a/n: here's chapter two, i hope you guys somewhat like this story. a review would be nice, but you guys reading the story is good enough for me. :)
Her greeting was only met with silence before her grandmother patted the seat next to her where Suki had just got up from. "Come, watch with me," Mito whispered with a small curl of her lips, her voice somewhat withered with her age.
Suki's cheeks flushed, a combination of both the chilling breeze and for the grand offer that was given to her. She bowed again, stuttering her gratitude before stiffly sitting down in her former spot, soon relaxing slightly once she tilted her chin up to gaze at the stars again. Lady Grandmother had never given her an opportunity to be close to her like that, and Suki only knew to treat and react with such formalities that she was taught to that she hardly looked up to the lady as someone who can fill her with a somewhat maternal relationship. Her relationship with the older woman was much, much more… distant.
It wasn't like Suki really expected to do anything more than watch the stars and be caught up in her thoughts (which for Suki was just about her anxieties sitting next to the clan head). She stayed still in her seat, until after a while her small body gave up and she slouched with a small pained groan. With the starting cold temperatures, forcing herself to sit still and straight, and sitting on a poorly-made bench, it was too much for her to keep up. Expecting to hear a noise of disapproval as she was led to believe would most likely happen, and the fact that the elders never really made anything but their disapproval known, Suki was surprised to hear a small chuckle coming from Lady Grandmother herself.
"Oh I told him so… I told him so," Lady Grandmother muttered to herself. The little girl raised her brows and tried her best to sit up again, a little alarmed about her grandmother's reaction.
"If- If I may be bold to a… ask, wh-who did you tell?" Suki mumbled, her head lowering in a gesture of submissiveness as to not disrespect her elder.
She was met with a bright response, from her grandmother, still chuckling. "Oh your grandfather, my husband Hashirama," was a brief response before she covered the bottom of her face with her sleeve and continued on with her laughter. Soon, she was able to control her laughter, composing herself by clearing her throat and smiling down at her granddaughter. "Before he was making all those marvelous wooden statues in the front of the garden with his own hands, he was hopeless from the beginning," Mito recounted with a reminiscent look on her face.
"He wasn't always so good at everything he did… When we settled here in Konoha, we built this estate easily with his Wood Release," the redhead started the story, allowing the little girl to unwind some more unlike before with her stiffness. "But he was a stubborn man when it came to some things, like wanting to build something with his own hands instead of relying on his jutsu." Mito knew very well how relying on special skills sometimes bothered her husband, who preferred doing this based on hard work, especially when it came to sentimental things.
"When this part of the garden first came to be, he was only yet starting on his woodworking hobby. I remember walking through this very same garden with him, when many of these bushes were still little buds. A long time ago, I had told him… perhaps in the spring, yes… I had told him that this very spot would be nice to build something to sit on, to feel a breeze and watch the trees blow and just rest a bit," the story brought her back to that memory from many, many years ago, and Mito closed her eyes, trying to relive that moment in time. Even from the longest time, she could still recall her husband's face, and it filled her with warmth.
"I would like to sit here with my husband once in a while to enjoy our new garden, but I can't do that without something we could sit on," Mito huffed at her husband, giving him a slight attitude knowing it would get her what she wanted. Her husband was a fool for her, obviously, but she couldn't just spoil him with her affections all the time, much less in public. He was far too much of a fool to be able to handle himself once she showed him a tiny bit of affection.
Unbeknownst to her, she would get what she wanted, but not in the way she expected it to happen, which will be quite an annoyance later. The redhead looked at her husband, expecting him to quickly conjure up a wooden bench. "Well?" she asked, becoming irked when she saw that one look on his face that gave away his devious intent.
"Well? I'll build one!" Hashirama happily told her, "Even better, I'll build one with my own hands," his enthusiastic expression did not penetrate Mito's rather icy attitude.
"Then build one right now, don't keep me waiting!" Mito snapped at him, which caused her husband to quickly pout at her.
"You know you'll have to wait just a little bit, right? I'd need to get the materials, the tools…" his depressing aura only made the fiery redhead even more hostile upon realizing what Hashirama meant when he said he would build a bench with his own hands.
"Hashirama, this woodworking nonsense in your head, I am not in the state to be tested for it right now. You barely started carving!" Mito exclaimed, her hair making her look that much more intense.
