Mornings in Konoha always carried a fresh scent, lovingly blended from sunshine and morning dew.
In Shinichi's courtyard, a few unfamiliar birds chirped from freshly trimmed branches, as though composing a prelude to the new day.
From the kitchen came a symphony of crackling and sizzling quite unlike its usual quiet, punctuated by Tsunade's slightly exasperated cries.
Shinichi yawned, dressed in his unchanging loose loungewear, his hair still the trademark silver bird's nest that looked as though a typhoon had just torn through it.
Following that familiar aroma of "food," tinged with a hint of burning, he wandered to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the frame, watching the lovely, apron-clad figure locked in a life-or-death struggle with a suspiciously colored lump of something in the pan.
"Say, Lady Tsunade," Shinichi drawled, his voice husky with sleep and his characteristic laziness, "has the creativity behind your 'breakfast made with love' reached a whole new artistic height? I could smell that... hmm, uniquely inspired aura of destruction from miles away."
Tsunade did not turn around. She wielded her spatula like a weapon on the battlefield, only her target had changed from an enemy to the "ingredients" in the pan.
"Shut up! You're lucky you're getting anything to eat! Besides, as the Fifth Hokage's husband, shouldn't a certain someone consider doing a little something for this family and this village? Like offering to share some of the work when I'm run off my feet?"
She whirled around, a few suspicious black grease stains dotting her radiant face. Paired with amber eyes blazing with the promise of "one more word and you'll get a taste of physical therapy," they gave her a uniquely heart-stopping charm.
Shinichi rubbed his nose and coughed twice, wisely choosing not to keep courting death over the subject of