#first touch

He had invited you first out of politeness—“Come by if you want to see the new pieces. Markus will let you in.” But you kept coming back because art didn’t just hang on the walls here… it breathed. It felt alive.

And somehow, every time you stepped inside, Markus was waiting.

Not because he had been told. But because he always seemed to know.

Carl set up the chessboard. Markus stood across from him.

You sat at the piano.

Your usual place.

Your fingers hovered above the keys as Markus made the first move—a pawn sliding forward with smooth, precise control. He didn’t need to look; his sensors told him everything. Still, he kept glancing up every few seconds.

At you.

Carl noticed, of course. He always did.

“Markus,” he said lightly, “if you lose tonight, you can blame it on being distracted.”

Markus paused with his hand over a rook. “I’m not distracted,” he said, too quickly.

Carl laughed—a warm, knowing sound. You smiled down at the keys, cheeks warming.

Your fingers slipped into the opening notes of a piece Carl liked you to play. Soft, slow, the kind that filled the corners of the studio without overwhelming it. Music that made the marble statues feel less cold and the rain hitting the windows sound softer.

Markus made another move.

Then looked at you again.

And again.

And again.

“She plays beautifully, doesn’t she?” Carl mused.

Markus straightened. “Yes. She does.”

You tried to keep your focus on the piano, but Markus’ voice had a way of sinking beneath your ribs, settling quietly there.

Carl leaned back in his wheelchair, watching the two of you with a smile that was all fatherly amusement. “You know, Markus,” he said, “for someone who claims they can’t feel… your face says otherwise.”

Markus’ LED flickered yellow. “I—Carl, please.”

Carl laughed again, absolutely delighted.

You finally glanced up, and Markus froze mid-move, completely caught.

There it was—the softness. The intrigue. The way he looked at you as if you were another piece of art in Carl’s home, one he didn’t quite understand but could never look away from.

You paused your playing. “Need help choosing your next move?”

It was meant as a tease.

But Markus went still—processing the tone, the smile on your lips, the playful raise of your brow. Something in him warmed, softened.

“I don’t think you’d give me good advice,” he said finally.

“Oh? And why not?”

“Because you’d want me to lose.”

You pressed a hand to your heart in mock offense. “I would never sabotage you.”

“Wouldn’t you?” For an android, his voice held a surprising amount of warmth.

Carl wheeled closer to his painting. “Young love,” he muttered, loudly enough for both of you to hear.

“Carl,” Markus said again, LED flashing an embarrassed yellow.

You hid your laugh behind your hand. He noticed that too.

Later, when the game was over and Carl retreated to his studio—

You lingered at the piano, letting your hands rest on the cool surface of the keys. The lamp beside you cast Markus in soft amber light as he came to stand near the piano bench.

“You always play that piece,” he said quietly.

“Because Carl likes it,” you replied.

“And you?” he asked.

You looked up, meeting his eyes.

“I like playing when you’re here.”

Markus didn't move for a moment. Then—slow, careful—he sat beside you on the bench, close enough that you felt the warmth of his frame, though he technically shouldn’t have radiated heat at all.

“What do you like about it?” he asked.

Your fingers brushed a few keys, a shy little melody. “You don’t look at the music. You look at me.”

Markus’ LED flickered.

“I look because…” He hesitated, searching. Choosing. “…because your expression changes when you play. You look at peace.”

“Is that rare?”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“It is.”

You didn’t realize your hands had stopped on the keys until Markus reached out—hesitant, gentle—and placed his hand over yours.

Human warmth. Artificial skin. Perfect stillness.

“I like when you come here,” he said, voice softer than the piano beneath your hands. “I… look forward to it.”

Your heart squeezed.

“Me too.”

Carl, from across the room, didn’t even pretend he wasn’t listening. “About time,” he muttered.

Markus ignored him for once.

He only looked at you—really looked—and you felt something shift between you. Something gentle. Something blooming.

Hometree was alive at this hour.

The cooking fires below were going full, pulsing heat and the thick scent of whatever food they were cooking into the air.

