Chapter 61: Misunderstanding

Kael’s hips snapped upward one final time. He buried himself deep and came hard, pulsing thick heat into Sakura while she still sat astride him. Sakura’s back arched. A long, broken moan left her throat as she felt every spurt. Her strength gave out immediately afterward. She collapsed forward onto his chest, cheek against his shoulder, both of them breathing in heavy, uneven pulls of air.

Outside the window, Kushina remained perfectly still.

She had watched the entire end of it—the final hard thrusts, the way her son’s hands gripped the pink-haired girl’s waist, the moment he finished inside her, and the soft collapse that followed. The images stacked on top of everything else she already knew and refused to form a coherent picture.

She had walked in on him with Ino in their own house. Mikoto had seen him with Hinata on the street. And now this—Sakura, naked and freshly used, still sitting on top of him in the middle of the afternoon. Three different girls in a span of days. No explanation she could invent made sense. The loving, slightly dense son she had raised did not match the scene in front of her. Yet the body was unmistakably his.

Sakura eventually stirred. She pushed herself up on shaky arms, climbed off him, and began gathering her clothes in silence. Kael stayed on the bed, one arm behind his head, watching her dress without comment. Kushina, still crouched near the window, had stopped paying close attention to the small movements inside. Her mind kept turning over the same impossible question and finding no answer.

Sakura finished fastening her top, ran a hand through her messy pink hair, and walked to the door. She opened it, stepped out onto the walkway, and froze.

Kushina sat against the wall only a few steps away, right beside the window.

Sakura’s eyes widened. "Kushina-aunt...?"

The soft address snapped Kushina out of her thoughts. She looked up, met the girl’s startled gaze, and understood instantly that she had been caught. There was no point pretending she had only just arrived.

Inside the room Kael heard the voice. His entire body went rigid.

Shit. What is she doing here anyway?

Sakura recovered first. She bowed quickly, the motion stiff with embarrassment, then turned and hurried down the stairs without looking back. Her footsteps faded rapidly.

Kushina rose, smoothed her skirt once, and stepped through the still-open door. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Kael had already moved. He snatched a towel from the chair, wrapped it around his waist, and sat on the edge of the bed like a man waiting for judgment. He kept his eyes fixed on the floorboards. The silence that followed felt heavy enough to press against his skin.

Kushina closed the door quietly behind her and walked closer. She stopped a few steps away and looked down at him.

"I saw you with Ino in our house that day."

Kael’s stomach dropped.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He said nothing. Kushina continued in the same calm, measured voice.

"Mikoto saw you together with Hinata."

For a split second Kael’s mind snagged on the name. *Mikoto?* He had never met her in this life. Then the rest of the sentence landed and the question became irrelevant.

"And now this," Kushina finished, glancing once toward the door Sakura had fled through.

She drew a slow breath. "Naruto... tell me. Are you..."

Kael’s thoughts raced. This was the moment. Hinata had seen through him because she had watched the real Naruto for years. His own mother had raised him. Surely she would notice the same wrongness—the different speech patterns, the different eyes, the quiet calculation that had never belonged to her loud, open-hearted son. She would realize the person sitting in front of her was not the boy she had carried and scolded and loved.

Kushina’s voice stayed gentle.

"...a sex addict, right?"

Kael’s head lifted in pure surprise.

Of all the conclusions she could have reached, that one had never entered his mind. Relief and disbelief tangled together so quickly he almost laughed. Instead he let his shoulders drop, fixed a guilty expression on his face, and nodded once.

"Yes," he said, voice low. "I’m... a sex addict."

He even managed to force a few tears into his eyes. The performance felt cheap, but it was the only shield he had.

Kushina’s face softened at once. She sat down beside him on the bed, close enough that her shoulder touched his, and gently guided his head down to rest against her. One hand came up to stroke his hair the way she had when he was small and feverish.

"You don’t have to suffer alone, my son," she said quietly. Her own voice had gone thick. "We will find help for you. Together."

A few tears slipped down her cheeks as well. She kept stroking his hair, rocking slightly the way she once had to soothe nightmares.

Kael stayed still against her shoulder, eyes half-closed, and let the moment settle.

Safe.

The word echoed in his mind like a quiet, private joke. Kushina held him and cried softly for the son she believed was struggling with an addiction. Kael let her, already calculating how long he could ride this misunderstanding before the next complication arrived.

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Give me power!!!