I do not own Naruto. Beta'd by Petrames, UmbreonGurl, and drowsyivy.
"It's not dying that I fear, but living in death."
— Albert Camus
The first time he sees her, he's fresh from the war. Fresh from the trenches and his own slice of second-rate hell in a munition shell. She's a dancer on the other side of the bar in a red dress and sandals, swaying in time to the beat of the ballad. He would say she's a bit young to be there, but he has seen people die younger than her, so who is he to judge?
The air is covered in that sort of hazy, dim-lit, cigar-smoke tint, the kind of thing that makes you feel in your bones how the clock's creeping close to midnight and the new age jazz musician starts to wind down his songs at the makeshift stage.
He ought to go home.
He ought to go home, but he downs another mouthful of his fifth shot of whiskey, something like lightning cracking at his fingertips and music notes flipping aching violin melodies between his ears, and his gaze pauses on the young dancer next to the musician on the stage.
She's a plain looking girl for all her magnetism, dirt brown hair, black eyes and the red of her lips is painted on pretty, high arching cupid's bow and not much substance behind a flashy exterior.
It's certainly not her face that keeps him looking, no, he's seen plenty of pretty faces — all crumpled, weeping, dead like the gunshot still ringing in his ears — no, it's the fire in her eyes that forces him to take a second glance.
Bar dancers don't tend to...burn like they're about to set the whole place ablaze, like they dare someone to make one comment more about who's going to be in whose bed tonight like —
No, they don't look like she does.
So he gives her a second look. A second look much longer than the first. Long enough that he starts becoming aware of how terrible this makes him feel, even through the haze of electricity buzzing through his veins.
He's not a terrible lecher, even if he likes to read racy novels by his favorite author. It's not his normal scene to actually stare at real people like he's some sort of perverted lecherous old man undressing women with his eyes.
This isn't even attraction really; it's just — he hasn't seen someone burn like her since before the war, when the world was young and hopeful. She burns with such brilliant purpose, like the brightest fire he can't look away from.
He wonders how old she'll be when she finally burns out.
He doesn't want to know.
He's been staring too long. He ought to go home. But where is home really?
He's fresh from the war and staggering around, beaten like the loser in a dogfight. It's how he ended up in a bar of all places. Before the war, he'd never cared for drinking; it made him lose his wits, and he didn't like that.
But now? Now it's good enough for numbing what he feels, the weight on his shoulders, makes it easy for him to drown everything away for a little bit.
Where is home really? He doesn't know.
Does he call his little apartment on Champion's Street home? Is the drafty closed up house where he grew up home? Where is home?
What is a home?
He doesn't know and can't find a person to ask.
He tears his gaze away and takes another sip of his whiskey. It burns on the way down like it's supposed to. Maybe he'll burn away.
Honestly, that doesn't sound half bad.
The last of the patrons stagger out, and the bar closes for the night. She leans over to Old Man Kouga wiping down the bar.
"Who was that?" It's rare to see a whole man around these days, after the war as it is. Only old men and little boys had avoided the draft.
And often, young men her age had gone. Had gone anyway, because that was what the war demanded, and when they came home they were not the same, if they came home at all.
Not that she really thinks the man staring at her dancing for the last fifteen or so minutes before closing time was really the same as he'd been before he left.
He'd been sporting a scar over his left eye, a shock of silver hair close to white, an expression so lost in the light in his dark eyes that it'd struck her, even though she was used to men staring. And when he'd left, even though he'd been stumbling, more than slightly drunk, he still walked like a military man.
And she'd been looking for a military man.
"The last one out?" Old Man Kouga doesn't look up, grunts slightly as he scrubs a beer stain out of the wood.
He hadn't been the last one out, no. "The one with silver hair and a scar." She jerks her chin in the direction of the door. "Been staring at me quite a bit, walked like he was military."
"Oh, him." The bartender doesn't sound impressed. "Washed out boxer, served in the war. Name's Kakashi Hatake, won some medal or other from the Mayor when he got back. He's here often enough."
"Is he." She considers this, turns his name over in her head. Kakashi Hatake, huh. And she'd been looking for a military man. "Wonder if he'd be willing to help a girl out."
