A/N - Although I did go over this a couple of time I feel that I've missed some minor errors, so please excuse any minor spelling or grammar mistakes. Oh and mustn't forget the disclaimer: Sorry not the owner of 'Naruto', just another fanfic writer using Kishimoto's characters and settings.
Part 2:
Uzumaki Tears: White Day
He hadn't thought his life could have possibly gotten any more uncomfortable after the Valentines Day fiasco he had caused. Then he found out about 'White Day'.
"What!" Naruto yelled out, causing Shikamaru to wince
"Seriously Naruto you have caused quite a stir with your Valentines Day flowers. Since you did it backwards it seems there has been quite a number of discussions among several of the kunoichi about you and your flowers. I could be wrong but I think they're up to something and they'll probably hit you with whatever it is on White Day." Shikamaru answered, wondering all the while why he bothered.
"What do you mean White Day?" Naruto asked his eyes narrowing as he looked at Shikamaru suspiciously.
Shikamaru sighed. It was bad enough dealing with the headaches he was getting from Ino on this whole subject, now he was getting one from Naruto. Trust his hyperactive blond friend to make a few normally uncomfortable days even worse for everyone. Shikamaru frowned, as smart as he was he had a pretty good idea just how extensive his own knowledge was regarding kunoichi's and he would say it wasn't very extensive at all in these types of areas. Unfortunately his own self assessed, limited knowledge was far more extensive than Narutos, his frown deepened.
"Typically White Day is when men are supposed to give flowers to women. In this area of the world anyway, some places do it differently. Around here the women tend to give men that they care for chocolate on Valentines Day. A month later is when the men are supposed to return the favor by giving women flowers and other gifts. So going by the way these things are typically done around here you screwed up and did it backwards. Oh and there is the three times rule."
"Three times rule?"
"Yeah, the men have to estimate how much money the women spent on the chocolates and spend at least three times as much on the gifts for the women in return. Also do not forget that any sort of hand made gift from a women is considered much more valuable. That would mean that the return gift from a man would have to be something of even greater value than simply three times. Now you've screwed that whole process up by giving out flowers on the wrong day but you also gave out a lot of flowers to a lot of different women and the only thing I'm relatively certain of is that you've made the rest of us guys look bad. All of this means that most if not all of those girls you gave flowers to seem to be irritated with the rest of us guys. Well except that scary freak Anko, she seems to be pissed of at everyone, us guys, many of the girls and most especially you."
"Wait, how have I made anyone look bad?" Naruto growled.
"Well until your barrage of flowers, these days were never really big among the shinobi here in Konoha. Now a whole mess of women are basically asking why they haven't been receiving flowers from us guys for the past few years. You're getting away scot-free on that count since you weren't in the village for the past three Valentines Day's."
"It wasn't that many flowers." Naruto sulked. "Hey! I thought you said that the women were the ones who were supposed to give stuff to the guys first?"
"Please Naruto don't be an even bigger idiot than you usually are. These are women we're talking about, don't try to think they're going to be logical about all of this. Just try to keep a low profile and not screw the rest of us guys anymore than you already have." Shikamaru stated as he sighed, turned and left Naruto standing in the middle of the street with his mouth open.
Naruto had almost zero desire to deal with anything even remotely related to that Valentines Day fiasco. About the only thing he actually wanted resolved was the identity of his mother. On rare occasions he was also slightly curious about what Hinata did that day but usually he didn't even want to think about that either, especially now after listening to Shikamaru. About the only other Valentines Day related thing his thoughts revolved around was wishing that he had never been struck with the inspiration to hand out flowers that day.
Thanks to the repercussions from his pranks when he was younger, he had incredible stealth abilities and he was actually able to sort of avoid almost all of the women he had given roses to. He had basically begged Kakashi and Yamato to allow him to skip out on the pre-mission briefings with the Hokage. He did at least write a short apology to Tsunade that he had Kakashi drop off for him. Granted it was Kakashi's idea but Naruto felt extremely grateful towards his sensei about it. Tsunade had been a bit upset but surprisingly after reading the short note from Naruto she hadn't pressed the issue and had allowed him to miss the meetings. In fact she had told both of his Jounin sensei that he could return to the meetings whenever he felt up to it. That surprised both men greatly. Thanks to his personal odd female henge he did see Ayame on a regular basis but if she realized it was him she hadn't let on. In fact the only one of the women he knew of who had caught him with his female henge had been Kurenai sensei. Luckily she had simply sighed and let him escape.
