Minato opens his house's door grimly.
"Oh?" He hears, when he looks up he sees his twin with a thick book on his lap, sitting on the living room's sofa, a mug of tea on the desk. Makoto frowns when he sees Minato. The younger doesn't understand why; but he has a good guess. Probably because his (too) strained smile.
Makoto gently says, "Welcome back, outouto."
Minato blinks, and nods. He wants to go to his room and just sleep for the day but his feet make its way to his twin and he sits down slowly beside him. Makoto's expression softens, then he puts down his book and gently hugs the younger Namikaze.
But Minato still feel impossibly numb. He closes his eyes and all he could see is blood in his hands; stained his white sleeves and kunai, and a cold corpse of the bandit staring accusingly at him. Unseeing, chilling red stained eyes judging him. Minato shudders. He doesn't mean to—never mean to—
"—kill him. I didn't mean to." He shakily says, to his twin's shoulder, "But i did, anyway."
"Oh brother," Minato hears Makoto murmurs, with a soft yet painful tone he rarely uses, "This is why i don't want you to be a ninja. That kind of expression never fits your handsome face."
His lips twitched upwards at Makoto's attempt at joking.
"That is the way of this world, brother dearest," Makoto begins, and Minato can feel his brother's hands pats his back and ruffles his hair in a comforting manner, "that is the way of ninja. Now tell me, did he try to harm anyone?"
Minato hums, reluctantly remembering the mission again, "He did." A pause, "he tried to kill Nohara."
"Then it's a right thing to do." Makoto firmly replies, "he would've killed one of you, or god forbid, you, so a retaliation is on the line." A pause, "it's not your fault, not his, not anyone's. It's just the way this world works, brother."
Makoto is rarely a logical one between the both of them but when he does, he's always right. Like right now. Minato knows his twin's words hold true, and with grim acceptance, he lets his shoulder drop, and lets go the images of corpse and blood, pushed them to the back of his mind; as a reminder.
"You are home with me now, that's what important." Makoto whispers, and Minato nods, exhaled a shaky, long breath to calm himself.
They are home. There's a war on horizon but they are home. Together, they will be fine.
.
.
There's a loud, thud sound from in front of him and Minato looks up to see a big, dusty book in front of him. He raises an eyebrow to his twin's smug smirk in front of him.
"This is?"
"A book of fuuinjutsu, released by the prestigious Uzumaki Clan."
Minato frowns. Makoto sounds so smug and proud and Minato doesn't understand why. "Fuuinjutsu? Sealing?" Minato stares confusedly at the book, then to his brother, "Why?"
"My, my, brother!" Makoto said, with that artificial high-pitched tone which he copies from a soap opera (always makes Minato wants to roll his eyes) complete with the shakes of his head, "Art of sealing could be described as foundation of life! You can do anything, and i repeat, anything, with seals!"
The younger blinks. Now that sounds very interesting, indeed. But— "—and pray tell, dear brother, where did you get this book?"
Makoto must notices that his theatrical has rubbed off on Minato as he grins, "a granny who owns a barbecue shop give it to me. She said it's from her long, long time friend, and she figured i would enjoy it."
"And?"
His older brother's face lit like fireworks, "I did! It's soo fun! You have to read it! Fuuinjutsu is like puzzles! The elements are pieces of the puzzles and we can combine it to make nearly everything, brother! There are so many chances and combinations on its elements! Like, seriously! The combinations itself are nearly infinite! We have to study fuuinjutsu together, Minato! We could be the best seal masters in this village!"
Seeing his brother's excited face and his ramblings on elements of Fuuinjutsu written on the book, Minato wonders, how could other kids not see how much of a nerd Makoto is? He is a social butterfly, even more so than Minato, yes, but that doesn't mean Minato is the only nerd one between them. But nearly everyone except Shikaku believes that Makoto could not sit down still reading for more than one hour. If only they knew.
"Alright, Makoto, breath."
And Makoto does so, as he inhales a long breath to stop his ramblings, then smiles brightly to his twin. Minato shakes his head, but he's smiling, "Fine, then. Where do we start?"
Makoto's grins turns mischievous and Minato frowns suspiciously.