Old Man Kouga snaps his dishrag at her. "What're ya lookin at one who lives on the straight and narrow for, Hana?" He frowns, lines creasing deep on his weathered face. "Ain't one o' our boys good enough for ya?"
She sighs. "I ain't looking to go crawlin' into his bed, old man. But there's somethin' I want from the world of straight and narrow. And I'm gonna get it either way."
Yes, there's something she wants from the world she came from. A man she has to kill.
And she's been looking for a military man high ranking enough to be invited to that Gala Ball Mayor Sarutobi was going to hold this Christmas. She's been looking for a man who needs a woman on his arm.
Wonder if Mister Hatake would be willing to help a girl out.
Well, if he's hanging around bars at this time of night, then there's no one important he's going home to. And well, that's perfect for her. He can take her to his fun little soldier's ball, and she'll have just a ball.
"You're still on about that?" Old Man Kouga goes back to scrubbing the countertop. "Didn't anyone tell ya what y'want is crazy? The Boss took ya in cause you're his niece, but ain't like he's gonna put out for ya if y'want to end up in the chair."
"Nah, I know that." She smiles. "Thanks for the heads up, old man."
Sure, the electric chair might sound scary, but she can avoid it. She's got a good head on her shoulders — that's what people always said, "yeah, that girl's got a good head on her shoulders." This is an old debt to settle — old enough that maybe someone else would say it doesn't matter anymore, that it's too dangerous to go this late in the game — but she's always been good at gambling. Sure, there's a risk, but she's coming back from this game, and when she does?
I'm gonna win it all.
"Hey Sis!" Kiba's voice rings out over the establishment. "Are we headin' out?"
"Yeah, give me a minute."
There's her little brother leaning on the door jamb, one half of his face visible under the electric lights, the other washed in the shadow of the night blanketed world outside, a golden crooked smile tugging at his lips.
Yes, she's going to barter something, and she's gonna win it all. For the sake of her baby brother, she's going to win it all.
She shrugs on a brown coat. The patches were done as best she could manage them, but they're visible anyway. She pulls the cuffs of her coat sleeves straight, neat enough despite the poor way it looks.
The left buckle of Kiba's suspenders is a bit tarnished; there's her inexpert patching done on his shirt, which is grease stained from where he'd been raking in some income from patrons at the ritzy hotel some blocks away.
She tweaks his nose, tries to get rid of the grease smudge across one cheek bone though he protests it. This is the life he knows, the one he's grown up in down here in the Pleat.
But that's not what they're owed.
One day, they're going to live better.
One day, they're going to more than a mob girl working as a bar dancer to pay the rent and heat the room and her pickpocket and runner of a brother.
One day, society will know their names, their faces, and know them to be people of worth, of money, of status, like they did when she was younger.
She's going to claw back the life that was stolen from them, and she's going to build it better.
And for that, well, there's a military man who'd stared at her for a good long while tonight she's gonna have to track down.
"Kiba," she says as she loops her arm through her brother's. "Say, will you ask your friends for me about a man named Kakashi Hatake? I hear he's a boxer. Or at least, formerly a boxer." Old Man Kouga hadn't been terribly clear about that point, but she's not too fussy.
"A man?" Kiba squawks. "Whaddya want with a man?"
She laughs, pats his arm. "What," she teases. "Am I not allowed to find myself a man?" She turns twenty this year, and girls younger than her get married all the time.
Not that she's looking to marry this man given she plans to grace his arm for just the night, but Kiba doesn't know what she's planning, and she wants to keep it that way for a little bit.
Her baby brother would worry over her, but she doesn't need that right now. Better for him to worry after she puts a bullet through Councilman Shimura's head.
"No-o," Kiba grumbles, shoving his dirty hands into his pockets. "I don't mean that, but…"
"But?" She asks him.
He kicks a stone down the street, scuffing up yellow dust with his booted feet, and it billows over onto her bare feet as well, frowning and unusually broody. "Why're ya so interested in this man? Ain't like ya ever cared 'bout any sorta man before."
Ain't like she's cared about the opinions of men before.
Well, that's true enough, she supposes. She's never been the type to oggle after pretty boys or rugged wanderers. That sorta thing wasn't ever enough for her.
