Months go by where they don't see each other.

Six months after the Kyuubi Attack, Hayate finally starts to slow down his mission load, now that the vast majority of the repairs are finished. He's still gone more often than not. Something about being around the village doesn't feel quite right anymore. Not like it should. He's more comfortable when he's out and about. Mostly, he just takes the time to let his body rest, so he's not a hacking mess with a constant headache and raw throat.

He takes the time to socialize. He meets up with Ibiki and Tokara and visits with some of his other past classmates. At some point, when they all stumble upon each other at the training grounds, Hayate trains with Gai and Ebisu. The only person he doesn't see is Genma.

It's alright.

His feelings towards Genma were just a crush, and those always fade with time. He's dead certain that he's been away from Genma for long enough that those feelings are gone—absolutely, one hundred percent sure. No doubt in his mind. Gone, gone, gone.

And then Hayate catches a glimpse of Genma around the village and his heart launches into a hurried pace, and it becomes clear how screwed he is.

Izumo elbows him in the ribs and Hayate startles. "You're staring," Izumo says.

Hayate shoves his hands in his pockets, averting his gaze to the ground. "Dunno what you mean."

"Oh ho ho," Kotetsu says. "Denial? You know, that's considered an admission of guilt."

"Guys, come on," Hayate mumbles. "Cut it out."

"No way! You were totally making sex eyes at him."

"Leave him alone," Izumo says. "You hate it when I get at you for being like that around—"

Kotetsu launches past Hayate to plant his hand over Izumo's mouth. "Dude?" he hisses. "Not cool!"

Izumo shoves him off. "Point proven."

"Alright, alright," Kotetsu says. "Jeez."

Hayate isn't paying them much attention. He's too occupied by the fact that he had months to smother this crush and he somehow failed to, and the fact that he's apparently pretty obvious about it.

Izumo pats him on the shoulder. "Don't worry," he says. "We'll keep quiet. Your business."

Kotetsu withers under the pointed look Izumo sends his way. "Yeah."

"Thanks."

Hayate sighs. It seems that he's got more work to do.


"Hey, Hayate."

Hayate turns his head enough to look over his shoulder at Genma, not lowering his katana. "Hey," he says.

He keeps going with his kata. Even in the late weeks of December, he swings through the set with practised ease, not bothered by the way the air bites at his face and the bare skin of his arms. He feels it in his lungs, in his chest, chafing his insides with each breath he takes in. It's uncomfortable, but his enemies won't give him a break when it gets cold outside, so he can't take one.

Swing, swing, block.

Swing, block, swing, swing.

Block, counter.

The movements drone on for another ten minutes. Only when he's finished does Hayate sheath his blade and give Genma his full attention, his hand resting on the katana's hit.

Hayate didn't think it was possible for Genma to be in worse shape than he was when they went out to the bar a few months ago, and yet here he is, looking like death warmed over.

"So," he says. "Did you, uh… need something?"

Genma shrugs. "Came to train. I saw you here, and I haven't seen you in a while, so…" Another shrug.

"Oh."

"Aren't you cold?"

I'm freezing. "Not one bit."

Genma pulls a face. "How?"

Please leave me alone. "I'm cold-blooded."

And against all of Hayate's expectations, Genma stands up and shrugs off the jacket he has thrown over his jonin uniform. "Here," he says, tossing it to Hayate. "You look like you're about to freeze your ass off."

Hayate tosses it back. "It's fine."

Genma raises an eyebrow, awkwardly holding the jacket like he doesn't quite know what to do with it.

Silence falls between them.

Feeling tension growing between them, Hayate asks, "Are you gonna go and train, or…?"

Genma grins at him. Hayate can see the strain in it, the way it looks like it's stretched thin over his features. "Trying to get rid of me already?" Genma asks. "What, not glad to see me?"

He wants to be able to say that he is, in fact, not glad to see Genma. But he is. He's very glad to see Genma. Of course he's glad to see Genma because of course he's still stuck in this stupid crush.

Surprisingly, along with that stupid flutter in his stomach that he always gets when he talks to Genma, Hayate feels frustration and annoyance. They're not common emotions for him—he's always been patient enough to outlast both of them.

Hayate rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb.

