THE LOG OF THE CENTURY. Seriously. You should read this.
Who: Kushina and Minato
What: A typical day at home… that turns into something rather untypical.
When: Tonight! Yes. Tonight sounds good.
Where: At home? I said that already.
Why: Kushina and Minato, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes a baby and the Kyuubi, and then comes… GUESS YOU GUYS! GUESS. What comes next? :D
Rated like. PG. Or if you'd like, a really, really, really light NC-17. :|
It was later in the evening when the bathroom door finally opened, steam billowing out from within as a figure stepped out. Clad in nothing but a pair of old sweatpants, Minato ran a towel through his wet hair. It felt good to wash away the stress of a long day away with a nice hot shower. Pulling his towel off of his head, he looked around the room to find a pair of small eyes staring at him. Hoshi sat on the bed, wagging her small tail and staring unblinking at the man in front of her. Minato raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Heh, come on…”, he said draping his towel over his bare shoulders and walking out of the room.
Meanwhile, Kushina sat in the living room, apparently reading a scroll of jutsus, but if one looked close enough, one might notice the latest issue of K9 Magazine was actually tucked inside it. Currently she was engrossed in an article about potty-training puppies, convinced that it would be a breeze to teach Hoshi how to use the toilet and even wash her paws afterwards! She had heard the shower stop not so long ago but paid it no mind. When Minato finally walked in, she looked up from her reading and smirked.
"Your hair's flat," she stated. Kushina secretly liked just-out-from-the-shower!Minato. More than she liked Minato-at-just-about-any-other-time, even.
“Hmm,” was all he responded with as he ran a hand through his hair. Little did she know of the chakra he was currently using to draw whatever water that was left in his hair to his fingertips. Hoshi still hot on his heels, he flicked the remaining water at her before disappearing into the kitchen with a smirk on his face.
Kushina, being an elite kunoichi, had no problem raising the scroll over her face to protect herself from the torrential downpour. Unfortunately, this meant that the rather old and valuable scroll got wet, an outcome that hadn't quite occurred to her.
"…shit. MINATO. You got the scroll wet, look at it!" Looking at it herself, she realized it wasn't that bad, but it was the principle of the matter!
“Should have risked your doggie magazine instead then, huh?” he chuckled as he walked over to the fridge and dug around. Now everyone had a bad habit or two, and one of Minato’s just happened to be drinking milk from the carton. The problem was whether or not the milk was good or not. After a proper inspection of the expiration date, he closed the refrigerator door and opened the carton.
"You shouldn't have risked either of them. OR my face," Kushina complained, then paused. "….wait. How did you know about the magazine?!" She could feel the blood rushing to her face and was glad Minato wasn't in the same room as her… yet. He was sure to comment on her reddening face and be annoying about it.
He merely smiled to himself as he leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping on his milk carton and knowing that he was getting on her nerves. She was so testy, she always had been, and he found it oh so amusing. He shared a look with Hoshi before answering her.
“I saw it when I walked into the room. I don’t know why you were hiding it in the first place. This isn’t the academy, you know.”
"BECAUSE I WAS," was her all-too-intelligent reply, and she ended up pouting a bit at how LAME that sounded. The truth was that she'd somehow morphed into one of those obsessive dog owners, maybe the kind of boring old lady who kept her dog in her handbag. It worried her, even though she didn't own a hand-bag. It was embarrassing, and yet she didn't know how else to be now that she had such a great little dog. But there was no way she could explain that to Minato.
A second or two passed before Kushina narrowed her eyes in the direction of the kitchen. "…Are you drinking milk from the carton again?! That's so gross. I have to drink from that carton too you know!"
Minato sighed at her response, truly not expecting more of an answer than that, and shook his head. So she was a little obsessive with her dog. It was to be expected, even he had grown a bit of a soft spot for her with all the following she had been doing. It was nice having Hoshi around, it made their house feel a little more like a home. But it was her second outburst that had caught him off guard.
“And if I am?” he answered as he took another sip. “It’s not as though you and I don’t share a house, a shower and a bed already?
Kushina knew he was. She could hear from his tone. "Not the same," she informed him before getting up and walking into the kitchen. She pointed her finger at the carton of milk, or rather the person who was abusing it, accusingly and dramatically. "Aha!" she said, then made her way to intercept the milk carton before it made its way to Minato's lips again, a smile on her face despite everything. It wasn't often Minato did something against the rules and she liked to call him on it when he did.