If she was ever going to take one of the fellows up on their requests to go for a drive, then he better be a stable rock solid man. A drive's not just a drive. It's the sorta thing you stake a lifetime on, so it better be a helluva ride, and she ain't looking to gamble with no washed out flake of a man.
She shrugs. "He looked interesting." She smiles at him, tugs a lock of his hair as they continue down the street deeper into the Pleat. "I just want to know more about him. I didn't say I was gonna jump his bones next week, tiny brother."
"Oi!" he protests, suddenly distracted. "I ain't tiny! I'm taller than ya!"
Sensing a weakness, she pounces. "Tiny brother." At his increasingly mutinous expression, even as they climb the creaky wooden steps up to their apartment. "Tiny, tiny, tiny baby brother."
It's the joy of their days, the way they still love each other, despite everything, they're still together.
That's enough for the day to day.
If there's anything she's proud of, having lived twenty years on the earth, it's her tiny, tiny brother.
He grew up good, she thinks, even though he's only got me to teach him how to be a man, and is all the happier for it.
The next time he leaves the bar, she follows him out in her red dress, sandaled feet, hair done up pin up pretty, lipstick drawn to a perfect arch. She'd gotten paid recently, and that was a heady feeling. She'd buy coal for the apartment soon too so they could turn on the heat, gas for the stove so she could make tea and cook up a storm.
He'd been staring tonight too, even if he'd done his best to hide it. Wasn't as much as last time, but then, he must find something about her interesting, so…
"Hey, Mister," she catches his arm before he can make it too far down the street. "Mind if I walk with you?"
He startles, muscles bunching, a shudder running down his spine.
What sorta man is he? Sure, she's met men who came back from the war before, but they didn't always jump a year after leaving.
"I think you've got the wrong man, Miss…" he trails off, clearly waiting for her last name to continue being polite.
His voice is crisp, speaks like he's educated. Which makes him all the stranger she supposes. Educated men don't often end up in bars in the Pleat.
Kiba's dug up what he could about Mister Kakashi Hatake. He's the only child of a famous middleweight boxing champion, and he'd been in the ring more than once himself, won more than a couple bouts. Something sordid in his past though, Sakumo Hatake had put a bullet through his own skull back when his son was only a boy; some scandal about fixing matches had ended the man.
He'd been drafted by the army early on in the war, sometime in the summer of '17, served on the continent, and risen to the rank of battalion sergeant major by the time the conflict was over in November of '18. That'd been quite the rising star, but after the war he'd come home and then left the service soon after.
What he did now besides spending quite a few of his nights drinking in a bar in a piss poor neighborhood and staring at bar dancers she's not too sure.
Funny how his entire life story could be dug up so easily, but what he's doing now is so hard to find.
"Hana," she chirps. "My name's Hana."
A rather odd look crosses his face but disappears a moment later to be replaced by an empty sort of sereneness best described as nothing. "I believe you're looking for someone else, Miss Hana."
"No, I rather think I'm looking for you." They're still walking down the street together, her arm looped through his.
What a weird reaction he's been having recently. She didn't peg him for the type to be so shy.
His looking hadn't been shy at all. What a funny man he is.
"You're a bit young to be so forward," he says, but he hasn't pulled his arm away.
He could've. She's not holding onto him particularly hard. Yes, she's searching for a military man, but hearing what Kiba and his friends had found about this man? Very, very interesting.
And now that she's actually met him?
He's too interesting an enigma to pass up until she's at least uncovered what he does for a living these days.
She tsks. "That's really rather rude for someone who's been caught staring twice now, Mister Hatake." Besides, I'm twenty, not fourteen, not too young to proposition any fellow I want into giving me a ride.
He's uncomfortable, if the tense wire of his arm is anything to be considered. "You know my name."
"I do," she agrees rather amicably. "But if it's any comfort to you, I'm not really looking for a new ride."
His mouth thins to a cautious line. "What do you mean?"
"I think we can be friends." This is much nicer than she'd planned before, since he doesn't seem like he's remotely the pig she'd rather dreaded. It just means that her plan's going to be a little bit harder but without the added unhappiness of resisting the urge to stab the man who would get her into the Gala with a hatpin or her pocket knife.
