Summary: When there is terrible draft of wind always following you, how do you get rid of the goosebumps and retain your sanity at the same time? Naruto shut the windows, closed the doors but, there would always be a crack in the wall or, in this case, his amount of heavy drinking and warm baths wasn't gonna stop it. While life gives you breezes, wrap a blanket around you to be protected.

Naruto Uzumaki was a young lad of silence. He wasn't strong; fragile really. That was why Iruka stayed with him. The teen was so hard to understand at times and he only looked troubled if he was about to blow with stress. It was almost like Naruto was a mute in a past life. Or maybe, Naruto just didn't want to say anything. Thinking that the very time he lifted his tongue, he would hurt someone's feelings.

Words hurt close to worse than sticks and stones. Iruka remembered a quiet night being interrupted by a silent blond saying that his punishment for making his mother cry was not seeing her for a week. Of course, Iruka asked Kushina if his far-fetched tale was true. She dipped her head and told him there was no way to discipline her child when he did it before anyone could. She said that Naruto thought, if he beat himself up before someone else did, the punishment would hurt less. Ironically, Naruto was the kind of person to be overly hard on themselves.

That was the first time Iruka noticed that the bubbling blond had changed...or was he ever what he thought him to be? No, Naruto had no reason to give false leads unless to make someone happy. Yet, not a soul thanked him for the little things he did to see a smile.

Iruka supposed that had reason to deal with Naruto unpredictability. Naruto didn't know what he was going to do have the half time he was awake. It was like his body ignored his brain like society ignored elders and the homeless. Feeling like he was invisible, Naruto slowly altered his behavior. And Naruto was right; he was invisible. No one noticed his new outlook on things; they just waved it off with growing up. Iruka had to give them that. Naruto did grow but, only in his height. Really, his mindset on things just ...paused. Although, Iruka was gingerly assuming on him. Like said, Naruto was unpredictable and you only know what someone shows you. Though, Iruka didn't want to think about that. He was more worried at the eyes staring at the door of a five star restaurant. Naruto stepped closer and toke a step back. He turned his head to the teacher. The anxiety attacks plagued his handsome features.

"You don't have a reservation..." Naruto trailed off in a hollow voice. His body was betraying him again.

"I'll wait outside for you!"Iruka said hastily. How was he suppose to talk to Naruto with that face? Iruka dragged the blond inside because he didn't bring a jacket. He lined them both up to a secluded wall and began to try and calm his nephew.

"What do you have to lose by meeting your father?" Iruka said with a soft voice. Yelling would making this lecture hard and not beneficial.

"I..." He stopped and swallowed brutishly on a lump threatening to make him cry. No, he ordered, not in this place.

"Well, Naruto-" He stopped when he saw a man with blond hair, blue eyes, tan skin, tall structure who was standing with a boy with pale skin, black eyes, blue and black high-lighted hair standing in the corner, staring at the duo.

He looked at Naruto whose sad appearance and droopy eyes did a complete one-eighty, Naruto wasn't even looking at the two people at the other side of the restaurant; he started talking with Iruka again.

"Hey,"his voice sounding more scratchy yet muscular than ever, "Iruka, stay in this corner." Naruto locked eyes with him and his blank face made Iruka nod his head. "Sure, just come to me when you can't take it." The teacher said.

Now, the man and boy were walking towards them. The man was wearing a white silk shirt which had a red collar and black slacks. The boy was wearing navy blue as well but with a cotton shirt and confining black jeans. Naruto didn't take a glance at them; he still chatted with Iruka at his right.

"So, the old woman's name is Chiyo?"'

"Yes, it seems some of her younger distant relatives go to your school." Iruka smiled with the teen. He knew the smile was fake but, being artificial had advantages.

The man and boy were now in-front of them. Naruto gazed at them from the corner of his eye. "Is something you want from me?"

"More like everything you want from him." The boy said bitterly. He calmed when the man raised a long, slender hand on his shoulder.

"Are you Naruto Uzumaki?" The man was serious yet that didn't make Naruto coward down in defeat. On the contrary, it made his face serious too.

