Murdock sighed and tried to roll back over and curl up in the small nest of blankets he'd made on B.A.'s floor after he'd made sure that Naruto was comfortable on the couch the night before when Naruto woke him up at first light insisting that they go to the library NOW. Most kids, when given the opportunity to sleep in, would take advantage of it for all it was worth until their exasperated parents/guardians/babysitters/whatever finally dragged the blankets off of them and shoved them out of bed. Not Naruto however. The hyperactive kid was earlier to rise than B.A. who was getting his early morning grumbling in, having undoubtedly been awoken by Naruto's antics as well. Any hope of getting back to sleep, no matter how vain it was however, had been crushed when B.A. had told him that it was check-out time for Crazy Fools and that he'd better hit the road before he got out of the shower.
Over the years, he had been able to sort out the difference between "Things B.A. Doesn't Like" and Things B.A. Doesn't Like, and carefully dance along the line between the two categories, never actually truly overly annoying B.A.. More often than not, he amused and entertained the supposedly rather short-tempered man who enjoyed sabotaging his routines while pretending to be upset with him. Showing up in the middle of the night completely unannounced with a guest in tow and having said guest wake B.A. up before the sun was even up fell rather firmly into the latter category however. At this point, despite the fact that he was exhausted since he hadn't been able to sleep properly the last couple of nights because there was a new patient whose screams he had yet to get used to tuning out in a room down the hall from his, it would be better to leave, and come back later when B.A. had had a chance to calm down a bit.
Grumbling at the early wake-up call a bit himself, he made his way down to where B.A. usually parked his van to retrieve the duffel bag of belongings he kept in it for when he made his all too frequent escapes from the Hospital. He wasn't entirely sure how to deal with the fact that Naruto only had the clothes on his back at the moment, since nothing of his would fit the kid, but that particular problem could hold for another day since the boy wasn't too dirty. They could always go to Amy's apartment and pick up whatever belongings the kid had acquired during the few short days he'd been here later if they absolutely had to. It wasn't like the woman who had undoubtedly called the police when she realized the boy was missing had kicked the kid out of her apartment. Going there however would be a bit troublesome because he'd then have to answer a number of awkward questions before he was shipped back to the hospital.
Ten minutes after he'd retrieved his belongings from the van, he was dressed for the day, and he and Naruto were out the door and getting their breakfast off of a snack truck down the street since he had decided it unwise to further impose on B.A.'s hospitality at the moment. After breakfast was purchased, he herded the overly energetic boy onto a bus that would take them to a park somewhere in one of the reasonably nice neighborhoods to kill time until the library opened at 10. He had promised the boy that he would take him to a park as well as the library today after all, and the only thing within walking distance of the library that could be considered a park was that concrete eyesore that had been going downhill since World War Two.
He knew that bringing the kid to the Main Branch library where most of the material was in English, rather than bringing the boy to the Chinatown or Little Tokyo branches where there would be a great deal more books in a language Naruto could read was sneaky of him, but he wanted to give the boy motivation to learn English so he could better manage on his own in this world. Having most of the books the boy wanted to read be unavailable to him because of a language barrier would give the boy that motivation.
When the bus let them out near a park that he'd been to a couple of times before and found to be reasonably safe, he found that it wasn't abandoned as such a place usually was at this hour on a weekday. He knew it was a weekday because he'd double-checked the date B.A.'s calendar to make sure he hadn't lost a day, since it was rather easy to lose track of the date at the Hospital where one day blends into the next if you weren't paying attention. Since it wasn't a holiday, one of the local schools must have been having a teacher conference or training day that day. The boy was scowling when they reached the park, but, that scowl soon eased a bit, and that smile which seemed to be both genuine and a mask at the same time reappeared like the sun coming out of the clouds by the time they reached the small tree-shaded playground.
Naruto hadn't been too happy to be herded to a park when all he wanted to do, which had been all he'd wanted to do practically since the first moment he had arrived in this strange city was head to the library so he could figure out what had gone wrong with the seal he'd made and fix it. The park was admittedly rather nice, but it wasn't where he wanted to be at the moment, and he could tell that Murudaku-san knew it.
