Chapter Text
Minato had returned from the emergency kage summit, and Kushina had dragged him straight to bed. He had looked exhausted.
If the next morning she gave him even more reason to be exhausted, that was between them. As she cooked breakfast she took her temperature writing it down, thinking to herself that Minato had come home right on time. She had a good feeling about this month. February. Definitely February for sure.
Lots of babies were born in October, early November, why not theirs?
She was glad Minato had the next two days off, she missed him. The only company she'd had at home was when Jiraiya had stopped in to chat, and the old man. Kurama. Not her soon to be brother-in-law's partial fox, no, the full fledged one. Her Kurama. She'd taken the more human Kurama's advice and talked with her own. While he'd been scary at first, it didn’t take long before he was simply a grumpy old man more than a chakra beast threatening to eat her. It was hard to find him scary knowing that a part of him was just as baby crazed as she was. She would forgive her in-laws for being busy at home, but was annoyed her nieces and nephews didn't stop in at all in. She'd need to give them a talking to the next time she saw them.
She'd told Kurama she and Minato were trying for a baby and not to mess it up, and he'd complained that he'd noticed and they should have been parents twice over by now.
Minato dragged himself to the table, smiling tiredly as she nuzzled his cheek, she'd let him have some food and a nap before asking him to try again.
He was being such a trooper over the whole thing. Honestly.
“You can take an hour... maybe two hour nap, alright?” She sat herself on his lap, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“I'm not complaining, but maybe Hizashi was right... maybe if we just stop over thinking-!” She squeezed his face gently between her hands, before kissing him softly.
“Minato. I love you so much. I have been taking my temperature and eating these weird chalk vitamins for months, I refuse to put our future baby in fate’s hands alone.” He hummed, and she let his cheeks go. “So finish up and we can cuddle until you fall asleep.”
“Yes dear.” She nuzzled him again, closing her eyes and leaning her head on his shoulder. This time. This time forsure.
Saito vowed to never, ever travel again. He returned home with a sunburn so bad it had blistered, a new appreciation for any form of traveling merchant, a deep and recently acquired fear of being illegally detained in a foreign country, and a desire to take a week long bath. Instead he was bowled over by his younger siblings, which now included a new sister, shyly introduced to a new uncle, Yashamaru, whose house was being sketched up by Haruki, and then promptly handed two new little brothers, one of which was asleep, the other whom instantly began to bite his clothes and hair. Teething supposedly. He had enough of his teeth ithurt when he tried to chew on Saito's shirt and got skin.
All he wanted was a nap. He had a lot of work to do even now that he was home, but instead he was ushered to a chair in the living room, still holding his new brothers, and someone told him they were making him something to eat. Kankuro, the older baby, tried to take the onigiri he was eventually offered, chubby little hands kept just out of reach.
“Nii-chan, look at the pictures Temari and I made!” Jun was trying to climb on his lap, but he didn't have the space for her to fit with both boys, and Yugure was holding up pictures for him to inspect at his elbow.
“Those are really nice...”
“When your done eating, can we show you the new seal we made?” Yosaku and Nao were hanging back watching the circus. Yuki was trying to heard their other siblings out since the room was crowded when they all stood in the middle of it like this.
“Maybe in the morning, I'm pretty tired.”
“Alright, that's enough cubs, give your brother some space.” Kurama walked by, picking the smaller children up, using his tails even as he breezed by much to their delight and annoyance. With the help Yuki pushed Megumi and Keiko out of the room, Bashira had ducked behind the couch and stuck her head up pouting to see her favorite sister dragged out.
“Baba-!”
“But he was gone for ages-!”
Inei took both infants from him, settling Kankuro on his back given he was also holding a sleeping Sai. If his dad had had a free hand he knew he would have used it to mess up his hair.
“Go take a bath and a nap, kiddo, we'll wake you for dinner.” He nodded, getting up to escape while Haruki blocked his younger siblings from ambushing him again.
Momo had watered his plants while he was gone, and there was a stack of notebooks sitting just inside his door to go over. He stretched before shucking off his traveling clothes, grabbing something fresh to change into, and stepped into the small bathroom attached to his room. He pointedly didn't look in the mirror before stepping into the shower and rinsing the dirt and sand out of his hair.
He began working on an aptitude test, mentally, to determine who native to Sunagakure could study under him so he wouldn't have to travel constantly to Suna every year for maintenance and safety inspections. He fumbled blindly for a towel as he got out and froze, staring at his reflection.
Burns. He tried not to look at them or think much of them since he couldn't really do anything about them, they covered his arms, chest, most of his back, and were scattered on patches on his legs- his clothes had caught fire and though he'd luckily been put out quickly before it could spread to his hair, it left permanent marks. The skin now was no longer red given it had happened over a decade ago, and if he were honest, he didn't actually remember the night of the fire anymore- funny given it changed his life forever.
The healed scarring was a bit more sensitive than the rest of his skin. It reminded him of knotted spider webs, or the pocked surface of a sponge- he'd go so far as to compare it to some type of thin wrinkled fabric in flesh tone across his body. It had gotten less pronounced as he got older, as he grew into an adult and his skin had stretched to cover his growing bones and muscle, but he had never quite managed to accept seeing his own body in the mirror.
It felt wrong, not bad, not really. Just... off. Knowing he shouldn't look like this, but also knowing the alternative was not surviving the fire at all. The body that looked back at him was his but he never really accepted that that was what he really looked like. He pulled a shirt on first, to cover the worst of it, then finished dressing as he normally would before hanging up his towel and going to lay down in bed. He had a real mattress, much like his parents it was flat on the ground, he couldn't get used to the futon, not when he was used to springs. He cleared his head as he laid down, and slowly drifted off.
He'd wake up in an hour to Keiko and Nanami looming over him to tell him dinner was ready, but now he drifted into a dreamless sleep.
