To be a father

by Angevelinka

Two single fathers - one rich, the other poor, one overprotective, the other neglecting, can they find the way to communicate? In the end, kids is all they have. 'All I fear is the ring of the phone.' 'Me too.' AU, hints, future GaaNaru, ShikaTema

10. 10: Closet

That morning when they arrived at school, a slightly pale Uzumaki Minato had spent a few minutes making sure he hadn't forgotten anything in his son's backpack, and then told the teacher something about Gaara's father not really having told him if he was supposed to take Gaara home that day, which Asuma found weird, as the man had explicitly told them one morning that until further indications were made, Naruto's father had full permission to taking his son after classes. A good thing, too, as the kid had, until then, been left to his own devices for about four hours until the man was able to pass by.

He even had the signed paper somewhere… Odd, but the older blond looked slightly sick, so he hadn't thought much about it. He limited himself to give a call at Sabaku's job during lunch break to make sure they had permission. Better to be safe than sorry.

The phone rang. Long. Hard. Avid. And so annoyingly loud, that Yura finally snapped and shouted.

'Daichi, telephone!'

There was an unspoken wall between them since the morning and he did not dare to break it as he knew he was the cause of it – or rather, it was the unfortunate spin of luck that showered him and not the man. But as the phone just started rasping (he could swear he heard it choke) he could not ignore it any longer. He had a peaceful break and it was supposed to stay that way. Breaks were for peace.

And how could Daichi not recognize or hear that object after working there for so long? He was only in another room for gods' sake!

'Coming.' muttered the other man, getting out of the another room, holding up some kind of board in his hands. He, as usual, worked without a break at all. No wonder, since he was on back list. 'Hello?'

What now. He didn't have time or head for any calls now. People always called during that break. Almost like if they thought he had time then.

'Good afternoon, Sabaku-san.' the kinder teacher said, patting his pockets for a cigarette as he tried to remember in which one had it ended this time. 'Sorry to interrupt, but Uzumaki-san told us we should call you to verify if Gaara can go with him today.'

Daichi frowned. Wait a second, what was this all about?...

'What… I said before that I…' he stopped, searching for informations in his head. He agreed before once and for all of Gaara to be taken with Minato always after the end of the schedules, he remembered that… of course, he became more wary of the blond, as he seemed to be more and more strange, but up until now nothing bad has happened (yet) but he couldn't really choose as he had no alternative. He opposed for other kids to be taken and there was always a problem of Gaara being the most fragile one, but… he would be probably sitting in this work today till the dawn. But then, why did the blond reconnect? Was it because he guessed his identity? But then why he wanted to take Gaara and asked him for permission?

If he wanted to do anything bad he wouldn't ask him that, right?... It would be better if he could speak to him personally now. He looked at the board. He had so many things to do still… He could give him one more chance. That would also be a good reason to get to his home and talk about his strange behavior too. '…I said before what I think about it, right? Please, don't make me repeat myself.'

'Yes, we know and have your permission, but Uzumaki-san told us we should verify with you either way.' The man said, not seeming to care about the mildly rude treatment as he had found his cigarettes. Now the matter came with finding the lighter. 'We need to check, school's policy and all that.'

'I understand, but I'm a busy man.' The redhead said, nodding to the worker that looked at him from the corner, showing for him to leave the phone and come to him right now. 'As I said, Gaara can be picked up by Mr. Uzumaki. But if you see anything suspici- I said I'm coming!'

'Then hurry up, we don't have all day!'

'Gods dammit- I have to go, I'm sorry. Take care of my kid or I won't care what would happen to me once I would get a hold on something sharp and pointy… you understand. Goodbye.' And with that, he clicked off the phone. Maybe he was making a big mistake. But he hadn't got much in his head to think of any other solution.

Asuma stared calmly at the receiver for several seconds, then slowly put the phone down, slowly rising his eyebrows as he looked down at the unlit cigarette in his mouth. Maybe after all he wouldn't be needing matches. Sabaku no Daichi would probably ignite it with words alone.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato woke up startled at the alarm he himself had set, feeling like if he had slept about five minutes (according to the clock, it had been more like forty) and as soon as he did, he felt the migraine tenderly nesting in his brain like a very lovely and poetic dove of about four hundreds kilos. Any more pressure and his eyeballs would fall out his face with a literal pop.

Once, when he'd been young and alone and stupid, he'd taken to drinking. He hadn't drank for the taste, and didn't drink for any other reason than simply aiming to get drunk, and once drunk he'd be too stupid to think too much and when the stupidity left he'd be too busy nursing a hangover and vomiting to have much time to remember why was he alone without knowing where he was and much less where he was going. What he was feeling now was a Déjà Vú of a hangover of epic proportions. Only this time there wouldn't be a tomboyish redhead it turn his life upside down and kick him out of the slump he'd been in then.

The Epoch of Decline, he thought groggily, padding towards the bathroom so he could wash his face and have some aspirin. How come he had all symptoms of getting drunk and none of the perks of it? You need to learn to control your stress levels, Minato, Sure. Because he enjoyed feeling like this and did it on purpose. It was on days like this that he missed going to his psychiatrist. Today, particularly, he would have really enjoyed throwing blunt objects in the old woman's direction.

With the stress levels he had it was a wonder he didn't have an ulcer yet. If by wonder you meant 1.0 mg tablets of Rivotril, not to mention he'd have to buy more milk on the way if he didn't want to die from a stomach ulcer…

…and he'd just had Gaara clinging to him when the father walked in, the little boy clinging to him like a limpet and he hadn't thought anything at all, even though it was obvious the man was displeased by the situation… After washing his face with cold water several times, he felt -and thankfully, looked- more like a human being and less like something that had crawled out of the morgue, and after changing his clothes for jeans and a dark turtleneck, he threw on a vest and his glasses for good measure.

Dark colors worked better on his complexion, and the wire-rims made wonders to distract one from the dark bags under his eyes, so what he looked like was by far an improvement from the parent that had come to drop his kid about five hours before. He was rather surprised when the kindergarten's teacher told him that the redhead's father had told them that of course Gaara was supposed to go with him, but he hid it well enough, making some vague comment about just wanting to avoid problems for the school. By the time he was done with the talk, a pair of green and blue eyes were set on him, analyzing him as if he were some secret code that needed to be broken. He wondered if Naruto had told the redhead what had happened, how much of it had been. Not that he could do much about it either way.

'Hey, ready to go have lunch?' he asked, smiling lightly at the kids. 'I made pho.'

'I know.' the blond replied, dragging the redhead with him and only letting go of him when he was close enough to grab onto his father's hand. 'I saw you do it this morning.'

Gaara stared up at the older blond, noticing there was something strange about him, but not putting a finger on it. Instead, he hugged his teddy closer, being partially happy he was let go with Naruto and asked: 'What is Pho?'

'It's a type of Vietnamese soup.' Minato supplied, hesitating a moment about taking Gaara's hand or telling him to grab Naruto's, before deciding that crossing the street with two small kids under his responsibility was too much for such wonderings. If Gaara tripped or Naruto did, the two kids would go down like domino pieces. After another moment of hesitation, he took the redhead's hand and the three resumed walking back to the department.

'Soup with white noodles and meat and yummy green stuff.' The little blond supplied, as usual, not knowing why adults failed to answer questions straight. Either way, he was happy there would be meat on it, his daddy almost never cooked anything with it. Unless it was fake meat…. 'You'll like it. It's salty and spicy.'

'Ah. Okay.' said Gaara, gripping the hold on his hand a little tighter. It seemed that the blond man was having clammy hands for no reason, so he had to be sure that his hand wouldn't let go of it. He looked at Naruto. 'Teddy likes salty and spicy too. But raccoonie would only eat sweets.'

Naruto stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled.

'Maybe that's why it's so fat.' he said, giggling behind his hand. Minato, who had been off in la-la-minor-molester's-land startled a little and looked down at his kid for a moment, then did his best to relax.

'That's possible. But he says he doesn't mind.' The redhead stepped up, skipping a little hole in the ground, then looked up at the big blond. 'Do you want him?'

Gaara held up his toy, showing a clear answer.

'You look sad. You could use a hug from teddy.' Because the blond was looking quite nervous lately. And he knew that hugging to plushy made him always feel a little better. The man stared at the little kid for a moment in surprise, his hands tightening lightly on both his son and the redhead's for a moment.

'I... it's okay. But thank you.' he smiled at him, then at Naruto, a she caught the worried glance. 'I'll be okay... I just missed some sleep. Thank you.'

Gaara frowned, hugging his teddy closer to himself but not leaving eyes off him for a moment or two, observing. Then he slowed down for a half of step and leaned over, under Minato's knees in conspiracy whisper as if that could make him not be hearable by Minato.

'What's happened? Did your dad loose a wallet? Because he looks like if he did.'

Naruto looked at the redhead, but then just shook his head and put a hand to his lips, signaling him to remain quiet. It wasn't his wallet because it had been missing in the house since almost two weeks ago. It had been The Call, and whatever Gaara's dad had told him, but having Gaara sad besides his dad was really too much for one little blond.

'Let's play Sonic today? You promised you' help me with the lava level.' Because last time Gaara's brother and sister had insisted they wanted to play Mario and Gaara had been crying, so he had hardly been any sort of opposition for the older pair. Gaara looked at the blond for a moment in silence, then he tossed a glance to the older blond.

'I will.' he said. He wanted to see it. He was not paying much attention to it before. Besides Kankuro was making it look unbelievably easy and he couldn't believe that such level could be so easy. 'But I want to play Luigi.'

Luigi was good. A funny, cheery character. Not like Naruto's dad. He speeded up with his steps forward and looked at the blond with stubborn expression, showing the toy up again.

'Nooo, Gaaaraaa~' Naruto agonized. 'That's Mario… Luigi is Mario's brother, Sonic is the blue thing with spikes that picks up golden rings and you play it in the black video game, not the white and red one…'

Minato made a similar face, tough he probably felt more pain at the misunderstanding. Sonic and Mario had been part of his childhood, after all, having them confused was a lot more painful for him than the little blond. But at least it was enough to distract him from his own private mind theater. Gaara looked at Naruto like if he was saying something completely new to him. Then he grimaced.

