May 14, AK 13
Naruto thought his new Sensei was pretty great, mostly, if very confusing. It had started on the very first day and just kept going since then.
"Naruto? Could you come over here for a minute?"
The blond heaved himself up with a grunt before running over to his teacher in the shade of a nearby tree.
"Yeah Sensei?"
For the first time since he had met the Jounin, Naruto thought he looked a little unsure, picking at the tips of the bandages around his fingers.
"I asked the Hokage for permission, since I will be residing in the village consistently as your Sensei, and… well, we're sort of related anyway, kind of, a little, since my Sensei was your father's student, and your Genin team is a bit like your children, which would make me kind of like your nephew, if you liked, though Sensei should really be doing this, but he's still not quite over your father's death and the loss of his team, and he has big responsibilities now too, but he would probably come by to visit if you were there, and maybe your godfather too, though he's an idiot and kind of a dick and has lots of work as well, but they could tell you stories, because I never really got to meet your parents personally, and I was thinking of getting a bigger place soon anyway, and that could be a, you know, thing, we did, and, well, what do you think?"
The blond frowned, eyebrows pinched together as he tried to figure out what Sensei was saying. Sensei knew his parents, a little, or at least his dad? And he had gotten permission to do something… where was the question though?
His head tipped to the side as he squinted at the older teen who was shifting slightly in an apprehensive way.
"Ne, Sensei, you didn't actually ask me anything?"
Hiroki-sensei blinked, surprised, tapping his fingers together.
"I didn't? Oh, I, well. I want to adopt you. If, you know. You didn't mind…"
Naruto was quiet for a long moment, his mind racing. Each second of quiet seemed to make his teacher more nervous though, for he almost immediately started waving his hands and trying to ease the tension.
"I mean, I know you're a Genin now, and- well, you have your own apartment and everything and I… well… I mean- I understand if you… you know, aren't… interested, but maybe you could just, come by and… stay with me? Sometimes? Maybe? If you wanted…?"
The orange ninja coughed and rubbed at his nose, looking away and nodding a little jerkily.
"Yeah! Sure, if uh, you wanted, I wouldn't mind."
He was having a little trouble speaking around a sudden dryness in his throat, but Sensei seemed to get this, because instead of saying anything the Jounin just stood a little closer and put a hand on his back while looking off in the direction of the rest of the team.
"Cool. I… cool. Thank you. Um, well, I was going to have the team come by for dinner tonight, and if you like you could, maybe stay over? To get a feel for the place, is all. And we could just… see how it goes for a little while. Okay?"
Naruto sniffed a little, pulling himself up before nodding firmly.
"Cool."
. . .
May 19, AK 13
Naruto had been a tiny bit worried at first that it would be kind of weird having an older brother kind of person as his teacher, but when he thought about it a little it wasn't quite as big of a problem as it might have been. Iruka-sensei had been kind of like that too, and anyway, Hiroki-sensei and Hiroki-niisan were very different.
Sensei was always staring at them in a way which was… well, yeah, a little creepy, but if you paid attention, like Naruto did, then you'd notice that the stare wasn't trying to be creepy, it was just… intense. It was a little funny too, because Naruto noticed that the way the Jounin looked at each of them was a little bit different.
Sakura got the 'I'm curious what you'll do next' flavored stare, like Sensei was always faintly pleasantly surprised by how awesome she was, which was silly because she was obviously super awesome.
He personally received the 'I am waiting for you to do the thing' stare, like Sensei knew something mildly cool was about to happen and was just waiting for him to do it, which made sense, seeing as he was going to be Hokage one day.
The stare Sasuke got was… well, Naruto had been a little confused by that at first too, because it was almost like Sensei didn't quite trust the younger Uchiha. The Bastard's stare was almost 'I don't know if I should be teaching you or not', which… the blond didn't quite get. Sure, Sasuke was a bastard, but he wasn't… well, he wasn't going to hurt them or anything.
All the stares went away in brother-mode though, and instead they got replaced by...
Naruto had heard the expression 'precious person' before but he hadn't really know exactly what that looked like, not really. When Hiroki-nii was cooking him breakfast, or telling him to brush his teeth, or whatever, the look on his face was like, Naruto was made of gold or something. It was like nothing else mattered at that moment but what he thought, that he understood, that he was safe and healthy. It was like Hiroki-nii thought Naruto was going to run away or disappear if he was out of sight for a moment.
It was enough to make a guy a little nervous to be perfectly honest, and five days in, Naruto was actually thinking of staying at his own apartment for the night instead... before he saw the little photographs on the end-table next to Hiroki-nii's bed.
It had been another weird thing about the Jounin, having a bed that he never slept in. Naruto had actually once woken up in the middle of the night for a glass of water only to find the older ninja stuck to the ceiling in the kitchen staring vacantly at the floor with glazed eyes and screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors. But at any rate the door to the bedroom was usually closed.
The door had been cracked open that evening, and Sensei had been talking to Sakura-chan and frying some vegetables while the blond took a moment to slip out and use the bathroom. His brother somehow knew how to make the disgusting things almost edible, which was practically magic as far as Naruto was concerned, but the call of nature waits for no man.
Sassy-chan (Fovea was a dumb name) had brushed through his legs and into the dimly lit space beyond the cracked door and he had been curious enough to follow, spotting the simple wooden frames pretty quickly in the mostly barren room where they sat on the little table next to the bed.
