In What Universe?
You walk a few paces ahead, silent but alert, eyes flicking through the trees, catching every movement, every shift of light through the leaves.
You always do that—take point without being asked. It’s not dominance, not really. Just you being you. Stubborn. Sharp. Always moving. Always watching. Predictable in the ways most shinobi aren’t. In the ways that make his job easier.
Not that he’d ever say it out loud.
The morning is still soft with haze, the sky barely blue. Mist clings low to the ground, brushing against your boots like it wants to hold on to you just a little longer. The forest breathes around you, damp and quiet. The mission is over. No casualties. No hiccups. In and out. A clean extraction. One of the rare ones.
It should feel like nothing.
But it doesn’t.
Your presence hums just a few steps ahead of him—not loud, not invasive, but there. A steady thrum in his peripheral awareness. The gentle flare of your chakra pulses faintly, tucked close to your skin, but he feels it like the rhythm of a heartbeat that’s not his.
It used to irritate him. The way he couldn’t not sense you. How you anchored him whether he wanted it or not.
Now?
Now it just is.
You glance back over your shoulder. A quick check-in. Not concerned, just routine.
You don’t say anything. He doesn’t either.
But your gaze brushes over him like you’re trying to read something under the mask.
And you see him. Not just with your eyes. You always have.
That part’s harder to forget.
It’s been days since that night. Since he lost control of the moment—let instinct override judgment—and you saw everything. Not just the skin he keeps hidden, but the break beneath it. The flicker he buried for years.
He told himself you didn’t notice.
Told himself you’d forget.
But you haven’t. He knows it in the way you look at him now—not careful, not cold—but like you’re giving him space he never asked for and don’t deserve.
And then there was last night. Burned rice. Weak fire. That silence stretching too long before you finally said, “I don’t expect anything from you, you know.”
You didn’t look at him when you said it. Just kept stirring the ashes with a stick, your voice soft. Careful.
And it hit him harder than it should have. Your expectations, or lack thereof. The way you were already letting him off the hook.
He should’ve been relieved.
He wasn’t.
He watches the way you move now. The way your feet land light, how you carry your weight low, prepared. You’re tired—he can see it in your shoulders, the droop of your arms—but you don’t complain. You never complain. It used to annoy him. That chip on your shoulder, the silent edge to your endurance. But now, it’s something else.
He used to admire it. Before he reminded himself admiration led to attachment, and attachment led to—
Well. Everything he’s been trying to avoid.
You’ve stopped humming.
You always used to hum when you were bored on missions—off-key, on purpose, right under your breath so it would drive him up the wall. He used to bait you for it. Snarky comments. Mild threats. Sometimes he swore you did it just to get a rise out of him.
He kind of misses it now.
The quiet between you now isn’t charged the way it used to be. It doesn’t bite. But it lingers, like a ghost walking between you.
He wonders if you’re waiting, too.
You shift your pack higher on your shoulder and sigh—a long, slow exhale that sounds like it’s been sitting in your chest for hours.
“Bet Genma’s hoping we came back with at least one scar,” you mutter, dry and flat like it’s too early to be clever.
He considers ignoring it. Considers letting the silence stretch again.
But instead—
“I’ve got emotional damage. That counts.”
It’s too dry. Too fast.
You scoff—short, involuntary, like you weren’t expecting him to play along.
He lets himself glance sideways.
The early light catches your face just right—paints a soft gold over your features. There’s a smear of dirt on your cheek you haven’t noticed yet. He should probably point it out. He doesn’t. You’ll notice later, and complain, loudly and dramatically, and he’ll pretend not to care while secretly listening to every word.
“You know,” you say after a beat, “for a guy who walks around with his face hidden, you’ve got a surprisingly punchable expression.”
He shrugs, easy. “Occupational hazard.”
You glance over at him with that half-lidded, narrowed look—mischief barely contained. Your mouth twitches like you’re trying not to grin. Trying not to crack the surface that’s been sealed for days.
There it is.
That look.
The one he knows better than he should. The one that always comes before something reckless or stupid or funny enough to make the mission bearable. The look that used to lead to bickering and bruises and maybe even laughter—on the rare occasion you let him hear it.
And for the first time in days, his shoulders loosen.
He lets you take the lead again. Falls into step behind you like always.
Easier that way. Watching your back. Making sure you’re close enough to reach if something happens.
You’ll be back in Konoha by midday. Back to the village, to reports and missions and walls you both pretend are necessary. Back to normal.
He tells himself this—whatever it is—will fade. That the tension will smooth itself out. That the odd quiet moments, the lingering stares, the memory of your eyes flicking down to his mouth before he pulled his mask back up—that all of it will dissolve like the mist clinging to the branches.
But then you reach up to brush a branch out of the way, and as you glance back to make sure he’s still there, something in his chest twists hard.
And just for a second, he wonders what it would be like if it didn’t.
Konoha looks different when you’re not bleeding into its soil.
