The next day, Uchiha Yuka woke up early and dragged Momoko out of the house at the crack of dawn, forgoing breakfast at home entirely.
As Itachi and Sasuke sat down to eat with Mikoto, they waited a couple of minutes for Yuka. Just as they were about to go fetch her, Mikoto stopped them.
"Yuka has already gone out."
"Eh?" Sasuke paused, his spoon halfway to his bowl. "Why did little sister go out so early? Where did she go?"
Ignoring Naruto's name and identity, Mikoto simply replied, "She made a new friend and said she wanted to go get breakfast with him."
Itachi said nothing, eating in silence. His expressionless face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.
Sasuke asked anxiously, "Then why is she eating with her new friend instead of us?"
He had to train every day and was endlessly busy. Sometimes he didn't even come back for lunch, just grabbing a quick bite at the training grounds before diving right back in. Since his sister didn't like training, the only time he got to spend with her every day was breakfast. Now, even that was gone, and a deep sense of loss washed over him.
Itachi patted his head. "It's called the novelty of a new friendship."
"The novelty?" Sasuke tilted his head, his face a picture of confusion. He didn't understand such high-flown terms.
"It'll pass in a few days." Itachi didn't offer a lengthy explanation. To him, this was just his sister's latest fleeting interest.
He knew his little sister inside and out. Ever since she was little, aside from reading, whatever she did lasted all of three minutes. When she was interested, she'd dabble; when she wasn't, she couldn't even be bothered to glance their way.
Knowing Yuka's tastes and personality inside and out, Itachi was certain she had simply taken a sudden fancy to Naruto's striking golden hair and unusually vibrant blue eyes. Yuka had loved bright, flashy things since she was a toddler, and Naruto's hair and eyes fit her preferences to a T. She was treating him like a child with a beloved new toy, currently unable to put him down. After playing with him for a few days, she'd get bored.
Well, she didn't *act* like a child—she *was* a child.
"Okay!" Sasuke trusted his big brother implicitly. Whatever Big Brother said went without question! Whatever Brother said was right. Even though he didn't know what "the novelty of a new friendship" meant, if Brother said so, it had to be true! He'd wait just a little longer, and Yuka would come back!
Really... would she?
***
Yuka was completely oblivious to the domestic drama unfolding at home. Wearing a little white dress, she skipped along the main street hand-in-hand with Momoko, the ribbon tied in a bow at her waist bobbing up and down with her movements, radiating playfulness and charm.
Her sleek black hair was loosely gathered with a matching yellow ribbon, leaving a fringe across her forehead that looked remarkably like Itachi and Sasuke's. Beneath the bangs was a round, fair little face and a pair of extraordinarily bright, lovely black eyes. She looked fresh and clean, with a pink flush to her cheeks, making her utterly adorable.
True to her word yesterday, Yuka wasn't wearing any clothes bearing the Uchiha clan crest, and neither was Momoko. The two of them, one tall and one short, strolled down the street looking like a pair of sisters out for a casual day of leisure.
"I wonder if Naruto is awake yet~" Yuka hopped over a small pebble in her path. "I rarely eat breakfast outside. Momoko, do you think there's anything good to eat out here?"
Momoko had never eaten out in the city either. She looked left and right, quickly spotting a place to offer Yuka. "Uhm, a noodle shop? Shall we go for ramen? There's a long line of people waiting at this ramen place, so it must taste pretty good."
Following the direction of Momoko's finger, Yuka looked over at the lavish, two-story ramen shop by the village entrance and nodded with satisfaction. "Good! Then we'll listen to you! This place looks big and fancy, maybe the food is actually good? Or maybe we can ask Naruto later—he said he doesn't have any family, so he must eat out all the time. Who knows, he might know even better than us!"
Chatting away, the two of them arrived downstairs from Naruto's apartment.
Naruto lived on the second floor of a rundown tenement building. The dim stairwell gave off a sickening stench, and household garbage was piled as high as a mountain, blocking almost the entire passageway and leaving nowhere to step. The stairs were filthy beyond belief, with muddy tracks everywhere. The mottled, flaking walls bore the scars of time, covered in stains and graffiti, looking nothing like the bright and polished parts of Konohagakure.
Momoko never expected Naruto to live in such a wretched environment. Frowning deeply and fearing her young miss's pristine white dress would get stained on the stairs, she suggested, "Young Miss, wait for me here. I'll go knock on the door and call Naruto down."
"No need! Why don't the people living here ever clean up?" Yuka didn't care about the filthy, chaotic surroundings at all; chatting away, she lifted her skirt and started marching right up.
