Chapter 1

She was carrying a stack of boxes when she encountered him. She wasn't that tall, with an almond face and red eyes he mistook to be Sharingan. The moment she saw him, the boxes came tumbling out of her hands. She didn't scream.

He couldn't blame her for being afraid. She'd just opened the door to a closet to find a small child staring up at her. To be fair, Naruto hadn't expected her either. This house had been empty for years. A place to hide when he was in trouble — like right now, with his painting tricks. There was red paint in his blonde hair. In the pale light, he looked ghastly.

But instead of screaming, the woman knelt down. She recollected her stuff. With the ends of her navy blue skirt, she wiped the paint off cassette tapes that had clattered out of her boxes. She left a hand print in the red paint when she leaned forward into the closet. Her head almost butted into Naruto's stomach as she reached — not for him — but the two, three, no, four thick, wide rolls of tape that had rolled into the closet, away from her grasp. He could see the top of her red swirl, about a dozen shades darker than the paint, and as she left the scent of chamomile for just a flicker before it was overpowered by paint.

She did all these things without a word. When she stood up again, the stack of boxes between her arms went back to towering over her nose. He could see the red splotches of paint along the rim of her skirt, and where her knees had been. She looked down at him with a gaze one might give a small shrine by the roadside, and with one foot she brought the door back to a close. Naruto heard the door close with a click.

He leaned forward a bit, straining, and heard the boxes land on the table with a thump, followed by a couple more thumps before her footsteps retreated away. He listened to her steps take her downstairs and, after a few moments, placed the paintbrush he'd clutched white-handed back into the half-empty paint bucket. He reached up, slightly worried, to test the doorknob.

Not locked.

He let go of his breath.

Why hadn't she scolded him? Why wasn't she angry? She didn't know him. She didn't know who he was. And if he didn't leave fast, she would surely find out. And then she would chase him out with a broom, like the other women did.

He had to stand up to his toes to turn, with enough force, the doorknob so he could free himself again. When the door opened wide, he saw the incriminating puddle of paint he'd left outside the door, where anything with eyes could see. The rest of the paint, in the bucket he'd been holding, was just going to have to be a loss for him today. He'd painted the hokages' lips a provocative red on the monument. Now there were over a dozen ninja dispatched and hounding on him.

He had to get out of here before the lady came back. Had to find a new place to hide, before the Konoha ninjas found him.

In a matter of seconds, however, he knew he was already too late. He heard the voices of men come from downstairs.

"Ah, yeah, we are — looking for a miscreant. Have you seen him?" one said.

"Devilish little boy," supplied the other.

Even Naruto didn't think it was a good idea, but he couldn't help sidling to the bedroom door so he could hear her. Her voice was soft, and it sounded like she was perpetually amidst recounting a lovely dream. "A little devil, did you say?" She more stated than asked them this. Then she said, "No. I haven't seen such a thing."

He could just about hear the two ninjas thinking: She really thinks we'd believe that?

"Your skirt," he heard one man say. "And all of that red on your hands."

"It's paint," she said. "I was painting my room, you see." She paused a moment. "I could use your help."

The first man made a noise of hesitating. "We're really busy," said the second.

"You're apprehending a criminal," she agreed. "We are lucky for all your good service." It was difficult to call her tone difficult sarcastic.

"Well…I guess, yeah," said the first. The second said something about being out of her way, and in a few moments, Naruto heard the front door lock with a click.

For a few more moments, he stalled. He'd returned to the closet, in case the ninjas tried to take a peek into the room through the window, but when he'd finished counting to over a hundred — a feat of patience for one who was seven — he couldn't stay there anymore.

He found the woman downstairs, digging heartily into a meat bun where she stood by the refrigerator. When she saw him slowly make his way around the corner, like a creeping cat, she pointed to the counter near the sink, where a plate rested with a bun like hers, alongside a glass of milk.

