Hello, lovely readers! Happy belated New Year and let's hope this year is kinder for everyone. I'm sorry for taking longer to update, but the end of the semester stole a lot of my time and mental availability.
Thank you for reading and all the support! Please review!
Warning: This chapter addresses the matter of suicide. If it may trigger you, please do not read it.
Part V | Chapter 9
Kakashi's arms glistered under the sun as he practiced his kata. Even injured he had to find a way of training. The cords of his muscles twisting and extending as he moved around in that sexy tank top. His pale skin flushed from the effort and marked with a few scars that made him look even more kissable. He shifted on his feet, turning around, his ANBU tattoo shining, red and sharp, from his paleness. It would have made Gohama's chest sink, if she hadn't been too distracted trying to imagine kissing the swirl up towards his shoulder and neck.
Fuck, she wanted him so badly. His hair falling down over his sharingan eye, almost white under the harsh light of the sun, his strands wild and damp from the exercise. Gohama was sure he always covered himself so much so that she would completely melt every time he took off his shirt. If only he would train shirtless.
That wouldn't be that reasonable. Gohama was already tingling all over, hot and aching, just from watching his precise, graceful movements, all power and skill, fluid energy slipping through the air. It was beautiful, watching him train. Not just because he was attractive, but also because he was a master at sly taijutsu, with his lean physique and quick movements. If he took off his shirt, she would certainly burst with pent up desire.
But that was what it was. Desire. If Gohama didn't cross the line of just watching and imagining sometimes, then it would be fine. Kakashi also didn't want to cross any lines. Gohama kept pushing him just because he looked delectable when he was flustered, and there was a sort of power that bubbled in her stomach from making him, Hatake Kakashi, flustered.
Just as long as he stayed there, doing his kata, and Gohama on the engawa enjoying the view, it was fine.
"A picture lasts longer and then you can save it in your pocket for all times."
Gohama groaned, her head falling back, as she propped herself on her elbows. "Shut up, lizard. I'm having a moment of quiet desperation."
"It looks more like you're getting turned on."
"Don't say that, it's weird."
"Trust me, kiddo, it's even weirder for me."
"Then go away."
Seiryu quieted down and Gohama was grateful that he had pulled away. Her eyes were fixed on the line of Kakashi's back, as he panted, his hands resting on his hips, his back arching from a stretch and his perfectly carved butt sticking out for her to goggle. Hadn't he said one time he had won Konoha's best butt? Gohama could see how that was possible now.
"I just want to say that you need to pull yourself together, Gohama. You either get to enjoy Kakashi or kill him, you don't get both things."
And then it was ruined. Her good mood vanished with the blow of those two words against her chest. 'Kill him'. Gohama was disgusting. She was filthy, she was worse than the scum that dragged around the streets of Otafuku Gai.
Her gaze snapped away from Kakashi as she felt the cold smothering feel that had been looming in her for so long overflow as a pang against her ribs and guts. Gohama breathed in deeply as she tried to push down the bursting feeling, not letting it come out from where it was stuck to the crevasses of her spirit. If it continued down and forgotten then it was as if it didn't exist. But it was stronger than her, and her self-loathing only made it rise and smother, her heart giving into flutters, trying to flee from her chest.
It couldn't flee. Her heart was stuck to herself. Gohama was stuck to herself. That had always been her most hopeless problem. Hopeless because the only way she had to not be herself was death. Her people's lives were also stuck to her, so death would also mean forsaking all of Bukigakure and what they had sacrificed themselves for, Seiryu. And Seiryu was also stuck to Gohama.
"I didn't mean to freak you out, Gohama. Just breathe. It's okay. Just breathe." Seiryu tried to calm her, but it was nothing but the end of a whisper over the havoc in her mind.
Tomorrow, she would attempt to summon him and probably succeed. Then he wouldn't be stuck anymore. Gohama tried to reassure herself in that. All she needed was to summon Seiryu and things would resolve themselves since he wouldn't be stuck to her, since the power her village had trusted to her would finally be free of her weakness.
No more training. Just action, just doing, just usefulness and duty. Her mission would start and the meaning for her life would finally come forth. Duty. Bukigakure had trusted her Seiryu and she would make herself worth their trust, she would make her survival from the massacre worthy, she would make herself worthy of them, worthy of life.
Once the cold smothering feeling was hidden and closed again, Gohama inhaled deeply, and exhaled deeply, turning back to look at the backyard.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She had forgotten Kakashi. She had forgotten her duty started here, with him. What would she do with Kakashi? Gohama knew what she should do, must do, what her duty was to do, but every cell in her body dread it, dreaded it so much her heart was thundering against her chest and breathing seemed stuck to her lungs.
Gohama span on her heel, eyes clenched shut, as if not watching him would make him disappear from there, as if not seeing him would take away the fact that he had killed her parents. Kakashi had killed her parents. Why had she never felt that as more than a shadow her mind wouldn't grasp?
A hand pressed to her chest, as she tried to control her breathing. What would she do? What was she doing? What the fuck had she been doing with him for more than a month now? Why the fuck was he even here?
She needed to get the fuck out of there. She needed to clear her mind and think, she needed to stop thinking and just do. Hunting. They had nothing but rice for dinner. Gohama needed to go hunting.
Her fingers closed around the sliding door, ready to open it, when Kakashi called for her. "Gohama." Her heart jerked. She really couldn't face him right now. "I think my side is healed enough. Let's spar."
With a steeling breath, she looked over her shoulder and forced herself not to flee as she saw him walking towards her. "I—" Gohama cleared her throat at the fail of her voice. "I was actually…" Now he was jumping onto the engawa, his presence real and painful. "I—"
"Gohama, are you okay?" Kakashi asked as he took another step towards her and it was too much again.
"Yes, I'm just going hunting. I'll be back in the morning." Gohama said as she tried to walk past him.
