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Butsuma closes his eyes, leaning back against the stone wall of the onsen.
Not all the way of course, not when Tajima is sitting right there opposite him, but enough to project an air of relaxation and peace.
Which isn't actually happening, for all that they're supposedly here for peace talks.
"That won't work!" Tajima's son slaps at the water impatiently, creating small waves that everyone in the pool can feel. "No one would believe that!"
"I'd believe it!" Hashirama widens his eyes dramatically, the same expression he used to wear when he was ten and begging to go foraging for mushrooms. "Other people would too, if only you'd say it with me!"
"Firstly, no one would believe me if I said anything so stupid." Madara bares his teeth, seemingly ready to breathe fire at any moment. "And secondly, I will never - ever! - put roe on inarizushi! It's disgusting!"
"You're so mean…!" And now Hashirama is crying, of course he is, big fat tears which roll down his cheeks and drop into the steaming water. "You don't like my soup, you don't like my inarizushi, you don't like my ideas for our village..."
"I don't want to lead a shinobi village!" If Madara actually throttles Hashirama, Butsuma will have to intervene, but he thinks they still have a little bit of time before things escalate to that point. "You do it!"
"Boys, boys." Tajima sounds far too amused for someone naked and weaponless in an onsen with two enemies, but Butsuma finds he doesn't mind. "You can bicker about who will lead your village later."
"If you don't actually make a peace treaty which will convince everyone," and Butsuma doesn't bother to hide his emphasis on 'everyone', "then you won't have a village, much less one which sells inarizushi decorated with roe."
"In the shape of both clan mons, no less." Tajima snickers at the idea, and Butsuma bites down on his own lip to hide the smile which is trying to creep onto his face at the sight of the nearly identical pouts which are being directed at them.
Sometimes, it's far too clear why their sons are friends, baffling though it is to everyone else. Still, it's that friendship which has brought them all here tonight, creating a breathing space set apart from the war which is all Butsuma has ever known.
He meets Tajima's eyes across the water, watching the way they spin into the Sharingan, and wonders if this is what peace will be like.
He'll just have to wait and see.