[Fanfiction]1sentence: Naruto: Namikaze Minato (4th Hokage) x Uzumaki Kushina
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Minato Namikaze (4th Hokage) × Kushina Uzumaki
Theme set: Delta
Rating: PG-13 to R-ish
Warning[s]: Spoilers for the identity of Naruto’s parents and the latest chapters. BE AMAZED AT MY PARENTHETICAL DASHES. *cackles*
1. Air
The first time they met, in the middle of a battlefield that reeked of blood and death, the tension and distrust in the air was a thick and intimidating wall between the two villages; ever the diplomat, Kushina broke it down by punching Minato in the face (subsequently breaking his nose) for “being fucking late.”
2. Apples
Minato loves Kushina’s hair - it was impossibly long and smooth, the color of rich, ripe autumn apples, and, as he found later (much, much later), when he held her close in his arms, her head tucked under his chin, it smelled just as sweet.
3. Beginning
“All stories must end,” she whispered to Minato in a weakened but lighthearted voice as she touched her newborn son’s smooth cheeks with bloodied hands, smearing them with dark red streaks, “and new ones will take their place.”
4. Bugs
Their enemy nins had called them pesky little things as they fought, underestimating them because of their youth and size, but in the end, the Cloud bastards were the ones who ended up pinned against the trees and wall and the ground, a morbid collection of bodies in display, a warning to those who would dare fight against them.
5. Coffee
Coffee goes everywhere when Jiraiya, noting the warm flush in the young Hokage’s cheeks as he watched his bride spar with Rin, casually asks him, a wicked, knowing leer in his eyes, “So, is she as energetic and creative in bed as she is when she’s fighting?”
6. Dark
For the past few months, Kushina would wake up in the middle of the night bathed in a cold sweat from dreams of implacable black eyes piercing through her soul, a nameless terror in her heart not even Minato’s touch could take away.
7. Despair
If there was one thing Minato was thankful for when Kushina died before him and at his own impending death and damnation, it was that he would not have to look into Kushina’s eyes and see the expression in them when he tells her what he had done their son.
8. Doors
Kushina thought she had thrown away the keys when she slammed the door to her heart shut; by the time she realized locks meant little against the Yellow Flash’s techniques, it was too late - he was already inside, and she could not send him away.
9. Drink
Over the years, Minato had learned not to imbibe too much alcoholic beverages when he was with Kushina, as the last time he did, Kushina ended with so much blackmail material on him he was her slave for half a year.
10. Duty
On his appointment as the Yondaime Hokage, the Sandaime told Minato that the village’s welfare is paramount over anything else; yet even as his village burns in the Kyuubi’s onslaught, whenever he looks at his wife and the unborn child within her, sometimes he cannot help but think how easily his priorities would change if she says the word (she never did).
11. Earth
As stupid as it sounded, Minato was sure heaven and earth moved the first time they kissed, but Kushina later explained - rather patiently, actually, considering her temper - that it only seemed that way because of the blood loss from his wounds; he had lost consciousness a heartbeat after, and Kushina was too shocked from the kiss to catch him when he fell.
12. End
Once they were young, and the future was theirs; now they were old, and as their lives comes to an end, the world around them burns.
13. Fall
Her coloring blended so well with the rich red-and-orange hues of autumn that he could never find her when they played hide and seek - he didn’t mind it much though; his turn would come in summer (unless, he teases, she decides to hide in a tomato patch and the farmers didn’t grow corn and sunflowers anymore).
14. Fire
More than her beauty, it was her passion for life and living that Minato loved the most - it radiated out from her like a beacon of light, guiding his way in the dark.
15. Flexible
Though he knew she was knowledgeable in this particular area thanks to her rather eclectic education, as he lay in their bed, sweaty, sticky, hot and oh so hard again from Kushina’s touch, he didn’t expect her to be Icha Icha Paradise incarnate (he really should have, though - Kushina helped Jiraiya edit the damn thing, and even came up with the title herself).
16. Flying
She may be a wing short of flying at times, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to soar - the winds are in her favor, after all.
17. Food
They’ve known each others’ quirks so well that by the time Kushina told him she loves him as much as meat loves salt, he didn’t find it offensive or weird at all; it was quite flattering, actually.
