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“This is a third degree burn,” the medic-nin said. Her blue eyes lifted to meet Tenzō’s and he could see sympathy swimming in their depths alongside her cool professionalism. “You’ll need a skin graft. There will be permanent tissue damage and possible nerve damage as well.”
Tenzō swallowed thickly. As his throat moved, the skin around the burn throbbed and ached. The burn itself, though—
“How much pain are you feeling in this area?” the medic asked.
“None,” Tenzō replied.
The medic’s expression tightened. “That isn’t a good sign.”
Even with medical jutsu, a third degree burn would leave a scar. Tenzō had plenty of those already; they faded with time and his mokuton-enhanced healing factor greatly sped up the process. Gaining a scar wasn’t much of a bother. It was the location of the burn, or rather, what had been burned that was the source of his distress.
He had no idea of the ramifications and he wasn’t confident that the medics would, either.
He let his eyes slide closed as the medic redressed the wound. He tried to assess the damage he was aware of as he felt healing chakra being pumped into his system. He tried not to obsess about the mark, the damned mark. A blue splotch he’d lived with for most of his life, too precise and oddly coloured to be a birthmark.
The medic hadn’t mentioned any mark at all, which meant—
Tenzō forced his mind away and as the chakra soothed the worst of his nausea and fear, he drifted into sleep.
He was just five years old when the colour started to come in. Bright, electric blue that started at the hollow of his throat and spread outwards in fine lines to eventually make a symbol the size of his palm, shockingly visible against his pale skin.
It took a year to fill in completely but only a month for Danzō to notice.
“What is that on your neck, boy?”
“I don’t know,” Kinoe answered truthfully.
Danzō yanked him close by the arm and peered at the mark, which was then only a tangle of faint lines.
“It is unsightly. Cover it up.”
“But what is it?”
Danzō’s lip curled in disgust. “An unfortunate eyesore. Do not think any more about it. Be sure that I never see it again.”
Kinoe was well drilled in obedience to his master; that day, he started wearing his collars pulled up to his chin. In private, though, he looked at the blue splotch in mirrors, carefully pulling down his collar and keeping hold of it in case the door flew open and he had to yank it back up. At night he traced over the mark with his fingertips. It became a way that he soothed himself after difficult missions, a habit that persisted into adulthood.
He didn’t know, at first, where the mark had come from or what it meant, only that he liked it. He didn’t even mind keeping it covered because that made it seem more special.
It was secret. It was unique. It was his.
When Tenzō woke up it was dark outside and his ANBU captain, Kakashi, was sitting on the end of his bed. He looked up from his book when Tenzō stirred.
“Ah. How do you feel?”
“Sleepy,” Tenzō said, pushing himself up a little further in bed and wincing at the lingering aches. “Sore.”
Kakashi hummed. “That’s not so bad.”
“No,” Tenzō agreed.
He watched Kakashi’s solitary grey eye settle on his bandaged throat.
“You were badly burned.”
“It will scar,” Tenzō said, his voice a little unsteady.
He wanted his captain to tell him it would be okay. That just because his soul mark had been obliterated, it didn’t mean he was fated to remain alone.
It didn’t mean he wouldn’t ever be loved and cherished by somebody. It couldn’t .
“Tenzō,” Kakashi said, closing the book in his hand. “It’s just another injury, you know. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Tenzō glanced to his right, where Yūgao still lay.
“It might.”
Kakashi shuffled further up the bed so he could touch Tenzō’s shoulder.
“It didn’t change your life before, so it won’t now.”
“Maybe not my present life,” Tenzō said. His hand drifted to his throat, brushing the thick dressing pad.
“Our futures are unwritten,” Kakashi said. “We shape them ourselves. Don’t you believe that?”
Tenzō couldn’t bring himself to look at his senpai. The truth was for years he had harboured a hope—albeit terribly thin—that the one who bore the mark matching his own was Kakashi. He’d never seen beneath his senpai’s mask in the four years they’d worked together in ANBU and he’d come to believe the reason for the mask was the same reason he still kept his collars pulled up to his chin.
His feelings for Kakashi had been strong since their very first meeting and shifted from awe to deep affection when they officially became allies. The later shift from friendship to what he felt certain was love had happened more slowly. Tenzō couldn’t say exactly when he’d started idly daydreaming about peeling down Kakashi’s mask to reveal the electric blue lines that would match his own. Around the same time he’d caught himself wondering what it might feel like to kiss Kakashi and how his captain would taste.