Before she could drop onto the grass on the backyard, Kakashi wrapped his fingers around her bicep. She could feel the warmth of his hand seeping into her flesh, the tingling of his chakra making a shudder run over her muscles, and the dents his fingertips made on her skin. It made guilt rise in her chest from how good it felt just from him holding her arm.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing." She breathed as she pried his fingers away from her.
Kakashi turned his head to the side, eyes lost somewhere on the backyard above her head, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Is it what I said last night?" His voice was so quiet Gohama almost couldn't hear it above the thunder of her heart.
"Of course not, Kakashi. I'm glad you told me…" Gohama truly was glad that he had shared so much of himself to her, but she knew that was selfish. It meant he trusted her and only now was Gohama realising how wrong that was. "It's just that… that maybe you shouldn't have."
"Why?"
"Because it's me, Kakashi. Why would you tell me?"
"I don't know… I wanted to."
"It's best if you leave for Konoha before I get back."
"Goha—"
"Go back to Konoha." Her voice left as a firm command, not betraying the quivering of her guts, the rise of that cold smothering feeling inside of her.
The house was silent and empty when Gohama came back from hunting. The frail light of dawn entering quietly in oblique lines onto the room where her futon was laid out. Kakashi's was folded and stored on the corner where they usually left them.
The missing was good, Gohama told herself, it hurt and it pinched, but it was good because it meant she was alone again. She didn't get to enjoy or kill Kakashi and that was good too. As far as he was from her the better. If he ran away from her then it wouldn't be her fault when she didn't honour her family.
This was good and whatever disappointment could have come from being left alone again was drowned by the relief of not having to kill Kakashi, at least not now. She had let him spread under her skin and now a few days of solitude would help her clean him from inside herself.
What-if's were cruel and now Gohama wouldn't have to look at Kakashi's eyes and wonder what he could have been to her had things worked out differently in their lives. It was always that longing for what could never be that stung more harshly in her chest. Now, that longing would be reserved only for her Village and family and that would sting and it was good. It was good because it helped inflame her will and it helped Gohama grip her weapon with stout enduring fingers.
This was good. She was alone again. Only Gohama, Seiryu and her weapon. Her weapon. This was good.
"You okay, kiddo?"
"Yes. You were right, Seiryu. I should have sent him back to Konoha a long time ago."
Gohama entered the empty room and dropped on the futon. She was too tired to wash herself and honestly didn't care about sleeping in her dirty clothes.
Gohama bent over herself, fingers reaching for her toes as she stretched before her training. Now that she didn't have Kakashi to spar with she would have to train against her kage bunshin. Because that was all that was lacking in the eerie empty lands of Bukigakure, a sparring partner.
"I'll summon you today, Seiryu, and then we're out of here. East for Osaka. Is it okay for you?"
"Do you think it matters to me where you are? I'm just looking forward to finally leaving this seal for a moment."
Her jaw clenched at his words, marking in her his cruel unfair condition, before straightening her back. "At least, the real action is about to start. And then for your ageless person," Gohama stressed the word with mocking at his constant corrections when she called him old. "freedom shouldn't take long."
With a sign of her head, the five kage bunshin moved in on her. As she sparred, Seiryu would warn her of her senses input her mind couldn't discern on its own. In a few minutes, all five had disappeared in puffs of smoke and Gohama's lungs were barely straining.
"This is pure shit." Gohama hissed to the silent empty backyard.
Her fists trembled at her sides as she felt a smothering rage raise in her veins. In a sudden spike of fury, her body was covered in Seiryu's dark blue chakra, igniting the prickling motions inside of her. Her fist pierced through the white stoned wall of the backyard, but it wasn't enough, she was ready to destroy every single building still standing in Bukigakure.
"Better?" Seiryu asked with amusement masking the true worry he recognised it because it mirrored her own worry at the sudden thoughtless violent impulse that had surged in her rage.
"Change of plans, I'm summoning you now. We're getting out of here now." Her eyes lifted to the top floor of her home. The bedroom's floor, where she had never entered since her stay, but which presence would not stop haunting her, its woodened boards tainted with two pools of blood. "I can't take it anymore… being here is driving me insane."
Gohama was ready to enter their room, her hand reaching for the shoji door, when a familiar chakra signature entered her senses. Her heart seized inside her chest, whatever ridiculous angered anguish she had felt before was replaced with cold heavy dread.
Once she saw met him, Gohama fell onto her knees, one hand cradling his chin while the other smoothed down the fur at the top of his head. "Uhei! What are you doing here? Is it Kakashi? Did something happen to him?"
"He told me to get you."
Uhei tried to extricate himself from her grip, but she didn't let him go, forcing him to meet her eyes. "What's going on, Uhei? Is everything okay?"
"Kakashi just told me to get you, fast."
And so they were running, her chakra frenzying in her pathways ready for a battle, her mind running through any possible scenario, all the Akatsuki members' stats she knew of, trying to ponder on the best approach to any of them. Kakashi's side was still healing and she had forced him to make a journey through missing nin territory after being with her, one of the ninja with more targets on her back and more ryo for her half-dead body.
They entered the birch woods beside Buki, their familiar grey barks and red leaves a blur of colour as they ran above the brook's surface, feet splashing and chakra buzzing around them. Gohama could not sense any fight, she couldn't even sense Kakashi's chakra and an image of his fallen body with blank eyes flashed through her mind.
Uhei slowed his steps as they left the brook's path onto the bank beside it. Gohama summoned her tachi and circled around the tree trunks, her eyes sharp for any movement between their gaps, her senses searching for any disturbance. The forest was peaceful with chirping birds and distant rustles of leaves or bushes.
Gohama found him as he stood leaning back against a tree, Icha Icha opened in on hand, leg bent and foot propped on the trunk. His head rose to meet her eyes, which were frantically searching for any sign of an injury or a fight in his body.
"Yo."
With a stabbing glare, she watched his typical eye-crease smile and little wave. He pulled himself away from the tree and Gohama stomped towards him, closing their distance faster. She pushed her hands against his chest, shoving him backyards against the trunk.
