"This really isn't a smart idea." Minato muses to himself ever-so-wisely, his palm still resting on his chin and a look of deep thought wrestling his features.
His study watches him from across the table with a peering eye and deadpans, "No, it really isn't. In fact, I really couldn't imagine a more disgraceful and down-right shameful situation for the Hokage to be placed in."
Minato waves off this comment and continues to concentrate his potent stare on his lovely wife, who by all means looked just as ready to whallop him as the first day he had met her. Pursing his lips he comes to the conclusion that disagreeing is the safest way to go and shakes his head flatly.
But, as everyone present knew he would, he looks up and takes the smallest of glances into her daring eyes and sighs, making it all to obvious that he's yet again given in, "Alright, I'll do it."
He pauses. "On one condition."
She seems intrigued by this prospect, and extends her mouth to form a perfectly formed Cheshire cat grin. "What are the terms?"
He scratches his head and tries by all means to avoid the face-palm of Kakashi in his periphery vision and smirks while extending his hand. "I win, you go cold-turkey for a month."
Kushina balks at his proposal, "What?"
"You heard me. No pickles mixed with icecream mixed with fish mixed with whatever the hell else for one whole month."
She lets her mouth gape, but with an encouraging nudge to her arm from her husbands female pupil on her left, she grudgingly thrusts out her hand and grasps his in a bone-crushing shake, both maliciously and eagerly in a pregnant hormone-overload, "I win, which I will, you change the babies diapers for the first month without complaining."
"Deal."
Minato smiles devilishly, and Kushina can't help but have a second of fret and a moment of potent doubt strike her iron-resolve. These thoughts, of course, are instantly shoved to the back of her mind when the aroma of ramen wafts in and she realises that it is the one thing in her life that can truly complete her.
Kakashi watches her "lightbulb" moment, and with his feet propped on the edge of the table and his sight only brimming over the outline of the latest book by his favourite perverted author, he rationally sums up that this is something he can't miss; so as Rin carries over the two full platters of brightly coloured bowls of steaming ramen, he sits up and lifts his hand in preparation for the beginning of what could possibly be the end.
Kushina cracks and splinters the wooden edge of the table with her grip, and with greedy eyes, waits for the beginning signal. The very instant Kakashi's hand falls and he -regretfully, he soon realises- declares "Start!" they both dive in, chopsticks clicking and mouths at the ready.
It's about half-way through the contest and Minato's on his eighth or so bowl that he finally raises his eyes up to see that she is completely blowing him out of the water. It's then that he instantly hollers a time-out and gestures a "T" with his hands, that she looks up at him with her mouth stuffed with noodles and grumbled, "Whaft, yoou tof chikfen?"
Yes, that was his wife alright.
He shakes his head and motions to Kakashi that he'll be right back, all within seconds prior to disappearing out the room at an unmatchable speed. The group hears faint cursing and loud thumps form her and her husbands room, but when he flies past and resumes his seat, he has a look of determination so fierce that Kushiana halfly reminises why she married the man in the first place.
Neither his competitor nor the judges knew what transpired in his slight absence, and for this Minato's grateful, in fact, it just about gave him courage to up the stakes.
"Well, you game or what?" He knows this isn't really a question, more of a taunt. When you insinuate a challenge with a pregnant woman, you either have to be clinically insane or guaranteed to win, as Minato has learned time and time again throughout her eight months of 1:00 am cries for tuna.
Kushina glares menacingly and pounds her fists on the table, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"You ready to be whipped?"
And so, the ridiculous bet elevates to a whole new level of stupidity, and Kakashi and Rin firm their tenacities, both rightfully representing the opposing forces.
Her, pumping her fists for the ultimate demise of her teacher to her red-haired idol; and him -in an attempt to preserve his mentors masculinity from suffering the degrading blow of singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little star" to his baby whenever in public- blandly cheering for Minato.
"So we doing this or what?!" She eagerly yells, and at the second drop of hand -from Rin this time- the fight resumes in full capacity.
She slurs the noodles up in her mouth, eating at an inhuman pace, digging into her ceramic bowl, jabbing the ramen, just about to finish the competition…
When she notices he already done.
The noodles pour in streams out of her mouth and she jabs an accusing finger at his face, "You cheated!"
He flashes his perfectly lined up teeth and tilts his head to the side, "Judges?"
There's no response from Rin, as she's already slumped in a chair doubting the reality and fabric of humanity, and Kakashi has his eyes pressed open with words being pushed out as if he hadn't quite grasped them himself, "It was there," He gestures to the bowl incessively, "then it was gone."
Minato boasts proudly, "Yep, ate the whole damn thing."
She can't stretch out the words and string them together in an even mildly accurate sentence, so she decides to say nothing. This, naturally, doesn't stop him in the slightest.
"I won, didn't I? I'm pretty great, aren't I?"
He bobs his head from side to side in rhythm with whatever victory song he's humming in his head and, at their shock and disbelief, replies heartedly, "They don't call me Hokage for nothing!"
Then, as all their mouths drop to an even lower degree at the awe-defying presentation, Minato stands up and cheers as he parades around the kitchen.
Kushina's maternity pants billowing around his waist with the sheer magnitude of his epic dance moves.
A/N: Considering this was devised in half-an-hour and it is currently 6:00 am, I'd like to ask you to not question my sanity. Oh, and same disclaimer as ever.