The Promise at Ichiraku Ramen

The curtain at Ichiraku Ramen swayed gently in the evening breeze, like a large warm-yellow hand inviting passersby inside. Senju Shinichi lifted the curtain and stepped in, followed by a blond boy whose footsteps were hesitant and whose eyes did not know where to look. Uncle Teuchi was wiping down the stove, his apron stained with pork-bone grease. When he looked up and saw the pair, his hand paused. He knew Naruto Uzumaki. Everyone in Leaf Village knew Naruto—the gleaming blond hair and three whisker marks were too distinctive. But Teuchi was among the rare few who did not frown when they saw him.

"Welcome! It's rare for two young customers to come for ramen at this hour."

"Two bowls of miso ramen." Shinichi pulled out a stool and sat down. After thinking for a moment, he added, "One with chashu."

Teuchi glanced at Naruto, then at Shinichi. He asked nothing and turned to prepare the noodles. The boiling water in the pot burbled away, and rising steam blurred his back.

Naruto sat on the stool beside Shinichi, his feet dangling above the floor and swinging back and forth. His fingers picked at the edge of the counter, unsure where to put themselves, until he finally braced both hands against the seat and tucked them beneath his thighs. It was something he did whenever he was nervous. Eating with a stranger was clearly far outside the scope of his usual experience.

"Do you come here often?" Naruto asked, his voice half as loud as it had been in the alley. Once indoors, he seemed even more restrained.

"Not often." Shinichi took two pairs of chopsticks from the holder and handed one to Naruto. "I don't have much money. Today's an exception."

By "exception," he meant emptying every last coin from his pocket. But Naruto understood it differently—this person had no money, yet he was still willing to treat him to a meal. Naruto's blue eyes blinked, and he did not ask anything more. He merely accepted the chopsticks and clutched them tightly, as though they were something someone might snatch away.

The ramen arrived, steaming hot. Teuchi set the bowls down gently. Naruto's bowl was clearly much larger than Shinichi's. He pushed the bowl with chashu toward Naruto.

"Eat."

Naruto stared at the bowl for a long while. The chashu slices were evenly cut and neatly laid over the noodles, their edges slightly curled. The soft-boiled egg had been cut in half, its yolk glistening thickly like golden honey. The scallions were bright green, the bamboo shoots glossy, and every strand of noodle stood distinct in the milky-white broth, steaming gently. He lowered his head, leaned close to the bowl, and took a deep breath before picking up his chopsticks.

The instant the first mouthful of noodles entered Naruto's mouth, his eyes lit up.

Not metaphorically. They literally lit up—his blue eyes widened into round circles, reflecting the ramen bowl in their pupils. Then he had no time to speak. His chopsticks flew through the bowl, his cheeks puffed out with food, noodles slipped from the corners of his mouth only to be slurped back in. His eating was utterly unrefined, yet somehow magnificent.

Watching him eat, an extremely inappropriate thought popped into Shinichi's head—there had been a term on the internet in his previous life: "mukbang." If Naruto crossed over into that world and started a mukbang channel, the donations would crash the servers. His fans could be called "Fox Fans," and their support color could be orange. Shinichi suppressed the thought and lowered his head to slowly eat his own bowl. If he ate slower, Naruto could eat more. He knew the child's hunger could not be filled by a single bowl of ramen. It was not hunger in his stomach. His heart had been empty for too long.

"Is it good?"

"Mmm! Mmmmmm!" Naruto nodded frantically with his mouth stuffed full of noodles, managing to mumble, "The chashu is super good! This egg is good too! And the soup tastes great!" Every time he said "good," his chopsticks moved faster, and he ate even more quickly.

Teuchi stood behind the stove wiping a ladle. Hearing that, the corners of his mouth rose, and his beard trembled slightly with the smile.

Halfway through eating, Naruto suddenly stopped. He had a bamboo shoot caught in his chopsticks, but instead of bringing it to his mouth, he slowly set it back in the bowl.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

The tone of that question differed from the "Aren't you running?" he had asked in the alley. Back then, it had been wariness, testing, readiness to be hurt at any moment. Here, it was confusion. He truly could not understand—a person he had met for the first time did not avoid him, did not curse him, bought him dango, brought him into a ramen shop, and gave him the bowl with chashu.