“I know there’s no solid science about these marks,” Tenzō said, “but we’ve all heard the stories. Marriages between people with matching marks last longer. People who find their match are happier. And then there’s the...the link.”
He looked down at the scratchy green blanket covering his lap.
“You’ve never mentioned the link before,” Kakashi said.
“I know you don’t really believe in soulmates—”
“You’ve felt things?”
His captain sounded unusually excited. Tenzō looked up, surprised.
“Why? Have you?”
Kakashi seemed to collect himself, blinking several times before opening his book and affecting indifference.
“No, nothing like that. I just didn’t know that you had.”
Tenzō sighed and turned to pour himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the side table. He drank it off in one go. Every swallow reminded him of the bandages over his mark—former mark.
“You’re the sensible one, senpai. It’s silly of me to put any stock in it. Nobody knows for sure if the marks mean anything at all. It’s all anecdotal evidence, isn’t it?”
Kakashi looked at him for a long time, so long that Tenzō felt his skin start to itch under the scrutiny. Finally, though, his captain stood.
“They told me you’ll be in here for at least a week to recover,” he said. “Chakra exhaustion, although you’re already moving and talking so that’s promising. But they want to make sure you don’t get that infected.” He nodded towards Tenzō’s bandaged neck and chest.
“The medic said...a skin graft,” Tenzō supplied, haltingly.
Kakashi’s eye softened.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
Tenzō nodded. “Thank you, senpai. For visiting.”
“Of course.”
They bid each other goodnight and Tenzō, now wide awake, settled back on his cot.
“Tenzō?”
The curtain separating his bed from the one to his right twitched, then was drawn back to reveal his teammate, Yūgao. She offered him a timid smile.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. You were talking about your soulmark?”
Tenzō turned his back to her. It was a conversation he’d struggled to have with Kakashi, who he was closer to than anybody else. If he had to explain it to Yūgao as well he might break down in tears.
“I’m sorry,” Yūgao repeated. Tenzō heard her bed creak as she moved.
“I think it’s okay that it got burned, though. I mean, I don’t think it matters.”
Efficient and deadly in the field, in the dimly lit hospital room Yūgao sounded very young. Eighteen as Tenzō was, they’d both been raised as soldiers in a war that had started long before their birth and would likely continue after their death. Yūgao was Tenzō’s senpai, having already been in the ANBU for years before he’d joined, but they weren’t close friends. He didn’t know anything about her life away from the barracks and the missions. He’d certainly never realised that she could sound so...vulnerable.
“I have a mark,” Yūgao volunteered. “It’s on my leg so it’s easy to hide. I wondered sometimes why you wear your collar that way. You and Kakashi. I didn’t know if…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tenzō said. Behind him, Yūgao fell silent.
He didn’t know if Kakashi’s mask hid a similar mark, or any mark at all. He likely never would know. Kakashi’s lack of reaction to his burn and his insistence that Tenzō’s mark had been meaningless made it clear to Tenzō that his most cherished possibility had been closed off to him. He wasn’t at all ready to begin processing his feelings about it. It was too difficult to even think about.
Tenzō wrapped the blankets more tightly around himself. The cannula in the back of his left hand was starting to itch and the dressing pad over his throat made it hard to get comfortable. He wasn’t confident that he’d be able to sleep again but he would try. What else was there for him to do in that hospital room?
He couldn’t be sure how much later it was when he rolled over, restless and frustrated, to meet Yūgao’s soft brown eyes. Wordlessly, she reached out her hand into the space separating their beds. After a few uncertain moments, Tenzō took hold of it.
Yūgao offered him a tentative smile.
“I’ve...felt things,” she said. “Through the link. Not often and they’ve been faint, but...I think if I was badly hurt, my soulmate would feel it, too. I think they’d know and they’d come to find me.”
“You don’t know who it is?” Tenzō asked, suddenly hanging on her every word in his heartbreak, eager for the smallest spark of hope.
“No,” Yūgao said. “I don’t know if they’re in Konoha or even in Fire Country. I might not meet them in my whole life. But it’s nice to know that there is somebody. I like having that connection. I can’t remember my parents at all, and...I don’t know. I believe that whoever my soulmate is, they love me. They want me to stay safe and they would protect me if they could.”
“But don’t you want to know who they are?”
