Yasahashi ate dinner with her father. He had been injured and was put on a brief leave to heal. Her mother and brothers had all been dispatched, so it was just the two of them. She came home from school and excitedly filled him in about whom she'd beat up in a match on the playground at recess.
"You're a regular scrapper, Yasa," he jested.
"I know! And I'm going to be a cool ninja, too! I promise you that!"
There was a lull in the conversation which Yasa didn't notice while she kicked her legs at the dining table and did her math homework. Her father absentmindedly overcooked the pork and it was too tough to chew.
"How's your math scores?" he asked while they ate.
"Good." she said with a mouthful, "dunno why everyone hates math. It's easy for me." she chewed slower, getting suspicious.
"You've always been brilliant with math and science, sweetie. It's a talent not many ninja have. I hope you can put it to good use someday."
"Whatever," she swallowed the tough pork. "I just can't wait to graduate and join mom, Shun, and Kimura. Me and Kaeda are going to be on the same ninja squad! I wonder who will be our third team member… I hope it's not Mizuki! Bleh!"
"Yasa…" his dad sighed, "You know you can't mold chakra properly. We talked about this."
Yasahashi didn't acknowledge what he had said. She finished her food. "Though, Mizuki is really good at jutsu! Maybe since I'm not good at it, he could pick up my slack."
"I don't want you to go to war, Yasahashi," her dad said softly.
Yasahashi didn't look him in the eye for the rest of the meal. She finished her food and got up swiftly, putting her plate in the sink. "I'm going to go practice!" she said, "They said I get to test again at the end of the week!"
Her father got up and cleaned the rest of the mess she had left on the table. "Get some sleep, Yasa," he called after her as she thumped her way up the stairs. Her door slammed.
She had spilled rice and fat on the floor by the sink, he knelt down toe clean it up, his back aching with anxiety for his daughter.
After Yasahashi had gone to sleep, her father went across the street to his neighbors house, where he and a group of concerned parents were writing an official letter of complaint to the Hokage's office.
"They can't just send genin with no experience out to the battlefield like that. Fresh out of the academy! War or not, it's just not right! This will stunt our village!" One parent voiced.
Another parent shared her sob story, about how her daughter had been one of two inexperienced genin who had been left irresponsibly by their sensei. Through tight lips and tearful eyes, she wouldn't reveal the name of their teacher. Whoever it was, he had been such a powerful general that apparently it might be considered treason to oppose them.
Although Yasahashi's father would never reveal all this too her, he would regularly beg the academy professors to not graduate her. In fact, due to her excellent aim and understanding of projectile physics, as well as her above average taijutsu skills, they had been considering forgiving her poor chakra control and placing her on a sniping squad. However, the academy was beginning to give in to the mobs of angry parents who feared the deaths of their children and families.
Yasahashi was saved, her father had thought. Though, he knew she would hate him if she knew.
She wanted to visit her father, who was still comatose from the nine-tails attack, in the hospital. But, seeing the building, her blood ran cold. She knew it had been more than a year since she last saw him, and he wasn't getting any healthier as time passed. But, she just couldn't step foot in there. Not after the last time she'd been there.
She let herself get close enough to the building that she could see the window where she knew her father was, and she might have imagined it, but it looked like there was someone looking out at her. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought it was her father, but she quickly grew disappointed, recognizing the glimmer of a forehead protector. It was Kimura, then. She rolled her eyes and hurried to work.
"I'm going back, dad," she thought, stepping through the Konoha streets, "I know I can't tell you in person, but I decided to go back to work to help the village."
A light breeze blew in from the window next to Yashashi's desk at the Konoha Civil Engineering Department's drafting office. She was running a ruler across an edge and calculating measurements using an abacus. One of her coworkers came up behind her and gave her a paper to read and sign. She licked her fingers and flipped through the pages to the part she needed to notarize, then handed it back.
At the end of the week, she presented her designs to the head of the department and received feedback. She was out of practice, sure, but it was still a good start and they were ecstatic to bring her back to speed.
Friday afternoon rolled around while she was still leaning over her desk, a familiar voice opened the door to the office and called her name sharply and loudly, "Yasahashi!"
Everyone else in the office jumped and looked at the door where a tiny, loud woman had appeared. One of Yasahashi's coworkers, Takamaru, nearly pissed himself. The man had always been quick to being scared and drank so much coffee he practically needed to wear a catheter.
Yasahashi grinned, not turning from her desk to look at her friend. "Hello, Kaeda."
