Part V | Chapter 6
Gohama crunched her eyes closed as the sun struck her, now that Kakashi had rolled away from where he had pinned her on the ground of backyard. Her chest heaved after another ruthless taijutsu training against Kakashi. With the hem of her shirt, she cleaned the sweat off her forehead and neck. She threw a furtive glance towards the ninja beside her, his breathing calm as he leaned on his arms resting over bent knees.
His hair fell down onto the left side of his face. Kakashi had stopped wearing his hitai-ate when they spared, using his hair to hide the red eye from her. He never let her see it now. She could feel it sucking in his chakra as the heel of his palm rubbed over the sharingan. Did it hurt him from just a spar?
"You're brutal." Gohama said through evening pants.
"Of all people I wasn't expecting you to ask me to pull my punches."
"Oh, I'm not. I like it rough." She delivered it with a smirk and best breathless voice she could mock, but Kakashi didn't react in any way, not even with a retort, his bored stare pointing forward. "Just surprised you're worse than Gai."
While Gai was one to throw constant blows, which did hurt when not properly evaded or blocked, Kakashi was more about waiting out for the perfect moment to strike, which meant one blow with the accuracy of twenty. It ended up tiring and hurting a lot more and being less efficient in letting off steam, the reason why she had started sparing with Gai in the first place. Now it would never happen again.
"Didn't even know you two sparred."
"Are you jealous, Kakashi?" She asked in a drawled teasing tone. "Don't worry, I won't steal your precious eternal rival." She would probably never see him again, Gohama thought as she used the fabric of her shirt to fan the heated skin of her stomach. "Not that Gai would ever let himself be stolen. Everyone knows he'll be there for you until the end of time."
Her line was serious this time, she wanted to see how Kakashi would react to that. He never showed his attachment to Gai, but Gohama knew he had to care for him, whether he even realised that or not. If he didn't enjoy his eternal rival's company, he would never put up with the crazy challenges Gai threw at him.
Not surprisingly, Kakashi didn't let anything escape through his constantly bored aloof expression. It would have been annoying, as it always was when Gohama couldn't make him come out of that mask he carried, if she hadn't caught his side-glance at her bare belly.
It made her feminine pride flurry and a cocky smile upturn her lips. She hadn't felt it in some time, as it had only been reserved for the moments she had caught Hansuke staring, so she let herself delight in the empowering feeling of being worth looking at.
It lasted little. Kakashi's hand reached for her, and, for an instant, Gohama's breath was trapped inside her chest. His fingers glided feather lightly over the side of her stomach, near her hip. Their gentle, lightning touch made her muscles twitch under her skin.
Kakashi inhaled to talk and she had expected a teasing comment over her reaction. "You have a bruise here."
Her feminine pride sank low inside of her. He had only been looking because she had a bruise, not because he liked what he saw. Her hand pulled her hem forcefully back down, smacking his hand away in the process.
"It's just a bruise, it'll disappear." Gohama puffed, as her arm draped over her face to hide her from the sun and her embarrassed blush.
"Does it hurt?" He asked as he poked it with his fingers over her shirt.
Gohama flinched, it did hurt a little. She was sure it had been that kick to her side, which had thrown her all the way across the backyard.
"Stop it. I'm pretty sure you also have bruises," She had hit him quite some times, definitely more than when they had started their taijutsu training. "do you want me to poke and squeeze around to see if they hurt too?"
"You could poke and squeeze me anytime you want, Gohama."
"Then I guess it won't be happening."
"Maa, you should know the jonin have elected me the best ass of Konoha."
"Your biggest accomplishment, I'm sure."
He twisted in his sitting position, so he could lift his bottom off the ground. "Mm, there's a bruise there, if you want to give my ass a squeeze."
"You're an idiot." Gohama puffed as she kicked his butt so he would stumble to the side, which he did but only because he had let that happen. "Bakashi."
Kakashi was laying now, his hands behind his head. "Haven't heard that in a while."
"Who even calls you that? Drunk Genma?"
He only looked to the side at her, but didn't speak. Somehow that was enough of an answer even if his expression didn't let anything show again. Gohama turned her head to look at the frail blue of the sky, even if his eye didn't let anything out, it still felt heavy against her own, piercing even. It had been one of his dead precious people.
"Why don't you summon your ninken anymore?" And with that question he evaded his gaze and again didn't answer. "If you don't want them to meet me, you can say so, Kakashi. There's no need to worry about my nonexistent feelings."
That made him stand up and walk away. Her feelings didn't seem so nonexistent now. Then, she felt a spike of his chakra and the popping sound of a puff of smoke.
She raised herself onto her elbows to look at the large number of dogs breaking out of the smoke, tails wiggling and nuzzles turned upwards to look at Kakashi. Before he could greet them, all their sharp eyes turned to the unusual presence that was Gohama. The uncomfortable scrutinising made her stand up on weak knees.
As a Kyura, Gohama understood how deep the bond between ninja and their summons went. The white wolves were more than an aid in battle, they were an essential piece in the Kyura's identity. Father had had a bond with Yukine, who had been the inspiration for her little brother's name. She had dreamed of bonding with Yukine too, and Gohama now could, she had been able to since the day Father died, but it had never felt right.
These were Kakashi's summon animals. He was letting her meet them, not out of necessity on a mission, but because she simply had asked after them. It made a warm and aching feel twist around in her chest.
A ninken with warm brown fur and wrappings around his neck stepped away from the group. His snout wiggled as he sniffed the air, getting closer to her with each step. He pushed it onto her extended hand, and it tickled the skin of her palm, leaving behind a wet trail.
"I remember your smell." He commented with a wiggle of his tail, mirroring the excitement in his voice. "It was years ago, but I never forget a smell, especially when Kakashi stinks of fear because of it."
She threw a quick glance towards Kakashi, who was brushing the back of his head with a sheepish expression. "It was when you were kidnapped by Danzo's orders… Uhei was the one to track you."
"Well, Uhei… I'm Gohama."
"I know." Uhei explained with a childlike self-satisfied tone. "We all know that."
She glanced back at Kakashi, who looked even more sheepish than before, a little red dusting peeking over his mask. Gohama smiled in amusement and turned back to Uhei. "Thank you for finding me."
"You're welcome." He beamed, his tail speeding away with its shakes. "You can pet me if you want."
Gohama crouched down to be at eye-level with him and her hand reached to stroke between the brown fur at his head and the white spot circling his snout, short and smooth under her palm. He didn't waste time and promptly rested his head on her thigh, making Gohama's heart swell at how easily he opened up to her.
The other ninken were still gathered in their group, snouts squirming and eyes probing. Gohama tried not to let it get too much to her. It was common for summoned animals to be wary of strangers, especially considering her and Kakashi's case. If he had told them who she was, he had probably explained their fragile circumstances. At least to Pakkun, who was stabbing her with a surprisingly hostile glare for a face usually so bored.
