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Danzo dies in his sleep.
There’s no sign of foul play, no injury to his person. It’s as if his body simply...gave up. It’s the perfect death. Exactly as Sai was trained to carry out. It’s funny, for a man who caused him so much pain, Danzo just like any other—dies with not a bang, but a whimper. His death means nothing; it wasn’t sacrificed in battle, it wasn’t given up for someone else. He died alone in a cold bed in the dark. A sad old man with too much bitterness in his heart.
Just as he deserved.
Afterwards, Sai doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He has a plan, of course, because he’s not like Naruto. He can’t leap before looking so easily, he needs his back-up plans to have back-up plans. When he landed back here, alone and exhausted and feeling as though he sat on the very brink of death, he knew in his mind that there was no way back. It took weeks for his heart to accept the fact, however. While he remained a more logical individual, the shell he’d once been caged in had been pulverized by his friends—by Naruto, Sakura….Ino.
He felt. He hurt. He was smart enough to put the pieces together but the very idea only bred denial, left him shaking awake or throwing up on his hands and knees.
So he pushed that aside and settled on what he could do now. He knew everything, of course, having fought in a war that went beyond all wars, having spoken with Sasuke under the stars, with Naruto under a cloudless sky, with Sakura under fluorescent lights and with Ino, with her, his love, with flowers under his palms and her smile tucked into his shoulder. There was Black Zetsu, Kaguya, Madara, Obito —Obito, who reminded Sai of too many things and nothing at all. Of the wistful look in Kakashi’s eyes or the foggy, unseeing look that Naruto would get at the memorial stone.
It was a lot. Almost too much for one man who wasn’t as powerful as his friends. But it was for them that he picked himself up and glued his fractured pieces back together. For them he would try his damndest to give them a life better than the one he came from. The first step was finding out the time period. Before the invasion of Pein their security wasn’t completely up to snuff, therefore it was easy enough to sneak into the village. Even more so considering he was a former Root member and knew all the illegal passages in and out.
There were four stone faces and one Uzumaki Naruto sitting on a swing. It ached a little, to think Sai hadn’t gone far back enough to save his best friend’s parents. But then—would Naruto be the person he was without their deaths? Could Sai have risked saving Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato? How much would change and spiral beyond his control? How much would be better? How much would be worse? Thinking about it left Sai with feelings of discomfort, so he took some measure of relief in that such a decision was taken out of his hands.
Seeing Naruto was painful.
It reminded Sai of the first time they spoke of bonds, when Naruto said that to be a friend was to share pain. Young Naruto can’t be more than five, and he stares into nothing with eyes like an unruly ocean. Alone and motionless on a swing, palms burned red with an unrelenting grip on the bristly ropes.
It also solidified Sai’s desire to make it better. To fix that pain. Yes, he would make it all better—so that Naruto would smile and the other Sai, the young one lost in Root, would grow with friends instead of a wide, gaping void of nothing.
He can save Shin, he can save Naruto, he can let this timeline’s Sai grow loved and happy and marry—
Sai dreams of long, pale blonde hair — pale like moonlight on gold. It slips through his fingers and disappears.
Following Danzo’s death, chaos blossomed in Root. It was everything Sai expected, so it was easy enough to slip into the ranks as another faceless member. He can pretend he was always there. (He can pretend he never left.)
They take him to a Yamanaka. They take everyone there. At least, the ones they believe have hope in returning to the shinobi forces. It’s a serious affair, but that’s exactly what Sai planned. After all, someone just happened to drop files and paper records of almost every atrocity Danzo committed onto the desk of one Nara Shikaku.
(Turns out that Clan shinobi don’t appreciate it when their own children are snatched from under their noses. They can’t believe their own village has been staging the deaths of their children, their clan members, and squirreling them away to be brainwashed and used like common tools.)
