Love-in-idleness
A/N: Ohmygod this took too fucking long, I know. It's been a rough latter half of 2019 and I just wanted to take a break from work. I actually made a bet that would update all my ongoing stories before 2019 ended, and yet here we are. It's also been a tough first couple of days of 2019, but I'm gald I didn't actually give up on this. Well, you might think otherwise because this chapter is long and yet has nothing to show for, maybe.
Anyway, let's hope 2020 brings a good end to this messy fanfic. Thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated.
"It made sense that she is attracted to strong men. It also made sense that she is repulsed by his personality."
Someone in this house owns a cat.
Its fur is a deep bluish grey and its eyes are a bright shade of green. It somehow made its way into the guest quarters and is now staring at him in the most curious, if not judgmental, manner. He's just lounging on the floor, that's all. There's nothing to do yet, anyway. Naruto and Sakura are still out and about, as was his instructions earlier that day, that they enjoy themselves and relax while he deals with the formalities. Maybe it was wrong of him to tell them that. He left them in the restaurant thinking they're responsible enough to follow right after him, but…
He sighs. The cat continues to stare.
They're three days early and Kakashi wants to think this is all just a coincidence. Them being here, in this village, in her home, with her family, is just happenstance. No one meant it on purpose, no one pulled strings to make things happen, this was all just something that had happened by chance. Purely by chance. He knows this. She knows this. The cat staring at him knows this.
"Do you?" He asks aloud. He isn't one to talk to animals, but there's no one else here.
The cat tilts its head as if to ask before padding across the floor towards him. It looks at him curiously, wide eyes staring at him. He thinks the cat is a genius, that perhaps it can understand human speech.
"What's your name?" He asks, cautiously drawing a hand over the cat's head, asking permission to touch it.
The cat reciprocates. It presses its head upward against his palm, closing its eyes and purring in approval.
"You might be a stray." He observed, noting the lack of a collar around its neck.
"Are you?" He stops petting the cat and it pauses before padding away, up and towards an open window, not once looking back as if exits.
"So that's how you got in."
He's not really a cat person, the existence of his nin-dogs attest to that, and he really isn't one to idle for so long in places foreign and unknown. If anything, he should be acquainting himself with the locality and its people. He's not just a shinobi now, he's a kage, the Hokage. And if being in this place is what it takes for him to finally accept the responsibility, then so be it.
Then again, he's never really believed in fate or destiny. He's reserved those ideas for the romantic in him, the him who enjoys reading Icha Icha and the like, and that side of him is something he shouldn't show here. It's definitely something none of these high-and-mighty samurai would want or need to see.
Well, except one, seeing as she's already witnessed it first-hand after instigating it.
He sighs again, this time wondering how to handle such a thing.
They aren't… friends or anything of the sort, she's made that clear before. If he were to put it objectively, he'd say they were bedmates, nothing like lovers. He was there to warm her bed, to make her nightmares go away, that kind of thing. She used him, she apologized for it, and he forgave her. If this was a romance novel, the story would end there. But this novel had a sequel. And if memory serves him right, the sequel is where he gets to redeem himself, at least according to that other series he read, or where she realizes her mistake and comes back to him, as was in that other series.
The romantic in him thinks it's a combination of both, he redeems himself, she realizes something in him, and they're put back together again like the pieces of a puzzle. But is it, really?
"Hatake-san."
Speaking of…
"Are you awake?"
She couldn't be looking for me out of her own accord, could she?
He gives it two more seconds before responding. He stands and crosses the room, stops short of the door and slides it open.
"Shikai-san." He greets.
"Yes." She clears her throat and speaks softly, as if a child asking permission from an adult, "My mother asked me to show you around the compound if you're available."
Something in her posture and her tone tells him she didn't have a choice in this. Her expression is downcast, her eyes never leaving his chest. Her mother is the one in-charge of this household, he's thought that the instant he saw her. The woman is prim and proper, straight-backed and stiff-lipped, an example of the "samurai wife" he's read about before.
"I take it this is something against your will?"
She exhales sharply. "I understand you need your rest, Hatake-san." She meets his eyes this time, "I apologize for bothering you."
He thinks she must feel bad, being her mother's errand girl, having little to no choice but to interact with him. Perhaps things are awkward on her part, much more than on his, she's the one who left and he was only a victim of circumstance. She wouldn't expect to see him again so soon, and under her family's care even. This must be something difficult for her.
"Not at all."