Kakashi cleared his throat and neared the other dogs. "The others are Urushi, Shiba, Guruko, Bisuke, Akino, and Bull. Pakkun you've already met." He told her as he pointed a hand while relating the names. "Guys, this is Gohama."
Only Bull and Pakkun, who was sitting on the alarmingly giant dog's head, stayed put, while the ninken moved towards her, their muzzles pushing against her legs and hands.
"Do any of you like hunting?" All their ears perked up at the question. "I'm the one that hunts around here, Kakashi prefers to fish, you can come with me if you want to. Two at a time maybe…"
"So you invite my ninken even before me?" Kakashi asked, his mask shifting in a mocking pout.
"Of course, they're cute."
"But Kakashi can come too, right?" The ninken with droopy long hears and dark circles around his eyes asked as he pushed his head against her hand, silently requesting that she stroke him too. He was the cutest one, giving her puppy pleading eyes.
"Do you want him there, Bisuke?" The ninken nodded. "Then I guess he'll have to come too."
Bisuke turned his face away from her, towards Kakashi, but she didn't miss the wink he had given him. Gohama laughed at how he backed his contractor, her fingers rubbing behind his ears and at the character for shinobi between his eyes.
"Ne, Kakashi, do you always use your ninken's cuteness to get what you want?"
"I have my own charm to help me, but it doesn't beat these guys' puppy eyes. After years, I'm still not immune." He scooped Bisuke up to his lap, roughly but fondly rubbing behind his hears, the ninken's little leg shaking from delight. "Right, guys?" They all nodded. "Maybe I'll finally stop giving you treats."
The pack's ears perked up and, at the same time, all their heads snapped to Kakashi. In an instant only ninken could master, he was under a mess of legs, tails and tongues, a sporadic human leg and arm sprouting from the bundle of fur. Even the gigantic bulldog had joined the chaos.
Gohama sat back as she watched the fun tender moment between the pack with a small smile on her face. She could even hear Kakashi's rich and rare laugh from the mixture of barks and groans. It was another foreign side of him that she was only now witnessing, carefree and gentle, as he laughed and stroked every one of his ninken with promises of treats. Despite the warmth in her chest, Gohama turned her eyes away, feeling that she was barging in on a moment she had no place in, could never have a place in.
They calmed down after a few more tackles and licks. Gohama felt Uhei nudge the side of her thigh and automatically her hand reached to rub the short soft fur.
All that remained was a buried Kakashi underneath Bull. He patted the side of his ninken. "Okay, Bull, you can get up now." He obeyed, but not before licking the side of his face and hair.
He sat up with the same sheepish expression as before, and she fought her growing amused grin by biting on her lower lip. His silver hair even messier than his crazy bed hair, with soil and twigs sticking out of it. His shirt had ridden up, showing the mesh he wore beneath, but before Gohama could take a full look at it, Kakashi tugged the fabric down.
"You have a little thing there." Gohama said, pointing to her own hair.
His hand searched for a twig, plucking it out. "Is it gone?"
Again, she forced down her amusement at the sight of his still filthy strands. "Yup."
Like every afternoon since he had arrived to Buki, Kakashi was sitting at the edge of the engawa, slouched against the wooden post. He had taken a liking to that particular spot, the spot where Mother used to sit. When she felt his presence there, she could pretend it was Mother. She could hear again the brushing of sheets because of Mother's fingers, the light and jingly giggles in disturbing manly ones, a pristinely rolled up dark hair and soft jawline in a wild mane and masked face.
It was wrong of her, she knew, deceiving and treacherous, but she couldn't stop the pretence. There was no resentment that the man who had taken her life had taken over her favourite spot too. Why would she resent Kakashi when she was the one that robbed Mother of herself? Who tried to make real memories into a play for the little, petty delight of her heart?
However, today, instead of one of his Icha Icha, he was studying the Seal Scroll and, instead of creepily giggling, he was frowning at the paper. When he noticed her presence, Kakashi quickly wrapped the scroll closed, face back to its lazy attitude.
Gohama placed her elbow heavily beside his bent leg and upheld her chin in her open palm, looking at him with her usual smirk. "The genius is having school trouble? Is Kyura fuinjutsu too much for the great Copy nin?"
Kakashi stared ahead, his eye as droopy and oblivious to her as if she were nothing but a passing ant. The curiosity quieted down her pride. He would typically grace her with a witty quip and they would go on with shallow teasing, until one of them got bored and simply stopped answering.
"It really is getting to you." she commented lightly. "Let me see if I can handle it." she said extending her hand to him.
Not caring about shoving her elbow off the engawa, he jumped onto the ground and walked past her towards the middle of the backyard. "We have training to do." Dry and curt as a strict commander.
Classic run from whatever he didn't want to confront until it miraculously went away. "Give me the scroll." He threw her a scroll. She ignored the arch it made in the air, "The Seal one." She demanded as she caught the Chakra Scroll.
"It's chakra training time," he answered while turning towards her "not seals".
Gohama chuckled with bitterness. "If you only had played it cool, maybe you'd have gotten away." she laid her hand in front of her "Give me the scroll." He crossed his arms and stared at her with that droopy infuriating eye of his. "You do realised I'll get it sooner or later."
"Later it is then."
Gohama pointed her open palm to him and released a chakra arm, which Kakashi dodged. He kept dodging and she gave up, crossing her arms. Burying her hand in her pouch, she pulled out a piece of sealing paper and laid it on the ground, injecting chakra into it. A dome of blue energy circled around them.
"You're so spoiled."
Her hand cut through the air again and this time he didn't try to evade her chakra field. She dispelled the dome. "You have no right to hide something about my own jinchuriki seals, Hatake."
"There's absolutely no need for you to read it, Kyura. Trust me on this." he ordered.
"No. I don't trust you on this, I don't trust you on anything."
Kakashi kept looking at her, unmoving, his slouch deepened and his posture became even more impassive. With flick of her wrist, she pulled him to her.
She held an accusing finger pointed at his chest. "What are you hiding? Did you find a way of finishing me off quickly? Are you afraid I'll take away your only trump card?"
Before she could push her finger to his chest, he used a lightning-covered hand to tear her chakra field and grasped her wrist. "Let go of me!" she tried wriggling from his hold "Don't touch me! I swear I'll crush you with my chakra!" He was only encouraged to catch the other one, the leather of his glove biting into her skin.
"Stop being so stubborn and listen to me."
His tone was like the one he would use on the battlefield, seeping with rule and menace. Gohama couldn't help but freeze mid movement. His strong hold was actually starting to hurt, but she didn't dare go against him when she could feel the sharingan spinning under his hitai-ate.
"Did I ever gave you any indication that I wanted to 'finish you off quickly'?" Oh, he was very angry, her stomach quivered at the rumbles of his low, piercing voice. "Are you so blind that you think that's why I'm here? Don't you mirror your own hate on me, Gohama." His tone lost its threatening edge and he loosen his hold slightly. "If I don't want you to read the scroll is because there isn't any good in you reading it."
