A/N: I've had fluff floating in my mind for all my favorite shinobi side characters that I really need to throw on a page. So, I'm gonna attempt to do some matchmaking and wrap it all up into one story with interweaving storylines. There will be romance! There will be adventure! There will be plot and character depth! We'll see where the heck all of this goes :)
An OFC from my other story, "Dual Identities" (a Kakashi-centric story), will pop up as a secondary character here, because she exists in this world in my head. You don't need to read that story to enjoy this one, but you can check it out if you get curious about what's happening in Kakashi's life around the timeframe of this story.
Updates will likely be inconsistent. I've got a good chunk written and we're fully outlined, but there is still a ways to go with editing. I always welcome feedback, because I'm trying to challenge my own writing with regards to perspectives, themes, character development, etc., but just be aware that at this point I have no beta and I'm also just writing/exploring parts of the Naruto world that I want to read. Estimating about 15-20 chapters. Good luck to you, and thanks for joining me.
Chapter 1: Girls' Night
"Ayame, are you off shift yet? It's almost time for girls' night!"
Ayame was sweeping the floor of Ichiraku Ramen before closing when her two friends, Ruike Hana and Namiashi Yuna, popped beneath the hanging cotton flags. The fading light of the long summer day was filtering into the restaurant, casting a warm, orange and red glow across the floor. The two women were holding bags full of snacks, wine, nail polish, and a select choice of romantic comedies…the typical stuff of their girls' nights.
"Go on, Ayame, I'll finish up," came her father's warm voice. Ayame gave him a glowing smile, said a quick 'arigato', and untied her apron, hanging it on the rack by the door near the kitchen. She rushed out to meet her friends, smoothing out the wrinkles in her blouse as she went.
Although different ages, these three women were inseparable. Thrown together throughout childhood, their bonds had only deepened through shared adversity. The three had survived all of the attacks on Konoha that occurred during their lifetimes…a number that was higher than it should have been, given that each girl was still in her mid-twenties. Each of them had lost family members to these wars, including all of their mothers, and so the girls looked after each other, providing to the best of their abilities the support that only a mother truly knew how to give.
At the end of the street, Ayame made a right turn, heading towards Yuna's home.
"Where are you going?" Hana asked. She and Yuna had taken a left.
"I thought we talked about having an evening on the roof? The weather tonight is perfect."
"Change of plans," Yuna said with a grimace. "Onii-san is having his friends over tonight and called dibs."
Yuna's family owned the premier weapons shops in Konoha. The building was tucked beneath Konoha Rock, and the roof was a favorite meeting place because it was private and had a fantastic view of the city. Yuna's older brother, Raido, was a tokubetsu jonin in the village, and the two of them often bickered over who could use the space. Their arguments would typically end in some sort of challenge, and Raido always won. There was a 10 year age difference between the two, and while Raido doted on her, any special treatment ended when it came to using the roof.
"We're going to my apartment instead," Hana chimed in. "Apparently Raido-san and his team returned from a mission recently, so Yuna told him they could celebrate there." That was the polite way of putting it.
"Well then, maybe we'll need to stop by later and say hello." Ayame, the youngest of the three girls, was by far the most boy-crazy. That had been a trait since their teenage years. She was particularly fond of shinobi, especially the ones who had appetites for ramen.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea after wine," Yuna muttered.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" retorted Ayame.
"We all know how you get after a single glass! And besides, this is girls' night. It's the first one we've had since the war."
A palpable shift in mood came over them at Yuna's words. So much had changed since the Fourth Shinobi War, apart from a new Hokage and a virtually unrecognizable village. Many of their friends had not survived the attack. They were the few and the lucky.
Since the war ended, the village settled into a time of anxious peace. None of them knew how long it would truly last. It was said that the Fourth Shinobi War was the War to End All Wars, but with the myriad of attacks the village had sustained throughout their short lifetimes, the girls really didn't know if that was believable. A year had already passed, but reconstruction took time, and it still felt as if the attack had happened yesterday.
"I wish we could have done more to help during the war," Hana sighed. "Is it just me, or did you guys feel useless, too?"
"We did our part," Ayame started, trying but failing to sound confident. "Otou-san and I delivered food to the allied forces, and Yuna, didn't you forge a lot of weapons?"
"Dad and I tried…" The girl's face darkened. "But we ran out of standard steel pretty quickly, and there was no supply of metal for chakra blades, either. We did what we could, though. I made a lot of paper bombs."
"If it weren't for the allied shinobi forces…" Hana's soft voice began quivering. She didn't need to finish her statement. They all knew how close they had come. All of them had woken up from their dreams, only to realize they had missed the end of the world by a fraction of a hair.
