Chapter 4: God Knows

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own anything or anybody except Tomoko. All the songs and references mentioned in this fanfiction belong to their proper owners and are used simply for entertainment purposes. Please enjoy! I recommend marasy8's piano rendition of God Knows from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for this chapter.

Author Notes: To Completely Confunded, thank you so much for your kind review! :) I'll do my best to meet your expectations, but being a college student can be a pain so updates may be at most a week or two. Just right now, I've had quite a bit of free time, so yeah - I'll update whenever I can!

And this is just a note to you as well as every other reader reading this, but note that Tomoko's piano playing is not a Kekkei Genkai. If anything, her piano skills are a combination of genetics coming from her civilian mom and retired ninja dad as well as byproducts of the memories of Tomoko's past life. From what I remember reading from Naruto Wikia, Kekkei Genkai are specifically geared towards ninja clans, and Tomoko isn't really part of any kind of clan.

The only reason her parents were so surprised at her performance in Chapter 2 was because of the image it created. A 3 year old girl who had never really heard much music aside from her mom's singing — suddenly playing a complex song from Kingdom Hearts on such a big piano like a natural? If anything, her dad simply encountered her mom during a mission and their shared love for music hit off their relationship. Simple as that. :)

Chapter 4: God Knows

It was after my little proclamation that Mom and Dad started bringing me into the family business. Turns out that the 'family love for music' was something that started with my new parents, and when they decided to settle down with Dad retiring from the ninja business, they started the cafe as a way of steady income and for Dad himself to still connect with his old shinobi friends.

Apparently my little stunt really surprised them only because it was so sudden. I mean, think about it — a 3 year old girl who had just seen the piano, playing it like a natural? I wouldn't blame them for being shocked.

…Anyway.

When starting to work in the cafe with Mom and Dad, I really started to take note of my surroundings as well as my new appearance. Unlike my past life with her long brown hair and black-rimmed glasses, my new self had a short, black bob cut of hair, somewhat curled at the ends with a white ribbon forming a small bow on one strand on the right side of my face. I now had blue eyes (that didn't require glasses this time — hooray), reflecting that of Mom. For a growing kid, I was rather on the short side, really only reaching the middle of Mom's thighs. Then again, I was on 3 and about to go on 4 soon, so it was a little early to call the height game.

The name of my family's cafe turned out to be Nagareboshi Cafe, meaning 'Shooting Star'. Mom and Dad tell me it's a pun on 'Hoshino', the family surname, as well as 'star field' and the ninja shuriken.

…Well, at least it works! I don't have any other ideas.

It took about a year and a half for Mom and Dad to properly teach me everything there was in the cafe. And oh boy, there was a lot to learn. Even though I had some work experience serving others' needs in my previous life, apparently Mom and Dad had come up with many rules in order to respect the needs of the customer (which included both ninja and civilians). There were just so many that I can't list them all, but here's a few examples:

Always ask for a customer's preferred pronoun and how they would like to be called before serving them.

If they request to eat in private, leave a privacy seal behind and drop off the food as quickly and politely as possible.

Do not provide a drunk person more sake/alcohol if they already look sick.

Never back-talk a customer.

Honestly, it was a lot to remember, but I really had the past 18 years of my old life to thank, since it really showed me a lot of social cues that I needed to remember too.

…And apparently I had to wear a uniform too. Initially Mom thought of dressing me up like a cute little maid with black dress and lacy hat, but that was the day I saw Dad go into 'Protective Daddy' mode and turn her down before she could even say anything.

...We ended up setting on a kimono dress with the color scheme of a Sylveon (white with pink lace and hints of blue ribbon). ...Don't laugh - I've been a fan of the Eevee evolution line since forever and I'm not going to stop now!

…Er, ahem. Excuse me.

By the time I had gotten the customer service aspect down, then it was actually going out and helping around the cafe. At first, Mom and Dad had me carry small things, whether it were glasses of water or small desserts. But as time went on, leading up to my 5th birthday, I was able to carry whole trays of beverages and food, sometimes carrying the occasional heavy tray.

It was when I had started fully playing the piano for entertainment aspects that I received my first customer of sorts.

