55. The Small Things

A challenge occurred already when Minato had to get out of bed. It seemed that many of the Boat villagers had learned the myth 'shinobi don't get drunk'; but even though Minato, Kousuke and Kushina had restricted their intake of alcohol the night before, it didn't change the fact that Minato rarely handled morning-afters, and thus the myth was destroyed by his hand.

Plus, it gave his cousin a good start in teasing him, and although he never cared much about that, it sort of gave him a sense of nostalgia he couldn't quite put his finger on. And so he found himself smiling out of no reason when he followed Mitsu down to the kitchen.

"Why do you two look so alike?" Kushina feverishly whispered at the breakfast table as soon as Mitsu got up to fetch the tea pot.

"Why, does it bother you?" Minato asked back.

"I've been wondering since we got here," she replied, and kept an insisting glare at him. "I mean, there are some differences, but ..."

"Our fathers were twins," Minato explained with a shrug and reached for the juice bottle.

"Oh, right."

The genin and chuunin were staying at the only hotel the village had to offer, and surprisingly, when Minato, Kousuke and Kushina came to meet them, almost everyone were ready and waiting. They had in the beginning thought a mission like this, with a very low risk of enemy attacks, would be boring and uneventful, but had since the previous village visit had their expectations raised. In the end, there were mostly chuunin and genin who got the actual tasks, while the jounin were stuck with the paperwork and mission reports to be sent back to Konoha. Meaning that the boredom ended with Minato, Kousuke and Kushina.

While the jounin were supposed to have meetings with the village head and other higher-ups, the five other teams had been assigned their own tasks and were to report back to them when they were done. Minato had carefully placed his own team with a task that lowered the chance of an argument, and had therefore decided they were to check up at the small orphanage and see what they needed.

"We're at the town hall most of the day," Minato said to his team before they left. "If you're done and you can't find us there, go back to Mitsu's house."

The day began with a set-up meeting the village head – conveniently, Minato's uncle – had prepared ever since the Hokage sent note about 'competent shinobi visiting'. The general needs of the village were presented, and they planned the week they were staying to get the most out of it. By lunch time, Mitsu invited the jounin back to his house.

As they walked along the ocean, Minato could distantly remember where the different branches of the road went. He saw himself as a kid running towards home, but he couldn't remember exactly where that was … He tried not bother, and pulled himself out of his own thoughts and looked at Kushina to say something – but as he saw her face, he saw her lost in her own mind, looking out at the sea, with an expression Minato had rarely seen on her before. Lost, and sad because she was lost. An expression he had seen the first few years of the academy.

She suddenly stopped.

"Kushina?"

There was no reaction, and Minato tried to find whatever she was looking at. The sea was, really, just … sea. Dark blue the deeper it went, white waves crashing against large rocks. But in the distance, there was something popping out of it, something large and quite far away …

Minato could have cursed at himself for not realising earlier. There was only one island visible from the Fire country, he just hadn't realised it could only be seen from the Boat village. He looked at Kousuke, who just nodded and dragged Mitsu ahead down the road. Minato turned back to Kushina, and saw her walking down on a small dock. He followed.

She stepped out on the cold water, but didn't go any further. Minato sat quietly down at the edge of the dock, and instantly felt his legs become damp of sea water. It seemed Kushina was trying to pull herself together, and she sighed loudly before she sat down next to him, leaned her elbows against her knees and gazed out on the island.

"You didn't know you could see it from here?" Minato asked carefully.

Kushina shook her head. "I knew we could see it from this part of the country," she said, her voice sounding a little odd. "But I thought I'd put it all behind me by now. It's been so many years ..."

Minato found nothing to reply with; he was no expert in the feelings that occurred whenever one saw his old, ruined birth country again. And as the first tear rolled down her cheek, he felt like the worst boyfriend who didn't even know what to do. Very carefully, to see if she was fine with it or not, he pushed himself closer to her and put a hesitating arm around her.

