[The very corners of his lips twitch, but the smile doesn't reach anything except maybe the one eye. Dealing with the younger crowd is always a trip now, he thinks. Being thirty and older... things seemed so terribly simple when he was young, and he doesn't quite understand how they all fucked it up so badly.]

Sounds like Naruto. [His gaze lifts, away, above the flowers and distant.] He was the friend I tried to kill. A loud-mouth half-wit. [It's said with a strange amount of affection which doesn't match up with the initiate topic of conversation.] He was always getting into other people's business even when no one wanted anything to do with him.

You thought you were the greatest ninja, worthy of being Hokage, [one of the flowers pipes up.] But the only thing you had been was stupid.

I guess I was.