"Give it to me."
Kakashi's eye dropped at her demand, something swimming inside his opaque grey, and then it was gone. He freed one of her wrists to reach for his pouch and placed the scroll on her hand with a thud. "Stubborn woman."
Gohama ignored his bitter comment and pulled her other arm away from his grip. She opened the scroll and searched for whatever had made Kakashi so unsettled. She didn't have much interest in the seal one, considering she couldn't use those type of fuinjutsu on herself. She scanned her eyes over the names of the seals. They were all different ways to reinforce the weakened jutsu.
Once she was reaching the end, more confused than anything about his behaviour over nothing, her eyes skimmed over an odd title. Temporary Vessel Seal, she read. Gohama's gaze flickered to an impassive Kakashi and looked back. This was the one. It was supposed to be performed in case the jinchuriki was dying, so Seiryu wouldn't die with them. She studied the drawing of the swirling letters and dark lines of the seal, it was a weak one compared to the others.
"Kakashi has a point, Gohama." Seiryu softly told her.
"You made a late appearance." She commented dryly.
"This may be surprising but I'm not always watching whatever happens in your fascinating life." His tone changed into a resigned one. "You don't trust, Kakashi, so listen to me when I say he has a point."
"I'm the jinchuriki. I deserve, I need to know everything."
She read even if cold dread was starting to wave through her. The beast would be temporarily transplanted from the dying jinchuriki, which would die with the breached connection, to another Kyura, one that had been assigned for that purpose alone. One that would die once Seiryu was sealed into the rightful baby Kyura vessel. Every jinchuriki had one Temporary Vessel assigned to follow him or her in case drastic measures had to be taken. They were experts in fuijutsu and performed the sealing on themselves.
All to make sure the ten-tailed beast would remain with the Kyura. They spent years learning how to perfect the art that would kill them, their keen minds and chakra used against the life that harboured them. Her clan sent its own people to the slaughterhouse. Their sole purpose was to die.
"Has it ever been used?"
"Twice…"
"When?" The silence told her what she had wanted to know. Gohama gripped the manuscript in her hand, the old paper crunching up, shattering inside her closed fist. "Answer me, Seiryu." he didn't speak "Tell me!" with all her emotions breaking away, her voice escaped too in a broken yell.
Gohama let the scroll fall onto the ground and spiked her chakra onto the dragon hand sign after closing her eyes. Kakashi lunged to catch her limp body before it hit the ground.
Seiryu was standing in his wide, blank, infinite seal, slightly uncomfortable. Although considerably smaller, Gohama felt as menacing as if she were a scolding adult with a child. She stood away from him, so her neck wasn't cranked up. The blue dragon could not escape now and his expression translated his uneasiness.
"I deserve to know. They all died when I was a child. I deserve to know about my clan. If they were alive I would know. Tell me."
His deep rumbling voice lost itself in the endless space. "You're grandfather was dying too soon." At those words it was real, she brought her hand to wrap around her forehead.
"More." She whispered.
"You were going to be born in less than a month, but he would have died before your birth. The Temporary Ves—"
"Don't call them that!"
"His body didn't accept my chakra. Another Kyura took his place—"
If it were Kakashi standing in front of her, she would have turned away from his invasive eye. But Seiryu had seen everything of her, everything that had come before her. "Weren't there any other children good to be a jinchuriki? How could they kill two of their own?"
How could Father have allowed it, Mother…? They had been devoted to their people. They were good people. They were good. A good clan.
"How, Seiryu…"
"Gohama…" he whispered and took a few steps forward until the bridge of his nuzzle was right before her. But she didn't touch him. "After the first Temporary Vessel they couldn't risk with another child. You were the perfect recipient."
"That's bullshit, they wanted your power to stay in my family."
"It's not bullshit. You're family is the main one, but the Kyura were always united, they were always a pack. They wouldn't betray their clansmen for power. Our training has shown how perfectly you've merged with me, I've merged with you, Gohama. Better than your grandfather, your great-great-grandfather. You were the perfect child for a jinchuriki."
Gohama wasn't listening to his reasoning. All her mind could grasp was the anonymous faces of her clansmen that had given their lives for hegemony. What a pitiful purpose… But that was the life of a ninja. Dying for power. How could the Kyura allow such indifference, such treachery towards their own?
"Two Kyura slaughtered by their own clan..." she murmured. The realisation was creeping into her mind, a cold snake that slithered through the grass and in an instant had its fangs tear through flesh and spread the stinging venom. "And they would be much more… they would kill every single Kyura, every single Buki citizen, if it meant your power stayed in their hands…"
"That's not true."
"It is. It's so very true." Bile rose to her throat and left in a shrill laugh. "What is the Jubi Clan without the Jubi? Don't you understand, Jubi? They already did it. With me…" Gohama clenched her eyes. The poison was turning into rage now, and it burned every inch in which it circled. "If they had renounced to us, the Village would have been alive still, the Kyura… Everyone! If they had just given you the fuck up!"
It was too much to keep in, Gohama didn't know if she would hold it, she didn't care. The fury needed to burst out of her through chakra or then she would drown, she felt she would.
"I never asked for you… I never asked to be the ten-tailed jinchuriki…" she expelled through clenched teeth and with that it was out. "I hate your power! I fucking hate it! I would have given you up that night, I would have given you up for Uncle, I would give you up now! I hate it!"
The chakra charred her flesh as she screamed at the only innocent in all this, her only partner in bound lives and unwanted powers. She didn't care, and she didn't care that the chakra was leaving through her real body and probably burning Kakashi too. She just needed it out, out, out. And thankfully her awareness was disappearing too.
But before it was all out, the explosion was sucked back inside her and she was thrown out of Seiryu's seal.
The quiet blue sky welcomed her back to reality with searing pain and the smell of burnt flesh. Gohama growled long and harshly, but her throat was numb against the agony that covered her skin in a shell of red melting metal. Her entire body shivered and flinched, even if it hurt more when she scrapped against the soil, she couldn't stop it. She couldn't stop the petty whimpers and tears. Deathly sickness burned in her stomach, up her chest. Her vision was blurring in black spots at the corners. She was dying, but not fast enough.
"Gohama." she shifted her eyes to the muffled call and saw it was Kakashi. She couldn't even feel his chakra signature.
"I needed to know…" she tried to whisper through the pain.
"Look at me."
A blurred movement hovered above her. "Don't touch me." She groaned between clenched teeth, her mouth tasted of metal.
"Look at the sharingan." But she couldn't open her eyes. "This is not the time to be fucking stubborn, Gohama."
She tried to shake off the weight wrapped around her face, but it held her head still. Something pulled her eyelid open and she was sure it had been ripped out. Crimson blood filled her vision and three black tomoe swirled around it. Then it was only black.
