August 20th, part 1
God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise. ― Walter de la Mare
It's only at the gate to the village that Shikako stirs on Kakashi's back, making a quiet sound that makes the chūnin working the gate look at her with amusement. "She's not returning with the team she left with, so if she's capable of pulling out her ID, I really need to see it," the chūnin working check-in had said apologetically to Kakashi only moments before. The unfamiliar voice had woken her up, of course.
"Sensei?" she asks, voice a little whiny, face still pressed against his shoulder.
"Give the nice man your ID so we can sign his book," he prods her.
She grumbles, meaningless exhausted Nara noises. She lets go of Kakashi with one arm and makes a strange motion like she's attempting some kind of sleight-of-hand, but her hand remains empty. She tries it again before looking up half-way through.
"Oh," she says, looking at her hand. It's an empty sound, like she's lost something, and Kakashi is ready to force the issue with the gate guard to get her to the hospital — who's going to tell him that this might not really be his student just because she can't produce an ID? — but Shikako sighs and reaches back into her kunai pouch, pulling her ninja ID out from where she's always kept it. She hands it to Kakashi, who hands it to the chūnin.
The chūnin looks at it carefully, tilting it this way and that, looking at both the front and the back. This is all standard procedure, and to be expected considering Naruto and Shikamaru fell behind hours ago, but it does kind of make Kakashi want to rip the guy's throat out. Shikako needs to get to the hospital. She's clearly some kind of disoriented.
"Alright," says the chūnin, handing the card back to Kakashi who hands it back to Shikako. She pauses, just a little, and then puts it back where it came from. Kakashi is expecting to be waved along but the chūnin glances at a pieces of paper and then says, "I have a memo saying Nara Shikako and her two other teammates should go directly to the Hokage's office."
"Hmm," Kakashi says, because that's certainly a curious change in orders that he's going to outright ignore. "We're going to go to the hospital." He leans forward and fills in his and Shikako's information in the sign-in book
The chūnin nods. "Of course. And, ah... Nara Shikamaru and Uzumaki Naruto — what's their status?"
His pen hovers over the check-in book, ready to make a note: MIA, or body retrieval needed, or search and rescue required... and Kakashi doesn't like the reminder that he's not entirely sure how close the kids came to needing one or all of those.
"They fell behind and we couldn't wait," Kakashi says. "But they should go straight to the hospital as well." That's where Tsunade will be, after all, and probably where Nara Yoshino will be by the time they get in.
The chūnin nods and makes a note. Kakashi proceeds through the gates and into the village. Shikako's chin hooks over his shoulder, watching ahead of them as Kakashi bounces from street level to roof-level and bounces across rooftops towards the center of the village. It's a little rude, a little against common convention to roof-hop before the sun is even up, but it's faster than shunshining through the streets with a passenger would be. Besides, "directly to the hospital" means directly.
Tsunade is waiting at the hospital, fully dressed but also clearly roused from bed — probably by one of the ANBU on gate duty.
"Naruto and Shikamaru?" she asks.
"Shouldn't be that far behind me," Kakashi says.
"Good."
Tsunade leads them into a private examination room — the private examination room, the one with the best security seals. This is the room Tsunade prefers, but it's also the one she takes sensitive debriefs in when they have to happen at the hospital. Kakashi lets Shikako out of the piggy back straight on to the raised bed.
"I can smell the blood on you, take the jacket off," Tsunade says with an imperious wave of her hand.
Shikako's shoulders slump a little. "It's fine," she asserts and unzips the jacket like she's about to reveal something she's going to get in trouble for.
It's not fine.
Tsunade reaches forward with a diagnostic jutsu immediately, her face grim. Shikako is covered in dried blood. Obviously her own blood; it sticks her shirt to her chest. There's a hole in her shirt, just where her heart is, gaping open a few centimeters like some fabric is missing. The edges of it are strangely clean. Not charred or melted or even frayed, just sheared clean off.
Kakashi saw Yakushi Kabuto do that to a few chūnin during the invasion, with chakra scalpels, but surely the kids would have mentioned a run-in with Orochimaru or his people.
"It's fine," Shikako repeats. "...Mostly."
She should be dead.
Tsunade snaps at her to take Naruto's jacket off completely and Shikako shrugs it off with the motions of someone who's in no physical pain, who doesn't even have the lingering phantom pain of a big healing.
