This isn't so much a series about Kakashi making changes to the future in big, major ways, but just a series of moments he has with people, like Minato, and creating little ripples and appreciating his second chance.
The scroll's words are blurry and look more like smudges than letters, but Kakashi does his best to press on. There could be something useful in it. However, his study is interrupted by a sigh and a tan hand reaching down to pull the scroll from his tiny, stiff fingers. Kakashi looks up to see his sensei smiling at him.
"It's bedtime for little time-travelers," his teacher, who is barely any older than his students back home, says.
Kakashi, unbidden, pouts at him behind his mask. "Minato-Sensei," he complains. He shouldn't have agreed to move in with Sensei for the time being. If he'd stayed in the rundown efficiency he'd used to live in at this age (when just looking at the Hatake Estate could cause panic attacks), he'd have been able to study uninterrupted well past… He looks at the small mantel clock Minato keeps on the round table beside his sofa. It reads eight-thirty at night. He frowns. Is it really that early?
Minato, undeterred, rolls up his scroll and places it in the back pocket of his pants. "Kakashi, I've been sitting over there," he says, pointing at his black polyester couch, "watching your head droop every other minute for the last quarter of an hour."
Kakashi sighs and places his chin in his hands. "You know, when I decided to tell you I was from the future, I thought it'd mean I'd get more respect."
"I do respect you, Kakashi," Minato assures him as he ruffles Kakashi's hair. "I'm just trying to help you," he explains. Before Kakashi can come up with a rebuttal, Minato picks him off his apartment's living room rug and places Kakashi on his hip. Kakashi kicks his feet a bit, annoyed to be held like a toddler. "I'm not sure you realize this, but even if your big brain is almost thirty, your body is six," his sensei tells him as he walks them in the direction of Kakashi's (temporary) bedroom.
As Minato opens the door to his room, Kakashi points out, "It'll be seven in a couple of weeks."
"That's right," replies Minato, smirking. He puts Kakashi down and places one hand on his hip and the other on his chin. "So, how should we decorate your cake?" he asks. "With thirty candles? Seven? Somewhere in the middle?"
Kakashi rolls his eyes at his teacher. "Ha, ha, Sensei."
Minato laughs before he walks over to the room's dresser and rustles in one of the drawers before pulling out an unfortunately childish pair of pajamas. They're a green color Kakashi actually likes, but are also covered in a pawprint pattern. He tosses them at Kakashi then, who catches the clothes with deft reflexes. "Change into your pajamas and I'll tuck you in," he says.
He narrows his eyes at his teacher and repeats what is quickly becoming a common mantra of his. "I'm not six."
Minato sighs. "For my peace of mind can you do it?" he pleads, making a face that's uncomfortably close to the kicked puppy-dog expression Naruto sometimes pulls on him in the future. "I'm afraid if I go now, when I come back in an hour or two to look in on you, I'll find you bleeding out because you decided to sharpen your weapons instead of sleep and hurt yourself."
Kakashi ignores his teacher's insulting imagined scenario in favor of asking, "You check on me?"
Minato looks away and laughs. "I get nervous," he admits.
Finally deciding to shed his clothes — mask included — and put on his pajamas, Kakashi asks as he puts on his bottoms, "Why?"
Minato kneels down to tug on the hem of Kakashi's pajama top, which had folded in on itself, leaving a sliver of his stomach exposed. "Because you aren't six and I know you could sneak out on me and do something reckless without me ever noticing," he answers with a sincerity that makes Kakashi feel shame.
Sensei isn't wrong.
"…I can't argue with you there," he grumbles.
Sensei sighs. "I thought as much," he replies. Going to Kakashi's bed, he pulls back the white covers and says, "Okay, ready?"
"Yeah," agrees Kakashi, clambering into the bed.
Minato brings the hem of the blanket to rest just beneath Kakashi's chin. He smiles at him as he asks, "This good?"
"It's fine," replies Kakashi, curling onto his side and hiding more of his exposed face beneath the cover.
An impish spark comes to his teacher's eyes. "Would you like a story?" he jokes.
It's maybe stupid. No, it is stupid, but Kakashi wants nothing more. When he'd really been this age (and older) he'd not listened half as well as he should have to the stories Minato-Sensei told him about his own youth and time as an inexperienced shinobi. It means now, as an adult, he can only half-recall Minato's reveries or they are mixed-up together and there is no point in trying to tell them to anyone. Especially to Naruto, who'd probably adore hearing about Minato-Sensei.
"…There is this one story you told me once when I really was a kid," Kakashi murmurs. "I've kind of forgotten the ending to it. It's from when you were Jiraiya's student."
For a moment, his teacher seems shocked, but then he smiles and sits down on the bed next to Kakashi, one of his hands settling on top of his shoulders. "Sure, describe it to me, Kakashi," he says.
He nods at his teacher. "Well, it starts like this…"
Thank you so much for reading and let me know your thoughts!