Yūgao smiled and looked away. “Of course I do. But if I never find out, it would be okay. It’s a little like having a guardian angel, don’t you think? Or maybe this is how it feels to have a family. Even when you’re not together, you’re never really apart.”
Tenzō withdrew his hand from hers and laid it over his bandages. He badly wanted to see the extent of the damage and whether any of his mark was still there.
He didn’t want a skin graft. He didn’t want a piece of somebody else to cover up the one thing in his life that had been uniquely his.
“If...if there is a person,” he began hesitantly, feeling out the words as he gave voice to hopes that had only ever lived in the secrecy of his heart. “Do you think...could I still find them? Even without the mark?”
“Yes,” Yūgao said emphatically.
“But the science...they don’t really know how any of it works.”
“Science doesn’t matter,” Yūgao said. “It’s about your faith. You’ve felt somebody at the other end of that link. They’re still out there, mark or no mark.”
Tenzō’s throat tightened, filling with tears beneath the burned, bandaged skin.
“Thank you,” he whispered as he closed his eyes. “I hope so.”
“Believe so,” Yūgao said. “Then it’ll be true.”
Faith, Tenzō thought as he tried once more to find sleep. Was that what his hope had been all along?
Was he capable of believing in something that he would no longer be able to see?
The days in the hospital passed maddeningly slowly. Yūgao was discharged after just one night, leaving Tenzō effectively alone. Shinobi that he didn’t know outside of Bingo Books came and went while he languished in bed, unattended and bored out of his mind.
Kakashi dropped by on the second day with a bag of his favourite candied walnuts and to tell Tenzō that he and the uninjured portion of Team Ro had been given another mission already.
“Yūgao’s arm is still healing and obviously you’re out of action, but the rest of us move out at sunset,” he said, adding, “I’m sorry, Tenzō.”
“You’re only following orders, senpai.”
Kakashi lingered for a little longer and a comfortable silence settled between them. Tenzō had always found it heartening that his senpai was content to be in his company as he was usually such a loner. He found himself studying Kakashi’s profile, his sharp nose, wild silver hair and deceptively languid grey eye.
He had always felt a pull towards Kakashi, something that had come alive in his chest the very first time they’d met as enemies and persisted. As his love for his senpai had grown, so had his hope that it was the same feeling as the tug he occasionally felt from his soulmark. As an ANBU, it had always been difficult to distinguish what he felt through the soul link from the terror and violence that so often existed around him, but now that he really thought about it, he had to admit the truth to himself.
When he’d felt those twinges of pain and fear through the soul link, they had never been connected to Kakashi. He had known since the first that Kakashi wasn’t his soulmate. It was supposed to be a mutual feeling and yes, the two of them had been drawn to each other and yes, they shared a profound bond now, but...
Tenzō had no way of knowing what it should feel like to meet his soulmate but he thought that it would be more . A jolt or a spark, something that would tell him that the person in front of him was undeniably his .
If he was brutally honest with himself, his relationship with Kakashi had never been completely equal. Tenzō had always given more love than he’d received.
He’d wanted it to be Kakashi, but it wasn’t. And if it wasn’t Kakashi, he might never know who bore the mark that matched his own.
Dammit, he should have been better than that; he shouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was getting mission fit again.
The next day consisted of being prodded and poked by medics and carefully exercising around the bed space. His chakra was still drained, he could tell, so he had to limit his exertion. It didn’t sit well with Tenzō; he was used to being active and rarely so still for so long. He had no visitors and far too much time alone with his thoughts.
A nurse came to change the dressing over his neck and chest, just before his evening meal.
“Can I see it?”
The nurse glanced up at him with concern etched into her features.
“It isn’t recommended. Not so soon.”
“It...it’s my soul mark,” Tenzō said, his voice almost a croak as he forced the words out.
The nurse drew in a sharp breath.
“I know it’s ruined, I just...I want to see. I’m going to have to live with it anyway, so...please?”
The nurse pursed her lips in a thin, tense line, but finally she nodded.
The two of them crossed the room together, the nurse holding Tenzō by the elbow as she led him to the tiny bathroom cubicle. He felt strong enough to walk unaided but his heart was pounding and the fuzzy, disconnected feeling from when he’d first been brought into the hospital returned, growing by degrees with each step he took towards the shaving mirror.
His own silhouette blocked out the light from the room behind him and reduced his reflection to only a dark shape until the nurse clicked on the bathroom light. Then, he saw everything.
