.

You can't sit with us.

The next day dawned in a bright and cloudless sky. It was hot, a searing burn on the wind typical of the summer in Fire Country, weather that warranted a sleeveless top and breathable shorts, light colours to avoid drawing the ire of the sun, and a ponytail to keep my hair from suffocating the back of my neck.

I walked the village streets with a buzz in my bones, headed for the Forest of Death. I expected the streets to be dead at this hour, but there were people out and about, getting groceries and chatting with their neighbors. The activity made up a chorus of chatter that droned in the back of my mind while I focused most of my attention on picking through the chakra signatures on the other side of the village.

I didn't know when the genin were supposed to be there for, but I could feel a mess of signatures gathered in the general vicinity already. A few more potent signatures peppered the perimeter around them—I felt Maen's signature buried in their midst, marking them as at least partially made up of ANBU.

Within the gaggle of genin, I felt Gaara. I felt that cold signature. I felt Lee and his team.

I didn't feel any signature that made my instincts scream Orochimaru.

It was possible he masked his signature. I was good, having trained as long as I had with my sensing abilities, but I wasn't infallible; somebody like Orochimaru could easily hide himself from me.

I pushed off the emotions that circulated in my mind and took to the rooftops to speed up the trip.

The genin were clustered on the field in front of the gates. There were a few, but, compared to about how many I felt in the room after the first part yesterday, I knew that not all of them were there yet.

I took a spot up in a nearby tree and hunkered down, eyes peeled.

My gaze slid over all the faces. Gaara was the first one I saw, flanked by Kankuro and Temari, a chasm between them and the rest of the genin that none of them dared to cross. I sought out Kabuto next, but the next face I recognized was one I forgot to expect: Karin. She was standing with her teammates and frowning, like she wanted to be anywhere but there.

I wondered what would happen to her without Sasuke. I grimaced.

She's not helpless. She'll manage.

Don't think about this.

So I didn't.

I saw Kabuto, silver hair and glasses glinting in the sun, and confirmed he did, in fact, own the cold signature I felt. Sharp as a knife. Prickling. Through his glasses, I could see the way his eyes darted around, as if he was dissecting his enemies where each of them stood. For a split second, they roved over me. Goosebumps tore a line up my arm and down my back. He kept looking, and I didn't think he was looking at me, so much as his eyes happened to glance over me, but it was enough to set my nerves on fire.

I waited there all morning, until Anko made her appearance and outlined the task. Even after that I waited a bit longer, until they started leading the genin into the forest and there was no chance the situation could change.

At no point did I see the face of the grass-nin I knew Orochimaru would wear, nor did I feel any signatures that made me suspicious. He wasn't there.

The initial reaction was a mix of relief and dread. Relief that I might not have to face Orochimaru in the near future, that the invasion might not happen. Dread that it still could, and that I'd get as much warning of it as everybody else.

Again, I put that on the backburner and forced myself to think a bit deeper on the details of the invasion as I trekked home.

Where did it start?

Orochimaru wanting Sasuke was the obvious part of the equation, but it wasn't the driving force of it, just the reason he sought out Sasuke specifically during the third part of the exam and later continued to sink his fangs into Sasuke. Orochimaru and his agenda were one level.

The other part of the equation, the one that my addled mind liked to pass over, involved the usual suspect of Danzo. Danzo engineering it all. Danzo plotting to get Hiruzen and the Kazekage killed. Danzo making a power grab. Everything came back to Danzo, it seemed.

The whole domino display was set into motion. I diverted one branch of it with my actions in Wave, but the rest was going to tumble down one way or another.

I chewed my lip. My feet were wandering on their own, now, tracing a labyrinth through the village streets while my mind was elsewhere.

There wasn't a lot I was convinced I could do to stop the invasion.

