Katsuko jostled her shoulder against Ryouma’s arm, still laughing. “I’d clap, but I’ve only got one working hand.”

Ryouma solemnly held his own hand up for her. Katsuko chortled and gave him an enthusiastic high-five.

Hakone smiled wryly. "Think that will be worth trading for an answer or two about ANBU, Ueno-senpai?"

“Maybe,” Katsuko said, and grinned wide and toothy. It was easier to set defensive suspicion aside after hearing about how Hakone had helped Ryouma. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be difficult just for the hell of it. “Depends on what you ask, newbie.”

Hakone grinned back at her. "Have you ever seen someone get assigned to a different team for personality problems?"

Beside her, Ryouma shifted. Katsuko glanced up in time to see him shoot a sharp look at Hakone. She remembered Kakashi on the first day Team 6 met, his discontent and his immediate request to be transferred.

“Nah.” Katsuko shrugged, unrepentant. “Usually if there’s a personality conflict we just kill them and bury the body under the barracks.” She waggled her eyebrows at Hakone. “If you want, I can show you where the best spots are.”

Ryouma looked between the two of them, eyes widening with the alarm of someone whose professional and personal lives had dramatically intersected. Katsuko considered what it would be like if one of her outside friends started flirting with her senpai, and came up short.

She didn’t have many friends outside the team except for Kurenai. Isamu and Mitarou, from her previous ANBU squad, also counted, but they’d always been closer with each other than with her. Looking at the camaraderie Hakone and Ryouma shared, the comfortable way they’d traded off telling the story of Bungobashi Province, made something unnervingly like jealousy curl in her stomach.

She missed Kurenai suddenly, with a fierceness that made her chest ache. Kurenai almost always knew what to say to make things better, and even when she didn’t she’d still let Katsuko lean against her for strength. Katsuko needed strength, right now. She needed the calm that Kurenai carried herself with, like she was the eye of a storm. Kurenai would know how to deal with Hakone and his watchful eyes.

"I might just take you up on that," Hakone said, smile softening. "Although people would probably notice if Ushiro-fukuchou just stopped showing up to meetings."

Katsuko suggested, “You can start small and work up.” She propped herself up on Ryouma again, slitting her eyes closed against the sun’s glare. The wiry muscles of his arm slowly relaxed underneath her cheek.

“You can’t switch onto our team,” Ryouma told Hakone. “We don’t have any openings.”

That was enough to make Katsuko’s chest go warm. Her mouth tugged up at the corners despite herself. Damn right we don’t. Raidou was coming back, the lieutenant was going to get better, and Kakashi had finally gotten with the program and accepted the rest of the squad.

Team Six wasn’t going anywhere.