A/N: This fic can be read as a stand-alone, but it's set in mapplepie's "The Hidden Prodigy" (the link is on my profile). I may or may not have promised her to write it a year ago, but hey, I got around to it eventually? :D

...Anyway, this should be fairly easy to understand without the context, but you'll miss out on awesomeness (Check out her writing! She's great!). This is a time travel fic: Kakashi is trapped in the past, as a child. :P

ooo

When Kakashi Hatake had woken up, six years old, thirty years in the past, and with foreboding knowledge of the future, he had naturally decided to focus more on his loved ones and averting the next crisis-to-be. As the years passed, however, he realized that the gaps between timeline-changing events bored him to tears.

With no missions or young ninja to train, Kakashi felt the lack of Icha Icha books keenly. Indeed, as of right now, Jiraiya had only written one. After the novelty wore off of obtaining the premium edition of Make-Out Paradise, Kakashi eventually realized that he needed to wait even longer for the rest of the series to come out. Woes betide time-travelling book nerds (or literary porn fans).

And woes betide the guardian of the time-travelling ninja, who wasn't quite prepared for Kakashi Hatake.

ooo

"I don't know, he's such a good kid, though," he overheard Minato say one day, speaking the words that started it all. The blond sat in the living room of his apartment, drunkenly morose. His eyes welled up with emotion, a sincerity that reminded Kakashi eerily of Naruto, an echo of the future in the past. Minato clearly thought that Kakashi slept undisturbed in the next room, and so Minato spoke loudly to Jiraiya, unaware of the child listening from the hallway.

"Makes it easy for you, at least," Jiraiya snorted. Kakashi trod to the edge of the wall, hidden around the corner, unnoticed. "I was a nightmare as a kid. Always getting complaints from other parents about my specialized sexy-no-jutsu."

"I'll bet. How old were you?"

"I think I mastered the bikini transformation at...oh, age six? Or maybe five."

"You started that early..."

"Genius."

"Pervert."

Kakashi listened to the conversation with amusement, knowing he should sleep, but the bickering comforted him, and he allowed himself a few more minutes to relish their company. In the future he'd missed them, always wishing that in his previous life, he hadn't ignored anything that didn't involve training. He'd respected Minato's power, maybe, but he hadn't respected what had counted—that Minato was a good man, and beneath Jiraiya's ridiculous demeanor, he was too.

"Still, sometimes I wish I could scold him a little," Minato sighed after a pause, swirling his small cup of beer, creating a small whirlpool of mahogany. "What if he feels like he has to be good, because he doesn't feel at home here? I want him to know he doesn't have to be perfect for me to love him."

Kakashi's breath caught at the declaration, but Jiraiya only responded with a careless punch to the shoulder. Jostled, Minato spilled some beer on the wooden floor, and glancing down, he seems to deliberate whether or not to clean up the mess. Instead opting to throw back the rest of the beer and to pour himself another cup, he sent his companion a mild glare.

"You worry too much," Jiraiya told him, although observing closely, Kakashi heard an undercurrent of concern in his tone, as well. "The kid's a genius. He's not going to try peeing on any girls at that age, he's smarter than that," he said, ignoring Minato's muttered "unlike you". "Give him some time."

A brief silence ensued, the two ninja sitting companionably in the dim light; the lamp in the kitchen had burned out last week, and Minato kept promising to buy a replacement on his next day off. Kakashi, on his part, privately planned to head down to the market on his own so that his caretaker wouldn't have to.

"Yeah," Minato sighed eventually, and he sounded so forlorn, Kakashi couldn't help but peek around the corner to check his expression. Minato had his back to him, but he clutched his cup pitifully with both hands, his shoulders hunched. Kakashi experienced a pang of guilt.

Jiraiya noticed him then; of course he did, they might be drunk, but Jiraiya remained one of the greatest ninjas of all time, and Kakashi quickly raised a finger to his lips, a silent request. Jiraiya frowned, opening his mouth as though to refuse, but in the end pursed his lips and gave a slight nod, averting his gaze.

Kakashi returned to bed, still staring thoughtfully at his ceiling long after Jiraiya left.

ooo

It started with trivial things.

The first time Minato noticed, he stared at his soup bowl for a long moment, completely baffled. He initially assumed it was his imagination, but no: his ramen—the love of his life—really did keep vanishing, right in the middle of Ichiraku's restaurant. He felt a terrible pang of sorrow for the ramen he would never eat; a cruel twist of fate, to be sure, but he swore to discover who had caused such a grave travesty.