'But this one is hard and Tails always loses… it's hard to run after Sonic to not be lost…' He remembered the pipes level. It was more of a labyrinth than anything else. He still didn't know how Naruto found exit. To him it looked as easy as pie. 'Lava level will be probably very hard.'

'No, Gaara-kun.' the older blond interrupted this time. 'You are getting confused. You can't play with tails until Sonic 2, and Naru's having problems with Sonic 1, and the pipes are only part of Mario world, you can't have them mixed, they are from different consoles! The closest thing to pipes you get is- ' And what remained of the ten-minute-walk plus extra-seven-minutes to buy milk in the grocery shop was filled lots of data regarding late-80's-early-90's videogame and pop culture data neither of the four-years-old year old attention spans could hope to hold onto.

But at least Minato did finally forget his trauma's for a while. Up until they literally rang on the door's bell.

#+#+#+#+#+#

They looked at each other. There was no getting back now. Kankuro, being the more courageous one, stepped on his toes and ringed the bell. And then, with the hearts in their throats, pounding a little too loud and clammy hands, they stood in the silent breezy weather, looking at the door – and waited.

#+#+#+#+#+#

It took a little while for the door to open, as when he had looked through the peep-hole, he had seen nothing on the other side. Minato had been half-heartedly going through a few new pages he already had decided would go to the trash, so it was more than anything an excuse not to sit in front of the computer and stare blankly at the screen. He had already fed both kids, given Gaara his medicine and cleaned after them, and the kids had retreated somewhere among the veranda mini-jungle, not to mention his mind really wasn't on anything he was reading. Distracted as he was, he just stared a moment to the closed door, then opened it.

For a moment he truly, really believed the figures on the other end to be products of his imagination.

The kids stared back. The long and unease silence emerged. Finally, after tossing nervous glances at each other, Temari pushed Kankuro out from the line they formed, hiding behind him. The boy blushed, looking at his toes and then at the blond, hiding his hands in his pockets to hide his nervousness.

'H-hi.' he said finally, trying to regain the loose composure he usually had 'W-we came as you said to come, with a map, eh… because… we had nothing else to do and…'

'The school was boring!' piped out Temari from behind his back, looking at the blond with challenging stare, though she was whole pink from flushing 'And the kids didn't let us learn! So we thought we could come because it's quiet enough to study here! Right, Kankuro?'

'Uh, yeah, and besides… we had this map, so…'

The brown-haired kid unpacked the thing he held in one of his pockets, showing the blond his own making and hiding his face for a moment behind it

'…so why not to use it if we did? Because you left it, right?'

'So we came!' added Temari with a voice three tones a little too loud 'And we took the last bus! They won't let us in school since now it's closed and they only make people sit in there, those who didn't go out already!'

That was a stark naked lie and Temari knew that Kankuro knew it and could catch it, but she pinched his arm so he didn't say anything. She looked at the blond.

'So!... So!...' she spoke, stepping out from behind the boy's back '…we're not going back!'

Kankuro winced. The last words were almost shouted at the blond, like if he was Temari's colleague and not the famous Naruto's dad they kept on treating like something more holly than any adults (but of course, not dad. Dad was the most holly thing on the world). The girl seemed to realize what she did, because she looked at the blond like if he was about to eat her and scurried away behind Kankuro's back again.

Minato just kept staring at the pair of siblings, his expression dumbfounded. After almost a full minute, he finally raised both hands to cover his mouth, some muffled sort of word coming from behind them.

'Ohgod.'

That's what it sounded like, at least.

That made both of the kids stop and look at the blond with uncertainty. It felt wrong, almost too wrong to not suspect anything serious, so they looked at his face, searching for signs of any situation they has already been in before. And what they saw, didn't made them feel any better.

'Did we… do it really wrong?...' finally asked Temari, even if she knew how foolish the question was. Because of course they did it wrong, they were not supposed to go here at any terms or conditions. Kankuro let his hands fall down hopelessly.

'We're sorry.' he added, hoping it would at least soothe the scared look on Minato's face 'We didn't know…'

'We thought…'

'Maybe we should go back…' Temari looked at her brother with a little of 'no', but he glanced back with 'let it go' and closed the matter.

She looked down at her legs.

'Yeah… we have a spare ticket anyway… so we will be going.'

'What? No, God, no.' Going out of the house, he reached for the kids, stopped halfway and took his hands back to his mouth. 'Oh, God.'

What had he done? Now there was no way the man wouldn't kill him. What if he had ruined Naruto's chance of having friends and- and- One step at the time, Minato. Try to take too many at the same time and you'll end up falling on your face.

It wasn't the advice (good as it might be) but his psychiatrist's voice that got him out of the panicked stillness. The first thing to do, obviously, was get the kids out of the street and into the house. Whatever the man thought of him, *he* knew it was safer than leaving them out or alone at school. 'I'm sorry, you just… You just surprised me.' He smiled at them, though he doubted it was a convincing smile. 'Come on in, don't stay outside.'

The kids looked at him, unsure.

'You don't look like if you wanted us to stay.' murmured Kankuro with disappointment. It wasn't really how he thought the whole thing would be.

'Oh, no, no, It's nothing like that, I was just so surprised… I wasn't expecting you at all.' Not knowing what else to say, he just gently ushered them inside the department, making a gesture for them to take their backpacks off. 'Are you guys hungry?'

'No.' said the kids in unison, already giving the side where kitchen could be found a longing look. The bag packs hit the floor, but they kept on standing in one place, looking at the blond with serious faces. Along with a growling from the stomach. Temari blushed, but didn't move an inch, ignoring it like if it didn't happen. 'We're not.'

'Well, why don't you set the table for the two of you? You know where things are, I'll just heat up the soup, the kids and I already ate…' Trying to control the quick beating of his heart, he concentrated on forcing it to stop beating three or four times per second (or that's how it felt, at least) and instead moved to taking the soup off the freezer, where only the first layer had managed to create a thin crust of frozen broth. He had barely put it less than an hour ago after all. 'You are lucky I made enough to have leftovers.' he commented a little more naturally as he dumped the contents to boil at the stove. 'Or you would have had to wait a lot more for other things to unthaw.'

'We're not hungry.' said Temari, already rummaging through the cupboard for the search of the plates while Kankuro got himself a chair to fish out the mugs from the higher place. 'Won't you be eating with us?'

'I already ate with Gaara and Naruto.' he explained, stirring the soup with what probably was more force than what was necessary. He stopped long enough to help Kankuro down the chair 'Besides, I need to call your father to let him know you guys arrived safely.'

'Oh, about that…' Both of the kids stopped setting the table and looked at Minato with unease. Call him? So soon?... But… Kankuro shot his sister a distressed glance, but she didn't seem to find herself in this situation any better than he did. He cleared his throat.

'Is this really necessary?...' he asked timidly, stepping out with nonchalant pose again, only he was all tensed up 'Dad kinda… doesn't know we're here.'

The girl nodded quietly, not daring to speak out through guilt. As the oldest kid she was the most responsible for whatever happened between their three, so she felt it in the heaviest possible way. There was no protesting against breaking the rules if they really were broken. Like – rule number x – don't get away from school until daddy arrives. Don't take brothers with you. Look after them to not break any rules. Be responsible. Be a good girl.

'I know he doesn't. But if he goes to pick you up and you aren't there…' He'd kill him. Possibly his kids too, and Naruto while at it. Paranoid much? …Who knew? '…there could be real problems.'

And he couldn't face another trial. Not again, and most definitely not so soon, and if anything he did caused Naruto to lose his first friend, if he got into trouble again, moving had been devastating enough the first time…

'I'm sorry, I have to call him. If Naruto did the same thing you two did and I didn't know where he was, I'd die from fright.'

The kids looked at each other with a question, then with very sour grimaces, then nodded at the blond. They knew what they were doing, right? Even if somehow they thought that the blond might actually do something else without getting them in trouble like that… but at least they had landed where they wanted. They didn't feel really hungry anymore, though.

The man's expression fell as well, but after stirring the soup one more time, he left it with the fire in low and walked out of the kitchen. It took him a few circles around the living room and a look at the younger kids to make sure they were all right and tell them Gaara's siblings were there for him to gather the courage to dial the number of the redhead's office.

Inside the office, Daichi was growing the third hand. Literally or not, he didn't know. He didn't remember his biology teacher telling him that hands could grow out from the teeth, but he was sure that evolution was taking its toll on him for sure. It was not first and probably not last time when he was doing that. That – which meant running around all floors with folders of every damn number written in this company, gathering the missing ones and preparing for another month of sitting with the said folders until he would read them all like a fascinating book to find the missing mistake and make three another in other places to repeat from beginning. Click restart button.

He was only on the third floor, trying to balance the high pack of folders between his both hands and one of them (from two months ago) between his mouth, when secretary's boss ran up from the stairs.

'Ah, chief-sama!' she announced, passing him by as he tried to maneuver through the giggling girls who tossed comments about him getting nice muscles from running like that, leaving him unable to answer 'I found those documents you asked me for, Mr. Nagato called to tell he is very sorry, but he can't answer… oh, Mr. Sabaku! Good to see, you good morning-' he nodded to her '-I think that when I passed through your office your phone called again… what's happening, you get a lot of them lately-'

'Mgrmgh.' he said, seeing the frown that showed on his boss' face and made his best to get out of the room. Great, couldn't that stupid blondie shut her mouth for once? Everyone knew in this company that if you use too much of telephone it's getting suspicious you try to move to the sister's company of the boss' brother and since they both were nonstop in fight that could succeed into being fired and not hired again. Everyone, except of stupid blondie, who just didn't know when to shut up. Once again he got to know that there were many kinds of blondes on this world. And his wife was a plain exception of the rule.

'Mgrgfgh.' he said, picking up the phone as it de facto, rang happily and quite loudly as he made it like that just to not miss another call from hospital. For the love of gods, he hoped it was not this again. He had enough of problems 'Mghhgmh…' he took out the folder from his mouth. That was brilliant move, just on the level of a primalistic caveman '…-I meant… on the phone, and that better would be important because-'

'Daichi, where the heck are you? I told you to bring those folders right now and we're waiting for you for twenty minutes already!'

