Memories of the Future

A/N: omg, this is going to rock all of your socks! this chapter is filled with the closest thing to humor i can get to! not an ounce of angst! ... i think... anyway, read! it's long!! and, i think most of you will be pleased with the ending. *smiles*

thanks for all the fabulous reviews!! keep 'em coming folks!

same tags apply


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Memories of the Future: Chapter 10 - A Day with Kei
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Naruto stood in the kitchen coating strips of beef for a Western recipe Iruka had once taught him. It was a heavy meal, one that shinobi shouldn’t eat if they wanted to move at the end of the meal, but Sasuke adored it, and Naruto felt the teme deserved it after the day he’d had. His office had been crazy, with Sakura running in and out about active and inactive shinobi, Neji and Kakashi there to talk about the jounin exams, and Kei popping in and out from sheer boredom. And still, Sasuke had smiled at ‘Yuki.’

And behind him, not for the first time, a listless lump of dark blue cloth and pale skin that hung all over the counter behind the island sighed and clacked a stray spoon against the marble top. Naruto laughed quietly. Kei’s ANBU team was on forced vacation, and the boy had been like that all day.

Dipping another strip of beef into the tangy sauce, Naruto thought about the boy behind him. Kei was, what Naruto thought, the perfect combination of he and Sasuke. The boy was dark with Sasuke’s pale beauty, almost a little clone, which he strongly believed Touya definitely was, but Kei had Naruto’s characterization, his effervescent personality and easily bored attitude. It warmed Naruto’s heart to think about it.

There was another sigh and clack of silver against marble, causing Naruto’s eyes to roll playfully. “Is something wrong, Kei-kun?” He turned around and smiled at the boy, who was looking at him in confused wonder.

“I’m just bored, Yuki-chan. But you calling me ‘Kei-kun’ cheers me up.” Naruto blinked at him. “You’ve changed, Yuki-chan. You’re fun now!”

Naruto chuckled. “Thank you, Kei-kun. I just figured it was time for a change.”

“Well, I think the change is wonderful. Who knew there was such a cool person underneath all that coldness and insult?” Kei chuckled.

“Hmm, I wonder what’s underneath that underneath, ne?” Kei looked at him in confusion, and he shook his head. “Anyway, I’m sure someone like you saw this in me all along, Kei-kun.” Naruto bit his tongue to keep from laughing when the boy blushed. It reminded him of how flustered and grouchy Sasuke’d get when he’d made the teme blush.

“Yeah, you’ve certainly changed,” he replied. Then he grinned. “You’re lucky. Ayame and I were going to play a prank on you to get you to lighten up soon.”

Naruto paused in turning back to his work. “You play pranks, Kei-kun?”

Before Kei could answer, Sasuke came down the stairs, calmly speaking toward the kitchen. “Kei, Neji is here to speak with you and Touya. Hurry to the receiving room.”

“Hai, Oto-sama!”

Kei moved to leave, but then Naruto was in his face, leaning over the pot of boiling water and the heating skillet. “Meet me in my room, midnight,” he whispered and turned back to the food on the counter behind him. He heard the boy move away slowly, possibly confused, and Naruto smiled evilly as he began to plan.

“Yuki-san.” Naruto nearly jumped at Sasuke’s voice, but he refused to consider it was out of guilt. “Hyuuga is staying for dinner. Please set an extra place.”

“Of course, Hokage-sama.” Naruto bowed his head, and when he lifted his eyes again, Sasuke was staring at the ingredients next to him. Then he was gone, but Naruto had seen the bewilderment in those ebony eyes. “Heh, I’m going to drive you crazy, teme.”

~*~

A tentative knock sounded on his door, and Naruto called for Kei to come in. He was focused on fixing his hair so it wouldn’t get in the way. TenTen’s buns were ideal, so Naruto was trying his best to get it right.

“Yuki-chan?”

“Shh! Think of this as an ANBU mission.” He found it too hard to make the buns up high, like TenTen, so he tied them down at the nape of his neck.

Kei squatted down next to his vanity. “So what are we doing?” he whispered dramatically.

Naruto grinned. “We’re going to prank your father, among others.”

The look on Kei’s face was quite comical to Naruto. “Are you serious?” the boy asked incredulously.

“Yep! You’re going to learn from the pro. It’ll also be a lesson of how well and under what conditions you can conceal your chakra.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because we’ll be pranking jounin! Ah, Kakashi, prepare yourself!”