"First, brother dearest, of course, we'll begin with calligraphy!"
Minato shrugs. Calligraphy doesn't look that hard. And they will learn it together, anyway. It shouldn't be that frustrating, right?
.
.
Using their parents's wealth, the twins purchased a pair of brushes, unholy amount of papers on many sizes, ink, and other things needed to practice calligraphy. That including books on basic calligraphy and basic sealing; very limited sources on fuuinjutsu they could find in the village.
They both read the books first, and being used to read since five years old, the books easily finished in four hours or so. It's weekend, Sunday precisely, and afternoon when they begin pouring ink and practice the real thing. First tries are always a mess but then, about half an hour later, Makoto makes calligraphy looks like a cake walk and for Minato, that is very, very misleading.
Done with writing his name in calligraphy, Makoto takes a chakra paper which only used to make explosive seals or something like that, and Minato stops his brush to stare.
"What are you—"
But Makoto looks like he doesn't listen, as he opens a 'Basic Sealing For Ninja' book and opens the page which shows a design of silent smoke bomb seal. Minato suddenly feels his blood runs cold. He has a good guess of what is his brother doing. But he's also curious, so he lets his brother copy the design on the chakra paper in his hand.
"Try this." Makoto says, as he hands the seal to Minato. The younger frowns, but reluctantly nods and he ties the paper to a wooden shuriken.
Minato flows his chakra to the paper and quickly throws the shuriken to their backyard garden. The shuriken hits the dirt and with a low boom it explodes; Minato winces to see a little crater and Makoto adopts a thoughtful look, before he takes another chakra paper and begin copying the seal again.
"Makoto, i don't think—"
But Makoto seriously doesn't listen, as his hand swiftly creates characters and symbols on the paper. Minato could only sigh as he takes the newly made seal and ties it to another wooden shuriken. He lets his chakra flow to the paper and throws it again to their backyard. The explosion has receded and there are smoke around, but there's still a little crater where the shuriken hits.
His blue eyes could only widens in surprise but Makoto hums, before he takes another chakra paper and swiftly crafts another seal.
This time, Minato is fully curious as he ties the seal on wooden shuriken. Again, he lets his chakra flow to the paper and he throws it again to their backyard. And surprise, there's a soft shushing noises before black smoke covers their backyard completely. Makoto's seal is a complete success. On third try. And that books said it needs at least three months or even one year to make that basic seal as calligraphy is a hard art.
Minato goes slack-jawed while Makoto looks at the smoke with his smug smile.
Quickly broke out of his stupor, Minato snatch a chakra paper and begin to copy the seal design on the book. But before he could try it, Makoto snatch his seal away and stares at his work.
"It's messy, Minato." Makoto points to the character on the corner right, "you write it too far to the left a few inches," his finger moves to the far left, "this one is above the required place, and your strokes are too bold. You see, this, this, aand this part should be more.. err... lithe, i think, than the stroke on this one. Also there are splotches of ink around the characters, it's messy. This won't work. This would probably explode like my first try." A pause, Makoto frowns, "but even that was not this messy. This might be dangerous. Hmm, burn this one. Your caligraphy is a mess, brother. Don't try any seal until you could write your name properly, alright."
Minato could only gawk at his twin, who is humming thoughtfully and pats his head like a puppy. His twin is hella genius on calligraphy—and sealing too, probably.
"Also," he pauses to frown in distaste, "we may need to ask Kushina for help. Her clan is very proficient on sealing, after all. She'll probably pummel me if she sees me so, i'm counting on you, otouto!"
"How are you so good with this?" Minato blurts out, incredulous.
Then Makoto grins, and shrugs, "Who knows, brother. Probably because i have studied this before, in my previous life."
Then he laughs so loud like it's a very funny joke and Minato could only stare. Just his twin and his antics...
.
.
As per Makoto's request, the next Saturday, Minato goes looking for Kushina to get her help on sealing but to his surprise, he can't find the red-head anywhere. He's sure he already runs around the village at least once and it is impossible to not see Kushina's bright hair. He already visited her house too and her caretaker said she went out this morning.