Send in a tip to warn of the invasion? Sure. Okay. If I wanted to try that, two possibilities came to mind. The first, I could send the tip in secret. I'd have to figure out how to remain anonymous, which I knew was impossible for me—anonymity was a myth in a ninja village, especially for somebody of my caliber. No way did I have the skill set or the intelligence to pull that one off. The second was to tell somebody outright. That involved having an explanation as to where I came up with that information, and frankly, I figured I'd sooner land myself in T&I before I'd come up with an excuse good enough to get out unscathed.

All of that hinged on the assumption that anybody even believed me.

Nix that option.

Punch Orochimaru in his ugly snake face the second he set foot in Konoha? Tempting.

Go and slit Danzo's throat in his sleep? Even more tempting.

Both of those images were certain to appear in my wildest, bestest, most fantastical dreams, because it was hilarious how many of my future problems I could solve without the two of them causing chaos out in the world.

I bit off a sigh and stretched my arms towards the sky.

Realistically, the only path I saw was to wait until the day of the invasion and salvage what I could out of the day from there. Wait until I could sense the invading forces on their way and had proof to point towards. If a different option arose along the way, I'd think it over, only take it if I was absolutely certain that it was an option that yielded net positive results.

No risks, not this time.

.

.

I peeked over my sketchbook at the garden, leaning forward off of the trunk of the tree at my back to get a better look.

Flowers were an uncommon subject for me. I preferred people. I did bigger subjects sometimes, had even taken a shot at drawing the Hokage monument a few times, but more often than not I kept my focus on people. Something about the gardens today, being outside in the weather and the way the colours were so vibrant under the sun, pulled my attention though, and before I knew it I'd spent hours sketching out as detailed a rendition of the flowers as I could. It wasn't a cohesive piece but more a few individual, fully realized flowers scattered across the page.

It was nice.

The sun had cooled a bit, and the air was warm without being scorching. I could smell the flowers and the earth around me, sweet and soft.

After a while, I saw Shikamaru approach out of the corner of my eye.

I stopped sketching long enough to read the frown on his face, the lack of slouch in his posture, signalling something was amiss, and kept going again. He wasn't mad—Nara didn't get mad, I'd never seen a Nara get mad—but he was annoyed.

Shikamaru came and dropped down onto the ground beside me, starfished save for one arm stretched over his eyes.

I let him stew.

If I hadn't suspected something was wrong already, the fact that he didn't fall asleep right then and there was indication enough on its own. All I could hear from him was the steady pace of his breathing. Not a single word.

Silence, most times, was comfortable with us, but this one was threaded with tension.

I wasn't going to break it.

Hours passed with me sketching and Shikamaru laying there. I filled up a few pages with colourless sketches, going until the sun started to drop and there wasn't enough light to continue. I stood up, brushed the grass and dirt from my bare legs, and went to go.

Shikamaru sighed. I stopped and turned to look at him over my shoulder.

There was dread and annoyance in his eyes, the way he looked when Yoshino asked him to do some terrible chore that he really, really didn't want to do.

"What's up?" I asked. My sketchbook, held open in front of me, fell closed and tapped against my thigh when my hand landed at my side. "Need to say something?"

He took his sweet time to think his words out. "Ino spent all day whining about you," he finally said. "It was loud. Right in my ear."

"As usual, you have my pity and condolences."

"She's been doing it for a while."

Oh, fantastic. "She has, has she?"

"Keeps bitching that you won't train with her," he said. His head rolled over and he stared up at the sky. "And that you always ignore her and you're rude to her."

"Okay?"

His face twisted. I had every intention of making him spit it out. "You could try being a bit nicer to her."

I raised my free hand, index finger up. "First, I'm not nice to most people." I raised another finger. "Second, she's not exactly a saint either."

"I know," he said, and I could hear the frustration creep into his words. "She's annoying and loud, but I'm stuck with her, and it won't exactly kill you to just try and be nice to her."

I waved a hand. "If she can't be bothered to be nice to me, I can't be bothered to be nice to her."

"You say that like you've ever been nice to her."

"Seriously? Do you remember her in the Academy?"

"She was annoying, just like she is now," he said.

