Kakashi's hand stilled.

Knew a girl once, Ryouma had said, standing on the wind-burned roof of Konoha's hospital. Loved a girl, once. We'd been together maybe a month.

I brought her tags back, for her mother.

And Kakashi had called him in idiot, asked who fell in love after a month. He hadn't listened.

He was listening now.

He was trying very hard not to stand up and leave, now. They'd had sex three times, for three different reasons, but none of them had been love. People didn't fall in love after two and half months. Kakashi didn't fall in love ever. And Ryouma--

That's your problem, rookie. You bound up to everyone like a--like a stupid eager puppy. All big eyes and wagging tail, asking for people to love you and handing your heart out to anyone that'll take it. Running on to the next when they throw it back broken.

Sometimes he hated having an eidetic memory.

Carefully, to the soft echo of Shiba's whine, he pulled his hand back. Shifted his weight until there was a breath of space between his knee and Ryouma's chest. Closed the one eye that never saw things rose-tinted and tried to think.

"For someone who doesn't want to be chased away, you're not making this easy." They'd done this already. Talked about mourners and graves and dead best friends. Pretty girls lying in the earth, carrying pieces of hearts too far gone to break. He'd cried himself raw in Ryouma's arms. Don't go. Ryouma had screamed himself silent under Kakashi's hands. You're safe.

And a year from now, two if they got lucky, one of them would turn around and find the other gone.

Kakashi opened his eye, looked at the door, and saw no escape in the panelled wood. Nowhere to run that wouldn't catch up with him. He'd stand at Ryouma's gravesite, wherever they dug it, and see the man in the ground -- then he'd stitch himself back together, take another mission, and live the life until it killed him. There was nothing else left.

A shuddery breath hissed through his teeth. Carefully, he leaned forward until he could rest his head against Ryouma's shoulder. Wrapped his hand around the man's left biceps and held on hard enough to hurt.

"I don't love you," he whispered. "Change the subject."