His skin from his jaw down to his chest was ruined; a horrid wet-looking swathe of gnarled, discoloured flesh. There was no trace, none at all, to show where his mark had been.
It was worse than his darkest imaginings. He looked hideous.
Strong fingers clenched around his and Tenzō blinked as he realised he’d been moving as though to touch the wound.
“I should redress this now,” the nurse said gently, releasing his hand. “The risk of secondary infection is still very high.”
Tenzō nodded, numb.
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. His hand kept drifting to the dressing over his throat. If he could just visualise his soul mark, he thought with a quiet desperation, as long as he never forgot what it had looked like then maybe…maybe…
Nobody really knew how they worked. If he just wanted it enough, believed in it enough then perhaps…
Tenzō felt his way out of bed and to the door of his room, not pausing to turn on the lights. At the end of the corridor was a nurses station, staffed by one young civilian nurse who stood in alarm when she saw him.
“Nakai-san! There is a call bell in your room if you—”
Tenzō waved her concern away and gave her a smile that he hoped would convey that he was perfectly fit and well.
“I didn’t want to trouble you. I was hoping I could borrow a pen and paper, if you don’t mind.”
The young nurse put her hand to her chest, clearly relieved.
“Oh! Of course, Nakai-san. Just one moment.”
Supplies in hand, Tenzō retreated to his room.
Nakai Tatsuhiro was the standard code name he used whenever a full name was required. Kakashi said he was being too uptight and that everyone in Konoha already knew he was ANBU, but Tenzō had his reasons. He’d never known if he had been given a name at birth or what his family name was if he even had one. Kakashi had encouraged him to cast aside his old Root codename of Kinoe and so among friends, he went by ‘Tenzō’. That name, though, had more significance, more weight to it than he thought a birth name would have. Tenzō was a name that he’d chosen for himself, something that had been gifted to him in one of the most meaningful encounters of his life to date. It wasn’t a name he wanted to share with the entire world.
Like his soulmark, he thought as he clicked the lights on and settled cross-legged on the bed. He had liked knowing it was there without ever revealing it to the world, but of course he had hoped to one day share it with whoever bore its twin.
Lip caught between his teeth, Tenzō started to sketch. The ink was black but the image in his mind was vivid blue. He drew lines that he’d traced with his fingers countless times, crossing out his initial halting attempts until he had drawn a clear approximation of his soulmark as he remembered it.
Stupid. What he was doing was stupid, frivolous, meaningless . But still…
Over and over he drew the mark, his lines more confident each time until he had filled the first page in the notebook the nurse had given him. He turned to the next page and continued to draw.
He didn’t realise how much time had passed until he had filled each and every page and his fingers ached around the pen.
I should forget this and go to sleep.
Tenzō went into the bathroom, still clutching the pen. In the mirror his face looked washed out, his eyes sunken. The bandage over his throat was still clean and white.
Frowning at his reflection, he touched the tip of the pen to the bandage.
It was laborious work. A bandage wasn’t a surface designed to be drawn on and the cheap pen he was using barely worked, but with patience he was able to sketch out the mark that he’d lost forever to a lucky katon.
Finally, with ink-stained fingers and a churning stomach, Tenzō turned out the lights and climbed back into the hospital bed. He settled his palm over the newly drawn mark on his throat the way he had used to do as a child.
The soulmark had been the only thing that let him believe in the possibility of happiness for himself. As a child in Root, it was his secret shame. He was raised to be an obedient, emotionless soldier but once he found out from his assigned partner what the mark meant, he cherished the possibility. Kakashi taught him that there was more to life than duty, and his hope got brighter with each passing year.
A soulmate would be family, just as Yūgao had said. He had always craved a bond like that but in just a fraction of a second, an enemy had robbed him of the chance.
Tenzō had been injured scores of times in the line of duty, but this was the first time he’d ever felt disfigured .
Who could possibly want him now?
He turned over with a heavy sigh, trying to settle into sleep. No matter. If Kakashi wasn’t his soulmate then he would do without one. After all, he would still have their friendship.
The sensation started only moments before Tenzō drifted off. Suddenly his heart was pounding as though he were running and his mark…his mark…
Tenzō fought the fierce urge to rip off the dressing and slap his hand over the ruined flesh there. His mark was almost burning . He had never felt anything like it. His breaths came hard and fast, panicked as the heat grew and grew.
He was feeling sensations and emotions that didn’t belong to him.
My body…it’s rejecting the link .