His initial instinct is to think that these feelings aren't justified. Frustration and annoyance are rarely useful emotions, and he doesn't think he has any reason to be feeling them. What does he expect to happen when he talked to Genma again? Genma's just going back to what was normal for them for so long. It's not fair of Hayate to expect anything else. He shouldn't. In fact, he should be grateful, shouldn't he? Their relationship isn't ruined this way. There's no weird conversation about their feelings. Hayate doesn't have to hear Genma call what happened a 'drunken mistake' again. It's a chance to just slip back into their previous comfortable dynamic.

But…

The logical part of his brain is trying to tell him the opposite, though, that he should be annoyed and frustrated, that he's allowed to expect Genma to actually talk about what happened between them.

Except if logic was all that ruled his brain, he wouldn't have ever gotten into this kind of mess in the first place because he never would have developed this crush.

"Sorry," Hayate mumbles. "I gotta go. I promised Dad that I'd eat dinner with him tonight and I don't wanna be late." A lie. He hasn't talked to his dad in at least a month.

Hayate slips past Genma, not sparing him another look on his way out of the training grounds.

Genma doesn't try to stop him.


Hayate flips the page of his book, shifting in his chair to let the lamp behind him better illuminate the words. Night's long darkened the world outside and most of the other people in the library left along with the sun, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the books, save for a few other stragglers. He's not paying much mind to them—his book has the whole of his attention.

It's a new arrival. A book chronicling kenjutsu techniques from the Land of Snow, written in and around sixty years ago. He's reading for interest. He's come across a few kenjutsu users from Snow; not many of their ninja opt for kenjutsu. And with how little interest Snow shows in the goings on of the rest of the world, there's not much practical use for the book. He just likes to examine the difference between what was taught sixty years ago in Snow and what was taught to him in Konoha.

He's engrossed into his book, and it's only when he hears the thunk of a kunai lodging itself into the table that he notices Ibiki sitting in the chair across from him.

"That was slow," Ibiki says. He yanks the kunai out and starts to toy with it. "Ten whole minutes."

Hayate sighs. He keeps the book open, but he's not paying attention to what he's reading anymore. "Consider it a new record."

"If I do that, we'll have to go back to old training rules."

"Get your special jonin promotion and maybe then you can try that. As is, you've got no rule over me."

Ibiki snorts. "Asshole."

Hayate hums, turning the page in his book. Ibiki reaches over and snatches it out of his hands.

"Really?"

"Don't act like you were still reading it," Ibiki says.

Hayate leans back in his chair and sets his arms behind his head. "Fine. What's up, Ibiki?"

"I miss the days when you were scared of your own shadow. You'd have never backtalked me then." Ibiki sticks his index finger inside the kunai ring and swirls it around. "Tch. Kids these days."

"If you're not gonna tell me, at least give me my book back."

"Ah, not yet. I think I'd like to read up a bit on…" Ibiki flips the book over so he can see the cover. "Kenjutsu Practices of the Land of Snow."

Hayate stares Ibiki down rather than deign him with a response.

Ibiki sighs. "Fine. Kid, Tokara and I've both noticed something's going on with you."

A long, heavy breath blows out of Hayate. He drops one of his arms and sets it over his eyes. "And you pulled short straw, so now you have to be the one to talk to me about it."

"I volunteered, actually."

He knew this was coming. Ibiki and Tokara both have four years on Hayate; they've always felt the need to watch over him, even though he currently outranks both of them. If anything, he's surprised they managed to wait this long, because the two of them have been poking and prodding at him for a couple of months now.

"I appreciate the concern, but I don't need you two to baby me."

"I never knew that being concerned about your friend meant you were babying them," Ibiki says dryly. "News to me."

"Ibiki—"

Ibiki holds up a hand to silence him. "Don't tell me that nothing's wrong. I'm not blind or stupid."

Hayate sighs.

There's not much point in beating around the bush with Ibiki. Why bother trying to evade the questions of a professional interrogator?

"You're not stupid," Hayate mumbles, "but what's bugging me is."

"I doubt that."

"You haven't got a clue what this is about. It's really not fair for you to say that quite yet."

"So this isn't about a certain senbon-chewing special jonin?"

Hayate's arms fall into his lap and his chair hits the ground again with a resounding thud. Ibiki's face appears blank, but Hayate's known him long enough to pick up on the traces of smugness colouring his features.

"How?"

"Allow me to repeat: I'm not blind or stupid."

"Fine, but—"

"You've had a crush on him for the last three years," Ibiki says. "It's not exactly a secret."

Maybe a hole can just open up underneath Hayate and swallow him whole.

