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Some people like to claim that there’s no difference between those born to war and those born to peace. After all, both generations experienced peace in the end, right?
Obito would disagree. Heavily. With extreme prejudice. He’s a child born to a war-torn world. He grew up fighting in a war. He almost died in it too. If there hadn’t been a war, how different would his life be? Maybe someone would have paid attention to his struggling and actually helped him. Maybe someone would have held out a hand and helped him up. Maybe someone from the Uchiha Clan would’ve looked at him and actually fucking saw him and-
There’s no point thinking about maybes and what-ifs. It’s not like Obito can change the past. But oh, how he’s tried.
(Perhaps there is less difference between generations born to peace and those brought up to war. No more difference than there is between generations normally, at least. Perhaps it’s Konoha that’s at fault.)
(The very thought of Konoha fills Obito with the kind of useless rage that rises hot and heavy, but fades away too quickly, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. He’s angry at Konoha, but never for long. In the end, he’s only left with a sick kind of second-hand emotions. This, he knows, is Itachi’s fault, is Konoha’s fault, is his own fault in the end.)
(Here is what Konoha reminds Obito of, years later: trees that grow to reach the sun in the sky; forests that are quiet and heavy and beautiful; blood that washes down streets; an army of children with dead eyes; a clan who look away and look up and never fucking look down; the coldness of people who never reach out; the harshness of being told to do better; the impossibility of living up to stereotypes he never fit.)
(Konoha is many things, but kindness is not always one of them. Konoha is a village full of ninjas, full of propaganda and indoctrination, and Obito once swallowed all of it without a thought. He thinks now. He tries to be different now. And Uzushio, with her people, taught him that much.)
Something winds its way around Obito’s bones, thorny and heavy and an impossible weight shifts on his shoulders, settling once more. There’s no word to name it, nothing that sits right on Obito’s tongue. He presses his teeth together, grinding them, and continues staring out at the sea.
Someone drops down beside him, hanging their legs over the side of the pier like him. Obito doesn’t glance at them, but does let his gaze shift slightly to catch their reflection distorted by the waves. He’s not surprised to see who it is and, since it is who it is, doesn’t bother to break the silence surrounding them. Instead, just glances up and continues to look to the horizon.
The horizon wavers, unsteady, the sun a thin line growing bigger with every passing second. This sunrise isn’t spectacular—it’s just a regular sunrise. The clouds are grey and looming above, but the sun still rises with brilliance, pastel colours streaking the sky briefly before they’re hidden. The world feels at peace and Obito kind of hates the world for it. It’s not fair that everyone else gets peace while he’s just-
Obito’s always been emotional. Always been angry and wrathful and maybe it’s because he hurts too easily and he was taught he can’t show anything but anger and rage. Obito’s always been a fighter but that’s a pretty useful thing to be. It’s not like he can fight the fucking sun.
“Hey.” The voice jerks Obito out of his thoughts, and he can’t help but shift his head to actually look at Toru. Toru’s voice isn’t harsh or cold or anything. It’s not even pointed or sharp, it’s just… Toru.
(And Toru’s an impossibility. Anyone who’s ever met him can confirm that. He’s kind when he shouldn’t be, merciful when no one is, forgiving when it’s the worst option. Toru gives second chances like people change, like Obito isn’t still the same person who tried to destroy his village.)
(Uzushio is strange. Because, despite everything, despite what he brought down on Uzushio, the people forgive him. They don’t forget and not all of them forgive him, but there’s a place for him—and it’s not one he had to carve out for himself. Obito’s not quite sure how to deal with that. Or if he even wants that. But it’s not like he can take Toru by the shoulders and shake him until something like common sense drops out.)
Obito swallows, throat suddenly dry. “Hey,” he says, the word more a croak than anything. “You’re not usually here at this time.”
Toru turns his gaze from Obito’s face, a smile crawling onto his face as he stares out to the ocean. He drops one shoulder in a shrug, careless. “Perhaps not,” he says. “But some days you just need to watch the sun rise.”
“Why?!” The word bursts from Obito, emotional and everything he’s always been told not to be. He does his best to grip down on the emotions rising in his chest, fierce and awful, because Madara told him to control himself and Konoha told him to control himself and-
But Uzushio didn’t. Uzushio said to let him feel and let him figure it out and work with his emotions or past his emotions and just accept them. It’s insane and stupid and Uzushio’s strange—but what if it works? What if-
“Because I want to,” Toru says, without looking at him, “and sometimes that’s enough. And also because some days the world feels a bit harder and a bit more shitty and you need to remind yourself that it’s not, not really. It’s beautiful, sometimes.”
Once again, Obito swallows. There’s nothing he has to say to that, nothing he can say to that. He’s left, wordless, and silence grows once again. He doesn’t know what Toru or Uzushio or even the world wants from him, (he’s not sure what he wants from himself). But being stuck in Uzushio… It’s not wearing on him, because he’s not really a prisoner. Uzushio’s always made that much clear to him. But he’s restless, wanting to do something, go somewhere, but he’s not sure what. It’s not like he can be an active ninja. Uzushio’s lenient with a lot of things but Obito knows the village isn’t that lenient.
Then Toru does what Toru always seems to do—he surprises Obito. “You could go,” the Uzukage who has prevented wars, saved lives, changed the world, says. “You don’t have to stay here.”
A laugh, terrible and fracturing, tears itself from Obito’s throat. “Where would I go?” He asks, not bothering to hide the scorn or anger or hate in his voice. “Nowhere is going to want to see the likes of me. I’m a criminal, Uzukage, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.”
(And it’s easy, he doesn’t say, to tear people apart with words. He does it without thinking—just look at him now, spitting out words that he wants to hurt and twist and scar.)
