The village felt warmer after ramen, maybe because my stomach wasn't actively trying to kill me anymore, or maybe because Yukino kept quietly stealing glances at me whenever she thought I wasn't looking. Not that I wasn't paying attention.
Obviously I was.
Konoha buzzed around us as I pushed her wheelchair through the market streets. Shops lined both sides. Fresh fruit. Dango. Flowers. Street food. A merchant loudly yelling about suspiciously cheap cookware.
For once, neither of us had anywhere to be.
"…You know," Yukino said eventually, "I was beginning to forget what outside looked like."
I looked down at her. "That's depressing."
"It is."
"Wow."
She looked mildly offended. "Recovery isn't exactly thrilling."
"…Fair."
I slowed slightly near a market stall selling little carved trinkets. "Want anything?"
She tilted her head. "Are you trying to bribe me because you called me a grumpy old woman?"
"…Potentially."
"Hm."
She pretended to think.
"I'll allow reparations."
"Oh, thank God."
Her lips twitched upward.
Then...
"Oiiii!" a voice called out. "SHIRO!"
Yahiko.
I turned, and there he stood. Bright orange hair and pointing dramatically, like he had personally uncovered a conspiracy. Konan stood beside him carrying groceries. Already looking disappointed.
"YOU WEREN'T LYING!" Yahiko shouted.
People turned.
Immediately.
What is this brat doing?
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Yahiko pointed harder. "You said you were busy!"
His eyes darted between me, Yukino, the wheelchair, back to me.
Then widened dramatically. "…BIG BRO." he paused. "You're on a DATE?!"
Three nearby civilians immediately looked over.
"What??" I turned beet red. "WE ARE NOT!"
Konan blinked once. Then looked at Yukino. Then me. Then the way I was pushing her wheelchair. Then the way we came from and at Ichiraku Ramen, Teuchi was waving.
"…Looks like a date," she said calmly.
Traitor.
"See?!" Yahiko pointed. "Even Konan agrees!"
Yukino quietly looked away. "…Would that be a problem?"
Silence.
I turned slowly.
Very slowly.
"…Yuki."
Her expression remained perfectly calm except for the tiny hint of pink near her cheeks.
Yahiko physically recoiled. "OH MY! It's actually a date!"
"Yahiko," Konan said flatly.
"What?"
"You're yelling."
"…Right."
He leaned closer, then whispered aggressively. "Oh my, it's actually a date..."
"That is somehow worse," I muttered.
Konan sighed softly. Then looked at Yukino. "…It's good to see you outside, Yukino-nee-chan."
Something in Yukino softened. "…Yeah, I'm feeling a bit better now."
"You had us worried."
Yahiko nodded immediately. "Yeah! Shiro looked depressed all week, probably because he couldn't see his girlfriend."
"I'm dangerously close to smacking your head in, Yahiko." I glared at him.
Konan looked at Yukino, and she was looking at me. Konan spoke up. "…We'll leave you two alone."
Bless her.
Yahiko gasped. "You're dismissing me?!"
"Yes."
"But..."
"You're third wheeling."
"…I don't know what that means."
"It means leave."
He pointed at me dramatically. "Fine!"
Then at Yukino. "But if he says anything cool or romantic, report back."
"I hate you," I said.
"No, you don't!" Then he paused and looked at Yukino before he suddenly grinned. "…Good seeing you better and with a smile on you."
"You two as well, I see you're having fun with Shiro every day." Yukino said with a warm smile. "It seems it was the correct choice to bring you along after all."
"Totally!"
Konan dragged Yahiko away before he could ruin the moment.
"Bye lovebirds!" he shouted.
"YAHIKO!"
The idiot waved anyway.
I sighed. "…I'm never recovering from this."
Yukino looked ahead innocently. "…Date, huh?"
I nearly tripped over the wheelchair.
The market remained lively even after Yahiko and Konan disappeared into the crowd. Though unfortunately, their damage lingered. Date. The word refused to leave my head. Mostly because every time I looked down at Yukino, I remembered she'd neither denied it nor corrected them.
Traitor. A very pretty traitor.
I pushed Yukino through the market slowly, careful over every bump in the stone path. The last thing I needed was to accidentally launch her out of the wheelchair because Konoha's civil engineers apparently had personal grudges against smooth roads.
Yukino noticed, of course. She always noticed. "You're being careful," she said.
"I'm always careful."
"You nearly destroyed my courtyard earlier."
"That was controlled care."
"That makes no sense."
"It does if you don't think about it."
She hummed softly, clearly unimpressed.
We passed a small stall selling skewered dango, the sweet smell drifting out beneath a bright little cloth sign. Yukino's gaze stopped on it. I noticed immediately. Of course I did.