“May I help you?“ he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her sudden appearance as he made for another sip. Knowing Kushina, which he did all too well, he could tell what the extra purpose in her step was for, and he simply lifted the carton out of her reach when she made a grab for it. “Hey!”
"Stop abusing our height difference and give over the milk before it spills!" Kushina "demanded" (this term can only be used loosely considering she was laughing) while trying to climb up Minato. He wasn't an easy object to climb. Kushina almost preferred trees.
“Well if you would stop molesting me for five seconds…” he laughed as he slid an arm around her. He wasn’t fighting or resisting, merely making sure that she wouldn’t bust her head open on the kitchen floor as he kept the carton just out of her reach. In reality, the height difference wasn’t much but he was still going to work it to his advantage.
"I'll molest you whenever I want and you'll like it," she said, winking and wrapping one of her grabby-hands around his neck while the other still tried to grab the milk half-heartedly.
“Oh, is that so?” he said, his voice lowering just slightly as he looked back at her though half lidded eyes. Thinking back, he never would have imagined that the two of them would end up where they were now. He, the child prodigy and victim of the one sided rivalry of her, the obnoxious, loud knuckle head of a kunoichi who could never back down from a challenge. Never in his life did he think that he would have fallen for someone like Uzumaki Kushina, but when he did…he fell hard. These thoughts swimming though his head, he hardly even noticed as his arm involuntarily lowering behind him as he set the carton down on the counter.
The milk was saved but she wasn't done here, yet. "Mm-hmm… Not much else you're good for," she teased, strangely happy to be in this position with Minato. She wasn't sure how it had happened, this thing in the kitchen with the milk or the two of them in general, but what she'd just said was a lie. Minato was good for plenty of things, including making her happier than she'd ever been, and she was glad to have realized it - glad to have given him a chance and glad to have given in.
Finally her other hand stopped trying to grab the milk and joined the other behind Minato's neck as she kissed him on the check near his ear, a place that was conveniently close due to their earlier struggle.
“Hey, I take offense to that,” he managed, failing to sound offended at all as his other hand finally slid around her back. One strong and swift movement later, he adjusted their position, his arms fully supporting her weight in front of him as she held onto his neck. The feeling of her lips brushing against his skin made another small smile tug against the corners of his mouth as leaned into her touch, breathing in the sweet scent of her red hair and enjoying the affectionate side that only a handful of people ever saw.
Kushina paused, narrowing her eyebrows and adjusting her head so that she was looking Minato in the eye. "Enough offense to lift me up in the air?" She moved her legs slightly, trying to have her feet touch the floor but not finding it. On one hand, being held had its advantages, but on the other, it meant that she was being held up and not on the ground anymore, which was annoying. Kushina knocked her forehead gently against Minato's. "Put me back down."
“You’re hardly in the air…“ he chuckled into her head before she moved away. He blinked, once again, as she knocked her forehead to his. Gentle or not, a knock to forehead was enough to bring anyone out of a daze. “No, I don’t think I will,” he responded with a small smirk looking up at unfocused eyes. “You look like a Cyclops.”
"Eurgh, it's harder to control a head-butt when your feet aren't anchored somewhere," said Kushina as she blinked and squinted her eyes (yes, at the same time). "You will too! And what the heck are you talking about, a Cyclops?!" She was tempted to do something again but since the knock to the head idea hadn't worked…
“You say this as if I haven’t been hit in the head a few times,” he smiled, not bothering to let go of her or even move from his position. “And from that angle, you look like you have one eye. Haven’t you’ve ever noticed that?”
Kushina made a funny face, more confused than annoyed. "What? No! I have a Cyclops angle?! And you never told me? What the hell, Minato, and seriously you can put me down annny time now."
With a helpless sigh, he let go of her before turning back to his milk carton. “You really are dense sometimes, love.”
Kushina pouted her lip and narrowed her eyebrows, elbowing Minato in the side and snagging the milk before he could abuse it any further. "Hey. You're the one that called me cyclopic in the middle of a perfectly good Moment." The capital M was, of course, apparent from her tone of voice.
Minato blinked at the empty space that was once occupied by his carton before dropping his hand and looking at her helplessly. “Don’t think so much into it,” he said, pulling her back towards him and wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “And who said we can’t continue the good Moment?”
