"Senju-sama, are you sure you wouldn't like a cup of tea, at least. You haven't eaten since yesterday and…"
"Get out! Leave! Now!" the red haired woman cried at the top of her lungs, scaring the young maid away.
That lovely young maid, who had only meant well, ran out, scared, dropping the porcelains in which she had been bringing the tea.
Still irritated, Mito, grimaced and knelt to the floor, picking the porcelain shards, with much more patience than she thought herself capable of having in that very moment. Her kimono got soaked in warm tea, as she crawled on her knees, around the room, gathering the shards.
Finally finishing, she rang the bell. The maid stepped in fearfully, knowing that she had done wrong, waiting to be seriously scolded for the porcelains, but Madame Senju said only, "Bring me a night dress. I'll be preparing for sleep." The maid nodded, taking the gathered shards of porcelain as she left.
Mito seated before the mirror and started undoing her hair. Her eyes were still glimmering with the recent anger. But that was alright. Her eyes hadn't been so alive for a long while.
While cleaning her make-up, she watched her face attentively. Mito had yet to reach her thirties. Her face was still young, her face, smooth, her lips, red. Being a kunoichi, her constant training left her with a thin, delicious figure even after her two children. Still, was she too old to feel a first heart break?
"Here, Senju-sama," the maid brought the dress. Mito clenched her teeth, remembering what had caused her to burst that way just earlier.
"Mito-sama," she corrected the maid sharply. The young one was new in there, probably. "You shall call my husband like that," she added, dismissing the maid. If he ever comes back…
She'd even dress down and prepare for sleep alone than hear another mention made by mistake of her husband.
She got up in her bed, but a single glance at the other side of it, now empty, was enough for her to get up as if she'd been sitting on snakes. Her eyes got teary as she fell to her knees, sobbing quietly. "What have you done, you idiot?" she questioned with a whisper, talking to the empty space at the right side of her bed.
But that didn't last long. She got up fast, clearing her vision. "And what am I doing now, idiot me?" she mumbled in a cried, husky voice. Opening the door slowly, she made sure there was no one around and tiptoed to the opposite room. Walking inside, she stared at the two little figures sleeping peacefully in their beds. Why she was in there, she had no idea. Probably, she had come at the push of a sudden instinct of checking it; to check if that new aura poured over these two creatures, part of him, carrying so many features and behavior patterns of his. Walking quietly to the closest bed, the one in which slept the youngest, she felt the same tenderness any person with a beating heart would have felt at the sight of such a lovable, pretty toddler, but not that of a mother longing for her child. Her own numbness burned her inside and she walked out and back to her room. Maybe it was just her, in the end. Maybe she did not have the heart to love, like any other woman could. In that moment, the blissful joy on the face of her husband, the day the youngest had been born, appeared before her eyes. Why hadn't she felt that way, too?
She was heartless. The look in everybody's eyes told it, "Look at that heartless one. She does not care for anybody but herself." People did not like her. They were obedient because they had to. Because she was a fearless kunoichi. Because she was the wife of the Hokage. The wife of Senju Hashirama – this man who had left. He had left to fight Uchiha Madara. And he might not come back alive. But Mito begged the gods for a chance to see him alive again. She begged the gods for him to stay safe. Because she had to tell him. She had to tell him something she had not known herself until the day he had left. She had to tell him she loved him. And that she cannot imagine losing him.