Part VII | Chapter 2
Her hands were damp with cold sweat where she pressed them to the bark, the shivers plaguing her fingers and sometimes spreading across her entire body not easing even when she pushed herself hard into the rough trunk, spine painfully straight, legs ridiculously weak. All the nerves circling through her veins made her feel dizzy, her stomach unsettled with fear, a fear she hadn't felt in years.
When Hansuke's chakra signature whispered at the edge of her awareness, her lungs clenched together until she couldn't breathe. It washed over her as a wave, smothering and yet comforting, like opening the eyes other water even through the bite of salt and watching the green dune of a wave break into white foam, lungs straining for air, but holding on a moment longer because the sight was too beautiful to waste and the rumble of the water on the limbs too soothing.
It encircled so loudly now through all her senses, her own chakra reacting at it, boiling in her pathways from fear, nervousness, excitement, so many things Gohama was tempted to curl into herself, press her eyes to her knees and lock her legs inside the coat of her arms and cry, just cry and crumble.
But she wouldn't crumble. Whatever expression drew itself in Hansuke's face, whatever words or silence, hate or love, resentment or relief, might burst through him, Gohama would accept them equally and guard it in the thick mended walls of her heart with a steady beat and unbreakable force.
Hansuke was by the bank of the river now, Yukine having led him there from his post and to where he would return to replace Hansuke in the scouting of enemies. First Kakashi and now Hansuke, Yukine was always the one searching for the men in her life at her request. He bore it with silent patience, while Seiryu would have teased her into a lump of embarrassment or an enraged explosion of chakra.
Gohama breathed in three times and jerked, but her legs didn't move. She breathed in a few more times, shouting at her body to move, to be kind and end Hansuke's suffering expectations that seeped even through his chakra.
She really was a fucking coward.
With a hissed curse under her breath, cursing had always been helpfully cathartic to her, Gohama pushed herself off the trunk and rounded it onto the other side.
Her feet didn't do more than take two steps, suddenly halted by the sight of Hansuke. Hansuke in front of her, his Konoha uniform as he always wore it, flak vest opened and a fitted long-sleeved sweater underneath. Hansuke with his light brown hair, even lighter from the end of the summer, and his dark skin. Hansuke with his hand half raised, half reaching into the air, as motionless as she was, two statues locked in the forest, as those sappy and tragic fairy tales told to children.
"Gohama…?" Hansuke called with so much hope and sorrow and despair marked into the shape of his eyes, the folds of his expression, and the rasped breathless tone of his voice. "Please… Gohama, please…"
Gohama opened her mouth to speak, but the words were stuck to the lump in her throat. She tried again, desperate to end the agony of Hansuke's struggle of being stretch between hope and hopelessness.
"It's me." She whispered and Hansuke's eyes lowered to her lips, understanding her words more form the shape of them than the sound they made.
The dizziness churned harsher in her stomach and she felt nauseous as they stood in an instant between crossroads, Gohama needed to know where Hansuke would move. Her eyes had been intent to any twitch of his muscles and yet she only realised what possibility he had fallen into when he crashed onto her, so forceful and yet so gentle.
Gohama had almost forgotten how large Hansuke actually was until she felt herself drown in his hug, so small and fragile from all the emotions still fevering inside her, her arms crushed between her chest and his stomach, her head tucked into his chest and under his chin, his arms holding onto all of her back.
Hansuke didn't say anything, he just held onto her as a man desperate not to fall holds onto a lifeline. She didn't know how long they stayed still, the only movement was of their frantic breaths, ribs moving up and down against each other.
Then Hansuke started shaking, her forehead rubbed on the soft fabric of his sweater, and she could feel the wetness of his crying in the tears that fell against her hair at her crown.
The lump around her throat tightened and burned, only growing even when she tried to swallow it, breathe it away, until she couldn't hold it back anymore and her own tears spilled through her clenched shut eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Hansuke. I'm sorry." Gohama whispered into the cocoon of his chest as if that would ever ease any of the pain she had caused him. Still, she didn't stop whispering the litany, her crying collapsing the words into a wet mumble.
"Shh, shh, it's okay, Gohama." Hansuke whispered into her hair, his fingers massaging her nape as he cradled her head to his front. The way he said it made the tightness in her heart squeeze even more, because it was the same as all the times he had said that for the past years. "I'm sure you have a good explanation for this. It's okay."
Still they continued to hug and cry, until the sobs eased in their throats. When Hansuke pulled back, his hazel eyes, brown in the low light, were glistening, but he was smiling, a happy bent thing through blotchy reddened skin. Gohama smiled too, wet and snotty.
He laughed in return, the rumbles drowsy, while his fingers wiped the tears on her cheeks. A chuckle rose to her throat too, more of a gurgle than anything else, and they infected each other, each chuckle louder than the last until they were full out laughing, drunk in their relief, their joy, the presence of each other.
His arms wrapped once more around her, crushing her to his chest as he let out a grunt of affection against the top of her head and shook her from side to side.
Hansuke pulled back again, a grin stretching his lips wide, teeth glowing almost as much as his beautiful eyes. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to say in a moment like this." He commented with light-heartedness as he squeezed her hands. "It's the first time I have someone I love come back to life."
"I don't know what to say either…" Gohama answered shyly, but his delight was so stupidly contagious her cheeks were already sore from so much smiling.
"You should, though. It's not the first time Kyura Gohama comes back to life."
She couldn't help the small chuckle as her head shook lightly. Aika and she had joked over that too, how she was weirdly prone to pretending to be dead. Two times in the lifetime of a person, even a shinobi, was high.
"No, it's not, but it's the first time I have people to come back to."
Hansuke's grin shrank into a sad and yet no less glad smile. "I believe you have some things to share with me then."