"What the fuck, Hatake?" Her pointed finger pocked his chest as she hissed her words. "Do you think this is funny? I thought you were in trouble! Why the fuck are you supressing your chakra? And what are you even doing here? You should be half-way across the Land of Fire."
He raised his hand, which held a plastic back, his smile never faltering. "I have sushi."
"What?"
"I went to buy sushi. I thought maybe you were missing something other than meat, river fish and rice. Then I came across this place and thought maybe we could lunch here…" The confidence of his words wavered throughout his explanation as he realised her glare wasn't disappearing.
Gohama pulled herself away from him, turning around and found his ninken still there. "You…" She narrowed her eyes at Uhei and he cowered slightly.
"I just did what Kakashi told me to do. He's my contractor, it's not like I could just say no…"
Why had he come back? This was a problem, especially because her heart was fluttering in her chest just from knowing he hadn't left. Or maybe it was dread. The dread of before, the dread of everyday she could not shed away from the walls of her being.
"Pakkun would have said no. Pakkun would have made him leave for Konoha."
Uhei disappeared in a cloud of white smoke, certainly ordered with a gesture from Kakashi behind her.
"Gohama."
"Why did you come back…" She whispered, her voice quiet and begging.
"I never left."
"Your pack was gone."
"I may have thought of leaving, but I didn't."
"Why…"
His hand, warm and steady, rested on her shoulder, coaxing her to turn around to face him. "Do you seriously still have to ask that, Gohama?"
"Yes…"
There was certainty in his dark eye, full in that annoying arrogant stubbornness of his when he always did things his way. Gohama didn't have the energy to fight it, she didn't have the energy to do much of anything anymore. If things wouldn't go her way, then at least she would make him pay for it.
A frail smirk twisted her lips. "So a date?"
"No, it's not like that, it's just that you seemed upset and I felt like doing something and…" His hand brushed the hairs of his nape and the pink of a blush spread above the edge of his mask "Is it weird? We can go back, you know, if it's weird. It's not a date, it's just lunch, a picnic…"
The endearing sight of sheepish Kakashi forced a smile out of her lips. This was a mistake, a very big mistake, but she couldn't fight him. "That's new."
"What?"
"Babbling. Never heard you, Hatake Kakashi, babble before." Here smile widened into a grin as he just looked down at her, whatever quip he could have made never leaving his mouth. "What-if friends can also have dates under birch trees by the stream. It's not weird, don't worry. It's sweet."
Not wanting to torment him further, Gohama took the plastic bag from around his fingers and sat down, readying their lunch. It was even sweeter how he knew of how much Gohama loved Snow's sushi.
They didn't talk for most of the afternoon, it seemed they had spoken enough, maybe even too much two nights ago. Kakashi was entertained with reading his Icha Icha and Gohama was calmed by his silent presence. She was laying on her back, his military issued radio on her stomach giving poor quality music she still stubbornly intended on hearing, and he was sitting with his back propped on a tree. It was almost like their little pretending come to life.
"Do you want to summon Seiryu today?"
"No, not today." Gohama answered quietly, a hint of plea in her voice, not for Kakashi, but for time, for any kami out there.
A plea for things to stop and rest, unchanged as the dead ruined village of Bukigakure, to remain as they had been for the past month. A wait in time and freak of nature that should never have existed, but, now that it had, Gohama was not ready to let go of it. Gohama was not ready to let go of him. And even when she had, Kakashi had chosen to return to her.
She had always made fools of people. First, Buki and their blind trust on her, then Hansuke and now Kakashi.
"This ground is sacred for my clan." Kakashi lowered his book, showing her that he was listing to her, and so Gohama continued, her eyes fixed on the slivers of sky piercing through reddened leaves. "After the rift between brother and sister, the brother moved south, settling in what is today the land of fire and giving origin to the Hyuga, and the sister north with her people. The Kyura call her Onee-sama.
"They found the land that is Buki, but a tribe was already settled here, where we are now. The mountain beside Buki was sacred to them and the tribe wouldn't allow them to settle here. They weren't ninja, but Onee-sama didn't want any more blood to be in the hands of her people, so they held onto to negotiations. They lasted long enough for Onee-sama and the head of the tribe to fall in love. They wanted to marry and unite their peoples but the animosity between them would never let that happen. A fight broke out one day and the chief killed one of Onee-sama's cousins and valuable shinobi. The council planned a massacre as retaliation and resolution of all their problems. Onee-sama couldn't refuse, but she begged they would allow her to kill the chief before, so no one would taint him with their blade but her, and so he would not watch his people die.
"They met here the last time, as all the other times. He understood what she had set herself to do and he allowed her to drive her tanto into his heart. The myth says that snowdrops sprouted from the tears that fell on the earth as she cried over her lover's dead body. She made this land sacred so the spirits of the tribe would never be cast away from their home.
"And so Onee-sama and her people settled at the foot of the mountain where now is Bukigakure, and gave origin to the Kyura. The myth ends with Onee-sama doing seppuku, right after she resigns being Head of Clan. Amazing ending, hmm?"
Gohama's mind would never forget the final verses of the mythical poem. They had haunted her as a little girl bond to duty because she couldn't understand them. Her mind and heart had been too young, too naïve, to catch the entire meaning of the words. And yet she had sensed it was there, lurking through the poem, through her life, through her clan.
The constant screaming of her heart ceased
At the end of a blade freedom.
A life given for the greater glory of her people.
They had never made more sense that on that moment where she was staring at the birch orange leaves with Kakashi beside her. The sacred ground where she had taken long peaceful walks after hunting as a child, where she had prayed with her family to the kami of her land, where, after the long days of darkness following her first kill, she had felt life still had beauty.
Now their peace and their beauty mocked her. It was nothing but a mask hiding the putrid smell of a massacred people, of a lover's murder. How had she never seen it? It was so clear now, in the intervals between the silver tree trunks and the red leaves, in the intervals of her empty, crying spirit.
