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“Tobirama? Are you awake?”
Tobirama sighed and rolled over in his bed in order to face his brother. Hashirama always had trouble falling asleep, and so oftentimes, he would talk with his brothers at night to tire himself out. The only problem was that Tobirama had no such issues, and tonight, he was exhausted.
“What is it, anija?”
The moon was bright and full, peeking through the window, and so Tobirama could see the outline of his brother’s form across the room as he shifted, hiking his blankets up under his arms and turning around so that he could look at him.
“Have you ever…have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Tobirama could feel his face scrunch up in confusion. He was used to his brother pestering him with annoying questions, but this was new. He was going to let his expression speak for itself until he remembered that Hashirama probably couldn’t see it.
“What kind of stupid question is that?”
“Just answer!”
Tobirama pursed his lips and eyed him suspiciously. “No, just mother when she was alive. Why?”
Hashirama ignored his question.
“Hm. Well have you ever, um, thought about kissing anyone?”
“No.”
Tobirama could see his brother pout, even in the shadowy light, and he heard him sigh. Tobirama frowned and rolled his eyes. That wasn’t his problem. If Hashirama was so dissatisfied with his answers, then he could go ask someone else. Yes, that was a great idea. He could go ask Father or Touka or who-on-earth-cares and let him sleep.
He was about to say as much until that impish urge of childish curiosity wormed its way into his brain.
“Why are you asking so much about kissing, anija? Is there someone you want to kiss?”
“What? No!” Hashirama all but yelled and then immediately shushed himself with a hand over his mouth so as not to wake their father in the other room. He continued, much quieter and more petulant, “I was just wondering is all.”
Tobirama smirked. He would have loved to make his elder brother squirm a bit, but he really was tired. He could feel his eyelids beginning to droop.
“Well if there is someone, just go and do it. That way you’ll stop bothering me about it.”
“…Really?”
“Yes, sure, I don’t care,” Tobirama punctuated each phrase with a rustling of his blankets. “Goodnight, Hashirama.”
If Hashirama said anything in response, Tobirama didn’t hear. The last thing he remembered before sleep overtook him was the light of the moon and the chirp of the August bugs.
The next morning, Hashirama was gone.
It was common for his elder brother to sneak off to the forest sometime after breakfast, but Hashirama had never left this early before. Of the two of them, Tobirama was always the one who woke up first, and so immediately, he began to worry.
Tobirama knew that his brother was meeting with someone — an Uchiha — when he left for the forest every day. He had known for some time already, just about a week after Hashirama began this bizarre routine. His brother wasn’t as sneaky as he liked to think himself, and Tobirama was only grateful that it seemed as if their father hadn’t yet caught on to his son’s treachery. Tobirama had refrained from saying anything to him, mainly due to the tenuous hope that his elder brother would come to his senses and put an end to this thoughtless business himself. It’s been months, though, and that hope had yet to pan out.
Tobirama trusted his brother wholeheartedly and believed him a more capable shinobi than anyone he knew, adults included, but that didn’t stop him from excusing himself from breakfast early in order to head down to the river as quickly as he could. He had to see for himself whether or not Hashirama was truly in danger — it felt wrong otherwise, like a breach of unwitting trust, to possibly get their father involved.
Tobirama, however, didn’t find the hostile group of Uchiha attackers that he had dreaded. He merely found Hashirama sitting alone on the riverbank, lost in thought. His brother looked so peaceful, with his arms around his legs and his chin resting on his knees, and Tobirama felt ashamed for believing his brother to be so careless as to get caught by the enemy. He felt a little guilty too for making it a habit to think the worst of him. Hashirama was by himself right now — perhaps the Uchiha wouldn’t even show up today. Or maybe that’s why Hashirama had left so early, so that he could get there first and tell the Uchiha that for all the fun it had been (Tobirama still couldn’t wrap his head around that), it was time that they stopped seeing each other.
These thoughts calmed Tobirama down, and knowing how rude it was to spy on another, he was going to leave and let his brother enjoy his time by the river. He was just about to get out from the tree he was hiding behind when he heard —
“Madara!”
