My second one-shot! Yay! The idea just came to me randomly on a friday night. hope you people enjoy it! :D
- Please do not touch. -
By her 8 months pregnancy mark, Kushina Uzumaki had developed aphenphosmphobia… a fear of being touched.
She'd never had any phobias in her life, and when her husband Minato had pointed out her condition, even she refused to believe it.
Kushina was scared. She was scared of going out of the house for the fear of being mobbed by other eager mothers, keen to see how her pregnancy was going. There was definitely one major downside of being the wife of the 4th Hokage. Once you were pregnant with a child, everyone, and I mean everyone wanted to see and ask you how things were.
However, what Kushina was most uptight about, was the fact that people thought of her as some kind of magic lamp. That's right. People young and old would stop her in the street and rub her stomach for minutes on end, in an attempt to bring themselves closer to the baby Naruto that was still snug inside. Even perfect strangers that she didn't even know would take this chance and have their fair share of patting her fat belly.
Before now, it never really bothered her though. In the beginning, she kind of enjoyed the attention that she was getting; it made her feel special. After a few months however, once her stomach had inflated to the size of a beach ball, it was practically screaming, "Here I am! A big stomach for everyone to pat!" It was then that she started getting too much attention. Kushina couldn't even enjoy a nice stroll in the park without getting stopped 100 times.
What really pushed her over the edge and made her lose her confidence was an incident last week. Since Minato was held up in his office with paperwork, she was forced to go on a shopping trip by herself. Kushina was walking on the path, minding her own business when some scraggly, dirty looking hobo came out from nowhere and cornered her.
She reacted in the way any of us would have reacted I'm sure. She completely froze up and wanted to scream in fright, but couldn't for the fear of putting the young Naruto at risk from the unpredictable man. Kushina didn't know what the tramp had wanted. He just stood there, with a threatening smile on his face, and with out-stretched arms, walking closer to her with each second. Kushina had pushed herself against the wall of the alleyway as much as she could, but that didn't stop the man's advances.
"Don't come any closer!" she had threatened, but the man kept on walking towards her. Kushina had shut her eyes, certain of something bad about to happen, when she suddenly felt a weight on her stomach. Opening her eyes, she had found that the hobo was in front of her, stroking her belly in a creepy like fashion. Kushina had never been so scared in her life. What was going to happen to her? What did the man want? She was only thinking of Naruto's safety.
Then, as quickly as the man had appeared, he had turned around and walked away, just like that, all without saying a word, leaving Kushina who was alone in the dark alleyway, feeling frightened out of her wits and wanting to run all the way home to cower in Minato's arms.
This one incident alone made Kushina afraid and wary of contact from other people from then on. She hasn't even left the house since then, barricading herself in and making Minato do all the shopping for her. It was getting to the point where Minato was getting concerned for his wife's wellbeing.
"Kushina… just tell me what's wrong. You won't even go outside anymore. Wasn't that your favourite thing to do? Take walks in the Park? There is something that's bothering you isn't there? You can tell me anything you know." He said reassuringly, sitting down with her on the couch one night, pulling her closer.
"Minato… I-I think that the pressure of becoming a famous mum is finally getting to me…"
"What do you mean?"
"I… I can't get any peace and quiet around… well, anywhere! People keep bothering me and stopping me and… and rubbing my stomach! It's so irritating! They all touch me as if I'm some doll on display and I don't like it." She scowled, folding her arms and pouting.
Minato laughed. "Ha. And that's why you've stayed in the house for a week? You could have just told me this earlier! I thought you had the flu or something, the way you were moping about! Don't worry Kushina, this won't be hard to fix!"
Kushina looked up at the head of the man that she was leaning against. "And how would you do that?"
"Well, if you didn't know already Kushina honey, I am the 4th Hokage. I can do whatever I want and everyone else has to obey my orders."
"Then what are you going to do? Set a decree? Punish people? Ban them from touching me?"
Minato had a twinkle in his eye. "Nope. I can just do it by the most simple of means."
"Because you're so great?"
"Yeah." He grinned.
"Peh. I'd like to see you try!" blurted out Kushina, unconvinced. It was going to take a hell lot of power and authority to stop half the village from stampeding at her once, or if she ever stepped foot out of the house again.
"Fine." Said an overconfident Minato. "Watch me."
