A Foreign Concept

A/N: Just something to get over writer's block. I hope you will enjoy it ^^

And I know that at this time, the village is probably at war but simply disregard this fact for now. Fugaku will also appear to be ooc at some points of the story but chalk it up to the fact that at that point he wasn't the clan head and didn't have to go through the trouble of planning to overthrow his home village yet.

Summary: Sometimes even aspiring soon-to-be clan leaders need to have the facts of life spelled out for them. Luckily, Kushina is more than happy to fill that role. FugaMito

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto.

Fugaku allowed a smirk to grace his lips as he watched the massive fireball he had just spewed out moments ago burn the tree before him to ashes.

"You do know that this isn't good for the environment? Burning trees and stuff like that?" a voice behind him called. He could practically feel how his left eye muscle started to twitch as he recognized the owner of said voice and turned to face her.

Her being Kushina, also known as the infamous Red Hot-Blooded Habanero who turned the color of the earth red with the blood of anyone who dared to get in her way. Struggling to keep his face blank, as was to be expected from the clan heir who would soon assume the role of the head of the powerful Uchiha clan, and only shuddering slightly as oppressed memories of his former encounters with her slowly started to resurface, he said, "If it is nothing of importance, then I suggest that you leave because, as you can see, I am currently attempting to train."

Kushina only snorted in response and despite his politely formulated request, did not stop her approach at all. "There's something I think you should know," she said, the feral grin on her face unsettling the Uchiha slightly, not that he would ever admit it out loud. "It's about Mikoto."

"Mikoto?" Fugaku echoed somewhat dumbly, blinking once. The girl who always smiled whenever she saw him and who was always eager to train with him?

"Yes, Mikoto," Kushina confirmed patiently, having already practiced this for days so that she wouldn't try to hurt herself or preferably him in the process of their conversation.

"Well, then you should tell me whatever it is about her quickly. I am busy," Fugaku said impatiently, as far as he knew he couldn't recall any recent events which needed to be brought up that involved Mikoto and him.

Releasing her breath quite loudly and cracking her knuckles forbiddingly, she asked sweetly, "What would ya say?" And just so that he would get the hint, slammed her fist into the trunk of a tree, leaving a deep and wide hole behind.

Fugaku gulped, knowing a threat when it smiled sweetly at him, promising him a world of torture and pain. "There are more important things than training," he hastily amended, inwardly wondering how the hell Minato was able to put up with her on a regular basis, seeing as they were supposed to be an item. Then again, the blond had always had the patience of a saint so maybe it wasn't that shocking.

Her previously sickeningly sweet smile turned into a bright grin and she put both of her hands which could break bones and minds behind her back. "Yes," the redhead agreed. "And this is one of the more important things."

She paused for a moment before she went on, looking solemnly at him. "Have you noticed anything off regarding Mikoto's behavior recently?"

Racking his brain, only to find nothing, he slightly shook his head. "No, why?"

Kushina let out a long-suffering sigh, only the thought that she was trying to help a friend preventing her from banging her head against a tree or to simply headbutt the imbecile before him and be done with it. "You really are thick, you know that," she told him, an air of despair starting to form around her. Maybe she should have left it to someone else, it wouldn't do to strangle Fugaku after all, only imagine all the paperwork she would have to do before she got put in prison for an indefinite amount of time.

Crazy hag or not, that Uzumaki girl had definitely crossed a line just now. No one, absolutely no one, insulted Uchiha Fugaku and got away with it! "Dare to repeat yourself?" Fugaku growled. "I'll have you know that I'm the future clan head of the Uchiha clan, one of the founding clans of Konoha, one of the most powerful and wielders of the Sharingan!"

"Then use that freaky eyes of yours to see what is oh so obviously glaring straight at your face!" Kushina shrieked, throwing up her hands in an attempt to visualize the depth of her suffering.

"I don't need my Sharingan to realize that you are glaring at me," Fugaku said tersely, quite peeved at having his clan's powerful Kekkai Genkai called freaky eyes.

That close. Kushina was that close to putting her fingers around the throat of that haughty Uchiha and apply the necessary force on it to hear the very satisfying snap. What the hell did Mikoto ever see in that dumbass? She only realized that she had said the last part out loud when said dumbass blinked and gaped at her, absolutely baffled.

"What? She has attained the Byakugan?!" Fugaku cried out, apparently taking her words literally.

Screw subtlety and trying to break it to him slowly so that he could adjust himself better to the idea. "Mikoto freaking loves ya 'ttebane!" it finally burst out of her. "She...she loves you, you see, that feeling thingy where you want to date, kiss and make babies and stuff!" the redhead screamed somewhat hysterically, hoping against hope that Fugaku would finally get it.

It took exactly five seconds before the meaning of the words of the Habanero who had apparently went raving mad, even more so than his ancestor Madara, if her laughter and howls and her ripping out strands of her long red hair were any indication at all, were fully registered by his mind. That was when the shit hit the fan, metaphorically, of course, although Fugaku wouldn't put it past the redhead to bombard his back in a blind rage and thus the clan crest, stitched on his high-collared shirt, with some unknown and disgusting substance.

"What?!" Fugaku bellowed and Kushina raised her arms up to the sky, thanking every deity she knew of for that small miracle. "Yes, he finally got it."

"Th-that's impossible," the Uchiha breathed out, his mind still in some sort of shock-induced stupor and unable to wrap said mind around the fact that Mikoto, Uchiha Mikoto, proud Jonin of the village and clan, had fell for him and that he had needed the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero to figure it out.