The gates rise in the distance, curved and sun-warmed, flanked by guards who barely glance up as you approach. The air smells like sun-drenched stone and baked earth, familiar in a way that wraps around your lungs and squeezes. It catches in your ribs. Lingers behind your sternum like memory.
You step through the gates without fanfare, your sandals scuffing the ground, dust clinging to your ankles. No cheering crowd. No awaiting superior. Just the quiet sound of home breathing.
It’s only after Kakashi peels off with a muttered excuse (“Briefing. Paperwork. Hokage.”) that your shoulders finally drop. Not in relief. Just… permission. To let your spine uncoil. To breathe like the world isn’t riding on the edge of your shoulder blades.
You know you should head home. You look—and smell—like a war zone. The acrid stink of blood, smoke, and damp leaves clings to you like static. You’re pretty sure your hair could house a small ecosystem. But instead of turning toward your apartment, your feet drift.
They know the way. You don’t stop them.
The market’s alive in that late-morning lull between breakfast and lunch, full of shouting vendors and the sizzle of oil, cart wheels squeaking and children laughing and somewhere, someone very loudly arguing about the price of pickled radish.
You drift past it all like you’re underwater. Light filtering through the gaps in cloth awnings, catching on fruit piled high in baskets. The scent of grilled squid and sweet chestnuts mixes with the sharp tang of soy and vinegar, and it hits your stomach like a punch. You hadn’t even realized you were hungry.
Then—
“Back from the dead again, huh?”
You turn before the voice finishes speaking. Genma’s leaning against the post outside a dango shop, senbon in his mouth, posture loose and familiar and deeply annoying. His eyes rake over you—half-lidded and amused.
You arch a brow. “Barely. You miss me?”
“Like a rash,” he says with a grin, straightening. “Come on. You’re buying me lunch.”
“In what universe?”
“The one where you’ve been gone for two weeks and owe me gossip. And maybe a drink. Depending on how juicy the intel is.”
“I have a concussion,” you lie.
“Even better. That means you’ll spill all the good stuff without realizing.”
You want to say no. You really do.
But your body’s already moving, like it remembers what ease feels like.
You fall into step beside him. Just like old times.
He talks too much. He always has. It used to grate on you. Now it’s… nice. His voice is warm and steady and alive, and he’s full of stories—mostly made up, probably embellished, all ridiculous.
One about Gai accidentally terrifying a retired noblewoman by doing push-ups on her balcony in the middle of the night. Another about a hot springs mission that ended with the bathhouse staff mistaking Genma for a wandering healer. (“I gave someone medical advice and a foot massage. I’m basically certified now.”)
You laugh, real and involuntary, and it startles you.
The two of you end up on the roof of a tea shop like always, legs swinging off the edge, the world humming beneath your boots. The sun’s a soft weight on your back. You pick at a stick of dango while Genma lies beside you, arms folded under his head, senbon shifting lazily between his teeth.
“—and then Gai yells, ‘Youth is eternal, but broken noses are not!’ and just launches himself off the cliff.”
You choke. “Please tell me he landed on something soft.”
“A daikon cart.”
“Oh my god.”
“Tenzo almost cried.”
You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, wheezing. “You make half this stuff up.”
Genma doesn’t answer. Just smirks up at the sky like it’s sharing the joke.
The quiet that settles after is the good kind. No tension. No weight. Just the breeze tugging at your sleeves, the sharp scent of roasted tea drifting up from the vents below, the sound of people living their lives a few streets away.
You lean back on your hands. Let your eyes slip shut. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, you don’t feel like a loaded weapon. Or like something’s coiled in your chest waiting to snap.
You feel… like a person.
“You seem better,” Genma says after a long pause.
Your eyes crack open. “What do you mean?”
He doesn’t look at you. Just watches the clouds, his voice a little softer. “You’ve looked tight lately. On edge. Like something’s been following you and you didn’t want to turn around.”
You’re silent for a moment.
Then: “It still is. I’m just—maybe I’m getting faster.”
He hums. A little smile on his lips. “Good. Don’t slow down.”
You don’t promise anything. You don’t need to. It’s not that kind of conversation.
You finish your tea. Let the breeze ruffle your hair. Soak in the way the sunlight warms the top of your thighs through your clothes.
And later, when you finally drag yourself back to your apartment and find the note tucked under your door in that impossible-to-miss handwriting—
Mission report delivered. Don’t forget to eat. Or sleep. Or exist.
—you don’t roll your eyes.
You hold it a moment longer than you mean to. Then you set it on the table and go about your day.
You take the longest shower imaginable. The kind that turns your skin red and pries dirt from your pores. You pull on soft clothes that don’t smell like sweat or smoke. You crack the window open and let the village air drift in, warm and citrusy from the neighbor’s laundry.
And when the sun starts to dip behind the rooftops and the sky fades from gold to lilac, you sit on your windowsill and just… breathe.
You think, maybe, you’ll remember this day.
Not because it changed anything.
But because it didn’t have to.
Because for once, you weren’t a shinobi first.
You were just you.
And maybe that’s enough.