Shinichi put down his chopsticks and lifted his bowl for a sip of soup—not because he was thirsty, but to buy himself a few seconds to think. In those few seconds, every possible expression he had learned from third-grade language class to the final annual company report of his past life ran through his mind. Then he set the bowl down.

"I told you before, nobody wanted me either." He set down the bowl and lightly tapped its rim with his chopsticks, his tone calm, as though he were commenting on the weather. It was so calm, as though he were commenting on the weather, but it could not have been better. "I know what it feels like to be left alone in an alley. When you're hungry, no one cares. When you're cold, no one asks. When you're happy, no one listens. And when you're sad, there's even less chance anyone will look your way."

Naruto fell silent.

It was not the awkward sort of silence. It was the silence of someone ignored for years hearing every one of his feelings described with perfect accuracy for the first time. As though someone had unfolded the crumpled note in his heart and read every word he thought he had written so vaguely—and gotten every one right. He lowered his head, picked up the remaining half-bowl of noodles, and stuffed them into his mouth again. He chewed quickly, his expression gloomy. If he had a tail, it would probably have quietly drooped through the gap in his chair by now.

Shinichi decided to give the boy a way out. He reached out and pointed at the bamboo shoot Naruto had picked up again. "If you're not eating that, give it to me."

Naruto froze. He looked down at the bamboo shoot, then at Shinichi. After about two seconds of processing, he quickly stuffed it into his mouth.

"I'm eating it, I'm eating it!" His cheeks puffed into balls as he chewed, declaring ownership through muffled words. His tears had not even dried, yet he was already guarding his food.

That's more like it, Shinichi thought. The best cure for sadness isn't comfort. It's someone willing to steal the bamboo shoots from your bowl. Comfort made people feel pitiful. Stealing bamboo shoots did not. Stealing bamboo shoots was something only friends did.

Teuchi stood behind the stove, no longer wiping his ladle. He silently watched the two children sitting in the corner of the counter without interrupting. Then he turned around, boiled two extra soft-boiled eggs, placed them on a small dish, and slid it over. Shinichi looked up at him. Teuchi blinked, shook his head, and said nothing. Two eggs, free of charge.

Shinichi pushed them toward Naruto. "Here. Finish them."

Naruto looked at the eggs, then at Shinichi. This time, he did not ask, "Why are you so nice to me?" Nor did he say, "Aren't you eating?" He simply carefully picked one up and placed it in Shinichi's bowl. "You eat one," he said softly. "You're skinny too."

"How am I skinny?" Shinichi said. "This is called lean and fit." But he ate the egg anyway.

Naruto grinned and chuckled twice. It was the first time he had laughed out loud that day.

The scene of two children pushing a single egg back and forth was cast by the ramen shop's lights onto the wallpaper opposite them, pulling their shadows so close together that it was impossible to tell whose was whose. If someone could take a picture of it and hang it in the Hokage's office, then when Naruto sat in the Hokage's chair in the future and grew tired from reading documents, he could look up at it once. It would probably cure many of his bad habits. Such as always wanting to shoulder everything alone.

After they finished eating, Shinichi paid the bill. Not a single coin remained. His pockets were so empty that he could practically hear echoes from the next street over. But he felt this might have been the best money he had spent since crossing over. In the future, he would have lots of money—so much that he could order every item on Ichiraku Ramen's menu three times over. But not to try every flavor—it would be so he could come back with Naruto many more times.

By the time they stepped out of the ramen shop, the sky had gone dark. Streetlamps cast circles of warm yellow light across the stone road. Naruto stood at the entrance, rubbing his round belly and raising his head to let out a long breath at the night sky. Then he turned around and stared seriously at Shinichi.

"Can I call you Shinichi? Not Senju Shinichi. Just Shinichi."

He said it with such seriousness that it did not sound like the social etiquette of a six-year-old. It sounded more like a solemn confirmation. Senju Shinichi was politeness. Shinichi was friendship. He was asking whether they could be friends.

Shinichi looked into Naruto's blue eyes, exceptionally clear beneath the streetlamp, and suddenly felt that all the complicated theories on interpersonal relationships from his previous life were nonsense. In the world of Hokage, making friends required no icebreakers, no empathy techniques, no "five steps to building an emotional connection." It only required one bowl of noodles.