He didn't say that too quickly, did he?
She blinks and he realizes what he said could mean two things, that she isn't a bother and the tour isn't either, in that order, which is true, and that it could have an entirely unwarranted romantic undertone.
So he corrects himself, "The tour, I mean. It wouldn't be a bother for me… if it isn't any bother to you."
Well, that might have made things even more awkward.
"Truthfully?" She chuckles, "Anything my mother asks of me is."
Is she… saying a joke?
"Is that so?" He laughs along with her, not knowing how to properly respond to it. "Well, if it bothers you so much…"
"It doesn't." She stops abruptly, "Come on."
She walks, and he swears he hears her say under her breath, "Before anyone sees."
She takes him to the courtyard first because–of course she does. It's the open space, the neutral space. Since she could remember, her mother has ensured that the garden is maintained to perfection. The tidier the garden, the more disciplined the family, after all. But she hadn't heard of that until after she came back, or perhaps she had chosen to ignore it as a child. Nevertheless, being in the sand garden brings back memories of her childhood, so that is what she tells him.
"This must be your favorite place."
Or rather, he tells her.
"You told me earlier." He continues, gazing at the garden before him, "You would run away to here whenever you had tantrums as a child."
"Yes." She tries visualizing a younger her, more vibrant and more lively than she is now, running across the sand, ruining a morning's worth of raking, laughing with a soiled dress and messy hair.
"This was my favorite place as a child." She echoed.
"And now?" He asks. "What do you think of this place now?"
His question could bear the weight of so many things. It's not something asked just out of curiosity, he isn't as simple as that. She left him hanging earlier and he's asking this now because he wants to know. Perhaps there's something egging him on, some distant voice nagging in his head to really get to know her. If so, then maybe he's kept to his word about them getting to know each other and then deciding what to do with… whatever it is they have.
"Truthfully, I…" She casts a long gaze upon the garden, "I don't know."
She glances at him and sees that he's staring at her, probably thinking that she's lying just to get this over with.
"It evokes the feeling of nostalgia, more so than the other places." She concluded.
"I take it this tour is of that nature, then?" He prods, slightly amused. "A tour of this compound, from the most nostalgic to the least."
He's joking.
She snickers, thinking it's funny he would think so.
"I could tell you about the landscaping if you wish," she chuckles, "or why there's a preference for this type of plant as compared to another."
She's had to learn about being a homemaker, after all, and among the many things included in such lessons was determining which plant to place where and what shape of rock would best suit the garden.
"I'd rather listen to your stories if that's alright."
He must think he's so smooth…
But nevertheless, the very line itself makes the child in her flush with excitement. No one's really given any interest in her stories, at least no one has expressed it so openly and so brazenly. If she was any younger, maybe she would have blushed and called his bluff, act coy and shy about all this. He isn't really interested in her stories, is he? He's just playing along with her, thinking this is the way to truly know her.
She doesn't want to admit that it is, so she tells him, "Then ask my mother, I'm sure she remembers a lot more than I can."
She thinks the child in her is now yelling.
"I prefer information direct from the source." He pauses a bit, "A shinobi thing, you know?"
"I know." She nods, thinking he must have planned his replies, "I do too."
And it's quiet.
"So, what are your stories?" He breaks the silence.
"Come," she clears her throat, "the garden isn't the only place I frequented as a child."
He sighs out of relief, thankful for her openness to respond and her willingness to perhaps open up completely and "test the waters" with him. He's not used to initiating or navigating relationships, all shinobi are, but maybe this is an opportunity.
"There are three main gardens in this compound, all maintained to the last grain of sand." She smiles to herself, clear enough for him to see, "And I think it was my goal as a child to ruin all of them."
Maybe.
It's idyllic, almost. The second garden she shows him is quite like a bamboo forest. A serene atmosphere envelops the place. The wind chimes sing in the breeze that passes through the bamboo. It's quite peaceful, if it didn't remind him of that one mission from long ago, the one where he sliced through nearly half of the grove with his Chidori.
"The former training grounds," she continued to narrate, her tone neither bored nor enthusiastic, "it was converted into a bamboo courtyard after I refused my role as the future clan head."
Like a narrator, indeed.
"This garden must be symbolic, then."
The breeze dies down and the wind chimes fall into silence. She breathes in deep, rolls her shoulders back before exhaling a long breath. She is thinking now, recalling her memory of this place.