The jacket slumps against the bed behind Shikako. The back of the jacket is crusted with blood just like the front of her shirt. Now that Kakashi is looking for it, now that he has the bright lights of the hospital, he can see that her braid has a fair amount of blood matted into it.
"I need you to take your shirt off, too," Tsunade says to Shikako. "Get out, Hatake."
Kakashi doesn't move.
"I want him to stay," Shikako says. She's a good student, even if she is keeping secrets.
Kakashi looks at Tsunade and Tsunade looks at him.
"You can stay, but draw the curtain and activate the seals," Tsunade says.
All it takes is a spike of chakra into the activation point and the room's walls, floor, and ceiling hum to life. Then Kakashi draws the curtain half-way across the room so that he'll be able to see Tsunade but not Shikako — he wants as much information as possible without violating his student's privacy. Tsunade rolls her eyes at him but doesn't protest.
There's a rustle of cloth from the bed. "Ugh, it's sticking, sorry," Shikako says. Kakashi can imagine that sensation quite well — blood has a way of gluing cloth to your skin.
"Hold still," Tsunade says. Then there's the strange not-burning smell of Tsunade vaporizing the blood between the cloth and the skin, a process most medic nin can only do in small doses to remove cloth from a scabbed wound.
"Ughh, gross," Shikako complains.
"It's your own blood," Tsunade says. The corners of her eyes are tense.
Kakashi can see Shikako's arms peek out from beyond the curtain as she leans forward while sliding her shirt off over her head. The way she twists her arms only makes the holes in the front and the back more apparent. There's a drawer opening and the crinkle of her shirt being thrown away in a biohazard bag.
"This is well-healed," Tsunade says. "Almost no scar tissue past the first layer of skin. I don't think you'll have any problems with mobility as long as you keep up with your stretching for the next few weeks."
"I know," Shikako says, and there's something... strange in her voice.
"I imagine you would," Tsunade says, and Kakashi is aware again that he is missing information and whatever it is probably almost got Shikako killed.
"Can you — will you check my abdomen?" Shikako asks. "Here?"
"I checked all of you, there's nothing there," Tsunade says. She stands and drags a cart on wheels from the corner blocked by the curtain over to the bed — still blocked, but Kakashi can remember from before he drew the curtain that it was a piece of equipment.
A diagnostic chakra sensor, he thinks, and he's proven right when Tsunade says,. "Touch this," and then there's the beep of the DCS turning on and spitting out a number. It's an unfortunately familiar sound to Kakashi, a sound that's only gotten more familiar over the years.
"I could feel the diagnostic jutsu, but... you can look deeper, can't you?" Shikako asks.
"This reading..." Tsunade mutters. There are a few clicks, the DCS being reset, the rustle of soft paper, and then she says, "Here, put this on. And touch this again."
More paper sounds — Shikako putting on a hospital gown — and Shikako says, "I already know what's wrong with my chakra."
"Spit it out, then, because according to this you don't have any. You should be dead."
His student huffs out an annoyed sigh over the sound of her pants being shunted off and hitting the floor. "Throw them out with my shirt," Shikako requests, which Tsunade does — she puts them in the biohazard bag, stands, whips the curtain back to being fully open, and drops the biohazard bag into a chute that will deliver the bag straight into a incinerator.
Then Tsunade turns, hands on her hips, and pins Shikako with a look.
"Because of my hypersensitivity, my body doesn't need chakra," Shikako says. She looks tiny on the hospital bed, in her paper gown. She waves a hand vaguely. "Usually I do without it? But I'm not out of chakra, I have... a thing... blocking my eighth gate."
"We'll have to prep you for surgery immediately. I have a surgery bay and a team on stand-by already," Tsunade says. Her hand lights up with chakra again and she presses it to Shikako's chest, presumably looking for proof of Shikako's claim.
Kakashi knows enough about the Gates to know that it will be a risky surgery. With anyone but Senju Tsunade leading it, Shikako would probably end up a pile of ash on the table by the end of it, burnt up from having the Gate of Death opened for even the fraction of a minute it might take to remove whatever it is that can obstruct the gate without killing her.
"But I need you to check my fifth and sixth gates, too," Shikako goes on, her voice low with the clear desire to not have to talk about this part, though she clearly knows that she must.
"There's no scar tissue there," Tsunade points out.
"There wouldn't be," Shikako says, voice so quiet Kakashi has to strain to hear it even in the small, otherwise silent room. "Tsunade-sama, I need to be sure there's nothing there."