"In any case," Yuna said loudly, trying to brighten the mood, "we're safe now. Thanks to Naruto-kun, Tsunade-sama, Kakashi-sama, Onii-san, and all the others who fought to keep Konoha safe."
The girls reached Hana's apartment, a tidy and well-kept two bedroom space with design aesthetics for days. At 27, Hana was the oldest of the three. She was a soft spoken and shy engineer with a keen eye for art…she particularly loved designs that were both beautiful and functional, a fondness that was underscored by her choice of furniture and decorations. She had spent her early twenties apprenticing in the Land of Waves with Tazuna, the renowned bridge builder, and was applying what she learned towards architecture. Her dream was to design a building so tall that it touched the clouds.
The first thing Hana did was grab three wine glasses and uncork a bottle of white. It wasn't the greatest quality, but they were lucky to have found a bottle at all. Wine on the shelves meant that the economy was starting to shift towards normal…for months only staples had been available, but now things like wine, chocolate, and even ice cream, were back on the shelves.
She handed a glass to each of her friends. "To being alive!" she said.
"To the shinobi that protect us and the Will of Fire!" added Yuna.
Ayame giggled. "To girls' night!"
The three women drank deeply and settled in.
"How have things been going for both of you?" Hana asked.
Yuna spoke first. "Good, generally. We reopened the shop, and business has been steady, even if supplies are still slow to come in. Dad is still…dad…I guess. The only change there is that he's actually been talking about handing the shop over to me. I'm handling all the finances now."
"That's new," Ayame said through a mouthful of popcorn. "That means he finally trusts you."
"Maybe…I think he might just be tired of it all. He started dating again."
"Again!?"
Yuna smiled. "Yeah. But if he can bag a third wife in his 60s, then there's hope for us, right?"
"Blech, as long as our prospects aren't that old," Ayame said, making the other two laugh.
"How has forging been?" Hana asked.
"Eh, fine. Harder for me, of course, but I've been thinking about some new techniques I want to try."
Yuna was perhaps the only person in the history of the Namiashi clan to not manifest chakra. She and Raido were only half-siblings…his mother had been a kunoichi, but she died during the Second Shinobi War. Their father remarried a civilian woman, Yuna's mother, and Yuna had turned out…well…ordinary. Her own mother died as a casualty in the Third Shinobi War, thus her father's current foray back into the dating pool.
In order to keep up with her family, Yuna threw herself into metalsmithing work, trying to keep herself from tarnishing the Namiashi name, but forging some of the more special weapons for shinobi required chakra, which she didn't have. She'd been researching other ways to make high-quality weapons, because she didn't want her life's work to be kunai and shuriken…but it was an uphill battle.
"What about you, Ayame?"
"Same…generally things are good, and we're expanding business. Otou-san wants to open up a second location. It's strange though…like, everything is going back to normal, and that's great, but I still feel empty."
"I know what you mean…" Hana said quietly. "Life has been good, better than it should be after war, but I still remember the way that other life felt."
A moment of silence settled over all three of them as they reflected on Hana's statement. It was a wonder the village had bounced back as quickly as it had, given that everyone experienced something spectacular in the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
"Having your desires met so thoroughly, and then waking up to the reality of war…" Yuna didn't continue her thought and just shook her head. They all felt the weight of this shared experience.
"Well, it's no use grieving over a life that never was, no matter how real it felt," Hana said, trying to be optimistic.
"Why can't we strive for that life though?" Ayame burst out, her eyes glittering with longing. Her cheeks were starting to flush from the wine.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, who's to say that we can't be as happy in this life as we were in those dreams? Otou-san keeps telling me that it's not what we had in our dreams, but what we felt, that made the Tsukuyomi perfect. He told me he dreamed he had Okaa-san back, and that's how he knew it wasn't real. But, he says the feeling was real, and that's what he's striving for now. He's been so content because he's choosing to be content, even though Okaa-san isn't here, and I think it proves that contentment is attainable for the rest of us, too."
Yuna sighed in a huff. "Who made Teuchi-san so wise?"
Ayame stuck her finger high in the air. "Otou-san also says that wisdom comes with experience, and he's had a lot."
"What did you both see in the Tsukuyomi?" asked Hana suddenly. "I don't think we've ever talked about that before."
"Impossibilities," Yuna answered immediately. "I somehow manifested my chakra and was a late blooming kunoichi. I had abilities like Tenten, and I was one of the most powerful kunoichi in the village." She smiled. "I beat Raido in a duel."
Ayame laughed. "I would have loved to see his face!"