A grey eye and silver hair peaked through the side of her vision. Kakashi had learnt how to supress his chakra well, or maybe Gohama had been too focussed on her own self-pity. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
"Just came to pull you out of that a rabbit hole of thoughts."
She let out a small sad smile at his concern for her. "How can you even know if I'm down a rabbit hole?"
"You're not as expressionless as you think, Hama. You can't hide everything behind sharp eyes."
"Says the man with the mask."
"Maybe I say it because I know." His thumb brushed the skin of her cheek and her eyes closed without thought at the tenderness of his touch. "Tell me."
"It doesn't matter."
"Tell me."
She looked at him, whatever sharpness she tried to muster washing away into a tired, miserable sadness. "You should never have come here, Kakashi."
"You're not her, Gohama." Kakashi said it so simply, something that she hadn't even made plain in her mind but weighed heavily on her heart, and marked every one of her cells. No. It could never be marked, not with them, they were not the same because Gohama did not love Kakashi. She did not love him.
Everything would be so simple if there was just this and nothing more, Kakashi and Gohama, two normal people enjoying a quiet afternoon under the red shade of changing leaves. The longing ache that would not leave her stabbed harder and she tried to focus only on enjoying the feel of his safe, comfortable presence.
Her hand reached for his face, the tips of her fingers ran gently over the side of his cheek and jaw. Gohama tucked them under his hitai-ate and pulled it away from his head, letting it fall and loop around her arm. She liked watching both his eyes, even when the sharingan was closed.
"We can leave this place."
Gohama smiled at his ridiculous proposal as her hand wrapped around his neck, fingers threading through the hair at his nape, the silver messy strands breaking through the orange background. "Your hair looks good against the leaves." It wasn't just his hair. It amazed Gohama how attracted she could be to a face that she had never seen completely.
"And your hair looks good against the grass."
A quiet blush that she couldn't stop spread through her cheeks. He smirked, exuding his typical smugness of when he thought he had won their challenges.
"So it's not just jutsu, you also copy compliments."
He snorted at the attempt of shedding herself from her embarrassment and loss. "Blushing makes you especially pretty. Better?"
Gohama groaned, the blush burned from her cheeks down her neck in a vibrant red, and she hid her face on the crook of her elbow. Kakashi laughed at her reaction, the rumbles trembling through her skin. "Definitely much better." He commented with the same self-satisfied tone. She knew he was getting payback for her teasing of before.
She felt his warm fingers rest around her wrist, a trill ran up her arm, goose bumps breaking through her skin, at his gentle touch. Kakashi moved her arm away from her face and she let him, her blush not washing away from her cheeks. His white eyelashes trembled as his gaze wandered over her face.
There was only a serious intensity in him and Gohama's heart was thundering inside her chest and around the wrist he held. Any possible retaliating banter died in her throat. Kakashi showed nothing but that unsettling intent mixed with uncertainty, the same of when the he had re-enacted the Kyura funerary ritual on her. Then she had thought he had meant to kiss her and now the fluttering in her heart told her she thought the same.
His hand moved and she wondered what he was doing, until she felt its warmth and jaggedness embracing her own. Kakashi guided both of their hands to press against his cheek, his one falling away. And she understood what he was telling her.
Gohama brought her other one up and cupped his face gently. Gingerly, the tips of her fingers settled against his cheek, warm from his light blush. She traced the hem of his mask feather lightly and moved to curl her fingers under it. Taking one last look at his expectant eyes and seeing his silent permission, she curled her fingers inside the mask. Slow pull, by slow pull Gohama unveiled Kakashi's face.
His straight nose Gohama had already seen. Her gazed roamed lower to his lips first. His pink, slightly chapped, soft lips. Then she settled on the beauty spot at the corner of his mouth, the edge of his uncovered jaw, the tan line running across his cheeks and nose, his ragged scar. She watched him with the curiosity and awe of a child discovering something new. Her fingers moved up to trace the sight her eyes already had, except for the scar. She felt his warm breath when her thumb brushed his parted lower lip.
Pleased with her thorough study, Gohama looked up to his eyes. The same mismatched eyes, one a dark grey, the other red and black. The grey eye with fascination to rival the red, his sharingan with safeness to rival the grey. His eyes were the same and yet, with his entire face uncovered, there was a sense of newness in them. His face as a whole almost unrecognizable and yet he was so Kakashi still.
Her thumb smoothed over his spot. "You have a mole." She commented softly, a small smile playing on her lips.
The expectant intensity in his eyes eased. "It's a beauty spot." He mirrored her own smile. So small it almost didn't reach his eyes. The endearing sight made her grin. She was finally seeing his smile, his teeth, the gentle curve of his eyes as it deepened into a full crease from following her own beam. Kakashi was beautiful.
"And a tan line." She added while brushing her finger over it. "I see why you hide it." He was so expressive, so tender, so human. Her chest tightened. It made things so much more difficult.
"That ugly, huh?"
"Why did you show it to me?" Why him? Why?
"I wanted to. I want you to see me."
"Why…"
She searched deep for any deception, but there was only honesty in him. An openness so unlike Kakashi it almost ached to see it. Why did it ache?
"Gohama," He called softly while stroking her cheek with his knuckles. "I just wanted to. Nothing more."
"What if you regret it?"
"I won't. No matter what happens I won't." He was closer now, so close she could feel his warm breath brush over her own lips.
He was open under her fingertips, this rare fleeting image of the true, entire Kakashi, she had longed to see for so long was finally given to her. For the past month, every small glint of his vulnerability she had come to learn only made Kakashi more endearing to her, more fascinating.
And she felt just as vulnerable in return. It was okay, it was more than okay, it was comfortable and restful to let go and be. When had Gohama felt that she could just be? There was a load of shit that could bury them, but because they were both aware of it, that didn't meddle between them, not in this moment at least.
Her fingers brushed over the scar under his eye, his cheekbone, his jaw line, every bit of smooth or rough stubble peppered skin she wanted to touch Gohama did.
