"Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."
~ John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
...
Mitomi didn't return to the Senju compound following her release from the hospital. Instead she went to her ANBU apartment, Rabbit, also known as Usagi Mai was the only one there. But Mitomi had expected that Rabbit was an orphan from the same generation as Itachi and Shisui, the older girl lived there permanently.
"You just missed Lion, and Sparrow." She tells her as Mitomi waves a half-hearted greeting heading to the room she shared with the older girl. Right now she wanted to crawl into a bed that felt familiar in a place where she felt safe.
"I can hunt them down later. I'm going to bed." Rabbit kindly doesn't mention the fact that it's only noon.
"I'm heading out in about an hour for gate patrol, wanna come with me?" Mitomi pauses, and shakes her head. She'd never hear the end of it from Inoichi if she did that.
"Can't, I haven't been cleared for active duty yet." Rabbit scoffs.
"Boring. Come with me anyway, it's front gate guard duty, we can mess with the guards." Mitomi bit her lip, poor Izumo and Kotestu, but shook her head again.
"I wish Psych would have my lunch if I don't wait at least a week before starting up ANBU work. I'm really only here to sleep Rabbit. Another time." The older girl sighs but nods. No one in ANBU really wanted to deal with psych, or give them any excuse to look into their files. Mitomi was just always hyper-aware of her mental state, so she'd just go hang out with Ino or talk to Inoichi if something was bothering her. Sadly that wasn't typical behavior of ANBU, most had to be tracked down for their yearly evals. Like Kakashi, or even her shishou.
"Glad your brain is working again Kitsune, it's not the same with just the boys.." Mitomi snickers.
"Our boys are awesome don't you even joke… but I know what you mean Rabbit." Her teammates snickered at her back, Mitomi opened the bedroom door.
Her memories were back. It didn't mean her brain was fully working. Or that she was even okay, or better. She just knew now what was wrong. Mitomi shut the door behind her, crawled into her bed and just layed there. The window opened slowly, she barely turned her head to look. Lion slipped his mask off and set it on the bedside table.
"Room for one more?" She patted the spot next to her. He sat there, pulled a sketch book out and drew quietly.
"Rabbit said I just missed you." He hums.
"Sparrow sensed your chakra after we left, he sent me back. We were just going to spar. He's going to hunt down Crow instead." She rolls to lay on her back staring blankly at the ceiling.
"What all have I missed?" Mitomi questions, placing her arm over her eyes to block out the light from the window.
"Not really a lot. I know that Obito is in a secured cell in psych, but that's all that's been said in that regard. The Akatsuki are no more, Tsunade is trying for negotiations with Ame now. But it is more so we can get eyes on the statue of the outer path." He tells her without glancing up. Mitomu hums. That could have been a good plan.
"I killed both halves of Zetsu. The statue is essentially nole in void now. Obito is in Leaf custody? No one told me that." And quite frankly that was information she would have liked to have had. Sai shrugs. But she can tell he's about to say something she doesn't want to hear by the spike in his chakra.
"They probably assumed you couldn't handle it right now." Mitomi pushes herself up on her elbows to glare at him. He offers a smirk in response, mocking her essentially. Sai levels her glare, they have a sort of staring contest, that she wins because he looks away first.
"You're such a dick." He snickered. She layed back down.
"Yet you still chose to be my friend." She flicked his elbow. Sai rolled his eyes and she didn't respond.
"Are you going to live here like Rabbit does?" He asked after some time. Mitomi bit her lip and frowned. While she may have felt safe here she didn't want to fully succumb to being Kitsune right now. Losing herself in ANBU work didn't sound at all healthy for her mental state.
"No. Tsunade-sama is setting me up with a Jounin apartment in either the Akimichi district or Nara district. I can't go back to the Senju compound…" Sai sets his sketchbook down to give her a look.
"Why don't you just move in with Shikamaru? I don't understand why you would go through all the trouble to move into a new apartment if you're just going to end up staying with him or here. What's the point?" Mitomi glares at him, rude, why does he call her out like that.. That's not fair.
"Shika didn't ask me to move in with him, number one. Number two, I want to have my own place. Even if it is for a little while. Now are you going to stick around cause I want to take a nap, then maybe go get food." He sighs at her.
"I'll be here when you wake up. Sparrow should be back by then too, we can take food to Rabbit while she works the gate." That sounded like a good plan to her. Mitomi rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Sai resumed his sketching.
…
Sai may have been right in his assumptions of where she would spend most of her time, and it wasn't at the cute little apartment owned by the Nara clan. Although Mitomi did spend a lot of her down time there when her people were busy in the month that she had to wait for Naruto to return...it was not where she spent a lot of her nights. Very rarely did she actually sleep there. In her defense, Yoshino always invited her to stay the night anytime she ate dinner with them. Who was Mitomi to say no? Around Shikamaru was where she currently felt the safest.
Second being shishou but he was in and out of the village on special ANBU missions that he was not currently a reliable source of comfort for her. Which was depressing, Mitomi always loved spending time with him. She understood he was busy with important shit, so she didn't let it get to her too much.