Tsunade's brow furrows, her hand drifting down after a moment's pause to linger over Shikako's abdomen and then over her stomach — the fifth and sixth gates, respectively. The line of Shikako's shoulders is tense, anticipatory.
What did Shikako encounter? What is she afraid Tsunade might find?
"There's nothing," Tsunade says at last.
Shikako's shoulders slowly slump and she gives a long blink of relief, like she wants to just close her eyes and savor the moment. Considering how calm she seems about a block in her eighth gate, this seems... out of place. But neither she nor Tsunade discuss it further.
"Sensei," Shikako says, scooping up Naruto's jacket and holding it out to him. "I promised Naruto I'd get his jacket cleaned and... I don't want my mom to see it. Will you drop it off at that place near the Yamanaka flower shop and tell them to replace the lining if they have to? They don't ask for payment until you pick it up, so..."
Generally speaking, Kakashi doesn't run errands for people unless he's aiming to secure a favor out of them for later. But in this case, well. He doesn't want Yoshino to see that pattern of bloodstains on something Shikako was wearing, either. Kakashi wishes he hadn't seen it.
He takes the jacket.
"Good. Make yourself useful and go get Shikaku and Yoshino, too," Tsunade says. "We'll be in surgery by the time they get here, but they'll want to know."
"Dad's here? Isn't he supposed to be—?"
"I called him back based on some recent intel," says Tsunade.
Not technically a favor — an order from the Hokage to tell the Jōnin Commander something isn't a favor — but being sent to play messenger is usually exactly the kind of thing Kakashi is careful to blatantly, flagrantly avoid, no matter how important. There's almost always someone else to dump the task on, though it will take thinking outside the box on this one to think of someone appropriate.
"Oh, good," Shikako says. "I was worried Shikamaru would have to go home alone. Mom would panic."
So, that strikes the two most likely candidates off Kakashi's list, although that's probably just as well, considering how tired they're certain to be when they get in.
"I'll make sure they know," Kakashi assures Shikako.
She doesn't smile at him, exactly, but the corners of her eyes crinkle, her mouth twitches. She's probably caught on that he's definitely not going to be the one to do it. It's so cute when she lets him have his fun.
Tsunade tells him to get out again, this time actually meaning it, so he does. And he's careful not to look at the diagnostic chakra sensor on his way out. He doesn't need a reminder of the future that's pressing down on him and his students right now, doesn't need to look at an omen of his approaching death.
It's always been coming, and it only seems distasteful now because he let himself get dragged into being a sensei.
"I thought you were at the border," Sasuke says, shoving his feet into sandals, after Kakashi has updated him on the situation.
Kakashi shrugs. "I was." He's slouched against Sasuke's doorjam, his hands free because the place Shikako had wanted to launder Naruto's jacket had been on the way and had been, miraculously, open. Kakashi has never owned a piece of clothing he cared about enough to want cleaned of blood before the sun comes up, but he's probably not in a place to judge other people's eccentricities.
Anyway, it's a good thing that they were open, because Kakashi would have rather thrown the jacket away than bring it near Sasuke in the state it was in.
"I thought they were on a C-rank," Sasuke adds.
"They were."
"Why is it always the C-ranks," he mutters. "Ino says this shit never happens to Team Ten."
"Ino?" Kakashi asks innocently. "Have you been making friends, Sasuke?"
Five months ago, Kakashi is sure Sasuke would have gnawed his own arm off rather than talk to Yamanaka Ino of his own free will. Maybe Kakashi should leave it alone, so as not to embarrass or pressure his student, but where's the fun in that? He's adorable when he scowls. Precious. And if a little needling is going to ruin it, it probably wasn't that great anyway.
"She's fine," Sasuke says grudgingly, which is his equivalent of a glowing review.
"And have you been spending a lot of time with her?"
"She was just trying to help me find out about this Yamashiro guy. Not that we had much luck. Maybe you know him?"
Well. That's an odd fixation. Sasuke hates information gathering.
"Yamashiro Aoba?" Kakashi prods.
"Yeah. Special jōnin. Sunglasses, jōnin blues, vest zipped up. He came looking for Shikako on Tuesday, and Ino says he had at least one session with her dad between then and now." Sasuke's arms are crossed. "He wouldn't tell me what he wanted from her."
...and Shikaku has been suddenly called back to the village. And Kakashi was diverted to intercept Shikako. And Tsunade had a team on standby for a surgery that she really couldn't have known Shikako would need.