'-I'll be right there, I just have a phone call!'

'Phone call again? We don't have time for phone calls!'

'What is it- I told you I will be right back!'

'It's later than tomorrow and those folders were appointed for more than weeks ago!'

'Don't interrupt my call so I shall end it quick-' The doors of the office opened and a tall man with a bandage over his eye came in, looking at him with rugged face. With one swift move he caught the phone receiver and slammed it on the maternal phone.

'Daichi, the boss is observing you.' he said in the tone that could be barely hearable 'Don't play hard to get, you don't have possibilities to do so.' The saffron haired man turned his head to the side slightly. Indeed, the boss was looking at him, coming after him from the third floor. Without any word he took the folders and nodded to the man.

'Thanks, Baki. I am in debt.' And with that, he left the room. He was not going to play with fate right now. He had family to feed after all. He only hoped that whoever it was, it was not so important it could wait.

Minato stared back at the receiver as if it were some brand of alien vegetable he wasn't sure he could really cook with and slowly walked back to the kitchen so he could stir the soup again and serve it in two bowls and leaving them in front of the kids.

'I couldn't catch your father.' he told them, his expression worried.

Kids looked up at him, their facial expressions brightening with smile that was quickly hidden.

'That's too bad.' said Kankuro, slurping on his soup innocently, eyeing the man thoroughly.

'Yes. Very, very bad.' added Temari, dangling her legs unconsciously 'But daddy is very busy.'

'Yeah.'

'He might not get it even later.'

'Yeah.'

'Or at all.'

'Yeah.' Now there was no mistaking it, the kids smiled at each other, though they lowered their heads, trying to hide it. Without much success.

Needing a moment to organize his thoughts, the blond walked to the living room and sat down on the couch, expression still worried. Okay, he hadn't been able to pick the phone. That happened, maybe he was busy. The problem came in the case that he didn't get the message, went to pick his kids and found out that they weren't where they were supposed to be and went into a mad rampage to kill him. That's what he would do in his place.

Not that he blamed the kids for wanting to be looked after instead of waiting on their own for hours to no end, but their father already had a bad opinion of him and even accidentally thinking he might have stolen his kids or something… With a sigh, he went for his cell phone, and after a few choice clicks, was sending the redhead a text message. If he didn't answer in half an hour, he'd try the office phone again.

(('Temari and Kankuro at my house, they took the bus on their own. I'm looking after them, please call me as soon as possible. U.M. '))

No more than three seconds later a red head emerged up from the side of his knee and looked at him with innocent stare, observing the phone and the blond.

'Are you tired?' he asked.

Minato startled so bad he dropped the cell phone. The rooms were carpeted, luckily.

'Gaara...' he forced himself to calm down and pick the cell phone back up, smiling at the little kid. 'Yes, a little I didn't sleep much last night.'

'Oh.' said the kid, then he propped himself to climb on the sofa with the blond, sitting beside him. Then he looked at him with a very serious stare. 'Want to talk about it with me?' he said in a tone that he always heard from his daddy when he had a problem and daddy miraculously knew that he did and wanted to help him out. Gaara didn't know how it was possible to know about his every problem just like that but it was probably becuse daddy was daddy. And since the blond seemed to be much more obvious with having a problem, he left Naruto for a moment as the blond decided to get something for them and decided to use it well. Maybe the blond really wanted help but was just shy? Just to be sure, he hid his teddy's ears.

'I promise I won't tell anyone.' he whispered in the lowest whisper, showing how well hid were the teddy's ears. Now the blond could be sure his secrets were safe. Minato took a hand to his mouth to keep himself from showing the way the redhead's comment made him smile, but it was hard to. For someone that had left his son black and blue the first close encounter they had, Gaara was an almost unnaturally sweet kid.

'No, Gaara, it's okay…' he said, reaching with a hand and brushing the red hair in a soft gesture, before pulling away guiltily. 'I just stayed late watching some movies and didn't notice the time.'

Gaara looked up at him, then fixed an invisible hair on his teddy with a silent pout. He liked the caress, but that was nothing to be bragging about.

'You're sick then?'

The older man shook his head lightly, still smiling at the kid.

'No... I just slept very little. I'll be okay tomorrow, you'll see.'

Gaara looked up at him for a moment, then nodded.

'Okay.' he said simply and get off the sitting, walking away toward direction when he last saw Naruto. If Minato said so, why wouldn't he believe him so? He was an adult after all. He knew what he was doing. Minato smiled after the redhead, then got up to check how the kids were doing with the soup. 'Is it okay, guys? I'm sorry, I didn't ask if you liked this kind of thing…'

The kids looked at him in the middle of licking off the plates. Oops. A second later, the plates were laying on the table with a twirl as they were wiping of their faces with their hands, trying to look like if they didn't do a thing.

'It was good!'

'Very good!'

'Yeah! But we didn't do what we were doing, we just-!'

'Kankuro!'

'…yummy, thanks!'

Despite himself, Minato caught himself chuckling.

'Okay then… There's still a lot left, though. Let me get you another plate.' Lucky him that he prepared big meals so he could freeze them for when he was feeling lazy... He had been thinking about giving the kids some breaded soy steak, thankfully he had decided to go with pho. The kids handed him their plates without a word of protest, but with slight blushes on their faces. Once they were sure Minato couldn't spot them, they turned to themselves.

'Do you think he saw us?' asked Kankuro in conspirational tone. Temari leaned over. 'He wasn't very angry…'

'Of course he did!' said Temari, looking at the doors, watching for the blond's come back 'I hope he won't tell daddy…'

'It was your idea after all.'

'But you didn't have to follow! Stupid Kankuro!'

'You're the stupid one! I do what I want! Stupid sister!'

'Why you!...' Once Minato was back, the fight was developing on Olympic levels of boxing.

'Hey! Heyheyhey you two!' catching them by the arms after leaving the newly filled bowls, he pulled the pair apart. 'What's going on here?'

The kids both looked up at him with pouts on their faces and turned back to the sides. What were they supposed to say? That it was all because they liked his soup too much? He would get hurt if not more angry. And besides, Gaara seemed to be watching them with bewildered above from the corner, thinking probably he was not spottable. Well, he wasn't until now. Any more violence and he would probably add the more problem to it all, like always. The kid never sat silent when they wanted him to. They looked at each other.

'Nothing-ing.' they said almost in unison and looked both at the floor with stubborn expressions, not daring to face each other. There was no point in speaking at all here. The blond was left to try and stare them into getting answers, and when that didn't work, settled for patting the top of their heads lightly.

'Go back to eat before it gets cold, okay? Cold soup is never as tasty as hot one.'

They looked at him with shifty eyes and nodded, getting back to the table in silence. After a few seconds, clinking of spoons filled the room better than any kind of silence. For a moment.

'H… hey!' could be suddenly heard from the other room in a surprised squeak 'What are you doing, that's mine!'

'What are you doing?'

'Owwie!'

'Stop that! He is hurt!'

'No! That's mine! Go get your own!'

'Let go!'

'Gaa-'

'Ah…!' Which followed by a loud wet crash on the ground. And a cry of despair also.

Minato, who had taken his eyes off from the kids for just a moment to go back to the kitchen and start cleaning some of it, came back in what really couldn't have been over twenty seconds. In that amount of time, an accident seemed to have happened leaving in its wake a shell-shocked blond girl, a crying brunette and a soaked up redhead.

'I didn't do it!' his son added, pointing at the mess on the floor. Minato barely wasted a moment to thank the god of linoleum and kiddie safe dishware before going into action.

'Gaara!' he immediately kneeled down to the kid's height, pulling at his shirt so it wouldn't stick to his skin. 'Does it burn? Kankuro, did you get hurt?'

Gaara looked up at the blond, then shook his head quickly. No, it didn't burn. It was just… warm. And smelled nice. Without a second thought he put his hand into him mouth, sucking off the substance from it. Yummy. On the other hand, Kankuro wasn't so happy about it.

'Nooo!' he wailed, fisting his eyes in a sob he was trying to contain, but he couldn't help it; it was just unfair! His little brother was always like that! When he wanted something he always wanted it from him and not from Temari and he couldn't get it from Temari because Temari was the oldest and the girl so dad always told him to share with his brother when he didn't want to- and even now he had less! Just a whole plate of soup, his soup, landed on the floor because Gaara as always started bugging him and he didn't even said please and it was just so unfair, the plate was broken and all anger was going to be put on him because Gaara was just a 'baby' and nothing of that would happen if he didn't just start pushing him and trying to get his dirty little hands into the plate into his clean soup! And he didn't even say 'please'!... He looked up at the redhead, shaking with a sob, smearing the violet paint on his face and looked at the smaller kid. Gaara immediately caught his glare with his green eyes and froze in the middle of the suck on his middle finger.

'I hate you!...' said Kankuro, clamping his palms into tight fists 'I hate you!' he howled, running at the redhead with his hands ready to punch. Gaara let out a high scream and started struggling in Minato's hands, only to tear away still in his wet shirt and run away into another room, with Kankuro on his tail. 'It's all your fault!' shouted the brunet, after him, almost catching him in the doors and failing, tripping on his face with a crash. After a moment of shivering, he slowly rose his face up, looking up. Not fair. That stupid baby was even quicker than him!...

'I hate you!' he screamed to the person inside another room 'I just hope you die! Hit your forehead, bleed out and die! Leave me alone for once! I don't like you!' The redhead didn't respond. Only sat in silence, staring back at his brother, hidden under the bed. It was safe. Just only not safe at all. He was not coming out. Never. Temari finally turned her head to Minato.

'I didn't do it too.' she said finally, pointing at the plate. Maybe there was more suitable things to say there, but she really couldn't find out what were they. So she thought it would be enough.

'Hey, leave him alone!' The older blond caught his son by the back of the shirt more by custom than actual reflex, and was surprised about exactly how angry his son looked. Not that it wasn't easy to get Naruto into a squabble, but this angry…

'Naru…?' The little blond wiped at his nose and looked away as all answer. Minato sighed. 'Go help Gaara pick some new clothes, please?'

