Canon side-story: Ayame and Teuchi, what do you mean he got adopted? #Extra

Note: This is extra, the winner of the poll will be posted tomorrow, no worries, I’m excited for it and having fun.

I was just looking through the results of the polls, and someone has managed to vote for the losing option on the wheel for 8 weeks in a row. (besides the times all the $10 patrons agreed), I noticed in the polls that they voted for this twice, and I kinda want to write it anyway, so I took a little extra time out of my day and made it. This will likely be a one time thing, bad luck streaks like that are statistically unlikely. You probably know who you are, and thank you for your continued upgraded support even when you weren’t getting anything out of it.

Enjoy.

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“Naruto hasn’t been around in a while.” Brown eyes, brown hair, narrow features and a mature frame, Ayame’s a beauty with a lot of eyes on her, especially while she’s serving the food her father cooks, but there’s only one set of eyes she wants on her right now and he’s been missing for a while.

Innocently, she wants his eyes on her innocently, that’s probably a big part of the difference too. Lechers are annoying, but her father runs the place so they know not to try anything weird. When your day brings a lot of intent filled gazes and perverts, there’s something nice about eyes that aren’t looking at her that way, and it helps she’s become rather fond of the boy over the years he’s been coming around. He used to call her big sister, who knows how he feels now. Ninja life changes a boy, changes them enough they stop coming to their favorite shop, apparently.

The last time he was here was with his team right after they got back from Wave, she paid them no mind but listened to him inflate the story quite a bit. He said they fought a vampire in a blood soaked dungeon underground, it was absurd, but that didn’t matter, she didn’t even try to get their story to figure out what really happened. If Naruto’s stories have any truth to them, that Sakura girl has been hitting him for years and that Sasuke kid’s a jerk. She’d rather just listen to her favorite customer, serve them their food professionally, and ignore the crap out of them.

“He might be on some long missions, they aren’t common with rookie Genin but maybe that teacher of his is a specialist.” Her father, Teuchi, a smiling man with a lot of pride in the shop answers her while passing her a bowl to give to a customer with a wave of his hand. “Maybe you should bring a few bowls to him to get his attention. It’ll remind him that we miss him.”

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The first thing she notices when she gets to his apartment is the smell. One would think with twelve bowls of ramen in a bag at her side, she’d only smell broth, but the bowls are nothing compared to the stench emanating from inside. Things died in there, probably rats and the like but still. Naruto’s been living worse than she thought, and she’s not sure why he didn’t say anything.

It’s not like they’re living with a whole family, they could spare a room for a few days while they help him clean up the place. Well, while she helps him clean the place, someone needs to run the restaurant and her father’s back is a little too bad to be bending down cleaning up a kid’s mess. She musters up the will to make the offer, raises her hand, and knocks on the door.

“What?” She finds herself a little stunned at the way the door swings open, falling off its hinges at her little tap and crashing to the floor with a loud thud. A dozen brown blotches blur by, and it takes her a moment to put it together, those are rats at her feet. She barely holds in a scream while her heart beats in her ears, even barely managing it is only because she’s stunned still. Watching them rush away has her holding her breath for a little too long, and securing the bag of food at her side.

She doesn’t have to enter to know Naruto’s not here. The place is picked clean, there’s nothing of his to tell her she should bother looking in further, and the dust is so thick she’d be cleaning it out of her clothes for days if she went in.

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“I went to his apartment and found it empty.” Ayame explains to her father, the man’s expression shifting ever downard at the news. “The only things living there are rats and spiders.”

“He must have been left quite a while ago then.” Teuchi explains, that frown on his face forming into a firm grimace, “what did you do with the food?”

“I dropped it off at the orphanage on my way back.” She says, slipping on her apron while gesturing to the empty bag at her side. “I figured we can’t sell them to customers as cold as they’d be when I got back.”

“Good,” he gives her a small nod, eyes dancing over the customers to see just how comfortable he feels with this setup and her, “can you man the shop? I need to check up on this.” He finds it’s safe, safe enough for him to leave for twenty minutes at least.

The nod from his daughter is all he needs to put his apron up and get out there.

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Hinata’s hand strikes out to grab something just before it impacts her, her sight only telling her of it at the last second. It’s odd, she should have detected anything like that well before it got so close to her, even if she is casually sitting on a rooftop and ignoring the world. It’s the very fact that she didn’t notice it earlier even with her Byakugan active, and that it didn’t hurt her, which stops her from freaking out. No detection means no killing intent, no killing intent means… It only takes her a quarter of a second to see him with her magic eyes. The ramen guy of all people is down there in the street, waving at her while holding a pile of pebbles. She could ignore him, technically she could make a thing for assaulting a ninja but she knows he was trying to be quiet to not alert whoever she’s watching, so she allows herself a smile instead and drops from the roof.

