"Happy birthday, Himawari!"

Himawari, at the ripe old age of two, did what she'd practiced and blew out the candles on her cake. The adults at her birthday party clapped and made a big deal about her being so mature for her age while the children's eagle-eyed glances sharply observed the cake. It was big, strawberries glistening with a thin coating of gelatin, the piped creamy frosting on top made their mouths water expectantly. More importantly, it was handmade by Boruto's mom, whose bento boxes were legendary among the children at school.

Aware that the kids were watching her every move, Hinata carefully took out the candles and picked up the cake. Sensing that they were about to have some, the older children stood up, too, which made her laugh. In the crowd, Hinata sought Naruto, and their eyes met. Their unspoken communication traveled the distance of their home: her lavender ones asked his help in dealing with Himawari, who was still sitting in her high chair. He nodded. His blue eyes, meanwhile, indicated that he understood that she was going to deal with Boruto and the rest of his friends.

Holding the cake high, Hinata led the procession of children to the kitchen so she could cut it into pieces for everyone. She left Naruto in the living room to deal with the other guests.

Himawari fussed since she was done with her own role. She held up her arms and cried, "Papa!"

She was begging to be put down on the floor so she could toddle and break things—especially whatever was in the boxes with the colorful wrapping and shiny ribbons that everyone had brought to the house. However, before Naruto could place her down on the floor, she was scooped up by one of her parents' friends.

Himawari glanced up and found herself face to face with a man with pale skin and short, dark hair. His eyes were twinkling with mischief as he smiled at her. Himawari associated this man with the boy who had Papa's hair coloring and who always drew pictures. This was his father. She placed a hand on his cheek and squeezed, which made him laugh.

"Times like these, I wish I could convince Ino to try for one more," he said to her father as he hugged her back. "But she's hard to budge on that issue."

Naruto snorted at him but smiled brightly at Himawari when she continued squishing Sai's cheeks. His friend didn't seem to mind it, though, so Naruto held back from admonishing his daughter, who was giggling now that Sai was squeezing her into a tight hug every time her chubby fingers pinched his cheeks.

After a few minutes, when she got tired of playing with Sai, she squirmed with discomfort, which made him put her down on the floor. On unsteady legs, Himawari used the sofa to guide her to the pile of presents sitting on the table.

Again, though, her plans were foiled because Temari picked her up and hugged her before she could get to her destination.

"Gotcha!" Temari exclaimed. She glanced at Naruto for permission. "I'm borrowing her for a couple of minutes."

Like he could say no to her?

Naruto smiled at her instead.

Seeing that Temari had the birthday girl in her arms, she was presently joined by Hanabi, then Ino, then Tenten.

From a safe distance, Naruto and Sai observed the women as they fussed and squealed over his daughter, who was doing her best to look cute in her little Kurama outfit. Hinata had done a lot of begging to get Kurama to agree until the Fox Spirit had finally agreed to being replicated as a cutesy children's outfit.

While he'd kept quiet in the face of Hinata's pleas, Kurama hadn't hesitated to make sure Naruto bore the brunt of his displeasure at being reduced to such a state. When they were far away from the village, Kurama had flamed up in their shared psychological plane, picked him up in his big claws and shook him like a rag doll.

"In case you didn't know, I'm a powerful being!" he'd roared into Naruto's face.

"Kurama! It's just for her birthday party. Just this one time, I promise! You know Himawari will love the little jumpsuit!"

"Hmph!"

Back at the party, Naruto watched while Sai took a sip from his beer and shook his head. "Still can't believe you're a father of two. One's already a handful, but two? That's just nuts."

Naruto raised his eyebrows. "They're not, though? The more the merrier."

"Sure, if you say so." Then Sai laughed, his glance turned teasing. "But then I guess having two kids makes you a double dilf, huh?"

"Sai!" Naruto was about to punch him in the chest but a burst of laughter signaled the kids had gotten their cake and were back in the living room. Instead, he glared at his friend, who was still chuckling. "It's not funny, Sai! I sooooo want to punch you right now, but I'm going to hold back because the kids are here and I don't want them to see me being violent with anyone. But just you wait until I get you all alone!"

"I only meant you're such a good dad...to follow!"

"I swear, if you make one more dilf comment about me, I'm going to kick your ass so hard, you're going to wish you were still in Root!"

"Yeah, whatever, Double Dilf!"

Naruto growled with frustration and kept his fists to the side, itching to land a punch.

Sai only doubled down on his laughter. He snapped to attention, though, when he felt Ino staring at him. His mirth completely died when her eyebrows rose a fraction. He held up his hands, his face a picture of innocence, which convinced her enough that she turned back to playing with Himawari and left them alone for the rest of the party.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hinata was trying to keep up with the kids' conversations. They were surprisingly excited, especially since they were talking about a recent project they had to do for school.

"Kaa-chan! We're learning ackernims in class," from Boruto.

