dattebayooo!!

cath, she stands with a well-intentioned man / but she can't relax with his hand on the small of her back

It hadn’t been intentional. 

Of course, not everything always was – intentional, as it were. Certainly, you had intended to study and train in the first organized shinobi force in history. And you had intended to earn the experience that would award you the title of a jōnin. And you had intended to make a life for yourself in the newly established village that your clan had agreed to be a part of. 

Your ambitions had fit well within the hopes both Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha had for their burgeoning community. When they had decided to institute the shinobi ranking system in an effort to assess the village’s strength and plan for exams to educate potential future nins, you had leapt at the chance to be involved. That, you belatedly realized, had been the first step down the path you found yourself now walking on in the dark. 

Of all the things you had intended to be involved with, he wasn’t one of them. 

But Hashirama Senju had assigned you specifically to the task of assisting his brother in exchange for lessons in the art of fūinjutsu. It was supposed to be a mutualistic trade: Tobirama was forced to delegate his responsibilities and consider alternative perspectives, and you were able to advance your own education while learning from him. The Senju heir could not have appeared more vexed if he’d tried when Hashirama had tugged you across the village and flung open the doors to Tobirama’s private lab near their family’s compound to announce the situation. 

Before then, you’d rarely crossed paths with the heir and hadn’t exchanged more than greetings with him. 

After, however…after the hours spent pouring over historic scrolls together and bickering about sealing formulas and chakra theories, a quiet and naïve part of you thought you might know him better than even his own brother did. 

And now, standing at the edge of the room, watching him share genial smiles with strangers, you wondered if you were the only person who knew his amiability was a farce. It was in the tight lines near his mouth that only appeared otherwise when he was frowning, and the way his eyes never moved from the person he was speaking to, not even while he chuckled or smiled. 

“You’re lucky, you know.” You blinked and glanced up at the Uchiha heir as he joined you in leaning against the wall. He was dressed in nondescript clothes, but between his reputation and resemblance he bore to his brother, Izuna didn’t need any clan insignia to identify him. 

You exhaled, feeling as though you were breathing through concrete. “Yeah? Why is that?” 

“His betrothed only has eyes for him.” Izuna nodded towards the young woman. She was beautiful and that was all that you had wanted to know about her. That desire had gone out the gods-forsaken window, however when the conditions of her clan’s treaty with the Konohagakure were made public. In exchange for what connections that the Shimizu Clan had with the daimyo and the other coastal clans in addition to their sorely-needed wealth, the clan leader had requested a demonstration of loyalty. He wanted to proof of Konohagakure’s commitment to bettering the shinobi world and had suggested no other way than a marriage. Takeru Shimizu was clever, but he had tried to bend the wills of the wrong men. 

Misaki Shimizu, in that sense, was the lucky one. Hashirama and Madara had been prepared to refuse the treaty outright because, according to Izuna, neither of them intended to bind themselves or their brothers into a commitment they didn’t want. You had spent weeks wondering what would have happened if Tobirama had not heard of their decision to reject the Shimizu Clan’s terms. 

“Of course she does,” you replied. Misaki was grinning at Tobirama as he bowed his head in greeting to her father as the clan leader joined him in conversation. The dangling parts of the metal kanzashi in her hair spun and caught the evening sunrays that illuminated the room as she spoke animatedly to Tobirama. 

“If she or her father noticed the way you stare at the white-haired bastard…” Izuna trailed off. He frowned at you when you didn’t react. 

“He’s lucky then that they don’t notice how uncomfortable he is,” you said, finally looking away from the Shimizu heiress. 

One of Izuna’s eyebrows rose and he looked back at Tobirama. “He looks uncomfortable to you?” 

