Rin having a cold drabble - based on this HC: Let it also be known that the one time Nohara Rin managed to catch a cold (blasted invisible enemy) is marked as the day the world ended on all of their calendars.
The Day the World Ended (according to Team Minato)
The war was over. Officially, at least. The rain had washed the blood from the roads, the grass had decided to grow again, and Konoha’s markets smelled more like chestnuts and roasted squid than smoke.
But peace was fragile. Rumors crawled through the village faster than any messenger hawk - about who would rebuild, who would lead, who might be Hokage next. Minato heard them all and let them pass. His focus was narrower: making sure his team remembered what normal life even looked like.
Which was why, during morning drills on a dew-wet field, the world tilted when Rin sneezed.
Obito froze mid-stretch, goggles slipping down his nose.
Kakashi stopped sparring and stared like the sneeze had detonated a tag.
Minato blinked, tilted his head, and thought: oh no.
“Just dust,” Rin said, brushing her sleeve across her nose. But Obito already had his hand halfway in the air like he was about to flag down a medic. Kakashi muttered something about compromised immune systems and “logistics of containment,” as if Rin were suddenly patient zero in a tactical epidemic.
By midday, Minato had given up on drills. Rin’s “dust sneeze” had become “definitely a cold” in Obito’s retelling, “possible mission-ending illness” in Kakashi’s clinical monotone, and somehow “a matter of life and death” by the time they made it back through the village gates.
By evening, drizzle had settled in, slicking the eaves of the Namikaze home. Inside, the lounge looked less like a house and more like a crisis ward.
Rin was swaddled on the couch in what looked like every blanket in the house, her short hair sticking up at odd angles from static and heat. Kakashi had commandeered Minato’s cooking pot, stirring soup with the solemnity of a man calculating troop movements. Obito hovered like an anxious shadow, stacking and re-stacking pillows with the energy of someone preparing Rin for her own funeral.
Minato, caught between amusement and resignation, sat at her side with the back of his hand pressed gently to her forehead. “Fever,” he announced like a mission report.
“It’s a cold,” Rin protested from the depths of her blanket fortress.
“First symptom of something worse,” Kakashi countered, ladle clicking against the rim.
Obito gasped, nearly dropping a pillow. “Sensei, should we call Tsunade-sama? No--wait--she’s not here. Should we send for Inoichi? He knows things! Or--”
“You’ll stay put,” Minato said mildly, cutting off the spiral before Obito offered to summon the Fire Daimyō’s personal physician.
The door slid open with a gust of damp air. Kushina stepped in, shaking drizzle from her sleeves, only to stop dead at the sight: Rin bundled like a chrysalis, Kakashi nursing a pot like it contained state secrets, Obito fussing with pillows, and Minato bent over with all the gravity of a battlefield medic.
Her eyes narrowed. Slowly, deliberately, she looked at her husband. “…You’re all idiots, ’ttebane.”
“She sneezed,” Obito defended, indignant.
“Once,” Rin mumbled.
Kushina stalked over, nudging Minato aside to press her hand against Rin’s forehead. She exhaled, “It’s just a cold.”
Minato straightened, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Told you.”
“Not before deploying half our linen supply,” Kushina muttered, shooting a look at the blankets. “Honestly, the Council should see you like this. Would-be savior of Konoha, babysitting a runny nose.”
Minato didn’t look up, still checking Rin’s forehead with professional gravity. “Leadership takes many forms,” he said mildly.
Kushina stared at him flatly. Rin groaned. Obito dropped another pillow. Kakashi stirred the pot with grim determination.
Kushina sighed, crossed the room, and ruffled Rin’s hair with a gentleness none of the others could quite match. “World’s ending over a sneeze 'ttebane,” she muttered. “What am I going to do with all of you?”