Naruto ignored Kei falling backward in surprise and reached out for a black scarf. He placed it over his head and tied the ends under his nose, like he used to as a child, whether it was stupid or not.

“Come on, Kei-kun. Time for some fun. I’ll show you what a true prank – or ten – is.” Naruto handed a heavy pack to his son, and they left out of the window for their first destination.

~*~

Naruto was vaguely aware that his personality was slipping into his ‘crude Naruto’ mode, but that was what usually happened when he went around pranking as a young boy, so he didn’t think much of it now.

But the shocked look on Kei’s face when he asked whom Sakura was screwing when they entered the kunoichi’s house was screaming that he was reverting to a basic male mindset. It didn’t help that he had snorted when the sounds had reached his ears; he was sure ladies didn’t snort. Then again, he was sure ladies didn’t have sex in the wee hours of the morning.

“Uh, s-she’s been dating, um, Sai-san for a while,” Kei offered nervously.

“Really?” Naruto asked incredulously as he neared his goal. Sakura’s white lab coat lay across her dining table, probably so she could grab it on her way out of the door, and Naruto picked it up gleefully, trying to stifle his laughter as the noises upstairs became frantic and louder.

He spread the white material on the table until it laid flat, the back facing up. He motioned for Kei to move closer with the pack of supplies. “Hand me the marker.”

Kei rummaged quietly until he found it and handed it to Naruto, who uncapped it with a sadistic smile. He leaned over the garment and began to scrawl in giant, black symbols over the back. When he was finished, he capped the marker and stepped back, satisfied.

“Why did you write that?” Kei asked as Naruto scrunched it back up the way they’d found it, setting it back on the tabletop.

“‘Cause it’s true.” Naruto looked at Kei’s blank face. “Well, it used to be,” he grumbled. “Anyway, let’s move on.”

~*~

“This is kind of fun, Yuki-chan.”

“We haven’t even begun, Kei m’boy.”

Getting into the Nara house had been a little harder, what with Shikamaru’s shadow wards, but Naruto had been a master of avoiding barriers and the like since he was a small child. It also helped that Shikamaru was a lazy bastard and half-assed his security system.

“What are we going to do to Shikamaru-san?”

Naruto grinned evilly. “We’re going to steal every hair tie in this house.”

“What?” Kei exclaimed quietly.

“You take Shinsuke’s room, cause he wears them, too, and I’ll take Shika’s. They don’t sleep with their hair up, since it makes it stick up in crazy directions for the rest of the day. Oh, then get to, um, the other boy’s room and take his, too. I think Sasuke sent his team on a mission.”

He noticed his slip of calling the teme ‘Sasuke,’ but he didn’t think Kei had, and so he sent the boy on his way, following just behind him. It took a little longer than he had planned, but it was only a little after one when they met up again.

“All right, let’s get going.”

“Yuki-chan, did you know your teammate sleeps with his thumb in his mouth?”

~*~

“How are we going to get past the dogs?”

“Genjutsu. We’ll just put them to sleep.” Naruto made the hand signs and cast the jutsu over the house, ensuring that no one would wake up.

“Why don’t we do that for every house?”

“What? That takes away from the fun, Kei! It’s just, Kiba’s dogs are a little harder to get past without help.”

“Well, what are we going to do to Kiba-san?”

“Well, Kiba hates cats.”

“So?”

“You’ll see.”

~*~

“Man, Chouji’s going to kill us!”

“Then why are we doing this, Yuki-chan?”

“It’s fu~n! Just get that cabinet right there, and be quiet about it!”

~*~

“Yuki-chan! I can’t believe you want to play a prank on Kakashi-san!”

“Yeah, I know, but, well, I owe that damn perverted sensei! Now, do you know anything about his life with Iruka-sensei?”

Kei blushed harshly under the pale light of the moon, and Naruto wanted to laugh. But since they were undercover and such, blah, blah, blah.

“My, are we squeamish, Kei-kun?” Naruto purred playfully.

“No! I mean my mother was a man. It’s just that, well, Oto-san died when I was so young, and I haven’t been around another relationship like that.”

‘Your what?’ Naruto smiled at him, but his eyebrow twitched menacingly.

“But I know that Kakashi-san and Iruka-sensei have a white cat.”

