Shinobi Instincts and Sculptural Ankles
It’s a miracle, really, how much a little peace can soften a person. Or maybe it’s just him—Kakashi—walking beside you like this.
His silhouette is calm and almost unfamiliar, outlined by the slow sway of lanternlight. One hand tucked casually into the sleeve of his kimono, the other resting at his side, fingers occasionally brushing yours with a kind of unconscious familiarity that speaks to something long buried, something maybe neither of you have the language for yet. But it’s there—silent, steadfast.
The air is heavy with the scent of grilled soy, spiced sweet potatoes, and tangy plum wine. Beneath that, there’s the subtle bite of pine smoke and roasted chestnuts curling in lazy streams from the food stalls. And underneath that, so faint it might be imagined, the clean, sharp breath of rain waiting on the horizon. The sky, however, remains a vast and unbroken canvas of deep blue, dappled with early stars and strands of smoke drifting upward like prayers.
You’re not used to this. To warmth like this. To ease.
The path beneath your feet is dusted in fine soil and crushed petals from some earlier procession, the lanterns swaying gently overhead like tethered moons. Their light is golden and low, catching on the edges of silk sleeves and hairpins, spilling onto the curve of Kakashi’s masked cheek in a way that softens him, makes him look momentarily younger—less like the man you know and more like the boy he might have been.
Around you, the village festival moves like a living thing—vendors calling out their wares, laughter bubbling from alleyways, children shrieking with delight as they dart between stalls, firecrackers popping in bursts of red and silver that leave behind smoky trails and applause.
And yet, somehow, you and Kakashi move through it all like you’re beneath the surface of a slow-moving river. Quiet. Warm. Untouched. As if the noise, the joy, the entire chaotic bloom of life is happening in another realm entirely. You are submerged in your own stillness, and it’s more intoxicating than the plum wine being poured a few stalls over.
The kimono you wear shifts with each step, silk whispering against your skin. It’s heavy but elegant—deep twilight hues blooming outward from the waist, embroidered with delicate threads that catch and shimmer under the lanternlight like constellations. You’d hardly recognized yourself when they’d dressed you, all pale powders and deft fingers, tucking and tying until you resembled a character from an old tale.
But Kakashi had recognized you. And now… now he walks beside you in a kimono they swore matched yours perfectly—subdued greys edged with blue-black thread, simple but elegant. He hadn’t wanted to wear it, had protested with a low groan and a halfhearted threat to vanish the moment he was dressed.
But he hadn’t vanished.
And he hadn’t taken it off.
He walks with you like he belongs here. Like you do.
Now and then, the sleeve of his kimono brushes yours, soft as breath. And sometimes, your fingers come close enough to touch, a feather’s width apart—but neither of you moves to close the distance.
You glance at him from the corner of your eye.
There’s a softness to his features tonight. His hair slightly neater, tied higher than usual. The edge of his mask tucked cleanly against his jaw. His gaze is relaxed, sweeping across the scene not in search of threat, but of something gentler—distraction, perhaps. Or maybe just the flicker of lanterns in water buckets or the children spinning paper windmills until they blur.
He catches you looking, and though he says nothing, the corner of his visible eye crinkles faintly. Amused. Or content. Or simply… here.
There’s no mission tonight. No battle plan. No report waiting at sunrise. No enemies in the shadows. No masks—at least not the kind that matter.
Just the hush of your footsteps beside his, the murmur of distant drums echoing low and rhythmic in your bones, and the slow, almost imperceptible heat of him beside you.
You breathe in deeply, scenting the night. The warm silk against your skin. The pale glint of a hair ornament someone tucked into your braid without asking. The weight of Kakashi’s presence beside you.
It’s dangerous, how much you want this.
And you find yourself wishing, with a kind of fierce and helpless ache, that the night wouldn’t end.
Kakashi doesn’t say much—but that’s always been his way. And tonight, he doesn’t have to. His presence beside you speaks louder than any word could, steady and quiet like a river running deep under the surface. He keeps close, not quite touching, but never far. His eyes flick toward you now and then, but never linger long enough to feel caught. As if looking at you too long might make the moment real—and real things are too easily broken.
You both pause near a bridge that arches over a koi pond, its wooden slats worn smooth by years of footsteps. The water glistens beneath, catching the lanternlight and sending it dancing in ripples across the undersides of the bridge, the lilypads, the belly-white scales of the fish drifting lazily through.
There’s laughter in the distance. The clatter of geta sandals. Somewhere, someone sings a love song slightly out of tune.