His cheek pressed onto her hand, lips brushing the skin of her palm as he closed his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed. "Not so gentle, Gohama... Not with me…"
"Kakashi…" She called for him, she didn't know why, but she called.
The tenderness in his gaze seeped into his entire expression, yet she felt him pull away. Her hand grabbed onto his shirt thoughtlessly and she dragged him closer to her. Gohama shouldn't kiss him, especially not when it had nothing to do with arousal. The longing was there, coaxing her to let go, but it wasn't the longing of lust. It was so much scarier, so much more dangerous.
"Kakashi…" Gohama whispered right beside his ear and it made a shiver run down his spine. It also made him pull back, only to be pinned by her strong hold on his shirt.
It didn't compare to the feel of her lips against his neck as she kissed him there. For a moment, he thought it had been an accidental touch, until he felt it again, higher, full of purpose. Kakashi bit his lip to stop a breathless sigh from leaving him.
He wished he didn't have his mask in the way, or maybe it was a good thing, he reconsidered, as Gohama's mouth pressed higher and higher, closer and closer to his mouth and through his oversensitive uncovered skin. His teeth sank onto his lip harder, so he could pull himself from the needy haziness her kisses were drowning him in.
"What are you doing, Gohama?"
"I don't know…" Her breath fanned over his cheek and he swallowed.
His hand wrapped around her own, not letting her tug at his shirt as he pulled back so he could look at her. The cold wind of Snow blew through the new space between them. Her green hit him like a punch, incredibly striking from glazed eyes and heavy lashes. Everything around him dimmed, including the reason why he had pulled her back, as all he could do was stare at her beautiful green eyes.
Until her lid covered them, as she looked down, a pretty blush painted across her cheeks. Shame. And again it hit him hard in the chest. Kakashi cupped her face, so he could tilt her head up to his.
"I think we're both emotional and I don't want us to do something we might regret later."
"But do you want to do it now, Kakashi?"
What could he answer her? That every cell of his body was telling him to throw himself at her and fuck her right there, on the rough wet grass? That what he truly wanted was to kiss and learn every inch of her body, hear all the little sounds she made, taste all of her, smell himself on her skin, watch as her mouth opened in a moan as she came around him, save it with the sharingan, and after an entire night of loving her, wrap his arms around her and pull her to his chest? Kakashi wasn't even sure which scenario would freak her out more.
"I can't, Gohama." And seeing it wasn't enough, he added, unyielding and stony. "I killed your parents."
She moved to sit up, making him sit back on his heels. "Oh, don't look at me with those guilty eyes, Hatake. How do you think I feel for wanting to fuck my parents' killer? We just need to get it out of our systems."
"Gohama…"
She wasn't making things easier for him, as she never did, by settling her hands on his upper thighs, thumb drawing small circles around his inner skin, eyes shining with a challenge. His cock twitched as her fingers glided upwards, so close to where his body wanted her to touch him most. His hands rested above hers, stopping their tantalising journey up.
"Gohama." He said more firmly.
"Just answer me honestly. Do you want it now, or not?"
Gohama just had to look down to be sure, but her gaze wouldn't stray from his. For some reason, she needed to hear him say it, for some reason the past month wasn't clear enough for her. "Yes…" He breathed out and her hands tried to move up again, but he didn't let them.
"Always a master in self-control, Copy-nin." Gohama said with a biting tone, as she pulled her hands away from him. "Don't worry, I won't torture you anymore."
But she wasn't true to her words, as her hand cupped the back of his head, fingers sinking into his hair, his scalp tingled in return. She leaned in, so close her nose brushed his, and her fingers tightened on his strands, forceful and hot.
"If you fuck me, I want you to let go and I want you there for real, Kakashi. No restraints, no masks, and no guilt."
It was all so incredibly sexy Kakashi was straining against his pants at the end of her sharp whispered words, the scent of her own arousal almost forcing a whimper out of his throat. The self-control Gohama had so kindly praised was slipping though his aching hands, as they grabbed the fabric above his thighs.
She stood up, ending the torture for himself. Halfway through a resolute step, Gohama turned back to look down at him. The resentment or anger he had expected to see wasn't marked into the lines of her face, instead soft and kind as she smiled quietly.
"Thank you for the lunch… It really was sweet of you, even if you're still an infuriating idiot sometimes, Bakashi… I'll leave you alone to take care of your…" Her eyes roamed down and back up, her smile turning into a smug merciless smirk. "business."
He watched her walk away and once she was gone, Kakashi groaned and flopped onto his back. A hand brushed through his face in exasperation and at the same time a smile bloomed under it.
Fuck, he loved her so much.
Gohama watched the lighting sky above the line of cedar trees in the distance. Her arms wrapped around her frame as a cold gust of wind shook the grass of the backyard. She closed her eyes at the cutting edge, her hair lashing against her face. It was an autumn wind, it smelled of it, cold and crisp. Had her village been alive the air would have been tinted with smoke from the hearths of every home. Soon the temperatures would lower and white snow would cover the land of Bukigakure. It was a shame Gohama wouldn't be here to see it.
Her hand raised the cup of tea to her lips. She hoped the warmth of it would calm the cold nerves clashing against the walls of her stomach. The only hour of sleep she had gotten had been full of confusing terror field memories. But it was okay. Today she would summon Seiryu and then there would be no more doubting for her to make. Kakashi and she would part ways, he would go back to Konoha and Gohama would finally continue on the path meant for her.
Maybe she should leave now. Gohama was sure she could summon Seiryu without any assistance or chakra going wild. She had a pack ready with everything needed, she had it readied weeks before, and could slip away without Kakashi realising it. Her mind thought of all the steps to take, the wood boards that would creek, the stops to make once outside Buki, and yet she knew in her heart she wouldn't leave. Being in her devastated village had reminded her of missed goodbyes and there were already too many weighing her regret down.
So, Gohama waited for morning and Kakashi to wake up on the engawa. Her skin prickling with goose bumps and her hands so cold she couldn't feel them.
"Gohama."
