A/N: I know this is late for the actual Mother's Day, but my account was frozen until now. I was told this plot by someone and used it as a new ficcy. So this is not my own work. I received help from someone to create it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I, Evil-Mecha-Pilot, dedicate this to all moms.
Moments We Share
"So you're my mom."
The words were more of a statement then a question. The difference made them no better for Naruto to utter. This was his consequence for waiting all days to see his mother for the first time.
There was a long moment with no reply. Naruto had known there would be none. Instead of saying anything more, Naruto set the array of expensive flowers from the Yamanaka shop down.
He forced a grin. "For you!"
His wide grin faltered and he hung his head and stared at his feet.
"If I'd known your favourite food I would have brought that too." He sighed out with disappointment. "But I just found out about you...and I waited until now to visit."
Tsunade, who as her duty had been reviewing over profiles of fellow leaf-nin and had come across the young woman's file. An amazing discovery, but a disappoint one was well.
In his time as Hokage, the 3rd had instructed the girl to allow Naruto to be raised as an orphan for a time being for her own protection. In due time Naruto would be returned to her so they would take the role of mother and son. Until that time, any and all questions to her pregnancy were to be reported as miscarriage. It would be considered believable since she had no family of her own. But even with those rules set against her, she managed in her own ways to care for her son. Watching from distance streets, paying portions of his ever-growing ramen bill, and depositing small amounts of money into his account.
A genuine grin slipped on Naruto's face as he locked both arms behind his head. The gold hair beneath his touch was fresh and soft, as was his clothing.
- - - - - - -
(That morning)
Naruto had awoken extra early that day, jumping into the shower to make himself extra clean. He felt he had to be at his best; and it was proven further with his prepared crisp, clean clothing. His stomach felt like an anchor all morning that he skipped over breakfast and immediately produced the instructions Tsunade had given him two weeks before. They told exactly where Naruto would find his mother.
He took a few deep breaths after locking his door and proceeded down the street. 'I can do this.'
"Naruto?" The blond froze before spinning around to meet silver eyes. "You're different today."
It was true. Naruto's pre-picked clothing were not of his normal loud orange jacket or pants. Instead he had gone with darker more grayish cothing. His headband hung loosely around his neck instead of his forehead.
"Neji, what are you doing here?" Naruto found himself sounding arrogant and snobbish.
The Hyuga blinked. " Not that it's any of you business, but this is the street to the Yamanaka Flower shop."
"Flower Shop?"
Neji sighed in annoyance. "Yeah. It's where everyone goes to get flowers."
"I already know that!" Naruto shot back loudly. "But why are you going there?"
"It's Mother's Day. Normally its common to give one's mother flowers to show you care." Neji feeling the conversation was over marched around the blond. After some yards he stopped and turned seeing Naruto keeping in step behind him. "Why are you following me?"
"The gift idea sounds nice. I'll take my mom some!" Naruto cursed himself as he openly answered his reasons. But how could he stop himself from saying so? He held a great pride in saying he had a mother.
Neji's mouth hung slightly ajar as he stared blankly at Naruto. As he spoke, his voice held sincerity. "You have a mother?"
The blond was silent. He had been allowed by Tsunade to reveal the woman's existence if he wished, but at that moment Naruto wanted nothing more then to hold any further information to himself.
"You have a mother?" The question was repeated, but this time by a feminine voice.
Both Lee and Sakura had joined their party without them realizing it. Sakura's face held a concerned expression just as Neji's while Lee's eyes were glazed over with happiness.
"Congratulations Naruto-kun!" the green clad ninja shouted. "So who is she? Do we get to meet her? What's she like?"
For the next hour Naruto was bombarded with one question after another by a hyped up Lee, anger Sakura who demanded as his teammate she deserved to know, and a silently provoking Neji. Before long they had given up leaving Naruto be so they could return to their own Mother's Day. By that time,
Naruto had no trouble entering the shop as it had been cleared of customers who had already returned home with their purchases.
As he entered, Ino rushed to the till smiling widely at him. "Good mooring Naruto!"
