And at this point we celebrate that I am trying to introduce (gasp) plot to this story too (only seven chapters in, whatevs). You'll get a cookie if you guess things correctly, but I'm not going to spoil it for you or make it easy with my comments here. Basically this chapter is...It's filler. Ish. I tried to make it light since it wanted to take a sudden turn for Tokugawa Regency and that just...that just isn't what we're going for here. So I tried to curb that, tell me how I did.
Also have you ever thought about how noisy our lives are? There's always a fridge going, or cars passing on the street, or the buzz of lights or something...Sorry, this is such a quiet story in my head and it's interesting the kinds of music and moods I have to produce around myself to be able to write. Well, that's enough waxing on about this, so I'll give a heartfelt and slightly giddy thanks to my reviewers so far, and leave off with:
Enjoy!
The birds chirped differently in Fujimi than they did in Iimori, and it was this difference that woke Sakura early, as it had woken her early for the last week while staying at the inn. For a few moments she lay quietly on her side, cuddled against Kakashi's side and enjoying his warmth as he slept. The light was almost nonexistent but just enough to make out the sparsely furnished room, and she couldn't see any lamplight coming from behind the shoji doors—Tenzou wasn't awake yet, which sent a brief thrill of thankfulness through her. Sakura sat up slowly, unwinding Kakashi's arm from around her waist and leaving him to sleep. She had a lot to do and it wasn't even dawn yet—the noise of the birds had been a welcome help.
Her yukata was modest enough to serve as adequate clothing she decided as she tiptoed through the house. At least while the two men were still asleep. Once they were awake she would need to change into something she could receive guests in—something a bit more fancy than a plain cotton yukata, since today would be the day that many gifts were hand-delivered to the house. It was a little more light in the main living area and Sakura moved with more confidence that she wouldn't kick something or knock something over.
Mentally ticking through her to-do list for the day, she made a quick plan to get everything done. First: breakfast.
It was unwise to unbank the fire and leave it unattended, so first she went out to the small water cistern at the back of the house to get her cooking water. Once she had things settled, Sakura debated on what to do next—she had promised, in a round-about-way, to cook fish for breakfast if Kakashi showed her his surprise for her, and he hadn't. Besides, getting fish would require Tenzou's help and she wasn't sure if she was ready to wake him up with possibly selfish demands. At least not on the first day.
So although with strange utensils and tools, she started unbanking the fire with practiced ease to begin breakfast. The routine was calming, and within moments she was lost in it—
"Sakura-san?" she managed to not knock anything over in her startle at Tenzou's voice. He was cautiously making his way into the room, already clothed for the day. Sakura straightened her own robe a little self-consciously. She patiently sat still until Tenzou had seated himself across the firepit from her, and stayed silent as he stared, mouth agape, at her—boggling at her appearance in all likelihood, and how unprepared she was for the day. She was dressed for sleep and she hadn't put her hair up properly—
Oh. Her hair.
"What happened to you…your hair…Um," Tenzou squinted in the darkness at the angular mess her hair had probably seen fit to arrange itself into. The wax had been tinted the lightest shade of pink to match her hair, but it was still wax and it had been quite liberally applied. Sakura hadn't been sure at the time if the woman doing her hair was a sadist or not, but given Tenzou's shocked expression she probably was.
"The style in it yesterday was done the old-fashioned way—I couldn't wear a wig to my wedding like most girls, it just wasn't going to work, we tried. I meant to get the wax out of it last night but I was just so exhausted I could only take it down. I'm going to try to get some of it out after my chores." The brown haired man's eyebrows shot towards his hairline at her words so Sakura looked down and away from him, choosing instead to poke at the slowly reviving fire. Tenzou reached across and took the tools from her, doing it himself.
"Light a lamp and go to the bathhouse and get your hair sorted," he murmured, refusing to look at her just as much as she was refusing to look at him. Sakura hesitated, disliking the possibility of Kakashi discovering her abandoning her chores to Tenzou, but also thinking of the possible guests (in addition to her parents) who would visit today. Kakashi would already be exposed to enough scandal for marrying a woman such as herself, he didn't need an unkempt wife starting rumors. So Sakura bowed her head in thanks and reached for one of the lamps lined up against the wall and lit it.
