It's a bit late but its still wednesday so its fine i guess. Thanks for waiting and your continuous support.
-I've decided to do the merged route and it will begin in a few more chapter.
-This story is inspired by "A Father's Love" of Kyoka Suigetsu Totsuka
-Status: Alive
-Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter VII – Ramen and Immortals
-New York – Uzumaki Household
"It's mine" Aphrodite said firmly with the fire of determination burning in her eyes.
"Nope. It's mine!" Beatrice said back as she glared at the Goddess of Love. On the side line, Naruto was watching the two with a nervous smile on his face. It has been two weeks since Dite Venusa became his neighbor. Ever since she found out he was her neighbor, the beautiful lady had been constantly coming here to have his food. She said she was still finding a job and her money was limited at that time.
"Do I have any say in it?" Naruto asked only for him to receive a chorus 'No' from the two making him sweatdrop. He had just returned home with enough materials to cook Ramen for Ichiraku and what greeted him was the fighting scene of his neighbor and daughter over a pudding cake. Aside from being an author, Naruto loved Ramen to the point he had mastered the art of cooking it in just 1 day and decided to open a Ramen Stand himself. Ichiraku was its name.
People would think opening a Ramen Stand in New York was crazy but after the first day, Ichiraku had become infamous with its delicious food and handsome chef.
Back to the main problem, Aphrodite and Beatrice were still fighting over the pudding. They were bucking their head together with their hands pinching and stretching the other's cheeks. A tick mark appeared on Naruto's forehead as he walked to them, grabbed the pudding and ate it in one go. The expression on Aphrodite and Beatrice's face and were priceless. They stood there for a second before they slumped down, black cloud hovering above their head as the two silently cried for the death of their precious pudding.
"I can't believe it, Naruto-kun has just killed a pudding." Aphrodite said as she used her handkerchief to wipe the fresh tears that were rolling on her cheeks.
"Tou-chan is cruel. He ate the pudding." Beatrice said as she cried for the unfortunate pudding that had been unfortunately eaten by her father, who had no interest and love in sweets. Another tick mark appeared on Naruto's head as he turned toward them.
"You two aren't going to eat it either. And don't talk like that! You two make me feel like the worst person in the world right now." Naruto said with his eyebrow twitching continuously and left the room to prepare the materials. He needed to do that before opening Ichiraku. Washing dishes and bowls, preparing proper ingredients,… Although Dite Venusa was an employee at his ramen stand, she really, really sucks at doing things like this, and so, he had to do it instead. He unconsciously remembered the day when he hired the red head. That day was… horrible to say the least.
-Naruto House – Two Weeks ago
After the usual meeting between the Goddesses ended, Aphrodite had wasted no time to teleport to her house, changing into some casual cloths and visited Naruto's house. She was wearing the cloths she used the day before since her object of affection seemed to like it if the small blush on his cheeks whenever he looked at her was any indication.
The Goddess smile sweetly at the blond and followed him house. Again, it was still early in the morning and little Beatrice had already sat on the dining table, waiting for her father to finish making breakfast. Aphrodite flashed a smile at the little girl, hoping to calm things down between them. Beatrice looked at her for a second before looked away, taking no interest in the – in her opinion – creepy lady. Aphrodite sweatdropped and sighed, she had to admitted that she was extremely suck at making first impression.
"You came again, Dite-chan." Naruto said with a questioning look on his face. Not that he had a problem with having guess as beautiful as her, but he wanted to know why. Hearing the question, the Goddess quickly thought of a solution. Miraculously, a light bulb appeared on her head and immediately, she took on a sad face and looked at the blond almost guiltily.
"I just moved here and don't have any job. My money is limited and… my cooking is… horrible. I thought I could come here to rely on you since you are my only acquaintance here…" Aphrodite stood up, still looking at the ground below.
"But if you don't want me here, thinking that I'm a nuisance then… I will gladly leave… Naruto-san." The Goddess said, her tone sound almost broken and began walking to the door. Naruto felt like he was the worst person in the world for making the beautiful red head feel like that and ran after her. Catching her delicate hand in his, and scratched his cheek with his other hand, a blush on his face. Her hand was soft and small in his one.
