I do not own Naruto. This story is dedicated to the 500th reviewer of Bloodless, Shion Lee, who requested something about Fugaku. I hope you like it!
"Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be when you grow up."
-Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
1. Purple Hyacinths. (Apologies)
"I asked Itachi to invite his team over for dinner." Mikoto comments as she sits stitching a few tears on his clothing. Her head rests between his shoulder blades, a steady comforting weight.
Fugaku doesn't look up. Instead he fills out line seventeen of the tax form with a number for personal income and nods. "Now if only they'd actually come to dinner." He comments mildly. They did not last time, despite our best hopes.
Mikoto sighs. "Is it so bad that I want him to make some friends?"
"It might be better to allow that some things are true, and that hope will not change them." He counters, and fills out line 18, which accounts for property damage within the past year.
Mikoto opens her mouth to respond, but they both hear the soft sound of the front door sliding open, and their conversation ceases.
Fugaku continues to fill out his tax forms, and Mikoto smooths her sewing over her lap. They might have ideas about what the truth really is, but there is no need to burden their son.
"I invited Hana and Tokuma-kun over for dinner." Itachi reports as he steps over the doorway.
Mikoto turns to him with a smile of anticipation. "And they said that they were coming?"
Mikoto. Fugaku thinks half exasperatedly as he sets form 8B of the tax records down. If they were not coming, would our son be so excited? Itachi is fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve, a habit that he'd long grown out of, but it's back again for this occasion.
"It's just Hana." Itachi murmurs as he troops over toward the hallway. "Tokuma-kun said that he didn't want to come."
"And your sensei?" Fugaku hasn't met Nara Ensui much over the years, and the last time the man had been anywhere near his home, he'd an urgent case to take care of down at the station, so he'd hardly bothered to do much more than nod.
Itachi pauses at the doorway. "I didn't invite Sensei, Tou-san." A slight frown works its way onto his eldest son's face. "Sensei doesn't go out much."
Fugaku nods, but inside he is burning. So two-thirds of the people you spend your days with have no desire whatever to spend time with us.
It figures that the only one to say that they are coming is the Inuzuka. His thoughts turn sharply back to Kouga, to Kouga who laughed too loudly and chewed with his mouth open and scandalized Otou-san the one and only time that he'd been invited over. Probably here for the free food.
He ignores the thought that Kouga had always then snuck back into the district on the days that Otou-san worked down at the station, and dragged him out for yakisoba and mochi.
They are both buried now. Kouga and Otou-san.
He does not think much more of the matter.
It's not dinner time yet, but the sun is still sinking towards the horizon, and there's been no teammates incoming.
Itachi looks slightly despondent as he makes his way to the dinner table. "Hana said that she was coming."
Fugaku does not want to think that rumors of their hospitality have gotten so poor that his son's teammate would say that they were coming, but not actually show up. It's below an Inuzuka's point of pride to lie. Kosshi had said once, tossing her wild hair over her shoulder with a careless shrug.
But is that an Inuzuka's code, or is it just your own, Kosshi? She doesn't respond. Fugaku reminds himself carefully, as if testing the waters to see if the wounds still cut, that she won't ever be responding ever again.
It still hurts.
"I'm sure she is." Mikoto smooths down Itachi's hair, and makes her way towards the kitchen, but then pauses, stops and comes back and sits down.
The door slides open, and two sets of footsteps make their way down the hall. Mikoto rises and opens the door to the study.
A small girl with surprisingly neat dark hair steps through the door, holding a pot. "My cousin wanted me to bring a peace-offering, Mikoto-san." And it is strange. Strange to see an Inuzuka without at least one large dog trailing behind.
Mikoto smiles, but it's clear that she doesn't know how to react. She raises an eyebrow in his direction. Anata? Is this an Inuzuka girl? "Oh that's perfectly alright, Hana-chan. Did your sensei and other teammate come with you?"
She laughs, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve, and Fugaku is strongly reminded of his own son's actions earlier. So her habits have been rubbing off on Itachi. "Actually...Sensei never comes to these things and Toku said he had something to do at home today..."
She's deflecting, which is surprisingly not like an Inuzuka. Itachi had said that their teammate did not want to come, which is not the same thing as 'having something to do at home.'
"So the Hyuga doesn't want to visit us because we're so beneath him?" He steps out from behind the door frame, and she freezes, a fake smile on her lips.
She attempts to arrange it into something less awkward, but she's not old enough to have mastered every facial expression. It still looks fake. "Actually, Uchiha-san, Hyuga Tokuma is probably the least arrogant member of his clan that I know. He can't make it today because he doesn't feel that he'd be welcome wandering around the Uchiha District as an inheritor of the Byakugan."
Her tone is calm, clipped, and it sounds nothing like any Inuzuka would ever say, but it reminds him of someone, and he has no idea who it would be, because the girl, now that she's straightened, looks vaguely like a younger version of Kosshi.
He tilts his head, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the door. "Who are you?"
She bows the bare minimum angle to pass as polite. "Inuzuka Hana, Uchiha-san. The first time we met you said I took after my father." And now suddenly he can place her. The little girl he'd met at Tsume's house, the blond-haired man who Tsume had nearly lost her clan membership over.
Iwa no Kaito had always faded into the background unless Tsume was there to pull him into the light. He'd been polite, but never overtly friendly.
Fugaku had never liked him. There was something about the late Iwa no Kaito that always rubbed him in all the wrong directions.
And now this is his daughter, his daughter who'd been the talk of the jonin break room a few months back for her extraordinary viciousness. "So you're the girl who ripped out her opponent's throat in the Chunin Exams."
"Ah, well, that's what Sensei and the boys told me afterwards...I don't really know." She stops attempting to make her smile even passingly genuine. And again, she's back to deflection, back to mincing words instead of stating straight out, what she wants.
And that's always what Iwa no Kaito had done that'd bothered him to distraction. Every question was answered with deflection.
"Oh, come, Anata you mustn't scare Hana-chan." Mikoto sets a hand on his arm and guides him toward the dining room. "Itachi-kun's waiting, Shisui-kun. He wants to spar after dinner today."
He feels almost disappointed, which is unreasonable of him, but the ghosts in the room weigh heavy, and this little girl does not live up to the legacy that he'd expected.
"Did you have a favorite subject at the Academy, Hana-chan?" He's left Mikoto to carry the conversation, which she does effortlessly as always, but the discussion will be there later.
The girl picks up a rice ball with her chopsticks, and pauses to answer before eating. "I was always fond of history." That she has table manners, and used them, must also be a reminder of Iwa no Kaito.