It goes well for him, because he knows the Yamanaka Techniques like the back of his hand. He shows them that he knows nothing but Root, nothing but Konoha, but allows glimpses of his art, of his younger self, of the feeling of love being crushed under a boot. He pulls every horrid memory of Danzo’s painful training to the surface, though they remain blurry and mostly sound-based. A trauma response, Ino had called it.
When the Yamanaka pulls away, he looks at Sai for a long moment. He looks tired. He looks a little like Ino.
“I think you’ll be alright.”
No, Sai thinks, I don’t think I will. But he nods anyway.
He realizes he cannot be Sai anymore. They give him papers to craft an identity and two little brothers, one of which is him. Quite honestly, it’s no surprise. To everyone else, they must be related—and Shin would never leave Sai.
It’s stilted and awkward, but he tries his best.
He throws away the name Sai, for there can only be one.
The brush is beautiful and familiar in his hand. He uses it to sign away the person he was before. He becomes the older brother to Sai and Shin. Their names are carefully written like art, Sai with the kanji for color and vividness, Shin with the kanji for heart. Pretty characters, full of life.
When he goes to turn in the paperwork, his younger brothers toddling behind him, the chuunin at the desk squints down at the kanji. “Are you sure?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Well,” the chuunin purses his lips, “Irose is a girl’s name…”
Irose only offers a smile, “It’s just a name, and it’s mine.”
Irose dreams of eyes the color of a frozen sea, fathomless pools uninterrupted by any visible pupils. When he wakes, Sai asks why he’s crying and Shin only looks at him with eyes too old for his body.
They establish a routine. Sai and Shin join the Academy, though in different years. Irose is adamant that they complete their shinobi schooling with children of their age group—children they won’t have to kill at the end of it. The children are young and still innocent, easy to trust with the public because their lack of skill is obvious. He, however, is nearing mid-twenties and is clearly a possible threat. He’s not bitter, because it’s to be expected. A little annoyed, maybe. Every skilled ex-Root member is facing the same treatment. Being watched. Tested.
He isn’t yet cleared for missions, but that suits him well enough. The time allows him to get to know Shin and Sai, allows him to train, to draw, to plan. Obito is a problem. Black Zetsu is a bigger problem. Get rid of him, get rid of Kaguya.
Both of these problems tied together rather nicely into a very not-nice issue.
What to do with the Uchiha Clan.
Having no Danzo meant it was unlikely a massacre would occur, but Irose couldn’t deny the possibility of Obito slaying them all anyway. Those facts were a little fuzzy and incomplete. It hadn’t been relevant information once everything had been said and done, and now Irose wishes he’d pushed a little further.
Irose wishes he’d done a lot of things.
“Wow.”
It’s a murmured word, but Irose hears it all the same. He shifts his pitch black gaze to the side, capturing the murky gray ones of his accidental observer. It’s a man with a plain face and plain coloring—a typical konoha native with possible Senju blood somewhere in him, like half the village at this point. Dark eyes and brown hair, the only interesting thing about his face is the warped scar slashing across his cheek and nose. It looks to be from either fire or acid.
Irose knows him—barely, in passing—from back when he was Sai.
“Oh, sorry, uh, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Raidou says, shifting his posture to stand a little straighter. “You’re really good.”
Irose looks back to his easel, where he’d been in the middle of painting the view of the Konoha skyline. It’s only half-way finished, heavy with wide swaths of blended color reflecting a sunset not yet present. He’d been so into it, he hadn’t even been aware of the man’s approach.
Sloppy.
Then again, Namiashi Raidou is a skilled assassin. Irose would be disappointed if he was able to sense the other man so easily.
“Thank you.” Irose replies easily, not having much else to say.
“I don’t think we’ve met, Uchiha-san. I’m Namiashi Raidou.”
I know, Irose doesn’t say. Then he blinks as the other man’s words repeat themselves in his head. “I’m not an Uchiha…” He halts, considering. “Or rather, I don’t particularly know if I am. Should I consider that a compliment to my looks?”
