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Not generally the sort of person given to finding special meaning in everyday mundane things, Tobirama still couldn’t help but to wonder if there was something special after all in the way snow began to fall precisely in time with the first tolling of the joya no kane. A reluctant smile was already sneaking its way on to his face as he tilted his chin up to look at the sky. It grew ever so slightly wider when he heard the screen open behind him and Madara’s chakra spilled out on to the back deck along with the heat from inside.
“Your brother is drunk,” came the blithe announcement, words ironically unsteady to match. “He insisted on growing more kadomatsu. I left his wife to chase him around the front yard and make him put some shoes on.”
“He does it every year.” Right on cue muffled sounds drifted back to him from the front yard. Mito sounded just as tired as he usually was around this time of the year and he hoped, with some amusement, that she was ready to do it all again next winter. This was one familial duty he was happy to hand over: chasing Hashirama through the snow on New Year’s Eve so he wouldn’t get frostbite on his toes. Some traditions were born of nothing but stupidity but they were still traditions.
Madara shuffled across the deck to stand next to him, pressing up on to his toes and peeking out in to the darkness. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing. I’m listening to the bells.”
“Oh. Are you going to stand out here the whole time? They’ll be going for hours.” Madara wrinkled his nose and bundled deeper in to his wide collar, shivering at just the prospect.
“Feel free to go back inside,” Tobirama said. “It’s been more than a decade since I had a chance to sit still and listen to all hundred and eight tolls. I just thought it might be nice to hear them again.”
“But it’s cold,” Madara protested.
Looking over at his unsolicited company, Tobirama lifted one eyebrow. “Then go back inside where it’s warm.”
Instead of answering Madara grumbled under his breath and looked back up at the sky, glaring at the snow like it had done him a personal wrong. Possibly Tobirama had suffered one too many head injuries in his time because he found himself thinking much too often lately that it was actually sort of cute the way Madara took offense to the very world around him. When he snarled at the birds or lectured a tree root that dared to be in his way it was distractingly adorable in a way it should not have been.
Doing his best to ignore the shouting – it sounded as though Mito had caught her man surprisingly quickly – Tobirama tilted his chin a little farther up and parted his lips, leaning just slightly out from underneath the cover of the veranda.
“What…are you doing?”
“Catching snowflakes.” Flushing with embarrassment, Tobirama snapped his jaw shut and lowered his face. He’d given absolutely no thought to the action before doing it. It had only been an errant thought, a memory from one of the rare flashes of childhood when he had actually acted like a child. Hashirama had been the one to drag them all outside back then and bid them to stick out their tongues to catch the snow as it fell.
The realization that he’d done something so immature while standing next to Madara, of all people, had him turning his face away with shame. If ever there had been someone upon whom he wished to make a good impression it of course had to be the one man who was so often witness to his worst moments. Just his luck, really.
“Are they supposed to taste good?” Madara’s words were infused with enough genuine curiosity that Tobirama looked back in time to see him leaning far out over the railing with his mouth wide open, snapping as the flakes with his teeth when they fell. Helplessly, Tobirama began to laugh.
“You’re not supposed to bite them like a shark,” he said. “You’re just supposed to…catch them.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. For fun.” More for nostalgia on his part. Fun was for children who had nothing better to do.
Humming thoughtfully, Madara stuck his tongue out in front of him and crossed his eyes to watch a particularly fat snowflake drift down on to the tip. It melted instantly on contact. “I didn’t taste anything,” he protested.
“Probably not. It’s only frozen water.” Tobirama went still when Madara turned to him, mesmerized suddenly by the image he made
Light from the full moon above them cast a silver halo around his head and lit up the snow that had fallen in his hair, a perfect crown of dusted white, turning him from the bloodthirsty Head of the Uchiha clan in to some lonely snow prince with glittering eyes. Never had Tobirama been more tempted to reach out and bury his fingers in those wild dark locks. All around him the night felt still, almost seeming to hold its breath but for the occasional tolling of the joya no kane he had come out here to enjoy.
Swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat, Tobirama folded both hands in to his sleeves in case the temptation grew too much. He had worked hard to build a friendship of sorts between them and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin all of that effort by pushing for too much.
“Did you come out here for something?” he asked. “Or were you just avoiding Izuna?” Except for Mito, he was pretty sure he was the only sober body left at their little gathering. Izuna had spent the last hour begging hugs from anyone who drifted too close to where he had collapsed half underneath the kotatsu. Madara’s own cheeks were pinked with sake as he tucked himself back under the veranda and leaned in closer.
“I had, er, certain plans for tonight,” he began. Tobirama hummed encouragingly and then spoke up when he hesitated still.
“Plans for what?”
“Well. In my clan it is tradition to make a promise to oneself to do something in the next year. We call it a new year’s resolution and it’s supposed to be something personal we would like to accomplish, something important to ourselves. It’s the one time of year when we are allowed selfish desires.” Madara smiled as though in memory of years passed.
Intrigued, Tobirama angled himself more towards the other man. “And your resolution had something to do with me? Precocious of you, looking to accomplish things just after midnight has brought us the new year.”
“Hmph. Yes, well. I have always been precocious.”
“Am I allowed to ask?” Tobirama wondered. He was doubly curious to see Madara’s cheeks gain several shades of color.
For a few moments the man hesitated again, peering up through his messy fringe as though he were looking for something specific in Tobirama’s face. Whatever it was, he did seem to find it after a few moments, smiling in an oddly nervous sort of way and shuffling closer once more.
“My promise to myself,” he said quietly, “was that I would kiss you before the bells stopped tolling.”
Unable to speak, Tobirama could only nod faintly when Madara leaned in with a questioning tilt to his head. His eyes fell shut when their lips pressed together but every nerve ending in his body sang with fire and joy the likes of which he had only seen in fireworks. He was very nearly panting at the end, letting out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, unwilling to disturb this precious moment in any way.
“Oh,” he whispered. There were no other words in his head that he would not be mortified to blurt out.
“Yeah,” Madara mumbled back. The two of them stood and gazed at each other awkwardly for a minute, wondering where to go from here. Tobirama felt a little off-balance to realize that he had been pining in silence for nothing. Apparently they had both been wanting this. Eventually he figured that one of them had to say something, anything, and it might as well be him. If Madara could step out on a limb like that then so could he.
“Would you like to stay and listen to the bells with me?”
As shaky as his words had been in the offer, Madara’s were that steady in his acceptance. “Yes. I would enjoy that.”
Both of them wore shy smiles as Madara tucked himself up against Tobirama’s side, winding an arm around his waist and laying a head against his shoulder. Tobirama buried his nose in the dark hair assaulting him. He couldn’t think of a word to properly describe the way it smelled but it was a good scent, at least, and it gave him an impression of homecoming. Something warm and soft inside his chest thumped enthusiastically against his ribs. It might have been his heart and the softness may have been a sensation of happiness. Tobirama chose not to think on it too much.
He focused instead on placing his arm just so around Madara’s shoulders in a way that could almost have been a hug if he brought his other arm in to play, closing his eyes and listening to the sound of the new year ringing brassy and proud through the otherwise calm night air. From inside the house he could hear Hashirama recounting his adventures in the front yard, Izuna interrupting with the occasional hiccup, and Mito softly singing to herself from somewhere a little closer, traditional songs her mother used to sing to her on this night before she left the Whirlpool islands. Outside the veranda the snow continued falling in soft waves to blanket the earth in pure unsullied white.
Warm and content with Madara held close, Tobirama considered making a resolution of his own until he realized with a wry smile that he already had everything he needed. His brother a happily married man, his clan at peace, a village built to keep them safe, and the man he loved tucked under his chin. There was nothing more that he could possibly think to ask for – except perhaps the chance to do this all again the next year.