“Wherever you want,” Toru says mildly, and there’s not a shudder to him, not a single flinch that indicates he was hurt from Obito’s words. Something sour rises in Obito. It tastes like bile. He’s not sure whether it’s shame or guilt or just more rage. He sighs, exhausted suddenly. He always feels this way now.
“Where could I go?” Obito asks, but this time his voice is just hopeless, just weary, and Toru still doesn’t look at him, (gives him this moment to be weak and not have his weakness pinpointed or seen, though Obito knows Toru sees it). “What could I even do?”
“Go places you haven’t seen,” Toru says, leaning back onto his hands and lifting his face to the sky. This time, Obito looks at him, watches the golden rays catch on his skin. Toru looks ethereal, looks so young, doesn’t look like he’d be able to stop Obito from reaching out and slitting his throat. Obito’s hands turn to fists and his knuckles turn white. “See the rock rain in Tsuchi no Kuni, the mists of Mizu no Kuni, the mountains of Tetsu no Kuni. See the world because you want to. Fight a volcano, run from a fucking goose.” Toru shrugs. “Do what you want and find something to enjoy. There’s a world out there, Obito, that you haven’t seen or experienced. There are lives that neither you nor I have touched. There’s so much out there. Why continue being cooped up? You have a life to live.” Toru pauses, turns and catches Obito’s gaze and he’s stuck, unable to turn away. “And I want you to enjoy it.”
The truth, the sincerity, of that has Obito turning his face away, looking back down to their distorted reflections. There’s Toru, beside him, turned golden and blue on the ocean, and then there’s him—pale and scarred, broken lines and fractured shards.
“Alright,” Obito says, the word leaving him as a sigh more than anything else. “What do you want me to do?” Because Obito doesn’t know how to live without a mission, without some goal. It’s been months and he’s still floundering, still lost, and if Toru’s going to offer him anything, let it be this.
“I’m not giving you a mission,” Toru says, tone serious. “This isn’t some out for you. You need to find yourself and find what you enjoy. I can’t help you with that.” Then, he twists, knocking his shoulder into Obito’s without fear, and Obito is once again shocked, (how long has it been since-). “You’ve got to do this. But that doesn’t mean you have to go alone.”
“No,” Obito says, shaking his head, because he knows this much. “I want to go alone.” He’s not got any friends in Uzushio, not really. He’s sharp and serrated edges and almost destroyed this village. The majority of the people might have forgiven him, but that doesn’t mean Obito trusts them not to stab him in the back.
He still doesn’t know where the fuck he’s going, doesn’t really want to see anything in particular. He didn’t even want to see the sunrise today—just figured he couldn’t sleep, so he might as well go dip his feet in the ocean and sit on the pier and watch the sun rise. But. Whatever. He’ll go. Not like moping around in Uzushio, being uselessly angry and quickly losing his rage, will do anything for him.
“I’ll write the papers up,” Toru says, and then nothing more. But he doesn’t leave either, just continues sitting next to Obito. There’s not much space between them and they’re not really friends or anything but…
Well. Obito is angry and full of rage and fire and if he leans his shoulder against Toru’s shoulder, pressing like he can fit himself against Toru seamlessly, that’s for him to know.
(He’s more than a little bit lonely, but he’s not about to admit that yet. Not to himself and certainly not to others.)
He finds himself out on the road. He didn’t bother to bring a map, doesn’t need one, but he’s got a rucksack. Technically, he could’ve gotten a sealing scroll or something. After all, he’s coming from Uzusiho. But if he’s doing this whole ‘finding himself’ thing, he’s going to go into it like he’s coming out of some story where the hero goes on an adventure with-
Obito’s not a hero though. Never has been and never will be. It’s probably pointless to even consider himself a hero from some story, even if he’s got the dust covering his skin bit and the bag on his back bit set. Heroes don’t really have scars—not anything like Obito’s scars at least. And he’s a ninja. Ninjas don’t get heroes.
(Once upon a time, when Obito was a child who was a bit less involved in the war, a bit less bloody, a lot more naïve and a hell of a lot more innocent, he read stories of heroes. The heroes were people of unbelievable worth. They saved people and saved towns and worlds. They defeated the evil and brought peace. Obito’s not a hero, but he thought he could’ve been, once.)
“Right,” Obito murmurs to himself hitching the bag higher on his back. “Might as well pick a direction.” From Uzu no Kuni, he’d headed to Benisu Island—the opposite direction of Hi no Kuni and Konoha and the people he knows there. Obito’s not- He’s not running, but he doesn’t really plan to get attacked by any Konoha-nins who want a piece of his flesh.
Obito did some shit. Did a lot of shit actually. He killed Konoha-nins for his own goal, deserted Konoha even if he was at first taken. Yeah, there might’ve been some slavery seal or something involved but it’s not like Obito really regrets all of his actions. Konoha’s responsible for a lot more shit than Obito.
(Konoha had been home once. Konoha had been a lot of things. Obito’s feelings for Konoha are faded, grey things he can’t grasp, and he’s left a pale shadow of himself.)
(Obito doesn’t know if he regrets what he did to Konoha, regrets killing all those people. Obito doesn’t know a lot of things, but it’s easier to be angry than anything else.)
Anyway. Benisu Island. Obito hasn’t ever been to the island though he knows of it. It’s never really been an important place, both location and people wise. The island’s just kind of… there. It’s never been involved in any major battles, primarily known for its trading rather than anything else. Technically, there’s a hidden village on it—it’s the only reason the island hasn’t been fought over for territory. However, the village has never been part of any major alliance nor have they really participated in any wars. They’re too far from any other other major landfall to really be part of the fighting.
