After Biwa-sensei's departure the night began to wind down. We had cake, and I pretended to wish for something as tradition dictated. With the quality of gifts I'd received, I was starting to reconsider my stance on birthdays in general. And apparently, I wasn't done receiving them like I thought.

"Imai-san, a word," Daigo requested, and I masked the annoyance I felt at the honorific. He'd stopped calling me just Imai like he used to, and it irked me.

Still, I nodded in assent and allowed him to lead me out front. What he wanted to talk about in private, I had no idea. But I was mentally preparing for my good mood to be ruined.

He kept me in suspense even after we were alone. Eventually, I lost patience.

"So, what's up?" I asked, trying to shake off the preemptive annoyance.

He wet his lips and the feeling grew worse.

"I would like to…present you with one more gift," he said, making me arch my eyebrow.

"You've already given me a gift," I stated, but he shook his head.

"That was a gift from my family. This is a gift from me."

He took a common storage scroll from his weapons pouch, and in a puff of smoke, another book appeared. It resembled a common journal, and I expected to find it blank. But when I opened it, I was greeted with a page full of hand-written text.

"What is this?" I asked, though I had a vague idea from the first page alone.

"A book of advanced chakra control exercises," he replied, confirming my suspicion. "I know that external chakra control has been a…great source of frustration for you. Since before we ever interacted. I am hoping that this will remedy that."

That was…nice. In theory. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it a thoughtful gift. And it was far more likely to only cause more frustration.

This isn't me being ungrateful, here. I'm always thankful for any gift that's given to me. But if this was Daigo's peace offering, it wasn't enough. Buying someone a book on a subject they were interested in took no time, no effort. It was like buying your S/O flowers as an apology for cheating on them.

But then I began to flip through the pages. All of them were handwritten, scrawled in this book which I became convinced was, in fact, sold as a blank journal originally. I flipped through them more quickly, and my surprise only mounted as they just kept going. Almost every page, except for ten or so at the back, was full.

"Did you…write this all by hand?" I asked, taken aback.

"Yes," he replied, stonily. "I apologize if parts of it are illegible. I was rushed. Please let me know if you have trouble reading anything."

Rushed?

"Why?" I asked, bluntly. Getting a full story out of Daigo was like pulling teeth, so there was really no other way to do it besides asking straightforward questions. "Why go through the trouble?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I couldn't bring you the originals," he said, his voice lowering further. "My father would notice them missing."

They were his father's? That only raised more questions. But I could read between the lines. If he was rushed, he likely felt afraid of being caught. Which implied that he wasn't supposed to know about these exercises, or at least copy them down.

"Daigo," I asked, my heartbeat rising. "Are…are these family techniques?"

I could see him chew on the inside of his cheek. Then, "you know impeccable chakra control is a prerequisite for genjutsu skill. But most exercises aren't universally applicable. There are many talents within the discipline broadly called chakra control that hold pertinence in our techniques. I picked these particular ones because I thought they would be most useful to you, based on my observations. For example, on the first page."

I flipped to what he indicated.

"This details an exercise called chakra stretching. I know you are unable to reach beyond your skin with your chakra. However, you are impeccable at surface walking, and even water walking. And that's…strange."

He was right. It was strange. My specific problems didn't make any logical sense, given that I didn't have anything physiologically wrong with me.

"This exercise doesn't focus on forcing your chakra farther away from a single point. It relies on two points in direct contact, which the practitioner gradually separates. The goal is to maintain a connection between the two points, even as they move away from one another, from both directions. Since you are capable of chakra sticking, I thought this would be a good first step to something more."

"Two points," I mused, scanning the text. I instantly grasped why he thought this would be useful to me in particular. "Like tenketsu?"

"At first, yes," he answered. "But once I teach you my chakra stamp technique, you should be capable of using that as well."

My gaze immediately shot back up to his. I was planning on stealing that technique from him. But I wasn't expecting him to willingly break the law to teach me. And from that…it almost sounded like he chose to learn it for me.

"Should be?" I repeated quietly.

He didn't look away from the pages. It was dark, and it took effort to make out the characters just from what little light filtered through the windows.