"…Dango?" I asked.
She looked away far too quickly. "I didn't say anything."
"You looked."
"I have eyes."
"Very dangerous ones."
She glanced up at me, one brow raised. "Are you implying my Byakugan exists only to locate snacks?"
"I'm implying you have never once failed to notice dango within a hundred-meter radius."
Her lips twitched. "That's called tactical awareness."
"Sure."
"It's an important shinobi skill."
"Locating dango?"
"Morale is vital during war."
I stared at her for a second. Then sighed. "…That argument was actually pretty good."
"I know."
Naturally, we got dango.
I pushed her close to the stall while the old woman running it smiled down at us like she had just stumbled onto something adorable and had every intention of making it our problem.
"Two skewers?" the woman asked.
"Four," Yukino said immediately.
I looked down at her.
She looked up at me, completely calm.
"What?"
"You said four very quickly."
"I'm recovering."
"That is not medical advice."
"Tsunade said I should eat."
"Tsunade probably did not mean four skewers of dango."
"You don't know that."
"Yuki, I'm her student, I think I'd know."
It took her a moment. "...It's a special exception she never taught you about." She said smugly.
Little sweet toothed gremlin... "Fine," I said.
So I paid.
We moved to the side beneath the shade of a tree, and I handed her two skewers while keeping the other two for myself. She accepted them with the kind of satisfaction usually reserved for victorious generals.
For a while, neither of us said anything. We just ate. It was nice. Really nice. Too nice, maybe.
Yukino stared at the dango in her hand, expression softening. "…We used to do this," she said quietly.
I glanced down at her.
"Eat?"
"Walk around after Academy classes," she said. "You'd always pretend you weren't hungry, then steal half of mine."
I frowned. "That sounds false."
"It happened constantly."
"I feel like you're rewriting history."
"You once ate an entire skewer while claiming you were only 'checking if it was poisoned.'"
I paused. "…That sounds like something you'd do."
She laughed softly. The sound hit me straight in the chest.
I tried not to stare.
Failed.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Her cheeks turned faintly pink, but she didn't call me out on it.
Instead, she took another bite and looked toward the road. "…It feels strange."
"What does?"
"Being back out here."
She watched a group of Academy kids run past, laughing about something stupid and pointless and normal.
"I used to complain about training. About classes. About clan meetings." Her voice got quieter. "Now I'd give anything to complain about those things again."
My fingers tightened around the wheelchair handles. I didn't know what to say to that. So I didn't say anything stupid. Miracles happened occasionally. Yukino seemed to appreciate the silence.
We kept moving after finishing the dango, drifting deeper through the market. It was one of those streets with too many little shops crammed together, each trying desperately to grab attention. Painted masks. Wooden toys. Cheap jewelry. Paper fans. Tiny charms with protection seals that probably did nothing but looked convincing enough to sell.
Then Yukino suddenly stopped looking ahead and her gaze fixed on something inside a game stall.
I followed her eyes. Stuffed toys. Rows of them.
Cats.
Dogs.
Frogs.
A few birds.
A weird round thing I couldn't identify and didn't want to.
And near the back, tucked between a lopsided rabbit and a very judgmental-looking tanuki, sat a small white plush with eight tiny legs and blue bead eyes.
A spider.
A very fluffy, very stupid-looking spider.
Yukino stared at it.
I stared at her staring at it.
I sighed. "You want it?"
"Yeah... It's cute."
"In what way..."
"Just is."
I stared at the targets, then at the shuriken and at the stall owner.
Five targets. Three throws. The targets were tiny. The shuriken were dull. The distance was just long enough to be annoying.
A scam.
Obviously.
I respected it a little.
"Three throws?" I asked.
"Three throws," he confirmed.
"And all five targets?"
"All five."
I leaned down toward Yukino. "He's robbing children."
She smiled sweetly. "Win anyway."
I closed my eyes.
Why was I like this?
"Fine."
I paid.
The stall owner handed me three dull shuriken with the confidence of a man who believed he had already won.
Poor guy.
I rolled my shoulder once.
No chakra.
That would be cheating.
Probably.
I weighed the first shuriken. Bad balance. Cheap metal and a bent edge. Honestly, I felt offended just holding it.
I threw it and it clipped the first target, ricocheted off the wooden frame, and knocked the second one down from the side.
The stall owner's smile faltered while Yukino's smile widened.
Second throw, I flicked my wrist and the shuriken spun low, hit the base of the third target, bounced upward, and tapped the fourth just hard enough to tip it backward.
The owner stared as I took the last shuriken.
The fifth target sat alone.
Almost sad.
I glanced at Yukino and she looked ridiculously invested. Like this was the most important battle of the Second Great Ninja War.