It’s worked for them. Kept them safe and no one’s ever really come to Benisu Island to continue fighting so…
Not that this is any of Obito’s concern, of course. He’s not meant to care about such things. The only important thing about Benisu Island is that they’ll probably have no reason to be angry with him or try to attack him—aside from the fact he’s a ninja. But he’s pretty certain that won’t be a problem.
Or at least it won’t be a problem for him. He’s not the one who’ll struggle in the fight, that’s for sure. Worst case scenario, he can just remove himself from the situation entirely.
Since there isn’t anything in Benisu Island, Obito picks a random direction and walks. He heads northeast, away from the mainland and further up the island.
(There’s nothing on Benisu Island and Obito has no plans to ever come back. But… Well, he’s heard civilian stories of its northern most tip. Maybe there’ll be something worth travelling there to see.)
Obito walks. He’s a ninja. He doesn’t have to walk, could run. He could probably cross all over Benisu Island in forty-eight hours. That’d not the point though, (he’s not entirely sure what the point is, but he’s sure it’s there somewhere).
It turns out that Benisu Island doesn’t see much rain. Or, at least, it hadn’t recently, which left everything really fucking dry and dusty. If it had been muddy, it would’ve been better because everyone complains about mud. Who complains about dust? Civilians that’s who. It probably would be better if Obito was running—but he’s walking. It’s so slow and all he can thick about is the thick dust caking his skin, almost making him darker.
When he passes a stream, he wades into it, clothes off, (though he keeps a kunai on him because he’s confident in his skills but not an idiot). The river isn’t deep, only comes up to mid-thigh, but it’s clean and Obito dunks himself underneath the water.
He can open his eye underwater, watch the water run over smooth multicoloured pebbles. There’s no fish that he can see, though he has no doubts that they’re around. Probably further up, near the reeds and sticks that sway gently in the current.
Obito emerges from the water, breathing in deeply. The ground’s uncomfortable when he stands, though the pebbles are smooth. They wobble beneath his feet and he trickles chakra through his feet and takes to standing instead. He looks around. It’s a boring bit of land. There are trees rising on either side, grasses high, and a dirt track made by some animal and worn down by many feet overtime.
It’s picturesque. It’s boring. It seems impossible. Places like this feel like they shouldn’t exist. Far from the war-torn places Obito’s seen in his time. This… This place feels like a civilian story.
Scowling, he dries himself off with a blast of fire chakra and tugs his clothes back on. He hates how peaceful it feels here. Why should it feel peaceful when he, and so many others, don’t feel at peace? When there are towns and villages broken apart by corruption? How do places like this exist?
Obito stomps down the path for a few minutes, but then his footsteps fall silent like normal, (even now, trying to run away from being a ninja—maybe—he can’t escape his training; he has no other instincts but that his training as a ninja has given him). Still, he feels angry about the world here. It feels like another planet entirely, feels alien.
A root, hidden by the dusty ground, has him stumbling. Glancing downwards, he gets his feet beneath him, and then lifts his head. The forest has begun to recede. Thick tree trunks have given way to thin, flimsy things. The bush has largely been beaten back into something tameable, and the forest gives way to grassland of some kind.
None of that, though, is what Obito’s paying attention to. No. The distance shows a village. It looks small, probably not much more than a bundle of stores and necessities, but it’s a place with people. It’s been a few days that Obito’s spent walking and honestly, an actual bed sounds like a good plan. Besides. He’s allowed to do that now. He’s certain that people would want him to go into town, get himself bed, a good meal, perhaps a proper bath.
Obito reaches the town within half an hour, the land providing an easy—and somewhat smooth—path. When he reaches the town, it turns out to be what he thought, not much more than a few cobbled together stores and necessities.
It’s quiet, for the most part, but the people nod at him when he passes. They don’t squint suspiciously at him. Don’t seem to care really.
Obito’s good at blending in, can slouch and slink along, can disappear into the crowd. But there’s no crowd here and… and Obito’s not really trying to blend in, (he’s trying to be himself, find himself, whatever; and that means not hiding away even when it’s what he knows). Despite the fact Obito’s not trying to hide, just keeps walking and forces his shoulders to remain straight and his chin up, no one takes a second look at him. Not even at his scars.
It's… It’s something. Obito’s not sure what to make of it.
The centre of the town is little more than a dirt square with a well in the middle, a paved circle and stone troughs surrounding it. It’s like some of those dirt-poor towns that Obito’s passed through for missions. He’s never stopped here though, not for anything other than the mission objective. The towns seem a bit pointless. Useless. What do they contain except civilians? There’s nothing here.
But Obito is here for a reason this time. He’s come to find a place to sleep for the night—and the night will begin to close in in the next few hours. Already, the sun is leaning closer to the horizon and away from the middle of the sky.
There’s a woman near the well, leaning against it, cigarette in her hand. Smoke trails into the sky, thin and wispy. Obito follows it with his eye for a moment, thinks about so many other types of smoke. Then he steps forward.
The woman’s gaze falls on him, dark and golden eyes piercing. But Obito is a ninja and she’s only a civilian, (and he really doesn’t care what some stranger thinks of him). She taps her cigarette against her leg and ash drops to the ground. “‘Ello stranger,” she says, voice slightly raspy. As he steps closer, he notices that she’s taller than even him. “Welcome to our little town. You looking for something?”
She’s not necessarily the most welcoming person he’s ever met, but she’s not really mean either. Just brusque. Like she doesn’t really care either way, but she’s willing to help. It’s a strange combination.
“A place to stay for the night,” Obito says smoothly. “Preferably with a bed and a meal, if possible.”
The woman raises a thick, grey eyebrow. “We can do that,” she says. She pauses, considering him. “Alright, come with me.”