Momoko carefully shielded her from behind. "Young Miss, this is a lawless zone. The people living here are a mixed bag, barely able to take care of themselves—how would they have extra time to worry about the hallway?"
Yuka asked in confusion, "Why does Naruto live in a place like this?"
Momoko had once heard the Madam mention a part of Naruto's background. As a servant of the Uchiha clan and an ordinary person herself, she didn't understand what a Jinchuriki was, nor why the village higher-ups feared one. She only knew that when the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox launched its ferocious attack on Konohagakure, it was the Yellow Flash who stepped forward, sealing the Nine-Tails inside his own child's body to protect everyone in the village, top to bottom.
He had clearly done a good deed, so why was a hero's child treated this way?
Momoko didn't understand. She had no voice in this village, nor could she police what others thought; she could only look after herself and the Young Miss. Still, she committed Naruto's living conditions to memory, intending to report them to the Madam tonight.
Naruto lived in the middle apartment on the second floor. Seen from the outside, the wooden door was old and weathered, and the walls didn't even have a window.
Momoko knocked on the door. A moment later, Naruto's hearty voice rang out from inside: "Coming!! Who is it?"
The door was quickly pulled open. Sunlight from outside poured into the dark little room, and through the gap in the door, Yuka caught sight of the cramped space and the tiny bed. A few unwashed clothes sat on a stool, a basin of dirty water remained unemptied on the floor, and an unpleasant odor of food lingered in the air.
Filthy, chaotic, and squalid—this was Yuka's first impression of Naruto's residence.
Pinching her nose, Yuka reached out and shoved Naruto's door wide open. "Your room needs some fresh air!"
A flash of panic crossed Naruto's joyful eyes. He had intentionally kept the door opened to a crack because he didn't want his new friend to see his room. His new friend lived in a huge, massive house—many times larger than his own—where everything was spotless and pristine. How could she possibly come into his tiny hovel?
Yet he hadn't anticipated Yuka's strength. With that hearty push, not only did the door swing open, but Naruto himself was nearly knocked over.
"Why doesn't your room have a window?" Yuka walked straight in, glancing around the tiny room without finding a single window. No wonder the air smelled so foul; there was zero ventilation.
"I don't know either," Naruto rubbed his wrist. "The person who brought me here just told me to live here, and they send me some money and food every month..."
"Did I hurt you just now?" Yuka's gaze shifted to Naruto's hand. With an aggressive attitude, she grabbed his wrist, her chubby little hand forming a stark contrast to his slender wrist. "Your wrist isn't even as thick as my finger! And what kind of unnutritious stuff do you eat? I remember you're the same age as me."
"Gah!" Dumbfounded, Naruto stared down at Yuka's little pinky finger. His attention was instantly hijacked by her words, and he retorted loudly, "Yuka, your finger is clearly thin! It's way thinner than my wrist! How could my wrist possibly be smaller than your finger?!"
"That's called hyperbole." Yuka let her grip go, a string of complaints tumbling out of her mouth. "You must hardly ever read books, right? Well, true, reading in an environment without proper lighting ruins your eyes anyway. You might as well just lie in bed like a hikikomori."
Naruto's brain crashed all over again. "...Yuka, what's a hikikomori?"
"It's a joking term for someone obsessed with something who stays cooped up at home and refuses to go outside," Yuka explained casually. "Though don't worry about it. I was a hikikomori before I met you—I used to lie in bed all day and couldn't even be bothered to step outside. It wasn't until I made a new friend like you that I finally started going out."
With that, while Naruto was still agonizing over what on earth a 'hikikomori' could mean, she turned back and barked orders at Momoko: "Find some people to clean his place up, install a light, put in a toilet, and smash a window out of that wall! Oh right, get a washing machine too—hand-washing clothes is so last century. Get him all the furniture he needs, and you'd better paint the walls while you're at it. This looks way too filthy, and it's not bright at all in here!"
Ticking items off on her fingers like a little adult, Yuka tilted her head and looked around, not missing even the tiniest corner. "Oh, and get rid of the cobwebs in this corner too. What's this...? Did mice build a nest here? Ah, so many cockroaches! How can anyone stay healthy in this kind of living environment? You're far too rough around the edges!"
The Uchiha clan's young miss spent family money without a single pang of guilt, and Fugaku and Mikoto doted on her enough that her monthly allowance was larger than her older brothers'. Not to mention, Itachi and Sasuke regularly funneled their own pocket money to her; her accumulated savings would be more than enough to completely renovate Naruto's entire place with plenty to spare.