This doesn't sound right. Something in the back of his mind tells him that this is wrong. Whatever this is.
The blond decided to comb the forest outside the village's border; just to satisfy his curiosity. Imagine his surprise when he sees strands of red long hair on the dirt. Minato looks around more and finds more strands of red hair on the bushes, branches of tree and forward, leading outside of village. This is a trail left by Kushina, Minato is sure of that. But why?
"Darling brother, what are you doing?"
His brother's voice breaks him out of his thoughts and Minato nearly slips his foot on the branch where he's standing. He turns his head to see Makoto grins, before he swiftly jumps to a branch closest to him, then another, until hes standing right beside Minato.
Makoto blinks, his blue eyes slowly widens to see strands of red hair in Minato's hands. The twins shares a look; understanding dawned on both of them, of how Makoto will not be able to follow Minato without chakra enhanced jumps, how this might be disastrous, and how Kushina might be in terrible danger.
"Go."
Makoto says, and Minato leaps away, leaving his brother behind. He follows trail of red hairs but does not pick them as he's sure Makoto follows the trail too, only more slower than him.
Minato jumps down and hides between bushes; he stalks the enemies from afar. There are three adults; two in front of Kushina and one behind her. They are walking around the forest and haven't noticed Minato yet. Minato silently follows them, simply waiting and observing; the rear one's holding a ninjato and the two others seems usual. From their hitai-ate, it's from Kumogakure. He could see Kushina plucks out her hair and drops them every so often, and unconsciously smiles as he mentally praise the girl's courage and cleverness.
The blond hears a soft rustle; yet their enemy-nins hasn't realized, and soon enough, his twin silently jumps down from a tree and squats beside him. He looks ragged and tired but still grinning like crazy. Makoto pulls out few papers from his pant's pocket and when Minato looks at them, they are seals.
Silently, Makoto pulls out his hand and, Minato hands him few kunais. With quick moves he ties the seals to the kunais, hands them back to Minato, and jumps up to a nearby tree.
A pincher attack, then, Minato mused. Fine.
Minato throws two kunais at the same time; one between the two in the front and one straight to the ninjato-wielding nin's head. The first kunai exploded with yellow, bright flash and black smoke, while the second one simply explodes with purple smoke which quickly fills the road. Minato jumps to the smoke and snatch one Kushina Uzumaki in bridal style, then leaps up to a tree.
Kushina widens his eyes to Minato, who is smiling an looking down at her, from the top of the forest.
"You leave a very clear trail," Minato says, and his smile widens, "like i said, you have beautiful hair."
The Uzumaki looks awe-struck but before she could say anything, Minato hears clanking metals and looks down to his twin standing tall in the middle of littered bodies.
Makoto's cold, empty gaze sends shivers down Minato's spine. He looks to the corpses; he finds one with twisted head, one with stab hole in the chest and twisted hand, and one with lacerated feet—the only survivor—looking up at Makoto with fearful, teary eyes. Minato jumps down beside his older brother and he notices a bloodied ninjato in Makoto's hand.
Minato hears Kushina softly gulps and he feels her turns her head away on his shoulder. His smile is strained when Minato says, "let's go back to Konoha. I'll... inform my sensei to bring back the survivor."
Makoto drops the ninjato and when he turns around, his smile is so off it makes Minato wants to cry. His bright, brave twin never shows a broken smile like that before. He's hurting, hurting so much, Minato knows. And it's not because of little cut wounds all over his hands and feet, not because his swollen ankle, it's something else. Something he cannot see. It's very worrying.
"Kushina-san needs a proper care, brother, go first." Minato wants to argue, but Makoto cuts again, "I'll make sure he doesn't escape."
The younger Namikaze holds the urge to bit back, He won't—he can't escape. Because those cut wounds and how he bleeds profusely—he's in agony he can't escape. But one look from Makoto is enough for him to comply.
There are whimpers from said man, and grimly, Minato nods and quickly makes his way to Konoha, with Kushina calmly in his hands.
.
.
"Stop being a mother-hen, Minato, that's my job."
Minato rolls his eyes to Makoto's irritated expression. He sits down on a chair beside Makoto's white bed, and with unimpressed look he says, "someone gave me an exhortation to always be careful and considerate in battle."
