Chapter Text
“What. The. Hell.”
Kakashi was staring at the baby seated at the top of the counter. The baby was his cousin, named Inosuke Hatake. His aunt had died from some poisonous flower when she’d been out in the forest. So, here he was. Responsible for a baby.
Kakashi sighed before running a hand down his face. Why me? Originally, Inosuke should have gone straight to the Konoha orphanage, but Kakashi decided to play hero and took Inosuke in. He can’t even remember his reasoning. Something about that last two Hatake left alive. He still can’t believe that worked.
And it wans’t like he’d known Inosuke before. His aunt had to stay at the Hatake estate in the mountains and little Kakashi refused to leave Konoha, so she’d never raised him after… after he’d been orphaned. And yet, here he is, taking care of her son.
Again, what the hell.
The baby, Inosuke, was gnawing on a spoon, baby food licked clean. He had black hair instead of the trademark silver, though Kakashi thought he saw a bit of blue at the ends. His eyes were huge and green. He’s a cute baby, Kakashi can admit. But if he’d just stop acting like an animal, then he would be perfect.
Alas, Kakashi didn’t have that kind of luck. Though, Inosuke’s looks definitely got more than a couple old ladies offering to babysit him and look after him while Kakashi went on missions. That at least was something good.
But as far as good things go, that might be the limit. When he’d proposed the idea that Inosuke lived with him to Minato-sensei and Kushina, they’d laughed. Hard. They said he didn’t know the first thing about caring for a baby. Kakashi had said, “All you have to do it feed and change them. How hard can it be?”
Life must’ve decided to take it personally becaus ehe swears he hasn’t gotten a good nights sleep in over a week. He wakes up in the middle of the night, hearing screams that should not ever be possible for a baby. It’s actually sad that he gets better sleep on risky missions.
Another thing, the riskiness of his missions have recently been lowered. When Kakashi found out and confronted Minato about it, he’d explained that he now had an infant to care for. He couldn’t be reckless and needed to be responsible. At first, he’d protested. But thinking about it, Minato was right. He couldn’t just the missions with the biggest threats anymore.
Still, he didn’t realize taking care of another human being was this hard. He supposed most of it’s because Inosuke’s an infant, but still.
Kakashi sighed before picking up Inosuke. He pried the spoon away from his fingers. Inosuke looked up at him, eyebrows pinched together.
“Don’t look at me like that, we’re going somewhere,” Kakashi mumbled. Inosuke cocked his head to the side.
“To Kushina’s. Apparently Mikoto’s gonna be there.” At that, Inosuke struggled pout of Kakashi’s grip. Kushina’s cooing the one time she met him obviously scared him. Normally Kakashi would sympathize, having been on the receiving end when he became Minato’s student, but there was really no getting out of this one.
Kakashi slipped his shoes on, trying to keep Inosuke in his grasp. He locked the door with one hand, walking onto the street. “C’mon, Mikoto has her own babies. You can play with them and make friends, or whatever you babies do.”
Inosuke only struggled more. “If you don’t come they’ll feel bad,” Kakashi said, not caring that Inosuke probably doesn’t understand him right now. “Don’t you want to meet them? Their name’s are Sasuke and Zenitsu.”
Inosuke stilled. He looked up at Kakashi quickly, eyes wide. Kakashi blinked, bot expecting such a reaction. But Inosuke was being quet and compliant, so he decided to use the rooftops instead of the road. He was already late.
“Hey,” Kakashi said, waving rom his seat on the window.
“Kakashi! You’re holding a baby, you can’t just do that!” Kushina scolded.
Kakashi rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, sorry.”
Kushina’s gaze fell on Inosuke. “Aww, he’s so adorable dattebane.”
Inosuke twisted away as much as he could but to no avail. Kushina scooped him into her arms. Kakashi sniggered at his face befor eturning to greet Mikoto.
“Hello,” Kakashi said. He glanced at her arms. “Where’s Sasuke?”
Mikoto smiled. “Well,it seemed Sasuke refuse to part with his dear older brother. So I just brought Zenitsu today.”
At that, Inosuke stopped squirming, instead locking gazes with Mikoto. Kushina finally let him down, settling into her position on the couch. Mikoto also set Zenitsu onto the groun, right in front of Inosuke.
“Hello Inosuke, this is Zenitsu. Do you two want to play?” Mikoto asked in a baby voice.
Zenitsu stared at Inosuke, the latter doing the same this. Suddenly, Inosuke tackled Zenitsu. Kakashi jumped up. Oh no, if Inosuke harms the Uchiha child I’ll be in so much trouble!
But to all the adult’s surprise, Zenitsu was laughing. He too joined the play fighting, both babies giggling.
“Well isn’t that something,” Kushina said, chuckling. Zenitsu pointed a finger at Kushina and then both babies crawled to her. Kushina lifted both of them up and placed them on each side of her, amused. And if her ego boosted a little that two cute babies chose to come to her, well, that was nobody’s business.
Both babies were staring at her stomach. Kushina patted the top and said, “These are my babies. Naruto and Tanjiro.”
Inosuke and Zenitsu stared before hugging her. All of them were startled, before Mikot laughed breaking the silence. Kakashi also felt amused. The little gremlin was never this civil.
“Whatever power you have Kushina, I need it,” he said.
After that, they simply talked and enjoyed each other’s company. Though, Zenistu nor Inosuke ever moved away from Kushina’s side until they had to leave.
Kushina wondered why some deep part of her felt upset that they were gone. But she shrugged it off.