"And did you have a favorite dessert?" Mikoto's doing her best, but his own disapproval is heavy in the air tonight. Itachi and Shisui merely cast glances at each other and do not speak. Sasuke down closer to the end of the table mashes his rice together in an embarrassing amalgamation, but today, Fugaku lets it be instead of helping him.
He doesn't feel like much of anything today.
"I'm very fond of mochi." She smiles, dimples flashing. "Itachi-kun is fond of dango, so we eat that more often when we're out." And even when she smiles, it's small and hardly like anything Kosshi would have done at all.
"I see." Mikoto smiles back at her. "And if you had to pick one person in the world that you love best, who would it be?"
Inuzuka Hana tilts her head to the side, and considers it carefully. "My otouto, Kiba." She says at last. "Kiba is my sun and sky, and I love him best."
And he's caught in the grip of memory.
So Kosshi-chan, who do you love best? She pauses for a moment, and considers it more seriously that he's ever seen her do.
My imouto, Tsume. I love her best.
There's something else that Mikoto has said, and Inuzuka Hana has answered, but he does not catch it.
"So, Hana-chan, what is your other teammate like?" Mikoto asks and they've seemingly come back to the realm of teammates again.
She pauses, and sets her chopsticks over her bowl, a larger, wider smile on her face, and a fond light in her eyes as she answers. "Well, Sensei's a not so typical Nara who likes to drink tea and moan about doing actual work while doing work." She taps her fingers against the table top restlessly as she continues. "Toku's a corrupted Hyuga who laughs has bad posture and makes really bad jokes, and Mu-kun is easily embarrassed and is really fond of over analyzing situations...And Itachi-kun's very kind."
She considers the Aburame boy her teammate still.
"So you still consider the Aburame boy a teammate?"
She doesn't turn to look at him when she replies, but there's a sharp edge of steel in her tone."He'll be my teammate until the day I die. I offer that same benefit to your son, Uchiha-san."
"Oh don't mind him, Hana-chan." Mikoto laughs airily and offers her more rice. "Fugaku's bad at speaking to children."
And now she turns to look at him, her dark eyes unblinking for a long moment, as if she wants to look into his soul. "You asked me earlier if I ripped someone's throat out during the Chunin Exams, Uchiha-san." And maybe this is how she is still Inuzuka, the steel in her spine never wavers even as she sets her shaking hands under the table. "I do that to people who threaten my teammates. Your son is in safe hands."
I'll protect my pack until the day I die, 'Gaku. My sister isn't ever going to walk alone.
And then Sasuke, who must have gotten bored with the conversation breaks his reverie.
Rice flies across the table towards Inuzuka Hana, and she leans forward reflexively, catching it with her teeth. Sasuke shrieks with laughter. "Again! Again!"
Fugaku blinks. Did she just-
"Sasuke! Apologize to Hana-chan right now." Mikoto sounds mortified. "I'm so sorry Hana-chan. Sasuke is normally so well-behaved..."
And suddenly their guest breaks out into a fit of giggles. "No, it's alright. Kiba-chan and I play this game a lot during dinner." So she was not normally a polite girl at the dinner table.
He'd misjudged her. Remember my sun and stars, people act differently in different situations.
Nevertheless, Sasuke should remember to act appropriately at the dinner table, no matter what sorts of games Tsume's younger child played with his sister. "Sasuke. Apologize to Inuzuka-chan."
Sasuke's eyes fill with shocked tears. "Otou-san..." It's the precursor of a temper tantrum, and there will be no stopping him now for hours. He'd been too harsh.
Inuzuka Hana gets up and walks around the table to pick Sasuke up in her arms. "No it's okay, Sasuke-chan. I don't mind, but..." And then she leans in to mock whisper in his ear. "Maybe we should only play this game when your Otou-san isn't looking?"
And Sasuke stops. Just, stops looking as though he's about to cry, and giggles instead.
I've misjudged. He thinks. She is still very much an Inuzuka.
Later that night, after Inuzuka Hana has left the district following a tan dog, and the boys had gone inside to read or back to bed, he and Mikoto sit out on the porch, her head on his shoulder.
"She's good for Itachi." Mikoto whispers, lacing her fingers with his. "I want to call her daughter, Fugaku, and you will not get in my way."
"She will be an heiress." He counters gently. "No matter how the Inuzuka want to spin it at the moment, she is Tsume's daughter, so she will be their heiress." My natural romantic, this is not the time for your matchmaking. "The Inuzuka will not consent to give her to Itachi."
Mikoto pulls back. "She is the only girl who Itachi cares much for at all." She wants him to offer a bid anyway.
"Itachi is much too young to be considering such things." He responds, and he hopes that they can leave it at that. He might have misjudged Inuzuka Hana, but there is no reason for him to tie Itachi to her forever simply because of Mikoto's current whim.
"You and I were arranged long before that." Mikoto observes, watching as more and more stars dusted the sky.
"We were meant." Unspoken goes the thought that the Inuzuka could be stubborn when they want to be, and that Tsume's own thoughts on love and marriage have nothing to do with arrangement.
And then their peace and quiet is broken by the garden gate slamming against the stone wall. Tsume clatters into their yard, arms crossed over her chest, Kuromaru snapping at her heels, lightning in her dark eyes.
She's before him in half an instant. "Where is my daughter, Fugaku?" She hisses through clenched teeth. Her fangs glint sharply in the fading light.
"Your daughter left." He responds. "She has not yet returned."
Her lips pull tight across her teeth. The snarl on her lips makes her look half feral, and from beside her, Kuromaru growls angrily. "If I find one hair on her head injured, I'll raze this place to the ground."
"Tsume-chan." Mikoto begins, "We really don't know-"
Fugaku interrupts. "It is not my job to know where your daughter went, Tsume."
The hunting smile Tsume turns on him is deadlier than any other that he's seen from her. "I trusted you, you know." She remarks her voice freezing. "To let her come here. But I should have remembered that you were shit at protecting people anyway."
The dig at him about Kouga's death makes his eyes bleed red. "Say that again, Tsume-chan, and remember that your track record is no better."
The Uchiha rumors said that she'd been the cause of both her teammate's deaths even though she'd grieved them for two straight years. The Inuzuka rumors said that he'd killed Kouga to get these eyes that he never used. The both were equally bad.
"Yeah?" She tilts her head back to him, arrogance in every line of her frame. "At least I can look myself in the mirror."
"At least I never married a man to prove that I was just as good as my sister." He snaps back. He's tired. Tired of every reminder there has been of Iwa no Kaito. Tired of her barbs and accusations when her child's the one that ran off without warning.
