logs | d | a december catchall (open & closed)

[Honestly… it is better she has this mental imagine, however brief, going into this specifically. Because it isn’t incorrect.

He stands there for a long stretch of time without moving or saying anything, and then he slowly raises his left hand, turning it over, palm up. While he has a full glove on the right, his left hand has only the sweep of a collar of clothing along the back near the wrist. The pale skin is open and bare to the world.

Then suddenly, without warning, the flesh begins to shift and twist. Out of the skin comes a putrid, cankered face—two eyes, a nose, a mouth with few teeth. Wrinkled, craggily. The voice that comes out of the mouth is croaking and old, but entirely more jovial than D’s own. It laughs—cackles even. Smiles wide, amused.]

Oh, she IS a looker! [it says.] Boy, you out-did yourself this time, D! Pleased to meet you, and don’t worry! The pleasure is all mine! Wow, not really ever used to getting introductions… Uh. Left Hand! No, no, Lefty. Would love to hear a good-looking woman like you call me Lefty!

[D truly does not say anything. Daddy might have been no big deal. But this thing? May change her mind.

Sorry to Sakura who does not deserve this.]

（ well. ）

（ that's

sure a thing.

sakura stares at the hand for a moment, just. completely blank. her expression and emotional response entirely on lockdown. finally, she opens her mouth like she's about to speak. closes it again.

she's certainly not the shallow child she was as a girl, so she's not going to shriek and/or immediately try to punch... it? — but this is like the worst parts of deidara and madara's creepy chest-face put together and given sentience and weirdly hitting on her and she needs a goddamn minute about it. processing... processing...

finally, her attention slides from the hand, to d, to the hand again. still about as expressive as a rock. ）

Um. （ #nailedit. ） 'Lefty'. Hi. It's nice to meet you.

[D really just left her to fend for herself with this monstrosity, but she is doing amazing.]

Bob...? [This absolutely sounds like a stage whisper to D even though she is standing right there.] Should I have said Bob? No, maybe Marvin? What's a sexy-sounding name? H... Hector! Is it the face? It's the face, isn't it?

She greeted you.

[It's the first thing D has said so far. The juxtaposition between the two of them is sure something--so long as the person gets over the fact there's a face on the palm of D's left hand.]

Right, right. Touchy... Don't mind me! Just a little, uh... mutual sharing with the big guy. Sakura, was it? Pleasure's all mine. What I wouldn't give to get my mouth--

Leave her alone. [There is a harder edge to his voice than usual. He squeezes his left hand into a fist, stifling the other voice.] ...Try not to pay him any mind.

（ it's lucky d stops the weird parasite when he does because sakura was definitely gearing up to give him a less-than-charitable piece of her mind when he closes his fingers over him like a vice. she just gives d a sort of... eyebrows up, 'what the fuck, sir' look, and then almost tiredly: ）

Is that the last surprise? Or do I need to find a chair?

（ aka: are they going to be doing this a while, or are they good. ）

[Left Hand would have deserved any piece of Sakura's mind she gave it really. But it annoys D just as much as it would annoy (and will...?) Sakura. His face doesn't change, but it seems like... he may be... equally as Tired.]

That's all.

[The rest are things she will simply have to experience, things tied to he vampire side of him unfortunately. At least she has no more weird nasty parasite surprises... And only has to deal with a picture of dear old Dad.]

Go ahead.

（ she looks back at the tethers, a museum snapshot of items that define a life. there's a story here, in this room that tastes so much of the dust in the air. but as stories go, it's melancholy and lonely — it cleaves to the soul like poetry for lonely hearts. her gaze lingers longest on the photograph, but at length she tears her gaze away. then she comes over to him, and takes him by the hand (singular) for now. her fingers tighten a little, meant as comfort. ）

Come see my room first. All this worry for me, and how I'll react to things, or if I can handle it. Don't you think you should see what you're getting into, too?

[D allows her to look at the room and the things inside for as long as she likes. He doesn't comment on anything, whether frustrating or mysterious. He doesn't explain the photograph of the young woman and the boy, the scroll, the horse, or the hologram of the woman with the familiar and kind eyes. He doesn't say anything about the wooden box.

