A mother is such a precious commodity. They are at the heart of a family, the glue between each rowing member, keeping them together in times of need. In difficult times they are a shoulder to cry and a place of unprejudiced comfort when every other twisted turn you have taken has led to a dead end.
Mothers are the safety net when you fall off the tightrope walk of life and feel like you are going to plummet into the ground and never find the will to get back up. But imagine never feeling the warmth of a mother or the unbreakable unconditional bond between a parent and child? To have no one to turn to when times are bad?
Naruto knew this all too well.
Freshly spilt tears streamed down his whiskered face, the saline droplets rolling down his cheeks and spilling onto the newly opened scroll, the page blank yet filled with untold emotion as each teardrop hit the paper. He was a child, left alone and unloved, no child should have to endure what he had; yet here he was, alone and with no one but the echoes of jeering villagers to keep him company at night.
Wiping away the tears and sniffling a little he dipped the tatty ink brush into the murky puddle of toner before hesitantly beginning to write:
Dear Okaa-san,
I hope it's alright if I call you Okaa-san? I'm not too sure what to call you to be honest, I mean…I don't even know you so how can I call you Okaa-san if I've never met you? I don't even know if you're alive, never mind real. I guess you had to be real at some point for me to be here I suppose but.
But if you were real then? Why aren't you here now?
Did I do something wrong as a baby? Did I cry too much? Or eat too much? Because I eat a lot now like but…but if it meant you coming back then I wouldn't eat at all! I wouldn't eat ramen again if you came back to me! So please, if you ever read this, I promise I'll give up ramen!
Naruto paused for a brief moment, his blood shot orbs eyeing the growing pile of ramen cups beside the sink, the kitchen bare and unwelcoming; he inhaled deeply gulping to stop the second row of tears that threated to fall at any moment before continuing to write.
The tear splattered scroll absorbed the ink as greedily as his tears like a sponge craving moisture:
I am sorry Okaa-san. I'm sorry for making you leave, if I had been a better son perhaps…perhaps you would still be here? Because I miss you Okaa-san, Otou-san too wherever he is. But it's just so hard…every time school ends the other kid's mothers come and pick them up. I sit there and pretend that when they're walking through the gate that they are coming for me; that they are coming to hold my hand and that they are going to ask how my day was.
They never do though.
Instead they look at me funny and hurry their kids off like I'm a bad smell. What's wrong with me Okaa-san? Am I such a bad person that people don't want to be near me? What do I have to do for people to accept me? If I became Hokage would it change their mind? If that's what it takes for them to accept me then that's what I'll do Okaa-san.
I'll become Hokage and then they will accept me, not shoo me away like a pest.
If I become Hokage will you come back? Will you be proud and love me then? I hope so.
I love you.
Your Son,
Naruto.