the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

🌿 HASHIRAMA SENJU — potentially polyamorous, but he may be dangerously optimistic about the emotional logistics

Hashirama's understanding of love is clearly fundamentally abundant. He forms enormous, life-defining attachments and doesn't appear to experience one bond as threatening to the legitimacy of any other; his love for his brothers, his devotion to Madara, his duty to the village and his relationship with Mito can all occupy him simultaneously, even when those loyalties become difficult to reconcile. So, because of that, I can easily imagine Hashirama loving more than one person romantically without regarding either relationship as incomplete. He wouldn't need exclusivity to feel secure in someone’s affection, nor would he instinctively interpret a partner loving somebody else as evidence that they loved him less. I think his biggest difficulty would be in the practical and emotional management of polyamory. Hashirama has a bad habit of believing sincerity and good intentions can overcome structural problems that actually require careful boundaries, difficult conversations and sustained attention. He could definitely build a loving polycule; he could also accidentally create a diplomatic summit in his own bedroom because he assured three people that everything would work itself out. Still, of everyone on this list, he's the one I can most easily imagine actively wanting and flourishing within polyamory provided somebody makes him sit down for the scheduling meeting.

🌊 TOBIRAMA SENJU — strictly monogamous personally, tolerant of ENM when the agreements are explicit

I don't believe that Tobirama would regard polyamory as inherently frivolous or illegitimate. I don't think consensual arrangements between informed adults are likely to offend him simply because they depart from convention. What he would distrust is ambiguity. Unspoken expectations, poorly negotiated boundaries and people using the language of non-monogamy to avoid accountability would activate every alarm in his body at once. Personally, however, I think Tobirama would be firmly monogamous. His trust is already difficult to obtain, his vulnerability is intensely private and the amount of emotional access granted to a romantic partner would make that bond incredibly specific. This isn't necessarily because he believes love must be exclusive in order to be real, but just because his preferred romantic intimacy would likely be built around a concentrated, reciprocal commitment that he wouldn't offer to several people or feel comfortable sharing with several people. He could respect someone else's polyamorous relationship once satisfied that everyone had consented and the rules were clear but he wouldn't volunteer for it himself. May the gods help anyone who attempts to rebrand cheating as spontaneous relationship anarchy within his hearing range though.

🕊️ NEJI HYŪGA — probably monogamous, and i think exclusivity would matter to him more than people assume

Like Shino, Neji is private, controlled and selective, but again, those traits don’t necessarily make someone monogamous. What pushes me there is his relationship with trust and autonomy. He grows up inside a clan system that treats bodies, futures and family bonds as things other people can regulate. I think, for Neji, choosing someone freely would be enormously significant. I suspect that romantic intimacy would become a fiercely protected private territory because so much of his life was defined by imposed obligations. One person being allowed into that space feels much more plausible than several. I also think he would struggle with uncertainty around shifting priorities because his trust is granted with such care, not because he needs constant reassurance. I honestly just think that his own bond formation is too deliberate, too guarded and too tied to freedom for multiple romantic partners to feel natural for him.

🌳 YAMATO — monogamous, and probably requires reciprocal monogamy to feel genuinely secure

Yamato would be accepting of ENM in principle and deeply reluctant to judge anyone else’s relationship, but I think his own needs run firmly towards monogamy. So much of his life has been defined by instability, isolation and conditional belonging: first as an experiment, then as a Root operative, and eventually as someone continually assigned to fill whatever role Konoha requires of him. A committed partnership would therefore represent something extraordinarily precious—a private home in which his place is chosen, understood and not contingent upon his usefulness. He might initially convince himself that he could manage an open or polyamorous arrangement, particularly if it mattered to someone he loved, because Yamato is accustomed to accommodating other people and suppressing discomfort in the name of being reasonable. The problem is that his jealousy would probably emerge as quiet insecurity rather than anger. He would wonder whether he was being demanding, compare what each partner could provide, and attempt to make himself easier to keep until the arrangement became profoundly painful. Yamato would never condemn polyamory, but he needs the steadiness and reassurance of mutual exclusivity far more than he would initially feel entitled to admit.