Raidou clears his throat, “You’re one of the Root rescues.”
Irose presses his lips into the facsimile of a smile. “I’ve chosen the name Irose.”
“Irose, then. Sorry about the confusion.”
He hums, “You’re rather formal. Say, can I paint you?”
Raidou startles, the shift of his weight revealing a clumsiness that’s unexpected. Irose wonders if it’s due to a social aspect of his personality, rather than a physical one.
“Me? What for? I’m not exactly…” A hand gestures to his face.
Irose follows the nervous sort of clumsiness to the man’s movements with veiled interest. Observing the behavior of others still proves beneficial to his learning. He also finds that he likes it—he’s good at it. The picking it out part, maybe not the understanding. “Yes, you’re quite plain.” He says without much inflection and too much honesty, “But your scar is rather beautiful.”
“Beautiful is not a word I’d use.” Raidou replies, the furrow in his brow revealing stress lines by his eyes. He doesn’t look very offended at being called plain, but maybe Irose just can’t see it. (How annoying.)
Irose smiles and thinks of the way Naruto had run his fingers over the seam where the Zetsu arm was connected to his own remaining part, a troubled look in those brilliant eyes. He thinks of the way Kakashi used to stare at his own hands, scarred with lightning, and force them to stop shaking before anyone else noticed. He thinks of the way Ino would trace his scars with slender hands and call him— “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Raidou exhales through his nose, tongue pushing at the inside of his cheek as he contemplates. “One man’s trash, huh?” he mutters. “Sure, why not?”
Sai wrings his hands, nervousness splayed across his pale features. He is just young enough to still feel the entirety of his emotions—he hadn’t needed to relearn them like Irose.
“Everyone else told me not to play with him…” the boy murmurs, shy even after weeks with Irose.
At the kitchen table, Irose glances up from his work. It’s a scroll dripping with seals, the kind of seals you don’t mess with if you don’t mean business. The kind of seals that the average shinobi couldn’t begin to comprehend. He’s always had a passing interest in fuuinjutsu, and he’s extremely dextrous with a brush. It just makes sense. He’s good at it. It’s the best plan he has against Black Zetsu. (But of course, part of him wishes he had Naruto with him. Naruto could save the world a million times over with ease. Naruto had the power and tenacity to beat three superpowered enemies in a row and then face Sasuke for hours. Irose had art skills and focus.)
Irose hums. “Stupidity can be contagious. Try not to hang around insignificant people like that, they’ll only drag you down.”
“You think so?” The six year old asks, tentative in the way young children in unfamiliar situations are. “But everyone says it.”
“Then,” Irose smiles, the not nice kind, “Everyone is stupid. Do not let others pick your opinions for you. Choose your own.”
Naruto barely comes up to Irose’s waist. His eyes are distrustful and there’s a hard set to his soft jaw that belongs to no child. Sai is quiet but seems content to let Naruto ramble. They use up more paper than needed and drip paint along the floors. Irose lets the walls be splashed with color, until Sai’s room is coated in murals and stick figures and beginner’s portraits. He doesn’t mind it, doesn’t even care about the fumes. All he does when he walks into the disaster zone is open the windows.
“Sai said we could, ya know!” Naruto says, a touch too loud and far too defensive.
“Do you think you’re in trouble?”
The blonde squints, “Aren’t I?”
“No,” Irose replies, and he finds himself smiling for no reason at all. “I think I’ll join you. At least one person with talent should participate.”
He keeps smiling through the two boys’ complaints, one more vehement than the other. Later, when Shin returns from training, he adds his own poor rendition of a soaring bird over the sunset sky Sai and Naruto smeared across the far left wall.
Raidou watches him quietly, sweat dripping from his brow. He’s a good man. A good comrade, the kind Irose would trust to guard his back. A skilled assassin, kenjutsu user, shinobi. He’s nothing like anyone Irose knew when he was Sai. It makes it easier, he thinks, to find himself around the other jounin, to train with him, to trade sparing comments and bump elbows when they gulp down water after a workout.