The short walk back to her and Kakashi's bedroom was a little more certain than it had been the night before. Leaving the lamp on the other side of the rice paper, Sakura used the dim light to find her things—a bathing cloth, a strong comb, and a plain cotton yukata. Kakashi had mumbled a little in his sleep but turned away from the light source initially, and Sakura tried to be as quiet as she could so as not to wake him up. Her mother had said sleep took away a man's fierceness, made him softer or look younger, but all Sakura could see was how relaxed Kakashi's face was in comparison to the slight tension on the left side of his face as he kept his eye shut during the day. Deciding a second comb, a finer one, would help as well she took more out of the boxes—when something shifted from her pile and thunked itself to the floor.
"Sakura?" turning towards his voice Sakura tried not to look as though she had been doing something wrong—she hadn't been and she wasn't going to let him tease her like he teased Tenzou. But his face was still sleepy, his good eye blearily focusing on her face in the dimness, the other squinting shut out of habit. A slight smile tugged at her lips at the disheveled appearance he had, his own garment skewed along his shoulders and his hair exploding in every direction. Holding up her comb and lifting a chunk of waxed hair, Sakura allowed that smile to take over her face for a moment.
"If we hadn't taken it down, my father would have gotten his money's worth of that hair-do—but I couldn't have borne another hour with it up like that, so I have to clean it all today." That had Kakashi sitting up to clear his head of sleep a bit more, helped by dragging his hands through his hair slowly, tugging on every strand. Finally with a yawn he stood up and crossed the room towards where Sakura knelt at one of the boxes she had brought with her to his house. She didn't shy away from him when he reached out to inspect her hair, and she didn't say anything as he frowned at what he saw.
"I forbid you to ever have this done to your hair while you are married to me—did they mix the wax with resin…?" his tone turned from no-nonsense to befuddlement as he gently let the lock of hair fall back against her shoulder. He immediately turned to lifting things out of the box sitting between them. "Do you have a second comb like that one? A good strong one, because we're going to need it." Sakura blushed and nodded, it was all she could do—her brave words to be used as a defense were useless since he had presented no offense so far. He seemed to implicitly understand the need to get her hair into a presentable state and was offering his assistance.
Light was just beginning to truly show over the distant mountains as they picked their way to the small bath house. The pre-dawn dimness wasn't enough to truly see by and so they each carried a lamp with them so they would have enough light once inside. In addition to what Sakura carried, Kakashi carried a pot of hot water he had stolen from Tenzou's breakfast preparations—Sakura wasn't sure she approved, but it would save them time rather than waiting for the water in the bath to heat up.
She had looked less like a demon and more like a lunatic—shocking Tenzou into alertness when he finally identified that yes, this was Kakashi's wife and not a deranged stranger sitting and starting to make breakfast. It was like looking at a child's penmanship, only with hair. And then the girl had tried to insist on doing her chores before she fixed that thing attached to her head—it would have been nice to hand off meal preparations to her on the very first day, but Tenzou wasn't exactly sure he could stand to look at the mangled hanks of Sakura's once lovely hair.
Because it had been lovely—freakishly weird, but lovely—before he had seen it this morning. Tenzou fervently hoped she never had her hair done that way again, or at least had the presence of mind to clean it properly rather than sleeping on it and making it worse. He briefly wondered if merchants bathed in the mornings and if that was why the girl hadn't cleaned it the night before like a normal person—or if it was some strange foreigner habit she had picked up from her mother. Hopefully Kakashi would set her to rights about the customs of samurai, their families, and their servants—and that he wouldn't make Tenzou do that liberating education.
Once everything was set over the fire to cook, Tenzou rested back on his heels and allowed himself to sulk a little. Kakashi had, in a sense, liberated Sakura from where her birth had destined her. He was unable to do that, however, for one of his greatest friend and it grated at both of them. The fact that, with Sakura's addition to the household, Tenzou was now only obliged to perform the work he had been hired for was the best the samurai could do. The alternative was to live in his father's house as an unacknowledged son, with Orochimaru's apprentice treated with a higher level of respect than someone of blood relation.
He was lucky that his half-sister's father-in-law had arranged for him to be placed with the Hatake's in his teens. The two men were quiet, and the distance from the village ensured that they were largely undisturbed. On the surface it looked as though Orochimaru, a very great lord who lived close to Edo, was simply hiding a bastard deep in the countryside, but in reality it was to preserve Tenzou's sanity and allow him to survive without groveling to his apathetic father. Sakumo had secretly taken him on as an apprentice and taught him all he would need to know as a samurai. Every ritual, every word and movement, all the societal addresses—they had even briefly discussed what Tenzou might change his name to upon being recognized as samurai, and Sakumo had remained confident that somehow the truth would out and Tenzou would claim his rightful place in society.
