Implied Genma/Yuugao, set preseries, part one of two. Third in the Genma/Yuugao series, set at the end of the year in which "Even" takes place. Please enjoy.

Atonement

Part I

Genma liked parties well enough, but bounenkai he tended to stay away from. Not that he wasn't all about getting drunk with his comrades and friends on any given night, but a night to forget the sorrows and troubles of the past year – that seemed to be something that one should do on his own. Genma had a ritual for that, something pretty unofficial – he'd stand at the edge of the river and toss stale bread and crumbled senbei into it, counting his sins one by one with a flick of his wrist and the swig of shochu that accompanied each one. One for the civilian casualty in that document retrieval mission, he'd think as he watched a duck snap up a few crumbs while the rest melted into the water; One for the genin that got caught in that explosion tag. Eventually, he'd get so completely shitfaced, he'd have to wait till Raidou came out to the river and dragged his sorry ass back to his apartment so he could puke up all of the stale bread – all of the sins – he didn't eat, and all of the atonement alcohol he did.

But this year, Aoba had somehow managed to convince him that going to the bounenkai was a good idea. The convincing had happened on a mission – when most of Aoba's successful convincing was done – during a stakeout that had lasted so long that by the tail end of it, Genma had had so much of Aoba's incessant chatter that he'd have agreed to anything to get the man to shut up. By the time Genma had realized exactly what he had agreed to, it was too late to back down, and Genma was, if nothing else, a man of his word.

Ibiki was hosting the bounenkai – as he did every year, much to the confusion of the general population. Ibiki was such a nonsocial creature that it was hard to imagine he'd voluntarily host a party which most of the village's chuunin, tokujou, and jounin would be attending, and he seemed to rarely make an appearance himself. The only people who could swear to seeing him were generally drunk at the time. This Genma found unsurprising.

The large house was already crowded with people chattering and murmuring over drinks by the time Aoba dragged Genma there. To Genma's mild surprise, Raidou was standing on the front porch, leaning against the outside wall with a beer in his hand. The two of them exchanged a mutual cocking of eyebrows, but Genma beat Raidou to the obvious question.

"You come to these things?"

Raidou rolled his eyes and snorted as he bumped his fist against Genma's in a friendly greeting. "I need something to do every year while I wait for you to get shitfaced on the riverside. Though I see your plans have changed, this year." He gave Genma a slightly suspicious look. "I thought you didn't like bounenkai."

"I don't, generally speaking," Genma said, tossing his head in Aoba's direction, though the lanky tokujou had already started wandering off into the party. "But the Wondermouth here managed to convince me to come."

"Aha." It was a given that Raidou understood exactly how Aoba's convincing worked on missions; he'd been victim to it more than once. The two of them were pretty convinced that Aoba never quite knew exactly what he was doing, of course. Raidou looked fairly amused, and offered his beer to Genma, who declined with a shake of his head.

"I'll get my own, thanks." Genma turned his gaze to the open door, peering inside, where he presumed the alcohol to be. "Shit, man, everyone and their mother really does show up to this thing."

"Wouldn't be so sure about their mothers, given some of the shit that goes on every year. Did you ever hear about the karaoke strip poker incident?" Raidou shuddered and took a sip of his beer. "I swear, I never want to see that much of Aoba ever again. Or Iwashi. Or – you know what? Any of them."

Genma cackled aloud, and Raidou grunted in mild displeasure. "Shut up and go get your beer, Shiranui. I'm not allowed to get more drunk than you, tonight."

Genma cocked the senbon in his mouth at Raidou in a parody of a smirk as he carried himself through the door. Almost as soon as he'd crossed the threshold, he found he had to start squeezing by people – the place really was crowded. It took him several minutes and a few muttered questions to find where, exactly, the alcohol was being kept, and the search led him even deeper into the house. There was a crowd of people surrounding the icebox, and it took Genma a few moments to make his way close enough to grab a beer – two, on second thought; Raidou could probably use a second, despite his insistence on remaining relatively sober.

The condensation on the bottles chilled his hands as he turned, eyes searching for the exit again so he could find Raidou. The house was full of people – some he recognized, some he didn't, and some he –

His gaze jerked back to the smudge of color that had caught his eye. He recognized what he could see of the sheet of plum-colored hair and painted china face faster than he was ready to admit. He hadn't seen her for months – not since he'd visited her in the hospital after that rescue mission – but he still knew that face anywhere.