Irose thinks he’s beginning to understand a little bit more about the other man every time they meet. Raidou is clumsy when distracted, loyal, patriotic, the kind of man that possesses a burning will of fire—he’s stuffed full of determination, but it’s carefully contained. Softer. (Not like Naruto.)
It doesn’t hurt as much to be around Raidou and his friends, though it’s only happened a few times. Irose has two kids to look after, so he can’t spend too much time away in bars at night to hang with the other jounin and drink his sorrows away. No, he holds his sorrows close to his heart and pretends he doesn’t feel them eating away at the organ. The mask he wears is impeccable. Every expression is carefully calculated. He’s crafted an armory of falsified smiles.
“Are you free tonight?”
Irose tilts his head, the adrenaline of their spar fading away. He holds in his reply for three seconds too long, just to see Raidou squirm. “Are you asking me on a date?”
The man splutters, the flush on his cheeks patchy and broken due to the twisting scar. “Be serious, will you?”
Serious. Raidou is always so serious. It’s what makes teasing him so fun.
“I am being serious. That’s a very leading question.”
Raidou purses his lips, unamused, though the blush doesn’t yet fade. “I’m not asking you out. I’m asking if you want to come to the bar with me and the others. Around 9.”
Shin is old enough to watch Sai. Irose could go out tonight, if he wanted. The boys will likely be fast asleep, exhausted after a day at the Academy and whatever mischief they get up to on their own. But it feels weird. He can be a chameleon if he wants, can blend in and pretend he’s just another jounin having a good time—it’s what he’s trained to do, or what he was training to do. ...Now that he thinks about it, he never was good at it, was he? In the beginning, Naruto always called him out on fake smiles and lacking emotion.
Always knew.
Every time.
Raidou is not Naruto. The other jounin can’t replace his friends—and maybe they won’t, but it still feels raw. It still feels like betrayal.
“We’ll see.” He replies, preparing to leave.
“It’s just—” Raidou clears his throat, stopping Irose in his tracks. “It’s just that...you’re part of Konoha, you know? Sometimes it feels like you’re so far away from the rest of us, somewhere separate.”
Irose smiles once more, a softness to his mouth that tells of truth, “Thank you, Raidou. But I do have to get back now.”
The other man doesn’t try to stop him when he leaves, but Irose feels those murky gray eyes on his back.
“The Rusty Kunai! 9 o’clock!” Raidou shouts, almost out of hearing range.
Irose does not pause.
Sai is fast asleep before 8:30 comes around, warm and still under his sheets. He doesn’t move a lot, not like Naruto does—the blond always ends up hogging space, limbs spread every which way. He sleeps over sometimes, when he thinks he can get away with it. Irose wants to tell the boy he can come whenever, can stay whenever, forever. But it’s not allowed. Because Naruto is a jinchuuriki and Irose is no one and nobody in the eyes of Konoha. The last thing he wants is a visit from the Sandaime Hokage.
Irose does not trust that man.
Naruto loves him, and had loved him in that other timeline. Irose could understand that, because Naruto was love and sunshine incarnate, with the capacity to forgive that felt unnatural at times.
(All the time, really.)
Bruises and blood can be forgiven in the shinobi war, death less so—and betrayal, never. At least...for most. Naruto forgave sins like it was his job. Irose could only think of his pain and of the pain hundreds of orphans fell to under the reign of the Sandaime, who looked the other way out of misplaced loyalty to an old friend who hated him, and a student who thought him useless.
Living in this time, even with Danzo dead, makes him feel carved out and empty. Hollow like a rotted tree. Sure, there is plenty to be done. People to save, to kill, to seal—wars to be fought and won. But what after? What will he do when all is said and done, when the dust has settled and peace is achieved once more?