-ooo-
Naruto stood timidly before Tsunade's desk. It had been about three weeks since the whole valentines day fiasco and this was the first time he had been in her office. The Hokage herself was also a little hesitant but she was smiling.
"I really am sorry." He finally said softly.
"I know Naruto, so am I. Someday it will all make sense, I promise." She replied.
"I'm actually hoping for a favor." He said softly.
Tsunade tensed but she could tell by his body language that this favor would be different than the last one he had asked for.
"O.k. what exactly would you like?"
"Well after the silliness with the flowers it seems I've caused a few problems here. With this white day thing coming up I was hoping you could give me a mission that would get me out of the village for a week or two so I could avoid everyone."
"Are you sure you want to do that? It's not like you to avoid a problem."
"Yeah I'm sure. I just feel like I need some more time to think things through and this white day thing is coming up really fast.
Tsunade sighed softly as she looked at Naruto. Shaking her head slightly she sifted through some of the seemingly endless paperwork on her desk for a few moments. With a small smile she latched onto one piece and placed it before her.
"This one is a little on the boring side for someone like you I'm sure but it will keep you out of the village for at least a week. It's a C rank, basically an escort mission. It'd definitely be overkill sending you and I guess…" She paused for a moment as she looked at Naruto intently. "Yamato. Still it won't be too much of a burden on the village resources at this time."
Naruto was struck with what he thought to be a rather brilliant idea.
"Could you send Shikamaru with us too?"
"Why?" Tsunade asked softly as she narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Well he helped explain some of this to me and it seems that my flowers fiasco has made his life more 'troublesome' than usual lately. So I figure I owe him one."
Tsunade smiled softly.
"Sure, I think that can easily be arranged. In fact, he did such a fine job acting as a liaison to Suna when we last hosted the chuunin exams here I think I'll have him continue being that liaison since they're going to host the next chuunin exams.
-ooo-
The next day he was packed and ready to go. This time around he was definitely going to escape whatever headaches he imagined were heading his was with this 'White Day' thing. He did feel that he had a few related obligations to take care of though. He moved his bed up against the wall and eyed the available space with a critical eye for a moment before nodding in satisfaction that there was enough space. Naruto's hands blurred through a set of seals, he bit his thumb and slammed his hand on the floor as he called out.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
In a flash of smoke his old friend Gamakichi appeared.
"Naruto! What's up?" The roughly three meter long frog beamed as he filled nearly all of the available space in the bedroom area of his apartment. The frog had to squat a little more than normal and wound up knocking over Narutos non-working T.V.
"Gamakichi, I need a small frog that's as smart as you were when we first met."
"Gamakoto would be the one you're looking for."
Naruto ran through the summon jutsu again, concentrating on the name Gamakichi had given him. With a 'poof' of smoke a small orange frog with black splotches appeared.
"Yo! Hey Gamakichi what's up?" The new frog waved a flipper.
"Naruto here has a mission and needed a small smart frog."
The little frogs eyes lit up.
"My first mission! Cool."
Naruto smiled at the young frog as he pulled out a wad of cash, a few slips of paper, two envelopes and a small pouch from various places on himself and around his kitchenette. He quickly wrote a short note to Hinata on one slip.
'Hinata, these are just to say thank you for the chocolate. I really appreciated it that night.
- Naruto.'
He folded it and sealed it in an envelope that he quickly scrawled her name onto. It was short but he really didn't know what else to say. Every time he tried to think of something else to say he just managed to confuse himself. He quickly finished the second note.
'Mitarashi-san, please accept my apologies for neglecting you last month. I just didn't think you were the type to care for flowers.
- Naruto.'
He wrote Anko's name onto the second envelope and sealed the second note within it.
He put the envelopes, cash and the last piece of paper listing what he wanted into the pouch and handed it Gamakoto.
"Here's what I need you to do. Take this pouch with the list, envelope and money to the Yamanaka flower shop tomorrow and give it to the older woman who works there. There's a blond girl about my age who works there from time to time named Ino, make sure she doesn't see you. Everything is written down on the list in the pouch but just in case, I need four bouquets of flowers with the colors listed delivered everywhere on the list. A half dozen pink ones to Hyuga Hinata. A full dozen but split evenly between pink and white to the Hokage. One bundle of three, two white and one orange to Mitarashi Anko. Finally a full dozen white ones with a single orange one to the memorial stone. Also ask if all of them can have an orange ribbon tied around them. The flower shop should be able to handle the deliveries but I want you to follow the batch of pink ones and make sure that they get delivered with the envelope to Hyuga Hinata. Don't worry about the other three.