A quick assessment of the situation provided him with two possible culprits. Analyzing his surroundings much like he would on a mission, Minato observed Kakashi on his left, blinking at him innocently. On his right, the old man Hokage slurped at his noodles. Minato narrowed his eyes in anticipated victory, justice near at hand.

In the end, it turned out that righteously accusing the old man of ramen theft only earned Minato an unimpressed raise of an eyebrow, and a wry remark on what the Hokage thought of men who accused comrades without evidence. Minato very nearly apologized, but when he looked away sheepishly, from the corner of his eye he swore he saw the old man slip Kakashi a wink.

The Yellow Flash hadn't survived this long by ignoring his instincts, and at that moment, Minato Namikaze knew.

ooo

It turned into a game, and a surprisingly challenging one, at that. Kakashi would have made a truly incredible ninja, Minato acknowledged, not without a smidgen of pride. He caught Minato in just as many traps as the blond managed to avoid.

Admittedly, at the moment, Minato felt less proud, and more like dangling Kakashi from the roof by his feet until he begged for mercy. Lovingly, of course. He did love Kakashi as his own family.

Nevertheless, Minato thought it his duty to extract justice on behalf of the entire shinobi force.

"Kakashi," he bellowed, roughly kicking off his shoes as he entered their apartment. The floor cooled his bare feet, and he could smell lunch cooking in the kitchen; miso soup and fried rice, his favorite, but no, he couldn't let himself get distracted- "Kakashi Hatake!"

"Welcome home," Kakashi poked his head through the door, his eyes curving with his deceivingly innocent smile. Minato really did have the cutest ward (in his very biased opinion), but Minato also knew that Kakashi proved to be the most devious ten-year-old of his generation. He would not lower his guard. "How was work?"

"Would you care to explain to me," Minato said instead of answering, every word with the dangerous undercurrent of I will have vengeance, and Kakashi's every blink begging the question of who, me? "Why I had to fill out the paperwork for a new identification card today?"

"Well, you are getting older," Kakashi said kindly. "Don't worry. I think you still look young, aside from the stray gray hair."

"What, I don't have-" Minato startled, alarmed as he turned to check his reflection in the window before catching himself. He shook his head, willing to bet that underneath Kakashi's mask, the boy was extremely smug. He sighed. "Nice try, Kakashi. But my identification wasn't expired. For some reason, mine, along with a dozen other Jōnin's, all had mustaches drawn on their photos. In permanent marker."

"Really?" Kakashi asked in the perfect imitation of surprise.

"Kakashi," Minato started in warning.

"Because I could've sworn that Fugaku Uchiha's had a full beard."

Minato's eye twitched. Although he did wonder how Kakashi managed to pickpocket the head of the Police Department without leaving any evidence, he couldn't decide if the kid acted incredibly brave or shockingly idiotic for a genius. Still, now wasn't the time to ask for details and encourage Kakashi's behavior: Minato might not be an expert on parenting, but even he knew that children needed consequences and guidance. Or something. Pinching his nose, he tried again.

"Kakashi," he said, and thought that he might have sort of sounded parental just then. It was an encouraging sign. "You can't keep doing this, you know."

"Keep doing what?" Kakashi questioned, as if the entire shinobi force didn't know, even if they couldn't prove.

"Last week, you switched out all the pencils and pens in the mission assignment room with purple crayons," Minato reminded him.

Kakashi scratched his cheek absent-mindedly in response. "At least I didn't paint over the Hokage mountain," he said mildly.

Alarmed, Minato turned to the window again, but let out a sigh of relief when he caught a glimpse of the very much un-painted Hokage mountain. Suddenly determined to make Kakashi feel even a tinge of guilt, Minato finally vented months of frustration.

"No, but you did dye every single one of my clothes orange, and set back my alarm clock that day so I had no time to find new ones." Which shouldn't have been possible; as a high-level ninja, Minato didn't sleep lightly, but Kakashi always defied expectations.

"I made sure you didn't have a stealth mission that day," Kakashi pointed out generously. "And it's not my fault that fashion sense doesn't run in the family," Kakashi muttered, so quietly that Minato spoke over him entirely, not paying much attention to his arbitrary excuses.

"You doused Shikaku Nara with an entire bottle of whipped cream while he slept," Minato continued, and Kakashi frowned, although probably more out of disappointment in his unoriginality than in the act itself. It hadn't been his best. "And then you framed me for it. Where did you learn that Henge, by the way?" he asked, and Kakashi's lips twitched under his mask, but he didn't reply. Minato decided to overlook it for now.