She steps away from the well, raising a hand to someone who just entered the square. They wave back, and then they’re lost as the woman leads him down a small side street and into another main street. “I’m Mika,” she says. “Just give me a second to pick something up.” They stop outside a blacksmith, the smithery gone quiet and dark, and Mika drops her cigarette in with the glowing-orange embers.
Obito waits on the outside, somewhat unsure, but not really caring. He glances upwards, looking for a sign of what the blacksmith’s called. But there’s nothing there, just a picture of an anvil and a hammer. “You’re the blacksmith?” He asks when Mika’s outside once again, a burlap sack heaved her shoulder, brown edges straining with sharp corners from whatever’s inside.
“Blacksmith, farrier,” Mika raises and drops a shoulder in a shrug. “Picked up a few things to do my best here. It’s what everyone does. Though, my apprentice’ll be taking over from me shortly. These bones are getting a bit old to keep going.”
Obito glances at her appraisingly. She looks old. Laugh lines and wrinkles, grey hair and sun spots. But her arms are still muscled and she’s carrying the heavy sack with ease. Ninjas might rarely live to old ages, but Obito reckons Mika will live a few more decades, healthy as she is.
Mika snorts when she catches him looking. “Sometimes you want to retire, boy,” she says. “You grow old and your bones ache and you sit down for longer each day. I should’ve taken time in my youth to pay attention to the world around me. Now’s my chance to do that before I’m dead.” She pauses, like she’s about to say something else, but then she shakes her head.
Obito follows behind her in silence, trying not to think over her words.
(Obito’s not old. Well. He is, for a ninja, but he’s not really that old. He could keep going for a few more decades as a ninja and he’s strong enough to do it. But… his scars ache, on cold days. He doesn’t sit down for longer each day, but he feels old when he looks at all the Uzushio-nins going around him, smiling and laughing easily like they’ve never faced a hardship in their life.)
(Obito doesn’t think he wants to retire, but he also has no idea what he wants to do.)
In the end, Mika leads him down a thin dirt path that tracks away from the village. It’s a short walk, ten minutes if that, and ends at a farm. The farm’s a little beaten up, a little dirty, but well cared for. There’s a red wheelbarrow in the corner, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Chickens peck their way across the ground, the chicken house open in the corner. Near the fence, a few cows graze.
It’s a civilian farm, through and through, but it also feels kind of homey. It’s also not what Obito had expected when he’d asked for a place to stay. He’d thought they would’ve had an inn or something not… whatever this is.
Mika marches up to the door, stomping up the wooden steps and the deck groans beneath her. She knocks heavily on the door. She doesn’t even wait a second before she’s opening the door, the hinges whining. “Junpei! Got a guest for you!”
There’s a series of curses, and then someone comes stomping in from the back of the house. “Fuck off y’old daisy,” someone shouts. “No one here wants guests! What happened to them in Lions?”
Obito blinks. He understands approximately none of that.
In the hallway, a man appears. He’s much shorter than Mika and kind of reminds Obito of old Uzushio citizens, with his long grey hair in braids that trail down his back. He stares at Obito and Mika with hazel eyes, scowling. Then Mika steps forward and the scowl is replaced by a bright grin. Obito watches as Mika is drawn into a tight hug, Junpei easily fitting beneath her chin.
After a moment or two, the pair pull apart. “Junpei, this here is a guest who needs a place to stay for the night.”
Junpei squints at Obito. “You got a name stranger?” He says, turning back around.
Obito trails after both him and Mika, taking note of the candid pictures hung up in worn frames along the thin hallway. “Yeah,” he says, debating for a second whether to choose a fake name or not. “My name’s Obito.”
(It’s not like the name Obito really means anything to any one these days. Those that know… Well, it’s not like they’re going to spread Obito’s name around. It’s not really a strange name either, though it’s certainly makes it sound like he’s from Hi no Kuni.)
“Well, I’ve got a place for you to stay,” Junpei says. “The bed’s good and the frame’s solid and there’s no bugs of any kind. The dogs all keep to their beds though you might end up spotting the cat.” They reach the living room kitchen combo. There’s a dark wooden table with a block of wood wedged under one leg, keeping it even. Mika dumps her sack on it with a loud clang and Junpei scowls at her.
“I can offer you warm food too,” Junpei continues. “It’s all free. But if you’ve got nothin’ better to do, I could do with a hand to fix up the deck for a few hours.” He pokes Mika’s chest, shoving her hip into the table. She rolls her eyes at him. “And you! Don’t go bringing random folks here, you hear? I’m not- lonely or some shit.”
Shoving his hand away, Mika drops the sack on his head, grinning when he tugs it off with a scowl. “I know,” she says. “But I’m also aware you were going to ask someone in from the village to give you a hand with the deck. Figured I’d take care of two birds with one stone.”
Well, it’s not like Obito really had any other plans. He can help with the deck—not that he really knows what he’s doing. But… He can probably just fix it with the mokuton if he wants. That’ll solve the problem quickly and Obito can then continue heading off. “Sure,” he says. “So long as you don’t mind.”
Junpei waves his hand. “It won’t be a bother. Mika, you sticking around or you going off to bother some other sod?”
Laughing, Mika tugs Junpei into a hug once more, (and they’re both so easy and open with their affection, it’s strange—Uzushio levels of strange, civilian levels of strange). “I’m off. M’sibling’s come into town for once and something’s definitely going down tonight.”
“Don’t get too drunk,” Junpei says, and Obito would’ve taken him for serious if he didn’t see the way the older man’s mouth was twitching upwards. “You’re no longer as young as you once were.”
Mika turns to Obito. “If you kill him, I won’t blame you,” she says, but she’s smiling as she does so. “See you tomorrow, you great big lump!”