"I wouldn't mind you come here, Dite-chan. And… If you wanted, you could help me at Ichiraku." Naruto said quietly, Aphrodite turned around and hugged the blond to her chest, even if it wasn't as big as some others Goddess's, she still took pride in her chest since it went well with her body and still bigger than some, not too big but not small either. Naruto tried to struggle with his face as red as Aphrodite's hair but to no avail. The woman's grip was extremely strong for someone like her. The Goddess was smiling happily while unknowingly suffocating Naruto in her chest.
After a while, Aphrodite finally released Naruto and was horrified when she saw his blue face and a two trickle of blood flowed out of his nose.
"Naruto-kun, Naruto-kun, Stay with me, Naruto-kun!" Aphrodite called out to the blond while violently shaking him. At the dining table, Beatrice's stomach growled and she looked at the funny scene with a sweatdrop.
-Later that day
Tonight, was the first night of Aphrodite's job and she was nervous but excited at the same time. According to Naruto, her job was to take order from customers and bring food to them. The blond hadn't told her what she should wear so here she was, standing before the mirror again, various cloths and uniforms hovering around her, waiting to be chosen.
Aphrodite snapped her finger, and in a blink, she was wearing another cloth. The cloth consisted of a white long sleeve shirt with red trims went from her shoulder down to her wrists and a black skirt with golden trim every crinkle. Her hair still flowed down her back gracefully but she had bangs covered her forehead and two long bangs framing her face. Instead of her signature autumn leave, Aphrodite had a white headband made of silk on her head which had a white small ribbon just above her right ear, replaced her leave. Her ruby necklace was displaced, shining in the darkness in her room. Aphrodite nodded, she looked like a delicate and modest girl now.
With her cloth done, Aphrodite opened her door to see Naruto waiting for her. He wore long sleeve white shirt just like her, blue jean with no decorating and… nothing more. Aphrodite sigh, even if he was going to be a chef, his cloth didn't need to be so… plain.
"Ready?" Naruto asked and she nodded. The two of them walked together to his Ichiraku ramen stand which wasn't too far from their current location. With some more preparation, Naruto opened his ramen stand and wait for people to come.
About 3 hours into work, Naruto was crying over his pile of broken bowls and dishes. His ramen stand closed since he had no more ramen to serve. Aphrodite, as beautiful as she was, was extremely sucked at doing things. In the span of 3 hours, she had broken more than 48 ramen bowls, 37 dishes, 23 glasses, pissed off more than 30 customers by serving the wrong dish or worse, introduced their face and head to the steaming hot ramen…
The red head was standing behind him, fidgeting nervously, her eyes averting here and there, trying to avoid looking at her boss at the moment. Her cloth had been soaked in ramen soups, she even had some noodle on her head, falling on her face. This was her first day and again, she had made an extremely bad impression. Taking wrong orders, tripping and falling, breaking almost every bowls and dishes Naruto had in store. Taking a step closer to the blond, she opened her mouth to talk but closed it since she didn't know if he would forgive her or not. She wanted to take the job to be closer to Naruto but with her clumsiness, she had made his stand's reputation take a trip to hell. He would hate her, and then, she would be kicked away, he wouldn-
"Are you ok, Dite-chan?" Naruto asked as he stood up, looking at her with concern. Her mind almost shut down from the question that only one word could come out of her mouth.
"Huh?"
"I said, if you were okay. Your cloth… and all…" Naruto said with a blush on his face as he averted his eyes. Looking at herself, Aphrodite noticed that her black bra was noticeable through the soaked white shirt. The Goddess also blushed but shook her head and bowed at Naruto.