And so Gohama told him of how hunters from the Kuma tribe had found her and Obaa-chan with her healing had saved her life. She told him of the recovery not only of her body, but spirit and mind too, how there was still a long path to take and coming back was part of it.
She told him of Aika, her first girl friend after so many years surrounded mostly by boys, of her cute and bright Misa-chan and her husband Kento. Of her work at the healing hut and of the children that loved playing shinobi with her, of the heart-warming stews and the nights by the firelight, the beautiful sceneries of the mountains of Snow and the beautiful kind people.
Still, through all her sharing she didn't delve deep into her thoughts, the things she had worked out for herself. A part of her still wasn't ready to share those, a part of her was still wary of how long the relief and the stability would last, all of her was dreading a moment when she could break and crumble again.
Hansuke didn't hold back in his affection, his hand either clasped tightly around her own, or his arm pushing her into his side. She could understand his need to touch her, to make sure that she was there, alive and present.
Once she stopped talking, her heart full and grateful for Hansuke's simple listening, they just enjoyed the quiet night, senses still sharp for any enemy, and rediscovered the comfort of simply being together again.
They both knew what would have to come next and they both wished to stretch this small moment where there was no pressure between them, no future, no label, just them enjoying each other's company, each other's presence in their lives and nothing else.
Gohama was growing restless, her fingers clasping and unclasping the button of her thigh pouch, while her mind ran through the gentlest best way of starting their conversation, through all the words she had rehearsed still in Snow and as she flew with Seiryu towards Frost, up the civilian towns and villages to make sure they had been evacuated – which, to her surprise, they had. None seemed fitting now, none seemed to pose any justice to what Hansuke deserved, they were bitter in her mouth, cruel, and she hadn't even said them.
It was Hansuke who started it, lifting his arm from where it was wrapped around her shoulder and shifting so he was facing her. The same hope was there again and Gohama found that she couldn't meet his eyes, not when they watched her through so much adoration, so much love, but also fear.
"We should talk about us…"
"I know."
And then there was silence, except for the plucking of grass between Gohama's crossed legs. She wasn't sure if he was waiting for her to talk or also mustering the courage to face the cold agitation around them. Perhaps he could already feel it, in the way her fingers trembled and the corner of her mouth twisted down. But Hansuke didn't speak, for minutes they continued in silence, his hand now resting above her own to stop the frantic plucking.
"I had a lot of time to look back and think about what we had together." Gohama started in a low trembling voice, breathless against the clamp of dread in her throat. "I…"
"It's okay, Gohama." The hand resting above hers squeezed tenderly before it drew away, clasping around his knee. "Say what you have and want to. We need to be honest with each other."
Gohama looked up to meet his gaze, because Hansuke deserved that she looked at him, faced him as she broke his heart. She tried to keep the sting of tears hidden behind her eyes, but from the blurriness spreading through their corners she knew she was failing.
"The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Hansuke… but I…"
"Say it." He encouraged with a gentle pained smile and it only made the hand around her throat squeeze painfully tight.
"I don't think we should go back to being together…"
Even as the words quieted in the air, their shadow still loomed, painful and heavy, between them, as an echo that wouldn't wane, wouldn't silence itself. Hansuke didn't react for an excruciating long time, his eyes pinned to her own, and she waited for him, fighting against the impulse to hide, to fidget, to run away.
Slowly the lines of his face shifted, his eyes falling, reddening, the corners of his mouth carving with deep pained wrinkles. The hurt, the pain, the pleading drew themselves in his expression and a sudden reflection of all the ones she had killed, their deformed begging faces, sprouted in her mind.
The thought of it, the simple fact that her mind had linked them together made the nausea rise in her chest, burning and bitter, like bile stuck to her mouth and throat.
"Gohama… please…"
It was the only thing that Hansuke said and it was enough to stir the cowardice and push it back to the forefront of her skin with a painful shiver. Gohama hid her face in her hands.
"Why…" His voice was only a whisper with no sound behind it and still it tolled and trembled through her chest.
Gohama bit her lip, using the pain to force herself out of the cowardly shell she was trying to cover around herself. "I don't think we're good for each other anymore. I don't see a future for us."
"Why? Look at me, Gohama. Why?"
Her head rose to watch all the hurt stuck to the skin of his face, even to the flow of his chakra. "You asked me to marry you…"
"We don't have to marry, you know." His lips quivered as he tried to smile, tone light but it didn't hide the desperation lurking inside him.
"No, Hansuke, you asked me to share my life with you, you dreamt of a family for us, when you were lying to me about the massacre."
Gohama looked down at her hands as her fingers tensed, and she fought the impulse to rip apart the grass around her. "And I can't stop thinking about all those times I shared it with you, how it helped, how you comforted me. I can't stop analysing every second of it for a sign of the truth, but there was never none… how Hansuke… how…"
Her elbows pressed to the side of her thighs as she propped her forehead on her fingers. "And now that I know, I can't ignore the lie when I was so vulnerable… I can't… I can't…"
"What did you want me to do, Gohama?" Hansuke asked, his voice waving with sorrow. "I couldn't tell you, but I could be there for you and I was."
"The problem is that there was always more than that. There was the future you dreamt for us, a future I told you so many times wasn't meant for me. A future where that lie would always stay hidden."
Her head lifted so she could pin his bloodshot eyes, emotion swimming through them, with her demanding ones. "Tell me, if there had never been a Furuta Chin in our lives, would you have told me the truth? Be honest, Hansuke, if there was no risk of me finding out, if I could have given you the life you wanted for us, would you have told me?"
"I would have, Gohama."
Her heart cracked a little at his words and her expression clenched in a mix of pain and anger. "You're lying, Hansuke. You know you're lying."
"If you would have been happy, the why—"
"Don't finish that, Hansuke." Gohama growled harshly as her fist came down to hit her knee.