Sai will marry Ino. Shin will live and heal and find someone to love. And what of him? What of Irose; who’s heart belongs to a woman who no longer exists, who moves his body forward while his mind remains stagnant, stuck in another time?
“You’re home every night.”
Irose looks up from his scroll, perched on the couch with no intent to sleep. Moonlight spills through the window behind him, highlighting the room in soft, pale silver, fuzzy at the edges where shadows creep in. Shin stands silently at the edge of the light, young and alive.
“I am.” Irose replies carefully. “Are you sick of me?”
The boy shakes his head, “That’s not it. It’s not about me, it’s about you.”
Irose puts the scroll down, folding his long fingers together over his lap. Dark lashes and dark eyes, a wraith in the night time colors. “Sounds a little personal to me. Are you staging an intervention?”
“I think you need friends,” Shin says, “Because you’re so old, maybe not in body, but in your eyes. I can see it in everything that you do. You’re lonely, nii-san. Lonely to the point of pain. You have Sai and I, but that’s not enough. It’s okay that it’s not enough.”
It seems, no matter the timeline, Shin will always be his big brother. “How can you be so sure?”
The faintest smile graces Shin’s lips, eyes soft like sugar-spun ink. “You’re kind, nii-san. Your heart is too big for just us three.”
The Rusty Kunai is louder than Irose would like, the lights yellow and ugly against his pale skin. It makes him look sickly. (Even more so than usual.) It’s busy, jounin and chunin crammed in, elbow to elbow and spilling drinks on each other. Laughing and talking, swelling with life and the kind of joy they clawed their way through the dirt for.
Raidou and his friends sit off to the left, and Irose has to awkwardly weave his way through busy tables and drunken shinobi. The group with Raidou are all shinobi that Irose recognizes; Ebisu, Genma, Gai, Anko, Hayate, Yugao, Izumo, Kotetsu, Asuma and Kurenai. There’s no Kakashi. The man never comes, buried too deeply in ANBU to even see the surface anymore. Genma is the first to see his approach, flushed with drink and the senbon clicking against his teeth. He elbows a laughing Raidou and gestures to Irose.
Murky eyes turn his way, the usual serious expression fuzzy and soft with alcohol, cheeks flushed a disjointed red. Raidou smiles, wider than he would if sober. It’s something different for Irose to catalogue.
So he can make that sort of uninhibited expression too.
“Irooose! You came!”
“Astute observation. I’m surprised you can still make those, with how inebriated you appear to be.” He comments, lips creased in an empty smile. “Space for one more?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Raidou blinks, scooting over in the booth with a complex look on his face. “Wait, did you just insult me?”
“Did I?”
The booth is already pretty crammed, so the jounin press close to each other to make room. None of them seem particularly bothered by this, but Irose isn’t one to feel comfortable with people hanging off him at all times.
(Team 7 was one thing. Ino, another.)
Raidou smells like sweet sake and coconut, his eyes are glazed and bright and this close the bags under them are visible. When he smiles wide it pulls on the scar across his cheekbone and his nose scrunches. It’s weird to see, as Raidou isn’t the type to let loose. Punctual, serious, always on business-mode. Blindingly loyal to a man Irose can’t bring himself to trust. Naruto and Kakashi are the only leaders Irose ever put every piece of himself behind. The only ones he could see himself trusting to lead.
A drink is pushed into his hands.
It tastes bitter, but he swallows it down. Blends in. He doesn’t know why he came. Maybe Shin was wrong, or maybe he just wasn’t ready yet. Raidou is a warm weight at his side, pressing, pressing, pressing—
In the early hours of the morning, Irose is sober and tired. He pulls Raidou alone as the group stumbles down the streets, breaking off towards homes whenever in the relative vicinity. Genma and Anko are a few steps ahead and trying their best to whisper quietly—it’s not working out, because for a pair of drunks, whispering is a level below yelling.
