Jiraiya couldn't help but stare at the woman battling in front of him. Despite his reputation, it wasn't just her curvaceous yet muscular figure and honey eyes that captured his attention. He was captivated by the way she split the earth apart and shattered boulders to dust with the same hands that gently stitched his skin back together and saved his life countless times. And even more, he was enthralled by the depth he could see into her eyes. They were windows, the blinds drawn open only for his familiar, knowing gaze. Only he could see the pain and loss that lingered in them all these decades later.
And that was Tsunade. She was beautiful and badass and broken.
There wasn't a single part of her that didn't contradict another. She was violent and gentle, impatient and wise, independent and lonely, tired and strong, sad and angry, hopeful and empty. She sent her best friend to the hospital over a joke and asked him to promise to always come back. She was a patchwork of contradictions with fraying edges. There has never been anything about Tsunade that was simple or easy or made sense. And he thinks he wouldn't love her the same way if there were.
The spar ends in a predictable fashion... with three unconscious jonin and an utterly destroyed training field. A quick stop at the hospital to drop off the shinobi and Tsunade and Jiraiya are sitting in the same old corner booth of the same old dive bar on the outskirts of the village. They'd never really needed words so they sit in companionable silence through four bottles of sake.
It has been over a decade since he last told her how he felt. He has been playing the old friend and shameless pervert for too long and he felt the words exploding inside him. The warm sake and dim lights and swaying blond hair acted only as encouragement. Hell, he was overdue for rejection.
"I love you."
He doesn't whisper or make her look him in the eyes or move to touch her. He says it like a fact, a simple truth, nonchalant, like its the easiest thing in the world and he's done it countless time. It is and he has and he's met with only a beat of silence.
"Baka, don't say stupid things like that."
They speak and move smoothly, like they've rehearsed this a thousand time, and they have. It's a practiced ease, only disrupted by the fact that they still haven't looked at each other.
"Some things need to be said, simply for the reason that they are true."
He doesn't know what spurs him to continue. For decades the familiar exchange had always ended with her easy rebuke. With an air of forced calm, Tsunade's head turns to look at him. She needs to see what his eyes are saying, needs to understand why he continued.
He meets her gaze, unabashed. His soul has been laid bare before her since they were green shinobi who still thought they could conquer the world. The question was whether or not she chose to look. She was looking now.
He wasn't sure what she was searching for but she seemed to have found it because she closed her eyes and sighed softly and smiled just enough that only he could see it amongst the shadows of the bar. Then...
Everything is back to normal and they look straight ahead and wear neutral masks and drink two more bottles and don't say a word.
And it's so clear that something has changed in the way that nothing has changed at all...because that's Tsunade, complex and contradicting and real, and that's Jiraiya, who knows her better than any other person who has ever stepped foot on this world, dead or alive. And they wouldn't be them if it was simple or obvious. They were shinobi after all.