“Where’s Naruto?” He asks the moment she lands, she hasn’t even gotten within normal person hearing distance. He seems to know how much better a Ninja’s ears are.

“Why would you think I’d know where… erm…” She begins, only to stop herself when she sees a no-nonsense look on the happy guy’s face. He’s always in such a good mood, none of that seems to be present right now. She straightens her posture. “He’s been adopted by the Haruno household. I could lead you to him?”

“Adopted eh… No, that’s fine, I’ll look into it myself and figure out a good time. I was just worried when Ayame found his apartment empty.” He admits, dropping the pebbles and scratching the back of his head, that smile returning to him quickly enough it’d fool her if she wasn’t so used to watching fake expressions.

“That worried me as well.” Hinata nods meekly, “How did you know I’d know where he is, am I that obvious?”

“No.” Is all the ramen man says, before patting her shoulder and leaving her in the street.

“What was that?” Hinata blinks at his disappearing form, “so I’m not obvious? How did he know? How did he find me now!?”

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“He’s been adopted.” Teuchi says, taking his apron back and getting back to stirring some noodles while Ayame jumps back to customers. “The Harunos.”

“You mean that pink girl that keeps hitting him?” Ayame asks, “that’s not good.”

“The lone eyes seem to think it’s good, or I didn’t see anything in her expression that said otherwise.” He says back.

“The Hyuga girl?” She asks, looking back at him from over her shoulder.

“Use code girl, her clan’d freak if they thought she was being that obvious.” He gives her a slight reproach, stirring a little more aggressively.

“Ah, well, she is…” Ayame says, “we’ve seen her a hundred times.”

“It’s easy to spot someone when they’re consistently watching your establishment, that doesn’t make her obvious, it means we’re not blind.” He snickers, “once you’re familiar with someone, they become a poor tail. Maybe she needs to learn that, but her hiding spots aren’t bad.”

“Well, forget about her, the Harunos?” Ayame asks, a deep frown working its way onto her narrow features with prominence. “I don’t see how getting kicked while he’s down is a good thing just because it’s indoors now.”

“Maybe she learned something.” Teuchi says, “I never said anything to her because he wanted to do it himself, maybe he finally did? A real conversation about a problem fixes it more often than not.”

“I don’t trust it.” Ayame takes a bowl from him and hands it to a customer. “Can I…”

“I’ll figure out where they live tomorrow before opening, you can visit after classes.”

“Thank you.” Ayame takes the next bowl with a smile.”

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“This is awkward.” Ayame knew - analytically - that Naruto’s life would change once he became a ninja. Their interactions would change as well simply because ninja life is hard and stressful and stressed people act differently. Her father had friends that went to the academy when he was young, and he’s told her about what that life entails. She assumes they’re all dead now, they’ve never once visited. It’s why she was never enrolled, that life is for the brave and the bold and the dead.

She expected Naruto to show up even more frequently, or to leave big tips with his new ninja money. She did not expect to have two blonde girls in her lap, and a Naruto in a suit massaging her shoulders from behind, while she sits at his dinner table. “It’s not awkward for me. For my big sister, I think you deserve better.” Naruto - no, Business Naruto as he introduced himself - assures her while finding just the right nerve. She can’t complain about the massage itself, it’s very nice. His fingers work like magic, settling her and almost instantly pushing her into a relaxed state she very much didn’t expect when coming here. The ramen she brought isn’t forgotten, the blondes in her lap are happily slurping it up. She wasn’t aware clones could eat, they are clones right? This is a whole thing? She doesn’t get this stuff.

Even if the message is great, she can’t help but wonder how this even happened. Why does he think this is a normal way to greet someone? Above all else it’s just the most incredibly awkward thing she’s ever experienced. Is this him hitting on her? Is that even a thing? She’s quite a few years older than him, and showing her even younger versions of him in small girl form is not helping the perception that he is a child.

Still, she leans back and enjoys the awkwardness. She deserves this, working at a ramen shop is hard and he’s like thirteen, he’s probably not even thinking like that yet. Trying to deny the treatment might tip him off that this is weird and then she has a whole host of other things to explain.

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“He’s fine.” She says, swooping back into the ramen shop and donning her apron in seconds. She gets handed three bowls on the spot, of which she slides to customers after only a momentary glance at the numbers hanging above their head.

“Good to hear.” Teuchi says, “we knew that though. You seem happy.”

“I missed him, it’s good to see him okay… It was weird though, he’s definitely changed.” She laughs a little, shaking her head while taking someone’s order.

“Everyone changes when you’re not looking. Sometimes it may be tempting not to look away so you can avoid that, but then you have a whole different problem. You’ll think someone hasn’t changed at all when they’re very different now. It’s good to look away, it gives you perspective.” He explains to her while taking an order from her, and slipping back to the bowls.

“This might be a little more than you’d think,” she titters awkwardly, “well, as long as he’s happy.”