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You remember being three years old - or something like that - and staring out the window. Father and son wandered the streets of Konoha, so clearly related no one had to question if they belonged together. You longed for the same.
You remember holding on tightly, your hand in one that’s only slightly bigger, stumbling down the uneven paths. Maybe you were going home, or maybe you were going to the Academy, or maybe you were going to the lake to train; it was always those three and never anything else.
You remember your brother's voice ringing out above your head, sometimes mockingly, sometimes cold, and the person it was directed at. Bushy eyebrows, thick, glossy black hair.
You remember Might Guy, clearly, as if he’s the one you spent your childhood with.
-
You spot them from across the bar: the green of Might Guy’s suit, the red in Kurenai’s dress, Kakashi’s white hair, and the faint smell of smoke that always seems to cling to Asuma.
You’re just a few years apart, but it could be entire worlds instead. You’ve just made Chunin, but they’re already further up the ladder, Jonin and Anbu, and what else there is to achieve.
“What are you looking at?” Your brother asks, tall and imposing on your right. He bought you a celebratory drink, and you know that’s all there is going to be. You will have to leave the place as soon as the glass is empty, because he cherishes his time apart from you a little more than he cherishes you.
You sigh. Maybe you’re a little too hard on him. It’s not easy raising your little sister on your own when you’re not that much older. It’s not easy making it in this world when the war is still a distinct memory in everyone’s head.
“Just…” You shrug. He follows your line of sight and scoffs. “What have you got to do with them?”
“Well, they’re Jonin,” you point out stubbornly. “And… And Anbu. I was just wondering-”
“What you have to do to get to that point?” He scoffs again, his eyes narrowing. You take a hurried gulp of your drink. “Kill all your friends. Should be easy, since you don’t have any.”
“Don’t be mean-”
“Mean? I’m never mean. Am I mean to you?” His eyes are narrow, his glare hard. “I bought you a drink to celebrate. Would a mean person do that?”
“No,” your tongue is heavy in your mouth. “Thank you. I’ll… I’ll be going home now.”
He sighs. “Thought so. Don’t forget to buy groceries on the way back. I want to eat Fish Curry tonight.”
“Sure.” You accept the small amount of money he deems necessary for today’s dinner. You wonder if he’ll allow you to keep your salary, now that you’re Chunin
-
“Need help with that?”
You recognize the voice without ever having shared a conversation, the sound too fitting to belong to anybody else.
You turn. On the other side of the market square, Might Guy collects bags from an elderly woman. She doesn’t look like she’s related to him, or in more need than anyone else around. You wonder if he’s just caring, like that, or if he’s gaining something from it.
The day after, he passes by a gaggle of children, the eldest not yet old enough to attend academy. You suspect he must have had a grueling day, but he stops to play with them for a while, lets one ride on his shoulders and shows another how to properly jump through an obstacle course.
You get home late, but your brothers anger doesn’t quite reach you over the laughter still in your ear.
-
“Can I help you?”
This time it’s you, Guy is talking to. The handle of your bag ripped in two, a daring orange having rolled up to his feet.
“I’m fine,” you insist, filling the bag anew. “I can carry it, still.”
“Sure,” he nods, picking up another orange and the bag of onions that have gotten away. “But you don’t have to.”
That concept alone is so foreign, so daring, that you can’t help but shake your head and laugh.
Guy cocks his head to the side. His hair moves too, the ink-black catching rays of the afternoon sun. You blink. He blinks back.
“What’s so funny?” He asks, and his voice is lower than you thought possible of him.
Your lips are dry and you move to wet them, tongue quick, but not quick enough. Guys eyes flicker down and up again, and something soft and pink and foreign grows on his cheeks, like the first daring flowers in spring.
“Can I-” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Can I walk you home, at least?”
“Oh, no, you shouldn’t,” you tell him, despite wanting to say the opposite. “I’m sure you have work to do.”
“Never too much for you,” he insists, and you want to believe that, desperately so. “B-but, I’m already late,” you remind yourself. “And if my brother would see-”
“Oh,” Guy nods. “He’d be worried, of course, seeing you with a stranger.”
“You’re no stranger, Guy,” you remind him warmly, because he’s never quite been, to you. He’s always been a friend.
He blushes again, looking away. “But I’m afraid I don’t know your name yet. I must have been too busy, didn’t even realize a flower like you made-”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” you wave him off. “I’m just a Chunin, and it’s been very recent, and you’ve had your Jonin exam, I’m sure-”
“Chunin,” he completes his sentence stubbornly, despite your attempt to throw him off, to apologize in his regard. “Have you celebrated properly?”
“We went out to drink, my brother and I,” you say, because it’s the truth and the proper thing to say.
“Ah,” Guy nods. “And your friends?”
You bite your lips. He pales, realizing he’s prodded a tender spot. “I’m sorry. But-” He stands taller now. “Consider me your friend.”
“I shouldn’t,” you try, much too weakly to be taken seriously.
“I insist.” He offers his arm for you to take. “Friend?”
“Friend.”
“Now,” he guides you down the street, not quite the right direction, but it will do for the moment. “Tell me your name? Please?”