"And she spent the entire time being pissy with me because she decided that Sasuke likes me," I said, cutting him off. "Which, might I add, she still thinks."

"She's a girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just… that's what they do."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "For fuck's sake…"

Shikamaru sat up. "Whatever, just—"

"I'm a girl, Shikamaru."

He froze.

I didn't use his full name. I hadn't called him by his full name in years.

"I know you're a girl," he said, the words slow, like he was confused about having to say it. "I just mean that you're not a normal girl."

"Get a fucking shovel, Shikamaru, 'cause you're digging yourself a hole."

A minute of silence stretched between us.

I stood, like a coiled cobra ready to strike, muscles stiff and anger boiling beneath my skin.

Shikamaru stared at me. His eyes shifted, darting around my face and my posture, like I was a puzzle he was trying to put together without having any kind of reference image to do so with. I knew him well enough to know that he didn't understand what was wrong with what he said, and that didn't save him—it made it all the more annoying.

His face smoothed over, and I felt myself relax.

He may not be able to put all of the pieces together, but like a true shogi player, he knew when to take a loss.

Shikamaru flopped down onto his back. "Fine."

Whatever.

I turned and walked away, sketchbook gripped in white knuckles.

.

.

The living room was lit by a dim lamp on the table beside the couch, casting a warm glow on the pages of my novel, and the flickering bulb in the kitchen on the other side of the room.

The book was stupid. Something random I grabbed off of my shelf and skimmed. It was either a cheesy romance novel or fairy tales, since those were the two lone genres on my shelf. I wasn't sure which the book fell into—I'd only gotten through a token amount of pages in however long I spent stretched out on the couch, and my mind was elsewhere for all of them.

"What're you doing?"

I started. My gaze, locked on empty air above the pages of the book, jolted up to the entrance of the house and landed on Maen.

I held up my book. "Reading."

"You're not," he said. "I just watched you stare into space for ten minutes straight."

"You've been here ten minutes?"

Maen tossed off his arm bracers and pulled his mask from where it rested on the side of his head. "No, but the fact that you didn't deny it says enough."

Damn. I discarded the book. "How was the babysitting?"

"Wonderful," he drawled. "Nothing beats sitting crouched in a tree for twelve hours straight while my squad bets on how many genin are going to get eaten by the wildlife."

The rest of his mud-coated gear ended up in a pile by the door, leaving him in just the tight black shirt and loose pants of his uniform. He walked in and instead of coming to sit beside me, turned right and walked into the kitchen.

I waited for the sound of the kettle turning on. It came, but it was followed by the sound of a bowl and utensils clattering onto the counter.

Curious, I pulled myself up and peered into the kitchen. I caught sight of the time out of the corner of my eye—it was almost three in the morning. No wonder he was surprised to find me up and about when I had training the next norming.

"Are you baking?"

"Yes."

"You just spent your entire day out on a mission, you haven't showered or gotten changed since getting home, it's 2:56am, you have to leave again first thing in the morning, and you're about to bake."

Maen slipped on his apron. "Yes."

"Why?"

"I want cake."

"Okay?"

"I'm an adult," he said, turning to look over his shoulder at me. "If I want cake, I'm gonna make cake."

Maen didn't bake often. He cooked most days he was home, but baking was something he saved for special occasions. Baking was a lot of effort, he always said, too much time to put in for a few seconds of sweetness, too many steps to make, too many dishes to do. Troublesome. Cooking was necessary, baking was optional. And yet there he was, baking a cake in the middle of the night because he had a sweet tooth.

"Fuck it," I muttered. I yanked myself up and padded over to the kitchen. "I can go for cake."

Maen gave me a faint smirk, reached over to grab the spare apron, and threw it at me.

I managed the dry ingredients—the least problematic role—while Maen whisked together the wet ingredients. The oven heated up in the background. My arm plowed the fork through the fluffy white contents of the bowl hugged to my chest, moving in tiny, circular motions, to keep bits of flour from creeping over the sides.

It was a nice, mindless activity.

