To his favourite ramen restaurant

As soon as he takes three steps outside, Narutos stomach begins to rumble furiously. He stops and recalls that it has been quite some time now that he had gotten something good to eat, all those little soldier pills were enough to keep him going, but not to satisfy his large stomach.

So he decides to go to the one place where he knows he can fill that hole: Ichiraku Ramen. He could navigate his way there in his sleep from anyplace and he gets there after just a short five minutes of walk. The small restaurant is lit now, but there are no other customers present. As he enters, Naruto sees that Ayame, the young daughter of Teuchi, the owner of the store, is present, looking bored.

But her face brightens up as she sees him enter. "Hey Naruto-kun, haven't seen you in a while. Wow, what's up with that look, had a rough time lately? Or did you just come out of a lions den?", she comments on his looks.

Naruto has no idea how he himself looks, but judging by her remark, it must be quite horrible.

Naruto forces a chuckle out of him. Even if her joke is too close to the truth for comfort, he is grateful that she still tries to cheer him up. "Something like that, yeah."

"The usual, Naruto-kun?", she asks in her usual chipper voice.

He knows, the usual would be three bowls of beef ramen, but he doesn't think he can stomach that now. "No, just... just a bowl of miso ramen, please.", he orders with hesitation.

Ayames smiling face turns serious as she leans over the counter. "Hey, what's wrong with you?", she asks him, her eyes narrowing, so much so that he even thinks she can look right through his head.

"W-what do you mean? I'm just a little stressed out, that's all.", he replies.

Ayame huffs in frustration. "Naruto, listen to me, I know you long enough to know when you're lying. Plus, you come here after more than a week and then just order one miso ramen? What is wrong, you can tell me."

"Thanks Ayame-chan, but..."

He stops a bit. He hopes she didn't take offense to him adding the -chan suffix to her name, but it has sort of grown used to him over the past few days. Fortunately, he sees no change in her, so he continues.

"It's really nothing I should bother you with.", he blocks her question.

On cue, his stomach growls. "Plus, I'm really hungry...", he tells her with a smirk. Fortunately, that makes Ayame return to his ramen and Naruto is saved by his stomach.

A little time later, Naruto chomps away on his miso ramen. Ayame, her attention now thankfully not on the matter of what happened to him, chats with him while he eats. And he is glad that she does it, for once it distracts him from the situation he is in. In fact, it helps him so much that he rediscovers his appetite and downs two more bowls of ramen before finally patting his stomach to signal that he was full.

After paying, Naruto gets up and is about to wish Ayame a good night before she calls out to him once. "Naruto...?"

"Yeah?"

He turns to see her fidgeting with her apron a bit. "My shifts gonna end in a minute and my father will take over. Would you mind waiting for a few and then we could go and, you know, talk?", she asks him.

"I...", he tries to think of something to refuse her this, but what can he say? "Alright, Ayame-chan.", he agrees to her.

Ayame seems happy to hear this as she vanishes in the back of the building to refresh herself a bit and get ready. Naruto stands outside, fidgeting a bit. He is tempted to run, as he recalls what Ino told him. What if he inadvertently affected Ayame-chan? The more he can keep out of this, the better, but before he can get himself ready to leave without her, he sees her happy face in his mind as he agreed to it. Can he really leave her behind like that?