The afternoon culture class was as standard as ever—same content, same teacher's explanations, no different from last semester, so dull it was hard to stay interested.
After school, Naruto didn't head straight home.
As usual, he started his daily taijutsu training. Dinner didn't worry him; a Shadow Clone at home could handle the cooking.
By the time he finished, dusk had fallen.
Sweat-soaked, Naruto didn't go back right away. Instead, he sat alone on the bank of the River Naka. The setting sun painted the water orange-red, the current murmuring past.
Expressionless, he watched the river roll on. The bright daytime grin had vanished, replaced by a calm too old for his years—and a weariness almost too faint to notice.
People's attitudes are masks.
Every attitude matches a mask, and every mask matches a life.
He turned the thought over in his mind.
Whether sunny and upbeat or modest and polite, they're all masks worn to fit the setting and reach a goal.
Wear one long enough and it won't come off; sometimes you even forget what you looked like before.
He exhaled slowly, feeling the evening breeze cool the sweat on his skin.
Keeping that smile every day, playing the cheerful go-getter… is actually exhausting.
Only when alone could he let the act drop and show the real fatigue buried in his soul.
Thinking back, he had liked to laugh in his previous life too.
By then he'd already learned to turn every past hardship into fuel for growth.
He knew wallowing was pointless, so he met life with smiles and optimism.
But now, staring at the River Naka, a clear, cold thought surfaced:
Suffering itself is never praiseworthy.
It mostly leaves trauma and depletion.
So-called "finding joy in hardship" was, to him, merely a last-ditch mental defense to keep from breaking when the pain couldn't be avoided.
Yet since coming to this world and becoming Uzumaki Naruto, he'd lost the knack for spotting scraps of joy amid setbacks.
Maybe the malice this child-body endured had been too raw, maybe the heavy chains of "Jinchuriki," or the loneliness of a transmigrator—whatever the mix, it crushed the psychological armor forged in his past life.
He still smiled, but apart from when he was with friends, the grin felt more like calculated performance than heartfelt self-healing.
"Naruto?"
A familiar girl's voice sounded behind him, tentative.
Reflexively, every trace of weariness vanished; the sunny trademark smile snapped into place as he turned.
In the sunset stood Ino Yamanaka, cradling a small bunch of fresh blooms—surprised to meet him here.
"Oh, it's you, Ino!"
he chirped, as though the lonely boy of a moment ago had never existed.
"What brings you out this late?"
His smile was flawless, sealing every real feeling away.
"I came to see the daisies."
She pointed, a bit shy, at the untended wild daisies along the bank.
"They're trying so hard to bloom—someone ought to appreciate them. Thought you were flower-watching too."
In truth, Ino had come to pick and sniff wild blossoms.
Wildflowers smell far sweeter than garden ones.
Garden flowers get fertilizer, water, perfect sun—pampered by people.
Under such care they grow plump, bloom big, and look spectacular.
Wildflowers must take whatever site nature gives them, with no extra feed or pruning; they grow scraggly, stems rampant, blooms small.
Yet their scent is intensely sweet—stronger than any garden cultivar.
The Yamanaka shop sold blooms, but Ino still preferred foraging outdoors.
She knelt by the River Naka, breathing in the fragrance.
Naruto watched her profile, suddenly remembering the packet of seeds from that morning.
"Did Uncle Inoichi like those seeds?"
Her hands stilled, ear-tips reddening. "Dad said… they're a really rare variety."
She sneaked a glance. "Where did you find them?"
"Bought them from Grass-country traders during New Year."
Konoha's itinerant merchants only cared about ryo—who the buyer was meant nothing.
Naruto loved doing business with them.
He knew nothing about flowers; he'd simply picked the priciest mix.
He glossed over it, gaze resting on her sun-gilded hair.
The quiet reminded him of an afternoon long ago when a falling maple leaf could still make him pause.
Lately he rarely had time to notice the scenery around him.
Suddenly Ino straightened, plucking a pale-purple bellflower from her bunch. "For you. bellflowers bloom in the poorest soil—just like…"
She broke off, thrust the bloom into his hand. "Just like you—tough!"
With that she hugged her bouquet and ran.
Naruto stood holding the bellflower in the deepening dusk, and finally gave a soft laugh.
This time the smile shed a little of its practiced brilliance, warmed by something real he hadn't even noticed.
He studied the faint purple, a strange feeling stirring inside.
In two lifetimes, this was the very first time anyone had given him a flower.
In his previous busy, pragmatic world—or in this strife-filled Ninja World—being handed a blossom, that small romantic or pure-hearted gesture, had simply never come his way.
The thought of days gone by made him sigh.
He'd once mused, half in self-mockery, that his first bouquet would probably be the one laid coldly on his grave.
Yet now this living bellflower, carrying the girl's clumsy encouragement and stubborn life, had abruptly, warmly landed in his palm.
The tiny kindness skipped across his heart like a stone across water, leaving ripples unlike any before.
Maybe the Ninja World isn't so bad after all, is it?