[cont. for @ladytsunadehime
He saw her look. He heard her silence. He understood that she was conflicted on the inside. So he made everything simpler.
“Nevermind,” he said with a faint smile. “You’re right. I am perfectly capable of reassigning the money without burdening you. Don’t worry your pretty head about it, Princess.”
The establishment owner knocked on the door and told them that it was midnight, and the last round of drinks was here.
Orochimaru and Tsunade refused the drink. They stood up to leave.
He walked her home. She insisted he didn’t need to walk her home. So he left her. Again.
Maybe he should have insisted.
@ladytsunadehime (2) writes:
There is a moment she finds it, between old boxes and clutter that Tsunade finally feels her heart can take on. Written letters and agreements, plans for the future that dipped and swirled with each letter like her life was already planned out with every movement.
Ones Tsunade thought had been lost to time or perhaps even burned. It’s right there in the flesh. Real. The slow beginnings of it to the results of fiery disagreement. Terms disintegrating over petty arguments and long silences, ones they didn’t happen before.
A life, a future, that ached so deeply in her chest Tsunade rarely let herself live it and fall into the feeling what could have been. Married with children, maybe two or a dozen or even none, the possibility of Jiraiya being alive, the idea of Orochimaru coming home to her every time he possibly could.
One where she is happy and loved and never has to question or fight the raging war inside her heart.
Self pity takes hold quickly, she cannot dispose of them herself. The neat script of her relatives is too painful to read more. Her own letters to Orochimaru during that time are tucked away from her wandering hands and heart. She doesn’t allow herself to think of the what ifs or else the sake bottles that litter her life become an even more concerning amount.
Instead she sends the papers off. Seals layering upon seals. Her own safety measures to assure that no one would snoop and if it was to fall into the wrong hands they wouldn’t be able to get them undone. She cannot get herself to destroy them… Orochimaru though could do as he pleased.
She leaves a little note, as if it is needed.
“Do whatever you want with these. I cannot bare to have them here.”
Maybe she’ll wake up to him watching her, telling her he’s done all the paperwork to have them married or maybe it will be laughter and silence or maybe when they cross patches again a gentleness will settle between them.
In these situations Tsunade isn’t sure what she wants but thinks laughter she’ll never hear and silence she’s learned to live with is a kindness the world might give her.
She loves him still after everything that’s happened between them.
Orochimaru’s spies at the post office intercept her heavily sealed enveloppe. Sometimes Orochimaru goes to the continent’s central post office hub himself to open her letters and discover the movement of the worlds’s politics. He is one of the few people who know how to undo and redo Uzumaki sealing techniques. Karin is another person. He doesn’t send Karin.
He goes himself, and he finds the envelope addressed to him. He stands in the grand sorting hall of the intercontinental post office, while packages, envelopes, and holiday cards flash past him. He feels that something is odd. Something is off.
He goes into a private room, unseals the envelope, and freezes. His fingers lose grip. Then the engagement documents fall out. He curses. He puts them back onto the table. It has signatures. All adults consented. Their family had approved. Only him and Tsu-chan hadn’t been adults. Only they hadn’t been able to put their name on the dotted line.
Orochimaru takes a shaking breath.
The only ballpoint pen he can find is a red one.
Orochimaru signs the papers.
The rest of the day is a haze. He doesn’t remember the rest of the day. But at some point he is in his office. He is looking everywhere in his office to see the documents again, and he can’t find them. He doesn’t remember if he put them on the post. He doesn’t remember if he locked them in a vault. He doesn’t remember if he archived them. He searches everywhere, but his overwhelmed alter ego made them disappear for good.
He does the most sensible thing. He gets a ring and engraves their names into the gold. He goes to her house. He doesn’t knock on the door. He put down one knee on the pavement, and he offers up a ring in a box. He says: “I’m sorry, I’m late,” to the closed door. But the practise words come out all wrong. He decides that this is not the right approach, and he feels stupid. If he ambushes her like this, she will say no.
He can’t slip the papers into her office paperwork either. She would recognise it.
He could kidnap her, but decides he doesn’t want to antagonise himself in front of her village.
He gets up from the pavement, he pockets the box with the ring. He makes sure nobody saw that, and he goes to visit Jiraiya’s grave. He talks at length to his dead friend, and Jiraiya’s memory encourages Orochimaru so much that hurts. Orochimaru implodes, thoroughly beaten his dead teammate’s imagined support. He can’t do it. He absolutely can’t do it. He leaves the ring box on the gravestone. Jiraiya will keep it safe. If Orochimaru takes it home, he will never rest.
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