"You got it Naruto!" Gamakoto said as he gave the blond a salute and huge grin.
He felt like he was making another mistake with Anko but really had no idea what else he could do that wouldn't be even more likely to blow up in his face. The small amphibian quickly disappeared, hopping out the window and Naruto looked over to Gamakichi.
"Thanks."
"No problem Naruto, you know you can always count on us!" With that the large frog disappeared with a poof of smoke.
Naruto shouldered his pack and quietly left his apartment to meet the others at the gate. Since they weren't in a rush, the journey to Suna took five days instead of three and much to everybody's relief it was uneventful. Naruto felt more and more at ease the further away from home each step took him. Before he truly realized how far they had gone they were in the Kazekage's office and had just finished handing over the scrolls.
"You must join me for dinner." Gaara said to everyone as he tucked the scrolls away in his desk.
"Sure!" Naruto immediately jumped up.
With his excitement Naruto missed Temari nudging Shikamaru in the ribs.
"Actually Temari and I have a lot of stuff to go over about the upcoming chuunin exam." Shikamaru said as the two of them got up and headed to the door.
"I have to meet with Baki to work out some details of some up and coming joint military exercises." Captain Yamato said as he also headed to the door.
"Well then, Temari could you send Matsuri in on your way out then?" Gaara asked his sister as she was getting up.
Temari nodded even as a slight frown appeared on her face as she stood and then walked out of the door. A moment later Matsuri entered looking slightly nervous.
Matsuri, Naruto and I are going out for dinner. Seeing that it is White Day tomorrow, I'd like you to join us as my date if you don't mind."
Matsuri's eyes lit up and she was just barely able to suppress jumping up and down with glee. She didn't quite notice Gaara looking at Naruto speculatively.
"Of course. I would love to join you." The young woman squeaked out.
"I think we will need a fourth though. You wouldn't happen to know any other kunoichi that could join us as Narutos date would you?"
"Date?" Naruto exclaimed his eyes widening.
"Yes of course. We can't have you looking like a third wheel now can we?"
"Uh, I guess not." Naruto said with zero enthusiasm.
"Mikoshi would love to join us I'm sure." Matsuri said with a sly smile.
Although mildly interesting at times Naruto found dinner to be some odd combination between outright embarrassing and damn irritating. Once he got over the uncomfortable feelings of being basically shanghaied into the dinner date he found himself growing more and more irritated as the night wore on. At first he could barely talk to the attractive young woman who was his so-called date. He had fumbled quite a lot, spilling utensils, food and drink several times as he attempted to at least act along the lines of what he thought would be romantic. None of his clumsiness seemed to be noticed at all by anyone though. The attention of everyone in the entire restaurant was completely locked onto Gaara. Naruto may as well have been invisible. It was obvious even to him that Matsuri had a huge crush on Gaara. After a half hour of botching his words he realized that Mikoshi didn't even know that he was there. In fact Matsuri paid more attention to Naruto although he quickly realized that those brief moments were only her attempts to pry Mikoshi's attention away from Gaara. Naruto was less than pleased to think that Matsuri was simply trying to parlay his presence at dinner as a way of showing up Mikoshi. After a full hour he was beginning to feel all of the old disgust towards fan girls that he felt all those times at the academy when damn near every girl he saw fawned over Sasuke. At least the food had been pretty good he thought as he left the restaurant, begging off from joining the others for a late night after dinner show and headed back to the hotel.
Naruto paused after he opened the door to the hotel room they were staying at while they were in Suna. He could have sworn he had heard a soft giggle when he opened the door. There was a rustle from the couch area and a kunai appeared in his hand as he turned on the light.
"Damn it!" Shikamaru exclaimed with an uncharacteristically loud voice.
Narutos eyes widened so much that they felt as though they were about to fall out of his head. Draped across the couch were the partially dressed figures of Shikamaru and Temari. Narutos mouth quickly opened up even wider than his eyes as he took in the sight of Temari's bare back and he realized she was topless as she was sitting on top of Shikamaru. He caught sight of two lines of lacey, light blue cloth on each of her hips that came together and expanded to form what looked like part of a triangle just above the upper edge of the back center of her very loose, black skirt and his face colored as he realized that Temari would have been bottomless if he had walked in a few moments later.
