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Chapter 44 – Long Overdue, Part 1

Amaya grunted as she lifted herself up by one hand. Her grip on the rock face was solid, but that didn't make one-armed climbing any easier. In the pre-dawn light, she glanced up to look for her next handhold, only to find Kakashi grinning down at her from his higher point on the cliff. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Come on, Princess, keep up," the Copy-nin teased.

"It's not my fault that men have more upper body strength," she said, gritting her teeth against the starin in her arms. "And, unlike you, I have to be a little more careful; I can't open the First Gate."

"Don't worry, you know I wouldn't let you fall," Kakashi called back before leaping for his next handhold several yards above his head.

"Show-off," Amaya muttered, making her own shorter, chakra-propelled leap. She hated cliff climbing, wasn't even sure how she'd let herself get roped into it. But here she was, dangling about a hundred feet off the ground. She glanced up again, grinning to herself as she stared at Kakashi's butt for a moment before judging how far she still had to go. Maybe another five jumps and she'd be done; Kakashi was nearly at the top already.

Ten minutes later, Amaya pulled herself up over the edge of the big rock they'd been climbing. She laid on her back, breathing hard. Her arm felt like jelly; the last twenty feet always sucked the most. The sky above her was turning beautiful shades of blue, pink, and light purple. She glanced over when Kakashi laid down next to her and propped himself up on an elbow. She eyed him suspiciously as he grinned from behind his mask. "What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Then why're you smiling like you won free ramen?"

"Because I can do this and not worry about anyone seeing," the silver-haired man said as he pulled his mask down and kissed her. When he pulled back to look at her, Amaya leaned up and rubbed her sweaty forehead on his face. The Copy-nin wiped his face on his sleeve. "Way to kill the mood."

The kunoichi grinned and laid back down. "That's what you get."

"For what? Did I do something wrong?"

"For making me climb that stupid cliff just so you could kiss me."

"Maybe," he said as he kissed her again and smiled as she grimaced at the salt still on his lips. "Maybe I wanted to watch the sunrise with you. Or maybe I just wanted someone to train with other than Gai and this is just a pleasant side benefit of training with my girlfriend."

They both froze for a heartbeat. Amaya gave a crooked smile. "Gods, sometimes I wonder if we've grown up at all. Flinching just because that's the first time either of us has labeled this." she gestured between them.

The silver-haired shinobi chuckled. "One of us was bound to slip up sometime. Honestly surprised it hasn't yet." He grinned mischievously. "Does this mean we're official now?"

"I guess you're my boyfriend," the tattooed Jonin teased back as she wrapped her arms around Kakashi's neck to draw him into another kiss.


Izumo sat at the small table in his kitchen, trying not to choke on the rice ball he was eating. He could very clearly hear Kotetsu's new girlfriend crying out in pleasure. Did they really have to do it this early in the morning? The sun was barely up and he'd hoped to spend his day off relaxing at home.

Instead, he put down the half-eaten rice ball and spit the bite he'd just taken into the trash; it tasted like ash. As he straightened, his stomach heaved, losing him what little breakfast he'd actually managed to eat. The Chunin wiped his mouth on a paper towel before putting on his shoes and leaving. He couldn't do this anymore; he needed to talk to Amaya. Maybe she'd be willing to listen. Maybe she could help.

He found her hand-in-hand with Kakashi as they strolled through the village, but from the wrong end to be coming from their apartment building. They must've just come back from some early-morning training outside the village. His mind considered briefly whether it had been training or "training", like some shinobi liked to call sneaking off into the woods to have sex, but he shook his head to dispel the idea. Besides, he'd heard Amaya was different than before, not so up Kakashi's ass all day.

Hearing her call his name the Chunin walked over. She wore her usual red, zippered, sleeveless shirt, but wasn't wearing the black jacket she normally did. Her shirt, black pants, and arms were stained with dirt. The kunoichi gave him a warm smile while Kakashi just watched with that impassive, unreadable expression he almost always wore. Izumo glanced between the two Jonin; his mouth didn't want to open and form the words he needed to say.

