“The boss’s name was Kinetsu, but Sasuke, he messed it up for some reason and kept calling the boss Kitsune. So through the whole strategy meeting, he’s calling this guy Kitsune. And everyone noticed that he had the name wrong, but Sasuke had this real tough-guy air about him, so no one could tell him, and then it just got extra ridiculous.”
“Did you keep yourself from laughing?” she asked.
“It was more like we didn’t know if we should laugh or not,” he replied. “The team split into two after that. I was with Kiba and Sakura. And Shino, I think. As soon as Sasuke was gone, Sakura whispers, ‘He had the wrong name, right?’ And then we all exploded, like ‘Right?!’ ‘He totally had it wrong, right?!’ And we laughed until we nearly died even though we were in the middle of a mission.”
Naruto was unable to hold back his laughter anymore, and chuckles slipped out of him.
“This was honestly ages ago, and maybe none of them remember it now. But I do. And I still think it’s hilarious.”
“You do,” she said flatly.
The floodgates having opened, Naruto proceeded to tell her all kinds of stories about his friends. How Choji sobbing his heart out at Sai and Ino’s wedding was one thing, but even Shikamaru had cried a little. How they got a little too involved in playing the Game of Life and the new year arrived before they even realized it. How he and his friends had come together and racked their brains to come up with a plan to get Master Kakashi’s mask off and see his bare face. How one time, Sai had poured his whole heart into the Cartoon Beast Mimicry drawing that was so scary they were all stunned. How before Naruto’s marriage, Master Iruka and Sakura had given him intensive training in cooking, something he was not great at.
“I practiced a couple dishes over and over until I could make them super good, but that’s it. Hinata was surprised at how good my cooking was. But the truth is, there were plenty of dishes buried in the dark before I showed her. Soggy chahan rice, curry with potato mush instead of chunks.”
Naruto appeared to enjoy himself no matter who he was talking about. All of his stories were nothing more than little episodes that didn’t matter one way or the other. Chihare found it strange that he could chat so happily about these other people. This person clearly liked his friends beyond reason.
He kept moving his eyes like a good worker as he chatted with her about this and that, and when he had checked the last petri dish, he dropped to the floor and announced dramatically, “It’s no good. No change in any of them!”
“Is that right?” Chihare said simply.
“‘Is that right’?” he parroted. “Come on, be a little more disappointed.”
“It’s normal that there isn’t a result,” Chihare said, her voice cool, and looked down at his blue eyes. “All your memories of your friends that you’ve been telling me about … To me, they all felt rather unnecessary.”
She wondered if her honesty would make things awkward, but Naruto laughed as he slowly got to his feet. “I think so too. It’s weird. They’re all such teensy things, but I love those little details the most. Like when we’re tired after work, or nothing’s going so great and you’re getting annoyed … When I remember stuff like that, it kind of cheers me up. Even though it’s stupid.”
“. . .”
Naruto’s smile was innocent and carefree, and just looking at it was like a light turning on in her own heart. She was relieved, but she also felt guilty. The more Naruto told his happy stories, the greater guilt she felt toward herself for not being able to have those same emotions.
I’ll never be loved by people like that.
“The fact that you care about the people around you came through very clearly,” she told him.
Almost annoyingly so.
“But I’m not like you. I don’t need connections with people.” Feeling like she was making excuses for herself, Chihare continued quickly. “I don’t feel lonely, and I’ve always mostly been alone. Although maybe someone like you who grew up loved by the people around you can’t understand that.”
Naruto started to say something, but eventually closed his slightly open mouth without uttering a single word.
It had been just over two weeks since Chihare moved to Orochimaru’s lab.
Naruto spent his days moving back and forth and back again between the lab and his office and his house. The experiment continued to come up empty, and although the busy period for his Hokage duties had supposedly passed, since he couldn’t use his shadow doppelgangers, his schedule was as full as ever. For whatever reason, his pain attacks were decreasing in frequency. Until very recently, he would curl into a ball several times a day, grit his teeth, and endure whatever was happening somewhere in his body. But in the last few days not a single one had occurred.
If the cause of his illness was poor functioning of the chakra channels, as Sakura had guessed, then maybe by some chance that had gotten better, and he was moving in a positive direction. Naruto was seriously starting to take this optimistic outlook when a hawk arrived at the Hokage’s office from the astronomical observatory.
“She says the longer periods between attacks is actually not great.” Shikamaru read the letter from Sakura and gave the news to Naruto straight up. “Your chakra’s not recovering. The fact that only the attacks are gone in this state …”
“It’s bad?” Naruto asked weakly.
“Well, we don’t know. Anyway, they sent a huge clue for us.” Shikamaru placed a book with a navy blue cover on the desk. It was large, the size of a picture book, and the hawk entrusted with carrying it had broken the spine. The cover had “Map of the Heavens” on it in gold leaf.