“Bingo! Wait here. Henge no jutsu!”

Naruto transformed into a cat and leapt up to Iruka’s apartment. He marveled that Iruka hadn’t moved in the sixteen years he’d been dead, but now wasn’t the time to wonder. He had a mask to take.

He moved to the open window and jumped to the sill, cautiously gazing into the tidy living room. A light was on, but he didn’t sense the cat anywhere, so he carefully jumped onto the nearby couch.

“Ah, Ban-chan, you came home.”

Naruto froze and nearly hissed in displeasure when he was picked up from behind. Glancing up at his captor, Naruto saw a masked Kakashi, and he grumpily slumped in the jounin’s arms.

“Iruka was worried sick about you. He left all the windows open just for you, but he has class tomorrow and couldn’t stay up yet again.” Kakashi opened a closed door and walked in, gently setting Naruto down on the bedcovers. “Goodnight, Ban-chan.”

Kakashi left, and Naruto scowled at the closed door. So the man was wearing the damn mask. What was he going to take now? He let his gaze slip to the side in disgust and saw something green flash in the light coming through the open bedroom window. Naruto smiled as much as he could in cat form.

Sparing a sympathetic glance for his favorite teacher, Naruto silently stalked across the bed and picked up the green book on the side table, quickly jumped down and ran to the open window, jumped up, and ran out into the night.

~*~

It was nearing three-thirty, and Naruto and Kei stood outside of Shino’s empty home. Well, what used to be his home. Kei told Naruto that in exchange for Temari moving to Konoha, Shino had volunteered to go to Suna, saying he could study the kinds of insects that inhabited the desert.

“Well, let’s get going to the next one.”

“You know, I had forgotten that Kakashi-san and Iruka-sensei were together. So I guess you didn’t go on a date with him.”

“It wasn’t a date!”

~*~

“As much fun as this all is, Yuki-chan, I don’t think I want to go in there.”

“Come on, Kei. It’s just the Hyuuga mansion.”

Naruto understood Kei’s reluctance, since Neji was technically his boss, but the boy had shown excellent chakra suppression all morning, so this would be a piece of cake. He motioned for Kei to follow, and the boy did, hesitantly.

Naruto and Kei slipped into the mansion, and Naruto momentarily wondered how Konoha was still standing if even practical jokers could easily break into everyone’s houses.

They climbed the stairs silently to the master bedroom, and Naruto just hoped Ino and Neji didn’t partake of early morning sex, too. But Naruto knew that Neji was out cold, like Sasuke was back home, because of the heavy meal he’d prepared the previous night. There was never any waking prematurely with that dish. And the muffled snores coming from next to the comatose Hyuuga assured Naruto that Ino wouldn’t be waking any time soon, either.

They trekked silently across the room to the bathroom, which was thankfully open, and closed in on the shower. Naruto gestured for the needed materials as he reached in for the bottles of shampoo.

‘Honestly, do they have to use separate shampoo? I love to use Sasuke’s shampoo, so I can smell him all day long.’ Naruto added the contents of the bottle Kei had handed him to the liquid in the bottles he held, all the while wondering if his previous thought was as creepy as it sounded.

Finishing up, Naruto and Kei retreated from the Hyuuga household. Dawn was close in coming, and they still had one more thing to do.

~*~

“I knew you wanted to prank Oto-sama, but this?”

“Well, you always have to stick with the classics.”

Naruto and Kei had made it to their final destination of the morning. They stood atop Hokage Mountain, looking out over a sleeping Konoha that waited for the waking light of the sun.

“This was my biggest prank as a child,” Naruto murmured quietly.

“What was that, Yuki-chan?”

Naruto turned a slightly melancholy smile on the boy. “Just remembering the old days.” His smile stretched to a vulpine grin, despite his un-fox-like appearance. “Now hand me the paint. We have to get back home before your father wakes up.”

“How will we know that our pranks succeeded?”

“Just come with me and your father to the office this morning. Then you’ll see.” And then Naruto jumped down to begin another defacement of a village monument.

~*~

“I’ll see you later, Sai! Dammit, where’s my coat?”

“On the table.”

“Thanks. Later.”

“Sa… kura…?”

-----

“Temari! Did you find a hair tie?”

“No!”

“Shinsuke?”

“None!”

“Dammit, this is so fucking troublesome!”

-----

“Fuckin’ hell! Where the hell are my dogs?”