And Shikako had nearly died, but Tsunade hadn't asked any questions about the mission — not even whether it had been completed or not — so Kakashi still doesn't know what happened. Shikako had pretty much pointedly not told him.
Whatever the hell is going on, Yamashiro Aoba is as good of a lead as Kakashi's gotten. He usually knows everything about everybody, anyway.
"I see," Kakashi says. "Maybe I should go pay him a visit. Can you go to the Nara clan grounds for me? Shikako will still be in surgery for awhile anyway."
Sasuke nods, although he looks about as awkward as Kakashi always feels about Shikako having a family. It's probably worse for Sasuke, of course, although Kakashi is in favor of forcing him to interact with Shikako's parents.
"Great," Kakashi says. He ruffles Sasuke's hair and darts off to see Yamashiro Aoba.
Yoshino and her husband are roused from sleep in the middle of the night by knocking on their door.
It's not exactly unusual for them to have their sleep disturbed by someone bringing Shikaku a problem that can't wait until morning. Clan emergencies before the sun is up are a little rare, though not unheard of, and the village itself never sleeps. What's more rare is for Shikaku to come back from answering the door and rouse her to get dressed as well.
"The kids?" Yoshino asks, heart in her throat, as she throws on clothing.
Shikaku had come home from the border suddenly, called back only a few hours after Kakashi had been called to retrieve Shikako, Shikamaru, and Naruto from Wind. Intel got news of some kind of invasion, Tsunade had said, but the team should be fine. Yoshino has been on pins and needles since, unable to even enjoy her husband's return.
"Shikako is in surgery," Shikaku says.
As soon as they're decently dressed they're down the stairs. Uchiha Sasuke is waiting by the door, looking much more comfortable than the first time he'd come over for dinner, but significantly less comfortable than he'd looked when he'd been over a few days ago, keeping her company before Shikaku returned.
Yoshino asks him, "How bad is it?"
"Sensei says Tsunade was confident she'd be fine," Sasuke says. "He didn't actually tell me what was wrong or anything, but Shikako was moving under her own power when he found them in River, so..." Sasuke shrugs helplessly. For any other 13 year old girl, for any other genin, 'moving under her own power' would mean Shikako wasn't suffering anything serious at all, but Shikako's tolerance for pain and exhaustion is... a little disconcerting.
"And the other two?" Yoshino watches Sasuke closely, a little anxiously.
Sasuke's eyes widen, but he's making good strides to get over the awkward, gangly nature of being a fresh genin, and doesn't otherwise show any sign of his surprise. He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the main gate and says, "They'll be here soon. Sensei out-paced them carrying Shikako home. Neither of them are injured at all."
He probably didn't expect her to ask after Naruto, which is both ridiculous and understandable. Someone has to look after that boy, and he spends enough time eating at Yoshino's table that it might as well be her. She still carefully tends the plant he'd brought on his first visit, although it's required some help from Yamanaka Tomomi to keep it alive.
Shikaku grabs his vest and Yoshino grabs her coat and the bag she still hasn't unpacked from the last time Shikako was in the hospital, wishing not for the first time that she were active duty again, that she could meet these threats against her children head-on instead of picking up the pieces afterwards.
They all dart across the rooftops together, towards the hospital, Yoshino's heart in her throat. At least this wasn't like the meatgrinder the kids had gone through against the Sound ninja, at least it sounds like Shikako's life isn't in danger, at least it's over.
At the hospital, the receptionist is useless and can only confirm that Shikako is at the hospital and in surgery. There's a hallway with benches outside the surgical bay where Tsunade is working on Shikako. Shikaku stands. Sasuke leans against the wall.
Yoshino sits, and waits. The anxious boredom is always the worst part.
The warmth of human contact isn't a perfect defense against unpleasant dreams, but it makes stirring awake more pleasant — and Anko is good company at all times of the day and night. She reads in the ambient streetlight coming from the window by Aoba's bed and when he stirs awake from a nightmare she's ready with idle, informative chatter about what she's been reading: Did you know pigs, honey badgers, hedgehogs, and mongoose are all impervious to snake neurotoxin? Did you know there used to be a place called Land of Neck?
Early in the morning on the day Shikako is supposed to get back from Land of Wind, before the sun rises, Anko shifts on the bed beside Aoba, tucking away her paperback and tensing just slightly. Aoba wakes almost instantly. He's laying on his side, facing away from where Anko is sitting up against the headboard, his back pressed against her hip to knee. She's sitting facing the door to the bedroom and the window.