"Oh, it was epic!" Yuna's smile became more reflective. "I had a boyfriend, too."
"Just a boyfriend? I was married with two kids in mine!" Ayame stood up and twirled in the ecstasy of her memories. "He was the perfect husband. Oh, oh, and the intimacy –"
"Stop! Stop!" cried Hana, covering her eyes. She, despite being the oldest, was by far the most innocent of the three.
"Oh come on, Hana, you've always dreamed of getting married and having kids. Don't tell me you didn't have a guy in your Tsukuyomi!"
"I did!" Hana kicked her feet up and down comically. She buried her head in a pillow and said, muffled, "We were intimate, too."
Yuna threw a pillow at Hana's head, knocking her sideways. "Hana!" she cackled, "You've been holding out on us this whole time! And here I thought you were a prude!"
"I still am!" the girl retorted. She pulled the pillow down from her face and propped her chin on it. Her face was bright red, but not from the wine. "He was gentle, and kind, and he invested in a village art museum! He was very cultured. I was pregnant with our first."
"Mine fell in love with me through my cooking," Ayame stated proudly. "Everyone knows the way to a man's heart is through his stomach!"
"We met on a mission, and fell in love training together," Yuna said, "but that would never happen in real life."
"Were the guys in your dreams real people?" Ayame asked.
The other two nodded.
"Then why couldn't we chase them in real life?"
"He would never be interested in me in real life," sighed Hana. The air in the room deflated. The three sat dejectedly, each thinking about how their secret desires for romance would never be fulfilled.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Ayame said quietly.
"It's too embarrassing," Hana chided, burying her face back into the pillow.
"Let's all say who our dream man was on the count of three," Yuna suggested. "Then we can all be embarrassed at the same time."
The other two were amenable to this idea.
"Okay. One…two…three!"
"Hatake Kakashi."
"Hatake Kakashi."
"Hatake Kakashi."
The three friends all stared at each other, eyes wide as saucers, and then they simultaneously burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
"Wait, wait, wait. So in your Tsukuyomi, he was an art lover and took you to the opera?!" Ayame asked, wiping a tear from her eye.
"But you said in yours that he fell in love with your ramen. Everyone knows he only goes to Ichiraku because of Naruto! No offense, Ayame."
"He's not really the type to use special weapons either, not like your brother, Yuna. He's got all of that ninjutsu to use."
"But when has he ever appreciated a piece of architecture in his life? He doesn't even acknowledge paintings or artwork, unless they're associated with the Icha Icha series."
"In my Tsukuyomi, he gave up those books after we married."
"Mine, too."
"I don't remember them in mine, either."
The three stared at each other again, giggling. "So…in our Tsukuyomis, the village hottie, Hatake Kakashi, wasn't even himself?"
"No, I suppose not."
The three girls let out a collective sigh.
"That means he's only the man of our dreams in our dreams."
"Well, maybe the men of our dreams are out there," said Hana. "They just won't look like Kakashi-sama."
"That's depressing…" Ayame mumbled.
Yuna giggled at her. "I think it's optimistic. Kakashi-sama is definitely physically attractive, but he's mysterious, and that's probably why we all saw him. He's a sexy, blank canvas to work with.
"And consider this. You're the only one of us who has seen his face, Ayame, so how can we be sure he even looked like himself in my or Hana's dream? Besides, I certainly wouldn't have wanted the Kakashi in Hana's world, or yours. I want the man of my dreams. And I think I'd be okay with that man even if he doesn't have Kakashi's hot bod."
"Okay," Ayame said, drawing out the word, "who made you so wise, Yuna."
"I'm serious!" Yuna said, grabbing a bar of chocolate and unwrapping it. She broke off a piece and popped it into her mouth. "Maybe these men are in the village, right under our noses…we've all just been too picky about looks to notice."
"There are a lot of single men in the village…" Hana added.
"Yeah," Ayame scoffed, "fresh from the trauma of war."
"Says the woman who is attracted to men with scars," muttered Yuna.
"What was that?!" Ayame demanded crossly, folding her arms.
"Kakashi-sama, my brother," Yuna listed off. "You always thought Nara Shikaku-sama was super hot, even though he was old enough to be your father, and you even had a thing for Morino Ibiki. So, yeah. I'd say you have a thing for men with scars."
"Wow, Ayame, you really do have a thing for older men," Hana noted.
"You could always date my father…" Yuna said with a shrug and a healthy dose of side eye.
"Ewwwww!" Ayame stamped her feet up and down and then sat down on the couch cushion in a huff. "I just want a shinobi who doesn't have post traumatic stress disorder, wants a big family like I do, and who thinks my cooking is the best food he's ever had. It would be a bonus if he had a cute little scar on his face. Is that too much to ask?"
