Minato swallows down the whimper that wants to cross his lips. He hasn't been home very long and knew upon being found by his fellow leaf shinobi, upon finding out the year, that so much would be changed from what he remembered. In fact, he tried to tell himself to expect nothing. It seemed the easiest way to stave off disappointment and sadness.

It doesn't help him now.

He's still so sad. Hiroaki and Asuma were good friends to him. Asuma had been barely more than a kid at the time of Minato's death but he'd already shown himself to be a capable shinobi and Hiroaki…

He'd proven himself time and time again in Minato's eyes. It hurts to find out even he, one of Konoha's best, did not manage to make it this far along into the future. It causes Minato to wonder who else is gone. If he should even try to check in with any of his other friends. Perhaps it would be best for him to be ignorant; to make Kakashi and Naruto his world.

He looks up from his lap and at his student. Kakashi's eyes are averted— An attempt to give him privacy, Minato thinks. It's a kind gesture. He isn't okay by any stretch but he is ready to talk some more.

Minato pats Kakashi's knee. The man shifts his gray eyes to him. There is deep sympathy in them and Minato gives him a wobbly smile. "Thank you for telling me about Hiro and Asuma," he says.

Kakashi nods but seems glum as he does so. "I'm sorry," he replies. "I knew a moment like this was inevitable but I wish we could have put it off a little longer," he confesses.

Minato shrugs. It's true. This was always going to happen. Asking about people was always going to end at some point with him finding out someone (or, in this case, several someones) is dead. Leaning back into Kakashi's sofa, he considers the shoulders of his student. They are so much broader and stronger than they were. He wears his Jonin vest well these days.

"I'm a little afraid to ask," he starts, causing Kakashi to turn his head and look back at him from the corners of his eyes. "Are there any Sarutobis left?"

"Yes," answers Kakashi as he twists around more to meet his gaze directly. "Konohamaru, Hiroaki's son, and Mirai, Asuma's daugther." He pauses. "Would you like to meet them?" asks Kakashi.

Minato hitches his shoulders up to his ears and cringes away from the question. Does he? A little bit. Mostly, however, he doesn't. Children of his friends or no they are strangers.

"I… No," he says. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he says, "They don't know me." He winces hard when Kakashi raises his brows in incredulity and mumbles, "Well. Not as a friend to their dads."

Kakashi huffs. "Sensei," he chides. "That's all the more reason to meet them." Minato lifts his gaze with some reluctance and sees Kakashi's expression is almost warm now. "You knew Hiroaki and Asuma when we were all young shinobi. You were their friend. The stories you have…" he trails off a moment and shakes his head. "No one else has them. They're precious. The kids would be so grateful to hear about their dads from you."

Minato rolls this over in his head. Kakashi has a point. He does have stories no one else probably knows any more about the Sarutobis. Quite a few in the case of Hiroaki too. They were good friends. Best friends, even, before Minato graduated from the Academy.

Minato was orphaned young, like Konohamaru and Mirai. He knows if one of his parents' friends ever sought him out at the kids' ages and told him stories about them it would have made his day. Hell, his year. In a world like theirs, where so many die young, memories are precious. No one ever has enough. Minato's will never be as good as firsthand memories for the kids but, hopefully, a few secondhand ones could be loved just the same by the cousins.

Minato breathes out.

"Okay," he says.

Kakashi pats his arm. "Thank you, Sensei."

-O-

Konohamaru and Mirai are both older and younger than Minato was expecting. Konohamaru has to be fourteen at least. Maybe even fifteen. Mirai is four (as she told him quite proudly upon being introduced). They look like their dads but like their moms too.

Mirai smiles like Asuma did at her age; unafraid and with all of her teeth. Minato hasn't heard Mirai laugh yet but he's going to bet money she sounds like Asuma too when she does. Maybe her shoulders will hitch and fall in a similar rhythm too. It is such a shame Asuma isn't here to hold her and rough-house with her.

Konohamaru reminds him even more of Hiro than Mirai does of Asuma. It likely has to do with him being older, more grown into his features, than his little cousin. Knowing this doesn't help the way it makes his tongue stick or the burn behind his eyes. Apparently, Hiro's been gone a long time now. Just over a decade.

The teenager holds himself in the same, confident, easy way as Minato's friend. Just as his outgoing father did when they met for the first time, Konohamaru is the one to put out his hand first after Kakashi presents him to the children.

When he shakes the rough hands of the teenager, Minato is made to wonder if he's trained in chakra blades like his dad and his uncle. He smiles. Perhaps there will be time to learn about his friends' children while he reminisces with them about their fathers.

When his hand is once again at his side, Minato asks the two, "Would you like to hear some stories about your dads from when they were your ages?"

The way the cousins' eyes gleam at his question is more than enough of an answer for Minato.

Thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think!