Mikoto sets her hand on his arm. "He didn't mean that, Tsume-chan. Everyone knows that you married because-" Because you loved him.
"Oh shut the fuck up." Tsume snarls. "Kuromaru, we're hunting." And both woman and dog vanishes out the garden gate.
Something like bone deep weariness drags him back into the house. He'd never been close to Inuzuka Tsume, their barbs ran deep and wound about, but it's also never been this bad before.
"And what is the purpose of your visit?" He'd only stepped out of his office for a breath of fresh air, but he's now easily able to hear Inabi's conversation with someone at the mission desk.
Someone whose sharp voice sounds a lot like...Inuzuka Hana. "That's a personal matter, Uchiha-san. Anyway, if you are unwilling to help me, I can always tell him later." If she's speaking to Inabi, there are fairly few people that she could be looking for. It is most likely himself.
Inabi straightens up. "Now, little dog girl, Fugaku-sama is actually busy so-"
"That's enough Inabi." Fugaku steps out from the hallway. He might not find Inuzuka Hana a comforting presence, but she's not to be treated so terribly.
She's holding flowers. Purple Hyacinths.
He wonders if she knows how ironic it is that she comes bearing flowers that mean apologies.
He gestures briefly for her to follow him, and heads back to his office.
She sets the vase down on the edge of his desk, a small distance from his extensive paperwork.
He raises an eyebrow at her. I would like an explanation Inuzuka-chan.
"I'll move it later if you'd like, Fugaku-san, but I do apologize for leaving in a hurry yesterday." It seems that his very presence bothers her enough that she continues. "And for Kaa-san's outburst."
"Do you even know what Tsume said?" He has a feeling that she doesn't know what her Kaa-san had said. He reminds himself that she is merely a little girl, that she knows nothing of her own personal history.
He should not have expected that she be something that she is clearly not.
She straightens her shoulders. "I know my Kaa-san well enough, Fugaku-san. I've lived with her all my life, you know." She pauses here a moment, and frowns. "I'm well aware that she can be both impulsive and unkind." An honest assessment of her Kaa-san's faults.
Not all honesty is wild. He reflects. Sometimes, honesty is merely an acknowledgment of flaws.
He ought to stop expecting her to be someone who she is not.
"So you bring me flowers." He wants to ask her if she understands that they are apology flowers, if she knows how ironic it is that she would bring flowers given that they are her namesake, but something prevents him.
"Would you like me to bring them home, instead?" She asks, reaching for them.
He moves them next to the photograph on his desk. Kosshi...Kouga...you would both smack me upside the head for something so stupid as last night wouldn't you? "No, you can leave them here." Kosshi hadn't lived the last few years of her life concerned about her imouto's children for him to dismiss her niece because the girl didn't act the way he expected her to.
"Have a good afternoon Fugaku-san." Inuzuka Hana bows deeply, and rises to leave.
"Inuzuka-chan?" There's so much he wants to ask her, but then he remembers that she knows nothing of Kouga, that Kouga had died before she was born, and that Kosshi had hardly been a large presence in the lives of her sister's children. "Never mind. Carry on."
Inuzuka-chan disappears out the door.
2. Pink Roses and Rue (Gratitude and Remorse)
Itachi comes home slightly disgruntled one evening soon after. "Tou-san?" He stands before his father's desk, shifting slightly from one foot to the other.
Fugaku sets his paper down. "Yes?"
There's no need to say more. If his son wants to say something, he'd say it given enough time. If he had nothing important to ask, then he wouldn't.
"Do you not like Hana-chan very much anymore?"
Fugaku blinks, and remembers that autumn morning, when he'd been amused by Tsume's actions, when he'd thought perhaps that Itachi could be friends with the little girl who laughed so freely, that it would be good for him.
In that world the name Uchiha was more a blessing than a curse.
Before the Kyuubi, the vicious rumors and the lies, when the world was a cleaner one, and he'd thought it would be an amusing anecdote to share with Kosshi over dango.
Look at the cycle of friendship repeating itself, he'd say.
And she'd laugh and bare her teeth at him in mock horror.
"No." He sighs. "Inuzuka-chan was merely unexpected." It is unfair to penalize his son's friend.
"Then," Itachi mumbles, looking down at his feet. "Why did she say that you didn't accept her apology?"
But-he had...accepted her apology. "I would not know." Fugaku frowns, and sets his papers aside for the time being.
Itachi vanishes out the door on a quest for something or other else, and Fugaku tries to remember if he's actually said that he accepted her apology.
He comes to the conclusion that he had taken her flowers, her ironic purple apology flowers, but he had not said that he accepted. Must I say?
Clearly, she'd misinterpreted because he had not said.
She'd started with flowers. He will return with flowers.
The irony of his own situation is not lost on him. I once won the loyalty of an Inuzuka Heiress by offering her violets.
But he's not here for violets today, nor is he here for loyalty.
"Fugaku?" Inoichi straightens, and rinses his hands with a quick water jutsu. "Is there something I can get you?"
"Pink roses." He hesitates before the next words, because they are not ones he likes to say. "And rue."
I have an apology of my own to offer. He muses. He might not be able to offer her honesty, but he can offer her gratitude for befriending Itachi, and rue that he'd misjudged and then misled her.
Inoichi looks as though he wants very badly to open his mouth and ask a question, but Fugaku draws his eyebrows together in his darkest glare, and the other man says nothing.
Sitting across from Yamanaka Inoichi at Council meetings every month is reminder enough most days, of how everything had fallen apart and died somewhere between the Kusa border and Konoha's destruction the night of the Kyuubi.
He does not want the village gossip to start more wild rumors about the state of affairs inside his district. The man might mean it kindly, but even the kindest intentions are grating at times.
Team Ensui is attacked, and Nara Ensui and his Hyuga student wind up in the hospital. But somewhere between his rapidly pounding heart, and Mikoto's hand in his, they find Itachi, shaken, but physically unharmed.
Two weeks after, Itachi's entire team agrees to show up for dinner, and he expects that they will attend instead of thinking that they will not simply to spite him. Clearly, Nara Ensui's team is nothing if not unexpected.
According to Itachi's story, Nara Ensui had put himself between the masked sharingan wielding attacker and his students, and Inuzuka Hana had shoved herself between her sensei, and a naked blade.
It sounds like such an Inuzuka thing to do. It is the same wild loyalty that reminds him of Kouga-Well she's my niece, ya know. We like ta keep our traits in the family-and his rue is no longer grudging, but easily offered.
He makes sure to find Inuzuka Hana before dinner. "Inuzuka-chan."
