Chapter 106: New Apartment

Morning light filtered through the paper screens of the Namikaze house when Kael came downstairs. Minato was already at the low table, reviewing a small stack of business ledgers with the same quiet focus he once brought to mission reports. Kushina moved around the kitchen, the ordinary sounds of breakfast filling the space as if the night before had never happened.

Kael accepted the folded bills his father pressed into his hand without ceremony. In this world the Namikaze name carried quiet wealth; Minato’s post-Hokage ventures had done well, and the family never wanted for money. Kael slipped the notes into his jacket. He would need them today.

He left the house with a clear purpose. The four women from another future could not stay in his apartment forever. He liked their company—liked the strange, complicated presence of Himawari especially—but the small flat was the only private place he had for the system’s demands. He needed it empty. A neighboring unit had come open; a quiet word and a deposit had secured it for the month. Two bedrooms, simple furnishings, close enough that help would never be far.

Old habit carried him to his own door first. He slid it open without knocking and froze.

Himawari stood in the middle of the room, upper body bare, in the middle of changing. Her hair was still loose from sleep. The morning light caught the soft curves of her breasts—fuller, more womanly than any memory of the child version he had once seen in another life’s pages. Her eyes went wide. Color flooded her face.

Kael jerked back and pulled the door shut hard enough that the frame rattled.

He stood in the hallway, heart hammering, one hand still on the handle. The image burned behind his eyes. In the stories she had been a child, then a teenager. The woman on the other side of the door was neither. Fully grown. Adult. And still, somewhere in the tangled logic of blood and timelines, Naruto’s daughter. The thought sat wrong in his chest—wrong and stubborn. He was not her father. The man whose face he wore had been. The distinction felt thin when he had just seen her like that.

He waited a full minute, then knocked.

A low, embarrassed voice answered. "Come in."

He opened the door more carefully this time. All four women were awake. Sarada’s expression was unreadable. Eida looked faintly amused. Sumire’s gaze was carefully neutral. Himawari had buried her face in a pillow on the bed, only the tips of her ears visible and burning red.

Kael cleared his throat. "Habit. I always walk into my own place without thinking. Won’t happen again."

Himawari made a small, mortified sound into the pillow.

He kept his voice practical. "I rented the flat next door for the four of you. Two bedrooms, shared living space. It’s clean enough to move into today. And I spoke with Tsunade. She’s willing to take three of you on as Leaf shinobi—Sarada, Himawari, Sumire. Official ranks will be sorted once you’ve been evaluated, but you’ll have work and pay. Eida... the village doesn’t have a clear place for civilian specialists yet, but we’ll figure something out."

The shift in the room was immediate. Relief, quiet and deep, settled over them. When they had fallen into this timeline they had arrived with nothing—no home, no status, no path. He had given them a roof and now a future that looked almost ordinary.

Sumire bowed her head slightly. "Thank you. For all of it."

Kael handed over most of the money Minato had given him. "Use this for whatever you need to make the place livable. Clothes, food, whatever’s missing. You’re my neighbors now. If something comes up, ask."

Sarada, Himawari, and Eida left together to begin the practical work of settling in—checking the new unit, listing supplies, giving Himawari time to recover her composure. Sumire stayed behind to start cleaning the newly rented flat while the others handled the market run.

Kael followed her next door.

The unit smelled of disuse and old wood. Dust lay in soft layers on the low table and the backs of the chairs. Sumire had already tied her hair back and rolled her sleeves. She worked with quiet efficiency, the same focused care she once brought to scientific tools and restoration projects in a future that no longer existed.

Kael picked up a cloth and joined her without being asked. They moved through the small living room together, wiping surfaces, shaking out cushions, opening the windows to let the morning air replace the stale quiet. Conversation stayed light—comments on how the light fell differently in this building, whether the water pressure would be decent, small safe things that let the silence stay comfortable.

When they reached the bedroom the air felt warmer. Sumire bent to dust the mattress, stretching to reach the far corner. Her foot caught the edge of the wooden frame. She tipped forward with a soft yelp.

Her hand shot out and closed around the front of Kael’s shirt. He could have braced and kept them both upright. Instead he let the momentum take them. They landed together on the mattress, the old springs giving a muted creak. His weight settled above her, braced on one forearm, face only a breath from hers.

Sumire’s eyes were wide. Up close he could see the faint scatter of freckles across her nose, the way her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. For a long second neither of them moved.

Her thoughts tangled. All her life she had carried a quiet, stubborn affection for a boy with bright blond hair and sky-blue eyes—the son of the man whose face was now inches from her own. The resemblance was impossible to ignore. The shape of the mouth, the set of the eyes, even the way he looked at her when he was trying not to push. It was not the same person. She knew that. And still her heart beat too fast.

She closed her eyes.

Kael leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, just beside the corner of her mouth. The touch was careful, almost questioning.

Sumire’s eyes opened again. Her voice came out small. "We can’t do this. You’re... you’re like a father to me."

Kael’s reply was quiet, steady, and completely without mockery. "The person you’re thinking of isn’t me. That was the Naruto of your timeline. I’m not him."

"Even then," she whispered, "it’s weird."

He did not argue. He simply cupped her face with one hand, thumb brushing the line of her cheekbone, and kissed her properly.

The first press of his mouth was gentle. Sumire’s hands came up as if to push him away and instead settled against his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. For a heartbeat she held still. Then she kissed him back.

The kiss deepened slowly, without rush. Her lips were soft, uncertain at first, then warmer as she stopped fighting the pull. Kael kept his weight balanced so she never felt trapped, one hand still cradling her face, the other braced on the mattress beside her head. Dust motes floated in the light from the open window. Somewhere outside a cicada started its thin summer song.

When they finally parted, Sumire’s breathing was uneven. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dark and conflicted and wanting all at once. She did not look away.

Kael rested his forehead lightly against hers. The moment stayed suspended between them—fragile, new, and already more complicated than either of them could afford. He did not push further. He simply stayed there, close enough that she could feel the steady rhythm of his breath, and let the quiet of the empty apartment hold whatever this was becoming.

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Give me power 🥺