The work of the ceremony rose up through the trunk in waves — voices calling between platforms, the rhythm of someone practising a drum, the smell of roasting meat and crushed herb threading up through the warm evening air. Children's voices on the lower levels, still loud and unguarded. The People were preparing him a feast he would walk into within the hour, and the whole great body of the tree was leaning into the work.

Jake followed Neytiri up through a corridor he did not know — up, and away from the busyness, into the higher levels where the sound began to thin and the air grew warmer and stiller the further they climbed.

He had thought he had learned the place. Months of being shown, of being corrected, of being walked from one branch to another with her hand at his elbow — he had thought he had seen all of it. He had not.

The corridor narrowed and turned and let them out into a small alcove he had never seen inside before, and the air in it smelled different: paste and resin, warm wood, something flowered burning slowly in a clay dish in the corner. The hum of the tree fell away at the threshold. Inside this small room there was only the soft pulse of the lanterns and the hush of something sacred waiting.

The lanterns burned and painted the walls a honey gold.

Jake paused at the entrance.

Neytiri, who had been walking close behind him, nearly came crashing into his back.

She reached out a hand and pinched him hard on the side.

He turned with a startled yelp, pain already fading from the spot. Her grin was already in place, sharp white teeth bared and a tilt of the head he knew by heart now.

"Even after all this time, your mind is always distracted," Neytiri scolded.

The words were laced with warmth. None of the old bite that used to follow each lesson.

She slipped past him into the alcove. The space was narrow enough that her chest pressed into his arm as she went, and her tail flicked once against his thigh, light as a question.

He watched her go.

He was suddenly, keenly aware of how small the room was.

She knelt in the centre of it with a smooth grace that made the bowl of paste in her hands look like the only thing in the world that mattered. She set the bowl down on the woven mat in front of her. Then she looked up at him, and the smile she gave him this time was different — softer at the edges, less teasing.

She waited.

Jake's tail flicked behind him, nervous, and he stepped forward, the curtain at the entrance falling back behind him.

She had stripped him already. Earlier in the day, with the same hands that now waited with the bowl.

The bow off his shoulder, the woven cord at his throat, the small bone pendant that meant he had hunted with the Omaticaya and lived, the leather strap of an ikran rider in training. One by one she had taken them. You do not need them tonight, she had said. Only the loincloth remained. Nothing had prepared him, until he stood in the doorway of this small room, for how naked a person could feel with cloth still on him.

Tonight was the ceremony that would make him one of the People. When the paint had dried she would lead him down into the firelight, and before the whole clan the words would be spoken that named him Omaticaya — no longer a dreamwalker under instruction, no longer a student at her elbow, but one of the People in his own right. Everything from the day he first opened these eyes had been pointing at this. Every step leading down to this moment.

He sat down across from her. His knees not quite touching hers. Close enough that her heat reached him.

He had not been excited, walking up here. He had been too nervous to be excited. Had not been nervous like this since he was fifteen and the girl two streets over had agreed to meet him behind a movie theatre to watch a film neither of them ended up watching. That nervousness lived in the same low spot under his sternum as this one did, but this one was more alive, more electric.

She dipped two fingers into the paste.

The first line was cool against his skin. The temperature of it reached him before the touch did — a brush of something the colour of river clay drawn down from the hollow of his throat, where her fingertip had paused as if asking a question. Then the line moved. Down across the rise of his collarbone. Slow. Deliberate.

He held his chin up.

It seemed important to hold his chin up.

He looked at the wall behind her head. Then, when the wall got dangerous, at the carved curve of the alcove's ceiling. Then at the slow stir of smoke from the clay dish in the corner. Anywhere that was not the careful work of her hands moving in long, slow lines down the plane of his chest.

His breath was loud.

Loud enough that she would be able to hear it too.

He closed his eyes and slowed it the way she had taught him, the way she had taught him a hundred small things — quiet, like the forest before dawn, quiet like an animal that is not yet hunted. In through the nose.

Hold. Out. Hold.

The technique worked, the way old skills always worked, until it didn’t.

It caught when her fingers skirted lower. Down past his collarbone, into the soft skin at the centre of his chest. She painted in slow, narrowing circles. He tracked the path of her fingertip the way he would a small animal moving on his arm at night — exactly, every inch of its movement, every change of pressure. She circled in. Circled in. The circles tightened. And then her fingertip dragged, cool with paste, deliberately over his nipple.

