Konoha --- Ichiraku Ramen
The scroll had closed at approximately six in the evening.
By six-fifteen, Naruto was at the counter.
This surprised nobody.
"The usual?" Teuchi asked.
"Four bowls," Naruto said. "Maybe five. I've had a day."
"I noticed."
Teuchi set the broth going without further comment.
He'd been watching the scroll from outside the shop for most of the afternoon.
He'd seen his son-in-law sit in row seven eating chestnuts while the ninja world had twelve simultaneous crises.
He'd watched Naruto's father step through a dimensional barrier and sit on the arena floor.
He'd watched his granddaughter bring onigiri to an arena full of ninja using a Root operative as a delivery service.
He'd decided that the most useful thing he could do in response to all of this was make good broth.
He was making very good broth.
Naruto sat at the counter.
Elbows on the wood.
Head slightly bowed.
The posture of someone who has spent a full day being extremely things and is now briefly allowing themselves to be tired.
Teuchi refilled the water cup without being asked.
"Your dad seems like a good person," Teuchi said.
Naruto looked up.
"Yeah," he said. Quietly. "He does."
"The coat was a bit much."
"I know. I think I might want one though."
"You'd look ridiculous."
"I know. I still want one."
Teuchi slid the first bowl across.
Naruto wrapped both hands around it.
Felt the warmth through the ceramic.
He breathed in.
"Thanks, old man," he said. Not specifically for the ramen.
Teuchi grunted.
Which was his version of you're welcome, I've been serving you ramen for eight years and watching out for you the whole time and I'm glad today happened.
He went back to the broth.
Sakura arrived at six-thirty.
She sat two seats down from Naruto without announcing herself.
"What are you getting," Naruto said.
"The miso."
"Good choice."
"I know."
They sat in comfortable silence for a minute.
"Today was a lot," Sakura said.
"Yeah."
"The thing with your dad."
"Yeah."
"Are you---"
"I'm good, Sakura-chan." He looked at his second bowl. "I'm actually good. Not the pretending kind."
She looked at him.
At his profile.
At the particular quality of quiet that was sitting around him tonight.
Different from his usual quiet, which was mostly just the absence of noise.
This was something fuller.
"Okay," she said. "Good."
She got her miso.
Ate it.
Naruto ate his second bowl.
They didn't need to talk about everything.
They'd been present for the same day.
The day was already in both of them.
Sasuke arrived at six-forty-five.
He sat one seat down from Sakura.
"The shoyu," he said to Teuchi.
Teuchi served it.
Sasuke looked at Naruto across Sakura.
Naruto looked back.
"Three bowls," Sasuke observed.
"I'm on my third."
"How many are you planning."
"At least five."
"That's excessive."
"I had a day."
"We all had a day."
"Mine involved finding out my dad was the Fourth Hokage and then meeting him in person for an hour in front of everyone. I get an extra bowl."
Sasuke considered this.
"Fair," he said.
He ate his shoyu.
The three of them sat in a row at the counter --- Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke --- and ate ramen in the evening and said very little and were very present in the specific way of people who had been through something large together and didn't need to narrate it to make it real.
Jiraiya arrived at seven.
He sat at the far end of the counter.
Ordered sake and then reconsidered and ordered ramen instead.
He ate quietly for a while.
Then: "Kid."
Naruto: "Mm."
"You doing alright?"
"Yeah."
"The hour with your dad---"
"Jiraiya-sensei." Naruto looked at him over his fifth bowl. "I'm good. Really."
Jiraiya read his face.
Decided he was telling the truth.
"Good," he said.
He ate more ramen.
"Jiraiya-sensei."
"Mm."
"The scroll said rap 412 was the good one."
Jiraiya stopped eating.
"You read that."
"Everyone read that."
"...Did Bee tell you which one it was?"
"No. Do you know which one it is?"
Jiraiya was quiet for a moment.
"It's the one about the Eight-Tails," he said. "He performed it for me once in the middle of a mission when I was trying to concentrate and I wanted to throw him into a river."
"Was it good?"
Another pause.
"...Distressingly good. Yes."
Naruto grinned.
"The scroll has good taste," he said.
"The scroll," Jiraiya said, with feeling, "has extremely good taste in some things and made several choices today that I am going to be thinking about for the rest of my life."
He ate his ramen.
Naruto ate his fifth bowl.
Kakashi arrived at seven-fifteen.
He sat between Jiraiya and Sakura.
Nobody asked why he'd come.
The answer was obvious.
He ordered the tonkotsu.
Ate half of it.
Set down his chopsticks.
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said.
"Mm."
"The rivals ranking said Guy-sensei kept you alive."
"I read it."
"Did you know?"
Kakashi was quiet for a moment.
"...I think I knew," he said. "I just didn't look at it directly."
Naruto nodded.
Didn't push it.
He was learning, slowly, that some things didn't need to be pushed.
You just acknowledged them and let the person carry them in whatever way worked for them.
"He's not here yet," Naruto said.
"He'll be here," Kakashi said. "Guy always shows up."
Three minutes later, Guy arrived at a light jog.
"KAKASHI!! I heard there was ramen! YOUTH REQUIRES NOURISHMENT AFTER GREAT DAYS!!"
He sat heavily on the stool beside Kakashi.
Teuchi, without being asked, put a bowl in front of him.
Guy looked at it.
"...Thank you," he said, with considerably less volume. "Truly."
"It's ramen," Teuchi said. "Eat it before it gets cold."
Guy ate.
Kakashi ate.
