Chapter 9
“Don’t run, okay? Your costume is a little lopsided.”
“But mom,” Boruto protests, with all of the dramatics a nine-year-old can muster, which is quite impressive, actually.
“Mine’s lopsided too!” Himawari chirps happily, shifting around in arcs to showcase every lopsided seam of her tiny moon costume. Hinata’s cheeks flare with heat, but she smiles when she sees how happy Himawari is with the homemade costume.
“That it is,” she admits, and promises herself that next year, she’s going to have improved enough to have not made lopsided costumes for her family. Believe it.
“We’re gonna be late,” Boruto whines, trying to cross his arms over his chest and only making it as far as his little round sun costume will allow. Hinata looks at them fondly, her two little babies, and thinks; I have asymmetrical orbs for children.Next year she’s definitely going to improve.
She hums, turning to look at the clock just as a loud bang comes from the front door. She doesn’t turn with aggression, though she is armed, because she’d know that chakra signature anywhere.
Sure enough, a moment later he groans.
“Hinata,” he whines, sounding awfully similar to his own nine-year-old son just moments prior. “We need a bigger front door.”
Hinata sighs, ushering their kids into the kitchen to get their candy bags. Once they are completely ready for the cold night of trick-or-treating ahead of them, and she has triple-checked their face paint, she ushers them towards the front door where her husband and Hokage is undoubtedly standing.
He turns to them when the door opens, his expression shifting from nonplussed to overjoyed in a second. Hinata can’t help but laugh, out loud, at his costume; she still can’t believe that he’d wanted to wear it at all.
If her children are little orbs, he is a massive orb, edged in spikes.
The big sun.
“Dad!” Himawari gasps, upon seeing his costume for the first time. As the little moon to Hinata’s big moon, she had found the symmetry of Boruto being the little sun to Naruto’s big sun quite fitting. Boruto’s eyes light right up, and it seems he’s completely forgotten about his self-appointed tee-off time for trick-or-treating.
Naruto throws his hands out to the sides and says, “Eh? Ehhh?”
“You look awesome!” Boruto crows, while Himawari leaps forward and tries to land in his arms. She’s so used to the gesture, Hinata thinks they really can’t blame her for having forgotten about their sphere situation. The costumes are solid.
She barrels into Naruto and the big sun and the little moon tumble backwards down the porch, until Naruto is like a turtle on his shell, flailing and trying to get back to his feet. Boruto is immediately down there making sure Himawari is okay (she is), and then trying to help his father back onto his feet. Hinata, for her part, laughs so hard she cries.
When she’s gotten herself together and an elderly couple have walked by to see their Hokage scrambling on his back in a giant shoddy sun costume, she thinks it’s about time for her to help him back onto his feet. It won’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last, either.
She has to dust the snow powder off of his orb-rear, but otherwise he’s relatively unscathed. Boruto is already pulling on his arm, back to his schedule. He points at the night sky overhead and says, “Let’s go, dad.”
“Wait, wait,” Naruto complains, barely budging. He turns back to Hinata with a petulant pout. “Where’s my candy bag?”
Hinata casts him a look, but sighs in defeat a moment later. She heads back into the house and grabs the candy bag she’d known he’d ask for, and hands it over. He lets his fingertips slide along hers as he grabs the bag, and when he says, “Kids, look at that moon,” she knows he’s sneakily talking about her, while distracting their kids to look at the actual moon. Like clockwork, Himawari and Boruto both look immediately up into the sky at that ever bright moon, and Naruto bobs forward as best as he can in his giant orb costume and kisses her.
She has to bow around his spherical body, and lift on the tips of her toes to manage, but by the time the kids turn back to them, she has been thoroughly kissed. Her cheeks heat and she knows they’re a stark contrast to the icy fairness of her skin in this cold air, but they’re too focused on candy and showing off their costumes to really notice.
“Be safe,” she whispers, first to Naruto, and then louder to their children. “Please.”
“Of course!” Naruto chirps, trying to moonwalk away from her and back to their kids only to land back on his rear in the snow again. Hinata helps him up right away this time, laughing and shaking her head.
“You’re the sun, Naruto-kun,” she laughs. “Leave the moon-walking to the moons.”
“Yeah,” Naruto says, voice abruptly low, expression abruptly fond. He reaches out and trails his fingertips over her cheek, his smile lighting up every corner of his face. “I’ll leave it to you.”
After a moment of unabashedly looking on at him, openly adoring, Hinata finally just snorts. She moonwalks away from him until her heels hit the porch, and she lifts a hand to wave at her beautiful family. A moment before they start walking off, however, she realizes she’s forgotten something and demands they stay. She hurries in to the house and knocks over a lamp with her own orb-orbit, but doesn’t mind much. Luck was on her side tonight, because that had not been the lamp her father gifted her for her fourteenth birthday. If it had been, this night truly would’ve reached frightening levels. He loves that lamp.
She raises the camera up and says, “Alright, get together.”
Naruto immediately brightens in front of the camera, but seems to realize he’s too tall for how close they are. So, in a typical strand of Naruto thought process, he just plops onto the ground and bobs uncomfortably on his side, one hand supporting his head. Himawari and Boruto both immediately climb on to his rounded belly and try to balance, and when Hinata finally gets the shot, Naruto has taken a foot to the privates, Himawari stands perfectly balanced on his rounded side, and Boruto is flexing while falling off of him.
“A keeper,” Hinata nods her head, smiling fondly at the image as Naruto groans in the snow. “Okay, time to head off, or you’ll really be late.”
Boruto, reminded of his time limit for candy seeking and costume-flaunting, immediately heaves Naruto back to his feet. He grabs Himawari’s outstretched hand and starts heading for the first house on the street, calling over his shoulder, “By mom! Happy Halloween!”
Himawari’s voice mimics him, a little fainter with distance, and Hinata watches them scurry around the corner and out of sight. Naruto limps after their trail with a wry expression, saying, “You’d think with how tough this material is that it’d protect a man’s jewels.”
“Structural inadequacy,” Hinata agrees, nodding her head and trying so hard not to laugh at him again. He nods blearily, shaking it off a moment later, and grins at her.
“Happy Halloween, Hinata.”
“Happy Halloween, Naruto-kun.” She responds, before noticing a family with a small army of kids approaching them. Hinata knows this means she has to go back inside to pass out candy, and has to remind herself swiftly of where she hid the candy—so that Naruto wouldn’t eat it all—before remembering the secret floor panel. She edges back towards the house, not wanting to let Naruto out of her sight but knowing that she has a Halloween duty, after all.
Naruto seems to realize this, too, as he starts off towards their rogue little sun and moon, but not before he casts one last smile, just for her, over his shoulder. And then he’s jostling quickly down the street, calling out blearily for his small celestial counterparts. Hinata’s heart warms at the knowledge that she has released a small unit of celestial intent upon Konoha, spearheaded by a giant sun orb limping through the streets and groaning about jewels.
She has the candy out and in her hands by the time the small army of costumed kids are at her door, and she smiles kindly at each of them and their parents in turn. One of the mothers steps forward, eyeing Hinata’s moon orb that barely fits through the front door, and asks, “Was that giant sun…thing…your husband? Is it…Hokage-sama?”
Hinata meets the eyes of each of the women, sees their incredulous expressions, and feels warmed from the inside out.
“Yes,” Hinata smiles, overcome with love. “Yes it is.”