A/N: Happy Birthday, Naruto!

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Owwie.

He never cursed his stubbornness –and his naivety- more than he did now. Any sensible person would have called it quits after three solid days of attempting to mix in wind-natured chakra with a half-complete chakra manipulating jutsu. Then again, he is Uzumaki Naruto, and concerning any sense of reason he may possess, he was still… lacking in some departments more than others.

So what if even the Yondaime couldn’t pull it off? Naruto did not plan to be the Yondaime. He planned to be the greatest, the cream of the crop, the Hokage to top all Hokages…

… which he was going to pull off as soon as he found the energy to simply sit up.

At the most, he could still twitch his ring finger, albeit making it twitch was the equivalent to trying to lift a mountain single-handedly. His head felt lighter than the moist July air about him and his muscles- God, his muscles. They were screaming with pain and soreness, the likes of which he believed were too great for this world. Everything hurt, hurt, hurt. Damn. Looked like he was all set for another go at the hospital. Another miserable, pointless-

Wait a second.

Hospital. Bed. Pampering. Medics… Sakura-chan.

Huzzah! Another go at the hospital. Hopefully, she would be working her shift right now. Naruto laid out the whole would-be scenario in his head, the beginnings of a deep chuckle forming in his throat. First, like a wounded soldier in some sappy war movie, he would drag his reflexively dead body to the front doors of the emergency room. There, Sakura would be -all dressed up in her heavenly-white, high-hemmed nurse’s outfit- and in a fit of passion and sympathy, she would carry him herself and lay him down in a cozy goose-down mattress reserved solely for him. As he regaled her of his nearly futile chakra conquests, she would smother him in those lithe, porcelain arms of hers while she cooed in his ear, partly out of concern and partly out of admiration. “You poor thing, Naruto-kun,” she would murmur flirtatiously. “You just don’t know when to-”

“Oi, lecher. What are you doing?”

If he wasn’t so flat-out exhausted, he would have jumped. As if patches of his imagination decided to manifest themselves in flesh, he saw that his favorite pink-haired medic was standing above him, her small hands planted firmly on her hips. Only no nurse’s outfit. And no fit of passion and sympathy. And damn it all, where was the imaginary goose-down mattress when he needed it?

“Nothing, Sakura-chan.”

“Giggling like a hormonal school-boy doesn’t equal nothing, Naruto,” she retorted.

“Did you know I was here?”

“Of course. I asked Yamato-taichou were you’ve been these past few days and he told me you were probably here. Back to my question. What are you doing?”

“Training,” he exclaimed proudly.

“On what? How to collect dust bunnies? You’re just laying around.”

“Give me a break, Sakura-chan. I’m tired.”

“Are you now?” With that, she kneeled down beside his head and pressed her palm to his chest plate. Automatically, he felt her chakra pour into him. Her soothing chakra on his overworked muscles… No matter how many times it healed him, it still felt like honey on his deprived tongue.

He loved everything about her chakra. He loved its fluidity, its nature.

“Twit,” she began. You’ve been pushing yourself all day. You’re supposed to let your body rest between sessions. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be as effective in combat as a soggy French fry.”

But above all things…

Before he could speak his mind, her hands burrowed beneath his head and lifted it upwards… and relocated smack dab in the middle of her lap.

…more than anything…

“Sakura-chan, what are you…”

“I’m being a medic to worn-out ninja. Now, shush.” Her hand returned to his chest, on the patch of skin between his collarbone and the swell of his pectorals. Chakra once again flowed through his epidermis, swerved through his muscle layer.

… he loved the color… and the feel of her chakra.

Instinctively, he let a relaxed groan escape from the depths of his voice.

Green. Her chakra was just like her eyes. A lush, healthy green. It was the same kind of green he found in the lively fields near the outskirts of Konoha that always bore forth flowers during mid-spring.

“Feeling better yet?”

Feeling better was an understatement. He was on the receiving end of some merciful deity’s divine blessing right now. His pain was melting away in ways that he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“Sakura-chan…” he whispered, entranced by her seemingly magic touch.

