I am honestly incapable of finishing a story OR sticking to one fandom. It's sad.

This is my first Naruto fic. It will not be the last.

For Want of a Bowl

The devil really is in the details.

Take, for example, this little episode- a starving little blond boy in an ill fitting orange jumpsuit looks longingly at a ramen bar, once again having to choose between food or non-moldy clothes. He takes a whiff of the cooking noodles, looks at the tanned man with a scar across the bridge of his nose that is obviously enjoying his bowl and making friendly conversation with the chef, and is reminded that he has neither food nor a friend.

He starts to cry. The scarred man notices.

Here is where one story becomes two. Suspicion and resentment battle with sympathy and reason within the mind of the scarred man. In the story where the latter two win, he treats the boy to a bowl of ramen. The boy is overjoyed, having gained a friend, a renewed faith in humanity and a favorite food. He comes back regularly. The scarred man is made a better person for it, having seen that the boy he thought of as a monster is just a boy. The resentment he has felt withers and dies. The ramen chef's daughter is happy, having gained the little brother she always wanted. The chef himself is happy, having sold more ramen. The ripple effects of this shared happiness are felt all over the world.

That is the best story. Now for the other one.

Suspicion and resentment win. A still-boiling bowl of ramen is instead poured over the boys head. The boy is heartbroken, his faith in humanity shattered and a hatred of ramen kindled. He looks in a mirror later, seeing the burns already healed, and wonders. The scarred man is made the worse for it, not having the chance to see the prison rather than prisoner. His hatred consumes him, and he becomes a tyrant to his students. The chef's daughter is horrified but, out of fear, says nothing. The chef is disturbed, and eventually sends his daughter to live far away.

It was the best thing he could have done. The ripple effects of that random act of meanness killed himself, the scarred man, a great leader, the hope of a city and a metric crap-ton of potential.

The daughter lived a satisfying, if insignificant, life.