Likewise, he lets her take his hand. He pauses long enough to look over her face briefly, thoughtful, and then he curls his fingers to return the handhold while lifting the hat back onto his head. The free hand opens the single, worn wood door behind, and he waits for her to go first.]

（ she walks through the door, but halfly backwards, turned so she's more-or-less facing him, her movements sure and certain despite the terrain. the lack of a verbal response is a little worrying to her — silence has been used as a weapon against her so often in her life it's hard not to take it as the bite of a blade at her throat. uncertainty and anxiety gnaw at her — was this the correct choice or not? once those forbidding doors have closed behind them, she pivots on her heel so they're side-by-each as they head towards her door. ）

I hope you aren't allergic to flowers. There's, um... let's just say there's a few.

（ look,,, ）

[For what it’s worth, he doesn’t look mad, or displeased as he follows her along, keeping his pace from being too quick. But… when does he ever really emote greatly enough to know? Sakura had been right; he isn’t cross with her.]

It’s something I can deal with. [If Dad is going to alter him to be OP, the least that could happen is he only wrinkles his nose at particular ones.] I don’t mind them.

[Inwardly closing his eyes at so many people here with flowers… At least it might not be roses…?]

I don’t mind if they’re yours.

（ has anyone ever told this man he's endearingly terrible? this is the worst thing that's ever happened to her, maybe, and it's because he's being nice. literally just that. no other reason. sakura blushes to a hideous contrast with her hair, which makes her sort of... ruffle it forwards on the side closest to him with her free hand so she can use it as a curtain to hide behind.

she hasn't done that since she was a little girl. ）

My best friend is a florist. She, um. Taught me a lot.

（ about so many more things than just flowers, but that's neither here nor there. in the distance, at their quick clip, she can see her door in the endless rows of them. funny, how she always seems to know just where it is. ）

[It kills me repeatedly to have her question the kindness with so much surprise.

He doesn’t call out the cute and shy behavior any more than the zero times he has previously, only walks alongside her through the doors, looking at each one.

He really doesn’t think he has said anything worth that kind of response actually, so the joke is on him. He is only being kind as people should to each other…?]

It takes kind hands and skill to work with flowers.

[Or they’ll snap? They’ll die. He’d probably make the worst arrangement honestly.]

Haha, Ino is definitely both of those things!

（ despite their difficulties of which she was the primary architect, she loves her best friend. there's nothing she wouldn't do for ino, and they've only become closer since the clinic opened.

she's smiling, to think of her, but the gaiety of the expression can't quite shake the sadness, the worry for naruto. it drops after a moment, and she gestures to her door where it's exuding gentle light up ahead. he's spent enough time with her now that he could probably pick it out of the row without too much difficulty — it's a traditional sliding door, a fusuma, with its panels painted in delicate colours, highlighting a scene of cherry blossoms and birds. she stops before it, gently reaching out to rub her thumb across one of the little birds, and then she nudges the door aside, and gestures for him to step across the threshold, disentangled from her now.

the interior is as vast as if it were a world entirely of its own (though a keen eye might note that the distance almost seems painted in a sort of sumi-e style, losing more colour the further it gets) but in the immediate area, the landscape is lush and verdant, the taste of the air like spring. there's all the requisite sounds of a lively forest. the soft chirp of distant birds, the burbling of a nearby stream, the song of the wind and the hum of buzzing insects. they're in a clearing that has three odd logs in its middle, and the landscape is pitched and scarred with damage, scorches on the grass, cracks and rubble that look like a shockwave or maybe a small, localized earthquake in the ground. still, somehow, there are places where stubborn little flowers have grown through the dirt no matter how dire the damage.

to the east of the logs, the trees began to bleed and shift, give way to the sterilized cleanliness of an office that somehow seems not at all out of space, even though trees are bent over it like a roof, casting whispering shade. the space is neat and exacting, walls lined with medical textbooks, a few pictures. a window overlooks the hokage monument but oddly, the view through the window clearly reflects a sunset, whereas the rest of the vast expanse of the space is clearly early morning.

her tethers are as easily identifiable as his are, notable for being the only real 'items' in the office that aren't the books themselves. a sculpture of the will of fire, a holographic impression of her team seven photograph — currently featuring only a tall, white-haired man with a mask. a vase of assorted flowers, and a tiny little slug figurine that looks more alive than it has any right to. she surveils the area with a sort of fond weariness, and spreads her arms out to her sides. ）

Well, here we are.