"All of the Anbu's practice weapons were replaced with Styrofoam versions last month," Minato listed off. "And I got a message from the ninja academy—which you don't attend, might I remind you—complaining that Maito Gai had a "kick me" sign taped on his back, disguised with chakra so that he wouldn't notice it right away." Which had also been rather impressive, given that Kakashi still claimed he didn't want to be a ninja.

Kakashi outright snickered at that one.

"Have you even met the kid?" Minato asked in exasperation, studying Kakashi's shake of the head. Still, Minato couldn't ignore his lingering doubt: Gai might not have known Kakashi, but subtleties in Kakashi's demeanor suggested hard-earned revenge, finally taken after much suffering. Minato sighed, disguising his confusion. They were making little progress, so he decided to take a new approach, because even if the pranks implemented a surprising skill set—and which more often than not had Minato fighting to keep a straight face—he still worried at their sudden appearance.

"Is something wrong?" Minato asked more gently, kneeling down so that he and Kakashi saw eye-to-eye. "You've never gotten into trouble, in the four years I've known you...and a few months ago, you just started out of the blue. You don't have to be perfect for me to love you, Kakashi, but if something's bothering you, I wish you'd tell me."

Kakashi's eyes widened at the sudden change in tone. "I don't-"

"Please, Kakashi," Minato pleaded, placing his hands on Kakashi's shoulders. "If you don't want to tell me, it's all right, but please don't lie."

Kakashi hesitated for a long moment, and Minato feared that Kakashi wouldn't tell him, another one of Minato's failures: he couldn't even earn this boy's trust, and Kakashi deserved so much more. But then Kakashi started to speak, his eyes still glued to the floor, fidgeting ever-so-slightly.

"I heard you talking to Jiraiya," Kakashi spoke slowly, contrite. "You said you were worried because I don't act like a normal kid. And that you wished I'd get in trouble sometimes."

Minato stared at him blankly for a brief second, uncomprehending, before hazy memories of drinking with Jiraiya late one night returned to him. He'd thought that Kakashi had been in bed, and he felt so horribly guilty now. He truly failed as a guardian, didn't he?

"Oh, Kakashi," he said, tugging the child forward into a tight hug. "You don't have to act in a certain way to make me happy. I just want you to be happy," he said, blinking back unwanted tears. He was glad Kakashi couldn't see his face; he didn't want to make the boy feel even guiltier.

"I know," Kakashi said after a pause, reaching up to return the hug. "I am sorry, though. I just meant to cause a little trouble, so you wouldn't worry...but I got carried away."

Minato laughed at that, feeling a bit better. "Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd fear for the future of Konoha if you did all of those pranks out of a sense of obligation. They were frighteningly good."

Kakashi flushed in embarrassment. "I didn't come up with all of them."

"You're too modest," Minato teased, ruffling his hair. "I know for a fact that plenty of kunoichi thought it was divine retribution when Jiraiya ran through the streets in a towel because someone stole his clothes."

"It wasn't that hard," Kakashi said. "He was too busy trying to peek over the wall of the bathhouse to notice me. I'd thought I'd at least need to create a diversion to steal from him, but..."

"You have a point," Minato laughed again. "But as amusing or as deserved as your pranks might have been, maybe we can agree that they need to be cut back a bit?"

"Okay," Kakashi agreed easily, smiling. He really was a cute kid.

"Okay," Minato said, pleased. His stomach grumbled, and he scratched his head ruefully at Kakashi's resulting grin. "Well, how about I change, and then we eat?" he asked.

"I'll go finish the soup," Kakashi nodded, giving Minato one more quick hug before running off to the kitchen. Minato felt a rush of affection.

Maybe he wasn't so bad at this parenting thing, after all, Minato thought, as he headed down the hallway to change out of his work clothes. He and Kakashi had solved the problem, had a heart-to-heart conversation, and as mature as the child behaved, Minato didn't think he'd need to take disciplinary action so long as the pranks stopped. He did hate giving out punishments.

Of course, no sooner had he finished the thought, that he opened the door to his room and a chalkboard eraser dropped on his head, producing a satisfying white cloud of dust.

"For the record, I set that up before we had this talk," Kakashi called down the hallway.

"Kakashi," Minato bellowed, using his palm to wipe off a layer of chalk from his cheek.

He thought he heard Kakashi mumble something about 'one last bit of revenge for having to deal with that orange brat', but he didn't know for sure. Either way, the comment was quickly forgotten as he chased a laughing ten-year-old around their home with the promise of a well-deserved noogie.

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So wow I'm nervous...I do hope it's okay, since it's my first fic for the Naruto universe? And my first gift fic...And the first time I've posted something in ages...Well, any kind of feedback is very much appreciated. :)