Her shoulders shook at the sudden sound of her name and she spared Kakashi an acknowledging glance over her shoulder. His hair was a mess from sleeping and a slight frown creased the skin between his eyebrows.
"Did you sleep?"
She turned her face away and noticed it was later than she had thought, but a layer of clouds covered the light. "Don't mother me."
Kakashi jumped down from the engawa and in a second was standing in front of her, hands tight around her arms. "You're not okay. And you're freezing."
"I haven't been okay since I was nine years old."
"This is different."
"It's not different for me." Gohama was only telling him the half-truth. She knew this was probably one of her depressed periods, but it did feel different in some ways.
"We can leave. Go anywhere you want, Gohama, if it's too much to stay here."
Gohama let her face fall with a dry chuckle. Kakashi was being ridiculous again, he was being a fool. The dry, venomous laugh continued to bubble up her chest. It wasn't his fault. It was Gohama, she always did that to people, she turned them into fools.
His hand caught her chin and pulled her face upwards. Gohama just stared back at his concerned questioning eyes, the mirthless mirth not leaving her own. "You're acting just like Hansuke. Dreaming of things, promising things he knew could never happen. Seeing in me someone I wasn't and would never be. Only making me feel more worthless every time I couldn't be that. I thought maybe…" he had seen her for who she was. But she wouldn't let those vulnerable ridiculous words be known. "but you're just as much a fool as everyone has ever been with me."
And it wasn't a bad thing, it was a very good thing, because she had never fallen in love with Hansuke and she would never fall in love with Kakashi. The organ that had made her love had died with Bukigakure.
Gohama tried to get away from where he kept her stuck to the engawa, but Kakashi didn't yield, his hand still wrapped around her arm. "Tell me what I can do then, Gohama. Just tell me." There was a quiet urgency in his touch, even if he could keep his voice blank.
"Let's just get this over with." Gohama commanded as she pried herself from him and pushed her away onto the backyard.
Kakashi's jaw kept clenching and unclenching as he watched Gohama walk in front of him, her steps fast and resolute. The helplessness that had made him come to Buki after her was back full force, almost worse now.
It wasn't the grief of before, after losing Tsukate, it wasn't the hurt of betrayal after learning the truth about him and Hansuke. A dark shadow robbed the light out of her eyes, leaving only a gut wrenching shade of disquiet, almost despair. It made his heart tremble with fear, more than fear, he was terrified.
And now that she would summon Seiryu, Kakashi would have to let go of Gohama. She would disappear from between his fingers, all her pieces broken, as she pretended she could keep them together, for a little longer, until her duty was done. But she couldn't. It was so clear in the lurking devastation that shouted out of her eyes, that mirrored the buildings of her home village. She would break out there, her arms deep in missing nin blood and her head just above the red tides until she would drown.
Kakashi hoped she would drown, drowning at least meant someone was breathing. If she did not drown then there was nothing but a cold hollow shell without moving lungs and a beating heart. And then Gohama would no longer be Gohama.
Kakashi could only watch as they walked onto an open area beside Bukigakure, large enough to fit a tailed beast. He was about to meet a fucking tailed beast but any excitement born out of curiosity seemed stale in his stomach. All his heart could feel was dread and helplessness and that kind of love he had forsaken since Minato-sensei and Kushina-san had died, the one that hurt so deeply he could feel bile rise onto the back of his throat.
Gohama didn't talk, she didn't acknowledge him as she stood in the middle of the meadow. He could see her inhaling deeply, shoulders rising, and then exhaling, shoulders lowering. He also could smell the blood when she cut her hand with the blade of her tanto. It surprised him how uncomfortable the sight of the shining blade in the meadow and the nauseating scent of blood seemed to him. It was ominous almost.
Then she spread the blood over the skin of her forearm, above the dark blue seal she usually kept hidden under her armguard. With a few hand seals, she lowered herself into a crouch and pushed her hand onto the soil.
And then there was a cloud of smoke and the shock wave that almost made Kakashi fall back. It stunned him, the terrifying feel of Seiryu's chakra as he stood before them. It wasn't the sight of him, gigantic and blue and a fucking dragon, that disconcerted him. It was the familiar feel of his chakra, as Kakashi had sensed it through Gohama, and at the same time completely foreign. It smothered the air around them, clashed into Kakashi's front and made it hard to breath, his own chakra seemed to be frenzying in his pathways. And he noticed with wide eyes, how his hands were shivering at his sides, as he tightened them into fists.
He had the ten-tailed beast in front of him. He was staring at Seiryu and it was both terrifying and mesmerising in all his magnificence, all his ancient consuming power. All this power was trapped inside Gohama, she contained it and controlled it. The wonder he had always felt for her hit him full force, his eyes falling to watch her dark hair and green haori as she smiled up at Seiryu. She was smiling, it was good. She was also entirely too unfazed by Seiryu's overwhelming presence, as if this was a trivial exciting meeting with an old friend.
Seiryu smiled as well. The ten tailed beast was smiling, with a caringly pride that was so human it made all the foreignness of his massive chakra wane. Here stood this creature, almost godlike in his size, shape and power, and he smiled and felt as any other tiny petty human.
The beast lowered his head and she pressed her forehead to his nuzzle in a caring gesture. Kakashi felt he was intruding in an intimate moment he should not be a part of, his feet shifting over the grass and his hands stuck inside his pockets.
Seiryu glanced at Kakashi, and his heart halted in his chest at the sight of his blue dragon eyes. "Kakashi." His low thundering voice trembled through Kakashi's chest, and he gave him a small nod. Stunned, Kakashi nodded back.
Gohama jumped onto the beast, where his head merged into his neck. Her expression was open and radiant and Kakashi hoped Seiryu could help where he could not.
"Kakashi, do you want to fly with us?" She asked with giddy excitement, almost childlike.
As tempting as flying on the back of a dragon was, Kakashi knew he shouldn't barge in on their time together outside the seal. "I'm good. Don't draw too much attention"
They both nodded and Seiryu lifted into the clouds, a raw wave of power, sleekness and grace.
