The current tugged at Katsuko’s feet with gentle insistence. She could hear what he said with the absence of words almost as well as if he’d actually spoken. For form’s sake, though, she still considered rolling him into the river.

Unfortunately, his present wilted state meant he’d probably drown. Bone-deep fatigue was hard to miss, even when hidden behind studied laziness—and she didn’t think Kakashi was trying that hard to keep an act up with her in the first place. She sighed and, minding her sling, slowly tipped backward until her back hit grass. Red leaves rustled overhead.

“Hey,” she said, over the burbling merriment of the river.

Very slowly, he tilted his head toward her. “Hm?”

She paused, struggled to find a diplomatic way to phrase it, and finally just gave up and forged ahead. “What did you think about the team meeting? About taichou, I mean.”

Kakashi looked back up at the sky again. She raised both eyebrows, trying to decide whether she’d been ignored, but then he let out a very short sigh.

“He’s getting private genjutsu training with Yuuhi Benihime-sama,” he said. “So, I’d start with jealousy.”

“Oh?” Katsuko asked, which at least was better than wide-eyed shock that he’d admitted to emotions in the first place. Granted, this entire day had consisted of Kakashi being oddly tolerant and mellow.

“Less jealous of everything preceding it, though. Can you talk about that yet?”

Now it was her turn to stare contemplatively up at the scraps of pale blue showing through the crimson curtain of leaves. “The lieutenant covered the basics of what happened,” she said at last. “But I made a promise to taichou not to tell anyone the details until he said it was alright, and I keep my promises. If you wanted to ask me anything now, I’ll try to answer as best I can. I don’t know how much I can tell you, though, until taichou gets back.”

Promises were important. This promise, particularly so. It was why she tried so hard to avoid commitment; she didn’t have it in her to go back on her word, not when she knew what it was like to be on the other end of failed hopes. Responsibility to anything but the village weighed you down. Better to avoid the yoke of expectations, even if it got her labeled lazy and feckless.