A Mother's Approval | By : Sessakag Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female > Naruto/Hinata Views: 7472 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
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Prompt: In-Laws
A Mother ’s Approval
“I’m gonna strangle him the minute he walks through that door, dattebane!”
Minato watched his raging wife warily as she paced a hole in their carpeted floor, fingers curled into claws held out in front of her chest as though wrapped around the neck of her intended victim. Her long crimson hair fairly rippled with rage, violet eyes promising death and destruction for her one and only child. Their son had always been a wild, unpredictable force of nature, causing one calamity and barely taking a breath before jumping right into another one, this time, however, perhaps he’d gone too far.
“What was he thinking?! Was he even thinking at all?!”
He was the mirror image of his father externally, but internally, Naruto Uzumaki was all his mother, right down to the unique verbal tick.
This time though, even Minato worried that his son had made a HUGE mistake.
Still…
As he normally was, Minato had to be the voice of reason, or, at the very least, one of calm.
“I’m sure he-”
“We sent him to Suna to get a degree not get hitched to the first girl he meets!” Kushina fumed, drowning her husbands dissenting voice, “I can’t believe that boy! He couldn’t have been dating her long before they got married! He’s never mentioned meeting a girl, not once when he called, then all of a sudden, three months after moving out there, out of the blue, I get a ‘hey ma, guess what, I’m married, dattebayo!’ and that he’s bringing his wife down with for the holidays. His wife, Minato! Our son’s wife, dattebane!!!”
Minato did his best not to laugh at his son’s words and the terrible mimicry of his voice Kushina had used to repeat them, though he did indulge a wince at the resounding screech of her ‘dattebane’.
“Just wait until I get my hands on him!”
“Now, now, dear, what will his wife think if you try and make her a widow the first time she meets us?”
“That his mother is absolutely livid that her idiotic, irresponsible, bullheaded, impulsive son made one of the biggest decisions of his life on a whim!” she answered without missing a beat, “soon as he gets here, he’s going straight to the court house and filing for an annulment!”
Now she was going too far.
He shook his head.
Like mother, like son.
“I agree that this happened a bit…quick,” Kushina snorted derisively at the vast understatement, “but we have to respect his decision,” he sighed as she turned a thunderous glare on him, “or at the very least hear him out. He’s ninteen, Kushina, it’s his life-”
“I know that, dattebane!” she snapped, tossing her hands up, “I’m not saying he doesn’t have a right to live his life the way he wants but you know he’s never made the best decisions!”
Minato made a face at that vast understatement.
Naruto and his bad decisions were notorious.
“And we don’t know anything about this girl, she probably manipulated him into this whole thing!”
“We don’t know that-”
“Well what other explanation is there?” she huffed, “he makes bad decisions sure, but he’s never done something like this!”
On that, Minato had to agree.
The Uzumaki household were a very close family, they shared nearly everything. Naruto running off to get married without parents, relatives and friends in attendance was so contrary to his family oriented nature Kushina knew(assumed) foul play had to be involved.
“Maybe he got her pregnant,” Kushina groaned, rubbing her throbbing temples, “it’d be just like him to make a bad decision and try to clean it up with an even worse decision.”
“Maybe he truly loves her,” Minato injected, “maybe he found something special.”
“He’s only been there a few months! That’s nowhere near enough time to figure out if he wants to live with this girl, let alone marry her.”
“Seven days,” her husband reminded her, “seven days is how long it took me to figure out I loved you. As cliché as it is, I do believe in soul mates.”
Silence reigned, the words hitting the raging woman directly in the heart.
“If…If he found what we have, of course I’d support him, I’d welcome a daughter. I’d teach her everything I knew about handling that knuckled headed boy of mine. I just…I don’t want him hurt, ‘ttebane, you know him. He wears his heart on his sleeve,” she sighed, “he’s had his heart broken once, he doesn’t deserve to go through that again.”
Finally, the true source of his wife’s ire.
“We can’t always protect him, we can only trust that what we taught him will be enough to steer him to make the right choices, and when he falls, when he takes a wrong turn, it’s our job to pick him up and set him back on his feet as best we can. That’s all we can do,” he stood, wrapped his arms around her waist and continued, “so let’s hear his story before we label this a complete disaster.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Agreed?”
