It was Christmas Eve night and Naruto was walking home in a very sad and annoyed mood. Naruto never really did like Christmas, growing up as an orphan and all, but this year was going to be even worse because, since he was training with his perverted 'sensei', Jiraiya far away from leaf village (A small town in The Land of Water to be exact), he couldn't even see any of the friends back home. This year's Christmas was going to be just like last year training with the perky sage; Jiraiya would find a bunch of prostitutes to mess around with, he would give naruto a quite substantial amount of money (this year 200,000 yen (roughly 2,000 dollars)) and leave Naruto to do whatever he wanted for the next two days. Even though it was nice to get a break from the frustrating and exhausting training and Jiraiya's obnoxious habit of ditching him at the first reasonably good-looking woman he saw, Naruto disliked being alone for Christmas and there was barely anything to do at all with the money Jiraiya gave him (he still had 3/4 of the money he gave him last year). However this alone time gave Naruto time to think about some of the things in his life in leaf village. For instance, he now understood his first friend, Hinata Hyuuga's 'weird' tendencies, which made Naruto feel very stupid and ashamed for ignoring the feelings of his long time friend.
"I wish I could talk to her again just once," naruto sighed. Then something hard hit him in the head.
"Ouch!" He looked around to find out what it was, but there was nobody outside. He looked down and saw a small metal object.
"A shinobi head band?" but was very different from any headband he ever saw, the cloth was a beautiful red and green color made from a strangely soft material and the metal plate was shining a wondrous metallic blue with an intricate snow flake design. Naruto looked around again and again nobody was even outside.
"Who could have dropped this?" Naruto asked himself. He shrugged, pocketed the odd headband and returned to his apartment. He then spent about two hours thoroughly cleaning and polishing the Christmas-like headband, it didn't need that much cleaning, it took less than a minute to, but he badly needed something to occupy his time. Soon after,
"Excuse me sir, but I lost something important that belongs to me, can you help me?" said a girl's voice from behind Naruto. This surprised him so much that he jumped well over three feet in the air.
"I'm so sorry to startle you," said the girl's voice, "but can I ask for your help?" Naruto turned around to see a beautiful girl in a red Santa Claus-like dress with a matching hat with long pink hair and light green eyes. She looked a lot like his old squad mate, Sakura Haruno.
"Sakura?" Naruto blurted.
"Who is Sakura?" said the girl.
"You're not sakura?" said naruto.
"No," the girl said, "My name is Santa Claus. Anyways I lost my headband and I can't return to the North Pole without it. Can you please help me?" Naruto looked at the Christmas headband he picked up in the streets earlier, showed it to her and said,
"Is this it?" Santa gasped in delight and relief and said,
"Yes! This is it, Thank you very much!" She then fastened it loosely around her neck in a familiar fashion.
"Um, hey, if you have trouble losing your headband flying, why don't you wear it on your head, like a hair band?" Naruto suggested. Santa tested Naruto suggestion. Securing it vertically to her head, much the way Sakura did.
"This is perfect!" Santa said gleefully, "Thank you again, Naruto Uzumaki! For helping me so much, I would like to grant you one Christmas wish."
"A Christmas wish? But I don't even know what to wish for," said Naruto. Santa smiled cheerfully and said,
"Don't worry, just let me look into your heart." she held both of Naruto's hands in hers.
"Wow. She's so warm and soft," Naruto thought, "I didn't believe her at first, but there is now way that she can be Sakura, or human for that matter." Santa released Naruto's hands and said,
" You wish to be with the one you most care for. I'm sorry but I don't think that I could grant that wish, not yet at least." Naruto hung his head.
"I'm so sorry," said Santa. "In the mean time though, how about I grant you a perfect night's sleep." and with that she gave Naruto a sweet kiss on the forehead, said,
"Good night and Merry Christmas." and disappeared. Naruto yawned and fell asleep instantly. He dreamed that he was back at leaf village and celebrating Christmas with all of his friends, even Sasuke was there. There were even two people Naruto didn't recognize at first, one, a tall man with a handsome face and spiky blonde hair just like his, the other, a beautiful woman with gold-red hair and emerald green eyes. They were Naruto's parents. All of this happiness simply overwhelmed Naruto to the point that warm tears of joy flowed uncontrollably from his eyes.
"Thanks everyone," he said with a shaking voice, "you guys are the best."
Naruto awoke Christmas morning feeling better than he ever had been. He tried to get out of bed but he was stuck to his bed, although he didn't really mind, he felt so inhumanly warm and comfortable where he was, except that,
"I can't breathe." Naruto tried to pull himself free from whatever it was holding him to his futon, and he discovered what was binding him to the futon. It was a girl, no older than Naruto, her hands wrapped around Naruto's head, embracing him against her ample chest, and by the feel of it, her legs were coiling Naruto to the bed too.
"What the? Who is... wait, I know who this is," Naruto thought to himself. She had changed in appearance since he last saw her, but he still recognized her. She had dark violet hair that, although previously was very short, was now grown down to her shoulders, her body was warm and soft, and Naruto didn't even need to see her whitish-lavender pupiless eyes to know that it was Hinata Hyuuga, Naruto's friend since they met at the enormous sakura tree nine years ago, who was embracing him now, deeply asleep. Naruto tried to fight her surprisingly strong grip but it was so tight that he decided to, at least for the moment, sit and be happy with his comfort. Hinata woke about an hour later and said sweetly,
"Are you awake Naruto?" Smiling dreamily at him.