There's someone in the apartment.
For someone who's snuck in, they're being polite: no cat's foot technique here, no chakra to muffle the slight creak of the floorboards, not even any effort to hide their breathing or the sound of cloth moving against cloth as they approach the bedroom.
The intruder pauses near the kitchen table.
"Aoba," says the voice of Hatake Kakashi, "no one told me you'd taken up gardening. Are you using poisons now?" A short while later Kakashi is poking his head into the bedroom and taking in Anko silently for a few seconds longer than actually necessary before he adds, "Ah. Expending past venom, Anko?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Anko asks, although she's no longer tense.
"I could ask you the same," Kakashi says, tone amused and a little presumptive about what, exactly, Anko is doing in Aoba's bed. Which, well. Aoba pretty publicly never leaves the village for anything more than Intel pickups anymore. There's no reason to assume he'd need someone to keep watch for him.
Aoba — sitting up now — says, "They're Genma's."
"How nice of you to open your home to his plants," Kakashi says. He wanders into bedroom, as casually as most people might join their friends at a tea shop. "I didn't even know you were close with all these people," he goes on, "but that doesn't mean I've heard nothing about you since I got back. I've heard you're interested in one of my cute little genin."
Anko immediately groans, "This shit again?" to Aoba's benefit — because the reply on the tip of his tongue was None of them are even genin anymore!, or maybe She's a special jōnin, for fuck's sake.
Neither of those things are true anymore. Uchiha Sasuke and Nara Shikako are both genin still. Uzumaki Naruto is barely a chūnin.
"Again?" prompts Kakashi.
"Yeah, your Uchiha wouldn't keep his nose out of it, either," Anko says. "What's with your team?"
"Hmmm," Kakashi says, and his eye slides away from her entirely, and his entire bearing shifts to say he's stopped considering her part of the conversation.
Aoba scrubs his hands over his face. He's been asleep for only a few hours. He really doesn't want to have this conversation, and especially not at this hour, but of course there's no way to make Kakashi go away if he doesn't want to go, and attempts will only invite injury or creative revenge. If Kakashi wants to have a conversation with you, you have a conversation with him.
"It's nothing to worry about," Aoba says. He's pretty sure he doesn't give anything away but Kakashi can still tell, somehow, and clearly doesn't believe him. Maybe because Aoba showing up somewhere, asking a question, and then leaving without telling anyone any gossip was once, rightly, suggested at one of the Bingo Book parties as a sign of the apocalypse.
"Now, now, none of that," says Kakashi, so very very pleasantly. His visible eye is crinkled in good humor. "Looking for my student and then spending so much time with Ibiki and Inoichi? I'm sure, whatever it is, it just slipped your mind to come to her jōnin-sensei first."
This is a predictable response, for someone as overprotective as Hatake Kakashi is about his students. Although, well, considering Shikako's entire career, especially the parts that Kakashi doesn't know about yet, Kakashi is actually a reasonable level of protective.
Aoba approves immensely, although that doesn't actually change the answer he can give Kakashi. Aoba has to say: "I can't tell you, Kakashi. You need to take this up with Tsunade-sama."
Kakashi's reaction is subtle but quick — maybe quicker than Aoba had hoped, but... it would figure that Kakashi would spend years frantically dodging and then candidly failing genin teams only to find one he cares about so much he's nearly obsessive.
The reaction is this: a slight pressure in the air and a feeling with no diagnosable source. Focused intent.
It's not the shiver-inducing prickle of killing intent, and in a lot of ways that makes it worse. Hit with it unawares, it's the feeling of being watched by eyes you can't see. It induces paranoia in civilians, increases their suspicion and fatalism. Aoba had gone on a mission to Land of Honey once where Ibiki had managed to drive a lesser noble's embezzling son into a full-on nervous breakdown without ever even looking at the guy.
"I'm talking to you," Kakashi says. He is no longer pleasant or friendly.
The intent is neutral, sure, but it makes Aoba feel like he's about to be casually, carefully, and above all impassively dissected. Kakashi will get his answers. Kakashi will take Aoba apart piece by piece until he finds the information he wants.
"Kakashi, she's not in trouble and neither am I," Aoba says, keeping his voice carefully quiet, just shy of reassuring. "Tsunade-sama needs to decide whether or not you should be read in."
"You should stop talking to him," Anko says. "Get out. Now."
