“Tell me what’s bothering you. Ever since you left the office, you’ve been staring at me strangely.” Osamu said, his eyes narrowed and glued to where they were walking. They were strolling around Konoha mainly because Osamu wanted to know what Tsunade talked to Kohana about, and judging from the stolen glances and heavy, overwhelming stares he was getting from his sixteen-year-old female pupil, he wouldn’t take the pleasure of knowing.
Kohana tried to busy herself by looking at each and every passer-by. While doing this, she succeeded in ignoring the looks she was getting from the young men around. To those people she’d either accidentally run into, encountered many times and those whom she’d conversed with for different reasons, she smiled.
“I haven’t been staring at you,” she muttered eventually. Her tone was casual, but it was too casual.
Osamu knew this to be very true; the girl had been troubled for days. It was a surprise that she even managed to get out of the house. The very person who left with Kohana’s entire past self as a child appeared after close to three years and didn’t seem to care about the effect he had on her well-being. If there was a person stronger than how Kohana was being at the moment, he didn’t want to know they existed. He wanted to be proud of his student once again, even if Kohana wasn’t aware of her latest accomplishment.
However, since he believed that Kohana’s pride and her stubborn personality were main factors to her somewhat getting back on her feet, he also strongly believed that these factors were the cause of his current irritation and unease.
“Yes, you have.”
“No, I haven’t!”
“Yes.”
“No, damn it!”
“Yes, I caught you at least more than five times. Out with it.”
The angered look Osamu saw on Kohana’s face caused him to soften. There was still tension between them even after he comforted her. That time when they were eating at Shushuya and he’d accused her for putting all the blame on Sasuke, the red head had walked out on him, almost angrier then the days of training that followed Sasuke’s departure.
“Look if it is something that makes you think will make me angry, it’s okay. You can tell me anything.” He said, using the gentlest voice he had.
For a moment, Kohana was briefly reminded of the time they met. He had that voice with him, and she remembered him by that voice. However, she could tell that as she spent more and more time with him, that gentleness she knew was gradually diminishing.
Kohana wanted to slap herself upon remembering the things that Kakashi told her around two days ago. How come she only noticed these things now? Here she was, beginning to doubt him after all this time and when he began to offer her a little more comfort in opening up to him, she only noticed just how selfish she was being.
She’d never really persisted in asking anything about Osamu. She many things that other people didn’t and would never know, but she never really knew the real things that troubled Osamu. He was a twenty-four-year-old young man who was a little bit too strong for his own good and had next to zero companions. However, she knew that people most probably loved him. She thought this because Sarutobi Hiruzen made it clear that he was worried about Osamu’s well-being—given that he spent more time out of the village, fighting than actually getting to know the people in it.
‘No wonder he’s strong.’
Still, even she was unable to witness the things she had to, as his student. She had a full knowledge of the way Osamu usually acted, the way he talk and most especially the times he would smile.