His eyes opened, and his gaze dropped — helpless, animal — to his own chest.

She did not look up at him.

She reached back, dipped her fingers in the paste again, and kept painting.

The next line went straight through where she had just been. As if she had not noticed. As if she had not split him open.

He was tense, and she clicked her tongue at him.

"You must relax, skxawng."

The grin came despite himself, a spreading of his lips over his teeth as he forced his muscles to relax. He breathed in deep. Exhaled long. The tension drained out of his chest and his shoulders and his arms the way she had taught him, and made a clean, unambiguous run for the only place his body had not yet been told to behave.

His tail thumped against the woven mat.

He did not apologise for it. He had stopped apologising for his tail months ago — she liked the tail; the tail was an entire conversation between them that had been going on, in side glances and quiet jokes, since the first week he was conscious in this body. She did not pretend not to hear the thump. Her eyes flicked, the small precise movement he had learned to track on her — to the source of the sound, then to him, then back to her work. A small smile turned up the corner of her mouth.

She shifted closer on her knees. The space between them halved by inches.

The paint was cool, and her fingers were cool with the paste, and yet everywhere her hand touched him he burned, clean and steady, the way a banked coal burned under ash. He was being painted with fire, and her hand was the brush working over him.

She kept working. The painting went around. She came down off her knees just enough to lean in close, and her hair fell forward, the small beaded strands at the ends of it brushed his shoulder, cool weight where the paint was still wet, and her warmth came with the lean — her ribs, her breath. She was painting now across the cap of his shoulder and down his arm, and then she rose onto her knees again and shifted to his side and started to paint his back.

He had to sit in the dark of her hands now. None of it reached his eyes, only his skin: the cool press of paste tracking down between his shoulder blades, the brush of her fingertips after each stroke as she smoothed it. He was not afraid. He had no reason to be afraid of her. The thing under his skin was not fear; it was a hot, insistent tension that lived in his muscles, banked and patient and running steadily along every nerve she touched.

He was reading her, too. He had been reading her since the first stroke, since the moment she brushed against his arm, since her tail had flicked his thigh.

He had found, over the past weeks, that reading her came as naturally as breathing. The small catch in her breath when his tail shifted and grazed her leg. The place at the side of her throat where her pulse showed. The faint brightening of the spots along her neck and the slope of her shoulder — there, definitely there, brighter than they had been when she had pinched him in the doorway. The way her nostrils flared, just a flicker, when she leaned in close enough to read his scent.

He could read hers, too.

Her scent had changed somewhere over the slow course of their friendship, in a way he could not name and had no vocabulary for — only a recognition: warmer, deeper, closer. With everyone else it had a clean sharpness to it, like a posture held. With him, somewhere along the way, it had loosened. Tonight it was looser still, and it ran up into the back of his brain and made his thoughts faintly fuzzy.

It scared him, slightly, how much it warmed his insides. How much his chest tightened to know that she only smelled like this when she was with him.

She painted the small dip of his waist. Her fingertip ran along the curve there, low on his side, drawing small fine lines that tickled his skin and sent a small ripple of warmth down the length of his spine.

He shuddered.

She stopped.

Her hand stilled flat against his ribs and her eyes lifted up to his — and in the moment her eyes lifted, his scent shifted, and her nose twitched. Her gaze flicked down to his throat where his pulse showed, and back up to his eyes.

He did not look away.

Neither of them said anything. The painting did not resume. The room did not breathe.

Then, very deliberately, she dropped her gaze back down to her work, reached for the paste, and the line on his waist became just another line.

He let his eyes go down.

They went over the long curve of her spine, where the spots glowed steady and warm, down to where her tail lay coiled on the woven mat behind her, calm, still, undisturbed.

His own tail had not stopped moving since he had sat down.

She painted down his spine, and the mission surfaced.

It came up like a coat being settled on his shoulders by someone he could not see — heavy at the collar, dragging at the sleeves, familiar. Her fingertip kept moving the whole time, one slow vertebra to the next, even as the old guilt throbbed once in him, hard.

She doesn’t know who you are, and if she did, it would break her heart.

You are going to break her heart.