"I just want the best for you, Gohama, I want you to be happy. Finding out the truth only made you miserable. This last year, Gohama, you were miserable, you were more than miserable, you were completely lost, completely broken…"
"I don't care if I was miserable. I needed to know." She tried to put all her firmness in her words so they would reach him, but her voice left more desperate than steady. "You put the worth of life in happiness… and for me that's unthinkable because… because… what does that make me then, Hansuke? If being happy is what makes life worth living what does that say about me?"
Her voice broke in the last word and she grimaced. Hansuke was looking at her through wide eyes, overflowing with pity, and silent parted lips, and she hated it, it made her skin crawl, made the sibilant voice in her mind whisper, worthless, Kyura Gohama, you're worthless.
Her hands fisted at the fabric of her pants and she breathed in deeply before releasing them. She had to stray away from those pieces she had placed, steady and content, in herself and that had suddenly started quivering.
"You deceived me, you would continue to deceive me, Hansuke, and you can't even understand how painful that is to me."
"It was painful to me too, do you think it was easy for me, Gohama? Do you think it was something I wanted and liked doing? I did it because I love you!"
"I know. I know it was out of love, I know it would always have been out of love, but you have to understand that… that it hurts me, that for me it doesn't justify it. It's what made me understand we're no longer good for each other, because we value different things. I will always put truth and honesty before happiness, and you'll never put anything before happiness, not even me."
"Not even you? What is that supposed to mean?"
"You had these expectations for us, expectations I could never fulfil then. And it made me feel…" Worthless. "miserable when I couldn't fulfil them."
Gohama knew she has worded it wrong when Hansuke's eyebrows bunched in hurt and offence. "So I made you miserable?"
"I didn't mean that. I meant—"
"How, Gohama?" His voice had risen in his anger and she fought against her own boiling in her chest. "How the fuck did I make you miserable when all I did was because I wanted the best for you?"
"I know it was because you wanted the best for me, Hansuke, I never doubted that… but it doesn't mean it didn't hurt me. Sometimes—"
The clamp around her throat halted her words as she felt her treacherous eyes prickle with tears. And she remembered being a little girl, meant to hold the safety of her village, the rule and the future, because they believed in her, they had faith in her, but she had been only a little girl, terrified of failing, terrified of death, when everyone had looked at her and seen the shinobi, the jinchuriki, the shuriken.
Gohama knew it wasn't the same with Hansuke, but… it felt the same…
She lowered her eyes away from his face lined in anger, her voice nothing but a quiet whisper, the words painful as she forced them out of her chest and past her lips.
"It felt like you were looking at me but you didn't see me… you just saw all the things I could be, but you didn't see me…"
"How can you think that? I'm the person that knows you better than anyone else, that sees you better!"
Gohama fought against shrinking onto herself at his tone. "I'm not saying you're not. I'm saying it's what it felt like. It made me feel like I… like I wasn't enough."
"You weren't enough?" Hansuke hissed bitterly. He stood up in an instant, pacing with his back to her, fingers brushing through his hair. Gohama stood up too, her eyes seeing the tension in the muscles of the back of his neck and could imagine how it spread down through his shoulders and arms under all his clothes.
"You weren't enough?" He repeated again, this time angrier and less bitter. And then he turned to face her, his hand fisted around the fabric at his chest. "What about me, Gohama! Everything about our relationship made me feel like I wasn't enough! From all those times you were depressed, stuck to our bed, to the nights you woke up screaming or the nights you didn't sleep at all, every time you wouldn't say 'I love you' back, even those first fucking months when I couldn't even make you come!"
Gohama had steeled herself on her flight over with Seiryu, knowing how easily they could inflame each other's anger. This time she wanted to talk not shout, but it was so much harder to hold it back when it was actually happening, when she was seeing him lose his temper, when his anger was pointed at her.
When he finally admitted something she had tried to pull out of him so many fucking times before.
"Why didn't you fucking share that with me! You always say that I shut you out, but you also shut me out! I begged you to tell me and you said you were fine, you always dismissed it! Why, Hansuke, why?"
"Because I was afraid you'd pull back, I was afraid seeing me struggle would make you not want to give our relationship a try anymore… I was always scared one day you'd suddenly decide to leave me."
The anger bled out of her at Hansuke's achingly vulnerable answer, her heart wrenching with it.
"I just wanted us to share the frustration. I didn't want to feel alone in it and I didn't want you to feel alone, to feel like you had to be happy for me… I wanted you to be real and true with me." She took the steps to break the distance between them, her hand resting on his forearm. "I wouldn't have left you suddenly, I wouldn't do that to you, Hansuke."
"You left me suddenly after knowing the truth and you're leaving me suddenly now." He answered with a hint of harshness he couldn't hide from his voice.
"This is not sudden, Hansuke, we haven't been together for a year. And did you expect me to stay with you then, after knowing you had been there on the day of the massacre, knowing you had killed one of my clansmen? I needed some time and space from you, from Konoha."
Hansuke yanked his arm away from her hand and even if she didn't take offence with the gesture it still hurt her. Gohama knew he was within his own right to pull away from her, but even in their worst fights he had never avoided her touch.
"You let Kakashi stay. You let the murderer of your own parents stay with you and then you fucked him."
Gohama stilled, caught off guard by the burning resentment, almost disgust, in his spat out words. Hansuke could be quick to anger, but there was almost never bitterness, especially not directed at her or one of his friends.
She would have accepted all the hatred he could spit at her, it was something she deserved after all the pain she had caused him, but not Kakashi, she had been the one to drag him into her own mess.
"Kakashi doesn't have anything to do with this. And don't speak about him like that."
"Of course he does, if you hadn't let him stay, if you hadn't slept with him, then we—"
"Not if, Hansuke, having sex with him then or not wouldn't have changed the fact that we're not good for each other. If you seriously think I'm putting an end to things between us because of him, then you're not even trying to understand what I'm saying."
