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The Konoha Police Force is located close to the Uchiha compound. It is lit by pale, blue-white tube lights that sometimes flicker. Shisui lets the door clang shut behind him and pulls up his sleeve to check the time on his watch.

7.33 PM

Can I wait four hours to go see Michiko? Probably not.

With his messenger bag over his shoulder, he begins his long walk towards the Sarutobi estate.

Passing under the streetlights, he feels an uncomfortable furling in the base of his stomach. Tsunade's words surface:

'You might elicit a traumatic reaction if her attacker truly is an Uchiha.'

He has never seen a look as murderous as the one Sarutobi Hiruzen gives him, although it dissipated quickly, replaced by a soft sigh and an invitation to their home:

'Nevertheless, she has been asking about you so much it's becoming annoying. Come and visit, when you can.'

Hopeful, a little excited and also scared, Shisui picks up the pace until he can no longer maintain what he likes to call 'regular old man walking speed'.

With an unheard, unseen flurry of wind and dust, he disappears.

Half-awake, a fuzzy warmth envelopes Michiko as she lays in bed.

In the far corner of her room, a small dim lamp is casting golden light and dark shadows across the silent space. Her curtains are still open and the blinking lights of Konoha reflect in the large window-panes of her bedroom.

Now, more disoriented than ever, Michiko wonders why she never thought to get a clock for this room.

Have hours passed?

She does not know.

She cannot stop thinking about Shisui, so she sits up in her bed and tries to recall her first day at the Academy. Now, there is a very itchy kind of restlessness that comes with being unable to recall anything. Faced with vague and bleary memories, Michiko throws the blanket off of her and forces herself to sit up.

Frustrated and unsettled, her hands and fingers begin to quiver as she presses her hands to her temples.

What is wrong with me?

Now on her feet, she walks very unsteadily to the large window and rests her forehead against the cold glass.

Michiko squints her eyes, trying to guess the hour.

It really is the middle of the night huh?

Staring sullenly, her eyelids begin to feel heavy again. She trudges back to her bed, crouching to pick her blanket off the floor. She dumps it back on the crumbled bedsheet and begins to fluff up the pillows and smooth the creases, a habit she picked up from Biwako many years ago.

Just then she hears an almost imperceptible 'tap…tap…tap'

She looks up and her eyes land on her dim reflection in the window.

Suddenly, a face is pressed against the glass, lips and nose squashed.

Shisui.

Michiko is startled but not unpleasantly. Her heart, however, begins to hammer and the shaking of her limbs worsens.

Patiently, Shisui watches her slowly approach the window. He is more than happy that she is finally awake, but now his thoughts are coloured with concern and alarm.

She looks lost.

It takes her three minutes to go back to the window and pull it open.

"Shisui-kun." She greets, as normally as possible. With his legs inside, resting on the sill of her window, Shisui reaches forward and taps the centre of her forehead with two fingers.

"You sure are trouble, Ko-chan."

There is a millisecond between them where Michiko feels like she wants to scream at him and cry, but the thought slips from her mind and she forgets how she feels. Managing to grip her thoughts again she turns her attention to his now sombre face and beholds the pain in his eyes.

The look she gives him makes him spring onto his feet, now fully inside her bedroom.

With him finally within reach of her arms, she folds herself against him, face buried into his t-shirt, arms wrapped tightly around him, skin hot from the contact. Blood rushes to her head, and she feels heavy, dizzy and vulnerable.

His soothing voice follows her quickly, "You're home. You're safe, Michiko."

He presses his lips to the top of her head, then her forehead. Holding her tightly for another few minutes, he moves his palms to bring her face towards his. From this close he can see that her pupils have not dilated enough for the dimness of this room. He has seen these symptoms before.

And here I was hoping…it wasn't what they were saying….

He runs his calloused fingers across her forehead, over her eyebrows, down her temples, to her cheeks and then her mouth; he thumbs her lips just as she reaches up to press them to his own.

If she was worried about time, now she no longer is.

Michiko pushes herself up onto her toes, Shisui gladly hoisting her up. She wants to kiss him, but a sudden discomfort rises in her shoulder blade and she gasps from the pain.

'Did I dislocate it?'

"Are you okay?" Concerned, Shisui puts her down and gently takes her elbow. He recalls now, that her shoulder blade was in pieces.

"I think I dislocated my shoulder…" She rolls it and the soreness suggests that she has indeed. Licking her lips, she tries to recall how she might have popped it out of it's socket and-

Nothing.

