Part IV | Chapter 8
"It's clear." Gohama whispered as her hand reached for the closet's doorknob.
When she finally got out, her muscles eased a little. She and Hatake were doing an excellent job of avoiding the tension between them and focussing solely on the mission. But it was painful and being closed off in a small closet, staring at the wall, avoiding the presence beside her crawling up her skin, while waiting for the enemies to pass by, hadn't helped at all. She just hoped the Copy-nin was as uncomfortable as she was.
The first storage room had high ceilings and ample walls. Stacked containers filled the room and were positioned to form corridors and sections with a number and letter attached to them. Gohama jumped up onto the first one and internally thanked them for not being locked. Inside were beautiful, expensive-looking kimono that glittered under the fluorescent lights. Her hand brushed down the fabrics and she grimaced at their disappointing touch.
"Counterfeits." Her finger glided the fake designer's brand. "Almost perfectly made."
Kakashi landed silently next to her. "How can you tell? They look real to me."
"The fabric's too cheap and the dye too. Smell it."
He sniffed and touched the kimono she brought up for him. "It feels soft and smells like new clothes."
"Trust me. Unfortunately, I was taught about good quality fabrics as a child." Gohama remembered Keiko-san and her maybe not so useless classes in decorum.
"You do seem good at spotting fakes." he quietly whispered, more to himself than her.
She realised how her previous comment had stung him and now it was stinging her back. "I…" Gohama started, but she couldn't bring herself to finish what would be the closest she could get to an apology. She had said those words to spite him. He had never showed himself to be a fake to her. Unreliable, yes, but it would only be hypocritical to condemn him for it. Gohama was the most unreliable person, especially to the ones she cared about the most. "…I think this must be how they fund their activities."
"Still, they're a medium sized syndicate, why would they need such capital?"
"Unless it isn't for them."
"Let's move to the other room."
They found more counterfeits, but the most worrying of all was the amount of weapons, enough to arm a small army and certainly too many for a criminal syndicate the size of them. The both of them left the theories blooming in their minds for later when the team could combine all the intel they would obtain.
Gohama's thoughts often jumped to her wandering teammates. There hadn't been any signals that they were caught, but her senses were constantly alert for any alarm, shouting, or fighting. It seemed almost inevitable that it would happen, but, as the minutes ticked, it never happened.
Their smaller two-person squad was working smoothly, which honestly surprised Gohama. Her resentment never left her and the tension was still glued to the air around them. Still, they hadn't fought and had nothing to fight about, seeing as they both agreed on what routes to take and steps to make.
They passed the dorm floor without searching it, since it was crowed at that time of night, and moved straight towards their last one. The offices. Except for a few lonely people still working, it was mostly vacant and so they sped through the empty rooms in search for information.
"Very corporative for a syndicate." Gohama commented, as they entered one of the main, larger ones.
Kakashi shrugged. "A criminal organization is just an illegal company."
Gohama lowered her chakra-powered hands onto the cold wood of the drawer. The locking seal was a meek, sloppy one meant mostly to be a façade for uninformed ninja than actual security. With a little tampering on the chakra flow of the seal, it crumbled. There wasn't even a need for a little puzzle solving on her part.
"Simple enough." she whispered to herself as she pulled the drawer open.
"Since when have you gotten so good at busting seals?"
"A compliment, Hatake?" Gohama mocked over her shoulder.
Inwardly she admonished herself at obliviously falling into an easy-going quip, just like the ones she used to throw at him. Her face snapped back to her hands rummaging through the papers. Still, she could feel his disconcerting gaze fixed on the back of her head, making the hairs at her nape stand. He was looking a lot at her this mission.
"I don't compliment, I state. Answer me." His voice as firm as his eyes.
"Why are you so interested?" Hers came out with the marked tilt of forced lightness.
"I suspect what your reasons were."
Why was he bringing this up after two fucking years of obvious evasion? What right did he have to suspect things concerning her ninja abilities when he clearly hadn't cared? Her hands searched the papers a little more forcefully, but Gohama never let it show on her words. "You should know the Kyura are esteemed fuinjutsu scholars. It's only natural I develop my knowledge in it."
He was silent for a few moments, until his gloved fist came to rest on the table and he leaned into it. His usual low drawls sounding right next to her ear. "It didn't happen because you knew little about seals, it was me—"
The snap of papers hitting wood cut him off, as Gohama pulled the interesting files out and spun around to face him. Her pretence was replaced with bitter and sharp words, as he wouldn't let the matter rest.
"I know it didn't happen because of that. His seal asked for his chakra. I wouldn't have been able to bust it with all the knowledge in the world." A harsh scoff. "Now you're bringing this up?"
"I needed to know you weren't torturing yourself over it." He explained quietly.
"It's been two years. I've stopped that a long time ago. But I suppose you couldn't possibly know that." Her hand searched behind her for the files and shoved them against his chest. "Now, be useful and memo—"
The familiar sensation of two very close chakra signatures trembled up her back. How had she missed them? Gohama yanked the papers back and pushed them into the drawer. Her hands grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him along with her, as she tried to cramp them into the small space between the wall and shelf.
"Gohama?" He asked in a mixture of confusion and amusement.