She blinks, her eyes large and dark against her face. "Fugaku-san?"
Being confronted with such a familiar set of facial features in such a different manner is disconcerting at best. "Itachi tells me that you did not think I accepted your apology." He offers her his choice. "I assume you know what these mean." Perhaps it's bad that he assumes this, but judging by the expression of surprise on her face, he believes he guessed correctly.
She accepts them, small fingers curling around the stems gently. "Yes, Fugaku-san." She says equally lightly. "Sensei's wife was a Yamanaka at birth. I understand." So she'd known then, that she'd been offering him flowers that meant apology.
And that he is offering her gratitude and rue.
"Good." He takes them from her, and threads a few of the blossoms through her hair. "You'll need your hands to eat." She looks puzzled, and the memories threaten to drown him. She knows nothing. A small part of his mind argues. And it is unfair that you expect her to know your history. He lets his hands fall to his sides. He turns and begins to head towards the kitchen. "We should go to dinner then, Inuzuka-chan." It is cowardly to run from little girls, but it's been a long time since he's had to speak to one.
It's been a long time since his hands have acted without any conscious thought paid to their actions.
"Wait! Fugaku-san?" Her frantic plea forces him to turn back around.
He waits for her to speak, and she's staring at her feet, hands twisting about themselves in...was that nervousness?
Somewhere between impressions he's come to the conclusion that she is really just nervous, that speaking to him makes her different from her normal self, that she is hesitant and absurdly soft-spoken unless prodded before him because she doesn't know what to say.
Itachi didn't find her duplicitous or overly formal. She only adhered to every social convention when she stood before him.
She finds him uncomfortable. She thinks that he requires her excessive word mincing.
The thought is discomfits him, but he doubts that she would find it any less uncomfortable if he were to order her to stop.
"I wanted to know. That is I mean." She fumbles with her words, looking down at the floor, and he can forgive her nervous habits. "What I meant to say." She hides behind polite behavior when she is uncomfortable. I see. "Is that I'm thinking of applying for a position in the Military Police Force after I make chunin."
And he short circuits for a moment. She wants to- He raises an eyebrow. Have I heard you properly Inuzuka-chan? You want to work for a man who you can't speak two sentences to?
"I wondered if you would consider it." She finishes. She doesn't ask if she has a chance, she doesn't assume that he'd let her in.
I wondered if you would consider it. It is a mild statement. He wonders how many times her father-no. She is not her father. He decides. Inuzuka Hana is herself.
"I would consider it." He turns around again. "Make chunin first, Inuzuka-chan."
He has another few years before he needs to consider this topic in truth.
Perhaps her plans would change.
"Thank you, Fugaku-san." Her voice is still quiet, but her gratitude is clear and absolute.
She probably won't change her mind.
3. Daffodils, White Anemones, and Bluebells. (Respect, Sincerity, and Thankfulness)
His eldest son goes off to Iwa, for the most dangerous chunin exams on rotation. He'd wondered what the Nara had been thinking, but then he'd gotten the short, terse message that this primarily had to do with political finagling, and the Nara himself had little hand in the matter. He dislikes his child being used as a chess piece, but he dislikes the idea of pulling Itachi away from the team that he so adores even more.
It is hard to remember that he is merely nine years old. A child still. A child who should have friends, and play, and laugh.
But this will doom his eldest child even so. Passing or failing, Itachi will no longer be a child. With a heavy heart, and aching eyes, he signs the slip, and lets his son go, but before he does, he welcomes Inuzuka Hana back to his house for dinner.
"Hello, Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." She bows, a hand on her little brother's hair, pushing him down as well.
"Neechan!" He wriggles and resists. "Kaa-san says we shouldn't have to bow to anyone. Why're you doing it left and right?"
Fugaku blinks. Clearly, one of Tsume's children acts much more like his relatives.
"Kiba-chan..." Inuzuka-chan sighs. "A bow is a symbol of respect, and while we don't have to respect anyone at home because we're all of us equal at home, we are not at home right now Kiba-chan." She kneels down to look her brother in the eye. "We're in the Uchiha District. While we're here we should follow their rules."
Is that what she'd been trying to do? Follow our rules, as though we would not forgive her if she used her own here?
So perhaps after the first meeting she'd no longer been nervous, but she'd been trying to act in a manner that pleased her hosts.
Kiba frowns. "That's weird. We aren't them."
"We would like them to respect our rules when they visit our home." She ruffles his hair. "You wouldn't like it if everyone bowed to you, right? They like it the other way around."
"I still think it's weird." Her little brother seems to be considering her words. "But if that's the way they like it here." He copies her bow, sloppy and unpracticed, but with a gracious dose of heart. "Hello Fugaku-san. Mikoto-san." He parrots the phrase expertly, but grimaces at the end. Then he straightens up and beams up at Fugaku, who suddenly finds that these memories are thicker when confronted by a pair of wide, earth brown eyes that in the light of the sun, shines with flecks of pale gold. "We can be friends now!"
The boy bounces forwards towards him, and Fugaku is frozen. "What's it like to be a Tou-san?" He has a little boy idly playing with his hands, tracing the lines on his palms, and casually flipping them over to draw patterns with small fingers on the back.
He raises his eyes to Mikoto. What am I supposed to do?
She covers her mouth with a wide sleeve, Whatever you'd like, Anata and walks away, leaving him to his fate.
"Why do you ask, Inuzuka-kun?" He clears his throat discretely, and wonders at how casually this little boy seemed to interact with everyone around him. So much like the uncle you never met. Nothing like the father that you-And he suddenly remembers that Iwa no Kaito had died before Inuzuka Kiba's birth. That you...also, never met.
Kiba frowns. "I'm Kiba, not Inuzuka-kun." But his next words are measured, careful, thoughtful."Don't have a Tou-san. Wondered what it was like."
"I'm sure." From what he remembered of the man, Iwa no Kaito loved his daughter with passion. They'd been close. "That your Tou-san." A pause stretches into the air. "Is very proud of you and your sister, Kiba-kun. As I am proud of my sons." He doesn't mean to say the last phrase, but it pops out of his mouth without warning. I would think that your father would love you as dearly as he loved your sister.
"You think so?" Kiba considers it. "You're actually very nice, Fugaku-san." And he is again, a beaming little boy, with a wild, fanged smile. "That's what Neechan meant by different people are similar too!" He races off towards the living room. "Hey, hey, stupid Sasuke! Are you a nice person too?"
"I'm sorry, Fugaku-san." Inuzuka Hana is looking down at her feet again. "Kiba-chan is very...Inuzuka, and he and Sasuke-chan have been having a bit of a disagreement lately."
