tampered | Log: Ongoing

When; March 26th, Daytime
Rating; G
Characters; Uzumaki Naruto

rasenkouka and Namikaze Minato

flash_minato
Summary; Father-son reunion! Again. Kind of. Maybe learning to cook some ramen.
Log;

Naruto's excitement had tempered somewhat by the time he finally found the right building, and the right floor, and the right door. Even though Sasuke had pointed him in the appropriate direction, the city itself was inherently confusing, and as soon as Naruto set out on his own, this weird ticking and started up in the distance and refused to go away. Was that what everyone had been talking about? It made it really hard for him to find his way along the unfamiliar streets.

So it was…a while before he made it. He hoped his…he hoped the Yondaime wouldn’t be upset that he was so late. He hoped…well, he hoped a lot of things. Most of which he couldn’t figure out, which was almost worse than the ticking.

Naruto was confused. So confused that he didn’t even know why he was confused at all. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling, or how strongly, or what he was supposed to do, or anything. As soon as he’d been told, he’d just…well, he’d just gotten confused.

He was still confused when he was staring at the door of the place where his—where he lived. It took him about a minute, but, eventually, Naruto raised his hand to knock, and waited.

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The first knock had just sounded when Minato opened the door, grinning down at Naruto. To think he'd missed so much of his son's life... Naruto was almost as tall as he was now...

He had to snap himself out of his thoughts, motioning for Naruto to come in.

"Perfect timing! Ramen's just about ready!" he said, grinning and stepping back into his apartment.

Naruto told himself he'd keep cool. He didn't want to look stupid, did he? Even if he was his...yeah, he was also the Yondaime Hokage. That was a big deal! He needed to make sure he didn't look stupid, or anything like that. He was going to be Hokage, too, so...so it was important.

Funny how Naruto just ended up staring at the man, standing in his doorway, looking like a kid on his first day at the academy.

He kept staring. It was probably rude.

Honestly, Minato had half-expected a reaction like this. So he stood patiently for a long while, before teasingly waving a hand in front of Naruto's face.

"Hello~? Anybody in there?"

He couldn't stop his grin from growing wider, now bordering on splitting his face.

"You just gonna stand there and stare all night or are you gonna come in and eat some ramen?"

"...I-I, um...!"

Naruto abruptly just how long he'd been standing there and he quickly scurried inside in the apartment. He wasn't red in the face or anything. No way. And rubbing the back of his head nervously wasn't that obvious, right? Right.

"Yeah, I'm ready! I got really hungry looking for this pla--...on the way here."

"Heh, don't worry. Took me a little while to find my way around too," Minato said, grinning and leading Naruto into the kitchen. Perfect timing! Ramen was done!

He happily fixed a bowl for himself and Naruto, tossing the teen a pair of chopsticks and sitting down at the kitchen table.

Naruto wasn't sure if he should be embarrassed or more confused. Maybe it was better to just not think about it too much.

So instead Naruto plopped down into a chair at the table, a big smile working it's way onto his face at the sight of what smelled like the best ramen since Ichiraku's. "Thanks for the meal!"

Naruto was always happiest when he was shoving noodles into his mouth.

"Heh, itadekimasu!" Minato said, grinning and slurping up his noodles happily. In his mind, there was no such thing as too much ramen... Maybe addiction to ramen was hereditary?

Who knew, really...

Just sitting and eating ramen eased some of Naruto's tension, at least a little. He was still confused, and not quite sure what he was supposed to say or do. He'd always thought...well, he'd always assumed his parents had died, and after he'd found out about the Kyuubi, he'd thought that maybe they hadn't wanted him. After that he'd just forgotten about who his parents might have been. Did all orphans do that? It was just...there had been Iruka-sensei, and then Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi-sensei...they'd become family.

Now that the one he'd forgotten about had come back and was someone he had never expected, not in a million years...was he supposed to forget about everyone else, now? No, no way! That wasn't right, but what was right...he had no idea.

