His Eyes

Author: Ekusu x Ekusu

Title: His Eyes

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Angst/Romance

Warning: Has a bit of shounen-ai hints in it. Don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: All characters are copyright to their respective owners.

His Eyes

I hate to admit it, but he's really cute. Yea, that's right, you heard me correctly. I think Naruto is cute.

If it weren't for those whiskers on either side of his face, he would probably be quite normal looking, well, maybe a bit on the good-looking side. Combined with his small stature and spiky golden hair though, those whiskers on his face make him look way too cute. You can tell many other people are of the same opinion as I am. When they look at Naruto their expressions soften oh so subtly.

If you can get a genuine smile on his face, he absolutely glows. The only person I've seen come close is Iruka, when he offers to take him out to ramen. Most of the time he has this great big grin plastered on his face. They call it a fox smile.

You know why they call it a fox smile? Because foxes smiled like that. They smile a smile so big that it scrunches the eyes up so they look all happy. It's said that foxes smiled like that so you couldn't see their eyes, because if you could see them you could read them like an open book. Foxes weren't able to hide the emotion in their eyes. You could tell exactly what kind of mischief they were up too. So they smile the fox smile, and your left wondering what their true feelings and intentions are.

He smiles like that so you can't see his eyes. His eyes. I love his eyes. His eyes are beautiful. His eyes are a brilliant blue. Like the sky. They say the eyes are a window to the soul. His eyes are the clearest I've ever seen. They show everything he feels. Every emotion he has will flash across his eyes, highlighted for anyone to see. After the first time I saw them, I mean really saw them, I couldn't forget them. I wanted to see them as much as possible.

But he's always hiding them with that fox smile. When he thinks no one is looking, sometimes he'll let his eyes open a bit. You can tell why he uses the fox smile then. The smile on his face never reaches his eyes. His eyes look sad and empty, not happy and energetic. Even when he talks to us he uses that fox smile to try and cover them up so you can't tell what he really feels.

When we walk through the village I notice many strange things about the way the villagers behave around us. Or should I say around Naruto. I've always wondered why they behave like that, but I've never been able to find out.

You can only see it with eyes like mine, unless you're the one it's directed at. The villagers will be walking past us and they'll pass their gazes over us. Starting at Kakashi they'll have respect in their eyes and as they move to me they have admiration and a little adoration in them. When they pass from me to Naruto in the middle, they instantly change to the coldest eyes I've ever seen. They become bottomless pits of hate, loathing and scorn. Those eyes are frighteningly scary. It makes a shiver run down my spine. I would hate to have someone look at me like that. Then they move on to Sakura and their back to normal, looking at her with kindness and happiness, before they pass by us. It's the same with everyone who passes us or looks at us.

I glance down at Naruto beside me and he has the same old fox smile firmly in place on his face. Nothing leaks through that mask of his. But I know what he's feeling. If only because I've been watching him for so long and I know what he sees in the eyes of people who look at him, but I know.

If we walk through a crowded street where people have to carefully walk around people going in the opposite direction, they completely ignore his presence. How anyone could ignore that vibrant presence is beyond me, but they do. At the same time as they pass that unbelievably cold glare at him they act as if he doesn't exist. They carefully step around Sakura or me straight into his path as if there was no one walking between the two of us.

The first time they did that they knocked him down. He picked himself up and laughed like he had tripped on his own, that fox smile still on his face. After that he was careful to walk a little behind us so he could avoid the incoming horde, since it seemed they would gladly just trample him if they could. He was pretty good at dodging them and I got the impression that he did this a lot and the only reason he had been knocked down was because he had been hoping that because he was walking with us he would be treated differently.

It was sad watching him try and force his way through the wall of people that acted as if he wasn't there. I motioned him towards me and gestured for him to walk behind me. He looked startled at first then he smiled a real smile of gratitude, as he looked down and kept pace behind me. Just for that one little smile I was glad I had done it.

He never goes into the shops with us. He'll always find something interesting, or seemingly interesting, in front of the shop to stop and look at while we go in. If we went in and left through another door he would never even know it. He does a good job covering it up, but after so long of being a team it was easy enough to notice that not once had he gone into a shop with us. It was like the shops were off limits to him.

When I first realized it I started to watch him from inside the stores to see what he did. It was even more depressing than watching him struggle through the crowds. He would stand there acting like he was inspecting something in front of the store, but the fox smile would leave his eyes and you could see he was looking at the door with such longing, sadness and dejection in his eyes, it was pitiful to behold. You could tell he wanted to come in but something kept him from it. The moment we step back out his fox smile is back over his eyes and there's no trace of the former sadness.

The fox smile. The perfect mask for him. Makes it look like he's perfectly happy. I know he's not though. How could someone be happy with the treatment he receives? And that cold gaze. There's no way someone can have such a gaze directed at them day in and day out for their entire lives and not be sad, scared and a little fearful of that gaze. And I know he is. That's why he uses the fox smile. To hide his pain from the world. To not give them the satisfaction of knowing that they've succeeded in scaring him for life.

That's why I say things to make him angry or annoyed. That's the only time he'll show his eyes to me with true emotions in them. When I anger him and he turns to yell at me the fox smile will be gone and he'll have an angry scowl on his face. But his gaze is directed straight at me and his beautiful eyes are totally open for me to see. I'm happy to see his eyes but it saddens me that the only time I can see them are when he's angry or annoyed with me, or when I'm spying on him, except that then its just loneliness and pain in his gaze. I ignore what he yells at me. All I care about is looking into those eyes.

For now, I'll take anything I can get. But someday I want to see him with a real smile on his face and his eyes uncovered with true happiness in them. I don't know how but someday, someday I'll find out what will get him to give me, and only me, that perfect smile that I long to see. Seeing him truly happy, with that glow that I know he has when he's truly happy, would be the most beautiful thing in the world, and the most precious thing to me.

Ekusu: This was my first completed fic, I hope you enjoyed it. This is also the first first-person point of view fic that I've written. This came to me during the night and said write me. So I did. I think it turned out pretty good, but that's just my opinion, review and let me know what you think. Oh, and the fox smile thing is pure fiction invented by me. Don't take it seriously.