Naruto looked at her suspiciously, but he went and made his way forward, picking the plate off the counter. The counter was higher than his head, so he brought the plate off at a tilt, and the bun bounced off his nose and hit the ground. He hadn't had food yet that day, so he thought nothing picking it off the ground. It was cold. He made a face and saw her smile.

He ate. She didn't ask questions. As he finished, he kept staring, as children are oft to do. He put the plate back on the counter and he balanced the milk glass. She stepped forward before it could drop — and he, alarmed by the movement, was across the room in a single leap. He saw the flicker of something in her eyes. She collected herself. Holding the milk out to the farthest her dark, tan arms could extend, she said, "I don't want to hurt you."

He accepted the milk from her, gripping it in both hands. He didn't want to drop it.

And when he was finished with that, she slowly extended her hand. It was a thing that had never happened for Naruto: an adult extending a palm, face-up. Not sideways for a slap. Not downwards for a thrash. A hand for holding.

He looked up, unsure, and he gave her his hand. Her palm was soft and fleshy, and her fingers closed over his hand shortly. One day, he would do the same back, but on that day, she looked surprised at him. He realized what she'd actually been doing was asking for the cup, and he shoved it in her hands, turning red in profuse embarrassment.

"So are you gonna help me clean this mess?"

That was not one of the questions he had been expecting, and he said, "NO!" He stuck out his tongue and, now equipped with a warm belly and a milk mustache, ran out of her house.

The woman looked bewildered. When he came back in a couple of days, to the house at the edge of the wood, with its back against a boulder and one lonely fish in its pool, she wasn't there. He snuck in again. He found that room on the north side of the second floor. One wall had been painted red. When he came back a third time, he heard her footsteps on the stairs, and heart pounding, he fled. She found him on the fourth time, hiding in the closet again, with yet another bucket of paint, and yet another set of ninjas on his tail.

"Red? Again? Couldn't it be blue this time?" she said.

On that day he had Sunagakure's sand dumplings and milk tea.

"Actually, if you bring green and white next, that could be pretty useful."

This was how it started for them. He came and ate, was quiet out of fear. She asked him no questions. She was was unlike any other adult that he had ever met before. The others yelled at him. They'd beat him. They'd been, in many ways, unkind. But Naruto had always known what they would do to him. If he was him, if he was loud — he couldn't tell when it came to this lady. What would she do?

But if he could only have been honest with himself, he wasn't quiet because he was scared of her. He had been quiet because that was how he'd always seen her. He wanted to be liked by her.

The days of quiet did not last long.

He began to come by earlier and earlier in the day. He came when he was tired of running. He even came right after school. One day, heart beating raucously, he knocked on her front door, instead of sneaking in through the north side window of the second floor bedroom. A door he knocked had never been answered before, so when it happened, he went wild.

"What's your name, lady? Huh? Where did you come from? What are you doing here? Are you going to live here forever?"

That day, he could contain himself no more. That day, her house had lost all semblance of silence. He helped mop the kitchen floor — "Are you from the Land of Lightning? You're not? I thought that's where all brown people come from." — and he helped sweep the attic cobwebs — "You traveled the whole world? I'm going to travel the world too!" He helped varnish her desk — "This is just like painting!" — and he wanted to help choose dinner and sides — "Are you going to make some more dumplings? Your sand dumplings are the best." He helped unfold emptied boxes — "Do you know what my name is?" — and he stomped them flat so she could put them in storage — "I'm going to be Hokage someday!" He carried two baskets of laundry to the machine — "Is it okay if I just call you Seema?" — and he trailed after her with the new curtains she'd bought — "This color is boring. You should do orange. That's the best!"

And then it would be dark again, and he had to go back. The Third's retainers always checked on him at nine. If he wasn't in bed, there would be severe punishment. He'd go home and think of Seema and what they would be doing the next time they met.

It was a good way for his eighth year to end: Seema opening doors and finding this child; Seema giving him chores while he talked a mile; Seema holding his hand and giving him smiles; Naruto finding a place to spend time.

It would be the beginning of something great.