Ramen

Apparently the last day's insult didn't have the result Kushina expected. Minato – she was now calling him by his name inside her head and that was just sad – still gave smiles to everyone, including her. For some reason, that made her feel even angrier with herself, rather than ease her guilt. She had been cruel in her remarks regarding the boy, even if he was only trying to befriend her – why, she didn't know.

So she started to simply ignore him as an attempt to quiet down those annoying feelings she always got when he looked at her. Why did he do that, anyway? Whenever she turned around to catch him looking at her, he'd already be doing something else (damn, that boy was quick). He started looking so much it even made her wonder if there was something on her face and that's when she realized: he was looking at her hair.

Well, that explained some things. So that's what it was about. He was just like everybody else, always looking at her with those horrible faces and mentally – or verbally, most of the time – bullying her and trying to send her back to her destroyed home. Konoha was a horrible place to live in sometimes. But Kushina still liked it very much. It wasn't home yet, not at all, but it was a nice enough village with wonderful weather and pretty different buildings. Not everyone was terrible either, they were shy and afraid of her, but only her classmates – and sometimes the older ninjas in the Academy - acted as bullies. The older ones who knew her secret just feared her… and she didn't know if that was good or bad.

Old Mito always gave her advice on everything, not just the jinchuriki business, and the old lady acted as the best source of guidance for the young Uzumaki. Kushina respected her and even loved her dearly; Mito was like the grandmother she never had. The young kunoichi told the more experienced woman everything from her life: they usually talked about the old days in Uzushiogakure or how Konoha was formed by Mito's husband -that was when Kushina really did love Konoha– and when they weren't training secret jutsus together, Kushina would tell her about her life and her (lack of) friends. Including the annoying boys and girls from her class, even more annoying Uchiha Fugaku and stupidly annoying Namikaze Minato. Interestingly, Mito always took interest in those bits and it only made the redhead even more annoyed. If possible, she wanted to avoid talking about anyone in the Academy – she wasn't the greatest of friends with anyone there and all this just felt like gossip to her.

Uzumaki Kushina didn't like many things; in fact, she had a long list of things she didn't like and the item "young ninjas her age" was in the top. She also didn't like feminine things or ninjutsu (because she was terrible at it). But there was one thing that Kushina liked the most and that was ramen – salt flavored one, preferably. The redhead discovered the heavenly food on pure coincidence as she sit down to take a bite of the food in Ichiraku's Ramen shop. The owner was very kind and his in-training son was equally nice. The price wasn't overly high like most things were in the village and that and a bunch of other factors made Kushina so curious about the food that she just had to try it. And heck, she had loved it ever since.

There wasn't a single day she would go without ramen –after experimenting for a couple of months, she was sure salt ramen was by far her favorite- and, if she would've ever wanted to be Hokage (because that little speech was just a failed way to try to be liked by others of her age) it was right now, so she could make ramen a meal to be enjoyed every single day. She even brought it to school every once in a while as lunch. Some of the children were curious about it and most just scoffed it away like anything she did. One, named Uchiha Mikoto went there to talk to Kushina and ask where it was from. The redhead gladly advertised Ichiraku's Ramen shop to her and made sure to remember the girl by – she seemed nice.

But of course, annoying people also came to do what they did best: annoy her. The bullies would come and mock how the 'tomato' and currently 'Red Habanero' loved ramen and, after thoroughly enjoying her ramen to the last bit, said 'Red Habanero' would get up and proceed to thoroughly kick the boys' asses. It was, all in all, an enjoyable, if often tiring day. And that only made her want to attend Ichiraku's even more.

Indeed, Kushina liked ramen so much, she didn't even care when a blue-eyed blond sit next to her and eyed her meal as he started chatting with her. Great, boy genius was here now. After spending five minutes together, with Minato chatting about nonsense things like the weather and tomorrow's training –she was slightly interested in the latter, though- and Kushina only nodding along as she ate her ramen, the meal was soon finished. And Minato was still there.

Kushina didn't understand. He had been there only for the meal, obviously, and even if she didn't give him a bite – because, really, how could one do that with ramen? That would involve eating with the same chopsticks and that was just disgusting- he was still in a good mood.

Mentally cursing her curiosity, she asked, "Why are you still here?"

"Huh?" He asked in a poor attempt to be dumb in her opinon.

"Why are you here, with me, even now that the ramen is over? I didn't offer you a bite at all and yet you still continued talking."

Apparently boy genius wasn't such a genius since he didn't get the meaning of such a simple phrase. Sighing, she said it again with long pauses. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

Nonplussed, he answered naturally, "Because I wanted to talk with you."

And there was another one of his bright, annoying smiles.

"Even if I didn't offer you a bite?" She asked ,surprised. "Because that's pretty rude, you know."

He laughed as if there wasn't a single bad thing in the world.

"Don't worry, Uzumaki-kun," She frowned at the suffix once more. "I know you like ramen very much, so I understand."

That completely took her off guard.

Still smiling, the blond continued. "Although, if you wouldn't mind me ask, where is it from? It seemed delicious."

"I- Ichiraku's Ramen shop..." Her brain seemingly caught up with her mouth midterm and she added energetically. "They have the best ramen in the whole village –dattebane!"

Dammit, she said those words again. Whenever Kushina would get too excited, they'd just leave her mouth like that. Just like her father did, she remembered.

Not noticing – or just being polite enough to seem so – Minato smiled back at her happily.

"Dully noted! Thank you, Uzumaki-kun."

And with that, he got up and he was gone. Kushina just continued sitting there, watching the boy disappear in a dash –he really was quick, wasn't he?- in the middle of her stupor. That was by far the best conversation they ever had and the subject had been ramen, of all things. Strangely, it made her feel quite good about herself.