Still, Kakashi says nothing.
But when your fingers brush again, he doesn’t pull away.
You let the silence stretch.
The kimono is warm around your skin, the sash tied firm around your waist. A strand of hair, loosened from its pin, drifts against your cheek and you’re reaching for it when Kakashi moves first. He catches it gently between his fingers and tucks it back behind your ear with a casual grace that makes your breath snag. His touch is fleeting, barely there. And yet, you feel it long after it’s gone—like a memory pressed into skin.
He draws his hand back, and you don’t speak. You just watch him as his eyes roam the night sky, already beginning to change. A faint shimmer of anticipation crackles in the air.
Then—
A soft whistle.
A pause.
And the sky erupts.
The first firework bursts in a bloom of gold and red, raining sparks across the clouds. A second follows close behind—blue this time, brilliant and sharp, trailing silver starlight in its wake. The festival crowd gasps in delight, voices rising like birds startled from the trees, and just beyond them, the night unfurls in color and thunder.
You tilt your head back to watch. The light flickers across your face, warming your features in flashes—sunset gold, searing white, cool amethyst. It catches in your lashes, glints in the silk of your sleeves, turns Kakashi’s silver hair, no longer held by his henge, into something briefly celestial.
He watches you, not the sky.
And when you glance at him, caught off-guard by the weight of his gaze, he doesn’t look away this time. His eye reflects the fireworks—fractured stars and flame flickering in the dark. He’s looking at you like the noise of the world doesn’t touch this pocket of time you’ve carved out between breaths.
Your chest is tight, and for once it’s not from battle or fear or adrenaline. It’s from the way your heartbeat stumbles in the quiet between explosions. The way you wish you could bottle this moment—preserve it, hold it against your chest when everything else inevitably falls apart.
Another firework bursts overhead, and for a breathless second, you see the night painted in green and violet.
Then you hear it—Kakashi, a low exhale.
“You look…” he starts, then pauses. His voice is quiet, almost lost beneath the applause of the crowd and the crackle of the next firework. “It suits you. The kimono.”
You don’t know if it’s the compliment or the surprise of hearing him say it, but your throat feels thick. You don’t answer right away. You just look at him—really look—and realize this version of him, wrapped in midnight silk, standing under a sky on fire with color, isn’t one you ever expected to see. And yet, here he is.
And here you are.
Maybe it’s the fireworks. Maybe it’s the crowd pressing in, or the hum of sake in your blood, or the fact that for the first time in what feels like forever, there’s nothing to do but stand still—but it all feels fragile. Precious.
The heat of the moment is pierced by a child squealing in joy nearby, and Kakashi shifts slightly, blinking, as if breaking from whatever spell had briefly pulled the two of you into orbit. You look away, stirred by how close your heart had gotten to your throat.
Still, he doesn’t move far.
You don’t either.
And overhead, the fireworks continue—screaming into the sky and blooming like stars that only exist for a heartbeat before vanishing into smoke.
But then you blink—and then he’s gone.
One moment, Kakashi is there, a steady silhouette at your side, the familiar hush of his presence anchoring you like the subtle pull of the tide. The next, the space beside you breathes empty. The thread that tethered you—wordless, warm, quietly constant—has been cut, the severance so clean it leaves no sound behind.
No footstep. No parting breath. No warning.
Just the sudden realization that you’re alone.
Your head turns slowly, eyes sweeping the place he should be, and the chill that skims your spine is immediate. You blink once. Twice. The world around you doesn’t slow to match the weight in your chest. It rushes forward, vivid and unaware, a kaleidoscope of festival life too bright for the ache curling behind your ribs.
Children dart through the dust in patterned yukata, chasing each other with sparklers that fizz like tiny comets. Laughter bursts from behind a row of lanterns. A street vendor calls out cheerfully about roasted chestnuts, and the scent drifts toward you—sweet and earthy, mingling with the sharp tang of grilled soy and the cloying floral notes of incense left burning too long.
It’s too loud. Too full. Too alive to match the quiet, sudden ache that blooms where Kakashi once was.
“Kakashi?” you murmur, voice low and barely audible above the chatter. As if calling his name might summon him from a nearby shadow.
He doesn’t appear.
You don’t panic—but something unsettles you. Something wrong in the way the air feels thinner, heavier, as if his absence has rearranged its weight. You reach out instinctively, not with your hands but with your chakra, threading it outward in a slow, searching sweep. A subtle flare. A pulse.
Nothing.
