Her Bento

Naruto ignored the glares he received as he walked home. Not to mention the fact that he couldn't care less, the bento in his hand took most of his attention.

He didn't know why, but he felt weird as he thought of the bento.

Did he not like the bento? No

It wasn't dislike. It was something else.

What was this feeling in his chest. He was... giddy? He was happy, but a different kind of happy? If that made any sense.

'What's happening to me...?' Naruto thought as he ran to the Sarutobi household.

He didn't know how it ended like this. He was just supposed to go out and get some food. A quick and easy meal that was already made. I mean... he cleared his objective.

But not in the way he imagined. But hey, who was there to complain. Not him, I mean sure Ino's cooking was... not as good as his. Though he somehow felt that even if it was not up to his standard, he needed to eat it.

No scratch that, he "wanted" to eat it.

Because it was Yamanaka Ino that made it, it was as simple as that, that he wanted to eat it. The first person to do something nice to him, he unconsciously no longer regarded her as "annoying". In fact she was now one of the people he now considered "close acquaintance"... yeah

...

...

...

Naruto sat by the edge of the engawa near his room. It overlooked the small courtyard he had that had a small pond with Koi fish swimming within.

He opened the Bento expectantly. It had three compartments, all stacked against each other. The last was just filled with rice while the other's were filled to the brim with various foods as they were divided with dividers.

Eggs, Cut up octopus shaped sausages that didn't look like octopus, a sad attempt at crescent shaped dumplings marinated with soy sauce, and a salad filled the first container. He guessed it was supposed to be the appetizers of the meal. While the last one, the one in the middle, held the main dishes.

Opening it, he found two big fillets of fried Salmon, and a pork cutlet.

"Well, I guess I'm eating good" Naruto smirked to himself. He WAS hungry. He didn't eat any dinner yesterday and he skipped breakfast and lunch since he woke up a few hours past 12 O' Clock.

Not to mention sparring with the old man for another few hours.

"Thank you for the meal!" He said as he clapped his hands before he dug in. He didn't see any chopsticks but he was so hungry he forgo looking for them.

Who needed chopsticks anyway? He had two utensils attached to him the moment he was born. His hands!

He first started with the dumplings. Gyoza he believed they were called. Looking at the weird shape, he figured it was hand made and not store-bought. He chuckled at the thought of the blonde making them.

'Why did you shape them so funny?' He chuckled before he put one in his mouth.

"It's good!" He said with widened eyes.

Pork Gyoza marinated in soy sauce. It was the first time he's ever tasted it, it tasted good. Especially with the combination of the pork and the sourness of the soy sauce. He bet it would taste twice as good if he ate it fresh. The downside was, since it has long grown cold, the gyoza's seared edges was no longer crispy.

He set it aside as he went to get the container filled with rice. Dumping the eggs and sausages in he begun to dig in with his hands.

"Mmm!" He moaned in delight. "The gyoza were a surprise, but now, I know she definitely had help in preparing these" He mumbled as he began to eat the rest of the eggs and sausages along with some rice.

The last bento she made was nowhere near as good as the one he was currently eating.

'Her mom probably helped'

After finishing the eggs and sausages he moved onto the main event. The fried salmon and the cutlet.

He broke apart a piece of one of the salmon to taste.

"Hmmm..."

It was salty... well that was a given, but it was saltier than usual.

He smirked as he thought 'These were definitely seasoned by Ino' before he began to vigorously eat the rest of the salmon. It was totally not because of the newfound knowledge that it was Ino who seasoned it, that he ate it fast. He was just... hungry, yes... that was it.

...

...

...

He was so into his own world that he didn't know that the third hokage, Hiruzen was already home and came to check on him. Ever since then he just stayed as he watched the boy eat.

Giggling or smirking to himself as he muttered various praise or critics to his food. Though Hiruzen could see that he would smile the biggest when he muttered the Yamanaka Heiress's name.

'Young Love' Hiruzen smirked as he remembered that Kushina was about Naruto's age when she was smitten with Minato. She would go on and on about how he saved her from getting kidnapped.

'Ah, I remember when Biwako was smitten with me too' Hiruzen thought.

He saw Naruto getting ready to eat the cutlet and was getting hungry himself. He just returned from the hokage tower and went straight to check on Naruto so he didn't eat yet.

Coincidently he saw that Naruto left out the gyoza.

'He probably doesn't like them, well I'll take it off his hands' Hiruzen thought as he got his grubbly paws on them. Snatching them from the unaware red head.

...

...

...

"That was good, even despite the fact that it was no longer crispy." Naruto sighed as he put the container down. It no longer had any rice in it.

'Now for the gyoza I saved last' Naruto thought as he looked towards the first container.

"....eh?" He muttered.

It was empty. The four gyoza he left was gone, all that was left in the container was the salad. He glanced around the three containers but couldn't find them.

"I know I didn't eat them-" Naruto said before he heard faint chewing sounds.

Turning next to him, he saw the old man chewing something. In his hand was a half bitten gyoza dumpling.

"...?" Hiruzen who was just watching the koi fish swim as he ate turned to Naruto as he noticed the boy finally noticed his presence.

"Y-you... the gyoza...?" He heard Naruto speak.

"Hmm...? Ah, yeah. I saw that you left them out so I guessed you didn't like them. Well, it's fine since I took care of it for you" Hiruzen said as he nodded.

Though the next second he just barely avoided a punch to the face.

"Naruto! Why all of the sudden?!" He questioned as he saw the red head get into a taijutsu stance.

"I was saving that for last you bastard!!!"

---

Chapter End

---

a/n:

Ayo I know some people are going to comment how Kushina and Minato were genin when Kushina fell in love with Minato. But look, I looked at some other videos of genin like when Obito was young. Minato's team 7 with Kakashi, Obito and Rin along with Konoha 11.

Kushina and Minato's body proportions looked smaller than the others so I just thought, they were probably 10-11 instead of 12-13. But then again shinobi did graduate early in their time period.

Other than that, here's a Slice of Life Chapter