Work Text:
There was a big crack in the sidewalk that Naruto passed by sometimes, and in it grew the happiest flowers in the world. The flowers were small and round and yellow and soft and they held the brightness of a thousand smiles. Naruto always said hello to them as he passed, and he never, ever stepped on them, even when he was running from the mask people. He’d stop by sometimes and just talk to the flowers about his day, about his life, about anything, and the flowers were never upset or annoyed or angry.
Then one day as he came up to that patch of sidewalk, he smelled a weird smell and he looked down and he stopped. All the the yellow sunshine flowers were withered, deep green leaves reduced to dull brown twisted things, shriveled up into almost nothing, all the light and life of the cheerful blooms extinguished.
Naruto sat down beside them and cried.
Naruto wasn’t a crier. He’d learned early on that crying didn’t get him anything but snarls to shut up rough punishment, and crying was a sign of weakness that he couldn’t afford. So Naruto hadn’t cried in the orphanage when when the caretakers gave attention to everyone but him or punished him for no reason. He hadn’t cried when other kids were mean to him, or when strangers called him names or when shopkeepers kicked him out. He hadn’t cried earlier that morning when he’d found out that there was an extra day this month so his money wasn’t coming until tomorrow, even though it had run out the day before yesterday.
But now he sat and he cried and he cried because it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. Because all those plants had ever done was make the world a little brighter place, and someone had poisoned them anyway, and now they were dead, dead, dead. And why was the world like this? Why were people like this ?
Naruto sat and cried next to the dead flowers with the poison smell in his nose. He sat like that for a long, long time because he couldn’t think of a reason to stop crying and leave.
He avoided that particular patch of sidewalk for a while after that, but one afternoon his feet took him there without his really paying attention. And there, growing out of the crack, was a flower, brightest sunshine yellow, cheerful and kind like nothing bad had ever happened, like nothing could ever hurt it, brilliant and beautiful and brave.
“Hello,” Naruto said to his little flower friend. And then he faced the world and he smiled.