The alarm inside Minato's head went off. He moved his head slightly off of Kushina and looked over at the clock on the wall to see he was right on. He took a giant breath and batted his eyes for a second trying to wake up more. Minato slowly began to withdraw his arm from off of Kushina's waist.

"Ah, ah, ah. You get back here." Kushina said and grabbed Minato's arm and kept him in place around her. She interlocked their fingers and held their hand close to her heart. Minato gave in and cuddled closer to her and squeezed his arm around her. "Give me five minutes and we'll get up together, alright?"

"That's fine. I'm in no hurry." He said softly and kissed her on the neck. He nuzzled his head to her and smiled. They lay there for a minute both lulling in each others body heat. "I'm meeting my team today."

"A bunch of snotty brats…" Kushina said stiffly, "after spending several years in Kohona, I have found your blueprints for teams; I must say I find it stupid."

"Huh, highest grade, lowest grade, and the middle grade, then repeat? We've been doing the arrangements like that for years." Minato said remembering how they were actually put together.

"No I mean character wise. There's a prodigy: sometimes cruel, someone who's goofy with potential, and someone's who's over caring who cares for one of the teammates too much." She said and yawned.

"That's not true." He said and nudged her; Kushina raised a shoulder in response to shrug him off.

"It is, just watch. You'll end up with those to a tee I bet." Minato smiled and kissed her on the shoulder. "Don't do that if you think I'm tired, I know I'm right. I will bet on it."

"Alright then, what are we betting?" Minato said and rolled her over to look at her. "Pick it, anything goes."

"The apartment needs to be painted, cleaned and renovated, also, I want the couch reupholstered and there needs to be some ordinance of dishes in the kitchen, I want all glassware, not whatever happens to wander in here." She said and yawned and turned over under his arm to face him. "And I think we should get a cat."

"Why a cat? I thought they annoyed you."

"Did I say cat, I meant parrot."

"Parrots are messy. What about a mouse?" Minato suggested.

"Alright, so, loser has to do all the work and winner gets to pick out the mouse and dishes." Kushina smiled. "Agreed?"

"Agreed." Minato said and kissed her on the forehead, "now let's get up." He sat up and pulled her up with him. Kushina yawned lightly and stood up to her side of the bed and wandered over into the bathroom calling back, "you're in charge of coffee."

"Right." Minato said and got out of bed to wander into the kitchen that was being set up. Minato began looking through boxes and found the coffee maker and set it on the counter and plugged it in then found the coffee in a random place and began assembling it.

"Hey Kid, I'm coming in." Shouted a voice and Jiraiya walked into the apartment straight over to Minato and ruffled his hair. "You still unpacking, it's been two weeks."

"I've been busy Sensai. It's not like I'm free to come and go as I please anymore, I'm going to be a teacher." Minato said excitedly, he smiled and laughed. "I just hope I don't abandon my students for whatever catches my fancy."

"I can't help it." Jiraiya said and grabbed him with one arm and royally messed with his hair. "I'm an old man, I've got my weaknesses. One day when you're old you'll get your weaknesses too."

"Hopefully not, I want to get married and have a family." Minato said and Jiraiya eased off him.

"That's a nice dream Minato. Too bad it never works out for a lot of us." Jiraiya said distantly before snapping back to himself. "Well, just wanted to say 'see ya'. Tsunade, Orochimaru and I have got some business to take care of out on the war front. Some one said the Sanin are some losers."

"No…. that'd be stupid of them, mainly because Tsunade-sama would kill them if they upset her enough." Minato stated as a fact. "Well, come back safe, Sensai."

"Right, don't forget to get pants on when you meet your students, sonny." Jiraiya said and began to walk out.

"I had planned on it." Minato said looking down in his boxers, he shrugged, he was in his apartment, and he really didn't care at the moment. He heard the door open from the bedroom and Kushina walked out in her dress from the day before. "Coffee will be ready in a minute."

"Good, I'm just having the hardest time waking up." She said and walked up next to him and leaned on the counter. "You know, if we're planning on living together, you're going to have to tell your Sensai that he just can't barge in anymore. It's rude."

"It is what he does, and even if you lock it, he'll just knock the door down." Minato said calmly and pulled mug out of a box and handed it to her. "You'll just have to start going around dressed."

"It's not that, I just think it's a bit rude. Can you just ask him to knock every now and then?" She pleaded sweetly. Slipping past him she grabbed the coffee and poured her a cup. "I'm going to head back over to my apartment, pack up some of my things. Leave the door unlocked, alright?"

"Of course." Minato said and draped a hand across her cheek.

