"I think this is enough excitement for today," Ryu said. "How about we take a break?"
"Lunch is almost ready," Dan said. "Let's head to the dining room."
They moved inside together.
Children slipped back into small talk after surviving something they only half understood. Naruto was already talking again.
*
Mianto watched his son being happy and saw that children are not distancing themselves from Naruto.
Minato said quietly, "The fear didn't take root."
Kushina let out a small breath.
"That's all I could ask for."
They do not know the reality of the village, but they will soon find out how Naruto is treated outside the Hamura Estate.
*
Ryu was just about to step fully into the dining room when he stopped.
A chakra signature stood outside the front door.
Dan noticed at once. "What is it?"
"Someone is in front of the door," Ryu said. "Judging by the chakra, it's a kid."
Dan exhaled through his nose. "Probably some child playing a prank."
Ryu kept sensing.
"Or he might need help and was sent here," Ryu said.
That was enough.
"You lot start eating. We will come back soon," Dan said.
Dan changed direction immediately. Kohinata and Ryu followed him.
At the front door, the child outside pressed the bell.
No one came.
He waited a second and muttered, "Is everyone else sleeping?"
He then pressed the bell again and, with no warning at all, he simply fell asleep while standing.
By the time Ryu opened the door, with Dan and Kohinata behind him, the boy was already snoring upright.
For one full second, none of them said anything.
The child stood on his own two feet with his head tipped slightly forward, asleep as peacefully as if he were in a bed instead of on a doorstep.
Dan stared.
Kohinata blinked once.
Ryu narrowed his eyes.
The boy gave a soft snore.
Ryu analysed the posture and said quietly, "Narcolepsy."
The child jerked awake.
"Oh—sorry," he said at once, rubbing one eye. "I must have dozed off. I am here to meet someone named Due and Don."
Ryu looked at him.
"It's Ryu and Dan, not Due and Don."
The boy nodded with complete seriousness, as though he had just been handed something extremely important.
"Oh. Yes. Sorry."
Then his stomach growled so loudly that all three of them heard it clearly.
Dan's expression changed and thought, "Whatever conversation needed to happen next would go better after food."
"You can talk inside," Dan said. "Lunch is ready, and you seem hungry. Come in."
The boy smiled at once hearing about food.
"Thank you, Mr Con."
Dan thought, "Is this kid stupid? Ryu just told him my name."
Dan was judging the mental state of the boy, as was Ryu but unlike Dan, he was assessing it from a medical point of view.
Ryu studied the boy as he stepped aside and let him in. Sudden sleep and memory issues. The second issue was not hard to see either, and instincts told him there might be more layered under both. For now, food came first.
They returned to the dining room together with this new boy.
Conversation dipped for a moment when the newcomer entered. A few heads turned. Naruto was the first to break the pause.
"Hey… I know him," Naruto said.
Ryu looked at him. "You do?"
"Yeah," Naruto said. "He is a regular at Ichiraku. He brought me ramen once."
The boy brightened at recognising him.
Naruto pointed at him proudly. "Every time I met him, he was a very good brother to me, but he is funny…"
Kaia turned her head at once. "You are funny too… like a clown."
Naruto looked wounded. "Big sister… don't make fun of me."
That drew another small laugh from the room.
Ryu watched the boy while everyone settled. From the new boy, there was no flinch of discomfort toward Naruto, none of the reflexive aversion so many villagers showed without thinking.
The boy looked directly at Naruto and said, with total sincerity, "Hello, Boruto."
Naruto frowned. "It's Naruto. You always get it wrong."
Ryu laughed.
"Boruto is not born yet," he said. "There is no one by that name in the village right now."
Most of the room heard it as one more odd line from Ryu and moved on.
Akihiro did not. His fingers tightened slightly around his bowl, then relaxed. He thought Boruto's name must be important. Ryu declared he was not yet but meant he would be some day. "I will ask later," Akihiro thought.
Ryu looked back at the newcomer. "Looks like I have a funny one on my hands. This should be interesting."
The boy blinked at him, as if deciding whether that counted as praise or diagnosis.
Ryu rescued him from having to decide.
"Take a seat and eat first," he said. "We will talk after you have something in your stomach."
The boy needed no second invitation. He sat down fast enough to show exactly how hungry he was and reached for the food with total shamelessness and without manners. He stuffed a few quick bites into his mouth.
Then his grip loosened.
His head dipped.
And he fell asleep right there at the table, with half-chewed food still in his mouth—yet his back stayed straight, his body anchored to the chair as solidly as if he were simply resting his eyes.
Amusement drained out of the room.
Naruto only blinked once and kept looking at him.
"He always does that," he said. "He slept with ramen in his mouth. Who does that?"
Dan looked at him. "Just Like that?"
Naruto nodded. "Yeah."
Ryu leaned back slightly in his chair.
"It is narcolepsy," he said.
A few eyes turned toward him at once.
Dan asked, "A sleeping disorder?"