Kaeda approached her desk, leaning on it with one elbow and cocking her head to the side as she looked at her life-long friend.
"What's that look?" Yasahashi asked.
"You're back in the office."
"Sure am."
"I'm very proud of you, Yasa."
"Thanks, mommy."
"Ew, don't call me that. Let's go out. It's been too long."
"Don't you have a kid?"
"Yes! Mizuki is watching him."
"Do you trust him."
"No… which is why we are going out… of this office and then to my place for dinner."
A brick wall hit Yasahashi's consciousness suddenly, "Oh!" she remembered. "It's Friday."
"It's Friday!"
"I totally forgot."
"I knew you would, which is why I stopped by. I'm just glad you're back into it, though!" Kaeda gave her friend a side hug, "Now what's all this? You building some kind of kiosk situation?"
"Updates to the emergency watch stations."
"Ah, well I actually don't care about any of that. Let's go!"
They arrived at the building that Kaeda lived in with her husband and infant. It had been designed by Yasahashi's team a few years back. They had a modest apartment with 3 rooms, a living room kitchenette, and a bathroom. The windows were large and took up most of the wall and were meant to let in a lot of natural light. Kaeda had some daft curtains made to cover them, however, which Yasahashi always had something to say about when she visited.
When the two women arrived, Mizuki was sitting on the couch, still in his full chunin uniform, and the toddler was perched on the couch sticking some kind of ninja-star-looking teething toy in his mouth.
"Yo," Yasahashi greeted.
"There she is. Bring sake?"
Kaeda looked sourly at her husband. "Stop it."
Apparently they had a fight earlier about the sake. Mizuki was supposed to pick up a bottle and some groceries after work, only to forget and go and do something else with his time. Then it was a whole thing where he had to go out and get it again after coming home. But, he was being obtuse about it. Of course she didn't bring more sake, the issue had been resolved hours ago.
While Kaeda and her husband still bickered, Yasa kneeled down by the toddler, "Hey Haku," She smiled, "Got a ninja star, eh?"
"Dah." Haku nodded.
Kaeda set up the dining table, yelling at Mizuki to hep too, but he was too distracted now talking to Yashashi about politics. They finally sat down, Kaeda fuming. Haku crawled into his high chair next to his father and Kaeda threw her silver-haired husband a spoon to feed his son.
As Mizuki was spooning some mashed up baby food into Haku's mouth, he looked to Yasa to continue their previous conversation.
"Yeah, so that kid didn't take it well, obviously. Some jonin caught him beating a training post with bloody fists in the moonlight. What a loser."
"Mizuki…" Kaeda clicked her tongue. He had missed Haku's mouth and got it into his ear. Kaeda stood up and came around to clean up her child, taking the spoon from her distracted husband's hand.
Yasa observed this with amusement. "Can't wait till that one can feed himself, eh?"
Kaeda's eyes flared angrily.
"Yeah," she looked back to Mizuki, "I'm sorry to hear that, though. What's the kids name you said? Rock?"
"Yeah, he comes from a ninja family, but he's got no ninjutsu or genjutsu ability. The kid does got the most intense eyes, though. Like, seriously. Can he try any harder to be such a waste of space? Sigh, when I have a kid like that in class, it's so hard not to just kick him in the face."
"Jeez man," Yasa mumbled, feeling uncomfortable by the way Mizuki said that. The sound of eating took precident for a while. "Kaeda, this is awesome by the way." Yashashi tried to change the subject.
"I'm glad Yashashi always likes my cooking." Kaeda smiled.
Mizuki didn't seem to be listening. He got a hard look on his face, "Speaking of idiot kids who need to get a clue- Yasa, you got that nine tails brat living above you, right? How do you stand it?"
Yasa nodded, looking down at her food, "Kid's obnoxious."
"Yeah, right?"
"You just kind of get used to it, though. He's not really a bad kid if you get to know him."
"Well, you just haven't had to be his sensei, I guess," Mizuki shook his head.
Yashashi smirked, remembering what the fox brat had called her the other night when she helped him with his homework.
"Talk about students trying too hard. You know, he has trouble molding chakra like Rock, too. I mean, he can do it, but it's so bad that his transformation jutsus and clones come out like sad corpses. So pathetic. But, then his attitude about it… So over-confident and obnoxious. I wish someone would whoop that kids ass. But, I know the Hokage wouldn't let that fly, so…"
"Huh," Yasahashi chewed and swallowed. "Didn't know you were that type of teacher." She scraped her plate, "Learn something new every day."
