Sown

six

In the three hours Hanae had been at her farm, the rain had let up momentarily. The droplets pelting her raincoat weren't nearly as heavy as before but they still managed to dribble into her boots and freeze her uncovered hands through and through. She looked down at her fingers, pink with cold and brown with mud, before crouch walking to the row of sweet potatoes to her right and slipping her fingers back into the dirt. Glowing tan lines webbed between the sprouts from her hands.

She held this position for eight seconds before pulling her hands out ; the glimmering trails slipped into each sprout without a sound.

"That's very impressive."

Hanae leapt out of her skin and fell back into the shed behind her. A hollow thump resounded through the building as her heart hammered in her ears.

Kakashi looked down at her with what she could only assume to be a smile, hands stuffed into the pockets of his own raincoat.

She wanted to be happy to finally see him again - she was trying hard to be happy to see him again, but all she could feel was her limbs numbing with the short burst of adrenaline he had just induced. "You -" she squeaked with an accusatory tone.

"Are you worried about your heart?" He chuckled and knelt down beside the now flushed farmer. "I'm sorry, that wasn't very nice. Are you alright?"

"Where have you been?" It was the first thing that popped into her mind, the question that, to her, demanded an answer. Why didn't you visit for so long? What were you doing? Why do I care so much? These questions were present too but Hanae was too occupied with searching his eye for the initial answer.

Kakashi stared back with a quirked eyebrow, admittedly taken aback. He hadn't realized she gave him any thought outside of their interactions, assuming it to be just good customer service and that she was just an honest and forthcoming person, proud enough of her individuality at being a non-native to Konoha that she shared her story with everyone who passed through the doors. "I was in Iwagakure," he responded truthfully. "There was an exam and I helped escort the students."

Hanae looked more confused at his answer and Kakashi could sense a million more questions bubbling into her throat. Of course, she had come from an isolated country with a completely different form military and promotion system. So he settled his back into the barn and began to explain, using his hands at times to expound some points while drawing others in the dirt in front of them. The jounin would find himself falling into the same tone he used back when he was addressed as sensei - indeed it felt like he was giving her a lesson through most of the talk.

Feeling as though every point had been touched upon at least once, he rested his arms against his thighs. "So I had to be out of the country for a while. A lot more people passed than were expected, so we had to take a few extra days to narrow it down." The rain had stopped by now, letting the two sit in cloudy silence as the former samurai absorbed all the information.

After a moment of musing and looking over the messy scribbles in the dirt, Hanae pushed her hand into Kakashi's arm and nearly tipped him over. An ever present smile returned to her face.

"I can't believe you never told me you're a teacher! All this time I thought you were out fighting off other ninja to protect the village," she hopped up and mimicked what she thought a shinobi to do, kicking awkwardly into the air and pantomiming what he could only guess to be throwing shuriken. Her expression was jovial when she looked down to him, realizing what a fool she had made of herself when the man slowly began to break into quiet laughter at her act.

She grasped her hands in embarrassment before joining him, albeit looking to the ground. Feigning anger, but really hiding her blush, she turned to the sprouts, not being able to hide her shoulders shaking with amusement.

Kakashi stood after collecting himself and motioned to the sweet potatoes far enough that she could see his hand. "Now tell me what you were doing before," knowing she liked to talk about the farming that took up most of her life.

"Oh, that's just a trick I thought up after a bit of experimenting." Plunging her fingers into the dampened soil, she sucked in a breath and both of them watched as tan lines of light again wove their way through the row of plants. Hanae pulled her fingers from the ground and turned to him, holding out her hand. "Could I borrow a weapon for a moment?"

He produced a kunai from his thigh holster and handed it to her handle first. She in turn held it out, pressing an open palm to the ring. The dagger was engulfed in chakra with seemingly no effort, blue light stretching half a foot from the tip.

"This is the Samurai Sabre Technique. I'm sure you know the main weapon of the samurai is their blades and chakra flow. We fight by channeling our chakra into our swords and depending on the nature of our chakra we can perform different abilities. We're taught this for at least a year before we can earn our armor." Dispelling the flow of energy, Hanae motioned to the plants. "What I was doing just now is basically the same thing. By flowing my chakra through the roots of my crops, I can increase their growth.

"I only have so much time and land, so to keep up with demand I give the process a little boost with a piece of myself." She handed the kunai back. "It makes the whole thing a little more intimate," she wiggled her shoulders with a suggestive raise of her eyebrows, again embarrassed by the look Kakashi gave her. "I messed up a lot in the beginning ; because the Wind Release runs in my family I ended up slicinging the roots before finally figuring it out. Basically like Chakra Induction Paper."

He nodded with arms crossed. As said before, the process really was impressive. If she had been his student, he would have been quite proud. "So I've been eating little pieces of you every night."

Hanae pushed her hand into his arm again. "Don't say it like that!" She whined shyly, pulling a covered grin from the shinobi.

Today he decided to accompany her on the way back to the village, leaning against the door frame of the work shed reading until she finished 'feeding' her plants. They did not ride Hikoboshi, though, instead walking together. Every once in a while he would point out a landmark or explain what this building was, leading her around the Nara clan's forest which was inaccessible to everyone but the Nara themselves. He condensed the history of Konoha, identifying the figures of Hokage Rock while leaving out his personal connection to the fourth. He waited downstairs while she changed above, reappearing in a black blouse and flowing red skirt underneath her usual black apron.

Taking his eggplant, Kakashi waived and took his leave, looking forward to the sleep he had missed out on.

"You owe me, you know."

He turned back to her with the door handle in his grasp. "Oh? What do I owe you for?"

Hanae held her chin in her hand, lips curling into a amorous smile. "You know so much about me, next time we get to talk about you."

Kakashi replied with a chuckle, slipping through the door and back towards home, every emotion he was feeling anything but positive.

That had been the look for him to keep his distance, a sign he should get no closer. Attachments did not bode him well in the past and as much as the man wanted to believe otherwise, he had a feeling this one would have an end no different than the others.