"And you know the worst part?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "The fact that my whole family is buried there, and I've never been able to go back for them."

Minato had nothing to say to that either, he just gave her what he hoped was a soothing squeeze and let her rest her head against his shoulder. He had never been to his parents' grave either, but at least he had the opportunity to go whenever he wanted … He had never liked visiting graves and hadn't even visited the memorial stone listing the friends he lost during the war, mostly because he liked to set his focus on the people who were still alive, those he could still protect. Still, he had the privilege of visiting graves without hindrances, and he really should appreciate things like these, but he had never thought about it that way before.

It was weird, but he felt that the least he could do for Kushina for now, was to pay his own parents' grave a proper visit.

After Kushina had managed to pull herself somewhat together, the lunch had been eaten and Mitsu had gone back to the town hall to collect something, Minato and Kousuke were finishing the paperwork from the previous village visit to send off with one of the chuunin teams. Kushina was trying to pay attention, but found the teapot more interesting to focus on. When she tried to pour more tea in her cup and it proved to be empty, Minato was the first to grab it from her hands to have an excuse to get up from the kitchen table and have a short break from the paperwork (small gestures like those had become a habit for Minato and Kousuke after two weeks of daily paperwork). He walked to the kitchen counter and searched Mitsu's drawers for the tea leaves when they heard the front door open, two sets of footsteps, and the front door shut. Minato was putting tea leaves in the tea strainer when hurried footsteps came to the kitchen, and something bumped into his leg.

"Dad!"

As he looked down, a pair of large, light brown eyes glared up at him behind blonde strands of messy hair. The little boy released his leg quickly and backed off a little, but stopped and turned his stare from shocked to perplexed.

"You're not Dad," he said with his light and impressively loud voice.

"Oh my, what's this?"

A very young woman with light brown hair and the same eyes as the little boy stood by the kitchen door, but she didn't seem too shocked to see strangers in her house. Kousuke quickly began explaining who they were and why they were sitting by what didn't seem to be only Mitsu's kitchen table, but hers as well. The little boy kept glaring up at Minato with his mouth slightly ajar, as if wondering how his father had turned into a stranger.

"Take your time," the woman smiled kindly and shook hands with both Kousuke and Kushina, introducing herself as Emi. "And stay here as long as you like, I don't mind." She turned to Minato. "You must be my husband's cousin, right?"

Minato nodded politely and shook her hand as well.

"I didn't know he had a wife and kids," he smiled and looked down at the little boy again, who was now back to clinging to his leg, still keeping the same expression at him.

"Just one for now," Emi said cheerfully. "Actually, do you mind watching Toru for a moment? I have to rush down to the town hall, but I'll be back as soon as I can. I can see you're busy -"

"No problem," Minato said, happy to get a longer break from the paperwork and received agreeing nods from Kushina and Kousuke.

"Muuum?" the little boy, Toru, asked hurriedly as his mother was on her way out of the kitchen, and pointed at Minato. "Is he my uncle?"

"Uh, well, not really," Emi said from the door. "But I guess you could call him that."

The boy seemed delighted with finally finding out what on earth Minato actually was.

"Well, then," Kushina said as Emi left. "Since you two are so busy with paperwork, why don't I watch the kid?"

"Why don't you do some paperwork instead?" Kousuke groaned. "I think you're just trying to get away from it."

"And that's not what you two've been trying to do the last two hours?" Kushina asked back, receiving innocent looks from both. "You're just whiny because you didn't take this opportunity first." Pleased with her achievement, Kushina got up and crouched to get on the same level as the boy. The little boy, on the other hand, hid behind Minato's leg and stared, possibly more curiously than scared, at her very red hair.

"Hey," Minato said to the kid and crouched as well. The boy was probably not familiar with the hair colour 'explosively red', but if he could be so confident around Minato just because he looked like his father, family relations was probably the way to get him comfortable with the strange girl as well. "If I'm your uncle, that makes her your aunt, all right?"