"Sorry!" He finally squeaked out as he jumped back out into the hall, pulling the door shut as he fell over himself onto the floor. Through the door he heard the faint sound of Temari laughing as he got up and wandered off while blushing furiously.
Naruto spent the almost the rest of the night simply wandering around the near silent streets of Suna alone. Despite the quiet though there were people out and about. It seemed that every time he bothered to look there was a couple in some obscure spot paying extremely close attention to each other. Each time he noticed one of those couples he felt even lonelier than before. It was pretty obvious even to him that even though nobody claimed to pay much attention to this 'White Day', there were a large number of people who were enjoying the day or rather the night. Sometime after one in the morning he wandered back to the hotel, saw that the light was on and walked into the suite. Everything was quiet and he simply headed off to his room.
-ooo-
The next day.
Tsunade held the new bouquet of flowers as she walked through the village during the early evening. She knew that neither Shizune nor Sakura had received any flowers from Naruto this time but she thought that at least one other bouquet must have been delivered. So she was following a hunch and in a relatively short amount of time she found herself standing in front of the memorial stone. She typically avoided this place, having spent far too much of her life thinking about her lost loved ones that had their names carved on the stone. The Fifth Hokage found herself somewhat surprised and very saddened at the amount of fresh flowers left at the stone on what should be a lightly happy day. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she looked over the mass of flowers. Sure enough there was a bouquet that had to be from Naruto. Tsunade chuckled softly at the single orange rose mixed in with a dozen white ones along with the whole bundle being tied with an orange ribbon.
"Only Naruto." She whispered as a single tear slowly rolled down her cheek.
Elsewhere in the village, at a local open cafe Mitarashi Anko was eating some dango while Yuuhi Kurenai and Hatake Kakashi sat with her.
"Feel better now Anko?" Kurenai asked with a chuckle.
Anko's eye's darted to the small bundle of flowers on the table next to her plate and she smiled.
"Yep! You better believe I do! Does it bother you that I got three when you only got two last month Nai-chan?" Anko replied with a chuckle of her own.
"Not at all. As I said last month, he can be very sweet sometimes. Besides it seems that he gave Hinata a half dozen this time around."
At that Kakashi choked on the water he had been drinking.
"Shit. Please tell me that you're kidding." He finally sputtered out.
Both women looked at him with puzzled expressions.
"No, not at all. Although I didn't see them, Hinata spoke to me about them and showed me the note that came with them. It was short and interestingly enough it mentioned that she had given him chocolates last month. I take it that is something of a problem?" Kurenai stated as she continued to look slightly puzzled.
"I hope not but it seems that Naruto gave flowers to far less women this time around than last month. In fact the big surprise is that, as far as I know, Sakura didn't receive any this time around. I think I should buy one of those huge bottles of aspirin, Sakura is going to be quite the headache if that's the case and I'm already avoiding Hinata."
"So what does any of that matter to you anyway?" Anko asked.
"Hinata belted him up the side of his face last month." Kurenai answered with a smirk as Kakashi frowned.
"You can't be fucking serious! Little Hinata belted Sharingan Kakashi here? Damn, I was wondering where that bruise came from. I just knew I should have continued following him with the two of you that day. I would have paid good money to see that." Anko laughed as an expression of mild irritation appeared on Kakashi's face.
"Oh she was quite embarrassed about it the next day. Although she never said what it was that you did that drove her to hit you." Kurenai said as her smile grew larger.
"It's basically about a state secret." Kakashi mumbled.
Kurenai's eyes widened slightly. She stole a glance to Anko who's eyes had widened as well. A brief moment of silent understanding passed between the two kunoichi before they both turned back to Kakashi.
"You know who his mother is don't you?" Anko stated.
"Yes but I can't say anything at all about the whole subject." Kakashi said as he looked down at the table top.
"That shouldn't be enough of a reason for Hinata to slap you though." Kurenai mused as she looked intently at Kakashi.
"Yeah, seriously, she may usually be the most timid Hyuga like ever but she would understand that somethings have to be secret, whatever the big secret is about his parents is anyway." Anko mused.
"It had to be more than her discovering that you knew who his mother was."
"We really shouldn't be talking about this." Kakashi said quietly as he looked up, slowly stood and glared at the two kunoichi.
"Man chill out copy-cat. We'll stop pushing you." Anko stated as she frowned.
