Prelude
Uzumaki Naruto likes Mondays best. He gets no visitors on Mondays, is allowed to sit on his bed and look out his windows at the sky and clouds all day long. Sometimes he hears bird-song, but mostly it's just human voices that crowd the air. Even that he can bear – none of them are ever directed at him, after all, and they usually don't sound too angry.
Naruto sits, and sleeps, and dreams in warm sunlight.
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Every other Tuesday is all right. But on odd weeks, Naruto gets groups of visitors. They come sober with bottles of sake, harsh and hungry-eyed; they come sober, but don't stay that way.
In an hour, sometimes less, they're drunk and holding him down, as if he'll fight back, as if the thought hadn't been beat out of him before he was ever old enough to know what is going on.
They leave him bloody and raw every time, laughing drunkenly about "teaching the fox, not so tough now," and Naruto curls into a ball. He closes his eyes and waits for morning to come.
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A woman wearing a formal kimono with her hair up and make up elaborate comes Wednesdays; every Wednesday, without fail, just as dusk falls into evening. She slaps him with a five-ringed hand, continues slapping until her palm is slick with blood and Naruto is knocked down, ears ringing.
"Say you're sorry," she demands, eyes cold and voice cold and fingers cold where they grip his chin.
Naruto does. He says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," until his throat is hoarse and he's forgotten other words exist.
He says, "I'm sorry," and he means it, he always always means it. He doesn't know what for, but he'll keep on saying it until the day comes when the woman won't slowly start to cry, great tears tracking through her powdered cheeks.
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The schoolteacher comes on Thursdays, early in the afternoon – after class lets out, Naruto guesses. Sometimes he yells at Naruto, things like, "I hate you!" and "Just… just die." But afterwards he'll shake his head and rub his eyes tiredly. He never hits Naruto. Naruto is grateful.
Sometimes Naruto can creep close enough to the schoolteacher to un-knot his tightly bound hair and let it fall loose. It relaxes the teacher's face, makes him look younger and softer, vulnerable, like a child.
On those days the teacher will look at Naruto with haunted eyes and say, "You're just a boy. Aren't you?" and then shake his head. "No. No – you can't be – you have to be the fox, you have to be."
Naruto nods and agrees and silently hopes this won't be the day the schoolteacher finally hits him like all the others have done.
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Fridays are the worst, salarymen with paychecks, itching to let off steam. They crowd in, mouths open, fists grabbing. Naruto has learned to do what they want. He screams for them, begs and bleeds. He swallows when they tell him to swallow, spreads himself open at their command.
It's the only way to make it through the night. Naruto has mastered the art of survival.
Once the last of the men has gone and he has dragged himself to the bath, Naruto sits shivering in water. He pours bucket after bucket over top of himself, but still feels stained.
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Saturdays are much like Fridays, except less frenzied. The men don't come in packs; at most, in twos. They're calmer, which is almost worse, because then they have a method to go about. Some of them bring ropes to bind him, some chain; some, razor wire. Some bring matches and burn him. Most bring knives
Some only want him kneeling with his mouth open. Some only want him on his back with his knees spread wide.
Somewhere down the line, it became a tradition for newly made Jounin to "celebrate" with him. They come in on Saturdays, drunk and with their buddies cheering them on. Morning never comes soon enough.
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Sundays are entirely bought by one man who wears a mask over his mouth and prowls around Naruto like an angry dog.
"I'm not going to help you," he says. "I don't care if Yondaime wanted you to be a hero, if Sandaime wanted you protected. You have to save yourself."
Naruto just nods. It's the only gesture that seems to placate the restless man. When he tried once to do what most other men wanted him to do, he was thrust away.
"You have enough power to get of this," the man says, voice muffled through his mask. "Use it."
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But Naruto doesn't care, not really. Every mark on him, from Wednesday's slaps to Saturday's beatings, heals by morning. The only scars he carries are the whisker like ones on his cheeks, and the ones beneath his skin.
In the meantime, he has his Mondays; and everyone else has someone to blame.