Chapter 503: Cat
"...Naruto."
Satsuki's voice came with a faint tremor, cutting through his explanation about the treasure and the cosmos.
She raised her head. Those black eyes looked straight at him, something turning over in their depths -- burning, reaching for something. All that complex information about the Stellar Weave, about alternate universes, about bond levels -- none of it had been processed first. She had a different question.
"If I made a selfish request, would you agree to it?"
Naruto blinked. Then he smiled. "A request?" The words came back with no hesitation in them at all. "Of course. Whatever Satsuki wants to ask, I'll make it happen."
Not "I'll try." Not "I'll do my best." I'll make it happen.
To Naruto, this was not a promise that required any deliberation. If Satsuki told him she wanted the stars and the moon, he would go and get them -- and at his current level of power, that was not actually a figure of speech. He would do it, and he would give them to her.
Because she was his wife. The most important person in his life.
"..."
Satsuki said nothing.
But something changed in her eyes.
People are creatures that move according to desire.
And for Uchiha Satsuki in this moment, every piece of information about treasures and timelines and alternate universes could wait until later.
Right now she had only one thing she wanted to satisfy.
Like being placed in front of a perfect meal -- before she could think about the care the cook had put into it, she wanted to eat.
Then, in the next instant -- Naruto felt a hand press against the back of his head.
And his lips were covered.
Not gently. Not a question or a slow beginning. This was total, possessive, non-negotiable.
Satsuki's lips pressed hard against his, hot and certain and refusing to be argued with. She wound herself around him and took from him -- his breath, his heartbeat, the full weight of his attention -- as though she meant to claim all of it at once.
Naruto's mind went blank.
The feeling was too much. Too immediate for coherent thought to survive it.
Satsuki's kiss carried something close to frenzy, every movement declaring you are mine. Her hand at the back of his head had her fingers pressed through his hair, gripping with a force that said she was trying to pull him into herself. Her body was flush against his -- through the thin fabric between them he could feel the burning heat of her skin and the hard, rapid beat of her heart against his chest.
Too fast.
Too overwhelming.
His own heart felt like it was trying to get out. Blood rushed through him. Every breath he tried to take she claimed. Every gasp got swallowed. His face was burning. The tips of his ears were burning. Everything was burning.
He had no idea how much time passed.
At the point when Naruto was starting to feel genuinely lightheaded, when his thoughts had begun to soften at the edges, Satsuki finally released him.
"Ha... ha..."
Naruto pulled in air in ragged pulls, his chest heaving. His face was red. His eyes had gone slightly unfocused. He felt like something had reached in and thoroughly rearranged him.
And Satsuki?
She stood directly in front of him, also breathing hard, also flushed, also with that particular look in her eyes. But the fire burning in those black eyes was more intense than it had been before.
"Let's go." Her voice had dropped into something husky and uneven.
"I can't... hold on anymore." She took his hand and started moving toward the bedroom. "Naruto... I want..."
The words came in fragments, not quite clear, but the meaning could not have been more obvious.
Naruto's face went a deeper red. "Sa -- Satsuki..." He managed, stumbling over even that. "But -- dinner isn't --"
He did not finish.
Because Satsuki turned her head and looked at him.
Just once. Just a glance.
Those black eyes were bright with something liquid, hazy and blazing at once, carrying a kind of pleading want that left no room for refusal. The look said: didn't you just say you would make it happen?
Every remaining word went back down Naruto's throat.
"...Yeah." He drew a slow breath, the kind someone uses to prepare themselves. "I'll keep being a proper husband."
"Naruto is so cooperative."
The curve that appeared at the corner of Satsuki's mouth carried satisfaction, anticipation, and something dangerously compelling that made his pulse jump. "Naruto is a good boy. That deserves a reward."
"A -- a reward?" Naruto's voice had developed a slight drift to it.
"Yes." Satsuki ran her tongue briefly across her lower lip -- such a small motion, and it made Naruto's heart skip entirely. "I bought something a while ago and haven't used it yet."
Her voice went softer, warmer, like something brushed lightly across the inside of a chest. "I was worried Naruto would think I was strange. But..."
She looked at him. That light in her black eyes was almost startling in its brightness. "I think Naruto will like it."
"Naruto... do you like cats?"
With that question landing in the air, she pulled him toward the stairs.
His head was still somewhat adrift, his steps a little unsteady, but she was leading him by the hand -- up the stairs, one step at a time, through the familiar door.
The bedroom. Soft light.
He watched Satsuki open a drawer, remove a small box, open it, and take out what was inside.
And Naruto understood what "do you like cats" had meant.
With the cat ear accessories in place, Satsuki's dark eyes half-lidded, carrying a slow and feline ease, an indolence that was entirely new. Then she looked at him. In that look, beneath the shyness: anticipation, and a complete and trusting surrender that asked to be cherished.
"Mrow. Does Naruto... like this?"
Naruto's brain ceased all operations.
-- -- --
The bedroom door closed, sealing out the rest of the world.
Downstairs, on the dining table, two bowls of oyster ramen sat exactly where Satsuki had placed them.
Still steaming. Plump oysters. The bright green of fresh scallions across the top. A meal she had made with care -- her offering as a wife, everything she had wanted to give him.
But for now, they waited.
The steam thinned and disappeared. The broth cooled by degrees. The noodles lost their texture one slow minute at a time.
Outside the window, the lights of Konoha went dark one by one. Those warm amber points of light, house by house, street by street, until the whole neighborhood had settled into quiet.
Only the moon remained, hanging in the night sky, spreading its silver light across everything below.
The ramen was completely cold. Not a trace of warmth left in it.
And from the bedroom upstairs, there was no sign at all of anything stopping.
-- -- --