What was Gohama to him?
It always came down to that. Kakashi had never been able to pin point the place that she had undoubtedly taken in his heart. He just knew it was there, aching and warm, almost so warm it burned. And it had been burning so hard for the last month, since the mission that started this entire mess.
After two years of avoiding Gohama, he had almost forgotten how her presence affected him. His heartbeat had jumped when he had seen her out of the sudden in Konoha, or hadn't but thought he had. He also hadn't been able to stop his gaze from falling onto her on the rare occasions they had ended up together. All those times could never compare to the tender and sore motions she pulled from deep inside of him with just her constant presence.
Despite all the throbbing thrilling chaos inside him, it was comfortable and it was quiet. There were times where Kakashi forgot why they were even there, together. How could he even feel a multitude of opposite things at the same time?
Her place was different from any other one he had carried in his heart. And that scared him, that had scared him for years now. Before he had run away from that, buried it until it couldn't reach him, until both he and Gohama could be free of it, but now he couldn't run anymore. No matter how terrified he was, Kakashi wouldn't leave Gohama again. For her and for his own selfish needs.
Because he enjoyed his time with her, even if the dark shadow of their past loomed relentlessly above them, even if their reasons for being together were the most fucked up ones, even if she had stopped avoiding him just to spite him.
Gohama made getting a rise out of him her favourite pastime. He loved watching the curious mischievous glint of her green eyes right before she said or did something and he loved the annoyed almost disappointed look from not getting her desired results. If she ever discovered how deeply she affected him, she would make it her personal delight to torture him every second of his life. And he would love it too.
His favourite moments were when he sat at the engawa, a book in his hand, while she lay with her eyes closed, a pillow below her head, an arm swinging as it fell off the wooden edge. His eye would lift above the pages from time to time, spying on the image of Gohama, the silver light of Buki making her pale skin shine, her hair spilled around her head, those bare toned legs crossed and if he was lucky an unveiled slit of the skin of her belly. When the pack was there too, Uhei would reserve his spot beside her, head resting over her stomach, and Bull would be her pillow.
There were times when Gohama caught him staring, a smug smirk tugging at her full lips. If she was feeling particularly confrontational, her eyelids would snap open to catch his gaze with two green eyes. Kakashi would banter about her being even lazier than he was, considering he at least read. Gohama would answer that she was either talking with the ten tails, solving the great mysteries of the universe or working on her tan, and all of them required her sharpest effort and that meant not moving.
Those quiet moments always made his imagination wonder through impossible what-ifs that he had no right picturing. When he caught himself and shook them out of his head, they always left a sad bitter shadow behind.
Then there were little innuendo packed comments she threw at him with that torturing smirk, leaving Kakashi's heart pounding, and mind confused, never sure if they were flirting or simple banter. Or how she bit her bottom lip to keep herself from smiling at the things he said or did, as when he had his hair decorated with twigs and pretended to be an unaware idiot. And how they fought together, as if they had been in the same team for years, as if they were in tune with the inner clogs and outward moves of each other through the small inflations of their expression or muscles.
These past weeks had also made Kakashi realise how torturing his urges of touching her were. He never did however, except when necessary as when they sparred, sometimes unconsciously lingering for too long when he caught her wrists, or wrapped his arm around her neck, or pinned her to the ground. Gohama had never noticed and Kakashi had always been graced with an impeccable self-control that, although wavering sometimes, had yet to fail him.
They weren't just lustful urges he had had for other women, those were easier to accept, even with also a spoonful of guilt. Gohama was a beautiful young woman and Kakashi was only a man. Worse were the ones that fell onto an unknown type of impulses that responded to a simple affectionate need.
Kakashi had had the need of being affectionate stolen from him as a small child, when he had found his father dead on a pool of his own blood.
His heart had warmed at Minato-sensei's hair ruffles and Kushina-san's forced hugs, but he had never had the need of initiating any of those contacts himself. With Team Seven, Kakashi had delivered some of his own hair ruffles to Naruto and Sakura, never going as far as disrespecting Sasuke's boundaries – even if now he regretted that just from missing the opportunity of seeing the typical Uchiha glare of annoyance. There had been affection in those ruffles, but more to show his support as a sensei, than any actual expression of fondness. Not that he didn't have any, because he did, Team Seven had wedged itself in his heart too, he just didn't have a need of voicing it through physical affection.
With Gohama, he had stopped his hand from brushing the hair out of her face just because he wanted to feel the smoothness of her cheek under his fingertips. Or to hold her when she was sleeping right beside him, an arm's length away, just so he could feel her softness and warmth melt into his front, just so he could bury his nose in her lemon scented hair. Or press his lips to hers out of pure selfish need of kissing her senseless and showing through it everything that he didn't understand himself. But somehow he knew that what she was to him could be expressed with a simple kiss.
And those lips certainly asked to be kissed, even now with their paler colour that almost lost itself in the tone of her skin. At least the beasts' chakra hadn't reached her face. Gohama's eyebrows crunched together, making Kakashi's eye rise, and she squirmed around inside the futon. The sharingan induced blackout was staring to lift up.
Kakashi rested a cold gloveless hand on her forehead, hoping it would bring some relief to her clammy heated skin. Unconsciously his thumb started rubbing small light circles between her eyebrows, trying to sooth the crease that had formed there.
"…suke." She mumbled as the lines of her face softened.
Those small two syllables pinched right into his heart and his thumb stopped its circling motions. Kakashi had never been jealous of Hansuke and he certainly had no right of being jealous. He knew that Gohama would never belong with him and he certainly had never asked for it. Kakashi's care was a stain of guilt that would never compare to the pure generous love Hansuke had for her.
He had been the one to ask his former ANBU kouhai to take her in his team because he had known he would do her good, he had known he would offer her what Tsukate was so afraid she had been missing since the massacre. And he had been right. Hansuke had given more to Gohama than even Kakashi could have guessed four years ago.
Still, there was a little unfounded, unreasonable pinch that she had mistaken his attempt at comforting her for Hansuke's. He could understand, Kakashi didn't have that role in her life and would never have it. It wasn't jealousy, Kakashi had never been jealous and he wasn't jealous now. It was more of a self-admonishing disappointment at having failed her time and time again.
Gohama squirmed again and this time her eyes opened with slow flutters of her lashes. Between semi-closed slits two pools of green stared past him, their colour glassy and pupil wavering.
"Kakashi…?" She called in a low raspy whisper, as her eyes finally focussed on him. "Why do I feel like shit?"
"You went into a material cloak."
Her eyes widened as realisation hit her and probably the memories of what had happened. In an instant, she was back into scowling, her hand moving to press against her head only to lay against his instead. With a quick pull, he took it away from her forehead and let it settle on his knee, the fingers grasping onto the fabric. Gohama didn't seem bothered that he had been touching her, as she completely ignored it, and focussed on trying to sit up.