Tenzō buried his face in the pillow, trying to stay calm and ignore the relentless tugging at what had been his soulmate link. He hadn’t expected to feel anything there ever again, but he supposed this was the last of it. He hadn’t known that it would…would…
The taste of smoke settled heavily on the back of his tongue.
The link was burning out of him.
After a few minutes, the strange sensations stopped and Tenzō rolled onto his back, his breaths hitching in his chest.
Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.
A few stubborn tears managed to escape to wet his lashes and a tiny patch of the pillow beneath his head.
Love isn’t meant for soldiers. It isn’t meant for you.
He was just eighteen and resigning himself to a future alone. He felt stupid and childish for being hurt by the thought, but he couldn’t deny it. If only he’d dodged the jutsu faster or blocked himself better.
Somewhere amidst the barely restrained tears, Tenzō fell asleep.
On Tenzō’s fourth day in the hospital, wakefulness came slowly. First he became aware of the faint sounds of birdsong outside the hospital. Next, the soft glow of morning light through his closed eyelids. It was a little after sunrise and his sleep had been deep and dreamless, surprisingly restful. He luxuriated in the comfort and warmth of the bed for a long time, not wanting to face the day when for some reason he felt…wonderful.
Eventually, he realised that he wasn’t alone in the room.
As a shinobi, and an ANBU at that, such a realisation ought to have brought with it, if not outright panic, at least heightened alertness. Tenzō may have been in his home village but a soldier shouldn’t ever drop their guard so completely. And yet he couldn’t escape the feeling of deep contentment that had settled in his bones, making him feel heavy and unwilling to move. He let out a quiet groan into the pillow and heard an answering huff of amusement from beside the bed.
Whoever it was, they held one of Tenzō’s hands between both of their own.
The list of people who would come to visit him in the hospital was short; those who would hold his hand even shorter if not nonexistent. This wasn’t, couldn’t be anyone that Tenzō knew, and yet he trusted them implicitly. It wasn’t a choice, it was an instinct. He couldn’t remember the last time anybody had held his hand. It was possible that nobody ever had.
He sensed a second heartbeat synchronous with his own as though residing in his chest. The metronomic rhythm soothed him, smoothing the jagged edges that had been chafed onto his nerves by the events of the past few days. It made him feel safe.
Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes as he simply enjoyed all that he was feeling for however long it might last.
“Finally awake, huh?”
The voice was deep, a little gruff but pleasant for it and it made Tenzō smile. He couldn’t help it, he just felt so good . He hid his face against the pillow, stubbornly trying to cling to sleep.
“I’m sorry,” the other said. “I had no business coming here.”
Perhaps he was still dreaming, after all. What other explanation could there be for—
The stranger let go of his hand and the sensation of loss was so strong it spurred Tenzō into movement and speech at last.
“Wait!”
He sat bolt upright, blankets sliding to a heap on the floor, and hastily blinked sleep out of his eyes to focus on the figure in front of him.
The stranger with the deep voice was a tall man and broad with it, dressed in jonin blues with a Konoha headband tied around one bicep. His hair was black, windswept, and his jaw was lined with a thick beard to match. His skin was tanned and his eyes looked green in the window’s light. When those eyes met Tenzō’s, a surprising bloom of colour rose in his cheeks.
“I should go,” the man said haltingly.
Tenzō noticed a piece of paper poking from the stranger’s hip pocket. He glanced at the bedside table where his notebook and pen rested, his fingers drifting once more to his throat to trace over the symbol he had clumsily inked onto his bandage.
At that moment, he understood everything.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
The man wet his lips and nodded.
It was like floating. Tenzō felt suspended by a thread, caught between the past and what had felt impossible only hours before. His eyes roamed restlessly, greedily over the other man’s face.
“How did you find me?”
The man’s eyes settled on Tenzō’s throat.
“Three days ago, late afternoon that happened?”
“Yes.”
The man nodded. “Thought so.”
Heat flared in Tenzō’s chest.
“You felt it?”
The man turned towards the door.
“Listen,” he said. “I didn’t mean to spring this on you. I only wanted to make sure you were still alive. But when I got here, I sort of…I mean, it felt…”
He broke off with a nervous chuckle and scrubbed a hand through his messy hair.
“I just didn’t want to leave right away, I guess.”
Tenzō hardly dared to breathe in case he shattered the spell. This man had felt his pain, clearly recognised his soulmark, sat with him while he slept and held his hand.