Startled, Hinata frowned. "What?"

"Ackermins! The one where you use first letters and they form a word."

"Oh! Acronyms."

"Yeah, that!"

Hinata blushed remembering a previous experience with a particular acronym a few years before. "H-how interesting, Boruto!"

Boruto nodded. "So we all gotta come up with something we want to talk about and make posters and stuff."

"I'm doing mine on sharingans!" Sarada declared. "I talked to Papa and he's going to tell me all about it! But I don't know what my ackernim is though."

Boruto grinned at her, his cheshire-cat smile almost resembling his father's. "I told you, SUP: Sharingan Uchiha Power!"

"No!" Sarada denounced with a definitive shake of the head. "I don't like it."

"I like startergies and tactics, so my project's SWAT," Shikadai interjected. "Special Weapons and Tactics!"

"Mine's about pictures and how fun they are," Inojin said. "I'm going to work on it with my father, too!"

"I want to do mine on fashion," Chou-chou said. "Mom's going to help me pick out some pictures for my poster."

Even though she was initially worried, Hinata sighed with relief. There was no way the kids would ever think of that acronym.

When they'd finally gotten their respective pieces of cake, the children ran out and headed back to the living room to join the rest of the party.

Inojin found his father and ran up to him. "Dad! The cake was soooooo yummy! But Boruto and Sarada fought over the biggest piece. Shikadai had to stop the fight. And then Chou-chou…"

A few days later, Sai was rushing. Today was Inojin's presentation at school, which he was supposed to be attending. However, he'd gotten an emergency summons from the Hokage, who wanted him to investigate some documents they found from Danzo's belongings.

Despite Ino's frustration, she'd understood that Sai was needed for this particular mission. While Sai had reluctantly gone with the Hokage's men, she'd gone to the school still with hope that he would make it in time to watch their son speak about the project he'd worked so hard on the last few days.

And while Sai had helped the team decipher the strange letters and seals they'd found, Ino had periodically given him updates in his mind, visiting him through her family's jutsu.

When the last document was declared safe, Sai had run out of the building and headed straight for Inojin's school. He saw with relief that he'd made it in time. He was only a few minutes late because Inojin was already on stage and speaking.

Still, Sai wished he was a little closer. Unfortunately, because he'd gotten to the venue late, he was stuck in the back row standing with the other late parents. But that didn't dim his joy in watching his son speak with confidence about a subject he was passionate about: drawing, especially since it was a shared love between him and his father.

Sai folded his arms and smiled, his heart so filled with pride that nothing else penetrated his satisfaction.

It was the muffled giggling that indicated something was wrong, but he just couldn't place it. Why was everyone laughing at what his son was saying?

"This is for my Dad, who inspired this whole presentation…"

Sai tilted his head, recalling his conversation with Inojin when he'd come home from school and described the project on acronyms they were doing.

"Dad, you like to draw. I like to draw too." Inojin had beamed at him, his smile so wide and enthusiastic, Sai had been so happy that his child was showing a lot of emotion and enthusiasm for something. All simply because this was such a contrast to his own youth and personality.

Sai nodded. "Yes, it's really fun but you're learning a lot, too, while painting and drawing. There's lots of techniques and styles…"

They'd spent the last few days discussing art.

Sai frowned when the giggling all around him wouldn't stop.

He squinted and looked at his wife, who was sitting a few rows away from the stage, her hand covering her eyes.

Uh-oh. That was not a good sign.

He racked his brain, still trying to find out what the problem was, his eyes inspecting Inojin, who was still proudly explaining why he loved drawing so much.

And then, finally, Sai's glance landed on the poster behind Inojin, at the title of his project: Drawing is Learning Fun.

Because he was so far away, Sai's eyes couldn't clearly see the lowercase letters. However, he could suddenly see the capitalized letters on the poster, big and bold, bright and colorful.

D…I…L…F…

Ah, shit. Now the giggling made a lot of sense.

Sai squirmed uncomfortably, his heart beating faster now, the tips of his ears hot.

From a seat a few rows behind Ino, a distinctive snort was hard to ignore. It was loud and so unmistakably Naruto's. He could clearly see Naruto trying hard to muffle his laughter. Sai could never forget the sound because he'd heard it enough times when they'd been Team 7.

But his son wasn't done yet.

"Thank you for listening to my presentation, Project Dilf!" Inojin declared proudly. Then he shaded his eyes and peered into the audience, seeming to look for somebody.

Sai shuddered with dread when Inojin's eyes recognized him.

"Oh, hey, Dad!" Up on the stage, Inojin waved his hands excitedly when he spotted his father. And if that wasn't bad enough, he raised a hand, and almost in slow motion, pointed directly to where Sai stood. "There he is!"

Sai's normally pale face suffused with vivid color as he felt all eyes swivel towards him.

"I learned all about DILF from my Dad!"