Calling your brother merely very Inuzuka is a great disservice to his temperament. "I see why you love him." She'd said that she loved her brother best, of all the people in the world, and the way Inuzuka Kiba had bounced over the doorstep holding his sister's hand had said it all. "He is a very bright boy." As bright as Kouga ever was. Perhaps brighter.
"Kiba is more than bright." She counters. "Kiba is the sun and the clouds and the sky in all its weathers." She laughs, a little a fond light in her eyes as she stares in the direction that her brother had disappeared in. "You haven't seen him angry yet. He can throw quite the tantrum when he does not get his way."
I can well imagine.
The three of them, Sasuke, Mikoto, and himself, see Itachi off at the door later that week.
"I hope they'll be alright." Mikoto murmurs, and her worry is an echo of his own, but he does not voice it.
"He will be fine." There's more work down at the station calling his name. He heads past the garden gate.
"Anata!" He turns to find Mikoto racing after him, a bento clutched in her hand. "Anata! You forgot again." She holds it out to him, a small pout on her lips but unabashed fondness in her eyes, and he smiles.
"I have you to remember." And that is when he truly leaves.
"Taicho?" Kagen's the one that's stopped him. "You might want to-" The older man gestures to his eyes, and he remembers that his sharingan is still active.
Fugaku tilts his head towards his clansman in acknowledgement. "It's bad then?" He asks, as he stops before the case room door.
"Well, it's not something I'd like to see forever." Kagen shakes his head. "This is the fourth girl murdered down in Yoshiwara this week."
"Raped and murdered." He corrects. Never forget the true face of crime. He sighs to himself, and makes sure to withdraw for a moment, before he steps through the door. He closes his eyes, and breathes out.
When he steps through the door, his sharingan is still active. I will not turn away.
He pulls back the sheet, forty shades of angry and three shades of sick to his stomach. Death from violent crime no longer scares him, no longer truly haunts his dreams at night like it did when he was younger, but the sickening sweet stench of it remains stomach turning, sickening, gruesome, all the same.
The girl on the case room table's no more than fifteen years old, dark hair, pointed chin. Her makeup is splattered with blood.
And according to the brief he'd read, stabbed twenty times in the abdomen with a samurai's tanto and left to bleed out in the back room of a brothel.
Inabi's team had been the one to bring her in, take her measurements, and surmise that it'd been a noble doing the murdering. Any ninja worth their salt would have just slit the girl's throat.
She's young. Fugaku notes, clinically, because he's not allowed to make judgements about the scene, only to take in the facts in minute detail, but-
She still has her neck and face powdered white, still has cheap earrings on. Her hair would have been done up, big and pretty, though it's a tangled mess now, though the bamboo pins remain. Her jewelry remains as well, bangles on her wrists, a fake pearl necklace about her neck. Her kimono is bright, colorful, embroidered with cranes, and ripped through the center, the obi torn to shreds.
He tries very hard to not think of the irony, that cranes, so often a symbol of marriage would find their way into becoming her funeral wear.
She'd not expected to die last night. He notes the torn and jagged edges of her nails, notes the bruising on her neck, notes that she'd died, angry and defiant, notes that twenty-one times was too much to stab her for a normal man and that anger didn't go this far, this was sport, and slides the sheet back over her.
He writes the rest of his findings down, detailing more wound analysis, how they might find the perpetrator's flesh and blood under what remains of her nails, and that the motivations for her death are murkier than they should expect and leaves it at that.
Raped and murdered.
She's one of many.
She didn't even have a name, but he had seen her now. He wouldn't forget that this is another citizen of Konoha who would never receive justice unless he wins his case with the Hokage's council, until the nobility is tried for their crimes.
Another citizen of Konoha who would never grow old. He files her away, next to her sisters and her brothers. You will have your justice, I promise you.
The hall sways as he steps outside, the clean air more acrid to his lungs than the stench of death.
He goes home quiet that night.
And Sasuke, shy, quiet Sasuke, makes a friend from outside the clan at the park. Fugaku pauses outside of the kitchen, in the doorway, to watch the idyllic scene.
He activates his sharingan just briefly, for the barest of moments. Some things, he would like to keep forever, not for their utility, but simply for the sake of memory.
"He was mean before." His younger son says, as he swings his feet back and forth on a chair next to Mikoto. He's helping her with the household chores again, holding the peeled daikon. "But Kiba's not bad."
"Oh?" Mikoto pulls a shred of daikon skin from the peeler, and nods. "Kiba-kun is...Hana-chan's otouto?"
Sasuke shrugs. "I dunno who his neechan is." But then he pouts, chewing on his lower lip, a frustrating habit that really ought to be controlled. "He thinks his Neechan's better than Niichan, but that's dumb."
Mikoto laughs, and pinches his cheek. "I'm sure Kiba-kun has his reasons for liking his own sister."
"Kaa-san!" Sasuke laughs.
Mikoto raises her eyes to his. "Welcome home, Anata."
Sasuke falls quiet for a moment, as if he's considering something, and perks up a moment later. "Welcome home, Tou-san!"
Fugaku taps two fingers on his son's shoulder, before sinking to a rest in a chair by the kitchen table. His eyes seek and find Mikoto's. Another death.
I am sorry. She answers. "Sasuke-chan." She says with a smile. "Maybe you should go and play with Yoshi some more, alright? I'll call you if I need a helper."
Sasuke frowns, but sets the daikon in a plate on the table, and heads off, his footsteps clattering loudly on the wooden floors.
"It was a bad day?" Mikoto observes as she deftly finishes the last daikon.
Fugaku hands her the kitchen knife on the other side of the table, where it had been placed far away from Sasuke's grasping fingers, and she smiles at him. "I believe that you do the best you can, Anata."
"Sometimes." He begins, and then pauses. "The best I can is not enough."
She sets a hand against his cheek. "But it is all you can do."
They're not really speaking about the murder anymore, not the girl, not the deaths, not the misery, but of something far deeper, of the rot that spreads like plague, of the lies and bitterness all around them.
He is not a talker, he knows. He is not a political figure. He doesn't like to play games, and that is damaging, but more so, is that he does not know how to play even if he wants to.
He'd never learned.
He sighs. Otou-san had done better. Uchiha Ryosuke had been everyone's friend. When he'd been clan head-the Uchiha position had always done well under him.
"I ought to finish the clan dossier." He murmurs, brushing his lips against her fingers lightly.