"Oh, I understand plenty!"
From the wide-eyed rage and the twist of his mouth, Gohama knew that whatever he said next was stirred only by jealousy and anger, hurt, and he always regretted that. It pained her to see him like this, but she didn't know how to calm him down, how to soothe him.
And what right did she have to feel pain, to want to ease his own? She was the one that was causing it, she was the one crushing his heart as she had done with all the flesh ones before.
"Did you fuck him in Konoha too?"
"Hansuke." She warned.
"Did you, Gohama? Was that why he ignored you for years! Have you forgotten that, Gohama? That he ignored you for years after Dazai's mission, that he broke your trust, that he left you when you needed him, when I was always there! I was the one that was always there and still you went and fucked him!"
"Hansuke, stop it."
His eyes widened impossibly more. "That mission… Dazai's mission… did he fuck you then? He did, didn't he?"
"You know that's not true, you know Kakashi would never do anything like that."
"Oh, it explains so much. I was always your second option, a man to keep your bed warm when you couldn't have who you really wanted."
The claws around her chest pierced deeper. Had he spent the last year believing that? Gohama had cared about Kakashi, but she hadn't wanted him then. In Konoha, there hadn't been second options, only one, the one, Hansuke.
"Hansuke, stop it, please."
"You only came to me because he fucked you and then abandoned you like the piece of shit he is!"
A ball of anger and injustice promptly flared in her and she couldn't keep it down, wouldn't keep it down. "Can you fucking hear yourself? This is Kakashi you're talking about! Kakashi! Who's being the piece of shit now?"
Hansuke took a fast stride towards her, his hand clasping around her arm. "Don't you dare call me a piece of shit! Not when it was you that abandoned me! Not when it was you that broke me when I thought you were dead and is breaking me even more now! You're the biggest piece of shit of all!"
Gohama would have flinched at the words, but they held no punch in them, no surprise. It was almost as if a part of her had wanted them confirmed, a part of her had wanted to hear them from Hansuke, from everyone that she had ever failed.
A dangerous part of her, the one she had fought against for the past months, needed a validation for that self-loathing looming inside so it could rise back freely, devastatingly.
Hansuke's expression fell as his words resounded around them, every drop of anger and bitterness washing away, and his fingers released her with a jerk. Somehow this hurt more, the regret weighing down on the lines of his face. She didn't want him to feel regret, remorse, gnaw at him from insulting her. Being called a piece of shit was the least of what she deserved, that sickening part of her even begged for more.
His hand extending to her again, but he pulled back quickly. "Gohama… I didn't mean it, I didn't—"
"It's okay." She tried to smile reassuringly.
"Tell me you know I didn't mean it, please. Nothing, I didn't mean anything of what I said."
"That's not what's important now. We need to calm down, okay, Hansuke. Shouting at each other will lead us nowhere. Do you want to continue the conversation now?"
"Let me get some air, get my head straight." Hansuke sighed as his fingers brushed through his hair and he turned his back to her. "Ten minutes."
"What if you're attacked?"
He looked over his shoulder. "Trust a bit of my abilities."
"It's not that I don't trust your abilities, it's that I—" Gohama stopped her words, as his eyes narrowed at her. "After twenty minutes, I'll send Yukine after you."
"And I'm sorry, Gohama, I really didn't mean it."
"It's okay, for real. Just go."
Once Hansuke had disappeared from the gaps between the trees and his chakra was far enough she knew he wouldn't hear her, Gohama fell into a crouch, her arms wrapping around her legs and forehead pressed to her knees. She tried to keep her tears hidden at the back of her eyes, but the stinging was uncontainable and even with her lids clenched closed she could feel the wetness building up, the sobs racking her shoulders.
Gohama was breaking him, she had broken him with her death, had just come back to life, and wasn't even letting him process her return before breaking him once again. All of this in the middle of a war. Hansuke was one of her most important people, her best friend, Gohama had returned because she wanted to protect him in the war, but now she was the one hurting him.
Regret was prickling in her chest, but the rational part of her, the one that had discerned away from the emotions of now, knew that leading Hansuke on would have been cruller in the end.
(She had broken Hansuke so many times before so what was once more? A bitter gnawing part of her whispered.)
That self-loathing that had tormented her for most of her life, venomous and vicious, and that she had finally shed from herself was corroding her again.
She hadn't been naïve enough to think it had miraculously died out with the Kuma people. There was always a muted sting still lingering, but this was different, this was the smothering eroding venom that had risen once again to wear away at all her mended pieces.
The heel of her hands padded at her eyes gently, the hem of her shirt soaking in the wet trails. She fought against the new wave of tears and the sobs that pushed past the lump on her throat. Gohama needed to pull herself together, she needed to be the steady one now, for Hansuke.
With a trembling sigh and deep breaths, she loosened her hold on her legs and stood up. Walking towards the stream, she dipped her hands in the cool water and washed her face, trying to keep the puffiness from her skin and ease the redness of her eyes.
Hansuke's chakra signature lapped at her awareness and she padded at her face one last time, easing her expression with it, and turned to face him. As he walked towards her, his face didn't look any less pained than before, the despair still etched into the creases around his mouth and eyes, but the anger and that bitterness had thankfully seeped away.
When he was standing in front of her, Hansuke dropped to his knees, his forehead pressing into her stomach and his arms desperately tight around her. The self-loathing flared once again, with cold burning fingers around her chest, stealing her breath, but she held on steady, her fingers not wavering as she smoothed down the back of his head and squeezed his shoulder gently.
"Please…" He whispered, the wet tremor in her voice spreading through her stomach, before lifting his face to watch her. "You're the love of my life, Gohama. I've known that since the beginning."
"Hansuke…" She started in the gentlest voice, keeping away any quiver from it. "I don't believe in loves of people's lives. There's people you love when you love them."