He doesn't relax, far from it. "I don't have a good track record with friends, miss."
"Mmmm." She doesn't laugh at him, because there's something rather raw in his voice, something like he knew exactly what was going on but just didn't know how to politely get himself away somewhere so he could have a good cry. "I might as well tell it to you plain, then."
It's not like she doesn't know that his life had loss in it. It wouldn't be the kindest to bait him, even if all she plans to do is to use him as a stepping stone to be able to put a bullet through another man's brain.
She wants to get where she's going, but her mama taught her some manners, and years down here in the Pleat didn't wear them all away like that.
Even if that other man deserves it, it's still taking advantage of someone else to get to where she wants to go.
"You were in the war," she remarks. And I'm searching for a military man. "And you were decorated, which means you'll get an invitation to the Christmas Gala."
"What about it?" He's relaxed just a slight bit now.
"I wanna go." And that's a truth. "I've never been to a gala before." She half laughs. That's a truth, too. Even back when her parents were alive, she'd never been old enough to go to a gala.
"You'll have to find another friend." He finally pulls his arm away. "I don't plan on attending."
He's shaking, tension like a spark of electricity down his spine.
"That's fine." She's met plenty of men, a few who'd come back from the war, but somehow, the way he's made himself extremely small now after this conversation makes her suspect she might not see him alive again, and that's a terrible thing to feel about someone else. "That won't be too hard for me." But you, you're looking bad, Mister.
Worst comes to worst, she'll see if she can find a job washing dishes in the kitchen of the catering service or possibly running as waitstaff inside the party. It didn't have to be a man pulling her in on his arm, even though she'd thought that'd be the easiest way to catch Councilman Shimura's attention.
They say he had a taste for girls who wore red well, even if no one would say what had happened to those girls after the Councilman got tired of them. She didn't intend to let him get tired of her anyway.
The first chance she got when they were alone would see a bullet straight through the Councilman's skull.
"Just, Mister," she doesn't reach out to touch him again. It'd affected him badly the first time, but something about those shaking shoulders makes her badly want to offer him a hug. "I don't want to hear about you in the papers, okay?"
"What."
There's really no polite way to say 'Well, Mister, I think you desperately need to take care of yourself because I strongly suspect that you might have some sort of breakdown later because you had the first human conversation you've had to participate in in weeks,' so she doesn't say that.
Instead all she says is, "Figured you weren't the type of person to wind up in the news in a good way, Mister," and turns to go. "Would hate t'hear that about ya, y'know."
He makes an affronted noise, which she doesn't bother to turn around for because it's not her problem, not anymore.
She makes it some three blocks before she notices the man — possibly just a boy — shadowing her from the side of the alleyways.
She turns down a more dimly lit street, away from the main boulevard and the lighted areas, walks a little bit slower, and slowly in her pocket, opens the switchblade of her pocket knife.
It could be nothing.
But it pays to be careful down here, in the Pleat.
She is after all, a girl walking alone after dark.
He doesn't know why he's let Gai break down the door of his apartment on Champion's Street, yelling all the while about how he needs to get out of the house more and socialize — which he does, though an underground bar is not the sort of place that Gai is thinking of when he says "socialize", and a bar dancer who'd followed him out one evening after he'd been caught staring is not the sort of person Gai would approve of him socializing with.
But then, what does he know? He's only Kakashi Hatake, down on his luck, down on his life, and about to down more hard liquor tonight after the literal hell of Gai talking his ears off and then dragging him off to the old boxing ring he frequented a lot more back in his youth.
Before — well, before a lot, anyway.
"It hasn't been the same without you, old friend." Gai claps him on the back, hand firm and familiar, the bandages over his bruised and probably bloody knuckles familiar as well.
Gai has always had too much enthusiasm and energy, and luck too, since he'd avoided the draft that hauled so many young men off to die.
But then, maybe if he didn't enlist he'd also have avoided the draft too, not that anyone knew he wasn't drafted, because that's between him and the government.
Then, maybe he's also lucky, in a Devil's luck sort of way. Just lucky enough to keep on living despite everyone around him dying, though they had less to answer for with their petty crimes.
