A month. Seriously. I'm pitiful. I am weak. Though I have to say, some minor sicknesses always get in the middle of updates.

Sundays were an important day of the week in Konoha. It meant a well-deserved rest for all the hard-worker ninja and civilians of the village. For the Hokage, on the other hand, it didn't necessarily mean an entire day of leisure, but Minato had smartly learned to shove all the paperwork of lesser importance to Sundays and arrive home early to his lovely wife and his little angel cake.

Who weren't home at the moment.

Trying not to wither in his current state of loneliness, Minato let out a breath of pleasure at the softness of the sofa whose existence also made his every day a little more bearable. Of the few arguments Kushina and he have had, convincing her to keep this after Naruto and Hinata had accidentally sprinkled rainbow glitter all over had been Minato's number one and only win, though he still wasn't sure if that was something to be proud of. Or at least that was what Jiraiya-sensei pointed out.

He made himself comfortable, flipping through the different channels the TV offered with a bored semblance —Kushina's homemade dango in his hand. There wasn't a lot to watch around these hours but the typical action movie with very forced acting or interviewing people that Minato's position as a world leader should assure him knowing —but actually didn't.

A key rolled into the lock, even if it wasn't necessary, but it was Mikoto Uchiha's face who greeted him. "Ah. The lights were off and I didn't think you'd be here yet—" She chuckled, and the little girl holding her hand sighed with relief.

"Mikoto," Minato greeted amiably, and his eyes darted to Naruto. Her mouth was downturned into a miffed pout. "Kushina is…?"

But then, Naruto's face dreaded something bigger than he could imagine, and Mikoto's expression had composed into the most professional seriousness a woman of her career could make. "She's going to live with me from now on." She replied, and Naruto's upset cry didn't take long to follow:

"No, she isn't! She's just buying stuff!" She replied in a way that demonstrated that this wasn't the first time Mikoto had told her this in the day and threaten to tell her father. "Daddy! You tell aunt Mikoto!"

To Naruto's outrage, her father just chuckled.

"Sorry, sorry," Mikoto bent down to lay a tender kiss on the girl's cheek, and Naruto (even if a little annoyed), let the Uchiha have her way. Aunt Mikoto's kisses were the best: she smelled like fruits all the time. "Now, don't look so annoyed. Your first day of school is tomorrow, isn't it?"

Minato's recent smile wavered a little, and Naruto tried to nod enthusiastically.

"Okay, okay. Then I'll see you tomorrow there. Sasuke's very excited to go too." Mikoto patted the child's hat with a smile. Naruto returned the gesture, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. To infer that Minato was worried was a bit of a redundancy, but all his questions were going to be resolved when Mikoto left the door. "Good night, both of you."

"Good night. Greet Fugaku-san for me." The Hokage replied politely.

"Will do!"

Mikoto had just left, and Naruto was already clinging to his shirt —deep, blurry eyes observing him and his heart shuddered, already dreading something catastrophic.

"What's wrong?" He asked, sick with the increasing worry.

"Everything's wrong!" She whined. "It's horrible, daddy."

Before Minato could remotely ask for the name and address of whoever had forced such a pout on his daughter's mouth (which he deeply believed would have to be related to the infamous Sasuke Uchiha or, very recently, Shisui Uchiha's newest girlfriend —though it always had to be those Uchiha—), Naruto took off her hat, guiding her father's hand towards a specific part of her head. The man's eyes narrowed. He (fortunately) didn't feel anything close to an injury, but there was a sticky texture under his touch.

"What happened?" He asked, examining her hair. Pieces of a pinkish substance clinging to her shiny strands of hair.

"I don't know!" Naruto cried. "It was almost dark and mommy said we should leave and Obito-nii said that he was going to get me some candy, but Sasuke-teme was there and now he had to get him candy too, so we sat on the bench waiting for Obito-nii and then something was walking Sasuke's leg and he screamed funny and then I just wanted to check what was under the bench and it was these red bugs with dark spots and they were really cute!"

