I.
"Lights out," a caregiver orders. The other boys groan and whine but follow his orders shortly, already tired after a long day of roughhousing and playing ninja. They're asleep within moments.
Renge flips the switch on his lamp obediently a heartbeat later. Something deep inside of him burns and seethes at his easy compliance and the lack of control he has over something as simple as when he should go to bed.
He slides out of his bed as the feeling intensifies and doesn't bother to slip his sandals on before he walks over to the single window in the room. The moonlight slithers in and overlooks them all as the others sleep, and Renge is gratified to hear the snores and grumbles of his roommates for once in his miserable life.
It makes pushing the creaky window open a simpler task, as the sound of it reluctantly opening is masked by their useless breathing and disgusting shifting and scratching.
Renge sticks his head out of the window and peeks left and right and even up, paranoid of any witnesses now that it's the time of year when the Academy Scouts begin their month-long search and recruitment process throughout the Fire Nation's many orphanages, even though hardly any come to the one in Konoha. There's no need.
Regardless, the chunin that are sent are often gigantic sticklers, much like the matron. They enforce the village curfew with a joy no one else ever feels at the thought of yelling at children to get inside before the moon-demons catch them.
Hardly anyone really believes in the moon-demons anymore, but it's frowned upon to threaten children with the fox-demon when it's only been a few years since it sated its hundred-years-hunger with the population of Konoha.
Luckily, there are no chunin in sight, and so Renge hoists himself up onto the windowsill and scoots outside. He overestimates the size of the ledge in the limited light of the hangnail-moon in the sky and immediately falls over into the brambling twigs and depressing weeds the caretakers insist is a garden.
His face flushes in shame and a little bit of pain. The stinging sensation of small cuts on his cheeks and the soles of his feet as well as the ache of bruises forming all along the backs of his thighs distracts him from the anger he'd felt so strongly before.
It's only been a few minutes and already he's regretting his decision to sneak out tonight.
He stands up after a few more seconds dedicated solely to self-pitying and complaining under his breath, then turns back towards the window and tugs it mostly shut. Once that's done he delicately hops out of the death trap he'd fallen into and jogs across the lawn towards the small copse of trees facing this side of the orphanage.
From there, he can sneak out into the small side road that snakes around the Aburame Sector of Konoha, though it's not his favorite route to take. The telltale buzzing of the clan's kikaichu is a bothersome feeling at best and a horrifyingly itchy one beneath his skin at worst, and once he's out on the road he's quick to shuffle around the corner and head towards the abandoned Senju Ward.
The Senju clan had died out not with a bang, but with a whimper. Although the Ward and all its Mokuton-based buildings remain standing after nearly fifty-six years, the place feels ghostly and sad instead of powerful and formidable, like something created from the Shodaime's hands and soul should.
The only remaining Senju in the nation is out traversing the world and spreading her wisdom far and wide, leaving this place to wither and die like the garden that wraps around the walls of the orphanage. Renge finds it beautiful and ethereal, regardless.
There's something achingly familiar in a place left behind by bigger people for greater things.
He slides open the nearest wooden door and slinks into the dusty building like a cat, leaving it open for a moment so his eyes can adjust to the shadows and shapes of the room he's in. As soon as he's sure he can maneuver around with enough ease to reach the door across the room leading to the breezeway that connects this building to the next block, Renge slides the one behind him shut and revels in the silence that greets him kindly. The drunken revelry down the road is now blessedly unnoticeable, and Renge slides his bare feet across the floors as softly as possible.
There's no one around to hear him, but in a village full of shinobi, he feels it's best to blend in as much as possible, even when the only thing you can blend into is nothing but dust and dark and decay.
He reaches the other side of the room with minimal toe-stubbing and glides his hands across the wall until he stumbles across the handle to the backdoor, and then he's out on the breezeway and the world seems so bright even though it's nearly ten in the evening.
Across from him is the first of many small houses in the Senju Ward, and although this breezeway doesn't connect to the patio that ties together all the houses in the block, if he just heads to the right until he reaches the drain pipe on the side of the house, he can climb up onto the low-hanging roof and walk on from there. He'd go through the house itself if its doors and windows weren't all locked, much like the others in this block from this point on.
