Author's Note: I know I said I'm focussing my attentions on An Inch of Gold (and I am-everyday outlining a bit more!), but I had an idea for this chapter, and a lot of people have said they wanted to see some more Kakashi/Manako interactions, so…voila. More Kakashi not knowing how do the people thing, and more Manako being zen.
Kakashi does not "avoid" people.
Even though his days are no longer filled with same high-risk, top secret missions he carried out while part of ANBU, there is always some errand that needs doing or that "one more thing" he just can't put off.
So, it has nothing to do with avoiding such troubling words friendship that has him spending the next two weeks outside of the village. And if Hana Inuzuka doesn't bring up anything about their brief conversation related to her sister during Bull's next veterinary appointment, well why would she? It was just a passing commentary and he doesn't intend to dwell on it.
Kakashi won't say he's relieved.
Relief would imply he there was something bothering him. Which there isn't.
Because he doesn't have time for friendships. He tolerates Gai's presence in his life because the taijutsu master is his self-proclaimed rival—and there is literally no way that Kakashi has discovered to make him leave him alone. And he's a fellow shinobi, so he knows the risks to any type of personal connection to other people.
Especially civilians.
Kakashi has a way of doing things, and it's working fine for him. All things considered, his life is what most people aspire for. He is in peak physical condition, is respected in the community, has a steady pay check, and on the occasions when he wants it, has no problem finding sexual partners that, like him, aren't looking for anything beyond the night.
The only vice he really has is his choice of reading material, and honestly, he doesn't consider that really a vice. Some people create fantasy sports teams and some people, apparently, juggle geese. His hobbies don't hurt anyone (or any animal), and they occupy the twenty-five percent of his life not spent remembering the loved ones who died or waiting for that eventual mission which will get him killed.
For a shinobi, and especially one that has dealt with so much, he thinks he lives a pretty balanced life.
A civilian just wouldn't get that.
And so Kakashi is resolute and confident in his life choices and definitely not avoiding anyone.
He has trouble repeating that mantra to himself the day he returns from a short reconnaissance mission and stumbles upon the bewildering sight of Manako climbing a tree.
His tree.
The one that has the perfect amount of shade and is in an optimal location to benefit from the cool air off the river.
Granted, random tree-climbing is not a rare sight here. Most genin spend their early missions clambering up trees after stray pets or learning to survey their surroundings without being noticed. And Konohagakure does mean village hidden in the leaves, so it stands to reason its inhabitants should know how to do that.
But Manako is not trying to be stealthy or quiet and Kakashi can't see any lost animals anywhere.
And it's still his tree.
Which might be the reason he coughs to announce his presence. She glances down at him, one arm wrapped around the lowest tree branch, and her foot pressed in the too-small groove of the trunk. They blink at each other.
"Yes…?" she drawls after a beat.
"…What are you doing?"
Her eyebrows go up, and she glances up at the tree branch, and then at him. "Seriously? Are you blind?"
"No." Next to the members of the Hyūga clan, he has the best eyesight in the village, and probably knows that. It's just a way of meeting an inane question with an equally inane rejoinder. He feels a glimmer of mounting respect at that, even if her answer doesn't exactly clarify anything. He tilts his head to one side, still frowning at her hold on the tree, and rather than elaborating on obvious question, he instead asks, "Why?"
"Because," she replies with a grunt, finally getting enough of a grip with her foot to kick off the trunk and swing her leg up around the branch. "This is the most comfortable spot. And it's the best place to enjoy the breeze. The perfect place to read."
I'm aware, he wants to say, but then that might lead into a conversation about how he knows this, and possibly lay the groundwork for him to lay some bizarre ownership to the tree. Which he won't admit, he has a childish inclination to do just that.
There are some things that should be sacred, and a man's…reading space is one of them.
But she's not to know that and so instead, he asks, "Why don't you just walk up?"
He's rather sure that she has at least that much training, drop-out or not.
Manako gives him a look like he's dribbled on his shirt. "That defeats the purpose."
"The purpose of what?"
"When was the last time you climbed a tree without using chakra?" she deflects.
Kakashi begins to reply, and then pauses when he realises he actually can't remember. Trying to control his frown, he asks, "What does that matter?"
"I don't know. You tell me." Twice her hands slip, and she grumbles at the scrapes and splinters, before performing a complicated wiggle to inch herself up around. She straddles the branch for a moment, both feet hanging down and panting, but then she crawls toward the dip where branch meets trunk and brings out a paperback.
Clear dismissal.
Every braincell in Kakashi's head tells him to just keep walking after that. This girl is, to put it bluntly, weird. But it sort of bothers him that he can't remember the last time he climbed a tree under his own power. And really, it's a skill that a shinobi ought to have, especially if in a situation where chakra is rendered null or if he's too weak to use it.
Granted, if he's too weak to call upon his chakra, he's probably too weak to climb a tree, but somehow that makes him more intent on proving he can do it.
It takes him longer than he expects, but then he is sitting on the branch several feet away from her, feeling a little ridiculous.
"I still don't get it," he tells her bluntly.
She laughs at that, fixing him with an amused stare. "There was no existential reason, you know. I just wanted to see if I could get you to do it." She pretends to consider him. "I never would have taken you for the type to cave to peer pressure."
"I'm not. You're a bad influence on me."
"Oh, sure, blame me for your issues."
He frowns at that.
"Well, this has been an interesting experiment," he says, getting to his feet and preparing to jump down from the tree. As he is moving, something in his pack digs into his right hip, and he suddenly remembers the paperback he's been carrying around for two weeks.
