#taezo

Yamato chastised him for it at first, much like he does with Kakashi, reminding Tae that they're equal peers now and not to mention the different code name, but eventually he grew sweet on hearing it come out of Tae's mouth in his soft monotone so Tenzo lets it slide when they're in the privacy of just each other; and later on, after the war, other close friends and members of Tae's family that Yamato's been graciously accepted into

Tae still calls him "senpai" when he wants to be coy about something, but "Tenzo" very much is a term of affection

It states on his wiki that Yamato could be named after the legendary prince of the Yamato dynasty, coincidentally, even though he goes by Tae to almost everyone, Tae's name on his papers is "Takeru" since he had it changed to make legal nonsense go easier - both these names respectively make up the prince's full name

Additionally, "Tenzo" means "heavenly creation" and Tae's quite fond of it for reasons relating to Yamato's mokuton since to him it's rare to find anyone with jutsu that creates life rather than destroys, Tae also secretly thinks of Tenzo as his angel when he's feeling particularly sappy, but he doesn't really speak that part of his mind aloud

But speaking of underlying feelings - I think Tenzo has a hard time crying, or rather dealing with deeper, vulnerable feelings as a whole

While he isn't as completely shut down as a lot of ANBU tend to end up, there's still a substantial disconnect between himself and his emotions (especially negative ones), as if there was a literal barrier between him and his true feelings despite the polite face he puts on for daily interactions

He feels it's not particularly disingenuous, since Yamato does value courtesy and respect between hierarchies as we've seen, but he just has trouble accessing and/or expressing what he really feels, it's all just very numb to him on the rare occasions he tries

Tae is similar in a lot of ways, post-T&I incident with Shikaku and Danzo, there was a period of a few years where he couldn't cry at all no matter how hard he tried, like the tether to his emotions was completely severed by his brain in an attempt to reconcile and protect himself from the trauma he endured; many times when he attempted to let those feelings out the only thing he could manage was throwing up from the strain

It takes a long time with lots of support from his inner circle (Kotetsu and Izumo in particular, with Mizuki's second imprisonment being the thing to break Tae out of his depression stupor) to bring him back to something resembling "semi-normal"; this included rekindling Tae's relationship with his sibling, especially Genma, after Danzo had managed to convince him that everything he was doing only ended up as a hindrance and a burden to them

So while Tenzo is definitely the more "put together" one between the two of them, Tae's the one with a modicum more connection to his emotions; this ultimately benefits them both from being around one another, Tae has someone to help regulate his feelings and in return he coaxes Tenzo into being a little more vulnerable every now and again - there's still some degree of separation, though, because for a long time they were "just coworkers" who fooled around every now and again

As hard as Tae seems to be to read, Yamato gradually picked up on certain, seemingly invisible, tell-tale behaviors that helped lean his inclinations one way or another - so despite his flat affect, Yamato never had much trouble deciphering what his playmate was feeling

They were content with that, being assigned to missions that would work well with them on the same squad, go out once or twice during and after, spend time with one another, yet start to drift a little when their schedules got inconvenient and in a month or two the cycle would repeat

Neither of them were beholden to each other, they were free to take on other partners if they wished, but they knew that they had a safe place to land in the other if the opportunity called for it - it was a nice, if maybe not the most honest, little arrangement; they were both highly ranked, powerful, busy, shinobi with responsibilities to Konoha, anything that could jeopardize that couldn't be entertained

But they still sought each other out, comfort in their field was few and far between so they yielded to the small pockets of physical indulgence that happened upon them every now and again, neither really wanted to bring up how the frequency of these meet-ups gradually began to increase over the years

Being with Yamato, with Tenzo, made feelings well up in Tae's chest he hadn't felt since Shisui - soft, tender things that made his chest ache with the familiarity of a love so strong, so bright that it left him nothing but ash and cinders when it ended prematurely - so he got scared and hid his hand, intentionally letting doubt cloud his vision and second guess the ways Tenzo interacted with him, ways that he'd never seen this man act with anyone else

Yamato, likewise, had his own qualms about getting into a relationship he had no way of guaranteeing would last - whether they'd crumble through an archetypical falling out or the nature of their work cutting their courtship short just as Tae's previous flame died out

But the longer he spent around him, the more in Tae's presence he finds himself, the harder Yamato found it was to eventually pull away again, to act like they hadn't formed some bizarre, inexplicable connection the day he failed to assassinate this man because of what, a few chance encounters before that? It wasn't love at first sight, Tenzo was sure it wasn't even love yet back then, but something drew him to Tae and it seemed like with each passing day, he yearned to bask in more of whatever it was

It's the destruction of Konoha when things reach a breaking point for the tension between them - Tae dies but is brought back with the rinne-rebirth alongside everyone else who lost their lives during Pain's Assault - Yamato returns from his recon mission to the news; his first instinct is to switch into autopilot, but his feet take him to Tae's hospital room before the numbness can fully take over his body

Yet the bastard has the gall to breathe a sigh of relief, bruised and bandaged up, at his safe return, "thank god, you're okay" Tae says - sitting up with a little wince, Tenzo can't hold back the emotion threatening to spill from his eyes despite the semi-rehearsed distant excuse on his tongue, held back with the bite of Tenzo's lips

Tae was lucky to be afforded the luxury of a single room, perks of being related to the Gallant Hero that fought to obtain critical information about Pain in the first place, he supposed, but the bed was still like any other hospital bed - not built for two and definitely not extremely comfortable with a severe chest injury and an arm in a cast on Tae's part, but he was still happy to squeeze over to let his partner sleep there for the night

side note their stage actors are so!!! wuah!!!!!!!

your hands in marriage kings 😩💍🤵💓💗💖💌💞