E. Where did you leave your keys?

White crystals accumulated a crust over the surface of the city, lining the budding trees with wet silver and making footprints visible along the sidewalk.

"Why is it snowing? It was just warm yesterday and tomorrow's the goddamned equinox." Shikaku complained as they stepped out of the indoor stadium of Koshougan, where they had watched a friend's intercollegiate archery competition.

Minato looked up at the swirled palette of gray clouds. A snowflake landed on his nose and immediately melted, leaving a tiny spot of cold on his skin. He then looked at his black haired friend dressed in a short sleeved shirt and smiled sympathetically.

"At least your shirt is black." The blond said in optimism.

Shikaku looked at Minato's gray cargo jacket with a navy blue, long sleeved shirt underneath in jealousy, "Nice try, Minato. But there's no sun."

"Would you like to borrow my scarf, Nara-san?" The delicately pale-skinned woman asked, unraveling the cashmere scarf beneath her jet black hair.

"Oh Arashi. Always my angel of grace." Shikaku sighed gratefully, yet seemingly depressed at the same time. "Thanks, but no thanks. I can't just take clothes from a woman."

"How about my jacket, then?" Minato offered.

Once again, Shikaku sighed, "I don't know, Namikaze…This is sad. You're so sickeningly nice that taking advantage of it would make me feel just as guilty as taking Arashi's scarf."

"Since when were you one to care for morality, Nara?" Another black-haired man, this one with shorter hair, asked.

Shikaku ignored the question and continued, "Now if Uchiha were to offer me his fancy trenchcoat…"

"Forget it."

"Cheapskate. How were all of you so prepared for this in the first place?" Shikaku looked at Fugaku's leather gloves and scarf.

"You know what they say about this city." Mikoto cheerfully smiled, "Winter always leaves one large snowstorm before spring starts."

"The weather channel clearly said that it was going to snow this morning." Fugaku pointed out.

"I'm a busy person, Uchiha. I don't have the time to watch that bullshit."

"Watching that 'bullshit' would've saved you from feeling cold. And consequentially, it would've saved us from your useless complaints."

"Shut up. It doesn't matter. Now that the snow is starting to fall harder, I bet classes are cancelled. So I won't be going back out anyway." Shikaku grinned, "Chouza and Inoichi have family business this weekend, so I'm just going to stay in my apartment, not have any contact with people, and play Call of Duty for the rest of the day."

"Sounds productive." Fugaku commented rather cynically.

"Don't judge. What are you going to do? Take a bath in your private spa and smell potpourri?"

"Hardly. Mikoto and I have a dinner party with her grandparents."

"I take back my insults—hey, do you think you could bring back some food? Chouza typically makes it but he's not home and I don't think there's anything left in the fridge. Come to think of it, I'm out of beer too…"

"No." He curtly shut Shikaku down.

"It was worth a shot." Shikaku sighed, "What are you doing with your free afternoon, Namikaze?"

"Um…I think I'll read. There's a book I've wanted to finish for a while." He held up a paperback novel, which he always kept by his side one way or another.

Because Fugaku eventually called for a taxi and Shikaku—motivated more by the deficit of beer than his lack of food—decided to stop by the supermarket, Minato arrived at his apartment alone. The snow had piled up half way below his knees by the time he fished his room key out of his pocket.

"Shit it's freezing!" A female voice loudly complained from below in the courtyard.

Minato looked over the porch and smiled at Kushina, who apparently was not up to date with the local weather either. In loose fitting capris and a tank top, she shivered while walking up the flight of stairs to her apartment room, which was next door to Minato's room.

"Did you get to leave early from your job?" He asked.

"Com'on keys…you know I'll fucking find you eventually…" She muttered as she dug through her drawstring sports bag and then answered him, "Yeah. Old man Teuchi closed the restaurant for the rest of the day."

"I think a lot of businesses are closing." Minato said, observing the heavy snowfall, "I read this morning in the newspaper that there's going to be up to 70 centimeters of snow."

