Naruto paid the driver, wrestled his suitcase and backpack from the trunk, and stood for a moment at the bottom of the walk, letting the cold air pinprick his skin awake. The windows all glowed with yellow, the kind of warmth they used to mock in holiday commercials, but it was the sound that got him: the rapid-fire clatter of his mother in the kitchen, the hum of the TV from the den, and the occasional rumble of his father's laugh, always a little too loud for the joke.
Naruto inhaled and trudged up the walkway. The snow hadn't been cleared since the last melt, so his footsteps left a muddy trail up the drive, over the stoop, and to the door where the "WELCOME!" mat had been rotated 90 degrees by some winter squall.
He knocked, mostly out of habit, then fumbled with the knob and let himself in. The warmth hit him first—like a physical thing, like being wrapped in a childhood memory and doused in cinnamon air freshener.
He barely got two steps inside before Kushina appeared, red hair bright even under the yellowed entry light. She wore an apron that read "World's Okayest Mom," and her hands were dusted in flour, which she promptly transferred to Naruto's shoulder as she engulfed him in a rib-crushing hug.
"Look at you!" she crowed, pulling back to study him with a squint. "You're even skinnier than at Christmas, and your hair—Naruto, did you walk here backwards through a wind tunnel?"
She licked her thumb and made a show of smoothing the cowlick nearest his ear. "I missed you so much, you know that?"
Naruto's chest tightened with a familiar ache. He let the bags drop with a thud and wrapped his arms around her again, burying his face in her shoulder like he used to when he was small. "Missed you too, Mom," he mumbled into her apron, the words muffled but sincere.
Kushina squeezed him once more before pulling away, eyes suspiciously bright. "You're lucky I already made the good pancakes." She turned and hollered into the house: "He's home! Minato, come get the beer out of his bag before it freezes."
A clatter from the den, then Minato appeared in the hallway, as blond as ever, wearing a zip-up fleece and the expression of a man who had learned through decades of trial and error that the best way to survive his wife and son was by being relentlessly even-tempered. He offered Naruto a handshake, which Naruto converted into a sideways hug before he could chicken out.
"Glad you made it safe, kid," Minato said. His voice hadn't changed: calm, slightly amused, always underscored by the suggestion that he could bench-press you out the window if he wanted to. "Your mom's been threatening to start brunch without you." He caught a whiff of maple syrup and something savory—bacon, maybe, or ham. His stomach rumbled in approval.
"Upstairs," Kushina ordered, already halfway back to the kitchen. "Drop your stuff and come help me taste test the glaze. And no work calls at the table this year!" Her voice carried through the entire first floor, which Naruto appreciated—nothing said "home" quite like being micro-managed at maximum volume.
Naruto grabbed his bags, nudged the front door closed with his foot, and climbed the stairs two at a time. The walls were still lined with the world's least flattering photos of his own childhood: a six-year-old Naruto in a paper-mache pirate hat; a pre-teen Naruto gapped-tooth and grinning, arms locked around a sullen, black-haired Sasuke at some doomed group birthday party; high school graduation, orange tie askew, Kushina nearly bursting with pride.
His old room was exactly as he'd left it, except cleaner. The posters on the walls had faded, the bedding smelled faintly of Lysol, and the desk was so free of clutter that he knew his mother had raided it just before his arrival to remove any evidence of his last-minute packing. He set his duffel on the bed, dropped the backpack at the foot, and made a quick circuit: closet still full of mismatched hoodies, the bookshelf crammed with battered manga and the odd survival guide, a box of ancient phone chargers lurking under the window seat. A time capsule, but one curated by the kind of parent who left your embarrassing science-fair trophies on full display just in case a guest needed a laugh.
He sat on the edge of the bed and fished out his phone, thumb already composing a message to Sasuke before his brain caught up to the fact that it was probably still the middle of a work day on the other side of the city.
[Landed alive. Mom's already made two comments about my hair. Pray for me.]
He added a dumb GIF of a person being dragged away by the collar, then deleted it, then added it back. With Sasuke, it was always a coin-flip whether the joke would land or be ignored, but that was half the fun.
He set the phone aside, waiting for the three-dot response, and wandered to the window. Outside, the last remnants of snow clung to the curb like stubborn ghosts. He wondered, briefly, if anyone else from the old neighborhood would be home for the holiday. He doubted it. Most of their crew had scattered after high school—some to college, some to jobs, some just to get the hell out of the shadow of their own families.
He thumbed through his texts. The last message from Sasuke was a screenshot of a meeting schedule, annotated with so many edits that Naruto had simply replied "nerd" and gotten a "pot/kettle" in response. Typical.
Kushina bellowed again—"Ten minutes or I'm feeding your bacon to the dog!"—so he changed into a slightly less wrinkled shirt, finger-combed his hair, and padded down to the kitchen.