And here he is, never blameless, always sinning, and yet still breathing when —
When better men than he are buried in shallow graves.
"I can't imagine that being true." A generation of young men gone, and now he can't even look the Senator who'd taken him in as a charity case in the eye or ever work up the nerve to accept his wife's invitations to visit.
There's nothing to visit, and nothing for him, but Gai drags him along down the side of the street, and he's barely conscious of his feet walking, taking the right turns out of muscle memory straight into the old boxing den with it's beaten up sandbags in the back, and the arena and ring out front.
The ghost of his father lingers here, thick and cloying, as though asking for forgiveness, a man with white hair and dark, sorrowful eyes, blood and brain splattered all over the bathroom floor, suicide note on the kitchen table—
And suddenly, he has to get some air.
Outside, there's a swarming throng of people, mostly working class in the steelworks factory by the river, where slowly they're all switching back to making things like pots and pans instead of supporting the war effort, men in denim pants and women in checked or polka dotted rayon dresses.
"Getcha numbers in! Getcha numbers in! Numbers in!" A young boy in a grease stained shirt and flared suspenders waved a thin hand above the crowd, a brown felted newsboy hat slouched fashionably over his head. "Last call for numbers, get 'em in!"
That's — that's illegal.
Incredulously, as he watches, the boy, oddly familiar looking even if he can't quite place the face, takes down all the numbers and names people are shouting at him with a piece of charcoal on the back of a small pad of papers, shoving each into a bag. Money is trading hands right before his eyes, and doing it faster than an oil man could dream of raking it in.
The infamous numbers racket.
He wasn't aware that the Inuzuka Mob was quite so open and flagrant about their dealings now in this day and age. They hadn't been in the time before the war - at least, he doesn't think so.
The throng starts dispersing as he gets further out of the front, spooked by the appearance of a stranger who walked with a military gait. He can't help it; after his stint in the service and the years of walking like a boxing middleweight champion, even if he still attempts to manage a slouch, it doesn't fit right.
The boy, however, he ambles after, in a fashion.
He's still familiar. Something about the face and the shoulders, suspenders and scuffed cap toed Oxfords.
Might've passed for a newsboy, if Kakashi didn't literally see him run a numbers racket right in front of a boxing den.
"Are you insane?" he drawls, sticking his hands in his pockets, still trailing after the boy. "Don't you know that those policemen in shiny blue uniforms could haul you off and stick you in some nice dank jail cell for that little gig there?"
"Why, Mister Hatake," The boy — no, not a boy — remarks with an amused clear, slightly more educated lower city accent. "For sure, I didn't think to meet ya here, all worried about my state of health."
Bar dancer — Miss Hana looks back at him, lightning mischief in her eyes. "But I sure am glad, Mister, that you don't just spend your time staring at dancers whilst downing shots of whiskey til the early hours of the morn."
"What," he asks, suddenly feeling as though he just got cuffed round the jaw by who he knows is a woman out in a button down, newsboy hat, suspenders and Oxfords like some sort of teenage boy, "do you think you're doing down here?"
Lower city's no place for a young woman wandering around running a number's racket of all things.
"Why," she drawls, looping her arm through his and dragging him into an alleyway just as a police officer marches on by down the street, "it's a hustle, baby doll. Ain't ya heard of a numbers game before?"
"What the hell?" He doesn't normally swear, unless it's in the privacy of his own mind, but the woman walking with him has all but admitted that she's part of the Inuzuka Mob, so he thinks he can be spared the plea to wash out his mouth with lye.
How on earth had he ended up in a bar run by the mob? And did he really lose all of his mental bearings as to not notice that he ended up in a bar run by the mob and had been frequenting it for literally months on end now?
"No, no, Mister, we're still in Konoha. Though sometimes it might be counted as the same sorta place, y'know."
And for that, he truly has no words, falling uneasily silent even as she takes him through a further series of streets, a thin hand still on his arm.
They've walked on for quite some blocks now, out of the lower city and into a much nicer neighborhood, though still nowhere near the posh, elite houses of the truly upper crust. Down a busy street, where by the curbside some fast freewheeling Ford Model T Sedan cruises through with its high wheels straight through the puddles from the thunderstorm last night, throwing up muddy water, which hits Miss Hana's pant leg.