Not even the faintest echo of him.
He’s masked himself completely.
Your breath sticks in your throat. Not fear, not yet. But confusion laced with the sour edge of something close. Your feet begin to move before your thoughts can catch up—soft steps, controlled, as you slip through the crowd, eyes sharp, scanning for the brush of silver hair or the slope of a shoulder you know better than your own reflection.
But there’s no sign of him.
You pass beneath a cluster of hanging lanterns—orange and gold and swaying gently in the breeze. The silk of your kimono catches faintly in the wind, trailing behind your movement like a ribbon of dusk. You feel overdressed suddenly, out of place. A jewel wrapped in fabric you didn’t ask for. The finery feels heavier now without him to reflect it.
A trio of old women stop you near a shaved ice stand, exclaiming over the pattern of your sleeves, your hair, the way your obi sits just so. Their voices are kind, filled with admiration that dances a little too close to pity. You thank them politely, bowing your head with a soft smile, but your eyes are already moving past them.
Your heart isn’t in it.
The festival stretches on around you like a living tapestry—stall after stall spilling with color and motion. Goldfish bob in porcelain bowls. Wind chimes sing above archways, delicate and trembling. Lanterns ripple in the wind, casting flickers of warm light across the cobbled street.
Above you, a firework bursts—silver-blue and star-shaped, with a center like a supernova. The crowd lets out a collective murmur of awe, faces turned skyward. You follow their gaze. The firework splits into finer threads as it falls, like needles of starlight stitching the sky apart.
You barely feel it.
Your fingers are wrapped tightly around a cup of plum wine, its chill biting into your skin, grounding you more than you want to admit. You sip it slowly, but the taste feels muted. Distant. The kind of sweetness you have to fake a smile for.
Still no sign of him.
You pass a group of young women huddled near a fan vendor, their eyes drifting toward you with barely concealed curiosity. They whisper behind painted paper fans, their laughter shy, glances lingering longer than they should. You catch fragments of their words—“beautiful,” “too elegant to be alone,” “who is she with?”—and pretend not to hear them.
Their stares make you feel even more alone.
You tip your head back again, watching the next firework pierce the sky—a golden spiral that blooms into crimson petals, like a lotus set aflame. The noise is muffled in your ears. The light spills across your face, casts soft shadows against your collarbones.
But it doesn’t warm you.
Another firework tears the sky open—violet and silver, blooming in perfect silence before the sound catches up. The light washes over the street in a shivering wave. Shadows stretch, dance across your features.
For a moment, the world stills.
And on your cheek—where no one can see, where even you barely feel it—the breeze lifts something salt-tinged and weightless. Something that cools too quickly in the warmth of the night.
You tilt your head up once more, watching the embers fall like stars and imagining, foolishly, that maybe one of them might land in his hand instead of yours.
You don’t wipe it away. You just keep walking.
And the ache in your chest keeps pace.
Because space beside you stays empty.
And somewhere behind your ribs, that empty space has turned sharp. Jagged. You’re not sure if it’s anger or hurt, but it builds in your chest with every passing step.
Because Kakashi left.
No word. No warning. Just… left.
And despite how much of you wants to believe it was for a reason—that he’s watching from a rooftop, or standing silently in a shadow, doing something important, something necessary—you can’t help the bitter twist inside you.
Can’t help hoping he regrets it.
That somewhere, in some quiet moment, he’s realizing what he walked away from.
You sip the wine again and let your eyes close briefly as another firework blossoms overhead—violet and silver this time, glittering like snowfall.
When you open them, you keep walking.
A firework bursts overhead—too low, too early, and far too loud. It crackles like a warning shot.
Your eyes flick sideways.
A shadow. Slouched. Half-hidden behind a skewered food cart soaked in lantern oil, the wood scorched from a cooking mishap hours ago. He’s crouched like a cursed raccoon caught elbow-deep in a bin of festival snacks—leaning just far enough to catch a glint of bare ankles from a gaggle of women twirling parasols and laughing behind painted fans.
The figure’s head tilts at an angle that no man with dignity—or spinal integrity—should ever adopt. And then—there’s a sound.
A stifled noise.
Wet. Awed. A little nasal.
Like someone seeing heaven through a peephole.
You don’t hesitate.
Your sandals thump once against the cobblestones before you launch yourself. The world smears around you—color, sound, motion—as you vault over the cart, kimono flaring like wings in the firelight. There’s a yelp—high-pitched, almost rodent-like—right before you tackle the man bodily to the dirt.
