Kousuke learned how to stay quiet.
Not in the way infants were expected to be quiet, but in the way people learned when they understood that attention could be dangerous. He did not cry unless his body forced him to. He did not flail unless startled. He watched instead, eyes following movement, ears catching tone long before words made sense.
His father noticed.
He never said it out loud, but there was a change in the way he handled Kousuke, a slight adjustment in posture, a longer pause before setting him down, as if recognizing something that did not fit cleanly into expectation. Kousuke did not know what his father thought of it, only that he never discouraged the silence.
The house remained simple. Nothing new was added except what was necessary. A few toys appeared over time, wooden and plain, more for utility than amusement. Kousuke theethed on them absently, more interested in the way people moved around him than in anything meant to distract him.
His father left early most mornings.
Kousuke learned the sound of his footsteps as they faded down the path outside, learned the difference between the days he wore his uniform and the days he did not. The uniform carried a different weight. When his father returned on those days, there was often a tightness in his shoulders that did not loosen until late at night.
Kousuke did not ask why. He already knew enough about systems to understand that some answers were never meant to be given.
As his body grew stronger, so did his awareness of the compound. He was carried through it more often now, strapped securely against his father's back or held in strong arms that never loosened their grip. He saw training yards where older children practiced simple movements under watchful eyes. He saw adults speaking in clusters that fell silent when someone approached.
He saw how often his father was greeted, and how rarely he was stopped.
The Konoha Police Force insignia mattered.
That realization stayed with him.
At night, when the house was quiet, his father sometimes sat beside him and cleaned his equipment. The sounds were familiar now. Metal sliding against cloth. The careful check of seals. The faint scent of oil.
"You'll walk soon," his father said one night, more to fill the silence than to inform. "Then things will change."
Kousuke did not know what walking meant yet in any real sense, but he understood change well enough. It rarely meant improvement.
He slept unevenly. His dreams were not dreams so much as memories pressing forward without warning. His old room. His laptop screen glowing in the dark. Naruto's voice talking about bonds and pain and choosing to endure. Sometimes he saw his brother's face, laughing, annoyed, worried, all the versions he had ignored.
When he woke from those moments, his body reacted before his mind could settle. His breathing quickened. His hands clenched. Small sounds escaped his throat without permission.
His father always came.
Not rushing, not panicking, he would lift Kousuke, hold him against his chest, one hand steady against his back.
"You're safe," he said each time, voice low and firm. "You're home."
Kousuke did not believe in safety. He believed in proximity. In patterns. In people who stayed.
Those weeks passed quietly, until they did not.
One evening, his father returned later than usual. His uniform was still on, but there was blood on the sleeve, not much, dried and dark. It was not his own. Kousuke knew that immediately, though he could not explain how.
His father noticed him staring.
"It's nothing," he said, almost reflexively.
Kousuke made a small sound in response. Not a cry. Just noise.
His father hesitated, then sighed softly. He set his equipment aside without cleaning it and picked Kousuke up instead.
"There are things you don't need to understand yet," he said. "And things I hope you never will."
The words were heavy, spoken more to the air than to the child in his arms.
Kousuke rested his head against his father's chest and listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Strong. Controlled. Alive.
He wondered how long that would remain true.
As the night deepened, voices carried faintly through the compound walls. Conversations he could not hear clearly, but whose tension was unmistakable. The village was restless. Even without context, Kousuke felt it in the way people moved, in the way doors closed a little more firmly than before.
Something was building.
He did not know what form it would take. He only knew that watching was no longer enough. Someday, he would have to move.
For now, he stayed quiet, eyes open.