She flips her middle finger up, shouting after the screeching car. "Hey what's ya problem mista. Ya goin' in a real big hurry for a four-flusher."
He has the sudden urge to drag her out of the street, though she seems like she's plenty capable of taking care of herself, street rat and proud of it.
But then, people are staring, and normally he can get away with not really being looked at at all, despite the shiny red scar tissue over his eye from where he met a bayonet blade to the face and just barely escaped with his life.
"Sorry 'bout that, Mister." She has the grace to look abashed, though not by much, seemingly more about offending his delicate sensibilities than any sort of shame over her own actions. "They don't care 'bout people like us, so I gotta holler after them when they do this kind of disgusting dreck." She waves her free hand at her muddied suspenders. "Not 'cause I think they'll listen to me, but 'cause it makes me feel better, ya know."
"Well, at least that's very honest of you." He doesn't mean to say this, but like being drunk on whiskey makes him too giggly for words sometimes, talking to Miss Hana makes his tongue lose its sense of foreign dignity.
She laughs at this, a sharp barking sound. "And are you an honest man, Mister Hatake?"
His brain stalls at this. Like the engine of a beat up car, it doesn't properly restart.
She's been running the numbers game down by the old boxing arena on Canal Street up by the riverfront when she comes across Mister Kakashi Hatake again.
Honest to God, she hasn't been looking for him at all, especially since he didn't come back to the bar at all, which she knows is because she scared him off.
Old Man Kouga had snapped his dishrag at her again for that, grumbling about her being too forward and losing him a good paying customer at that, which makes her fear that Mister Hatake, formally decorated war vet, has been blowing his military pay on shots of whiskey and badly deviled eggs.
The whiskey at Old Man Kouga's bar was good, but the cooking skills could hardly hope to match up.
Still that has nothing on the fear that he might've ended up in the river after their last talk, so she'd asked around about his old haunts and chosen to volunteer herself to run the new stop on the numbers game by the boxing den in the afternoons before her shift at the bar.
That he'd actually turned up looking not particularly worse for wear some time after she started running that stop on the circuit though, that is a particular blessing.
She'd have even accepted catching a glimpse of him alive before getting on with her life, satisfied it wasn't her that pushed him off the ledge he was swaying on, but then he'd followed after her.
And now that, that's insistence from his own self, isn't it?
So she makes conversation with him, walking along the street, chattering on about the weather and what little she's seen of the boxing matches inside when she's been able to sneak in for a quick glimpse.
"What," he asks quite suddenly, "do you really want me for, Miss Hana?"
She thinks about it and finds that she's not entirely altogether sure. Yes, for sure she would like him to take her to his fancy soldier's ball so she can settle her business with Councilman Shimura.
That hatchet's been buried for ten years now, and it's not going to stay buried for too much longer.
She'd like it if he'd take her to the ball, but concern about his welfare isn't to do with any ball.
"Hmmm," she says, still thinking it over as they turn onto the same street the hospital's on. "Well, I sure wouldn't mind if you were a doll and took me up to that ball of yours, Mister."
He glances at her, sidelong and quick as if trying to take her measure. (Pity, she'd tell him not to, he's got no practice talking to girls like her.) "That all you want from me?"
"Can you think of something else I'd want from you, Mister?" Her voice is spun sugar, sweet and absolutely not filling. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
He looks agog.
Perhaps she shouldn't tease him so, prodding at how gun shy he is in the face of half an ounce of interest, but even despite the scar on his face, he's not a half bad looking man, and he's whole enough on his surface, so surely, a little prodding wouldn't hurt to prep him for the future where all the rich young heiresses hang out the windows of their cars for him.
"Are you always like this?"
But now they've arrived at the hospital, standing right on the steps in fact, and she looks up at him and winks. "Oh, only because you're such a doll, Mister."
He splutters, and she pulls him inside pretty easily, down to the waiting area for Doctor Haruno's office. Pulling off her cap, she quickly smooths down and braids her hair, tying it with a bit of ribbon she pulls from the inside of her suspenders pockets.