"It was supposed to be."

"Then you should've tried to hide it better."

Hayate feels like an idiot.

His crush on Genma is personal. He's never told anybody else about it. And he did try and keep it on the down low. It wasn't meant to be something people looked closely at in the first place because it's none of their business.

"Hey," Ibiki says. "It's not a big deal."

"It is to me."

"Alright, that's fine. But I know you, Hayate, and I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking. Nobody thinks you're an idiot for having a crush."

Hayate frowns.

"I mean it," Ibiki says. "We've all been there."

"All?"

"Most of us," he amends. "Most of us have been there."

"Alright," Hayate says, not wanting to beleaguer the point.

"We thought it was great for you, for a while. Both of you seemed to be happy. No harm no foul, all of that." Ibiki shrugs. "But something's been up lately. You're avoiding him—I've watched you do it."

"It doesn't matter."

"Come on. If you don't start cooperating soon, I'm gonna have to pass this on to Tokara, and I don't think either of us wants that."

The thought of talking to Tokara about a boy sends a shiver down Hayate's spine.

Ibiki freaks a lot of people out. Which is fair. His party trick is pulling his cap off and showing all the scars he's accumulated on his head from being tortured. Not to mention that he works in Torture and Interrogation, talking people in circles until they spill their guts for eight hours a day. If Hayate hadn't spent as much time with Ibiki as he has, he'd be intimidated too. But his job as an interrogator does mean that Ibiki tends to be pretty good at giving advice and listening and all of that.

Tokara, on the other hand, wouldn't know what 'tact' was if it did naked jumping jacks right in front of him. Too many emotions in one day tended to give him an upset stomach.

"Exactly," Ibiki says. "So, out with it."

"Fine." Hayate stares down at his hands in his lap. "A few months after the Kyuubi Attack, Genma and I met up for dinner. We were having fun, so we went to the bar, too. Both of us were really drunk, and… and Genma kissed me. I told him that I didn't want to, 'cause we were too drunk."

"And he listened?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Good," Ibiki says. "What happened next?"

"He, uh… when we talked about it the next morning… he said it was a drunken mistake."

Ibiki lets out an appreciative, "Yikes."

Hayate nods. "We didn't talk about it past that. Honestly, we didn't even see each other for a long time after that. Or at least we didn't, like, talk, until a few weeks ago."

"And?"

"And he was… well, he was kind of acting like nothing happened? But he also tried to give me his jacket which felt kind of abnormal? He was all casual, you know, like it was just a friendly thing, but that's… that's a romantic thing to do, right? Maybe I'm reading into it too much, I just…"

"You're confused," Ibiki says. "You two never actually nailed out how kissing each other changed things."

"Should it change things?"

"Did you want it to?"

Softly, Hayate says, "I think so."

"Then you two really need to talk about this."

"But I… I don't think… you know."

"You don't think he's into you?" Ibiki asks.

I don't think I deserve him. Hayate swallows that bitter thought. "Yeah."

Ibiki scoffs. "He is."

"You've literally got no way to know that."

"I do, actually. I'm not blind and stupid, kid, but you sure are sometimes."

"He…" Hayate cuts himself off before the sentence can go any further.

He shouldn't be into me. He can't be into me.

"If you don't believe me, you should go and ask him yourself when he's in the village again."

"Why waste my time?" Hayate mumbles.

"Because you need to hear it for yourself. I'm ninety-nine percent sure he's interested in you, but you've gotta ask him yourself."

Hayate frowns, refusing to lift his gaze.

Ibiki sighs. "Look. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think you and Genma are a good match for each other," he says. "I think you're too young for him and he's not mentally prepared to date anybody, much less somebody who's never been in a serious relationship before. Honestly, it's mostly him that I think is a bad idea—his shit isn't together right now."

"What a vote of confidence."

"Yeah, well, I'm just telling you like it is, because I think you should still try and talk to him, and you should go into that talk with realistic expectations. If that talk ends in you two doing… something together, then so be it. Hell, I hope I'm wrong and that you two will be disgustingly perfect for each other. But none of that matters if you don't talk to him. You need to hear what he says."

"I… yeah, I guess."

"So you'll at least try to talk to him?"

No, no, no. What if he's not interested? What if he's weirded out by all of this? I can't, it'll mess everything up, I can't do this—"Yeah."

Ibiki tosses his book back to him. "That's all I can ask for."