She was standing by the wall, talking to some kid – he must have been older than he looked, but he was so sickly and emaciated it was hard to tell. Her scarlet lips were moving slowly and deliberately, just like the way Genma remembered that she spoke, but she was smiling more than he could ever recall. It didn't seem right. Her eyes, though, were the same as ever. Genma abandoned the idea of finding the front porch right away – Raidou could wait a little longer for his other beer. They had the whole night, after all.

It was so much easier to move toward Yuugao than it was to scramble for the door. She wasn't all that far away, even if the distance was interspersed with moving, living bodies. Genma saw Yuugao say something to the kid as he covered his mouth, saw her place her hand lightly on his arm before he moved away. As Genma drew closer and got a better look, he realized the kid was probably older than Yuugao was. She was really only a girl herself. Genma remembered how small she'd looked on the hospital bed.

It was odd to see her in something other than a hospital gown or her ANBU uniform. She was dressed modestly, in a long-sleeved shirt with a high neck well-suited to the cold. Pants, Genma noticed, not a skirt. ANBU were always the pragmatic, functional types, while their minds were still largely intact.

As expected of a top-notch agent, she noticed his approaching presence before he'd said a word. She turned to face him as he stepped into place beside her against the wall, her features washed lightly with surprise.

"I know you," Genma said, smirking wryly around the senbon. He noticed the half-empty bottle in her hands. It was odd – he'd never imagined her to be the type to drink. She was so serious – so young.

Remember me?

Yuugao smiled slightly, but it wasn't the full smile Genma had once had the chance to see. "No you don't, Genma-san," she said, and though she seemed to be joking in that somber way of hers, Genma reeled slightly, as if he'd been struck.

Why did you come here?

"I didn't know you came to Ibiki-senpai's bounenkai."

"I don't, generally speaking." Genma was deliberately off-handed, sliding one of the cold beers into his pocket so that he could crack open the other. "I was coerced into it, this year. Though I have to say, I'm equally surprised at seeing you here. Didn't know you fancied a busy, crowded kind of thing like this."

"I never said I do." Yuugao took a sip from the bottle in her hand. Genma noticed the delicate way her lips touched the glass – everything about her was so deceptively fragile. "I suppose I can say I was coerced, as well. A friend asked me to come."

The symmetry of circumstance was so absurd to Genma that he wanted to laugh, but he refrained. "That sickly thing you were talking to just now?" he asked, raising his bottle to her in a gesture so slight it was hard to swear it had been there at all. The beer was fresh and crisp and absolutely shitty, and Genma would have expected no less.

Yuugao laughed, so quietly that Genma could only identify it by her movements. "Hayate-san? No, not him."

"So who is he, then?" Genma couldn't help but note how odd it was to see her so whole and normal, especially next to the shinobi she'd been speaking to.

"A colleague." Genma couldn't tell if she was being evasive on purpose, or if her way of speaking merely made it seem that way. "He is an excellent swordsman. I hope to learn from him."

Genma studied her, this time with a much more critical and deliberate eye. In the few times they'd ever spoken, he'd gotten the feeling that there was always something she was deliberately not saying. He wasn't sure if it was merely force of habit, or if she was guarded, somehow. The thought only made her seem all the more delicate. "So you can better save sorry old shinobi from their untimely demise?" he said, smirking in an entirely self-deprecating manner. He'd expected her to be amused by it, but she seemed to shy away from it instead.

"We are all forever pupils at the hand of experience," she recited, all too seriously, and this time Genma really couldn't help but laugh. It was short-lived; he couldn't tell if she was offended by it or not. "So if you don't usually come to parties like this, Genma-san, what do you do this time of year?"

He shrugged, dismissively, though he thought, briefly, how odd it was that she so frequently addressed him by name – he wasn't sure he'd ever so much as spoken hers. "Much the same as I'm doing now, but I do all the drinking by myself," he said glibly. It was an oversimplification – almost a lie – and he was almost certain she knew it. "I've got a place I go to."

"Every year?"

He almost felt uncomfortable, the way she asked. It was strange – she was only a girl. "Every year."