"Bamboo is a hardy plant, it is like a weed. If left unkept, it would grow to devour this entire place." She steps down from the elevated hallway and onto the ground. "Perhaps my mother saw me that way."
He watches her approach the bamboo and briefly imagines a much younger her practicing katas under the morning sun, bamboo sprouting upward from the ground, growing higher and higher until even she herself is enveloped, trapped.
"Invasive." Her voice breaks the image. "Bamboo cannot grow alongside other plants, it will devour them all the same."
He supposes she is sad, even if her monotone suggests otherwise. He's never really read up on bamboo, so it's mildly fascinating how she can compare herself to a plant so eloquently. Perhaps her mother did instill this idea into her, that she is like this tough, hardy plant. Perhaps all samurai like to compare themselves to it, kind of like how some shinobi would compare themselves to foxes and rats.
The breeze picks up. This time beginning with a sudden gust, blowing the scattered leaves into the air. The wind chimes play a chaotic tune in the wind, and bamboo trunks knock against each other. She remains standing there, quite like a bamboo herself.
He brushes his hair out of his eye when the wind dies down into a gentle breeze and sees her standing, looking upwards at the canopy, knocking at the trunk of a bamboo. The sound doesn't reach him, but what she says does.
"It is elegant and tall, yet it is hollow."
He wonders then, whichever came first, her being likened to a bamboo or her already acting like one. She never really spoke about her childhood, except in the small fragments of her being a troublemaker, an overconfident child. But aren't all children troublemakers one way or another?
So she gave up this life of luxury to become a traveler, hasn't he heard of this story before? In one of those old romances of an era gone by, sure, some member of the nobility gives up their riches for a richer life. It's often a bittersweet tale of sacrifice and the value of human life, but he's never really had that much time to indulge in those life lessons. But perhaps she was one of those who had time, who grew up thinking they were the more privileged, the more justified, the one who had more.
And she gave that all up?
"Shikai-san," he approaches quietly, careful to break her reverie, "I…"
He doesn't really know what to say.
"I suppose you felt angry when your training grounds turned into a garden."
He sees the surprise on her face when he changes the topic. It just… didn't seem right that she be waxing poetics this early, no one should. This was supposed to be something casual, something light. She was just going to talk about the three gardens in this place, not something about her being likened to a plant, at least not this early.
But she accepts the change nonetheless, even cracks a joke about it, "It didn't happen overnight, of course."
Of course.
She turns to face him, "But I was revoked of my right to use the grounds almost immediately. Just imagine…" She moves her arms as if presenting the garden to him. "Me, as a child, screaming as I was being dragged away from this place." She chuckles. "And even at night, even when I would pass through the crawlspace…"
He imagines it and smiles himself.
"They've made sure I would never step foot into this place again. They've even set up a barrier to make sure."
He wonders what kind of barrier it is. Would it be a physical one, perhaps out of wood or barbed wire? But he doesn't see any indication of any, but maybe they've refurbished the place? If it were a special kind, perhaps a sealing technique…
She raises her hand, "Fuujite: Jōkai."
The character for "seal" appears on the entrance of the garden and she is pushed back instantly.
She laughs. "I guess it still works."
He wants to ask how samurai learned sealing techniques, and of that sophistication, but realizes he's set foot into the garden, probably at some point as she was narrating, and wonders if it affects him as well.
"Don't worry. You're free to leave. This was only set up for me."
He takes her word for it and approaches the entrance.
But he's suddenly pushed back the same way.
"Oh." She verbalizes her surprise, then shifts her tone to hesitant, "It seems it affects others too."
"Seems?" He echoes.
"I was told it was a barrier to keep me out," she approaches the entrance, drawing her hand close enough to feel the push of the barrier, "I never questioned it, really. It did its job of keeping me out, after all."
Well, she doesn't really have an urgent need for this space, this compound is huge.
"I found out about the technique some years ago, but I never tried it until now." She sighs and brings her hand down. "Sorry."
"Any chance you know how to remove it?"
"Yes, well…" She clears her throat. "You'd have to be outside it."
"Oh." It's his turn to verbalize his surprise. "You don't think…"
He attempts to release it, "Kai."
Nothing.
He isn't so foolish to try it again, so he asks her, "You don't think they'd lie about that, do you?"
"If they would, they would at least tell me what to say." She sighs. "So, I hate to admit…"
This almost feels like a scene he's read before.
"I really do." He can hear the regret in her voice.
So he completes the thought for her, "We're stuck."
"At least until someone arrives."