The thought arrived complete, like ice in his brain, venom on his tongue. He did not chase it. He did not justify himself to it. He simply chose, in the small alcove with her hand moving down his back, to set it aside for later.

Always later.

Halfway down, she stalled.

It was not the small considered pause of a painter checking her line. It was a held thing. A held thing where her breath caught and then very deliberately released. Her hand sat motionless against the small of his back for a single beat too long. He did not turn around. He did not ask. He could not see her face, and he had no permission to fill in what was on it. Only that she was carrying something just then that he could not name.

She breathed out, slow.

She kept painting.

His tail swept the mat in a long, lazy thump.

She huffed, just once, a quiet laugh against the back of his shoulder. Fond. The kind of laugh that travelled quietly from her and into his chest. She had been so serious when he had first met her, those first weeks being taught under her hand. Now she smiled with her eyes more than her mouth, and she laughed with a warmth that lit up inside him and drew out a happiness he had not carried since he was a child.

The laugh undid him faster than her touch. His shoulders dropped — properly dropped this time, the last of the held tension going out of them — and he sat there in the dark of her hands, undone, and let her finish his back, a soft smile settling on his own lips.

She finished it with a long flat stroke from his shoulder blade down to the small of his back, smoothing the paste with the heel of her hand. It ran along the length of him, slow and deliberate, and there was no way she could miss how her touch reached under his skin, to his bones.

She came back around to the front.

She settled in front of him on her knees again, and this time when she settled her knees came forward into the space between his and they touched. The warm bare skin of her thigh against the warm bare skin of his own. She did not move them away. She did not apologise or make any move to make the moment anything more than what it was.

She was reaching into him, messing up the perfect control he had tried so hard to maintain.

Something in him was coming loose.

She dipped her fingers in the paste and started a slow curve low on his stomach.

His breath caught.

His whole body locked down.

This was not the easy stilling from before, when her fingertips along his waist had made him shudder and they had both clocked it and moved on. This was training. Marine and Taranyu both, every bit of it summoned at once and set against a single problem — keep it inside, don’t let it show. He pulled all of his attention to the level of his diaphragm. He measured his breath like he was running a long descent. He forced his focus into a small bright point above his own collarbone, anywhere but the path of her finger as it tracked the slow line of the curve down across his stomach to the place where the curve ended just shy of the binding of his loincloth.

The heat of her touch travelled down through the fabric.

Warmth travelling down between his legs.

That was the problem.

The response his body was having without his permission. The heat he had no power over. He gritted his teeth, breathed in slow, breathed out slow, and held himself so still he could have been a wall.

Her eyes moved, just slightly.

He sensed it more than saw it: a small drop of her gaze, down, and then up again, back to her work, the path of her finger never once breaking. No smirk. No comment. No staring. But from the corner of his eye, on her neck, her skin darkened and the spots along her cheek and neck brightened for only a moment. One small private reaction, and then her shoulders stilled and settled, and she was painting again.

Torture, or a blessing.

Maybe it was both.

He stayed locked still. He breathed. She painted.

"Jake," she said.

She said it low. Lower than she usually said it. In a voice he had not heard her use before in months of hearing her use his name in every register — barking it across a clearing, hissing it as he was about to step in something dangerous, sighing it when he failed something easy. This was new. This was dangerous.

He heard the difference.

He smelled the difference.

Something in her scent had warmed and closed the last polite distance, and her ear twitched once when his own scent answered it. Neither of them said anything about it. Both of them understood, in the only way they could, that this thing between them was something that could not be said out loud, not in that alcove.

His tail thumped against the mat.

Then again.

Then again — louder.

He stopped trying.

He reached behind himself, took hold of the end of his own tail with one hand, dragged it forward and sat on it.

Her hand went still on his ribs.

She pressed her mouth into the soft skin of her own shoulder, and a small helpless laugh escaped anyway — muffled, delighted, entirely undignified in its way. Her eyes, when she lifted them, were shining. She did not say a word about what he had just done. She did not need to. The pretence — that this was just a painting, that they were just sitting still, that this was not what it so obviously was — wobbled hard between them and did not fall. They held it on purpose.

"Your tail," she said. It was not even a sentence. It was a small breath of fondness with a noun pinned to it.