Renge pushes his sweaty curls off of his forehead once he pulls himself to the top of the drain pipe and over onto the roof, panting shakily. He languishes in the cool night air for a few moments and then stands back up with a sigh, walking over to the back of the house in less than twenty steps. He drops down into a crouch before gripping the ledge of the roof with both hands and allowing his legs to dangle over the side of the building.
He drops to his feet onto the outdoor patio that connects nearly all the houses in the block and looks around anxiously. He always feels like he's being watched when he stands on this patio.
He wonders if the ghosts of the Senju are staring at him and wondering who this little interloper could possibly be. He wonders if they welcome him or shun him in their lonely deaths. Maybe they aren't lonely if they're all together. Maybe they don't mind the company.
A shiver crawls up his spine and he thinks that maybe they do, so he jogs across the patio and heads towards the other side of the block. A small forest lining the Kita River waits for him and guards training grounds hardly ever occupied since they're so close to the village's cemetery.
When he gets to the end of the patio, he tugs himself up onto the railing and is careful not to overestimate the width of it so he doesn't fall sooner than he'd like. He stands down on the dirt road soon after and heads across it towards the trees. The damp dirt feels nice between his toes, but not so nice in the cuts he'd gotten earlier that evening.
He ignores it and tells himself he doesn't care. He'll feel much worse in the spring, when he starts at the Academy. The students actually exercise there. This is nothing.
He's approaching a lonesome tree stump when he hears the loud crack of a twig behind him, and Renge nearly startles out of his skin in fear. He whips around, expecting an Academy Scout or a Genin Corps volunteer caregiver or even a moon-demon, here to yell at him for being out past curfew, but instead he finds Uzumaki Naruto, the boy even his roommates ignore. Renge envies him for that.
"What are you doing here?" he hisses, looking to his left, his right, behind him, up into the trees. He really hopes no one else followed him out here.
The blue-eyed boy stares at him blankly for a minute, fingers twitching nervously, and then he suddenly blinks back into himself with the hoot of an owl and the shaking of the leaves in the trees. His eyes skitter away from Renge's own like a scared puppy and he shuffles his feet in the wet earth beneath them.
Renge notices he's wearing a thin pair of socks and that they're getting dirtier and dirtier the more he drags an anxious line in the almost-mud.
"What are you doing here?" the littler boy eventually works up the nerve to ask, brows furrowed. He's still unwilling to look him in the eyes again.
Renge scowls and crosses his arms. He's cold and annoyed, but mostly cold, so he stomps over to the tree stump he was heading towards before and curls up into a small ball on top of it. "I asked you first," he spits out imperiously, although most of it is muffled into his crossed arms sitting atop his knees.
"So?" Naruto mumbles. His lips curl together into his mouth as he presses his tongue to them, and he takes a hesitant step forward. Renge watches him warily, but says nothing. The blond boy takes a few more steps closer with his head tilted downwards, and then stops suddenly when he's close enough to touch the older boy if he stretched out his arms and fingers as much as he could.
His eyes glance up and meet Renge's for half a second and then instead focus somewhere over his shoulder. "I followed you," he admits, face heating up in embarrassment. He clasps his hands behind his back and frowns.
Renge rolls his eyes. "I know that, dummy," he scolds half-heartedly. He props his chin up on his arms and repeats the words louder when Naruto looks at him in confusion because they were lost in his bony elbows. The blond boy swallows. Renge can hear the dry click of his throat in the night. "Why'd you follow me?"
Naruto rocks back and forth on his heels and Renge watches the dirt seep into the cloth of his socks. "Why'd you leave?" the boy asks.
Renge huffs and shakes his hair out of his face in frustration. He digs his chin into his arms and stares the smaller boy down from his position atop the tree stump and refuses to answer him. Eventually, the blue-eyed boy scowls and asks him why he left the orphanage again, this time more brashly.
"'Cause I wanted to!" Renge says. He sneers at the younger boy. "Stop answering my questions with questions. Your questions are dumb, anyways. Why'd you follow me, huh?" he demands.
Naruto simultaneously bristles and shrinks at the dark haired boy's words. "'Cause I wanted to," he mocks Renge's own answer quietly. "It's cold out," he tells the older boy, wrapping his arms around himself.
"No duh." Renge watches the other boy as he steps a little bit closer to him, curious and wary. "What're you doing?" he asks cautiously. The boy's gotten so close Renge can feel his breath on his calves.
