The impromptu ANBU mission ended for Yumetsuki the following morning when they arrived in Konohagakure but all throughout their remaining journey back, she had noticed that Kakashi was extraordinarily tired – which she could blame on the fact that he had not woken anyone up for the nightly duty and not even Yumetsuki, who had slept curled up in his arms the entire night through.
"It was a long mission," Yumetsuki said as she turned around the moment that they entered the village gates to look at the three males with her. "I will head forward to the Hokage to debrief him about the situation. The rest of you may head home for rest," She glanced at Kakashi pointedly at it.
"Alright, alright," Kakashi said, holding his hands up and smiling at her. "You're the boss of me, Yuren-Chan, I'll trust you to take it to Hokage-Sama. Let me know what he says, right?"
"Of course," Yumetsuki replied. "I will do that... I am sure that Hokage-Sama is aware of what happened in the Land of Frost with the letter we sent ahead of us,"
"You're always so diligent, aren't you, Yuren-Chan?" Kakashi asked with a smile that was apparent even through the mask that he wore.
Itachi looked at the pair of them curiously as they interacted with each other, especially the sight he thought he had initially believed to be a dream had turned out to be reality when he found his squad leader and Yumetsuki together. He had questioned himself throughout the journey if they were...
Shaking his head, Itachi put the thought out of his head. Yet he wondered if Yumetsuki would admit it if he asked. And he wondered what that name meant, Yuren-Chan, and why Kakashi used it.
"Yes, I will go home, too," Itachi said when Yumetsuki looked toward him, even though he wished that he would have gotten the chance to be alone with her.
There was a lot that Itachi still wanted to talk to Yumetsuki about – their conversation was still wide open. She appeared, to him, the only person that he could talk to and not feel judged. This level of freedom was terrifying for Itachi, who had never felt this way even with Shisui.
Of course, there were things that he could not even tell her, like the way the Uchiha's dislike for Konohagakure was increasing day by day and the secret meetings being held. But Itachi felt like he and Yumetsuki could relate to each other – they had the same set of ideals.
"I will come with you," Sugaru said, diverting from the other two, who both found their expressions stilling at the thought of the Aburame male going with Yumetsuki. "I have to discuss something,"
Yumetsuki seemed unfazed, however, as she nodded at Sugaru before the two of them set off toward the direction of the Hokage's Office, leaving Kakashi and Itachi to head to their homes. Sugaru did not say anything even as they reached the office nor as Yumetsuki debriefed Hiruzen.
"I see, I received your letter in regards to the situation," Hiruzen said as he locked his hands together. "Things will continue to escalate. I want you to handle the rest, Yumeko-Kun, as the surrounding lands begin to interfere,"
"Yes, Sensei," Yumetsuki replied, bowing deeply, knowing that she will have to make several out-of-country visits by herself and with Hiruzen. "I work to the best of my ability,"
"Would it wise to give all this work to Yuki-San?" spoke up Sugaru at last, catching their attention, utilising his insect-based voice to speak.
"Of course," Hiruzen responded. Yumetsuki remained silent. "Yumeko-Kun here is very well-versed in politics and has brilliant grasp and years of experience in handling important assignments,"
"What I mean is that Yuki-San here has herself caused a lot of trouble," Sugaru said. "Being from Kirigakure, is there ever a chance that those from the North have not come barrelling for her?"
"Has Yumeko-Kun ever let any of that hurt Konoha?" questioned Hiruzen a bit coolly. Sugaru remained silent. "Never – and that is why I am certain that she will do well,"
There was no way to see what Sugaru was feeling as he was still wearing his
It had been surprisingly for Yumetsuki to hear Sugaru speak about her like this so suddenly and even though she let it go and did not talk to him about it, she still knew that she would have to keep her guard up in case he attempted something. Yumetsuki didn't have time to argue with people.
Aburame Yoji, or Sugaru as he went by now, was not someone new to Yumetsuki even on this mission. She had met him before when she had first started working on traumatic injuries and had stitched his throat for him when his father had attacked him. Yet it seemed like Yoji was not a fan of her, and Yumetsuki never admitted knowing him in front of others either.
With Naruto gone to the Ninja Academy by the time she had returned home, Yumetsuki cleaned up everything and listened to Amaterasu, her Summon Fox as she explained everything that had occurred while the young woman had been away, including any and all of those who visited her.
"Shisui-Kun stopped by?" Yumetsuki asked, pleasantly surprised, stopping mid-cooking as she looked toward her Summon. Amaterasu nodded. "Did he mention why he came by?"