Hashirama’s peal of laughter temporarily filled the room and when Tobirama turned his head, looking for his brother, his gaze tangled with yours. The forced smile faded and some of the tension in his posture receded. Then, his jaw tightened and – 

And you forced yourself to look away. 

cath, it seems you live in someone else's dream / where things that could have been are repressed

You had avoided the lab for as long as you reasonably could, but there were only so many other things that you could fill your time with. Since Tobirama’s engagement had been announced, you had taken on more missions that saw you out of the village for longer periods. Missives that could have been sent by bird were instead carried by you to the daimyo’s palace in the north. You arranged the transport of harvested crops from the fields to the village, safeguarding the traveling farmers. You’d braved the southern swamps and the packs of blood-sucking mosquitoes to deliver priests from one temple to another to another. 

The only reason you weren’t currently narrowing avoiding tripping over cypress roots and trying to keep alligators from taking bites out of priests was because of Hashirama. 

“(Y/N),” the Senju Clan leader said, “I can’t help but feel as though there is something going on that might inspire you to suddenly be taking so much time away from the village.” 

Tobirama, luckily, wasn’t in the office. Madara and Izuna, however, were, and you deftly avoided making eye contact with either one of them. 

“I thought I should try to help take care of some of the more urgent missions before the monsoon season starts,” you replied. 

Hashirama frowned and you had the distinct feeling that it was the limited sense of propriety that the man possessed kept him from flat out interrogating you. 

“I have to insist that you take a break,” Hashirama said with all the subtlety he seemed able. A glance at Madara’s crossed arms told you there was no arguing with the either village leader. And you already knew better than to look to Izuna for assist. 

You made your excuses and, already sensing that encroaching swell of dread that rose whenever you were left too long with your thoughts, you went to the lab. You doubted Tobirama would be there, with all the new responsibilities and obligations he had with the Shimizu Clan and its heiress, so you took solace when you unlocked the seal on the lab door and slipped into the dim room. 

Even in the dark, you could see the desks covered in old tomes. They were held together by fraying cords of linen and gravity keeping the pages from spilling across the floor. Some of them you’d managed to save from altogether falling apart, but most had been painstakingly examined and then copied onto parchment. Tobirama kept the copies in one of his desk drawers, your combined works waiting to be bound together between the covers of a new book. 

An uninhibited smile tugged at the corner of your lips. You remembered when you had first started the copying, how Tobirama had hovered at the edge of the desk, watching every brush stroke as you carefully wrote out the formula to a particularly dangerous seal. The seal – if copied wrong – had the potential to explode so spectacularly, all that would be left of you and the Senju heir would be memories. Why he had let you be the one to write it, you hadn’t the slightest clue. Except maybe that had been the first sign that he trusted you. 

I can’t imagine myself doing anything else but this, he’d admitted to you one day. Ink had darkened his fingertips and there was a smudge of stain across his cheek, overlapping the slim line of a childhood scar. I don’t want to do anything other than this. 

You’d stared at him from where you sat a few feet away at your own desk, surprised by his candor and the suddenness of it. 

Then don’t, you finally answered. 

He’d stared at you for several seconds. His brow had furrowed and then he exhaled a quiet, humored breath. A smile had started to pull across his face, denting the streak of ink, but he’d lowered his head back to his work. 

You had returned to your work too. But a moment later, when you had glanced at him and found him already looking at you with that same expression on his face, something inside of you had warmed. 

You trailed past the books and scrolls, staring at the desks where that memory had been made. Once, you’d set up your things across the room. Over the course of the year though, your journals and notes had migrated closer to his, until only a few months ago, when the two of you began to work side by side. You found his neatly penned notes in the margins of your observations of the experiments you worked on. Your journals were filling with his thoughts in addition to your own, questions and answers written back and forth to each other. 

I don’t want to do anything other than this, he’d said to you. You wondered if the lie had tasted bitter.  

but you said your vows, and you closed the door / on so many men who would have loved you more

“You don’t have to be here,” Izuna said quietly to you. 