"Remember that we have that appointment with Tadahiko-kun and Rumi-chan tonight." Mikoto calls after him. "The baby's arriving soon, and Tadahiko-kun has always thought of you as a father."
He raises a hand to show that he's heard, and keeps going. A father?
His mind turns back to Itachi, still in Iwa, and to the team his son has by his side. Be safe.
Itachi comes home, on an August morning, his step slow and unsure. "NIICHAN!" Sasuke launches himself at his elder brother the moment Itachi makes it past the garden gate. Fugaku stays back, with Mikoto, because Sasuke had been so tired of waiting for his brother.
Even with a new friend, Sasuke still cares for Itachi most.
"Sasuke." Itachi says quietly, tiredly, painfully, and it's clear that something is very wrong.
"Niichan?" Sasuke pulls back, blinking, and Itachi does not raise his hand to tap two fingers against his younger brother's forehead.
"'M sorry." Itachi mumbles, and continues on towards the house. "Tired."
Sasuke turns, and regards Itachi's retreating form for a long moment, but it's right then that a blur of color passes the garden gate. "Sasuke!"
It's Inuzuka Kiba. His hair is windswept, and his round cheeks are red with exertion. "There are new puppies!" But a moment later, he's frowning at the still retreating Itachi. "Neechan's team is home?" He whispers, something wild dancing in his eyes.
He grabs Sasuke by the wrist and tugs him towards the garden gate. "Come on! We have to go see Neechan!" Only then does he raise his eyes for a moment, smiling brightly at Mikoto and Fugaku. "Hey! Fuga-san, Miko-san, Sasuke can come back later, right?"
Were it any other little boy shortening his name, it would be a discomfort, but there is a dashing air of charisma around Inuzuka Kiba, and Fugaku can't find it in himself to mind. "Yes." He agrees, and taps the shoulders of each boy once before turning to head in to search for his elder son. "Sasuke can come back later."
He finds Itachi curled up in a ball on a chair in the master bedroom. There is something very badly wrong, but Fugaku is patient enough to wait for Itachi to begin.
He does not expect his son to simply say nothing, and raise red, red eyes to his own. "Who?" He asks, going over Itachi's list of friends carefully. He is only nine. Kami, only nine and a few months. There's no reason for him to have lost- There is no way that his cautious elder son made a friend for life in Iwa, and there have been no recent deaths-unless, and here, suddenly, a heavy coil of metal sinks to the bottom of his gut. Unless a member of his team died out there, among the rocks.
He suspects he knows who it is.
"Hana." Itachi whispers, and shudders. "It was Hana."
The room suddenly sways just a little before him. Kiba had looked forward to seeing his sister again, had cheered and sung and dragged Sasuke with him. "Inuzuka Hana is dead?" He asks, the words ringing out in the room. Tsume.
The Inuzuka would be out for the council's blood for this.
Itachi rocks back and forth. "No." He takes a shaky breath, and almost sobs. "But I killed her twice."
Bit by bit, the agonizing story comes out. Bit by bit, pieces click together. Bit by bit, every horror that his son's experienced over the past month is engraved on his heart.
When Itachi crawls into his lap, and sobs like he is three years old again, Fugaku lets him be, a hand tangled in Itachi's hair. I should not have let you go.
Forgive me.
"Fugaku-san?" Inuzuka Hana steps over the threshold of his study, very much alive, later that night, holding a bouquet of flowers before her like a shield. Like she's expecting something bad.
Fugaku sets his papers down. He hadn't been able to figure out if he really ought to raise a fuss over the land distribution or the idea that a younger clansman couldn't find a rental apartment in the city anyway. It has not been a good day overall.
His only good news is that Itachi survived Iwa, and now, he's curled up in a ball somewhere inside his own house.
"And are you willing to tell me what those mean?" There are three types of flowers that he can see in her bouquet, yellow daffodils, anemones, and bluebells.
They all have more than one connotation. He's willing to let her explain herself.
"Daffodils for respect." She says, sliding them into the vase at the edge of his desk. Respect? He had not thought, but perhaps she does respect him enough to do what she thought pleased him most. She knew he understood flowers, and that he did not like to talk.
She brought him flowers still. "White anemones for sincerity." The little white flowers go into the vase as well. "And bluebells for thankfulness."
He stops her. "Why?" What are you thankful for, Inuzuka-chan?
"No one died. I am thankful that we are all still alive." And it is Itachi that she is thankful for then, for neither she nor her Hyuga teammate suffered any life threatening injuries. The green of her chunin flak jacket meant much more now.
He slides the bluebells into the vase himself. "A good choice." Her face is more angular now, he notes. It is hollow and pinched, as if she had lost weight. It is most likely the stress of exams, but from Itachi's stories-he does not blame her. "Itachi has gained the next stage of his sharingan." He says at last.
"I see." He could assume that she is deflecting again, but the way her lips are pulled tight says otherwise.
"You have questions." He folds his hands together on his desk, and glances again at her flowers. Respect. Sincerity. Thankfulness. Itachi made it home alive. "Ask."
"Is Itachi going to be okay?" He doesn't have time to respond to her, she continues as if something had been set loose, and the deluge just kept on pouring. "I mean, his eyes started bleeding and then Sensei had to-and then he's been weird all the way home." She's staring at her feet again.
She has a good heart. Her thankfulness had been for lives, not chunin vests or recognition. And she means what she says.
Fugaku tilts her head up with a finger so that he can see her eyes again. "Itachi shall be fine." And he sees the wild relief on her features, the way that tension drains from her body. "He cares for you a good deal." He adds. He finds you precious, and perhaps I can understand why.
"Why?" She asks, confusion swirling.
The corners of Fugaku's mouth tighten. You do not know? And it seems, that for all her quiet backbone, Inuzuka Hana does not find herself important in the lives of others, for she has so easily overlooked her own impact on Itachi so as to not even know the extent of his care. Have you not seen how Itachi brightens in your presence? How he looks forward to each night that you come to dinner, how he spoke about you often throughout his years in the academy?
You are asking me why he cares for you?
She looks no less confused. You truly do not know. "You are a unique individual." And you ought to learn that, if you do not already know. Fugaku rises and heads towards the door. "He will explain." He cannot explain for his son, what Inuzuka Hana really means.
He just hopes that Itachi is actually capable of explaining.
During dinner, he remembers the promise that he'd made a year ago. He'd said that he'd consider her application for the Military Police.
It is only now that he remembers that he had not actually spoken to anyone in the Force about it. Only now that he remembers that Inuzuka Hana is very much merely nine years old. The Force is not ready to accept her yet. She looks too young despite having earned her chunin vest.