18. Foot
As he prepared to sleep another night in the couch at the living room after an argument gone awry with his wife, Minato consoled himself by thinking that at least he didn’t put his foot in his mouth in the council as often as he did with his wife (it wasn’t much of a consolation, though; it’s not like he could sleep with the council, and neither did he want too).
19. Graves
After the war, Kushina never swam in the ocean of her home again; she figured it would be kind of impolite if she did what she thought to be the equivalent of ‘frolicking’ in the watery graves of her family and friends.
20. Green
He really should have known not to let his guard down and think pregnancy would do curb Kushina’s love for pranks, Minato thought as he vigorously tried to rinse for the umpteenth time the green dye from his hair she’d somehow managed to sneak into his shampoo in between her throwing up and - dammit, if it doesn’t come off, he’d have to be stuck in dammed henge for a week.
21. Head
Minato likes to take every advantage he could get from being Hokage with Kushina when it comes to work, because when it comes to their personal lives and everything else, Kushina pretty much tops the living shit out of him.
22. Hollow
It was a hollow lie that he sealed the Kyuubi inside his son so the village would be saved; he did it so his son could have the power to make the son of a bitch who did this to them pay.
23. Honor
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Kushina snaps when he expressed his doubts about taking the honor of being the Hokage (after all, he was pretty much third choice after Orochimaru and Jiraiya), “you may not be the first choice for the position, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t the best.”
24. Hope
As their newborn son’s cry filled the room, loud and strong despite his forced, premature birth, their hearts were filled with such awe and joy that for a moment, amid the chaos and heartbreak, everything was perfect and at peace.
25. Light
Kushina insists that the light must be on when they make love not because she wants to see Minato in his full naked glory - that’s only a bonus - it’s because the last time they didn’t have the light on, Minato nearly poked her eye out with his elbow.
26. Lost
“This isn’t your place,” the redheaded woman who appeared out of nowhere tells Naruto, who had just woken up to find himself in a dark, dark place, “get up, get up, go back, your friends need you, your village needs you and I swear if you die like he did, I’m going to kick your ass!”
27. Metal
Their friends like to describe both of them as having nerves of steel, hearts of gold, and cast-iron stomachs.
28. New
As he found himself drenched and spluttering after Kushina suddenly plunged them (and their enemies) in deep, stinging salt sea water, Minato fervently wished that she would lose the habit of trying out new techniques in the middle of fights - or at least learn to warn him beforehand.
29. Old
“Well,” Kushina says with a laugh as she touches the encroaching gray hair on his once pure blonde head, a testament on just how stressful his job as Hokage was, “at least if this goes on, they’ll think you’re older and wiser than you really are.”
30. Peace
After several complaints have failed to produce any change, their neighbors have long given up hope of having a peaceful night, and resigned themselves to endure the rambunctious . . . activities of the Hokage and his wife.
31. Poison
Minato rarely lets Kushina pick out the food when they go out, because every time she does, she (spitefully, he thinks) orders some exotic, expensive food that she inexplicably likes and is immune from the ill effects of, like the fugu dish that had once left Minato confined in his room for three days, with most of the time his head in a bucket.
32. Pretty
When they were young, despite seeing his exceptional skills as a ninja, Kushina still found it hard to take Minato seriously, partly because when they were together, he was often mistaken as the girl.
33. Rain
He was wind, and she was water; together, they were the oncoming storm.
34. Regret
In the end, Minato found that there was little room in his heart for regret with what he had done with their child; pride at their son’s achievements had taken much of the space he had, and the knowledge that despite everything, they got some things right.
35. Roses
Kushina likes to compare teaching kids at the academy with growing roses: it takes a lot of effort and supervision to do it, and they can be prickly as hell, but it’s all worth it in the end when they grow up and bloom.
36. Secret
Minato tells people he got the impressive diagonal scar on the left side of his stomach from a nasty fight with a group of enemy nins; only Kushina and Obito know he got it after getting double-teamed by a pissed-off Billy goat that headbutted him in the groin and a kung-fu master of a cow that kicked the shit out of him.