[The door fits her really. He stops outside of it for a pour of several long moments, simply regarding it, like surveying a painting in a gallery. There aren't many places on the Frontier with fusuma, so he takes the time to appreciate it in that silent way of his.

When it's opened, he bends very slightly to duck through, and he's prepared to not only stop on the other side, but remove his hat. But it isn't a single room, like his own, or a house, or a building. He's rooted in place just inside the doorway, though not for the reason he thought he would be, his arm lowering slowly to his side again.

He's not shocked by any means--he's old enough to have traveled the Frontier over several times--but he's surprised all the same. Areas lush like this are few and far between, coveted things by dangerous beings who have hidden them away, or forests with the danger all within. His chin is lifted higher than usual; he peers around from below the raised brim of the hat. Both eyes clinically take everything he can see in slowly, from one side to the next. He doesn't move, transfixed and polite.

It's been a while... to have everything like this together, uncontrolled by artificial weather engineering. It feels like a world with air he has never breathed before in his excruciating long life.]

It's very beautiful, [is all he can find to say, voice humbled.]

It's a place near my village. I used to train here.

（ it was the first place, actually, that team seven became more than just their designation on paper. sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she can almost picture naruto and sasuke sharing the contents of a bento. it's funny, how something that seemingly is a manifestation of part of her own soul can make her homesick for something she no longer has. this is almost like a moment frozen in time.

and naruto is still missing. she hasn't forgotten that. it's the whole reason she's agreeing to this now. is that selfish? she needs to be at her best, and she's finally convinced that soulmates are a necessary step to that. she would never forgive herself if her shadow were to ruin her chances of finding him.

she takes a deep breath, and then heads over to her office, gesturing for him to follow after her. ）

And my office at the clinic, of course. Come over here, I'll explain my tethers too. It's only fair.

[He turns new eyes onto the area after the explanation. It’s not a bad place to train, open and seemingly peaceful. At least from the opinion of a man who spent part of his training doing it in a facility. For a long moment, he looks at the flowers trying to grow out of the blemished land.

Then his steps fall in beside her, quiet except for the sounds of the spurs on the back of the boots.]

I didn’t explain mine.

[Well, one maybe. He really only explained the bad things… But he’s hesitant to tell her an explanation isn’t necessary because he thinks she’ll be offended by his distance again. And also? As little as he says about himself, he is still interested in others. He’d like to hear whatever she might tell him.

He’s already being nosy and looking anyway. The politeness is a front and cannot hide his curiosity.]

（ she waves a hand dismissively. ）

Ah, that's all right. You've got that whole mysterious aura to uphold, after all.

（ he can be as nosy as he likes, it's not going to stop her teasing him. he's the first person to be in her soul room like this, and the intimacy of it all is making her a little nervous, shifting between that light playfulness and the solemnity of memory.

she stops where grass gives way to linoleum flooring, and gives her desk a fond little smile. gesturing towards the hologram — ）

My first teacher, Hatake Kakashi. （ it's strange, seeing him posed alone without any of them. she hopes he's all right back in konoha, that being hokage isn't wearing on him too badly now. at least he has tsunade to guide him, and the peace achieved by the measures following the 4th war will hold. ） The sculpture is the symbol of my village, and represents all the people there. The little slug is for my current teacher, the Lady Tsunade, and probably also Katsuyu — she's my contract partner from Shikkotsu Forest. I can't summon her here, sadly... healing large amounts of people at once would be considerably easier if I could.