"I may be romance-impaired, but that doesn't give you the excuse to call me whatever you like. Whatever Moment we had is ruined now!" She paused in her lecture, though, and after a moment relaxed enough to set the milk down again and rest her hands at Minato's hips. His skin just above his sweatpants was a bit chilled. She looked up, a teasing look in her eyes, and said, "Aren't you cold? Geez, put a damn shirt on, it's not like anyone wants to see all this, anyway." She gestured with one hand to his… er, rather toned and definitely not unappreciated at all torso.
He flinched for a moment, wincing at the touch of cold hands against his skin. “Ah! Or maybe it’s just you!” he retorted, letting gentle hands slide down her arms before wrapping around her wrists. A soft expression washed over his face as he coaxed her cold hands around his waist before gliding his hands back up her arms once more and around her form, holding her close. He let his eyes slip closed as his head fell, his lips hovering just above her ear as he whispered softly, “Keep me warm?”
"Hmm…? God, do I have to do everything? Keep me warm, Kushina. Feed the dog, Kushina. Bow to my every whim…." Her voice softened with every sentence she spoke - it was hard to even tease him properly at times like this. Mostly she just wanted to do exactly as he said and maybe a bit more, recruiting the help of the blankets of their bed, maybe.
"Well, fine, then," she finally said, adjusting her head so that they were eye to eye and smiling. Her hands moved up and down his back and sides in an attempt to "warm" him. "How's this?" she whispered before kissing him. If that didn't work, she didn't know what would.
He smiled against her lips, wanting ever so much to roll his eyes but fighting back the temptation. So helpless, so ignorant, taking everything so literally and above all missing the message that was teetering just below the surface. “I was hoping more along the lines of something that involved me, you and a big pile of blankets in the bedroom, but if you WANT to take everything I say so literally then I guess this will just have to do…”, he teased.
Kushina abruptly pulled away and looked at him with wide, annoyed eyes. "Why the hell didn't you say that, then?" she asked loudly, and in one fluid motion she was pulling Minato by the wrist straight to their bedroom, muttering about the annoyingness of the entire situation all the way and not stopping until she flung Minato vaguely in the same direction as the bed, hoping he would land there somehow, and jumped in after, half on top of him and bringing a blanket along with him so that they were both covered. "There," she said, pleased. One eyebrow was raised as if daring him to protest anything about this new arrangement, which was obviously perfect and did not warrant further complaint.
There was no protest on his part other than two very wide eyes as he was practically thrown on his own bed. Before he could comprehend what was happening, Kushina dove in after him in a pile of blankets and flailing limbs. There was a battle of sorts, involving a particularly smothering blanket and what he thought was Kushina’s foot, before everything finally settled. When he poked his head out of the blanket, he found himself upside down at the foot of his bed looking rather disheveled. “What in the hell just happened?”
Kushina rolled her eyes. "What do you think? Consider your whims catered to." Realizing where he was in relation to her, she smirked. "But come over this way first."
He blinked, twice, before finally letting his weight shift over to one side and falling over. “I can’t help but feel that I just lost some sort of battle,” he said, almost laughing, as he shuffled to where she was and got under the blankets. “And if that’s the case, it doesn’t count as a win for you.”
"I don't know about that, it feels like I've won something here," Kushina said, wrapping herself around him and smiling mischievously. "You realize that if you had just put a shirt on in the first place there wouldn't have been any need for any of this, yes? Not that I'm complaining, and you shouldn't either."
“I’m not complaining,” he said softly, letting her get comfortable as he wrapped a blanket around both of them. A very small sigh escaped him as he draped an arm around her shoulder, one hand lacing it’s fingers through Kushina’s hair while the other fiddled with a small silver ring somewhere out of her line of sight. “…Kushina?”
Kushina occupied herself with running a single finger across and around Minato's chest, drawing spirals and circles. She raised her head again slightly and smiled as she met Minato's eyes. "Hmm?"
Minato looked down at her and felt his heart stop. This was it. There was no more room for procrastination, no more silly or ridiculous excuses, no more nerves or anxiety, no more room for fear. That ring had been sitting in his pocket for over seventeen years and it was about time for it to fulfill it’s purpose. Slowly, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers in an almost antagonizingly soft kiss before just barely pulling back, far enough to look at her properly, but close enough to feel the heat seeping from her face. Intense blue eyes met hers as be breathed the most important question he would ever ask in his life. “…Will you marry me?”