I didn't bake often. Or ever, really. I helped Yoshino with dinner when I was over the but never dessert, and Maen did his best to keep me out of the kitchen because I had a nasty habit of zoning out mid-process and burning things. That was fine when somebody like Yoshino was at the helm, who kept on top of everything, but not so much if I was alone or partnered Maen who took a lackadaisical approach to cooking.

The bowl was pulled out of my grip and the whisk clattered against the plastic. I blinked, pulled back to reality.

Maen set the dry ingredients down onto the counter. He poured the slosh of wet ingredients in bit by bit, stirring the mixture as he went. "You can start on the frosting," he said, jerking his head towards the stuff out beside him. "Just mix the butter and icing sugar together, then add the vanilla and milk."

Everything was measured out and scattered in bowls over the counter, the electric mixer an arms length away.

"You're making icing, too?"

"No," he said, face dead straight. "It's frosting, and you're making it."

I glanced at the clock. It was half past three in the morning. It wasn't a time to argue about anything.

"Okay," I said.

I dumped in the butter, poured the sugar on top, and flicked on the mixer.

My vision exploded in a cloud of sugary dust and chunks of butter. It went everywhere, all over my face and my clothes, pieces of it lodged in my hair, over the counter tops and clouded in the air around us. I stood there, speechless. The mixer dangled from my grip.

I chanced a look over my shoulder at Maen and his expression was blank, the way it went when he was well and truly surprised by something.

I dropped the mixer like it burned me. "Shit."

Maen sighed and put down the bowl of batter. "Get a cloth," he said. "You clean, I'll make the frosting."

It took me an hour to get all of the butter and sugar from the crevices of the kitchen. I doubted it was all gone, but I didn't care enough to keep going. Maen could get the rest of it over the next few days—it was his dumb idea to give me the mixer in the first place. That was my retribution.

Another hour went by, putting us at half past five in the morning, when we sat down across from each other at the little, round kitchen table, cake on plates in front of us.

It was plain. A square of vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Rainbow sprinkles Maen found buried in the back of one of the cabinets were scattered on top of the blanket of creamy white.

I took a bite of it and was annoyed at how good it tasted.

Maen stared at me, fork raised, a smug grin on his face—a silent question.

"Awful," I answered.

He reached over and pulled on my disarrayed ponytail. "Brat."

Another bite. I chewed, staring down at the plate, thoughtful. I barely heard myself when I said, "Shikamaru and I got into a fight today."

"A fight," Maen echoed. "That's new."

"You're telling me," I mumbled.

"Not what I was expecting, honestly."

I gestured at the cake. "Was this some kind of twisted new approach to psychology for you?"

"No," he said. "I just wanted cake."

"Oh. Okay."

Maen captured a chunk of cake with his fork and shrugged. "Two birds, one stone, even better when it's an accident." He waved the fork around in a vague motion. He sat back in his chair and kept eating, waiting for me to keep going.

"He's an idiot," I muttered, stabbing at my cake.

"Sure," Maen said.

I glared down at my cake.

Even hours later, thinking about it again was enough to bring back my frustration. I was annoyed at Shikamaru. Annoyed that he was right about some things, but more annoyed that he was an idiot that put his foot in his mouth and was so wrong.

I was a bitch to Ino.

A lot of people got the business end of my attitude, but she, along with so many of the girls in my grade group did during our Academy years, got a heaping dose. The biggest difference was that I hadn't seen any of them since we graduated, while Ino didn't leave me alone.

I told myself that she was a bitch too, and she deserved it. I justified myself. If she had only left me alone, I never would have been so rude to her, look at Sakura, I was nice to Sakura now, wasn't I? That made it okay, right?

She was annoying, she was haughty, and she was selfish, but Ino Yamanaka was not a bad person and she didn't deserve to be treated like one.

And while Shikamaru was right about that, where he went wrong was when he said that I wasn't a normal girl, because that was the furthest thing from the truth—I was a normal girl, yet at some point, I had gotten it in my head that I wasn't. Disliking makeup, not crushing on boys, dressing in practical clothes. None of that made me special. I wasn't better than any of them.