She raised a pointed eyebrow for his little act. He knew exactly why she had shoved herself against a wall and him to her. "Hide your chakra." She demanded in a whisper. "Have you hidden it?"
Kakashi pointed her with something between a glare and a pout. It made her smirk, the victory stretching her lips into a smile. "I can literally still feel it on my skin."
"Spot that." He hissed, his tone no less petulant than his eyes.
"I'm just glad the great Copy-nin isn't a genius in everything."
He shoved her in response, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, and Gohama would have thrown him back against the shelf if they weren't inside an enemy compound, at the verge of being seen. Her hands moved to untuck his shirt, instead.
"Gohama?" He sounded genuinely uncertain now.
"I need to touch your skin directly so my own chakra won't spike."
Her hand pressed against his stomach, as she had done with Nikato. But before she could start the Kyura chakra suppression technique, he grabbed her wrist.
"It's better to use genjutsu."
"We can't know if they'll detect it or not. We're well hidden. Without chakra signatures, they'll never sense our presence. This has never failed me."
Kakashi gave her a long look, the clogs in his mind working behind his eyes. With his little grunt of permission, Gohama closed her eyes, focussing on the feel of her chakra and its surroundings. Pushing small, imperceptible strings of her own chakra into his pathways, she manipulated his flow. His muscles twitched and tensed under her palm and around her frame.
"It's weird." He commented with a strained breath.
"Good or bad weird?"
Kakashi didn't answer, only turning his eyes away from her. She slipped her hand away from his stomach and smoothed the shirt back down. It was quick, simple and reliable. They just had to keep silent and out of the ninja field of vision, which they were by being cramped up in the shadows.
The door opened and two chatting men entered, careless and a little tipsy. One waited by the door while another scrambled through the drawers near his desk. Gohama prayed he wouldn't go for the one she had busted open.
They could pull it off, but Kakashi was growing restless. The man was an elite ninja, couldn't he stand still for a minute? She was the one overheating from having his larger, burning frame pressed against her, she was the one that had to endure the quick and thankfully silent puffs swaying her hairline and tickling her forehead. At least, she could no longer feel his lightning chakra prickling her skin. Then he chose to hold his breath all together and Gohama grew self-conscious of his sensitive nose. She took a little sniff, but all she could smell was his biting scent. She knew he was disgusted with her, but was it so unbearable he couldn't fucking stay motionless?
"I could swear I'd left it here, the other day." The missing ninja's scruffy voice sounded with a hint of annoyance. "That shit's the best whiskey you'll ever have. Aged for— ah, here it is, the little bastard."
The nin read the label to his company and they both walked away from the office, shutting the door behind them. Gohama frowned when Hatake didn't pull away from her. He was still holding his breath, his muscles tense as stone and his eyes fixed on the wall beside her head.
"Kakashi?"
"Hmm?" He looked down at her and it made her very uncomfortable.
"Move."
He twitched back and bumped against the shelf. He cleared his throat and his hand came up to brush the back of his head. "Maa…" he started, but didn't finish saying anything else.
Her eyes narrowed at him as she took a step closer. The hurt circling through her veins agitated into anger, the resentment she had tried to bury for the sake of the mission fluttering up onto her skin again.
Dazai's treatment of her, she could rationalise. He had been a fucking sadistic pig, but Kakashi… That was what had been gnawing on her since she had first noticed he was avoiding her. How revolting she must have been to him, how weak and worthless…, if he, an elite ninja that had seen too much shit, would bother himself with evading her. It no longer mattered to her if it would hurt to know. Gohama had to know. She had to place that piece, which continued to threaten her balance whenever she allowed herself to remember it wasn't there, whenever she tried to fit one measured by herself in its place, always too tearing, always too cutting around the edges. Even if the piece he gave her hurt more, at least it would fit.
"Why did you disappear after the mission?"
Surprise shot through his eyes, quickly giving place to confusion and then to nothing. Gohama thought she could pull him from under there with the demand shouting out of her glare. Still, that infuriating mask of an expression stared back at her without showing her anything.
"Answer me, Kakashi."
"We're on a mission. Later." It was his commander tone.
Before he could move out from the gap between the wall and the shelf, Gohama pushed him back into his place. "Why?"
"Gohama..." Every syllable of her name a drawled out sound meant to stall, but she wouldn't let him avoid her this time. "You wouldn't under—"
A chocked out gasp cut off his words as she pushed a chakra-laden hand over his stomach, sure that it would mess with his own energy system. "Don't you fucking dare use that on me again." She growled a little too loud for their circumstances. "You coward, just answer!" This time she hissed under her breath.
She pushed more chakra into his core, using it to clash with his own around his pathways. His hand shot up to her wrist and locked it between his palm and the wall. The hold was painful and the leather of his gloves bit into her flesh. Gohama was ready to use her chakra to break free, but he saw through it and tugged her to him, his other hand grasping her jaw.
"We're on a mission."
The mask had come down, he was glaring back at her, his electric chakra shoving into her sensitive senses, menacing and dangerous, as it shuddered up her spine, and yet still so contained. What would it feel like if he let the wildness break loose? The thought made her stomach tremble in fear and excitement. It made her smirk. Just a little more and Cold-Blooded Kakashi would tear through the masks.
His fingers dug harder into her wrist, but Gohama didn't let her wince escape through her expression. "Hyuga and Hansuke are still inside the compound."