“Do you feel better now?” Raidou slurs, most of his weight on Irose.
Irose considers the question, but can’t find a prompt. “What?”
“Better. Do you feel better?” The man repeats, earnest. “You look like a corpse, I wanted to make you alive again.”
“Are you making fun of me?” He asks, not particularly insulted. There’s nothing to be done about his paleness, he’s used to and the comments that follow.
“No. I don’t know. Stop—Stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“Talking in circles.” The drunk man exclaims. “Be serious!”
Irose hums under his breath, wondering if he needs to smile in a situation like this. “Time is money, right?”
Raidou nods at the words that usually fall from his mouth, “We’re all here for you. Konoha is here for you.”
“Konoha has never been here for me. It’s people who were.” People, who pulled him from the dark. The village never saw him as anything but a weapon, not until Naruto got his hands on it.
The brown-haired man’s lips twist like he’s tasted something sour, the idea of an imperfect Konoha tugging at his blind loyalty. “I don’t get you.”
“How funny, I don’t get you either.”
Genma and Anko break off, leaving Raidou and Irose alone on the street, bathed in grayish light. Within an hour, the sun will rise and bathe the world in hues of pink and gold. He loves the sunrise, loves the first sign of daybreak, when everything is deep blacks and blues, hazy gray and bright lines of rose and yellow. The colors of Team 7. Maybe one day the sight will do more than just torture him with nostalgia.
He hikes Raidou up when the man starts to slip. It’s lucky that he knows where the other man lives.
“Do you love Konoha?” Raidou whispers, and Irose meets those murky eyes and sees himself reflected in them.
“I don’t know,” he replies honestly, hushed under the fluorescent streetlights. “Konoha has never done anything for me. It took my childhood, my emotions, my b—well, it took more than it ever gave me. At least, until I found something else to rely on. A friend. A...lover. People who loved Konoha, who taught me to love it in return. But Danzo haunts my steps, my memories and my decisions. I was nothing and no one, and it was for Konoha.”
Raidou is silent for the rest of the way to his apartment.
In the afternoon, Irose paints a landscape. The village under the moon. He’s probably painted such a scene thousands of times, but the familiarity brings comfort. He doesn’t know why he needs comfort.
His younger brothers had already left for the Academy when he awoke—around lunch was when he pulled himself from the comfort of his sheets. Normally he’s an early riser, but there’s nothing to wake up for. He’s still shaking sleep as he paints, hair messy and eyes heavy. It’s then that he hears a knock at the door. Two solid thuds, the slightest hesitation in the second one. He puts his brush down with a sigh, midnight hues staining his fingertips.
“Ah,” he murmurs upon opening up. “Raidou.”
The man hovers awkwardly outside the apartment door, looking like hell warmed over. Dark bags hang under his bloodshot eyes, the appearance even worse than usual. In his hands is a food container from a store Irose vaguely recognizes.
“Hey.” Raidou says, holding out the box.
Irose stares at it for a second. “Have you gotten the date of my birthday mixed up?”
“What? No. I just thought...last night was a bit awkward. I went too far. It wasn’t fair of me to ask those questions, to—”
“Question my loyalty?”
Raidou shuts his mouth, a flinty look in his murky gray eyes.
“It’s okay.” Irose offers a falsified smile and takes the box. “I suppose I should have expected it. Will that be all?”
“It’s tofu.”
Irose blinks.
Raidou meets his obsidian gaze without flinching. “I remember you said it was your favorite once.”
The box feels far heavier in his hands than it had before. Irose glances down at it, then back up. He feels—he doesn’t know. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just thought...well. I don’t know. Anyway, I have to get going. I have a mission later.” The brunet man shuffles on his feet.
“After last night?” Irose asks absently.
Raidou shrugs. “It was a last minute thing. Can’t do anything about it, and time is money.”
