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Kurenai is stupid. On second thought, that’s inaccurate. So she revises: she is very, very stupid. She’d be happy— more than happy—to deny any feelings she has at the moment and put it all away in some dusty old corner of her mind, but Kurenai’s got a feeling it doesn’t exactly work that way. Here is the dilemma: Anko is Kurenai’s best friend. Kurenai always, always, always goes to Anko for advice. Kurenai is in love with Anko and doesn’t know how to tell her because this is so important Kurenai thinks she might actually be devastated if Anko doesn’t share her feelings.
Kurenai is stupid because she asks Anko for advice during a mission, and it goes like this.
“Hey, Anko,” Kurenai says.
“What? I’m a little busy here,” Anko responds, slitting one of their targets’ throats. Honestly. Thugs are so easy. Kurenai whirls around and guts the enemy trying to sneak up on her, blood and intestines spilling out, just slowly enough for her to avoid being hit with the worst of it. Sneak up on her. Really. She’d be offended if she wasn’t so worried about asking Anko for advice about confessing to her. Maybe this is a lapse of judgement. Yes, it is definitely a lack of judgement. But Anko has the best advice of all the kunoichi she knows, so it’s her or nothing.
Kurenai makes a face—a resigned-to-her-fate sort of face. “I want your advice, if you’re willing to listen.”
“Oh!” Anko pauses and looks up from the last opponent. He looks like a pincushion: senbon, and Kurenai would bet her last ryo that they’re poisoned, stick out of nearly every part of his body. “Go on, then. I’m done here anyway.”
“There’s this person really like,” Kurenai begins, and Anko grins. “They’re . . . I’ve spent my time with them since my academy days! And I really want to tell them but I’m afraid of rejection. This is the most I’ve cared for someone in a while and I don’t want to be hurt.”
Anko wipes her hands off on her pants and shakes her head. “You’ve just gotta do it, Kurenai. Oh. Oh! It’s Asuma, isn’t it? It’s totally Asuma, there’s no way—”
Kurenai feels herself go crimson. She wishes it was Asuma—it’d be much easier for her to have a relationship with him; he follows her around like a lost puppy and Kurenai can practically see the admiration/love in his eyes whenever he looks at her. While it’s extremely endearing, Kurenai doesn’t know how to break it to him that she’s only interested in women and it could never work, no matter how easy it would be. “It’s not him!” she denies after she realizes the pause has gone on for too long. “I swear, Anko, you and your—”
Anko breaks into laughter. She’s quite a sight, covered in blood, sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight, crouched over the body of her latest kill, and Kurenai’s blush grows even deeper. “I was just teasin’,” Anko reassures her. She stands up, back cracking, and claps a hand to Kurenai’s shoulder. Kurenai distastefully eyes the bloody handprint that leaves itself behind. “My advice is to just go for it. The worst that’ll happen is they reject you and you come cryin’ to me about it. Anyway, who in their right mind would say no to you? You’re a total hottie!”
Kurenai snorts, trying and failing to ignore the fact that Anko—possibly the most good-looking kunoichi she knows—just called her a . . . a ‘total hottie’. She’s having a hard time processing. “I wouldn’t let myself cry,” she says. “At most, you’d have to pry me away from a barstool.”
Anko cackles. “You think I have enough restraint to do that? Hell no. You’d have to call in a third person. I’d join you on the spot!”
See, this is why Kurenai likes Anko—she rolls with Kurenai’s jokes even when Kurenai herself thinks they’ve fallen flat, and despite her scary demeanor she never actually makes fun of people. Even her (many) barbs about Asuma are clearly jokes. “Let’s go home, hm?” Kurenai asks. “The bloodstains are already starting to dry.”
“Kurenai . . . ” Anko looks at her expectantly.
“Oh, fine,” Kurenai says. “I’ll tell them. I promise.”
“And when are you going to tell them?” Anko asks.
Kurenai draws a blank. “I—I’ll . . . I’ll tell them—oh, you decide.”
Anko claps and giggles like Kurenai’s just given her the whole of Fire Country to reign over. “Tomorrow! Find a good time and come out with it. Asuma will be—”
“It’s not Asuma,” Kurenai hisses, already cursing Anko because tomorrow’s just too early, damnit. She shakes her head and searches amongst the bodies for her last kunai. She finds it, cleans it, and stows it in her thigh pouch. “You know, you should seal that guy up. They might be able to get traces of poison from it.”