Getting up from the couch and walking over to the kitchen, he picked up a piece of rectangular cardboard that had been chucked into the recycling bin. Then he walked over to the stationary jar above the fridge and pulled out a black permanent marker before running into the bedroom to get some string from Kushina's sewing kit.
Minato then came back and sat down next to his wife, laying out all the materials he had just gathered on top of the tea table. Kushina looked at the objects, curious as to what he was going to do.
"Just one thing I need to clarify… I'm the only one allowed to pat your stomach right?" he beamed.
"Of course. Everyone else is off limits."
Hearing what he wanted, he picked up the piece of cardboard and the permanent marker and began scrawling something on it.
What was he writing? Thought Kushina, as she listened to the marker squeak across the surface of the board.
Once the squeaking stopped, he poked two holes on each end of the cardboard and threaded the string through it, creating some kind of sign with a handle of string attached to it.
"I'm done. Wanna see?"
"What is it Minato? What did you write?"
In one swift motion, Minato flipped the sign around, revealing what was written. In large black letters, it read: "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. PROPERTY OF MINATO NAMIKAZE 4TH HOKAGE."
"Oh, you are not serious Minato! Are you going to make me wear that sign when I go out? I'd look like such an idiot!"
A severely grinning Minato nodded his head. "Yeah. It'll work, trust me!"
"No it won't!"
"Yes it will! Look, just come outside to the market place when it's busiest tomorrow and wear this. I'll stand beside you and you'll see the sign do its work!"
Kushina started laughing. "Oh, you're such an idiot Minato! Of all your smart ideas your brain could've come up with, this was what you chose?"
"Just give it a try, I guarantee it'll work."
The laughter stopped for a brief second before resuming. "Okay, fine!"
The next day had finally arrived and Kushina was eager to prove Minato wrong, that his stupid sign idea would crash and burn. She didn't feel scared at all about the idea of leaving the house, if Minato was going to be right next to her walking, she knew she had nothing to fear.
"You ready?" he asked.
"You bet!"
The door of the house opened and out they stepped, onto the streets of Konoha. Before long, they both made it to the Kohoha markets. It was midday, the busiest time of the day and people were swarming everywhere.
"Smile and walk Kushina!" he grinned.
Straightening her back and rearranging the sign dangling from her neck, Kushina started walking through the crowd, with Minato stuck to her side like glue.
At once, heads turned everywhere and the noise intensified, full of chatting as people pointed their fingers in their direction. In no time, Minato and Kushina were completely surrounded by a thick crowd, all wanting to see the pregnant wife of the Hokage that hadn't made an appearance for a whole week. As expected, all the nosy mothers were at the front, pushing their way past others to take a glimpse.
Is this really going to work? Thought Kushina, who was beginning to feel a bit flustered from the huge crowd that had come to meet her.
The first of the hands and fingers came, reaching out in the direction of her stomach, only to retract immediately.
Whoa. I didn't expect it to work that quickly! It really is working! No one's touched me yet! Is the sign really doing all of this? She thought.
She resumed walking through the crowd and to her utter amazement, they melted away from her like ice cream on a hot summers day. She was lost for words.
"Minato…What- how-?" she couldn't understand what was causing this. It definitely wasn't all the sign on top of her belly doing the work… there had to be something else.
Taking a glance at Minato next to her, she suddenly found the answer.
Next to her, Minato had one mean death glare plastered on his face and was scanning the crowd with it. Any stray hand that was shooting towards Kushina was immediately burnt back by his laser like eyes. The people who where unfortunate enough to look into his eyes had to cringe away in pain, for Minato had turned into a protective and territorial male. His expression practically said: "Back off. Kushina's mine! No one's allowed to touch her!"
Kushina could only stifle a giggle. He's so awesome that he can make people melt away just by looking at them, how formidable!
In a matter of minutes, they had slid through the crowd like a knife through butter and had ended up somewhere secluded in a park.
"You should have seen your face Minato! It definitely scarred some people for life!"
"Hehe. Told you I could keep the crowd away from you! You didn't believe me."
"Well, I do now."
Minato chuckled.
"You know what would be perfect?" asked Kushina as they began walking back to the house.
"What?"
"If we added a photo of your face just then onto the sign."
-End-
ChibiJinchuuriki: I had a lot of fun writing this! Hey, if you liked reading it, don't be afraid to review! :)