Naruto: Starting by Reading Minds in Naruto

”Kushina, wasn’t Naruto too noisy today?” Minato asked, waiting on his ramen.

Kushina touched her belly. ”Oh, hush. Our boy’s perfectly behaved. I have a feeling he’s going to grow up just like Jiraiya-sensei.”

”You’ve worked hard, carrying him all this time. I haven’t been able to stay by your side the way I should have.”

”You’ve been busy for the Village. That’s what a Hokage does, isn’t it?”

”At least you won’t have to watch me disappear on missions quite so often now.”

They talked on like that, eyes on nothing but each other. Teuchi watched them with a faint, nostalgic smile of his own.

Tonbo, for his part, simply endured it. Well. Better to see the two of them happy now, he thought, working the dough with a touch more energy than the moment strictly required — Naruto himself won’t get nearly enough of this, once the years catch up.

He brought Teuchi a fresh batch, springy and elastic enough to earn a satisfied nod, and not long after, a steaming bowl of tonkotsu made its way over to Minato.

”Here you are, Hokage-sama. Enjoy.”

”Thank you, Boss,” Minato said, polite as ever.

The door swung open on Ayame, a box of noodles balanced against one hip. Tonbo was across the room before he’d quite decided to move.

”Let me take that. You must be worn out.” He lifted the box from her arms and produced a handkerchief to dab the sweat from her forehead before she could protest.

She didn’t. ”Thank you,” she said, smiling.

”Don’t mention it.” Tonbo grinned, pleased with himself, though the bandages hid most of the evidence.

Minato and Kushina, watching from their seats, exchanged a look of their own.

”He’s every bit as gentle as you were, Minato,” Kushina said, something wistful in it.

Minato colored slightly. He’d been just as bad once, and young enough that the memory embarrassed him more than it should have.

”Ha — well, we’re all children raised on the Will of Fire in one way or another,” he said, and glanced toward Tonbo with new understanding. So that explained a Ninja spending his off hours in a noodle shop. He’d found himself a reason worth staying for.

”Ayame, lend a hand back here?” Teuchi called from the counter.

”Coming! I’ll find you after we close,” she said to Tonbo, already moving.

”No need to rush off on my account — today’s the Hokage’s inauguration, so I’m off duty anyway. I’ve been putting the time to good use. Kneading, pulling noodles, the whole trade.” Tonbo led her over to show off his work.

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Ayame turned a piece of dough over in her hands, impressed despite herself. ”This took me ages to learn properly.”

He accepted the compliment happily enough — a new mind had its uses, and this was one of the smaller, more pleasant ones. He glanced once toward Minato and Kushina, still trading soft words over their bowls, and lifted his chin. Affection was easy enough to manage himself, given a little encouragement.

”You’re classmates with Kakashi, aren’t you?” Minato asked, once the two of them seemed to have finished their own exchange.

”Yes — Obito and Rin too. I heard all three of them studied under you, Hokage-sama.” A touch of envy crept into it before he could stop it. Kakashi’s own talent hadn’t hurt him, but talent alone counted for less on a real battlefield than a good teacher did, and Tonbo had made up the difference the only way he could — one borrowed memory at a time.

”Obito—” Something dimmed in Minato’s eyes at the name, an old guilt he hadn’t quite set down.

”Obito’s dead.”

”I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful.” Tonbo apologized at once, privately filing the confirmation away. So that much of the remembered future still held.

”And Kakashi and Rin — they’re well?” Asking after old classmates seemed the safer direction to steer things.

Minato managed a smile. ”They’re fine. No one’s untouchable in a war. All the more reason to grow stronger, for the people still standing beside us.”

”That damned war,” Tonbo agreed, with real feeling. He’d have been a peacetime layabout a hundred times over rather than any kind of hero out on that field, given the choice.

It wasn’t every day a man got to talk shop with one of the more famous faces to come out of the whole affair, and nothing in the conversation crossed any line worth minding, so Tonbo let himself talk freely — ninjutsu theory, small observations, nothing touching on what he knew of the years ahead or anything the Village might want kept close. It left Minato with a good impression regardless: a sharp, steady boy, careful with his words without ever seeming to try.

Minato and Kushina chatted easily with him after that, trading the odd remark back and forth, laughing more than once. Ayame watched him hold his own with the Fourth Hokage himself and felt her face warm a little at the sight — he looked better than usual, she thought, serious like that, and the company he was keeping did nothing to hurt the impression.

Bowls came and went, noodles from Tonbo’s hands, broth from Teuchi’s, until Minato and Kushina finally finished and rose to go, exchanging a word of thanks with Tonbo on their way out. A new Hokage’s first day rarely stayed quiet for long.

Tonbo watched him leave, turning the conversation back over in his head. Rin was alive, then — whatever was meant to happen to her hadn’t come yet. And Kakashi’s absence made sense too: already a jōnin, already off on some assignment important enough to miss his own teacher’s inauguration for.

”Go on, you two, get some air. It’s slow enough tonight that I can manage the counter myself,” Teuchi said, once the sun had dropped low enough that the lantern light along the street had started coming up to meet it. He’d had about as much of the two of them mooning at each other in front of his register as he cared to stomach for one evening — pleased with the boy, still, but not so pleased he wanted to watch it happen over dinner service.

”Dad, we’ll just step out for a bit, then,” Ayame said, already tugging Tonbo toward the door, delighted at the excuse.

”A daughter grown is a daughter you can’t keep home anymore,” Teuchi muttered, shaking his head, then called after them, ”and take those bandages off for her once in a while out there, will you?”

”Only when escorting a lady properly requires it,” Tonbo called back, and Ayame laughed.

The night market was already filling in around them — bubble-fish stalls, a game of darts, takoyaki and sushi passed hand to hand between bites, the moon overhead the only witness to how thoroughly the evening got away from them both.

Then, predictably, it ended.

”Well, if it isn’t Captain Tonbo.” Hijiri Shimon’s voice cut through the crowd behind them, entirely too pleased with itself. ”You’ve actually got yourself a girlfriend?”

Tonbo turned around slowly, a flat look already settling over what little of his face showed. Shimon stood there grinning, clearly not finished.