9: Knowing is a Curse

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A/N - The Kyuubi festival - something that is written into a lot of Naruto angst fanfictions - is included in this chapter, but I'm not going through the route of 'Naruto gets abused by the villagers on this day because everyone hates him'. I'm just saying it now so you're not immediately thinking I'm just putting shit into the story for no good reason. This is just to further the storyline for something really interesting at the end. Hopefully, I was able to write it well enough that it conveys the emotion I wanted it to.

If anyone cared enough to stop and ask, Naruto would tell them that he wasn't a big fan of the annual Kyuubi festival.

While some years he did, in fact, participate in the week-long festivities to grieve the parents he never knew the names nor faces of, most times he didn't really see the point in celebrating the defeat of the Kyuubi no Kitsune every year. The blond chalked it up to people forgetting his birthday which shared the same date as to when the demon fox had attacked the village nine years ago on October tenth.

Hiruzen had forgotten the last four years, swamped with paperwork and meetings that he couldn't find time out of the day to wish the boy he considered his grandson a 'happy birthday'. It's a good thing, he supposed, that the Third Hokage had already wished him a 'happy birthday' albeit early though. Teuchi, the kind old man who owned his favorite ramen shop in all of Konohagakure, generally forgot his birthday every other year as he was busy preparing extra servings for all the people filling the streets during the festival. And Iruka, too. Although they hadn't known each other for more than three years, before they were as close as they are now, Naruto's academy teacher would forget his birthday as well.

It could be that but maybe it was the silent treatment he received from the villagers. Every year around this time, the lack of acknowledgment seemed to increase tenfold - the side-eyes, the nervous glances, the whispers, the abandonment... the hatred - but Naruto tried not to think about it. It's what he's always done - not thinking about it, that is - and for the last nine years, he's done a good job of not thinking about it. But, every year around the time of the Kyuubi festival, the blond-haired academy student thought about it even more. So, as to not go insane from how bad his chest felt or how much he wanted to cry out, he kept to himself during the festival.

Well, maybe not this year, it seemed.

The Kyuubi festival itself was the biggest celebration in all of Konohgakure's history as well as doubling as being the busiest time of the year. It was generally a time for people to get together and celebrate the defeat of the nine-tailed fox that had nearly destroyed Konoha from the inside out. The origins of how that was possible were still unknown to this day but that was a story for another day. However, as nine years of story retellings go, Minato Namikaze - the late Fourth Hokage - gave his life to defeat the beast and save the village. Naruto, as well as the rest of the children who'd grown up in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, knew this story all too well.

To celebrate the demon's defeat, the festival was held over the course of a week starting on the third of October and ending on the tenth, spanning out parties and time for grieving throughout the week-long festival. School was let out for the entirety of the festival, allowing the students to have time with their family and experience the Kyuubi festival in all its glory; it was treated the same way as any other holiday.

The four days following the start of the festival saw all kinds of limited-edition foods - some were even fox-shaped! - as well as people memorializing Minato Namikaze's face on practically everything they could, praising him for saving the village nine years ago. New vendors cropped all over the village, intent on selling these types of foods to tourists who lined the streets as well as their local communities. Vacationers generally arrived between these four days in Konohagakure to experience the annual Kyuubi festival, some having been every year since the incident.

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