gravel, thank you.”
“You keep saying that like it helps.”
“It shows determination.”
“It shows poor judgement.”
Naruto considers this for a moment, then nods like you have complimented him. “I have a lot of that.”
“With you, they seem related.”
He points an accusatory finger at you. “See? Mean.”
“I asked if you were always mean. You didn’t have to prove it.”
“Well, I did. You’re welcome.”
His laugh comes fast, sudden and bright, and you find yourself looking down before your own mouth can join his in that unapologetic giggle of his. There is something dangerous about how easily he fills silence. Not necessarily dangerous in the way your father’s voice can become when it lowers, or the way your brother’s chakra makes even the windows tremble when his temper flares up.
Naruto feels dangerous in a different way.
He’s more innocent. Perhaps even more pure. And he doesn’t know how to leave emptiness alone. He sees a door threatening to jam shut with his fingers stuck in the frame, and forces his whole body through it. And if that door happens to close before he can barge through it, he pounds on it with both fists. He sees a quiet girl sitting alone beneath a tree and decides the tree has enough shade for two.
You should dislike him for that. Your parents would certainly despise him and his lack of orderly, quiet behavior.
You find you’re trying to dislike him.
Naruto is peering into your lunch again. You angle the container away, but his eyes follow it.
“I didn’t even say anything!” he whines.
“You were thinking so loudly that I could hear you want more.”
“No. Yours are just obvious.”
He sits back, exasperated. “My thoughts are mysterious.”
“Well, your face is not.”
“My face is great, actually.”
“If it’s so great, why is it being accessorized by dirt?”
He reaches up so quickly he nearly knocks himself in the chin, eyes widening. He uses his hands to aggressively wipe away at his face. His palms are lightly dusted when he pulls them away, then he rubs them against his pants while glaring at the dirt like it has betrayed him personally.
You watch him with the reluctant fascination of someone observing a rare animal existing in the wild, far enough away from its unpredictable behavior to be considered at a safe distance.
Except you’re not at a safe distance.
Naruto is close enough that you can see the scuff marks on his sandals, the small tear near the hem of his jacket, the dirt drying on his knee where he must have hit the ground earlier harder than he pretended. He is all sharp elbows and restless knees and flailing limbs, too much movement tucked into his tall frame that seems still too small to contain it, every part of him prepared to spring up, shout, run, fight, laugh, or fall again and again and keep getting right back up.
There is no stillness in him. You can see that much physically, and also feel that much in his chakra. There is no containing him. It’s almost obscene.
“Why are you staring at me?” Naruto asks.
You look away, cheeks growing warm. “I’m not.”
“You had dirt on your face.”
“It got there before we met. How is that my fault?”
“Yeah, but it happened because I knew we were gonna meet.”
There’s that same pesky laugh again, threatening to fall from your mouth. “That is the stupidest thing you’ve said by far.”
His eyes brighten. “So you’ve been keeping count?”
“Sounds like a yes to me.”
“It sounds like you have hearing problems.”
“Well, I listened to your name, didn’t I, Sena?” He gives a soft smile.
“That was two words I said.”
He tilts his head at you. “Important words!”
The answer comes so quick from him, you almost miss the fact that it makes your chest twist with something strange.
You can’t stop looking at him.
Naruto doesn’t seem to realize he has said something worth noticing. He is already moved on, brushing dust from his knees, glancing toward the training posts where some of the other boys began throwing kunai after finishing their lunches eaten together, already restless inside the brief pause in your conversation that he created.
You pick up a piece of bitter green with your chopsticks and hold it toward him.
Naruto looks at it. Then at you. Then back at it.
You see the suspicion return to his face instantly.
“What is it?” he hesitantly asks.
“No, I know your tricks now, woman. What kind of food?”
You almost roll your eyes, but decide to cave. “It’s bitter greens.”
“That sounds like a warning.”
“Then why are you giving it to me?”
“Because you said your mouth is strong.”
“Well, you said it wasn’t weak.”
Naruto’s eyes narrow, contemplating your challenge. That’s a trap, and both of you know it.
And Naruto Uzumaki, you quickly learned, is very easy to trap if the bait is his pride.
He snatches the greens from your chopsticks and stuffs them into his mouth in one big bite before either of you can think any better about it. For two whole seconds, nothing happens. But you can already see his eyes glossing over, and you know more is to come.
After the third second passes, his entire soul leaves his body.
His face contorts with the full betrayal of a twelve-year-old discovering—too late—that his confidence will only carry him so far. He clamps one hand over his mouth and makes a sound that might have been a cough if it had not been oddly similar to a gag.
