"You're just as beautiful as springtime flowers! Oh, of course you would be! Hello, I'm Maito Gai," a voice says, interrupting her relaxation hour as a man appears at the window of her room.
"Hello," she greets cautiously, because she knows very well who he is. She just has no idea why a man with his reputation is visiting her.
"You're Nana-san, aren't you?" He eyes her, leaping into the room with energy that doesn't make so much as a floorboard creak.
"Yes," she answers, hesitant to do it. "Are you a friend of Kakashi's?"
A bizarre, misplaced feeling of joy fills her at the thought. He told someone about her. A friend. Then she deflates, reminded that she's not exactly someone that he should be admitting to seeing.
Wariness finds her as Gai gazes at her with something akin to awe. Her skin itches.
"I am so thankful to you!" He steps forward and shows just how grateful he is by pushing her into a hug that makes her bones crack in protest and tips her feet off the ground. Gai swings her around once before plopping her back down and she reaches for the wall to steady herself.
Nana is not so happy now about Kakashi blabbing about her.
Then tears fill the man's eyes and she panics. In a wail, he tells her, "I worried my rival would never find love, Nana-san. I was afraid he'd be alone forever! But he has you now!"
"So, he talked about me?" Nana asks, baffled as to why any man would be so overjoyed that his friend—rival—fell in love with a whore. Most would have a very different reaction.
"In his sleep, he said your name," Gai informs her, a wide grin on his face. "When he woke up, I had to ask about you. Took a couple of years but he finally fessed up enough information that I could find you."
"Right." Nana grimaced. "Right. Thank you for... uh, visiting. "
Gai beams at her. "My pleasure!" Then, his face reddens as he ducks his head. "Not pleasure. I meant to say, nice to meet you! You are beautiful! Very. I have to go now, to run a thousand laps on my hands!"
"Oh, okay." Nana laughs as he leaves, snorting at the vision of his form clad in so much green.
She would have liked the visit a lot more if she didn't hate so much the reason he blushed. Sometimes, it takes only the small reminders to dig at her the most. Nana is a whore, and though Kakashi has never said anything, she knows it'll be the reason why they don't last.
Who would spend the rest of their life, paying at a brothel for one girl's company? Sooner or later, if she stayed, he'd give up on her.
This inevitably sat with her grimly.
...
...
...
"I met your friend the other day," Nana tells him with forced nonchalance.
Her shinobi stills at the news. "Friend?"
"Maito Gai—perhaps it's better to say that he visited me."
"Visited...?"
"Yes," she says, wondering at his raised brows as she attempts to follow what might've been his train of thought—and flushes, startled. "Oh! Not that way! He came through the window to say hello," she explained. "I didn't—I can refuse customers, you know. I wouldn't—and he didn't, your friend..."
And just when her foot can't get any further in her mouth, she notices his smile and his shaking shoulders. The suppressed laughter making his eyes squeeze shut.
"You—!" Nana starts off, outraged. And then quickly begins to laugh at herself.
Kakashi lays with her then, laughing and kissing her shoulder for forgiveness, playing with her as she pretends to be full of ire before giving into his seduction.
Their time extends into the night, talking about everything under the sun and moon, whatever it is they can think of, laughing and joking as much as they are able.
He tells her of the outside world. She oohs and ahhs and dreams. He doesn't quite know it, but these conversations are her encouragement for the days that follow. While he can't visit her daily, it's these memories she takes with her when she's suffering most at the hands of her situation, in the embraces of others, acting out orgasms and crying client names.
Her situation. Ah, the troublesome thing that it is.
They never do talk about it. She thinks because they're both afraid of putting words to what they both know.
...
...
...
Nana blows out a breath of air into the nighttime air, elbows on the windowsill. He hasn't visited for weeks but that isn't what has her troubled.
Money, money, money—she hates thinking about it. Has any other thing made her suffer like this? Aside from when Kakashi teases her with an unfulfilled ache, but that's a form of suffering she invites.
Money though.
Money.
Brothels are designed to keep girls in them and it's just her fate that she's so dependent on them. Nana has been chained to the profession, the word being generous, for a decade now.
She really can't remember what life was like outside of those doors.
Nana used to hate dreaming. After so long crying, it was the deepest wound she'd ever received, hoping that things could change. And then, when she stopped crying, she'd told herself, if she just let herself stay ignorant of the outside world, she could be fine. Not happy, but fine. She'd just keep going until the end.
But then Kakashi came into her life. And then it wasn't so easy, being just fine.
It's shameful, the things she's done to escape this life. Money, that cursed elusive thing. She hates it.
It's elusive like someone else she knows.
Nana always sees his face when she closes her eyes. This is what it's like being in love.
It's not enough now to be just fine.
She wonders why they never talk about these things. Her life, his life, their future. All the time, Nana envisions herself to be the stupid woman she'd been told she'd be if she fell for a client. If only she'd kept her heart still. After all, if Kakashi said nothing of it, would he even be willing to be in her future, to wait for her?
Would it even matter to him?
And now, with the money she needs to escape already at hand, Nana doesn't know how to ask.
After all, Nana had always known, with or without Kakashi, that she'd escape the brothel one day. She told herself to keep her head down and keep counting her money. She's known it since the day she was sold, her fury for having been sold, being forced to take on the family debt, made to pay that back before she could begin to make anything for herself. It made her smart with her earnings, with her time.
Before she met Kakashi, it'd been anger that drove her forward. An anger she barely acknowledged burned her out and left her bitter. And now, with her future in her grasp, it was something much different giving her her energy.
It was so terribly close.
It'll be then that she won't be a whore anymore. Kakashi won't have to pay for her, he can just have her.
Dazedly, Nana desperately doesn't think much about him settling down with her—she imagines his visits continuing as they always have when she gets a place of her own. Maybe, if she's lucky, he'll give her a child to look after but it'll be fine if he doesn't. She won't mind if they never marry, if he'll always keep his other life separate from her.
It'll be fine as long as he keeps returning, that's what she believes.
...
...
...
"I'm leaving," Nana confesses, her lips twitching with uncertainty. Should she smile and express her relief at finally being able to say those words?
Kakashi frowns at her, making her chest tighten. "What do you mean?"
"This brothel, I'm leaving in a week," she explains. "I've been saving the entire time I've been here, and this last month, I talked to a few places about land I could buy for cheap, I found a good plot to build something nice. It's by water, so much grass, lots of trees. I'm going to build myself a house, Kakashi, and I've even gone to a few places for work applications. Haven't got a job yet, but I'm hopeful and as long as I get out of this place, I'll be happy and make it work."
She hopes.
Kakashi is quiet for a long time but then his lips pull up into a smile that makes her heart squeeze for different reasons than before. "I'm proud of you," he says.
Oh, oh, oh. She never knew words could feel so good to hear.
Nana presses her hand to his face and looks at both of his eyes, the Sharingan staring back at her. The first time she saw it, it creeped her out, gave her chills and made her jumpy. But now, she doesn't mind as much. Just means he trusts her, and shows that she trusts him.
"You wanna help me build that house?" she asks, trying to gauge his mixed expression. Hesitant, uncertain, hopeful, and eager. He nods.
Nana sighs, content as she pulls him closer to her. She wonders what it'll be like to interact with him out of bed, outside an enclosed space. She smiles when she thinks about it.
Then she sleeps, warm in his arms and dreaming.