"You okay, Naruto?"
"Ah, um, yes! Of course I'm fine, dattebayo!" Naruto flashed a blinding, impossibly bright smile.
Suzuki stared at the blonde boy for a long moment, carefully analyzing the micro-expressions hiding behind that grin. After a beat, he sighed softly. "We're going to get BBQ. Do you want to come? It's my treat."
"Eh? Your treat?!"
Gulp.
Naruto swallowed hard. His mouth practically watered at the thought of premium grilled meat. He knew perfectly well that with his meager stipend, eating at a high-end BBQ joint was impossible. The temptation was too strong. He nodded vigorously. "Okay!"
"...."
The rest of the group exchanged speechless glances. Most people would have been too ashamed to crash a graduation party immediately after failing the exam. But this was likely the last time they would see Naruto in a casual setting before he was held back a year—a fate Suzuki was secretly incredibly jealous of, considering he didn't really want to graduate to the lethal workforce anyway.
They all headed to the restaurant and ate like starving wolves. Hinata, in particular, didn't hold back her monstrous appetite in the slightest. Being around Suzuki had made her significantly braver. As Suzuki had previously pointed out to her, she was the princess of the Hyuga Clan, effectively local nobility. Who in this civilian restaurant would actually dare to judge her for eating twenty plates of beef?
Still, while he kept Hinata's tea topped off, Suzuki's main focus remained on observing Naruto. The boy didn't seem gloomy at all. In fact, he was laughing the loudest.
Is it even psychologically possible for him to process depression? Suzuki wondered.
After analyzing the boy's behavior, Suzuki came to a grim realization. Naruto suffered from extreme "toxic positivity." It was a brutal psychological defense mechanism. To survive the absolute crushing isolation of the village, Naruto's brain essentially forced him to stay hyper-positive, sunny, and loud, aggressively burying every horrible, traumatic thought as if it didn't exist.
What a pitiful way to live, Suzuki sighed inwardly.
But he knew he didn't have the luxury of playing therapist. His own life was still at the mercy of the village hierarchy. Furthermore, getting too close to the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki right now would attract the unwanted, paranoid gaze of the ANBU and Danzo.
When the mountain of plates was finally cleared, Suzuki stood up.
"Where are you going after this, Suzuki?" Naruto asked quickly, his loud facade slipping for just a fraction of a second.
"I'm going to work," Suzuki replied, dropping enough ryo on the table to cover the massive bill before sliding his wallet back into his pocket.
"Work? Aren't you overworking yourself?" Shikamaru yawned, looking at Suzuki incredulously. "We just graduated."
"I don't come from a wealthy clan like you, Shikamaru. I don't get a monthly allowance."
"...." Shikamaru wisely shut his mouth.
"Do your best, Suzuki-kun," Hinata smiled softly, her pale eyes filled with gentle encouragement.
"Thank you, Hinata. Your father is probably waiting for you. You should head back to the compound before it gets too late."
"Um," she nodded obediently.
"You too, Ino."
"Hey! Why is my goodbye so plain compared to hers?!" Ino complained, crossing her arms.
"...." Suzuki rolled his eyes and seamlessly adjusted his tone. "Please be careful on your way home, Ino. Your parents are waiting for you, right?"
Ino looked instantly satisfied. "Actually, do you want to visit my place? My parents wouldn't mind if you came over, you know."
"..."
The entire table went silent. Shikamaru and Choji discreetly gave Ino a double thumbs-up from under the table.
"Let's do it another time. I'm too busy right now," Suzuki declined smoothly. It wasn't an excuse; he was actively planning to expand his business portfolio from real estate and charcoal into a highly lucrative new sector.
"Okay," Ino didn't push it. She had seen how relentlessly Suzuki worked, and his ambition was honestly part of his charm. "But my parents do want to formally meet you soon. Is that okay?"
"...Okay."
Suzuki nodded. He caught Shikamaru giving him another thumbs-up, while Hinata just continued to smile with that perfectly blank, deeply terrifying expression of hers.
"....."
"Right. I'll be going now. See you all tomorrow."
Suzuki briskly walked out of the restaurant. He was physically twelve years old. Why on earth did he have to navigate aristocratic clan matchmaking already?
Once Suzuki left, the rest of the group quickly dispersed to their respective homes, chatting excitedly about their new lives as official ninja and gossiping about what kind of business Suzuki might launch next.
"Will he really start a new business?" Choji asked around a toothpick.
"There's a high probability," Shikamaru nodded.
"What do you think it is?"
"...I don't know the specifics, but I guarantee it will make a lot of money," Shikamaru said. He knew Suzuki's talent in business perfectly well. The orphaned boy would never aim for a high-profile, flashy business that attracted the greed of the nobles. He would build something that offered quiet, steady, and terrifyingly consistent profit margins.
Shikamaru turned to his blonde teammate. "So, you better go lock him down, Ino."
"...I don't like him for his money! But... thank you, Shikamaru."
"Don't worry about it. With my tactical planning, he won't be able to escape you."
"THANK YOU SO MUCH!"
Meanwhile, left completely alone outside the restaurant, Naruto's fake smile finally shattered.
The suffocating wave of loneliness crashed down on him. Everyone else was moving forward. They were officially ninjas. Tomorrow, they would be assigned teams and missions, and he would be left entirely behind, forced to return to the empty academy classroom.
As the cold reality of his isolation sank in—
"Naruto."
The blonde boy flinched, looking up. "M-Mizuki-sensei?"
Mizuki stood in the alleyway, looking down at the boy with a gentle, incredibly loving smile. "Do you want to know a secret way to retake the exam?"
And in that vulnerable moment, Naruto eagerly listened to the devil's whisper.
Across the village, Suzuki was utterly unbothered. Even if he knew exactly what was happening in that alleyway, he wouldn't have panicked. He knew with absolute, meta-certainty that Naruto would be perfectly fine. He had literal plot armor.
Instead of stressing over canon events, Suzuki was sitting in his living room, drafting blueprints.
He was plotting his entry into the medical supply industry. Looking closely at the medical tools used in Konoha's hospital, Suzuki had noticed a glaring flaw: inconsistent quality. The scalpels, sutures, and surgical tools were all hand-crafted by local artisans. Hand-crafting made them unnecessarily expensive, and human error meant the quality varied wildly depending on whether the blacksmith was tired, sick, or simply bored that day.
To completely dominate the market, Suzuki was going to introduce mass production.
He was going to build the very first standardized factory in the Naruto world. By synchronizing with his alternate self in the modern Jujutsu universe and utilizing the Manager's AI processing power, he could easily draft the schematics for an automated assembly line. Consistent quality, drastically lower overhead, and absolute market monopoly.
Still, while wealth was his goal, in a ninja village, raw combat power was the only real currency that guaranteed survival. Setting his blueprints aside, Suzuki pulled out the Wind Release scroll Hiruzen had given him, mentally calculating how he could manipulate its aerodynamic properties, until—
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Who is it?" Suzuki called out.
"Suzuki-kun! Are you in there? It's Iruka!"
The frantic pounding on his front door didn't stop. Suzuki sighed, tightening the belt of his comfortable lounge kimono, and slid the front door open.
Iruka stood on his porch, panting heavily, his face pale with panic. "I am so sorry to bother you this late, but... have you seen Naruto?!"
"....."
Suzuki stared at his teacher blankly.
Yup, Suzuki thought miserably. The canon plot simply refuses to leave me alone.