The boy spent a moment digesting the facts, before he nodded comprehensively and stumbled forwards to grab Kushina's out-reached hand. Kushina gave Minato one last smile before she led the boy outside, and Minato sat down wondering what feelings had gone through that smile. Minato himself sat with an unpleasant feeling that this was the last time anyone would call him 'Dad'.

"All right, let's get this over with," he said, leaned over the paperwork and forced himself into work mode.

The paperwork was slowly finished, and as a small fire watch from the living room made a sharp pling twice, they could both lean back and declare their work done.

"So this is what we're up for the next half year?" Kousuke said, putting on a depressed tone.

"At least this is really important," Minato tried to reassure them, and as it was true, it seemed to work. He looked out the window to see Kushina sitting on the grass in the garden and the little three year old boy was showing her something he had found, receiving overjoyed reactions from Kushina as he told her what it was. She seemed so caught up in her role that Minato couldn't help smiling.

"Getting any ideas?"

Minato looked at Kousuke, who was grinning, and spent a moment figuring out what he meant.

"What?" Minato chuckled lightly, trying to put on a content face and grabbed his tea cup as a distraction, but didn't drink. "Bit too early for that, isn't it?"

"That doesn't stop everyone," Kousuke shrugged. "My sister, to mention one."

"That wasn't exactly planned, though, was it."

"No," Kousuke grinned.

Silence fell between them as they watched the little boy run around and blabber words he had probably learned not long ago, but Minato found his smile fading. He didn't feel like lying about this, and especially not to Kousuke.

"Actually," he began, his fingers pushing his tea cup around distantly. "Kushina probably can't have kids."

Kousuke shot Minato a long look, but Minato kept his eyes on the little boy. "Seriously?" he asked. "How come?"

Minato sighed and tried to recall what he had already told Kousuke. "Remember last year, when she had the miscarriage?"

Kousuke nodded.

"She was wounded and never really healed."

"Wow," Kousuke said quietly. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Minato nodded slowly and turned back to his tea. "Well, there's still a chance, even though it's only around one percent."

"I see," Kousuke said. After a moment, he suddenly smiled a little. "I guess if there's one person who could fight for that one percent, Kushina's stubborn enough to make it happen."

Somehow, it cheered Minato up. He had never really given it much thought, but for some reason, it made sense. He smiled.

"Plus," Kousuke grinned, turning back to Minato. "That only means -"

"Oh, shut up, Kousuke."

"- more cuddling for you."

They were done with their job in the Boat village faster than they had planned, and four days later, they stood outside Mitsu's house to say good-bye.

"Come back and visit after the war, all right?" Mitsu said, at which Minato happily nodded and shook hands with him one last time. Toru insisted on a very clingy hug and seemed broken that they were leaving.

"He'll probably forget to be sad after dinner," Mitsu said as Minato handed him his son. "No offence to you or anything."

Half an hour later, they sat in the same carriage they had travelled in a week before, pulled by the same, spotted horses, heading down the uneven road.

"It's gonna be good to get some rest," Kousuke said, stretched and leaned back with closed eyes. "All that paperwork ..."

"Where're we going next?" Kushina asked Minato. "And what about the team that went with all the reports?"

"I'm taking them with me to the fourth stop," Kousuke said without opening his eyes.

"We're going to River Island," Minato said. "It's that small island in the middle of a lake. And we're going to have to walk most of the way."

"Right," Kushina said, leaned back against Minato's shoulder and closed her eyes as well. "All the rest we can get, then."

Minato smiled. Even though she had many reasons to complain, Kushina never whined about much. She had no family left. She had been forced out of the birth country she loved. She was limited in almost everything because of the monster sealed inside her, yet she kept going with that determined face of hers. As Minato rested his head against hers and closed his eyes, something inside him told him that there was indeed some truth in what Kousuke had said.

I wonder what Kishi wants with two of the main characters dead. No really, I'm intrigued.

And why's there another weird, masked man? Have I missed something?

(Naruto ch. 662)