There wasn’t a clock in the room and Kakashi didn’t wear a watch, but every shinobi knew how to measure time. Moonfall, heartbeats—the interviews lasted twenty minutes a candidate, give or take. Which meant four hours for twelve candidates.

Or, translated, it’d take until the thin edge of eternity to find out what happened next.

The door clicked gently against the jamb. Ryouma’s reflected window-image slipped out, caught sight of an empty chair, and made a beeline for it. He dropped down into it and stared at his hands. Like every other candidate in the room, he looked not unlike a person who’d been schooled with metal rebars for a few hours, minus the actual bleeding.

Most of them would have preferred the rebars, probably.

Kakashi pulled himself away from the window.

“Questioning your life choices yet?” he asked, settling into the empty seat on Ryouma’s left.

Ryouma’s eyes stayed fixed on his hands. “I'm reconsidering taking a vow of silence and running off into the mountains to become a monk,” he said, and dragged his gaze up to view a middle-distance of invisible horrors. “They wanted me to do math."

They wanted me to carried a suggestion of I couldn’t do with it.

“Not your strong suit?” Kakashi asked.

Ryouma’s glare would have atomized a more flammable man. “Do you always ask questions you already know the answer to?”

Obito had asked him that once.

Against his will, Kakashi felt himself grin. “I like to confirm things.” He held up one hand. “Can you count how many fingers?”

“Three, after I bite two off,” Ryouma said darkly. “You probably sat down and did crossword puzzles with the commanders, didn’t you?”

“We had a group hug first,” Kakashi said, settling back in his chair. “But then crosswords, and drinks after, because I am special enough to warrant it. Have you noticed how ANBU is just really nice to the people it likes?”

Ryouma slouched backwards, long legs stretching out like a land-bridge. “They’ll be sending you fruit baskets next. And slipping roofies in your drink.”