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There is a wall in Naruto's house that is covered in pictures. Jiraiya scans his eyes across it just as he has every time he steps into the room, drinking in all the moments that he missed while he was away from the village. Raucous birthday parties, joyful grins with missing teeth, hauls of freshly harvested vegetables, a telling photo of a downcast Naruto and Sasuke covered in flour and tomato sauce while Sakura—doused in twice as much of both—wags a finger at them, and a much more recent picture of Momochi Zabuza gesturing broadly at his signature sword while Kakashi and Kurosaki, both armed themselves, stare at him dubiously.
The photograph of the Sand Siblings and their instructor, Baki, is somewhat out of place on the wall of memories. All four of them are squinting suspiciously at the camera while displaying secondary traits of confusion, fear, or grim determination. Jiraiya still isn’t clear if Naruto or Gaara was the one who insisted on the picture, but he knows that Uryu was the one to put it on the wall, just slightly apart from the other team photos, the ones that make his heart ache.
“This is a liability,” says Jiraiya when an adult wanders into the room. He can’t quite bring himself to tell the children the same.
“This is our home,” corrects Kurosaki. “If we couldn’t show our heart here, it would just be a house.”
A big, empty house, thinks Jiraiya though he doesn’t dare say so aloud. His nose still aches from the last time Kurosaki punched him.
To say that Kurosaki has been less than pleased with his absence from Naruto’s life is something of an understatement. That Jiraiya was gone because he was working for the safety of the village, and therefore Naruto’s safety by association, does not mean much to the other man. The two of them have had at least three fights about it already, and Jiraiya expects they’ll have more. But Kurosaki and Uryu have grudgingly given him a room in their big, empty house, which is a kindness Jiraiya hadn’t anticipated.
“I have something that could go on your wall, if you don’t mind a few unfamiliar faces,” says Jiraiya in best casual tone.
“Oh?” asks Kurosaki. “May I see?”
No one has ever accused Jiraiya the Toad-Sage of faintheartedness, but handing over the three carefully curated photographs is one the hardest things he has ever done.
Kurosaki accepts them with more care than Jiraiya would have expected from the gruff man. But he was the one talking about heart mere seconds before, so perhaps Jiraiya shouldn’t be surprised.
Slowly, Kurosaki thumbs through the pictures, studying each one intently. Jiraiya knows each one by heart after all these years.
The first is a standard genin team photograph. It’s a shot of Jiraiya when he was younger, though no less handsome, and his first trio of students. In the middle of the formation is Minato, not even a teenager yet, but still smiling with the confidence that reassured so many of their people in his brief time as Hokage.
There aren’t many photographs of Minato as a young child. He had no parents and Jiraiya wasn’t in the habit of taking pictures. Kushina was a photography enthusiast. She had been the one to infect Kakashi with the photography bug—another small joy lost to the war—but her possessions, along with Minato’s, are in a storage-locker somewhere probably rotting away. Perhaps Jiraiya could ask Sensei to release her photography equipment to Naruto. Kakashi could teach the boy how to use it properly. And if there is any undeveloped film inside that shows Minato as a young man left inside, then that would just be a happy coincidence.
The second picture is another team photo, but in this one Jiraiya is the genin. Young Jiraiya wears a cocky smirk while Tsunade and Orochimaru are intent and solemn in their turn. Sarutobi-sensei is strong and confident, not yet worn down by a third secret war and the loss of his successor.
After Jiraiya left the village to become a spy, after Tsunade resigned to mourn her fiancé, after Sarutobi-sensei drove Orochimaru away from Konoha, he still held tightly to this precious memory of peace. But now, Jiraiya hopes he can leave this memory here, where almost no one knows enough to resent Orochimaru’s ghost. His hope strengthens as Kurosaki moves past that photo without comment.
The last picture is poor quality compared to the other two. It was taken in the field with a disposable camera, the kind they used to issue to every team should the opportunity for information gathering arise, and meant for documents more than outdoor-scenes. Tsunade had snapped the photo of “her idiots” on the way back from a successful but messy mission.
In the background, a mud-splattered Inuzuka Masahiro and his canine partner, Tadao, are both rolling on the ground howling with laughter. In the foreground, equally drenched with mud, an aggrieved Orochimaru is sandwiched between Jiraiya and Hatake Sakumo. To one side, a perfectly clean Kato Dan is standing with his hands on his hips and shaking his head.
Jiraiya remembers he and Sakumo had targeted Dan next but were laughing too hard to catch him. Orochimaru used an earth jutsu to create a patch of thick mud and Tadao had knocked Dan into it in a perfectly coordinated attack.
At the time, Dan had only just started courting Tsunade and was trying to be cool and responsible. Sakumo hadn’t even met his wife-to-be yet and was years away from earning the moniker of White Fang. All of them had been as young and carefree as shinobi could manage after a job well done.
Jiraiya suspects that Kakashi has never seen his father like this and doesn’t know if he’ll appreciate it. But the young Hatake found a way to give Naruto a treasured picture of Minato. The very least Jiraiya can do is return the favor.
“I think I know where the extra frames are,” says Kurosaki standing. He looks at Jiraiya, scowls furiously into the far distance, and finally points at several overly large, titleless books on the low shelf at the base of the wall. “Look at those.”
Kurosaki stalks off into the house while Jiraiya pulls out the nearest book. It’s not filled with words but with pictures. It’s what civilians call a scrapbook, and it documents more than just the handful of events displayed on the wall. These are all the precious moments in Naruto’s life that Jiraiya missed by never coming back to the village. The photos weren’t hidden precisely, but he would have never thought to look for them.
Jiraiya’s undeniably grateful for this glimpse of his godson’s life. Maybe one day, his picture can grace a book like this alongside that of Naruto and his family.