You raise your eyebrows in amusement, watching him fight for his life—for real—this time.
He chews once more, and his eyes begin to water.
“You can spit it out,” you offer.
Naruto shakes his head, jaw paralyzed.
“Are you sure, Naruto?” you ask, resisting the urge to chuckle at him.
He nods, attempting to chew, face red and shiny with blossoming sweat now.
“Looks like you lost this match to the greens,” you say.
He swallows. Barely. And clearly suppresses a gag. Then he grabs his water again, chugs half of it in one go, then gasps like he has returned from war and is no longer famished. You wait for him to recover.
He wipes the water and sweat from his mouth and the surrounding area. Then, he looks at you with fixated attention and seriousness.
“That,” he coughs, “was a dirty, dirty trick.”
“You chose to prove yourself,” you shrug.
“Please, you’re still alive, aren’t you?”
The retort is so absurd coming from him, so offended and breathless and pure, that the laugh slips out between your lips before you can stop it. Small, sure. Quieter than most would notice, but there nonetheless.
And Naruto hears it, of course. His expression changes with amazing speed, all the tragedy caused by the bitter greens vanishing beneath his vibrant triumph.
“You laughed,” he breathes.
“You were merely recovering from poison.”
“It was real,” he insists, leaning forward, grin growing wider. “You laughed because I’m funny.”
“I laughed because you looked like you were in a losing fight with vegetables.”
You’re annoyed. You should be more annoyed. But you can’t bring yourself to be. You’re still smiling, and that makes the annoyance less convincing than it should be.
Naruto notices that too. He seems to notice every crack in a wall once he realizes it exists, and what he has to do to see that specific crack out of all the others.
He points at your face, triumphant. “See? You’re still doing it!”
You turn away. “Whatever. Go eat your rocks.”
“I don’t have rocks anymore.”
“You trying to get rid of me already, Sena?”
You hear it. The question is tossed out like another stupid joke of his, but something quieter lingers between the words and clings to the breath he used to say them. You feel it, too—the small shift, the tiniest pressure change in his chakra. It makes the air tighten around him, compressing him into something smaller. He hides it (badly) beneath a growing grin, hesitation lingering behind his eyes.
You wonder how no one else seems to see it.
You look into his eyes. Naruto is still smiling that too wide, too bright, too ready for your answer to hurt smile. And you realize, with a strangely familiar flair in your heart, that he does not expect people to let him stay. He expects to make people laugh, entertain—or exhaust—them for a while, force his way into something light and desirable, and then be shoved out of the way once he has fulfilled his purpose or has let too many things slip between the cracks of his teeth while adorning that infamous grin of his.
You understand that more than you want to. Understand him more than you think is appropriate for having just properly spoken to each other. And it’s not because you too force your way through doorways trying to slam shut despite your fingers being caught in the frame, but because you don’t. Because you have spent most of your seventeen years trying to be easy, only to still be set aside.
Your hands fall in your lap.
“No, Naruto, I’m not trying to get rid of you,” you finally say.
And he blinks, face straining to maintain that too wide of a grin. You see him fighting to keep the edges up despite their will to soften and lose some of their sharpness. For a moment, he looks younger than he did before. Younger than the shouting, the stealing, the stubbornness, the radiance he wears like a suit of armor around his heart.
“Good,” he says, sitting up straighter, “because I wasn’t planning on leaving.”
This time, you’re the one to ruin the moment.
“I didn’t invite you to stay,” you tease.
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me to leave.”
‘That’s not the same thing.”
“You say that about everything, Naruto.”
“Because everything is close enough if you don’t think too hard.”
“Like how close my fist will be to your face if you don’t stop being annoying?”
He smiles again. And this time, it’s softer—actually genuine.
As the silence settles between you, it doesn’t feel like something you have to break. It is still unfamiliar and fragile, but Naruto fills silence quickly and brightly enough that—somehow—the space he leaves behind feels less empty than it did before.
You eat a bite of rice. He watches.
You angle your lunch away from him again. He smiles brighter.
“Can I have more egg?” he asks.
“You’re supposed to offer.”
“You’re very demanding for someone who ate my lunch and insulted it, Naruto.”
“I didn’t. Your lunch was the one to punch me in the mouth! If anything, I’ve been victimized!”
“You said my greens poisoned you!”
“Well, they attacked me first!”
“You bit them, instigator.”
You and Naruto hold each other’s gazes, completely serious for approximately one moment before another grin tugs up one side of his mouth. And though you would rather throw yourself into a freezing pond than admit it, talking to Naruto is actually enjoyable. He talks enough for the both of you, which is fortunate because you do not yet know how to talk to someone who seems so determined to answer silence with himself—however that may be.