"I can't think of a reason it wouldn't work," he said. "But I don't know for sure. I don't know the technique yet. I don't know any of these techniques, actually. We'll have to learn them together." His lips quirked wryly. "I'm not sure my father knows all of them, either. They are rather niche."

Well. I'll be damned.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You went and combed through your family library to find chakra control exercises you thought would help me. You copied them down, knowing your father would probably wring your neck if he found out. And you're going to set aside time for us to learn them together?"

He looked slightly unnerved by whatever was on my face.

"Yes?" he ventured.

I took a deep breath. And before he could react, I pulled him into a big hug. He squawked in protest, trying to get away, but I didn't let him until he said "Imai-san," in complaint.

I pushed him away, but didn't let go of his shoulders even though he tried to pull away.

"Call me Imai, again," I demanded. "Or Kasaiki. You're off my shit list. Thank you."

Effort. That was the effort I was looking for. And he'd been putting it in for a long, long time; he was just too emotionally constipated to show it until now.

Effort.

It was at that very moment that I realized I was being a hypocrite. I never thought Hirose fucking Daigo would be the one to teach me a lesson in emotional maturity, but, though enshrouded by clouds, the moon was full above us. I suppose, in retrospect, that explained why today was so wonky.

"Thanks, Daigo," I said. "Really."

"You're welcome…Imai." You know what? I'd take it.

He looked uncomfortably back at his house, well past his emotions quota for the week. "We should probably head back."

"You go," I said. "But…could you please ask Iwao to come out here? I think it's long past time for us to have a heart to heart as well. Er, please don't tell him that part."

His face was a mask, as usual, but he nodded nonetheless. I leaned back against the slightly pathetic tree, my eyes cast up at the night sky.

Iwao kept me waiting, but not forever. I caught the slight shuffle of his feet against the gravel path; a landscaping choice that the Ishida's had likely chosen for that characteristic.

"Hey," I greeted simply, my mind unfortunately blank. He dipped his head in greeting, but said nothing.

A minute passed.

"It's strange being back here, after so many years," I settled on, annoyed at the twinge of anxiety behind my sternum. "Everything looks…smaller than I remember it."

"You are around twice as tall," he pointed out.

I hummed. "You are too. You've grown even more than I have."

Though I got a jump start on him, what with my puberty starting before his, he had already caught up, and would soon surpass me by a significant margin.

"So you do recognize that," he said, and I knew he wasn't just talking about his height. "Sometimes it doesn't seem like you do. Like during dinner."

I knew what he was referring to. As we dined on premium yakiniku, Ishida senior was quick to ask me questions about our missions, what techniques I was working on, anything he could think of. Not in a weird way; it was my birthday, so it was only natural for me to be the center of attention. But every time, I tried to shift the focus of the conversation to Iwao, citing his own advancements, and the varied accomplishments within and outside the scope of our missions.

Some people might think I was being uncharacteristically humble, but Iwao knew the truth. He remembered that I remembered that Ishida Yuudai's interest in me was what ended our friendship in the first place. He was touchy about it, so I didn't want to set back what little progress I made.

"I didn't meant to imply—"

"I know," he interrupted. "I'm not unreasonable, you know. Not any more. I understand now why my father was so interested in you back then. Why he continues to be interested in you now. And I'm well past mistaking that for a lack of interest in me. I know my father loves me. He considers me to be his successor, and he thought that a friendship between the two of us would benefit me. It was a failure on my part that I didn't recognize that, and that I sabotaged his efforts."

"Whoa, there," I said, hastily. "You were just a kid. You didn't know any better."

"You were a kid too," he pointed out, and I pursed my lips in irritation at the argument. Because it was factually untrue, and I couldn't begin to explain that. "But that's the past. I've moved beyond that."

I shot him a middy disbelieving look, and he raised a challenging eyebrow in return. I decided to accept that at face value.

"During team assignments, you told me I've given you plenty of reasons to dislike me since we were kids," I recalled. "What were they?"

"You want me to spell it out for you?" he said sardonically.

"Like I'm the dumbest fucking person in the Elemental Nations," I confirmed with a nod.

