Demon Fox

Early spring arrived quietly in Konoha's Year 60.

The snow melted, and the old locust tree sprouted its first tender buds. The nose-freezing chill in the air was finally replaced by a soft, warm breeze. The orphanage children shed their heavy cotton coats and rushed out like squirrels waking from hibernation, scrambling to claim every patch of sunlight in the courtyard. Little Flower found the first dandelion of the year by the wall and excitedly ran inside to call everyone in the orphanage out to see it. Shinichi was dragged out by the sleeve too, forced to offer the comment, "Wow, that's amazing," to a dandelion.

But he had not gone out today to look at flowers.

Today was March 15th, Konoha Year 60. There were exactly two weeks until enrollment at the Ninja Academy. Over the past five months, he had kept as low a profile as a seed buried in the dirt—he did not stand out, cause trouble, or leave the village, hiding all his training in the cracks of daily life. Root's surveillance had loosened considerably by now. After all, for several months straight, all they had seen was a child eating, sleeping, and helping the matron with chores. No one would think someone like that was worth watching around the clock.

He left the orphanage gates and headed east. The residential district of Leaf Village lay to the east, and following this road all the way would lead to the Ninja Academy's back gate. He had walked this route so many times that he could count every shop sign with his eyes closed. But he was not going to the academy today. Today, he was looking for someone.

Naruto Uzumaki.

The March breeze felt warm on his face, carrying the smells of roasted sweet potatoes and soy-sauce dumplings. More and more people filled the streets. Taking advantage of the pleasant weather, villagers came out to air their bedding, buy groceries, and chat. Several middle-aged women gathered by a well to wash clothes, their laughter audible from a street away. The owner of an izakaya was hanging up a new sign outside. Everything was normal, peaceful, tranquil.

Then he saw Naruto Uzumaki.

A blond boy crouched in the alley behind a fruit stall. His clothes were obviously a size too large for a child his age, and even after rolling his sleeves up several times, they still drooped over the backs of his hands. Hugging his knees, he curled up in the shadow at the base of the wall, his blue eyes fixed motionlessly on the steam drifting out from the dumpling shop at the alley entrance.

Shinichi stopped walking.

In his previous life, he had seen scenes like this countless times on a screen. Little Naruto sitting alone on a swing, his back to the laughing Ninja Academy students, the sunset stretching his shadow long behind him. Every time that scene appeared, the comments would explode—"I want to hug him," "This is making me cry," "Naruto, don't cry." He had posted one too: "This kid will become Hokage someday." But no matter how many comments he posted, that had been another world, typing at a screen through a keyboard. Now this child stood before him—not an anime, not a manga, not a tearjerking clip looping on a screen, but real, alive, and hungry.

He took a deep breath.

Calm down, he told himself. Do not overwhelm a six-year-old you have never met with the emotions of an adult in his thirties. Do not open with "I understand you, I get you, I'll be good to you." That kind of talk would scare Naruto away. This child had been met with cold stares since he was small. He was extremely sensitive to both kindness and malice. Deliberate gentleness would seem more like a trap.

How should he approach him? The answer was simple. In his previous life, he had been a product manager and had dealt with programmers for years. He knew that silence did not necessarily mean someone disliked you; they might just not have eaten. All social skills could be boiled down to two moves: food and not being annoying.

He touched his pocket. He still had a few copper coins, enough for a skewer of soy-sauce dumplings. He turned around and bought some, but instead of walking straight over and saying, "Here, have some," he entered the alley and sat against the wall about two meters away from Naruto, keeping a distance where they could talk or leave each other alone. Then he pulled out the first skewer from the paper bag and began eating.

Naruto turned his head to look at him warily, his blue eyes full of guardedness. That was not the look a six-year-old should have—he watched people like a stray cat that had been driven away for too long, always ready to curl up and bolt.

Shinichi did not look at him and continued eating his dumplings. When he reached the third skewer, he tilted his head, pulled out an extra one from the bag, and flicked his wrist to offer it to Naruto.

"I bought too many. I can't finish them. Help me eat this."

Naruto's gaze bounced between the dumplings and Shinichi's face three times, as though he were judging whether this was some new kind of prank. The blond child's throat bobbed. His caution did not fade, but his stomach clearly was not taking orders from his brain. A few seconds later, he reached out and snatched the skewer, stuffing it into his mouth as quickly as a raccoon stealing food from a trap. He bit off more than half of the first dumpling in one go, his cheeks puffed round, soy sauce smeared at the corner of his mouth, and he did not even bother wiping it off.

Shinichi watched him eat. In his previous life, he had suffered from stomach issues for a while. He would leave notes on food delivery orders saying, "Less oil, less salt, no spice," yet everything still felt too rich. Now, watching Naruto eat street-stall dumplings as if they were Michelin cuisine, the little bit of "middle-aged health anxiety" in his heart felt especially pretentious.

"What's your name?" Naruto asked through a mouthful of dumplings. There was still some vigilance in his tone, but the hostility had clearly lessened. Food was the best icebreaker.

"Shinichi. Senju Shinichi."

"Senju... Shinichi." Naruto repeated it, as though tasting the name in his mouth. Then he wiped the soy sauce from his lips and said, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki." "I know," Shinichi said.

Naruto froze. "You know me?"

"No. But I've heard of you." Shinichi handed him another skewer. "I can count how many people in the village have each surname. Your hair is too noticeable. It'd be hard not to remember you."

Naruto accepted the dumplings but did not eat them right away. He lowered his head and stared at the glossy balls for a long while. A complicated expression appeared on his face—not happiness, not anger, but the kind of expression Shinichi most feared seeing. The bewilderment of someone thinking, "No stranger has ever been willing to sit beside me and eat after learning my name."