They say their goodbyes, and Irose shuts the door. He stares down at the box in his hands. His stomach rumbles angrily. Ah, that’s right. I haven’t eaten today.
(It’s just tofu.)
It’s just tofu, but he feels his lips pull up into the faintest grin—
He paints her.
The white-blonde hair, pale and shimmering like strands of silver; the casual way it dripped across her shoulders and down her back, a cascading waterfall. Eyes like crystals, like gemstones the shade of the sky. He paints and paints and paints, the loveliest image he could ever possibly craft with his own two hands. Irose has an artist’s memory, an eye for detail, a shinobi’s endurance. He remembers what she looks like even after months and months.
But he’ll forget one day. No, that’s not right—the young Ino running around right now will grow, and he’ll see her, his Ino, in her whenever they pass. It sounds like agony, like torture, like the worst punishment he could inflict on a person. He can’t have this Ino. She’s too young, meant for Sai. She’ll never be like his Ino anyway, not if he can help it.
Irose is going to save the world.
(He paints her.)
She’s beautiful, especially her expressions. Always so honest, too honest. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, flowers in her pockets.
He paints her.
And when he is done, he burns the canvas.
Raidou shows up too often. He does his best to make Irose feel included, digs his fingers into the stone wall Irose has erected around him and pulls, heaving with all his might. Irose doesn’t know why the man tries so hard.
“You like this training ground a lot, huh?” The man asks, strolling through the trees behind him.
Irose continues painting, having sensed the man some time ago. He likes this training ground because it will be the one where Naruto trains to learn Rasenshuriken. He likes this training ground because it was here that he felt himself growing closer to Sakura and Naruto. The canvas doesn’t reflect that. Instead it’s a half finished piece depicting a cluster of trees, the noon sun streaming through the branches.
“It’s peaceful here.” He replies. “Quiet.”
“You don’t like the quiet.”
Irose’s hand pauses. He puts his brush down.
Raidou crouches beside him, smugness in his grin. “So that’s what your surprised face looks like.”
It’s true. It’s not the quiet Irose likes, it’s the memories. And those memories are loud and bright and filled with constant motion—with unending energy. No, he doesn’t like the quiet. He likes the sounds of life. The quiet is too still, too empty, too reminiscent of death.
“Hey,” Raidou says, “Tell me about them.”
Irose feels the faintest smile pull at the corners of his mouth; a true smile, falsities melted away. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. Lately, he doesn’t know what to feel at all when it comes to Raidou.
“They’re dead.” They belong to another time.
Raidou nods, “I know.”
“You’re persistent.” Irose sighs, fingers tracing over the brush. He aches to pick it back up and resume the painting, to escape this. But does he want to? Really?
“If I have to be.”
Irose takes a breath.
He doesn’t give names, and Raidou never asks for them. But the other man listens; among the birdsong and rustling grass and hum of grasshoppers, he listens.
“Irose-nii! Namiashi-san is at the door again!”
Sai’s call rouses him from the daze of his thoughts. Once again he’s before a half-complete painting, squirreled away in his room because the afternoon lighting is particularly exquisite today, blooming across his canvas like an oil spill. It’s a bright piece. A field of flowers and sunlight, pinks and yellows, thorny roses and reaching bluebells. A single man in the middle—him. Though with his back to the observer. Looking away. Looking forward. Happy. It’s a happy painting, he knows it is.
He’s moving again. Everything is. The world around him shifts every day, waiting for no man, not even for him. Definitely not for him. He thinks that might be okay.
To hear Sai raise his voice without care, with all the childish tones that belong to someone of his age—it’s nice. Irose can truly consider the two of them as different people entirely because of it.
Sai’s voice echoes through the air once more, “He brought tofu again!”
A smile unfurls across his pale lips, soft and sweet like the very flowers he’s painted. Irose drops his brushes into the cup of water by the easel. He gets the feeling he won’t be coming back to it for a while, and it wouldn’t do to ruin his brushes.