"It's got opinions."

"And what are its opinions?"

He looked at her. She was painting again, eyes back on the line she was drawing across his lowest rib, and she had asked the question very lightly, the way she had asked him a thousand small questions over a thousand small fires.

He didn’t answer. The words caught at the back of his throat, holding too much, giving away too much.

She did not look up at him. The corner of her mouth turned up.

She knew. She had to know.

She finished the line on his rib and dipped her fingers in the paste again. He watched her two fingers come up out of the small clay bowl wet and white with the paste, and instead of going to his chest or his arm or his side they came, very slowly, up to his face.

Half a second before they reached him, he held his breath without meaning to.

A final ceremonial line, she said with the angle of her wrist. A small mark across his lower lip, the kind of thing a Tsahik's daughter had done a hundred times to the warriors before him. Nothing remarkable about it. Just paint. Just paint.

Her fingertips dragged, slowly, across his mouth. Slow. Warm. She was not in any hurry to lift them away. The paste was cool against his lower lip, and her fingertip lingered there a moment longer than the paint needed, dragging his lip down slightly and releasing the breath he had held locked behind his teeth.

The slowest beat of his life passed between her thumb and his lower lip.

His eyes lifted.

Along the line of her hand, helpless, and met hers, and there was nothing left in him to look away, because she had just, with two fingers and the paint on his mouth, spent it for him.

In that moment, with the low honey light dancing across the space and making her eyes sparkle a deep amber, with her fingers still burning against his lip, he might melt under it all. Might simply sink into a loose puddle between her knees.

Everything he wanted to say pressed against his ribs, and none of it could escape the bars that were locked around the both of them. So he let his eyes reach across the space to her, let her see, for only a moment, how truly she had broken him open, broken him from the man he had been when he had first arrived on Pandora with a grudge and no future.

Something passed over her face.

She breathed out, slow.

Her hand resumed its line down from his face.

He stayed exactly where she had put him.

She finished it with a line drawn under his jaw.

It was the last line. She drew it slower than any of the others, the way a painter signed something they would not see again, and at the end of the line her thumb deliberately brushed the soft place just below his ear on the way down.

She let her hand fall away from his skin, hesitantly, like she was as sad to end the touch as he was to lose it.

She settled back on her heels and looked at her work.

A long beat passed where neither of them spoke. He sat very still. The cool paint was drying on his chest and his arms and his back, the heat of his own skin underneath it, the warm honey light on his face. Her gaze moved over him, over her work, to make sure everything was done perfectly.

Her eyes went over what she had made of him.

She wet her lower lip once with her tongue.

Then her face changed.

It softened. It settled. Something in the line of her brow moved into a register he had not seen on her at any point during the painting — something that looked, for half a breath, almost like sorrow before she folded it away behind a smile.

"You are ready," she said, softly.

She said it quietly. Almost reverently. It was not a tease or a joke. It was a thing she had made true, with her hands, over the course of the last hour.

She breathed.

One long, deliberate exhale, the kind she let out at the end of a hunt.

She stood, her body unfolding in front of him.

He stayed sitting on the woven mat with the paste cooling on his skin and did not reach for her. She did not reach for him. Whatever had been between her hands and his skin all night, this was the place she had chosen to set it down, and he was not meant to pick it up again. No one had to tell him so.

She crossed the small space to the entrance.

At the entrance, she paused. She lifted the curtain back in one hand. She turned, and she looked at him.

The look she gave him from the doorway was full and open. Across the small alcove, without any painting to be doing, without any pretext to angle behind, without the safety of a glance or a flicked check, she let him see her.

Then she stepped through with a soft smile.

The curtain fell behind her.

He sat where she had left him, in the honey light, with the paint drying on his skin and the muffled sound of the People rising up from somewhere below. The heat beneath his skin was pooling, and the quiet of the hollow held the last of his breath.

And yet, despite his confident aura, his hands remained firmly tucked into the pockets of his coat, a barrier you had learned not to breach.

Your relationship with Aventurine was unlike anything you'd ever experienced. It had been months since you'd first met, and though you shared countless conversations, subtle smiles, and fleeting moments of connection, his hesitance toward physical affection had always been palpable.

