Love-in-idleness
A/N: I should be working on the revisions, but I'll save that for New Year's. Happy Holidays, everyone.
"It made sense that she is attracted to strong men. It also made sense that she is repulsed by his personality."
He knows he can do without her. He knows that she could do, and would probably do better, without him. They weren't in any sort of relationship that asked for equal investment. She wanted to fuck, he wanted to fuck, and nothing happened after that.
But he wanted to talk. He wanted to understand. He wanted to see if anything beneficial could come out of a relationship like that, as if it was a novel where the main couple has a rough start, and then come to an understanding of each other, and eventually fall in love, accompanied by titillating sex scenes and erotic clichés.
It might have been immature of him to think that, delusional even.
Life is nothing like those novels.
Which is why he doesn't wake up with a longing for another body beside him, doesn't imagine someone else is taking a shower while he brushes his teeth, doesn't eat breakfast thinking about saving some for a non-existent partner, doesn't wait for a kiss on his cheek and the phrase "Come back soon!" to echo in his head.
Still, at the end of the day, he says, "I'm home."
Even if he doesn't expect a "Welcome back."
"Welcome back, Kakashi."
But his father, Rin, Minato, and Obito are still there to welcome him.
His daily routine went like that.
Sometimes he talks to Tenzou.
But he doesn't talk to him about her or the affair. It feels too sudden and out of place, uncalled for and awkward. Tenzou isn't a talky person, much like him, and striking a conversation about that would merit suspicion. He hasn't shown that kind of interest in anyone before and the implications are disastrous. Tenzou might be considered one of his closest friends and most trusted confidants, but really?
He isn't sure if Tenzou has any semblance of romantic interest towards her, but it is always possible.
And if Tenzou did have feelings for her, what then?
He doesn't want to think about the scenarios because he won't ask.
Not yet.
But he hasn't talked to him in a while, and this is the only free time he has in his busy day of avoiding responsibility, so...
"Senpai." Tenzou hissed.
Of course, Tenzou noticed him hiding in the trees before he could even jump down.
"Yo, Tenzou."
That, or he wasn't even trying.
"Have you had lunch yet?"
They were both in the ANBU, after all.
"Depends." His kouhai shrugged before glaring at him, "Will I pay for it again?"
"My treat." He says. "Promise."
Tenzou narrowed his eyes at him. "That's new."
His senpai might be someone who avoids the responsibility of taking care of the bill most of the time, but when he makes a promise, it's almost guaranteed to be fulfilled.
On the way to the restaurant, Tenzou wonders what brought Kakashi to do this. Does he feel that he wronged him somehow? Or does he just feel like it? It's spontaneous and unexpected, yes, but something he wouldn't put past Kakashi. Maybe he's going through a crisis or something and needs someone to talk to? Or does he feel like he owes Tenzou this much, at least, after all the times he's made him pay for his food?
It might be the latter, since the restaurant Kakashi brings him to looks expensive and familiar.
"This is...quite an expensive place." He says as they stand in front of the ornate doorway.
"But the food is good." Kakashi replies casually.
And Tenzou suddenly remembers why it's so familiar.
Months before, this restaurant opened and caused quite a commotion amongst the villagers and shinobi living around it. The war had just ended and not everyone had finished mourning the losses caused by the war, and the owner of this upscale and expensive-looking diner had thought it the perfect time to open shop? They must be mad.
"Are you sure about this, Shikai-san?" He stands nervously. "This place looks expensive."
Little did he know that money was no concern to the woman beside him, who simply shrugged and replied, "But the food is good."
And it's true.
She orders a fourteen-course kaiseki, a set of small dishes meticulously prepared by the restaurant chef. They were served sashimi, pickled vegetables, a light soup, a savory rice dish, grilled fish, braised chicken, a heavy pork-broth soup, among several side dishes.
Upon serving of the ninth course, he dares to ask:
"What brought this on, Shikai-san?" He asked cautiously, breaking the comfortable atmosphere between them, "It's not that I'm ungrateful, I really am. The food is as good as you say, but..."
