As a child, Minato hadn't had a lot. His parents had died when he was hardly old enough to take care of himself at six, and he was a boy in the world being built upon ashes and rubble of the Second Shinobi War. He had grown up surrounded by hardly anything until he had been a genin at nine, and Jiraiya had more or less taken him in. It had been a strange feeling, being able to know where his next meal was coming from, or knowing where he would sleep at night. But he felt it had fed into something that had been, he could at least admit to himself, a little stupid as a kid starving in the streets. Because, even as a child, however hungry himself, Minato could admit that he had probably the worst habit imaginable for someone trying to survive.
He kept caring for strays.
Whether it be cats, dogs, injured birds, whatever, it didn't matter to him. Starving, injured, jaded or needing help, he had taken care of them with his pathetic means. Sometimes he would take care of the kids around him if they got sick or if they needed something to eat, but nothing ever too major because even as a stupid kid taking in stray animals, he knew he couldn't support any other person on a permanent basis. In fact, his whole motivation for becoming a ninja in the first place had steamed from the urge to be able to take of those who couldn't do it themselves, or to fight for those, like him, that had been pushed aside.
Even to this day, as busy as he was, he had the odd habit of bringing home a stray cat or an injured bird once in a while, though due to his schedule as a Genin Sensei and Special Jonin, he tended to find a home for them other than his own rather quickly. Before, as a kid, Jiraiya's annoyed expression and attitude as he brought home a dog with a broken leg had been a disappointment. Now, Jiraiya claimed the second he had taken in Kakashi that he had up the anti in his 'foolish habit', and he felt a bit of reluctantly embarrassment, and overall sheepishness at the whole thing.
Minato couldn't find it in him to argue with his Sensei, but, as he thought of the two children that he had brought into his home, he felt that they were more than strays. Sure, every stray had a place in his heart, but there was something about these two kids that set off something parental in him. Rin and Obito had that affect too, but, they also had their own families with them, and they hadn't been torn apart by death as he, Kakashi and Sakura had.
That was something of a foreign concept to him. He saw a kindred spirit in himself with the two children that had, and were currently living with him. Kakashi was... Difficult at best, always lashing out and keeping a strict, robotic demeanor that pushed for sheer Shinobi perfection. It was awe inspiring really, to see a boy that young improve so quickly. However, there was also that was fundamentally flawed in him because he simply forgot to act his own age, or even act normal for any moment because he refused to let go of a ninja code that Minato personally felt to be more of a lose guide line than the words of a Kami. But, he acknowledge that he himself couldn't do anything to change the boy's mind, as much as he wished too. There were some things that someone had to learn on their own. Minato only hoped it wasn't anything incredibly morbid or drastic to snap the young Chunin into reality.
Sakura was a child that Minato struggled to understand at the best of times. There was something about her that was incredibly adult-like that he almost felt unsettled in her presence. From her way of speaking to her strength as a ninja, and even the way she came to the village: beaten, nearly dead, a chakra instinct that made most adult medics drool with envy, and not even the clothes on her back. Most Shinobi, and villagers for that matter in fact gave the girl a wide birth, or at least, those who weren't drawn by her undeniable pull or just outright hating her gave her a wide birth. But despite all that, Minato found himself lingering on not the alarms that went off in his head to investigate her closer, because for one thing, the Hokage would have told him more than to monitor if there was something seriously wrong with the child, and two... Well, simply he couldn't find it in himself to look at her as an enemy.
Call it instinct. Call it weakness or being a sucker for a sad story, but Minato couldn't find it in himself to mistrust her. Because, despite all the suspicious circumstances, despite everything, Minato could honestly say that he liked the little girl. Maybe it was because he was a sucker for a damsel in distress. Maybe it was because Sakura had a sadness and un-malicious nature that suggested she was just someone caught in a bad situation and needed someone in a terrible time in her life. Maybe it was because with Kakashi, both kids felt as if they were his own. But Minato could know for certain, whatever the reason, he felt a deep affection for the girl and her unsettling ways, and felt a lightness in him at the image of her training with him and an image of certain redhead (who he was really missing after a couple months absence) getting along like a house on fire with her. Maybe he was just projecting his own need for a family, but Minato couldn't help himself.
He just knew that he was glad that Sakura had, quite literally, fallen into his life.
