Naruto Uzumaki didn't care for vegetables. They were either tastelessly bland or so full of horrible flavor that his nose wanted to grow backwards into his head and smell his brain because, surely, that was better than this.

This was a plate of fresh, leafy greens presented to him by a thin-mouthed Ayame Ichiraku, her father standing consolingly behind her.

"C'mon, Naruto-chan. I know you can manage this."

He could smell their raw-ness. Carrots weren't so bad. Cooked and salted, they, like onions, were bearable. But the girl (who didn't know who she was dealing with - his pranks weren't only reserved for those who ignored him!) had loaded up the platter with lettuce (grass), small radishes cut into squares, pink skin bleeding into the white (the spice cut his nose, even from its bearable distance on the table), and tomatoes. At first glance, Naruto had liked tomatoes. They were a delicious red, plump and filled with a fleshy juice that squirted into his mouth. Before he'd registered the taste, he recognized the sensation as heavenly. But then the bland, covering-bitter taste had hit him, and he never touched one since. They were his greatest disappointment.

Relief, of course, came in the form of ramen. Warm, liquid, with filling noodles and likely containing meat. Above all, salty. The closest he'd come to sation since that incident. (But they never, ever talked about it. Hokage-jiji told him not to mention it, no matter what, and he'd been so scared of trouble that he'd agreed.) And the richest, fattiest ramen, with the longest noodles and juiciest meat came only from Ichiraku's.

Ramen which Ayame was promising him at half-price for a week, if he could hold down a plate of rabbit food.

Naruto held back the bile which gathered in his throat at the thought of consuming anything on the plate without accompaniment, and bit into a tomato, imploring himself to ignore the taste, focus on the texture, the feel of the skin bursting at his teeth, water flowing into his mouth, fake-meat squishing between his jaws. 'Think salty,' he reminded himself, 'This is a mouthful of noodles,' a handful of leaves - he didn't know what that was, covered the sensation up with cucumbers (almost like tomatoes, but he was more cautious when he encountered them, and was not so let down). 'Think meat,' he told himself, which did the trick much better.

And then the fantasy went bad. Because cooked meat turned to raw meat really fast, watery tomato juice becoming something richer and darker, white radish becoming white something else. He tried not to think about how this was wrong, wrong, wrong but focused on finishing the plate, ignoring how satisfying the feel of crushing a carrot between his back teeth was, or peeling the skin off a cucumber stick between his front.

And then he was done, feeling too full of nothing, stomach asking him why he'd done that, but smiling shakily at a beaming Ayame.

"There! That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Ramen!" he asked, brandishing a pair of chopsticks, and both the shop owner and his daughter moved to rustle up 'something special' for such a feat.

Naruto sighed - but no, stop, don't, if you do - ! - and threw up neatly onto the ground, tasting not only the acid but also the carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, goddamn, even the lettuce gained some form of flavor this time around! He peered carefully at the vomit, wondering idly what would happen now, blinking up at Ayame, whose hands were covering her mouth and the old man, who was shaking his head.

"Next time, let's not force it, huh?" the man said, scooping the mess carefully into the trash, kicking some dirt up over the stain. "Come on, Naruto, let's get you to the hospital."

Naruto didn't care for the hospital, either.

[-M-]

When Naruto was little, it wasn't hard to get him to eat, as long as it wasn't vegetables. Grains and meat and milk went in just fine, though maybe with too much salt or sweetener, and he always ate more than expected, planning on growing up to be a big, strong ninja.

Until one day he got a big cut from a kunai he was practicing with, and decided to lick it to clean up or because spit was good for cuts (but really because he saw an actual ninja doing it, and ninja were super cool) and discovered that blood...tasted really good.

Other people were a no-no. Cuts hurt, and he wasn't supposed to hurt his fellow Konoha shinobi. But he was fair game, so he cut some more, and licked some more, a little more, every day, until he accidentally fell asleep in class and didn't wake up for a whole day. When he did wake up, he was in the hospital, with the Hokage introducing him to Inoko Yamanaka, who was asked him a lot of questions about the villagers and his teachers and his friends at school.

In the end, he was let off with some very stern remarks not to hurt himself any more, that drinking blood was not okay, and that he really should try to make friends with the other children.

It took him six years to realize animals weren't people. He'd spent most of his money on old scrolls, and food had dwindled until he was down to a can of tuna and a rock-hard piece of bread, and the unlucky bird who decided to rest on his windowsill was just plain stupid. He ate it faster than he ate ramen - and he inhaled ramen - messily, obsessively, sucking the stain from his fingers and ripping out the digestive tract like he'd done it all his life, cleaning away the feathers the same way he cleaned away ramen containers after breakfast.

The next day, he'd hunted, walked to the woods and waited until a rabbit darted past him. He watched the white tail disappearing into bushes on fast feet - but not fast enough, because he had it by the legs, struggling, clawing and making more lines of red appear on his own skin and that - he took the rabbit's head - he knew - twisted - wasn't okay.