His fingers dented into the skin of her hip. "You're the woman for me, Gohama, and I'm the man for you. Please, please, Gohama, you're everything to me, please."
Her hands held onto his face and tried to print her words into his brain. She had the impulse of wiping away his tears, but thought the gesture too intimate and that seemed unfair to Hansuke.
"I'm not everything to you, I never was, and that's a great thing. You have other people important in your life, that care about you and you care about them. Your friends, your team, your village, Hansuke, they also give you meaning. It was never just me and especially it was never just me as your lover."
"Please… please, Gohama…"
"Come on, stand up, Hansuke." She asked carefully, her hands sliding to hold on to his arms. "Let's sit there, okay, and talk calmly."
They moved to a fallen trunk, their backs resting against the rough bark with the stream running in front of them, speckles of moonlight easing through the leaves of the trees. Gohama looked at the running water, but saw nothing, her mind focussed on breathing steadily and not drowning.
"Yugao told me what you told her when ANBU was hunting you down. It actually hurts me that you think all I care about is some ideal version of you when everything I ever did and gave was for you, Gohama, you."
"I know it was. But that doesn't mean that's what I wanted. Like when you asked to come with me and would leave Konoha for me. Why did you think I ever wanted you to betray your village, Hansuke? You know the most valuable thing in my life is my duty to my village, so why do you think I would accept that you abandoned yours for me?"
"Because you needed me, and you're more important to me than Konoha."
"I did need you, but that doesn't mean I could accept that. I never wanted to be more important than Konoha."
He held onto her hands and tugged a little. "Then tell me what you want. Tell me what you want from me and I'll do it, Gohama. Anything, please, anything, just don't leave me please. I love you, I love you so much, don't leave me."
"Hansuke… how could I ever ask that of you? I want you to be happy, you want to be happy, and that way you wouldn't be. We'd end up resenting each other. I don't want that for you, for us, for a relationship. That's not love, Hansuke, that's not sharing a life."
"I just… please… Didn't you like being with me?"
"Of course I did, Hansuke. I'm so grateful for what we had, really grateful for everything you gave me, all your love and your patience, your company. But what we had then can't be the same of what we would have now, things can't go back to what they were."
"I'm not saying we can. I'm saying we can build something new, even better than what we had. I can see it so clearly, Gohama, just let me show you, give me one last chance to show you."
The lump around her throat tightened impossibly more, almost trapping her voice in her lungs. "I don't want to."
"Why… why won't you even try? After everything don't I deserve at least that?"
Gohama clenched her eyes closed, as she felt the burning spreading down to her chest. She pulled her hands away from his and hid them between her legs, so Hansuke wouldn't see her fingers shake. The hatred and the guilt felt like they were crusting in her lungs, not letting them absorb the air she desperately needed.
Hansuke did deserve that, he deserved that and so much more from her.
There were reasons, there were reasons, she had discerned it, decided it, mourned it, so why did it all slip away like grains of sand falling between the gaps of her mind.
Hansuke deserved that she tried. How could she know they weren't good for each other now, after a year apart, now that she was actually healing? She could fall in love with him, maybe she could even love him with full sweeping love he deserved.
She could compromise, she could go back to Konoha with him if they survived the war, except she was still a traitor and missing-nin. But it was Hansuke, he wouldn't mind leaving with her. She could give him all that he wanted and needed from her, she would find it in herself, she would force it out of her. If it was for him, maybe she could.
Hansuke deserved that, after giving her so much, after she had taken away so much from him, even herself she had taken away. He deserved to take everything he wanted from her and she would gladly give him all that he wanted, even what she didn't have in herself. She would and she could, for him, she would and she could.
"Gohama?" Hansuke's gentle voice sounded beside her and his hand had settled on her back.
She opened her eyes and realised then that she had curled into herself. Wiping the tears on the fabric of her pants, she slowly straightened her back, but kept her head down, hair falling to cover her face. Gohama was supposed to be the steady one, she didn't have the right to break when it was her fault this was happening in the first place.
"Are you okay?"
"You do deserve so much from me, Hansuke, everything that I can give you and even what I can't. I can —"
Aika and her annoying voice surged in her mind, trapping in her mouth the words she was ready to spill. Did Hansuke deserve for her to try for the only reason that he deserved it? Was that what he deserved, for her to lead him on when she wasn't good for him?
There was more to a relationship than simple love. Hansuke had dreams, the dreams he had dreamt for them, of a wife he could dote on and be happy with, of a happy family. Children. Four little ones with her eyes. It only made her guts wrench at the idea of it, of stealing children of Hansuke's hazel eyes, kind and charming, framed with thick lashes, so they would have her stark ones, the green of the Kyura.
It was all a foggy weightless image in her mind. She couldn't even imagine them, she didn't wish for them, not as Hansuke did. She could one day, Gohama was certain she would, but she was also certain that she would never force children to have her as a mother.
Children were much smarter than anyone gave them credit for, their eyes sharp and hearts sensitive. They would see through her, they would see how the love she gave them wasn't full. She would condemn them to bear a hollowness because their mother couldn't love them as they deserved.
Parents had too much shaping power in their hands and Gohama could only imagine how her blood-soaked ones, her broken ones, all sharp edges and death masked in soft fingers without callouses, would shatter them.
Was that what Hansuke deserved?
"I can't." She whispered quietly instead, her voice almost nothing but air and still it vibrated through the air between them, heavy and final.
"Why can't you forgive me, Gohama?" Hansuke asked, but he had no energy behind his tone. He had understood it wrong, but she would answer him still.
"I have forgiven you, Hansuke, but I can't forget it."
"Why?"
"Because you won't change that and I'm not asking you too." She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned to look at him, her cheeks were dry but she couldn't hide her bloodshot eyes. "What do you want, Hansuke?"
A small smile bloomed in his lips. "I want you."