"I would've brought my damned coat if I knew this was going to happen. But I don't read newspapers because they're for geezers and I forgot to pay for my TV subscription." She grumbled.

As he had learned from the conversations they had shared over the course of the winter, Kushina was an impressively forgetful person. So he was not really quite sure why he was surprised when his red haired neighbor looked up and said:

"Namikaze…I think I lost my key."

"E-e-eh?! Are you sure? Did you check your pockets?"

"Yeah…see?" She emptied them out. All that fell out were gum wrappers, a penny, and half a stick of Pocky with some lint stuck on the melted chocolate.

"Oh, hey. Pocky."

"Uzumaki-chan…I don't think that's a good idea." He grabbed her hand and forced her to let go of the snack with a questionable history, "I have food in my apartment. How about you stay at my place until the storm is over? Then you can call the landlady and ask her for another key."

"I can't do that."

"It's fine. It won't be a bother; I promise." He insisted, concerned about the visible goose bumps on her bare arms.

"No. I really can't. Biwako-baa-san said that she's only getting copies of my key for me ten times a year…"

"And you've already exceeded that limit?!" Minato gawked in disbelief.

"Hey! It's not completely my fault! I'm pretty sure there's an old hag who's been stealing from my pockets at the washer's! That little shit..."

Minato tried to calm her down, "It's okay, I'll help you find it. Can you retrace your steps? Where did you last see it?"

Her eyebrows scrunched in attempt to recollect her morning, "Uh…Fridays I work at the video game store first…oh! I used the wrong key to open a cabinet there and left it on the back table: maybe it was my apartment key—Achoo!"

"Here, would you like this?" He took off his jacket and handed it to her.

She shook her head and sniffed, "That's fine. I think I have some gloves that I still left in my bag…There! See?"

It took him a minute or two to see the resemblance that the tattered, rags on her hands had to gloves. A long time ago, they probably were nice knitted gloves, but now they were reduced to tangled threads that were so worn that it was impossible to tell what color they were in the first place. She seemed to realize this as well and laughed sheepishly:

"Well, they do warm my hands—Achoo!"

The sneeze seemed even louder this time. By now, he was determined to have her take his jacket, but knew that she wouldn't accept it unless she was sure they made a fair trade.

"Can I give you my jacket for your gloves?"

"The fuck?" She looked at him incredulously, "Namikaze, you aren't babying me are you? These things are a piece of shit—

"My hands are the most sensitive in the cold." He lied, cutting her off before she continued with any more swears, "The rest of my body doesn't get cold that easily. Plus, I have long sleeves."

She eyed him in suspicion for a few seconds and he crossed his fingers in his pockets. Finally she agreed.

"Alright. Let's go." He said. And surprisingly enough, she didn't argue with him.

The only company they came across on the streets was a stray dog. Apartment building doors were sealed with tape to keep out cold drafts and windows in the shopping districts were dark. Whenever he felt a sneeze threatening to escape, Minato held his breath to suppress the noise. He hoped that Kushina, who was pushing through the snowy wind in front of him with her long hair blowing behind her in waves of red, couldn't notice his sudden jolts from silencing his sneezes.

"It's locked." She stopped in front of the door.

"Eh?!" He looked up, crestfallen, "You work here, right? Can't you unlock it?"

"I can't." She stared through the glass windows and at the empty front desk in depression, "I just remembered: I decided to try to be more organized last night and put all my keys together on a key ring."

He found it incredibly difficult to think of any other solutions while his teeth were chattering and every inch of his body was shivering. But apparently, he didn't have to, because Kushina immediately asked:

"Hey, Namikaze, do you have a paperclip?"

"Yeah. Here." Minato absentmindedly replied, his mind too focused on forgetting how cold it was to realize that his companion had gotten down on her knees to tamper with the lock.

"Wait—EH?! What are you doing?!" He panicked after seeing what he had enabled.

"Breaking in." She candidly answered.

"B-But! You can't just do that!" He exclaimed in insistence.

But his attempts to dissuade her were futile. After a bit of twisting with the morphed paperclip, the lock clicked.