Naruto glared at the older kid for a few more moments and then simply dashed down the hallway and into the room Gaara had been in, not even sparing the brunette a look.

'Gaara…?'

In the meantime, his father had picked up the biggest parts of the plastic bowl and left them on the table, giving the girl a reassuring smile.

'Don't worry, it's okay. Just stay there a moment so I can clean this mess.' But instead of doing that, he went to the hallway and placing a hand on the boy's back, he rubbed at it lightly. 'Kankuro, are you okay…? Did you get hurt?'

Gaara looked up at Naruto, but didn't move an inch. It was too dangerous to try the patience of angry older brother. Because Kankuro rarely got angry. But when he got angry, he got angry. Really angry.

'I'm here.' he mumbled in barely hearable voice, hugging the soaked teddy to himself. Dust and soup were not feeling very nice when it got to his hair at once 'Shhh, he might hear you!...' On the other side of the room Kankuro just kept hiding his face and shivering, trying his best not try cry out loud.

'I'm not huwt.' he managed to rasp out finally as he looked up a bit, sending a glare toward Gaara. The redhead hugged himself to the back of the wall. Kankuro looked away, sniffing up the snot and grimacing in despairing expression, trying to wipe his face quickly, that made him look like if he had some strange kind of sickness that made his face look all violet for no reason 'It's his fault. You hear me, I hate you!' he shouted again. When Gaara didn't respond, he wiped his eyes more. For some reason, the tears didn't want to stop flowing. Naruto glared at the older boy and without a word went to the door and slammed it shut, effectively blocking the sight of the brunet and his father.

'Naruto!'

No answer. Minato sighed. Focusing his attention on the little boy, he helped him up into a sitting position and ruffled his head lightly.

'Nothing is his fault, Kankuro. It was just an accident, don't worry about it. Please stop crying…?'

Inside the room, Naruto stayed glued to the door, obviously eavesdropping on the conversation, but after another glare at it, he pulled away and went to the edge of the bed, peering down.

'Gaara… I closed the door, get out of there, daddy said you need to change clothes.'

'I'm not… crying.' said the boy, holding a breath up to stop hitching in his voice as he looked at the blond, his cheeks flushed pink and his face still violet 'It was not an accident. He started pulling on it. He did!' The redhead on the other side shook his head in protest and only hugged the teddy closer to himself. Kankuro was still angry. He was not coming out.

'Maybe he did, but neither of you meant for it to fall, did you?' he smiled lightly and ruffled his hair again. 'That means it was an accident. And it's nothing worth crying over, okay? I can clean it up easy and there's still some pho left, if you still want it.'

'Gaara…' Naruto's voice was soft and thick. 'Please come out. I don't want my daddy to get sadder.'

Kankuro didn't nod or protest to that, looking up from under his bangs at the blond with saddened face. What was the blond saying? Nothing to cry over? But now the floor was all dirty and the plate – such a nice one too! – was broken and it was probably very expensive… he didn't know if dad was having enough money to repay it or not but either way he'd probably still be very angry. And what about their opinion? It almost looked like if every time they met the blond there was some staining on the floor or carpet, be it blood or edible substances. He looked down at himself. He did want a little more soup, but it was probably overusing the blond's kindness already. So he shook his head. And with a heavy heart, he took out one of his dolls. Karasu. It took him two weeks to carve just the head. So it was probably enough. He reached it out, handling it to the blond.

'Don't tell dad.' he mumbled, looking at him with the same look still. 'He would probably be very unhappy about it too.'

Because if anything, he got his dad moods the best. Sure, others did too, but it were his gusts' that came true the most. Not that it mattered, because dad usually didn't pay much attention to him, nor did his siblings. But he knew what he knew and he was not going to stop trusting what he knew. So there. But at least he hoped he didn't have to give up his other dolls too. Giving up Karasu was hard enough for him alone.

Gaara still didn't move from the bed, though he started picking on teddy's dirtied up now hair and turning it around. He didn't want the blond to be sadder than he already was and from what he thought he was already pretty sad. So it was not good to stay under the bed like that. But then, he still didn't feel too good when it came to security around the hiding. On the other hand, the shirt on his back was getting awfully cold and greasy…

'Here.' he said finally, getting out from under the bed 'But teddy stays there.'

Naruto nodded, sniffing lightly and once Gaara was from under the bed, he threw his arms around his neck and clung to the redhead, dirty shirt or not.

'Why does everyone mess things up?' he asked miserably.

Gaara locked his hands over the blond, leaning with his clean cheek over the blond's ear and let him cling to him more. Rarely anyone did this so it was nice to hold and be held like that. Very. Even if his shirt still soaked his back and made his hair greasy.

'I dunno.' He muttered, looking at the door 'I dunno why.'

Minato examined the doll, his mind already helpfully storing it in the 'Must use' box – four arms? The thing had four arms, with all articulation ball jointed…?- until he finally got what the brunet meant by giving it.

'What? No, no.' Taking his hand, he carefully deposited the puppet in it, making the boy take it back. 'There's not need to pay for that, Kankuro, really… Those plates aren't even mine, I think they were left from the previous tenant… I just use them because they were around and I never really got time to unpack some of our things.'

The lie made sense, so he hoped it would be enough to convince the kid…

'Really, there's no attachment to it. And the floor's linoleum, so all we need to care for is clean it all right so it won't be slippery later.' He ruffled the hair this time, slightly playfully. 'Let's do this, help me clean up and don't fight with your brother anymore, and we'll call it even, okay?'

'But it's all his fault.' said Kankuro under his nose, making another pout, but nodding his head. He could help if it meant having the thing forgiven and forgotten. And about Gaara… well, he could not fight him anymore. That he could do.

'I'll talk to him about it.' Minato said, finally getting up. 'Just let me clear up the bits first and then we can use some papers…'

It took a few minutes to clear the mess up, more than anything because of the grease, as he had to find something to get it off and make sure the floor wasn't slippery anymore, then sit Kankuro back down long enough to leave a last plate of heated up soup in front of him, then left the older siblings to go knock in his son's room.

'Gaara…?'

The redhead peaked at him from the bed he was sitting on, immediately falling backward and seeking out if Kankuro wasn't anywhere close. When the other kid was nowhere to be seen, he loosened up a bit.

'Sorry.' he said, looking up at the blond with timid expression, playing with the brim of his new shirt with bunny. He liked it. Even if it was painfully pink. Naruto seemed to have only bright colored clothes, not like him. 'I just wanted that little…' he showed how very, very little, less than his smallest finger it was '…but it suddenly became that much.' And with that, he showed the size of something that was four times wider than himself. Then he started playing with his shirt again. 'Mommy says I was a bad kid. ' he murmured, dangling his legs and looking at Naruto. 'Will it hurt?'

He didn't want to be punished. But that's what all bad kids got. He was only that little but he already knew that.

Oblivious to the kid's thoughts, Minato smiled and patted his head, noticing that his son was sitting quietly next to the older boy and was wearing a shirt with rather suspicious stains, especially on the sleeves.

'Naru, take off that shirt, it got dirtied up too.' Naruto stared down at himself, seemed to slowly realize what his father meant by his word and nodded, struggling with the red shirt he wore.

'Either way... Gaara, it's not nice to take things without asking first. Next time just tell me and I'll give you some, okay? Don't take it from your siblings, especially without asking.'

Gaara closed his eyes shut, expecting a hit, but when nothing of such happened, he peaked up at the man and frowned when he simply left him alone. That was weird. His daddy by now would be seething flames through his mouth. Like in this cartoon he saw once.

'But I didn't want much. Only this little.' he said, showing again how little he wanted and he curled again, seeing that he was starting to argue when he was supposed to stay shut. But he was still forgetting about that.

'I know.' The older blond said, helping his son to get rid of the shirt and replacing it with a red one with a large yellow spiral in the middle. 'But even so, you need to ask for things. How would you feel if someone took your food or teddy without asking first?'

'Not teddy!' The redhead sprung up from the bed immediately, looking at the blond with desperate eyes and suddenly get off from the bed only to crawl under it yet again. 'Not teddy! Mine teddy! Mine!'

'Gaara!' Minato laughed a little, crouching down so he could pull the covers of the bed up to expose the redhead. 'It was just an example… Come back here, no one will take your teddy, I promise.'

The redhead looked at him for a moment with vigilance, then at Naruto and after a few seconds, he finally crawled out, sucking on a finger and hugging the dirtied plush to his chest. Dirtying yet another shirt again.

'One is lining.' he mouthed around his finger, looking at both blonds. Maybe it was an example, but it was scary, too scary for his tastes. Adults should know better. Minato's smile dimmed as he looked at the redhead, and brushed his forehead lightly.

'I'm sorry, Gaara... I didn't mean to scare you.' he obviously had no idea what the redhead had said.

'Iz okay' said Gaara again, hugging himself to the adult blond in a wet, flat hug and looking at him in the eye. Wasn't he always glued to his phone like if it grew out of his hand? Why was he not rushed up to it now? Adults always got a fever when it came to ringing phones. He didn't quite understand why. 'You're not going to pick up?'

Minato smiled back at the kid, only until he realized the background noise was actually his ringtone and ran out of the room and past the other kids to get it.

'Ah, the phone!' He looked around in a panic until he finally spotted it in the couch, where he had left it off… an hour ago? God, didn't time pass fast- He felt a bucket of ice drop on him at the name that flasher in the screen when he went to pick it. He had almost forgotten all about it…

'Guys… it's your dad.' He told the older kids, taking the phone with him into the kitchen 'Please, be quiet for a few minutes…'

He practically waited until the last ring before picking up.

'...yes?'

'You have three seconds to explain yourself. One.'

Minato flinched a bit at the voice.

'I left a text message because you didn't answer the phone? You sounded busy…' he blurted out immediately.

'Oh, busy I was. If I only got this call sooner…' said in a tone that dripped with kindness and venom of the worst poisonous snake 'That's not what I'm asking about and you know it well. I have axe in my office. Where are my kids and why they are with you!' The last sentence was almost screamed out, if only it wasn't for the restrain put on the voice that made the phone fall deaf for a moment. Then, with a breath, the receiver rasped in a totally calmed tone: 'Two.'