You dug your fingernails into the wood railing around the courtyard for the umpteenth time that evening. The Senju Main House was extraordinarily ornate, and the teitaku had been picked to be the site of both the marriage ceremony and now the reception. Tobirama and Misaki had exchanged their vows beneath the cherry trees that Hashirama grown in the center courtyard. The sight of pearlescent sakura flowers wheeling in the air around them would forever haunt you. 

“If I left now, we both know that would make a scene,” you answered, digging your nails even further into the railing of the engawa. You wouldn’t put it past Izuna to forcibly drag you from the Senju compound if he were so inclined, propriety be damned. 

You could see Izuna frowning at you in your periphery. He leaned over the railing, his elbows propped to support his weight. “Just because you care –” 

“I am not here to support him,” you interjected, the harshness in your voice surprising even you. “I don’t support any of this. I hate all of this. I hate it so much that I wish I didn’t hate it so I could tolerate it more. But if I leave, Izuna,” you cut him a look as he straightened, “it will look suspicious and I don’t think his marriage should start his wife asking him why his research partner left their reception early.” 

Izuna met your gaze and you watched him glance towards where Tobirama stood in his black kuromontsuki. The stark white Senju vajra that were stitched into his haori seemed to glare at you from across the courtyard. They just barely distracted you from the silk shiromuku that peeked out from beneath the crimson irouchikake Misaki wore, or the golden and jewel-encrusted band around her ring finger that gleamed whenever she gestured while she spoke. 

“At least you’re not still staring at him,” Izuna muttered. 

You closed your eyes, clenching your jaw against the roiling in your stomach that threatened to climb your throat. 

“I hate this,” you whispered. 

You sensed Izuna shift closer before he quietly offered, “I’ll go with you.” 

“You’re the Uchiha heir, ‘zuna,” you answered lamely. “If you left, that’d be even more troubling.” 

“But not surprising,” he countered. “The groom, after all, did nearly kill me barely three years ago. Who says I have yet forgiven the attempt?” 

You opened your eyes to the rare sight of Izuna’s concern. His mouth flattened into a line when a tear began to trace down the side of your face. 

“(Y/N)…”

You furtively swiped at the tears as they began to fall, trying and failing to keep your breaths even. 

“I still don’t understand why,” you choked. “Why did he do this when – when –” 

“When it was clear to everyone that you’re in love with him?” Izuna interrupted and you shuddered. He shook his head and cast a backwards glance towards the crowd gathered around the couple. “The only thing about Tobirama Senju that I understand is his battle instinct. Everything else –” He rolled his shoulders. “I would’ve guessed that you knew him better than anyone else.” 

You dropped your chin, tears leaving hot trails down your cheeks. 

“I don’t think I ever really knew him,” you said, shaking your head. “The man I thought I knew, he – he wouldn’t have done this.” 

“I know,” Izuna placated and glanced around. “But if want to have this conversation now, (Y/N), we should find somewhere quieter to do so. Preferably at that yatai near the Akimichi compound. With the dango.” 

The deadpan expression on your face made Izuna wince. 

“Well, I tried,” he puffed and then suddenly reached for your face. You stiffened, but he wiped your tears just as someone stepped up to you. The glint of gold from the kanzashi in her ebony hair and the crimson glare of her wedding robe made you flinch. 

“(Y/N)-san!” Misaki beamed at you. Izuna’s arm fell behind your shoulders, his attempt at solidarity lending you support as you immediately began to look for a way to escape the bride’s attention. The other woman’s brow delicate brow furrowed and she cocked her head at you. “(Y/N)-san, are you alright? You look as though you’ve been crying!” 

“It’s a very emotional day, is all,” Izuna intervened, that ridiculous aristocratic drawl of his saturating his voice. “Tobirama is a very dear friend to (Y/N), with so much of their time spent these years working on their research together.” 

You barely suppressed the urge to slam the heel of your foot down on Izuna’s shoe. 

