Hi, everyone! Here's the second chapter to the story. Hope you enjoy it!
OoO
"What do you mean you don't have ramen?!"
"We don't feed our kids that garbage."
"How dare you call it garbage?! Ramen is a very nutritional meal!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes, his expression hidden behind the fridge door. There was no use in following this argument, Naruto would just keep pushing and pushing until he won. He had tried to make Sakura buy at least a few packages of the noodle soup in the past, in case of an emergency, not necessarily to his liking, but useful nevertheless. She had outright refused, saying there was no way that thing was making its way into their house. This was most likely due to the fact that every time Naruto invited them out it was to Ichiraku, even though now they could afford something better and healthier.
"Our kids will grow with healthy, homecooked meals." she had said, and proceeded to list all the benefits of this decision. Agreeing with his wife, that had been the last mention of buying ramen in their house.
"But Sasuke, Kenji likes his ramen!" Naruto whined.
Sasuke glanced at the two-year-old, who was sitting on the kitchen floor, playing with what looked like a fox toy, seemingly unfazed by his father's pleas. He was sure the whole ramen argument had more to do with Naruto's appetite than his little boy's.
"Naruto, if there's no ramen, there's no ramen. We'll go with whatever Sasuke has, right Asuna?" asked Shikamaru from his place on one of the isle stools. His daughter looked up at him from the floor beside the youngest Uchiha, pacifier still in place, and nodded, before going back to listening to whatever gibberish Sayiku was telling her, Mr. Giggles secured on her lap.
"Aww, man! Fine." Naruto said in defeat, missing the triumphant smirks on his friends' faces. "What are we making then, Sasuke?"
The Uchiha's mismatched orbs eyed the contents in the fridge, which was thankfully stacked. There had to be something there that would be to everyone's liking. Feeling a sudden tug on his pants' leg, he looked down to find his son staring at him, a small, thick book in his hands.
"Dad, use this." Itachi said, handing him the book. Sasuke realized it was Sakura's recipe book.
If there was something he loved about his wife, it was her resilience. Just a few weeks into their marriage, Sasuke discovered that even though Sakura was always eager to feed him with the healthiest homemade meals, her cooking just tasted awful. He had tried many times to keep it down, to no avail. Thinking he might have to starve to death, since his cooking skills were good but limited, he addressed the issue. She had been embarrassed and had refused to even enter the kitchen for a few days, forcing them to eat out. One night, though, he had discovered her happily making dinner when he came back from a mission, the recipe book by her side. With the years, her cooking had improved, even to the point of adding several of her own recipes to the stash. Now, they barely ate out, all thanks to the miraculous book.
Taking the object from his son's hands, he opened it and examined some of the pages along with the contents of the refrigerator.
"Daddy!"
A pair of piercing, big jade eyes stared at him, small hands outstretched, signaling for the book. Sasuke kneeled and opened the book in front of his daughter, who started flipping the pages with a small frown, as if scrutinizing what was written in them. Of course, he knew she was just looking at the pictures, trying to find the most appealing.
"Chwiken! Chwiken, Daddy!" she said, her pudgy finger pointing at the picture of a chicken and veggie stir fry.
He easily recognized the recipe as his daughter's favorite. She had the tendency of pestering her mother about cooking it, be it eight in the morning or four in the afternoon, it didn't matter. This was an excellent choice, Sasuke thought to himself, since it had protein and veggies in it. Giving a loving flick of the nose to the toddler, he stood upright and placed the book on the counter, motioning for Naruto and Shikamaru's help.
A few minutes later, the three shinobi were busy at each of their tasks: Sasuke seasoning the chicken, Shikamaru chopping the veggies, and Naruto making the rice in the slow cooker. The children were quite calm, each to their own business in the kitchen. Sayuki was leaning on the counter next to Shikamaru, talking to Mr. Giggles while Kenji sat next to her looking as if he wanted to join the conversation along with his fox toy, but was unsure of how to approach the Uchiha heiress. Asuna walked from Sasuke to her father, spending a few minutes beside each of them, examining what they were doing as if she was learning how to cook. Lastly, Itachi was standing beside Naruto, making good of what his mother had told him, and helping the blonde to make the rice.
"It's great Sakura had this recipe book. I don't think we could've managed." said Naruto as he measured the rice in a cup, Itachi letting him know when it was enough.
"Speak for yourself, Naruto." remarked the lazy genius as he chopped some carrots. "Some of us can actually make more than just ramen."
"Hey, I can cook! It's just easier when you have the instructions." retorted the blond.
"You read instructions?" asked Sasuke, sarcasm dripping from the question, as he lathered the chicken breasts in homemade seasoning.
"Of course I do!" he shouted and, in the heat of the moment, poured about two more cups of rice than the necessary into the cooker.