“Will you at least tell me your name?” Tenzō asked, still drinking in the sight, the solidity of him.
“Asuma,” the man said, turning back to face him. “Sarutobi Asuma.”
Tenzō’s eyes widened.
“Son of the Sandaime?”
Asuma ducked his head.
“You’ve been reading your Bingo Books, huh?”
Yes, he had. Tenzō knew every jonin of the Five Great Nations: their ages, statistics, strengths and weaknesses. From what he remembered, Asuma was a close range specialist, decently skilled in ninjutsu but at his best in hand to hand combat. He was a member of the 12 Guardian Ninja that protected the daimyo of Fire Country, and—
“You were at the Temple?”
“Ah. Yeah.”
The Fire Temple was almost a three day journey from Konoha and Asuma had made that journey because he’d felt Tenzō get hurt. He couldn’t have stopped for longer than two hours at a time to get there so fast.
If Tenzō had been waiting for unequivocal, undeniable proof that there was somebody else at the other end of his soul link, this was it.
“It’s a lot to take in, huh?”
Tenzō raised his eyes from where they’d drifted downwards in thought to be met with Asuma’s smile. It warmed Tenzō from the inside out as though he were bathing in sunlight.
“You took one of my drawings,” he said, nodding towards Asuma’s pocket.
“I’m sorry,” Asuma said, his smile turning a little sheepish.
“It’s alright. I don’t mind.”
Asuma took the drawing out of his pocket and methodically straightened out the creases. His eyes softened as he looked at it and Tenzō swallowed thickly, captivated.
Did it feel this way for everyone?
“You want to see my mark?”
He startled a little at the bold suggestion, unsure if he was ready, but calmed when he saw from Asuma’s expression that he was feeling just as much uncertainty, his hazel eyes brimming with emotion.
“I guess so,” Tenzō said hesitantly.
“It’s alright if you don’t,” Asuma said. “I’m a stranger to you.”
Tenzō shook his head. “You’re a shinobi of Konoha. We’re not strangers.”
Asuma didn’t feel like a stranger at all. This first meeting was triggering everything that had hit Tenzō the first time he’d met Kakashi, only stronger. And unlike Kakashi, he could see in Asuma’s eyes that the same was true for him.
“I really only meant to check that whoever you were, you were alive,” Asuma repeated, scratching at his beard as he grimaced apologetically. “If you want me to go, just say so.”
Tenzō hated being so lost for words, but it was just so much to process. He only stared at Asuma and the other man wet his lips and raised a hand to toy with his shirt collar.
“Here,” he said, then tugged the collar down.
The tangle of electric blue stamped onto his skin was so thrillingly familiar to Tenzō that for a long moment he couldn’t breathe.
Soulmate. I have a soulmate .
“Nakai-san,” Asuma said gently and Tenzō blinked.
Of course. He doesn’t know my—
“Tenzō,” he said without pause. “My name is Tenzō.”
Asuma looked at him in wonder.
“It’s good to meet you, Tenzō.”
“Likewise,” Tenzō said.
“I’m not trying to pressure you,” Asuma said. “I just had to be sure you were okay. You’re ANBU, right?” Tenzō frowned and Asuma held up his hands in supplication. “Sorry, sorry. I know you can’t say. But, well, it seems like you get hurt a lot.”
In spite of his confusion, his head and his heart still reeling in the wake of so much new information, Tenzō smiled.
“I don’t get hurt that much.”
Asuma grinned in return.
“All I can say is, I’d hate to see the other guys.”
Tenzō laughed, half with nerves and half with relief. He touched his throat again.
“My mark was here, but…”
Asuma’s eyes clouded as he let his collar go.
“I asked the nurse at the front desk. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, but—”
“You can stop apologising,” Tenzō said, meeting his eye. “I would have done the same thing if I knew that my...my soulmate was in hospital.”
Asuma wasn’t an unattractive man by any means but when he smiled he became truly radiant. It brightened his face, making him look younger even as light laughter lines appeared around his eyes. He was a man who smiled often, Tenzō could tell. He found that he wanted nothing so much as to be close to him, to see that smile and bask in the comfort that it brought him.
Those feelings frightened him as much as excited him. Affection had never come easily since Danzō forced him to suppress his emotions and he wasn’t sure how to give outlet to his feelings, what he was allowed to do or what exactly he wanted. It had felt really good when Asuma held his hand, but should he ask him to do it again?
