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Description
Etymology
Part II

“What did you just say?”

Naruto blinked as he gazed down at his firstborn child in utter puzzlement.

Bolt Uzumaki, his mischievous blond-haired boy, looked back up at him with a curious mixture of innocence and defiance on his whisker-marked little face.

Since he was regrettably busy (damn, he wasn’t even Hokage yet and it seemed like he was always busy!) he’d had to back out of taking Bolt around the village like he’d planned to earlier. Instead, Grandpa Namikaze had stepped in and turned the little Father-Son day into a Grandfather-Grandson day. And now, during a lunch break, Bolt’s grandfather had brought him by to share their adventures so far, which had led to Bolt saying…

“I said that me an’ Gran’pa saw Shikadai an’ Inojin at the park an’ we had a competition on the monkey bars, an’ I totally won,” Bolt repeated, careful to say it more slowly than he had the first time.

“Yeah, I got that,” Naruto said with a slow nod. “But you left a word off at the end. What was it?”

“What word?” Bolt responded, doing his best to sound perfectly innocent (and failing).

“You know what I’m talking about,” Naruto replied, folding his arms over his more formal orange jacket.

Bolt’s innocent grin melted into a stubborn pout. “I said…dattebasa.”

Naruto swallowed a sigh.

When his son had been born, his mother had warned him to clean up his language because babies were sponges. He hadn’t taken it all that seriously and had been slow to cut back on the cursing and such. And he’d been very lax about sticking to proper modes of speech. So when Bolt started talking, his early sentences had mimicked his father’s particular bad habit.

While he had no problems with his own…verbal eccentricity…he knew that it was an issue for some people. When he was meeting with a new client—especially one that was all ‘high-class’ and snooty—he could see them lowering their opinion of his competence the moment they heard him utter that word. He did his best to not let that word slip in front of strangers (there was no point to hold back among old friends and family) but it was such a habit that it was hard.

And it wasn’t a problem that he wanted his son to have. So he gently discouraged using that word and redoubled his efforts to clean up his speech patterns. It was for Bolt’s own good that he avoided this habit before it ever became a habit.

But now…

“…Now was that so hard to say?” Naruto chuckled and ruffled his son’s wavy blond hair.

“Didn’t want to get in trouble,” the boy muttered and tried to fix his hair.

“In trouble?” Naruto blinked. “It’s not like that’s a bad word or anything.” He’s not even saying it right.

“I know. I changed it so it isn’t bad.” Bolt wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like the taste of soap.”

“Soap?” Naruto repeated blankly. …Has Mom turned uttering that word into a soap-worthy offense? “What—”

A choked sound interrupted his confused question and he glanced at the doorway of the tiny office. His father leaned against the doorframe (where he’d been waiting out of the way while Naruto did the parenting thing) with a hand clapped over his mouth, trying very hard to muffle his laughter. Or…maybe he was choking, which made more sense to Naruto since he was too baffled by the situation to find it funny.

“Uh, Dad…you okay?”

It took his father a good minute to regain enough of his composure to choke out an answer. “Yes…yes, I’m…I’m fine…I just remembered something.”

“Remembered what?” Naruto wondered with a frown.

“Oh, something that you did when you were a little boy,” his father wheezed and rubbed at the corners of his eyes.

“Eh?” Naruto rubbed at his whiskered cheek and tried to dredge up some memory that fit with the current situation, but he came up empty and was left feeling like a kid again where the references that adults spewed out flew clean over his head. “What was that?”

“Don’t…don’t worry about it,” his father chuckled and shook his head. And then he turned and started to leave. “I’ll be back.”

Naruto frowned in confusion and concern as his father vanished down the hallway and around a corner.

I really don’t get what was so funny… It can’t be that he’s going senile—Dad’s too young for that. …Isn’t he?

“So…I’m not in trouble, right?”

Naruto blinked and looked down into the hopeful face of his child. “I never said that you were in trouble, Bolt.” He plopped down on a stool and gestured for the boy to take a seat on top of a box crammed with file folders. “Now, why were you worried about getting soap in your mouth?”

“Gran’ma always says that if she catches me sayin’ dirty words she’d wash ’em outta my mouth with soap,” Bolt replied gravely.

“Yeah,” Naruto nodded with a half-grin. “That’s what she told me when I was little, too! But…that word that you said wasn’t dirty or bad…”

“Because I changed it,” Bolt explained.

“Changed it from what?” Naruto wondered with a furrowed brow.

“From datteba—” Bolt hesitated. “From that bad word that you say sometimes, when you think I’m not around or I’m not listening.”

Naruto blinked a few times. “What?”

“Mama always reminds you not to say it around me an’ Himawari-chan,” Bolt continued. “An’ Gran’ma always scolds you for it. You an’ Mama an’ Gran’ma an’ Gran’pa an’ Gran’father say that I shouldn’t say that word…so it has to be a bad one!”