Kakashi helped her steady herself and she set out to take the bandages from her arms and torso.
"What are you doing?" He asked as his fingers stopped her motion by holding onto her wrist.
"Seiryu's chakra already healed me. And from the smell, my great grandmother's balm did too." She pulled her arm away from his grasp and started unwrapping her arm, the skin underneath a smooth pink. "You shouldn't have used it."
"Your skin was burnt off."
"That balm is for people that don't have a biju to heal them."
"Next time the so helpful biju burns your skin off I'll be sure to not bother with taking care of it."
At his words, Gohama glared at him with sharp eyes. "Seiryu would never hurt me." She continued to pull her bandages, this time harshly. "It wasn't him that burnt me. It was me. I did this to myself."
Kakashi had seen her melted skin, smelled the putrid stink of burnt flesh on her. Of course he would put the balm on her wounds, he would put any balm if it helped heal the horrific sight of her burnt skin. It irked him how defensive she was of the tailed beast. How could she defend the beast that had left her hurting and whimpering on the ground?
"I was the Kyubi jinchuriki's sensei, I know—"
"What do you know about the Kyubi? Really, what do you know, Kakashi?"
He knew what he needed to know. That the beast had devastated his village and killed his precious people, leaving him entirely alone.
"I'm sure the Uzumaki and Konoha never actually bothered with the Kyubi himself, only the amount of power they could take from him."
"Konoha's relationship with their tailed beast is different from Buki's, but your village never had the jubi break loose and—"
"You imprisoned the Kyubi. He had every right to—"
Those words boiled through her guts and, before he could stop himself, Kakashi was letting his anger leave through his mask of aloofness. "It had no right to kill Konoha's people! My sensei, his wife!"
Her eyes widened slightly at his hissed break out and he berated himself for letting their conversation get so deeply to him. But Gohama didn't give up on her defence of the tailed beasts, her gaze had lost its harshness, leaving only an unnerving cold steadiness.
"Just because people don't understand the tailed beasts now, doesn't mean they're monsters."
Kakashi felt her stand up from the futon, but his gaze continued fixed on the falling bandages, as they rolled and stacked on the floor, his eyes never lifting up to see her naked chest. Gohama sure knew how to take the fight out of him completely.
"And if there's a monster in all this jinchuriki shit, it's Buki, the Kyura, me. Never Seiryu. Don't throw your ignorance about who tailed beasts really are at me."
Gohama turned to leave and all he could do was stare at her bare back as she fumbled through her pack after a shirt, her last words still ringing through his ears. The entire implication that she was half-naked in front of him didn't registered, as it hadn't when he had spread the balm over the expanse of her torso. All he could see now and all he had seen then were the patches of mismatched flesh on her skin. All he could hear was her steady voice calling herself a monster.
And then there were times like this, when all their fucked up circumstances crashed into him and made him wake up from his Gohama induced daze, his own stupid foolishness. He was still the ANBU operative that assassinated her parents, she was still the ten-tails jinchuriki with a duty to Buki.
A wide bottomless abyss spread between them and not even the burning guilty care in him for her would ever break the distance the world had pushed between them.
"Seiryu…" Gohama whispered guiltily to the massive dragon as he lay like a dark ink spot on the white emptiness of the seal around them, his head resting over his extended legs.
"Kiddo." His low rumble quiet but warm and it made all of Gohama's uncertainty wash away.
Her fear of losing the one person that truly understood the weight of being a jinchuriki, the person that had accompanied her through the past weeks while she almost crumbled, the person that out of the entire jinchuriki concept had the worst end of the bargain, lifted from her guts.
Seiryu had been there, never resenting her for holding the body that chained him down. How could he not resent her? How could her name not sound biting in his tongue when she had shoved her anger at him, the one that deserved it the least.
She took a few steps closer to him through the solid nothing under her feet. "I'm sorry. I said horrible things to you. I won't let Akatsuki get to you. I will never give you up. I promise." Her eyes looked down at her hands. "And I also don't hate you."
"I know you don't, Gohama. Besides, you said you hated my power. I can recognise myself in that, sometimes I hate my power too and all that comes with it."
He took the final steps to end their distance, his head lowering to her. This time Gohama threw herself at the bridge of his nuzzle, her eyes closed as she rested her forehead against his skin, the familiar feel of his colossal chakra overwhelming her.
"I'm so sorry, Seiryu…" She whispered quietly. "We'll both be free someday. I promise."
His vast paw pressed feather lightly to the back of her body. "Don't promise me that, Gohama. I don't want freedom to come with that cost."
"I'm human. The cost will come either way, it's just a matter of it meaning your freedom or not."
Seiryu pulled away from her and lowered his head even more, so she could lay on his forehead. Through his will, the sterile whiteness faded into the dark blue of a cold northern Snow night, the cool breeze ruffling through her hair.
"You did defend us tailed beasts rather intensely."
"So you were spying, lizard."
"Of course I was. You were talking about me." He admitted in a playful tone.
"Did Kakashi offend you?"
Seiryu snorted and it shook her where she was lain. "I've lived far too long to get offended anymore. Besides, he said it more as an overprotective reaction than any actual thought out opinion. The kid's not so bad, you know."
"He's hardly a kid." Gohama mumbled, turning onto her side so her hand could smooth down the rough scales of Seiryu's head.
Nothing about the way his low voice sounded and the cords of his neck moved as he talked was childlike. She had also seen his wiry arms and the way the muscles of his broad back rippled when they moved underneath the tight fabric of his undershirt. All masculine force and tone packed into a lean body meant for speed.
"Anyone under centuries old is a kid for me."
"Maybe you're the one that is too old, hmm?"
"It's not oldness. I'm an ageless mass of chakra, sign of—Ah, don't even try to deviate us from the point of our conversation."
"Didn't even realise there was a point." Gohama made the most uninterested tone she could master, wary of whatever Seiryu was trying to say.
"I'm starting to understand why you like Kakashi." Her hand stopped their stroking motion.
"He killed my parents."
"It's cruel, isn't it?"
"Please, Seiryu, please… I don't want to talk about this."
"Just think things through, Gohama, and think them for yourself."
Her eyes opened to stare at the real sky and she raised herself into a sitting position, the roof tiles under her clanking at the movement. She was slightly appeased after apologising to Seiryu. She hadn't been nervous of apologising for itself, but of him not accepting it. But he had, so easily too.
The bitter weight of her discovery still swam through her chest, full in disillusion and betrayal. She had known the Kyura had their faults as any powerful ninja clan, but the existence of temporary vessels had such a cruel, dark tint to it that it had hit her with horror and disgust.
Right as she read the seal, Gohama had known whom her temporary vessel had been. Her cousin and teammate, Hiashi. He had been around constantly, but always distant, always with a level of servitude. Gohama had thought he didn't like her, which he certainly hadn't, and that had been why he had acted like that with her. She wished she could have seen through it, underneath the underneath – as Kakashi so eloquently said – she wished she could have helped somehow, instead of pushing him away because Hiashi had made her uncomfortable.