And then Obito is left alone with a random civilian he barely knows. “Don’t believe anything you hear about me from Mika,” Junpei says. “Hope you don’t mind the room. It’s just this way.”
“Have you known Mika a long time?” Obito asks, rather than let the silence continue.
(He doesn’t know what to say here, feels out of place. This is a civilian town, a civilian house, and a whole life he’s never even thought about living. It feels strange… but only because it should feel strange but it doesn’t. He sees the similarities in these civilians to ninjas—they are still imperfect, still have idiosyncrasies, still human. It’s a startling thought.)
(Is the world full of people like this? People who live their own lives, have their own flaws, their own patterns of behaviour. Perhaps people are all the same everywhere; human and flawed and imperfect and raw.)
“Yes,” Junpei says, smiling, tone light. “I’ve known her for… Well, we’ve been best friends for decades. She was the best man at my wedding. She’s been there for me throughout it all.”
“Your wedding?” Obito echoes, curious in spite of himself. He hadn’t seen any sign of another occupant, hadn’t sensed anyone else nearby; although, he supposes, Junpei could be divorced.
Junpei pauses, leads Obito over to a plain piece of wood hammered into the wall as a shelf. He lifts a picture frame up, gazes down at the photo with a smile, and then hands it over. “That’s Hiroto with me in the picture,” he says. “He was my husband of fifty-four years. He died four years ago, this summer.”
Obito takes the picture frame from Junpei, finds himself staring at two men who look extraordinarily happy. Obito can’t imagine being that happy ever. They look so at peace, like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. They’re looking only at each other, like looking away is impossible. Obito doesn’t know them or their stories, wasn’t there for their wedding day, but he finds a smile pulling at his face anyway.
“You both look very happy,” he says there quietly, swallowing.
(And he thinks of pictures he’s seen—the stern profiles of the Uchiha, unsmiling and cold; the photo of his team, Rin and Minato grinning, Kakashi and Obito seconds away from starting another fight; photos he’s seen of other teams in Konoha, laughing as they sprawl out after a tiring train session; photos in Uzushio, of people far from their village, leaning on each other, tired and weary and scared, but smiling hopefully; the photos on Toru’s desk, of two small boys, grinning wide up at the camera; the photo of Toru and two boys and far too many dogs all fitting on one bed; Toru’s team, laughing wild and free and grinning. There are so many photos out there—of people being happy, of people smiling, of people laughing.)
(Photos aren’t the Sharingan, but sometimes they come close. They don’t quite capture memories, but they do capture snapshots of a moment. They capture people in motion, remain even when the memory and the feelings have faded. They are remnants from lives long gone. They show that life was out there, that it was good.)
(Obito doesn’t have many photos. Doesn’t have any now, actually.)
“Hiroto loved taking photos,” Junpei says. “He wasn’t really any good at it, but…” Junpei trails off, motions to Obito to put the picture frame back, which he does with a clack. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.”
Obito’s room isn’t far. It’s just down a bit further. There’s a door with a hat hanging on the back of it, and it looks rather flimsy but it does have a lock to it—though the lock looks broken. There are bookshelves, filled brim with books and albums, which Obito hadn’t been expecting for civilian farmers. There’s a dresser, to the side, with a very dusty mirror and a wardrobe nearby.
“Bathroom’s just down the hall,” Junpei says as Obito’s eye spots a rather large cat curled up on the window sill, balancing perilously on the edge and somehow well and truly asleep. “And that’s the cat. Who should really be off doing her job as a mouse catcher.” Despite Junpei’s words, he doesn’t make any move to hustle the cat off elsewhere. Instead, he glances at the bookshelf. “Feel free to look through any of the books or albums. I’ll begin getting dinner ready. Do you have any allergies or dislikes?”
“No,” Obito says, after a pause. “No, it’s all good.”
Junpei nods, stands awkwardly in the doorframe for a second, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “Right, well, I’ll let you get ready. I’ll shout for you when food’s ready. It’s just back in the kitchen dining space.”
“Got it.” Then, a split-second later, just when Junpei’s turned to go, “And thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” Junpei says, and then he’s gone and Obito’s alone except for the cat.
Obito places his dusty bag on the end of the bed. Nothing puffs up from the bed or seems to shift and, glancing around, Obito takes note of the lack of cobwebs. All in all, it looks like a pretty good place to sleep. However, he doesn’t sit down. Instead, he takes two steps to cross over to the window where the cat sleeps.
He runs a hand down its back, the fur soft to his fingertips. “Hey there,” he whispers to the cat. She lifts her head, glancing at him, then dismisses him with a flick of her tail and returns to sleep. He laughs, unable to do anything else. It’s been a long time since someone dismissed him so uncaring.
Stepping away, he surveys the room once again. He’s not really sure what to do with himself until dinner. His eye catches on the bookshelf, and he stops in front of it. For the most part, the bookshelf is dusty, though the albums on the bottommost shelf seem to have been pulled out frequently.
And, well, Junpei did say Obito could look through any of the books and albums. He picks an album at random. The album he pulls out is a heavy thing, with a leather cover that’s somewhat scratched and damaged. But, when he opens the album, it seems to be in perfect condition. The first page has perfect calligraphy reading ‘Our Travel Adventure’ written in black ink. Between the ‘our’ and ‘travel’, a little arrow has been made and, in slightly smaller, messier writing, ‘first!’ has been added. It’s… It’s a product of love and Obito already feels awkward looking through it. It’s the life of a stranger—of strangers.
But, well, he has nothing better to do and he is somewhat curious. The next page opens to a map, stuck down. It’s a badly drawn map and nothing like Obito’s seen. The maps he knows are those made by ninjas, painstakingly drawn with a number of additions about locations and people and whatnot. This map is rough, clearly wrong at certain points, but a path is drawn across it in black.
