Re; Naruto

Confrontation

Minato felt like he was going crazy. He sat there on the couch, trying to ignore his paranoia towards his son. He sipped his beer, trying to calm his mind but they kept on racing. He wanted to keep on thinking of this as Naruto turning a new leaf and succeeding. He didn't want to sound crazy. His son is fine. He is fine.

Naruto is still Naruto.

But the more he tried to deny it, the evidence stacked up had been hard to dismiss. No matter how near death experience changed a person, it shouldn't have been so drastic. Naruto lacked any sort of hesitation when changing his routine. There was no sign of struggling or the sort. Minato knew how hard it was when someone wanted to change. They tended to slip and revert back to old habits before forcing themselves to stick to their new routine and mindset.

Naruto...has none of that...

He was...too perfect...too perfectly different...

Memories of that horrible day came back to him;

Minato had just returned home from his job. He had to close down his dance studio due to financial problem and if it wasn't because of Isleen's inheritance, he would have struggled to make ends meet. But he barely touched the money she left him. He was thinking of the future and Naruto's needs for college. His boy was smart and Minato was proud of that. So he had been working to pay for the bills, taxes, and grocery out of his paycheck. He was just lucky that he has the degrees to get an office job at the local private business as an accountant. It pays well and just enough for a modest living without splurging.

He had noticed the running water the moment he entered the house. He could also hear the flooding floor and so had rushed to the bathroom to see if the pipe had burst or something. He knew Naruto know better than to let the water flood. So when he noticed the locked door, Minato felt like a spider was crawling up his throat. He realized almost instinctually that he's son inside and something wasn't right.

He pounded the door, calling out the name of the only family he has left.

The silence disturbed him more than the flooding floor.

He didn't think to look for keys. Adrenaline rushed through his system and Minato crashed his body against the door once, twice, and broke through at the third crash. He fell on his knees onto the wet floor and stared in horror at the treads of red mixed with the water. He was choking; terror gripped his spine in a tyrannical hold.

He looked up to see Naruto bathed in blood inside the bathtub...

Everything after that was a blur of panic and determination as he called the ambulance, then dragging his son's cold body out of the water and doing his best to tourniquet the unconscious boy's arms so he won't lose more blood. It felt like the ambulance would never arrive and Minato was dizzy from the scent of iron sticking to his brain like mind sucking ticks.

He remembered praying and begging and sobbing as he dragged his son to the ground floor, smearing thin watered down blood all over the house. He remembered shaking and barely noticing the medics as they knocked on his door. He had to force his body to separate from his son's cold body (not a corpse, not a corpse) to answer the door and showing them his boy's blue face. They worked quickly and Minato barely recalled the ride to the hospice.

He used up his own savings to settle the bill, never hating the American health care more in his life with how unfeeling and cold they were as they sucked their own patients livelihood like a monster. Once again, Isleen saved him and Minato has no choice but to dip his hands into her inheritance. Without her, he and Naruto might be on the street right after that.

Minato remembered giving up his blood as much as possible for his son before the doctors had to stop him before he killed himself...

After that, all he felt was relief that he had saved his son, relief that he still has his precious boy, relief that he still has his family...