A long weary sigh left her lips like a puff of steam on the colder night, but it didn't alleviate the ache in her heart for Hiashi
Her parents had known of it, had welcomed cousin Hiashi in their home as if his life hadn't been chained to Gohama's, his death merged to her death. The sacrifice of her village had been out of selfish corrupt greed and not only the malice of Akatsuki or missing nin, not only the injustice of a bloodthirsty world, but because all of that poison had also run through Buki's streets.
And despite all, it didn't change things. Her path had been chosen a lifetime ago and her being still burned with the purpose of duty. Her weapon belonged still to Buki and the truth hadn't washed away her love, had only made it realer, alive. Love wasn't easy, love was surrender and promise and duty.
It surprised her to feel Kakashi's chakra signature creeping onto the roof. "You were right,"
Her eyebrows shot up at his admission, Hatake Kakashi had just admitted he had been wrong. With a side-glance she could only catch a fuzzy outline of him, the bright hair standing out.
"I don't know anything about the tailed beasts. Not even the Ju—Seiryu and in a weird way I spend every day around him…"
He sat behind her, but Gohama didn't turn around to look at him as she explained, "I wasn't trying to justify what the Kyubi did. I'm just trying to give him… a voice, I don't know…
"And I'm sorry about your sensei and his wife. They deserved to watch their son grow up and Konoha needed someone like him to lead it. Unfortunately life isn't kind to the kindest."
Gohama leaned back, head resting on her arms as she looked up at the sky. It was one of the few things in Bukigakure that hadn't changed, and if it had, only to become more vivid and beautiful without the lights. Every human thing had changed.
"This is what you were talking about, isn't it? The knowing your parents are just flawed normal people, for better and, in this case, for worse… and with an entire clan."
She cranked her neck to the side to look at him, his profile almost imperceptible in the night's darkness, but his chakra was there, strong and electrifying, as it spread around them and rested against her awareness.
Kakashi continued to stare up at the stars, answering with a silent nod. "I didn't want the image you had of your clan and family to change."
"It wasn't your place to protect it." Right as she finished the words, Gohama winced. She hadn't wanted it to come out so harshly. "This past month has been all about changing images and I've asked myself if maybe the truth isn't worth all this… pain and crumbling. Wondered if things would have been better if I had never known the truth about you, about Konoha, Hansuke… And they probably would have, but for me the truth is worth more than that."
"Again, a miserable way of living."
"Happiness is overrated anyway." Gohama added with a casual tone and shrug. "Aren't you going to contradict me?"
"What can I say to that?"
"I don't know… I once said this to Hansuke and he flipped. But it's Hansuke… so what could I expect? All he wants from people is happiness."
"And that's a bad thing…?" Kakashi asked with clear caution.
"It's a very foolish thing. What about you? What do you think of happiness, Kakashi?"
"That it's not for me."
"Ah, now that's the answer I'd expect from Hatake Kakashi. The man that takes the blame for every misfortune around him."
"You don't know that."
"But I do know. I've become an expert at recognising blame in that little spot of uncovered face."
Gohama turned around so she could crawl towards him. With one knee between his bent leg and outstretched one, she slid closer until her eyes were on level with his, her arm resting over his raised knee. The light was dim, but up-close his features were defined enough for her to distinguish them. His dark grey eye a mere stain of black ink. There was a flicker of something new and hidden in it, almost distracting her from what she had come searching for.
"Ah, there it is, the guilt. It's always there when you look at me."
"Can you blame me?" His tone was light and a little smug too, as he played with the word.
This time a genuine chuckle, relieving the tension swirling in her stomach, was forced up her chest. Gohama sat back on his shin, increasing the distance between them, but continued with her hand around his bent knee as her cheek rested on it too.
"Not really. But doesn't mean I have to like it."
"You should." Kakashi whispered and his fingers tugged lightly at the ends of her hair.
"I know." Gohama closed her eyes as tingles spread over her scalp. "I wish you'd stop." Without hesitation, his shy playing of her hair stopped. "Not that." She definitely didn't want that to stop, nor the warmth of his hard knee seeping into her cheek and of his leg onto her side. "The blaming. The guilt…"
Her feet stopped next to his, they stood shoulder to shoulder. Kakashi didn't move his low hanging head to acknowledge her, when he spoke. "I never thought I'd come back here."
In front of them where the gravestones of her family, withered wildflowers and offerings of sake and rice rested on the granite stone. Gohama wasn't expecting Kakashi to be there when she had come at her usual hour to replace the flowers and remember. After almost a month in Buki, he had never come to the memorial of the massacre. He had never strayed farther than the walls of her home's backyard.
"I hate seeing your name there." He breathed out.
Gohama's eyes settled on the carved stone. She had never considered how weird and unsettling it could be to have a grave meant for her while she was alive. Those feelings had never developed in her, but maybe they did in others. Graves weren't meant to be seen by the one buried, but the living.
"I like it. That nine year old girl died with her village." Then, she snorted at her own words. "It's very symbolic, very poetic."
"Did she? Do you think you'd have grown to be a completely different person?"
"I hope so… which is a sad thing to hope for really… and I used to think so, but now I'm not so sure." Her eyes wandered above her shoulder to the tiny slit of Buki rooftops behind them, with a sigh she turned to her carved name. "I've always seen my childhood as this idyllic bubble, a place where everything was best and could only continue to be best. But being here crumbled even the pieces from that time… and now I'm not so sure if things were as I think they were."
"I think that's normal. People tend to idealise their childhoods."
"Do you?"
Kakashi let out a bitter short chuckle. "Some short periods, I guess…"
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Whatever it was that made you chuckle."
Gohama lowered herself to a crouch, laying a basket with newly picked flowers next to her, as she cleared the old ones from the gravestones. Her hand reached to rest a bouquet beside Father's name when Kakashi's gloved hand wrapped around her own. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Can I, um, maybe… leave them…?"
Her lips pursed in an attempt at containing the smile of delight for his clear sheepishness. Sheepish Kakashi was an amusing endearing sight. "Of course." She took a bouquet of white small flowers and laid them on Yukine's grave, while Kakashi did the same on Mother and Father's.
"I heard you were the one to receive the red mark." Gohama started as she stood up, and he nodded but kept his gaze on the graves. "I'm glad they had someone to do that for them… It's believed you carry them in you now."
Gohama wasn't sure if that was something Kakashi wanted to hear. Her wish a few nights ago had had no impact. Guilt exuded out of him as they stood before the memorial, him with his hands inside his pockets, slumped shoulders and head cast low.
So, it surprised her when he turned fully to face her, resolve showing through his eye. "Do you believe that?"
"I hope…" Gohama answered with hesitation for whatever thoughts were making Kakashi behave that way.
