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“Do you want any milk? Honey?”
Kakuzu shook his head no and set down the teapot he was holding. The late afternoon sun was shining down on him as he and Fuu sat together underneath a large oak tree, its big summer leaves not enough to block its rays. Between them, on a wooden plank that was serving as their table, sat the teapot and two small floral teacups filled with a steaming-hot sencha brew. Fuu picked up the jar of honey for herself and spooned some into her cup, followed by a hefty pouring of milk.
“Too bad we don’t have any sugar,” she said.
“There’s more extras than tea in your cup as it is, and with the price of sugar these days, we wouldn’t be able to afford a teaspoon.”
Fuu covered her mouth with her hand to hide a chuckle. It had taken her a long time, but she was finally able to tell when Kakuzu was intentionally making a joke (which was never) and when he was just accidentally funny because he was a grumpy old man (which was always). Because now was definitely a “grumpy old man” scenario, she also knew that he wouldn’t take kindly to being laughed at. He wouldn’t snap at her or anything, but he’d probably be embarrassed, and Fuu didn’t want that, not after she worked so hard to put on this afternoon get-together.
Well, “get-together” wasn’t exactly the right word — it was more of a “get-to-know-each-other-gether”. They were together every day, had been ever since she abandoned her team to go with him and Hidan. She wasn’t sure where they were supposed to be taking her, but she was pretty sure now that wherever it was, they weren’t going there anymore.
They had been traveling non stop for a while now. Fuu didn’t know exactly how many days it’d been, but she did know that her legs were sore, and the gentle summer breeze in her hair felt better right now than it had ever felt before. What that meant about her time in Taki wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now, but the realization settled in her gut like a ball of writhing worms that she didn’t really miss the place she’d called home for the past sixteen years.
“Your tea is getting cold.”
Fuu was snapped out of her thoughts by Kakuzu’s gravelly voice. She looked up to thank him and saw that he was mid-sip of his own cup. It took her a moment to realize that if Kakuzu was drinking his tea, that meant his mask was off, and he’d never taken his mask off around her before. Before her eyes could focus on the black lines that marred his cheeks, she immediately turned away, an apology already falling from her lips.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to look — I promise I didn’t see anything!” she stumbled over her words in her attempt to get them out.
Fuu was mortified. She knew that the hand shielding her face wasn’t enough to hide her embarrassment, her cheeks undoubtedly beet red.
His words came after a moment of bemused silence.
“What are you apologizing for? If I didn’t want you to see my face, I wouldn’t have taken my mask off.”
Now it was Fuu’s turn to be confused. With her ears still burning with embarrassment, she turned around and found Kakuzu looking at her. He had set his teacup down, and his hands were folded in his lap, his mask still off. She saw now that the lines going up his cheeks were a row of deep stitches that began at the corners of his mouth. They dug into his skin and pulled it taught, but apart from them, there were no other scars or blemishes on his face. He had full lips and a strong nose and a few wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. Despite his assurance though, Fuu’s gaze still flickered down to her hands holding her cup after a short moment, not out of fear, but out of respect.
“I wear the mask more for others than myself. I doubt the woman at the shop would have sold me this tea set if I came in looking like this.”
Fuu dared another glance up and saw that the corners of his newly bare lips were turned up, just slightly, into what couldn’t be anything other than a smile, and it dawned on her that Kakuzu was…making a joke. The sheer absurdity of the situation made Fuu forget everything that had just occurred in favor of laughing like she hadn’t in weeks. Her belly hurt when she finally got some control over herself, and she was glad that she hadn’t spilled any of her tea in her lap during her fit. As she quieted down, she swore that she heard a grumbling chuckle escape Kakuzu as well, but that would’ve been too much.
“Does that mean that Hidan-san has seen you without your mask too?”
Kakuzu picked up his cup again and took another sip.
“Hidan has seen me without my mask more than anyone else alive.”
Fuu hummed in acknowledgement, letting a quietness fall over them. She listened to the soft chirping of birds overhead as she and Kakuzu sat together in silence. However, more questions sat at the tip of her tongue. She was sitting with someone who was nothing short of a legend back in her home village — there was so much she wanted to know. But where to start? How to start? She could tell that Shibuki got annoyed with her whenever she pestered him for too long, even if he never said as much. She couldn’t imagine how a man like Kakuzu would feel subjected to her questioning.
But then again, Kakuzu was sitting here with her right now, mask off, in dirty pants and a tattered cloak, after having spent almost the last of their money on a china tea set just because she wanted it. That had to count for something.
She spun her cup in her hands as she worked up the courage to give voice to her thoughts, watching as her tea almost spilled over the edge before dipping back down. Underneath her, the grass tickled her bare shins.
“Kakuzu-sensei? Can I ask you something?”
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow.
Well, she might as well start with the basics.
“I’ve been wondering…how old are you, exactly?”
Kakuzu barked out a gruff sound that was halfway similar to a cough.
“Old enough that I don’t care that you asked that question,” he replied. “How old do you think I am?”
Her face heated up under his humored gaze. Without his mask, she was able to see that the lines around his eyes had softened.
“Definitely older than any shinobi I’ve ever met,” she said, and she thought back to the history lessons she’d had at the Academy. “I mean, you were born before the creation of the villages, and you must’ve been at least twenty by the time you…” It only occurred after the words had started to fall from her mouth that a mention of “Hashirama” or “Taki” or “stealing forbidden jutsu and violently giving your body over to flesh-eating monsters” might sour the tentatively good mood. “…Nevermind. Sorry.”