If his teeth grew longer, no-one cared. If his nails grew sharper and harder, no-one noticed. If he seemed happier, more energetic, playing pranks and giving it one hundred-ten percent, well, that was noticed by everyone.

He was on a mission. He was going to make his first friend.

As it happened, his first friendship happened not through mutual enjoyment of the same things, but through Naruto very badly needing to keep his enjoyment of one thing in particular a secret.

Hinata Hyuuga watched him. She watched him try his best at school and get back up with a smile when he failed. Watched him act silly, spraying water at snobby girls and leaving paint on teachers' seats. Watched him try to befriend Sasuke Uchiha, the strongest, and get ignored. Watched him try to befriend Sakura Haruno, the smartest, and get rejected. Watched him watch them, and wonder what he'd done wrong.

Watched him work off the stress training through target practice in the woods. Watched target practice become something more of a horror show, watched his head shoot up to see who'd followed him after she brushed against a bush. Watched him watch her, and wait.

For screaming, she guessed. For more rejection, and then to go to school tomorrow and have her ignore him. But no, she wasn't like Sasuke or Sakura. She wanted to talk to Naruto, play with him, train with him.

So she pulled out a white handkerchief and held it out to him, "Y-You've got s-s-something on your fa-face."

And he took it from her, the red coming away to reveal surprise.

"I-I'm Hinata."

"I'm Naruto." He grinned, and blood specked his teeth. "Wanna be friends?"

[-M-]

Hinata's stomach had long-since stopped churning at the thought of dead things. This could be because she was a kunoichi-in-training, or it could be because it was her fourth month in a row arranging raw meat to look appealing in a bento for her crush. Blood didn't bother her any more than soy sauce, and she could even stomach small amounts of whatever Naruto asked her to try, just so that he didn't feel bad for eating like an animal.

Imagine! Before they'd met, he'd been eating one meal a day, after school, because there was just no way for him to leave school to hunt for lunch without getting messy in the process. Lucky for him, Hinata had keep-cool lunchboxes and was willing to undergo lots of scrutiny from those who saw her at work in the kitchen in the morning to have him fed.

He was grateful, a little uncomfortable at first, but it melted away once it became quite apparent she didn't have very many problems with his diet. (The first and foremost one being that it was inconsistent and there was no way he was eating enough with one meal a day, the second one being that it wasn't something they could share like real best friends did. When Naruto did share, it was a bit of a task for her to keep it down.)

[-M-]

The attack on Naruto by a drunk civilian wasn't so much of an event as it was a catalyst. There was just something about having your worst fears yelled straight into your face that made you lose it.

When Naruto woke up, he was in the hospital, a tired Hokage and Iruka waiting for him to have another talk.

"I'm sorry!" Naruto yelled, looking terrified, "I swear, I didn't mean to do it, I just - when he said what I - I couldn't see - I'm really sorry, I - !"

"Calm down, Naruto," the Hokage said sternly, "We are not upset with you. What do you remember from what happened?"

Everything, he thought. The man's screams when Naruto advanced on him, how the smell of his fear permeated the clearing, how he tasted…

Hinata's horror.

Naruto shook his head, "I remember - eating…" And wasn't that an appealing idea? His stomach didn't churn at the thought like it did with vegetables. The pile of flesh that had been the drunk wasn't a friend or a person or anyone, it was just...food. Food that couldn't even run away or fight back. Nothing sick about it.

Except that it was a person, a person that he killed, and he knew that ninja killed bad guys all the time, and the man was a bad guy, but after he killed him he ate him and that was notokay.

"Yes," the Hokage said, watching him with serious eyes. "But you didn't attack Hinata."

Naruto blinked, "Of course not."

"Were you aware that Hinata wouldn't attack you?"

"Y-Yeah? ...But it was Hinata! Why would I - ?"

"Naruto, the point of these questions is to make sure you aren't a danger to Konoha nin. We want to have you as a genin, but if you can't control yourself, it's going to be hard to have you as a shinobi," Iruka said gently.

"More to the point, you will have to be monitored and confined for the safety of Konoha," the Hokage said around his pipe.

Naruto blinked tears out of his eyes, feeling the combination of every insult aimed at him gather into a lead weight inside his chest. "I'm sorry," he said thickly, "I didn't mean to. I've been eating animals and the lunches Hinata-chan prepares for me - "

"You know Hinata?" Sarutobi asked.

"Ah, they're friends at school," Iruka interjected.

"I see… She knows the secret?" A puff of smoke escaped his nostrils.

Naruto nodded.

"Let her in," the Hokage called, and after about a minute, the door to the room opened.

Hinata shuffled in, keeping her face hidden between her sleeves and bangs. Naruto managed to give a wave, and she cracked a smile in return.

"Hyuuga-san," the Sandaime said, "Please take a seat."