Makoto closes his eyes, and Minato continues, "and that someone actually got himself a twisted ankle and cut wounds everywhere. How could i not worry, my dear brother?"
When Makoto opens his eyes again, it's to frown to Minato, "It's not like i could not walk," Makoto whines, then shakes his head, "they are exaggerating. Your sensei is exaggerating. And i am older than you! Older brothers are strong so they will not cause their little bros worry! And i am strong!"
Minato remembers how Jiraiya-sensei seems shocked when Minato explains what happened, and quickly jumps out to take both the survivor and Makoto in his hands. Both go the hospital. Minato doesn't know if Jiraiya-sensei is also care so much for his brother. "You're my older brother only by five minutes," Minato says with fond exasperation.
Makoto opens his mouth to retorts or to crack a joke, but then the room's door opens and one Uzumaki Kushina slowly enters. She walks to Makoto's bed, stops right beside Minato, and when they start a staring contest, Minato could feel sweat trickling down his head.
Then the Uzumaki break her gaze and mumbles, "I apologize. And thank you."
Minato is sure that was loud enough for anyone in this room hear but Makoto still asks, "What was that?"
Kushina grits her teeth, "I am sorry. And thank you."
To Minato's fear, Makoto picks his ear and with his most nonchalant tone he could use he says, "I'm sorry i think i hurt my ears a little could you repeat that ple—"
"I said i'm sorry! And thank you for saving me!" Kushina yells and Minato winces; both because of the volume and because that fierce scowl on her face. "Happy now, you disgusting brother-complex?!"
Makoto's smug smile quickly turned to shock by that nickname, and even laying on bed is not enough to stop Makoto from being fierce, "I dare you to repeat that, you constipated tomato!"
"Disgusting bro-com!"
"Rotten tomato!"
"Could you guys please—"
"Now brother, shut up." / "Minato, shut up!"
And as they continue throwing nick-names both insulting and stupid ("You ugly goat!" "Crippled monkey!" ) at the same time, Minato could only sigh as he imagines their upcoming sealing study. It will be fun. Much fun. So much joy it makes Minato wants to massage his head for his ever-growing headache.
.
.
"Makoto?"
Minato tries to rub his sleepiness away as he steps out of their shared bedroom, looking for his twin. It has been two days since Makoto was released from the hospital but he's not healing properly. Physically, yes. But mentally? Minato could see something lurking behind his twin's eyes, clouding his eyes with fear and guilt. Minato understands them very well; it's like his first kill that time.
If Minato always show a calm facade then Makoto is his bright grins. But he could only hide so much in front of Minato, because if one of them is in distress, the other would know. Such is the bond of twins, their mother once said.
Through the moonlight which shines from the open window in the living room, he could see Makoto, sitting alone on the sofa and staring out to the moon. Silently, Minato walks to his twin and sits down beside him. Makoto hasn't reacted but Minato knows Makoto sees him there.
"Go back to sleep, otouto." He softly says, without even glancing at Minato.
Always put a tough face, Minato thinks as he sighs. Then, he spreads his blanket around Makoto and himself, sets a comfortable position on the sofa—leaning to his twin—and closes his eyes. "I'll sleep wherever you are." He mumbles.
Makoto's shoulder drop; days of pent frustration and sadness drops from the wall as Minato feels Makoto's trembling body leans to his, slowly relaxing. Minato holds Makoto's hands, because he can and because Makoto needs it. And for the silent message; I'm here, we are safe, we will be fine.
Minato hears a soft sigh and a soft murmur, "Thank you, Minato."
The twins fall to a dreamless, comfortable sleep.
.
.
About a week after Makoto released from hospital, Minato invites Kushina to help Namikaze twins with their sealing study. Frankly, it mostly to help Makoto since Minato's calligraphy only improved for a fraction; not enough yet t make anything.
Minato doesn't understand why, every time Makoto and Kushina meets, they always start with an intense staring contest.
This time, Makoto breaks out first, as he huffs and pulls out his crafted seal and shows it to the red-head. "I can't make this thing work, what do you think, tomato?"