Just because Asuma was his soulmate, it didn’t mean he wanted anything more to do with Tenzō now that he knew he was safe, did it?
Having a soulmate was such an esoteric thing. There were no rules for it. How either of them were supposed to feel, how their bond worked and what it meant. All of it could differ from person to person and they would just have to figure it out blind.
It would have been much easier with somebody he already knew, somebody he was already close to and wanted to love. It should have been Kakashi, Tenzō thought with an ugly twist of bitterness. With Kakashi he would know exactly how to act, it would be simple to progress their—
“Hey,” Asuma said as he pressed a hand to his chest, his mark. “What was that?”
Tenzō stared at him, stunned.
“You felt it?”
“I guess the closer I am to you, the stronger it gets.”
Tenzō shook his head. “I’ve never...it isn’t like that for me.”
His heart pounded in his chest as Asuma took the two steps over to the bed and sat carefully beside him. He smelled like the outdoors and tobacco smoke and Tenzō’s head swam.
He wanted to touch him. He really, really did.
“You’ve never felt anything through the link?” Asuma asked gently, his eyes searching Tenzō’s face.
“I...have. When you’ve really been hurt, I think. Anger, once or twice.”
“Can I try something?” Asuma asked.
Tenzō was drawn in by his eyes, his voice, his presence. His feelings were overwhelming, a little terrifying, but at the same time he wanted so much more.
He wanted to find out how deep their connection went.
Asuma gently took his hand and a spark jumped between them. Asuma’s lips parted in surprise and Tenzō breathed out a laugh.
“Will that happen every time we touch?”
Asuma shook his head. “No idea. But here.”
He tugged down his collar once more and pressed Tenzō’s palm to his soul mark.
If Tenzō ever thought he’d felt breathless before, this punched all the air out of him. It was like a headrush except his senses felt sharper as his skin tingled all over. He reeled forward and Asuma caught him by the shoulder.
“Hey, hey. You alright?”
Tenzō nodded, gazing up at him. He let his fingertips drag over the mark on Asuma’s skin and when the other man shivered, Tenzō shivered, too.
Asuma looped an arm loosely around his shoulders and it was the most natural thing in the world to lean against him. Tenzō closed his eyes and let slip a sigh when Asuma started to comb through his hair with his fingers.
He couldn’t remember feeling so safe, so wanted, so happy ever before in his life.
For a long time they only sat that way, holding each other and basking in how right it felt to do so. Finally Asuma spoke again, his voice strained with emotion.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I came here. I was never sure if I believed in soulmates at all, even when I felt things. I still don’t really know what I want to do about it, except that…”
Tenzō curled his fingers in the collar of Asuma’s shirt, his knuckles pressing against his soul mark. Asuma turned his face into Tenzō’s hair and let out a shaky breath.
“I don’t want to go back to the Temple. I don’t want to be that far away from you anymore. That’s the only thing I’m sure of right now.”
Tenzō could only nod against his chest.
“They told me you need a skin graft,” Asuma said. “I’m going to ask if there’s any way I can be your donor. It might sound stupid but I...I don’t want anyone else’s skin on you. Not...not there .”
Tenzō’s throat tightened against a swell of feeling and an overflow of tears.
“I can’t take the dressing off,” he half-whispered. “They said it could get infected. But if I could, I’d let you see. I’d let you...touch.”
“I’m sorry,” Asuma murmured into his hair, pulling him even closer. “I really didn’t mean to do or say any of this. I had no idea it would feel this way when I met you.”
His heart beat steadily under Tenzō’s hand.
“How does it feel?” Tenzō whispered.
Asuma stroked his hair and sent a delicious tingle all the way down his spine.
“It feels like…it feels like I already love you.”
Tenzō drew back to look at him. Asuma’s eyes were wet and he offered Tenzō a far shakier smile than he’d shown before.
“Let’s be friends,” he said. “Get to know each other. We’ve got plenty of time.”
Love at first sight. It was a fanciful, fairytale concept, along with soulmates themselves. That was what Danzō had taught, or at least tried to teach Tenzō and every other Root soldier. But it didn’t matter one bit what he’d been taught or what he’d believed in before.
Tenzō knew in his heart that he had a future with the man beside him and he couldn’t wait for their journey together to begin. Boldly, he craned upwards and pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of Asuma’s mouth.
“I’d like that very much,” he said.
Asuma’s answering smile lit up Tenzō’s heart.