‎‎THE UCHIHA CONTAINMENT ZONE

Quick disclaimer before we begin with these four: I regret to inform everyone that the Uchiha appear to have been specifically engineered for romantic singularity so intense that one attachment can become a geopolitical event.

🐦‍⬛ ITACHI UCHIHA — monogamous through pure, concentrated attachment, self-denial and a catastrophic inability to distribute vulnerability

So. Itachi can barely permit himself one profound romantic bond without immediately considering whether he should leave forever for the other person’s safety. Multiple partners would require a degree of receiving care, communicating needs and allowing several people true access to him that I simply cannot imagine him managing without extensive personal growth (read: therapy). Importantly, I don’t think he would be especially possessive; his main problem is almost the opposite. Itachi is too willing to remove himself. A poly structure could very quickly activate his belief that others are better off without him, allowing him to retreat while insisting everyone else already has support. An emotionally healthy post-war or alternate universe Itachi might be able to understand ENM, but I still think his own romantic attachment would be highly focused. Once he loves someone, that bond becomes private, enduring and bone-deep. This man is not collecting boyfriends, he is writing ONE person into the secret will he intends nobody to ever find.

🔥 MADARA UCHIHA — monogamous in a way that should probably require international monitoring

Oh, Madara, my beloved. This man does not have the emotional moderation needed for multiple romantic partners. He barely has the emotional moderation for one important person without history developing a casualty count. When he attaches, he does so with immense concentration, pride, loyalty and terror of loss. We’re talking about the man whose most significant bonds all become entangled with clan destiny, ideology, grief and the future of the known world. I truly do not think he would find romantic multiplicity emotionally satisfying; if anything, he would probably regard it as diffusion of a bond he experiences as singular. And yes, he would be possessive, though not in a petty “you spoke to another man 😠” way. No, no, Madara’s possessiveness operates at the scale of territory, allegiance and sacred emotional claim. Once someone truly matters, they enter the little protected kingdom inside him and unfortunately the border security there is militarised. This man is monogamous. Intensely. Someone should probably put that information in the bingo book.

🎭 OBITO UCHIHA — the strongest uchiha “maybe,” but i'm still gripping that maybe with both hands

Young Obito is strongly monogamous to me. He wants to be chosen specifically and visibly. His childhood loneliness, rivalry with Kakashi and desperate hunger for acknowledgement mean that a partner loving someone else could very easily be translated by the abandoned child inside him as “you were not enough.” Adult, or maybe healing, Obito is where things get more complicated. After some serious emotional growth (again, read: therapy), I think that he could theoretically develop a less possessive understanding of love. He knows that bonds come in multiple forms and one person cannot be everything, but emotionally tolerating ENM would require extraordinary security. No ambiguity, no sudden changes in priority, no disappearing and assuming he understands. Maybe a deeply bonded, closed triad where everyone is integrated might work far better than open polyamory. So…possible? Yes. Naturally easy for him? Absolutely not. Even one unexpected shift in priority and the ancient abandonment siren starts warming up.

🌀 SHISUI UCHIHA — the uchiha mutation. genuinely enm-capable

Of our major Uchiha, Shisui is the one I can most easily imagine succeeding with polyamory. He’s socially adept, emotionally perceptive, capable of humour, deeply loyal without appearing as rigidly isolated as much of his clan and unusually good at maintaining multiple complex loyalties simultaneously. He can care for the clan, village and individual people without automatically translating one allegiance into betrayal of another. That makes me suspicious. I still think he could be perfectly happy monogamous, but unlike most Uchiha, I don’t actually see an obvious structural reason that he needs exclusivity. He might actually be excellent at communicating reassurance because he notices insecurity before it becomes open conflict. The risk, naturally, is that Shisui shares the clan habit of taking enormous burdens onto himself, so he could end up overextending emotionally while insisting that he’s fine. I guess my verdict here is that Shisui is flexible, genuinely poly-compatible, living evidence that the Uchiha monogamy gene can mutate under rare circumstances. Still suspicious though.

