Konoha Holiday Tales
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Get it? Got it? Good!
Quick Facts: A Christmas Fluff piece, so it naturally has to be before a certain ninja goes AWOL. So in fact, I will put this little fic right after the events of Volume 19 and Chapter 172. Everyone seems to be mildly happy then-- kinda...
Secondly, I'm putting all my little one shot cookies about holidays (any holiday; Christmas, valentine days, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc etc in this one fic)
Tale 1: Destined to be Something More - The Two Blondes?
Naruto hugged his jacket closer to his body as he walked through the tree-lined paths of the Konoha Park. Snow was falling more than per-usual for the winter months and the nippy, brisk days of previous years were now replaced by freezing, subzero nights. But despite cold weather and the odd-burning feeling of frostbite around his nether-crotch region, Naruto felt unusually calm and meditative as he walked along.
It was his yearly tradition. Every year on Christmas Eve, a little bit before midnight, Naruto would come to the park and visit the large, ornately decorated Christmas tree in the park's center. Every year he came to the tree for something different; to offer a silent prayer, to have some place to think. Nothing would stop him from visiting the tree-- damn the weather, or his health. No matter the circumstances, he would be at the tree when before it became midnight.
Standing in the same exact spot from years past, Naruto gazed upward at the Christmas tree. Was it smaller? It seemed to be. Even a year ago, the tree looked so wondrously huge and amazing-- with it's decorative lights looking like colored twinkling stars, and it's unfathomable size that seemed to reach up and touch the very heavens. But this year's tree looked so plain. It's size looked almost identical to every other tree in the park, and its lights were dull as if a sheet of wax paper had been pulled over his eyes.
Naruto shook his head in disappointment; the Leaf Elders neglected their Christmas duties this year. Anyone could see the difference from previous Christmas years. It was obviously noticeable; last year everything was so bright and so full of spirit. But now--
Naruto's internal monologue was interrupted as he saw a black shrouded figure emerge from the forest and approach the tree. He squinted his eyes trying to catch a glimpse of the figure's face, but the person was hugging the hood so close to their face that the only feature Naruto could make out was the nose. And what an ugly nose it was; big nostrils, and a short and stubby shape that almost looked like the snout of a pig...
But he could tell the person's height-- about his own height, give or take a couple of centimeters. The rest of the figure was shrouded in a baggy cloak. And he couldn't help but wince a little when he saw the figure visibly reach down, scratched their butt, and then pick at a very entrenched wedgey.
Naruto quickly decided it had to be a guy for reason being a girl wouldn't be vulgar enough to do that with someone watching, but was quickly proven wrong when a strong gust of wind blew off the hood.
"Ino?" he said to himself, but loud enough that she heard.
"Huh?" she said, surprised by his voice. She turned her head and squinted at him. A look of recognition lighted her face. "Naruto? What the hell are you doing there? And, um, just how long have you been there?" she said, looking rather abashed.
"What? What did you just say?" he yelled. He knew Ino was talking, but he couldn't hear the foggiest thing she was talking about.
"Say again? I can't hear you!" she yelled back.
Naruto took a deep breath then yelled, "I said, I can't hear you!"
"Well then, come closer if you can't hear me so well!"
He shrugged his shoulders and then started to pad his way over to her. After walking no more than three steps forward, he could hear her start to cough. And what a terrible cough it was, sounding as if one of her lungs was trying to force its way up her throat and out her mouth.
He picked up his pace, slowing down as he drew closer to her side. He put a hand on her arm. "Ino, are you allright?"
When she spoke, Ino's voice seemed a little hoarse. "I'm okay. Really, I am! Oh take that look off your face. With that expression, you'd think I was dieing, which I can assure you I'm not."
"You sure? Cause that cough sounded pretty nasty..."
"I'm just fine," She chuckled a little then observed, "But I think I'm starting to lose my voice."
He looked at her face. She didn't look sickly or pale faced-- she seemed fine enough. He stuffed both his hands in his front sweater pockets and grinned at her.
"Hey Ino, you do know why people lose their voices, right?"
"Of course I do..." she said, her voice sounding sure of herself, but her face showing she hadn't the foggiest. "Umm, actually, I don't. No clue. Why?"