"I don't think you do. You love me, but I don't think you want me."
"Is this the same story about me loving an ideal future version of you?"
"No… I know you love me, Hansuke, I just don't think I am what you really want for your future."
Gohama deflated against the trunk with a long loud exhale. She wouldn't talk to him of how she couldn't be a mother, because Hansuke wouldn't listen, he would look at her with those kind loving eyes of his and see in her what he believed she could be and not what she was.
And sometimes he could make her believe in it too, but this was too important to risk. It was Hansuke's future.
"A part of me wishes we could have worked out. A large part in fact, I wish I could be what you need me to be, but… there are things I can't compromise on, things I value, not even for you, Hansuke. And I don't want you to compromise in those things too."
She turned to look at him, her expression easing with her words. "I called you a fool because of your Harada way of seeing love, but you're not a fool, Hansuke. Well," Gohama smiled timidly at him. "loving me is kind of foolish."
And Hansuke smiled back and that small turn of his lips was enough to shed some of the gnawing crust in her lungs. Before, Hansuke would have taken that type of light-hearted comment with too much seriousness.
Her head rested back on the trunk and she shook it gently. "And the way you love, Hansuke… that's not foolish at all." Gohama breathed out, almost dreamy, as her heart remembered the full burning embrace, reaching all sides and dips of her, that had always been Hansuke's love for her, as if she was the most precious thing, to the harmful point he would sacrifice everything, even himself for her, for the woman he loved.
"It's a treasure your father passed down to you, your parents. It took me a long time to get out of my own ass and understand that people have different values, different ways of seeing and living those values and that doesn't make it any less right. And unfortunately ours are different. I completely failed you when I expected you to change that, when I called you foolish for it. I'm sorry, Hansuke."
There was a new shape to his eyes, less heavy, gratitude maybe, but the lines of his skin were still too marked. He looked older, weary, as if she was taking everything from him.
"You're a great man, Hansuke, one of the best I know, and one of the people I admire most. You'll find a woman that will be stupidly happy with you and you'll be stupidly happy with her."
"That woman can be you. I'll wait, Gohama. If you want to come back to me. I believe we can be happy together, I believe it even more."
"I don't… and I say this with the most kindness and love I can. I believe we can be happy as friends, and this isn't devaluing what you are to me, what you have been and were to me. I used to think we were better together, but I don't think that's true anymore. I think the friendship we had, the companionship was always where we thrived the most."
"Are you saying you didn't enjoy the sex?" Hansuke joked but with a hint of seriousness passing through his eyes.
"You know very well that's not what I'm saying."
He seemed to deflate, his head falling back against the truck as he looked up to the canopy of leaves above them.
"Is this really happening?" He whispered, his voice more tired than disbelieving.
"I'm sorry."
"You were dead just a few hours ago… It took me so long to believe it…
"There wasn't a body but Kakashi said he and his ninken had searched for days, that we had to be realistic, there was no way you could have survived not with the pool of your blood."
Something seemed to shatter inside of her. Gohama trapped a little gasp in her throat and locked trembles in her fists, from knowing Kakashi had been the one that had to endure searching for her body, had been the one to endure seeing the aftermath of the battle, with its destruction, her blood and so much hopelessness. Kakashi had been the one to sustain the certainty that she was dead.
A seed of regret started shuddering inside of her, regret for having decided she wanted to die in the water and not in the earth, for deciding to let the river wash her body away from the chance of Kakashi finding her before the Kuma hunters did.
Her fingers rose to her scar, palm pressing down on the ragged skin, as the anguish prickled back into her heart.
But he wouldn't. Kakashi could never have found her before her life dripped out of her neck. And what worth would her life have had then even if he had? It was with the Kuma that she had healed, it was with the Kuma, away from everything else, dead to the world, that Gohama had taken hold of her own life.
"We didn't even know if Akatsuki had extracted Seiryu, if Akatsuki had taken your body. Even when you were officially classified as dead in the bingo books they didn't claim your death, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, they were quiet during the months of preparation for the war.
"We didn't know anything, only that there was a wrecked deserted forest, your scrolls and pouches abandoned on the ground, a pool of your blood and you were gone… I prayed so much, I begged at nothing and everything for you to be alive. I didn't care if you came back or not, I just wanted you to be alive, Gohama…
"But now that you are here… alive… I guess I still want you to come back to me."
"I've had time to move on from our relationship, to deal with the heartbreak, and it would be unfair of me to ask you to be in the same page now, but I also need you to understand that I don't think us getting back together will be a possibility. It may be cruel, but I think in the end it's crueller to lead you on. I just wish the timing wasn't so bad."
"I wish there wasn't even need for a timing…"
"Hansuke…"
He shifted to prop his shoulder on the trunk and face her, his eyes with too much resolve and Gohama raised her eyebrows at him.
"I have something for you." Hansuke explained as he searched through one of the pockets in his flak jacket.
He pulled out a frail silver neckless, a snowflake dangling on the thin chain. The neckless he had given her as a gift on her birthday, even before they were together, as a small token of her home. Gohama had worn it for the two years they were together, Hansuke's fingers had the habit of soothing the piece against the skin under her collarbone.
"You never did like wearing it on missions. When you left I took it from your apartment for safekeeping." Hansuke extended his open palm to her. "I want to give it back to you, if you still want it…"
"Of course I do, Hansuke."
The neckless wasn't a gift from a lover to another, it wasn't a mark of their romantic relationship, but of everything they had been to each other through the years, of Hansuke's care for her. Gohama picked it up, her thumb gliding over the small snowflake, fitting now that she was already missing Northern Snow, and raised it to her neck.
His hand snapped to hold her arm. "No. I'm sorry, but don't put it on your neck… It's just…"
"I get it, it's fine." She wrapped the chain around her wrist instead. "What about a bracelet?"
"It's perfect."