Frowning severely, she muttered a string of words he took as agreement before grumbling to his chest, “I’m still gonna kick his butt, ‘ttebane.”
“Of course dear, I’m sure he’s already prepared himself.”
A bellish chime asseverated through the house, reawakening his wife’s wrath.
Glaring at the door, Kushina detangled herself from her husband, stalked across their quaint living room, unlocked the front door and threw it open, blistering rebuke on her tongue.
“Ma!”
All smiles and good vibes, her newly nineteen-year-old, blonde haired, blue eyed, soon to be dead meat son, enfolded her in a hug that lifted her up and off her doorstep, momentarily stifling her rage with the welcomed warmth and familiarity of his presence.
As angry as she was with him, she was an infinite amount of times happier to see him.
To finally hold him, to feel and see for herself that he was alive and well.
She had missed him fiercely, their weekly phone calls doing little to ease the suffering of a mother bird struggling to come to terms with an empty nest.
“Hey there bud,” Minato greeted from the doorway, “think you can set your mother down and give your old man a hug too?”
Grinning sheepishly, Naruto placed his mother down and reached for the older blonde, both males clapping each other on the back in that way that made a lot of girls cringe.
Parents hugged and loved, Naruto turned, ushering a previously undetected guest into the spotlight.
Violet eyes narrowed, bouncing from head to toe and back again of this new arrival, taking in every minute detail with the fierce intensity of a laser.
Hinata Hyuuga- or rather, Uzumaki now, wasn’t what she had been expecting.
She was dark and pale, delicately beautiful and quietly dignified, like a tiny fairy princess standing next her big strapping son. Shyness radiated from her small stature, further highlighted by the cherry blush sprinkled across the apples of her cheeks and pert button nose. Dressed conservatively in a flattering lilac blouse and ankle length white skirt, her lush figure wasn’t hard to discern beneath the baggy clothes. Their son had certainly found a voluptuous female, mentally tallying that as a point against the siren.
Her gaze lingered on the younger woman’s flat stomach, though she supposed if she were pregnant, there wouldn’t be any outwards signs just yet.
Shoulders hunched, hands clasped to the front of her skirt, despite the pornographic shape of her body, her son’s wife gave off the innocent energy of a harmless bunny and that only deepened her suspicions of this girl that had somehow snared her only child in holy matrimony.
She tallied another point against her, just to be safe.
“You must be Hinata,” the diplomat of the Uzumaki family greeted.
“Yep,” Naruto enthused to his father, his vibrant happiness suffocating his parents beneath its weight, chest puffed with pride as he wrapped an arm around her slim waist, “dad, mom, this is my wife, Hinata Uzumaki.”
Kushina held back a grimace at the title.
“It’s very nice to meet you both,” Naruto’s wife said, her voice as soothing as a gentle breeze, head bowing formally, sending long midnight tresses cascading forward, “Naruto-kun has told me so many wonderful things about you. Thank you for having me during winter break.”
Not that her brat had given them a choice to ‘have her’ over for winter break.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Kushina replied, hoping she didn’t sound unfriendly.
“Well, come on in, we just finished cooking dinner,” Minato smiled.
Naruto grabbed two suitcases behind them, and followed his parents inside.
“We’re crashing in my old room, right?’ Naruto asked, though headed for his childhood room before he got an answer.
“I made up the guest room across the hall for Hinata,” Kushina announced.
Naruto stopped, brows raised, confusion painting his vulpine face, “the guest room for Hinata? What for?”
Hands on hips, Kushina opened her mouth.
“They’re married, dear,” Minato mitigated, before something snappy came out, “remember?”
Pasting an stiff smile on her face, Kushina gritted, “right…of course. Don’t mind me,” she chuckled, “this’ll take some getting used to, ‘ttebane.”
Naruto gazed at her a beat longer, mother and son passing some silent message before his lips parted in a brittle grin, “yeah, guess it is kinda sudden, ‘ttebayo.”
Awkward exchange complete, Naruto continued on the path to his bedroom, his shy wife trotting after him.
