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Red Seas at Dawn [Feb. 7th, 2017|09:27 pm]
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[tousaki_ryouma]
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[User Picture]From: [info]tousaki_ryouma
2017-02-08 04:12 am (UTC)

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Ryouma's mouth opened, and closed, without words. They seemed to have choked up into a tangle under his sternum, aching in his throat.

He reached out instead, and touched the side of Kakashi's hand.

Kakashi went still. Ryouma'd seen him do that before, when startled: every muscle tensed on the cliff-edge of action, even breath held curling in his lungs. He looked down, after a moment, to the brush of their hands in the grass. Then he tilted his head to look at Ryouma, the faintest arch of a question in his eye.

Ryouma swallowed. "I — guessed at what happened to Uchiha Obito, after what Satomi said in the caves." After the rockfall-trap triggered, and Kakashi froze. "I didn't—"

I didn't know, I'm sorry, I wish I hadn't asked, I'm glad you told me…

He could feel the hard edge of bone under his fingers, the roughness of scar tissue built over knuckles and the striking blade of the hand. Metacarpals: Kakashi had taught him that word. They had a flashcard for it, somewhere. Kakashi's skin was beginning to warm, finally, in the sun.

He said, "Fukuda told me to protect them. Kimiko, and Sango. I… Kimiko knows we're Konoha ANBU. Hell, she knows who you are. We'll take them back to Konoha, that's the mission, and they can make their own choices from there, but— Whatever Sango grows into, you think the Hokage'll let them be?"

"If she grows up with shinobi promise," Kakashi said, "he'll probably try to recruit her."

"I've always thought of him as...that golden hero, I guess. The Yellow Flash. Then the Yondaime. Not a person, not the way you know him. It's easier to think of Naruto-kun's dad sparing a kid's life, though, than the Hokage." Ryouma hesitated. "But your dad's teammates knew him as a person, and they still turned."

Kakashi looked down at their hands again.

"Sorry." Ryouma pulled back, but Kakashi's hand turned, knuckles against the grass, palm curved. He caught Ryouma with the crooks of his fingers, very lightly.

Ryouma stilled. He could feel scars cutting through the pads of Kakashi's fingers now, calluses from sword or tanto, the ridges and valleys of lines in Kakashi's palm.

"I wasn't trying to—" he said, and stopped.

"I know," Kakashi said. He tapped two fingers gently against the back of Ryouma's hand. "It's okay, Tousaki. It all happened a long time ago. You don't need to make me feel better about it. I just thought you should know."

It shouldn't have. I wish I could.

Ryouma said, quietly, "Thanks. For trusting me."

Kakashi's good eye curved in the glimmer of a smile. He released Ryouma's hand and sank back into the grass, stretching out his back and flexing his shoulders. "I feel like someone danced on me with hammers. Next mission, let's do something easy, like help little old ladies cross roads."

"With our luck, they'll be little old samurai grandmas with a blood-feud against the lieutenant." Ryouma watched the sun catch silvery threads in Kakashi's brown hair. After three days of grease and saltwater and sweat, the dye was finally starting to fade. "I could do with some downtime that doesn't involve any of us in the hospital."

Snorting, Kakashi draped an arm over his eyes. "If you're going to tempt fate, at least do it where the lieutenant can hear it and yell at us. Have some respect for tradition."

"He could probably use a nice normal little spot of chewing-the-rookies-out." Ryouma rolled onto his stomach and squinted back toward the cave. Someone was moving around outside, silhouetted against the sun: Raidou? It'd better be. "Lieutenant should be sleeping now. That was half the point of coming out here. How hungry are you?"

"I would kill a bear if it didn't require moving," Kakashi informed him. He lifted his arm off his eyes. "Did you need something, Captain?"