I smirked, then threw the shuriken. It struck dead center.
The final target dropped and Yukino clapped softly.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
But her face lit up like I'd just defeated a bijū.
The stall owner looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "…Which prize?"
"The spider," Yukino said immediately.
He handed it over with the pain of a man losing profit.
I passed it to her, and she hugged it instantly, pressed it against her chest with both arms, looking far too pleased with herself.
I stared. "…You really wanted that thing?"
She nodded. "I told you, it's cute."
"Again, how exactly... It has eight legs."
She nodded and adjusted it in her lap, smoothing one little leg carefully. "It's cute, and well..." Her cheeks flushed slightly pink as she looked away. "It kinda reminds me of Shiro."
I looked away before she caught me smiling too much.
Too late.
She caught me.
"You're smiling," she said.
"No."
"You are."
"I'm recovering from robbery."
"You won."
"I still paid."
"For me."
Suddenly I had no good response. "…Yeah," I muttered.
Her fingers tightened around the plush.
She looked away, cheeks faintly rosy. "Thank you, Shiro."
I cleared my throat. "Don't mention it."
We kept roaming about until the market thinned. The noise faded behind us, replaced by the gentler sound of wind moving through trees. The road curved toward the river, where sunlight scattered across the water in long golden streaks.
I pushed her to a quiet spot near the bank.
There was a familiar tree there, its roots twisting down toward the water. We used to sit there after Academy classes sometimes, back when our biggest problems had been homework, Yukino's clan expectations, and Minato somehow making everyone else look bad just by existing.
I parked the wheelchair near the edge, close enough for her to see the river clearly and for a while, we just watched the water. Yukino held the plush spider in her lap while I stood beside her, hands resting on the wheelchair handles.
Quiet.
Not awkward quiet.
The good kind.
The kind where you didn't need to fill it.
Eventually, she kinda whispered my name. "Shiro."
"Hm?"
"Lean closer."
I blinked. "What?"
"I want to tell you something."
Suspicious. Very suspicious. This was Yukino after all, and she looked calm. Too calm. Her spider plush sat innocently in her lap and that somehow made it worse.
Still, I leaned in. Slowly. "What is..."
Soft.
Warm.
Something brushed against my cheek.
I froze.
Completely.
Absolutely.
Brain empty.
Yukino pulled back.
Smiling.
Actually smiling.
Cheeks slightly pink. "...Thank you," she said quietly.
I stared. "...Did you just..."
"You're my hero," she said. "Heroes get kisses on the cheek."
My brain short-circuited.
Entirely.
"You…" I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Nothing.
Words gone.
Vanished.
She giggled.
Actually giggled.
The sound nearly killed me more effectively than Hanzo ever could.
"I'm still here because you didn't give up on me," she said softly. "I'll still be able to chase my dreams because of you. And now, while you're keeping me company, I can't help but think about it again. About how grateful I am to have gotten to know you. I know I keep saying it at this point but... But, you're really my hero."
My chest tightened.
She lowered her gaze to our hands, then, slowly, her fingers brushed mine. Soft. Careful. Like she was afraid I might disappear.
She held my hand.
I must've gone red.
Not slightly red.
Not dignified red.
Catastrophically red.
But her expression changed before I could embarrass myself worse. The smile faded into something serious. Gentle. Steady. "Stop looking down, Shiro."
I stopped breathing for a second. The river moved quietly beside us. The village felt far away. The war felt farther.
I looked at her. Really looked.
Alive.
Recovering.
Still stubborn.
Still here.
In a wheelchair, yes.
Bruised.
Tired.
Still not fully healed.
But here.
And somehow, for the first time since everything happened, it felt like maybe… Maybe I hadn't completely failed. Maybe Shinichi's blood wasn't the only thing I was allowed to remember. Maybe Yukino's smile mattered too.
Maybe saving one person still meant something. Especially when that one person mattered so much.
My fingers tightened slightly around hers. "Yuki…"
Her pale eyes stayed on me. "Look up, Shirokumo," she whispered. "You've been staring at your feet all day. I don't like seeing you like that."
My throat tightened. I wanted to say something cool. Something reassuring. Something heroic. Naturally, I managed absolutely nothing.
She squeezed my hand. "...I'm gonna be fine, so please be fine too."
The words hit harder than they should have. Because I wanted to believe them. God, I wanted to believe them.
I looked away, blinking fast. "Yeah," I muttered, my voice came out rough, too rough. "...Yeah. You are. So, naturally I'll be fine too."
Yukino smiled. She leaned back in the chair, still holding my hand with one hand and the ridiculous spider plush with the other. We stayed there until the sun dipped lower.
Her hand in mine.
And for once since returning from that hellish mission, I let myself look up.