"Sure," he said. "Then I'll call you Naruto too."

"My name is Naruto already!"

"I know. I'm just saying."

Naruto broke into a smile. It was not his loud, carefree grin—it carried a trace of shyness. The corners of his mouth lifted first, his face reddening a little, but he could not suppress the joy spilling from the fine creases at the corners of his eyes. This smile was different from the signature "I'm going to become Hokage" smile Shinichi had seen countless times on a screen in his previous life. That smile was for the whole world, telling everyone that he would never give up. This smile was for only one person, saying thank you.

The two parted outside the ramen shop. Naruto took the east road back to his little apartment. Shinichi took the west road back to the orphanage. After walking around a dozen steps, he heard running footsteps behind him.

"Shinichi!" Naruto ran back, wearing that same smile from before, only larger now—large enough to show the gap in his lower row of teeth.

"Will you come find me again?"

His voice was bright when he asked, but the final few words trembled slightly. Like someone clutching a rope, afraid it would snap at any moment.

Shinichi turned around, tucked his hands into his sleeves, and nodded. "You'll see me every day from now on." He paused and did the math. "Ninja Academy starts in two weeks."

Naruto blanked for a beat, then his whole body lit up like a lantern. "You're going to Ninja Academy too? Me too! I was worried nobody would be in my class! Can we go to school and come home together?"

"If you bring a lunchbox, I'll help you eat half of it."

"Where would I get a lunchbox?" Naruto shouted, hands on his hips. "I always buy bread! Bread! The red bean bread from the school store! It's super tasty, I'll share half with you!"

"Fine. You give me half your bread, and I'll give you half my dishes."

"Deal!" Naruto raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.

Shinichi raised his own fist and bumped it against Naruto's. It was their first promise. No blood pact, no declaration before battle—just two orphans standing outside a ramen shop, agreeing to become meal buddies. Two months later, there would be grander promises during the Chunin Exams. Two years later, there would be heavier promises in the shinobi war. But every promise began with the simplest words—see you tomorrow.

When Shinichi returned to the orphanage and pushed open the door, the house was quiet. He thought everyone had gone to sleep, but the moment he lightened his steps and crossed the threshold, he stopped. Granny was not asleep. She was sitting on a short stool outside the kitchen, holding a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. Judging by her expression, she had clearly not been waiting specifically to scold him. Granny was harder to deal with when she was not scolding people.

"That child... was that child, wasn't it?"

"You saw him?"

"At the mouth of the alley." Granny raised her head. "I happened to pass by while buying soy sauce when you treated him to dango."

Shinichi was silent for a moment and did not deny it. Granny did not seem to mean to blame him. She merely studied him for another moment, then set her teacup on the small table beside her and stood up.

"I've worked at this orphanage for nearly twenty years," she said. "I've seen so many children, but you're the first one who would spend your coins treating someone else to food. The others can't even bear to spend their own coins."

She did not say, "I'm proud of you," nor did she say, "You did the right thing." But as though performing magic, she pulled out a steamed bun and stuffed it into his hands. It was warm, probably something she had secretly saved from dinner.

"Aren't you helping in the kitchen again tomorrow? You ran around all afternoon, and you barely ate dinner."

Shinichi accepted the bun.

It was an ordinary bun, made from white flour with no filling, its edges still marked by the steaming cloth. When he took a bite, it was soft, with a faint sweet aftertaste like malt syrup. He had eaten many things far more refined in his previous life. Yet no bite had stayed in his memory for as long as this one.

He went upstairs, skipping the third step that creaked, returned to his room, and lay down flat. Moonlight leaked through a hole in the window, drawing a patch of silvery brightness across the floor. He opened his notebook to the page where he had written "made a friend" last time. The page was empty except for that single line. He picked up his pencil again and added a sentence after "first."

"There will be many more."

Moonlight shone upon the page. The pencil marks were faint, but they had been pressed deeply enough.

The night gradually deepened. One by one, the lights of Leaf Village went out, leaving only the torches on Hokage Rock still burning. The stone faces of the three Hokage watched solemnly over the village in the firelight, never speaking. But even if they could speak tonight, they probably could not have said anything more moving than, "See you tomorrow."