"Act tougher in front of your kids, alright? My man's no push over! Got it?" She said and playfully pushed him in the shoulder and walked out sipping on the warm coffee. Minato leaned over the edge of the wall and watched Kushina's back as she walked out; he smiled a little and poured himself a bit and accidentally spilling it on hand. He quickly shook his hand off and shoved the burned area in his mouth and tried to avoid swearing.

There was a knock at the door and Minato rolled his eyes as he quickly stepped through the living room and looked through the eye hole to see Shikaku Nara outside the door looking right back into the eye piece. "Open up Minato."

Minato opened the door and Shikaku walked in and immediately leaned against a wall. "What's up Shi?" Minato asked closing the door. "I have to go meet my team."

"As do I, but that nagging thing that follows me around…" He grumbled.

"Kirikuo, your girlfriend." Minato corrected him.

"She wants to get married this weekend. Told me today. Been planning it for six months with my mother behind my back." Minato began laughing at him. "Yeah I know. She planned it so I only have to show up and do one other thing, get some guests, you wanna come?"

"Sure, where's it at?"

"No clue. Don't know the time either, she's in charge of that. As I said, I just have to show up, she even got the suit for me. She even got Akimichi to agree to be my best man without my knowledge yesterday." He said and shrugged. "She's an amazing girl. Well, Just wanted to let you know."

"Well, if you find out where it is…"

"Yep." Shikaku said opening the door and walking out slowly. He closed the door behind Nara and laughed. "They're kind of young to be getting married…" 'Just keep telling yourself that…'

Kushina began packing up her clothes and ran across something hard in the bottom of her underwear draw and saw a gleaming. "So that's where I put you…" She said and pulled out the Whirlpool conch with all its glistening gems and laden pearls on the inside. "You sure are beautiful aren't you? I'll put you up somewhere special, alright?"

Kushina set the conch carefully down on the bed and grabbed yesterday's newspaper to wrap it up tightly and set it in her large travel bag. She went back to shoving the rest of her clothes in until she hit another thing. "I'm like the god damn Easter bunny, aren't I?"

This time she pulled out a small clear box with a dried white rose in it. "From Norikio's funeral…" Kushina lost her smile and grabbed more paper and wrapped the box and set it in carefully. She stopped for a minute and let her emotions over whelm her as she dropped to her knees and began to pray for her. "You we're my best friend for several years, I can only hope you're driving Makoto crazy."

With that she regained a little of her cheerfulness, she stood up carefree and began to put things from on her dresser into the bag. Make up, kunai, a knife, several other sharp and pointed objects and the necklace Minato had given her. She still wore it every now and then even though she was allergic to it, she'd put up with agitated skin to see Minato smile at her. Kushina put the bag carefully around her shoulders and walked, still barefoot over to the door and opened it with one smooth, fluent motion.

Wrangling the keys from the side pocket of the door she locked her apartment up and began over the roof tops and electrical poles to the other side of town to their new apartment. Kushina opened the door to find it empty, the couch sitting awkwardly in the middle of the living room, a hand me down from Tsunade, the two dark wood tables were too. It was the bright green of the couch that bugged her though. "I'm thinking you should be either white or black, what do you think…. That's right, you're a couch."

Kushina set the bag down softly on the cushions and walked over to the shelves that came with the apartment. She placed both palms on them and pressed down until she actually lifted herself up. "Talk about built to last."

Kushina began shuffling through her bag and pulled out both wads of newspapers and set the conch and the boxed lily on the shelf. She took a deep breath, "I suppose it's time to go pick out the dishes and the mouse."

"So, I'll be leading you. My name's Minato Namikaze, I'm a Jounin, former ANBU. I'm also known as Konoha's yellow flash. About myself…." Minato said in front of the three students sitting in front of him. Only two looked like they really cared. "I like to invent new techniques, like this."

Minato held out his hand and form Rasengan. Now all three eyes focused on him. "It doesn't look like much but…" Minato turned in the training field to forced the Rasengan to the straw practice dummy. The dummy flew off the pole and landed several dozen meters away. "Cool, huh?"

"Oy! Sensai, are you going to be teaching us that!" The young Uchiha got up and stood on the rock as Minato turned to watch him, "man think how cool I'd be if I could do that! I could…"

Obito slipped and Minato caught him and laughed. "Maybe when you're older, alright. Well, why don't you tell us about yourself before you slip again." Minato helped him back onto the rock.

"Alright! I'm Obitio Uchiha, I'm going to be Hokage one day! I'm going to be the best ninja that ever existed!" Obito cried and fell off backwards from the rock. A single hand stuck up in the air with the pointer finger up. "I'm Konoha's number one ninja!"

Minato swiveled his head to the somewhat dazed little girl who had gotten up. She moved behind the rocks they were sitting on to help pull Obito up. "You need be more careful, please. Serious head injuries can happen when you fall backwards."