There was a pause from the blond's side of the line, some sort of unidentifiable sound from his end. When he spoke again, his voice was as flat as soda that had been left out opened in a hot summer day for hours to no end.

'Don't. Threaten. Me.' The blond said in that soft, almost silky voice. 'You have no right to.'

'Oh no, now suddenly I don't, right?' said Daichi, holding onto the phone with white knuckles. Baki knocked on the window with a warning but he showed him a finger. He was busy trying to track a free line from almost fifteen minutes now since he read a message on his cell phone. Now he suddenly didn't. He just had to be calm and smile to the camera when his kids were with the blond for no reason, even if they were forbidden… he knew it, he totally knew that the blond was having some twist in personality 'Those kids are all I have and I won't stop before anything to protect them, you hear me? Anything. All I want is a logical explanation to all of this but if you can't give me one then I assume there just isn't one and try out my fireproof axe for not exactly healthy reasons. Am I clear?'

Oh, funny. The blond wouldn't probably behave the other way if his little sweet candy boy just vanished like that. He had no right to tell him to not act that way. Minato's voice didn't change lines. It seemed to suddenly have lost any ability to hold inflections and now simply enunciated words as a computer generated text reader might.

'I already told you they are here. I told you as soon as they got to my house, so don't try to act out as if I kidnapped them. They just got here on their own, and I don't even know how.'

Daichi closed his eyes. That voice was making him more nervous than anything. It was just something beyond natural. He massages his temples for a moment.

'…I want to hear them.' he said finally, looking through the window at Baki who gave him a meanciful look. He turned his back to him. 'All of them. Now.'

There was another period of silence in the phone, interrupted only when it passed form Minato's hands to Temari's. The girl took a phone, looking at the blond with scared face and she closed the receiver to her mouth.

'Uh… hi, daddy…' she started. Daichi felt like something in him broke.

'What the hell is this supposed to be?' he said in a higher tone, making the girl grimace and wince 'Have you totally lost your mind? What have I told you? Why are you there?'

'…I just thought… that it would be a good idea… we had maps, and all…'

'Well, it wasn't. I hope you're proud of yourself. Your mother probably is turning in her grave right now!' Temari gripped at the phone, looking at the floor with glassy eyes. That hurt. She could never really tell what mother would want from her from what she remembered and she didn't remember much. But daddy knew better. So he was probably right. She disappointed mom. 'Are you all right?'

'I… I'm sorry, daddy, I-'

'I asked if you're all right.' She paused, looking at the phone again, trying her best not to cry. Then she nodded, swallowing her unshed tears.

'Yes. I'm all right.'

'Are you sure?'

Daichi pressed the matter. If anything, Temari would be the first to tell him or send a signal. She was the oldest and thus, the smartest from them all. But nothing of such happened.

'Yes. I'm totally fine.' she said again. He scowled.

'That sickens me you feel all right after what you did.' he said in a scathy tone 'Give me your brother. Older one.'

Temari looked at the floor, waiting, but no other word came.

'I'm sorry, daddy.' she muttered quickly, before giving the phone to Minato and running away. She just had to find a quiet place to sit in peace. Only a few minutes to be alone. That was all.

The blonde quietly put up receiver to his mouth.

'Hello.'

Daichi felt his nerves going through a massive strain.

'You're not Kankuro.' he said, pointing out the obvious 'Give me Kankuro.'

What the girl was thinking?... Oh, at times like this one he really just wished for a good translator for kid's language, because all he said was not reaching anyone he was trying to talk to. No matter which kid he chose.

'Are you going to make him cry too?' the emulator voice asked. 'And Gaara?'

'No, I'm going to praise them for what they did.' said Daichi in a vicious tone 'What do you think? Give me them or I'm calling the police.'

'And tell them what? That your kids are in my house instead of waiting six or seven hours for you to pick them up?' And oh, now some sort of unidentifiable emotion was picking up in the voice. 'I didn't kidnap them, but you leave them alone all day and then make them cry on purpose- what kind of person are you? Do you *like* making little kids cry? Do you beat them up too?'

'Oh, I'm not listening to that.' said Daichi with a sneer. He circled the desk with a quick steps 'You have no idea what situation I'm in. I was grateful for what you did once it was starting to go overboard but now- Do you think I like doing that? Leaving them alone for hours? Of course I don't! But I have no other damned choice and if the kids are not going to pick up some responsibility they're going to be eaten out in that freaking jungle! I don't know how did they end up not getting lost but once they would I would have no contact to them and who knows what would happen to the lonely kid in this town! There's more killers here than the police on every corner!' he said, more like shouted, pushing his ideas out of himself one after another once he heard such insinuation.

It was outrageous to talk such things to him, and that was more than horrible to be directed at him-

'And I don't beat my kids! What kind of nonsense is that? Are you trying to make a criminal out of me now?' More heads looked through the see through window to his office, so he went up and closed off the blinds. Then he got back to his desk. 'I haven't allowed them to come to you and they did. For breaking a rule punishment is served. You, as a father, should know it the best. So stop interrupting and give me my kid to the phone.'

'Those problems are yours.' the phone voice said, shaking only slightly. 'They might be your fault or not, but they are your responsibility. I'm sure taking the pressure out in some little kids is very cathartic.' Now Minato just spat the word, treating it as someone who threw away a piece of food that had gone bad and bitten by accident. 'But it doesn't help you and it doesn't help them. What are you going to do next Saturday? Are you going to leave your daughter taking care of the other two again? Do you have any idea how scared she must be about something like that?' he paced in the little kitchen, oblivious to the fact his son was peeking on the edge of the door, blue eyes wide.

'Does it make you feel good to know those kids adore you and all you have to say to make them cry is that you don't like them because they disappointed you?' Now there were barely pauses in between the words, the tone still soft, but also horribly angry. 'Do you really *need* to play with their feelings to be a little more assured that you still have control over them? What the hell is your problem, you are not even here to enjoy the show! Your daughter is hiding in a closet crying her eyes out, do you want me to record it and mail it to you so you don't miss anything?'

'You're not telling me how to bring up my own kids.' Was the cutting answer as Daichi narrowed his eyes looking in front of him. This was going nowhere. He had enough in his life, enough for every little thing he did. He was not going to take this also from some suspicious writer-translator who decided to know better how to act in situation like this 'Spare me the pleasure, liar. I'm going to pick them up this evening and I want to see them healthy. Then we won't bother this smart head of yours anymore. Goodbye.'

And with that, he clacked the phone, leaving it in the state of deafening silence.

Naruto didn't need to hear anymore. Phone, it was always the phone… Even the cell phone couldn't be trusted!

'Gaara!' he hissed, running down the hallway and to his room until he found the redhead, grabbing his hand and yanking him out of it by force, running down it again and ignoring the faint sobs from the closet until he got to the bathroom. 'Gaara, I need help.' he said, pushing the redhead inside and closing the door behind them.

'Stand guard, don't let my daddy get in.'

Even as he instructed the younger boy, Naruto had grabbed the basket for dirty clothes and threw them up on the ground, quickly placing them between the tub and the sink. Carefully climbing up the edge of the tub, he painstakingly climbed on top of the clothes basket and to the sink, distributing his weight as well as possible in the limited and curbed surface. The height made him a little dizzy, even though he knew it wasn't as tall as it looked from up here, but he didn't have time to wonder that. Bracing himself against the wall, he tip toed and felt around the slightly dusty top of the medicine cabinet and found the safety latch, fiddling with it until he managed to lose it. Now the problem was to open the thing with him in the middle of its path…

He tried a few times to reach around and just fiddle with the contents, but there were just too many things inside and he couldn't see, and leaning to the side only made him nearly fall on top of the toilet where he would have doubtlessly broken something. He finally realized that if he crouched low he could open it up and did so, staring up and down the average contents of a medicine cabinet, plus the always impersonal additive of the sad pills his daddy kept in the top shelves. Not the ones he was after, though. The ones he was looking for were the middle shelve, and he quickly opened the box extracting several sleets of bright green, semi-transparent pills. He tossed them on the floor and did his best to close the door again, though he couldn't get the latch to pick on it again all the way, and he didn't have time for it.

He climbed down, jumping from the clothes bin and landing awkwardly with a slapping noise when his hands hit the floor, though he didn't hurt himself- he just needed to get the pills. He picked the capsules and was about to toss them on the toilet, when he stopped, wondering what to do with the things. Somehow tossing them seemed like something hr shouldn't do, yet the alternative…

With a small noise of fright, he started breaking the sheets and letting one pill after another fall with quiet plops into the water. He did this as fast as possible and once he was done, he picked the bits of shiny paper and plastic cases back up, trying to make sure he hadn't forgotten any.

'Hide them.' he told the redhead, pointing at the toy he kept in his hands. 'Hide them and toss them out on the way or somewhere else, don't let my daddy see them.'

Gaara kept on looking through the door, but as nobody was coming in – Temari being gone somewhere, Kankuro not getting close to him lately and Naruto's dad being off somewhere too – nobody was interrupting them. So he turned around to look at what Naruto was doing. At first it seemed to be reasonable, probably Naruto's dad needs some emergency pills like he did when he was very, very sick. And those pills Naruto hold onto were just like that, something he even remembered from the past, they even had the same shine…

He ate them for not feeling too well. But then the blond started throwing them to the toilet and it stopped being just as reasonable. More, it just seemed to be odd. Pills were expensive – he knew that. It was one of the first things he learned on this world as he saw daddy being crouched over some papers and muttering about 'expensive pills' which he 'had to get' and as mommy just smiled at him. So what was Naruto doing was totally not good.

'Why are you throwing this away?' he asked, looking at the swirling green and took the empty cases, looking at them with a doubt but hiding them anyway 'Those didn't seem to be dangerous at all… won't your daddy be mad at you?'

'Daddy told me not to ever let him have them.' Naruto said, looking at the floor with concentration usually reserved for finding Wally. He picked a loose bit of shiny wrapper.

