Context: The day after Kushina's 18th birthday. Kichiro is 19, Nagato is 13, and Natsuki is 7.


"Kichiro? Are you here?" Kushina's voice rang through the room, waking me from my doze. I was lying on one of the mattresses in the corner of the room.

My intention had been to finish my most recent mission report, but it was just after dinner. I had been woken shortly after four in the morning to bring a careless ANBU back from the brink of death. His teammates had barely gotten him back to the village in time. I nearly had to call in one of the hospital's medics to help. The two subsequent surgeries I had to perform lasted until shortly after noon. It made me late to meet with the group of brand-new medic recruits. I was only ten minutes late, but it had caused one of the clan-bred kids to scoff and challenge me. I successfully ignored the challenge until two Jōnin appeared in the room with a third being carried between them. Desperate to save their teammate, they had come straight to me instead of checking in at the hospital where they knew the medics there wouldn't be able to save him and would do nothing but make him comfortable before he died.

Very rarely did I have to perform more than one major healing a week in the village, but luckily my chakra reserves were far larger than any other medics'. I could spend all day performing major healings without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, the injured Jōnin had run afoul a trap seal. Not only did I have to undo the seal, but I had to unravel it while healing the man and making sure the thing didn't blow up in my face. I forgot there was a class full of children watching and immediately got to work. It took almost three hours before I managed to stabilize the man. It wasn't until I leaned back with a sigh that I remembered there were children watching in utter awe. They were too young to be grossed out by the blood and guts of a surgery.

As if on cue, Biwako walked in to collect the children and return to the Academy. She ordered me to her office as soon as I finished cleaning up. I shuffled the injured Jōnin and his teammates off to one of the nurses, left a kage bunshin to clean up the mess, then arrived outside Biwako's office at the same time as her. She roughly shoved me inside then proceeded to inform me of how many regulations I had broken for nearly a half-hour. By the time I had received and promptly decided to ignore her orders to follow hospital protocols, I was several minutes late for dinner at home.

The hospital staff, save Tsunade, had no grounds to try and make me follow protocols. First, I had never neglected my duties in the hospital and it had been nearly two years since I lost a patient. The hospital regulations were in place to protect the medics and doctors in case they failed to save a patient. Second, one of the first things anyone working in the hospital was told was to stick to regulation and never to follow my example when I broke regulation. The next thing they learned, although it wasn't explicitly said, was to always listen to me when I talked about medical stuff or gave orders and to never listen to anything else that came out of my mouth. It was a running joke around the older medics, especially the older medics who learned alongside of me before I became a ninja.

I decided that my mission report, which was already a week late, could wait another day. Whatever Kushina had on her mind sounded important.

"I'm over here," I mumbled and lifted my arm in the air. She picked her way through the mess that was the 'ninja floor' of the house and laid directly on top of my back. "What's up?" I asked and gathered the papers for the mission report I hadn't even started to place them on the floor beside the mattress. After a moment of thought, I untied my medic pouch from my belt to drop it on top of the papers.

Kushina didn't answer for a moment. I thought she fell asleep and very nearly followed her example when she rolled off me without warning. "You don't think I'm stupid, do you?"

I snorted. "If you're stupid, I must have the intelligence of some kind of worm. Why do you ask?" I pushed myself up on my elbow so I could see her better.

She stared at the ceiling before continuing. "You won't laugh at me if I ask a stupid question?"

"When have I ever laughed at you for asking a question?"

She turned her head towards me and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, when have I ever laughed at you for asking a question that you did not intend to be funny?" I amended.

She sighed and went back to staring at the ceiling.

"Minato is off working on something with Jiraiya and I ran into a group of those girls who've been giving me trouble."

"You're smarter and stronger than those girls, Kushina. They're just jealous."

"They called me a whore. I don't even know what that is!"

I frowned. "Your sensei is Jiraiya." I deadpanned. "He's the most notorious whoremonger in Hi no Kuni."

"That doesn't mean I know what it means. I have betterthings to focus my attention on than figuring out what the names mean," she responded testily.

I sighed and answered her question. "A whore is someone who solicits sex for money."

"Sex?"

"Um, what about it?" I squirmed. I had my suspicions about what direction this conversation was about to turn. I was genuinely surprised that Jiraiya managed to keep himself appropriate in front of Kushina. I suspected Minato was lumped in as well, I just hoped he didn't show up and make the conversation even more awkward.

"What is it?" Her question was genuine. She wasn't teasing me.

"Weren't you supposed to have this conversation with Fusō ages ago?"

"What conversation?"

"You know, the birds and the bees? The talk?"

"What's that?" Someone asked behind me. I was on my feet in an instant. I didn't even hear Natsuki until she spoke.

My heart rate quickly settled. I flopped back down on the bed, then Natsuki fell on top of me. Nagato trudged up the stairs a moment later and sat down by my head.

"Aw, shit," I grumbled.

"What are you all talking about?"

It was weird for Kushina not to know, but she was rather oblivious, so I could sort-of understand a situation where she had no clue about sex, although she had made a few comments in the past that had led me to believe she knew what she was talking about. She must have just been parroting someone else. I knew she was quite attracted to Minato, but I genuinely thought she would have come to talk to me or Fusō a long time ago. I didn't expect Natsuki to know anything; she was only seven after all. The Academy didn't teach any anatomy beyond what it took to kill someone and how to assist medics, unless someone was going into infiltration or assassination. Natsuki wasn't in either program. Unless she had asked someone, I doubted anyone brought it up in conversation. Nagato had never asked me anything about the subject and I saw no need to bring it up since I never noticed him with a crush or in a situation where I would need to explain the subject to him. We were a combat team after all. He was smart, and I thought he had figured it out from the raunchy jokes the other ANBU told. Although, I did notice that they toned it down around the recruits and younger agents. His parents were remarkably talented at making sure their kids never picked up on their very active sex life. If it wasn't for the fact I had unintentionally figured out their (rather obvious) code, I would have been perfectly oblivious as well. I would never think of the word 'rest' the same way again.

"Apparently, the girls want to learn about sex," I told him bluntly.

He frowned for a moment, then shook his head. "What's that?"

I sighed. "I'll explain to Kushina but Natsuki and Nagato, if you're actually curious, go ask one of your parents. If you want more information afterwards, then you can ask me later."

Nagato frowned. "Why won't you explain to all of us?"

"Because Kushina actually needs to know. The two of you are just curious brats."

"Oh, I don't mind if you try to explain to them at the same time," Fusō chuckled from the stairs. She was holding a plate piled with dessert. "I'm sure Kushina would find it more entertaining."

"If you want to tease me, I could send them all to you. You would have far more experience in the topic anyways," I retorted good-naturedly. "Come on in; it's safe. Maybe you would like to help?"

"Come on, Ka-chan!" Natsuki exclaimed and ran over to pull her mother over to sit with us. "Nii-san's lessons are the best!"

She unsuccessfully tried to extricate herself from the situation, but Natsuki guilelessly convinced her to stay. I, very cleverly, in my opinion, passed the subsequent explanation over to her.


Public Service Announcement: If you have questions or concerns on the topic of sex and sexual health, please talk to your doctor or a trusted adult. It is their job/responsibility to provide or connect you with the knowledge to make informed and responsible decisions. Fanfiction and other stories are not a reliable source of information nor do they model healthy relationships and responsible practices.