He pursed his lips. "Fine, then. Kami, where to begin." I could see his jaw clench. "I suppose one of the things I hate most is that…you are, without a doubt, the fakest, most inauthentic person I've ever met. Everything non factual that comes out of your mouth is either a lie, a manipulation, or a façade. And it frustrates me, because I'm almost always the only one who sees through it. Hell, at this point, you could tell me something with utmost sincerity and I'd still probably doubt it!"

I let that land on me, still looking up at the stars but not seeing them.

"Okay," I said after a moment. "I understand how that could be frustrating. Though you're wrong about one thing. Plenty of people see through me. Yoshiro-sensei back in the academy—most of the sensei, really—but Yoshiro-sensei was the one to actually call me out on it in private when I really fucked up. But he didn't have any moral issues with it because I was growing up to be a ninja. He probably viewed it as practice."

"It's not that you lied—I'd be a hypocrite if I cared about that," he said, severely. "It's what you lied about. Like your parents, and all the shit you spouted about it being your life's ambition to avenge them and destroy the Hidden Leaf. But you never gave a rat's ass about that! You know how I know? Because, up until your introduction in year one, I didn't even know what the Fugatoro incident was, much less that you were a survivor of it! You didn't mention it even once when you were kids. My father told me your parents died in the war, but you never talked about it or them! I never saw you sad, or bitter. But then you come to school, full of this righteous fury and drive to seek revenge all of a sudden…it was like you rehearsed it in a fucking mirror. You were using your dead parents to impress people and make them feel sympathy, and even as a kid it disgusted me."

I winced, because he was right. It was scummy, and entirely unnecessary. Back then, I still had this fantasy about what I wanted my ninja experience to be like; instead of developing naturally, I started with my desired end result and tried to contort myself to fit that mold. I thought having a tragic backstory was the first step towards becoming a legend, so I played into it. I tried to be Sasuke, which was even stupider because I didn't even like Sasuke.

IMO, he's one of the most annoying characters in the show. Everyone always broke their backs for him, gave him opportunity after opportunity, chance after chance. He always spat in their face, because his shitty, dead family who treated him poorly when they were alive was more important to him than every living person who actually cared about him for who he was.

I didn't want to be like that. So why did I pretend like I did? Because I, in the most abstract sense, thought I should?

"You're right," I said, simply. "That was terrible of me."

He looked at me, incredulous. "Is that all you have to say?"

"No, not nearly," I responded. "I have an explanation, but not a good one. First, what else? What did I do, unrelated to that?"

"I never liked how you treated our classmates," he declared. "You always looked down on them. Whenever they tried to interact with you, you made them regret it. You either insulted them, lorded your superiority, or baited them into fighting each other. You're vindictive, inflammatory. You enjoyed putting them down—don't deny it. But just because they're not as good at being ninja, doesn't mean they're worth any less than you."

"Once again, I agree," I said. Thinking back, I could easily see where he got that from. My default setting when my classmates interacted with me was dismissive, and I could be cruel if provoked. I suppose that's the only thing an outside viewer like Iwao would see. He wouldn't know how internally displeased I was as I watched their transformation into mindless, propaganda slaves. How helplessly pissed I felt when the instructors let our taijutsu spars go on long after a victor should have been decided—just so we could be more desensitized to pain, blood and violence. How my cheeks burned every time my classmates were torn to shreds after a poor showing.

I should have spoken up. If I was a better person, I would have. But I was a soldier who followed orders first and foremost. I was brave enough to stare down strong opponents unflinchingly, strong enough to bend the very ground beneath our feet to my will. But I wasn't brave or strong enough to go against a superior officer, and I probably never would be. That's why I wanted to be the superior officer. So I wouldn't be put in that position, and suffer the self-disgust when my cowardice reared its head.

"What else?"

He thought for a while, working his jaw. Then, "I suppose those are the main issues. Everything else is a subset of that."

I blinked in surprise. "Really? You don't take issue with my showboating? Or me being an attention whore?"

He sighed in vague annoyance, some of the fight leaving his eyes. "You aren't really an attention whore. Not unduly, at least. I only call you that because I know it pisses you off."

…huh.

"Elaborate?" I requested.