"No," Amaterasu replied. "He inquired your whereabouts, checked on Naruto while he slept and left soon after. He had mentioned that he would visit again soon,"
Shisui was not the kind of person who would stop by so suddenly and unexpectedly, yet Yumetsuki found that he was doing that more and more often recently. And it was starting to concern her. She sighed softly, wondering if his loving, sensitive self was taking the life of Shinobi hard as he grew.
As afternoon rolled around, Yumetsuki had already cooked lunch and taken a quick nap before she headed out to the village, hoping to stop by Kakashi's apartment before dropping Naruto's lunch.
Kakashi himself came to open his front door, yawning and rubbing his eye but he perked up at the sight of Yumetsuki, swinging the door wide to its fullest capacity to let her in.
"It is good to see that you have gotten some rest," Yumetsuki acknowledged, taking a look at him.
Just as expected, Kakashi had come straight home, taking off his guards and just threw himself into his bed. Yumetsuki was used to this side of his and was no longer shy about it. But even then, it was only Kakashi with whom Yumetsuki felt this comfortable, not anyone else.
"I wasn't expecting you to drop by, Yuren-Chan," Kakashi said as he closed the door behind her. He was unmasked, clearly just awoken and smiling happily. "Everything good?"
"Everything is good," Yumetsuki confirmed before holding up a Bento wrapped reminiscent of rabbit ears with a Furoshiki cloth patterned with snow flowers. "I bought you some lunch,"
If he had been smiling happily before, Kakashi was over the moon now as he took the lunch from her earnestly, inviting her to spend some time with him so that they could discuss what Hiruzen had said. But Yumetsuki felt like it would a damper on his mood and politely declined.
"Kakashi-Kun, I appreciate the offer," Yumetsuki said. "But I will have to decline on this insistence... I stopped by on my way to the Academy. I have Naruto's lunch with me,"
There was nothing more disappointing for Kakashi than not getting the chance to spend his entire day, every conscious and unconscious moment with Yumetsuki. Yet he could force her to stay bac, given that Yumetsuki wanted to be a good godmother to Naruto so he let it go without an issue.
And in the same insistence, Kakashi began to reconsider his desire to have children with Yumetsuki if they were ever to get married. He didn't want to share her with anyone anymore. Kakashi sighed as he waved Yumetsuki good bye – he needed to stop with this wishful thinking if he wasn't going to man up and ask her out.
Yet there was still that fear within him that Yumetsuki may not think of him as someone she loved romantically, someone with whom she wanted to interconnect her fate, someone with whom she would leave her loneliness so they could live together as one.
The truth was that Kakashi couldn't see himself falling in graces in her eyes. He couldn't bear to think about losing her even if she were to only remain his friend for their entire lives.
Kakashi wished to be the one blessed with being able to spend the rest of his life in the shade of her silver body, staring at her rosebud lips as her sweet voice flowed through his ears and her dainty, cool fingers gently threading themselves through his hair like that one evening he spent with her.
Maybe he will regret being like this one day but right now, Kakashi knew that he had no choice. He turned to look at the lovingly packed bento on his table.
Lunch break had just started as Yumetsuki walked up to the Ninja Academy, and most of the children strayed away from her on the sight of her, some watching her curiously from afar and others starting to tear up, crying about having seen the Yuki-Onna and that she would kill them.
Yumetsuki felt awkward, knowing that her unfamiliar features, tall height and long hair did not do her well, even if they were not black. And it did not help that she was inhumanely pale and her choice of clothing was predominately white, resembling the Kimono. They all avoided looking at her strange eyes, fearful that she would strike them down for daring to do so.
It was a shame because Yumetsuki loved children. She loved caring for them. She loved seeing the love and hope in their big eyes. She loved seeing them get to experience the life that she was never given. Maybe one day, she would bear her own child that would resemble her to such a degree that she would never feel lonely. But the thought of bringing life into this cruel world terrified her just as much.
Maybe that is why most people pair up to have children?
Seldom do people have the strength to do it alone.
Where do I count in them as I raise Naruto-Chan?
He is not born of my body but I love him alone as if he was.
But even then, Yumetsuki kept herself composed as she entered the building, making her way down to where she knew Naruto's class was located to find that he was getting scolded for pulling pranks while the rest of his classmates were having lunch or heading outside.
"You can't just leave the classroom on your own will, Naruto!" scolded Umino Iruka. "And to go out and mess up with the upperclassmen's projects! You're staying in for lunch!"
"It's not like I've got lunch today anyway!" responded Naruto, huffing and crossing his arms as he looked away from his teacher, only to find his eyes falling on – "Meiko-Chan!"