At first, it had confused you. Someone as charming and self-assured as Aventurine seemed like the type to sweep someone off their feet with bold gestures. But as time went on, you began to understand the layers beneath his confident exterior. He wasn’t withholding affection out of indifference; he was protecting himself, unsure of how to navigate the vulnerability of touch.

So, you waited.

You were careful, always mindful of his boundaries. A lingering glance replaced the touch of a hand; a quiet “goodnight” replaced the impulse to lean closer. It was difficult at times to hold back, but you knew he needed this.

Tonight was no different—or so you thought.

As you both approached a quiet overlook, Aventurine slowed his pace, his eyes flicking toward you briefly before darting away. His hand hovered near the pocket of his overcoat, and you noticed the slight tension in his jaw, the way his fingers twitched as though fighting an invisible battle.

“Aventurine?” you asked softly, tilting your head toward him.

He stopped walking, turning to face you fully. His expression was unreadable, but there was something vulnerable in the way he avoided your gaze, the way his shoulders shifted as though he were bracing himself.

“Do you ever…” he began, his voice quieter than usual, “...find it difficult to wait for someone?”

You blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Not when it’s for someone who matters,” you replied honestly. “Why do you ask?”

Aventurine’s lips curved into a small, almost self-deprecating smile. “You’re remarkably patient, you know. More than I deserve.”

Before you could respond, he took a step closer, his hand emerging from his pocket. His fingers brushed against yours—light, tentative, as if testing the waters. Then, slowly, he slid his hand fully into yours, intertwining your fingers with a gentleness that made your chest tighten.

The world seemed to pause. Aventurine, the master strategist, the gambler who thrived on risk, was utterly still, his usual confidence replaced by an endearing shyness. He glanced down at your joined hands, his eyes softened by something unspoken.

“I’m not…very good at this,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I thought it was time I tried.”

Your heart swelled at his words, at the quiet courage it must have taken for him to bridge this gap. You squeezed his hand gently, offering him a reassuring smile. “You’re doing just fine.”

For a moment, neither of you spoke. Aventurine’s gaze remained fixed on your hands, his thumb tracing small, nervous circles against your skin.

“I didn’t expect this to feel…” He trailed off, his cheeks tinged with a faint pink.

“Natural?” you offered.

He nodded, his lips curving into a soft smile. “Yes. Natural.”

As the night stretched on, the two of you stood there in comfortable silence, his hand resting in yours. It was a small step, but for Aventurine, it was monumental—a gamble on love that, for once, he knew he couldn’t lose.

On Friday morning, Kakashi felt a distinct shift in the air, a blend of anxiety and anticipation that surpassed any S-rank mission briefing. He had planned this, reviewed it, and still felt utterly unprepared.

This was it.

He waited until Meatball and Bisuke were mid-tussle and Pakkun was fully absorbed in his sun-drenched nap. Suna stood leaning against the wall, her thumb tracing a slow circle on the Chakrabucks logo printed on the paper cup holder.

This was it.

“Suna-san,” Kakashi started, his voice coming out unnervingly steady.

Her eyes, warm hazel and now easily meeting his, lifted from her cup. “Yes, Kakashi-san?”

He cleared his throat, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets. “I was wondering... since you’re officially settled back in the village now, and since we’ve managed to successfully navigate four and a half mornings of awkward dog park etiquette together...” He paused, and a small, shared chuckle escaped them both at the truth of his statement. “would you consider joining me for dinner this evening? I was thinking Yakiniku Q.”

“Yakiniku Q?” Suna blinked, a momentary flicker of surprise passing over her tired features. Then, a genuine, delighted smile—one that reached her eyes—widened. “That’s a very polite invitation, Kakashi-san. I’d like that very much.”

“Great,” he said, feeling an entirely unwarranted rush of victory. He chose Yakiniku Q because tending the barbecue would hopefully make any silences less awkward. “Is seven too late?”

“Seven is perfect.” She gave him a slight nod, her smile broadening. Her watch alarm chirped, a familiar sound. Then a final, warm smile before whistling for Meatball, "See you later Kakashi-san" she bowed, her usual abrupt departure softened by the promise of the evening. Leaving Kakashi with a racing pulse and a suddenly very judgmental pug.