The map’s of Benisu Island and the black path traces its way from one point on the island to another, all the way to the northern-tip and then back to the town Obito’s currently at, he thinks. However, over the top of the black path, a red path has been made. This one doesn’t go straight, but meanders thoughtlessly. It backtracks and circles and spirals. This track, Obito imagines, is the one actually taken—the black one must’ve been the original plan. Both paths, after all, start out the same way.
It’s kind of amusing. Obito is, technically, doing the same thing. Except he’s just going straight and he’s not really documenting anything. The smile falls from his face. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Being here, in this farmhouse, feels like hiding away from the real world. It kind of feels like being in Uzushio—safe, but without the additional worries that come from being in a ninja village and a place he once attacked. Even then, it’s not quite the same because even in Uzushio the real world was always there, even if Uzushio dealt with it strangely, (dealt with it kindly).
He flicks to the next page. The first photo is a blur and Obito squints at it, trying to make out some kind of image from it. However, it’s impossible. It’s just a light tan blur with black-green objects blurring at the side. He remembers Junpei saying his husband wasn’t good at photography but still. This is somehow worse than Obito expected.
The picture on the next page is somewhat better, but that seems to be because a third person took it. It’s of Junpei and Hiroto—looking even younger than they did in the wedding photo. They look prepared for the photo, arms slung around waists, beaming smiles on their faces. It makes something twist in Obito’s stomach, heavy and sour. He flicks to the next page.
The next few pages all follow the same kind of pattern. There’s a blurred photo of some kind, though things become slightly more recognisable as time passes, and eventually little messages start appearing alongside keepsakes.
On one page, beside a blurred photo that seems to be a meadow of colourful flowers all blurred together, there’s a light pink flower pressed into the pages. Next to it is written: ‘even if things are not forever, there is still beauty in what was and what is’. Not what Obito had expected from two civilian farmers.
Perhaps Obito doesn’t know what to expect from civilian farmers though. Maybe they’re all like this.
Shaking his head, Obito turns the page. This one has a collage of photos. There’s one taken from a dim setting, it kind of looks like a bar if Obito tilts his head and closes one eye. Another photo is of blue sky, probably, peeking through blurry green leaves. The third photo is somewhat clearer, someone standing with their back to the camera, arms spread out wide, and an ocean lying out ahead of them. It reminds Obito of Uzushio.
But it’s the last photo that really catches Obito’s attention. This one isn’t part of the collage, instead on a separate photo. Above it, there’s a phrase: ‘A photo taken by a stranger’. Then, under that is, ‘That’s why it’s not blurry!’ It makes Obito smile. The photo is of Hiroto and Junpei, but it clearly hadn’t been a planned photo—though it might’ve started that way. It features Junpei falling backward, eyes wide, hands blurred as he tries to regain his balance. On his back, looking scared for his life, Hiroto is falling, arms stretched out behind him.
Beneath the photo is a single line: ‘Even if disaster befell us, the tragedy would have never been taking the leap’
Obito gazes down at the photo for a second. Then he turns the page once more, and continues going through the album. The photos get better, but not by much. Far too often, they’re still blurred. Or there’ll be a smudge of something in the way. But the content of the photos follows the same pattern for the most part.
They’re of the environment; of blue skies, of rolling hills, of beaches and the ocean horizon, of flowers, of forests, of the sunrise or sunset and the colours that paint across the sky. Or they’re of people, usually Hiroto and Junpei. They’ll be smiling, laughing, caught in some memory that only they know. Occasionally, there are random people who feature in the photos too. Strangers from unknown lives that Hiroto and Junpei met briefly. They’ll be singing or dancing or laughing, hands over shoulders, heads knocking together. Obito can’t imagine ever doing such a thing—just finding random people and being comfortable with them so easily, trusting them so easily. Maybe that’s just a civilian thing.
But, no. It can’t be. Because Obito is here. Obito’s doing the exact same thing—it’s what he did with Mika, trusted her, followed her. It’s what he’s doing with Junpei, sitting in a stranger’s house, going through an album of photos from a life he never lived—but could live, maybe.
And… And in Uzushio, it wasn’t the same but it was similar. Uzushio was trusting. Uzushio opened up their arms, showed their heart, and had sharp enough teeth to protect themselves. But it was still strangers, opening their hearts and their homes. It was still strangers, smiling, falling together and knocking heads and shoulders—civilians and ninjas both.
Obito is shaken from his thoughts by the last picture. It’s not… It’s not anything good. It’s a pretty awful picture and probably one of Hiroto’s. It features neither Junpei nor Hiroto. There’s a campfire, probably, some source of light that’s orange-yellow and throwing up a grey cloud, spiralling into the air. Above, the sky is dark, but there are distant pinpricks of light—stars, Obito assumes. But all of this is the background, in the foreground there’s only this: a well-travelled bag that looks to have been patched up a million times. Below, there are two lines: ‘Here’s to our next adventure together! Watch out of the world, we’re coming for you!’
The album close softly and Obito pushes it back into the shelf. He wonders whether Junpei or Hiroto ever travelled again, or whether that was it. He wants to say they did, wants to say they travelled again because they clearly enjoyed it. But it’s one thing to travel the island you live on and another thing entirely to travel the rest of the world—especially when you’re a civilian.
(Most of all, Obito wants to imagine that they lived their lives happily together. Except he knows that didn’t happen, because Junpei is here, alone, and Hiroto died years ago. There’s no happiness to be found here, even if Junpei smiles and has friends because- because how can you give up that love? How can you let go of it to continue living?)
(How can you be happy when people die every day? How can you dare to care when the world will tear them from you without a thought? How can you be kind when people are cruel more often than not?)