He does not love gently because gentleness, for him, has never been simple. He loves like someone bracing both hands against a door in a burning building, furious that the hinges ever dared to weaken. His care has weight, heat, teeth; it arrives as routes memorised, threats removed, names acquired, money moved before you know you need it, his body half a step closer than necessary whenever the room fills with strangers. He learns the geography of your fear and resents every country on the map—he does not coo over your wounds, he asks who did it and when and whether they are still breathing, but beneath the violence of the question there is something much more frightening than rage and that is the fact that you have become real to him because once you become real to Mello, you cannot be returned to the ordinary world where harm is simply unfortunate.

Being loved by him means understanding that his arrogance is not theatre alone—though there is theatre in it, to be sure, black leather and sharp posture and the controlled flash of a man who knows exactly how dangerous he looks. It is scaffolding and it is armour built so tightly around the old wound that sometimes you can hear it creak. He needs to be chosen with your whole chest, with both eyes open, with no secret comparison hiding behind your teeth. He does not want to be the easier option, the exciting mistake, the beautiful catastrophe you keep because peace bores you. He wants to know that you have seen the pride, the fury, the cruelty he can reach for when cornered, the scarred architecture of his ambition, the hunger that has ruled him since childhood, and that you are still here because you want him. Not a version washed clean, not a redeemed saint with chocolate on his tongue. Him.

He will test this, sometimes unfairly, sometimes with a cruelty he regrets before the echo has left the room. He will push at the bruise of your patience and then hate himself for discovering there is a bruise at all. He will start arguments because silence leaves too much space for fear and he will say something cutting when what he means is stay, and the terrible thing is that you will learn the translation long before he learns to speak it plainly. You will learn that when he says do whatever you want, he is often terrified that you will; you will learn that when he becomes cold, he is usually holding something molten behind his teeth; you will learn that when he leaves the room it is not always abandonment, sometimes it is the last scrap of control he has managed not to turn against you.

And still, he comes back. That is the thing. Mello will return like a storm remembering the shore. It will not always happen quickly, it will not always happen gracefully, it will not always happen with a speech arranged in polished silver, but with his pride bleeding quietly in his hands and his eyes refusing to look away for too long. His apologies are not pretty; they do not kneel unless the moment has torn him open beyond dignity. He says I was wrong and it sounds as though he has dragged the words through broken glass. He says you did not deserve that and the room goes strangely still because Mello does not offer surrender unless he means it. Then he fixes what can be fixed; he changes the lock, he replaces the thing he broke, he tells you the truth he withheld, he gives you the piece of the plan he was keeping too close to his chest because trust is a language he learnt in fragments and still speaks with an accent.

His affection is physical before it is verbal but it is never careless. A hand at the back of your neck, his thumb resting where your pulse gives you away; his knee pressed against yours beneath a table while he discusses something dangerous in a voice too calm to be safe; fingers catching your arm when you move away too quickly, not pulling, not quite, only asking in the only way his pride will permit. He kisses like he has something to prove until he trusts that he does not, and then the intensity changes shape but never dims—it becomes less conquest than confession. The first time he lets you touch his scar without flinching away, the entire world seems to hold its breath in the corner of the room. You do not call it beautiful as though beauty could absolve pain; you touch him because he is there, because he survived, because he has allowed your hand into a place the world has looked at too greedily and understood too little.

There is nothing casual about him—anyone who thinks Mello could love lightly has mistaken sharpness for distance. He is attentive in ways that almost feel accusatory, he notices when you are tired and becomes irritated that your body has betrayed you before he could arrange protection, he notices when someone speaks over you and begins deciding, with terrifying serenity, how much of that person’s life he intends to ruin. He notices when you have not eaten, when your laugh does not reach properly, when your courage has become performance. He will not always ask the gentle question, sometimes he will put food in front of you and say eat as though affection were an order and obedience might save you both from admitting he is scared.