37. Snakes
Minato and Kushina never really understood why Jiraiya was so close to Orochimaru - Minato always thought the man was rather disturbing, with his snake-like habits and appearance; Kushina declared him a creepy fucker the first time she saw him - but they understood why Jiraiya had to chase him when he ran off: one does not simply give up on friends, even when they make bad choices.
38. Snow
Minato dreads it every time it snows, not because he hates the cold, but because he has to be on his guard the whole day, knowing Kushina, Obito, and, sometimes even Rin and Jiraiya (and if he is so inclined and persuaded, Kakashi), are out there, hiding, waiting for the right moment to ambush him with snowballs.
39. Solid
The solid feel of Kushina standing behind him assures Minato that if he does fall, she’ll be there to catch him, and if he gets too arrogant, she was just at the right spot to kick his ass and knock him down.
40. Spring
With her short-cropped hair and loud attitude, Minato mistook Kushina as a boy the first time they met - that is, until he saw her bathing in the women’s-only onsen he had been forced to spy into with his sensei, who had conveniently disappeared when they were discovered and let Minato take the brunt of the beatings and the blame.
41. Stable
Kushina finds it faintly ironic (okay, maybe the term is downright cruel) that when they finally do plan ahead instead of rushing into things and decide to wait a year to conceive because they want things to ‘settle down’ first, the goddammed Kyuubi shows up at the end of their planned pregnancy to fuck their lives up.
42. Strange
She tries hard not to think about those things she’s been experiencing lately: the weird way her stomach clenches and flutters at the sight of Minato smiling at her, blue eyes dark with warmth and wanting, how her skin burns and shivers at the same time when he touches her - they are feelings she is not used to associate with her best friend (or anyone, for that matter), and she is unsure how to act on them, and so for the first time for a long, long while, she is uncomfortable in his presence.
43. Summer
Heavy with child, the heat of summer would have been unbearable for Kushina (despite being clad in the lightest and most comfortable yukata she could find), had it not been for kakigoori and hiyashi-chuuka, all prepared and served by her husband, whose rather slavish devotion to her needs either amused, irritated, or touched her, depending on her rather whimsical moods that came went as sudden as the season’s storms.
44. Taboo
Kushina has no qualms of taking advantage of other’s people’s discomfort around nudity if need be - especially when it has been proven 99.9% effective in distracting the hell out of their enemies; the only drawback she found was that it also distracted her team mates.
45. Ugly
Unsightly as they were, Kushina would never trade the scars on her body for anything; each of them was a memory made, a lesson learned - her history written in skin and blood and pain.
46. War
Kushina likes to think she has enormous self-control, but when she saw the empty bowl of salty ramen and the guilty, sated look on her husband’s face (who should have known better, after all it was his fault she was going through this health diet, his and his stupid remarks about her weight), something in her snapped and oh, it was so fucking ON.
47. Water
Once, lying on the bed together, Minato told her, with strange smile, that she was too much like her element, adapting effortlessly no matter what situation she was put in, quick to seep in until fills and drowns every crack and pore and would have gone on and on had not Kushina told him to just shut up and showed him just how adaptable she could really be.
48. Welcome
Well, he is his mother’s son, all right, Minato couldn’t help but think with a faint smile when his son greets him with a punch in the face when they meet at long, long last, just like Kushina did, all those years ago, in another war, in another time.
49. Winter
It is just like Kushina to have bad timing when she finally says yes to his marriage proposal after months of oscillating: they are the middle of a severe, impenetrable shrieking snowstorm that was predicted to last for days, leaving them stuck together in a room in an inn for a mission with very little heat other than the warmth of their bodies and - oh, oh.
50. Wood
This feels so very wrong, but Minato can’t help but let out a heated moan as Kushina thrusts hard into him, the wood-and-leather little contraption Jiraiya had given them as a wedding present hitting just the right, delicious spots, and with his wife’s calloused hands stroking his cock, he comes in a heartbeat, hands gripping the sheets tight, his flushed face pressed hard against pillows, panting and sated beyond his imagination.
Notes:
Kakigoori is a shaved ice flavored with sweet syrup or snow cone. In Japan, it comes in green tea flavor with an azuki (sweet red bean) topping. Hiyashi-chuuka are cold ramen noodles (information from About.com).
If you can guess where I got the "oncoming storm" bit, I ♥ you.