Reconsidering Bachelorhood

Break

"Oi, Mizuki, it's your turn to get us dinner."

Mizuki pushed herself off the ground with an exaggerated sigh. "Fine, you lazy bum."

Her response was a kunai whizzing past her head. She chuckled to herself at her teammate's little temper. Mizuki jumped into the trees with the intent to hunt down a few rabbits or spear a few fishes from a nearby river.

After the incident in Kakashi's office, Mizuki was disappointed to admit that she fell into a depressive episode shortly after that. Since he wouldn't give her an answer, she constantly thought about what went wrong. It got so bad that she found herself distracted at work. It wasn't bad enough that she put any of her patients' lives at risk but enough that Tsunade noticed her change in behaviour.

When Tsunade pulled her into her office to talk about her change in behaviour, Mizuki let the dam burst. Tsunade was furious when she heard about Kakashi's actions, so much so that she was ready to pay him a visit. Mizuki frantically begged Tsunade to not do that. Her situation with Kakashi was already bad, she didn't want it to worsen.

It took some time but Tsunade finally relented after seeing how distressed Mizuki was. After some talking, they both agreed that Mizuki needed some time away from the village. Using her status Tsunade managed to have Mizuki assigned to a long-term mission, a job usually done by the current Hokage.

That is how Mizuki ended up here on another mission with Hideo and Kenzou. She had hung out with them on several occasions since their first mission together. She would say that they were good friends so it really helped her get her mind off of what happened back in Konoha. Over their 6 weeks long mission, they had several political figures to escort and guard. It was the last week of their mission and honestly...she felt a lot better.

Of course, there were nights where she would find her thoughts drifting back to Kakashi and his 180 degree change in attitude. After lots of thinking, she found that she wasn't as angry with him as she was in their initial interactions. She didn't know if it was a good idea or not but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe something had happened to him that he wasn't ready to talk about yet. Maybe he was just taking his frustrations out on her because he didn't know what else to do. Whatever the reason may be, she just hoped that when she was back he would be ready to talk to her and fix whatever issues caused this. With only a week left before returning to Konoha, she found that she wasn't anxious whatsoever about the confrontation that was to come. In fact, she was sort of laxed about the whole situation.

She soon returned to camp, her hands filled with a couple rabbits and fish. She walked past Hideo and tossed the bloody animals at his sleeping form. He instantly jumped up and scowled at her.

"What the fuck, Mizu?" He complained. Mizuki doubled over, laughing hysterically. Kenzou, who was tending to their camp fire couldn't help himself and chuckled.

"You put me on hunting duty so you get cooking duty."

"You couldn't have washed it first?"

"Nope." She laughed.

Hideo grumbled all throughout preparing dinner. Kenzou and Mizuki talked quietly among themselves while ignoring their friend. Every now and then they would throw a quip in his direction much to his chagrin. Eventually they were all huddled around the warm fire eating their dinner and enjoying the starry sky.

They chatted easily about what their next week would look like. They were en route to a temple between the capital and Konoha. Every year for a week the monks at the temple would host an event for several political figures from the Fire capital. With so many prominent figures, they hired several squads for protection. Three other teams would meet them at the front of the temple to be updated by the head monk. Hideo and Kenzou told her that nothing usually happens at events like these so hopefully it should be an easy end to their series of missions.