You land hard, all elbows and momentum, his groan smothered beneath your weight. A nearby vendor shrieks. Someone cheers. A paper lantern explodes underfoot.
You straddle him in a blur of indignation and pinning pressure, your knee firmly against a ribcage that does not deserve mercy.
“Pervert,” you snarl, breathless. “You greasy, pond-scum excuse for a man—”
“WAIT—wait—I can explain—!”
“—filthy little swamp goblin—”
“It’s not what it looks like!”
“Oh no?” you hiss, grabbing the collar of his ratty haori. “So you weren’t peeking through a crate like a barnyard voyeur?”
“I WAS TAKING NOTES!”
You blink.
“For a novel!” he wails, like that clears anything up. “This is research—creative research—”
“You’re writing erotica from a bush.”
“—for the visual nuance! The way the silk clings to—”
“You disgrace both literature and horticulture!”
The scuffle that follows is the stuff of festival legend.
Your foot slams into his shin. He yelps and bites his tongue mid-apology. A tray of candied plums gets kicked across the road. Someone tosses a coin into a bucket, shouting “Five ryo on the angry one!” while a small child starts chanting “Kick his butt!” with unholy glee.
“I have readers!” he pleads as you shove your forearm into his collarbone.
“You need restraints!”
“I—I’M A SANNIN!”
That stops you.
For half a beat, everything goes quiet. Even the crowd seems to hold its breath.
You recoil like he’s grown fangs. “You’re what?”
He gasps, one hand flung across his chest like a damsel in a play. “A Sannin! Of the Legendary Three! I’ve signed autographs on kunai! My face is on bathhouse towels—”
Your fingers loosen on his robe, breath catching. The Sannin. The actual Sannin.
That’s when the lanternlight hits his face properly.
The white mane. The red lines down his cheeks. The sweat-shined grin that belongs nowhere near any respectable woman.
“…Jiraiya?” you say flatly, like someone tasting a spoiled dumpling.
He blinks. And then stares. Not at your stance, or your kimono, or even your eyes—but at you.
Like a man who’s just seen a ghost.
You don't even realise your henge isn't in place, hasn't been since before Kakashi vanished.
His expression goes slack.
And then—shatters.
“Oh Kami,” he breathes, voice warbling. “It can’t be. It can’t—you’re—”
He throws himself at you like a starved dog lunging for a long-lost bone. Arms wrap around your knees. His face presses to your kimono with the reverence of a man greeting a temple idol—and weeping on it.
“She’s back! My muse! My brilliant little kunoichi who understood my genius—”
“GET OFF!”
You wrestle backwards, scandalized, but he clings harder, burbling nonsense into the hem of your clothes.
“You were the only one who said Chapter Seventeen had emotional depth! Even the bathtub scene!”
“I haven’t read your bathtub scene!”
“I dedicated the whole arc to your shinobi instincts and sculptural ankles!”
You elbow him in the face.
It only sort of works.
He collapses onto his back with a theatrical groan, sniffling like a kicked puppy. You stumble upright, face burning, half-expecting your ancestors to rise from the grave just to scold you for witnessing this.
Your kimono is rumpled. You are traumatized.
Jiraiya moans on the ground.
“She’s back,” he sighs to the sky, limp-limbed. “My flame. My—my inspiration. My—oh, I’m gonna need a whole new pen name—”
You don’t wait to hear the rest.
You bolt.
The crowd parts like fish in a tide, some still laughing, others watching in dumbstruck awe. You hear him—feel him—start to scramble after you, arms flailing, voice rising in some half-mad mixture of sobs and compliments and horrifying manuscript ideas.
“She’s back! I knew it—I knew it! Wait—wait, just let me show you Chapter Thirty-Two, I rewrote the hot springs scene with more—emotional nuance—!”
Your sandals slap against stone.
Your breath catches.
“Come back! You always said feedback was essential to the artistic—hey, don’t run so fast, I’m wearing geta—!”
But you’re already gone. Already rounding the corner of a side street lit in flickering festival gold, already ducking beneath a swaying paper banner.
His voice still chases you.
“My muse! My little stormcloud of scorn and flame—!”
Then—
Fainter.
“You were the only one who didn’t make fun of my pen name—!”
And fainter still.
“I CAN CHANGE THE ENDING IF YOU WANT—”
Until all that’s left is the sharp crackle of fireworks overhead.
You don’t know whether to scream, cry, or turn back.
But you do know one thing:
You are never reading anything with his name on the cover. Ever.