The counter filled up and stayed full.
At seven-thirty, Gaara appeared at the shop entrance.
He was with Temari and Kankurō.
All three of them looked slightly uncertain about whether they were allowed to be here.
Naruto turned around.
"Gaara!" He waved. "Come in! The miso is good!"
Gaara looked at him.
Then at the counter full of Konoha ninja.
Then back at Naruto.
"...We're from Sand," he said.
"I know. Teuchi doesn't care. Do you?" He looked at Teuchi.
"Money's money," Teuchi said. "Sit down."
Gaara sat.
Temari and Kankurō sat on either side of him the way they'd been doing all day --- flanking without hovering, present without crowding.
Gaara looked at the menu.
"What's good?" he asked.
"Everything," Naruto said. "But Sasuke will tell you the shoyu is the best."
Sasuke: "The shoyu is the best."
Gaara ordered the shoyu.
He ate it slowly.
Carefully.
Like someone who had spent his whole life not being able to eat around people because eating required being unguarded and being unguarded required feeling safe.
The sand on his gourd stirred faintly.
Not threateningly.
Just moving.
Like a very large cat adjusting its position.
"...It's good," Gaara said.
"I know," Naruto said.
They ate in parallel for a while.
"You met your father today," Gaara said.
"Yeah."
"One hour."
"Yeah."
Gaara was quiet for a moment.
"My father," he said slowly, "tried to have me killed eleven times before I was twelve."
Everyone at the counter went very still.
"I know," Naruto said quietly.
"And yet," Gaara said, "today --- watching your father --- I thought about what it would have been like if he had been different. If any of it had been different."
Another pause.
"That feeling," he said. "Not grief exactly. Something adjacent to it."
"Yeah," Naruto said. "I know that one."
Gaara looked at him.
"You do."
"We both grew up with people who couldn't give us what we needed," Naruto said. "Just for different reasons. Yours because of who he was. Mine because of where they were."
Gaara absorbed this.
Looked at his bowl.
"The ramen is very good," he said finally.
"Yeah," Naruto said. "It always was."
Inside Gaara's stomach, Shukaku was uncharacteristically quiet.
He was listening.
He would not say this later.
At eight, Hiruzen arrived.
He came alone.
No attendants.
No ANBU in visible positions.
Just an old man in the evening.
He sat at the very end of the counter.
The one seat that had stayed empty all night.
Teuchi looked at him.
"The usual?" Teuchi asked, as if this happened regularly.
"Please," Hiruzen said.
He sat quietly while Teuchi made it.
He looked at the counter full of people --- his students' students, Sand ninja, the boy he'd watched from a window for twelve years, Kakashi who he'd grieved and relied upon, Guy who made noise that filled rooms.
He didn't announce himself.
He didn't draw attention.
He just sat at the end of the counter and ate his ramen when it came and was in the room with the people who'd mattered most today.
Naruto, eventually, glanced down the counter at him.
Hiruzen met his eyes.
Naruto didn't say anything.
Neither did Hiruzen.
But Naruto slid the pot of extra broth down the counter toward him.
Hiruzen took it.
Refilled his bowl.
That was enough.
Bai Yan worked the counter all evening.
Refilling.
Serving.
Taking money when people remembered to offer it and not chasing them when they forgot.
At around nine, when the initial rush had settled into a quieter version of itself --- half the people still there, the conversation lower and more meandering --- Ayame appeared from the back with a fresh pot of tea and started distributing cups.
Bai Yan watched her move through the shop.
At Naruto, who had eaten six bowls and was on his second cup of tea and was currently explaining to Gaara what a "rival" was in his specific understanding of the word which was apparently extensive.
At Sakura, who had ordered a second bowl at some point and was listening to this explanation with the expression of someone who had opinions but had decided tonight wasn't the night.
At Sasuke, who was on his second bowl as well and was pretending he wasn't listening to the rival explanation but very clearly was.
At the counter full of people who'd spent a day being changed and had ended up here, in this shop, eating soup.
He thought about the Sage's message.
About weeks.
About the moon.
He looked at the moon, briefly visible through the shop's open front.
Still shuddering faintly at the edges.
Still there.
He went back to the broth.
The counter was full.
The evening was good.
The moon could wait one more night.
Group Chat:
[Killer Bee: Yo, where's the ramen at? Someone tell me where these legends are eating!! Gyūki's hungry too, yo!!]
[Fourth Raikage A: Bee. You're in Cloud Village.]
[Killer Bee: So?? I'll be there in like twenty minutes!! The Flying Thunder God ain't got nothing on Bee, I'm telling you free!!]
[Fourth Raikage A: You are NOT using a forbidden technique to get ramen.]
[Killer Bee: It's not for ramen, bro! It's for the VIBES!! Read the room, A!!]
[Mabui: Lord Raikage, shall I---]
[Fourth Raikage A: Don't help him.]
[Mabui: Of course, Lord Raikage.]
[Mabui: ...Lord Raikage, Killer Bee has already left the building.]
[Fourth Raikage A: ]
[Fourth Raikage A: ]
[Fourth Raikage A: BEEEEEE!!]
At Ichiraku, Naruto's phone --- or whatever the ninja world equivalent was --- made a noise.
He read the chat.
He looked at Teuchi.
"Old man. How many more bowls can you make tonight."
Teuchi considered this.
"How many do you need."
"Bee-san might show up."
Teuchi looked at the chat entry for Killer Bee. At rap #412 was genuinely excellent.
"I'll make more broth," he said.
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