“Try calling Akamaru, dear.”

“Akamaru!”

“Meow.”

“Fuckin’ hell!”

-----

“W-where have they gone?”

“Are you crying?”

“But… my chips…”

-----

“‘Ruka! Did you do something with my book?”

“I haven’t touched your filthy book!”

“Then where is it?”

“Screw that! Where’s my cat?”

“…”

“‘Kashi?”

“That cat took my book!”

-----

“I bet that took some pounds off you, huh, White Eyes?”

“Thankfully, after that dinner at Uchiha’s last night, Blue Eyes.”

“Oh, and thanks for washing my hair. That felt so fucking- AHHHHH!”

-----

‘How can these two be so chipper? I should have stayed in bed. And why is everyone standing in front of my office? Why do they look mad? Do they seriously want to pick seven in the morning to complain to me? I cannot take these idiots this early in the morning. And… what the FUCK?’

~*~

“I didn’t even want my face on that fucking mountain, and now someone’s defaced it! And what the hell does that even say?”

Naruto schooled his features and stepped up next to Sasuke at the windows. “It seems to say ‘teme’ right there in the middle of the forehead.”

“I can see that! What does the rest say?”

“Hmm, ‘I’m a little teme-pot, short and stout-’”

“Enough!” Naruto spared a look behind him at Kei on the other side of the desk. “Get ready to take down their complaints then send them in.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama.” Naruto walked to the door and opened it, allowing the line of victims to file in. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at the looks on all their faces.

As they all settled angrily in the room, Sasuke turned from the window, and Naruto stood next to him behind the desk, face masterfully blank, even more so than his stoic counterpoint sitting next to him. He’d warned Kei to stay as tuned-out as he could, and it was eerie how much he looked like a nineteen-year-old Sasuke with his own emotionless countenance.

“You will give your complaint one at a time, understood?” Everyone in the room bowed to Sasuke, and then Sakura stepped forward, red-faced and eyebrow twitching.

“Someone wrote… something on the back of my lab coat, and I walked all over Konoha and the hospital before I was informed.” Naruto thought about a naked Tsunade to keep from laughing as Sasuke asked what the coat had on it. Sakura swallowed before saying, “It said ‘I live for Sasuke-ku~n!’”

Sasuke didn’t say anything, just waved her aside, but his eyebrow twitched along with hers. “Next.”

Shikamaru, hair held up in the usual ponytail, stepped forward. “All the hair ties in my household have been stolen – mine, Temari’s, and the boys’.”

“But your hair is up now,” Sasuke pointed out.

“It’s being held by shadows,” the lazy jounin mumbled.

Sasuke’s brow darkened in annoyance. “Next.”

Kiba stepped forward, a large cat in his arms. “Someone turned Akamaru into a fucking cat!”

“Meow.”

“Next!”

“All my chips have been stolen!” Chouji wailed, and Shikamaru patted him on the back soothingly. Naruto began to picture Jiraiya naked to keep from laughing. A glance at Kei discovered a bead of sweat flowing down the boy’s temple, obvious proof of the boy’s concentration on not laughing.

“Next!”

Kakashi plodded closer to the desk, single eye forlorn and watery. “Someone stole my first edition copy of Icha Icha Wedding signed by Jiraiya! It was the cat!”

“NEXT!”

Ino and Neji came forward, and snickers were stifled throughout the room. “Someone put hair dye in our shampoos,” Neji informed Sasuke.

“My hair is fucking green!” Ino shouted next to her husband.

Sasuke placed his elbows on the desk, interlocking his fingers, and rested his head against them. He looked at everyone gathered, closed his eyes, and spoke. “Apparently, someone has decided to prank us all. If Konohamaru weren’t out on a mission, I’d bring him in for questioning. In the meantime-”

A sudden noise on the lookout above Sasuke’s office cut him off, and soon everyone was racing to the roof. Naruto followed, acting as if he was worried like the rest of them, but he and Kei knew it was just the sack filled with the things they’d stolen finally dropping from Sandaime’s head.

The group gathered around it, and Sasuke reached out to open it. Kakashi, however, stopped him in case it was a trap, and took the sack himself. When nothing happened, he cautiously opened it and dumped its contents on the ground.