Best look nice for the folk of straight and narrow; she's here with a request from Uncle Kegawa after all, and the Boss's niece she might be, but it sure never is a good thing to get stuck in a jailhouse somewhere waiting for a breakout or bail.
There's a young man about her age in the waiting room, half asleep in an armchair, that Mister Hatake stiffens at when he notices.
She observes him, but really he doesn't look like much despite being dressed upper crust. Long dark lashes and long dark hair frames an angular face and pretty bow lips, a sharp chin and a bit of sharpness that says he hasn't managed to eat away at the starvation from the war completely, but otherwise whole, otherwise nondescript.
Which makes Mister Hatake trying to stand in front of her, hiding her from view that makes this all the more interesting.
"Sergeant Major Hatake, sir." The young man says. "I didn't know you also came to visit Doctor Haruno."
"Fancy meeting you here, Corporal Uchiha." Mister Hatake swallows, hard, Adam's apple bobbing, his arm a steely thing, muscles bunched tight in his shoulders. "Hope there's nothing too much the matter."
Uchiha. The police chief is Fugaku Uchiha, but this young man is her age, and therefore likely… "Mister Itachi Uchiha, a pleasure to meet you."
The police chief's eldest son. No wonder Mister Hatake's already gotten nervous.
He'd opened their conversation today with talk of the police and what they might do if they caught her red handed, and here they all are, the three of them, stuck in a tiny little room together — a mob girl, a tired war vet, and the police chief's eldest son.
"Miss…" Itachi Uchiha trails off, waiting for her to supply a name.
"Hana," she chirps, bright and blinding, suddenly glad that by some quirk of fortune, Mister Hatake's here to be her cover story on the matter. "I'm here with Kakashi, for moral support you know."
A corner of Itachi's mouth quirks up, even as Mister Hatake's arm muscles tighten another fraction of a degree. Any tighter and they'll all hear his bones creak and start to snap.
"Ah, forgive me for prying then, sir." He tilts his head to one side and puts his magazine aside, The Evening Saturday Post sliding carefully onto a stack of home and homemaking magazines, glossy pages neat and even. "And I hope you'll extend me the same sort of courtesy?"
A vein jumps on Mister Hatake's jaw. "My pleasure, Corporal."
The door of Doctor Haruno's office opens, a middle aged woman stepping out with a scandalous gasp at the two young men, one well dressed, the other not so much, and the young woman with a braid and in suspenders in a room alone before Hana casually chirps a "C'mon, doll, don't be so nervous about seeing the doctor!" before leaning up and pressing the lightest of feather kisses to the lower part of Mister Hatake's face.
He really needs to play into things a little bit more instead of standing like a block of wood, petrified into stillness, but then, if she wanted someone to banter back and forth with, she should've brought Shin or Gaku instead of this hollow, brittle man.
Itachi Uchiha rises, murmurs some apology for "this is the time of my appointment," and then the doctor's door clicks shut, and she and Kakashi Hatake are alone once more.
Or, as alone as one can be when the walls are thinner than cardboard.
She heads into the doctor's office alone after Itachi Uchiha stumbles out of the room, face a little paler than it had been when he went in, but otherwise still grimly determined one way or another.
She doesn't spare too much thought for Mister Itachi Uchiha though; far as she's aware, and as far as she's hoping, they'll never have to meet again for anything.
Still, she wonders what business Mister Hatake has with him, and what sorta hatchets they were burying to keep that thin veneer of chilly civility.
"Miss?" Doctor Haruno blinks at her from across his desk, green eyes watery behind his round tortoiseshell eyeglasses. "You said you weren't here for an appointment?"
"Oh," she drawls, unbuttoning the side pocket of her suspenders. "No, I'm not here for any appointment." She extends a hand across the table in his direction. "Hana Inuzuka, Doctor. I think we could strike a bit of a deal?"
Akira Haruno's brows draw together. "I assume you're speaking on behalf of the boss?"
She can see his thoughts tumble through his head. What could an upstanding doctor, a good, god-fearing man have that could interest the King of Wolves to make a deal?
She smiles, "Maybe so." Reaching into her side pocket, she pulls out a stack of hundreds, thick as her thumb. "Or maybe not."