Privately Tenzou confided in Kakashi that he didn't think such a thing were likely to ever pass—and that had been his opinion for the last ten years at least, and so far he had been correct.
This really should have been dealt with the night before, but Kakashi knew his own exhaustion well enough that he was sure they couldn't have done it. He had started the fire beneath the ofuro the minute they'd gotten to the bath house, leaving Sakura to settle with the things they'd brought with them. There was a little hesitant rustling behind him once his back was turned and he cursed himself for not having a proper screen in the room.
He waited patiently for her to finish changing, for her hand on his shoulder, before he turned to help.
Kakashi was glad he had offered his help when it got down to it. Sakura's hair was knotted and waxed almost beyond recognition, and it was only after watching her claw her way through the first bad section that he felt brave enough to do the same. She had beautiful hair, he loved the way it shown in every sort of light, and it was like rescuing Sakura and her hair to carve the chunks of wax out of it.
But several times he felt less like her rescuer and more like her torturer, because once in a while the comb he wielded against her hair caused her pain—sometimes she would merely flinch, other moments she would gasp, twice he accidentally caused her to cry out. It felt as intimate as a couple's wedding night was purported to be, with all of the awkwardness and one-sided pain as well. Kakashi was glad he was sharing this feeling with Sakura through cleaning her hair rather than anything else.
They had quickly used up the hot water he'd stolen from Tenzou and had struggled through the rest of her hair with the luke-warm-turning-to-hot water in the bath. But eventually the deed was done, and her hair was cleaned of even the last waxy clumps. The sun was almost risen by the time he ran the third fine-toothed comb smoothly through Sakura's hair. She leaned into him from where she knelt a bit to the side. Putting aside the comb Kakashi wrapped an arm around her and propped his chin on her shoulder, pulling her closer as he did.
"Thank you," her voice was soft to his ears, barely raising above a whisper.
"You are quite welcome, Sakura," he murmured, "Now, I will leave you to finish up and go see if today is the day that Tenzou has decided to poison me." Ignoring her startled exclamation, Kakashi squeezed her shoulders before standing to leave the small, warm room.
The relative cold between that building and the regular house had been enough to give him satisfaction in his wisdom—his skin had been much too flushed for continuing to stay with Sakura, who he had given his word to respect and honor in his every day with her. The warmth of the house was a different sort of warmth, one which he was far more familiar with these days—and that warmth meant it was time to tease Tenzou about his familiarity with women's work.
"So, I see Sakura charmed you into making breakfast this morning—to become a pattern my friend?" Tenzou gave him the barest of glances at first before doing a slow double-take as his hand—laden with chopped onion—veered from its course toward the stewpot to where he had already poured some tea for them, and into Kakashi's cup plip-plunk-plopped three varying sizes of onion. With a deliberate hand he dropped the rest of the onion into the stew where it belonged before he took up the small cup in both hands to give it to Kakashi, all the while his eyes remaining neutral but somehow expectant. Kakashi felt the muscles around his mouth twitching—he didn't know whether to scowl or to break out giggling at the severity with which Tenzou was taking his retribution. On one hand it was an awful thing to do to someone's tea, but on the other hand it was adorable—something akin to what he used to do in his youth with Asuma and Asuma's cousin, the Sarutobi heir. He kept his eye locked to Tenzou's looking for the slightest sense of remorse about ruining perfectly good tea.
He opted at last to just take the tea and drink it to take Tenzou's bluff, a plan for revenge already forming in his mind, but the instant he tipped the cup and the awful tasting onion tea hit his tongue two small hands grabbed his shoulders and a girlish shout sounded sharply in his ear—
What happened next was a combination of his startle at the sneak attack Sakura had conducted on him mixed with half-drowned, highly disgusted sputtering as the onion tea went everywhere—down his throat, getting into places never meant to breathe tea, dripping down his face, spewed out over the fire to end in noxious onion-and-tea-scented hisses of steam, and incredulous laughter at what had just been done to him in the course of five whole minutes.
He was still coughing as Sakura produced a small cloth from nowhere and dabbed at his face, and it was at this that he started laughing in earnest through the last remaining hacks.
"Are you going to be okay, Kakashi?"
"I think so, but I'm never going to let either of you out of my sight ever again."
"It's your own fault for drinking onion tea—how could I have known that that's what your staring contest was about?" Sakura retorted as she settled in and lent a hand to Tenzou.
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