Kushina grinned, "Well. I just did."

"Uzumaki-chan! What if we get caught?!" He asked, clearly alarmed as he rapidly turned his head about to see if there were any witnesses, "And we're at the front door too…Uzumaki-chan! Are you listening to me?! Wait—no! Don't go in!"

But she was already a step in the store. He flinched and waited for a robbery alarm to go off, preparing himself to run.

"Stop flipping out. It's fine, see? The owner is too much of a cheap asshole to actually install a legitimate security system. Since all the games are locked up, he's only got something for when kids sneak in and play on the sample consoles and demos."

"Still, this is illegal, Uzumaki-chan!" He called to her from outside.

"Only if we get caught." She casually replied as she flipped through the drawers in the cashier desk, "Relax. No one's going to come out here in a storm like this."

She was right—but he drew the line when it came to committing a federal crime. He had never broken a rule in his life. In fact, he had received the award of Most Well-Behaved in his elementary school graduation because he never had a time-out. He had never skipped a class in high school, spoke out of turn in class, or skirted classroom duties. So he would absolutely not break in and enter into a store like a sketchy thief. That was just way too much.

But Kushina was sure taking a long time. With each passing second he could sense the impending dread of perhaps some civilian peeking out the window, seeing shady figures in the video game store, and calling the police. They needed to find those keys soon, otherwise they'll be put into handcuffs—

"I can't believe I'm doing this." He took a huge breath and walked into the room.

Breaking the law was the most stressful thing Minato had ever encountered. Despite Kushina's reassurance, he couldn't help but look around, paranoid for any hidden cameras. And he tiptoed carefully, just in case there was a sound alarm or one of those laser systems.

"They're not here. I still can't find them" Kushina finally said after ten minutes of searching.

"Really? Then let's get out of here." He said, only too eager to leave.

"Yeah, yeah. Geez, where are your balls, Namikaze?" She said grouchily and stepped out from behind the counter.

In the process of doing so, she accidentally stepped on one of the controllers on the ground. The display screen flashed on, lighting everything in the room up in bright blue. Music punctured the quiet that Minato had worked so hard to maintain as a character popped up in the game with a smile.

"Fucking Sonic." Kushina glared at the spiky blue hedgehog waving at them from the screen.

"Um…Uzumaki-chan," Minato gulped, "Didn't you say that there's an alarm set for the demo games if they're turned on?"

"Yeah—oh shit." Kushina's eyes widened upon realizing what she had just done.

As if on cue, a bell sharply blasted throughout the area.

"FUCK! RUN! RUN!" Kushina hollered over the ringing and made a mad dash for the front door.

Minato followed. Too preoccupied with the fear of jail time, he didn't bother shielding his face from the penetratingly icy bits of snow that the beating wind carried against them. They continued sprinting even when the alarm could no longer be heard. Losing her footing in the thick snow, Kushina fell forward face first into the snow. He stopped and doubled over to catch his breath. Running for his life certainly took a lot more stamina than his morning training.

"Well, that was fun." Kushina said in shallow breaths.

"Fun?!" He gasped for air, "Uzumaki-chan, we could've become criminals! Actually, we are criminals now!"

"Stop making a huge fucking deal out of this, Namikaze. It's not like we killed someone."

It was a huge deal to him though. With each relieved breath, images of intimidating interrogations, sumo wrestling inmates, and dirty cells flashed in his eyes. It took a few minutes for him to calm himself down. He looked over at Kushina, who was still sitting in the snow in exhaustion. Snowflakes clung onto her hair like tiny crystals. Seeing her, he decided to continue with their search.

"Where do we look next?" He asked.

"Ichiraku Ramen." She stood up and brushed the snow off her capris.

He looked at the ramen posters and signs on the window at the corner of the street they were on. More specifically, he looked at the CLOSED sign that glowed red by the entrance.

"Not again!" He moaned, "How many crimes are we going to have to commit?!"

"Again: it wasn't crime. We didn't even steal anything." She trudged through the knee-deep snow towards the restaurant.

