Chapter 54: Mid-Autumn Festival Special (Part 2)
"Naruto?"
"Naruto!"
"If you don't get up right now, you're asking for a beating! NARUTO!"
Hearing the voice from the next room, Naruto, who had just fallen asleep, was full of question marks.
He had watched the performances alone, admired the moon alone, eaten the moon-viewing dango alone, made his wish alone, and then gone to bed early.
But not long after lying down, a strange woman's voice came from next door, yelling at him to wake up.
It was loud and annoying, but... strangely, it didn't feel grating. Instead, it felt... warm.
"Weird... when did someone move in next door?" he mumbled in his sleep.
In his memory, the apartment next door had always been empty.
While he was still wondering, BAM! The door slammed open.
A woman stormed in, ripped his covers off, and threw open the curtains.
Blinding sunlight stabbed his eyes, even though he clearly remembered it was night.
"Who are you?" Naruto raised a hand to block the glare, barely making out the woman standing by his bed.
She wore a beige dress and a scarf tied around her waist, with long red hair.
"Who am I? Naruto Uzumaki, I think you have a death wish today." The woman reached out, grabbed his ear, and hauled him out of bed.
The sharp pain in his ear woke Naruto instantly. He tried to pull away, but the woman's grip was incredibly strong.
"Ow, ow, ow! Who are you?! Let go!" He struggled, grimacing, while staring at the woman.
He grew up in Konoha and didn't know many people, but he had never seen a woman who felt so unfamiliar yet so familiar at the same time.
"Let go?" The woman raised an eyebrow, though her grip loosened slightly. "Once you finish breakfast, you are going straight to the training ground."
"How many times has Kakashi told me you're always late? And Minato, that man never disciplines you, saying 'let the child grow naturally'..."
"As I see it, sometimes you need a little 'tough love'."
As she spoke, she raised a fist and shook it in front of Naruto's face.
Naruto instinctively shrank back at the sight of the fist, but his confusion only grew.
"Kakashi-sensei? Minato?"
He knew Kakashi, but who was Minato? He'd never heard the name.
But the way she spoke... it sounded like she knew him very well.
"What are you spacing out for? Go wash up!" Seeing him frozen, the woman swatted his back.
Naruto didn't dare ask more. He shuffled to the bathroom in his slippers.
Inside, toothpaste was already squeezed onto his brush, and the water temperature was perfect.
He looked at himself in the mirror—messy hair, a face still full of sleep and confusion.
When he walked into the kitchen after washing up, a rich aroma hit him. On the table sat a steaming bowl of miso soup, two golden, crispy fried eggs, a small dish of pickles, and a pair of clean chopsticks.
The woman, wearing an apron, was scooping the last bowl of rice from the pot. Seeing him enter, she placed the rice in front of him. "Eat. The soup will get cold."
Naruto sat at the table and picked up the chopsticks, but he didn't start eating immediately.
He looked at the food, then at the busy woman. He suddenly remembered passing other people's houses when he was little and seeing scenes just like this—a mother cooking in the kitchen, a child waiting at the table. Warm and lively.
But he had never experienced it.
"Why aren't you eating? Not to your taste?" The woman noticed his hesitation. She stopped what she was doing, walked over, and sat beside him, a trace of worry on her face.
"No, it's really good." Naruto quickly lowered his head, grabbing a piece of fried egg with his chopsticks.
Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, with a hint of green onion. It was infinitely better than the instant ramen and convenience store rice balls he usually ate.
Seeing Naruto start to eat, the woman began to nag him.
"Naruto, when you're out there, you have to listen to your Jonin leader. That's how I got through it back in the day."
Naruto mumbled an "Mhm" around a mouthful of egg, but his ears perked up, wanting to hear more about her "back in the day."
"Back in my day, I was just as stubborn as you..."
Listening to her rambling advice, he couldn't help but eat faster. The bowl of rice was soon empty.
The woman watched him wolfing it down and reached out to wipe a grain of rice from the corner of his mouth. "Slow down. No one's going to steal it."
Naruto froze at the touch. He looked up, meeting the woman's gentle eyes.
"What's wrong? You're acting strange today."
"N-Nothing." Naruto quickly looked down.
"Then hurry to the training ground, or Kakashi is going to complain to me again."
"Oh." Naruto stood up numbly, ready to leave.
Just as he was heading out, she called him back, straightened his clothes, and reminded him to come home for dinner on time.
He wanted to ask her: Will you still be here tonight? Will I get to eat your fried eggs again tomorrow morning? But the words stuck in his throat.
The woman seemed to see through him. She gently ruffled his hair. "What is it? Are you afraid Mom is going to disappear?"
"Mom?"
The word exploded in Naruto's ears like thunder.
His whole body shook. His foot, already lifted to leave, froze in mid-air.
He slowly turned his head, eyes wide, staring at the woman. His lips trembled, but he couldn't make a sound.
Mom? His mom? For so many years, he had dreamed of his mother countless times—sometimes a blurry outline, sometimes a gentle voice. But every time he woke up, there was only an empty room and cold walls.
No one in the village would ever talk to him about his mother. He had only learned from the last mission that she was from the Uzumaki clan.
But this woman in front of him... she claimed to be his mother?
Naruto looked at her face, trying desperately to find any trace of her in his memory, but apart from the vague dreams, there was nothing.
He opened his mouth, wanting to ask, "Are you really my mom?" Wanting to ask, "Where have you been all these years?" Wanting to ask, "Why appear now?" But too many questions clogged his throat, leaving him speechless, just standing there stupidly as tears filled his eyes.
Seeing him like this, his mother reached out and gently wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.
When her fingertips touched his cheek, Naruto trembled. The tears he had been holding back burst forth.
He threw himself into the arms of the woman who called herself his mother, hugging her tightly.
"Silly child, what's wrong?"
"You don't need to cry just because you don't want to go to training."