| [May. 25th, 2015|03:02 am] |
Kakashi groaned from the soft gravity-well of the sofa. “I’m not moving again. Someone tie a plate to Naruto and send him back to me.”
“If Naruto sees you eating in the living room, we’ll never be free of crumbs in the sofa,” Minato said, not unkindly. “Some sacrifices must be made.” He leaned down and wrapped a warm, strong hand around Kakashi’s wrist, which was enough to get Kakashi moving. A second hand steadied Kakashi’s shoulder, helping him keep his balance.
For a splintered moment, it was like being fourteen again. Which, between surviving the last days of the war and learning to cope with the drain of Obito’s final gift, was a year Kakashi had mostly spent falling over, and Minato had spent hauling him back upright.
He was taller than Minato now, two whole inches (six if you counted hair), and old enough to know better, but the feeling was still the same: the world was a tipping point, and Minato was the solid axis in the middle. The one still place.
Which Kakashi was supposed to be outgrowing.
Maybe tomorrow. Tonight there was food, and soft, warm light, and probably fifteen different retellings of Naruto’s adventures in playgroup to look forward to. There was room to be tired. Tomorrow he could be an adult. Tonight, he could take the excuse to drape his arm over Minato’s shoulders and lean against his teacher’s side as they made their slow, staggering way to the dining room.
Kakashi paused in the doorway and blinked. “Wow.”
Food in Minato's house was usually a grab-and-go affair, eaten standing in the kitchen or sprawled in the living room. Naruto had graduated from his high chair at the kitchen table more than a year ago, and could be trusted to wrangle his own plate and chopsticks with only minimal casualties. As far as Kakashi knew, the formal dining room had only been used once, when Minato had decorated it in streamers and hundreds of nylon balloons to celebrate Kushina’s 27th birthday. After her death, it had been left to the dust and spiders.
It wasn’t dusty now. White candles lined the long oak table, which had been polished to a buttery sheen and draped with a crimson cloth runner — a color chosen for Minato’s flames and ANBU’s spiral mark, Kakashi guessed. Four places had been set, and one of the chairs piled with pillows to raise a small body up to conversation height. A small galaxy of dishes had been arranged around the table, organized into little constellations: bamboo shoots in dashi, sesame tofu, cucumbers quick-pickled in salt and powdered kelp; spicy pollock roe, sauteed fiddleheads; octopus braised with daikon and surrounded by delicate new potatoes simmered in soy sauce with new onions.
In pride of place at the center, a perfectly cooked sea bream lay on a red lacquer tray. Steam gently scented the air with fresh ginger.
Standing on the other side of the table, Ogata inclined her head and smiled, visible eye crinkling. Candlelight glinted in her silver hair. “Welcome home, Hatake-san.”
Kakashi swallowed hard, and pretended it was just because his mouth was watering. “Thank you,” he rasped.
Minato squeezed his shoulder and pushed him towards a chair. Rin and Naruto were already seated, smiling and gilded in golden light; Naruto had his special rice bowl in hand, decorated with blue spirals and dancing frogs. A trace of dangling seaweed at the corner of his mouth betrayed his inability to wait, but Rin — or possibly Ogata — had prevented him from actually clambering on the table and attacking the feast. He waved his chopsticks in the air and announced, “It’s a celebration, niisan, so you hafta make a wish.”
“I thought that was birthdays?” Kakashi said.
“And fish days,” Naruto said decisively. “Make a fish wish!”
Minato took his seat and looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. When Kakashi looked imploringly at her, Rin simply smiled and said, “Don’t keep us waiting.”
Traitors. |
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