“Kushina…”
“I’m trying,” she sighed.
Dinner was served not long after, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and a side of veggies. Naruto pouted as he sat down, his request for home made ramen on his first day back clearly being denied.
Naruto’s curious parents learned the newest Uzumaki, formerly Hyuuga, was eighteen-years-old with a birthday coming up, the knowledge effectively removing Kushina’s cougar theory. A med student, with an interest in pharmaceuticals, she met their dashing son by chance at a school event and from there, fell head over heels through a series of dates, or so Naruto vaguely explained.
Kushina was sure there was more to the story.
“So you’ve only known each other two months.”
Naruto frowned, “two and a half, but we’ve been through a lot, ‘ttebayo.”
“Oh, like what?”
“Just…uh, you know, stuff,” Naruto blustered, filling his mouth with potatoes.
A thousand alarm bells went off in her head. She glanced at the quiet woman seated next to her child, noting the shrinking of her shoulders, the guilty flush on her cheeks.
Just what the hell had happened?
Had this innocent acting woman done something to him?
She glared over at her husband, her violet eyes screaming ‘told you so!’.
Minato cleared his throat, “that hardly tells us anything, Naruto. What kind of stuff.”
Looking a fraction uncomfortable, Naruto rubbed the back of his neck.
For the first time, Hinata spoke up, “w-well, you see, sir, we-”
“Can’t we talk about that later dad?” Naruto asked, placing a hand over his wife’s hand, his piercing blue orbs serious and filled with an emotion they’d never seen in his eyes before.
“Why not now,” Kushina pressed, “we’re all here together, curious about your new wife, she’s part of the family now, and we don’t keep secrets-”
“I’m not keeping secrets, ma. I just don’t feel like getting into it right away. We just got here and it’s kind of a long story.”
Now it was her turn to frown.
She didn’t like this at all. Regardless of his insistence, he was keeping secrets and she didn’t like it. They’d never been this way before he left for college.
And what kind of an excuse was not feeling like ‘getting into it right away’?
He didn’t want to get right into the details of this whirlwind relationship, but had no trouble getting into marriage right away.
She was sure the irony was lost on him.
What exactly was ‘it’?
What had this woman gotten her boy involved in?
“Alright, but I trust you won’t make us wait too long for an explanation,” her husband said, voice firm.
Ever the diplomat, Minato had a lot of patience, and understanding, but he’d not have his good will abused.
“I won’t, I promise, dad.”
And a man’s word was his bond, something Minato had instilled in their child, and if Naruto said he was going to do something, he did it.
Kushina was content to let it go for now.
There were other avenues to unearth anyhow.
“Does your family know you got married?”
The pale woman stiffened but answered a soft, “yes.”
“And how do they feel about you running off and getting married to a man you’ve only been dating a few months?”
She expected some sly, calculated response. Some smooth answer she could pick apart and prove that this girl was nothing but a manipulative pretty face.
She received neither.
Instead, her target looked…distraught.
More than distraught, Hinata Uzumaki looked…devastated.
So broken that Kushina felt a pang hit her own chest. She wasn’t a cruel woman, never had been. She was merely a concerned mother wanting to protect her only child and yet…she had clearly gone too far, unintentionally pouring salt in some hidden wound of Naruto’s wife.
“Mom! Enough, alright?!” her only child barked, slamming his fist on the table, fury warping his handsome features, “I get you’re mad at me for getting married without telling you, and maybe we should have put it off until we could have everybody there beside us, but that doesn’t give you a right to pick at her! You have no idea what she went through with those people! How her so called family treated her for being with me! She loves me, and I love her, and we’re not going to let anyone take that away! Not them, and not-”
Now composed, Hinata reached across the table, gripping his white knuckled fist atop the dinner table, instantly pulling the plug on his raging temper.
“Your mother’s merely concerned Naruto-kun.”
“I know, sweetheart, it’s just…I’m tired of you always being the one to blame for everything,” turning to his red haired parent, he continued, “she didn’t do anything wrong, if you wanna take your frustration out on either of us, take it out on me, leave her out of it, please ma.”
Stunned, Kushina could only stare at her son as though he’d grown three heads.