Naruto stared at his offspring for a minute.

“Bolt,” he said slowly. “It’s not like that. It—”

The buzzing ring of his cell phone cut into his sentence and Naruto hurriedly dug the electronic device out of his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Naruto-kun?” his wife’s gentle voice drifted into his ear. “Are you busy?”

“Nah,” he chuckled with a warm smile. “Bolt and I were just having a little chat.”

“Did he have fun with your father today?” Hinata asked.

“It sounds like it,” Naruto replied. “How’s our little sunflower?”

“I just put her down for her afternoon nap,” she answered. “A-ano…Naruto-kun?”

“What?” Naruto felt a bit of tension coil in his stomach. “Something wrong?”

As a child, his wife had suffered with very poor self-confidence which had manifested in the ways that she would fidget with her fingers and a bit of a stutter in her words. As she had grown and found her self-worth, those nervous traits had faded as she’d blossomed into a beautiful and strong young woman. Now, when the infrequent stutter returned to her voice, he took it to mean that either she was very embarrassed about something, or…there was something potentially serious that was bothering her.

“I don’t think so…” she said, her voice uncertain. “It’s just… Your father turned up a minute ago and said something to your mother and…she started tugging at her hair and moaning about karma and-and an Uzumaki curse? Do you know what that’s about, Naruto-kun?”

“No.” Naruto sighed and dragged a frustrated hand over his face. “Er, well, maybe… Bolt said something that just about killed Dad, but he didn’t really explain what was so darn funny about it.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said ‘dattebasa’—”

“It’s not a bad word!” Bolt loudly interrupted, practically jumping into Naruto’s lap to be sure that his young voice would be picked up by the cell phone. “I didn’t curse, Mama—I promise!”

“I didn’t say that you did!” Naruto sputtered as he juggled his child and the phone. “I was just explaining—”

“Goodness!”

“What?” Naruto pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “Hinata, what is it?”

“Your father’s started laughing and…your mother’s hitting his shoulder with her shoe and insisting that it isn’t funny and that she tried so hard to ‘break the cycle’…and your father just keeps laughing!” Hinata hesitated and Naruto could almost see her fidgeting with the phone cord. “She’s also been saying more ‘dattebane’s’ than I’ve ever heard before. …Naruto-kun, do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Naruto sighed deeply. “No, but I really wish that I did, dattebayo…”

Description
Etymology
Part II

“What did you just say?”

Naruto blinked as he gazed down at his firstborn child in utter puzzlement.

Bolt Uzumaki, his mischievous blond-haired boy, looked back up at him with a curious mixture of innocence and defiance on his whisker-marked little face.

Since he was regrettably busy (damn, he wasn’t even Hokage yet and it seemed like he was always busy!) he’d had to back out of taking Bolt around the village like he’d planned to earlier. Instead, Grandpa Namikaze had stepped in and turned the little Father-Son day into a Grandfather-Grandson day. And now, during a lunch break, Bolt’s grandfather had brought him by to share their adventures so far, which had led to Bolt saying…

“I said that me an’ Gran’pa saw Shikadai an’ Inojin at the park an’ we had a competition on the monkey bars, an’ I totally won,” Bolt repeated, careful to say it more slowly than he had the first time.

“Yeah, I got that,” Naruto said with a slow nod. “But you left a word off at the end. What was it?”

“What word?” Bolt responded, doing his best to sound perfectly innocent (and failing).

“You know what I’m talking about,” Naruto replied, folding his arms over his more formal orange jacket.

Bolt’s innocent grin melted into a stubborn pout. “I said…dattebasa.”

Naruto swallowed a sigh.

When his son had been born, his mother had warned him to clean up his language because babies were sponges. He hadn’t taken it all that seriously and had been slow to cut back on the cursing and such. And he’d been very lax about sticking to proper modes of speech. So when Bolt started talking, his early sentences had mimicked his father’s particular bad habit.

While he had no problems with his own…verbal eccentricity…he knew that it was an issue for some people. When he was meeting with a new client—especially one that was all ‘high-class’ and snooty—he could see them lowering their opinion of his competence the moment they heard him utter that word. He did his best to not let that word slip in front of strangers (there was no point to hold back among old friends and family) but it was such a habit that it was hard.

And it wasn’t a problem that he wanted his son to have. So he gently discouraged using that word and redoubled his efforts to clean up his speech patterns. It was for Bolt’s own good that he avoided this habit before it ever became a habit.

But now…

“…Now was that so hard to say?” Naruto chuckled and ruffled his son’s wavy blond hair.

“Didn’t want to get in trouble,” the boy muttered and tried to fix his hair.

“In trouble?” Naruto blinked. “It’s not like that’s a bad word or anything.” He’s not even saying it right.