“Dinner’s ready!”
The shout rebounds off the walls and Obito stands up, stretching. His side twinges, faintly, but it’s easy to ignore. He follows the path Junpei showed him before and emerges into the dining space. Junpei’s already set the table, has placed down two plates full of food too. Obito wonders whether he’s felt alone—eating for one where there once used to be two.
“Hope you weren’t too bored,” Junpei says, and his eyes look warm in the kitchen light. The lighting should make him look paler than normal, but it just points out his freckles and he looks… he looks right here, in the kitchen lighting. Like he’s made to be here. Like this is where he belongs.
(Obito wonders how that feels. He… He can’t remember really feeling like he belongs somewhere.)
“I wasn’t,” he says, only slightly belated. “I looked through an album. That… That was okay, right?”
Junpei smiles, eyes crinkling. “That’s perfectly okay,” he says. “Which album did you look at?”
“The travel one,” Obito replies, before hesitating and wondering whether he’ll need to specify it.
Junpei’s grin grows. “Oh that one! I’ve got some wonderful stories from that trip.” Without waiting for Obito’s go ahead, he launches into a story.
And Obito listens. He listens to story after story as they eat. The years seem to fall away from Junpei as he gestures and smiles and laughs, shaking his head and sending braids flying, trying to describe something when he can barely speak without laughing.
Eventually, Junpei falls silent and their plates are finished. Obito helps Junpei wash them and dry them, before carefully stacking them in cupboards. It’s only when everything is silent, Obito asks, “Did you ever travel elsewhere?”
A wistful smile grows on Junpei’s face. “No,” he says softly. “Not like we did back then. We went on a few short trips. To a nearby town or a lake or a river or something. But… Not what he had wanted to do once.” He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Sometimes I regret that we ended up not travelling like we’d wanted to. But… I have no regrets about how things turned out in the end. And I’m a bit too old to travel nowadays. I’m okay with that though. I don’t need to go see the things far away now. I’m happy where I am, with the people here.”
“How?” Obito asks, gesturing wildly. “How do you just- How do you find yourself comfortable?” He tugs on his hair. It’s gotten long since he’s been in Uzushio, and normally leaves it up in a bun, but right now, he can’t help but tug on it, uncomfortable with it.
“You find yourself,” Junpei says, words kind even though the task is impossible. “And you learn to make peace with not knowing. It’s not… It’s far from easy. And it was really only on that trip that we found ourselves.” He pauses, considers Obito. “You change something, maybe something small or maybe something big. Like… Like Hiroto cut his hair the day before we left so it was really short. I decided I wanted to try wearing bright colours. It wasn’t anything big, but… It was new. It helped us settle and find things we enjoyed.”
It sounds stupid. Just doing things in the spur of the moment. But, well, what does Obito have to lose?
“Reckon you can cut my hair?”
Junpei doesn’t question him, just nods. “Come out onto the back porch. The light won’t be great but I don’t particularly want to brush the floor again. What do you want?”
Sitting down on a stool, a stranger behind him with scissors close to his neck, Obito shrugs and finds himself feeling weirded out by the fact he doesn’t care Junpei’s behind him with a weapon. “I don’t know,” he says, tongue thick and feeling helpless. “Just something- I used to have short hair. I don’t want that. I want something new.”
(I want to look in the mirror and see myself, he doesn’t say. I want to see me and feel like me and not like- not like an Uchiha or the Obito-who-was or Tobi. I want to be me. I want to feel like a person.)
Junpei hums and the scissors begin to snip softly. “I used to do my husband’s hair,” Junpei says. “It was easier that way.” He falls silent and Obito closes his eyes, listening to the snip of the scissors and the screams of the cicadas and chirps of the crickets. The world out here feels impossible, feels like the rest of the world has been hidden away. Or maybe they’ve just been hidden away.
“Where are you travelling to?” Junpei asks.
“Not sure,” Obito says. “I’m just… travelling, I guess.”
(I’m lost. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who I was. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what to do with my life. I don’t know where my home is. I’m aimless and purposeless and directionless. I’m a compass spinning endlessly.)
Junpei hums. “Just Benisu Island or…”
“Wherever. Just… Trying to find myself.”
“Done,” Junpei says in the silence that follows. “And, y’know, if you wanted, I have a few things I can give you for your travels.”
Obito stands and follows Junpei inside. “I couldn’t,” he says, and then freezes when he sees his reflection in the window. He’s not… He doesn’t look like an Uchiha at all. And he doesn’t look like the S-ranked ninja he’d been in the Akatsuki either. He looks like someone knew entirely. The haircut is rough and could probably stand to be touched up but…
Swallowing, Obito steps forward and gets a better look at himself. He likes it. The top part of his hair is long, enough that he can tie it up if he wanted to. The rest of it, though, is short, clipped close to his head.
“Thank you,” he says, turning to Junpei who’s smiling at him.
“It was no chore,” Junpei said. “Just give yourself a chance to grow for me. You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Take the time to rest, to see the sights, to learn about the world around you.” The words resemble Mika’s from hours ago, though Obito feels like he heard them a lifetime ago. He nods, eyes feeling strangely itchy.
Junpei smiles, and turns around, heading to yet another bookshelf. He pauses in front of it, scanning for something. Then he pulls out a relatively thin book and Obito sits across from him at the dining table once again. “Hiroto and I wrote notes on where we want to go in this,” he says, handing the thin book over to Obito.
Obito opens it up. The spine of the book is well broken and it falls open easily in his hands. There are dog-eared and tabbed pages. Even from the beginning, there are scribbles along the sides, sections circled and arrows pointing to different bits. Obito flicks over it, more noting the annotations than anything else.