I thought I was more prepared to face the cruel reality of our work because of it. And then during Wave, when it really mattered, none of that saved me.

The thought was bitter. Nobody wanted to reflect in on themselves and face the fact that they did something wrong.

"People suck," I said. I forced out a breath. "Myself included."

"Universal truth, kid."

My face twisted into a scowl. "I wish it wasn't."

"Nothing to do about it."

"Fucking sucks."

"Life."

I pressed my palms into my eyes. Exhaustion rattled in my bones and made them feel hollow, like a rock jiggled around a tin can. The lack of sleep had crept up on me.

"I think I need to apologize," I admitted, voice low.

Maen raised an eyebrow. "To Shikamaru?"

"No, somebody else," I said. "Somebody I've been unfair to."

Maen nodded.

We finished our cake in silence.

The sun rose as we took our last bites. I ended up helping Maen do some of the dishes and get the leftover cake wrapped up. It was a few minutes after six in the morning, putting the total time spent on that baking stint up to damn near four hours.

On his way out of the kitchen, intent on getting a shower, Maen dropped a hand on my head. He grinned at me, soft and fond. "You're a good kid, you know," he said. "Just trust your gut."

I leaned in and wrapped my arms around his torso. "Thanks."

.

.

"I'm sorry."

"You're… sorry?"

I grimaced. "Don't make me repeat it."

Ino tilted her head, arms crossed over her chest. "I really want you to, actually."

A couple of customers in the flower shop turned to look at us, but Ino waved them off with a delicate move of her hand and a cheery smile.

"You're enjoying this."

"I am," she said. "A lot."

I rolled my eyes. "You're not making this easy."

"In the seven years I've known you, you've never made anything easy for me."

I forced out a breath and said, "I'm sorry for agreeing to train with you and then not holding up my end of the bargain, and I'm sorry that I've been such a bitch to you for so long."

Some of the smugness faded from her face. Her posture unwound itself. "You really mean that, huh?"

"Yeah." I studied her. "You're surprised?"

"Oh, totally," she said. "I didn't think you were the apologizing type."

A shrug. "I know when I'm wrong."

She wiped a smear of dirt off her chin and cleaned her finger off on her apron. "Well then. Apology accepted."

It was my turn to be surprised. "Just like that?" I asked.

"Sure," she said. "I don't see any reason to hold a grudge." Her face scrunched a little, like she'd smelt something awful. "And I guess… I owe you an apology, too."

"I'm… thank you."

"I shouldn't have kept bugging you about all of that training stuff, especially when I could tell that you didn't want to do it. You were right, honestly. I didn't really care about getting stronger. I mean, I do, just… I wanted you to train me because I wanted to see what my competition was, try and find why he bothered talking to you, aside from being his teammate." Her eyes flicked from my face to my ratty, sweat-covered clothes, and back up. "I still don't know."

"There isn't a reason," I said. "Because he doesn't like me."

She nodded to herself, taking the words in, as if she expected to hear them but for the first time, she's really hearing them. "You know, I thought you just said that to get me off your case, but I believe you this time."

"Really?"

She was the one who shrugged this time. "I don't think I wanted to believe you before."

I scoffed, an ugly sound, and a wry grin pulled at her face. "I have no idea what you see in him," I told her.

"I want the best," she answered. The words left her mouth as if they were the most obvious thing in the world, accompanied by a signature hair flick. "He's the best."

At that, I shook my head, and the ratty hair that escaped my braid brushed against either side of my face. "No, he's not," I said. "You can do so much better than him."

"We'll see."

Both of us went quiet.

"You know," I said after a second, "this was easier than I thought it'd be."

"Same." Her eyes narrowed. "I still don't like you, though."

I smirked. "Good," I answered. "I still don't like you either."

"Perfect."

Neither of us said it out loud, but when I left the store, I knew that she wouldn't be stomping in and interrupting my training sessions again.