“It’s a jutsu I made myself.” He noted a spark of pride in her eyes. “My chakra targets a mass of worn muscles and automatically starts working out any tightness or tension.” Her hands left him to escapade through his hair, but her chakra still sifted through his body. “I use it on my back and arms after all of my busy shifts at the hospital. Works like a charm.”

It really did.

His eyes closed. His lips crooked up.

No matter the weather, her chakra was always cool, icy and refreshing to the core. It wasn’t entirely frigid, or even lukewarm for that matter. It was just perfectly, pleasantly cool. Every time she closed his wounds or reset a broken bone, she seemed to replace his inner heat with a cold fire only she could fuel. Not only was it comforting, it was powerful. It made him believe that swift storm winds were coursing through his blood every time.

Green and cool. Like a millpond. Like the foamy shoreline of the vast sea.

And it thrummed throughout his tired body.

And his head was in her lap.

And all the while, her fingers swam through his sunset-gold hair.

Oh yes. Uzumaki Naruto was currently on Cloud Nine.

“So, what have you been doing, Sakura-chan,” he inquired quietly, a fool’s grin plastered on his face. Her eyes surveyed him for a while before they narrowed in irritation. Her fingers halted slightly and began twitching.

Uh-oh.

“Sai.”

He should’ve known.

“What did Asshole do now?”

“He’s under the impression that he’s a genius. As of late, he’s found a replacement word for ‘hag’.”

“And?”

Her eyes narrowed deeper than before. “If you laugh at this, I won’t hesitate to put you in more pain than you were in a few minutes ago. Got it?” Naruto gulped slightly. Granny Tsunade wasn’t one to leave her subjects with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs. Sakura had changed drastically in the time he had been away from home. He knew she could hurt him… and then some. He knew as clearly as he knew how to breathe. Shakily, he nodded in agreement.

“Naruto, he calls me ‘Mommy’.”

He couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t laugh. If there was a God or some other deity watching him right now, He knew that Naruto could not laugh.

Miraculously, he was able to opt for quirking his left eyebrow upwards in amusement.

“Mommy? Why Mommy?”

She gave an audible snort, her nostrils flaring. “He just said, ‘Because you act like one.’ The little bastard’s lying through his teeth, that’s what he’s doing. He finally figured out that calling me ‘hag’ consistently won’t reap him any benefits, so what does he do? He sugarcoats it!” She paused, let her breathing even itself out. “Prick. He’s making me sound old…”

“I think it’s cute.”

“Uzumaki Naruto, I know you didn’t just say you think it’s cute. Repeat that and prove me right, would you?”

“I’m serious, Sakura-chan! I think it’s cute!”

Her voice turned malicious. One wrong move, and the powder keg named Sakura would be all set to go kablooey. “Naruto…”

He knew instantly he better wrap this up quickly. And correctly.

“I’m not taking his side or anything, Sakura-chan!” he sputtered desperately. “I’m just saying it’s cute!”

Her terse eyes remained locked with his for the better part of a minute before she relented, apparently satisfied with his answer. Naruto allowed himself the luxury of heaving a mental sigh. He reset his focus towards her chakra, which was currently loosening the tautness of his lower back. Heaven… This was nothing short of Heaven.

“Mmm… this feels good…” he murmured with contentment before he dozed off.

Sakura bit her lip ardently to bar back a fit of girly giggles. If she really, truly, honestly, had to admit, her blonde teammate really was adorable. Everything about him–from the unruly tufts of hair that her fingers roamed through, to the depths hidden in his sea-blue eyes- seemed to harbor some hints of his childishness and his sly demeanor, and she admired him all the more for it. Suddenly, she was tugged away from her stream of thought by the fox-boy under her hands.

She bit her lip harder.

He was purring.

Come to think of it, he did that more often than not during these kind of carefree moments, and on top of that, he was the only person she had ever heard purring. Perhaps it was one of the quirks of harboring a tailed-beast. Animalistic tendencies could have rubbed off on him.

Maybe she would look into it…

… when no one was looking, that is.

He stirred beneath her yet again, his grin growing by the inch.

“Thanks, Mommy…” he groaned sleepily

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THWACK!

“OW!”

“…jerk…”

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…her fingers swam through his sunset-gold hair.

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Teehee! I love these two together with an unbridled passion

You know the deal. Reviews, pretty please!

Sayaka-sama