She has eaten here before. She might have even ordered a course meal before, but why? Is she that wealthy?
"Are you sleeping with anyone, Yamato-san?"
That's enough reason to hesitate, he thinks.
"No, it's just–" He starts, an embarrassed tint of red color his cheeks.
"This was where she..." He stumbles over his words. "The woman..."
"Ah." Kakashi mouths. "That makes enough sense."
"What?"
"It's an expensive place. You don't treat someone to a meal here just because."
Tenzou knows that all too well.
Actually, both of them do.
"And this is...?" He wonders aloud.
"Nothing. I just wanted some company, that's all."
Kakashi knows that he needs to talk to someone about the affair, but doesn't think that he should tell Tenzou. For all he knows, Shikai might actually still hold feelings for his kouhai.
There is always that possibility.
But for now, they enjoy the food.
Sometimes he has a challenge with Gai.
The next day, Kakashi visits him in the hospital. He knows that Gai is recovering, both physically and mentally, having accepted his fate some week ago. It was utterly heartbreaking, but Gai was never one to wallow in his sorrows for too long. When he enters Gai's hospital room, the man lying on the bed greets him with a loud and joyous,
"Well, if it isn't my greatest rival!"
And Gai's cheerful tone makes him smile under the mask.
"Morning to you too, Gai."
"Have you come here to settle the score once and for all?"
Despite Gai's energy, there's a bit of a tremor in his voice.
"No, I–" He tries to calm him down, but Gai's energy is steadily flowing out of him now.
"Despite my condition, I will still give it my all!" He rattles in his bed.
"Gai, please." He raises his hands to signal to Gai to lie back down.
But Gai's wide smile and piercing eyes show that he has no intention to do so.
"Alright." Kakashi sighs. "Just one match."
And Gai responds with a thumbs up.
Thumb wrestling, it is then. A simple game that doesn't require that much effort for both of them. And yet...
With his thumb pinned under Gai's, he expects Gai to declare his win in a loud, bellowing voice, but instead Gai suddenly turns quiet.
"You made me win on purpose."
How unexpected.
Kakashi is too surprised at Gai's silence to answer immediately, but after a beat he says, "That's quite perceptive of you, but no, I..."
"I understand." Gai turns to him, "We're both handicapped, in our own way."
What happened to him?
He casually suggests, "Would a rematch–"
"No! I would never!" And Gai is back to his usual theatrics, loud and dramatic. "Knowing that you've already placed a handicap on yourself, I cannot!"
Kakashi starts to explain, "I don't have the Sharingan anymore, and you can't..."
He cuts himself off before the words come out of his mouth. Gai's eyes begin to water, but the smile never leaves his face.
"I'm sorry, Gai."
And Gai's response is a hearty laugh whilst some tear slip from his eyes.
"You always worry too much, Kakashi." He reassures him by clapping a warm hand on his shoulder. "The flowers of youth still bloom in my heart! And they still bloom in yours as well, my friend. But it is time for this blossom to bear fruit!"
What–
"You don't mean..."
"Marriage, my dear rival!" Gai exclaims. "A challenge neither of us had anticipated!"
"I don't really think..." He stops once the thought registers in his mind. "You're getting married?"
That would explain the extravagant flower arrangement beside Gai's bed.
Sometimes he eats dinner with Iruka, Naruto, and Sakura.
He gives himself a few days to let the fact that Gai is engaged sink in. Of all people, he never expected Gai to be the one to tie the knot. He doesn't know of any women in Gai's life, perhaps Tenten introduced him to someone? Maybe he met someone during the war? But it was unlikely that Gai would be swayed by feminine charm, or was his "good guy" persona something that women went mad for? After all, Gai did have this thing about him that was too endearing and too innocent.
Would the woman be someone a bit more... dominant, then?
He brings this up over ramen with his former students and one of his dearest colleagues.
Of course, they don't believe him.
"Gai-sensei is getting married?"
Naruto even stops slurping from his bowl.
"I can't believe it! You've got to be kidding, Kakashi-sensei!"
He shakes his head. "I'm not."