Misaki gave you a sympathetic smile that made you want to throw yourself over the other side of the railing and hope to hit your head on a decorative rock. “I understand,” she said, and you sincerely doubted she did. “But once he’s settled into married life –” her cheeks darkened and the tang of bile spread across your tongue – “he can help you out in the lab again! Maybe you can convince him to actually show it to me sometime!” She winked at you, as though you might be convinced to be a co-conspirator. 

You managed to smile and hoped it didn’t look like you were grimacing. “Of course,” you answered weakly. 

Misaki’s smiled broadened and then she craned her head, as though searching for – 

“My apologies,” you spoke quickly when Misaki began to frown. “You’ve just reminded me that there’s actually something in the lab that I have to attend to,” you told the woman and shifted away from Izuna. The heir reached for your arm, but you pulled it away as you began to make your exit. 

Only, you collided with the groom. 

Tobirama’s arms rose around you, his hands on your arms steadying you before you could topple over in your haste to escape his bride. The scent of him immediately enveloped you, cedar and jasmine and like every night that you’d spent together with your arms and thighs pressed against one another while your legs dangled off the ledge of the lab’s roof. The memory of his face illuminated by moonlight as he listened to you point out constellations leapt to the forefront of your mind unbidden, and your throat constricted. 

The pressure in your chest cracked and you felt it as tears began to slide down your face anew. Tobirama’s grasp on your arms briefly tightened, but then he clenched his jaw and let go of you. He stepped back, towards his bride, and you felt the crack inside of you further splinter. 

Tobirama cleared his throat, “My apolo–”

Izuna was there in an instant, his arm around your back and the other holding your elbow as though he expected you might fall. You let him lead you away as the conversations in the courtyard became a ringing din in your ears. Your tears blurred your vision as you struggled to not sob outright, hands fisted in the fabric of Izuna’s haori as he led you through the Senju house and down the front steps. 

He was muttering, his curses as colorful as ever, but when you stumbled over your own feet for the third time, he halted. 

“(Y/N) –” Izuna began only to cut himself off with another curse as he snarled over your head, “Go back to your wife, Tobirama.” 

You turned to the sight of him, in his formal black robes with the Senju vajra stitched on both sides of his chest. That he wasn’t glaring at Izuna for the spiteful comment hardly shocked you as much as the fact that he had followed after you. He stared at you and you stared at him. 

Izuna said to you, “Whatever he is about to say, I promise you, you don’t want to hear it.” 

You swallowed thickly and Tobirama took a step forward. 

“(Y/N) –” the Senju heir started. 

“Why?” you asked, your voice splintering around the word as you tried to not react to the sound of your name as he spoke it. “Why, Tobirama?” 

He stared at you and then he looked at Izuna and finally back at you. He clenched his jaw, a breeze curling through his hair and stirring the hem of his robes. Something within you ached, a deluge of memories of every time he’d tugged on the strands of your hair only to tuck them behind your ears again spilling out of your heart like blood from a wound. 

“(Y/N),” Izuna tried again, “We should go.” 

“You don’t understand my responsibilities,” Tobirama said. You tensed, brow furrowing as you automatically began to shake your head. “You don’t –” He exhaled a sharp breath through his teeth. “I have responsibilities to my brother. To my village. No matter what I –” Tobirama pursed his lips. “They come before me. Before everything. Even before you.” 

Only your grip on Izuna’s haori kept you on your feet. 

“You don’t understand,” Tobirama repeated, as though it were that simple. As though he were trying to convince himself as much as you. “And you should have.” 

A breathy, strained laugh escaped the constriction of your chest, having forced its way through the shards of your heart and the tightness in your throat. Tobirama stiffened at the sound of it, and Izuna’s gaze snapped down to you. 