Kushina thought that maybe after having that question reach her ears he heart had stopped. She certainly froze, not breathing for several seconds, only blinking. Her mouth opened, but closed again, and her eyes felt prickly. She wasn't about to cry, though. No self-respecting person would, in this situation, or so she believed.
Shaking her head in astonishment, she finally managed to say in a voice slightly higher than normal, "You're not joking, are you? You're serious? Completely serious?"
Minato merely smiled as he took her left hand in his and slipped the small, delicate silver loop on her finger, all the while never taking his eyes off of hers. “As a heart attack…”
She watched him slide the ring on, saw the ring, saw that warm look in his eyes… and yet she still couldn't believe it. "But… you said… n-now wasn't…" He'd reduced her to stuttering, oh god she wanted to go hide. This whole thing was so good-bad - good because, well, proposal. From Minato! But bad because of how she was turning into an absolute wreck over the very idea of it.
He felt a salty sting threaten in behind his own eyes as he held his gaze true. He could see it all, feel it all, the walls that she liked to build up crumbling before his very eyes. He kept his voice low, fearing it would crack if he were to raise it any higher. “I’ve said a lot of things when all I should have said was that…” He stopped momentarily, completely surprised at how much this felt as though it were the first time he were confessing to her again, “…I love you, Kushina. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Kushina bit her lip but that didn't help matters. The waterworks were going to be coming eventually. To distract herself momentarily, she moved herself so that she was sitting up, then lifted one leg up and over Minato so that she was straddling his waist and then rested each of her arms on either side of his head. She was still biting her lip, but was afraid that everything that she wanted to say was on her face already. He knew her. He could guess what she was feeling. And she knew him. She knew that they were probably feeling the same right now - like they were the edge of a precipice about to jump down into unknown waters headfirst, clinging to each other for dear life.
"Yes," she whispered, and repeated it. "Yes." Yes, I love you too. Yes, I will marry you. Yes. Forever yes.
A single tear dropped from Kushina's eye and landed somewhere on Minato's cheek. She buried her hands in his hair and lowered her mouth to his for a kiss - one that curiously reminded her of hitting cool water after a long, long fall.
He knew what her answer was going to be. He knew she loved him and he knew that even had he never asked, she would have remained at his side. But with her kiss was a feeling that Minato couldn’t describe as anything but relief. Not bothering to wipe her tear from his skin, he reached up, settling a single finger under her chin as he kissed her back. After a few very long moments, he pulled away, wiping the wake of her tears as he did so. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait so long.”
Kushina smiled and shook her head. "Oh shut up, you know I'm renowned for my patience… it's fine. It's all good." She raised her hand and stared at the ring on her finger. "I like this. It's not god-awful like most engagement rings out there."
She raised the hand with the ring and wiped her eyes as best she could with it, laughing slightly. "This is so cool. Minato… we're… we're really…" She still couldn't say it. Maybe someday.
“Engaged?” he finished for her with a smile on his face as he let his fingers glide over her ring finger. “Can’t wait to tell Naruto.”
"Yeah. That. Haha…" She was grinning in earnest now, probably looked like a fool, with all the grinning and laughing and crying and smiling she was doing, but it was okay. And… Naruto. What would he think? Kushina hoped he'd be delighted, and it was pretty much a certainty that he'd attend the wedding, especially so if there was cake involved. Kushina made a mental note to ask their son what his favorite cake was.
"Naruto will flip out," she replied after some consideration. "He can be my best man!"
Minato could do nothing but smile back in return. He made sure to leave out the detail of already approaching Naruto with the idea, not to mention the fact that he did, indeed ‘freak out‘ as she had put it. But considering the way those two did like to flail at each other, he was sure that Naruto would be genuinely surprised anyway and not give that little tidbit of information away. “W-Well wait a minute,” he managed as his eyebrow quirked. “I want Naruto to be MY best man.”
Kushina blinked, and rolled off of Minato because frankly, it had been getting a little uncomfortable lying like that. "No way. He'll be MINE. I called him first! You can have Kakashi or something." She waved her hand dismissively as if this was only too obvious.
He opened his mouth to argue back, only for him to shut it once more. When he thought about it, it really was a good idea. But there were other times to think of all the technicalities. Right now, he just wanted to bask in the afterglow of having finally asked her to be his wife. “How about,” he began, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer and kissing her forehead, “…we talk about it later. Right now…all I want is you.”
the end
What: A typical day at home… that turns into something rather untypical.
