Chapter Text
“It’s okay, I’ve always wanted to have a near-death experience by accidentally slipping off the Hokage Monument and being saved at the last second!”
Genma eyes the girl incredulously-- one hand lifting the girl by the ankle and actually contemplating if he should just let go.
The girl didn’t seem to really mind her compromising upside down position. Her loose leg hangs bent to the side, one arm falling to gravity but the other tugging her chinese dress down across her crotch despite the ninja shorts she wore underneath.
Sakura looks so nonchalant about it that Genma can swear it isn’t the first time she’s done this. The pink-haired girl grins, almost proudly.
He’s not a fan of manhandling children, so he lifts Sakura carefully across one arm and steps off the Second Hokage’s Rock Monument.
Setting the girl down on her feet, he watches the girl dust herself off, arms occasionally cutting in and out of her long pink hair and getting stuck.
“So,” he huffs finally, kneeling down to reach her eye level, “how old are you now, Sakura-chan?”
The child beams proudly, “I’m three!”
“And did your Mommy teach you anything about how three-year-olds shouldn’t wander off to the Hokage Rock on their own?”
“Not really, but Mommy did tell me not the eat needles.”
Genma all but sputters, hacking out the last of his self esteem (he swears Raidou is laughing back there but he’ll strangle him later) and actually doubling over at the critical hit.
Taking the senbon out of his mouth and tucking it away into his headband, (he’s definitely not bothered by a kid’s words. He definitely isn’t,) he turns to the girl with all the patience of the Second Hokage, “now, Sakura-chan, try not to come here without your Mommy, alright? If you fall off, you could get seriously hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” Sakura tucks her hands confidently at her hips, “I mean, you were here! If I fall off again I guess you can just catch me again.”
“Sakura-chan, I think you’re missing the point--”
“...You won’t catch me if I fall again?”
Genma drops in horror when Sakura’s eyes brim with tears. The three-year-old shivers, sniffling and rubbing her eyes, “you’ll leave me to die ?”
Genma’s heart sinks in, not exactly guilt, but utter mortification, “No!” he jumps quickly desperate, “that’s not what I meant! Uh! Of course I’d save you, I’d save you no matter what! Yeah, I’d die for you, Sakura-chan, but-”
“...there’s a but?” Sakura was ready to burst into tears again.
“No! There’s no but!” at this point Genma’s gesticulating so wildly he’s drenched from headband to socks in cold sweat, “I just meant that I uh, no-”
“Sakura-chan!”
Genma freezes.
The Yamanaka daughter marches up the stairs, shoving aside a guffawing Raidou (oh Genma was going to murder him) and stomping straight for her fellow three-year old.
For a moment, Genma expected the girl to give him a stern talking to about making girls cry (after all it’s Inoichi ’s kid and if that doesn’t strike horror into every Jounin nothing does), but instead the girl barely seems to acknowledge the TokuJou as she puffs her chest up in a show of anger and breathes out deeply.
Then, she sums it up: “No!”
And Sakura cries out an ugly baby whine, as if her mother had just grounded her, “but I’ve always wanted to try the Puppy Eyes to get out of trouble!”
Wait, what?
“You promised we’d go to the flower field to find Marigolds today!” Ino returns sharply, taking the girl by the wrist and tugging her up to her feet.
The girl is gone by the time Genma gathers enough of himself to realize he’d been totally played by a three-year-old . And patience be damn, Genma was ready to pinch the girl’s cheeks until they were redder than her ribbon.
“SAKURA-CHAN!”