Naruto then begins telling you about how Iruka-sensei is unfair because apparently yelling in class only counts as disruption when he does it. He tells you that Sasuke Uchiha thinks he is so cool just because all the girls have a crush on him, which, according to Naruto, is exactly what makes him not cool. He tells you he is going to become Hokage one day, loud enough that a few students nearby roll their eyes without properly facing him, and he says it with enough conviction that you can tell it’s more than a dream to him.
You tell him that yelling his goal across the yard does not make it more feasible. He tells you that makes it official. You tell him official things usually require paperwork, and ask if he knows how to read forms. He tells you paperwork is for people who are afraid of authentic greatness. You tell him that something that great knows how to read forms. He tells you that you sound like Iruka-sensei. You tell him he sounds like another headache.
And he laughs and claims another victory.
Naruto collects these little victories from places no one else would think to look, you’re beginning to understand. A stolen laugh, a half-answer, eye contact, a piece of egg accepted without complaint, a conversation longer than a minute with a stranger under the cool shade of a tree. He gathers them all with greedy but gentle and bright hands, as if the scraps may eventually become a feast if he collects enough.
To anyone else, it would be pathetic.
There’s something tender about the quiet that settles between the both of you. It’s incredibly bright and impossible not to see now that it’s there. Naruto looks at you, cheeks tinted pink, and for once, his mouth does not know what to do before his mind catches up. The grin falls into something softer, and the tightness around his eyes loosens.
Around you, the Academy yard keeps living. Kunai strikes wood. Students gossip. Someone shrieks with laughter near the water pump. Iruka-sensei calls a name from the classroom door, then another shortly after, his voice ringing throughout the yard.
No one calls Naruto’s either.
“What’s your house like?” he suddenly asks.
You feel your muscles tense. You try not to show it, and hope that he doesn’t notice. He is leaning back on his hands now, legs stretched out, staring up through the leaves as if the question is casual and means nothing. As if houses are simple—which he should know they aren’t always, as rumor tells about his own. As if everyone has one that can be described without choosing which truths to hide first.
You follow his gaze to the sky above, visible through little slivers between the leaves. Sunlight breaks through in scattered pieces, vibrating when the wind blows. It paints Naruto’s face in patches of gold and grey—bright, shadowed, bright again.
“Why?” you muster through your drying throat.
“I didn’t say bad weird!”
“You keep defending yourself badly.”
“I’m trying to say that you’re… interesting, Sena.”
You don’t face away from the view above, but your eyes drop in his direction. He’s still lost in the clouds that appear in splinters between the swaying leaves above, shoulders relaxed, feet crossed at his ankles. He looks careless. Easy. Like the word costs him nothing.
Naruto must feel your gaze on him, because he turns his head and catches you staring.
“It means nothing, Naruto.”
“No, when people say ‘nothing’ like that, it means something.”
“You’re suddenly an expert?”
“Yeah.” He taps his temple. “People are always saying ‘nothing’ to me.”
The words are too honest. Too naked. Too innocent. He doesn’t even seem to realize until after they leave him, or the impact they’ve had on you.
For one breath, the noise of the Academy yard quiets around you. It’s not entirely gone, but it feels more distant, like that world has been pulled thin and away from you and Naruto. His gaze drops from the sky, head looking into his lap, his shaky hands keeping him upright digging into the dirt.
You understand then that Naruto’s loudness is not merely the opposite of silence—it is what silence made of him.
Your begin to feel strange.
You know what silence has made of you, and you don’t know what to do with someone it made so differently.
“My house is quiet,” you confess.
Naruto looks up too quickly. He’s waiting for more, impatiently at that, as if whatever answer you give him will matter because you are the one giving it.
His nose wrinkles. “That sounds boring.”
“What, do you have secret stuff in there?”
He laughs before you can even answer, waving a hand between you both like he has already moved on. “I’m just kidding. My place is quiet too sometimes.”
You can tell. The word comes out lighter than the rest, faster, and too practiced to be a casual truth. You look at him, but he is already smiling again, this time shoving the door to his world closed, mindful of your fingers still resting on the frame, before either of you can peer too far through it to the other side.
“So,” he begins, “if your house is quiet, that explains why you’re like that.”
“All…” he gestures vaguely to your person. “Like that.”
“Well, that makes one of us.”
He sighs. “You sit like you’re trying not to make sound.”
He didn’t mean it cruelly. He doesn’t wear a teasing grin. There is no accusation sharpening the edges of the words, ensuring they pierce you as they fall upon you. If anything, it’s the opposite. Naruto says it like he’s pointing out the sky is blue, like the observation is something missing a more complex, subjective experience.
