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They were all gathered for a quiet family dinner. Joki had excused himself from the table, curiously wandering through his Uncle Hashirama's home. His eyes lingered on the antique portraits lining the walls, some barely held up by tape, displaying images worn down by time.
One frame in particular caught his eye: it showed four young boys. Joki assumed two of them were his father and his uncle, but the other two faces were entirely unfamiliar. Maybe they were the brothers who had died, the ones he only ever heard about during occasional visits to the family cemetery.
As he continued exploring, Joki noticed a picture of Hashirama and Tobirama, but the latter's photo was sitting wrong, sticking out slightly from the frame. Curiosity got the better of him, and he carefully pulled it out. As he did, he realized the photograph was folded.
"Huh?" he mumbled to himself, unfolding the image. What he saw left him stunned.
In the hidden half of the photo, his father was standing next to a boy with messy black hair and a timid expression. The boy looked strangely familiar, but before Joki could dwell on it, he heard footsteps approaching and quickly spun around.
"Joki, your father is asking for you," Madara stated in his usual no-nonsense tone. The teenager nodded, still processing what he had just seen. "Is everything alright in here?"
Taking one last glance at the picture, Joki carefully folded it back up and slipped it into his pocket.
"Yeah. I'm coming," he replied, desperately trying to keep his composure as he headed back to the dining room.
Who was that boy next to his father? Why was the picture hidden? As he took his seat back among his family, he couldn't stop thinking about the answers he was now hunting for.
The dinner carried on with lively chatter. Obito, sitting right next to Joki, didn't take long to shatter his serious train of thought.
"I really think those anchor management classes are doing you good!" Obito exclaimed with a teasing grin.
"It's anger management, you idiot," Joki corrected, letting out a low growl. He hated being reminded that he had to attend those stupid sessions.
"Anger idiot?" Obito repeated, tapping his chin in mock thought.
Joki felt his patience evaporating by the second. He was not in the mood for his cousin's dumb jokes. He mentally cycled through a variety of creative insults, but ultimately decided not to waste his breath arguing with this absolute moron, brain-dead excuse for a human being, waste of oxygen, single-celled organism...
"Is that like... managing angry idiots?" Obito pressed on, his expression now one of genuine curiosity.
Joki rolled his eyes, desperately searching for an out in the conversation. Why won't he just drop dead? he thought, trying to ground himself.
His dad Izuna's voice broke through his murderous thoughts.
"Joki, is everything okay?" he asked, throwing him a concerned look.
"Yeah, just thinking about something," he replied, forcing a tight smile. Should I ask him? Something in his gut told him that would be a terrible idea.
Madara approached the table, sweeping his intense gaze over everyone.
"We have early training tomorrow. Don't stay up late," he announced, staring pointedly at Joki and Obito.
"Yes, sir," they chorused, though with vastly different levels of enthusiasm.
As the night wore on, Joki couldn't shake the image of the hidden photo from his mind. He promised himself he'd dig deeper into it. He knew damn well there were far more secrets in this family than met the eye, and he was dead set on unearthing every single one.