The dread that had chased her around the mission crashed back into her chest. With guilt, with so much guilt. It wasn't just a mission she was compromising, it wasn't just her and Hatake's lives, it was theirs too, Hansuke and Kisamaru. How could she have forgotten them so easily? And yet… she couldn't let this gnawing go, not when she had Kakashi where he couldn't run. They were inside an enemy compound after all.
"Is it because I disgust you?" Her voice left her lips in a pitiful whisper.
The violence left him as easily as it had done with her. His hold on her arm loosened and his gaze mellowed, even the sharingan looked soft. "What? Why would you think that, Gohama?"
She had to turn her face to the wall, using her hair to hide it. "I was disgusted with me, you could be too."
"No, never." The hand that held her jaw glided to her nape and coaxed her to look up at him. "You didn't ask for it. You were a victim, he ra—"
Gohama pushed his hands away from her. "Don't call me that." She spat. "It was a mission. I did ask for it. I chose to go to his room every single night. I was no victim, he was the one that ended up with his heart crushed. Crushed by me. Me."
"No. On the last night it was different, you can pretend all you want, but he threatened us. You couldn't have said no."
Taking a step back and shaking her head, she leaned against the wall. "What does that matter? Why are you even bringing this up? Do you want me to feel shittier than I did?" Outrage rose back on her tone, and she threw it at him in hushed whispers. "After more than two fucking years, suddenly you want to acknowledge it, to acknowledge me!"
"I never stopped acknowledging it, even if sometimes I wish I could—"
"And why do you wish it, huh, Copy-nin? What was so much more terrible than what you've seen before? What made you avoid me? What was it? Did you think I couldn't take it? I would be too broken for another mission? I would only be a burden for the great Copy ninja?"
"No, Gohama, it was nothing like that."
"Then what was it?"
"I didn't know you'd want me to... I thought you had Hansuke."
"He wasn't there. You were there, you—" With a shake of her head and bitter chuckle, she let the now unbelievable words out. "you actually looked out for me. And then just left when the duty ended."
"It wasn't because the duty ended."
"My biggest mistake on that entire fucked up mission was letting myself trust you." Gohama waited for any effect of her words on him, but they never had any. "And you don't even care… All I'm asking of you now is to tell me why, so just answer me truthfully. I don't fucking care what the reason is by now, I just need to know."
"There isn't a specific reason. I just started seeing you differently... and it frightened me..."
"Oh, so the great Copy-nin is frightened by a little twitch down his pants."
"It definitely was not that. I just couldn't handle how much you… terrify me, Gohama."
Her hand grabbed the arm's guard that hid her jinchuriki seal beneath. From all the possible reasons she had concocted in her mind, this was the most shocking. So shocking she had forgotten how to breathe. Suddenly that little shadowed space between the wall and the shelf was closing in on her. There was no satisfaction at having Kakashi of the Sharingan being terrified of her, no grand feeling of self-worth as a kunoichi, as a person. Only dread and fear, and loathing, always that loathing that she could never wash from under her skin, under her deepest cracks.
"Why?" She choked out.
Kakashi looked to her from his own self-pity and stepped forward to hold her biceps. "No, not like that, Gohama, not like that. It's not you, it's—"
He stayed silent for a long time and Gohama kept looking into his chest, trying to fight back the air she was drowning in. Kakashi shook her a little and she snapped out of herself. He had that open, defeated look Gohama remembered seeing on her apartment's couch years ago, after the Jonin Pre-admission fiasco.
He sighed, long and deep and resigned. "If you want the truth, you have to find it yourself, Gohama… As I always say, underneath the underneath. Everything you've known of me, everything you saw when I was with you, what you see now. What is it?"
All the masks were gone, his dark and red eyes open and honest and…"Guilt…" There was always guilt in him when he was with her. "But why?"
"Underneath the underneath, Gohama."
Gohama continued to search his intense eyes as they looked back at her, as they searched something on her own. "Kakashi… I…" she didn't even know what she wanted to say to him. But there was something, something that wanted to get out.
He hesitated on his feet, his face leaning towards hers. Then, he squeezed her arms and gave her one of his branded eye-crease smiles, but this time she was seeing both his eyes. "Let's focus on the mission, now."
They found documents about the members and recruits, the counterfeit and capital management, but nothing about Akatsuki. Gohama had started that mission with Akatsuki on her mind. Her hate was tingling up her body and now, with the frustration of having no new intel, it had grown into a full crushing wave of hate. The secret organization was indeed to remain secret.
She felt so tired of it all. She had hoped and feared with this mission and now only weariness was left and the target was still to be brought down. What was happening to her? Why was she so uncontrollable, so feverish and sensitive? Was it the dread that had taken hold of her heart and didn't seem to unglue itself from her walls.
At first, she thought it was the effects of their almost death, but it seemed something deeper, non-circumstantial. It seemed that something hidden in her was finally breaking free. Some frightening and threatening wave would break from her and through her. Would destroy everything and leave her empty. She could feel it in the tip of her mind, lingering with throbbing latency, the constant knock on a door asking to get out. She no longer knew if she preferred it to tear through and clean her of her uneasiness, or if the silent menace was best left unknown. For now, she just wanted out of it all. The building, the mission, herself.