She turns away from him, quite like an embarrassed child.
"And how often do people come here?"
It's kind of awkward, the way they go back and forth as if avoiding it directly. He's already said it anyway, and it was clear from the start that this was going to be what it already is, so why?
"Rarely." She clears her throat again. "We're at a far end of the compound, anyway. But not to worry, I'm sure they will come looking for me sooner or later."
She doesn't say anything else and neither does he, he listens to the breeze and watches the bamboo sway in the wind. He then wonders if he can be frank with her, be straightforward about all this so they aren't… hesitant. It's unlike them, unlike adults who ought to know their way around the world already.
"Shikai-san." He turns to her and sees that she's already taken a seat at a bench not too far. Perhaps she has something to say as well.
"Ginko!"
It is the cat's name, at least what it is called in the Amakuni household. It's more of a stray, really, going in and out of these samurai houses, looking for scraps. And the big houses, like the Amakuni, have more than enough to fill its belly. It pads its way across the roof with familiarity, it wouldn't be given a name otherwise, as it has frequented the kitchens of this compound a lot lately. Surely the chefs love an animal companion sitting by the window, serenading them to give him a slice of freshly caught fish or perhaps a bowl of cream.
But apparently, someone wants to become the master of this feline.
"Kanemitsu-sama!"
And that person is the current head of the Amakuni himself, who is chasing after this cat in the halls, a trail of servants following after him.
"Touka said she likes cats!"
The said man continued to chase after the feline.
"You could always buy her a kitten, Kanemitsu-sama."
He paused. Well, there was that, but there's still something more… meaningful to taking in a stray and nurturing it to domesticity. He knows Touka would appreciate being gifted a kitten, but the very thought of wrenching a baby from its mother would surely break her heart. Taking in a stray, however…
"Strays could always use a home, you know."
The cat stopped and craned its head toward him, as if having heard and understood it.
"And we've given him a name already." Kanemitsu crouched down to meet the cat's level. "Ginko," he called out, taking a piece of dried fish from his sleeve. His mother would scold him for this later, but that doesn't really matter.
"Ginko…" He cooed. "It's your favorite."
If he knew any better, the cat's favorite is seared salmon with a side of cream. But the cat gets what it can get, and dried fish is a rare treat for strays. So it approaches slowly, carefully, as if it's afraid of getting caught.
Kanemitsu lowers the fish to the floor as a peace offering.
"Good kitty."
The cat stares at it and then at him.
"Here."
And quick as ever, the cat picks it up and runs away.
"Ginko!"
Kanemitsu doesn't follow after it.
And the cat runs and runs. It knows they won't run after it, knows they wouldn't try and trap it. If this fish is a peace offering, then they shouldn't try and cage him. He's a free feline, and he can choose wherever to go and whoever to go to. Right now, this satiated cat wants to be curled up somewhere warm.
So it reaches a quiet place, a nearly desolate place in the Amakuni compound. There's no one in sight, and the halls feel ominous and large. The cat traverses its way through the halls, too full to go climb on the roof and move elsewhere. Perhaps it could take a nap here, it just needs to find the right spot…
It passes by a bamboo garden, and the sight of bamboo makes its paws itch. Those large, green stems are just begging to be scratched! And then it sees a familiar new face, that visitor, talking with a woman, one of the older, longer-staying visitors. It remembers that the woman gave a fresh bowl of cream that one time and that the man's hands were perfect to rub its head against.
Could the woman have some cream with her now? That would be perfect before taking a nap…
It calls out to the two visitors, its voice resounding in the empty hall.
They don't even turn to look.
It tries again, louder.
Nothing.
So it stares, perhaps he's already caught their attention, surely they couldn't be that preoccupied with each other.
And it calls them again and again.
It was either they couldn't hear it, or they're simply ignoring it. The woman laughs and turns away her gaze as the man leans in. The cat isn't sure what he's doing, but then the woman places a hand on top of the man's…
And that makes the woman stop and stare at the cat.
So it calls to her.
She sputters something, mutters something else, and coughs. She slides her hand away and moves to tuck it under her arm, but the man stops her, takes the same hand in his and places it in the space between them.
The cat calls them again, surely they wouldn't ignore it now.
"The cat." The woman points to it, "We call it Ginko."
"Ah." The man nods. "Ginko."
The cat knows it's not being called yet, so it simply stares, waits for them to do so.
But they don't, so it walks away.
Maybe the one with the fish would have some cream.