Cyclamen

/Kyuubi speak/

'Thought'

Flashbacks

"Uzumaki-san?Delivery."

"Huh?"

The first instinct you would have looking at the girl in front of you, was that she was very beautiful, but in a strange way. She was neither plain, nor exotic. She gave off an essence of a person desperately trapped between two opposing things, good and evil, strong and weak, smart and… well thick.

Her red brows furrowed as she looked at the orange blossoms the blond man held out to her. "Uh, I'm pretty sure you got the wrong Uzumaki…"

The man stared as she adjusted the hitaite around her forehead, whirlpool country.

"You are Uzumaki Kushina are you not?" Of course she was, he, a Yamanaka wouldn't get it wrong.

She seemed confused for a moment, then a pained expression crossed her face, "What am I, a girl?" she asked rhetorically as she took the blossoms held out to her. "Let me guess," she started, stopping the man in his movement to leave. She looked at the anonymous card, "tall, blonde, has an inner romantic…"

He didn't bother answering, he had no idea who set the order, however the man must not know her very well, for if her cropped, blindingly orange top and torn apart jeans were any indication; she was not the flower type of girl. She didn't seem to care for the answer so much and only rolled her eyes, but when he turned back to catch a last glimpse at the tomboyish girl, he could've sworn she smiled.

If only a little bit.

The elderly woman frowned at the weeds invading her garden, it was high time she higher some genins to take care of it, the only problem was that they were late. "And to think I used to like kids…" The woman frowned and turned to the building in back of her, Konoha Orphanage, she glared at the construction workers, it had been rundown for quite some time and now all of a sudden they were fixing it up?

If they so much as dropped a teaspoon of cement or any of the foul chemicals and construction things they were using in her garden she would box their ears.

"Jun-san?" The woman turned to face the man she knew as Ebisu, and her bad mood instantly darkened when she saw the bratty genin at his sides.

"This is my garden of Cyclamens, they are each exotic and very dear to my heart." She almost smiled at the gulp of fear she got, but not quite. "I need you to pull up the weeds, but I'd be careful if I were you, don't pull up any of my flowers." She didn't have time for this, she turned and left, planning to spank the boy who was making faces at her back.

"Bitch."

"Konohamaru! You-"

"Yeah! I know, be good, blah, blah, blah…" The boy rolled his eyes, hadn't he complained just yesterday for them to give them harder missions?

"They're redoing the orphanage? It's been rundown since forever."

"Looks like it, Moegi, hey wasn't there something in the paper about that? Like the conditions were so awful bunches of kids died or something?"

Udon looked up, "I think they were low on vaccines and because the place was so dirty kids got sick and they had their own mini-epidemic."

Konohamaru was unusually silent, so much in fact everyone turned to stare at him.

"Didn't the Boss grow up here? Naruto of Konoha Orphanage…"

Moegi looked back at the big building, windows were broken, graffiti lined the place, and she knew that it wasn't the construction workers. She tugged on one pigtail, overcome with a sense of remorse.

"Yeah, Iruka-sensei said they met here."

'Naruto grew up in this place?'

He wasn't drunk, not really.

He tripped to the side.

Okay, he was drunk, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't like he had anywhere to be, no where to be at all. Nobody gave a fuck enough to need or miss him. He pushed the brown hair that had fallen sloppily from his ponytail, glaring at the sign above him.

'Konoha Orphanage; Dedicating itself to finding permanent, loving homes for children.'

"Bullshit." He would have thrown his bottle at the sign if it was empty, but it wasn't so he gripped it and sat on the lawn in front of it. After his parents had died he'd had to spend a whole year in that hellhole until he became a chuunin.

What difference did it make though? His life still sucked.

He didn't normally drink, but ever since his stay in the hospital he'd been taken off missions, and with nothing to do…

"Who's there?!" Iruka didn't believe there was an actual threat, but his ninja training overrides the alcohol.

And Iruka was glad he hadn't drawn a kunai, because the kid that made the noise looked so damn scared as it was. He groaned and sat back down, beckoning the kid, certain he'd take off running.

But the blonde toddler just crept closer, finally sitting next to him. His blue eyes looking up at the drunk chuunin with innocence, and no judgment.

Iruka actually kind of liked it, "what are you doing out here?"

"I was bad so they locked me out." He sounded so matter of fact.

The brown eyes roved over the marked cheeks, "what'd you do?"

The blonde's brows furrowed, he looked confused, "I don't know, but I was bad."

Iruka watched as he shivered, and wasn't thinking clearly when he took off his shirt and pushed it over the kids head, giving him an extra layer. The cold bothered him more as he was only in his mesh shirt.

Standing up he used the blonde head to steady him, staring at the hair when it looked familiar but couldn't quite place it…

He walked off, but turned one last time, "I'm drunk, so I better go before I do anything stupid, but I'll check up on you tomorrow kiddo, 'kay?"

The blonde smiled,the tee-shirt far too big for him.

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-Alika613

PS: I know there isn't a lot of detail, but I have a lot of information to get through! And if you have an idea that you think would be awesome for them, leave a review!!!