Slurping up the last of his noodles, he glanced sidelong at the Yondaime, examining him for a second or two. Now that he really looked, he could tell. They kind of looked the same. Why hadn't anyone else guessed?

Something to talk about, something to talk about... "S-So...when did you learn to make ramen?"

Minato didn't mind the silence. He figured Naruto probably had a lot to think about right then. Then again, he wasn't the only one. There was so much he wanted to share with the other, he wasn't even sure where he wanted to begin. Maybe with why he'd entrusted Naruto with the Kyuubi...

So many things flitted through Minato's mind as he absently slurped up his ramen, shifting to rest his chin in the palm of his hand. Where should he start?

Naruto's question snapped Minato out of his thoughts, and he grinned and gave an absent laugh.

"I'm not sure I even remember anymore! Let me think... It was around the time I became a Chuunin, I think... So that would've made me about... Thirteen maybe?" he mused, drumming his fingers on the table thoughtfully before sighing. "It's been so long, I can hardly remember when I was promoted to what rank. It makes me feel like I'm as old as Jiraiya-sensei..."

(ooc: O-omg. I accidentally closed out of the tab after I'd typed up my entire reply. I was putting off typing up the entire thing again, and I finally clicked the button. Turns out Mozilla had remembered what I typed and kept it in the field after I restored the tab! o3o)

For some weird reason, Naruto's first thought was that Shikamaru had actually managed to become a Chuunin faster than the Yondaime Hokage had. That was a little mind boggling, but not the kind of thing to blurt out. He managed to keep it in. Barely.

He also immediately came to the conclusion that saying he was still a genin at sixteen would be a bad idea. So Naruto settled on nodding and listening intently, abruptly finding himself terribly curious about...well, everything.

"So...how old are you? I mean, when you...sealed the Kyuubi? How old was, um...," Naruto wasn't sure if he could saw the world 'mother' without it sounding weird, so he just let it hang in the air, hoping the other would understand.

"I was 31, and Kushina was 27. I probably could've made Chuunin earlier, but Jiraiya-sensei always kept us moving. It gave me time to develop some of my own Jutsu before the exam, which was really useful. Not to mention Jiraiya-sensei always kept us amused," Minato explained, grinning at the thought of his perverted sensei.

He'd never really cared about gaining ranks quickly. He preferred to take his time, make sure he knew he was ready for the responsibilities first.

"So, what about you?"

"Hehe, ero-sennin did that with me, too! Except he kept saying it was for 'research' even though we were supposed to be training," Naruto replied with a surprisingly - or perhaps not so surprisingly - similar grin. How weird that they'd be so similar...or was that how it supposed to work? Was Sasuke like his dad? Was Sakura like her mother? Naruto didn't know. He'd never thought to ask.

"I'm sixteen, I...took the Chuunin exam...oh! Before that I graduated from the Academy, but it was really tough," Naruto rubbed the back of his head, fidgeting in his hair. Looking back, his road to where he was now was certainly an odd one. He'd wanted to be the strongest, but everything he'd done had been such an uphill battle. That was okay, wasn't it...?

"The graduation test is one of the most difficult ones you'll have to take in your entire life when you factor in the average skills of an academy student," Minato said. "How'd you do during the Chuunin exam?"

Cue a little more fidgeting. "Eh-heh, yeah. I had to retake it a couple times."

Nope, he wasn't going to tell him how he'd stolen a secret scroll and nearly gotten Iruka killed. Nope nope. "The Chuunin exam...I don't think it went like it was supposed to! Orochimaru attacked and he'd allied with Sand, so there was a lot of fighting and confusion. Only Shikamaru passed from our age group."

There, that wasn't so bad.

Log: Ongoing

Short post is short. Dx

No worries! /o/

I just finished making up some Yondy icons from doujinshi! 8D

....cute! ;3;

Re: ....cute! ;3;

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