"Cause they use their voices a little too much, that's why."
She looked puzzled. "Cause they use their voices too much-- hey, wait a second." She scowled at him and then punched him solidly, yet playful (at least in Ino's opinion) on his arm.
"Ow damn it, that hurt!" he looked at her balefully. "It's zero degrees, Ino! Zero! Do you know how much punches hurt when it's this damn cold?"
"Wimp." She said, "You know, I hope I gave you a bruise too. Trying to say I'm too loud, the nerve on you--"
"Violent bitch..." He muttered to himself.
Her eyes narrowed at him. "Excuse me? Would you care to repeat that? Maybe you could talk a little louder. I couldn't quite hear you."
"Ummm," he laughed uneasily. "Repeat what? I didn't say anything." Discretion was the better part of valor after all.
"I thought so," she said, and then muttered under her breath. "No balls--"
It was his turn to narrow his eyes. "I'm sorry, I think I missed that. Say that again?"
She didn't respond, instead she tried to be flippant. "Are your legs hurting? Cause mine are absolutely killing me." Not wanting to cake her butt in a big layer of ice, she looked around and saw a broken, dead log. She straightened her black cloak under her thighs and then sat down. "Whew, much better."
He didn't say anything or call her on changing the subject so abruptly. What they said to each other were friendly insults. And after he thought about it, they said what they said because they both wanted to have the last word in.
"Hey Naruto, you don't have to keep standing, you know." She said, cutting into his thoughts. "There's more than enough room for the both of us. Look..." She scooted a little to the side and patted the empty spot next to her and smiled. "C'mon, sit," she coaxed. "I don't bite you know."
He looked momentarily startled, then grinned at her appreciatively before he took a seat.
The two sat in silence, not quite comfortable, but not awkward either. Naruto glanced out the corner of his eye and was half amused and half embarrassed to see Ino doing the exact same thing. He moved his gaze off of her so fast he gave himself a slight case of vertigo such that the twinkling tree lights were beginning to spin in tiny circles.
"Umm, Isn't the tree beautiful this year?" Ino injected.
"You think so?" He gazed at the tree again, but his opinion from before still held true. "The tree doesn't seem that... well... I don't know-- festive this year, I guess?"
"Really?" She gave the tree another cursory glance. "Bright Lights-- check. Pretty decorations-- check. It's tall-- double check." She looked at him doubtfully. "I don't know, Naruto. It seems pretty damn festive to me. Tell me, what kind of screwed up definition of 'festive' are you going by?"
"That's not what I meant." he said, sounding just a little annoyed.
"Then what?"
"Well, umm..." he paused, having trouble forming his thoughts into words. "I don't know how to really say it, but I guess I'm trying to say is that, well... the tree doesn't come close to comparing to how it looked last year."
"Really? Looks the same to me. And I happen to know it is the same--"
"It isn't the same. Trust me. I still remember the tree. When I came to see it last year, I remember thinking to myself 'wow, they've really outdone themselves.' But when I came just tonight, I remembered thinking, 'what the hell happened to the tree this year?' "
"You know, before you had rudely interrupted me, I was going to say that my big sister is part of the committee that supervises holiday decorations--"
"Give her my regards that a blind monkey with a brain tumor could decorate better than her."
She sent him a sharp, piercing look telling him to 'shut up the hell up' before continuing. "Where was I before you open your fat mouth, oh yeah... And she told me that since the budget is pretty low after the whole Sand-Sound incident during Chunnin Exam, the committee was forced to reuse the old tree decorations from last year."
He waited for her to continue, thinking that perhaps she had more of to say, but after a waiting for a few moments, he realized she was done speaking. And when he turned to look at Ino, he saw she was wearing a curious expression: eagerly waiting for his reaction to what he just said.
But he had no reaction; he didn't have any idea what the point of her little spiel on budgets and decorations was.
He looked at her with a blank expression. "That's nice to know and all, but what the hell does re-used decorations have to do with anything?"
She sighed, and then after fixing him with a look that seemed to say 'you're an idiot', she said, "Naruto, you're an idiot--"
"Would you stop calling me an idiot!"