Which he's been meaning to return to her, but just kept getting to busy to do.
He digs it out and moves toward her, balancing easily on the branch, and holds out the Icha Icha book he has committed to memory. "You probably want this back."
Manako takes the book and flashes him a mischievous grin. "Was it everything you expected it to be? I'm so glad it didn't turn into a love triangle story. I was a little worried at the beginning, but then that trope got completely subverted, right? And, personally, I think the author describes breasts in way too much detail, but the sex-scene in the middle was hot."
Warmth floods Kakashi's cheeks, and he's very glad of his mask right then, because this is not exactly a conversation he pictured having with anyone before. Yes, he reads romance novels, and yes, it's a relatively well-known quirk of his, but no one has ever tried to talk to him about it.
So, he decides to change the subject, which is difficult at first, since he doesn't actually know anything about her. Besides sharing a taste for romance novels, the only thing he knows about her is she likes to blow things up.
There's not exactly a polite or smooth segue from talking about romance novels to demolition, and so he doesn't try for one.
"Your projectile tags need a delay, and the adhesive grenades leak. You might want to add a secondary charge to your flash bombs to ensure lingering side effects for anyone who tries to disarm it."
She blinks at the abrupt change of subject, and then snorts.
"Well it took you long enough," Manako complains. "I thought I'd have grey hair by the time you finally got back to me!" She side-eyes him and then drawls, "Weeeell, maybe not as much as you have, Scarecrow. But still."
His mouth firms at the slight mocking of his name, but he shrugs it off. It doesn't matter what she says, because he is leaving. Before he can, though, she digs for something in her pocket and whips it through the air at him. "Here. I bet this is to your tastes, too."
Out of reflex he catches it: another paperback.
"No—" he begins, because accepting another book will necessitate a future conversation with her.
"Jiraiya recommends it," she says, cutting him off, and the sound of his favourite author's name gives him momentary pause. "Apparently he got inspiration for Benibara in the Icha Icha series from the main female character in this book."
Despite his intentions, Kakashi's eyes flick toward the lurid cover of the paperback.
Which…well, Benibara is his favourite character in the series. She's gutsy and independent, but in a very human and relatable way, unlike a lot of the heroines he's come across in his perusal of romantic and erotic literature. And she has flaws and struggles that don't magically resolve themselves at the end of the book, like her idealism and tendency to let her emotions guide her choices, which leads to trouble. And though she's unfailingly loyal to Isha, she also doesn't balk from calling him on his arrogance.
But Kakashi shakes his head. Just because the character might be similar isn't enough for him to get invested—
Manako is speaking again. "It's about samurai on two sides of a war who fall in love—"
"That's completely cliché," he blurts out before he can stop himself.
"—but it takes place in space. And there are pirates."
"That sounds ridiculous."
And intriguing.
"You know you want to read it," she goads in a sing-song voice. "If you didn't want to, you'd have dropped it by now."
Kakashi stares down at the book in his hand, and the woman in samurai armour passionately embracing a good-looking man, also in full regalia, while the vast stars in the sky stretch out behind them.
Because no, he is not going to give in.
Accepting a book exchange once is an anomaly, a transaction, a simple form of etiquette. But twice…
Twice is the beginning of a pattern. And he has done his best to avoid any kind of pattern for years now, especially in the form of relationships—
"Oh, and take these—" Again Manako is tossing something to him, and he again catches them by reflex. A package of explosive tags, with an electric purple script, and of a different shape than the ones he used before. "Let me know how wide the blast radius is, because the recipe for these ones is tricky. If I'm even a little off my measurements it won't be controllable, so I need to know for sure."
And she goes back to her book, as if it's just expected he'll take the book and the explosives and be on his way.
Kakashi is at a loss.
He should simply take off, leaving the objects she's given him behind. He doesn't owe her an explanation or justification, or even a polite rejection. And from the look of her, she probably wouldn't care one way or the other.
And yet…
Her take-it-or-leave-it attitude is refreshing.
Since leaving ANBU, everyone in his life is always trying to handle him. Lord Third gives him missions he thinks will help Kakashi recover parts of himself he lost long ago, and Gai tries to prevent him from sinking into total monotony by coming up with newer and more ridiculous challenges. Kurenai keeps making suggestions about women he might want to date, Asuma watches him with those too-knowing eyes like he's waiting for Kakashi to open up, Yugao skirts around conversation topics that he might find uncomfortable, Yamato is always so formal with him, as if being less so will erase what has happened in the past—
Kakashi knows it's all done out of the goodness of their hearts because at the end of the day he knows these people care about it.
But no one has ever just let him be. Not without some expectation attached to it, some need to gloss over the darkest parts of him, to fix him. When Kakashi learned a long time ago that there is never going to be a fix for what he's endured.
There is no cure. There's just living with it.
He wonders how a teenaged drop-out figured that out and hardened shinobi haven't.
Perhaps that's why Kakashi finds himself slowly sitting back down on the tree branch and flipping open the cover of the paperback.
"I thought you were leaving?" Manako asks, not looking up from her book.
"I'm just reading the first page," he replies, elaborately casual. "If it's terrible, I won't have to come back across to town to give it back to you."
"Mm-hm."
But she doesn't comment on the fact he doesn't leave his spot for the next hour.
Which he decides, is another point in her favour.
Favour for what, he's not entirely sure, anymore than he knows when he started keeping a running tally.
つづく
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Comments and constructive criticism are much appreciated, and very motivating—and if you enjoy my writing, check out my original stories! You can find info on that on my tumblr Typewriter Ninjutsu.
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