Author's note: thanks to AnotherLifeOfWar, ninaaark and Dom2040 for their reviews! :) I enjoyed greatly writing this fic and it makes me so happy that other people might enjoy it too!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not own Legend of the Five Rings. No financial gain is made from this. This is for entertainment purposes only.

"Do you want to speak about it?" She moved her head to look at him. "About why your mother does not want you anymore in her house?"

Sumi stood up. It was getting late and it was cold. It was too winter to be by the riverbank. But they had dinner together and their feet had automatically carried them there, as a daily migration before to say goodnight.

"I don't care," she answered. It was true, she did not care anymore about it; in her heart, she had even forgiven her mother. "She did not stand that I ruined the marriage she had planned with that Hyuga boy. It was her... dream, or something."

"And yours?

She hugged her jacket closer to her body. It had been a month since that night he discovered she had been cast out by her family. Why was he bringing all this up now? She still had a hard time reading him. If only she knew how he was the same...

"I don't know... I guess I don't know yet. I think I will figure it out along the way... Right now I just have things I want," she concluded.

He snorted. "What things you want?"

She looked up, away from him. The moon was already over their heads. How late was it? She counted stars to avoid those treacherous thoughts, the ones that spoke about feelings she did not understand yet. "I want to become a jōnin. I want to create a strong bond with Haruki... I want to make Kibo proud," she smiled, "I want to bring honor to my clan and to be a good kunoichi. Yes, just that. To be a good shinobi. And you?"

He paused, sat up, glancing one last time at her expectant face, the summer eyes, and he left. "See you tomorrow."

And he did not lie. They met again the next day, and the ones that came after as Konoha shed its winter coat and dressed in flowers for spring. For training, between missions, after solitary breaks... any time was good to enjoy the company of the friendship they almost lost so many times. Alone, or sometimes with friends. For simple walks or for long days of traveling around, practicing or simply watching the hours pass by at peace. The peace they had fought so hard to achieve.

And somewhere in between spring and summer, a silly afternoon when he was out on who knows what quest, as Sumi sat alone at her garden, trying to fight the upcoming heat, she realized she had made a big mistake. And it drove her crazy for a second, such an intense insanity that she felt like running away to a far off land, and after that single second, she forgot it. Such a stupid thing, for had she not forgotten how big of a mistake it was to fall in love with the wrong person, she would have saved herself many tears later.

But as she was starting to understand, those were not things one could choose, like you cannot choose the color of your eyes, or the seasons, or between day and night.

"Let's go," he told her a summer day.

"Where?" she asked.

And as he dragged her along, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and he said, "Where do you want to go?"

And she turned fourteen, although feeling much older and much younger at times, watching the fireworks from a hill in Tsuma, wondering why it felt like the fireworks lived inside her chest and not in the sky.

She felt him switch his position and something brushed her hand. It was a gift. She took the pretty box. It was long and it had not been wrapped.

"You did not need to," she said as she opened it. A beautifully crafted tantō of brass handle was snuggly resting between a velvety lining.

"For your jōnin exam," he said, more interested by the stars than her reaction.

Yes, those fireworks she felt were definitely not in the sky.

By autumn she was sure she had to do something, to tell him about her turmoil, about those sentiments that made her the happiest girl and yet sometimes, the saddest too. The autumn leaves became a carpet that crunched under her step. She was looking for him with disinterest, as if trying to prolong the torture. She knew he was barely back in Konoha from a mission - he had started to share these secrets.

She found him in the memorial, speaking softly to a dead girl. Were the living not interesting enough?, she thought bitterly. As she crossed back this garden of lost hopes and dreams to leave, a name looked back at her and she stopped.

Matsu Chizuki.

"You would have known what to do," she said over her shoulder to the stone. "How does the love story ends? You must have known."

A bubbly voice, the one of a kid that wanted to marry and have a family and believed in romance, answered, "You already know too."

Sumi chuckled and left.

Winter came back, sent away the birds except those valiant enough to face him, finished with those flowers that still clung to a decaying beauty and painted the village in blues and purples, as if to spite the long gone summer.

Sumi walked in with the stride of the committed. "I am ready."

Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled as he slowly deposited the quill in its stand. "I never doubted it."