"Yes," Hana and Yuna said together.
Ayame threw pillows at both of them, and they all once again dissolved into fits of giggles.
"If we're sharing our wish lists, I want someone who thinks I'm strong and who doesn't overlook me," Yuna said. "I've always intimidated civilian men, but shinobi men treat me like I'm a damsel in distress. I just wish someone could meet me where I'm at."
"I don't care if he's a shinobi or a civilian," Hana said quietly. "I just want someone who can see why I appreciate the things I appreciate, who doesn't think my life's work is irrelevant and unnecessary, and who thinks waiting until marriage is romantic."
"It sounds like we just want men who share our values and who respect us," Ayame concluded. "Why should that be so hard to find?"
"Maybe this year will be our year," Hana said.
"Maybe one of us will end up with Hatake Kakashi," Ayame winked. She stood up to pour herself another glass of wine.
"Or maybe the moon will fall out of orbit and the world will actually end," Yuna stated drily.
"Oh stop being so negative," Ayame chided. "The probability of at least one of us finding a man has to be higher than the moon falling out of orbit."
Hana snorted. "The probability of one of us dating Hatake Kakashi has to be higher than the moon falling out of orbit!"
"I don't know," Yuna said skeptically. "Given the probability of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and the fact that it actually happened, I think there's a non-zero chance the moon falls before we find true love."
"Whatever," Ayame told her. "We're young, pretty, and available. And I would bet that at least one of us finds a partner within the year."
"I'm just making things up," Yuna responded, her eyes sparkling. "But I do know how we might be able to increase the probability one of us seduces Hatake Kakashi."
"How?" Ayame asked, at the same time Hana said, "You do?"
"By starting with understanding the things Hatake Kakashi likes," Yuna told them, reaching into her bag. "I dug through Raido's movie stash and found this gem." She pulled out a box and flashed it in front of the other two. "If Kakashi-sama was the object of all of our desires, we should at least know what kind of things he's into, no?"
"No way!" The other two girls crowded in, and Ayame pulled the box from Yuna's hands. "Raido is into this stuff, too? I didn't realize your brother was such a pervert, Yuna!"
Hana took the box next, clearly distressed. "But Fujikaze Yukie is in it, and she's one of my favorite actresses! I always thought she was classy."
"The reviews said it actually has a decent plot, and the love story of the original is supposed to be swoon worthy," Yuna told them.
"Does that mean we're watching it?" Hana asked, already blushing.
"That means we're watching it," the other two said in unison. As Yuna and Ayame opened more snacks and picked out nail polish colors, Hana reluctantly popped the movie into her VHS player, and they huddled close to watch the cinematic version of Icha Icha Paradise play out in all its visceral glory on Hana's modest 32 inch TV.
Elsewhere in the city, three shinobi were trying but failing to enjoy their Friday nights.
Genma sat on the rooftop of the Namiashi weapons shop, cold beer in hand, barely listening to his friends as they discussed the finer details of their most recent mission. He'd been more reserved since the Fourth Shinobi War and was ruminating over the origin of his discontent. He'd been thrown off ever since waking up from the Infinite Tsukuyomi, in which he'd had a life so different from his own that it made him seriously consider if he had a split personality. He shook these thoughts from his head and took a sip of his drink, forcing himself to jump back into the conversation.
At his home, Yamato pored over the details of his next mission, which promised to be utterly safe, void of adventure, and extremely exhausting. He was glad to be of service to the village, but he wasn't looking forward to the work. Sometimes, he felt underappreciated, and he wondered if he should request some time off. Maybe in another month or so, after this next mission was complete. He stared blankly at the large pile of laundry in the corner of his bedroom, supposing he should finally do a load. It wouldn't do to show up to work on Monday without a clean uniform. He stood up and stretched, resigning himself to the fact that the rest of his Friday would be spent doing chores.
Iruka sat in the Academy building grading his students' exams before the weekend. He was the only one left for the night, and the silence was starting to grate on him. He loved what he did, but the monotony and the loneliness he felt at this particular moment made him depressed. Was this what the rest of his life would be like? Day in and day out, the life of a teacher. Seeing his students succeed was a wonderful thing, but these days, it felt like he was pounding his head against the wall. He sighed, mustering up the motivation to grade one more test before heading home and scrounging up something for dinner.
Little did these shinobi know that their lives were once again about to shift, this time not from the wide reaching effects of war or battle, but simply because three civilian women sat across the city, determined to choose contentment in reality as opposed to chasing after castles in the sky.