Obito laughed quickly and sat down quietly on the rock. Minato turned to her, "well, why don't you go?"

"Alright. My name's Rin, I've been studying medical techniques for several years. I like nature." She said sweetly. "That's basically it, I like to read, things along that path."

"Alright and you look like Fang's son." Minato said turning to Kakashi.

The boy sighed. "I am, I'm Kakashi." He stopped it there and didn't say anything else.

"Is that it?" Kakashi nodded quickly. Minato sighed. 'Damn, how'd she do that…'

Minato walked into the apartment quietly and snuck into the kitchen without a sound and stood behind Kushina who was holding up paint samples to the wall. Minato slowly reached a hand out. "I can smell you, Minato."

"I figured, mind as well try." He walked over normally and placed his arms around her waist and watched as she kept flipping through colors. He sighed, "So, you did it too a tee. They were exactly like as you said."

"Told you. The mouse is in our bedroom already, I got a white one, name him Shui. He's very playful, I got him one of those balls they roll around in too." She said and dropped several colors to hold up the final three. "Why is picking out paint so hard?"

"Just pick one, it doesn't matter to me." He said and laid his head on her shoulders. He looked over at the counter and saw the new boxes of dishes. "Why don't you make the color complement the dishes?"

Kushina turned around in his arms. "Sometimes I really do wish I had your brain." Kushina set her head next to him and kissed him. "So, is your team really that cookie cutter?"

"As I said, exactly as you said." Kushina began laughing. Minato grabbed her and gave her a quick jolt. "It's not that funny, they're going to be really hard to work with." Kushina only laughed harder at his problem. "Why don't you stop laughing and get back to picking out paint?"

"Alright hot stuff, go introduce yourself to Shui then, he like people." She said and he let go to walk away and Kushina began laughing again but more vigorously. Minato turned around and pointed a finger at her and but started laughing himself. "Even you think it's funny."

"Shut up, Kush." He said and walked out of the room and down the hall to their room and opened the door to find a little cage with a small white mouse in it. Minato dipped a hand in, right next to Shui. Happily the mouse crawled into his palm and rushed up his arm and stopped on his shoulder and began sniffing him. "Hey there, Shui. Well you're not very shy are you?"

The mouse cocked his head and stared at the tall blonde man. Minato looked back at it, he really didn't know what to do with a mouse beside feed it and clean its bedding. Kushina strolled in and sat next to him. "Having a staring contest?"

"It's like he's enthralled with me, or something of that nature." Minato said and carefully and swiftly moved the mouse back into its cage where it continued to stare. "Do mice always do that?"

"Don't know." She said and held out a white plate with green vines on it along with two different shades of green. I was thinking we could do an accent wall with this color and the rest with this one."

"Whatever you want, alright, I don't really care." Minato said. "it's a wall color, I'm happy if you're happy with it, alright?" Minto peck her quickly and sniffed the air quickly. "Do you smell something rotten?"

"Ugh… he peed on your shoulder." Kushina pointed out the small spot on Minato's standard issue vest. Minato sighed and began pulling all his kunai and other weapons out of the various pockets to set them in a pile on the floor. "Too bad we don't have the washer and dryer hooked up."

"Alright, I'm going." Minato said and got up taking the vest off and tossing it to the newly carpeted floor. As soon as Minato was gone Kushina leaned in to the cage, "Don't pee on him, its rude Shui. That was a very bad thing to do."

"Kush! Are you scolding the mouse?" Minato called from the other room. The ninja looked around the washer before climbing on to it to see behind it.

"No, just advising, dear." Kushina walked in and stared at him for a few minutes while Minato got to work connecting random tubes and such. "You know, most people would just pull it out and hook everything up, but no, Minato has to climb on top of the washer and struggle to put it together without seeing. You're unique I'll give you that."

"Hem, thanks." Minato said and climbed down off it and shoved it back against the wall. He flipped the lid up and pressed a button. The water started pouring in. "Ta-da!"

"Now if you could only flash the dirty laundry in there." She and laughed as she went about the room collecting an arm full of dirty clothes and shoving it in the washer. She slammed the lid shut and turned around sticking her tongue out at him. "Hey Minato, you know what people do with washers?"

Minato laughed and slapped his hand to his face and rubbed his skin with the tips of his fingers, "we are not having sex on the washer."

"Why not?" She said throwing her arms down. She looked at him with an angry glare. "We know it can support the weight and if we spill over the dryer's there to catch us." Kushina made a sweet pouting face.

"Don't make that face." Kushina slowly tilted her head and tired to look more pathetic. "Some time you drive me crazy."

"In the good way?" She asked softly.

"Yes, in the good way." Kushina smiled as he shoved her back against the machine and kissed her as hard as he could.