Kushina looks very irritated by the nickname and is itchy to punch Makoto but she grits her teeth and focus herself on the seal instead. Soon enough, she frowns, and Minato excuses himself to start practicing more tedious calligraphy.
"What's this?" Kushina asks, then she points at something on Makoto's seal, "why do you put this character on smoke bomb seal?"
Then Minato hears Makoto's voice, "It's to make the color yellow. Or golden. But i don't know why I can't make it right."
"And this one?"
"That's so the flash lasts longer than two seconds. Also don't know if that could work."
There's a silence, and when Minato looks up from his calligraphy, it's to see Kushina gawk at his twin, "You—you made this by yourself?"
Makoto raises an eyebrow, "Of course. Have you ever find a yellow smoke bomb with golden flash anywhere?"
Kushina seems to gawk more, if that's possible. "And you just—learned sealing for what, two months?"
"Not even one month." Makoto shakes his head. "Two weeks. Gotta safe a distressed red haired princess and get bedridden for about a week, you see."
The Uzumaki understands the underlying message and scowls, "I don't believe you."
Both Minato and Makoto blinks.
"Excuse me?" Makoto asks, somehow offended.
Then Kushina shakes his head, her eyes still trailing the seal's design in her hands, "you can't make seal this complex just by two weeks. It's impossible!"
Makoto's expression turns carefully blank as he pulls out his other crafted seals; the success ones, Minato notes, and shows them to Kushina. The read-head looks at the seals, then at Makoto suspiciously, but takes them anyway, and begin inspecting them in silence. Her eyes widens by every seconds.
"You—you—"
Minato waits, watching the girl's expression carefully.
"You're a genius!" Kushina blurts out, somehow incredulous but awed at the same time.
Makoto shows his smug smile, rolls his eyes as if saying 'Duh, damn right,' "I know i am."
"Now tomato, if you could stop looking at me like i'm a very very handsome God who just descended from heaven and help me on this seal, i will appreciate that very much."
Quickly, the red-head scowls; probably by the nickname and by Makoto's narcissistic tendencies, and huffs, "Fine, bro-com, i'll show you the great knowledge of sealing by a true Uzumaki!" Then the red-head snatch a nearby brush and begin drawing design with Makoto closely watching.
And as they both drown themselves on book, papers, and ink, Minato finally exhaled a relieved sigh. That's pretty peaceful for their first meeting and finally, Minato could continue doing his tedious calligraphy peacefully.
13 Years Old
Minato comes home to find his older brother hangs upside down; his ankle on windowsill while the rest of his feet must be outside, and his head touches the floor. Predictably, he nearly had a heart-attack. Slowly, Minato walks closer to his twin, who is frowning with one hand covers his mouth as if in deep thoughts.
But before Minato could say anything, Makoto lets his hand down and speaks, "I think i should start hiding."
Minato blinks. Far too used to Makoto doing weird things, he doesn't ask why does he hangs upside down, but, "From what?"
"From the world, dearest brother. From life."
Minato shows his most incredulous look he could muster at this brother. When he sees Makoto still won't budge from his position, he could only shakes his head. You know what, he doesn't want to know. Just Makoto and his antics.
.
.
When Minato enters his room the next day, it's to see a raven-haired teenager standing in the middle of the room. Minato blinks. He's surprised, yes, but he can't feel any hostile intent from the teen. He doesn't look suspicious either, for some reason.
Then said teen turns his head to look at Minato and he realizes why. That teen has the same face as Minato. That teen is his twin brother Makoto. With black hair. Minato stares blankly at his twin.
"From now on, Makoto Namikaze doesn't exist."
Minato instantly alarmed, he remembers Makoto's words yesterday; 'from the world, dearest brother, from life' and he frowns. "But you're—"
Makoto shakes his head, an apologetic smile on his face, "Minato Namikaze is the only son of Namikaze family." He slowly says, "my name is Makoto. No family name."
How Makoto could spew something so... painful like that with straight face and firm determination somehow disappoints Minato. Very much. Looking at Makoto's eyes, Minato realizes, his twin is serious. Dead serious. He wants to—to throw his family away, to throw Minato away.
