Loud knocking echoed through the hallway outside a small dormitory building in the Hidden Leaf Village. Naruto stood in front of a familiar door, fists pounding away.
"Kakashi-sensei! Kakashi-sensei!"
A surprised voice came from behind him.
Startled, Naruto spun around—and saw Kakashi standing just a few steps away.
"Ah! Kakashi-sensei!" he cried, blinking in surprise.
Kakashi raised a hand in a lazy wave. "Yo. What's up?"
Naruto's frustrated face quickly lit up with a smile. "I've finally found you!" But his smile faded into a pout. "Where did you even go? I've been knocking forever!"
Kakashi scratched the back of his head casually. "Ah, I just stepped out to handle something. Nothing important."
He walked past Naruto and pulled out a key. "Did you come to see me about something? Come on in."
Naruto followed him inside, stepping into Kakashi's house for the first time.
The moment he entered, he blinked in curiosity.
It was a compact one-room apartment with no hallway or partitions. The space was small, with just enough room for the essentials.
A single bed sat in one corner, taking up much of the space. Next to it was a low table cluttered with a few books, some magazines, and a small stack of mission reports. In the far corner stood a modest wardrobe.
The entire room was neat and clean. The floor was spotless, and everything seemed carefully arranged. It was clear Kakashi preferred order.
"Whoa… Kakashi-sensei, your place is so tiny!" Naruto said loudly, gawking as he looked around at every corner of the room without restraint.
Kakashi sighed and closed the door behind them. He pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Don't just go poking around, Naruto."
Before Kakashi could say another word, Naruto's curiosity got the better of him.
He turned around and reached toward the low table, quickly picking up a small, well-worn book.
"Hey 'Make-Out Paradise'? Isn't this the book you're always reading, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi's eye twitched. His pupils shrank slightly.
In an instant, he stepped forward with long strides and snatched the book from Naruto's hands. Without saying a word, he turned and tucked it safely on the top shelf of the nearby bookcase, out of reach.
"That's not something a kid should be reading," he muttered darkly.
Naruto puffed up his cheeks, pouting. "Stingy! It's just a book, not some hidden treasure."
Kakashi gave a helpless sigh.
Naruto treated his teacher's house like it was his own. He wandered around, poked into every corner, and talked nonstop. He didn't have the slightest concept of being a guest.
Kakashi was already regretting letting him in.
I should have just answered him at the door, he thought.
There were still important things he needed to look into. But now that Naruto was here, there was no choice but to deal with him.
Trying to steer the conversation back on track, Kakashi cleared his throat.
"So, Naruto. Didn't you come here to ask me something?"
"Oh right!" Naruto's eyes lit up as he remembered.
He was just about to ask about the second stage of the Rasengan when something caught his attention.
His gaze fell on a photo frame resting on Kakashi's bedside table.
Naruto stepped forward and picked it up carefully.
Inside was an old photograph, slightly faded with time.
There were four people in it.
Three stood in the front row
In the photo, a black-haired boy with goggles smiled brightly, a white-haired boy wore a smug expression, and between them stood a cheerful girl making a "yeah" gesture with her fingers.
Behind the three, a tall blond man rested his hands gently on the heads of the two boys in front of him.
It was this man—this blond figure—that made Naruto's eyes go wide.
His voice burst out before he could stop it.
Naruto turned toward Kakashi in shock, holding the photo up.
"Kakashi-sensei! Why do you have a picture of my dad?!"
Kakashi's head snapped around.
There was Naruto, standing in the middle of the room, gripping the old photo frame with both hands and staring at him like he had just seen a ghost.
Naruto thrust the frame toward him, finger pointing directly at the blond man in the picture.
"This guy looks just like my dad! Wait... no. It's the dad from my dream! Kakashi-sensei, I've been dreaming about him these past few nights—and it's him!"
For a moment, the room went completely silent.
Kakashi stood frozen.