He is jealous—of course he is jealous—but not prettily, not in the harmless storybook way that turns possession into perfume. Mello’s jealousy has old blood in it; it comes from being measured and found second, from learning too young that being brilliant did not guarantee being chosen. He can watch someone stand too close to you and become all velvet danger, every word sharpened to a ceremonial point, though it is not because he thinks you are weak (he knows better than that), but because there is some animal part of him that still believes that love can be taken by ranking, by comparison, by someone easier, calmer, less damaged, less hungry. A good love with Mello requires teeth from you too, you have to tell him no, you have to make him hear that devotion is not ownership and that fear does not give him the right to build a cage and call it safety. If he loves you well, and he can, he learns to stand guard without locking the door.

The miracle is not that he becomes soft, the miracle is that he learns to let himself be known without turning that knowledge into a weapon first. He begins to allow ordinary things to matter: your favourite mug beside his, your coat tossed over the back of a chair, your name in his mouth when there is no emergency attached to it, half a bar of chocolate offered without comment which from him is nearly a vow. He lets you see him bored, irritated, exhausted, wounded, alive after the purpose has gone out of the room and no case is asking him to bleed usefully. He lets you sit beside him in the aftermath, when there is nothing to win and no one to outpace, when the silence is not strategy but a country neither of you know how to govern yet.

To be loved by Mello is to become part of his proof and then, slowly, painfully, something beyond proof. At first he may love you as evidence that he can be wanted, that he can be chosen, that he is not replaceable, not lesser, not the shadow cast by someone else’s brilliance. But love, real love, ruins his mathematics. You are not a trophy, you are not a verdict, you are not a ranking he can finally survive. You are the person sitting close enough to steal warmth from him in winter while he pretends not to notice, the person who can make him look away with a single honest sentence, the person who changes the temperature of his thoughts. He does not know what to do with that, so he does everything. He protects, provokes, returns, learns, fails, tries again. He loves like a man dismantling a bomb he built himself, hands steady, heart feral, muttering curses at every wire.

And when he finally says it, when the words come without disguise, they are not decorated because Mello does not decorate what already frightens him. I love you, maybe, if the night has cornered him into bravery, or you know what you are to me if he cannot bear the nakedness of the simpler phrase, or just your name, bitten off like a prayer, warning, confession all at once. It feels, then, like standing at the centre of a city after the power has gone out and realising that every light that has been left burning is for you, dangerous, imperfect, incandescent. Loved by him, you do not feel placed on a pedestal; you feel held at the centre of a storm that is learning, against every instinct it has, not to destroy the hand reaching into it.

🔥 MADARA UCHIHA

The cup had been beside your right hand when the meal began, which you knew because you had placed it there yourself with two fingers lingering briefly against the porcelain as you committed its position to memory. Yet when you reached for it again, you found only the polished surface of the table beneath your fingertips.

Before your hand could wander further, porcelain scraped quietly over wood.

"There," Madara murmured beside you. "At your right hand."

Your fingers closed around the cup. "Thank you."

The conversation continued around you without interruption as one of Madara's senior clansmen reported on patrols from beyond the newly established village. Anyone less familiar with your husband might have believed he was listening with his usual impassivity, but you did know him. Madara had stilled at your side, his attention resting not upon the man speaking but on the attendant who had moved your drink to make room for another serving dish. The attendant realised it too, and his next breath caught audibly.

You brushed your knee against Madara's beneath the table.

Not now.

His eyes shifted to you. At this distance, his face had disappeared into the place where sight failed you entirely, but you felt the weight of his attention as clearly as the warmth of the brazier nearby. After a moment, Madara leaned back in his seat and permitted the report to continue, though the poor attendant did not relax again for the remainder of the meal.

It was only when the gathering drew to a close that another problem presented itself. Chairs moved, dishes were collected, and somebody shifted the low brazier from its usual place to clear the servants' path. You rose alongside Madara, reaching instinctively for the table to orient yourself.

"My arm," he said quietly. "The brazier has been moved into the space to your left."