Gohama smiled while her hand snaked inside her shirt. "For now I'll just keep it inside my biddings. It may get a little sweaty but it's the safest place."
Hansuke chuckled as he relaxed back against the trunk, his gaze roaming through her face too adoringly, and Gohama offered him another smile. His forehead fell softly against hers, the metal of his hitai-ate cool, and his nose brushed against her cheek. She rested her hand on his chest and put pressure into it as a silent sign. Still, he continued to move, his lips tracing her jaw feather-lightly.
"Hansuke…" Gohama warned gently.
"One last kiss…" His breath fanned over her face and her stomach jerked instinctively.
His hand rose to cradle her cheek, while hers stayed on his chest, and he broke the distance between them.
It hadn't lost its familiarity, the way his lips moved against hers, gentle and firm, building up in the way they knew so well, the taste of him as his tongue pushed past her lips to meet hers. Gohama reciprocated with slight more hesitance than his abandonment, but with every brush of his tongue against hers, some of it dribbled away, and heat pooled low in her belly.
Hansuke's arm wrapped around her back, pulling her closer to him, onto his lap, but Gohama knew that meant slipping into dangerous territory. The hand still on his chest pushed against him and he respected her warning, finishing the kiss with lingering pecks.
His warm hand continued to hold her cheek as they caught their breaths, each puff a cool whisper against their glistering lips. His fingers flexed into her skin and Hansuke's throat rumbled with a small grounding grunt before he released her.
His forehead fell against her shoulder. "Fuck. We shouldn't have done that."
Gohama soothed her hand down the back of his head, not knowing what more she could do to comfort him, not knowing if that was even her place.
"About boundaries… I care about you, Hansuke, and want you in my life, but I'll give you all the space you need, for how long you want even if it means forever. Maybe I need that space too. The romantic part of what I felt for you isn't entirely gone."
Hansuke pulled back to look at her. "Gohama, we're at war. Space isn't what we need now. We'll get to boundaries after this."
"Do you want to stay friends?" She asked with too much hesitation in her voice.
His answer was to smile charmingly at her. "Don't be ridiculous, Gohama. We were friends before we were lovers. I'll never give your friendship up, never. I need you in my life too."
"But speak, okay? If it's too much, talk to me, please, Hansuke."
"I will. This time I will. I promise."
They stayed silent, their gazes watching the breeze rustle the leaves and the water run against the stones and the bank. Gohama would steal glances at Hansuke, helplessness and guilt heavy in her heart, as she saw the heartbreak in his expression, the quivering pants he let out from time to time.
Her hand settled in his forearm and Hansuke acknowledged the gesture of comfort with a small sad smile, before taking her hand in his. Gohama didn't know how long they stayed like that, just allowing the situation to settle over them both, but especially Hansuke.
After a long time, his fingers slipped away from hers, bringing back some energy to her tired heavy eyelids that had fallen shut.
"Kakashi." Hansuke started with a barely audible voice, but the name still rang loud in her ears, stifling the sounds of the forest with her thundering heartbeat. "Do you love him?"
"Of course I do. I also love you, Nikato, Kisamaru, Genma."
"You know the type of love I'm asking about, Gohama."
Her mouth felt like she was tasting ash and she didn't try to speak. Gohama didn't know. What she felt now, what she had felt in their one night together, what she had felt since she thought she had left him dead in Buki, on the last day she had seen him and he thought she had disappeared to die, could all be things made up in her mind.
It could be a chaos of guilt and care and surrender that had nothing to do with love. It could be the love for a shadow, for a dream that could be everything she had wanted him to be in her lonely anguished nights.
Or it could be love, as she thought love should be. In Kuma it had felt like it, Aika had called as such, and Gohama had always trusted her when it came to love. How could she not when witnessing Aika's love for her husband, her daughter, her family and her people, with her own eyes?
But Kakashi wasn't there, hadn't been there beside her for months, for her to see, to touch, to hear, to know. Could she even fall in love with someone when they weren't there? Or had she fallen in love with him in Buki and only recognised it later, when her heart had been free to love?
"I should have known, when you slept with him." Hansuke breathed out, that bitterness of before slithering through his tone. "Kakashi killed your parents after all. I should have known it could never be just about trust and lust."
"It doesn't matter."
His hands fisted against his thighs, knuckles straining around his skin. "I don't think I've ever been this jealous over anyone, not even when you chose him to stay with you and not me, not even when I saw the marks of your nails on his back…"
Hansuke lowered his head to his hands, curling into himself, his shoulder shaking, his chakra frenzying inside his pathways and it made her skin crawl. All the powerlessness of before crashing into her chest, freezing her lungs with fear.
It was fear, because there was something uncanny about seeing Hansuke lose his control to bitterness and resentment, not anger, feeling it drown him and not knowing how to pull him back when she was the one using her own hands to shove his head under the cold burning water.
"Fuck." He released in a hiss, his fingers relaxing and his shoulders slumping.
They rose and lowered with deep heavy breaths as Hansuke continued to hide his bowed face with his hair, but his chakra waned and her goose bumps eased. Only when he raised his head, expression with no sign of the emotions of before, and turned to look at her with gentle eyes, did her breath escape her month in a small choked sigh.
"But… even under all this, I still want you to be happy, Gohama. It matters."
Her head turned on the trunk so she could look at him, trying to force her muscles to unwind as Hansuke's had. "I don't think I can be happy."
He looked at her with the same pained compassion of before, when she had asked him what it meant for her if happiness was all that mattered, but this time it didn't shake her as it had.
Her balance was safe, her pieces were safe, the doubting had been a passing cold gust, but she had held on steadily, she hadn't let the past mouths of struggle and healing crumble. Relief spread through her chest and she smiled, not only to placate Hansuke's worry, born out of care and his own way of seeing the world, but also out of pride for herself, the good kind of pride.