"What's there to say?" he shrugged, uncomfortable. "When our classmates called you that…it was just because they were jealous of your abilities. Same with me, at first. But eventually, I noticed that you weren't showing off of your own volition. Our instructors put you in those positions. They made it seem like you were. You never volunteered for demonstrations. You didn't even participate in class unless a teacher made you. But when they did, you delivered. Consistently, which was probably why they called on you in the first place. It would be unfair for me to expect that you compromise your abilities to soothe our egos. Especially when our sensei would notice and punish you for it. But I didn't like or respect you enough to defend you, so I didn't bother to change their opinions."

He hesitated. "It took some time to be able to tell, but you actually are uncomfortable with other people's attention. Sometimes. I've chosen to believe what you've said once or twice. That you enjoy recognition for your accomplishments more than you dislike attention in general."

I graced him with a small smile.

"So you can tell when I'm being sincere."

"In the few moments you are," he said, stiffly amending his earlier claim.

"Good." I sighed. "If there aren't any other points, I'd like to say a few words. If you'll let me."

He grunted.

"These aren't excuses," I continued. "Merely an explanation. I want you to understand my perspective."

"Just spit it out, Imai."

I took a breath. "Right. From the beginning. Nearly the very beginning of my life, in fact. I did mention I gained awareness at only a month or so, right? In the wake of the attack on Fugatoro. As you noticed, I don't have emotional ties to my parents, and revenge…it's not often on the forefront of my mind. Not like I pretended it was. What really came out of the attack, that had a massive impact on my life as I perceived it…was the smoke I inhaled, actually. My vocal scarring."

Chancing a glance at my once childhood friend, I saw him listening intently and gave an uncomfortable smile. I hadn't shared this level of vulnerability to many, not in either life.

"That wasn't such a big deal for me either, in and of itself" I told him. "But what it meant was that, when I was rescued by Biwa-sensei, I had to undergo treatment at the hospital. That was where I first felt, and almost immediately unlocked, my chakra."

His eyes widened. "At a month old? You're joking."

"Not even a little," I said. "Using chakra, to me, was like sucking on my thumb or picking at my fingernails. It was natural. Calming. Something to do, while my body wasn't capable of much. But there were side effects."

I remembered those days well. How my eyesight hadn't developed, so all I saw were blurs. How trapped I felt in my own body. How I could really only feel one sensation on command, so I sought to replicate it every waking second of every day.

"That's why you're smart," he realized. "That's why you were so developed mentally at such a young age."

I'd let him believe that was the only reason. Chakra was an energy that boosted a person's growth, boosted their potential in general. Children who unlocked their chakra early were simply smarter. That was the reason for Kakashi, and for Itachi.

"It stands to reason," I agreed. "Like you said, I had undergone a great deal of mental development, far beyond what could be expected out of someone my age. But have you ever stopped to consider what that was like?"

I shook my head. "Well, even if you did, let me tell you. You would be way off. I understood everything around me. I remembered everything. I didn't know enough to be scared, but for years, my developed mind was imprisoned in a body that was incapable of doing anything at all. Internal chakra manipulation was all I was capable of, period, the end. Sound fun?"

He said nothing, but I saw the answer in his eyes. Back on Earth, there was a psychological study I remember learning about. It was conducted on mice. They were locked in a cage, bare except for a button. If they pressed the button, they were shocked with electricity. It did nothing but hurt them. But, without fail and with unexpected frequency, they still pressed the button. They didn't have short-term memory loss; they'd just rather be in pain than be bored. So I think I can't be blamed for making the choices I did back then.

"Several years passed," I said. "I learned how to move, and talk the moment my body was capable of it. But no one listened to me. No one told me what I wanted to know. My mind was so unstimulated that I could barely stomach existence. I needed some distraction, so when I learned that books existed, I went crazy with want. This was around the time that I met you."

"I taught you how to read," he mused.

"And I'll be forever in your debt," I said, seriously, then hesitated. "I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit. There's another point of significance I've neglected, and that was my environment. I was raised by Akane-obasan and Kazuhiro-nii, both of whom you've met. But while Akane-obasan has remained refreshingly unchanged over the years, Kazuhiro has not. He is a very different man now than he was back then. When I was first placed under his care, he was a bitter teenager. He had lost his parents years ago, and received me after his last loved-one was murdered. He was the person I claimed to be that first day of the academy. He could barely take care of himself, much less another person."

