A/N: So it's a chapter. I guess. To be honest I feel like a complete dick for promising a chapter then giving you this. Especially since I've had this thing completed since the beginning of the month. But the other (more real chapter) I just haven't felt like writing.
So story news. there might sometimes be short chapters like this throughout the story just to keep you guys in touch with what's going on with Konoha. How did you like my reasoning for the neglect Naruto got? It's not extreme, but it's there.
On with the story.
Konoha three months after Naruto left
Minato sighed as he sat down at the dinner table with his wife and daughters. It just didn't feel right to not have Naruto eating with them. Sure, it probably was never right in the first place to not invite him to eat with them, but now it truly felt wrong.
It wasn't like they were trying to push him away or make his life terrible. They just wanted him to make his own way into their family. A bad call that Minato now realized looking back on it. It's not like the kid even knew he was adopted and that it was entirely up to him to make himself special to him.
Minato played with his food as he kept thinking more and more about Naruto. He didn't truly have anything against Naruto, but at the same time he had nothing for him. He just couldn't bring himself to like the kid to even as much as he liked his students. It was just always a painful reminder of that night and the loss of his and Kushina's real child, Menma.
Kushina watched Minato quietly as he thought about whatever. 'Probably about Naruto' she thought to herself downtroddenly. She didn't mean to be so cold toward him. She just couldn't help but distance herself from him, especially since once they had the twins it was so much easier for her to do so. When she didn't pay attention to him it was like that night never happened. That she never lost her child.
Natsumi and Ayako just sat in silence. The table had been like this ever since their older brother disappeared. Kushina and Minato would just sit there in silence only talking when asked a question, but even then they only spoke the minimum they had to.
The twins just couldn't understand why their brother left them like he did. Why when he left was their family completely destroyed? Why was everything with Naruto an enigma to them? They didn't know the answer to any of those questions sadly, but what they did know was that they had to fix this.
And so life became more lively for the Namikaze-Uzumaki household.