"I promise I'll do it," Hayate whispers, and he can't tell if he's talking to Ibiki or himself.

The sound of wood scraping against wood fills the air as Ibiki stands up, adjusting the collar on his jacket. Like a bubble being popped, the world around them rushes back into Hayate, the gentle sounds of pen on paper and the pages of books being flipped, the musk of old ink that fills the air, the warm glow of the lamps attached to the walls behind him.

In the time that Hayate's taken to come back to his senses, Ibiki's already started towards the door.

"Thanks, Ibiki."

Ibiki simply waves at Hayate on his way out.


Hayate expects it to be at least a month before he catches Genma back in the village, given that while a lot of ninja have started to take breaks and catch their breath, Genma hasn't slowed his mission load since the Kyuubi Attack. He thinks that he'll have some time to get his thoughts in order. Figure out what he wants to say, how he wants to say it. And then Hayate runs into Genma while grocery shopping and he doesn't quite know what to do.

Hayate stands, frozen, as Genma turns to face him, a bright red apple in his hand. "Oh," Genma says. "Hey, man."

"Uh… hi."

Genma drops the apple into a ratty cotton bag slung over his shoulder and goes back to perusing the fruit stand. "How've you been?"

Hayate's grip on his own grocery bag tightens. "I've been alright," he says. "Been working on a new blade discipline."

Genma hums. "And your dad?"

"Fine, he's fine." Hayate clears his throat. "How about you?"

Genma makes a non-committal noise, holding a pear and inspecting it. He settles it in the bag beside the apple and hands the whole thing over to the man running the fruit stand.

It's funny to Hayate. He expected Genma to continue on his downward spiral, looking worse and worse each time Hayate sees him, but today, Genma looks alright. He's never had the most kempt appearance and right now, if it weren't for the signs of sleep deprivation in his face and posture, Hayate could pass him off as being the same Genma that he's known for years.

But the lack of sleep is still enough to make him hesitate.

Genma's got enough shit to deal with, doesn't he?

But this might be the one chance that he gets for months, and he refuses to break his promise.

"Hey, um… Genma."

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a bit of time to talk?"

When Genma looks back to Hayate, there's a clear curiousness in his expression, but there's also something soft that has Hayate's stomach in somersaults. "Sure. As long as you don't mind hanging around for a bit while I get a few more things, at least."

"Y—yeah, no problem."

They chat with each other while Genma grabs a few more things. There are a few minutes more of awkward small talk, but eventually, the block of ice between the two of them thaws and Hayate is reminded of why he has this crush in the first place. Genma's witty comments, quick grins, and relaxing atmosphere. How he can carry himself as if he's invincible, even when he's already riddled with wounds.

Hayate hadn't realized just how much he missed being around Genma until now. The conversation between them tosses a flare down into the hole where Hayate's thrown all of these emotions, and he's alarmed by just how far down the light is going. But he's here now and it's too late to back out—he has to descend.

Eventually, they end up at Genma's apartment.

The general assumption is that when somebody's struggling, overwhelmed, what have you, wherever they live is bound to become messy, a reflection of their mental state. Genma's apartment is a reflection of his mental state, but for him, it works the opposite way; when he's bothered, he cleans.

Genma's apartment is spotless when they walk inside.

"Slippers are in the same place as usual," Genma says, tossing off his shoes. "Just gonna put all this into the kitchen, then I'll meet you in the living room."

Hayate ends up curled into the corner of Genma's couch, his grocery bag abandoned on the coffee table while Genma ambles around the kitchen. When Genma does join Hayate, he flops down onto a chair across from Hayate, leaving plenty of distance between the two of them.

It's hard for Hayate to meet Genma's gaze. He fiddles with his hands in his lap instead, trying to weave together what he wants to say.

"If it makes things easier for you," Genma says. "I'm pretty sure I know what this is about."

"A little."

Genma draws one leg up and holds it against his chest, his chin rested on his knee. The tip of the senbon in the corner of his mouth flicks up and down and up and down. It's hard to tell what he's thinking.

"I wasn't even going to try and talk about it," Hayate says. "I just, I—I didn't really know how to feel, after the, uh…"

"After the kiss."

Hayate's grateful that one of them, at least, was comfortable with the topic. He nods. "It was a lot."

"What changed your mind?"

"Ibiki."

"Huh. Wasn't expecting that."

"They were worried, I guess," Hayate says. "Him and Tokara."