"Ladybugs?" Minato supplied helpfully.

"Right—so I tried to get one but I hit my head with the bench and it didn't hurt but when I got up Sasuke said I had something in my hair —and he said he tried to 'help' but he only made a mess! And he didn't say sorry, daddy! He was laughing! It's all his fault!"

Now Minato understood Naruto's reluctance to answer Mikoto sincerely. "I should have a talk with Sasuke. He's really mean to you, isn't he?" Naruto nodded eagerly, not probably knowing what she was getting Sasuke into. "But no worries, princess." He reassured, about to ruffle her golden hair, but stopped abruptly at the sight of the sprayed gum. "Nothing a few clean cuts can't help."

"You mean it?" She mumbled skeptically, restored hope shining in her eyes.

The man nodded, taking her to the bathroom and making her sit down on the stool Minato often used to fix the bulbs. Because Naruto couldn't see herself in the mirror hanging way above her, she quickly got bored, and started to shake her feet over the ground and slightly moving her body along —something Minato couldn't stop no matter how many times he told her to stay still. His little girl was a really hyperactive one.

After some cuts, Minato realized that cutting things with scissors was pretty uncomfortable and alarmingly fruitless. Naruto's beautiful mane of blonde hair was now looking messier than it used to before. It had to be the scissors. And Naruto's incessant moving. "Wait a moment, Naru." He said softly, neglecting the tone of panic that wanted to roll into his voice. "I'm going to look for something sharper, okay? Don't worry —daddy got this."

The girl hummed happily and glanced at the fallen bits of sun on the white tiles. Before Naruto could caress the part of her head where a shameful piece of gum rested, her father rapidly trotted into the bathroom with a glowing kunai that reflected everything as if it were a mirror itself. It didn't have three peaks, so it must belong to her mother.

Not in the slightest concerned that a knife was going to wander very close to her head, Naruto turned around and let him do his job.

A job in which Minato was terribly failing again, as he accidentally cut the gummed lock very close to the girl's head.

His stomach felt like falling. "Oh, God." He gasped a little too dramatically, for his daughter turned around really fast with a panicked expression as well.

"What?!"

"Nothing." He said with a forced smile. "I just cut my finger. Just a little."

Naruto didn't question that a man like the Hokage was able to be harmed by his own kunai mistakenly and for a moment Minato felt relaxed by her ingenuity —until a shouting of arrival echoed through the house. A honey-like feminine voice that had always made its way to Minato's heart, but right now, he felt like she might just as well announce his sentence of death.

"I'm home! Is my beloved Naru-chan home yet?"

"N-No!" Screamed back Minato, looking at his daughter as if she were growing another head. Kushina was going to stab his eyes out —and for the worse, little and adorable Naruto was going to hate him for life.

"Minato? Why do you sound girlier than usual? If you exploded the bulb again—"

"Mommy!" The girl called out in the same tone. "We're in the bathroom!"

"No! We are not!" Minato trembled, covering the mouth of his child —his child who was seeking to get him killed. Kushina's chakra felt really close to the bathroom's door, apparently curious of the strange family gathering.

"What are you two doing?" She asked from the other side. Like always, Kushina restrained from knocking. She just opened the door quickly. "Er... what?"

Minato smiled at her nervously, a high contrast with Naruto's brilliant set of teeth.

"Daddy was cutting my hair." The girl explained, pointing at the strands on the floor. "'Cause I got gum on it. But it's fine now. He got it all covered!"

If Kushina was horrified by the mess her husband had made out of her Naruto's beautiful hair, she didn't show it at all. It was the kind of emotional control that he as a Hokage would nod approvingly, but right now he was Minato-the-husband, and such indifference in his wife's usually readable features scared him more than comforted him.

A forced smiled showed life on her pale face. "Oh... really?" She softly pinched the girl's cheeks. "With a kunai? Your daddy's a little reckless, isn't he." One could get different interpretations of Kushina's shameless stares depending on the situation. Minato knew almost instinctively that his wife's eyes were telling him that there was a tiny bit of a chance he was going to be choked in bed. Probably not in the good way.