Spinning around with the students, Iruka saw the tall, beautiful young woman standing in the doorway with a cute frog-patterned Furoshiki-bound bento-box in her hands, watching the scene unfold as Naruto rushed forward toward her, wrapping his arms around her legs excitedly.
"Yuki-San," spoke Iruka, quickly fixing himself up and trying to smile. "I wasn't aware you were stopping by," Naruto rolled his eyes at him being cordial all of a sudden. "Is everything fine?"
"I dropped in to give Naruto-Chan his lunch," Yumetsuki answered calmly. "I hope you will excuse my unexpected visit. I was out of the village," She looked down at her godson. "It is not good to give your Sensei trouble, Naruto-Chan. We will talk about it at home tonight,"
Scolding Naruto in front of his classmates was not something that Yumetsuki found fair for her godson so she let it go for now, passing him the lunch that she had made for him.
"Thank you," Naruto muttered, happy for the lunch and unhappy for the upcoming conversation.
Iruka attempted to talk to Yumetsuki, offering for them to go to the teacher's lounge but Naruto noticed that smile and blush on his face, quickly jumping into action and pestering Iruka so that he wouldn't take to his godmother and that Yumetsuki would leave, which is exactly how it went.
"Naruto will be taking in late for his punishment this evening," Iruka summarised, deciding to give up the conversation. "Would you like me to personally escort him home?"
"I can go home by myself!" exclaimed Naruto, irritated at his unrelenting kindness... and the desire to see the boy's godmother. "Stop trying to follow me home!"
"Thank you but I will come pick Naruto-Chan up myself," Yumetsuki replied. "Now... I will be taking my leave. I apologise on his behalf. I will try to teach him better,"
"Oh, I'm sure you're a wonderful mother figure for him," Iruka said eagerly. Naruto rolled his eyes. "I will try to teach him better as well," He flushed beet-red. "I mean, as his Sensei,"
"Thank you, Umino-San," Yumetsuki replied, bowing her head lightly. "I will see you in the evening,"
"... when she comes to get me," Naruto told Iruka, trying to squish the fantasies he was making up in his head if his expression was to be trusted. "Not to meet you!"
Yumetsuki glanced around Naruto's classroom, noticing more than a dozen children that she had helped in delivering during her year-long tenure as a midwife assistant at the hospital. There were some cases where she was not present, such as of Uchiha Sasuke, who had been born at home and no midwife had been requested from the hospital, unlike with Hyuga Hinata.
Even now, Hinata seemed to recognise her because she looked away from her shyly and Yumetsuki held back a smile. Not far from her, Sasuke was looking at her curiously – compared to his elder brother's, his curiosity was much more innocent and childlike. Itachi was more bothered, mature in his pursuit of ideals from her.
Now that there was nothing else for her to do, Yumetsuki left the Ninja Academy and headed toward the Konoha Hospital instead, hoping to go over the things that she had left behind.
There was not much to do aside from checking on some patients and Yumetsuki felt truly bored with having nothing to do as she returned back home. Kurenai's mother informed her that the girl was gone on a mission herself, and there was no way that Yumetsuki wanted to disturb Kakashi again.
It was the first time that Yumetsuki had gotten some time off so she decided that she would sit on her little home's engawa where the Spring's sweet and flowering trees provided her with a cool shade as she began to finish the embroidery that she had begun recently on her Haori.
Yumetsuki had found herself so engrossed in her needlework that she did not hear the quiet footsteps walking up to her and was a bit startled when someone sat down near her.
"Shisui-Kun!" spoke Yumetsuki, holding onto her chest and setting down the needle. "You surprised me! I did not hear you coming, I apologise, I was concentrating..."
"It's fine, Yumeko-Chan," Shisui assured her quickly. "I should've made you aware of my arrival,"
When Yumetsuki looked at him, Shisui was smiling at her, dressed in his casual Ninja costume and sitting on the edge of the engawa. That smile was just as his were these days – a hint of happiness but drowning in sadness. It pained Yumetsuki to see him this way.
"I've been meaning to see you for so long but we've both been busy, huh?" commented Shisui. "There's no one else in this world you can understand me the way you do, Yumeko-Chan, you know that?" He smiled sadly. "You're such a wonderful person,"
"Is something going on with you, Shisui-Kun?" Yumetsuki asked gently and worriedly upon his words. "You have been rather... tense lately. You do know that I worry about you as well, right?"
"Of course," Shisui replied, smiling wider at her. "You're the only one who truly cares about me. Without any expectations and without any judgement. But I wonder what you'll think of me..."