When his sleeve met your searching fingers, you slipped your hand through the crook of his elbow, allowing him to guide you around the obstacle without drawing the room's attention to it or, at least, without drawing further attention to you.

Madara paused at the door and turned back to face the room.

"Who altered the arrangement of this room?"

Silence fell with almost comical speed.

The attendant who had moved your cup bowed so deeply that his hair nearly brushed the floor. "T-there was insufficient room for the final dish, Lord Madara. I thought—"

"Then the dish should have waited."

His arm remained steady beneath your hand while the atmosphere of the room changed around him, every person present suddenly remembering that their clan's patriarch required neither shouting nor visible anger to frighten them.

"It will not happen again," the attendant promised.

"No," Madara agreed, "it will not."

You waited until the doors had closed behind you before speaking.

"You terrified him."

"He placed a coal brazier against the side you cannot reliably see."

"He only moved it half a step."

"He moved it at all."

There was no arguing with that tone, you knew it well, though you still made a valiant attempt. "Not all carelessness is malicious, Madara."

"It need not be. Fire burns no less thoroughly for a lack of ill intent."

You sighed, but your thumb stroked once across the fabric covering his arm. "I could have managed."

"I know."

The immediate answer softened something in you. Madara adjusted his pace to yours as you crossed the darkened courtyard, keeping himself on your left without any conscious deliberation. He had done it for so long that you doubted he even remembered choosing to begin.

"This is your home," he continued. "You should not be required to map it anew because others find thought difficult."

Once you were safely inside your home, you turned towards him and lifted your hand. Madara bowed his head without protest, allowing your fingertips to find the familiar severity of his features. You traced the furrow of his brows and clicked your tongue.

"You're still glaring."

"I am not."

"Madara."

His hand closed over yours, holding your palm against his cheek. "He will remember now."

"So will every descendant he ever has."

"Then the lesson was efficient."

You laughed despite yourself and felt the corner of his mouth shift beneath your thumb, betraying the satisfaction he would never admit aloud.

🌊 TOBIRAMA SENJU

At first, you thought somebody had tidied the kitchen badly.

The tea remained on its usual shelf, but a braided cord had been fastened around its container and the rice jar now bore a smooth strip of leather, while the salt had been marked with two raised notches beneath the rim. Nothing had been placed beyond your reach or brought unnecessarily close in the mistaken belief that proximity would help you see it. Instead, every near-identical container could now be distinguished beneath your fingertips.

Even the path between the kitchen and the sitting room felt different. The low table had shifted closer to the wall, the baskets had been raised onto shelves, and there was not a single abandoned scroll waiting to catch your foot.

You stood in the doorway with one hand resting upon the frame.

"Tobirama?"

Your husband's voice answered from his study. "What?"

"What have you done to our house?"

There was a pause long enough to suggest Tobirama was considering whether denial still remained possible.

"I removed several unnecessary variables."

"From the kitchen?"

"From the household."

You followed the sound of his voice, trailing your fingers lightly along the wall. Tobirama met you before you reached the study and deliberately stopped beyond the distance at which your vision disappeared. He was still little more than a pale blur against the darker room, but you could make out the shape of him crossing his arms.

"Was there a problem with the previous layout?" you asked.

"There were several."

"I seem to have survived them."

"That doesn't make them efficient."

Of course—efficiency. You concealed your smile and stepped closer, touching his forearm before allowing him to guide your hand towards the desk.

"There is something else," he said.

Beneath your fingers lay a flat wooden board, its surface divided by shallow grooves. A narrow frame ran along its edges, with small pegs that would be moved to accommodate different sizes of paper. You explored it slowly, following one channel and then another.

"What is this?"

"You mentioned that your hand sometimes wandered when writing longer reports. The grooves should keep each line level, and the frame will prevent the paper from moving under your wrist."

You paused. "I mentioned that months ago."

"Yes."

"I wasn't even speaking to you."

"You were within hearing range."

The clinical dryness of his answer could not conceal the hours of work beneath your hands. Every groove had been carved smooth enough that the wood would not catch your skin or brush. The pegs fitted firmly without requiring so much pressure that they became difficult to move. Tobirama had not merely invented something and presented it to you; he had considered how you would actually use it.