"Yes," Ryu said. "He is not lazy or have bad manners. His brain is forcing sleep at the wrong time."
Everyone's attention was on Ryu. They did not believe such a condition exists.
Ryu continued, "It can happen while standing, walking, eating, working…"
The boy stirred a little, blinked awake again, and looked around as if he had misplaced a stretch of time and was trying to find where it had gone.
The boy said, "Sorry I fell asleep."
Ryu let him orient himself before speaking.
"Why did you come specifically to me?"
The boy rubbed his face once and sat a little straighter.
"No doctor could help me. Some did not understand," he said. "Some looked at me like I was wasting their time. Some only make money off me prescribing medicines that made my head hurt all day."
He glanced down at the table. "Then I kept hearing about you... The medical ninja. The one working on things people say cannot be fixed."
Naruto raised a finger proudly. "I told you that."
The boy gave him a flat look.
"As if I would have believed just you."
A small pause followed that.
"My name is Arata," the boy added, still eating.
Ryu tilted his head. "Is that the right one?"
The corner of Arata's mouth moved the slightest bit.
"That is the name that I remember."
Good, Ryu thought. Sharp enough to bite back.
Arata kept talking with the bluntness of a boy too tired and too used to being misunderstood to hold anything back.
"People tell me you are the smartest person in the village."
Naruto pointed at himself. "I told you that too."
Arata did not even look at him this time. "And it was still more believable after I heard it from other people."
That got a short snort out of Toshiro.
Ryu rested an elbow on the table.
"You have trouble recalling names. It is a documented condition."
Dan looked at him. "There is an actual condition like that?"
"Yes," Ryu said. "Anomic aphasia."
The term meant nothing to most people there, so he translated it at once.
"He is not confused about the person. He is struggling to pull the correct word or name out at the right time. That is a very different thing."
Arata looked at him in complete stillness.
Ryu kept speaking, more for the room than for himself now.
"Someone like him knows. He just cannot retrieve the word fast enough. So other people think he is mocking them, or being careless, or being stupid."
A short silence followed that.
Then Ryu said, quietly, "It must have been a hard life for you."
"Most people get angry when you call them by the wrong name," he said. "They think you are making fun of them."
No one at the table spoke.
"I tried to work. Odd jobs mostly." He shrugged once. "There are not many jobs for a kid anyway."
His voice stayed matter-of-fact, and that only made it worse.
"I would try to stay awake," he went on, "and then I would wake up already in trouble. Even if I manage to stay awake, I would speak the wrong name, angering my employer."
Naruto had stopped eating.
Arata looked down at his hands.
"My family is poor," he said. "I think they got tired of supporting a deadbeat."
Dan's gaze hardened. "A child should not have to become convenient before adults decide to keep him."
The line landed with a weight that silenced the entire room.
The secretary had come into the Hamura household expecting secrets, politics, and controlled chaos. She had not expected lunch to turn into the quiet pull of another child toward this family. By the time Dan spoke, she was no longer looking at the family like an employer's household. She was looking at it like a place with its own gravity.
Inside Naruto, Kushina's voice came soft and raw.
*
"Poor boy," Kushina said to Minato.
Minato just nodded.
*
Then a laugh is heard.
Toshiro was the one who let the room breathe again.
"He is a funny guy," he said.
A few heads turned toward him.
Toshiro grinned. "I like him already. Bring him somewhere to introduce people, and it will be chaos."
That got a reluctant laugh out of Jiyuu and finally pulled Naruto back from the edge of staring too hard.
Arata looked around the table, then turned back to Ryu.
"Will you help me, Huie?"
Ryu looked at him.
Then he said, "It's Ryu… Forget it. You can call me whatever name you invent. I won't be angry. If it makes people laugh at my expense, I can live with that."
"Thank you for understanding."
Ryu studied him for a moment.
He saw the pattern too clearly now to ignore it. Another child the world had failed. Another life bent around limitation until everyone around it decided the easiest answer was abandonment. The house had already started becoming something else. Pretending he had not chosen his answer would only waste time.
Still, he gave Arata the truth first.
"I will not lie to you, Arata."
Arata held his gaze.
"Not every disorder has a cure," Ryu said. "And even when one does, that does not mean it is safe."
The room stayed quiet.
"That is especially true with neurological disorders."
Arata nodded once.
Then Ryu smiled.
Dan saw it immediately.
"Don't tell me you are thinking what I think you are thinking."
Ryu turned his head toward him.
"It's exactly what I am thinking."
Dan exhaled through his nose but did not argue.
Ryu looked back at Arata.
"I may not be able to cure this," he said, "but that does not mean you have to face it alone."
Arata held his gaze.
"I cannot promise a cure," Ryu continued. "But I can still help you. I can make life easier on you than it has been until now."
No one at the table interrupted.
Ryu's next words came out simple and firm.
"I can give you a place where this is understood instead of punished."
Arata stared at him.
Ryu held that stare and said the thing that had already become inevitable long before the sentence finished forming in his mind.
"Join my family, Arata."
A/N:
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