I was incredibly fortunate that Kazuhiro had been given custody of me. I mean that in two ways; fortunate that Kazuhiro had been given custody of me, and fortunate that Kazuhiro had been given custody of me. My brother wasn't qualified to be a parent. If I had someone else, I wouldn't have had nearly as much freedom, and my development would have been much worse. And if he had another child who wasn't me, well. Frankly, I'm not sure if they would have survived. In that sense, we were perfect for eachother, though I didn't mean that in a healthy way.

I think that's why I did my best to parent him as he parrented me. Because I came to care about him very, very much. I wanted us both to be happy. And, looking at him now, I'd say I succeeded.

Mostly. I mean, he did agree to disfigure himself for the sake of his career. That couldn't be construed as healthy development, no matter how you sliced it.

"I unsettled them," I said, softly. "Both of them. I picked up language before my mouth was physically capable of molding the sounds, so I understood every word they said about me to one another. And I couldn't tell them. It hurt my feelings. It made me feel like I was born wrong."

I was walking a fine line between truth and lies. Sincerity was my intention, and I would stick to it as best as I could. I've done well so far. There were some things I refused to tell anyone, and my reincarnation was at the top of that list. But I did feel guilty. Every time they spoke about me, worrying about the behaviors I exhibited.

"So, I changed my behavior to fit what they told me was normal. But I still had needs. Needs to explore, to learn, to have fun. I had to find ways to get what I wanted while staying in the confines of their expectations."

"Manipulation," he muttered.

"Bingo. It wasn't good of me, and I feel shitty about it now. But children, even children with advanced mental development, don't have a strong grasp of morals. Looking back at it now, I regret some of the things I made my family do, and I've done my best to make it up to them ever since. But again, I'm not trying to make excuses right now. I'm just trying to explain."

The stars sure were pretty.

"I can't overstate how desperate I was to learn how to read," I continued. "So when you came into my life, I used the one tactic that never failed to get me what I wanted. Manipulation. It wasn't malicious; it was just the only thing I could think to do. I'm sorry for that. If it makes you feel any better, that set in motion a chain of events that I'd say were as close to divine retribution as you'll ever see in this world."

I told him about the type of reading material I could find in Akane-obasan's house. I didn't tell him that I knew the power of fuinjutsu beforehand, but I did tell him about the instance I saw Akane-obassan crying over not being able to see her son because he was so busy. I was vague, however, on when exactly that happened.

"Keep in mind," I said. "I just spent years in confinement. I remembered vividly what it was like to not have freedom, and though it wouldn't come close to being physically immobilized like I was as an infant, the thought of losing what little freedom I had gained was unbearable. My driving motivation from then on was to keep the extent of my abilities, especially regarding fuinjutsu, a secret. Which I did in the absolute dumbest way possible, because, as you acknowledged, I had an urge to prove myself that was nearly as strong. My two greatest motivations were at war with one another, and that led me to make incredibly stupid decisions."

God, this was a fucking long monologue. My throat was already sore.

"We started our first term of the academy," I said. "I was excited to begin my journey as a ninja, but I wasn't excited to have to interact with people my physical age. Iwao, I mean no offense, but maintaining our friendship as children was excruciating. Not your fault in the least, I know. But, while I didn't have a real index for this sort of thing, in many ways I was nearly as developed mentally then as I am now. And I'm not exaggerating. Do you think that you, as you are now, could truly be friends with a five-year-old? Can you understand, at least a little, why I adopted that particular persona throughout the academy?"

He didn't reply, but it was rhetorical.

"My mental development was already far along, and I mistook that at the time to mean I was mature," I said. "But I wasn't. I really, really wasn't. When I pretended to be a revenge obsessed avenger…kami, you have no idea how much that memory makes me cringe. Even beyond the shittiness of using my parent's deaths to impress people, it's so fucking embarrassing."

"But you stuck with it," he pointed out. "Right up until the very end of the academy."

My lips twisted at the reminder. "Yes. But I actually had a separate reason for that. And it relates to your second, totally justifiable complaint against me."