Kakashi and Gohama had reached the meeting point before the other team. Free drinks would have felt feel better if the losers were sure to be alive. They had about 45 minutes until 01:00.
"Maybe they found something more interesting than we did." Gohama said more to herself than Kakashi.
"Maybe."
The air around them had lost most of its stale and tense weight, after Gohama had forced them to acknowledge everything that was behind it, giving place to awkwardness. Awkwardness was easier to deal with and especially easier to ignore.
He had given her the shadow of an outline for the piece, with time and patience maybe she could draw the right fit. But the mission was not the moment for that. She had already risked her team too much and she couldn't regret that. Their fight had finally eased the gnawing of not knowing, of her self-disgust. She had tried to hide Kakashi's avoidance inside her not-to-acknowledge box. It had worked, because she had forgotten it, but the weight had always been there for the last years.
This mission had ripped the box open and Gohama had known she couldn't keep it down any longer, not when Kakashi's sudden and constant presence had screamed at her to remember. Now, with the small taste of relief, Gohama had finally realised how much it had weighed on her and how good it felt to have a little of the weight free itself from her, even if it had come with weariness too.
Gohama sat on a tree branch, her leg dangling down its side, as she sharpened a pouch kunai. There was little care put into her movements, they served the need to do something, anything, to fill the empty uncertainty. The kunai would be terribly sharpened from her clumsy swipes, but she almost never resorted to them, choosing the fast method of summoning weapons directly to her hands.
Twenty minutes passed and she sensed Kisamaru's chakra along with relief. The speed was regular, he didn't seem injured. So why wasn't Hansuke with him. A terrifying thought took hold of her mind. What if he was, but no longer with chakra in him?
She jumped down and rushed towards the Hyuga. He was alone. "Why are you alone? Where's Hansuke?"
"Sensei stayed behind." he explained matter-of-factly.
"What? Why would you leave him there? What happened? Is he okay?"
"Sensei was okay when I left. He told me—" Kisamaru raised his hand bluntly, as Gohama frowned and opened her mouth. "Let me explain first, then you can act outraged. Sensei ordered me to leave the compound alone. We took more time than we thought, because our part was mostly the common area and it was difficult being stealthy. When we reached the offices, where they had the intel there was little time. We found Furuta's office. Twenty minutes would not have been enough to search it completely. Hansuke-sensei ordered me to leave him. He said there was no need in risking two lives, so I should escape before the safe interval ended."
"And you accepted that?" she whispered, accusation clear in her voice.
"I had no choice. Sensei pulled rank on me."
"He couldn't force you out. What does rank matter? He's your teammate and you left him alone!"
"It wasn't easy for me. We were both rational in the decision."
Kisamaru's emotionless voice was pushing on her. She tried to supplant the fury firing in her veins and chakra, but she couldn't. She didn't want to, even if Gohama knew it was a result of the fear taking over her.
"I know what you're thinking. Sensei doesn't want you to go. You have to stay. He made me make you stay."
"I can't."
The chakra-coated sole of her feet pushed hard against the ground and Gohama was running towards the compound. Kisamaru was faster with fighting moves, but slower when running. He wouldn't be able to stop her.
Right after the first steps, she crashed into a hard chest. "Get out of my way, Hatake."
"I'm team leader. You are ordered to stand your post."
She pushed him away with the help of chakra. "I don't care about my post."
He positioned himself in front of her again. He managed to grip her arms. Gohama began struggling, trying to fight his strength. She had to go. She had to go. She was ready to push him away with chakra again, until an electric shock spread from her wrists through her body. It made her legs numb and arms limp. Her knees caved but he held her. She didn't care about the burning pain under his hands.
Gohama tilted her head and looked at his impassive eye. "If he dies…"
"He won't die. He's done it hundreds of times for ANBU. I know you don't trust me, but trust him."
"But if he dies, I'll…"
"I was the one that stopped you. You blame it on me."
There was no typical eye-creased smile, only blunt authority. She let her head fall against his chest. Her whole body was shaking and aching from the fear and the lightning. Kakashi held her and made her sit against a tree.
"You should give her a look. It was a strong shock." he said to Kisamaru that quickly paced towards Gohama.
The green gleaming chakra illuminated the almost moonless night. The pain was alleviating. "You hurt your wrist." Kisamaru stated, but his sleek eyebrows were bunched.
Gohama looked at the purple bruises circling her skin, a clear imprint of a hand. That Hatake was a beast when he let it out. "It's fine." She made a show of rotating it, hiding her internal grimace at the pain. "Save nonessential healing for when we're back at the inn."
"I'm sorry I left him there, Gohama." Kisamaru couldn't keep his turmoil from his tone and she finally realised how difficult it must have been for him to leave Hansuke.
"No. I understand. I'm just… after the last mission…" her voice was strained in her throat "I'm…"
"I know."
He sat against the tree next to her, his shoulder pressed to hers and she smiled a little. Gohama leaned her head against his shoulder.
At 01:00 Nikato joined the team. They explained their waiting and he sat against the tree on the other side of Gohama, distracting himself with softening the creases of her black pants. Kakashi was up on a tree with his book drawn out.