What in the hell was going on?
“M-my parents died the day I was born.”
Violet and blue orbs snapped to the young woman at the heart of the confusion.
Naruto gripped her hand tighter, his gaze worried, “Hinata, you don’t have to-”
She shook her head, giving him a sad, yet resigned smile.
Turning to the older couple, she continued, “my parents died right after I was born. They were m-murdered. My uncle took me in, he raised me but…he wasn’t fond of my parents and he…never let me forget that.”
There was rage on her son’s face, pain on his wife’s.
Kushina felt her own heart ache again.
“Hinata,” she murmured gently, “we can wait…”
The girl shook her head again, “it won’t do any good trying to put it off.”
Taking a breath, gripping her husband’s hand for strength, Hinata Uzumaki met the gaze of her in-laws.
“My family are not good people,” she admitted, “they…engage in…illicit activities…”
Illicit activities?
Hinata turned her pale gaze to Minato directly, “on an international stage…”
Konoha’s mayor connected the dots, “organized crime.”
Blushing, ducking her head shamefully, Hinata nodded, “I’ve never been apart of it, nor do I want to be, a-and they didn’t want me apart of it either,” there was a wobble in her voice, telling the table at large that her shunning from the family business hadn’t been out of love or concern, “when they found out Naruto-kun and I were dating, they…they didn’t like it.”
Tension filled the room.
“F-for a long time, I didn’t realize his a-accidents weren’t actually accidents.”
“What accidents,” Minato demanded, sitting straight up in his chair, cerulean depth deadly sharp.
“Relax dad, I’m fine, ‘ttebayo.”
“What accidents!” Kushina pushed, her voice shrill.
A close call with a car crossing the street.
A shove down a flight of stairs that could have broken his neck if he hadn’t grabbed the rail.
The hotplate nearly starting a fire in his room when he was sure he’d turned it off.
In grim detail, their son cataloged a list of events he hadn’t told them about.
“I-I broke it off as soon as I realized,” Hinata rushed out, tears slipping down her cheeks, “I didn’t want him hurt, I’d never forgive myself if-”
She broke off, shaking like a leaf.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Naruto pressed a sooth kiss to her temple as he picked up the tale, “she didn’t just break it off, she knew I wouldn’t let it just…end like that, dattebayo. She dropped out of school. I couldn’t find her for nearly a week,” wrath contorted his features, “those bastards got what they wanted, she wasn’t dating the mayor’s kid anymore, but that wasn’t enough for those sick assholes.”
Dread filled Kushina’s stomach.
She wanted to hear what happened next, but she also didn’t.
This was…
This was too much!
“Hinata found out they put a hit out on me.”
All the air was sucked from the room, Kushina gripped her husband’s hand, Minato gripped the table.
“She came running to my apartment, but the bastard was already in. I was fighting with him, and she came and knocked him on his ass,” grim satisfaction curled their son’s lips, “picked up the lamp ma bought me and cracked him right over the head. I beat the snot outta him, and once he was down, we called the cops. We watched him, waiting for them to get here, we thought he was out but he wasn’t,” fury eclipsed his smile, “he had a knife.”
Kushina dimly heard the bones in her husband’s hand crack.
She was about to be sick.
“Hinata saw him coming at me,” he said hoarsely, “she pushed me out of the way and he-,” his Adam’s apple bobbed, “he missed her heart by a couple centimeters…” his empty hand fisted, “a few fuckin centimeters and she would’ve been gone.”
And that fact absolutely devastated her son.
They could see in his face, in his eyes, that that moment haunted him at night.
He cleared his throat, “she spent a few days in the hospital, and I asked her to marry me when they discharged her.”
Something warm bloomed in her chest, and though she felt as though she’d aged a thousand years, though she knew she’d spend endless nights thinking of what could have happened, Kushina finally understood why her son had married so soon.
As he said.
They’d been through a lot.
“I’m sorry.”
They turned to the speaker of those despondent words.
“I’m so sorry,” Hinata whispered, “I’m sorry I brought all this trouble to your son, I never meant for anything like that to happen. I know I’m not good enough for him, I know nothing I can say can change the past, and I know that my family has caused him so much grief but I love him, I love him with all my heart and soul.”