-
It is a glorious, expensive secret, that you have.
Pressed flowers and perfumed paper hold a ceremonial knife with your name engraved in it. It’s a present fit for a wife, you think, and you almost dare to dream.
Until your brother returns and you have to hide it well, just as much as your good mood, or the reason why you’re spending more time outside than at home.
The food has to be ready and the laundry has to be done, the floors spotless and shelves free from dust. It’s a lot of work to do on top of training, missions, grocery shopping, and sneaking out.
-
“I always liked your father,” you point out one breezy afternoon, aching back pressed against the firmness of trunk, Guy just a few steps away, his long legs stretched out your way. If you turn your feet like so- your ankles touch. He doesn’t pull away.
“Yeah?” He asks, his voice carrying an emotion you can’t quite name.
“Yeah,” you breathe out, and dare to look his way. “I wanted to have a father like him. One to belong to.”
Guy furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t look like my brother,” you point out. “I don’t even look like my father. Sometimes, when my brother is especially angry with me, he reminds me of that.”
Guys mouth turns into a fine line. “If he’s insinuating-”
“It’s fine,” you shrug, sigh, let it slide down your back as you’ve done before. “I just-” You break off. Guy has slid closer, one hand pressed against the trunk in your back.
“It’s not fine!” He insists. “You’re precious-” You’re not sure who kissed who. But since it cut him off, you’d like to think it was you.
His lips are warm and open against your own, pull back for a terrifying moment, before they come crashing back in.
“Sorry,” you say, later, when your face is pressed against his chest and your heart is trying to find a normal, healthy beat, “I cut you off there, I think.”
Guy laughs, the sound deep and rich, vibrating in his chest and your ears, shaking the foundation your home had been built on. You wonder if your brother feels it too, the crumbling of everything he deemed safe.
- - -
You return home a changed person.
Your brother doesn’t notice until it’s too late.
The packed bags. The rigidness of your spine.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out,” you say, bag heavy on your shoulder. “I’m moving in with Kurenai.”
His confidence falters in the face of yours.
“How-”
“Well,” you take a breath, “she’s got space, a boyfriend she doesn’t want everyone to know about, and I suppose you’d probably try to kill me if I moved in with a guy I’m not yet married to, so… Kurenai.”
“But-”
“But what?” You ask, your voice level and calm. You’re over it. Maybe always have been. “But I need to cook for you? Hand my paycheck over? I appreciate what you did for me. You fed me. You looked after me until I could do it myself. But I’m not your maid. You’ve made it abundantly clear that we might not even be properly related, so I don’t think you’ll have trouble forgetting me.”
“Who-” He falters. You can tell he’s not quite ready to her the answer yet, not quite ready to voice his question.
“I’d love to have a family,” you admit, more to the wall behind his shoulder than to your brother, “but I can accept the loss of it. If anyone asks, we parted amicably.”
- - -
“Tell me,” Guy asks, his arm warm and heavy around your shoulder on the way back to the bar, “how does it feel to be Jonin?”
“Can’t say,” you admit, giggling. “I’m too busy feeling engaged.”
Kakashi fake-gags somewhere behind you as Kurenai loudly laments the pains of loosing her favorite roommate soon.
“Can’t you do a winter wedding?” She asks for the umpteenth time. “It would be such a blast, because nothing great ever happens in winter, and I’d be able to keep you around for six more months.
“My flower of youth-”
“And you could do ice flowers,” Kurenai talks over him, winking at you. “White would look gorgeous on you.”
“I’m more of an impatient bride,” you admit cheekily, relishing in another fake-gag from Kakashi. “So we’re probably not going to go for a winter wedding.”
“Hear that?” Guy boasts. “My bride can’t wait to marry me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Asuma claps a hand on his shoulder and pushes him forward. “But you’re not getting married today. Get your head straight, man.”
“Right,” Guy lifts you over the doorstep of your favorite bar, hollering for everyone to hear. “We’re celebrating a new Jonin! Who wants a drink?!”
-
You know there’s only one reason why you’re waking up in your own bed and not on someone’s bathroom floor, and that reason is named Guy, wears your promise around his ring finger and is probably out training with the rising sun while you try not to throw up last night's party.
Kurenai’s nowhere to be seen. Freshly picked flowers sit on your windowsill, no doubt delivered by Guy on his morning jog.
You put them to the others on your nightstand, the growing, never-ending proof of being wanted, cherished, loved. Looking at them makes you want to ask for his hand all over again.
A knock on your front door pulls you out of your reverie.
It’s both too early and too late in the morning for it to be Guy. He must still be at training.
“Coming!” You call out, and pull a few things from your closet to look at least halfway decent.
Still, when you reach the door, you’re left with nothing but a box, the red-lacquered wood familiar. Back home, most of your belongings had fit in similar boxes.
You’re not quite sure what you expect. Maybe some old stuff you forgot to take, or the severed head of a horse. Definitely not a bottle of your favorite drink and a framed picture of your family, from when there still had been four of you.
You only find the letter after a little digging, the message short.
“I’d love to have a family, but I’ll accept if I lost my chance at it. Congratulations on making Jonin. I knew you could do it.”