Minato wakes up in an empty bed, to the smell of burning eggs. This is not a source of surprise; Kushina might, after all, be the worst cook the world has ever known. He stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing at his chin as he does. It itches.

"Possibly because you haven't shaved in four days," Kushina says, patting his cheek and smiling in a tolerant way at his foolishness.

"Right," he repeats stupidly, looking at Kushina with languid, droopy eyes. This is the way he is in the mornings, before his three cups of black, bitter coffee. He drinks it stone cold; Kushina pronounces it to be a vile habit, but there is an icy cup waiting for him on the rickety dining table anyway. He watches her as she moves around the tiny kitchen in her loose brown drawstring pants and white tunic. She isn't much of a morning person either, her hair hasn't been combed or dried and she has stains of egg-yolk on her hands, from when she cracked the shells open carelessly.

She isn't a graceful person by any standards. By ninja ones, she is considered a bumbling oaf. Fortunately, her lack of silent agility is more than made up for by her ridiculous chakra levels and the raw, vicious power behind her attacks. To him, though, she seems graceful. Maybe it is because his eyes are as familiar with her loping, awkward movements as they are with the curve of her bared calf, which flexes as she bends down to pick up a spoon; his eyes trace the river of her green vein in a practiced way. She hums, low and off-key. The tune has been pulled apart and put back together in crooked shapes.

She slaps an omelette onto his plate, still humming. He wonders what the world looks like through her eyes. Kushina never sees things the way anyone else does, it seems. He imagines that she must see in colours unknown and into dimensions undiscovered, into the past, present and the future with one glance; even the most mundane things must be distorted in weird ways, made wonderful by her own way of thinking. He thinks of fractals and illusions and invisible creatures.

He eyes her as she sits across from him, spooning porridge into her bowl. She is an unprepossessing creature; her still-damp hair is curling riotously over her ears and forehead, as it does when it is particularly humid, she has told him crossly. She looks thoughtful as she rustles the pages of the newspaper. He takes a bit of his omelette absently and nearly gags. Discreetly, he nudges the lid of the waste disposal open, and empties the contents of his plate into it.

"I saw that," Kushina says, eyes still on the newspaper.

"Oh," Minato says guiltily, pushing his chair a little further away from the table. He doesn't particularly want to find out the many ways by which a person can be dismembered using only a spoon, after all.

Kushina is in a mellow mood today, however. She just "Hmphs" and doesn't lift her eyes from the paper. Minato is a little indignant.

"Do you want to train today?" He asks loudly, getting up and making his chair scrape obnoxiously on the floor as he does.

"Not today, Minato," Kushina replies, looking the tiniest bit uncomfortable. Minato's annoyance grows.

"Alright then." He says, trying to sound gracefully accepting. He has a sneaking suspicion that he just sounds sulky instead.

An awkward silence grows as he looks at her bowed head. She has opened the windows, so he can make out the morning dew weighing down the leaves of the delicate creeper that clings to their wall and lets a respectable amount of sunlight through. The light has pooled on the crown of her head.

Her hair has been burnished golden, a deep molten honey colour that mingles and gradually gives way—as everything must—to Kushina's own rich auburn. Ordinarily, he would have gone near her and run his hands through her locks, marveling at their beauty. But this new Kushina, who avoids his eyes and prefers reading the paper—the paper!—to speaking to him, this new Kushina he cannot approach. He feels desolate.

Abruptly, he wonders what life will be like without her. It will be a life without burnt breakfasts and ramen cups strewing every surface and sunlit kitchens. It will be a life with no sleepy morning smiles and no scratchy 'Good morning's and no after-sex sex and no girl with hair the colour of the blazing sunset—

"I love you," he says, heart in his throat. He is an idiot. He should have told her before. Or maybe he shouldn't have, maybe she hasn't liked how fast they are going…

Seconds—or days or eons—pass in that cramped kitchen before Kushina raises her head from the paper and looks at him. She looks at him, in the way that she does, all wry and uncomfortable and secretly pleased.

"Okay," she says. And she is just his Kushina again, whatever has been bothering her isn't anymore, and they smile at each other like idiots for what seem like hours.

"Oh," she adds, pushing him gently out of the way to get to the sink, "I'm pregnant."

END

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