The riots on Gohama's stomach grew heavier and more chaotic with every minute. Her heart wouldn't stop pounding, wishing to break free from the eating concern and fear. Her hands played with and dug the soil on each side of her.
She wanted to punch away the trunks and the ground, trying to relieve the tension building up, swelling to where there was no more space to swell. She kept flooding but with no overflow. She kept filling up but with no explosion. Would it ever come? If he died maybe. It would burst, she was sure. And she would burst with it.
How long had it been since their meeting time? It seemed too long. Too long to hope. Maybe it would be best not to hope. Would it even make things easier? Maybe if the pain and loss began now, then the tension would only drain out. She didn't really care. She just wanted Hansuke to be back. That stupid man. She just wanted him back. And with each passing second, his life seemed to fade away between their waiting fingers.
Her heart jumped and she jumped alongside her heart. The tension vanished with no trace of ever being there. Her sense searching for the hint of that familiar and steady chakra. There it was, earth, water and underlying fire. Flowing and alive.
"He's back."
Kisamaru activated his byakugan. "He's well."
Gohama's eyes finally caught Hansuke's silhouette. She couldn't wait any longer. With his sight, anger started replacing the lingering fear. As she reached him, her closed fists went for his chest, with weak, but steady blows. Her words following the rhythm of her hits. "You stupid, reckless man. Do you have any idea what you put us through? Stupid, stupid, fool of a man."
He chuckled with that annoying charming smile of his and gently held her wrists. "I know. I'm sorry. But it was worth it. I know where Furuta will be tomorrow and I know this syndicate serves to fund Akatsuki."
Kakashi, which now stood beside them, said, "Gohama and I already suspected that. We should get back to the inn and discuss our findings there." he started walking away and then turned back with a smile plastered on his eye. "Maa, don't forget you two owe us three nights of free drinks."
Back at the inn, a plan to bring down the compound was forged and the information they had gathered was sent out on one of Nikato's owls to Tsunade. Furuta Chin would be there from 3pm to 6pm. They would assassinate him first and then detonate the building with planted exploding tags. Nikato, Kisamaru and Hansuke would take care of the blast, Kakashi and Gohama of the target.
The uneasiness of a battle's eve was palpable. They wished goodnight to each other and set off to a possible last day of sleep. They were all casual and insensible to creeping death. As shinobi it was their threatening and unwanted companion.
Gohama closed the door behind her and leaned her back against it. Harsh lines carved her brow for the entire time they were discussing things for tomorrow. Now, in the privacy of their room, she could finally talk her mind.
"Why did you do that, Hansuke?" she hissed angrily, not wanting the others to hear their fight through the wall.
Hansuke's face showed an amused resignation for what he had already known was coming. It only irked her more. "For the mission, obviously."
"No amount of information is worth your life."
"Gohama, we're ninja." He said more softly, "The risk is always there."
"Don't you think I know that?" She breathed out and moved to lean on her hands against the kitchenette's counter, her back to him. "You didn't have to add up to the one already there…"
He stepped to stand behind her, his hand settled on her hip and pulled her gently against his front. The chakra flowing through the pathways on his skin swirled against her own. "Hansuke… I can't lose you… I won't bear it…"
"I understand, Gohama, you know I always have. It's not like I don't feel the same with you. I'm also scared of loss. I've been through it too."
"I know. But it's different."
"Of course, it's different, you've lost much more—"
"That's not what I mean… You're stronger than me, Hansuke. You've never let it take away your goodness, your life… your love…" She added quietly and gave in to his warmth.
"You're not the heartless person you think you are. You may not say it or even admit it, but you love Kisamaru and Nikato." He wrapped his arm more fully around her stomach. "And I know you love me, too, Gohama. So let that fear and grief go," he whispered gently against her neck, his lips softly teasing her skin "and love me."
Every nerve in her body tingled at his words and touch. She tilted her head and her lips searched for his. Hansuke spun her in his arms so he could kiss her more deeply and Gohama let herself be guided. When they pulled apart, panting for breath, she lunge herself towards Hansuke, wrapping her arms around his head and pressing her nose into his neck, drowning herself in his scent. He tenderly chuckled and held her lifted weight, his hand brushing her nape, the other grasping her waist tightly.
They kissed again, deep and with need, despair and love. Hansuke was so full of love and she let herself drown in it, because she loved his love for her. She needed it. She needed him.
Later, laying under the covers, embraced skin on skin, Gohama's restlessness seemed to ease away.
"You really scared me." she whispered, her fingers playing with the hairs in his chest.
"I'm here now."
"Now…" she repeated and looked up at him "I wish we could stay like this…" she trailed off.
"Forever?"
"Until we get bored."
He chuckled and pinched her hip. "How romantic, my love."
"It's realistic." Gohama lowered her gaze again, to the hand soothing the skin over his heart. She couldn't look at his deep loving hazel eyes. "Maybe I could do this whole thing well someday. But I don't want to give you hope."
"I like hope."
With a tender smile, she said, "Because you're a fool."
"Then marry this fool."
Her heart skipped at the bold words and her eyebrows shot up on her forehead. After the first shock at the sudden, almost sloppy, proposal, Gohama threw her head back and laughed. "Are you trying to scare me off? Is this your way of ending this?"