In the rare case that she was at her apartment to sleep, Ino who apparently didn't like the idea of her living alone invited herself over. Sometimes with the other girls, sometimes by herself. She claimed it was because they had months of girls nights to catch up on. Or something. Mitomi suspected that the truth was that Ino knew that she didn't want to be alone.
Which was partially true, Mitomi didn't want to be alone. But not for the reason everyone probably assumed. Even now weeks later she still couldn't look at herself in the mirror. Her reflection scared her. She didn't like seeing the physical reminder of what Kosuke had done to her, he used her mind, her body, and her hair against her… she was going to be sick.
"Excuse me." She says as politely as she can and quickly gets up from the dinner table. Practically flying down the hall so she can relieve her stomach of its continents quickly. Mitomi looks down into the sink water still running, her hair like a cage around her face.
Gods, she feels pathetic.
Quickly she turns the water off, and just sort of sinks to the floor. Three lives of experience couldn't prepare her how to deal with this sort of trauma. The level of violation she felt, he trapped her inside her memories for months, while simultaneously projecting her mind as gone and empty. She never forgot anything.
This… this she just wanted to forget.
Yoshino bends down to her level, quiet as a mouse. She pushes the long strands of hair behind her ear. Careful not to brush against her cheeks. Mitomi can't help but to flinch, even when she knows that Yoshino isn't trying to hurt her.
"Was it dinner or something inside your head?" Mitomi leans her head against the bathroom cabinet, making a half gesture at her face.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Yoshino sits next to her on the floor, Mitomi leans into the older woman's body. Blinking trying to clear tears she didn't know how to stop or why they'd even started.
Pathetic, and unworthy. The gross feelings roared inside her being. This was the first time she truly hated her existence in this life. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if she'd just forgotten.
"Kosuke was my uncle.. I look just like him.. I can't look in a mirror, I can't pull my hair up. I flinched yesterday when Ino tried to braid it for me. I can't go anywhere and not recieve pitying looks from others. I feel so useless, weak, unworthy, and disgusting..." Another round of sobs that she'd been suppressing from days finally wins out. Mitomi pulls her knees up to her chest, oversized sweatshirt bulging uncomfortably at her hips. Yoshino rubs small circles on her back.
"You are none of those things dear. I know that it seems hard to believe otherwise right now, but you are so strong, worthy, resourceful and beautiful. You are not any less for what happened to you. The disgusting actions of a man does not determine your worth and strength." Yoshino whispers in the same soothing voice as before.
Mitomi wondered if this was what it was like to have a mother. Yoshino sat with her on the bathroom floor for several long minutes. They didn't speak until Mitomi was ready to. The older woman was just there, supporting her by just being there, in case she was needed. "Yoshino-kaasan?"
"Yes?" The was a slight startle to her voice, but always a vaguely pleased tone. Mitomi turns so she can make eye contact with her.
"Will you cut my hair for me? I want to be able to look in the mirror again." Yoshino gives her a soft smile and nods.
"Of course dear. Right now? Or do you want to go finish dinner first?" Mitomi eyed the lengths of her hair.
"After dinner is fine. I apologize for causing a mess." But Yoshino shook her head, standing carefully and then helped her off the floor. Making sure to keep her body closest to the bathroom sink and mirror. Mitomi really appreciated the gesture.
"Nonsense. No mess was made. Come let's go check on the boys, they're probably concerned. Or worse they've fallen asleep." It gets a laugh from the red head and Yoshino counts it as a win.
After dinner, which sadly Mitomi had no more appetite for, Yoshino sets up a spot in the kitchen to fix her hair. Shikaku drags Shikamaru out for clan training. So there is no one to protest when Mitomi asks Yoshino to cut it all off. The final result is somewhere between a bob and a pixie cut, a drastic difference from the long hair she's had her entire life.
"You have your father's face shape. While Naruto seems to favor your mother more. How funny, the two of you just swapped their coloring." Yoshino tells her after they swept the floor and cleaned up the hair. Mitomi runs a hand through her scalp and for once doesn't cringe at the touch.
"You think so?" It's not the first time someone has said something like that to her… but usually it involved actual temperament vs looks themselves. Yoshino smiles.
"You have the same high cheekbones and eye shape as him. Just with your mother's fairer complexion and coloring. Although neither of them had hair quite as wavy as yours. Kushina had the most enviable straight hair and no one could ever figure out how your father got his hair to defy gravity the way it did." Mitomi giggles at Yoshino's almost affronted look. But she was right in the regard that neither of her parents had wavy/curly hair, Mitomi always assumed she had just sort of carried it over from her first life.
"But enough talk of the past, let's go check on the boys. I want them to marvel at my glorious hard work, it is not fair to keep your beautiful face all to myself." Mitomi flushes at the compliment.
"Yoshino-kaasan!"
XOXOX
In which Mitomi continues to cope and gets a haircut. For a better visual of this look up long wavy pixie cut or wavy bob to get a better idea. In my head her hair is still long enough to be pushed out of her face, probably right at jaw length..
Thank you for reading!
~LaRae