I told him the details of my accident, which he'd never heard before. They had been kept from my generation, for which I was incredibly grateful. But then I told him how Gari took advantage of the incident, effectively enslaving me to his will. I told him how bitter that made me, and how I leaned into my "origin story" to explain my mood and my single-minded drive for perfection. Because the truth was off the table—I wanted to protect myself and my brother—and people were nosy.

"I devoted every second of every day to getting out of my situation," I said. "Any second that was wasted, I viewed as a knife to my throat. I worked so hard, I was so tired all the time. I was in a perpetually foul mood. I didn't have patience for anyone, so I was short with our classmates or worse. I feel bad about it now. But again, these aren't excuses. Only explanations."

With that, I was finished. I had gotten to the modern day.

Seconds stretched into full minutes before Iwao said another word.

"What's the point of telling me all this?" he asked. "And why now? What do you want?"

I took a deep breath. "I've been wanting to…maybe not remake our friendship. But get you to stop hating me? For a while now. But when I was talking to Daigo, I realized that the amount of effort I was putting in towards that goal didn't match how much I wanted to reach it. If that makes sense at all."

"But why?" he pressed. "Our negative relationship isn't affecting our team's efficacy. We work well together. I trust you, in a combat setting. Isn't that enough?"

"I…I'm not sure," I admitted, clearing my throat. "Maybe it's guilt. Maybe I just want someone to understand me for once in this goddamn life. Maybe it's because I actually respect you, so I care about your opinion of me."

I looked down, a self-depreciative half-smile on my face. "Any one of those, or all of them. All I can say for sure is that I want you to think highly of me, and the fact you think the opposite makes me feel like shit. You're an excellent judge of character. Possibly the best I've ever met. So if you think I'm scum…then I probably am. And I don't want to be."

More awkward silence as I let that sink in. Finally, he sighed.

"I said before I couldn't tell what sincerity looks like from you," he muttered. "I guess I didn't have a big enough sample size."

A little backhanded, but I smiled genuinely all the same. Baby steps.

"I don't know if I can be friends with you, just like that," he warned.

"That's okay," I said quickly. "I just wanted you to understand me. The way I acted was pretty fucked up, and I'm not trying—"

"—to make excuses, I know. I get it." He shifted on his feet, and I heard the crunch of gravel below them. "I think understanding you is too ambitious. Your experiences are too…ridiculous. It would be like trying to understand a mountain goat, or something. Another animal entirely."

"That's fair," I agreed, not taking offense to the analogy. "I know I'm a beast. Not the GOAT yet, but I will be."

He looked at me peculiarly. That slang didn't make it over to the Elemental Nations.

"Case and point," he sighed, giving up. "I'll just accept I don't understand you and move on. Just know; if you want my respect, you have to earn it. You say you want to be better? Fine. Just know that, if you're being shitty to someone you shouldn't be, I will call you out on it now."

"Please do," I said. "Honestly, it's probably because I didn't notice. So pointing it out would be helpful."

He nodded jerkily. "Right. Well, it's cold, and I don't want to burn chakra anymore. I'm going inside."

"I'll be right behind you," I told him. "In a minute."

My social battery was drained, and my throat was sore. In a little bit, I'd ask Kazuhiro if we could leave. In the meantime, I'd enjoy the blissful quiet. A moment like this was hard to find.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you," I sang quietly to myself, alone under the night sky.

"You look like a monkeyyyy…and you smell like one too."

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: Hey y'all! I hope you had a great first week of the new year! I can't believe winter break is over. I have to go back to work tomorrow. Feels bad man. I had a lot of stuff to get done, and I underestimated how much time it would take to get through each bullet on that checklist. In a word, oof.

Ah well. Back to the grind.

I don't have a Ptrn. If you've gotten five bucks of enjoyment out of this story, please consider buying my original work on amazon (information in my bio). Between the two sites this fic is posted on, I have nearly 1600 readers. If even half of you choose to support me in this fashion, I would have considerable bargaining power when it comes to getting future books published. More publishing deals means I can quit my day job, which translates into more time for fanfiction. It's a one time thing, and you even get more of my writing out of it.

Thank you so much for all your support. See you next week!