"How's my little ninja?" I called, depositing bags of chocolate on the floor by the door.
"Refusing to eat!" Kanari responded from the kitchen. Teren was away on a mission, so I had agreed to drop by periodically to check in on Kanari and help out with the odd bits and pieces - not that I didn't already.
"Aw, are you feeding him that vomit-in-a-jar again?" I grinned, heading into the kitchen.
Kanari flicked water off her hands; she had been doing the dishes. "I'm feeding him the nutrients he needs!"
"What do you think, Damaru?" I asked the baby, who was sat in his high chair with a plastic bowl and spoon in front of him, sloppy orange mess spread all over the tray and down his front.
"Ba-ba! Gwah!" Damaru said.
"Hm." I nodded seriously. "I see. How 'bout I make you a deal, little ninja? I'll do the aeroplane if you eat your food."
Damaru looked blankly at me with dark chocolate eyes.
"Look." I picked up his little plastic spoon and made it hover in the air for a second. "Here's the aeroplane. It goes neeeeoowwwm! Nerrrrrrrrow! Ah! Damaru, it needs to get into the tunnel! Quick, open your mouth!"
Damaru opened his mouth, staring intently at the spoon, and I fed him the spoonful of slop, taking care to steer it far from my own mouth. He didn't chew or swallow, or even close his mouth, so it just sort of... slopped back out and onto the tray.
I frowned. "Okay, so the aeroplane didn't work. Shall we try the choo-choo train?"
Damaru was much more responsive to the choo-choo train. He even laughed when it stopped in front of his mouth to hoot, and ate it without complaint. I fed him the rest of his food, and then unclipped the tray and took it to the sink to wash.
"I'll take that, don't worry." Kanari took the tray and put it in the sink. She'd only just finished the dishes, so I felt a little bad, but she insisted.
"C'mere then, little ninja, I haven't had a cuddle yet," I said, unstrapping Damaru and taking him out of the high chair. He calmly chewed his fist and rested his head on my shoulder while I bounced him.
"Ah bwah bah," Damaru said.
"I love you too," I replied.
Kanari let out a long sigh as she drained the sink and dried her hands. "How you're so good with him I'll never understand."
"It's because I'm not full time," I pointed out. "It's easy to love a kid if you only see him a few times a week."
"I never said I didn't love him." Kanari took Damaru and held him up so he was eye level with her. "You're just a cheeky little devil once Aunt Miyoshi's gone, aren't you?"
"Guh."
I laughed. It almost sounded like Damaru had said 'yeah'. "I brought chocolate, by the way. It's by the door."
"You are a life saver." Kanari sighed. "I'll just let him crawl for a bit, he's pretty good at entertaining himself."
Damaru, excited by the sudden freedom, began to crawl surprisingly quickly for a six-month old and babble loudly.
"He's really growing up fast, isn't he?" I said.
"One day I'm going to wake up and he'll be all grown up," Kanari said dejectedly. "What about you?"
"What about me?" I asked.
"Do you think you'll ever have any of your own?"
The question caught me by surprise, and I instinctively looked away from Kanari as I felt heat rise to my cheeks. There weren't a lot of topics that made me flustered, but she had just found one of them.
"I- I don't know..." I mumbled.
"Do you want to?" Kanari pressed, the smirk on her face reminding me of Kurenai's interrogations into my love life.
"W-well yeah," I stammered, "that'd be nice... I just... I dunno. Kakashi and I are... kinda taking it slow."
Kanari didn't seem satisfied with that answer. "Teren says you're already some kid's legal guardian. Surely that makes you his mother?"
I frowned. "Legally, I guess, but I don't look after him as well as a mother should. I'm more like an older sister to him."
Kanari sighed. "I can so see you with kids. I'm thinking like, five or six. I can see you with a big family."
"I dunno-"
"And you'd be that family that has like a billion uncles and aunts and cousins that aren't really family, they're just super close friends," Kanari went on. "Teren says you're like a sister to him, so that makes one uncle for your kids, right?"
"I- well-"
"What would you call them?" Kanari asked enthusiastically, once again preventing me from responding. "If you had three boys and three girls, say, what would your top names be?"
"I don't know!" I said. "I haven't discussed any of this with Kakashi, and frankly, I don't think I'm going to bring it up until we get the wedding out of the way. We haven't had time to stop and think about it yet."
"Seriously?" Kanari seemed taken aback. "You've been that busy?"
"Well, between us, we've had about five days where we've both been home in the past three months," I said. "It's just a little bit crazy at the moment. Doesn't help that I'm being sent up and down and into every nook and cranny of inhabited land to try and cure the world completely of disease." I rolled my eyes.
"Take it as a compliment," Kanari suggested. "A testament to your skill."
"I suppose." I sat down in front of Damaru, who was standing on his feet, but awkwardly bent over so his hands were also supporting him. I carefully lifted his and held him up in a standing position while he bounced.
"I'm serious, Miyoshi." Kanari sat cross-legged beside me. "I'd be surprised if you didn't have your own one day."
"Maybe."
YOU ARE READING
✔️Heal My Heart {Kakashi Hatake}
Fanfiction"I don't give up on a patient until they're dead." ~~~ Kakashi Hatake has had a rough life, and that's putting it lightly. Losing everyone he loved has torn a hole deep in his heart. Lucky for him, there's someone waiting around who's good fixing st...