Tobirama saw his brother’s hand shoot up in the air as he started waving excitedly, getting up from where he had been sitting. He looked across the river and saw another boy — that Uchiha boy — with one hand on his hip and the other at his forehead as he took in Hashirama’s theatrical display.
“You don’t have to wave to me every time like I can’t see you, Hashirama,” the boy said, “it’s not like you aren’t the only person here.”
Tobirama knew that the boy was trying to sound annoyed, but even he heard the amusement threatening to bubble up in his voice.
“I know, but I’m so excited to see you! Do you want to skip stones?”
With his impeccable hearing, Tobirama heard a little choked off sound come from the Uchiha boy, and rudeness be damned, he crouched behind the tree to further hide himself from view and muted his chakra signature.
The two of them “skipped stones” for a while, and then the Uchiha boy crossed the river to come sit next to Hashirama, who had plopped down, cross legged, on the rocks that were lining the shore. At this angle, Tobirama could only see their backs, but he was still able to hear their conversation.
“How long were you waiting for me?” the Uchiha boy (was Madara his name?) asked. Tobirama frowned at that. The two of them had set meeting times?
“Since dawn about,” Hashirama replied.
“Why so early? Practicing another ‘super-special super-secret’ jutsu of yours?”
“No. Well, I mean I did do that, but that’s not why I came out here.”
“So why did you?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed a place to…think.”
Hashirama trailed off, but Tobirama knew that his brother wanted to say something more. Apparently, Madara did too because he asked, “Well? About what?”
Hashirama tensed, and Tobirama saw one of his legs start to bounce. Hashirama looked so nervous, and Tobirama wondered what could possibly be on his brother’s mind that was bothering him so. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his brother so hesitant to speak.
Perhaps Hashirama was going to end their friendship. It was the only thing that Tobirama could think of that would make Hashirama so unwilling to share what was on his mind. His brother was a bit of a people pleaser, and maybe the thought of making Madara upset was holding him back from saying anything. Tobirama had no such qualms, though, and he wished that Hashirama would hurry up and spit out whatever teary-eyed speech he had undoubtedly been mulling over.
“Madara, have you, um…” Hashirama trailed off again, and Tobirama saw his hand come up to run through his hair, scratch his arm, rub his neck. He took a deep breath. “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
What?!
“What?”
“No need to answer!” he added quickly with a small, half-hearted, and so obviously forced laugh. “I was just curious since it’s a pretty common thing for people to do, and it got me wondering if you had because…” Hashirama stiffened at his own words. “Anyway. I haven’t, if you were gonna ask — kissed anyone, I mean.”
“No.”
Hashirama turned outwards to face him, and now Tobirama could see how awfully he was wringing his hands. He wondered if he was picking at his nails too, such a terrible habit that he’d been trying to break for years. His voice was halting as he spoke again.
“No like you weren’t gonna ask, or —”
“No, I’ve never kissed anyone before.”
“Oh.”
Tobirama watched as his brother’s gaze flickered between Madara and absolutely anywhere else, eventually settling on a patch of grass by his knees. Madara turned to face him, and even without looking up, Hashirama began to flush. His cheeks turned a deep cherry red.
The silence was absolute torture.
“That’s cool,” Hashirama said after an agonizingly long while, still not looking up. “And, you know, I was just thinking, seeing as how I’ve never kissed anyone before, and you also haven’t kissed anyone…”
“Hashirama.”
Madara put his hand on Hashirama’s knee, and Hashirama positively jumped out of his skin. He flushed an even darker shade of red, and Tobirama wasn’t even aware that humans could be that color. To his brother’s great credit, though, and even greater stupidity, he wrenched his gaze away from that hand and looked Madara in the eye. Madara was smiling.
“Is this your way of saying that you want to kiss me?”
Hashirama in turn flashed one of his big, beaming, brighter-than-the-sun smiles and covered Madara’s hand on his knee with his own, only slightly shaky one.
“And if it was?”
It was Madara’s turn to blush, and Tobirama had to look away, suddenly feeling sick.
This wasn’t happening. This absolutely, positively was not happening. His big brother was not about to kiss this owlish looking Uchiha boy who he met with — every day — by the river. It was almost inconceivable, if not for the fact that it was about to happen right in front of his eyes.