Naruto took his spot at the table and grunted something that meant thanks, then blinked at the plate: three perfect pancakes, dusted with powdered sugar, a sunburst of sliced strawberries fanned out along the side. He slathered on syrup and tried not to look at his phone, even as he positioned it just left of the fork.
"Eat before it gets cold," Minato said, glancing over the rim of his coffee mug. "And don't let your mother con you into a chores list until you're fully awake."
Kushina sniffed. "He likes helping. It gives him purpose. Unlike some people, who think the TV remote is a full-time job."
Minato's eyes twinkled. "It is. If you do it right."
The phone stayed in his pocket the whole time, but the phantom buzz haunted him. He'd expected a reply by now. Sasuke's etiquette was ruthless—every text returned in under five minutes unless he was in a board meeting or asleep. But now, as the pancakes cooled and the kitchen clock ticked into the next hour, the message thread remained stubbornly one-sided.
Naruto tried not to let it show, but Kushina noticed anyway. She caught him checking his phone at the sink and zeroed in immediately.
"That's new," she observed. "You used to only look at your phone when you needed a lifeline."
Naruto shrugged, keeping his tone light. "Just waiting for a work update. The adaptation's on a tight schedule." Before sitting back down at the table.
Naruto dug in, the first bite sticky and sweet, and almost let himself believe it was any other Saturday. But Kushina was in peak maternal form, and before the second pancake, she'd already circled to her real target.
"So," she said, loading the question with the density of a neutron star, "have you heard from Sasuke lately?"
Naruto's fork paused mid-air. "Why would I?" he said, aiming for casual, landing instead somewhere just north of panic.
Kushina shrugged, but her eyes never left his face. "I just thought—after what I told you last time, about him trying to visit after graduation. Maybe you'd want to… talk it out."
Naruto's fingers fidgeted with the napkin, folding and unfolding the corner. "I'll talk about it when I'm ready," he said, then forced a bite to give his mouth something else to do.
Minato, sensing the tectonic shift in mood, offered a lifeline. "Naruto's been busy with work," he said. "Didn't you say you're working on a new book?"
Naruto nodded, grateful. "Sort of. I'm also working on an adaptation project, but it's NDA'd to hell, so I can't say much." The lie stung, but not as much as the truth would have.
Kushina smiled, but it was the kind of smile that meant she'd circle back later. "I'm just glad you're writing," she said, stacking her own plate. "You were always happiest when you had a deadline and too much caffeine."
They finished breakfast mostly in silence, except for the clink of cutlery and the soft background hum of the radio. When they were done, Naruto helped clear the table, rinsing plates and stacking them in the dishwasher while Kushina buzzed around, prepping for the next meal.
"Hey, honey," she said, voice gentler as she wiped her hands. "I was thinking—I could cancel my wine night with Mikoto. If it would make things easier for you."
Naruto froze, dish in hand. The thought of their mothers still hanging out, even after everything, was at once comforting and soul-wrenching. "Don't," he said, maybe too quickly. "You like it. And Mikoto's nice."
Kushina eyed him, and for a second Naruto thought she'd press the point, but instead she just nodded. "Okay. Just thought I'd offer."
He excused himself after breakfast, lugging a basket of clean laundry up to his room under the pretense of organizing his suitcase. Upstairs, he flopped onto the bed and unlocked his phone again.
Still nothing.
He tried to tell himself it was just a meeting. Or maybe Sasuke had been roped into some last-minute crisis, or maybe he was still on the train, or maybe he'd dropped his phone in a gutter and was now cursing at the sky in pure, unfiltered Uchiha. Anything but the possibility that something had gone wrong.
He drafted a second message, deleted it, then typed a third, this one less jokey and more honest.
[Let me know when you're on the way. Seriously.]
He put the phone down and stared at the ceiling, listening to the faint noises of the house: the radio, the occasional footstep, the creak of the old pipes. For a moment he thought about just going to sleep, skipping straight to Sunday and the brunch and whatever disasters awaited, but the idea made him queasy.
Instead, he went back downstairs and found Kushina in the dining room, arms up to the elbows in pastel streamers and cardboard eggs. The table was covered in art supplies, and half the windows were already festooned with bunny decals and paper flowers.
"Need help?" Naruto asked, bracing himself.
Kushina looked up, surprised, then smiled. "Always. Cut the end of that tape roll for me, would you?" He joined her, and they fell into the kind of task-focused silence that made time move sideways: tape, hang, adjust, repeat. Naruto found himself focused on the minutiae—how the tape didn't quite stick to the frosted glass, how the blue eggs looked sad next to the yellow bunnies, how his mother's hands moved so quickly that she seemed to float above the mess.
They finished the windows, and then she set him to work arranging flowers in a vase. "You always had an eye for color," she said, voice soft as she pushed stems into the foam.
He shrugged. "Sasuke was better at it. He'd obsess over the symmetry for hours."
The words slipped out before he could catch them, but if Kushina noticed, she didn't let it show. She simply smiled, and let him do the arranging.