'Why?' asked Gaara, zipping up the teddy again. It seemed to be a little hard as it was now strangely stuffed full, unlike usual 'Are they bad for him?'

Naruto frowned a moment, looking to be at unease.

'They do bad things to him.' he answered, though he didn't sound really sure about them. This time it was Gaara's moment to be confused. Bad things? Those green pills?

'Aren't they for feeling unwell?' he asked, peering at the toilet like if he could still see them if he looked deep enough 'Then why do you have it if they are so bad?'

'...I don't know.' Naruto looked miserable again. 'I don't know. I toss them out and he buys more.'

Gaara looked at him with a thoughtful expression. Naruto threw them out but his dad bought more? Just like in this cartoon where a cat got a lot of pies and took them on table while mouse threw them inside her hole and there were still almost no pies on the table?... Probably something like that… he looked at the blond.

'That's silly.' he said, remembering the shocked expression of the cat once he found out there were no pies on the table 'Can't you tell him to not buy them?'

In response, Naruto had only curled in himself and let out a sob.

Gaara looked at him for a moment, not understanding what was going on, then with a panicked expression he threw his arms around him coddling him the best he could with a stuffed teddy between both of them.

'Okay, I see.' he said, cuddling his friend the best he could, trying to sooth the upcoming storm 'Dun cry. I will tell him.'

Naruto made some noise of negative and clutched the older boy back.

'No, don't tell him anything! If you do he'll remember about them and want them!'

He didn't understand what the pills were for, especially when he himself took them when he had a bad cough, but Minato had told him that if he ever saw him trying to have those pills, he should stop him. He had never seen his daddy have them, but the way he looked at him when he asked him to stop him from drinking them scared him. It was almost somehow worse than when he had a bad phone call…

'Daddy.' In a moment he had let go of Gaara and was running to where he had seen his father the last time. '…daddy?'

The older blond was sitting with his back against the oven, hands pressed tightly against his mouth. At his son's hesitant voice he drew back in breath and quickly wiped his face.

'I'm ok, love.'

He wasn't, and Naruto knew it. He didn't protest when his dad caught him and hugged him tightly to him, just wrapped his little arms around his neck and hugged back. Of course, the moment the line went dead all that false bravery and anger went nowhere, leaving Minato with the initial emotion he'd had to deal with the past year: panic. What had he just done? This time… This time for sure he had ruined things. He couldn't believe what he had just done, yet he couldn't really deny it. Most of it he would pro It was just… The phone call. He hated phones.

If the connection had been more trustworthy, he would live on base of Skype programs and instant messengers. Goddamn it, all his resources… he could only contact them through mail or phone. Unless he started traveling around like they used to do before Naruto was born, but he couldn't exactly drag him from one country to another, after the hell that had been the past two years… Damn it, why had the man had to take it out on him?… He hadn't done anything wrong! Only he had, hadn't he? He had written a map. He had meddled where no one called him and because of him now for sure Gaara would never be allowed back in this house, much less close to him or his son.

That's what he had achieved, all by himself. Namikaze Minato, little prodigy who had never in his life managed to do anything right without turning it bad somehow, without managing not to fail spectacularly- he had managed to insult a man he barely knew, made things harder on three defenseless little kids and ruin the first serious bond his son managed, all in forty eight hours, why, he should get a medal for all his efforts- He wished, just as he had for the past over thousand days, for Kushina to be there. He missed and needed her in this hopeless, helpless way a man that had suffered an accident missed a basic sense and knew that it could never be returned, with everything defined by a before and after the knowledge of the measurement of the loss settled in, not in days or years or decades, but forever.

((Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories))

A permanent, constant ache and the knowledge that everything they had had amounted to nothing but a little boy that would probably end up hating him no matter what his did and his own uselessness… Why did she have to be dead…?

(The Epoch of Decline)

His carelessness, his stupidity again. Did he really need to ask?

What didn't he know, was the redhead looking at him quietly from the frame of the kitchen's door. Gaara followed Naruto. Of course he did, why wouldn't he want to do that? The blond sprung up so suddenly it was suspicious and secretive, so he decided he wanted to follow and see what was the blond going to do, especially because it concerned his daddy and when it came to daddy to just recent thing made it all very strange. And, as every kid, Gaara liked to look into holes that weren't exactly lightened or dim at all. Even if daddy said not to. Curiosity was just great like that.

But never greater than the possibility of danger. He watched the blond cuddle to the older man in desperate, needy hug and didn't move or announce his presence like he usually did. First – because his teddy was still having a full tummy of suspicious things that never were suspicious but they suddenly came and from what he knew, their relevance would make everything go worse (and that was the last thing he wanted) and second – because this looked like alone time. And he knew very well what alone time was.

It meant only him and daddy and no Kankuro or Temari or anyone else – maybe besides the moments when they knocked to doors or rang the phone. But usually it was alone. And as rare it was, Gaara felt very, very unhappy when someone disturbed those short moments of tenderness. Sure, he got more of them than his siblings, mostly because of his ability to cry out loud when Kankuro and Temari were older and therefore – crying was shameful for them, but still, he needed more. Most likely he rarely had enough of closeness. He didn't know why. It was just that the world seemed to be cold. And dark, even if there was many lights on and many colors, like in kindergarten. He always felt a lack.

Sometimes he looked around, wondering if it wasn't a big dog wandering after him when no one was watching because it was like if someone whom he couldn't see was creeping over him, but usually no one was there. But it never really went away – the possibility of something scary. He didn't know what it was. But he didn't want to. Usually, when it came too dark, he just ran up to daddy and stayed near him. In daddy's shadow nothing else shone over him. Or his arms. So everything was good there. And that was not to be interrupted.

So, after looking up for a moment at the pair, he moved away from the door, wandering through the rooms with teddy in his arms, not bothering to hold him properly as now it was heavier and more susurrus. Dangling paws never really bothered him anyway. He learned to walk with him like that when he was younger. When you were smaller, there was no such thing as paws that were not on the floor, dangling in front or behind you.

After a moment of looking around, he spotted a small noise coming from Naruto's room, so he followed it without much thinking and crept after it until he found the source. And it was, as he expected, Temari. In the closet.

'What are you doing?' he asked, opening the door and starring at the blonde. As Temari looked up at him with puffy eyes and snot coming from her nose, he didn't wait for an answer and climbed up, sitting at the other end of the space and closing the wooden wings after himself. Insides of the furniture really were warm and dark.

'Go'way.' mumbled Temari, looking at him, and when he only blinked, hugging the plush more to himself, she hid her head in her knees again, ignoring him. He didn't press. She was the oldest, he was the youngest. Youngest brothers were not to bother oldest sisters. That was Kankuro's job.

And speaking of him, after a few minutes of silent sitting and breathing into the warm, dusty air, the doors of the closet opened again, showing a very strangely painted face, this time on fluorescent green.

'Hey, what's happening?' he asked, looking inside. Gaara looked at him, curling protectively around the teddy, but Kankuro didn't seem to be hostile anymore (or at least not yet) so there was no sudden movement from him 'Can I join in?'

And without useless words, he climbed in, once again closing all of them inside a darkened pit of clothy nowhereness.

'It's warm in here.' he said, not looking at the redhead. Gaara looked at the door, then at the floor. Yes, yes it was. 'What are we doing?'

'Waitin.' he said, giving into the old habit he was already made to be forgotten, but sometimes it just came back and started sucking on his thumb. Kankuro didn't turn to him. Temari didn't react.

'Waiting?' he repeated after a moment of stretching silence. The dust swirled in the air 'Waiting for what?'

'Who knows.' said Temari in rasped voice, looking up a bit 'Maybe nothing.'

'What? Nothing? But that's useless!' said the brunet. Gaara blinked and started stroking the teddy, making him crunch with new sounds. He didn't find it useless. But not really useful too. 'Dad is going to come for us soon…'

'I could just stay like that forever.' whispered Temari hiding her face in her knees again. Both boys looked at her for a moment. Then, Kankuro leaned on the dark wooden wall behind him.

'Indeed, it's nice in here.' he muttered, not specifically to anyone. Gaara nodded, mostly because of being too afraid of Kankuro to speak, but too courageous to not answer at all. Teddy lied on the redhead, allowing him to pick up invisible germs from his invisible head and making new rustling noises. Gaara simply breathed. It was so peaceful here, in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knew where they are. Nobody existed besides them. And somehow, in the sole centre of the worst shadow, no fear brushed against his heart.

It only felt really, really sad. Because there was no daddy or mommy. But he knew they were going to be with them, sooner or later. So why did it feel so sad now? He didn't know. Nobody of their three knew. But they didn't want to know. So they sat in silence. Because if you can't see anyone, no one you can see exists. So it was peaceful.

It took Minato much longer than he would have liked to get calmed enough to let go of his soon, and then he just felt dirty. He felt bad about the searching, worried glance the little blond gave him, hated himself for giving Naruto such a huge responsibility, when he should have been the one comforting him, and not the other way around. But he couldn't help it. He'd never had been able to. Kushina might have been able to laugh it off, punch him in the arm and tell him to leave being a woman to her as she had come with all the required bits for it, but she wasn't there anymore. The headache was back with vengeance, though.

'I'm ok, kitlet.' he forced a more or less convincing smile and got up with Naruto still clinging to his chest, neither making a movement to let go. In this state, he looked around for his glasses until he found them and quickly put them back on, unconsciously falling into the habit of hiding how bad he looked. It was then that he noticed the unnatural quietness of the department. 'Where's everyone…?'

Naruto pulled away from him enough to look around curiously.

'Gaara…?' he called out. 'Kids?'

Three siblings looked at the door simultaneously.

'They're calling us.' said Kankuro.

'Yes.' added Temari, brushing off a trail of tears, leaving the other. Gaara perked up, hearing Naruto calling him, but he didn't call back. Neither of them made any movement or gesture of wanting to go out from the closet. It felt good in there. Silence stretched.

The redhead kept on looking at the door, but the atmosphere was too lazy to make him answer. Even if the responding call was starting to bubble in the back of his throat with the speed of the soda drink that could bubble up to the sky only if he blew in the straw long and hard enough. His siblings didn't react either, though two pairs of eyes kept on looking at the door of the closet with much more observance now.