"Hi." Naruto had no clue to why she was so cheerful and continued on with his business.
She was beaming brightly for him. "My, you're dressed up nicely today."
"Yeah."
"What's the occasion?" When Naruto didn't answer Ino replaced her smile with a fake pout. "You're not going to tell me?" Still when Naruto didn't bother to speak and turned his back to her as if to look at something more interesting, her delightful mood cracked. "Listen Naruto. I saw you outside with them during my break. But," she went silent with a serious face, "if you're going to be that way, I'm not even going to bother."
Glancing curiously over his shoulder Naruto saw Ino sat behind the counter, her arms crossed. An irritated expression on her pretty face as she looked in a different direction. A part of Naruto believed this to be one of Ino's ways of showing she was better then Sakura. But then he saw as her scowl fell.
He mustered a smile walking over to the counter and crossed his arms under his upper body as he leaned forward on the counter. "It's Mother's Day isn't it?" His words were soft and child like to draw her attention.
Ino perked with interest as she changed her view from the wall she was currently watching to Naruto. "But I thought you-"
"I'm just going to visit her, so I need really nice flowers!" he interrupted before she could finish her question. Being reminded he was on an orphan was always unpleasant.
Ino removed herself from her seat and walked over to the many beautifully displayed bouquet of flowers along the shelves. "Which one?"
"Um...can I make one myself?" Naruto questioned in a quiet voice.
"Sure."
Ino got to work assisting Naruto in his pickings of flowers. Though there were many times which she had to move past her own opinions of which colourful petaled plant would best complement the display. She could tell with her experience in flowers that if Naruto was working on creating a bouquet of flowers, which was much more expensive then buying a pre-made one then he truly cared for who he was giving them to. Well, that was what the language of flowers said anyway. During the entire time she had worked with Naruto, Ino had forgotten the paging question at the back of her mind and when said bouquet was complete, Ino stepped back to inspect the work.
"It's not half bad." she concluded. "In fact, it's really sweet."
"Really?" Naruto mused looking the bouquet from a different angle. There was a slight pink staining his cheeks as he compared the arrange of flowers to those displayed. The bouquet, in his opinion, looked nowhere near as nice as the ones the Yamanaka's made. But he smiled at Ino's comment. "You're the flower expert!"
"This was actually kinda fin!" Ino informed as she cleared away the stray stem clippings and began to wrap the flowers in Naruto's choice of paper. "Tell you what! You can come back anytime you need flowers for her Naruto. I'll always help you out." Ino flashed a winked to Naruto seeming sincere to her word.
Naruto became faltered with his words as a sad smile graced his lips. "I think I'll be giving a lot of flowers."
Ino was again beaming in a glorious mood and leaned forward on the counter. "So! What else are you doing for her? Taking her out to lunch?"
"Nope."
"Dinner?"
"Nope."
"A gift?"
"Nope."
"Anything else besides flowers?"
"Nope."
"You're not doing anything else for her?" Naruto suddenly felt the dangerous arua of anger growing around the girl. "What kind of Mother's Day is that!"
- - - - - - -
(Present time)
Naruto groaned as he felt the settling bump on the back of his head. He thought Sakura could hit hard. To answer Ino's question, Naruto gazed down at the grave stone with a young woman's name engraved into its smooth surface. "I'll be celebrating a very lonely Mother's Day."
When Tsunade had discovered the woman's file, she had been reviewing the information of deceased leaf-nins having died their missions. In the first week Naruto had needed to adjust to the new facts, but it was a surprise for Tsunade to see how well he managed after that.
Bowing his head in respect, Naruto uttered a meek farewell before returning to his empty apartment. He would in due time have to return to the Yamanaka's shop for some more flowers. He didn't want his mother's grave to go bare with loneliness as he had felt through most his life.
End?
A/N: As you can see I didn't use a name for Naruto's mother. That mostly because I didn't want to go through the time of pulling out a name that most people would disagree with. Also, many may see this as somewhat of an Ino/Naruto pairing or friendship in the making. You are free to feel what you wish. As for a following story...it depends on the readers think.