He wasn't sure if it was a good time to remind her that trespassing was an offense as well as he followed her.

"Besides, I remember doing something with my keys in the back of the building." She started down a narrow, dark alley that opened up to a cramped square area. Thinking aloud, she said, "We were running low on menma…so I went to the mini fridge out here…only there were a lot to hold, so I had to make two trips. Oh!" She snapped her fingers, "I used my keys to jam the fridge door so that I wouldn't have to unlock it twice!"

"Uzumaki-chan…I don't see any keys around here." Minato looked around the vicinities of the small fridge by the brick wall, "The wind was probably too strong and shut the door after you left. The keys might be inside: do you have the combination of the lock?"

She gave it to him and the lock came off. Yet the door only opened a few centimeters due to the additional chain lock wrapped around the appliance.

"I guess old man Teuchi put that on for extra protection against the storm."

"I don't suppose you have the key to this, do you?"

As he had expected, but had held the tiniest hope against all the same, Kushina shook her head. Minato sighed in disappointment. He knelt down before the fridge and tried thinking of a solution. The slack in the chains allowed him to open the door so that there was a gap, but it wasn't enough to activate the interior lights so that he could look inside.

However, it was enough to fit a hand.

So, as if having spent hours in a winter storm with half of his pants soaked through by snow with only a pair of holed gloves as anything close to appropriate wear for the occasion wasn't cold enough, Minato stuck his arm through the opening. He stifled a gasp and held his breath as he dealt with the freezing temperature. As he continued to blindly feel against the icy racks and walls for anything remotely like a key, he could feel his sense of touch in his fingers go painfully numb.

"Come on…." He wheezed.

A clear jingle came from behind him. He immediately turned, where he found Kushina holding a ring with several dangling keys.

"Oh hey! Namikaze, I found it!"

"Where?"

"It turns out that my pants have a pocket I never even knew about! Somehow, I must have put my keys in there without realizing it." She grinned, "They were with me the whole time!"

Yoshino burst out laughing as Minato related the story of how he spent his Friday afternoon to her at Ichiraku Ramen the following Monday. What started off as a casual conversation during her lunch break about the final winter storm turned out to be a hilarious tale—well, for the listener.

"I feel so awful for you." She said, an amused smile still lingering on her expression once he finished. "Are you feeling better at least?"

"Yeah. Thanks." His voice cracked slightly in reply, a remnant of the cold he spent all of the past weekend trying to recover from.

"I can't believe you were outside that long without a coat or anything! Do you know how cold it was that time? And you stuck your arm into a fridge too!" She laughed.

"Namikaze did what?" Shikaku asked as he walked into the restaurant and sat down at their booth.

"Stood hours outside in the storm helping Uzumaki-kun look for her keys." Yoshino answered.

"Jesus. Is that how you got the cold? Man, when you called us Saturday and told us you couldn't shoot hoops because you were sick, I thought you were kidding. I mean, you're like an anal mother in pregnancy. But yeah, now that Yoshino just said that, it makes sense."

"And he broke into a store." Yoshino added.

"Namikaze did what?!"

Minato anxiously shushed them and quickly filled Shikaku in with a hoarse voice. After the blond's insistence that he and Yoshino never tell anyone about his misdeed, all Shikaku could do was laugh and shake his head.

"Oh man, Namikaze. You're an idiot in your own way."

"Yeah. It does seem like you're unusually willing to go out of your way to help Uzumaki-kun..." She gave him a sideways smile.

"You just haven't known this guy long emough. He's just too nice to everyone for his own good." Shikaku said.

"Yeah, but I don't know. Even if Namikaze-kun is a nice guy, I don't think he would commit a crime for just anyone…"

She winked at him, as if she knew what he was hiding. Minato blinked, clueless about what she was hinting towards. He wasn't quite sure what secret she thought he had. And if he did have a secret, he wondered what was so amusing about it.

Hi hi hi! It's been a long time, hasn't it? I'm super sorry for the delayed update! Please forgive me! I'll try my best to update more often!