"Sorry, it's a sore subject. Anyway I've got to head to the tower." Kakashi gave them a quick wave as he left.
"That was downright bizarre." Anko mused as she looked to where Kakashi had disappeared into the crowd.
"The only thing that makes any sense would be that he must have known Naruto's parent's personally." Kurenai whispered as her mind focused on the puzzle.
"So?"
"Well you know that Hinata has a massive crush on Naruto right?"
"Yeah, again though, So?"
"Well she probably knows better than anyone just how ostracized Naruto was when they were growing up. In fact she's talked to me a few times about how disappointed she has been with herself over the years because she wasn't a better friend to him. If she discovered that Kakashi knew Naruto's parents on a personal level and never bothered to help the boy out while he was growing up, she would be very upset with him. If that is in fact the case Kakashi is probably lucky that the only thing Hinata did was slap him."
"O.K. That makes sense I guess. Although it sounds as if she's got a bit more than a crush on Naruto." Anko chuckled.
"I hate to say it but you're probably right about that. It's almost a shame that the boy is such a clueless idiot." Kurenai laughed a bit for a moment before her eyes got very wide.
"What?" Anko demanded.
"Someone Kakashi knew personally..." Kurenai's voice dropped to a whisper as her eyes drifted to the Hokage monument and locked onto the visage of the Fourth Hokage.
Anko turned her head and followed the direction of Kurenai's gaze.
"No way! That's just not fucking possible. Seriously, no way." Anko hissed as her voice dropped to a barely audible level.
"That would explain that whole 'bigger secret than the fox but related' thing that Shizune was talking about." Kurenai said.
"Holy shit! You know what, that damn one eyed bastard was right, we should not be talking about this." Anko hissed to Kurenai.
"That sounds like a very good idea." Kurenai said softly, her eyes still wide.
-ooo-
After stopping by Gaara's office to pick up the reply scrolls to Tsunade they immediately headed out of Suna. Several hours later as they were walking casually home through the sand Shikamaru whispered over to Naruto.
"Don't you dare say anything about Temari to anyone."
"Who would believe me anyway? Although I should probably tell Baa-chan. You might be a double agent now." Naruto replied as he tried looking thoughtful and suppressing a giggle.
"She already knows. I just don't want anyone else to know, it could be troublesome." Shikamaru sighed after replying.
"Yeah right, you probably just don't want any of your other girlfriends to know about her."
"That goes without saying. Although you could say that I don't actually have any girlfriends, just some really good friends who happen to be girls."
"Wait, what? How many other girlfriends or 'good friends' to you have anyway?" Naruto demanded.
"More than you I'd bet." Shikamaru replied evenly.
"Hey! I don't have any girlfriends."
"Sounds like a personal problem." Shikamaru paused before grinning evilly. "You don't have a boyfriend do you?"
Naruto sputtered for a few minutes.
"Damn it! No I don't." He paused for a few moments. "Lazy bastard, you would be the one on the bottom." Naruto grumbled.
"Of course, I like having my hands free." Shikamaru said with a smirk.
They spent the rest of the trip walking quietly, Naruto scowling while Shikamaru continued grinning, simply enjoying the quiet, the clouds and of course some nice memories. Captain Yamato at times wondered what had happened during their brief stay that managed to subdue Naruto almost completely for the entire trip home, since he hadn't heard the short conversation between Naruto and Shikamaru but being a practical ninja he decided to simply ask Shikamaru sometime later once they got home. After all he certainly didn't want to ruin a surprisingly quiet, easy and enjoyable mission.
As they approached the main gate Naruto felt a several familiar chakra signatures and he thought he even recognized the two distinct perfumes that Sakura and Ino sometimes wore when they weren't out on missions. An instant later he smelled a very faint trace of lilacs, telling him that Hinata was possibly there as well. Before they even got to the gate Naruto promptly vanished leaving Shikamaru and Captain Yamato to the girls. He was pretty sure that they wouldn't bother Captain Yamato but he wasn't taking any chances that they wouldn't pin him down and start pestering him with questions he really didn't want to get into just yet. The irritated Nara glared after his vanished friend for a moment as he turned the corner to see the girls. It amazed him sometimes just how sensitive Naruto could be about some things like knowing who was around and yet totally clueless about almost everything else. He sighed before turning back to the girls and holding up a hand.
"Sorry, not now ladies, I've got to report to the Hokage."
The girls were rather surprised to him simply saunter off smiling oddly as he left.