"But my love- don't you want me to build something with my bare hands something our descendants could enjoy from years to come? Nothing would fill my heart with more pride next to this-" he was cut off quickly by his wife who had one answer for him.
"No," was Mito's very firm answer.
"But-"
"Maybe in the future when you're much better at your ridiculous hobbies, Hashirama. You and I both know you'll make something that'll just end up hurting someone," she huffed, stomping away, too impatient to deal with her rather childish husband at the moment. So she left him there pouting before he followed her to quickly apologize, hoping she wouldn't be so cold with him later at night.
But the legendary Wood Release user had slaved away, on that very same spot he spent his free time trying to learn through trial and error to build something his descendants could sit on for many years to come. Through sweat and tears, with his calloused hands he worked hard despite his inexperience, hoping that the bench would at least be decent. He could have done it the easy way with a jutsu, but there was something about making it without the help of chakra that made it much more sentimental. The more he worked on it, the more he especially wanted his wife to enjoy it, and his children, and their children, and so on.
Spring had passed, so did summer, but autumn had just come, and his efforts produced something...usable and somewhat durable, but for him it was special. Hashirama knew it wasn't the best bench out there, but that was now knowing that benches weren't quite easy to make. Nevertheless, he was now quite proud of his first wood work that was outside carving (which he was getting slightly better at).
He had his beautiful wife test it, though she wasn't too enthusiastic about the looks of his work. Sitting down, her face made a steely expression before uttering the word, "uncomfortable".
It quickly sent Hashirama into a depressed mood, apologizing to his wife as he sat down on the ground with his knees on his chest, rocking himself, and as Mito had called it, 'growing mushrooms on his head'.
His lady perhaps felt a little bad for him, slowly coming to terms about the sentimental effect that the bench meant to him. "But perhaps…" she sighed, looking down at her husband.
Hashirama quickly perked up, though not yet fully out of his mood swing, "Hm?"
"Perhaps it's something I will have to use when I would like to sit here with my husband once in a while to enjoy a breeze and watch the leaves blow… and rest a bit," Mito quietly mused without looking at him, not wanting to completely dash his mood with how the bench really turned out. A small flush formed in her cheeks and a small pout came into her features, cursing herself inwardly for turning soft for her husband in that moment.
Of course, her husband had dawned like the sun, quickly crawling over to her and taking her hand while he was still on his knees. A hopeful look at her as he accepted what little hint of acceptance his wife had just given his work. His expression was quick to brighten up like the sun, his radiance making her forget just how uncomfortable she was.
Mito's flush deepened when her husband lifted her hand to his lips, his eyes looking deeply in hers as if to thank her for the small encouragement she had given him. She looked away when the moment embarrassed her enough, pulling away her hand and lifting it up to her chest, ending the moment.
But instead of another mood swing, Hashirama had gotten up and sat next to her, reaching to hold her hand again with the biggest smile on his face at Mito's father adorable reaction.
To take control of the situation, Mito looked back at him again. In her own stubborn way, she tried to put him in his place again. "T-this doesn't mean I like it. But I did only ask for a place to sit on, I didn't specify if I wanted it to be comfortable. You'll have a lot of work ahead of you if you want to make something better than this," she said, trying to be cold again, though it backfired. Her husband only seemed to get more encouraged by her words.
"This'll be something our grandchild or something will probably find unbearable to sit properly on…" Mito sighed to her husband. Even though if that were the case, the bench probably wouldn't last long, and he'd be forced to make another one, hopefully a better one for them to sit on.
Though Mito was right, she was also wrong at the same time. The bench weathered all the troubles, from earthquakes to cyclones. It made her feel so ashamed that she had ever doubted Hashirama, but now she could see clearly why he wanted to build the bench with his own hands.
It was the proof of his love for her.
And while he did want to make something that endured for generations and generations that would fill him up with pride, he only made the bench because she had asked him to. And that he put his faith in that bench just like he put his faith in his love for her because she had allowed him to. And for the longest time after, his love for her stood.
He was so good to her, even when it had started as an arranged marriage, she had never put it into much thought that she would find true love within it. Thinking about it now, she had been quite cold to him when he didn't deserve it. But she was happy to admit that she had grown to love him as well.
Now, a generation later, she would still find millions of reasons to love her husband, and in her old age, Mito was coming to realize she would find it in the girl next to her.