"Why?" Minato can't help but to ask.
He must've shown a sad expression, as Makoto looks very very apologetic, "this has to be done, brother. The outside world will forget Makoto Namikaze, as he doesn't exist anymore outside. But he exists here, inside this room, this house. Only in this house."
But what would it do to have a family nobody knows? What will it do to have a forgotten family? What good it will be if he can't talk about Makoto to anyone but himself? Why is this happening?
"This is not funny, Makoto."
"I never meant to be funny."
The twins has a staring contest then. For Minato, it seems to last forever as the more he looks at his twin's eyes, the more he realizes that Makoto is very serious. And it rips Minato's heart apart. Of course Minato knows Makoto does this for a reason. A very logical reason, it must be. But Makoto is not willing to tell the reason and Minato feels like he's left behind. Like—like Makoto Namikaze doesn't exist anymore. Like what his twin said. He's disappointed, and sad, and confused.
Is it because Minato, somehow? Did he do something wrong? Does Makoto simply doesn't want to be Minato's brother anymore?
"But—what will i say if they asked about you?" Minato tries again, simply because he doesn't want to lose his brother, not like this.
Makoto shows his painful, twisted smile then, "say, Minato-kun, where's your brother? I haven't seen him anywhere."
There's a silence, before understanding dawned on Minato (how Makoto won't budge even a bit and how Minato should speak nothing about Makoto at ll, from now on) and he, too, copies his brother's bitter smile.
"There it is. That's the answer."
Minato doesn't understand. And his childish side demands answer, his childish side is sad and very bitter to his brother. His childish side wants to also leave Makoto alone and forgets that he has an older brother.
"Jiraiya-sensei asked me if i want to travel with him." Minato tries again, for the last time, "he asked if i want to leave the village and be his protege." He challenged.
Minato just wants to hear reason the reason, or apologize, or maybe Makoto will consider his choices on this, and Minato will also consider his option of leaving Makoto alone.
But to his disappointment, to fuel his sadness, Makoto simply turns away and nods, "This is a war time, Minato. Please have a safe trip."
Minato makes his expression blank, and calmly, silently, he walks out of the room, brokenhearted.
.
.
Jiraiya never see his genius student being this upset before.
It's so painfully obvious that he loses his calm and collected self; he frowns and twitch every so often, like something bugs his mind and he can't get rid of it. It puts his teammates on edge as Minato is the one they take notices, the one pulls them together on the ground.
Seriously though, he's never this upset before. Not even being in front of enemy and his first kill does this much damage on the blond boy. So it must be something to do with something precious or someone close to him.
..the twins never fought before. They are always together and completely in sync, so can it be—?
Jiraiya asks Minato to eat ramen after training; to ask about his problem and probably to get answer for his offer yesterday. The man instantly become more alarmed when he sees Minato's strained smile and small nod. He's usually excited to eat ramen with him. So this must be serious.
"Where's your twin, Minato?" Jiraiya carefully asks, as he watches Minato plays with his chopsticks and his unfinished ramen.
The blond looks up, twists his lips to one bitter, hurtful smile, then continue playing with his broth.
Jiraiya is very confused. Whatever problem it is, it's the one he can't ignore as this will disturb Minato's performances but this is also one which Minato should solve alone. And the kid now is in no mind to think levelly.
"Have you considered my offer, then?"
Minato seems relieved to the change of topic, as he nods, "Yes, sensei. I will travel with you."
His shaky voice betrays the determination on his face, and Jiraiya wonders if this the cause of him being so upset. It probably is, as the twins never get separated before, and Minato must be worried for his older twin.
"Don't worry, brat. I'll look for someone to be your twin's company."
Minato's blue eyes widens in surprise; Jiraiya could see his relieved and happy glint in those eyes for a split second before they disappeared. Then he nods, and smiles, far more relaxed than before, "thank you, sensei."
Jiraiya huffs. Just twins being worried for each other, perhaps. "No problem, brat."
.
.
Makoto stares at the jounin in front of him. The jounin stares back.
He is very annoyed. No, really.