Her arms lowered, as Gohama soon became tired of holding them extended to her sides to feel the blasts of wind. Feeling the gusts meant she had to fight their pull and she was tired of fighting them. The overwhelming elation of flying through Snow's sky on Seiryu's back, the true Snow's sky, real and tangible, not a scenario made for the seal, had died out too quickly.
Gohama hadn't let her mind fall onto the inevitable meaning of summoning Seiryu. But she could feel the motions in her chest mirroring the thoughts she kept buried deep in her not-to-think-box. Their small journey had meant to be a happy one, with freedom and beautiful sceneries, yet all Gohama could feel was the sharp cutting wind burning her eyes and shoving against her front.
With a deep inhale and an open heart, she tried to feel the beauty of the clouds around them, the free air, the orange and pink light over white dunes and under them endless green. She needed to feel it. Why couldn't she feel it?
It was that cold howling wind, it was the looming thoughts she would not let materialise in her mind. As long as they stayed a vague heavy sensation in her chest, with no name, it would have no power over her.
Her hands planted over the scales of Seiryu's neck. Her eyes fixed on the blue shine of them under the light, the real light, and her senses on the familiar overwhelming feel of his chakra. This was what she had wanted for them, this was what was supposed to fix everything. All this grating month was supposed to lead to this and now that it was finally here, Gohama didn't know where to go, perhaps had never known.
Her chest pinched and a small gasp caught on her throat. Her fingers grasped the fabric above her heart and tried to still the flutters, the glue that seemed to fill her lungs. What was happening to her?
It was the wind. It pierced through her airways and didn't let her breathe, it smothered her, cut her from inside and outside. Her eyes clenched shut as she tried to rule herself. Gohama could not lose control now, not when she had summon Seiryu, not when she had learnt how to use his chakra, not when she had become a true Bukigakure jinchuriki and the purpose of her life was starting.
With all the power she knew were in her hands and in her pathways, why did she feel so helpless? So small under those gusts of wind and between the sky of Snow, above the land her life belonged to.
"Seiryu, let me down." She rasped, her middle bending so she could rest her forehead against his scales, too tired to hold her body upwards.
"Are you okay, Gohama? What is it?" His grave rumbling voice shuddering through her body.
"I just feel sick… Maybe it's lack of oxygen." It had to be it, it had to be why, even with fast frantic puffs, it seemed her lungs were holed and could not hold the air she needed. "Let me down."
"You can talk to me…"
"Just do it!" The anguished scream scrapped through the lump that was grasping around her throat.
Seiryu hovered above the treeline and Gohama jumped down. She broke the connection and suddenly the impact of a mountain of chakra clashed back into her core. When her mind broke through the overwhelming daze, she found herself on her knees, skin trembling with the frenzy energy in her pathways.
"You okay, kiddo?"
"Yes…" Gohama answered as she rubbed her fingers roughly into her eyes. "I'll talk to you later."
Gohama didn't wait for Seiryu to answer before breaching the connections between them.
She ran up the steps of the shrine, her balance still a disarray, the moss making her slip and fall onto the edges of granite. Still she continued to run, not looking at anything but the next step. And just as suddenly as she had starting running, she was entering the prayer room of Kuraokami-sama's shrine.
Hadn't Osamu-hanshi once said he would go there when needing guidance in life? Telling her through old wise eyes that in there, in the mural of their ancient clan, she could find the strength to endure the power he was teaching her to control, Seiryu's power, to endure the path she would have to follow as Buki's jinchuriki.
Her head fell back, frantic eyes searching through the stories depicted in the beautiful awe-inspiring ceiling of the shrine. Gohama saw only war, victory and defeat, enemies and allies, sadness and despair, sacrifice, blue swirls of chakra and white wolves, and Seiryu with cruel narrowed eyes, which had never belonged to him.
In the centre of all the beautifully painted chaos was her, Gohama. She jerked back, her heart thundering through her ears, her eyes wide as they returned to her reflection. It wasn't her, she realised through trembling eyes, her hands shaking at her sides at the sudden illusion. It wasn't her, it was Onee-sama, just Onee-sama. Not her, never her. It would never be her, never her in that mural of honour and death.
Her neck snapped down, as those two green eyes, so alike her own, so alike any other Kyura, stared back at her. The fierceness of a leader was stabbing, the fierceness of a founder, of a murderer and mother, a sister, Onee-sama.
No, not that. There was nothing there for her. Just empty stories of death and war and victory and Gohama didn't want that. She didn't fucking want that. Yet it was painted into the ceiling of the shrine, painted into the memories of her childhood, carved into the little girl she had been there, with a deep sharp chisel and permanent ink that marked under the flesh, deeper than the flesh. And it was her, those stories, it was her heritage and Gohama was a Kyura above all. She was her legacy, all that history ran through her blood, made up her cells, ignited the chakra inside her core.
Gohama did not want that, she had never wanted that, never wanted any of this and still it was hers. Her duty, her life, it was her and she could not escape from what was herself.
Still she tried. Her feet, chakra-powered, pushed against the ground, made her jump down the granite steps, the stone crackling under her. Gohama could see her entire village, her devastated dead village, through the thinning branches of pine. It hit her with the same force as when she had first entered Bukigakure more than a month ago.
Her feet halted, her hand clasping again onto the fabric above her heart, as if it could help soothe the anguish incrusted there, as if it could stop the desperate beat of it. The death painted in the ceiling was real, and it was out there. Her home. The fierceness of Onee-sama was the fierceness of care and protection, the animalistic protection for the ones she loved, as a white wolf mother protecting her pack.
And Gohama had let herself forget that, had let herself forget why shinobi were shinobi. Her duty, the dearest most precious thing in her life, and in a moment of weakness she had let herself forget it. Gohama had let herself forget the Kyura were her pack and she was a white wolf with the duty to protect them.
Protect them? They were dead. There was no protecting, she had already failed that. Her most burning failure costing the lives of her people. Now all there was was avenging.