"Umm… Uncle Naruto, you poured too much." said Itachi, his eyes flicking from the paper with the measurements to the cooker's bowl.
"Wha-? Aww, dammit!" Naruto exclaimed as he began to take some of the rice out with the cup.
It was Asuna's voice, with her perfect pronunciation, what made the three adults snap their heads around, Shikamaru's eyes opening like saucers.
"Dammit." said the young Nara.
"W-what did you say?" questioned Shikamaru, not sure he had heard right.
Taking his father's baffled expression as encouragement for learning a new word, Asuna began jumping around, repeating the word over and over in a sing song voice.
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" she boasted.
Her sudden burst of energy elicited a chain reaction, Sayuki and Kenji quickly standing up and joining her in the wild frenzy all around the kitchen.
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" they screeched.
More than just seeing them, Naruto felt the death glares directed at him from the other shinobi. Shikamaru seemed distressed as he tried to get his daughter to calm down, whereas Sasuke looked just about ready to murder his best friend for teaching his daughter a dirty word. 'This is bad.' he thought, not entirely worried about what the males would do. He pictured the faces of Sakura, Ino, and Hinata when they came home and their children received them by boasting this knew knowledge. He visibly cringed and urged his son to calm down too. Suddenly, between the incessant chants of the children and the fathers' attempts to shush them, another word was heard.
"Kunai!"
Recognizing Sayuki's voice, Sasuke turned to her and his eyes widened. The two-year-old merely grinned at him, Mr. Giggles forgotten on the floor by her feet, a new object in her tiny hand. Quieting Asuna at last, Shikamaru sensed the change in Sasuke's stance and eyed the Uchiha's daughter.
"Sayuki." said Sasuke calmly and started taking slow, weary steps towards his daughter who had retreated to the kitchen door at the other side of the room, the cooking knife held firmly in her hand. "Give it back."
With all the ruckus from before and their attention elsewhere, Sayuki had managed to sneak behind Shikamaru and, with a stealth level worthy of an elite ninja, had taken the knife he was using to cut the vegetables without him noticing. She eyed the steel with fascination as she turned it over and over in her hand.
"Give what ba- Oh, my God! Sasuke, take that off her now!" Naruto's frightened voice sounded behind him as he grabbed Kenji and hugged him protectively to his chest.
"I'm trying, idiot!" Sasuke retorted through clenched teeth as he extended his hand to the toddler, his expression turning as soft as possible in order to coo the girl into giving him the knife back. "Sayuki, Daddy needs the cooking knife back."
"No cwooking. Fwight! Like Daddy!" she proclaimed and wielded the knife in the air as if she was slicing an invisible opponent. Sasuke felt his heart do a somersault.
"Sasuke, you're training her?! Are you crazy?!" asked Naruto, his eyes glued to the knife.
"Of course I'm not training her!" Sasuke retorted, glaring daggers at the blonde. "She's two."
Shikamaru, ever the quickest to decipher a situation, voiced the reason for the little girl's antics after scrutinizing her movements.
"You don't train her, but you let her watch you train." he explained, gaining the other ninjas' attention. "She doesn't move like someone who is trained to use a weapon. She's coping what she sees you do."
As if to encourage the theory, Sayuki took a stance, the cooking knife pointing directly at Naruto, her small mouth twisting into a crooked smirk identical to Sasuke's. "Idiot."
If it wasn't for the fact that his daughter seemed more than ready to slice and dice the future Hokage, Sasuke would've laughed. He didn't do laughing either, so, maybe just something very close. He'd heard what they said about daughters being closer to their fathers, but this was bordering otherworldly. Over the years, he had been able to map out the personalities of his children almost perfectly, something he had discussed with Sakura on several occasions to determine how their training should be imparted. Itachi had a gentle and caring nature, very similar to Sakura's. He was respectful and hard-working, always keen on learning new things and with a great interest for the work his mother did in the hospital. He would be starting in the academy soon and Sasuke was sure his son would be top of the class in no time, but without the egotistical and snobbish antics he himself had demonstrated when he was a student.
His second-born, on the other hand, was almost like a reflection of himself, something that both fascinated and unnerved him. He could see it in the little girl's eyes. There was a deep knowing, an understanding of the things that happened around her and how she fit with them. Sayuki was the tenacious one, the quick-learner, the one that knew just a few months after she was born that if she said "Dada" before asking for anything, she would get it. He had learned to identify when she cried out of real distress and when she was just manipulating a situation to her advantage. Also, she was not above throwing her brother under the bus if needed. At just two years old, and with her limited vocabulary, his daughter had a level of maturity within herself that astonished her parents to no end. Even without having developed the Sharingan yet, she had managed to copy his fighting stance almost perfectly from the times she had seen him and Naruto train.