"No, it's not," Kushina said smugly, after she had calmed herself and had finally got a hold on her conversational skills again. "Well, now that's done and I'm not needed anymore, I can finally go and eat some ramen. Gosh, I need it or I will probably break something." People or the village could have easily replaced the something. Kushina laughed and was about to go on her merry way, when she felt a hand grabbing her wrist and turned around to see an unusually desperate-looking Fugaku clinging on her arm as though it was a lifeline.

"What?" she hissed, annoyed that her date with the food of the gods, also commonly known as the culinary heaven which was Ichiraku's Ramen, was being delayed.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" the Uchiha yelled, panicking, in his dilemma swiftly throwing everything the strict uprising as the clan head's son had taught him straight out of the window. No uprising could have possibly prepared him for that.

"You're the Uchiha prodigy. Go figure something out," Kushina told him, trying to yank her hand out of his grip.

He only tightened his grasp in response, ignoring the warning look the Uzumaki gave him. "Being an Uchiha prodigy means that you're able to outperform men twice your age and size, that you can unleash fireballs big enough to burn down entire forests, that you can hit a fly with a kunai at a distance of 45 meters without killing it and that your mastery of the Sharingan is so great that it makes you ridiculously overpowered and invincible. However, it does not mean that you suddenly know the ins and outs of understanding the woman's mind!"

Kushina sighed, rubbed her temples with her free hand and rolled her eyes all at the same time. What a drama queen. She really had done pretty much everything she could for the two Uchiha, one too shy and one too arrogant and frustratingly oblivious. Now she needed a well-deserved break with her beloved ramen, dattebane! "Can't ya, I dunno, use those freaky eyes of yours?" she suggested grumpily, her desire for ramen making her intelligence drop at an alarming rate, her speech and the suggestion only already proofing that.

"To do what?" Fugaku asked, exasperated. "The Sharingan enables one to predict the movements of the enemies, copy their movements, dispel any Genjutsu, perform powerful Genjutsu. It does not show you the feelings of other people and the way you should approach said people's feelings!"

"Geez! Then why are you asking me?" Kushina angrily demanded to know.

"I need some female advice here!"

This actually made Kushina stop in her tracks and blink uncomprehendingly at Fugaku who looked thoroughly horrified with himself, barely believing that it was his mouth the phrase had slipped off.

"Since when am I a female in your eyes?" she inquired, still shell-shocked.

"It's not like you have ever done things which suggested you being female, doing manly things such as kicking the asses of people and instilling fear in people's hearts with only your sight," the Uchiha muttered somewhat defensively.

"As usual, you're flattering me," Kushina noted dryly, inwardly relieved that the Fugaku she knew and disliked had returned. "Oh, and you've still not answered my question," she reminded him.

"Seeing as you were the one informing me about that...predicament, I suppose, I can count you as a female for the time being," Fugaku admitted grudgingly, refusing to look into Kushina's face, which by now was nearly split in half by a very huge grin. Apparently, her efforts had been worth the trouble. Oh, how she would rub that glorious moment into Fugaku's face, whenever the opportunity would present itself.

"Well, then let me give you some female advice," Kushina began, not even bothering to hide her smug tone which made Fugaku's left eye muscle twitch uncontrollably. "You have to be nice to her, kind and sometimes also forgiving and accepting, so in short everything which you are currently not."

Fugaku immediately ceased his understanding nodding while the redhead had told him about the ways of the delicate handling of the fairer gender as he heard the not so subtly hidden insult. "I am nice!" he protested outrageously. "And kind, forgiving, accept- okay, you're right," he conceded as the realization of the ludicrousness of the adjectives he had just used to describe him hit him.

If possible, Kushina was now positively radiating off an aura of smugness, giving him a look which even without being a genius could be easily translated into 'See, I told you so'.

"And that's all I have to take into consideration to safely socialize with her?" Fugaku asked, unconvinced. Knowing this did little to nothing to ease the rapid rate his heart was currently pounding at.

"Yes, that's all you have to know," Kushina replied, a genuine smile adorning her lips. "Everything else you need to have, you," she softly yanked her hand out of his grip and with her finger tapped the spot on Fugaku's chest where underneath his heart laid, "already do," she finished with a broad grin, not caring how mushy that just sounded.

At the Uchiha's absolutely baffled and confused expression, the Uzumaki decided to take pity on him and elaborated, "You're not panicking because you don't know how you are supposed to treat her now. You're panicking because you're excited about her loving you and because you don't know how you will confess your love to her and you don't know how you are supposed to treat her then."

It was amazing, really. As soon as the words were uttered, something inside of his mind made click and suddenly he was aware of why exactly he was panicking and why his heart was pounding so harshly against his ribs, threatening to burst into pieces or why he suddenly felt like he could take on all of the five Kages combined.

Kushina smiled at the very uncharacteristically expression on Fugaku's face which suggested that he was currently off in the realms of wonderland, filled with rainbows, unicorns and cats and she couldn't help but snicker at the mental image. "Well, that's just my female advice." And quickly she turned and made her way to a long overdue date with her beloved ramen, however, she did not miss the temporarily awe-filled eyes of the Uchiha, no doubt currently rewriting his opinion about women and coming to the conclusion that they were all-knowing, wise beings.

Briefly, Kushina wondered how the Uchiha ever managed to become such a big clan, what with them and their fucked up view on how a relationship should work. But then again, the redhead somehow doubted that the soon-to-begin relationship would be the weirdest or most fucked up one in the history of the Uchiha clan.

A/N: It's not really romantic, I know. /goes off to sulk in a corner, cursing her disability to write real romance