Three pieces of paper, two new bottles of shampoo, a box of hair ties, one book, and several bags of chips fell out of the brown sack. Ino and Neji grabbed the shampoo, while Shikamaru scooped up the box of hair ties. Chouji and Kakashi fell reverently to their knees to retrieve their items, and Sakura bent over to pick up the three slips of paper.

“This one is for Kiba. It says it’s just a henge, and you can dispel it. This one is for me – an IOU for a dry cleaning bill.”

“What’s the third one say?” asked Sasuke.

“‘Gotcha Rookie 9! And Kakashi and Neji. Signed, Wouldn’t-You-Like-To-Know. P.S. Black paint doesn’t come off that easily, Hokage-sama. Chop, chop.’”

“Gods, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was done by-” Sakura’s elbow cut Kiba off before he could say ‘Naruto,’ of that Naruto was sure.

Sasuke’s mood threatened to call rain clouds to obstruct that rather beautiful day they were having. It was all too funny. Naruto could’ve died… again.

~*~

“That was hilarious!” Kei exclaimed between pants. They were currently sitting beneath a tree near the training grounds, backs against the rough bark and breath being drawn quickly into their starving lungs.

“I know! I think I broke something up here trying not to laugh.” Naruto pointed to his head. They laughed again, and Naruto felt the best he had since waking up in Yuki’s body. Here he was spending a wonderful day with his precious baby boy, and he didn’t have to worry about what Kyuubi would do, because Kei had accepted his ‘new’ personality without question.

“Look, Yuki-chan! Isn’t that Iruka-sensei’s cat?”

Naruto looked in the direction Kei was pointing and laughed again. “Why don’t you go get it, and then we’ll take it to Iruka-sensei’s house. After that we can get some ramen for lunch.”

“Ramen, yatta!” Kei exclaimed as he jumped up to get the cat. But he made too much noise, and it disappeared into the brush of the forest. Kei cursed and went in after it. Naruto shook his head in amusement.

“Did you have fun, Naruto?”

Naruto jumped and turned to see Kakashi standing behind him, leaning against the tree, recovered green book in his hand. Naruto smiled brightly at the masked man. “Yep!”

“I can’t believe you pulled all that off in Yuki’s chuunin body. I didn’t even realize it until Kiba opened his mouth.”

“Heh, the insides are all me, baby. My chakra, my abilities. And Kyuubi’s, if I really need them. You know, Kyuubi stays at chuunin for all of your sakes, you understand?”

“Well, I can see that now.” Kakashi laughed. “Those pranks were pretty good, Naruto. It’s good to see you haven’t lost your touch.”

“Never! I am the prankster of Konoha. That will never change, no matter what body I’m in.”

“Indeed. Well, Naruto, I think Sasuke’s going to have a conniption fit pretty soon, what with you acting more like yourself and less like Kyuubi.”

“Yeah, well, I figured, if Kyuubi’s going to alter the past anyway to where none of this happens, I can do it all now without lasting repercussions.”

“My, such a big word, Naruto. Maybe you can learn-” Kakashi stopped speaking and looked past Naruto. “Oops.”

Naruto turned to see what Kakashi was ‘oops’-ing, and his eyes grew wide in shock. Kei stood a few paces away, a white cat clutched in his arms, his face stricken.

“Why did he call you… that?” the boy barely whispered.

Naruto weighed his options in his mind, finally deciding on a course of action. He patted the grass next to him, inviting Kei to sit down. The boy did hesitantly, but Naruto helped to soothe him by smiling warmly at him.

“Are you sure about this?” Kakashi asked in concern.

“Well, in for a teme, in for a duck.”

“Naruto, that’s not how that saying goes.”

“Have you seen Sasuke’s hair? A duck butt is a duck butt.”

“Yes, no, that’s not what I meant. The saying goes-”

“Blah, blah, not important.” Naruto turned back to Kei to see the boy hunched over the cat in his arms. “Oh! Please don’t cry, Kei! Look, it’s really complicated-”

Kei lifted his head to show that he was actually laughing. “Oto-sama was right. You really are a dobe.”


TBC


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dear lord, that was fun to write! was it fun to read? the discussion between father and son will take place next chapter. anyway, i hope this made everyone who reads this and cries smile, if only once throughout this whole damn story.

thanks so much for reading!

p.s. - if, at any point before, i said sakura was with lee, let me know, cause that's not right. she's snogging sai!

p.s. dos - yes, ino and neji were having morning sex in the shower. *laughs*