“I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand,” you countered sharply, tears heavy on your lashes. “I don’t think you’ve ever understood anything, and that’s why you research and experiment and then you pretend and you lie and you hide when you something threatens the way you think you understand because it’s different but it’s important and impossible to ignore.” The nights with the starry skies above your heads; the private, shared smiles even among others; the wordless knowing. “Because you’re scared,” you spit out. “And pretending that you understand your responsibilities is better than admitting you don’t know anything about what you’re feeling and facing it and actually fucking trying to understand something new and better and different!” Your breaths were coming faster as you hurled the thoughts that had been forged from months of anger, bitterness, and despair at him. 

“You might not have lied to me about your feelings,” you said, “but you lied to yourself. And now we both get to live with the consequences.” 

Tobirama flinched. He flinched, and you shut your mouth with a humorless laugh. 

Hashirama appeared on the teitaku’s porch and, behind him, Misaki stood in the threshold. You briefly met the clan leader’s gaze and saw the despondent expression on his face when he looked to his brother. 

Responsibilities. You could’ve laughed. 

“Well wishes to your marriage, Tobirama,” you told him dully. Truthfully. “And to your new responsibilities.”

You let Izuna pull you away, turning your back to the Senju heir and his wife. Only when he had cleared the preventive seals around the teitaku did Izuna shunshin both of you out of the compound. You barely registered the receiving hall in the Uchiha Main House before you sank to your knees on the wood and cried. 

and soon everybody will ask what became of you / 'cause your heart was dying fast, and you didn't know what to do

You had just handed off your mission statement and had begun to turn on your heel when Hashirama called after you. 

You paused, turning back to the clan leader, and tipped your head in wordless question.

“Are you –” Hashirama started and then paused, frowning. Madara wasn’t in the village, so the stack of paperwork that was usually divided between their desks had been left in a single pile on the Senju leader’s desk. It appeared only one wrongly-aimed sigh away from scattering all over the floor. Izuna, miraculously, had avoided being shunted into doing his brother’s paperwork himself with the flimsy excuse that, in Madara’s absence, it was his duty as heir to watch over the clan. In reality, he was hiding from the trio of genin that had recently been assigned to him and cursing you at every opportunity for helping to invent this new circle of Hell. 

“I realize you might find this inappropriate for me of all people to ask, (Y/N)-san, but are you alright?” 

It had only been a few months since his brother’s marriage, but you had barely spent any of that time in the village. Hashirama had lifted his bar on your assignments the day after the ceremony, out of pity or mercy, you didn’t care as long as you were able to put as many miles as possible between you and the village.  

“I’m getting by, Hashirama-sama,” you answered honestly. 

The Senju clan leader regarded for you a moment and then stood from his chair. You watched as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the sill behind his desk, glancing down through the open windows at the street below. 

Then, he said to you, “He…he loves you, you know.” Hashirama shook his head. “He never told me and he’ll never admit it now but – but it’s clear, after seeing him with you, and then…now. He hides it well, but he can’t hide everything.” He cast you a contrite look. “Not from me, at least.” 

You stared at Hashirama. The man had never quite been your friend – not as Izuna was – but you had come to respect him as you worked both for and with him on the projects the Founders proposed to shape Konohagakure. You remembered how he had looked at Tobirama that day from the porch like he hadn’t known how to reconcile his frustration with his concern for his brother’s best interests. And, you supposed, he still hadn’t. 

“I love him too,” you admitted softly. “I still do. I know I always will. But.” You shook your head and shrugged weakly. “But he made his choice, and we both have to live with it. I just hope that whatever his reasons were, he can find happiness. Find his…” you swallowed, “find his serenity, I guess, in the chaos he’s made.”

Hashirama’s brow furrowed. “Serenity…that’s an odd thing to hope for someone. Especially after all the reasons he’s given you to wish the opposite.” 