Kakashi walked home in a daze, tossing his flak jacket onto the small table by the door.

Dinner.

With Suna.

He hadn’t felt this nervous since... well, since never, really.

"So," Pakkun's gruff voice cut through his thoughts. Kakashi looked down at his pug, who was now perched on the armrest of his armchair, fixing him with a knowing stare. "Finally made a move, huh? About time."

Kakashi sighed. "Pakkun, please."

"What? I'm just saying. All that lurking and 'blending in' with us dogs. It was getting embarrassing." Pakkun paused, then added, "She must have terrible taste in men, though. Honestly, the silent, brooding type? It's so cliché."

"You're not helping Pakkun…" Kakashi muttered, rubbing his temple. He was, surprisingly, actually nervous. What did one even talk about on a dinner… get-together? Was it a date? He hadn't been on a 'date' in… well, he didn't even know. He realized they hadn't discussed anything deeper than their dogs and the weather. What would he talk about for a full dinner?

"Just be yourself," Pakkun advised, then snorted. "No, wait. Don't be yourself. Maybe try a little less Icha Icha Paradaisu tonight, eh?"

Kakashi ignored him, heading towards the shower. This was going to be an interesting evening.

Seven o’clock. Kakashi swore under his breath as he checked the clock. He was late already. Rookie mistake. He sprinted through the streets, mentally rehearsing apologies.

He skidded to a halt outside Yakiniku Q. Relief washed over him as he scanned the windows. She was just arriving, her raspberry hair a vibrant splash of color against the dimming light. She seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, perhaps just as rushed as he was. She had changed out of her uniform and was now wearing black skinny pants, a dark gray fitted shirt with a long open front cardigan. Kakashi, regretting his decision to go out in his standard Jōnin flak jacket and dark shirt, felt instantly underdressed and foolish.

Their eyes met, and a sheepish smile spread across her face. "Oh, Kakashi-san! Sorry I'm late! I'm still getting used to navigating around town."

"No, no, my apologies, Suna-san. I just got here myself," he replied, thankful for their shared tardiness.

They settled at a table with an integrated barbecue pit, the shared sense of being slightly rushed creating an immediate, comfortable camaraderie. They discussed village life, her long assignments away, and even shared a few amusing anecdotes about their dogs, the easy work of grilling the meat serving as a natural distraction whenever a silence threatened to linger.

Their laughter was light and easy. After finishing their meal, Suna wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I think this is my new favorite restaurant in the village! Thanks, Kakashi."

“My pleasure,” he answered. “Would you be up for a drink somewhere else? There's a quiet little place not far from here.”

"I'd love to," she agreed, her eyes sparkling.

They walked side by side, their conversation continuing effortlessly. They found a quiet corner booth at a cozy Izakaya, the low lighting setting a perfect intimate mood.

As the sake began to flow, however, the guards began to drop.

“You know,” Suna murmured, swirling the clear liquid in her cup, “I spent so long watching other people live their lives, charting their routines, learning their fears, that I forgot how to have my own. Just sitting here, watching the lights reflect on the smoke... it’s foreign, but nice.”

“It’s a different kind of mission,” Kakashi agreed quietly. “Living without a mask.”

Her eyes, suddenly intense, met his across the low table. “You’d know all about masks, wouldn’t you?” she challenged gently, a ghost of her morning mischief returning.

He gave a soft, conceding eye-smile. “I’m still working on that briefing.”

The sudden influx of noise, confidence, and sheer, loud presence caused every head in the room to swivel. Standing in the doorway were Hatake Kakashi’s peers: Sarutobi Asuma, Yūhi Kurenai, and Mitarashi Anko, who was already halfway across the room, shouting.

“Kurenai, I told you that new dango flavor was a terrible idea! Too much sesame, not enough sweetness!” Anko declared, before her eyes landed squarely on Suna.

Anko froze. The massive, raucous smile vanished instantly, replaced by wide-eyed shock. Suna, who had been mid-sentence, went utterly still, the color draining from her face.

A moment of agonizing silence stretched across the bar, broken only by the crackle of Asuma’s cigarette.