"He's seriously getting married?" Iruka laughed, half-surprised, and half-amused. "Before you? Before anyone else?"
Naruto squints his eyes. "Who in the world would–"
"I think I've got an idea, but..." Sakura trailed off.
She has seen a beautiful woman carrying flowers to Gai's hospital room every other day, but... It couldn't possibly? But the woman was too... What was the word? Too beautiful? Too regal? Too much? She looked as if she was lifted from those fairy tale fantasies about shapeshifting princesses and mythical dragons, but...
Could she possibly be the one?
"Is that going to be the end of Konoha's Green Beast, then?" Iruka wonders aloud. "After everything, he's going to be a family man?"
Kakashi doesn't think so. "I doubt that."
"Who is this woman, Sakura?" Naruto whines. "She must be out of her mind!"
"Come on, Naruto, it's not like Gai-sensei's totally repulsive." She defends, "You, on the other hand..."
"What are you talking about?" He scoffs. "I'm a war hero! Girls love heroes!"
Sakura's fist meets the back of his head.
"Don't get so cocky!"
"Hey, I was just kidding!"
At that moment, Kakashi feels as if he's back in the past where everything is lighter, easier somehow.
"They haven't changed, have they, Kakashi?" Iruka comments nostalgically.
He nods. "Yeah."
"What are you going to do now? You're nearly five months in, and you still haven't taken the oath."
He shrugs. "Maybe I'm not ready yet."
"Not ready? You've already been doing what needs to be done."
Yes. He has.
Iruka says in a hushed tone, "Don't tell me you're having a crisis now?"
"No, I..."
It's not that, but...
"I just need time."
He's still young, he still has time. There isn't really a pressure on him to take the position of being the Rokudaime Hokage, nor is there any pressure on him to take on a wife, have kids and all that, right?
"Okay." Iruka relents. "But the world isn't going to wait, Kakashi."
He knows that.
"There's no one else for the position but you."
Sometimes, he goes to her.
But he doesn't tonight, nor has he done so for the past two weeks.
He's back to his daily routine, his normal life before her. It's not that big of a change, if he were honest. Her disappearance hasn't affected him as much as he thought he would have. Sure, there might have been an inkling of a possible relationship between them, but she is who she is and he is who he is.
They're two broken people who had thought it was the right thing to do at that time.
But sometimes though, when he's lying awake beside her, he thinks of burying his face in the crook of her neck, wrap his arms around her, and breathe. And she would lean into him, press her hands against his, and cry.
Cry?
If she were like the heroine of one of the Icha Icha novels, she would. She would cry because she feels that she's betrayed herself, allowed her true feelings to be known, allowed herself to become vulnerable around the novel's protagonist.
But she isn't.
So the closest he has ever gotte to her after sex was a three-inch gap between their bodies on a particularly cold and rainy night.
The rain pelted down against the roof. There was an open window, and the rain had begun entering the room through there, hitting against the wood floor. He was still awake, his head facing the ceiling, and she had supposedly been asleep, turned to her side and faced away from him, a heavy blanket covering her body.
He breathes heavily.
"Shikai-san."
Nothing. The rain continued pelting down from the night sky.
"Shikai-san." He repeats a bit louder this time, turning his head to face her.
A gust of cold wind enters through the window. He shivers.
"Shikai-san."
Still nothing. She must be sound asleep, seeing she has wrapped as the entirety of the blanket around herself. It wouldn't harm her to share, would it? But it would be rude of him if he were to curl in with her. They haven't gone that far, have they? Sharing a bed isn't the same as sharing a blanket now, was it?
So instead of doing as the novels would have done, he stands up to close the window himself.
"Don't." He hears her from behind him.
He turns to her slowly and sees that she has lifted her torso from her bed, eyes heavy-lidded, and hair still damp from the shower. She isn't scowling, but she isn't smiling either, but he feels that her neutral expression just makes this worse.
"The heat is going to be unbearable in the morning." She simply says.
He doesn't know why she doesn't have a fan in her room, supposes it's because she's old-fashioned or that she doesn't like the sound of the fan blades whirring. She has enough money to buy one, anyway.