"Not in trouble?" Kakashi leans forward, just a little, and the slimmest spike of killing intent worms its way out into the apartment.
Aoba's breath hitches. His throat — there's nothing wrong with his throat. It's August, and Anko is here, and so is Kakashi. And yet, there's also something else in the room, isn't there? It seems to just be Kakashi's intent, but is it really?
Would Kakashi really use killing intent?
Maybe Aoba never left that temple. Maybe the thing that saw him in the temple never left him, its gaze spanning time and space just waiting to make itself known, to make sure Aoba knows that it hasn't forgotten. Of course Aoba, who now knows death, has never actually escaped his fate.
"She's been under the knife for an hour already," Kakashi goes on, knife-sharp and relentless. There's a reason they call him Cold-Blooded Kakashi and this is pretty much it. As a kid, this had been practically all there was to Kakashi, until death after death had split him open.
"Hey! I said to fucking get out." Anko slides off the bed and onto her feet. Anko is in front of him, chakra high and bright, positive intent crackling off her like bursts of cascading fireworks, hot with anger and ready to burn. Protective, as if she'd have any actual chance against Hatake Kakashi. Against the thing out there that Shikako snatched Aoba away from.
Anko is wearing sleeping shorts and a camisole — they weren't actually expecting any danger, just flashbacks — but she's never cared about being underdressed for an occasion. "Do you get off on this shit, Hatake? If Aoba can't tell you, he can't tell you. Maybe you should be at the hospital waiting to see how things turn out for your genin instead of whatever the fuck you're trying to accomplish here, Comrade-Killer."
Leave it to Anko to go right for the throat when she's trying to deescalate.
Aoba... has never even fucking heard of someone calling Kakashi that particular moniker to his face. Even the Nohara, who came up with it, have kept their tongues around him. It makes Kakashi look away from Aoba, eyes snapping to Anko — which in turn makes Aoba realize that he's been pinned by eye contact from Kakashi for most of this conversation.
It also makes him realize that he's shaking. And his hand is on his throat. He pulls it away, slowly, with all the care of a prey animal in front of a predator, because of course Kakashi has looked back at him just as quickly as he looked away and now he seems to be seeing all of the signs of Aoba's weakness.
"Tsunade-sama will fix whatever's wrong," Aoba says. She had before, after all, and this time Shikako presumably didn't collapse, dead, on the floor of the Hokage's office, so Shikako will probably come out of this better than last time. He hopes. Unless something somehow went more wrong than before on her mission.
Kakashi looks at him for a long moment, like he's considering whether or not to just break Aoba open, like he thinks that might be worth it... and then he's gone.
It's just him and Anko and the streetlight again.
"What an asshole," Anko mutters. Her positive intent is still hanging in the room, coiled and ready to strike. "You want more sleep, or breakfast?"
Aoba is already sliding out of bed. "Breakfast on the way. I want to go to the hospital."
"Uh, shit, really?" Anko asks, and scrambles for her day clothes. "I mean that was bad, but was it really that bad? If it was that bad, should we really stop for food before checking you in?"
"I — no, sorry, that's not what I meant." Aoba stuffs his legs into a pair of pants, movements a little clumsy — he tells himself it's the interrupted sleep and the impatience, not left over from Kakashi's intent. That's over now. It's fine. "I want — I can't really explain why, but — I want to go wait for Nara Shikako to get out of surgery."
"Okay, that doesn't make any goddamn sense, really, but sure," Anko says. "None of my business why, right?"
Akimichi Hironobu's bakery isn't yet open for customers when he and Anko swing by, but Aoba has never in his life let that stop him. The trick to Akimichi — even ones that have married in like Hironobu — is that they love to feed people. Also, Hironobu, specifically, loves to gossip, so Aoba is in good with him.
He taps on the glass door, he and Anko are loaded up with coffee and a box of free day-old items that Hironobu refuses to take money for — "There's always someone in the hospital waiting rooms who needs something sweet!" — and then via hand signals Aoba gets Anko to distract Hironobu while he sneaks money into the man's till.
"I hope your friend comes out of surgery okay," Hironobu says as they leave.
"Tsunade-sama will take care of her," says Aoba, and knows that it's true.
Aoba isn't nervous about the surgery, of course. He's nervous about whether or not Shikako remembers. Desperately, selfishly, Aoba doesn't want to be alone — wants someone else to have seen the thing out there, wants a partner like Shikako to watch his back — but fears what remembering might mean for Shikako.