When: Tonight! Yes. Tonight sounds good.
Where: At home? I said that already.
Why: Kushina and Minato, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes a baby and the Kyuubi, and then comes… GUESS YOU GUYS! GUESS. What comes next? :D
Rated like. PG. Or if you'd like, a really, really, really light NC-17. :|
It was later in the evening when the bathroom door finally opened, steam billowing out from within as a figure stepped out. Clad in nothing but a pair of old sweatpants, Minato ran a towel through his wet hair. It felt good to wash away the stress of a long day away with a nice hot shower. Pulling his towel off of his head, he looked around the room to find a pair of small eyes staring at him. Hoshi sat on the bed, wagging her small tail and staring unblinking at the man in front of her. Minato raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Heh, come on…”, he said draping his towel over his bare shoulders and walking out of the room.
Meanwhile, Kushina sat in the living room, apparently reading a scroll of jutsus, but if one looked close enough, one might notice the latest issue of K9 Magazine was actually tucked inside it. Currently she was engrossed in an article about potty-training puppies, convinced that it would be a breeze to teach Hoshi how to use the toilet and even wash her paws afterwards! She had heard the shower stop not so long ago but paid it no mind. When Minato finally walked in, she looked up from her reading and smirked.
"Your hair's flat," she stated. Kushina secretly liked just-out-from-the-shower!Minato. More than she liked Minato-at-just-about-any-other-time, even.
“Hmm,” was all he responded with as he ran a hand through his hair. Little did she know of the chakra he was currently using to draw whatever water that was left in his hair to his fingertips. Hoshi still hot on his heels, he flicked the remaining water at her before disappearing into the kitchen with a smirk on his face.
Kushina, being an elite kunoichi, had no problem raising the scroll over her face to protect herself from the torrential downpour. Unfortunately, this meant that the rather old and valuable scroll got wet, an outcome that hadn't quite occurred to her.
"…shit. MINATO. You got the scroll wet, look at it!" Looking at it herself, she realized it wasn't that bad, but it was the principle of the matter!
“Should have risked your doggie magazine instead then, huh?” he chuckled as he walked over to the fridge and dug around. Now everyone had a bad habit or two, and one of Minato’s just happened to be drinking milk from the carton. The problem was whether or not the milk was good or not. After a proper inspection of the expiration date, he closed the refrigerator door and opened the carton.
"You shouldn't have risked either of them. OR my face," Kushina complained, then paused. "….wait. How did you know about the magazine?!" She could feel the blood rushing to her face and was glad Minato wasn't in the same room as her… yet. He was sure to comment on her reddening face and be annoying about it.
He merely smiled to himself as he leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping on his milk carton and knowing that he was getting on her nerves. She was so testy, she always had been, and he found it oh so amusing. He shared a look with Hoshi before answering her.
“I saw it when I walked into the room. I don’t know why you were hiding it in the first place. This isn’t the academy, you know.”
"BECAUSE I WAS," was her all-too-intelligent reply, and she ended up pouting a bit at how LAME that sounded. The truth was that she'd somehow morphed into one of those obsessive dog owners, maybe the kind of boring old lady who kept her dog in her handbag. It worried her, even though she didn't own a hand-bag. It was embarrassing, and yet she didn't know how else to be now that she had such a great little dog. But there was no way she could explain that to Minato.
A second or two passed before Kushina narrowed her eyes in the direction of the kitchen. "…Are you drinking milk from the carton again?! That's so gross. I have to drink from that carton too you know!"
Minato sighed at her response, truly not expecting more of an answer than that, and shook his head. So she was a little obsessive with her dog. It was to be expected, even he had grown a bit of a soft spot for her with all the following she had been doing. It was nice having Hoshi around, it made their house feel a little more like a home. But it was her second outburst that had caught him off guard.
“And if I am?” he answered as he took another sip. “It’s not as though you and I don’t share a house, a shower and a bed already?
Kushina knew he was. She could hear from his tone. "Not the same," she informed him before getting up and walking into the kitchen. She pointed her finger at the carton of milk, or rather the person who was abusing it, accusingly and dramatically. "Aha!" she said, then made her way to intercept the milk carton before it made its way to Minato's lips again, a smile on her face despite everything. It wasn't often Minato did something against the rules and she liked to call him on it when he did.
