Chapter 2
WHERE IT BEGINS
Evening, December 23, 1996
Naruto Uzumaki is eight. He wears a thin, faded red-print shirt with too-short sleeves, off-white pants, gray boots, and a brown, nappy coat with two missing buttons. His short, bright-blond hair stands in messy spikes around his head. He rides on a Konoha train with his mother from their home in Leaf Village, Konoha, to Wind Valley to visit his grandmother. Mother reads the Globe across from him. There is a picture on the cover of an enormous man wearing a power-blue tuxedo. Naruto rests his head against the window, watching his breath makes a cloud on it.
The cloud blurs Naruto's vision so slowly that he doesn't realize what is happening. He floats in the fog for a moment, and then he is in a large room, sitting at a conference table with five men and three women. At the front of the room is a tall, balding man with a briefcase. He stands in his underwear, giving a presentation, and he is flustered. He tries to speak but he can't get his mouth around the words. The other adults are all wearing crisp suits. They laugh and point at the bald man in his underwear.
The bald man looks at Naruto.
And then he looks at the people who are laughing at him.
His face crumbles in defeat.
He holds the briefcase in front of his privates, and that makes the others laugh harder. He runs to the door of the conference room, but the handle is slippery-something slimy drips from it. He can't get it open; it squeaks and rattles loudly in his hands, and the people at the table double over. The man's underwear is grayish-white, sagging. He turns to Naruto again, with a look of panic and pleading.
Naruto doesn't know what to do.
He freezes.
The train's brakes whine.
And the scene grows cloudy and is lost in fog.
"Naruto!" Naruto's mother is leaning toward Naruto. Her breath smells like gin, and her straggly
hair falls over one eye. "Naruto, I said, maybe Grandma will take you to that big fancy toy store.
I thought you would be excited about that, but I guess not." Naruto's mother sips from a flask in her ratty old purse.
Naruto focuses on his mother and smiles. "That sounds fun," He says, even though he doesn't like little baby toys that they sell at that store. He would rather have a new shirt. He moves his arms and winces when the fabric rubs into his arms. He thinks about the bald man and scrunches his eyes.
'Weird.'
When the train stops, they take their bags and step into the isle. In front of Naruto's mother, a
disheveled, bald business man emerges from his compartment.
He whips his face with a handkerchief.
Naruto stares at him.
His jaw drops. "Whoa," he whispers.
The man gives him a bland look when he sees him starring, and turns to exit the train.