Hansuke chuckled too, but the seriousness of his proposal was clear and gleaming behind his eyes. "I'm not saying now, obviously. Someday..."
"I'm not even at someday, Hansuke…"
"I'll wait for you."
"What if I never get there? I'll only end up hurting you."
"It's my choice." He explained as his hand held hers to his chest and he playfully added, "And I have my dreams to keep me entertained meanwhile."
Gohama returned it with a cheeky smile. "Hmm, and what are these dreams about?"
"The typical. You in a white kimono, four little kids running around with your green eyes…"
Her heart pinched at the image painted in her mind, so happy and so unreal. "That's sweet…"
"It doesn't scare you off?"
"No. I like your dream, I'm just not sure it is for me."
"What about your dreams?"
"You know what it is."
"Besides honouring your Village. You have to have others."
But Gohama didn't, she had never had any other dream, not even as a child. Being the perfect weapon of Buki covered all her will and she was glad with that. It was who she was meant to be and it had more meaning than any other ridiculous, worthless thing she could ever wish to reach.
When she didn't answer anything and her attention continued focussed on playing with the hairs at his chest, Hansuke coaxed her to look at him. "You can start now, with me."
They shared a long meaningful look. Gohama's heart felt like both bursting and flying. It frightened her, but Hansuke was real and alive. Yes, he was alive under her fingertips, his life pounding, strong and moving, alive.
"I dream we'll be like this tomorrow, in your bed, back at home." The small smile on her lips withered. "Is it enough for you, Hansuke?"
"Yes." He answered with that softness he always had for her.
"I don't understand… How can you take it? How can you not resent me, Hansuke…"
"I just don't. There's no big thing behind this. I love you, Gohama, and whatever you give to me is enough." He kissed her forehead and brought her closer to him. "It's simple."
"Gohama."
"Hansuke."
"I love you."
"Fuck." Kakashi whispered under his breath.
"Indeed."
His head snapped out of the pillow to look at Kisamaru. "You know?"
"For a while now, but Nikato doesn't. They usually aren't this reckless, especially not on missions. It is understandable from a psychological point of view. Faced with the fear of death, an individual's reproductive instin—"
"Stop there." Kakashi cut off the medic-talk. "I definitely don't need to hear any explanation from any point of view. The live show was more than enough."
Kakashi plopped back onto his futon with a long, tired sigh, as a hand rubbed his face and hair. He was starting to regret not leaving the room sooner. It had been so unbearably uncomfortable Kakashi's muscles were still tight as uncoiled springs. A masochistic side of him had made him stay when he should have left right after his brain caught up to the meaning of the stifled sounds coming from the other room. Then a perverted side of him, the one that ravished the nastiest parts of Icha Icha, had supplanted the discomfort with a morbid, cursed curiosity.
He cursed his sensitive dog hearing. The wall hadn't been enough to muffle the sounds and he definitely had not needed to learn what types of sounds Hansuke made. Especially not Gohama's feminine ones. Hers were engraved into his memories now. He could still hear them echoing through the walls of his ears, breathless and rich. His perverted mind still supplying un-washable images behind his eyelids to accompany them.
He felt sick, disgusting. He truly regretted not leaving sooner. And he was starting to regret not leaving now. Kakashi needed fresh air and a glass of something cold and biting.
"She doesn't love him." Hyuga whispered sadly and it pulled Kakashi out of his self-admonishment. "She doesn't love anyone."
Kakashi had thought the kid was smart, but even the byakugan couldn't pierce through some shields. The pleading look, full of fear for Hansuke's life, she had given him earlier that night was not the look of a woman who didn't love.
"Hansuke knows what he's doing." Of this, Kakashi wasn't so sure. It was obvious Hansuke was madly in love with Gohama, but he usually was a bit of a fool when it came to that. Before Gohama there had only been Yugao and his grave mistake of following her onto ANBU ranks. Mistake that now could cost him what he wouldn't give up. Mistake that Kakashi had ordered him to make when he had known Hansuke was too good to make for himself.
After adjusting the front of his pants, Kakashi stood up and equipped himself with his pouches. When his hand reached for the doorknob, Hyuga's voice sounded from the silence. "They're doomed."
Without answering, Kakashi twisted his wrist and pushed the door open. He hadn't needed Hyuga to confirm what was already a certainty in his deep, hidden box of doomed things he didn't want to think about. What he needed was fresh air and a glass of something cold and biting.
Gohama always did have a knack for robbing him of the best spots. It was the same as on that night on top of the Hokage Mountain, minus the cover of white fluffy snow. Her dark hair falling down her back, onto her green Kyura haori, knees bent and arms wrapped around them. This time Kakashi also hesitated in his steps. Then, he had tried to comfort her the same way she had comforted him when he stood at the memorial stone on the anniversary of Obito's death. He had failed miserably.
Gohama turned her profile to him, as he hesitated between jumping from the window onto the roof. "I won't bite this time." The slight condescendence of her voice going against her own words.
It was a clear invitation and it passed his decision onto her. "Yo." he greeted as he plopped down beside her. She reeked of Hansuke and sex, her underlying feminine scent almost drowned under the sharp smell. He twirled a bottle of sake. "Brought a heater."
"Is this a peace offering?" She asked, her green eye peeking from its corner, and the eyebrow arching in banter.
"Something like that."
