Naruto was six years old on the first Boys Day he remembered celebrating.
Konoha was gaily decorated with paper carp streamers, large and small, and mounted on large pinwheels for Boys Day. Families proudly mounted displays in their households for all their guests to see, and young sons beamed with great pride.
One boy, a child who was no one's son, who had no display for the guests he never received, refused to be left out of the celebration. So he made his own decorations.
Using a makeshift ladder of three buckets, one box, and a lopsided stool, Naruto managed to mount his own paper carp streamer over his doorway, though it looked more like an eel with a horrible birth defect than it did a carp. His pinwheels looked only slightly better, having been jury-rigged out of two drinking straws, eight toothpicks, and three large leaves he filched from the Yamanaka flowershop.
When Kiba laughed at the admittedly pitiful display, Naruto punched him and scraped his knuckle bloody on one fang. The resulting tussle was broken up when Inuzuka Tsume doused them with a bucket of frigid water, and yanked them apart by the napes of their necks.
"That is enough of that!" she snarled. She fell silent at Naruto's stubborn expression, took in the bruised pride and deflated happiness, and gently released him. Then grabbed him by the elbow when he tried to flee. "Apologize," she told Kiba firmly.
Kiba pouted, dug a toe into the dirt, and grudingly obeyed.
Tsume gave Naruto some pennies, ruffled his wet hair, and dabbed away the blood that trickled from his split lip. "I think," she said with a smile that took Naruto's breath away, "that it's clever and wonderful. Any parent would be proud of your skill."
With her pennies tightly clutched in his fists, Naruto wistfully watched Tsume and Kiba depart. Tsume's hand settled upon Kiba's head and he leaned towards her, his shoulder bumping against her hip. When they were nearly out of sight, Kiba tentatively reached up and gripped his mother's hand.
Naruto opened his fists and stared at the pennies, then cast a gloomy look at his bleak little apartment – a home that was cleaned three times a week by an elderly widow who was deaf and half-blind, his meals prepared at the same time. A home that only he would see the inside of this day because the widow was visiting her grandsons with rice cakes and sweet bean paste.
Naruto had a two day-old casserole somewhere in his fridge.
He looked down at the pennies again, which he rarely saw and thus couldn't know their true worth. He turned his back towards the empty home that contained a son, but no father, no display, and no guests. He left behind a trail of wet footprints.
Naruto kept his eyes downcast so he couldn't see the streamers, ribbons, and pinwheels - the hateful stares or the malicious glares of people whom he was sure he had never met. He couldn't close his ears to joyful greetings, proud congratulations, happy calls and well-meaning compliments – or hisses of anger when he accidently strayed too close to the festivities. He couldn't close his nose to the rice, sweet bean paste, bamboo leaves, and seasoned ramen… Ramen? His stomach growled.
"Oooh, Papa! No one's going to come on a holiday."
"Ah, but as I have a daughter rather than a son, we don't need to eat kashine-mochi. Besides, never underestimate the power of customer loyalty! Now hush, and hand me the sieve, Ayame-chan."
Naruto peeked around the corner. The Ichiraku Ramen was decorated with ribbons and pinwheels, but no carps. A man faced the grill and his daughter, just tall enough to see over the counter, stood at his side. Naruto carefully and quietly approached the stand, clenched his pennies tight in one fist, and then resolutely pulled himself up on a stool.
He waited a moment for them to take notice before impatiently banging the counter. "Old man! Old man!" he called. The father turned, his expression going blank for a moment; his daughter turned also, her own face filled with curiosity.
Upon seeing Naruto, the father planted his hands flat on the counter and leaned forward with a bright smile. "Now, see here, Ayame-chan? A customer! I told you someone would come."
"But Papa-"
"Tut tut, there is service to render." The father leaned towards Naruto, his bright smile unwavering and manner friendly. "What can I get for you this fine day, my boy?"
Naruto opened his hand and very carefully laid out his precious pennies. One, two, three, f-four, and, uh, five (he was sure that was right) little pennies. He slid them across the table. "Miso," he said firmly, because it was the first flavor that came to his mind.
"That's not enough," Ayame blurted.
Naruto went very still.
Her father dropped a heavy hand on Ayame's shoulder. "Now, now, Ayame-chan," he said in a patient rebuke, "miso is today's special for the holiday." She looked surprised. Then he reached down, slid two shiny pennies back to Naruto, and palmed the other three. "I told you we would get business this day."
"But-"
"Get the noodles, now!" Ayame jumped to obey her father's orders, and Naruto carefully gathered his two remaining pennies close and tucked them into a pocket that had no holes.
His supper for Boys' Day wasn't the traditional rice cake with a sweet bean paste, all wrapped up in bamboo leaves. His home didn't have a display for guests who would never come. Naruto was a son without a father, a child without a mother.
But with the two shiny pennies in his pocket, a large bowl of hot miso ramen, and a kind man and sweet daughter who both smiled without malice, Naruto celebrated.