The thought of her working down at the station is somehow more palatable than merely a year ago.
He can't accept her yet, but he'd made her a promise, and he doesn't intend to break it. "A moment, Inuzuka-chan."
She turns back to him, a hand fidgeting with the hem of her chunin vest. The sight only sparks a fond amusement in him. It is difficult to get used to the heavy weight of the vest, but she should stop within a month or so. "Yes?" She asks.
"Give your application a year before turning one in. I did not expect your promotion so quickly." She looks confused again, and yes, she has right to be confused."The clan would resist." He adds. It is not exactly that, but it is close enough, and it would take more words to explain rather than simply just letting it be.
She bows forward until her hair sweeps over her shoulder, and she passes the proper angle that she ought to give someone of his rank. She's bowing too low for a clan head. "Thank you very much, Fugaku-san."
The gratitude in her voice soothes him, slightly. "Hn." He pushes her shoulder up, so that she is upright once more. "Speak to Itachi." He reminds her before he turns to go. And Itachi will tell you why he finds you important, and you learn to be a little more confident in yourself, yes?
4. Jasmines and Violets (Grace and Honesty)
Inuzuka Hana is officially declared an Heiress in the light of the new year. He tries very hard to not remember that he'd insulted Kosshi at the same event in her life, but the thought of it renders him half mute.
Mikoto has no such compunctions. "Oh, look at you, Hana-chan!" She spins Hana around careful to not topple or unbalance her. "You look so cute today." She turns back to him. "Doesn't Hana-chan look especially pretty?"
"It must be the day that the Inuzuka announce a new heiress." Whatever else he wants to say is lost in his throat. Kosshi. He thinks. Have you found Kouga in the pure land yet?
"Anata..." Mikoto straightens to prod his shoulder and set a hand on her hip. "Won't you ever learn to compliment a pretty girl on her coming of age day?" She knows the story. She'd heard it from Kosshi herself.
He frowns, imperceptibly. "You have never complained." It's not entirely about whether or not he compliments Mikoto, but it is easier to say.
"I know you, anata." She winks at him, and smiles down at the Inuzuka Heiress. "Don't you worry, Hana-chan. He thinks you're very pretty today."
It is not what he'd been thinking about, but he can acknowledge that the deep red of the furisode brings out the red of her cheeks, that the golden chrysanthemum brings out the gold in her eyes, and that her happy smile does make her pretty.
She smiles, and bows. "Thank you both for the compliments, Fugaku-san, Mikoto-san."
It is only after she leaves that he turns back to Mikoto. "I was right." He murmurs. "They made her an heiress."
But somewhere, he'd gotten used to the idea that Itachi needed his friendship with Hana.
"And now she won't ever be Itachi's bride." Mikoto sighs. "You were right as always, Anata."
"You wanted her to be your daughter?" He glances over at Mikoto, sees her downcast eyes, and his heart hurts. There are few things that he cannot bear.
Mikoto truly disappointed is one of them, and he acknowledges that Inuzuka Hana would hardly have been the worst daughter in law.
"Itachi loves her." Mikoto murmurs. "And she is...she has the Inuzuka charm." She answers, her head against his shoulder. "It is subtler than Kiba-chan's, but it is there."
There's no point in asking if Itachi truly loves her. It's clear that he does, but is it the type of love to build a marriage from? "Is it the right love?" Fugaku asks. "Itachi calls her his teammate."
"And teammates have been lovers." Mikoto counters.
But he thinks back to the words Itachi had sobbed in his lap. He'd called her 'dearest.'
That. He realizes, very suddenly. That is how Itachi refers to Sasuke.
And that is a very different kettle of fish than a marriage offer. How does he make it so that Mikoto may call her daughter, but Itachi may call her sister instead?
Hana comes to visit him at the station a few months later, again, trailing flowers in her wake.
He looks up as she steps through his door. "Explanation?" But then he truly looks at the flowers she's holding, and suddenly the memories come back to drown him.
What does she want that has to be spoken with tho-She doesn't know.
And I have not told her. So she will keep doing this.
"Jasmines for friendliness and violets for honesty." She slides them into the small vase at the edge of his desk.
And he would not mind, would not mind, but-not jasmine. Not violets. A thousand years would still be too soon for those two flowers to ever grace his table. A wedding.
A broken chain among the rubble. Blood in the street. A man's screams as he burned. He swallows, hard.
"Fugaku-san? Is there something wrong with the flowers?"
He blinks. And his cursed tongue tells her that there is nothing wrong, and trips right on into a slight explanation. "It was merely disconcerting." He gestures towards a chair. "Sit, Inuzuka-chan."
She hands over an application for the Military Police force. "I hope you can forgive my impatience, Fugaku-san."
Fugaku snorts. "This is not what you came for this time." You wouldn't come here early for this. You would not offer friendliness and honesty for something like this.
I have already offered you a position here.
She sets several other scrolls on his desk. "This is what I'm here for. I wanted to ask for help as to how I should go about meeting the Civilian Council."
He unrolls the first scroll. She's sketched...building plans. For the ninth district. For Yoshiwara. And by her impressive marginal notes, she's spent some time on this. "Where did you get this interest in the ninth district?" And why do you think that I can help you?
"From you, Fugaku-san." Her quiet admission shakes him to the core.
Me.
He sets the scroll down. "The Civilian Council has not cared about poverty for many years." He rises to stand at the window, where the sun sets down the street, lights dancing on the water of the Naka River. "I expect that they never will."
She comes to stand beside him. "Why doesn't Hokage-sama want to speak to you about this then?" She asks, and it seems that she is no longer afraid of speaking bluntly before him.
His eyes slide closed. Why indeed. "Hokage-sama does not believe in the Uchiha." He says at last, his grip tightening on the window answers her honesty with honesty, matching her truth for truth. "And he has not for some time." He turns back to his desk and drops her application in the top drawer. "You may expect to start work next month."
"Thank you, Fugaku-san." She smiles before she goes, but she leaves the flowers behind.
And he will get nothing done today, because the photograph combined with those flowers...
He slides the glass panel off of the back of the frame, and pulls out the smaller half picture behind it. Jasmines and violets.
Three friends. A wedding.
And now there is only him. Only him and this quiet room filled with the violence of solitude.
5. The Uchiwa (Father and Daughter)
He approaches Tsume a few weeks after, ducking into the bar that she's frequenting. She's sitting on a bar stool, a shot glass in hand. "Tsume." They had not really apologized to each other, not for last time, even though her daughter had trailed purple flower petals into his life since.
But then, they never really apologize to each other.
