The Suna nin hadn't been that big, objectively speaking. No taller than Ryouma, though the lightest of them probably outweighed him by fifty kilos. But he'd been smaller himself, then. He'd pegged his height to Hakone's, in that hasty henge, which meant he was nearly fifteen centimeters shorter than usual.

Fifteen centimeters, he'd discovered, made for a lot of looming.

And a lot of ogling.

"As it turns out," he told Katsuko, "Fire Country women have a reputation in Suna. Though I guess you probably already knew that."

She laughed, a little dryly. "Fire Country women are a lot for anybody to handle." She slid a quick glance up at him, sly and smug as a vixen.

He reached around her to poke her gently in the ribs, behind the sling-bound barrier of her elbow. The move opened up his own side to retaliation from her good arm, and she didn't hesitate to jab back. Her elbow was almost as sharp as her swords. He grabbed for her biceps with his free hand, and she smirked and twisted her hand, turning her nails into the soft underside of his wrist.

Hakone cleared his throat. "Should I give you two a moment?"

"We're good," Ryouma said quickly. He dropped his hand.

Katsuko's elbow dug, lightning-quick, just underneath his ribs. Ryouma yelped in outrage. She folded her hand in her lap, prim as any young maiden. "Nah," she told Hakone. "I already won. So what happened to the Suna guy?"

Hakone was watching them a little doubtfully. Ryouma met his gaze, daring him to comment. Hakone hitched up one shoulder, and let it go.

"So I figure out which one I think is their squad leader," he said. "I tell Ryouma, 'At least have a little shame,' and drag the blanket off the bed and kind of drape it over her, and then I look the Suna commander right in his piggy little eyes and say, 'I assume your man here missed his check-in, too?'"

It was the kind of quick thinking Ryouma hadn't yet learned to expect from teammates. He remembered standing there barefoot on the carpet, clutching the heavy blanket over unfamiliar new skin, and watching with an awed kind of pride as Hakone bluffed their way out. It was one thing to run a mission beside a shinobi who could improvise a swift response to a jutsu attack. It was something else to watch Hakone glibly assure the Suna nin that Ryouma was a nymphomaniac eros-nin who'd slipped her handlers on their way back from a mission in Shimokita, that their teammate probably wouldn't catch anything from her but it wouldn't hurt to stop by a medical clinic to be sure, and that if she'd caught a child from him Konoha would follow the proper diplomatic channels.

"I sort of dipped my blanket and did a hip-waggle for them," Ryouma added. "It seemed appropriate."

"I figure we gave Ryouma's friend at least a fighting chance," Hakone concluded. "Hard to call a man gay when he may have just gotten a one night stand pregnant."

Katsuko had cupped her hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter, but her hazel eyes were bright with glee over the edge of her thumb. "Catching a child," she said, almost hiccuping. "Like the measles."

"What, aren't they both contagious?" Ryouma blinked innocently at her. "Anyway, they took him off, and we took ourselves off. And I got dressed down something fierce by the captain, but not until after I'd gotten dressed. And that's the story of Bungobashi Province, shirtlessness and all."