"They knew about the kiss?"

"Not… really? Ibiki just said that they noticed I was acting kind of weird, and they noticed how I was acting around you, and apparently, they already knew I uh…" Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it. "I had a crush on you."

Why?

Both of Genma's eyebrows go all the way up to his hairline. "Can I get you to repeat that last one?"

Hayate's throat goes dry. "I… uh… do I have to?"

"I'd like you to, but I won't make you."

"I have for a while," he says, his voice just above a whisper. "Since we got back from Kusa."

"Oh."

He blows out a breath. "You didn't know, did you?"

Genma shifts, pulling both of his knees against his chest now, and Hayate can see that while his face is calm, Genma's uncomfortable with the conversation being turned towards him.

"It seemed like you did at first, but…" Genma shrugs. "I figured you got over it, or something, 'cause you never mentioned it. Especially after I kissed you." Something flits through his expression that Hayate doesn't quite catch.

Hayate's eyebrows knit together and he frowns. "I told you I was interested after it happened."

The senbon goes still. "You did?"

What actually happened starts to sink in for Hayate. He hadn't even considered that Genma might not remember what happened that night—his recollection wasn't stellar, either, despite having had less to drink than Genma.

"How much do you remember?" Hayate asks.

"Almost nothing. I know I tried to kiss you and you weren't down for it, but that's literally it."

"Right after it happened, I told you that I was interested, but that I didn't want to do anything when we were drunk."

Genma blinks. Once, twice, three times. And it startles Hayate when he starts to laugh.

All of a sudden, Hayate finds it impossible to stay upset. He puts himself in Genma's shoes. If Genma's telling the truth, all he remembers from the kiss is being rejected. Hayate can't say that he wouldn't have reacted how Genma did. Hurt feelings always make things more complicated and messy, and this situation is no exception, based on how both of them have reacted thus far.

When he settles down, Genma says, "Man, I feel like such an asshole right now." There's a bitter undercurrent in his voice. "How come you didn't say anything the next morning?"

No noise leaves his mouth when Hayate tries to respond. The words are stuck in his throat, an ugly lump that he struggles to swallow around, and all he can do is shake his head in response.

Genma stands from his chair and moves to sit on the edge of the coffee table in front of Hayate. He's close. Too close. Hayate leans back, unprepared for the invasion of his personal space. Genma seems to sense this and moves to sit cross-legged on top of the table, putting a bit of distance between the two of them.

"So," Genma says. "This was all just… one giant misunderstanding."

"That's how it sounds."

"That went on for months."

"Yeah."

"Awesome," Genma says.

He eyes up Hayate. The air between them goes taut. "When you asked me to talk… what did you want out of this?"

"I didn't really know."

No expectations. When you expect nothing, you can't be disappointed when the universe delivers you exactly that.

"Yeah? How 'bout now?"

Genma stays right where he is and stares at Hayate, head tilted, his hands relaxed in his lap.

Oh, he thinks. He's waiting for me.

Hayate can't put the put the feelings churning inside of him into words, so he leans forward and reaches out for Genma's hand instead. Genma watches him without moving an inch.

Their hands touch. Their fingers link together.

It's warm.

"Are you… sure about this?" Genma asks.

"Enough."

"Enough that I can kiss you?"

"Uh… uh huh."

In one movement, Genma scoots forward on the table and pulls Hayate closer. Now Hayate's the one who stays still, barely breathing, as Genma's face draws nearer and nearer until their noses are almost touching and Hayate can smell the peppermint on Genma's breath.

"Good?" Genma asks.

Now, Hayate moves. He closes the distance between the two of them. This time, the kiss is soft and slow, and Genma's free hand comes to rest on Hayate's neck, grounding him in the every second of it. The warmth in his chest blossoms outwards and wraps around every fibre of his being.

Hayate doesn't even notice that he's been pricked by the senbon until they pull away and Genma moves his hand to wipe at it, rubbing his thumb across a spot near the corner of Hayate's mouth with a smirk.

"Oh," Hayate says.

"Mmm… kinky."

Before Hayate can think about it, he leans forward and presses his forehead into Genma's shoulder, laughing. The whole moment is surreal for him. Laughing, touching, kissing. Reciprocation. As if the months following their kiss never even happened. Genma wraps an arm around his back and he rests his chin on top of Hayate's head.

Right now, the apartment could be burning down around the two of them and Hayate doesn't think he would care.