He took a step closer and his hand reached up towards her face with a clear movement so she wouldn't get surprised. The surprise was still there, swirling through her stomach, as she waited motionless and curious for him to do whatever he had set himself on doing.
Gohama felt his fingers first, tingly and warm, against the back of her neck, while his rough thumb settled on her jawline. She knew that way of holding someone's face well and it made the surprise that was churning in her stomach flurry in cold, hot swirls. Her eyes searched for any hint of what the hell was going on with Kakashi, but his face was a blank mask, which could only mean he wanted to hide what he was feeling.
She knew she should have stopped him, but there was something inside of her that wanted to see how far he would go, and maybe she would even get to see what he hid underneath the mask. Without any movement that would scare him way, Gohama waited for his face to lean into hers.
It never happened. Instead a finger of his other hand pressed onto her forehead, a rough calloused pad brushing the length of it. She didn't need to hear what he was speaking to finally understand what he was doing.
"May the deceased's mind protect and complement the living."
Kakashi drew another line from her forehead down to her chin. "May the deceased's eyes, nose and mouth protect and complement the living."
Gohama hadn't been prepared for the feel of his rough pad brushing over the soft sensitive skin of her lips, the touch shooting down her belly. Her lips parted as she let the lower one give under the weight of his finger. His eye was following the path he drew, but he didn't react in any way and it annoyed her.
Then, he continued down her neck, leaving a shiver behind, and her chest. "May the deceased's heart protect and complement the living." His finger remained where it pressed to her sternum, feeling the lively beat of her heat.
"May all past ancestors dwell in their living descendants. May the living descendants carry in them all their past ancestors. Through blood that bonds and name that lingers." And his finger fell away from her, while his other hand continued to hold her face in place.
And then finally, when his eye rose to meet hers, something escaped out of the blank mask he had set. The guilt was there as always, but also a warmth that seemed to jump out of him and reach right into her chest.
"It's all I can do, but I'm sure you carry them in you either way."
"Kakashi…" What could she answer to the caring gesture he had just done for her, to the attentive try at sharing with her what she hadn't lived through. "thank you."
"Don't." It came out harsh and his regret was clear without him speaking. "What I mean is—"
"I know what you mean, Kakashi." The only reason why he had been marked by her family and not Gohama was because he had killed them, but that didn't matter to her now, she would make sure it didn't. "I'm still grateful you did this for me."
And then, because the moment and that warmth in his eye were becoming too smothering to bear, Gohama added with a lighter tilt to her voice. "I thought you were going to kiss me, you know."
His hand pulled away from her face with lightning speed, leaving her hair to brush over her cheek.
"Maa…" Kakashi started, but that was all he did. His hand was already rubbing the back of his head, his eye curved in a smile, the blush spreading above his mask. There he was, sheepish flustered Kakashi. It would never fail to make her smile.
"Are you going to offer those flowers too?"
Her eyes turned to the basket as she let out a little chuckle. What an endearing attempt at changing the point of focus from him to anything else.
"Yes, but they're for other people." Gohama picked them up and turned to move away, noticing Kakashi's chakra signature continued rooted to where she had left him. She threw him a glance over her shoulder. "Aren't you coming?" For whatever reason she wanted him with her.
They stopped by her best friends' graves, Haku, Isune and Kunimaru, and her cousin Hiashi.
Minake Haku, from one of the founding clans of Bukigakure, had been one of the prodigies the village had set their hopes on. Everyone had admired him, especially the girls in his class, but that hadn't made him cocky, he had been too kind for that. Haku had wanted to be a Yukikage and had worked every day of his life for that. Now he was dead, his dream, his effort and his life vain.
Isune had been her first friend. Together they had skipped classes at the Academy to eat dango on some lost roof and spite Inoki sensei, while Isune drew and painted. Gohama had always been fascinated with her talent, her hands graceful and creative, so different from her own, made only to fight and kill. Isune had wanted to be a genin sensei, just as her mother, and Gohama had always thought she would have made the world better by being an artist. It didn't matter now, she was dead.
Kunimaru had been the funny one, who didn't take anything serious, and the sensei hadn't liked him for it. They hadn't known him for who he really was, he hadn't dreamed of anything and no one had dreamed for him. His parents had died when he was young. Gohama had tried to understand him, it was only ironic that she couldn't understand grief and loss back then. She had tried to show him that she was there for him. Only after the massacre could she truly understand his pain. And then he hadn't been there anymore…
Maybe that was the problem with the world. People only understood what was familiar to them.
There were times when he would become strangely quiet. His expression would fall, marked with two dark grey eyes lost on some point in front of him. The boy who had made her laugh had also made her heart squeeze.
Three kunai meant for her life had killed him. Gohama had watched him die because of her, or Seiryu, or whatever had made him sacrifice his life. Kunimaru hadn't said anything as his breathing rasped and the blood soaked his chest. He had just looked at her with the same eyes as Kakashi when she had had a chidori pointed to his heart, and that had stopped her from thrusting it through his ribs. Gohama hadn't had the time to mourn her friend. She had left his body in the middle of the rabble and had run away.
All she had done that night was run away while everyone around her died.
Gohama felt Kakashi's large hand on her shoulder as he squeezed softly. "How about we head back for a cup of tea?"
Her gaze moved up from Kunimaru's carved name to the richer blue of the sky peeking through the black pines of the park. It was much later than when she had first entered the memorial and through the long minutes, Kakashi had stayed with her. He had probably died of boredom and yet hadn't taken out his Icha Icha.
"I got a little lost there…" Gohama commented apologetically as her hand reached up to brush her forehead. Only then did she notice her fingers were shaking, as she stared at them in a confused daze.
His gloved hand slid down her shoulder to wrap around her own, pulling it gently. "Come on, it's getting chilly."
Her fingers weren't shaking because of that and they both knew it. There was a cold draft that showed off the cooling weather of early Snow's autumn, but the sun warmed the top of their heads and back.
Gohama let herself be dragged away and, when Kakashi was sure she would keep up with him, he let her wrist fall from his hand. They walked back side by side, her shoulder brushing through his arm. He told her to sit at the low table facing the backyard as he prepared the tea. One moment she was staring at the waving grass alone, the next there was a warm cup of tea between her hands and Kakashi sitting beside her.
The warmth in her stomach felt nice, but she really was craving the bite of whiskey down her throat. Gohama had kept herself away from alcohol, knowing of the disastrous hit it always dealt to her productivity, especially now that she was cramping years of training into weeks. But sometimes she just wanted to let go, allow everything to shove her down and herself to crumble, and then let the drinking come and numb.
When it was dark outside, Kakashi rested his hand on her wrist, he had taken off his gloves, to call her attention. Gohama stared down at his long fingers with raised knuckles and faint scars against her scar-less immaculate skin. It had been the same hand to hold her face at the memorial.
