"When I was a kid." Ryouma's voice had dried to something barely more than a whisper, but at least it came. "When I was coming back to Konoha. I didn't know if they'd take me back. I had my mom's dogtags, but that was it. I didn't know if it'd be enough. I knew there was a war happening, I'd walked through it, and I thought— They needed soldiers, if I could be good enough, strong enough..."

He cleared his throat. "I made it into the Academy. I could fight. My technique sucked, but I worked harder than anyone else, and it got better. But I couldn't read. I couldn't study all the books they did, and I had nobody at home to explain things or practice with, and I was falling behind. So I figured, if I had one thing that nobody else could do, one thing nobody else would do, maybe that'd be enough."

He didn't dare look up. He didn't know how to meet Genma's eyes. "So I created a class of jutsu so gross nobody'd ever imitate them, and so strong nobody'd ever overlook 'em. And… it worked."

His throat scraped, but the glass of barley tea was empty. The silence stretched out. He stared at his knuckles and wished he'd never spoken at all.

"Tousaki." Genma touched the back of his hand, then wrapped callused fingers around his forearm and gave him a little shake. His hand was too warm; Ryouma's pulse thumped erratically against the pressure of his thumb.

"I've read your file," Genma said. "Your jutsu, yeah, they're great. But they aren't why you're of value to Konoha. They're not why you were promoted. And they're not why you're in ANBU."

"Well, I'm hot, too," Ryouma said reflexively.

Genma released his grip and drew his hand away. Ryouma squeezed his fist closed to stop himself from reaching back, bit his tongue on a too-fast I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. He finally looked up, though; he couldn't not.

The lieutenant plucked his senbon out of the pickle dish, inspected it critically, and stuck it between his teeth again. It didn't seem to impede his diction. "Hotness is also not a criteria for ANBU. Masks, remember?" He leveled a thoughtful, penetrating look at Ryouma. "Do you really believe that? That your looks and a handful of unique jutsu are all there is to you? Because I don't."

Ryouma shouldn't have said anything in the first place. He could feel the heat building in his ears and across his cheekbones, the automatic protest rising in his throat; he choked it down. He looked at his hands, at the high window, but neither offered any solution. Finally he spotted the paper half-forgotten in front of Genma, and grabbed at it. "You said I had to sign this, right?"