"Son of a bitch." Ino muttered after Shikamaru disappeared around a corner.
"What?" Sakura asked.
"That lazy bastard was with that girl again."
"How can you tell?"
"He gets that slightly dopey smile anytime he gets 'any' from a girl and he's not stupid enough to mess around with any other girls in Suna since that one has attached herself to him."
"Just how do you know all of that personal information about Shika anyway Ino-pig?" Sakura asked with a sly smile.
"What! Never mind how I know, just trust me. The worst part about his weird relationship with that girl is that he's got the approval of the Hokage for his fooling around. Strengthens the bonds between the villages or some nonsense."
"I guess they had a good mission." Sakura said in a subdued voice.
"What do you mean he has the approval of the Hokage?" Hinata asked in a quiet voice.
"Sakura would know more than I would I imagine but the way I understand it Tsunade thinks its o.k. for our unattached men to fool around with kunoichi of other villages." Ino said as a bit of anger crept into her voice.
"I don't know if she actively encourages it for all the unattached men but Shikamaru's relationship with Temari, if you want to call it that, is different. She is the sister of the Kazekage after all and the potential for garnering information from such a liaison is too great to disapprove of whatever he is doing. She also has a lot of faith in clan Ino, so she doesn't have much concern about someone becoming a double agent." Sakura nearly whispered before continuing. "Although I'm pretty sure that Shikamaru never uses Temari to spy on Suna, their relationship does provide an unofficial communication channel between the Hokage and the Kazekage."
"You don't think Naruto could have met someone in Suna?" Hinata asked with the barest tremble to her voice.
The other two girls looked over to her wide eyed for a moment before Sakura forcefully spoke up.
"Nah. There's just no way."
Ino nodded her head in agreement with Sakura. She looked at Hinata speculatively though. Her mother had told her about the odd frog ordering some flowers and she knew that her pale eyed friend had received a half dozen pink flowers that had to have been from Naruto. Her eyes drifted to Sakura, the young blond woman was still trying to come to terms with the idea that apparently Naruto had ordered more flowers for Hinata, the Hokage, along with a few for that strange woman Anko and once again it seemed, for his own mother. Yet there were none for her pink haired friend or anyone else for that matter. Ino sighed softly but remained silent. She could understand why Naruto had sent flowers to the Hokage and his mother. She could even understand the apparent peace offering to Mitarashi but the set for Hinata was something of a mystery. Something must have happened between Hinata and Naruto but nobody seemed to know exactly what. In fact Ino was pretty sure that she was the only one in their age group, other than Naruto or Hinata, who even knew that much. If Hinata wasn't going to mention anything about the second set of flowers she certainly wasn't going to bring up the subject. Whatever had happened it must be very vague judging by Hinata's subtle nervousness regarding the idea that Naruto could have a relationship with a woman outside of Konoha.
Naruto drifted seemingly aimlessly through the village. Oddly enough his unconscious mind drew him away from all of his usual haunts. Before long he found himself standing before the memorial stone. His eyes widened as he took in the sight of dozens of bundles of flowers. In an instant his eyes locked onto one bouquet of of a dozen white roses tied with an orange ribbon. The single orange rose in the bundle along with the orange ribbon told him that they were his. The flowers were starting to fade but they still looked rather good.
"Mom?" Naruto whispered. "This almost seems silly, especially since from what I understand both Valentines Day and White Day are usually for girlfriends and such but I don't really know any other days. I feel like an idiot whenever this stuff comes up but I just had to do something. It's usually not too bad but days like these always seem worse and I feel so alone. Even though most of the time it's really not that bad. I've got lots of friends now and a whole mess of people I really care for. It's just that sometimes I feel like there should be more. I wish I knew more about you and my dad but nobody will tell me anything."
Naruto paused as he felt tears well up in his eyes. He tried to fight them off but they slowly built up until they began to flow down his cheeks.
A/N – Well I'm not especially happy with this one, it just doesn't have the impact I was hoping for but I've been fiddling around with it on and off for about 2 years now and I just can't seem to get it to be what I feel like this story should be. There will be a third and (most likely) final installment of the 'Uzumaki Tears' stories that focuses on Mother's Day. I've got a bit less than 4,000 words done on that one but I have to go back and change some things so it'll match up with recent events in the Manga. Also my apologies to the Naru/Hina fans out there and the fact that Hinata is barely in this story, she will have a much more prominent role in the next story.
Thanks for reading,
T.J.