"Try it," he suggested. "There might still be defects."

You seated yourself and fitted a sheet of paper into the frame. Tobirama placed the brush in its established position at your right, told you precisely where the ink rested, and then fell silent while you wrote.

You completed several lines before setting the brush down and turning your head towards where he still stood. "Well?"

"I was about to ask you that."

"You've been staring at me so intensely that I can feel it."

"I'm observing the test."

You reached for him; Tobirama recognised the gesture and stepped within range, allowing your hand to find the front of his robes. You curled your fingers into his collar and pulled him down into a kiss. He went rigid with surprise, though only for a moment. His hand settled carefully against the side of your neck before you drew away.

"That," he murmured, recovering his dignity with some effort, "is not useful feedback."

"It wasn't meant to be feedback."

"The board still requires proper evaluation."

Your fingertips travelled upwards until they found the heat gathering across his cheekbones. "You’re blushing."

"I am not."

"You certainly feel as though you are."

Tobirama caught your hand, though he did not remove it from his face. "Is the board functional?"

"It is." Your teasing softened as you ran your thumb across his cheek. "And you made the house remember where everything belongs so I don’t always have to."

A quieter man might have allowed the tenderness of that observation to stand. Your husband, however, inhaled, glanced away and retreated at once behind practicality.

"A household shouldn't demand unnecessary effort from the people living in it," he stated. "Besides, you're the only person here who returns things to their proper places. The system benefits me as much as it does you."

You smiled. "Naturally."

"Your scepticism is unnecessary."

"So was reorganising our entire home."

"No," Tobirama said, turning his face just enough to press his mouth against your palm. "It wasn't."

🐦‍⬛ ITACHI UCHIHA

Itachi Uchiha had once been capable of entering a room without disturbing so much as a grain of dust. He had frightened you terribly during the first weeks of your marriage. One moment you had been alone; the next, his hand had touched your shoulder from within the three feet where your vision could not find him at all. He had apologised immediately, but the brief shock upon your face had followed him for days.

Now, two soft knocks sounded against the kitchen doorframe.

"I'm home," he said.

You smiled over the steam rising from the kettle. "You're late."

"I know."

Itachi remained in the doorway long enough for you to locate him. At that distance he was only a dark, rain-softened shape, his features lost to the blur, but seeing him was never quite the point. The pause allowed you to place him before he approached, then bare feet whispered against the floor.

"It’s me," he murmured as he came close, brushing the backs of his fingers against your sleeve before his hand settled upon your shoulder.

"I had my suspicions."

"Did you?"

"Anyone else would have entered like a normal person."

The quiet breath near your ear might have been a laugh. Itachi slipped past you to lift the kettle from the stove, carefully describing each movement before the rearrangement could confuse you.

"I’ve moved the kettle to the rear hob. The knife is still beside the board."

"You know I heard you put it down."

"I know."

He said it anyway. He always did.

Rain clung to his hair and clothing, carrying the cold scent of the night into the warmth of the kitchen. You found a towel in its proper drawer and held it out. Itachi accepted it with a soft word of thanks, though instead of drying himself immediately, he watched you measure tea leaves into the pot.

"Were you waiting for me?"

"I was making tea."

"At midnight."

"Tea is still tea after midnight."

"That doesn't answer my question."

You tilted your head towards his voice. "Maybe I wanted tea and happened to make enough for my husband as well."

"Perhaps."

There was affection tucked inside the word. You could hear it because you had learned all the places Itachi concealed things—behind silences, beneath deflections, in the careful way his thumb passed over your knuckles when he took the cup from your hand.

He moved the knife to slice a piece of ginger, then returned it to precisely the same position.

"The blade is at your right," he told you.

"Thank you."

Itachi sat opposite you while you poured. The table placed him just far enough away that you could make out the general shape of his face when he raised the cup. His expression remained indistinct, softened further by curls of steam, but something about his posture made you narrow your eyes.