What could have been some sort of amused interested touched Yuugao's face, delicately so, and Genma watched her as she took another sip of her beer. He wondered if she even enjoyed the taste of that stuff. "You're a man of ritual, Genma-san. It's not hard to see. Why would you abandon such an important ritual in favor of a party like this? You don't like it."

Genma wanted to be offended at the way she so authoritatively made those statements – as if she knew them to be fact. The worst part was that she was right on just about every point. He gave her an almost tight-lipped smile, raising his beer to his mouth. "I'm also a man of my word," he said, leaning back against the wall, "and I did give my word to a friend I'd be here."

Yuugao smiled, slightly, and Genma thought he finally might be offended. A prelude to speech hung in the air in front of her lips, light and buzzing, but Genma spoke before she could bite it out of the air.

"So if this isn't the sort of thing you usually do this time of year," he said, swirling the beer in his bottle slightly, as one usually does with fine wine in a crystal glass, "then what do you do?"

"Missions, usually." Her tone was even, but Genma was almost certain she was deliberately evading the question. Liar, he thought to himself, even if that was the wrong word and he knew it.

"That's not what I meant," he said, even though he was quite sure she already knew that. She only smiled at him, still, and inclined her head slightly toward him. Her violet hair shifted and fell in waves with the motion.

"The beer in your pocket is getting warm, Genma-san," she told him, though her eyes never left his face. "You should bring it to your friend soon."

Once again, Genma felt as if he'd been slapped. He flinched, involuntarily, and stepped back with the motion, masking it. Her words were nothing but that – words – but sometimes, when she spoke, they held such power that he could do nothing but acknowledge them in such a way. Or rather, he chose to acknowledge them – he lent them power as much as she did. Bowing stiffly, his hair falling over his face for a brief moment, he drew back. "It was a pleasure entertaining you, Yuugao-san," he said, speaking her name for the first time. The honorific seemed mocking. His eyes never left her face.

She said nothing more. Her figure melted into the crowd as Genma sidled away, drawing the beer from his pocket. The condensation had made it cool and slippery, and it slid in his grasp, as if trying to wriggle free. He clamped his fingers around it more tightly, and headed back for the front door.

Raidou was, predictably, still standing there, though the bottle he'd held before was empty and now resting on the porch against the outside wall. He raised his head as Genma stepped out onto the porch, holding two beers. The evening December chill was biting, but somehow Genma felt no colder.

"Hey." Raidou nodded at him, removing one large hand from his pocket to accept the bottles held out to him. "Took you an awful long time to pick up a few beers. Did you have a fight with the cooler or something?"

"I ran into an acquaintance," Genma said, his tone even and neutral. Raidou cocked an eyebrow. "No one you know," Genma added, but Raidou looked even more intrigued now.

"Wrong answer, Genma. Now I'm curious." The creeping half-smirk looked a little out of place on Raidou's heavily scarred face. Genma grunted into his beer, refusing to indulge his best friend at his own expense.

"I think I'm heading out," he said, a bit abruptly, after draining half of what was left in the bottle. He was in no mood to dance with words. He held the beer out in Raidou's direction, and when his comrade didn't take it, he set it down neatly on the windowsill. From the corner of his eye, he watched the expression on Raidou's face shift into something more serious.

"You just got here. Why the hell are you taking off so soon?"

Genma gave a noncommittal shrug. "Bounenkai aren't my thing. If I want to get shitfaced, I can do it not surrounded by people trying to absolve themselves of their sins." It was such a private thing – why would anyone want to do it with tens of other people who were doing the very same thing?

He knew the answer, but he didn't care for it.

Raidou's face was somewhere between displeased and concerned. "I'll go with you," he offered, nodding at Genma. Genma just shook his head, waving his hand.

"You actually like these things. You come every year, don't you? Stick around with Yamashiro. Keep him relatively out of trouble. I'm just going to go home." It wasn't a complete lie – Genma's shochu was in his apartment. Raidou's expression was now tinged slightly with what looked like it could be distress, and he leaned against the outside wall of the house with a quiet huff.

"I'll come looking for you later," he said. His voice had an incongruous warning tone to it. Genma just shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his senbon upward with a smirk, shaking his head as he carried himself away from Ibiki's bustling home. He could have told Raidou not to bother, but he was always glad for the company at the end of the night, and suggesting anything else would have been a lie on more than one level. The wind nipped at his nose threateningly, but Genma made no move to pick up his pace. There was no need to hurry, tonight.