He just successfully made his dear brother, the Yellow Flash of Konoha, the Hero, the youngest ninja with 'Flee on Sight' order on Bingo book, upset with him. He just made his brother disappointed and sad so hard he wanted to just leave Makoto alone and travels with his pervert sensei. Makoto wants to tear his hair out. He knows Minato would be upset but not this upset, damn it! And now said pervert sensei offers a—a paedophil snake to be his teacher or care-taker!
His fingers twitched and Makoto scowls. Just because Jiraiya thinks he can't take care of himself doesn't mean he can give him to snake's lair! To be eaten by a disgusting zombie snake! Makoto doesn't want that! Like, at all! He hates Orochimaru! No matter what his cousin said about Orochimaru, how awesome he is or how handsome he is, he doesn't care! Old man megalomaniac Madara is far better than this creepy snake! His cousin was a crazy fangirl anyway!
"I don't like you." He rudely says to one Orochimaru, and both Jiraiya and Orochimaru widens their eyes, surprised. "I don't like snakes." Makoto continues.
Then Orochimaru disappears in a puff of smoke and while Makoto is smiling smugly, Jiraiya gawk at the older Namikaze like he just grew another head. Makoto doesn't care, really.
.
.
Makoto gawk at the white-haired jounin in front of him. One Sakumo Hatake smiles at him.
"I like you." Makoto says, because Minato is upset to him and he doesn't care anymore to any of this ninja shit, he doesn't care what the world thinks of him anymore. The White Fang blinks, surprised. He notices how Jiraiya has exhaled a long breath in relief but Makoto continues, "please teach me kenjutsu, Hatake-san."
Makoto quickly bows a perfect ninety degree. When he straightens himself again, Sakumo seems to be amused, which Makoto doesn't know if it's good or bad; but being close to one minor infamous character is probably a good thing, right? Who knows, maybe he could stop Sakumo from harakiri and teases little Kakashi for his entire life? That is a good thought there.
Jiraiya and Sakumo glances at each other before Sakumo nods, and as they make their way to the Hatake Compound, Makoto can't help but to think about butterfly effect. How much did his presence and this decision affect people? Hopefully he hasn't ruin something big. But with one Minato Namikaze, his dear younger brother whom he loves so much, being upset with him, Makoto isn't sure anymore.
(Yes, Makoto acts like the world is going to end just because Minato is upset with him but seriously, it's the first time he has a twin and when you've been living alone with your twin who's going to be the most favorite hero in the world, you can't help to think that yes, he is your world.
Yes, Makoto proudly admits he has brother-complex to Minato. Sue him.)
.
.
Minato looks at his older brother (black haired, twisted bittersadapologetic smile, so odd) standing in front of him and can't help but to frown. He can't help but to curl his lips and silently asks, 'why?' 'why do you have to hide?' 'is it something i did?' 'what is my fault?' 'why are you doing this?'
But Makoto remains firm even if his gaze softens and he softly shakes his head. Makoto takes a step forward, pats Minato's head (instantly makes his tense shoulders drop; how he doesn't like his calming brother now) and grins.
"Come back and be awesome, dearest little brother."
Minato is smiling too; albeit strained, bitter and small because, even if he's sad, upset and confused, Makoto is still his bright brother who could calm Minato just by his smile.
.
.
(And so the twins carves their own way, until the time their roads unite once again.)
.
.
A/N: I write this instead of doing my biochem presentation. Meh.
Soo a lot of you asked why Makoto is similiar to Naruto. Dude. I wonder that too, lol.
I mean, i make Makoto just based on 'cheerfully disgusting, over-protective older brother' and nothing more. Then it came out like Naruto, and i could only hope his personality will develop so you guys can differ him from Naruto. Spoiler though, he is a disgustingly cheesy uncle, lmao.
Yes, lizyeh2000-san, i do notice that fanfic and time travel is my jam, buuut i don't exactly has anything other than 'blond' in my head to be this fanfic's title and thus the same title. How uncreative of me, i know. :"D
Thank you for all your supports! Thank you Guest (1), kirika o7, Moonacre BunBun, lightfuture, LiGhTdARk-GiRlz, SunlitSky21, KassieJean, Superwin, and lizyeh2000. for reviewing!