"I'm going to make dinner." His fingers tapped her before he stood up and Gohama watched as goose bumps spread through her forearm, mystified with her own reaction at such an ordinary touch.
Dinner was as silent as their afternoon had been. She wasn't hungry and, contrary to the tea, the food sat poorly on her stomach, but Gohama ate since Kakashi had taken the time and effort to cook for them. He was also the one to clean the plates and serve her another cup of tea.
"What did you want to be as a kid?" Gohama threw him a confused look at the random question after hours without talking. "You talked about your friends but said nothing about you."
"Feeling strangely curious, hmm, Copy-nin?"
"What if I am?"
Gohama shrugged. "You definitely haven't been acting like yourself for the past weeks."
"Maybe this is me."
"Maybe, but you hide under the mask so I can never know who you really are."
"Do you want to know?" He asked, his bored eye as aloof as always.
Her cheeks reddened at his question and she looked down at the cup, her hair falling to cover her profile. Gohama did want to know, she had wanted to know for years now, before Dazai's mission, before they had stopped talking to each other. She wasn't above the fascination surrounding the famous Hatake Kakashi with his mask, his hitai-ate, his Icha Icha, his distant careless way of being. It was why she always tried to get a rise out of him, she wanted to see what he hid behind all those walls.
"When I was a kid I wanted to be like my father." His voice was open and serious as he shared it. It ached her to know kid Kakashi had had such a common, childlike dream.
"Do you still want to?"
"It ended a little too soon. The learning parents are flawed people and all…" Kakashi explained with an eye-crease smile and dismissive wave of his hand. The masks was back up and Gohama wasn't going to force him to pull them back down again.
"Dreams are just illusions that end up crushing you even more."
"You're broody today." Kakashi commented with a teasing tone.
Gohama finally lifted her eyes to his, using the Copy-nin's own tricks against him with a cheeky copied comment. "Can you blame me?"
He chuckled softly, giving her one of his smiles, replying the same way she had a few days ago. "Not really. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
Gohama smiled as she looked back down at her tea. "I wanted to be a true Buki jinchuriki, to give my life to the Village. I was raised and trained for that, every day of my life."
"No, that was your duty as a jinchuriki. I'm asking about your childhood dream."
"My duty was my dream."
"Ah, so you never got to choose what to dream about."
"Do you actually choose? Doesn't it just grow one you by its own?"
"Maybe. But when you're a kid everyone says you can be anything. In your case, you could only be a jinchuriki."
Kakashi turned a heavy gaze on her, his dark eye dissecting every little detail of her profile. Gohama released her hair from behind her ear, so it could serve as a protecting barrier. What was he searching for? "Even now all you can be is a jinchuriki. Even when you're clearly much more than that, Gohama."
"Kakashi…" She hissed with the bite of a warning.
"What would you want to be if you weren't a ninja?"
The question surprised her. His light, hypothetical tone didn't match the effect it had on her. "I never thought about it."
"Think now."
That was a difficult thing to think about. Her heart had never meditated on another way of life, not even on another job. Even as a child, Gohama had always been a kunoichi, since before she could walk. There was no her without that.
"Being a farmer sounds like a nice life for me." Kakashi started sharing on his own. "My childhood home was surrounded by rice fields, sometimes I would help the workers as a kid. It's a tough life but when the crops turn out nice it's rewarding."
"You're too lazy to be a farmer. You'd never have time to read your books. Now, being a farmland scarecrow… Hatake no Kakashi." her sly tone matched the small smirk she gave him.
Kakashi shook his head in disappointment. "You have no creativity. I've heard that pun a million times."
Gohama chuckled. "It's still funny."
"I'm sure my parents named me just for the sake of a joke…"
"And I'm sure they were lovely people because of that."
"They were." He confirmed softly. "Have you thought about yours?"
"I seriously have no idea. What would you see me do?"
"Hmm." He turned to her fully, his scrutinising eye filled with amusement. "A scholar maybe."
"A scholar?" It was a little offensive. "What a boring life."
"Aren't you an autodidact in fuinjutsu?"
"Yes, but it's different."
"How is it different?"
Because it was out of an obsession with failing against Dazai's seals and to keep her bored and fearful mind busy on insomniac nights. "It wasn't for the love of knowledge and some honourable thing like that. It was out of necessity."
"But you value truth. That's an essential thing as a scholar."
"Truth doesn't have to be just inside books, you know. There's nature and art and all that pretentious shit."
"Hmm, don't tell me you have some philosophical poems hidden somewhere, Kyura Gohama."
"I'm not that pretentious…" Gohama whined with a smile as she pushed his shoulder. "But I do know how to play the koto."
"You do?"
"I used to, at least. It was an obligatory class for the proper, perfect children of the main families, something about precision, excellence and beauty." Gohama could now see how the clan hid their own moral corruption through decorum, art and honour. "So, typical. Most of my close family knew how to play at least one instrument."
"Did you like playing it?"
"I did." Before Kakashi could open his mouth again, Gohama added, "And no I won't play for you." She wouldn't play that instrument ever again. Not when she had done it so many times on the engawa before them, on cold winter mornings at the frail light of a clear sky, or cool fine afternoons, the smell of new rain thick in the air.
Father used to make the strings cry and laugh, whisper the secrets of the world, with his skilful fingers, the same that held a weapon to kill. Gohama was being bitter, but the resentment at what she had found out was still sharp in her guts. She had loved earing Father play the koto and Mother sing.
Mother used to sing a lot throughout the house. Humming always escaped under the thin doors of her study, or the garden as she helped their old gardener, Mimura-san, water the plants, pull out the weeds, and prune the lower bushes.
The wide and lush garden had been Mother's pride. Just as Monk Yamato was with his roses. Every year she and Mimura-san had fought the harshness of Snow's weather, planting back the flora from the greenhouse on the enriched earth outside. Throughout late spring to early autumn she would organise outdoor recitals, where the colourful beauty of the garden mixed with the rich melancholy of traditional music. Gohama had loved them, everyone loved them.
Now the garden felt as dead as Mother. Wild weeds thrived through the old grass in a chaotic mess that Gohama had had to trim. The pond had drained out probably years ago, leaving only the remains of murky soil and carved out paths, which she had flattened with earth release for her training. It was nothing but a bleak, stepped on lawn for training. It would have made Mother miserable to see it now, not that she would, but still Gohama could feel Mother's misery in herself.
Gohama had loved nurturing the small patch of soil that was her own to help grow, with her small watering can and her tiny hands pulling out the weeds. Bellflowers and blue hydrangeas. Only now did she realise Mimura-san had probably taken proper care of them when she wasn't watching. They had always been too healthy and vibrant for Gohama's sloppy, childish hands.
She smiled a sad smile at the memories, at the new unreal image of herself breaking from the barren backyard in front of them. "I would be a gardener." Gohama told him softly, or maybe it had been to Mother.