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”These pups will be the death of me,” Pakkun grumbled, one eye lazily open as he watched the two young menaces race through the yard, chasing one another with sticks and rubber shuriken.
“They can’t be all bad,” you said, watching them carefully and redirecting their energy when necessary to avoid any injuries.
Sakura would not be pleased if you had to bring one or both of them to the hospital for healing again so soon after she set a fractured wrist only last week.
The pug just huffed. “I thought Kakashi was terrible when he was young, but these two are far worse.”
You turned to give Pakkun an affectionate scratch behind the ears. “I suppose that’s my fault,” you said, grinning when he opened both eyes to look at you inquisitively, “I was quite the terror myself when I was young.”
It was something you and Kakashi had talked about before; that your young children were certainly a comeuppance of sorts for all the hell you each wreaked when you were their age. You grimaced as you recalled all the trouble you got yourself into and how many bones you broke recklessly climbing trees or picking fights with your classmates.
When your youngest turned two, nearly tripling the noise and ruckus in your household overnight, you had almost immediately gone to your parents’ to apologize for being an absolute nightmare child. Kakashi had summoned Pakkun and made him a special meal, spent hours scratching his belly afterward.
“What’s this for?” Pakkun asked, always skeptical.
“No reason,” Kakashi insisted at the time.
But now Pakkun huffed, apparently realizing the apology treat for what it was. You reached out and scratched him behind his ears affectionately, noting with a sigh that the fur around his muzzle was distinctly more grey than when you’d met him.
Pakkun was growing old and sometimes you wondered how much time he had left, how long before Kakashi would have to say goodbye to yet another important parental figure. At least this time he would have you and your children to support him; to love him in Pakkun's eventual absence.
“Thank you,” Pakkun said, settling back down and closing his eyes as your children spun around together and then fell to the ground, giggling.
“What for? Birthing demons?”
But Pakkun ignored your joke and continued seriously, “For giving him a family. It’s something I think he’s always needed.”
"You're his family too, you know."
Pakkun made a grumbling sound, something you knew he did when he was trying not to let his emotions get the better of him.
And even though only a few short minutes later, you had to scramble across the yard to break up a fight over a plastic kunai, your heart swelled. Because even if your children often tested your patience and wrought chaos everywhere they went, you knew you wouldn't have it any other way.
Pakkun huffed irritably as you sat beside him, practice kunai safely in hand, but you knew he felt the same.