"Y-yeah," Naruto almost whispered. Hinata's eyes were fixed on him for a while with that dreamy smile, but then they widened and she squealed loudly, jumping several feet away, her face quite pink. She then looked down to see that her cleavage was finely displayed out of her lavender yukata. Her face went bright red, squealing again and covering up her cleavage.
"N-n-n-n-naruto, what's going on? Where am I? How did I get here?" she said, very frightened now.
"I don't know," said Naruto. Just then a small red envelope fell out of the sleeve of Hinata's yukata. She and Naruto read the note inside together:
Dear Naruto+Hinata,
If I have startled either of you with my Christmas surprise, I am truly sorry. Since both of your Christmas wishes were to be together with the one you most care for, I have transported Hinata to Naruto's home, but this arrangement can only last for as long as it is Christmas, so I'm afraid that Hinata will have to return home at midnight tonight. I hope you two enjoy your time together and use it well.
Thanks to both of you for finding my headband,
Santa Clause
"So I get to spend all of Christmas day with Naruto?" Hinata thought, still in her panic attack. Naruto placed a hand on her shoulder and asked,
"Hinata, would you like to go on a date with me?" Lost for words, Hinata simply smiled weakly and nodded. So then, after getting some warmer clothes from a clothing store (ever been in a yukata in winter weather? brrrrr!), Naruto and Hinata went to a movie theater, to start their date on the right foot. To both of their surprise, the movie playing was the premiere of Make-Out Paradise: The Movie (Naruto could imagine his former sensei, Kakashi, a huge fan of the novel series watching right now, excited as a little kid).
Half way through the movie, Hinata's hand accidently brushed Naruto's.
"Sorry," she whispered, then she couldn't resist holding onto his hand for the rest of the movie. She was still dong so long after the end of the movie, naruto seemed to really enjoy it.
"So Hinata, what do you want to do now?" asked Naruto. They had set out across town, having the times of their lives. Hours later, Hinata looked around and pointed to an ice skating rink.
"Want to go Ice skating with me?" she asked.
"Sure. Sounds like fun to me," said Naruto. Neither of them had ever ice skated before so they were both constantly falling down, eventually they had to hold on tightly to one another to stay up. Both in a nervous wreck in this new position, they forgot to turn and crashed into the wall, Hinata falling on top of Naruto, her face inches away from his. She turned a flaming-hot red and fainted. At that point they had been out and about all day and the sun had set about an hour ago, so Naruto carried on his back the still unconscious Hinata back to the apartment. he laid her in the futon gently and started to make some tea for her when she woke up. Soon enough, Hinata regained consciousness to the sight of Naruto sitting in front of her smiling.
"Hey Hinata. Are you okay?" he asked kindly, "I made you some tea." Hinata blushed and put on her best smile.
"Thank you, Naruto," said Hinata, "I think you would make a great husband."
"Thanks," said Naruto, "WHAT!" Hinata's blushed a deep, dark red, fidgeting her fingers in regret of saying something so absurd.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it," she said.
"It's okay, I know what you meant," said naruto, "I think you would Make a great wife."
"Th-th-thank you," said Hinata blushing redder still.
"Um... I-I Made something special for you, Naruto," said Hinata. she reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a small box and gave it with very shaky hands to Naruto who opened it carefully.
"Chocolates," said Naruto, satisfied, "thank you, Hinata." He tasted one of them.
"Mmmm! these are great, Hinata. You should try one." He fed one of the chocolates to Hinata, who repeated Naruto's "Mmmm!" Naruto stood up and said, "That reminds me, Hinata. I have something for you too." he dug through a closet for a moment and then returned to Hinata with a white box.
" I made this myself. Please be very careful with it ," he said. Hinata nodded and opened the box gingerly. Inside was a snow globe with a depiction of a beautiful sakura tree and two people standing under it, a blonde-haired boy in orange holding hands with a violet-haired girl in a gorgeous white kimono, their miniscule smiles as bright as the tree they were standing under. Hinata cried tears of joy, placed the globe down gently, and embraced Naruto, great passion and love overpowering her. Naruto smiled and kissed Hinata on the lips, surprising her.
"N-naruto?" He smiled and pointed up. There was mistletoe hanging directly above them. Hinata, standing on her tip-toes, returned the kiss.
"Naruto," said Hinata, "There's something I have been meaning to say for a long time." Naruto smiled, he had been waiting for her to say it for a long time now.
"Naruto, I..." she looked up and saw that she was no longer in the apartment with Naruto, but back in her own room, the sakura globe naruto made for her on her night stand. She was sad that Naruto didn't hear her confession, but happy that she could spend so much time with him.
"Good night, I love you," she said to the naruto in the sakura globe. Naruto was disappointed that he couldn't hear what Hinata had to say, but the day he spent with her was very satisfying, his best Christmas ever. Besides, he already had an idea of what she wanted to say.
Smiling, Naruto simply said, "I love you too, Hinata."