His face turned beet red. "Oh come on. I know for a fact that you and the other planners get pissed when that brat vandalizes the city like that."
Yasa shrugged.
"He's got the fucking nine-tails sealed up in him, talk about a ticking time bomb. Aren't you pissed that they're just letting him run ass-wild like a termite through the village?
"Mizuki!" Kaeda shouted, "Language! Jeez. If your son grows up to be a potty mouth like you…"
"I mean, it's gotta bother you, right Yasa?"
"I mean, yeah it's weird," Yasa didn't know what to say. She didn't look Mizuki in the eye and finished her sake fast. Sometimes he got like this and it disturbed her. Kaeda just looked tired.
After saying goodnight to Haku and Kaeda and receiving an awkward pat on the shoulder from Mizuki, Yasahashi found herself roaming the lamp-lit streets in contemplation, edging dangerously close to Konoha's Closet. A slight buzz on her cheeks, she wondered, should she go home?
She had resumed her life as normal at the Civil Engineering Department, taking up an active roll again in bettering the village, but it wasn't quite the same. She wished for the old times when she would go out to bars every night with Kaeda and…
"Koiiiiiizuuuumaaa-kuun!" came a long drawn out yell from the alley to her right. Yasa stopped in her gait, being pulled out of her depressing thoughts, and turned to look down the smokey alleyway.
A familiar face appeared, one of her colleagues at work.
"Oi, Tanaka-sempai," She slurred.
"Well, I see you've got a head start on us, always a light-weight, Yasahashi-kun. We were about to go to Ramada bar and meet the others, then head to Hanabi's. Oo! You know someone's opening another gay joint? You'll never guess who's behind it… Miss Hanabi is going nuts!"
Yasa blinked slowly, trying to take all of it in. Was he asking her to come out with them?
"Oh!" Tanaka giggled, "Sorry, you were heading that way, so I just assumed you were going there to meet up with Takamaru and the rest."
She vaguely remembered Tanaka and the others at the Department agreeing to meet up at a bar at the end of the week, "Oh yeah… You know, it passed my mind, but I might as well."
"Great! Yeah, we can celebrate your return!"
"I might turn in before Hanabi's though. Got some errands to run early tomorrow. But, maybe another time."
"Awesome!"
Tanaka had been the first openly gay person she had met when she was younger. He had graduated from the Konoha Math and Science Academy a full 3 years before her, but was around during the nine tails attacks, helping them along with Professor Ayame. He was partially the reason why she got set up so fast with the Civil Engineering Department. If it weren't for his recommendation, she wouldn't have had the start she did And if it wasn't for his open-ness, she may have not been the person she is today.
Ramada bar, in the spectrum between straight spaces and queer spaces in Konoha, definitely erred towards the former. But, it was also a place where sobriety was rare.
Yasahashi hung around with Tanaka and some of her coworkers for a bit. The nervous guy, Takamaru, abstained from drinking and was engaged in telling stories about the mundane yet terrifying adventures he had killing bugs in his family home.
When the discussion hopped to Yasahashi's return and competition of her first week back at the Department after a lengthy absence, they all drank to her. Though the rosy cheeks were a joy to see, it felt bittersweet for Yasahashi. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, only to get lost by the bar in order to take a moment to breath.
While she was there, crouching behind a big group of ninja, a misguided guy with a mask covering most of his face hit on her. She had seen him around before, but didn't know his name. One of those high profile guys.
"Sorry bud, I'm not interested in your type," she said simply. He hadn't hit on her, per-se, but kind of leaned on the wall next to her and started to ask her questions in an obvious way. After receiving the rejection, he played it cool and left.
A purple haired ninja woman saw the whole exchange and followed up, pulling some slick one liner at the previous guy's expense. They exchanged flirty banter, but Yasa eventually laughed and made it clear that she wasn't up to anything tonight. The woman expressed annoyance and left. Yasa could have sworn she had seen her before on stage at Hanabi's, but she didn't care to bring it up.
Yasahashi felt crestfallen all of a sudden. After returning to her coworkers table, she decided to bid them all goodnight and head home alone, where she stared at the photo on her bedside for a great length of time before falling asleep.
Kakashi's Prius here, now don't y'all stay out too late! I'll pick you up here at 2am sharp, no puking on my seats. Name a cocktail you think they'd serve at a bar in Konoha!