The words settle in softly.
Your eyes find the tree roots near your knees, twisting through the dirt all dark and knuckled before disappearing beneath the ground—where no one can see how deep they go.
“I’m sitting normally,” you answer, dismissive.
“For now, but I can see you.”
Oh, you hate that. It’s not because it’s deep, because it’s not. Naruto certainly isn’t a poet. He has dirt on his face and bitter greens have nearly taken him out. You hate it because he doesn’t understand the things he touches when he reaches for them, he only reaches and doesn’t give it a second thought.
And he doesn’t realize that, sometimes, merely reaching is enough to knock a fragile door off its hinges.
You begin packing your lunch up, and Naruto straightens immediately when he sees what you’re doing.
“Wait,” he looks at you with wider, sadder eyes than he did before. “Are you—you’re leaving?”
“Because lunch is almost over.”
The tension in his shoulders eases slightly, but his eyes don’t let up. “Lunch isn’t almost over.”
“How do you know? Iruka-sensei hasn’t called us yet.”
You stand. “He’s about to.”
“So? Stay until he does,” Naruto pleads softly.
He scrambles up after you so quickly you take half a step back before you can stop yourself. You don’t think he understands why, but he notices—enough that his hands lift for a second to reach out and steady you, palms open, visible harmless.
That small, unconscious gesture unsettles you more than if he had actually grabbed you to steady you. Something tugs at your heartstrings. Something that weighs your body down, and wills your feet to not leave the shaded area under the tree. Something that wants you to sit back down. Sit closer to him. Spend more time talking with him.
His eyes are still wide, though this time you think it’s from surprise at his own automatic reflex.
For a moment, neither of you move, staring at each other as slivers of grey and gold pattern your skin and his, your eyes locked onto his and his on yours, tender. The wind brushes through your hair and tussles his, the remnants of the lies that danced between you being carried up before disappearing in the leaves.
The spell, if that is what it was, breaks when the door slides open across the yard, and Iruka-sensei calls for everyone to come back inside. Students groan. You hear one complaining that lunch was too short as he meanders toward the door. The boys poking fun at Naruto earlier pass without looking at him, their laughter already entertained by something else.
Naruto doesn’t watch them.
“After class,” he begins, “you can show me where you go.”
It’s less than a statement, more than a question. An inkling of hope and attachment glimmers in his eyes as he keeps looking at you.
“But I just met you,” he says, like that should make his request more reasonable instead of significantly worse. “So if you leave now, then I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”
So he really didn’t notice before.
“We are in the same class, Naruto.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “... Right.” You stare at him, face blank. He grins back. “But still—”
“There is no ‘but still,’” you interrupt.
“There’s always a ‘but still.’”
“But still,” he repeats, proving himself in the most irritating way possible, “you should hang out after class.”
“You don’t even know what day I mean.”
Naruto scowls, but there is something wounded beneath it now—the small, stubborn bruise of a boy who has decided too quickly that he wants something and still cannot understand why his wanting never makes the world soften.
Past the Academy, past most of the roofs in Konoha, toward streets you could walk with your eyes closed, lies a house that is already waiting for you in silence. A house where time is measured differently. Where being late is not just being late. Where questions must follow strict guidelines. Where laughter must know its place. Where your mother’s care is folded into perfect lunches and your father’s fear wears the shape of rules.
You think of saying all of it.
He just wouldn’t understand.
You look back at Naruto, who has known you for less than an hour and already seems offended by the idea that he cannot keep you.
“My house,” you choose your words carefully, “has strict rules. I mustn’t be late.”
Naruto frowns. “That’s stupid.”
The answer comes so quickly, so pure, a part of you grows so amused you could laugh. But you don’t, because he says it like rules are things that can lose their shape if you bend them enough. Like your house is only wood and doors and adults who can be ignored if you are quiet enough. Like home is not something that has swallowed you whole.
You head toward the open door where Iruka-sensei is greeting the students filtering back inside. Naruto bounds to your side, because apparently being at your side is something he does now.
“Can you tell me what kind of rules?” he asks as he matches his pace with yours.
You don’t answer. It’s not that you’re trying to be mysterious—
It’s because the first rule of your house is that you do not explain the rules to anyone from the outside.
And Naruto Uzumaki, loud and hungry and strange enough to sit beneath your tree and make conversation with you without asking first, is still a stranger…
Even though he’s not entirely feeling like one anymore.
hi readers <3 i hope you're all enjoying the story so far! feedback is welcome :)
i only proofread this one time cuz this chapter is so mf long. please forgive any editing mistakes i missed.
