i am absolute shit at writing romance i'm sorry. but i was wanting to write yahikonan and a sort of poll on tumblr helped me decide to do actual naruto verse, so this happened. and wow it got so much longer than i meant it to.
also this is a universe where none of that stuff with danzo and hanzo and their stupid rhyming name thing happens, because nooope no way and also because mikayla aka tumblr user tobaerama wanted canonically happy yahikonan (or at least something close to it) and, really, isn't that what we all want?
naruto isn't mine!
also brownie points to anyone who can tell me where the title comes from
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Yahiko has loved Konan since before he even knew what love was.
He has loved her since they were young and homeless and stealing, lying, doing whatever they deemed necessary to survive; he has loved her since they were just two dirty kids who formed an alliance against the world, hand in hand as they just tried to survive.
He doesn't actually realize what it is that he feels for her—for the girl that he has spent most of his life living and laughing with, for the girl that he would describe as one of his best friends without a second though, or even a first—until they are seventeen and just beginning to form the Akatsuki alongside Nagato, the third to their party who has become just as important to him and to Konan as any limb attached to their bodies, just the same as they think of each other. Actually, that's not entirely accurate; he doesn't realize his feelings for her until one day in the spring, on one of the few days in Amegakure that the sky does not weep, when he stands against their hideout, still the same as it was so many years ago when they were just three orphans with one of the future Sannin, watching her training several recent recruits to their cause. She's shucked off the outer part of their uniform, a solid black cloak cinched at the waist with a purple-blue belt, a colour that reminds him of her hair (the reason he picked that, actually, though she has no idea, only knows that it is similar to her hair), and stands in only a dress and heeled sandals, the tiny blue rose tattoo on her ankle visible. Her hair is loose, reaching just below her shoulder blades, wavy and shining resplendent in the sun, one of her paper roses tucked into it behind her left ear.
She stands on the water, a thin layer of blue chakra surrounding her feet, and grins casually as she watches two of the recruits spar, the third standing a little ways behind her, observing. Every once in a while, she calls a time out, to show them what they're doing wrong, whether with a jutsu or a taijutsu position, and her movements are so fluid, so mesmerizing, that Yahiko doesn't realize she's calling to him until Nagato pokes him in the shoulder and says, "Yahiko. Yahiko. She's waving for you to come over, you know. Been shouting your name for five minutes."
He shakes his head, looks at Nagato with wide wide eyes, and then looks over at Konan, her hand in the air and an eyebrow raised, probably wondering why he wasn't responding. "Oh. Um, uh, thanks, Nagato."
Nagato looks at him for a moment and Yahiko is suddenly struck with the notion that he can see him, truly and really and fully, and that he knows exactly why he wasn't responding, and just when he thinks that he's about to mention what it is that he sees, he just shrugs and tells him, "Anytime." Then just walks away, no indication whatsoever of knowing anything past what Yahiko's told him, past what he can read in Yahiko's face.
He shakes it off, goes over to Konan; he figures that she assumes he heard her, because she grins, feral and wild and beautiful, and jumps for him, and it's only his training under one of the best known shinobi that allows him to twist out of the way, pull a kunai and grin straight back at her, mirroring her own ferocity. They spar for a few minutes, neither of them really gaining the upper hand; then she performs hand seals in a flash, so fast he can't track them, see what they are—and the next thing he knows, he's on the ground, water soaking through his cloak as Konan straddles his waist, a kunai to his throat, and smirks down at him, victory glittering in her eyes.
As he looks up at her, the sun shining from behind her and creating a halo around her head, bouncing and reflecting off of her hair, he realizes that—fuck, fuck, fuck—he's in love with his best friend.
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This realization changes nothing and yet changes everything: how he moves and acts and talks around Konan, how he's careful not to touch her because if he does sparks go off at the point of contact, flying around his body and lighting it up all over, how he's careful in watching his words because if he's not careful he's going to tell her everything that he thinks about her, words spilling from his mouth like rain falls from the sky, tripping over themselves to escape. It changes nothing, too, though; nothing in his interactions with Nagato or with anyone else, nothing about his actual relationship with Konan because she doesn't know, will never know, and besides, he's pretty sure she's got her eye on one of the men that they recruited for the Akatsuki—the newly chosen name of their organization, chosen because they will be the dawn of the new world, the world that doesn't weep, doesn't fight—so, yes, it changes nothing as well.
Just because he knows that it will never happen, though, doesn't mean in the least that he keeps his eyes off her, his thoughts away from her, his imagination from wandering off into fantastic scenes where they end up together, happy and old, and she's still just as beautiful as the day they met.
(Yahiko has to shake himself out of those sorts of fantasies more often than he'd care to admit to anyone, even Nagato or Konan herself.)
He contents himself, for now and probably for forever, or at least until the maybe one day that one of them dies, with watching from afar, making sure that Nagato doesn't notice, that Konan doesn't; that nobody does.
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Much the same as the day that Yahiko first realized that he was in love with the girl that he'd known since he was five, the day that he finally figured out that she loved him, too (nine years down the road from that first moment when he looked up at her, haloed by sunlight, and thought, oh, hell, I'm in love with my best friend) was sunny and bright, as if the world was smiling down upon them, a pair in love.
He was leaning against the hideaway, watching the Akatsuki talk and chatter among themselves, hoisting bags onto their backs as they prepared to leave their once home, now grown too small to accommodate them all. The shelf holding their plaques, one side white and decorated with a frog and the other red, the same shade as Nagato's hair, almost, now stretches along the whole of the wall, one plank for each member, and still there are ones missing. That had been what made them realize that it was time to move on—and so now here they are, packing and talking and laughing, while Yahiko and Konan and Nagato say goodbye, in their heads and with their words and expressions, to the place they've called home for so long.
He rests his back against the wooden side, holding his own plank in his hands, turning it over and over and thinking back to the days when Jiraiya was still with them, when it was three orphans and a grown man together against the world, not the small army they've turned into, and wondering what Jiraiya would think of them now. He's thinking about Jiraiya coming to visit, seeing the three of them grown into adults and so successful, when Konan comes up to him.
She's in a dress oh so similar to the one she wore nine years back, only now her hair reaches down past her waist, wavy and beautiful. As always, there's a flower tucked behind her ear, made of pale pale blue paper and looking both as fragile as if it would blow away with one wind and as strong as if nothing could ever destroy it, much like Konan herself. She comes up to him and takes his hand, pulling on it and pulling him behind her as she walks around behind of their old home, out of view of the rest of the Akatsuki. She stands on her tiptoes in her sandals without heels, just barely managing to meet him eye to eye and even then it's shaky as she wobbles, not used to keeping her weight on her toes and nothing else, and she presses her lips to his, and he's not sure what's happening. His vision warps and his mind wanders and then screeches to a halt, realizing what's going on—she's kissing you, you fool, it hisses at him, kiss her back before you fuck this up forever and lose her—and that's when one hand goes to her waist and settles there, and one tangles up in her hair, and his lips press back against hers, soft and sweet and in no way what he's been dreaming of for almost a decade, but somehow, it's better.
Konan pulls back, and he realizes that at some point between her kissing him and him kissing back and then that wonderful moment ending, her hands have tangled around his neck, just barely getting at the too-long strands of hair that tickle the place where his neck meets his shoulders. Her amber eyes glow and her mouth curves up, and he just smiles back at her, teeth showing in a full happy smile, and then he pulls her in again, opens his mouth and gets her to open hers, and then all that he can think as they kiss and kiss and kiss is this: love was made for me and you.