"Kakashi," Amaya said, letting go of his hand, "go on home without me. I'll catch up with you later." The Copy-nin glared at her for the briefest moment that Izumo wasn't sure if he'd really seen it. Maybe it was just his imagination because the silver-haired Jonin leaned over, pecked her cheek, and walked off. The auburn-haired shinobi watched him go for a moment before turning her attention back to him. "Now that he's gone, what's up, Izumo?"

"I didn't interrupt something, did I?" Guilt gnawed at his already unsettled stomach, which clenched hard and he had to take a deep breath to keep from dry-heaving.

She shrugged. "Not really. We were just going to go back, get cleaned up, and go get some sushi. But you looked like you needed to talk more. So what's up?"


Amaya scarfed down another rice ball as Izumo gathered his thoughts and courage to talk. He could barely watch her wolf down the food, but he kept his disquiet to himself and kept his eyes on his hands in his lap. They sat above the Hokage faces, far enough back no one would know they were up here and far enough from the Anbu headquarters for privacy.. Finally, he thought he'd found the words he needed and started talking. "About a month ago, I told Kotetsu I loved him."

"You mean in a romantic sense, right?"

Izumo nodded and continued. His stomach clenched and rolled at the memory, but he ignored it as best he could. "He thought it was a joke at first, but when he realized I wasn't joking, he didn't take it well. Asked me why I'd say such a thing. Why would I put my feelings above our friendship? And then he didn't talk to me for a week. After that, he started bringing home women whenever he could and...bedding them as loudly as he could."

That was the last straw. Izumo got up, went behind a large rock, and threw up. When he was done, he spat, trying to get the sour taste of bile out of his mouth. Izumo returned to Amaya only to find her pulling a bottle of water from the white grocery bag she'd had her rice balls in. The brown-haired shinobi took the water gratefully and rinsed out his mouth a few times.

"Is that normal?" she asked, worry etching lines into her face.

"Lately, yeah." He pulled at the somewhat-loose white shirt and black ninja pants he'd thrown on when he got out of bed. "I'm not sleeping great either."

Amaya tilted her head and put her hand on her cheek. "Stress will do that to you. Have you talked with anyone else about it? Inoichi-san or any of the other psychologists?"

"No."

"Are you ashamed of what you feel?"

"No."

Amaya sighed and closed her eyes. "I want to help. I'm just not sure how. Sounds to me like Kotetsu's running from his own feelings. Either he doesn't return your feelings and he's trying, in his own poorly-chosen way, to make you understand that and that he isn't interested. Or he does return your feelings even a little and that terrifies him because it goes against what he thinks he knows about himself. Or what he doesn't want to believe about himself. Does that make sense?"

The Chunin nodded. "Yeah, it does."

"Has he ever seemed interested in another guy before?"

"There was one guy, a civilian from the Land of Waves who came here on vacation. They both seemed pretty into each other…. I won't lie that it made me pretty jealous."

"Hmmm. Okay." The red-and-black-clad ninja straightened and gave him a sad smile. "As much as I want to, I don't think my getting involved in this is wise. I can give you advice, though. The two of you need to talk and I mean really talk. You can't just shut off your feelings and neither can he. Avoiding this will only make both of you miserable. But I think you're going to have to wait until Kotetsu is ready. Until then, do you have someone you could stay with for a while? If Kotetsu's just going to keep bringing girls over, then you don't need to be around for it. You're just going to keep throwing up and not sleeping and that's not healthy for you."

Izumo sighed. "I think you've just confirmed what I've been thinking of doing anyway. It's good to know I was on the right track." He smiled. "Thanks for talking with me."

Amaya returned the smile. "Any time. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, Izumo."

"No, you let me see my plan wasn't just me running away."

"Well, good luck. If you need anything or want to talk more, let me know, okay?"

"I will."