"It's cold."
"Sorry."
She lowers her gazes and shifts in the bed, freeing the thick blanket from under her.
"Here."
When she removes the rest of the blanket from her body, she is quick to be up on her feet.
"I have a few more blankets, anyway." She says.
He doesn't respond to this act of kindness immediately as he is too dumfounded that she has actually showed concern.
When she shuffles through her drawers, he says:
"Please don't trouble yourself, Shikai-san."
And she stops moving to turn to him, gazing suspiciously.
"It's..." He pauses. "We could share."
He thinks it's a stupid idea. Of course, she would rather give him the thickest blanket she has and endure through the cold weather than actually share with him, right?
But what she says floors him completely, "If that's fine with you."
She gets back to the bed first, fixes the blanket so that there's enough for both of them before she settles in. He stands beside the bed for a while, and thinks of how he should go about his. The blanket is big enough for both of them, yes, and it's thick enough to cover each of them from the cold wind, but the situation is just...
Instead of wallowing in his thoughts and Icha Icha-esque fantasies, he slips under the thick blanket.
It's warm.
And he sinks into it almost automatically. He is quick to become comfortable, curling his toes against the mattress and breathing relaxedly.
Perhaps a little too relaxedly, because his arm bumps against her back.
She stiffens.
His breath hitches.
Silence.
How awkward.
He doesn't mean it, but he can't be sure that she knows that.
"Sorry." He blurts out, quick to bring distance between them.
"It's fine." She says without facing him.
She clutches the blanket closer to her. "Just..." She trails off.
Just what?
He wonders for a moment, if that was permission to actually hold her, but she doesn't say anything after that, and he doesn't ask. Still, his arm tingles at the contact with her unexpectedly warm back.
He falls asleep beside her, leaving only a three-inch gap between their bodies.
But this is the first time he's talked to Asayake Tenkou about...
Well, it.
It's unexpected, to say the least, that she would be the one to know about it. He doesn't put it past her, however, as he's heard of her excellent stealth skills during the war, using animals as an unlikely means of communication and espionage far better than most shinobi. Hell, she might have even used the birds perched on the tree outside Shikai's apartment to have a detailed account of whatever it is they're doing.
But why?
"Hey, is this seat taken?"
Lunchtime in this eatery was always crowded and people were often forced to order their food to-go. But despite that fact, this young woman had the courage to ask him that, having a large selection of food on her tray, surely too much for someone like her.
But he isn't one to be rude, so he tells her, "No."
"Thanks." She takes the seat across him almost immediately, placing the tray between them. "I heard the food here is really good. What do you recommend?"
She strikes up the conversation first.
But he points out, "You already ordered–"
"Yeah, I know." She cuts him off with a sheepish chuckle. "It's a lot for one person, want to share?"
She's quick to be on friendly terms with him.
He already ate, but for some reason the sight of all that food made his mouth water.
"If you insist."
"Sorry." She says before she digs her chopsticks into a bowl of rice, "It's just that I usually have lunch with a friend here, but..."
She takes a bite out of grilled chicken, takes a mouthful of rice, and sips from the bowl of soup before picking at the vegetables. She must be really hungry.
"You know her, right?" She says in-between bites. "Shikai?"
He stops and considers standing up and walking straight out.
But he doesn't.
"I do." He answered cautiously.
She hums in thought before voicing out, "It's been more than two weeks and I haven't heard from her."
"Right." He punctuates. His suspicions might be right.
"Do you know where she went?" She asked, a strange expression on her face, almost a knowing one, "You know, with you being Hokage and all."
"She went home." He gives it to her straight. "Didn't she tell you?"
"Back to Yūkō?" Her surprise is mechanical, and it confirms his suspicions. "No. I'm surprised she told you, and not me."
He knows that's a lie.
But Tenkou still keeps up the act., even shrugging and telling him, "It's strange, knowing that we're friends and all."
"Is this conversation supposed to lead somewhere?"
Her innocent expression changes and he knows that he's caught her.