His thoughts jammed up, and for a second, he couldn't form a single response.
How could I forget? Naruto saw Minato-sensei in the dream world... with his own eyes.
Naruto took Kakashi's silence as confusion, so he rushed to explain.
"Look at this guy! The blond man! He's the same person I saw in my dream. I used to think the father in the dream was just something my mind made up, but I was wrong. He's real! And you know him too!"
Naruto grew more animated by the second.
He looked back at the photo again, studying the man's features—the soft blond hair, the kind smile, the piercing blue eyes.
"Really, they're exactly the same! The way he smiles, even the way he stands… Hey, actually, he kind of looks like me!"
He scratched his head, letting out a sheepish laugh.
It did sound a little self-important to say someone else looked like him, but the resemblance was too obvious to ignore.
In his heart, Naruto felt a strange rush of emotion.
So this mysterious father from his dreams wasn't just a fantasy. He was a real person.
And he had been right here in the village all along.
And somehow... Kakashi-sensei knew him.
Naruto turned to look at Kakashi again, his eyes filled with anticipation, almost pleading.
"Kakashi-sensei… who is he? Can you tell me?"
But Kakashi still didn't answer.
He stood there silently, his visible eye filled with a mix of shock, hesitation, and something deeper—something much harder to describe.
Naruto looked up, confused.
Kakashi had a hand over his forehead, his visible eye avoiding Naruto's gaze. His expression was stiff, frozen somewhere between panic and hesitation.
He didn't say a word.
His mind was spinning. What was he supposed to say now?
Should I tell him? Should I really tell him that the man in the photo is his father? That he's the son of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze?
That secret had been hidden by the Third Hokage for over a decade. Was it even his place to reveal it?
But if he didn't tell Naruto now, he knew how stubborn the boy could be. Naruto wasn't going to forget this.
Kakashi felt the sweat bead on his forehead. He was stuck.
He swallowed hard and finally parted his lips to say something
But before he could speak, Naruto had already looked away.
He was now staring at the rest of the photograph with curiosity in his eyes, completely distracted.
Naruto pointed at the white haired boy with the cocky expression and burst out laughing.
"Kakashi-sensei, wait is this you? Look at that smug face! You're just like Sasuke! So arrogant!"
He waved his hands in mock disgust, still chuckling to himself.
Then his eyes shifted to the black-haired boy with goggles, and he lit up again.
"This guy looks pretty cool too! Kind of reminds me of how I looked when I used to wear goggles!"
Kakashi blinked in silence, still trying to recover from the emotional chokehold he'd just been in.
He exhaled quietly, relief washing over him.
Thank goodness Naruto got distracted… what a blessing this kid is.
Had Naruto pressed harder, Kakashi truly didn't know how he would have answered.
"That's… my childhood companion," Kakashi said quietly as he stepped forward.
He gently took the photo frame from Naruto's hands.
"And my teacher," he added, his voice soft and rare in its solemnity. "They're… no longer in this world."
Naruto blinked in surprise, momentarily speechless.
He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
He could only stare at Kakashi, who now stood with his head slightly lowered, wiping dust from the photo frame with his thumb. The usually laid-back, unreadable Kakashi looked different now—quiet, distant, and unreachable.
It dawned on Naruto then.
Those people in the photo weren't just faces from the past. They were Kakashi's friends. His teammates.
Naruto suddenly realized something else too. For all his teasing and carefree ways, Kakashi was like him—alone.
He had been living in this world without the people he once cared about.
All the excitement and curiosity Naruto had felt just moments ago faded away. In its place was a quiet ache, a sense of sadness he couldn't quite explain.
He clenched his fist, then loosened it again, unsure what to do.
He scratched his head awkwardly and mumbled, "I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei. I didn't know…"
Kakashi didn't respond at first. He just kept looking down at the photo in his hands, his eye unreadable.
But the silence between them was no longer awkward.
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