It was roughly three minutes later than the closet doors finally opened, revealing the oldest blond staring concernedly inside. The expression calmed down into relief at the sight of the huddled kids.

'What are you guys doing here...?'

'Waitin.' said Gaara honestly, repeating his previous answer. He didn't really know what for or why, but it seemed to sound just right to say that. So he did. Kankuro shrugged and Temari played with a strand of her hair.

'Playing in the dark.' she said, not really telling the truth but not lying either. It sounded like a good reason to give 'Something's happened?'

Minato stilled for a moment, then reached and patted her hair.

'That's what I came to ask. Are you okay?'

'Yes, we are okay.' she said, looking up at him with completely dried out and hardened eyes. Gaara stopped huddling his teddy and looked up at the pat with curiosity. Kankuro still looked as disinterested, but he managed to glue his eyes onto the man. 'Are you?'

'Because you don't seem to be.' was added by brunet. Gaara just kept starring.

Minato patted him in the head this time.

'I just…' he trailed off, then slowly smiled. 'I didn't sleep much last night.'

He offered them a hand.

'Come on out of there, it's stuffy and you might faint if you stay too long. If you want to sleep, you can go lay on my bed.'

The kids looked at each other without much convenience, but the redhead was quicker than anyone of them. He grabbed the hand of the blond.

'Okay.' he said, looking up at him with wide eyes 'But only with you.'

Other kids looked up at him, feeling it was the moment to protest, but somehow, the words didn't come. It just felt like a very good idea, after years of having Gaara sleeping with daddy and not really sharing… it would be good to be hugged by someone bigger like that. So yes, yeah, why not, sure… even if it wasn't daddy or mommy it still looked like a nice idea. So they didn't protest. Only looked up, waiting for answer. Gaara kept gazing up.

'You need sleep if you don't sleep.' he recited smoothly the words daddy told him when he was protesting against going to bed 'Don't worry, I will be near. We all will.' He added quickly, seeing that he was not alone in the idea. And waited. Those were daddy's words. If they didn't work then nothing did. But because it was daddy's, it just had to work. Because daddy was awesome like that.

'Oh, no, nono, please.' The blond tried to pull away, realized what he was doing and did his best to look less like if he were panicking. 'Listen, please.'

And this was just awful. He could see it in his mind. The father driving the kids away, supremely pissed off at him for what hadn't really been his fault (only it had been) and asking what they had done. And then any of the kids say that nothing much, just had some weird soup, played around and then they all piled in the man's bed with the man in it and slept all together. And that, if nothing else, would warrant a meeting with the so mentioned axe.

'…I'm not tired now. If I sleep now I won't sleep at night and I'll be having weird sleeping patterns all week. Adults don't need sleeping as much as kids do… You can sleep with Naru, if you want to?' Naruto despised having naps, that being the main reason he made sure to keep him in a strict schedule that ensure he'd knock out and sleep through the night. But after what had happened, he doubted the little blonde would complain about it. He could trust Naruto on that.

The kids looked at him with disappointment, but they didn't argue. They knew better than to try to discuss with an adult. It was impossible to outsmart someone that was already smarter than you.

'Okay.' said Gaara, not letting go of the said hand and crawling out of the closet. Opportunity to sleep with Naruto was just as nice if not nicer – he knew that warmth already. He could agree to that. A nice sleep would do good them all. But his siblings didn't move.

'We're not sleepy.' ,uttered Temari, looking at the floor and not moving an inch.

'Not at all.' added Kankuro, also unmoving 'We're not little kids like him.' By 'him' he clearly meant Gaara. The quiet coldness still rang in his voice, the chilly edge reaching him clearly. The redhead unconsciously gripped the hand a little tighter, along with teddy. Now he just wanted to leave them as fast as possible. The older blond squeezed the hand back carefully.

'In that case, you should probably do your homework.' he told them, keeping the door open for the older kids so they would finally come out of the large piece of furniture. 'I can help you a bit if you need it.' Gaara and Naruto were too young to have anything more complicated than occasionally needing to bring things like glitter or colored paste, but as far as he remembered, one already started getting healthy doses of homework when you started primary school. That should take more or less the hour or hour and a half that would be a healthy time to wake the smaller kids up, and then he'd give them something to eat and leave them watching a movie or something attention grabbing enough for him to be able to talk with their father again, maybe beg a little while he was at it. Whatever it took to convince the man to forget what he'd say and convince him not to place a restraining order on him. It was getting colder by the day and darker much sooner, and just thinking about a small kid like Gaara left alone in that state…

'Gaara, where were you?' His son, who had been going around the house trying to find the redhead, nearly tackled him with the force he threw himself at him. 'I was worried!'

'In Narnia.' That wasn't a lie. It was something different from it actually, because it was neither light or cold or white, but he liked it just as he liked the imaginary country he had occasion to watch a bit of it in the shop centre near the shelf with TVs and DVDs where daddy left him and Temari to go have 'alone time' with Kankuro at doctor's (though he didn't know why Kankuro didn't seem to be happy about it, but since the movie was interesting and since it was nice and warm there he assumed it was good to not protest. And it seemed Temari also had the same intentions.

And besides, closets were magic, right?

'It was okay, but I'm sleepy now. Your daddy says we can sleep together…' The words were followed by a hug and a murmur against Naruto as the teddy didn't squeeze in-between them this time. Kankuro and Temari looked at the scene from affair.

'Homework sucks.' said Kankuro finally, walking away, not even glancing at his schoolbag. Temari didn't answer to neither, just marched right to it and took out the flute she didn't manage to play on today since her name was starting on letter 'S' and they ended up on 'O'. Pineapple head played a little too well for her tastes even if he said he didn't understand what he was doing. In that case she had to practice some more. After a moment, the whole house was filled with slow squeaks of 'Mary had a little lamb' that maybe could sound like real melody somewhere in twenty years after. Now they just remained what they were – slow squeaks.

'It does.' the older blond agreed, a little more in his own territory of parent-hood 'But that's why it's convenient to get it done as fast as possible.'

He glanced at the pair as Gaara snuggled against his son in that needy, affectionate way and wondered how much of the boy's fluctuating persona and need of attention stemmed from the lack of sleep. He hadn't asked the father, but if the rings around his eyes were any sort of clue, Gaara had problems with sleeping. Naru had told him that Gaara often had really weird, scary dreams so he didn't sleep much. The redhead often felt into light dozing while under his care, too.

Again, he thought of the little redhead, alone, waiting to be picked up as the sun settled. He thought about his siblings too, but it was easier to picture Gaara. He had actually seen it, after all.

'Narnia? Like in the books?' His daddy had read them to him. Well, all of them until the third one. As soon as he had learnt the third book was the last time Lucy and Edmund would come there and that he wouldn't get to know if Caspian Married the star-lady, he'd been a little leery of the next couple books, and still wasn't sure he wanted to read them. The comment was immediately followed by a face as Naruto was ready to protest against the idea of taking a nap –really, it was only five in the afternoon, he didn't want to go nap when there was a little sunlight left- but the warm weight pressing against him and his father's slightly anxious eyes convinced him. Besides, Gaara was scared of sleeping alone and rested better if he felt another person close. 'Ok… let's go to my daddy's bed, your sister makes a lot of noise.'

Gaara nodded, and without a protest, he followed the blond to another room, where a big bed, just the size of his daddy's bed, waited for them both. For a moment he wondered why all daddies needed such big beds for themselves, but it seemed it was all because they were adults. Adults always had to have a little more since they knew better. And besides – where would daddy cuddle to him and his siblings if the bed would be smaller? So it was probably Naruto's daddy had Naruto also.

He shut off the faint sounds of Temari's scary imitation of dying bird that was once played out in the radio drama (she was far more accurate than they were in the radio) and pushed teddy under covers along with himself. It was a nice bed. Smelled of something foreign, but it was soft and so on. And Naruto was warm just enough to recompensate for cold sheets.

'Nighty.' he murmured against the blond's cheek as he closed his eyes, holding with one arm on his teddy and with other on Naruto. Now that felt like a bed of Goldilocks… Just right size and with right person near him. After a few moments, he was running after dwarfs in the forest like he always wanted to if he ever spotted one.

In the meantime, Minato had gone after the older ones, and mostly refrained from giving constructive criticism simply because the little girl had such a decide, frustrated expression that made her look a lot like her father, despite her softer and definitely feminine expressions. He supposed she took the most after her mother, unlike Kankuro who really looked like a brunet version of his father... Thinking about the kid's father reminded him he had majorly screwed up and made him sit down and nervously leaf through his papers, not really reading any of the content, so he didn't spend too much time at it. He decided to work with dinner instead, even if it was too early.

The numbers had increased after all. Considering the amount of people and not knowing if he wanted to risk introducing vegan cuisine into the older kids especially today, he decided to go with some pasta, universally liked by 99.4% of kids. So he just needed to make the sauce and make sure he made a big enough pot so he would have enough leftovers...

Kankuro observed it from affair. The blond seemed to be so concentrated on playing with bigger machines of his own he didn't even notice that his lecture made little to zero effects. Sure, he could listen to it but that didn't mean doing it. There were many more interesting things to do when one was warm and not really hungry instead of playing with math or boring geography. Like playing with Karasu. A big mortal battle. For… infinity! And… justice! And… for his family! Because his family was in danger! He, as a great big brother Kankuro had to protect his little brother and his older sister who suddenly got scared (even if she in reality never really did)! And even his dad who was impressed by his abilities! Ta-daaah, he against the… the…

He looked around, searching for the source of mortal danger, but seeing only a floor and the carpet. Everything was peaceful. Why there was never any danger when he needed one? He wanted to be a hero, dang it! With a feeling of disappointment he clacked with his doll on the floor, when something caught his eye. Something small. But living. And moving. Exactly toward him. There it was! The mortal danger!

'Fear not!' he shouted, laying on the floor in a position of crouching tiger. Well, more of a crouching cat in his place 'There comes the mortal danger the great… great…' he thought for a moment 'Bug-man! The great big shallow bug man is coming for our lives! But I will save you! I with my ultimate puppet skills and master of doll's ninjutsu will save the day!... Ha!'