"Can I sit with you?" Naruto asks in response. His blue eyes look black in the shadow of his eyelashes as they focus on Renge's toes.
Renge groans. "No!" he says, scooting over. A scant few inches are revealed on the stump before he reaches the left-hand edge. "See? There's not even any room. No."
Naruto's eyes move from Renge's toes to the space the older boy revealed on the stump. "I can fit there, y'know," he insists stubbornly. "Can I sit?"
The curly haired boy sighs and shoves his head into his arms. "Fine," he relents.
The younger boy immediately clambers up onto the tree stump and nearly tilts the both of them over the sides in his haste. Renge grabs onto Naruto's puny arm and hauls himself closer to the blond as Naruto grapples with the right-hand edge of the stump. They tilt together and meet in the middle, holding on tightly until the risk of falling is gone. "Told you there's no room!"
"Sorry," Naruto mumbles. "I'm still cold. Aren't you?"
Renge looks at the blond out of the corner of his eye. "Not really," he lies.
"Oh." Naruto shivers and curls one of his legs up under himself. The other dangles over the side of the tree stump. His shorts are thin and threadbare and ride up under his skinny thighs. Gooseflesh pimples his legs all over.
Although Renge's wearing pajama pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, they're both just as thin as Naruto's socks and shorts and short-sleeved t-shirt. The older boy shivers, too. Naruto whips his head up and stares wide-eyed at him. "You are cold!" he accuses, aghast.
"Am not," Renge denies immediately.
"Are too!" Naruto argues. He looks like he wants to yell some more, but then he glances over Renge's shoulder instead and purses his lips, thinking hard. Renge wants to tell him to stop it before he hurts himself, but before he can, Naruto mumbles, "D'ya wanna… Can I…"
Renge frowns when Naruto doesn't continue. He doesn't care, not really, but it's annoying how the blond won't just spit it out. "What?"
"Hug?" Naruto eventually whispers. Renge isn't sure he's heard him right and tilts his head askance. Naruto lets out a shaky sigh and glances at him then back towards the damp dirt beneath their tree stump and repeats the word hesitantly.
"What d'ya mean?"
"I mean, can we hug? Y'know, to stay warm?" Naruto forces out. All his bravery comes and goes in short bursts - after he's asked Renge the question that's been stuck on his mind the last few minutes he falls deathly silent once more.
Renge sniffles as cold wet snot threatens to drip out of his nose, whipped frozen by the occasional breeze. "Only girls hug to keep warm." That's what the other boys in his room would've said, anyway.
"Really?" Naruto mumbles. His shoulders slump and he purses his lips.
"I dunno," Renge admits. The other boys made fun of him for having a girl's name a lot of the time, but Renge didn't think his name was that girly. So what if it was? Renge wasn't a girl. He doesn't cry when he falls out of windows and scrapes his feet up, and he likes to play outside sometimes, and he doesn't care if he gets kind of dirty. "Maybe boys can hug, too," he says, thinking of when the other boys got super close to each other as they played ninja.
That was like hugging, wasn't it?
Naruto is silent but he watches Renge hopefully. The dark haired boy watches the tree leaves rustle instead of watching the blond boy back, and neither of them say anything until an owl hoots again.
"Yeah, I guess," Renge says, tilting his face down into his left arm and letting his right dangle down by his side. Naruto sucks in a quick breath, and his fingers twitch towards Renge's hand for a few seconds before they finally latch on. He's holding onto him so hard the older boy can hear his fingers creaking in protest. "That hurts."
"Sorry," Naruto whispers, letting go of his hand. Eventually, he latches back on, this time to Renge's arm, and he shuffles so close his messy hair brushes against Renge's ear and shoulder.
Renge lets himself be tugged this way and that, and Naruto ends up curled up under his arm with his head pillowed on his collarbone. The blond wraps his arms around Renge's middle and knocks the older boy's left arm down off of his legs, causing Renge to hiss as his head jostles forward and knocks into his knee.
"Sorry," Naruto repeats again, though he doesn't sound very sorry.
Renge simply wraps his arm back around his legs and tugs them closer to his stomach. Naruto's arm gets squished into him as he does so, but he doesn't say anything about it.
Slowly, the gooseflesh on their bodies settles down into the warmth of their embrace.