"Mom, who took care of Dad when he was a child?"
One innocent question created a butterfly that brought chaos to the minds of Konoha's citizens.
Hinata never expected she would ever regret such a day. That day that opened secrets that her h...
Boruto was bored. He was banned from playing with games for two days. Hinata had gone out to run errands and Himawari was rearranging her playing cards by colour with full focus.
Humans would rather be electrocuted repeatedly than stay quiet in boredom—a fact experimentally proven. So, like any other child who was bored, he began rummaging through the drawers where his parent's old belongings were kept.
Everything looked interesting and dated. A broken hairdryer, some old cassette player that had two holes in the middle, plastic measuring spoons, some strange cleaning products which Hinata probably regretted buying from those tele-ads. All of it showed traces of his parent's life before he knew them.
Somewhere through this explorations, Himawari joined in because of the noise he was making. She found a box of clips and started sticking them all in her hair. An old hand-mirror and a pouch of chipped shuriken; a half burnt scroll with an 'Earth' seal, and a scroll full of old goods that weren't discarded yet but were too large to keep out.
It was a treasure trove of knick-knacks that glittered like gems.
They came upon a small pile of palm sized albums at the bottom-most drawer. This, was definitely the most precious gem they found. It was filled with pictures of their mother as a child. Some pictures had their baby aunt too.
"They look so gloomy, Brother. Grandpa looks so serious here. Are you sure that's grandpa?"
"Maybe that's his twin brother."
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"Uncle Neji's papa?"
"Could be."
At the end, there was a picture of the entire Hyuuga family. The only one missing was Hinata's mother.
The twin brothers stared straight forwards with their children on their laps right at the centre. The younger one look slightly softer than the elder.
"I wonder how they were like? Grandma, Uncle Grandpa, and those other people there behind them. I can only recognise a few here," murmured Himawari.
Knock- knock.
"It's Okaa-san!"
Boruto and Himawari rushed to open the door for Hinata.
"Okaa-san, did you get us snacks?" They both were like hyenas scrounging about.
The pastries were divided and Himawari's cheeks were rounded with crumbs decorating her small chin. Hinata leafed through the forgotten album filled with nostalgia.
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When she was done, she noticed her two kids were long finished with their snacks and were staring at her with sparkling eyes. They began asking questions about who was whom and who died and who didn't pointing at all unfamiliar faces and familiar ones too.
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Like that, an evening went by and it was almost time for dinner. Hinata cooked up some rice to eat with the leftover side dishes she had made for lunch. A small pot of miso was also heated up.
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Boruto and Himawari helped set the table. As the final pair of chopsticks were laid down, they heard Naruto return.
"Otou-san!"
Naruto had his own set of keys so he entered the house himself.
"I'm home!" He announced.
"Welcome back," replied Hinata.
The dishes were served and they began to eat. Himawari was continuously fed by both Naruto and Hinata. Her kiddie chopsticks were mostly just used to shovel her rice. Boruto was also not spared but he kept trying to resist.
"Eat this mushroom, Boruto," said Naruto with his chopsticks stretched out.
"I already have it in my bowl, Tou-san! No, don't put any more!"
Dinner was completed.
Naruto went to dust the beds while the kids brushed their teeth. Hinata kept the remaining utensils in the dishwasher.
"Onii-cha?"
"Mmnph?" Answered Boruto with his toothbrush still scrubbing away.
"Onii-cha, we saw Okaa-san's baby pictures. What about Otou-san?"
"Hm?"
"We only have one picture of him as a kid."
Boruto knew of that picture. It was Naruto's old team 7 photo that was framed on his desk in the study.
Both of them tried really hard to recall any other photos there might have been of him. Most photos they had seen were of him after the age of eighteen. There were a few of him at sixteen and some newspaper clippings of him at seventeen.
They had all the photos in the house memorised by now and the album they saw that morning was the only new addition. They had completely cleaned out the old drawers.
That night, the kids kept turning over in their beds trying to imagine their father as a child. Maybe they would ask someone who knew him longest when they woke up again. Besides the Sixth Hokage, Fifth Hokage and Grandpa Iruka, there seemed to be no other 'Adult' adults who had any super close relation with Naruto.