“May I help you?“ he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her sudden appearance as he made for another sip. Knowing Kushina, which he did all too well, he could tell what the extra purpose in her step was for, and he simply lifted the carton out of her reach when she made a grab for it. “Hey!”
"Stop abusing our height difference and give over the milk before it spills!" Kushina "demanded" (this term can only be used loosely considering she was laughing) while trying to climb up Minato. He wasn't an easy object to climb. Kushina almost preferred trees.
“Well if you would stop molesting me for five seconds…” he laughed as he slid an arm around her. He wasn’t fighting or resisting, merely making sure that she wouldn’t bust her head open on the kitchen floor as he kept the carton just out of her reach. In reality, the height difference wasn’t much but he was still going to work it to his advantage.
"I'll molest you whenever I want and you'll like it," she said, winking and wrapping one of her grabby-hands around his neck while the other still tried to grab the milk half-heartedly.
“Oh, is that so?” he said, his voice lowering just slightly as he looked back at her though half lidded eyes. Thinking back, he never would have imagined that the two of them would end up where they were now. He, the child prodigy and victim of the one sided rivalry of her, the obnoxious, loud knuckle head of a kunoichi who could never back down from a challenge. Never in his life did he think that he would have fallen for someone like Uzumaki Kushina, but when he did…he fell hard. These thoughts swimming though his head, he hardly even noticed as his arm involuntarily lowering behind him as he set the carton down on the counter.
The milk was saved but she wasn't done here, yet. "Mm-hmm… Not much else you're good for," she teased, strangely happy to be in this position with Minato. She wasn't sure how it had happened, this thing in the kitchen with the milk or the two of them in general, but what she'd just said was a lie. Minato was good for plenty of things, including making her happier than she'd ever been, and she was glad to have realized it - glad to have given him a chance and glad to have given in.
Finally her other hand stopped trying to grab the milk and joined the other behind Minato's neck as she kissed him on the check near his ear, a place that was conveniently close due to their earlier struggle.
“Hey, I take offense to that,” he managed, failing to sound offended at all as his other hand finally slid around her back. One strong and swift movement later, he adjusted their position, his arms fully supporting her weight in front of him as she held onto his neck. The feeling of her lips brushing against his skin made another small smile tug against the corners of his mouth as leaned into her touch, breathing in the sweet scent of her red hair and enjoying the affectionate side that only a handful of people ever saw.
Kushina paused, narrowing her eyebrows and adjusting her head so that she was looking Minato in the eye. "Enough offense to lift me up in the air?" She moved her legs slightly, trying to have her feet touch the floor but not finding it. On one hand, being held had its advantages, but on the other, it meant that she was being held up and not on the ground anymore, which was annoying. Kushina knocked her forehead gently against Minato's. "Put me back down."
“You’re hardly in the air…“ he chuckled into her head before she moved away. He blinked, once again, as she knocked her forehead to his. Gentle or not, a knock to forehead was enough to bring anyone out of a daze. “No, I don’t think I will,” he responded with a small smirk looking up at unfocused eyes. “You look like a Cyclops.”
"Eurgh, it's harder to control a head-butt when your feet aren't anchored somewhere," said Kushina as she blinked and squinted her eyes (yes, at the same time). "You will too! And what the heck are you talking about, a Cyclops?!" She was tempted to do something again but since the knock to the head idea hadn't worked…
“You say this as if I haven’t been hit in the head a few times,” he smiled, not bothering to let go of her or even move from his position. “And from that angle, you look like you have one eye. Haven’t you’ve ever noticed that?”
Kushina made a funny face, more confused than annoyed. "What? No! I have a Cyclops angle?! And you never told me? What the hell, Minato, and seriously you can put me down annny time now."
With a helpless sigh, he let go of her before turning back to his milk carton. “You really are dense sometimes, love.”
Kushina pouted her lip and narrowed her eyebrows, elbowing Minato in the side and snagging the milk before he could abuse it any further. "Hey. You're the one that called me cyclopic in the middle of a perfectly good Moment." The capital M was, of course, apparent from her tone of voice.
Minato blinked at the empty space that was once occupied by his carton before dropping his hand and looking at her helplessly. “Don’t think so much into it,” he said, pulling her back towards him and wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “And who said we can’t continue the good Moment?”