"Why?"

"I'll have to cut your hair a little shorter, Naru-chan, so it doesn't look like Kakashi's messy hair." Naruto nodded quickly. "And hair grows back anyway —faster than you can imagine."

It didn't take Kushina too much to finish her work. There was a pained expression on her face, though it is unknown if it is because of the gum sticking to the scissors and fingers or because her husband hadn't done much to help —however, she didn't do much than 'tsk' around and help Naruto to support herself on the stool.

Naruto looked at the reflection in the mirror, catching the glimpse of a creature that might as well belong to another dimension, but she didn't take long to understand that such a concept was a thing that only existed in television programs or in the wonder of Obito's only eye.

Her smile was quick to contort into an indecipherable 'o' when a well-known girl greeted her —whiskered cheeks and… and short, spiky, boyish hair.

The sign was terrifying.

"You look so pretty, Naruto," Minato managed to mutter with a nervous smile. "Don't you…" He gulped, sending a glance at his wife for support, but Kushina was very busy glaring at him while probably (probably) thinking how complicated the divorce processes would be. He quickly turned to his daughter. "D-Don't you think so, dear?"

"What —what's wrong with my hair?" She muttered, up-turned eyebrows and whirls in her tummy and this had to be some kind of genjutsu, or whatever those visual thingies Obito-nii did with his magical eyes were called, because what she was watching was inconceivable.

"I had to cut it," Kushina said, eyes warming and comforting. "Your hair wasn't well-cut. And the gum was too—too close and…" She smiled. "Can you imagine your hair growing with gum glued to it? It's very uncomfortable, and it's just going to stop you from being such an awesome ninja—"

Over Naruto's chubby cheeks started to run thick tears.

"N-No!" Minato cried. "Don't cry! You look so pretty —look," He pointed his figure in the mirror, who was flashing a shaky smile next to his sobbing daughter. "We—God. We look the same —you look just like me when I was your age. Isn't it cute? I think it's cute."

And Kushina growled with a very irritated roll of her eyes, because one of the worst things to tell Naruto was that she looked remotely close to a human male, and did Minato's oh-so-cherished intelligence have always to perish when their daughter's eyes watered in the slightest?

"I look like a boy!" She sobbed. "My life's over!"

"No! Your life is not over, Naruto. Why would it be over in the first place?" The man palmed her head, but Naruto, sinking in a built-up cuirass of rage and pure despair, jerked away from him. Minato knew he deserved it, though he wouldn't lie and say that such ire from his little girl hadn't hurt. "T-There's nothing —I think it's nice."

"No!" She cried. "Because now everyone will think I'm a boy. And the teme is going to laugh again — and my hair was so pretty, and now it's gone — and it's all spiky and fluffy and weird and I'm so ugly now and it's over!"

"Okay, young lady." Kushina intervened, making Minato breathe calmly because he was close to a heart attack. "Get this into your head: you are not ugly. You're the most beautiful girl in this world, and short hair isn't going to change that." Naruto looked at her, crystal-eyed and erratic breathing but Kushina's face was gentle and reassuring. "Because what about Hinata-chan, huh? Her hair has always been short. It's even shorter than yours. Is she ugly?"

If Naruto had any well-constructed argument to retort her mother, it quickly vanished, and her gaze lingered past her parents, thoughtfully, remembering. "N-No," She hiccupped, calmer.

"She's so pretty, isn't she?" The woman continued happier, pinching Naruto's whiskered cheek, and her blue eyes couldn't help but shine as well. "And you have never confused her with a boy."

"Rin-neesan's hair is short too…" Naruto added in a whisper, expression alike as if she had now understood that there was still hope in this world.

"And remember that young lady, the one in the T&I department (yes, the one with your best friend, Ibiki-chan) —the girl that is always armwrestling with your Obito-nii every time she sees him?"