“...You,” Anko breathed, her voice a low, rough whisper. Then, with a scream that defied the laws of physics, she launched herself across the intervening tables and chairs. “SUNA YAMISORA, YOU SON OF A–!”

The reunion was violent, loud, and utterly unrestrained. Anko tackled Suna, wrapping her into a tight, nearly crushing embrace while simultaneously punching her in the shoulder with surprising affection. Suna shrieked and hugged back with equal force, and the two friends scrambled to their feet, dissolving into a fit of raw, relieved laughter.

“Anko! I knew that smell of burnt sugar and questionable life choices had to be you!” Suna shouted back, pulling away just long enough to smack Anko hard on the arm.

Anko demanded, "What the hell are you doing back? I thought you were never coming back to the Leaf! You're still causing trouble, I hope?"

"Not since the day I left your side," Suna laughed. She turned to Kakashi, whose visible eye was wide with bewildered astonishment. "So Kakashi-san, you know Anko? We were trouble-making classmates back at the Academy."

Anko immediately clapped on Suna’s shoulder, giving her a quick, hard pat. She then leaned in close to Suna’s ear and muttered, “So you finally went for the quiet, mysterious type, tsk! Suna, you’re predictable!” Anko then turned to Asuma and Kurenai. "Guys, come here! This is Suna. She’s the only other person in the village who knows how to sneak into the Hokage Kitchens without getting caught!"

The small table instantly became crowded. As Kakashi made room for the newcomers, he found Suna now seated immediately beside him. He privately thanked his peers for the sudden, unexpected chaos, which resulted in having her so close. Suna handled the intrusion effortlessly. She was initially polite with Kurenai and Asuma, but quickly matched Anko's chaotic energy, laughing loudly at their jokes. She was a natural, blending her own brand of funny, outrageous storytelling with their established camaraderie.

As the conversation evolved, Suna leaned into Kakashi, her hand casually settling on his lap under the table. The warmth of her touch was a sudden, intense jolt that sent a shockwave through him. Kakashi froze, the loud conversation around him fading into a distant hum. It felt like a genjutsu, dragging him into a reality where only the electric warmth of her hand existed.

Suna looked up at him, her hazel eyes sparkling with mischief, her finger drawing a slow, deliberate circle on the fabric of his pants. She whispered, her voice a soft murmur that only he could hear, "So, Kakashi-san, what do you think...?"

He blinked, lost in the feeling of her touch. He had no idea what she was talking about. He just nodded, his throat suddenly dry. "Yeah, sounds great," he mumbled, his voice a little hoarse.

Her hand left his lap, as she ordered another round of sake and the spell broke. The sound came rushing back—Anko’s cackle, Asuma’s deep laugh, the clinking of glasses. Shaking his head slightly to clear the fog, he grabbed his cup of sake and threw himself back into the conversation.

The Suna who wrestled her best friend on the sticky floor of a bar, who was loud, who smelled like sake and genuine, unmasked joy, was entirely new. He was fascinated. He had spent the entire evening carefully breaking down Suna’s walls, only for Anko to smash them down in thirty seconds flat.

This was the light, the warmth, Suna had talked about protecting in her heart—and seeing her fully immersed in it, unguarded, solidified Kakashi's newfound, inconvenient attraction.

When Anko started recounting a wild story from her Genin days, Suna leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in her eyes. "Oh, you think that's bad?" she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "On a previous assignment, we had to pose as a traveling circus... and my act was the escape artist." She then proceeded to spin a completely absurd, over-the-top tale of escaping from a cage full of venomous scorpions, all with a straight face, making even the cynical Anko howl with laughter.

As the sake flowed, Kurenai and Asuma took great delight in sharing some of Kakashi's most embarrassing moments from their early years. There was the time he got hopelessly lost on a mission he was leading, the time he tried to use a genjutsu on a giant hornet's nest only to enrage it, and his legendary inability to cook a proper meal without setting off the smoke alarm. Kakashi laughed, feigning annoyance as he tried to explain himself, but even he had to admit the stories were funny.

Suna, now completely comfortable, laughed along with them. She leaned over and playfully poked Kakashi's arm. "So, you're the great Copy Ninja, but you can't copy a recipe?" she teased, her eyes sparkling.