"I may be romance-impaired, but that doesn't give you the excuse to call me whatever you like. Whatever Moment we had is ruined now!" She paused in her lecture, though, and after a moment relaxed enough to set the milk down again and rest her hands at Minato's hips. His skin just above his sweatpants was a bit chilled. She looked up, a teasing look in her eyes, and said, "Aren't you cold? Geez, put a damn shirt on, it's not like anyone wants to see all this, anyway." She gestured with one hand to his… er, rather toned and definitely not unappreciated at all torso.
He flinched for a moment, wincing at the touch of cold hands against his skin. “Ah! Or maybe it’s just you!” he retorted, letting gentle hands slide down her arms before wrapping around her wrists. A soft expression washed over his face as he coaxed her cold hands around his waist before gliding his hands back up her arms once more and around her form, holding her close. He let his eyes slip closed as his head fell, his lips hovering just above her ear as he whispered softly, “Keep me warm?”
"Hmm…? God, do I have to do everything? Keep me warm, Kushina. Feed the dog, Kushina. Bow to my every whim…." Her voice softened with every sentence she spoke - it was hard to even tease him properly at times like this. Mostly she just wanted to do exactly as he said and maybe a bit more, recruiting the help of the blankets of their bed, maybe.
"Well, fine, then," she finally said, adjusting her head so that they were eye to eye and smiling. Her hands moved up and down his back and sides in an attempt to "warm" him. "How's this?" she whispered before kissing him. If that didn't work, she didn't know what would.
He smiled against her lips, wanting ever so much to roll his eyes but fighting back the temptation. So helpless, so ignorant, taking everything so literally and above all missing the message that was teetering just below the surface. “I was hoping more along the lines of something that involved me, you and a big pile of blankets in the bedroom, but if you WANT to take everything I say so literally then I guess this will just have to do…”, he teased.
Kushina abruptly pulled away and looked at him with wide, annoyed eyes. "Why the hell didn't you say that, then?" she asked loudly, and in one fluid motion she was pulling Minato by the wrist straight to their bedroom, muttering about the annoyingness of the entire situation all the way and not stopping until she flung Minato vaguely in the same direction as the bed, hoping he would land there somehow, and jumped in after, half on top of him and bringing a blanket along with him so that they were both covered. "There," she said, pleased. One eyebrow was raised as if daring him to protest anything about this new arrangement, which was obviously perfect and did not warrant further complaint.
There was no protest on his part other than two very wide eyes as he was practically thrown on his own bed. Before he could comprehend what was happening, Kushina dove in after him in a pile of blankets and flailing limbs. There was a battle of sorts, involving a particularly smothering blanket and what he thought was Kushina’s foot, before everything finally settled. When he poked his head out of the blanket, he found himself upside down at the foot of his bed looking rather disheveled. “What in the hell just happened?”
Kushina rolled her eyes. "What do you think? Consider your whims catered to." Realizing where he was in relation to her, she smirked. "But come over this way first."
He blinked, twice, before finally letting his weight shift over to one side and falling over. “I can’t help but feel that I just lost some sort of battle,” he said, almost laughing, as he shuffled to where she was and got under the blankets. “And if that’s the case, it doesn’t count as a win for you.”
"I don't know about that, it feels like I've won something here," Kushina said, wrapping herself around him and smiling mischievously. "You realize that if you had just put a shirt on in the first place there wouldn't have been any need for any of this, yes? Not that I'm complaining, and you shouldn't either."
“I’m not complaining,” he said softly, letting her get comfortable as he wrapped a blanket around both of them. A very small sigh escaped him as he draped an arm around her shoulder, one hand lacing it’s fingers through Kushina’s hair while the other fiddled with a small silver ring somewhere out of her line of sight. “…Kushina?”
Kushina occupied herself with running a single finger across and around Minato's chest, drawing spirals and circles. She raised her head again slightly and smiled as she met Minato's eyes. "Hmm?"
Minato looked down at her and felt his heart stop. This was it. There was no more room for procrastination, no more silly or ridiculous excuses, no more nerves or anxiety, no more room for fear. That ring had been sitting in his pocket for over seventeen years and it was about time for it to fulfill it’s purpose. Slowly, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers in an almost antagonizingly soft kiss before just barely pulling back, far enough to look at her properly, but close enough to feel the heat seeping from her face. Intense blue eyes met hers as be breathed the most important question he would ever ask in his life. “…Will you marry me?”