"Y-Yeah…" She nodded. "She's cool."

"She just cut her hair a week ago, and oh, she looks so pretty. And she dominates, that Anko-chan — she's going to be promoted to Jounin soon. Amazing little girl, like you, and Obito is scared of her, by the way." Naruto chuckled absently. "So see? There's nothing wrong with short hair. And if you don't feel comfortable, you can always wear that cute hat your Jiraiya-jiji bought you."

"The one of the frog?" Jiraiya's presents mostly consisted of hats and toys.

"Whichever you want." She said. "And we're Uzumaki girls. We're awesome. I bet your hair is going to grow in like —one or two months. And it's going to be much prettier."

"Can it—" She murmured. Her hiccups had already stopped, but her voice was still small and a little broken. "Can it grow red?"

Kushina smiled. "I don't think so, love. You want it red?"

"It's fine." She mused, scanning the girl in the mirror again more calmly and patiently, not with the disgust and horror so present on her face just a minute ago. Suddenly, Naruto jumped from her stool —quick steps were heard running upstairs and just as quickly she was back again in the bathroom, frog hat in her head and examining her face once again.

"Is it pretty?"

Minato wanted to tell her that yes, she was the cutest thing that ever-prowled Earth, and the frog hat curled even more the strands falling on her face and he wanted to squeeze her cheeks until they went red, but it was Kushina who did it. "Why is my Naru-chan so cute?" She cried, and Naruto, instantly forgetting that she was as upset as to leave home and become a missing-nin without being a ninja in the first place, started to scream and jump around and embracing her new style as if it was the best thing ever —she was a cool girl now, and hair grows in two months, and her mother had said 'think', so she could be wrong and it could probably grow red.

The house acquired the typical energy and chuckles from every day and Naruto ran to the kitchen, demanding that her mother made ramen and that she was going to help and it wasn't a suggestion —and Minato had smiled as well, releasing a deep breath, because he had managed to survive today and Kushina was the greatest mother that ever existed and she had saved him—

Kushina's eyes were blazing fire when she turned to him. "Strike two, Namikaze."

He did not ask what he had done before, or how many opportunities he had left, or what was going to happen when those opportunities ended. He smiled, a drop of sweat stroking the back of his neck, and followed her to the kitchen submissively.

The next day in the morning, Naruto is awakened by the delicious smell of breakfast. When she's walking downstairs with knuckles rubbing her eyes, her sleepy face rapidly changes into a wrinkled nose. "Daddy?" She murmurs. "What are you wearing?"

"Ah," A grimace flashed in his lips. "My Hokage robes."

"But why?" She asked uncertainly. "Where are you going?" It was only usual for her father to wear that hilarious white dress when he had to go to another village —never had Naruto seen him in Konoha in that outfit.

"We are taking you to the Academy, sweetie, remember?" She kissed her forehead and urged her to eat her breakfast. "But he has to give a speech and he has to look his best! Isn't your daddy the most handsome Hokage in the world?" She now kissed Minato's cheek, but for the first time, he wasn't enjoying the kiss as he usually did.

He looked defeated.

Naruto just chuckled and commented that he looked very funny, and even if it depressed him a little, Minato tried to focus on the future benefits.

At least he could glare at any kid who remotely thought of making fun of his daughter.

So! To answer a few questions (and thanks for the reviews!)... the pairings. This worries me a little, because I hope not to disappoint anyone (though that's impossible). Yes, even if it is a family fic, there's some romance I've been thinking to write (very, absurdly slight, more comical than lovey-dovey, only for the hahas) and there's a high chance that's going to be with Sasuke. Because... he's silly. And so is Naruto. (Though those Shikamaru suggestions have made me rethink things a lot, and I might put some of it because damn it's convincing me) —but really, it isn't going to be much for you to worry about it. You'll mostly see here Minato getting gray hair — and the Konoha 12 ultimate bromance.

Nothing else to say. You guys are amazing and deserve the world. And it's 1 in the morning and I have to sleep. Probably. See you!