Speaking of the Jinchuriki…
"SASUKE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING THERE? DO SOMETHING!" Naruto was panicking now, the young Uchiha holding him in place with her piercing eyes, the kunai pointed to his head without any sort of hesitation. He knew he had had to take more heed to the rumors surrounding the Uchiha heiress on her day care behavior. Now he understood why her classmates were so afraid of her.
"Sayuki." said Sasuke slowly, ignoring the blonde. "I'll let you have ice cream if you give me the kni-"
"KUNAI!" she stated loudly.
"The kunai back." Sasuke finished. Sakura wasn't a fan of giving the kids sweets, especially Sayuki, whose energy levels seemed to spark to maximum out of nowhere without the added sugar. He also knew how much of a weakness his daughter had for ice cream.
"Ice cream?" she asked, her eyes brightening.
Sasuke nodded and watched as she proceeded to hand over the deadly weapon. About an inch away from his hand, Itachi spoke from the other side of the room.
"See, Dad? I told you she was crazy."
Not even the Sharingan was fast enough to predict how, in a millisecond, the girl narrowed her eyes, turned around and, with a swift motion of her arm, threw the cooking knife in her brother's direction. What was even more baffling was that the boy dodged it with practiced ease, as if he had done it a thousand times before. The knife imbedded itself on the wall behind the boy.
"Lunatic." he said and crossed his arms.
Naruto and Shikamaru could only stare at the exchange, mouths agape. It was dizzying just how fast the tables had turned between the young Uchihas: Itachi had now a devious look on his face, like he knew he was up to no good, while Sayuki had gone from cold murderer to wailing toddler in less than a second.
"Not cwazy! Stwupid Tachi! Stwupid!" she cried in a high-pitched voice and ran over to Sasuke, burying her face in his shirt. "D-daddy, Tachi hwut me! Tachi stwupid!"
Sasuke made a mental note of buying something really nice for his wife the next time he was out, because he seriously had no idea how she had managed to deal with this the countless times he was out of the village during missions. His son had a small, triumphant smile on his face, knowing he had successfully made his sister snap; a smile that disappeared the moment Sasuke's eyes landed on his. Sayiku, on the other hand, was throwing an elaborate tantrum, chest heaving like a drowning sailor and eyes a waterfall of tears, the intention of seeking retribution for her brother's actions crystal clear.
Carrying the crying child, he opened the freezer and offered her a popsicle, silencing her for good. He ended up giving some to Asuna and Kenji as well, who happily sat down on the floor to eat them, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened just moments ago.
With the commotion finally over, the cooking was resumed, and later finished, without any incidents. As Sasuke, Naruto, and Shikamaru watched their children eat at the dinner table, they couldn't help but feel like it had been at least a couple of hours since their mothers left instead of just one.
"How do they do it? This is crazy." Naruto exclaimed, his eyes staring at the way Sayuki held her spoon, as if she would be trying to stab him with it any minute now.
"Without knives flying around, I'm sure." retorted Shikamaru before taking a big gulp of his sake.
"Sasuke, are they always like this? 'Cuz your girl looked really scary back there." Naruto asked the raven-haired man, his eyes showing a slight worry that what had transpired could be a normal occurrence in the Uchiha household.
Sasuke frowned. He knew his kids argued, just like any pair of siblings, but the way Itachi had dodged his sister's attack had him wondering just how deadly those arguments got when he and Sakura weren't looking. He decided he would have to keep his eyes more alert from now on.
"Papa."
Kenji had finished his meal and was now struggling to climb onto Naruto's lap.
"What is it, Kenji?" asked Naruto while helping the boy up.
"Papa, watch a movie." said the toddler.
A chorus suddenly erupted from the other children,
"Movie! Movie! Movie!"
"Well, what do you guys think?" asked Naruto to the fellow ninja.
"A movie might tire them out even more after dinner." pointed Shikamaru. "I say we go for it, early bedtime."
Sasuke nodded in agreement, sensing the other parents had also had enough excitement to last a month, at least. They would play a movie that could usher the kids to sleep and then they could spend the night without any more inconveniences, or flying knives.
As they made their way to the living room after cleaning the dishes, Sayuki reached him to walk beside him.
"Daddy." she called. When Sasuke looked at her, she had the same expression he had seen in her face the day he and Sakura had told her they were going to the park and, instead, took her to the hospital to get her vaccines. 'I know what you're doing.' is what it said. "No sleep." the words were clear as day.
As the toddler passed him and reached the living room, he caught Shikamaru staring at him, a frown in his face.
"I can practically hear the gears turning in that little head of hers." Said the lazy genius and Sasuke could not agree more.
The sooner they got those kids to sleep, the better.