"Well stop acting like one then!" Ino retorted, before continuing the earlier topic of decorations and budgets as if she had never been interrupted. "The point is, if the committee used the same decorations from last year, wouldn't you naturally assume the tree would be the same as last years?"
"Well, I guess so..." he said, "But if you are telling the truth--"
"Which I am,"
"--And the decorations are the same, why doesn't the tree have the same, well-- you know, impact as before?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Can't really say. I'm not you. I don't know how you think. But if I were to venture a guess..." she paused thoughtfully before saying, "I would say that since you've seen the decorations last year, perhaps they wouldn't impress you this year?"
"I suppose so..." Her answer made sense, but something about it just didn't ring true...
Ino smiled softly. "Or, maybe... just maybe... you're not the same?"
He turned to look at her anxiously. "What do you mean, Ino?"
She met his gaze intently and spoke in such soft tones that if he hadn't seen her lips moved, he would have doubted she spoke at all. "The Naruto you are now isn't the same Naruto as before. I'm right, aren't I? You've changed. We've all changed. So much has happened to us this year, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, a lot has happened to us this year." He said softly, a sense of sadness creeping into his voice. "But sometimes I think a little too much has happened, you know?"
The smile fell from her face. "Yeah, I know. The Sand and Sound... and the Third... You know, before the Chunnin Exam, it was like no matter how many missions we went on and how many times we've been endanger, everything was going to be okay as long as Konoha was safe and that we had the Third to watch over us, to protect us..."
"And as long as we had our home and as long as we had the Third, nothing could really harm us, right?"
"Right, even though we basically knew that evil men were out there planning evil things; we believed our village was just simply out of their reach."
"But now it feels like our world is different now, right?"
"Yeah, like our world used to be simple, safe, and set..."
"It's like our daily lives would be the same thing over and over again. We'd get up, and then be mad that we had to go to school. And when we finally got there, instead of learning from Iruka-sensei like students are supposed to, we'd all focus our attention on the clock, trying to will it to go faster so we could get the hell out of there. And then the next day it'd be the same. Sure, other things would come up; like sulking about how Iruka gave us a hard and unfair test, or wondering if that maybe the person you liked had noticed you, maybe sent a glance your way, but everything was still mostly the same."
"But now it's seems like the world... no, life itself is so different. And it's seems that every time you blink, the world around you suddenly changes again."
Naruto nodded his head, completely understanding Ino. "It becomes so different, so foreign, so much so that we're always struggling to not get lost in the change--"
"--Or sometimes we're struggling to catch up with it. Like you, yourself are stuck in one spot, never changing, but the whole word around you is changing and you aren't changing with it."
Naruto continued to look into her eyes, feeling such an affinity for her that he never knew he could feel. It was like she knew instinctively what he was feeling and thinking. Talking with her... he felt something inside him click as if a piece of a puzzle he was missing before had just snapped into place. Where that place was and what that puzzle was, he did not know. He just knew that something he was bereft of before, was now filled and overflowing with Ino.
And if not for damn beeping coming from her infernal wristwatch, he could have sworn they were going to kiss.
She broke their mutual gaze and looked at her wrist. "Hmm, midnight... it's officially Christmas Day." She said.
He looked at her uneasily. "So I guess you're back to your family, right?"
"I should. They are my family after all..." She smiled warmly at him. "But then I'd have to leave. And I've decided that sitting here and talking with you is rather nice, despite the fact I think my butt is frostbitten. Is it even possible to have a frost bitten butt? And would that mean they'd have to amputate a butt cheek?"
Naruto couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "I don't know about the frost bitten butt and amputation. But you're right, this is rather nice."
And despite the world changing around them and both mutually agreeing the world had become a rather scary, strange place, sitting together on the broken log, watching the brightly decorated Christmas Tree while white snow fell lightly around them, the world didn't seem so scary, so difficult, so confusing, so big. If only for this one night alone, the world seemed so simple, so safe, and so beautiful.
"Merry Christmas, Ino-chan."
"Merry Christmas, Naruto-kun."
*So how did everyone like it? Kinda a belated Christmas cookie, but oh well. This fic was inspired by Alden Hawke and Sunfreak wonderful Naruto/Ino stories. Anyhow check out their works because they are like ten, twenty times more talented than me.*