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Nomads are a romantic part of shinobi tradition. There are many stories about them: gallant, valiant, noble, honorable. Untied and rogue, going from town to town, serving for justice. Sometimes, their hearts are tamed by kind women in a rural town; most of the time, they move from woman to woman as easily as they slay their enemies. Sometimes, it's a tragedy. Most of the time, it's an heroic epic.
Tsunade knows these stories, has read one or two in her day. As a foolish teenager, she might have even had her favorite, a fictional man she would think of at night before she went to sleep (since she knew there were no men of that caliber in Konoha.) But she grew out of that stage of her life; she packed away the sunny years before the war, packed them away and locked the trunk, buried them in the deepest forests of her mind.
She did not think she would find herself living in a legend.
She should have known-she is a legendary ninja, after all. The Hokage. She's cognizant that every time she exhales, she shakes the leaves of history. It's just that she thought she was under control of her narrative: a strong, independent, single woman, a conquerer of her trauma, a trailblazer and a leader. Fierce. Legendary.
"It's just like in the stories," she says to Jiraiya. She's not facing him, instead rolled on her side, the blanket over her hip and her breasts bare and hanging. He's sitting, pouring them both some sake from his bedside bottle.
"Eh?" he asks. He places his hand on her shoulder. She sits up and accepts the sake.
"You should know. You're an author." She scoffs.
He chuckles. She blushes, inadvertently, and tells herself it's the heat of this cheap inn he's chosen to stay at. After a sip of sake, she feels more rooted. "Didn't you ever read The Honorable Hideki?"
"No, but I remember that you used to carry it with you everywhere for about a year when we were fourteen." He smirks at her. This is more usual-it makes her want to punch him. She settles for a slap on his chest.
After knocking back the rest of her sake, she rests her head on his shoulder. The curtains in the inn's room are drawn shut.
"Hideki would go from town to town and always find a new woman," she explains. "Sleep with them, tell them he loved them, and then leave them. I think the author meant that he really did love them-"that's how she justified it to herself at fourteen, anyway-"but that Hideki's 'mission was one that could only be completed alone,' or something like that."
"And how did good old Hideki's story end?" Jiraiya says this into her hair, his hand ghosting over her back.
"Like all the other nomads." Tsunade sighs. "He and his greatest enemy died defeating one another, but Hideki saved the world for it."
"Maybe I should read this book," Jiraiya muses. "Of course, I'm sure it's just romance novel trash, but-"
"Idiot!" Tsunade laughs at that, so hard she must lift her head from Jiraiya's shoulder to clutch her stomach.
The thing is: she knows that Jiraiya isn't an idiot. She knows that he only says these things to make her laugh. She knows this because he brings her close to him when she's finished, wipes the happy tears from her eyes, and presses his lips to her forehead. His lips, like the rest of him, are rough, and yet undeniably, infuriatingly, skilled. Just a brush of him is enough to make Tsunade shiver just like she used to when she would read the book by moonlight in bed at fourteen.
"Do you feel young when you're with me?" Tsunade asks after a few moments of easy silence, her head tucked under Jiraiya's chin, the heavy sounds of frogs outside their window weighing on her eyelids.
"No," Jiraiya answers. His voice rumbles throughout Tsunade's body. "I wouldn't want to, either. I treasure our time."
Tsunade sighs. He's right, always, but she's not going to say it. Nothing snappy is coming to her now, either. She is old, and tired, and she wants to lay down on this cheap and uncomfortable inn bed and sleep in Jiraiya's arms.
Generally, Tsunade does not get what she wants.
So: another hour, maybe three, they talk about village affairs and old memories and Naruto and Sakura's training, they do encroach upon Sasuke nor Orochimaru, and when Jiraiya has slumped and started to snore Tsunade extricates herself from his arms. She pulls the blanket over him and picks up the glasses and sake bottles. She dresses, runs a hand through her hair, does it back in her pigtails. Then she stands in the doorway as she puts on her shoes, staring at him.
Foolish, she tells herself.
He will be gone tomorrow.
And she will be here when he comes back the next week. Having the same conversations. Telling herself the same things.
The next day she asks Shizune to uncover her a copy of The Honorable Hideki somewhere. She asks her to gift wrap it. She tells her that this is an S-rank mission and that she cannot speak a word of it to anybody. Tsunade is certain that Shizune knows what Tsunade gets up to on the nights Jiraiya is in town, and also that Shizune knows that she would be out of much more than a job if anybody were to find out. Shizune complies, the good girl-woman, Tsunade reminds herself-that she is.
When she presents it to Jiraiya, he says, "Well, what do you know. I bought a gift, too." He pushes a plain, thin scroll across the pub table. "Go ahead, open it."
Inside the scroll is just a few sentences:
Who could tame The Honorable Hideki's heart? None of the shrews and whores he found in all the sleepy towns he visited on his travels, no. Only somebody from before Hideki was so honorable-indeed, before his reputation and charm could speak for himself, only somebody who knew the real Hideki. Hideki was thick-headed as all the nomads are, however, and never did he return to that one woman.
Life isn't always like the stories, Tsunade. You learn that when you write them yourself. Even if it takes you a few years.
She looks up at Jiraiya. "You dumbass," she says, smiling.
"I'm the dumbass?" he laughs. "You gave me a gift you know I'm never going to use. You don't think I actually read, do you?"
She laughs, too.
Under the table, she slides her foot to rest against his. His eyes soften. They order more food and sake, drink until they're giddy, and she thinks, maybe later I will tell him I love him. Maybe tonight will be the night. Maybe things will work out, and he won't have to leave in the morning-maybe they'll discover a proper time travel jutsu and return to when they were fourteen and foolish and prevent wars and death and pain and sorrow and he won't have to pretend that inside him beats a nomad's heart.
But Tsunade has no skill in these things, and she does not tell him she loves him, and they do not invent time travelling. Instead, she lays a hand on his face and strokes the length of the marking on his cheek, and he places a hand over hers and kisses it. Tsunade's heart flutters, and she likes to think that maybe his does, too.