Momoko said nothing. After listening to the Young Miss's arrangements, she immediately turned around to go find people to handle it.
As for the hallway issue, Momoko didn't take it upon herself to hire cleaners. That was a public area; even if it was cleaned today, someone would dump trash there tomorrow, and people might even throw garbage around with even more gusto simply because someone else paid to clean it up. Hiring cleaners would only condone their behavior, and since the Young Miss hadn't given any orders about it, she certainly wouldn't take the initiative to meddle.
If it was dirty, let it stay dirty. At worst, she'd just have a direct ladder built up to the second floor for Naruto so he wouldn't have to use the stairs!
Momoko hurried off, leaving Naruto standing frozen in place. As he listened to Yuka rattle off the endless problems with his apartment, sweat beaded on his forehead until he was drenched in nervous perspiration.
Hey, hey... Yuka, his house wasn't *that* messy, was it?!
And those cockroaches and mice... he had no idea when they'd moved in!! The second floor was just prone to mice! That wasn't something he could control either!
***
Naruto wasn't the only one living in this area; there were other residents around him. But those residents had all heard the rumors about the demon fox, knowing that the culprit who devastated the village and killed countless villagers resided right inside Naruto's belly. Consequently, they held no goodwill toward him. Even when they saw him heading out or noticed a commotion at his place, they stayed silent. Living in the same apartment building with him in mutual non-interference was already the best they could manage.
Today, however, was an extremely unusual day.
For into the home of this ignored little monster, a whole crew of people had suddenly arrived. First, they cleared out everything inside, piling the chaotic heap of garbage in the hallway into a small mountain. Then they hammered away at the walls for a good long time, carving out a bright, handsome window. As if that wasn't enough, those people replaced every single item in the monster's home with brand-new things, transforming his filthy, chaotic hovel into a bright, clean little home in less half a day. Though a bit small, it radiated warmth in every corner.
The interior walls were painted a warm yellow. The bed was pushed against the corner wall, outfitted with sky-blue bedding. At the foot of the bed stood a small desk holding the few books Naruto owned, and the floor had been re-paved with clean floor tiles. In the very center of the room sat a small coffee table, beside which rested small appliances like a washing machine. Looking in from outside, it was remarkably pretty.
"...Did I enter the wrong floor?" A resident returning from outside paused as they passed Naruto's doorway, looking in with wide-eyed shock. "Isn't this the little monster's place?! How did it turn out like this? Did someone else move in?"
Hearing the commotion, one of the renovation workers slammed the door shut with a loud *bang*, cutting off the prying gaze from outside.
They hadn't even finished replacing the door yet; the VIP client had given strict instructions to swap it for a steel security door—the kind with a much higher safety rating.
Yuka neither knew nor cared what the neighbors thought of Naruto's apartment. She stayed out of sight the whole time, and Momoko paid for everything without showing her face either, ensuring no one could trace the expenditure back to them and stirring up no trouble for the clan.
Even if someone asked, the renovation crew had no idea who funded it; it was completely impossible to trace back to the Uchiha clan. Besides, word had it that the Fourth Hokage had plenty of friends—who's to say some wealthy friend hadn't invested in renovating the place for Naruto? In any case, what did it have to do with Uchiha Yuka?
Right now, she and Naruto were walking side by side down the main street of Konoha. "What do you like to eat? I've never eaten outside before, and neither has Momoko. We'll leave it up to you—I'm starving and urgently need food."
"I... I don't usually eat outside much either," Naruto scratched his head, always cooped up eating instant ramen at home. Things outside were too expensive, and he didn't have much money; he had to pinch every penny.
Yet, looking at Yuka's eager face, Naruto pondered for a moment, scanning the street shops before spotting a tiny ramen stall tucked away at the end of an alley. Though it looked small, the storefront was impeccably clean, seemingly cozy, and the prices likely reasonable. The money he had on him might just be enough to treat Yuka and Big Sister Momoko to a meal.
"Yuka, do you like ramen? Want to go give it a try?"
"Never had it," Yuka answered honestly. "We can try it, though. Big Brother said life is about having the courage to try new things!"
"Whoa!" Naruto's eyes sparkled. "Your brother is so cool, Yuka!"
"Of course he is! He also said we should eat lots of ramen!! Naruto, charge! Let's race to see who runs faster!!!"
Before her voice had even faded, the two of them skipped off together toward the end of the alley.
Standing behind them, Momoko watched the retreating figures of the Young Miss and Naruto holding hands. "..."
She could testify: Master Itachi had indeed said the first part, but the second part was clearly something the Young Miss had made up on the spot.