"Yes?" She's not drunk, not even impaired, just swirling the liquor around in the shot glass as though she can divine the mysteries of the world from her own reflection.
"Your daughter." He begins.
She smiles at him, fangs bared. "What about Hana?"
He sits down on the bar stool beside her. "I would like to call her daughter." Her eyes are hooded, cynical, but not angry. He takes it as a good sign. "With your permission."
She laughs, and knocks back the shot glass of tequila like it's water, and slams it onto the counter. "Another." Then she turns back to him. "Excuse me, Fugaku." There's a desperate smile playing on her lips. "I must have misheard you, you want Hana?"
"You didn't." Something in his heart tells him that he shouldn't be tormenting an already tormented woman, but then he remembers Mikoto's downcast eyes. There are few things he would not do for Mikoto. He remembers that Itachi loves Hana much like he loves his own younger brother. There is nothing he would not do for Itachi.
And then he remembers that Inuzuka Hana had shaken him to his core not two weeks before. He likes the girl. I might even love her. He realizes suddenly, and almost laughs aloud. Inuzuka charm in a subtler form indeed. Inuzuka Hana has snuck up on him, and his unsuspecting heart.
He expects that if he allows her free rein, he'd never have his heart back, but she'd also never abuse his regard.
A good-hearted child who is far more sensitive than most of her extended family. And he can say that he no longer hates Inuzuka Kaito. Perhaps I only tarred and feathered him-
For Kosshi's peace of mind.
"She has a father." Tsume counters, and knocks back another shot glass. This time she chokes, coughing desperately. "She's just...fine."
Fugaku raises an eyebrow at her. "A gravestone is not a father." He murmurs. "And I am not taking her from you." He isn't speaking of formal adoption, not really, but she will be joining the Military Police, she would wear the Uchiwa, just like any other man or woman in the force.
Anyone who took issue with her presence could take their issues up to him.
"I hate when you make sense." Tsume murmurs, and sips politely from her shot glass. "Hana deserves a good father." She pins him with dark eyes. "She's the only daughter I'll ever have. You better take care of her."
And it seems that Inuzuka Tsume, despite being sharp edges, and hard corners, and angry brashness personified, loves her daughter far too much to deny her a chance at being happy. She will settle our grudges then, because it would be good for her daughter.
My daughter. He'd not thought of it this way, had not thought that he would ever-
"Don't worry." He rises, this conversation for the most part over. "I will."
He sees Hatake Kakashi on the same street as the station early the same morning that Hana is supposed to start work. They are talking about something or other; the boy has a grip on her collar, and she reaches up for something, and he promptly drops her. "You're so uncute, Hana-chan."
And that bothers Fugaku, but he has no idea what relationship his Hana has with the Hatake boy, who is eight or so years her senior. At least she doesn't seem afraid of him.
He settles for loudly clearing his throat. "Hatake."
Hatake looks...guilty. "Maa...Fugaku-san!" He chirps. "I didn't know you came to this part of the city!"
Hana rolls her eyes. "We are literally just outside the police station, Kakashi." She reaches out for the Hatake boy's collar so casually that they have to be at least close friends. "This is Fugaku-san's daily workplace. Of course, he's here all the time!"
Fugaku's glare darkens slightly. How does she know him?
Hatake wiggles free of her grip, and moves arm's length away from her.
He clears his throat again. "Inuzuka-chan. My office. Now."
"Fugaku-san?" She sounds worried, and that concerns him. There is no reason for her to be worried.
What does she have to worry about?
"Taicho. When we are at the station, you ought to call me Taicho." And that's his accursed tongue again. He doesn't actually want her to call him Taicho except in public, but does he explain this to her? Not really.
She bows. "Yes, of course, Taicho."
He pushes her shoulder up, so that she is upright again. "Here." He offers her the package that he'd chosen. "Your uniform."
"Thank you." She pulls the shirt out of the brown paper and blinks. "Taicho?"
He inclines his head in her direction. Yes?
"There is," She turns the left sleeve towards him. "An Uchiwa on this shirt."
He cannot identify the emotion in her voice, and it's only now that he thinks that she might refuse. She has every right to. She has every right to not particularly wish to associate herself even further with the Uchiha.
She has every right to-but the thought hurts all the same.
"I just wanted to ask," There's a hitch in her voice, a hint of a plea. "If you meant it. If you-" And he understands what she'd been concerned about now.
She thought that I forgot.
She thought that I didn't mean it. That I was baiting her.
That she would think me so cruel-but she did not know until Itachi told her, that she held a place in his heart.
She had not assumed that he accepted her apology until he'd offered her pink roses and rue.
Her modesty is also a curse, because she does not expect things of others.
Of course, her first thought is that he has forgotten about the Uchiwa on the shirt.
"I never do anything that I do not mean." It is best that she knows that now. That this decision is a decision, and it is not something that he conceived of on a whim. He takes the shirt from her and slips it over her head in a single gesture, quick and fluid, sure and absolute. "And I mean exactly what you think I mean, musume." My daughter.
Her face crumples, but he knows better than to think of rejection this time. "Thank you." She gasps, as she brings her emotions under control.
He hands her a sheet of paper. "You have patrol with Inabi."
She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her new shirt, and smiles. "Un." It's the brightest he's seen from her.
"Come to dinner tonight, Hana."
She's almost out the door, but she turns back to look at him. "Yes, of course, Chichi." Father.
"I will look forward to it." And he very much does.
"A definition NOT found in the dictionary-
Not Leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children."
-Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
A.N. In many ways, even though this was supposed to be something only about the flowers and Hana, it's also about all of the other things in Fugaku's life. Thus, it is as much the quiet moments he shares with Mikoto, the awkward ways he tries to express how much he loves both of his sons, the friends that he's buried, the political pressures that he faces, and the past that he keeps.
Thank you so much to ManawaSasa, AnimeFreak71777 (:P), Shion Lee, EverBear01 (Well, it's not quite Danzo's offer, but it's a lot of stuff anyway.), Yuki Suou (Chibi!Dei is definitively a cinnamon bun.), Guest One, libraryrockerr, fernandfeather, Cooked Ghost (Thanks for reminding me! I fixed it...hopefully. And Deidara's childhood is in fact, very lonely, but there's a lot the Tsuchikage does for him that we don't get to see from his point of view. Many of these things aren't done from malice, it's just that they're also cruel despite being well intentioned.), and OddShadow (I do primarily keep dialogue and gestures if I've already written a scene, but sometimes the editing does lose some lines. Thanks for reminding me. Deidara will in fact, reappear quite soon.) for reviewing!
And for everyone who favorited and followed.
~Tavina