You smiled, but it was thin and fragile. “He spent his entire life at war, in one way or another. He’s built his life around believing he has to first serve responsibilities to you, to the village, to keeping the peace. But he’s not really a soldier or a fighter. He’s great at it – at defending and protecting, but he’s better at asking questions and searching for answers.” You exhaled a long breath. “It’s why he asked you to build him a lab. And why he wanted to start the Academy program. So more than happiness, I wish him serenity. But that’s all I can give him. He made it clear that he doesn’t want anything else from me.” 

Hashirama tilted his head at you. “You truly love him.” 

“Not that it matters,” you replied against the familiar ache in your chest. 

“It matters,” Hashirama countered gently. He added, at length, “I wonder what my brother’s happiness could have looked like if he had let his serenity include you.” 

Your line of sight drifted past Hashirama to the open windows behind him. A breeze pushed through the branches of the oak trees that grew around the building you were in, the leaves rustling in the summer heat. It reminded you of another time, when the sun bathed you in warmth and a free man traced patterns on your skin while he narrated a story of his youth to you. 

A soft, rueful smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “I can’t say, Hashirama-sama.” 

Hashirama nodded his head and sighed. “I should let you go on, (Y/N)-san. You must be exhausted. The daimyo’s palace is not a quick trip.” 

You nodded, made your polite excuse, and exited the office. 

The lobby was quiet, a few shinobi milling around as they went to their own appointments with the clan leaders that kept offices in the village’s central building. You nodded to several as you passed, and they returned the greeting. Outside, there were more civilians ambling about, some with grocery baskets as they made their way to and from the market. A couple leaned on each other, their hands entwined until they sat down at a table in front of a yatai. You looked away, your chest tight. 

You would have to sleuth out Izuna this evening if, in his vain attempts to hide from his genin, he had forgotten you were due back in the village today. You doubted he had though, if the crow that was glaring at you from the ledge of a rooftop was any indication of the Uchiha heir’s longsuffering indignation. 

You smiled slightly to yourself, recalling the look on Izuna’s face when you had presented him with the certificate that had consecrated him as an Academy instructor. It had even been signed by Hashirama and Madara, much to his increasing horror. Your friend had been powerless to do anything except accept his fate and the trio of rowdy genin that had since granted him no measure of peace. 

It was only when you turned down one of the streets in the direction of your clan’s compound that the hairs on the back of your neck prickled and you paused. You searched the area around you, brow furrowed as you reached with your chakra to sense for the shinobi who you had detected. 

“Everything alright, shinobi-san?” 

You glanced in the direction of the older woman who had called out to you. She stood in the narrow yard in front of her machiya, a child on her hip and a watering can held in her free hand. At her feet, a second child sat in the dirt next to a bed of vibrant marigolds. The toddler had her hand fisted around several stalks, the orange bulbs bobbing as she waved the flowers at you. 

You blinked and looked back up at the mother. She raised an eyebrow at you. 

“I…” You closed your mouth and glanced at the flowers again. “They’re beautiful.” 

The woman began to smile and nodded her head. “I should hope so! Took a while to get them to grow with all the packed soil here, but –” She shrugged. “It was worth it.” 

You smiled and agreed, “All great things are.” 

She nodded approvingly and then returned her attention to her flowers. The child waved the flowers at you again, and you forced yourself to resume your walk. 

Your gaze snagged on the setting sun when Izuna’s crow soared over your head, casting its long shadow over the ground. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” you told it with a huff. “Tell him I’ll be there soon.” 

The crow squawked at you and then banked to the west, towards the Uchiha Compound. 

Without Izuna’s summons watching over you, you paused again at the entrance to your clan’s compound. Despite yourself – and despite the tightening in your chest – you let yourself look for him. You let yourself see him in the setting sun that cast the street in golden rays; in the gilding on the verdant leaves of the oak and maple trees that lined the walkways; in the chips of mica that glimmered in the creek that flowed beneath the bridge separating your compound from the street. A few cherry trees dotted the street as well, though their pink blossoms were not quite pale enough to remind you of the jagged crack within you. 

Serenity. How curious that was all he had left you with.