"Sorry, Naruto-kun." She said with sadden face as she kept her head down. She could hear footstep as Naruto closed the distance between them. She closed her eyes and prepared for whatever punishment the blond would put her through. It was her fault after all and she would take responsibility of her clumsiness. A hand touched her head…
"Don't worry, Dite-chan, I'm not angry or anything…" Naruto said as he smiled at the Goddess, how could he stay angry at her when she bowed to him like that? She readily took responsibility for her fault and she felt apologize for what she had done. He couldn't and wouldn't angry at her. After all, her clumsiness was so much like his deceased wife. His face saddened at the time Aphrodite looked up, and without her ability activated, she mistook it and stepped back. The Goddess of Love smiled sadly as she looked a side, avoiding eyes contact with Naruto.
"It's my fault, Naruto-kun, don't say anything. I know you are angry, or worse, you have hated me now. Don't worry, I understand." Aphrodite said quietly. She didn't fake any of that. All she said were real. She looked like she was going to cry and that made Naruto feel like he had just committed the most dangerous crime.
"I'm useless, ain't I, Naruto-kun?" Aphrodite clenched her eyes shut, preventing the tears from falling. Aside from being beautiful, she didn't know how to do anything. She hated herself so much right now. If she weren't so useless, the blond wouldn't hate her, if she wasn't so useless, maybe, she would make the blond love her already…
While Aphrodite was dealing with her emotion, Naruto was having his own trouble to deal with. The woman in front of him was crying, even if she had clenched her eyes shut to keep her tears from falling, he could clearly see that she was crying. He remembered when he said he would give her a spot at his Ichiraku, he could literally felt the happiness radiated from her and the hug she gave him that moment was… great to say the least, even if it almost made him die of suffocating. She was nervous but also excited at finally helping him out, even if all she did was breaking bowls and dished. There also were some funny moments when a customer said they were a couple. Of course he declined and said he was a married man, but he had seen the pain in her eyes even if it was small and had turned into determination right after that.
"No, you aren't…" Naruto said as he embraced the Goddess in her arms.
Aphrodite opened her eyes and tried to struggle out of his embrace even if she wanted to remain in his arms like this. Despite her ramen soups soaked shirt, Aphrodite could feel Naruto's hard tone body brush up against her. His arms wrapped around her slim waist and shoulder. She stayed silent and didn't do anything, she couldn't break free from his embrace and he didn't want to release her any soon either. Aphrodite closed her eyes, basking herself in the warm that Naruto was radiating. Just like their first meet, she could feel his aura of trust and protectiveness.
"You are my friend and my lovely neighbor, I don't stay angry at you or anything. Don't say you are useless, because to me, you have something that others don't." Naruto said quietly and Aphrodite nuzzled into the crook of his neck, her arms went around his neck.
"Really?" She asked quietly and she could felt the blond nodded.
"You have the ability to make one happy and open the heart of other. Your clumsiness is just a way to make that happen." Naruto said and Aphrodite cried happy tears that someone had said that to her aside from Hestia. The Goddess of The Hearth had told so too when she helped her prepared tea and cookies for their meeting. Let just say that everything hadn't gone as planned. To hear that from Naruto, her object of affection…
"Thanks, Naruto-kun." She wanted to say that she loved him, today's event just made she wanted to make their relationship advance faster. But after some thoughts, Aphrodite decided to take thing slowly. The blond wasn't ready yet…
-Olympus – Hera's Temple - Present
Hera was deep in thought. Two weeks of constant watching had made her more curious about a certain blond named Uzumaki Naruto. She had watched him fight, she had watched him talked with the Goddess of Love, she had watched him helping people and finally, she had watched his happy moment when playing with Beatrice. He was a good father and a good husband too. He was kind towards others and protective of his loved ones. Those were what Hera wanted in the man of her life. Powerful but not power hunger or arrogant, a faithful husband who treasured his family above all else, being handsome was a bonus though.
Hera wasn't too certain though, so she would visit his little ramen stand sooner or later.
End Chapter VII – Ramen and Immortals.
-Some reviews said I should add more goddess like Hestia, Athena... let me decide it later since I don't know if i could write it.
-Accept my apology if this chapter didn't meet your expectations.
-Please continue supporting this poor, new writer.