She sighs, and picks at her food again, takes a few mouthfuls before stating, "I just want to clarify something, Kakashi-san."
He leans back. "By all means."
"I can understand that she was the one who started the entire affair and why she chose you, but what I don't understand is why you would agree to it." She explains before eying him up and down, "You don't look like the type to."
Whether it was an insult or a compliment, he doesn't really care.
"A man has his needs, after all."
"That's one way to put it," She nods in agreement, "but you still don't look like someone who'll fuck around with someone like her."
Fuck around with her? Isn't it the other way around, though?
"And you know this why?"
He doesn't think this is the best place to have this kind of conversation, but no one seems to notice them.
"The reason she acted the way she did is bullshit." The young woman says with all seriousness. "Forgivable, but bullshit."
That's harsh, but true.
If Shikai's reason for sleeping with him was what he thought–because she seeks to find someone like her, it's a stupid reason, but not an unforgivable one. She could learn. She could move on.
"Is that so?"
He wonders why her so-called friend is acting like this, though. How could she say that to him? Why had she said that to him? Does she think that she has a say in her friend's sex life? Or maybe she's genuinely concerned for her?
"Shikai is looking for something, Kakashi-san." She says clearly.
And he knows that.
"And I wonder if you're looking for the same thing, too."
Tenkou finishes the rest of her meal in silence. Silence which lets him ponder on that thought. Shikai has told him that she knows that they're looking for the same thing, that they're both looking for someone like them to empathize with.
But he didn't believe her.
He pitied her.
"She's a person under all that armor." Tenkou says. "A shitty person, but still a person."
She's honest and straightforward. Shikai must be thankful for having a friend like her.
"And the last time I saw her, she was smiling like she never did. So I guess that deserves a thank-you." She smiles.
"Thanks..." Tenkou bows her head slightly, "for fucking my friend."
A little bit too honest, he thinks.
"So it's out."
He doesn't know what to do with that information, but he doesn't suppose that Tenkou would go around and tell this to everyone she knows. Shikai's her friend, after all, and she wouldn't be the type of person to do that to their friend, right?
Later that day, Tenkou opens the door to Shikai's apartment, only to meet a frowning Haru sitting on the sofa.
"She'll be furious once she knows." Haru says.
"Will she? I mean..." Tenkou scoffs. "I bet she'll be too embarrassed to even say anything."
In truth, Haru was the first one to know, having seen a man emerge from Shikai's apartment one early morning, but Tenkou was the first one to know who that mystery man was. Haru thought to fish it out of Shikai when she invited her for drinks before she left, but the samurai had remained closed off about her sexual affairs.
Haru sighed. "Why did you have to do that?"
"I had to clarify something." Tenkou defended.
"Shikai likes to fuck around, but not like this." She explains. "Not with people like him. Not when she knows that the risk is greater than the reward."
The question that has plagued Tenkou's mind ever since she found out was: What could Shikai gain from fucking the future Hokage?
"Maybe it's love." Haru says dreamily.
"Bullshit." Tenkou makes a disgusted face. "She has to forgive herself first."
To the best of her knowledge, Shikai is still in mourning, still unable to forgive herself for seemingly allowing the death of the man she claimed to love. A man who just can't reciprocate her feelings because, for one, he isn't human, no matter how hard Shikai imagines him to be.
"And don't you think she already has?"
Haru believes that Shikai has almost completely come into terms with his death, because if she hasn't, she wouldn't be with them now, she wouldn't be able to continue living the same way she has, she just wouldn't.
If Shikai still hasn't forgiven herself, her coming home to Yūkō might be the key in making sure that she does.
It's about time, after all.
A few days later, Kakashi receives a letter addressed to him as the Rokudaime Hokage.
It's an invitation to a gathering, a summit about the future of the relationship between shinobi and samurai.
Interestingly enough, it's going to be held in the village of Yūkō no Sato a month from now.
A/N: Okay. Done. Happy holidays, everyone. I hope this chapter isn't too much of a downer. And if there are fans of Blue Exorcist, why not check out Cactus Flower? Anyway, feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading.