The photos were old, the colors faded and a little yellowed at the edges, but the kid in the center was more or less recognizable as Hiroki-nii, smiling that small, nervous smile rather than the big, fake one he normally used. It was weird seeing Sensei look so young, and without a mask too, but it was the other people that really drew his attention. A stiff looking man with the same little stress lines as Hiroki-nii, and a woman who looked proud but a little sad with similar eyes.
The other photo was more familiar, a Genin team, with Hiroki-nii in the middle. The girl on the right had big red tattoos on her face, like Kiba, and the boy on the left was smiling hugely and had an arm slung around the much smaller Uchiha. The Jounin behind the kids had a mask too, and a big poof of crazy white hair; his one visible eye looked a little bit embarrassed, but generally happy.
"Naruto, dinner is rea- oh."
He quickly put the photo back on the end table and backed away, feeling a little guilty.
"Ahh, sorry, I didn't mean to snoop, I was just following Sassy…"
But Sensei didn't seem angry, just a little… blank, as he released the door handle and stepped into the only partially illuminated space.
"No; no of course, it's fine. You were just curious."
The hooded teen moved up next to Naruto quietly, picking up the picture of the Genin team to look at it for a moment.
"I had forgotten this was in here, I suppose…"
He trailed off, seeming lost in thought, and Naruto shuffled a little bit before asking the question.
"What are their names?"
Hiroki-nii looked up like he had forgotten Naruto was there, before blinking and nodding, smiling the empty smile, though it wasn't quite as empty as normal for some reason, now filled instead with something vague and dark lurking around the edges.
"Inuzuka Nikkei and Shimura Wasabi. Team 19. I was early graduation, as you could probably guess. So tiny. It took us a little while to… get everyone really working together. But Wasabi…"
A finger trailed over the glass covering the picture to rest on the smiling boy.
"He was always really cheerful. A little like you, now I think about it, but he had a serious streak when we were on missions, always looking out for me. And Nikkei, once we had gotten a little closer, well, that was that. Inuzuka always look out for the good of the pack. Sensei… I don't think he really warmed up to me; his old teammate had been an Uchiha and there were some… memories. But he always did right by me. Taught me quite a bit. We were a great team. Nikkei was actually the one to give me Fovea, you know."
Hearing that he reminded Sensei of his team brought a grin to Naruto's face.
"That's so cool! Can I get a ninja animal too? Do they have students now? Could we train together sometime?"
The picture went back on the little table with a click as halting words filled the dusty quiet of the purple room.
"No, I'm afraid they never got to take students. Wasabi, he- took a bad hit during our second Chunin exams and I didn't- I didn't know as much medical jutsu as I do now. But I still got promoted, anyway, and so Sensei went back to ANBU and Nikkei- we hadn't- I didn't know how to, keep the friendship going. She tried but I was… distracted. And then her- her squad got ambushed and she stayed behind to let them escape…"
The mask betrayed nothing as Hiroki-nii starred in the direction of the photos and Naruto felt a sick sinking in the pit of his stomach.
"And I wasn't there. I was still in the hospital after the Massacre, little quirk of fate I lived even though... mother and father… So it was just me and Sensei. I got lucky, I think, because we were placed on the same squad in ANBU for a while, and he's, he's doing good, now, but… well. For a while it was just me."
The smile Naruto received didn't look happy at all, and moreover seemed familiar, because it was an awful lot like the smile he saw in the mirror sometimes. It was the smile he wore when he came home to an empty apartment after not having gotten a single person to look at him all day; the not-smile which made things better only by virtue of letting him ignore them.
"But it's okay now, cause I've got my own students, and Hanako, and Tetsuhide, and Anko, and- and it's okay, now."
Naruto stood silent for a moment, thinking, before reaching a decision. He stretched out a hand and grabbed his brother's, bandaged fingers hanging slack for a moment before twining firmly with his, pressure carefully measured to be merely firm, and not overly hard.
"Yeah, it's okay now."
His smile was a little watery, but it seemed to pull Hiroki-nii out of the sad place, because there were little creases in the mask that meant there was a very small smile under it. Naruto coughed a little to clear his throat and pulled them towards the door.
"Ne, you said dinner was ready, right? I'm so hungry I could eat a dozen bowls of ramen easy; your workouts make me so tired niisan, I'm never going to get used to them. Anyway, I was thinking, about how you said we could look at some new places, 'cause your bathroom is like, so small, and, you know, obviously it will have to be orange, cause orange is the best, but I also want some nice big windows so my plants will be happy, and-"
Naruto kept rambling, because Hiroki-nii kept smiling, and nodding, and holding his hand, and he thought that, while it might be kind of weird, sometimes, doing this whole family thing, well, families stick together. So they'd just have to find a way.
. . .
A/N: Did someone order a heaping helping of feels?
Note: Naruto does not know who his parents are. Hiroki isn't allowed to tell him that. Hiroki knew someone who knew Naruto's parents. The composition of Team 19 is not listed in any public records. Hiroki never says Kakashi's name. While he could tell Naruto why he couldn't tell him anything (your parents were powerful ninja with lots of enemies), he wouldn't and couldn't tell him anything else.
Thematic music: I'm so lucky by Lucktwice
(Okay, my power just went out for a sec, so chapter two might be delayed a bit due to inclement weather)