With that he pointed at the small crawling bug with one wooden arm, not impressing it at all. But to him it seemed to be different already.

'A-ha! So you're preparing for battle!' he shouted, making the puppet clatter, he got up, circling the indifferent insect and pointing with it at it 'There's so many of you, multiplying, but I'm not scared! I, the greatest master of puppet jutsu that ever was… say you stand back! Many knives no jutsu! Ha!'

He made the figure clatter more and point to a numb piece of metal from it insides, but the insect still kept crawling on its own direction, not minding the big scary master of the puppets above him. It was probably impressed by his art of hiding in the surroundings and blending so well with the leaves! No wonder, he had the ultimate green mask of victory on his face! It was time to take out his greatest weapon!

'You fool!' he said in might tone, stepping on insect's way. The bug kept crawling forward despite that 'You thought you can harm my siblings and my dad! But you were wrong! Look what I have for you! There's no escape from my great deathly poisoning jutsu! Here!'

With that he made the doll fall forward, and pressed the little button in it, making it hiss with light cologne he took from his father's toilet's cosmetics. For a moment the insect stopped, making him want to dance the serious victory dance, but then…

…it was a flying insect. And it decided to fly out of the poisoning clouds despite him standing on his way. So it flew straight on his leg.

'Eew!' shouted Kankuro, trying to brush it off as it just started crawling forward like if nothing has happened 'What are you- No, no, get offa me, get off!...'

He tossed the doll at it but missed, making it fall out of his reach as he jumped around further from it. Now he didn't even see where the insect was but he was sure it kept on crawling up his pants. He was very sure of it.

'This can't be happening!' he shouted and fell on his side, trying to reach the places he thought the insect reached, and moving around like if he was actually on fire 'No! No! They're multiplying! It's all over me! No, ahhhhhh!'

Such a scary battle and he was losing! How could this be? And during his very scary ideas of how could this be he missed the fact the insect, after crawling up his pant leg just simply flew off of him and crawled on the carpet again in its own direction, not even interested with what the strange creature that never was there during its hatching from egg was doing. Humans were not its business after all. So it crawled away in peace while Kankuro fought a losing battle with no weapons near his hands. What a shameful lose!...

Minato didn't particularly enjoy cooking. In the old days, when it had been just him and Kushina, they rarely had time to actually cook what they ate in-between multiple jobs and mostly survived in daily basis of instant food and leftovers from his future wife's waitress jobs. When things started finally looking up for them, Kushina had been as surprised as he was by her own skills at the kitchen, and really, most of what he had learned had been from his spine pent with her.

But that had been before he became a vegetarian, when his lovely little wife decided that if he wanted to eat turnips, he was going to do it by himself, because she and the little pod growing in her stomachic had no interest on sparing any of the cows roaming the land. Survival of the fittest, according to Kushina. Give enough time to the cows and they would evolve and take over the world and sacrifice us to their bovine God.

Apparently, letting her read Carlos Orsi Martinho's work hadn't been the best idea he'd had, but at least she had helped him learn the basics of how to handle a stove, even if he'd never quite managed to do it without having small accidents. But hey, that's what electric dicers were for, clumsy widower's fingers. Good thing too, because it seemed like if nowadays food couldn't be made without having insane amounts of fat, salt, hormones… Liking it or not, he'd rather work on what he ate and make sure his son was eating healthily.

He had already finished dicing the onions, peppers, carrots and tomatoes and added the tomato juice, leaving a nice, thick, deep red pot full of sauce simmering and was leaving the kitchen to try and find where among the mini jungle he'd left the bay leaves drying, when he caught the brunet jumping around what seemed to be some sort of small scarab. He watched in interest, momentarily unaware of the continuous and not really improved squeaks coming from the flute. No wonder the kid went to a special school. With that imagination and that kind of artistic ability… Though he had only taken a little over fifteen minutes to get the sauce done.

'Kankuro.' he asked, leaving the partially hidden spot of the kitchen frame, and closing the door behind him so the smell of the sauce wouldn't get everywhere. 'Did you finish your homework already?'

'Aaaah, they're crawling up my pan-…! Uh?' The brunet suddenly snapped out from his vision and looked up at the blond like if he suddenly broke on the theatre scene with a big fat sausage instead of a supposed knife and decided to ask him if he needed some help. The insects flew away without the single trace of being anywhere. Only him and the nice warm floor and Karasu a few centimeters away. He scrambled up his feet.

'Uh, homework, homework, that is…' he started mumbling like if he couldn't really tell what exactly was homework and since when such documents existed 'I don't recall having any at all.' he said, closing one eye and smiling at the blond with a playful expression. Oh he recalled having much. He always had many, many more and today Mr. Gekkou once again gave him the punishment essay for thinking up yet another – marvelous in his opinion – ending for 'Cinderella's story' that scared a few girls and made him look like if he didn't read the book (but why aliens couldn't show up on Prince's ball and kidnap the glass shoe? It was so boring! And Cinderelly should've have some cool magic buggy with pegasus's instead of normal horses – they were magic, weren't they? And why Drizzella couldn't be a brother? Three sisters – there was a lack of balance there at all). But writing up yet another screen play of another fairy tale which no one would ever make was not fun at all. Mr. Gekkou didn't like them too – last time he adapted Beauty and The Beast to the African's climates on the desert and made the Beast an almighty psycho with a monster inside instead outside and Beauty to be a complete nuts instead of just a girl reading books he was told… well, he didn't really know what was said to him. Mr. Gekkou got all red and blue and then the lesson had to be called off because the words that were trying to go past his lips during coughing were just simply unreadable.

'I don't have to do anything.'

And there was no dad to make him tell the truth. So he could… not tell it. It wasn't a lie. Just a play. Like on the scene. Not lie at all.

But the man had only kept starring at him without any change of expression.

Kankuro stared back, but his smile was slowly dimming. He looked at the floor and got a hold on his puppet, closing another eye and smiling at the blond with a fake scene play he perfected to his own needs. 'What?'

'Your father usually comes pick you up late.' the blond said, not moving from his relaxed position. 'And I assume you go to bed afterwards. It would be better for you to do your homework now...' he hesitated a little, the smile turning more nervous and pleading 'Please? You are under my care and I sort of left a bad impression in your father. I need all the help I can get if you guys still want to come over...'

Kankuro immediately stopped smiling, looking at the blond with confusion. What was the man saying? Bad impression? Why?

'But you didn't do anything bad.' he said, showing up his puppet 'Right, Karasu?'

The puppet clacked with its wooden jaw.

'Karasu says you didn't.' he said, smiling at him. Then his face fell into confusion once again. 'Is this our fault? It is, right?'

The older blond's expression became more strained. How could these kids be so nice to him after what he'd just done?

'No, Kankuro… It… it was all my fault. I said some things I shouldn't have.'

Kankuro kept looking at the blond, pulling on strings of his puppet. The blond did something bad? But he was Naruto's dad! The famous Naruto's dad that could do everything and make a magic come out of his hat and all… he said something bad?

'Why did you do it?' he asked, still feeling lost in this situation 'Don't you like our dad?'

'…I don't think he likes me.' the older man said, reaching to gently ruffle the dark hair of the little boy. 'You are his kids and I'm just a stranger he met a few months ago. It's normal for him to be worried about me spending too much time with you, and I guess I took what he said badly and answered even worse…'

'But you're not bad at all.' said Kankuro, wondering how such a man could be mistaken by someone bad. He wasn't. Of course, he had strange rules like not eating with family or letting them eat in front of TV, but he was not bad at all. Maybe it was the wrong stenography? 'Dad is just like that. He seems like if he didn't like anyone, but I know that deep inside he likes all of us.' he said, pointing at himself and two other rooms where his siblings could be found. He lowered his voice.

'He said so himself so it all is just a cover. So don't be fooled, dad is a good actor.' he said with a smile. But as it didn't help much, he frowned and reached out his hand. 'You're not bad at all, I'll show you.' He added, pointing at the blond to lower himself to his level as he couldn't grow wings and fly higher. Minato made an odd face, feeling as if he would have another episode and simply burst into tears- why did people assume he was a good person? He wasn't. he ruined everything he did, even though he tried so hard... After a moment of hesitance, Minato gave the kid his hand and kneeled down to his height.

Kankuro looked at him with a serious expression and squeezed at the hand to be sure the man was not going to run away. And after a moment he reached up and patted the blond hair in a 'good doggy' manner. He didn't know if it was done the right way, but Akamaru never really protested against it and neither did Gaara so it was probably how it should have been done. After a moment of hesitance, he stroked the blond hair for a moment longer.

'See?' he said, taking back his hand 'You don't have horns. Even that little.' he said, showing him something close to half of the centimeter 'So you're not a bad person. Just go and say sorry and it will be all right.'

The last words were made in a low, shy bubbling laughter hidden in a voice of serious face that turned into a sly smile. Then, suddenly, Kankuro made a move to catch the man in a quick hug and ran away, leaving clacking noises behind.

'Going to do my boring and useless homework, you'd better come later and check if all my exercises are done good!' he shouted during the rustling of his bag as he just turned it upside down and made the whole insides of it fall on the floor. Then he just sat down where he was standing and started looking through it.

'Daddies are busy, don't interrupt his work!' said Temari, stopping her play and looking up from the door frame at the boy. Kankuro smiled at her.

'Like you?'

A moment later the tormented squeaks of dying bird were heard in the whole house with twice as hard volume and just as much effort put on it. Gaara stirred in his sleep for a moment, thinking about some very vicious and bad cat tormenting the poor baby bird. And he slipped into dreams once again.

Minato was left staring after the little kid, surprised by the sudden hug and even more by the fact he complied with the request, especially when it was obvious he didn't want to. And the way he'd patted his head… was it supposed to be a joke? And calling to the job was a bad idea… what could he do now? He wouldn't dare to just go straight to the man if he wanted to take the kids away and try to stop him, he needed to have at least some sort of attempt at approach… He slowly got back to his feet, staring after the room the kids were sleeping in. Bay leaves… He needed to find them before the sauce got too hot to properly get the flavors.