Her hand yanked the bottle from his hold. "I'm only taking it because I'm cold."
"Aren't this summer temperatures for you?"
"I've gotten soft." Her tone a little too quiet for their line of conversation.
"I remember freezing my ass off in the snow and you weren't even shaking."
Instead of answering, Gohama drank. Her throat rippled as she took long sips and a bead of sake rolled from the corner of her mouth down her chin. When she dropped the bottle, she gave a long sigh and smacked her red, glistering lips. "This sake's shit." She stated as she passed it to him.
Kakashi chuckled, his eyes following the clear bead as it glided down her jaw and neck. Gohama didn't appear to care about it. "You seem to like it well enough." The sake was indeed shit but drinkable, and most important it had been cheap.
The bottle rose to his masked lips. "Ew. Don't drink it like that."
"Hmm.", was his answer as he kept on drinking.
"I'm serious. That mask is an accumulation of spit, germs and now sake. It's disgusting."
Kakashi made a long mocking sigh of satisfaction when he was finished slurping. "It's not like your drool is much better."
Gohama huffed at his insult, but her displeasure quickly turned into cheekiness. "You could just take it off."
"You could just not drink."
She pushed his shoulder with her own. "You're no fun, Copy-nin."
This was nice. It had been too long since they had thrown innocent banter back and forth. It left an aching, uncomfortable feeling in his chest. Not regret, it was softer and at the same time just as stinging. His tongue played around inside his mouth, trying to catch the little glimpse of what he was feeling. Kakashi had always preferred to run and hide from the motions that swirled inside him, but this time he wanted to name it. It made him almost forget why he had chosen to avoid her. It made all the sensible reasons for getting far away from her crumble.
"Missing." He whispered to himself and the words synchronised with the ache in his chest.
"Did you say something?"
Kakashi could feel the blush contained by his mask at being caught in such a stupid slip of his tongue. "Maa," he started, while brushing the hairs at his nape. "just old man ramblings."
Instead of mocking him, Gohama gave him an understanding look. "Are you worried? About tomorrow?"
The unrelated question helped him understand why Gohama had come to stay out here in the cold tile of the roof when she should be in bed with Hansuke. She was scared.
"Not really. This time I'll be there."
Knowing that Gohama would be in his squad, pacified any possible trepidation, even if he trusted Hansuke. After Dazai, just the thought of being in the dark again brought that dread back to the surface. His reassurance didn't seem to calm her.
"Your problem isn't being there during missions. It's the afterwards." The muted comment pierced deeper than if she had shouted at him with the bitterness of accusation.
Kakashi listed the reasons for being an asshole silently in his head, repeating them, marking them into the doubt and regret stirring in his guts. This mission kept shoving all the ways he had hurt her into his eyes. He had broken her trust, which was the shittiest thing to do to a shinobi. Yet, it was better to have done it then, when it was not solid and rooted, when it was only the result of a fucked up mission, than later.
The growing regret was his sentimentality ruling, not his reasonability. And sentimentality could be even shittier for shinobi. His sentimentality would be even shittier for Gohama.
"Gohama…"
"I hate to admit it to you, even to myself. I hate how it hurt me. I hate how weak it made me feel. But I really needed you after Dazai and you just left. You proposedly avoided me."
His head was cast down as his nails picked apart the label of the bottle. She had been in a vulnerable, painful time and he had chosen that moment to get away. He had thought she hadn't needed him because he didn't want her to need him. Maybe it had only been out of selfishness. Maybe all his reasons in favour of Gohama had been a mask to cover the real, selfish reason for avoiding her.
What good had it done to her? He had really hurt her. She had believed she disgusted him and that made him disgusted with himself. It pierced through his chest, stabbing and cold. Kakashi should have borne the guilt, should have borne his own deceiving, so he could be there for her. It had been self-preservation only, it had been selfish all along.
"Why didn't you come to me? Why did you let me avoid you?"
"Really, Kakashi?"
Of course Gohama would never come to him, the question sounded stupid even to himself. Pride had high, thick walls meant to protect. He had given her a blow after she let a little gap open for him, when the mission had forced her to, she would never have let them down again for him.
"That fucking mission…" He groaned.
"Yeah, that fucking mission..."
"Gohama... I tried to find another way to kill him, I told you we—"
"I know, okay? I know. But I needed it. I needed to know I could do it. But I couldn't, it wasn't me..."
"Are you talking about the chakra explosion? It was you, it was your chakra." Gohama didn't answer, she only turned her face away from him, using her hair to cast a curtain over it. "Do you regret it?" He asked with hesitance, his voice a shy whisper.
She gave a bitter chuckle. "Depends on my mood. Most days I don't, it earned me too precious information. But some days..."
"Some days it comes back up." He continued what he knew she was thinking. It made her look back at him, her green eyes with a warmer, understanding shade to them. "You're not over it."
"Of course I'm not over it. I'll never be over it, just like I'll never get over when you memory interrogated me, or Danzo's ordered torture, the first time I killed someone, the massacre. It's the life we chose. I've accepted it a long time ago."
Still, acceptance didn't ease the pain, nor the cruelty.
"The sharingan… I have that image of you stored in my mind and I'll never get over that, much less forget it."
