Blonding

Chapter 1 : Name

Minato Namikaze yawned.

Paperwork.

Why was there always so much damned paperwork?

He sighed and stood up, grimacing at the piles that seemed to expand in every possible direction.

"No sense in trying to get any work done while I'm distracted like this," he mumbled to the empty office. Fumbling with a pen for an hour and a half was certainly not productive, even though it looked like he was working his way through the constant stream of mission reports and budget analyses at a decent pace.

He needed a break.

Looking around the room one last time, he had to admit that the space at the top of the Hokage Tower, the one reserved for him once he took office, still had a ways to go before he could properly call it his office. The building still smelled like paint, but that was a worthy price to pay in order to cover over the gaudy neutral colors that his predecessor had insisted on using to decorate - and replace it with a calming, faded red. The Third had claimed that the beige helped sooth him, and helped him stay more productive, but from what Minato had seen of the old Sarutobi in action, he doubted it very much. It seemed like all the geezer ever did was smoke his pipe and write mediocre poetry.

Minato smirked to himself. No wonder he wanted to pass off his hat so much.

But no.

He was willing to put up with the smell of the paint and the drywall and the lacquer and the new furniture - because this was his office now. Not the old fart's, not the Senju's, not the Uchiha's; hell, not even his wife's.

Although, he had to admit that the choice of color for the room was loosely inspired by her.

He ran a tired hand through the blond spikes that were stacked haphazardly atop his head like felled logs, smoothing them down momentarily before they shot back up into the air again like they were before, seemingly untouched. The inauguration had been a week ago, and he was still getting used to the fact that people were addressing him as "Lord Fourth" or "Hokage-sama" instead of his name, like normal. It would take a while to get acclimated to it, but it was just a simple little thing that he had caught himself fixating on from the very beginning.

At least Kushina and Kakashi still called him by his name. That was all he needed, to be honest.

He finally sharpened his unfocused eyes, and looked down at his overloaded desk with apprehension; the mountain of paperwork balanced on every available surface definitely hindered his resolve. He leaned over and started to shuffle a few of the loose leafs of paper around across his desktop, before he finally found what he was looking for...

...a small, bronze-wrapped photograph of the love of his life.

He held it tenderly for a few moments, reminiscing on the fond memories of their youth:

...the day she came into his academy class and proudly announced that she would be the first female Hokage, and then promptly beat up the kids that told her otherwise...
...the day she called him a girl; the first time, at least...
...the time they ran into each other (literally) in front of a rather innocuous little ramen stand...
...the moment he realized he seriously, really loved her...
...the day he came to her rescue when Hidden Lightning ninja kidnapped her...
...the day she realized that she seriously, really loved him.