（ it doesn't mean she isn't planning for disaster contingencies, but there are limitations on her here she hasn't needed to deal with in her own world. the flowers are last, and maybe that's telling — her expression softens as she reaches out to touch the leaves of a garlic bloom. for courage, ino told her once. the bouquet is a little mismatched, nothing a professional florist would put their name to. besides the garlic blooms, there are yellow daffodils, snapdragons, the dazzling pink of peruvian lilies, each flower tells a story — but she won't bore him with details of hanakotoba. ）

Ino.

[As expected, he does not reply to the first bit because she is RIGHT. He could come off the mysterious aura a little, he’s dead. And also not on the Frontier anymore.

It’s now her turn to endure the feeling of someone else standing inside her soul. The weight of his presence is a tad heavy in a background sort of way; strong, quiet. There is still something rather dark about his existence nestled in her space, but it’s at least not devouring.

His eyes look over Kakashi when he stops in front of the tether. If Kakashi is here this way, D suspects the man must have been a formidable first teacher. After some of the pieces of things Sakura has said, D is surprised to see any form of smile. But he’s glad.

The sculpture holds his attention next. The hidden village… And then he peers at the slug, though there is no judgement or teasing on his face.

The flowers, though, cause his brows to pinch ever so slightly. The blooms of garlic are quite soft and playful, but… why… did it have to be garlic, of all things? The other ones don’t even bother him at all, and the arrangement itself isn’t bad.]

She’s important to you, [he says softly, not a question really.] Did you have many friends?

[The other tethers… two teachers, a contractual partner, a whole community. Work…? Duty. Of course they were maybe compassionate, but it isn’t exactly the same, he thinks. It’s not a peer, a friend.]

I had the ones I needed.

（ it isn't like she doesn't care for the other members of her cohort. but she's also not going to go casually hang out with kiba, you know? ）

Sasuke and （ a brief hesitation. she bites her lip, and then: ） Naruto are here.

[He pauses to turn his head toward her. It feels like anything he says will just be platitudes, so he opts to not say anything about it.

He glances again at Kakashi, thoughtful.]

I hadn’t known you and Sasuke were familiar with each other, but now it seems to make sense.

（ she gives him a sidelong glance, expression altogether unreadable, and then her gaze slides away. she focuses on the little slug, carved so carefully from the depths of feeling in her soul, and she wants to reach for it. it's almost a reflex, that yearning for maternal comfort that her own mother had rarely given her. ）

We aren't close. （ there's a strange gravity to the words, a finality, like the severance of an anchor at sea. something she has been trying for years not to acknowledge but that's all but written into her dna now — the knowledge he would have killed her never strays far from her mind. ） But we used to be, a long time ago.

（ says the nineteen year old, to the millennia-old eldritch vampire guy. ）

[People coming and going in your life, he understands that. As the person who comes and goes more often than not.]

Perhaps you can try again. To get to know the people you’ve become and the people you’re going to be.

[Separately. The finality is still there, but it can be an acceptance maybe instead of something bitterly acknowledged, something wedged in.

He remembers what Sasuke had been like when they met on that single occasion: to the point, logically so; pridefully bound; distantly chilly. It’d be hard to connect with, and he can’t force that onto anyone, so he doesn’t try to convince her any more than that.

He looks over her collection of tethers.]

It seems like you have a strong foundation to become the person you’re hoping to be.

（ the first statement, while kind and certainly true, only gets a tired huff of breath.

the second — ）

I've worked hard to be what I want to be, where I am. （ no special kekkei genkai, no talented clans. her skill has come from practice, not prodigy. ） So, thank you. For recognizing that.

Mm.

[He’s too horrifically enhanced by nature to speak about improving through hard work, but he has seen a lot of it in the humans he’s met.]

Did you want to show me anything else?

[Instead of… asking her whether or not she wanted to now add him of all people to the mix of herself. She’ll get mad…]

No, that's pretty much it. I'm afraid I'm not terribly exciting.

（ well, a lifetime of comparing herself to naruto and sasuke will do that to a girl. ）

But, do you still want to...?

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not me forgetting to hit enter on the second part lmaooooo

me like no that's valid actually

here is my tag, it is one word and a O_O icon, pls accept

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