The Aftermath

Part 7

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""FLOWER SHOP"""""""""""""""""""""""""

It was a boring day for Ino. A day passed since that fiasco with her stalker. Everything turned out well, thanks to the local hero and her one week old boyfriend Uzumaki Naruto or should she say Uzumaki Namikaze Naruto.

Ino still couldn't believe the fact that Naruto, the once dead-last of the Academy, the one that people hated with all their spirit, is the son of two heroes. Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, was secretly married to Uzumaki Kushina, who was the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi, and had a son with her. And that son was used for the sealing of the Kyuubi in which the couple lost their lives.

Ino wondered what would have changed if people knew of Naruto's heritage.

'Would people have treated him differently? Would our friends have treated him differently in the past? Would I have treated him differently?' pondered Ino.

She still remembers her childhood. She was a popular girl, always in the spotlight, always in the center of the attention. She had everything, she was the princess.

On the other hand, there was Naruto, the village outcast and punching bag. He had nothing, no family, no friends, no place to call home. He was alone. And yet he survived despite all odds and achieved the impossible. He brought peace and stability to the land and not once did he hold hatred for his village for what they did to him, what she did to him.

Ino knew she wasn't the best of friends to Naruto. She knew he was alone but didn't bother with approaching him. She was a spoiled child; she didn't know the pain of loneliness, pain of betrayal. She didn't know how much it hurt Naruto everyday to wake up alone, hungry and surrounded by hatred.

'Would I have treated him differently? Would I have befriended him?' pondered Ino while tending on the flowers in her family's shop.

'Would his life have been better if I had shown a miniscule of kindness to him?' went through Ino's mind.

Ino sighed. Frankly, she still doesn't know what changed with her. If someone told her 5 or 6 years ago that she would be dating Uzumaki Naruto, she would strangle the person and feed them to the wolves.

'What changed?' thought Ino. 'Was it the war? Was it seeing the death of someone I cared about? Was it Sakura, Sasuke? What was it?' questioned Ino.

This was bothering her for the past week, hell the past 2 years. She would take care of Naruto's apartment, listen for any news of his return, she would pester Tsunade about any information regarding Naruto. And now, she spent the entire week searching for information about his heritage and she's dating him for a week now.

Why did she do this all of this, you ask? The million dollar question. ' I wish I knew' thought Ino.

She was broken from her thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing, indicating that someone entered the shop.

"Hey Ino" waved Temari. Ino smiled at her friend, happy to see her. People always wondered how the hell these two became friends and so did they.

"Hey Temari, what's up?" responded Ino with a friendly wave.

"Oh, nothing, I was in the neighborhood and wanted to ask you if you wanted to have lunch with me." Said Temari who was a bit bored today.

"Sure thing, let me just tell my mom I'm taking a lunch break" beamed Ino, happy to have something to keep herself occupied so that she doesn't think too much about Naruto.

10 minutes later they were seated at the local restaurant. They ordered and started talking about things that happened recently. The topic eventually became Naruto.