| [Feb. 21st, 2015|04:17 am] |
“Well, I’m out of time for subtle and sensitive. I banged on the door and shouted Ryouma’s cover name and the distress phrase, which was some kind of bullshit about his mother being sick.”
“It wasn’t the distress phrase,” Ryouma said. “It was the attack phrase.”
“Well yeah,” Hakone agreed. “But it was an attack. What else do you call it when your cover’s about to be blown and there are three high-level ninja closing in with hostile intent?”
Ryouma wrinkled his nose. “You could've said, ‘You probably have time for clothes,’ first.”
“Hindsight, hindsight,” Hakone told him. “I didn’t know you had time for clothes. I didn’t even know if you had a friendly or a hostile with you. You think I wanted to see your naked asses?”
Ueno positively cackled, brown eyes alight with undiluted enjoyment.
Victory! Hakone set bird noises as his next goal. He grinned at Ueno.
“So Ryouma jerks the door open. He’s got a kunai in his hand, epic bed hair, and not a single stitch of clothes on. And there’s a pale-skinned guy in the bed behind him — obviously from western Wind Country, judging by his tattoos — just as naked, trying to disentangle himself from the bed sheets.”
“Bed hair? For a guy who didn't want to see our naked asses, you sure did a lot of staring,” Ryouma teased.
“Rule 63,” Hakone said evenly. “A shinobi never wastes an opportunity to gather intelligence. I figured I was going to have to write a report later. Intel loves details.”
"And that's why Intel loves you,” Ryouma said. “I'm still kinda surprised they didn't get their claws in you first.”
That second remark was a deviation from their usual tag-team telling of the story. A subtle one, but enough to give Hakone pause. His well-hidden surname, Shibata, and the proud gleam in Shibata Tomohiro’s eye, had been obvious at their ANBU induction. Ryouma hadn’t said a word about it since, but he must have put two-and-two together.
Something to ponder at a later date.
“Guess Intel was just too slow,” Hakone said. “Anyway, I look at the Wind guy and ask him, ‘Who’d you piss off recently? There’s three ninja headed this way, and I really don’t think they're here for my buddy.' Guy goes the color of sour milk.”
“I'm assuming he was Suna.” Ueno’s mouth thinned, in what Hakone guessed was stern disapproval of Wind Country’s prejudices against same-sex relations. “Did his teammates see him?”
“I wondered that, too,” Hakone said. “But then I figured they’d have interrupted before anyone got naked if they’d known. So probably they just tracked their guy, same as I did, and got alarmed when they realized he was with another ninja. Which meant they had a sensor, which also meant they’d sensed me.”
“At least I'm not the only one who forgot to veil his chakra,” Ryouma chipped in with a wry smirk.
“I didn’t think I was walking into a trap you’d accidentally baited and set,” Hakone retorted.
Ryouma lifted a hand, acknowledging the hit. “It was accidental, at any rate. I forgot the check-in, I'll admit that, but he and I both cleared we weren't on opposing missions. And Suna's technically an ally.”
“Sure,” Hakone agreed. “And I’ll even give you not knowing that Wind Country natives tend to castrate men they catch in bed together. But he should have warned you.”
“It’s not right,” Ueno said, grim-faced. “Ruining people’s lives just because of what they like in bed. Even worse when they’re soldiers sworn to fight and die for you. It’s just—” She cut herself off with an abrupt gesture, and ran her hand through her hair. “Sorry. Go on.”
Hakone nodded, impressed by Ueno’s fervor. And rationality. For a person prone to bird-noises (where were they?) she was quite the pragmatist, it seemed. “I try not to judge other cultures too harshly for their traditions, but that one is remarkably stupid.”
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