Chapter Text
Naruto was told from the start that he was a special boy.
His whole family told him that, until they became tired of handling the orphaned boy and just deported him to a children's home, from which the kind Iruka - Sensei adopted him.
Special boy basically just meant that he was a nuisance to his relatives. It meant that he was the only survivor and that his parents died protecting him.
Special boy meant that he would never find someone who he could be really and honestly special to.
Except for Iruka - Sensei, who raised the boy as if he was his own blood. Sensei did not have kids himself and Naruto was never able to see him as a father, but he was a mentor, someone to look up to.
Someone who did not mind him being a special boy.
He never really understood why his own parents had said that he was a special boy, until a girl in kindergarten called his scarred cheeks ugly. The other children joined her and Naruto saw for the first time that no one had scarred cheeks except for him. Embarrassed and feeling left-out, he pulled the girl's hair until she cried. His parents were disappointed in him, but they also told him that having scars was not a bad thing. He was just like all the other children and the scars did not make him different, they were like an accessory his mother had said.
"Every person is unique, Naruto. Don't ever forget that!"
His beautiful mother whose anguished screams he sometimes still wakes up from, even though he knows that it is only a bad memory now.
When Iruka first adopted him, Naruto had lost the ability to speak. Because he could not socialize with the other children and Naruto was scared to touch living beings, Iruka frequently visited a petting farm, where the young boy learned that his hands were not destructive when gently touching a bunny. He began to smile and use his voice again, but not having friends had made him insecure and Iruka found the boy to be enjoying the company of animals more than the company of humans.
When his voice started to change and Naruto hit puberty with 14, he was extremely excited to feel a tingle on his arm. He immediately started to imagine what his Soulmate looked like, if she was one of those models he liked to look at, or if she was the cute pink-haired girl he'd seen in his school last week. Whoever she was, she would love him. No matter what he looked like, no matter how bad the fire had burned his arm and back, no matter the natural scarring on his face - surely she would accept all the love he had to give.
The only person having been kind to him after his parents died was Iruka - Sensei.
Other than him, he did not have any friends.
But there was so much love in his heart and he really wanted to share this gentle feeling with someone.
Iruka had already gone off to work, thankfully. Naruto wanted this be a private moment, even though he had wanted to share the news with Iruka later when he came home.
Naruto bit his lip and stared at the colour etching into his skin. Why did it not go faster? Honestly, he might have just died waiting.
"Oh, come on!"
He looked away for only a short moment, but when he looked back at his mark, dread overcame him and suddenly a strange hollowness spread through his young body.
There, written on the unscarred skin of his left underarm, were the words I hate you.
He wondered what kind of person he was that even his Soulmate would hate him.
Naruto, the scarred boy without parents, without friends, without anyone to share his love with.
The boy realized then that it was his destiny to be unloved and alone.
He accepted it.