"... after what?" Yumetsuki asked as she reached out to place a hand on his shoulder.
"Have I ever told you about how I got my Mangekyou Sharingan?" Shisui asked, no longer finding the strength to maintain an eye contact with her.
"No, you have not," Yumetsuki replied softly. "Would you like to share it with me today?"
"It was a little before I met you," Shisui said with a flat voice. Yumetsuki couldn't see the look on his face. "I met a boy at the academy I could call a friend. He fought alongside me after I first became a Genin too, on the same team. Back then, he was my best friend – we really trusted each other... but ..." He fell silent for a moment. "That didn't last for even a year,"
This person and his story were new to Yumetsuki, and she was not only talking about the friend. She could not recognise the person who sat in front of her, her own student and her own friend. Yuki Yumetsuki could not recognise Uchiha Shisui anymore.
"This was right after the war ended," Shisui continued. "I'm sure you knew how much... you were in the thick of it. For us, we were in the middle of a mission with a few other teams to clean up after the war, and we ended up by ourselves in another land. Our luck was bad. We ran into more enemies than we could handle. We were staring right at death.
"Fortunately, some of the comrades we got separated from found us. They saved me, but my friend was slow to run. If I had just reached out to him, he wouldn't have had to die,"
If it was something that one was hearing from a stranger, it would've sounded as if Shisui had been quite close by when his friend was killed. The difference between life and death was determined by a slight difference in luck, and that bit of luck had divided the two boys.
That was a circumstance that Yumetsuki had heard and seen a lot during her time in war, whether that was before she came to Konohagakure or after she became a Ninja.
It definitely hadn't been his fault. But Shisui seemed to regret his friend's death as if it were a crime he had committed. Yumetsuki had an inkling that was starting to itch at her chest as she processed this, "Would it be right if I were to say it was not... your fault?"
"No, you'll be wrong," Shisui replied. "I envied that friend. He was blessed with more talent than me. I was jealous of him, always running out in front of me. So that time, I could have reached out my hand. But I deliberately didn't ... I killed him,"
As those words left his mouth, the darkness that slept in his heart, Shisui had unleashed his anguish into the world, and just as much into Yumetsuki's life as it had plagued his own life with this scar. Yumetsuki could see his eyes becoming glossy.
"For several months, I was completely destroyed by the fact that I killed him," Shisui admitted. "My friend's death gave me a new power. That was the Mangekyou Sharingan. Yet I couldn't even use it, cursed by the hatred... that is until I saw you for the first time, Yumetsuki-Chan. The sight of you... it opened my eyes,"
If Yumetsuki had any idea where this was going before, she did not know anything now. Shisui had never called her by her full name, and he had never admitted that she had been of any help to him before they had met. All of this was starting to make her feeling uncertain.
"... I wanted to be around you, Yumeko-Chan," whispered Shisui. "I felt like... no, I knew it... that you were the only one who could help me feel like myself again. Whenever I was with you, I felt normal, as if I have never been marred by the cruel destiny that awaits us,"
"What are you trying to say, Shisui-Kun?" Yumetsuki asked. She found herself meeting eyes with the young boy in concern. "You... why are you crying, Shisui-Kun?"
Upon this observation from her, Shisui's dark eyes seemed shocked to realise this, thick tears rolling down his flushed cheeks as he stared at Yumetsuki. He swallowed his breath, "Yumetsuki... Yumetsuki... I'm in love with you,"
Those words took forever to reach Yumetsuki's ears and even longer to register in her head as she turned her head around in an instant to stare at Shisui, as if seeing his face would tell her that all of this was just a hallucination and the younger boy had not said this to her.
A strange atmosphere was brewing between the two of them, his body was growing more and more rigid, and the moment that Shisui found himself looking into those luminous blue eyes of Yumetsuki, every single bubble inside of his body popped, and before even he realised the nerve of himself, he found himself reaching for the older girl in desperation –
Yumetsuki felt hands grasp onto her shoulders from such force that she fell backward, onto the engawa and at the same time, without missing single beat, there were a pair of lips pressing against her own, the foreign taste taking her completely by surprise.
Shisui felt all the stress that had manifested within himself release with the touch of his lips against hers, and at the same time, the tears on his cheeks renewed as he let out a gasp of emotion as he fell into Yumetsuki's arms, crying against her shoulder as he realised what had happened.
"I have always been so selfish!" sobbed Shisui. "Ever since I was born, I have been so selfish! I felt so selfish that day... and now I feel so similarly selfish toward you – I can't live without you... I... I want to live with you within me, Yumetsuki... Chan..."
❄️