"Yes and what does that mean for you?" Naruto's voice was like before however with a hint of malice. The atmosphere around the two whose eyes were strong and judging made Iruka have chills. Even the boy was shocked at the fact that the blond was withstanding the man's glare.

"It means that I'm your father, boy." He spat his words threw his teeth and stepped closer to Naruto. The teen was the same height.

"You have not yet told me what that means to you." Naruto's pupil toke the form of a wild animal: they were silted and beryl ords flamed like a brush fire that wouldn't be taken down with just a kiss and a hug.

"It means, bastard, that I disown you." Minato growled. He didn't sound dignified or cannibalistic as Naruto sounded at the brick of being. He sounded three ranks below that.

Naruto laughed, his eyes becoming uncaring, his smile empty like his stomach and his body showing his personality. "It doesn't make a difference what my relationship with a stranger is like." He removed the hair pins from his head and let his hair bounce up to breathe. He scratched his whiskers and chuckled. "My ma told me to tell you 'Swallow a termite to get that pole from your butt'." He turned to Iruka while his eyes flashed with hurt and abandonment.

Minato calculated and realized his mistake. As the teen and the teacher walked out of the door, he tried to cry out to them but, his voice betrayed him. He stayed and instead treated the confused boy to dinner. All the while, thinking of a complex teenage son of his.

He jumped when the boy asked him what that whole fiasco was about.

"Nothing, Sasuke." He lied yet not entirely because he didn't know what it was either. Could he have been wrong in assuming that Kushina wanted to run his bank account dry? Of course he was, he thought solemnly, she has too much pride and need for independence. He was wrong in doing that to a son. But, rage was a powerful thing. Especially when it was to the result of something you never wanted. He hoped that his secretary kept the number to Kushina's home. He would have to fix this. So how would he fix it? He didn't ever want children, He hated caring for them and had almost no patience in his body. Did Kushina really love him that much that she would hide something like that from him? No, he was being foolish again. Kushina fell out of love with him long ago.

"Do you really hate kids that much?" She said, while not to his awareness, holding her swollen belly.

"Yes." He told her while looking at the computer screen and working his life away. He stated the truth and that hurt more now than it ever did when he was a workaholic. He was nearing retirement at a young age and living his life to the fullest; without a family, children, and a wife. All he had was his money and friends that he met with the same goal: gain more riches. It was a race to get to that American dream at the end of the rainbow and each dream was different.

You had to be mean and nasty to many and nice and sweet to few. Minato spent his time in the orphanage learning that fact and observing how it was done. He was always in a race. In his younger days: a race to get adopted faster than anyone else. No one wanted an old dog. You had to be fresh, cute and cunning at a puppy. You needed to get ideals and information quicker than anyone else. This was the case all through his teenage and adulthood. Even when Jiraiya adopted him, that was forever going to be the case.

Even when he met Kushina, he couldn't give up his old ways. Until Naruto, he competed in every field but Naruto made him realize he was competing with himself. Naruto's eyes dared him yet, made him shiver at the hurt behind them. He hated that glare which he heard asking "Do you know how stupid you look right now? I'm ashamed to be your son." Hearing the blond call him a stranger knocked him over the head and out of his blinding rage. He was shocked upon anything. He felt like an drug-addict finally looking in the mirror to see a hideous monster. He knew that he had to fix this as soon as he could. But, he was afraid. What did Naruto think of him and was it cliché to tell him "I love you"?

Minato played with his food like a toddler wondering where in the world he was. Sasuke was as clueless and dumbfounded as his father's best friend. However, the Uchiha couldn't shake the feeling that he saw that blond guy before.

~Fin

I need to make a confession: this was inspired by more than a book but, real life events that happen in my family's life. There are a lot of fathers like this in the world and I just happen to be close to understanding what would be going in peoples minds if they were in this situation. At least, I hope I am.

I based Minato's personality on what I've read on it and of a man who I met not too long ago. I'm sorry if there isn't as many twist as there are in many other fictions but I only write about what I know so thank you for reading.

~Little Thinker