The Shadow's Fox

Chapter 10

"Come on, Naruto, just pick one," Ino said, a bit annoyed.

Naruto looked up at Ino, then back at the three floral arrangements in front of him. "You know I'm not good at this, Ino. Why can't you just do it?"

Ino rolled her eyes. "Because, Naruto. You're the bride, not me."

Naruto looked up at her with a slight blush. He and Shikamaru had finally picked a date for their wedding now that Shikadai was almost two, but even though he had gotten used to the role of being a mother, he was still not used to being called a bride yet. "But I have no idea what I'm doing. You'll just decide for me anyway, so you do it."

Ino sighed. "Look, I made these arrangements because I thought they would look good. I would choose any of them, so that's why I'm letting you have the final say. I won't overrule your decision."

Naruto looked at her a bit skeptically, then back at the flowers. "Fine." He furrowed his brow. "Uh... That one," he said, pointing at the flowers on the right. It had a lot of orange flowers combined with little white ones and a few yellow ones."

Ino smiled. "I kind of figured you'd choose that one." She picked up his choice. "Alright, leave the rest to me."

Naruto sighed. "Then why didn't you just do that one in the first place," he said under his breath.

"Mommy, mommy!" Shikadai cried out as he ran up to Naruto. He was holding a really big sunflower in his hands. "Look."

Naruto smiled and knelt down. "That's really cool, Dai, but did you ask Ino if you could take that one?"

Shikadai looked up at the blonde girl. "Please?"

Ino smiled as she picked up the other two flower arrangements. "Of course."

"Yay!" Shikadai said as he hugged the flower.

"Careful," Naruto warned. "You don't want to hurt the flower."

Shikadai quickly pulled the flower away from him, fear in his eyes.

"Don't worry, Shikadai. Sunflowers are really resilient. You can't break them that easily," Ino said.

Shikadai looked up at her. "Re-sil-i-ent?"

"Yeah, it means that they're really strong," Ino replied with a smile. "Just like your mommy and daddy."

Shikadai smiled at the flower. "Like mommy and daddy."

Naruto smiled. "Where'd your grandma go?" Naruto asked, looking around, but not seeing the Nara woman.

"I think she's still looking at the flowers over there," Ino said, pointing to the right side of the store. "That is where the sunflowers are."

"Thanks," Naruto said as he stood up and took Shikadai's hand. They walked to the area Ino pointed to and saw Yoshino digging through a few purple flowers. "You still looking?" he asked.

Yoshino turned to him. "I think I'm about done. Did you pick out the arrangement?"

"Yeah."

"Mima, look," Shikadai said as he held out the sunflower. "Resilient," he said slowly, but smiled when he got it out correctly.

Yoshino looked at Naruto with an eyebrow raised.

Naruto chuckled. "Ino told him that sunflowers were resilient after I warned him hugging the flower might hurt it."

Yoshino smiled and shook her head. "That boy will be talking like his father before he's even four at this rate."

"Well, he still hasn't completely figured out sentence structure yet, so I think it'll still be a little bit before that happens."