“Ah, shit, you’re right,” Anko says. “Why do I even use poison? I hate poison. Oh, right—it’s because it works. Kurenai, I’m tellin’ ya, poisons are the superior killing method. The Shiranui have the right idea!”
Kurenai rolls her eyes and hands Anko a sealing scroll. “Mhm. Poison is better? Sure. Personally I think there’s nothing more satisfying than gutting an enemy.”
“Oh, geez, the smell, though,” Anko complains. She activates the sealing scroll and the thug’s body disappears into its depths. “I don’t want shit and stuff leaking out onto my hands!”
“Wear gloves,” Kurenai advises.
“No thanks, babe. I’ll just stick with my poisons. Can’t live a day without ‘em,” Anko says, slinging the strap of the sealing scroll over her back. “Would you help me clean this shit up?”
Kurenai helps her clean up the senbon that hadn’t made it through and they start on their way home. She absolutely does not think about Anko calling her babe.
“Have you told A—them yet?” Anko asks, first thing in the morning when Kurenai arrives to Jōnin HQ. She gives Anko a death-glare—partly because she’s tired and hasn’t had her coffee, and partly because she knows Anko had been about to say Asuma—and trudges over to the kitchen. Nobody’s started up the coffee yet, which is sad but normal. Kurenai pulls out a few tupperwares of ground beans— thank you, Genma, for supplying us with our lifeline, she thinks—and gets to work.
Fifteen minutes later (fifteen minutes of avoiding Anko’s questions about not Asuma later), she’s vitalized. Coffee is a miracle substance, second only to tea—but tea doesn’t wake her up in the morning, though, so coffee it is.
“You know,” Anko starts, coming up behind her to drape an arm over Kurenai’s shoulder, “I’m kind of surprised you didn’t stay here last night.”
“No showers here,” Kurenai replies tersely. Maybe she’s not as awake as she thinks . . . no, she’s definitely awake. The problem is that it’s a new day now, and a new day means: she has to tell Anko. Maybe she can avoid this conversation. Maybe she can go back to admiring Anko from afar. Maybe she can—
“So, when are you gonna do it?” Anko asks. Kurenai turns her head to the side and sees Anko’s less-than-friendly grin. Gods, she’s beautiful, Kurenai thinks, and then immediately inwardly cringes for having such sappy thoughts. “Asuma’s slated to come here soon. Y—”
“I’ve been in love with you since our academy days,” Kurenai blurts.
Anko stops short. “You—”
Kurenai stands up. “Nevermind.” She’s pretty sure this is going to end badly and she doesn’t want to be around for the inevitable rejection. Of course Anko wouldn’t feel the same—she’d kept making all those references about Asuma, and she’d had no reason to suspect that Kurenai had been planning to spring this on her, of all people. And Anko . . . is not known for reacting very well to surprises. “I’m going to—”
“What?” Anko asks. She’s staring down at the table. Kurenai feels a little humiliated—at least there aren’t any other people here. “I was so sure . . . you’re serious, right? Like, actually serious?”
Kurenai frowns. She’s not going to cry—she’s better than that—but she thinks this might be up there on the List of Things Kurenai has Almost Cried About. At least, it’s certainly up on the list of Worst Days Kurenai Has Ever Had. Budding humiliation, check. Cursing self for being stupid and blurting this out first thing in the morning, check. “I’m serious, Anko.”
Anko lets a breath out, leaning back in her chair. She’s smiling. Kurenai doesn’t get that. “This is great!”
“I know you—this is great?” Kurenai asks. She thinks her brain hasn’t quite caught up with the conversation. She regrets that this is a common occurence whenever Anko is involved. “What do you mean?”
Anko turns to look at her. Kurenai’s breath goes out of her chest before she reminds herself that she needs to breathe to stay alive. “I mean I was so sure it was going to be Asuma. I was hyping myself up for it. Don’t be disappointed and all that. And you go ahead and say that! I mean this is great, Kurenai.”
“So you mean you feel the same way,” Kurenai says, just to be sure.
Anko huffs. “You don’t need to go and make me say it, do you?” Anko leans close to Kurenai and Kurenai finds herself crouching down slightly. “I’m not good at this whole feelings business! I like you, okay? As more than friends. I’ve liked you for a while.”
Kurenai breathes a sigh of relief. “So—” The window slams open and some random jōnin crashes through it. Kurenai spares him a scathing glare but only that—she's got better things to do, after all. She redirects her attention to Anko. “Do you want to go out and get some dango and maybe talk about all of this?”
Anko smiles at her. Kurenai will never get tired of seeing her happy. “Hell yeah. Let’s go.”