And yet… there was no strength in her, no great power that would make it true. She had summoned Seiryu and it did not solve anything. Gohama was as lost as she had been in the beginning, as lost as she had always been. As weak…
Bile rose to the back of her throat, as she stumbled down the steps of the shrine, as she passed under the torii gate and moved towards the memorial of the massacre. Without even realised, she was already dragging her feet through overgrown weeds, pestering around the thousands of granite graves.
It always hit as a blow to the chest, the sight of the symmetrical, identical lines of graves. Natural graveyards were messy and diverse not this uniform mass of dead people, all killed in one night, while Gohama walked… Her smug heart beating and beating with each pump of blood, each step she took, until she fell onto her knees and hands in front of her family.
A white wolf with no pack was lost. In front of her was a road of nothing. Every morning the same steps over smoke, the same blind path towards the ever-looming shadow, and it would not reach fast enough, every morning the same pain, the same hole inside her soul.
Gohama felt the drops she couldn't hold back anymore fall onto the back of her hands. She straightened herself, sitting on her heels, as she tried to wipe the tears away from her eyes. They wouldn't stop, she couldn't stop them. She couldn't stop the heavy shaking sobs that racked through her shoulders and chest.
Gohama was crying like a child. She felt like a child after a nightmare searching for her parents, making the distance of the dark corridor, but the corridor never ended and even if she ran Gohama would never reach her parents. They were dead. They were two names on cold stones. Inaku and Misaka. Her glassy eyes settled on the improvised stone she had carved herself. Three names. Tsukate. Uncle was dead too and she had watched him die without doing anything.
Pathetic worthless piece of shit.
The bile burned as it mixed with the tears sliding down her throat. She had so much guilt in her shoulders, such a high price to pay and not the strength to ever pay it. But above all, blended into the anguish and the worthlessness, the grief and the void, was so much hate. So much dried hate, dried and weak, as it had never left her heart, it had only darkened and pestered, devouring and now it was as large as she had ever felt it.
Gohama had kept her shards together until summoning Seiryu, but that hadn't been long enough. Now they cut through her hands and burned and Gohama felt her hold waver as she fought through the pain, the anguish bursting through her soul and drowning her, shoving her down a dark hole she couldn't climb her way up.
At least if she could stop falling, at least if the impact with its end would finally come and then there would be no more falling, no more cutting air pushing against her back, but never enough to hold her up, never enough to lead her to the dot of light, in each moment a little smaller, a little frailer.
Why had she not died with them? It was always the same guilt, the same regret, the same unbearable duty. The same call, the same sibilant whispered call, Gohama had always tried to quiet down, but it shouted now, through the silence of those cold graves, the lines of her carved name, next to the ones of her family.
Hadn't Gohama said she liked seeing her name in that grave? She had thought of it as some symbol to her broken ripped out self, but perhaps it was the longing, the call. Her place was by her pack.
The grave meant for her nine-year-old self didn't lie. Everyone had thought she had died with her village because it was what should have happened. The past eleven years of her life, a stolen undeserved life made over the lives of Buki, were an atrocity, an evil when everything was her fault, had always been her fault. She had stolen Kuraokami-sama from Bukigakure, the kami that gave life to her people.
Gohama bent onto herself, face buried against her legs, her hands covering her ears, trying to stop the shouts of the call, the desperate screams, so sweet and so sick. A gust of wind ruffled her hair as she felt like screaming herself, like letting her voice and her being be taken by that Snow's wind. No. There were reasons for staying, she couldn't feel them but she knew there were, they whispered over the screams.
What would happen after she died? Nothing. That was what was good about death, it wasn't good nor bad, it was nothing. And Gohama was so tired of everything, so fucking tired.
Suddenly her tanto was in her hand, summoned without her even knowing of it. Through heavy eyes she watched the shape of the blade, the sharpness, the wrapping around the handle, carefully crafted to be a weapon of death. It was a beautiful weapon. If Gohama killed herself she would want it to be with a beautiful blade.
Could she kill herself?
Gohama laughed, bitter and manically, and cried too, the tears stinging down her cheeks, snot running down her nose and cupid's bow. Of course she could kill herself. It would be so easy, so simple, so quick. The question was not if she could kill herself, it was if she would.
Would Gohama kill herself?
The road of nothing opened itself, the smoke turning into stone, a stone meant for her feet alone, the only path and it was carved for her alone. It had always been there, long and looming, but now it was a small step away. Gohama could walk into it with the nonchalance of a child returning home after a day of school.
Her hands shifted the tanto around, fingers suddenly still and deft, as if calmed by the reassurance of the weapon and its purpose. She twirled it around, tested the familiar weight and size she had known since she was seven years old. The sharp blade, silver and shining, reflected her green eyes and they appeared so calm now, even if bloodshot, they stared into the deadliness of the blade and it calmed them. It was familiar, the death marked onto that weapon. It was home.
Her life overflowed with death.
If there was no life and death was done and over with, then those burning words would not be her, because Gohama would never again be herself. She would be nothing. She would not be at all.
With steady fingers and a steady wrist, she pointed the tip of the blade onto her chest, onto the spot where her heart was beating below ribs and muscle and flesh. It felt natural, as if the path of her life had always been meant to lead here. Why had it been so difficult to see it when it was so clear now? In the sharpness of the edge and the eagerness of her steady heartbeat to quiet its rumour forever.
The question lingered on, unanswered still, would she do it?
The last verses of the Kyura origin myth, of Onee-sama's life, seemed to fit into the emptiness of her soul, as a warm fitting glove, sleeping through could unfeeling fingers in a Buki's winter day.
The constant screaming of her heart ceased
At the end of a blade freedom.
A death given for the greater glory of her people.
If you are dealing with suicidal thoughts or need psychological support, please seek professional help. Asking for help is already a big, important step.
Your life matters and your health matters.
I leave here a link with a list of hotlines around the world: www. reddit .com /r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines (without the spaces)
As always, stay safe.