See, the grand piano kinda sat in the center of the cafe on its own small stage, and aside from the piano bench that I usually occupied, Mom and Dad quickly came up with the 'Song Request' system. Basically, song requests worked like this: normally, I would play a casual song to start off the day, and as time would go on, if someone wanted a song to be played, they would pull up a chair to sit near me. Once my current song would end, I would take their request and play without any extra charge.

It was my 2nd day officially taking up the role as Nagareboshi's pianist that I met Minato Namikaze.

What was most notable about him was his blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I couldn't immediately tell if he was a ninja or not because he wore very civilian-like clothes, with a blue sweatshirt and cargo pants. At the time, I had just finished a small solo of the Pokemon Center theme before I heard his voice.

"Excuse me, are you the person playing such wonderful music?" I almost hit a wrong key for a moment before stopping myself, swerving my head to look up. A gentle, almost timid grin greeted me as he smiled, blond spiked strands of hair framing his face.

"H-Hai, I am," I stuttered. When did he get there? I didn't even hear him sit down…

As if noticing my surprise, Minato-san sheepishly scratched his cheek. "I'm really sorry, but from what the owners were saying, I thought you were older."

Huh, haven't heard that in a while.

"I-It's fine, sir. What would you like me to play?" At my question, he leaned back into his chair and shrugged.

"How about you play something that reflects your image of me?" I blinked in confusion, staring at him for a moment. This was another first — no one really was this vague when making song requests.

"Uh…sir, I just met you. Are you sure you want that kind of song?" The blond man simply chuckled, reaching over to lightly ruffle my hair, fingers carefully avoiding my white ribbon. Apparently this man was doing a lot of firsts for me since no one really ruffled my hair like that except Dad!

…Hopefully, he won't be angry.

"It's fine — surprise me, ok?" I just glanced at him for a moment before shrugging my shoulders and playing the song I had in mind. Originally a rock concert dedicated to a stoic man from a rather weird girl, I couldn't help but get immersed in the memory.

It was only later when the man left that the horror slowly sunk in.

I had just played a song for. Freaking. Minato. Namikaze. The goddamn Yellow Flash and Future Fourth Hokage.

I really got myself in the Narutoverse deep at this point — and only some God Knows how things will turn out.

Edit (11/23/2016): So a user by the name of PickleLove brought up an issue with the original draft of this chapter, with the review basically going like this:

"Plot Detail FAIL!

The Japanese do not have pronouns. Even if the Japanese did, which they do NOT, they are not a country full of complete and utter retards who spend their lives worrying about offending someone.

Japanese use honorifics, and they have very strict rules about who gets which honorific and when. You could always look it up and educate yourself, but I doubt you will. In my experience, SJW losers prefer to wallow in ignorance.

Otherwise, interesting (if overused) plot."

Now, I apologize on this mishap, because the original draft stated one of Nagareboshi's rules as "Always ask for a customer's preferred pronoun and how they would like to be called BEFORE serving them." This came from my own experiences in America, where usually asking for a person's pronoun first helped get any awkwardness about self-identity and sexual orientation out of the way quickly, since I encountered many LGBT people.

I don't know if this person meant to offend me in any way, but being called ignorant isn't something I can ignore. Putting the insults aside. I admit, I messed up since Japanese honorifics are very different from American honorifics, with many such as '-san' and '-senpai' being gender-neutral, but when writing this story, Tomoko's POV/interpretation of this is from America's standards, since her past self (specifically me at a certain point) never really went to Japan and only had second-hand research to go on. Sure, there are self-referring terms such as 'watashi,' 'boku,' and 'ore,' but for Tomoko's position, she doesn't have to worry about that. From here on, Tomoko and the other members of Nagareboshi probably refer to customers with the '-san' honorific unless otherwise corrected.

Thank you for bringing up this point and changes are being made accordingly. To other readers, don't think that I'm not going to look past the opportunity of educating myself if I get something wrong. If you feel like I messed up somewhere, please say it in a courteous and respectful way, because the way this user handled it wasn't really appreciated. It's tough criticism, which is appreciated, but still hard to hear nonetheless. Please respect that.

Again, thank you and I hope you continue to enjoy Civilian Pianist.