“I know. I changed it so it isn’t bad.” Bolt wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like the taste of soap.”

“Soap?” Naruto repeated blankly. …Has Mom turned uttering that word into a soap-worthy offense? “What—”

A choked sound interrupted his confused question and he glanced at the doorway of the tiny office. His father leaned against the doorframe (where he’d been waiting out of the way while Naruto did the parenting thing) with a hand clapped over his mouth, trying very hard to muffle his laughter. Or…maybe he was choking, which made more sense to Naruto since he was too baffled by the situation to find it funny.

“Uh, Dad…you okay?”

It took his father a good minute to regain enough of his composure to choke out an answer. “Yes…yes, I’m…I’m fine…I just remembered something.”

“Remembered what?” Naruto wondered with a frown.

“Oh, something that you did when you were a little boy,” his father wheezed and rubbed at the corners of his eyes.

“Eh?” Naruto rubbed at his whiskered cheek and tried to dredge up some memory that fit with the current situation, but he came up empty and was left feeling like a kid again where the references that adults spewed out flew clean over his head. “What was that?”

“Don’t…don’t worry about it,” his father chuckled and shook his head. And then he turned and started to leave. “I’ll be back.”

Naruto frowned in confusion and concern as his father vanished down the hallway and around a corner.

I really don’t get what was so funny… It can’t be that he’s going senile—Dad’s too young for that. …Isn’t he?

“So…I’m not in trouble, right?”

Naruto blinked and looked down into the hopeful face of his child. “I never said that you were in trouble, Bolt.” He plopped down on a stool and gestured for the boy to take a seat on top of a box crammed with file folders. “Now, why were you worried about getting soap in your mouth?”

“Gran’ma always says that if she catches me sayin’ dirty words she’d wash ’em outta my mouth with soap,” Bolt replied gravely.

“Yeah,” Naruto nodded with a half-grin. “That’s what she told me when I was little, too! But…that word that you said wasn’t dirty or bad…”

“Because I changed it,” Bolt explained.

“Changed it from what?” Naruto wondered with a furrowed brow.

“From datteba—” Bolt hesitated. “From that bad word that you say sometimes, when you think I’m not around or I’m not listening.”

Naruto blinked a few times. “What?”

“Mama always reminds you not to say it around me an’ Himawari-chan,” Bolt continued. “An’ Gran’ma always scolds you for it. You an’ Mama an’ Gran’ma an’ Gran’pa an’ Gran’father say that I shouldn’t say that word…so it has to be a bad one!”

Naruto stared at his offspring for a minute.

“Bolt,” he said slowly. “It’s not like that. It—”

The buzzing ring of his cell phone cut into his sentence and Naruto hurriedly dug the electronic device out of his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Naruto-kun?” his wife’s gentle voice drifted into his ear. “Are you busy?”

“Nah,” he chuckled with a warm smile. “Bolt and I were just having a little chat.”

“Did he have fun with your father today?” Hinata asked.

“It sounds like it,” Naruto replied. “How’s our little sunflower?”

“I just put her down for her afternoon nap,” she answered. “A-ano…Naruto-kun?”

“What?” Naruto felt a bit of tension coil in his stomach. “Something wrong?”

As a child, his wife had suffered with very poor self-confidence which had manifested in the ways that she would fidget with her fingers and a bit of a stutter in her words. As she had grown and found her self-worth, those nervous traits had faded as she’d blossomed into a beautiful and strong young woman. Now, when the infrequent stutter returned to her voice, he took it to mean that either she was very embarrassed about something, or…there was something potentially serious that was bothering her.

“I don’t think so…” she said, her voice uncertain. “It’s just… Your father turned up a minute ago and said something to your mother and…she started tugging at her hair and moaning about karma and-and an Uzumaki curse? Do you know what that’s about, Naruto-kun?”

“No.” Naruto sighed and dragged a frustrated hand over his face. “Er, well, maybe… Bolt said something that just about killed Dad, but he didn’t really explain what was so darn funny about it.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said ‘dattebasa’—”

“It’s not a bad word!” Bolt loudly interrupted, practically jumping into Naruto’s lap to be sure that his young voice would be picked up by the cell phone. “I didn’t curse, Mama—I promise!”

“I didn’t say that you did!” Naruto sputtered as he juggled his child and the phone. “I was just explaining—”

“Goodness!”

“What?” Naruto pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “Hinata, what is it?”

“Your father’s started laughing and…your mother’s hitting his shoulder with her shoe and insisting that it isn’t funny and that she tried so hard to ‘break the cycle’…and your father just keeps laughing!” Hinata hesitated and Naruto could almost see her fidgeting with the phone cord. “She’s also been saying more ‘dattebane’s’ than I’ve ever heard before. …Naruto-kun, do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Naruto sighed deeply. “No, but I really wish that I did, dattebayo…”