His near burning desire to visit the library was somewhat ironic considering the fact that he rarely visited the library back home, usually preferring to buy his books and scrolls outright or, more commonly, scrounging them from somewhere shortly before they were thrown out. He'd never been actively chased out of the Konoha library during his infrequent visits nor had he been forbidden from entering it in the first place, but he'd found the atmosphere there to be cold and unwelcoming, and, worst of all, he was expected to remain still and silent while he was there so as not to disturb the other people, which was a near impossibility for him most of the time. He had too much energy, and if he didn't let it out, he got all twitchy until he did.
The relatively small patch of green that was dotted here and there with trees with a playground set up at one end which looked very much like a couple of the parks back in Konoha, complete with swings, a slide, and a jungle gym looked reasonably nice, but he'd always had mixed feelings about parks. Part of the reason for this was the rejection he constantly suffered when he went to the ones that were near his apartment and near the Academy, especially when parents were around to call their kids away before they agreed to play with him. Another part of the reason for this was the feeling that he was missing something, something important, as he watched the parents play with their children, or walk them home at the end of the day. Aside from the few and far between occasions where he arrived with Chouji, Shikamaru, and Kiba or a combination of the three, he himself almost always arrived alone, and left alone when he went to the park.
During their travels together, Ero-senin almost never took him to the park, especially not after that incident where the woman the lecherous old drunk who also happened to be one of the most skilled ninja on the continent and a master spy despite his distinct appearance was trying to hook up with mistakenly thought that Ero-senin was his grandfather, and made a comment along those lines. The man had shown him he cared for him in a million other small ways though, such as breaking his popsicle in half and sharing it with him when he got them despite the fact that nobody would blame him if he ate the whole thing by himself.
Murudaku-san seemed nice enough, but it was entirely possible that the reason the man had brought him here was because man was trying to distract him. He didn't doubt the existence of a library in this city. In a city this size, it would be insane for there to not be one. What he doubted was whether or not the library would live up to what he'd been led to expect, and the man's intentions of bringing him there. The man seemed to be stalling for some reason. It was entirely possible that that reason he was stalling was because the library actually wasn't open for the day like he claimed, but he didn't understand why that would be. From what he'd heard, Librarians were generally the sort who almost religiously followed the Shinobi virtues, and were usually up and at their posts before the sun. Those that worked the day shift were at least, and the ones on the night shift were always up well before full dark according to what he'd heard.
This city wasn't Konoha however, and as Murudaku-san had pointed out, since almost everyone here was a civilian, businesses here tended to keep civilian hours. That meant that there were a rare few places in the city that were open at sunrise or stayed open all hours, and those were usually small markets which were similar to the 24 hour Shinobi Marts, except for the fact that they never sold weapons.
The fact that he couldn't see or feel any hostile glares from the parents who were watching as their children played when he and Murudaku-san entered the park firmly drove home the fact that he wasn't at home and that things were different here. Deciding that he may as well enjoy the park a bit while he was here, he made a beeline for the swings. That was at least something he could enjoy by himself without the fear of rejection he might suffer if he tried playing with one of the few kids who were occupying the playground. Despite the fact that nobody here knew him, he would still be the odd one out because he couldn't understand the local language. He had a tendency to sit on the swing that was tied to a tree outside of the Academy when he was depressed, but the swings in the park were a slightly different matter. With the swings in the Konoha parks, he could pretend that he was playing with the other children and that he was actually having fun until he lost track of what was going on and he really did have some fun despite other people's best efforts at bringing him down.
He tensed up slightly when Murudaku-san came up behind him when he sat down on the middle swing in the rather large swingset. Rather than trying to do something foolish and potentially suicidal considering the fact that he was armed and Murudaku-san wasn't, the man gripped the chains of the swing he was sitting on, and pulled the swing back. Before he could even figure out why the man was doing this, the man pushed on his back, forcing the swing forward. When the swing came back to where Murudaku-san was standing, he pushed on his back again to make the swing move forward again. It took a couple of repeats of this strange behavior for him to realize exactly what was going on because it hadn't happened in years. Aside from when the Old Man used to when he was little, nobody pushed him on the swings.
He tentatively added Murudaku-san's name to his list of precious people then and there, hoping and praying that he didn't turn out to be like Mizuki.