Kakuzu was quiet for a moment. His expression remained unchanged, but his gaze had that far-off quality that Fuu would sometimes see on him late at night after he believed she and Hidan had gone to bed.
She’d always get the same heavy feeling in her heart whenever she watched him, one eye cracked open and head turned to face him from where she laid on her blanket on the other side of camp. He’d sit with one leg pulled up to his chest with his eyes fixed on the sky looking for something, something that Fuu couldn’t name but figured he’d lost a long time ago.
“You apologize too much,” he said finally. “You’ll never get anywhere in this world if you’re so scared of stepping on people’s toes.”
“Oh— ” Fuu was about to say sorry again before she caught herself, “—okay.”
She took a sip of her tea, but it was now only lukewarm, and all the honey had started to settle at the bottom. She took another sip anyway because it was preferable to sitting there and doing nothing. And the honey had been rather expensive too, so it’d be rude to waste it.
“You’re right anyway,” Kakuzu said. Fuu couldn’t help but smile at the unspoken forgiveness in his attempt to continue their conversation. “I was twenty-three when I left the village.”
“Twenty-three,” she echoed.
Twenty-three seemed like a lifetime away. And in a way, for her, it was. She imagined she’d be all grown up by then. She’d be smarter and stronger, and the things that bothered her now wouldn’t bother her anymore because she’d have it all figured out. She’d have everything figured out even if it looked so impossible now.
But that wasn't all she imagined. There were some days where she thought she wouldn’t even make it to twenty-three, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a jinchuriki. And then there were other days, worse days, where she thought of living long past that, but everything would still be the same. She’d be tired and old, and she’d be just as alone as she’d always been.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna,” she said, “but were you scared? When you left, I mean.”
Kakuzu looked down at his hands, mouth tight. The wind blew and rustled the few stray hairs that had escaped from under his head covering. Underneath his cloak, which Fuu had just noticed did not fit him very well, he looked just a little hunched over. She wondered if his bones ever ached, despite the fact that on the outside, his body didn’t age.
“I was terrified.”
Kakuzu the Taki legend was not terrified. Kakuzu the S-rank missing nin, the Akatsuki member, the remorseless bounty hunter was not terrified. But the man sitting in front of her was.
It didn’t feel right to hear such an admission from him. Fuu had opened up and peeled back decades of self-protection like skin on a cadaver, and there was no way to simply sew it back up. His hands were open now, palms up. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him except a confession of her own:
“I am too.”
Her words broke Kakuzu out of his memories. His gaze focused in again, and he watched her as she tapped her fingers against her cup.
“I’ve never taken a chance like this before,” she continued. “Before this, I’ve never even been out of the village.”
It felt like there was a swarm of bees making a nest inside her skull. It was overwhelming. She could feel all the muscles in her shoulders tightening up the way they did when she was about to go into one of her moments. Her breaths were coming quicker, labored. She didn’t notice Kakuzu shift closer, and she flinched when she felt his hand rest on top of her forearm.
She focused on the red polish on his nails, chipped and dirty. She focused on the calluses on his palm, the roughness of his skin, the slightly bulging blue-black veins on the back of his hand, visible as he gently held her. She focused on the thick, bleeding bands of ink that encircled his wrist, the sleeve of his cloak bunched up further along his arm. Time ticked by, and eventually, she felt herself calm down.
“Your cup was shaking,” he said simply.
But even after her breathing had evened out, he didn’t let go.
“Do you ever wish you didn’t leave?”
Her question was drowned out by the sharp call of someone behind them. Fuu turned around and saw Hidan approaching them. His face was flushed like he’d been out in the sun for too long, and he was holding his pike in one hand. Upon seeing the two of them sitting together, he collapsed it and put it back in his cloak.
“Found ya, finally,” he said. “Why’re you all the way out here? I was — never fucking mind. Is that tea?”
She heard Kakuzu’s rumbling voice as he answered, but more than listening to him, she watched him. His face softened as Hidan made his way over to them, belying whatever remark he just made that caused Hidan to roll his eyes. His posture relaxed, just slightly, imperceptibly so if Fuu hadn’t been paying attention, as Hidan lazily plopped down on Kakuzu’s other side.
Hidan reached for the teacup that Kakuzu had placed down earlier and, without even asking, took a sip. He grimaced at the bitterness. Kakuzu’s gaze never left him. His lips had turned up into an easy smile, and had he always looked at Hidan like this? Fuu wondered, and now she had a list of other questions.
“Your mask is off,” Hidan said, meeting his gaze. It would’ve been a simple observation if not for the sheer amount of appreciativeness that Fuu noted in his tone. “Better put it back on, or you’ll give the kid nightmares.”
This time, she saw him laugh. The stitches around Kakuzu’s mouth strained as his cheeks pulled back, like they weren’t used to it, weren’t meant to do it, but that didn’t deter him from doing it anyway. His laugh was deep and rough like his voice, but it was coated in something she couldn’t describe in any way else but warm. Like a campfire. Like a hug. Like sun shining through big leaves.
Hidan responded with a small, restrained grin, but his eyes beamed.
Kakuzu took his cup from Hidan. He started to bring it up to his lips to drink from it himself, but quickly thought better of it and set it down instead.
“I was talking with Fuu before you rudely interrupted. She was trying to ask me a question.”
Kakuzu gave her hand a squeeze in between Hidan’s very loud and very fake indignant reply and asked her to repeat herself. But she didn’t need to.
She squeezed back.
She knew the answer.