"You're not running away?" Naruto asked in a muffled voice.

"Why would I run?"

"The adults say I'm—" Naruto paused, as if hesitating whether to say it aloud, but in the end, he did. His voice dropped low, as if he were revealing a shameful secret. "—a demon fox."

Shinichi did not answer immediately. He knew this moment mattered—reply too quickly, and he would seem insincere; reply too slowly, and he would seem hesitant. It had to be just right. He could neither lightly say, "I don't care," nor go too far with, "They're all bad people, I understand you." He took a bite of his own dumpling, chewed, swallowed, and only then spoke.

"No demon fox goes hungry." Naruto's eyebrows twitched slightly.

"When you're hungry, you eat dumplings. When I'm hungry, I eat dumplings too. The dumplings are the same, and hunger is the same." Shinichi placed his bamboo skewer back into the paper bag and patted the sauce stains on his hands. "No matter how you look at it, you're human."

Naruto's eyes reddened.

Not the red of loud, sobbing tears. It was the red of someone desperately holding them back. He stuffed the rest of the dumplings into his mouth all at once, his cheeks swelling as though they might burst, and chewed hard. Maybe he thought that as long as there was something moving in his mouth, the tears would not fall.

Shinichi did not expose him. He stood, crumpled the empty paper bag into a ball, and threw it into the trash bin at the alley entrance. Then he looked back and said, "Come on. I'll take you somewhere. There's another place over there—the ramen broth smells even better than dumpling sauce."

Naruto hesitated for three seconds. Not over whether to go, but over whether he should trust him. Still, he stood up. Not because he trusted Shinichi, but because no one who had rejected him had ever bought him dumplings. This was a rule Naruto had learned from six years of being met with cold stares.

Ichiraku Ramen. Teuchi was wiping down the stove when he looked up and saw a black-haired child lifting the curtain and entering with a blond child. A flicker of surprise crossed his face. He knew Naruto. He was the owner of the only ramen shop in Leaf Village that did not chase Naruto away.

"Naruto? You're here this early today—who's this?"

"A friend." Shinichi pulled out a chair and sat down. "Two bowls of miso ramen. Add chashu to one."

Naruto sat beside him, staring blankly at everything around him. The inside of Ichiraku Ramen was clearly a sacred place to him—he had probably passed by it countless times, each time only able to stand outside and smell the aromas. Now that he had finally sat inside, his fingers picked at the edge of the table, as if he did not know where to put them.

The ramen arrived, steaming hot. Naruto stared at the bowl for several full seconds before lowering his head and clumsily lifting his first mouthful of noodles with his chopsticks. The soup was hot, and he grimaced as he blew on it. The noodles slipped from between his chopsticks several times. At last, he managed to scoop some up and stuff them into his mouth. Then his eyes lit up—Shinichi swore he saw something burst to life in those blue eyes, the light unique to a child tasting truly delicious food for the first time.

"Is it good?"

"Mhm! Mhmhmhmhm!" Naruto's mouth was stuffed with noodles, and he nodded like a woodpecker.

Shinichi slowly ate his own bowl. He had not added chashu. He did not have enough money. But Naruto did not need to know that.

After they finished eating, he emptied every copper coin from his pocket to pay the bill. His pocket was empty, with only the echo of two coins left. But he thought it was worth it. In his previous life, he would not even blink at spending 648 on a game purchase. Now, spending twenty-something copper coins to buy the future Hokage a bowl of noodles had an absurdly high return on investment.

When they left the ramen shop, Naruto's belly had rounded out, and even his steps became lighter. He skipped ahead a few paces, then turned back to look at Shinichi.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

Shinichi thought about it. There was no standard answer to that question. He could casually say, "I just can't stand seeing them bully people," or change the subject, but looking into those blue eyes, he suddenly did not want to give a polite answer.

"Because nobody wanted me either." Shinichi tucked his hands into his sleeves and walked slowly forward. "So I understand."

Naruto paused for a beat.

Then the blond child quickly caught up from behind. He did not ask any more questions, merely walked silently beside Shinichi, adjusting his pace to match Shinichi's exactly. The two walked forward over the wet stone road left behind by the melting snow, their shadows overlapping beneath the afternoon sun.

As they neared the orphanage, Shinichi turned around. "I've spent all my money today. Next time, you treat me."

Naruto blinked, lowered his head to touch his empty pockets, then looked up with a smile Shinichi had seen countless times on a screen in his previous life—his eyes curved into crescents, his grin stretched to his ears, so goofy it seemed like even the sun would have to hide from it.

"Wait until I become Hokage! I'll treat everyone in the village to ramen! You'll be first in line! I'll give you two slices of chashu!"

Something in Shinichi's heart was gently struck as he watched that smile. In his previous life, hearing those words would only have made him feel fired up. Now that he had heard them in person, they only felt heavy. Not the kind of heavy that crushed the breath from his lungs, but the kind where he knew how much this child would suffer in the future, yet was still willing to walk beside him.

"Then I'll be waiting."

He waved, turned, and walked into the orphanage. His lips were still curved upward as he climbed the stairs. He opened the creaking old window in his room and looked toward the eastern residential district, where he could vaguely see cooking smoke rising from the chimneys of small apartments. It was dinnertime. Naruto probably would not go hungry again today.

That night, Shinichi lay in bed and opened his notebook. Amid the densely packed training plans, attribute analyses, and strategic layouts, he found a blank corner of a page. He held his pencil for a long time before finally writing a single line.

"Made a friend."

After thinking it over, he crossed out "a" and changed it to "my first."

Outside the window, the March wind still carried a chill, and the old locust tree's new buds stretched earnestly beneath the moonlight. Spring had finally come to Konoha.