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Madara couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when he’d gotten entangled with Hashirama, and such was the truth that served as the cause behind his turbulent headache, gritted teeth, and seemingly perpetual confusion.
When they were but two boys with bruised knees, tousled hair, and achingly soft kimonos that did not match the weight of their deceptively clean battle armor, the flowing stream ran across the expanse of the forest that united them, its liquid blue serenity cascading and spilling over and out into wherever the land took it. The Senju with the tanned skin and gentle smile was the first one to suggest throwing rocks into the open water, the edges of the stones ripping through the azure blanket and yet repairing it all the same. The Uchiha with the blazing red eyes agreed in an eager, prideful act of demonstrating years of carefully honed skill, his fingers wrapping around the rocks' uneven circumference and paving the way for an earned victory.
Yet, in the end, his actions did in fact bring the Senju joy and comfort, for whatever reason that Madara did not know at the time.
Such past times were sorely missed in their entirety as soon as the war came bearing down on the two of them, and with the battles came the realization that the two boys were perhaps destined to be each other’s grim adversaries from the moment their paths were carved into existence. It was simple and cut as clear as a fragmented diamond locked away and set off for a price only the wealthiest of daimyos could afford. Madara belonged to the Uchiha in possession of the Sharingan, with solemn expressions, trained and rigid bodies, and eternally deep souls that knew how to pour out their scars and aspirations through combat alone. The kind and ever-idealistic Hashirama, on the other hand, was taken selfishly by the Senju, with haughty sneers, cruel gazes, and unforgiving blades that did not suit the boy who offered Madara the impossible promise of peace within the world of shinobi.
That foolish suggestion alone should have been the incentive for the Uchiha to decline any further meetings at the endlessly flowing stream. Harmony was but an illusion that tempted the weak with its melodious voice and divinely beautiful robes of ivory. It captivated those who lacked the strength of a warrior’s heart, drawing them into their aureate abode before inevitably ripping through their skin with its sharpened claws that had claimed countless lives. Peace did not exist in such a world, and to think that it ever was an earnest conquest in the first place was false and spun from a tainted delusion. Hands could not be held gently, but merely only bloodied and bruised with the permanent familiarity of war.
Yet Madara did not turn away even when the very chance stood directly in front of him, shrieking for him to escape while it was possible.
He ignored the silent gazes of suspicion that his clan members would sometimes give him if he did not particularly hide the glint within his eyes well—a peculiar gleam that Hashirama had instilled and refused to withdraw. Instead, what Madara had chosen to do was to plant his feet and gaze into Hashirama’s deep mahogany irises as if he was the sole protector of the universe, or perhaps the singular person who held the key to the cage of shrouded hatred and despair that persistently occupied the filthy lands. He had chosen to let himself become captured by the faraway hope that he thought he had suppressed and shattered so long ago.
Years passed, and even as Madara’s armor became battered with experience and his blade stained by crimson Senju blood, it was a cautiously hushed secret that he grew increasingly idealistic. He was being poisoned from the inside, the fangs of delusion sinking deeper into his pale, calloused skin and refusing to let go.
What was perhaps the biggest peril of all was the manner in which Hashirama affected Madara throughout the years. With eyes blooming with radiance and hands that remained gentle despite the grasp of war, the young man had dug his way into Madara’s spirit, engraving his name into the farthest crevices of his soul and leaving his permanent mark. For better or for worse, for whatever reason, it seemed that Madara had the same impact on the Senju man, if the way that Hashirama looked at him said anything regarding his earnest feeling towards him.
With the sway of a hand against his own, their entanglement eventually extended to physical contact, and on a particularly heavy winter night, their lips had brushed against each other and their bodies had reacted in a manner that was wholly unnatural and yet so.. right. Madara recalled the tenacious flickering of the melting candle, as well as the way his frosted tent had become filled with inexplicable warmth that came not from raised temperatures, but from passion that stemmed from mutual desire and need. Obscure whispers and hushed utterances were exchanged in a way that only the two of them could understand, and no one else.
Somehow it made Madara’s heart ache with a weight that was impossibly heavy. It drew his eyes shut every single night, but it kept him from reaching true slumber because the encounter made his mind reel with incomplete streams of conscious and subconscious thoughts. None of it was comprehensible to him, and the truth stirred such frustration that it made him come close to ruining his home with a frenzied roar and a recklessly conjured flame.
He’d never even planned for any of this to happen—to meet that damned Senju boy at the stream between the muddied forest, to become intoxicated by the foolish promise of concord.. to expose himself in the highest level of vulnerability and allow Hashirama to see not just his blatant pride, but also his deeply hidden scars and insecurities and fears: that he had grown attached against all possible odds.
Not a single soul knew it at the time, but from the very moment that they first saw each other within the emerald forest, everything that Madara learned to stand for had crumbled to ashes at Hashirama’s unknowing command.