He could still see it behind his eyelid. Every single detail, every single little cut, bruise, drop of blood. The smell of sweat and sperm, and of Gohama being engulfed by Dazai's. Her heartbeat, her ashen skin, covered in red and purple. The purple hand mark encircling her neck. That beautiful green kimono dirty and tainted, opened to show him what he had let Dazai do to her.
"I regret... leaving you after it. I can see how selfish it was, now. I'm sorry, Gohama."
"Okay. I accept your apology."
"No, what I did isn't forgivable. Those who leave their teammates behind are worse than scum."
"First time I heard you say your famous quote."
"It's not mine..."
"I didn't forgive you, by the way. But… Genma is definitely suffering more from this than any of us. He was the only one to ask me about it."
"He asked me too. He thinks we slept together."
"Of course he does. In his mind sex is always the answer. When we get back to Konoha, if things go back to normal, then maybe I'll forgive you. But not yet."
Should he let things go back to before? He liked being with Gohama, but the deceiving was always looming over them. It felt so wrong, everything about her coming to Konoha felt so incredibly wrong. Would he be looking after Gohama's or his own preservation now?
"Why would you?"
"I've never been very good with resentment, which I suppose isn't really a bad thing. Besides, I think I know why you did it and I can't really blame you for it. It's this life. Only some can go through it without getting fucked up."
"So you're saying I'm fucked up?"
"Definitely. You read porn in public, that's the weirdest kink I've seen so far. Traumatising really."
"What's you kink? I don't think I've seen one."
She offered him a sly smirk that made his heart stop and then speed away. "It's not for public places." She stopped and reconsidered, with a cheeky tilt to her head. "Usually."
The sleeve of her haori rose as she extended her arm to him to grab the bottle. Underneath, the purple shade of a bruise circled around her wrist. Noticing his gaze, Gohama's fingers fished for the hem, closing the fabric around her fist and she rested her arm between her legs and stomach.
"Don't go into another frantic episode." The fatidic night he always tried to forget after the Jonin pre-admission fiasco. He had been so much drunker then than now, but the guilt was almost the same. "I wasn't doing any nicer things to your pathways."
It didn't matter what she had done to him. Kakashi was always aware of his own strength, always had a tight grip on his control. Gohama knew how to crawl under his skin. "Why didn't you ask Hyuga to heal you?"
"There was no need for him to waste chakra. It's a bruise not a broken bone. It looks bad because I'm pale. I doesn't even hurt."
"It hurt then." Before she could argue back and start another fight, Kakashi ordered, "Just get that healed."
Surprisingly that made her chuckle. "Okay, but just because I'm not going down that road again."
He let out a dry, almost desperate chuckle. "You're never going to drop that night, are you?"
"Of course not, it was surreal." She exclaimed with wonder, but her tone quickly softened as she looked at his profile. "It was the first time I actually saw you, not what you show other people…"
"A fake, right?"
"No, not a fake, just another mask." Her green eyes, dark in the night, turned to look in front of them. "I'm worse, you know. I'm a Konoha kunoichi with a Buki hitai-ate."
"How is that worse?"
"Because it's only half of both. I don't know how to be more than a half. I don't even think I can be more than a half." Her hopeless, sad tone fell heavy between them.
Kakashi was sure that if Gohama looked at him, he would see the lost green eyes of that little girl on that fatal night so many years ago. The piercing cold was back on his insides, but there was always sweet treacherous hope. His hope that always reached for the ones he cared about and never for himself. Even if it felt delirious, he believed the words, the promise, ready to spill from his mouth.
But Gohama caught up to her vulnerability before he could offer any type of sloppy comfort. With a curt, forced chuckle, she said, "You also stole my first kiss that night. So, yeah, I wouldn't forget that."
That new piece of information hit as hard as a kick to the guts, throwing his mind away from her gut-clenching comment before, which had been exactly its purpose. "Fuck… Gohama… I'm so sorry."
She laughed at his more than awkward stuttering. "It wasn't so bad, at least until you shoved your tongue down my—"
A loud painful groan ripped from his throat, as his head slumped down. Tsukate would beat the fucking shit out of him if he ever found out he had kissed his at the time probably seventeen-year-old niece.
"I'm just kidding, Kakashi. It's just a kiss, I don't care. Definitely not as much as you did. That was what spurred your little rambling moment."
"Please, spare a little of my dignity, Gohama."
"But I'm having so much fun." She whined, a feigned pout clear on her lips.
Then they were silent, only the quiet sounds of the night and the stars above them making them company. There were still so many things he wanted to tell her, but even Kakashi wasn't sure what they were. The words swirled inside his chest and he kept them down. Gohama had changed in these years. She had taken down part of the barrier around herself and he had seen it in today's conversations. Kakashi should be glad for it, but he couldn't. Hyuga's words rang loudly, accurate and looming, "They're doomed.".
"So… We have a mission tomorrow. Better at least pretend to get some sleep." Gohama slapped her thighs and stood up.
Before she could disappear through the window, Kakashi called, "Gohama," she turned back with a small smile. "I also… needed you, then, after… you know."
Her smile spread across her lips, wider and warmer, and she nodded before jumping over the attic's windowsill.
Fuck.
I really enjoyed writing Gohama and Kakashi's interactions in this chapter, hope you enjoyed them too.
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