"And that's okay, Hansuke, it really is. There are so many other things in life that make it worth living for me."
And Gohama should never let herself doubt that, not in her years in Konoha, and not a few minutes ago. Happiness was overrated, after all.
"Like what?"
"Beauty, truth, love, or none of that pretentious shit and just quiet afternoons with a good bottle of sake, good food and great friends. I'm not picky or ambitious. I've tried that already, I've tried to go for the perfect shinobi and that failed completely. For me life is all about the simple things now."
"Maybe that's happiness."
A genuine wondering smile stretched her mouth and she tilted head to the side, saving the unexpected wisdom for later, after the war, when she could build a new life, find a new home. "Maybe… But this doesn't mean I don't want happiness for you, Hansuke. Are you happy?"
"A few hours ago I still thought you were dead. And now… I will be, someday. Even after this… my hope still hasn't faded, but I don't think I'll ever stop loving you, Gohama. I didn't lie when I said you are the love of my life."
"Just try, please…"
The corners of his mouth lowered slightly and he turned his eyes away from hers. "Were you ever in love with me?" Hansuke asked in an almost silent voice, insecurity trembling through it.
And Gohama painfully wanted to say yes, knowing that he needed to hear it, but she also couldn't lie to him.
"I don't know… I was so… unbalanced then, there was no space for falling in love. I don't think what I felt for you was love as I believe love should be."
His eyes lifted to hers and he shook his head slightly, a gentle smile shining through his lips and gaze. "I think you were, Gohama. I felt loved, cherished."
"Really?" Her voice as small as his had been before.
"Really." Hansuke reassured her with a nod and a firm tone, so different from the one before. And it felt too good to hear those words. "It could be different than what being in love now is for you, but I think you were, you just didn't think it was good enough, just as you always thought your love for your village wasn't good enough."
Her eyes stung again, her chest tight even as she released a choked sigh. Hansuke sensed how deeply his words had moved her and his hand held onto her own with a squeeze, a simple way of marking his presence, his support beside her.
"You always were your worst critic."
"I'm better now."
He smiled again. "I know, I can see it. And I think I finally understand what you meant during those years, about being the one that had to make the way, no matter how much I wanted, I could never take your steps."
"Still, who I am today, Hansuke, it's also because of you. I'll be forever grateful to you for that."
"I'm grateful too, for what we had and what you gave me, since the beginning not just when we were together."
The gentleness of before bloomed into an achingly deep adoration, all of Hansuke's love for her gleaming through one single look. It sent a pang of guilt through her at how much she still relished in it.
"You're more than alive, you've come back full of life. And it's beautiful, you're beautiful, Gohama."
A quiet tear fell down his cheek and her own eyes glazed over with emotion. This time, she let her thumb catch it before it spilled down his jaw, the back of her fingers brushing through his cheek.
"I'm sorry. I'm breaking your heart."
Hansuke gave her a sad smile. "I broke your heart first. We're even now."
She pushed his shoulder. "Don't joke about that! It's awful… I don't want to be even."
He chuckled softly and they settled once again against the trunk, giving each other small soft smiles with reddened eyes.
Gohama threw her arms around his neck, bringing him into a tight almost painful hug, as she hid her face on the crook of his neck. Hansuke's arms held just as strongly, one hand soothing down her hair, as he had always done before.
"I'm so sorry, Hansuke… For everything. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Gohama. I'll be okay. We'll be okay."
She didn't want to let go of him. Despite everything, Hansuke was still one of her precious people and his hugs still had that comforting warmth that had been so irresistible to her before. They would have to stop, until their emotions could settle and Hansuke stopped being in love with her. Was it wrong of her to miss them? Was it wrong of her to miss what he had been to her during those years in Konoha?
"We should go, you know…" Hansuke whispered softly as he rubbed her back soothingly. "I'm actually curious about how people will react to you being alive."
The comment brought her back to the heavy predicament surrounding her appearance there. Maybe that had been its purpose. She pulled back with a final squeeze and Hansuke let go of her.
Her hands smoothed up and down her thighs and her eyes followed their movements. The dread from before was rushing through her veins full force and she could feel herself starting to lose some of her nerve.
"Are you scared of how people will react?"
"Not everyone. Just Kisamaru, Nikato, Genma…" A shaky breath was forced out of her throat. "Kakashi…"
"It's okay." Hansuke said as he rested his hand over hers, stopping their frantic motions. "I'll be there with you."
"Hansuke, I could never ask that of you."
"Which is why I offered." Hansuke said as he stood up and extended his hand for her to take. Her palm slotted against his and he pulled her up effortlessly with a charming smile.
"You actually had great timing, Gohama, the commanding officers are having a meeting on my division's campsite. We should get there before it ends and you'll be appointed immediately."
"The commanding officers. Does that mean Kakashi will also be there?"
Gohama had learnt he was one of the division captains, and honestly she could have guessed it without any doubt. Hansuke confirmed it with a stare.
"I can't. That's a terrible way for him to find out, on a meeting, where he can't process it or react other than as a captain."
"You have to."
"There are other ways, I—"
Hansuke silenced her by settling his two hands firmly on her shoulders. "Gohama, I know it sucks, but we're at war and you're still a dead jinchuriki to everyone, we came here assuming Akatsuki had the ten-tails. Did you come here to fight or just to make amends?"
"To fight, but—"
"No buts, Gohama. For the Alliance's sake, you need to get to that meeting."
His tone was harsh, unyielding, but so different from when he was being stubborn. This was the voice of a practical hardened soldier, of the team leader he had been to her on her first year in his team and that had gradually dissolved as he fell in love with her and vanished completely once they were together.
Gohama couldn't stop the slight sadness from showing through her eyes, as for the first time she noticed a harshness in the lines of his face, a harshness that she had never seen in Hansuke.
"This is war." Hansuke answered as if it explained everything.