How long had this thought been in his brother’s treasonous mind? How many days, weeks, had he spent imagining smooching the enemy, while Tobirama slept next to him not a few feet away, blissfully unaware? It was betrayal to the highest degree.
They were leaning in now, and Tobirama’s stomach did flips inside his body. Had Hashirama even considered the consequences that would come from this? If, all gods forbid, Father was to find out? It would mean exile for him, ruin for the family name, scandal among the entirety of the Senju! How would Tobirama live with an exile of an older brother?
His hand was on his shoulder. His head was tilted to the side. Tobirama bit his thumb to keep from screaming out. They had to stop! He shut his eyes tight. He couldn’t watch. This was the end of the world. They had to —
“Wait!”
Tobirama cracked open one eye and saw his brother and the Uchiha boy inches away from each other. Hashirama’s eyes were wide, nervous and confused. Madara’s were harder to describe, but panicked might’ve been the right word. They stared at each other in silence for a few beats more.
“Wait,” Madara repeated, calmer, quieter, and for the first time in his life, Tobirama was grateful to an Uchiha.
“What’s wrong?” Hashirama asked, hand still on his shoulder, but now more hovering than holding, ready to let go if Madara said the word.
Tobirama saw Madara swallow, and he braced himself.
“Are you sure this is…allowed?” he finally asked, looking like it had taken all the courage he had left in him to drag the words out of himself.
Tobirama exhaled, relief washing over him like a warm, gentle wave. At least somebody had a modicum of sense in this situation. Tobirama knew that the two of them must never speak about it, but whether they said it out loud or not, they had to be both painfully aware of their families, their clans. The Senju and Uchiha could never be friends, and at least one of them was thinking larger than just the person in front of them, aware of that fact.
“I mean,” Madara continued, face red, “we’re both boys.”
Nevermind.
Hashirama’s eyes softened and he let out a small laugh. His hand squeezed Madara’s shoulder gently, and Tobirama wanted to scream.
“How about this,” Hashirama said after a while, a small smile gracing his features, “when we both close our eyes, you pretend that I’m a girl, and I pretend that you’re a girl, and that way, we’re both kissing girls.”
And that was the last straw for him. Seeing as how there was nothing that he could do about this situation besides witness it, horrified, Tobirama quietly emerged from his hiding place in order to sneak off home. Father might get suspicious if the both of them were missing for too long, and this was absolutely the worst position either of them could be caught in. Tobirama left without finding out whether his idiotic brother’s idiotic idea worked.
From the idiotic look on his face when he finally showed up for dinner, it probably had.
Tobirama and his father had been eating for about twenty minutes or so before Hashirama arrived, the empty cushion at the table burning a deeper hole into Tobirama’s side every minute it went unfilled. The atmosphere was crushing. He did his best to fix his eyes on his food, the lines on his fish suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, in order to keep from constantly glancing at the door that Hashirama still hadn’t come through. By some miracle, his father didn’t ask him if he knew where his brother was out so late. Tobirama didn’t think he could’ve lied if he had.
When Hashirama did arrive, Tobirama felt a rush of air leave his lungs that he didn’t know he’d been holding in. The relief was short-lived, though, once he took in his expression. There was a wide, dumb smile plastered to his face, and though his eyes were open, Tobirama knew that his brother wasn’t actually seeing anything in front of him, including their father’s irritated scowl.
“Nice of you to finally join us, Hashirama,” he said, tone icy. “Would you like to tell us where you’ve been?”
Hashirama sat down without answering, happy expression unchanged. It was only after Tobirama elbowed him in the ribs underneath the table that he half-mindedly replied, “Just out!”
More confused than affronted, their father went back to his food.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
The rest of the dinner, thankfully, continued without another word.
The moon was high in the sky when Tobirama finally unrolled his bedsheets and slipped under the covers.
Despite the events of the day, or perhaps because of them, Tobirama wanted nothing more than for sleep to claim him the moment his head hit his pillow. He pulled his blanket up to his chin and shut his eyes tight and listened to the soft buzzing sound of the insects through the open window.
Then he heard Hashirama shift.
“Tobirama? Have you ever been in love?”
Gods above.