The only place to sit, besides the floor, was the bed, so she awkwardly made her way over to sit at the foot of it, and Naruto nudged her with his foot.

"Hey."

"Hi."

And then the story began. How the Yondaime, in a few short seconds, sealed the fate of an infant Naruto Uzumaki. How Naruto's cravings for meat were explained by the demon living in his belly.

How Naruto spent a period of every day controlling Konoha's wildlife population. How Hinata had caught him. How she was the only one Naruto had ever shared this problem with.

"It's evident from what you've said that this is something you've been dealing with for a while. But Hinata is right - one, or even two meals a day isn't enough. And we can't let you around other Academy students when there's the risk of your eating habits being spotted, anymore. This must remain a secret."

"B-But I want to be a ninja!" Naruto said, voice getting squeaky again. Hinata put her hand on his foot - the best reassuring gesture she could make with the arrangements they were in - but for some reason, when he looked at her, he didn't look comforted.

"And you will be. But I will assign you a private teacher; one that can handle the Kyuubi's energy. This way, there won't be any concern about exposing your secret," the Hokage said calmly.

Naruto's shoulders slumped, though it looked to be more relief than anything else.

[-M-]

The name of Naruto's mysterious teacher was not revealed to him, but he was free of the hospital within two hours of waking up. At the crossroads that went off in the different directions the kids would have to take to get home, Hinata and Naruto said their goodbyes.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Naruto-kun. Before school, like always." The girl said steadily, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"No."

Her breath caught in her throat. 'Why not?'

"Hinata, you saw what happened. What I did. I can't - I'm a monster." Naruto shook his head. He was shaking. Hinata could hear the hitch in his voice that she'd learned about just today, that meant that he was about to cry. "I can't be friends with you. You're too nice for me." And with that, he turned away from her and ran the road to his apartment.

Hinata swayed, finding it hard to stand without support. That was it? That was the extent to which she and Naruto would ever know each other? And the deciding factor, the thing that had pushed him away in the end, was that she was too nice?

She sniffed. Tried not to cry. Turned away from where she could still see the speck of his yellow hair in the distance and ran back the way they'd come, past the hospital and its gardens, into the woods behind it. Running through the wood here wasn't fun at all. There were brambles and poky rocks and twigs on the path that dug into the soles of her old sandals. She tripped over a big rock, once, and got the wind knocked out of her so she had to walk for the rest of the journey into the forest.

This was it. The only person in the world who cared about what happened to her, and he'd said she was too nice. She always seemed to be 'too' something. Too shy, too quiet, too clumsy, too soft. Too little.

She followed her ears to a stream and soaked her feet in it, washing the dirt off, not surprised to find some blood as well. The cuts on her toes and knees weren't closed, but they were free of dust and bits of leaves, glistening cleanly at her. She rolled onto her back, pulled a knee up to her mouth and ran her tongue over the broken skin. Metal and salt. That's all it was. No big deal. Especially not if Naruto was attacking animals. Especially not if Naruto was attacking that man.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of wet dirt and water. Why was being nice such a bad thing? She just wanted everyone to be okay. Naruto most of all.

But he wanted her to be okay, too. And after seeing how bad he could be, he was probably just trying to fix things. He was too bad for her.

'Well, fine,' Hinata thought. 'I can be badder.'

She got up and dusted off her pants - then, realizing that's what all good girls did, because they did not get dirty, deliberately kept them stained. Then she began walking back.

[-M-]

Naruto woke up to the feeling of another body pressed against his, and looked down to find Hinata - hair mussed, face dirty and still asleep - lying on top of him in a sort-of hug. He half hoped this meant she hadn't listened to him.

"H-Hinata?"

Her eyes opened slowly, and she fixed him with a frown, "I am not too nice!"

"Why are you in my room?" he asked.

"Because you said I was too nice, and...that's a stupid reason not to be friends!" she said angrily, still not getting off of him. "And...and I'm not getting off of you until you apologize!"

"I'm sorry," he said, very confused, "Can you get off now? My arm's getting pins n' needles."

"Oh, okay. Sorry." She climbed off and let him massage the feeling back into his arm, staring at him.

He stared back at her.

"I...I still wanna be friends," she mumbled. "I really like being your friend, Naruto."

He swallowed, "I like being your friend, too, Hinata. But I eat people."

"I don't care." Hinata stared hard at him. "I'll be scarier."

He gaped, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

They blinked at each other for a few moments before Hinata tackled him back onto his bed in a hug. He returned it, tight, liking the feel of someone being this close. She smelled icky, like sweat and dirt, but he didn't really care right now.

"If I'm being mean..." Hinata whispered, and then her fingers found his ribs.

"H-Hey!" Naruto said, kicking at her to get her to stop tickling him, "That's dirty!"

"That's ninja," Hinata corrected with a smile and pounced on him again.

...

...

A/N: Maybe this time it will be dark? I want to make something scary and sexy. Immutare goes too far into being sweet. Though this chapter's already too cute. Hmph.

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