Kushina thought that maybe after having that question reach her ears he heart had stopped. She certainly froze, not breathing for several seconds, only blinking. Her mouth opened, but closed again, and her eyes felt prickly. She wasn't about to cry, though. No self-respecting person would, in this situation, or so she believed.
Shaking her head in astonishment, she finally managed to say in a voice slightly higher than normal, "You're not joking, are you? You're serious? Completely serious?"
Minato merely smiled as he took her left hand in his and slipped the small, delicate silver loop on her finger, all the while never taking his eyes off of hers. “As a heart attack…”
She watched him slide the ring on, saw the ring, saw that warm look in his eyes… and yet she still couldn't believe it. "But… you said… n-now wasn't…" He'd reduced her to stuttering, oh god she wanted to go hide. This whole thing was so good-bad - good because, well, proposal. From Minato! But bad because of how she was turning into an absolute wreck over the very idea of it.
He felt a salty sting threaten in behind his own eyes as he held his gaze true. He could see it all, feel it all, the walls that she liked to build up crumbling before his very eyes. He kept his voice low, fearing it would crack if he were to raise it any higher. “I’ve said a lot of things when all I should have said was that…” He stopped momentarily, completely surprised at how much this felt as though it were the first time he were confessing to her again, “…I love you, Kushina. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Kushina bit her lip but that didn't help matters. The waterworks were going to be coming eventually. To distract herself momentarily, she moved herself so that she was sitting up, then lifted one leg up and over Minato so that she was straddling his waist and then rested each of her arms on either side of his head. She was still biting her lip, but was afraid that everything that she wanted to say was on her face already. He knew her. He could guess what she was feeling. And she knew him. She knew that they were probably feeling the same right now - like they were the edge of a precipice about to jump down into unknown waters headfirst, clinging to each other for dear life.
"Yes," she whispered, and repeated it. "Yes." Yes, I love you too. Yes, I will marry you. Yes. Forever yes.
A single tear dropped from Kushina's eye and landed somewhere on Minato's cheek. She buried her hands in his hair and lowered her mouth to his for a kiss - one that curiously reminded her of hitting cool water after a long, long fall.
He knew what her answer was going to be. He knew she loved him and he knew that even had he never asked, she would have remained at his side. But with her kiss was a feeling that Minato couldn’t describe as anything but relief. Not bothering to wipe her tear from his skin, he reached up, settling a single finger under her chin as he kissed her back. After a few very long moments, he pulled away, wiping the wake of her tears as he did so. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait so long.”
Kushina smiled and shook her head. "Oh shut up, you know I'm renowned for my patience… it's fine. It's all good." She raised her hand and stared at the ring on her finger. "I like this. It's not god-awful like most engagement rings out there."
She raised the hand with the ring and wiped her eyes as best she could with it, laughing slightly. "This is so cool. Minato… we're… we're really…" She still couldn't say it. Maybe someday.
“Engaged?” he finished for her with a smile on his face as he let his fingers glide over her ring finger. “Can’t wait to tell Naruto.”
"Yeah. That. Haha…" She was grinning in earnest now, probably looked like a fool, with all the grinning and laughing and crying and smiling she was doing, but it was okay. And… Naruto. What would he think? Kushina hoped he'd be delighted, and it was pretty much a certainty that he'd attend the wedding, especially so if there was cake involved. Kushina made a mental note to ask their son what his favorite cake was.
"Naruto will flip out," she replied after some consideration. "He can be my best man!"
Minato could do nothing but smile back in return. He made sure to leave out the detail of already approaching Naruto with the idea, not to mention the fact that he did, indeed ‘freak out‘ as she had put it. But considering the way those two did like to flail at each other, he was sure that Naruto would be genuinely surprised anyway and not give that little tidbit of information away. “W-Well wait a minute,” he managed as his eyebrow quirked. “I want Naruto to be MY best man.”
Kushina blinked, and rolled off of Minato because frankly, it had been getting a little uncomfortable lying like that. "No way. He'll be MINE. I called him first! You can have Kakashi or something." She waved her hand dismissively as if this was only too obvious.
He opened his mouth to argue back, only for him to shut it once more. When he thought about it, it really was a good idea. But there were other times to think of all the technicalities. Right now, he just wanted to bask in the afterglow of having finally asked her to be his wife. “How about,” he began, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer and kissing her forehead, “…we talk about it later. Right now…all I want is you.”
the end