Doctor Haruno shifts uneasily in his seat. "Miss Inuzuka—"
"Ah, ah," she puts the money on the table and holds up her hands. "Hear me out, this isn't asking you to do anything against your morals."
For about a half a minute, silence falls. She counts thirty seconds with the ticking of the desk clock, and when Doctor Haruno says nothing more.
"Well, I'm speaking on my own behalf here, but I'd like to make a donation."
"A donation?" The doctor folds his hands together, sets them on his desk.
And that's a sign of interest if she's ever seen one, so she knows she's baited the hook properly this time. "So," she begins again, voice softer this time. "You'll hear the deal?"
He sits on his bed in the apartment on Champion's Street, his head in his hands, and he can barely afford the effort of thinking back on the day that had just passed, the burn of her lips against his lower cheek even though it'd meant nothing, just a girl using him as a convenient excuse to flirt, especially since she's probably sensed that he's hollow on the inside, easy as a mechanical toy to wind up.
But that moment had been a weird moment of warmth anyway, when her lust for life had brushed against his hollow self and he had so briefly hungered — hungered for what he isn't certain a mix of too much and too little all at once, but the bright polish of youth for certain still beckoned at him.
How long he sits there for he can't even begin to guess, and slowly, slowly exhales into his hands.
Maybe all he hungered for in that moment was the illusion of being loved and cared for.
Say, Mister, ya take care of yourself, alright? I'll see ya 'round.
And his cheek burns.
With a slow, slow sigh, he picks his head up out of his hands, stares across the room at the wastebasket where he'd tipped that invitation to the city's Christmas Gala, something about honoring the veterans, something about the bravery of the dead who died in war, fighting gallantly for freedom and the glory of the dear old state.
It'd been edged with gold leaf print, asking for "The Distinguished War Veteran's Attendance" in a "Gathering to Celebrate the Bravery of Our Boys" and for a brief moment when he'd been looking at it, he'd been breathing gunpowder and smoke, seen the green fields of France again, poppies on gravestones, and choked on his own spit.
So it'd gone into the wastepaper basket.
But now?
Now…
I've never been to a gala before…
His head drops back into his hands.
Like a beaten dog without a home, the wistful note of longing in a girl's voice is enough to pull at the hollow cage of his chest.
Who do you think you are, eh, Kakashi?
What do you think you're doing? Looking for someone to warm your bed at night?
After everything that's happened?
He squeezes his eyes shut, but that does nothing for the noise, the voices, the screams, the sickening drop of his stomach, the clench of his jaw, gunshots and poppies.
You should go, Rin whispers, kinder than she ought to have been, given what he's done. You've been sad for so long, Kakashi.
His fingers itch for a shot of whiskey, but he has no desire to meet the bar dancer and also no desire to visit another bar.
Gunshots and poppies.
Slowly, he climbs to his feet and staggers to the waste basket.
With shaking fingers, he plucks the invitation out of the other trash — letters from the senator he hasn't been able to answer, old bills, receipts, paper flowers, some drafts of correspondence he'd started writing and couldn't be bothered to finish, all tipped off of his desk in a terrible dreary haze one night as he pondered the loaded pistol sitting innocently on his nightstand.
The gilded gold borders really were a terrible touch, glinting as they did in the flickering brightness of the electric light. He'd have to make a remark about that to Mayor Sarutobi when he finally gets around to going to that meeting. Something along the lines of "say, all that gold's a bit too much of a glitzy touch for us devil dogs, innit?"
Picking up a grubby piece of charcoal from the desk, he scrawls a quick four word message on the back of the card — will come, plus one — and tosses it back to the other corner.
Tomorrow morning, he'll drag himself to the post office to mail it.
But for now, his throat itches for a shot of whiskey.
A.N. This story has officially been driving me crazy. So here's the first chapter of the prequel to Lost on You, describing Hana's life from street rat to mob boss (and some Kakashi POV, because I love the Hot Broken Teacher). Chapter Two's got about a thousand words, so hopefully I'll see y'all soon for another chapter of this.
As always, thank you so much to everyone for reading, and for the discord crowd being willing to cheer me on through all the weird ideas my brain decides to cough up.
Stay safe out there, folks. Til next time!
~Tavina (Leaf)