"Are you smiling?"

"A little."

You held out your hand, a movement Itachi understood and leaned forwards until your fingertips met his cheek.

Within three feet, he vanished from your vision entirely. Beneath your touch, however, there was no such uncertainty. You traced the familiar line of his nose, the faint hollow beneath his eye and, finally, the unmistakable curve of his mouth.

"Liar," you murmured. "That's at least half a smile."

His lips curved further beneath your fingertips. "You always know."

"Of course I do."

"Even if I didn't announce myself?"

You pretended to consider it. "Your steps change when you're tired; you smell like rain and cedar smoke; you set your cup down more quietly when something has been weighing on you, and when you're truly happy, your silence feels different."

Itachi said nothing, but his hand rose to cover yours, holding it against his face as his eyes closed.

You stroked your thumb over the smile he could no longer hide. "I don’t need to see you this closely to know you."

"No," he said softly, turning his head to kiss the centre of your palm, "I suppose you don't."

🎭 OBITO UCHIHA

Obito had moved the bowl. Again. You reached towards the place where it had rested moments earlier and found an empty stretch of counter. Before you could search farther, the bowl was pressed directly into your hands.

"Here," he said. "I've got it."

You held it for a moment, then set it down. "Obito."

"What?"

"Where is the knife?"

A suspicious silence followed.

"Obito."

"I moved it."

"Where?"

"On the other counter. I thought it was too close to your hand."

"It was exactly where I put it."

"I know, but the blade was facing—"

"Away from me."

Your husband fell quiet. You could feel him hovering somewhere to your left, within the neglected edge of your peripheral vision and close enough that you could not see him properly even if you turned.

It had begun three days earlier, when you had failed to notice that a stool had been moved into the walkway. You had caught your hip against its corner, earning a bruise and startling Obito badly enough that he had declared war upon every object in your home.

Since then, he had cleared surfaces while you were using them, moved furniture without telling you and placed things directly into your hands before you had decided whether you even wanted them. His intentions were painfully tender, though living within them was becoming impossible.

"I need you to stop helping me for a moment," you sighed.

The silence around him changed. "Oh."

The hurt in that single syllable made you reach for him instinctively. Your hand found nothing, so you waited until Obito stepped closer and placed his fingers beneath yours.

"I don't mean that I never want your help," you told him gently, "but you've moved the flour, the bowl, the knife and half the furniture."

"I was trying to make things easier."

"I know, but now I don't know where anything is in my own kitchen."

His fingers curled loosely around yours. "I don't want you getting hurt just because I wasn't paying attention."

"You can't watch every step I take."

"I could try."

"Obito."

"Alright, I would try."

You drew him closer until you could place both hands around his. "If you're approaching from my left, say my name. If something has been moved, tell me. Keep the walkways clear, put things back where they belong, and if you think I need something, ask before you decide for me."

"What if there isn’t time to ask?"

"Then help me. I’m not asking you to stand aside while I walk into a fire."

A reluctant laugh escaped him. "That seems reasonable."

"You're allowed to care for me," you said, stroking your thumb across his knuckles. "You just...can't turn caring for me into making every decision on my behalf."

"I thought husbands were supposed to make their wives’ lives easier."

"They are. Just like wives are supposed to tell their husbands when they're being menaces."

Obito squeezed your hand. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

Together, you restored the kitchen to an arrangement you could navigate. Obito told you where he placed each object and waited while you confirmed its position beneath your fingertips. When the spoon later slipped from the counter and rolled somewhere beyond your left foot, you heard his first instinct in the sudden forward step of his feet. Then he stopped himself.

"The spoon rolled under the table," he said. "Do you want me to get it?"

You smiled. “Yes, please.”

Obito retrieved it and placed it on the counter at your right. "Here?"

"Perfect."

The quiet pride in his hum warmed you more than the stove.

After you had eaten, Obito seated himself several feet away. From there you could make out the softened outline of his shoulders and the pale blur of his face turned towards you. He had chosen the distance deliberately, giving you what little sight of him the evening allowed.