“Take it,” Junpei says, and Obito jerks his head up, wide-eyed, looking at the older man. “We never got to travel like we wanted to outside the island. Maybe you can do that for yourself for us.” He opens up a leather bag and passes it to Obito. Frowning, Obito opens it and-
“I can’t take this,” he says, swallowing, as he lifts the old camera out of the bag. Obito doesn’t know much about cameras, but it looks like it’s in perfect condition. “This is Hiroto’s. It’s yours! I can’t take it.”
“It’s a gift,” Junpei says. “Get some use of it. Just sitting around here? That’s not what a camera’s made for.”
It feels like bad manners to return the gift, so Obito simply swallows and nods. “I can’t thank you enough,” he says.
“Help me with the deck, and that’ll be enough,” Junpei says, kindly. He stands up, joints creaking. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning to get it done.”
“I’ll be there,” Obito promises. He doesn’t watch Junpei go, just cracks open the book and begins reading.
(And, while he reads, he thinks about how kindness isn’t easy but maybe that’s the point. He thinks about how Junpei has offered old things, sentimental things, because maybe he can’t fill the dream he and Hiroto once had, but maybe someone else can do it.)
(Maybe someone else can create the peace Obito longs for. Maybe… Maybe it’s already being created.)
Obito reads on.
He cooks breakfast. He’d slept a few hours once he’d finished the book and its various annotations, but he’d been up early even before Junpei. He doesn’t know how to thank the old man for all of his kindness. It’s the least he can do.
When Junpei appears, Obito turns to thank him, but at Junpei’s smile, he loses his words. Junpei hadn’t done it for gratitude or thanks, had he? Obito should… He should accept that.
Silently, they eat breakfast as the sun rises outside, the rooster crowing loudly. “Come on,” Junpei says, once the plates have been washed and dried yet again. “The deck won’t wait for anyone.”
The deck is the front one, and Junpei’s already started one side. Obito could do this easily, using the mokuton, but… But there’s something to be said about doing things with your hands. And Obito’s already walked all this way, there’s no point rushing things. He might as well take the slow way here as well.
“Ever redone a deck before?” Junpei asks as he lugs things out of the shadows and into the lights.
Obito helps him and shakes his head. “I’ve done a little bit of repair work. Things like fixing up painting jobs or redoing rooftops. But nothing like this.”
“Well the best time to learn is now,” Junpei says, not questioning Obito’s words at all.
And so Obito learns about sanding and sawing and a number of other things he’d never learnt about—or even thought about—before. Junpei is patient, even when Obito fucks up. And it takes a while to actually begin working on the deck, but Junpei doesn’t seem to mind, and Obito doesn’t either especially when Junpei eventually starts telling stories.
A number of the stories feature Hiroto, but there are also those that feature Mika or other random people that Obito’s never met. Junpei is so willingly to share his life with Obito, so calm, and Obito eventually finds himself telling stories of his own. His words trip over each other, the sentences run together, but he finds himself laughing at parts—at himself, when he ran late because he got side-tracked by a squirrel. Junpei laughs at Obito’s stories too.
(It feels like it should be strange, telling these stories from his childhood to Junpei. But it doesn’t. It’s the first time, in a long time, that Obito’s actually thought about his childhood fondly. He’s never laughed at these stories, not in good humour, but now he is. And he finds himself talking about things from Uzushio too, little things that don’t matter. The paintings and words thrown up randomly on the side of buildings, the murals that seem so life-like that Obito’s watched new merchants try to walk through them.)
(Obito smiles and it feels easy. Obito laughs and he thinks of Uzushio as a place that might one day be home. Obito meets Junpei’s eyes and feels safe in this stranger’s house.)
But things come to an end, because they always do. That’s how life goes, but…
Obito takes a picture with the old camera of Junpei, standing on the newly made deck. Junpei’s smiling, eyes crinkled. The picture is blurred around the edges, and Obito’s finger fills the bottom corner of the frame, but seeing the photo fills him with warmth. He places it in the travel book for safekeeping.
“Thank you,” he tells Junpei. “For everything.”
Junpei smiles back. “Thank you for coming here,” he says.
And then Obito leaves and Junpei returns to his life and it’s like they never met. Except they had met. Because Obito remembers it and so does Junpei, and Obito even has a photo proving that it happened. Bag over his shoulder, Obito walks down a path no one had pointed out to him. He has no idea where it leads, but it heads north and Obito doesn’t really mind where he ends up.
Because, in the end, there is this: something easy in the set of his shoulders, a smile crawling onto his face, the sun shining down. Maybe this feeling won’t last forever, maybe nothing will last forever, but Obito has this for now and that’s enough.
(When Obito returns home—because Uzushio will be home in the end—it will be with many, many photos and a scrapbook he made himself. He’ll return by boat, because he’ll have gotten used to walking and waiting. He’ll come back and life won’t be perfect, but he’ll like his haircut and have figured out he likes to work with his hands.)
(Obito will come home and Toru will greet him and smile and Obito will reach out to that extended hand and say thank you. He will tell Toru of his travels, of the people he met, of the stories he’s collected. He will share the photos, of places so beautiful Obito can barely believe they exist, of people so imperfect Obito finds it easy to be with them, of the world that Obito never got to see.)
(And Toru will smile, kind and gentle and merciful, and say ‘Welcome back’ and Obito will be home.)
(Life’s not perfect, it so rarely is, but it can be good enough. It can be nice. It can be kind. It can be peaceful. Obito will find himself, in wood-working, and not in fighting. He’ll find himself in laughter and the sea at sunrise. He will find himself in travelling and dust caking his skin. He will find himself in walking, rather than running. He will find himself and be happy.)
(Obito wanted to live. Now he finally gets the chance to live a life that he wants, and no one can take that from him.)