“I know you’re upset and worried for me but ma, dad, I love her, I love her so damn much. I met her and it was like we clicked ya know? There something between us,” he gazed earnestly at his parents, “seven days, I dated her seven days and knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
Eyes widening, Kushina glanced at her equally stunned husband. They hadn’t told their child about their seven day romance, it was something precious kept between them, and yet somehow, history had looped.
Emotion clogging her throat, Kushina gazed her son, comforting the sniffling woman in his arms.
Looking at her the way Minato looked at her.
Like father, like son…
Naruto spoke to her in a low tone, just barely a whisper. The young woman nodded as he thumbed tears from her eyes. Hinata was completely engrossed with her husband, absolutely enthralled as he spoke, her moonstone gaze shining with love, so profound and all encompassing Kushina felt her own chest tighten.
This girl…
She loved him.
There was no denying it, Hinata loved her son.
“Is that why you came home so soon?” Minato questioned quietly, face like granite, “are you still in trouble?”
Naruto shook his head, “they locked her crazy uncle up and somebody offed him a few weeks ago. The rest of her family got locked up on some unrelated bullshit. Her cousin disowned her, sent her a letter from prison telling her she was no longer apart of their family, like that was some huge fuckin downside. There’s nobody after us anymore, it’s safe now, ‘ttebayo.”
Minato nodded, though both Uzumaki’s knew he’d be pulling some strings and making sure of his child’s safety before and after he returned to University.
“I know the way we met, and everything that happened wasn’t ideal but-”
Kushina raised a hand, cutting her offspring off. She turned her gaze to the shamefaced woman, reaching across the dinner table to take her unoccupied hand.
Startled, the young woman turned wounded eyes to her.
Giving her a sad, compassionate smile, she said, “I’m sorry, Hinata, truly. I was unfairly hard on your and I’m sorry. I only wanted to protect my son, 'ttebane, and-”
Reaching out to clasp her hand, Hinata smiled her own tragic smile, replying softly, “I understand, Uzumaki-san. Naruto-kun is truly a special person, and I want to protect him too. I'm happy he has a mother that worries after his heart. He's very lucky to have you.”
As she stared into her earnest eyes, Kushina fell head over heels for her new daughter.
OoOoOoOo
An idyllic week had passed, one of the best of Hinata’s life.
The Uzumaki’s were truly a lively, passionate, loving family, and she felt blessed to be amongst their collective. They were so different to her own cold, lifeless family, and the differences hurt worse than her stab wound had.
She was sad to leave.
She would miss both of her in-laws, they’d all become so close.
Stepping down the steps, she wandered over to her husband, diligently tossing their suitcase and gifts in the back of their rental, and her mother-in-law, badgering the poor man.
“-and you’d better treat her right, you hear me?” Kushina nagged, wagging a finger at her exasperated offspring.
“Yes maaaa…” Naruto sighed, tossing in a carry-on.
“And make sure you’re doing your share of the housework, don’t just dump it all on her.
“Yes, maaa…” Naruto grumbled, smushing things down to get them to fit.
“Take out the trash, vacuum the floor, you’re not allergic to water so there’s no reason you can’t wash dishes.”
“Yes maaaa…” Naruto huffed, slamming the resisting lid down.
“And make sure those smelly socks of yours go in the laundry hamper, not on the floor.”
“Yes maaaa…” Naruto mumbled, finally getting the latch to hold.
Hinata Uzumaki stood next to her father-in-law, watching the exchange with a mixture of amusement and sympathy.
They shared a smile as Kushina continued.
“-and another thing-”
“I got it, ma, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make her happy, dattebayo.”
Kushina sighed, then smiled, a soft curve of her lips that only a mother that loved her child could accomplish. She rose on tippy toes, cupped his cheeks and ran her thumbs over the dark lines gracing his skin.
“You’d better, you got yourself a real keeper, dattebane,” her grin brightened, reflecting the one beaming back at her, “congratulations, sweetheart.”
OoOoOoOo
Hope you all enjoyed!
Laters
Sessakg~
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