"You can come closer," you said.

"I thought you wanted to see me."

"I do."

When you held out your hand towards him, Obito crossed the room and took it, allowing you to draw him into the place where his face disappeared but everything else became clearer; the roughness of his palm, the warmth of his breath and the familiar way his forehead settled against yours.

"I also want you," you murmured. "Those aren't always the same thing."

His arms closed around you carefully, without hesitation and without presuming. "This?"

You smiled against his mouth. "This is helping."

🌀 SHISUI UCHIHA

"Devoted husband approaching from the left!"

You turned towards the voice and raised your elbow.

Shisui stopped just beyond its reach and stared in mock affront. "Violence? In the marketplace?"

"If you announce yourself like that one more time, I will demonstrate violence in the marketplace."

"I could have said devastatingly handsome husband."

"That would have been worse," you muttered.

His laughter slipped easily into the noise surrounding you. Sellers called out prices from beneath canvas awnings, sandals scuffed across packed earth, and somewhere to your right, oil hissed as another batch of dumplings dropped into a pan.

Shisui moved to your left and offered his arm. He did not take your hand or pull you towards him; he simply waited until you found his sleeve and chose your own grip.

"There's a loose board about three steps ahead," he said as you began walking. "A cart is coming up behind us on the left, but we have time. Also, the melon seller is attempting to charge an old woman twice the proper price."

"How is that relevant to our route?"

"It isn't, but she's winning and I thought you'd appreciate knowing."

You did.

Shisui's guidance arrived so naturally among his observations that it rarely felt like instruction. He warned you when the ground dipped, told you when somebody was about to pass close against your left shoulder, and filled everything between with an account of the market's far more interesting hazards.

"Kotetsu is pretending not to see us."

"Why?"

"He owes me money."

"Then I imagine he can see us extremely well."

"That's my clever wife."

His arm shifted gently beneath yours, guiding you inwards as the cart rolled past. Once it had gone, he returned you to your previous path without interrupting his story.

At a stall near the end of the lane, a merchant thrust something towards your face.

"Look at this workmanship," he insisted. "Finest ornament in the district."

The object disappeared completely within the useless closeness of your sight. Before you could lean back, Shisui spoke.

"She'll judge it with her hands, if you don't mind."

The merchant faltered, then placed the ornament carefully into your open palm for you to trace its narrow metal prongs and the cluster of stones fixed at its head.

"What does it look like?" you asked.

"Gold-coloured, not gold," Shisui explained. "Three red glass beads pretending to be rubies, arranged in a fan that's expensive enough to invite robbery and ugly enough to discourage it."

The merchant made an offended noise.

You bit the inside of your cheek. "Maybe something else then."

The next hairpin was simpler, shaped like a slender branch with small leaves curving along one side. Shisui described the darkened silver and green stones while you explored each detail beneath your fingertips.

"I like this one," you decided.

"So do I."

You turned towards his voice. "You haven't insulted it, so you must be serious."

"I can be serious."

"Not often."

Shisui left your side only long enough to pay. He told you when he was crossing in front of you, pressed the parcel into your right hand when he returned, and then apparently forgot himself. When warmth appeared suddenly within the blind space to your left, you drove your elbow backwards.

"Ow!"

"I warned you."

"I thought you were bluffing."

"You can see through solid objects and copy people's movements, but you couldn't see that coming?"

"In my defence, I was distracted by your beauty."

You found his shoulder and shoved him lightly. Shisui caught your hand, laughing as he lifted it to his mouth.

"Would you like to wear it?"

When you nodded, his fingers gathered your hair with unexpected gentleness. He warned you before removing the pin already holding it in place, then slid the new one securely into the twist.

"How does it look?" you asked.

Shisui stepped back far enough to inspect his work. "Beautiful."

"The hairpin or me?"

"You. The hairpin is doing its best to keep up."

You groaned. "That was awful."

"You married me with full knowledge of my condition."

"Yes," you said, finding his offered arm again, "and unlike mine, yours is completely incurable."

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