"I can't remember what happened!" The shrillness of her loud voice startles Shisui and he raises his eyebrows.

"It's alright. We can try to remember together. Come on, sit."

He takes her elbow and leads her back to her bed.

Michiko tries really hard to remember how she hurt herself. She sees the Uchiha compound, she remembers her desperation to find her loved ones and then- nothing. Her mind feels covered by a million tiny cobwebs and she shakes her head, hair tossing around her face.

"Ugh. What the fuck."

"It's okay Michiko, Tsunade-sama said it would be a little difficult. Here." Shisui hands her a glass of water, and it takes all of Michiko's self-restraint to not chuck it across the room.

She takes a sip, and follows it with a deep breath, "Where were you?"

"What?" Shisui is removing his messenger bag and untying his forehead protector when she asks this, leaving the metal hanging from his hand.

"I woke up yesterday, and you weren't in Konoha."

"I…" Trailing off, Shisui narrows his eyes and furrows his brow, a typical expression for when he is trying to correct someone. "I was in Konoha. You woke up yesterday?"

Michiko is pouting slightly, looking sullen, "You didn't know?"

"No, I didn't. I would have come the second I knew." Shisui takes one step towards the bed, covering the distance with his long legs, and crouches in front of her resting form, his hands on her knees and his head placed in her lap. He buries his face into her and takes a deep breath, "All I've wanted is to find you Michiko. I was waiting for you to wake up."

Mildly blurred vision and the sting of a tear, Michiko fists his soft hair in her hands and kisses his head. He looks up at her, his eyes look bleary, and the two chuckle gently.

"You're a cry-baby." Michiko says, her voice breaking slightly as she continues to tear up. Shisui grins, wipes her cheeks with his thumbs and pretends to sob.

"That I am. A big ol' cry baby."

Michiko giggles, and the sound is so welcome that Hiruzen, who has been lurking dangerously at the door, changes his mind and recedes back to his home-office, leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

If Shisui wants to stay for dinner, he can.

When their foreheads bump, Shisui's grin widens and Michiko's retreats shyly. Closing their eyes, they kiss softly, then earnestly.

Then urgently.

Crawling up her bed, Michiko pulls Shisui onto his feet and then onto the bed with her, he hovers over her, kissing her and nipping her jaw until she rolls them over and sits on his belly.

"Woah, woah. Slow down, warrior girl." He says, his voice huskier than usual.

"No." Flat, imperceptible and absolutely perplexing to Shisui, Michiko continues to kiss him.

'I have never seen this side of her before.'

It is exciting, but also concerning.

After a few moments of letting her have her way, Shisui flips back, laying Michiko gently against the mattress and restraining her legs with his own.

"Are you okay, saru?"

"Yes. I wanted to kiss you, that's all." She answers calmly. The fervour is gone, but their lips are flushed and pinging from the rough housing.

With his wide, thick-rimmed eyes, Shisui examines Michiko's face. He pecks her cheek, and her chin and then presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes.

"I'm glad to see you again." He says. Before he can say anything else, Michiko wraps her arms around his neck and presses her face into the nook. Her cheeks feel flushed.

"Michiko, who told you I was away on a mission?"

Silence lapses between them, and Shisui thinks she has fallen asleep- but Michiko is wide awake, and her mind is turning over her thoughts.

"You didn't come to see me, so I assumed." She says. It is a smooth lie, one that Shisui detects but let's go of- he guesses that she might be covering up for her uncle, something he can forgive.

"I don't even know what time it is anymore. Everything is so weird. I'm so tired all the time."

"Yeah, you went through quiet the ordeal, Ko." Shisui moves to lie on his back, effortlessly pulling Michiko over him so that she is resting on his chest, their legs still tangled. Tired and slightly incoherent, his girlfriend continues to spiel yesterday's events; "I went to the graveyard on my own, and I completely collapsed."

"You did?" Shisui raises his head to look at her briefly, then drops it back onto the pillow and threads his fingers through her hair, "I'm sorry about Biwako-sama."

Michiko is silent, and the sadness swells between them.

"I wasn't here. I should have been." She sobs, and his t-shirt is wet with tears. Shisui can only comfort her, rubbing small circles in the space between her shoulder blades. In the quiet of the room, and amidst her soft shaking, their stomachs growl in unison.

Life carries on.