Chapter Text
"My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events."
(Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat)
The current days have been so peaceful in the village that you barely noticed them passing.
You’ve been so involved with your regular activities – taking care of your family and yourself, as well as your house – that you didn’t have a moment to be bored or to complain. Times like these were rare, but as a woman of Konoha, a wife and a hard worker, you’ve learn a long time ago that complaining, whatever the reason, never led people anywhere, so you’ve managed to be positive and take the best of these peaceful periods.
You acted wisely when you taught your eldest daughter, Amaya, some of your daily activities as she grew up. Now that she was about to turn twelve, she was capable of taking care of the same tasks you accomplished when you were her age. Besides, since she resembled you in primary aspects, she never had problems with organizing her time, so you could count on her to help you and still manage to make time for her studies and to be taught by her grandfather: your father and your girl shared a great love for crafting and, following his steps, she was planning to turn this passion into a profession.
Just like you, Tobirama Senju, your husband, has been spending time with your second son, Shuji, who was his living image. He developed a deep interest in physical training and the study of shinobi techniques at an early age, and his father soon started his first lessons (and he was glad he did that before the little boy discovered how to open his ink bowls and destroy all the stock of blank scrolls on his working table). Now, he was ten, and as a student of the Academy, he accomplished such level of ability that sometimes Tobirama would take him to train alongside his team of students, who were now teenagers. One of them, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was specially fond of Shuji and was helping him with hand seals.
With the minor amount of tasks and the fact that he hasn’t been traveling outside Konoha for a while now, the Hokage had more time not only for his children, his team and his personal studies, but for you two. You, on the other hand, had only your youngest son, Hashirama, depending on you for most of the time; however, the boy was almost five years old, and for he just entered the Academy, even him started to spend more time away from you, so that your burden was drastically reduced. At first, you were worried about his adaptation, but he seemed so excited with the idea of being with other children of his age that his cheerful expectation calmed you down. And now you had some hours to take care of yourself and your husband.
Yes, that was good. Seeing everyone in your house occupied with their own things released you from part of the mental burden you’ve carried when your kids were little and gave you permission to direct your energies to different matters. And that was much more than you could wish.
Still, your life was not entirely free from problems. That would be impossible for anyone, but especially for you: despite not being a member of an important clan or noble family, you were still the Hokage’s wife and his children’s mother, which was enough responsibility for one to carry. But because all the regular aspects of your domestic life seemed to be okay, this time your worries came from another place.
These preoccupations of yours were regarding some of the shinobi techniques studied by Tobirama. Of course, they have been a vital aspect of his life since his early years, and that didn’t change with time. In fact, as much as he appreciated using his intellect and energy to create new institutions that were changing the village’s structure, he loved creating and perfecting new jutsus, though he didn’t always show them to you. Back in your time as his assistant, during your first years together, you cultivated a respectful interest in his techniques and even asked him to explain some of them to you, which he did regarding the completed ones even knowing you didn’t have your chakra pathway ready to perform any of them. Tobirama loved elaborating things, and finding ways to practice his ideas; he was a hard worker as much as a hard researcher, and that was one of the things you loved most about him.
However, you never knew about all of those matters, and since he was very private about the jutsus yet to be completed and you maintained the policy of personal space, you didn’t use to question him about the details of such studies. But it didn’t go unnoticed by you that some of them were strange, to say the least. Yes, you always tried not to interfere, but you couldn’t help it: you didn’t like them. Your husband surely had his reasons to create certain techniques the way he did, but it didn’t change the fact that they weren’t suitable for everyone; they were not the kind of thing he would teach Shuji.
And, lately, with the amount of free time he got, he has been spending more and more of his energies on these activities.
***
That weekend afternoon, Amaya was with her grandfather, and you were at home with your younger boys waiting for her to come back.
You were in the kitchen’s table peeling apples for a pie and had Hashirama on a chair at your left, watching you work with the knife and fill the bowl with the fruits. Yes, even now that he started to build his social circle outside of his familiar environment, he was still attached enough to his mom to spend minutes watching as she did her tasks. Under his chair was Mizuki, your cat. The animal was still attached to Hashi and followed him around the house; it was getting old, though, and didn’t use to play as much as before.
Shuji was sitting at your right with a scroll opened before him. He had his elbow on the table, and his chin leaning on his hand; his red eyes would go from line to line of the scroll’s writing without blinking. He was so concentrated that if you called him, he would probably startled. You almost smiled at the vision: that was exactly how Tobirama used to stay while reading on his table. Your boy was becoming more like his father as he grew.
Usually it would make you proud, but that time, such resemblance made you worried. Will the boy become interested in the same strange things about which his father was passionate? You prayed he wouldn’t. Still…
A sudden pain made you startle. You looked down at your hands and saw a red dot on your finger that soon turned into a blurry line: you got distracted and cut yourself with the knife. You drop it beside the bowl and moved your hand away before the blood fell on the apples.
- Mom, you got hurt! - it was Hashirama’s voice, raised with preoccupation.
You stood up fast, holding your hand. It wasn’t really bad; still, you felt fingers trembling.
- It’s okay – you replied to the wide-eyed boy – I’m going to clean this.
Before you left the kitchen, you sensed Shuji’s eyes on you. When you looked at him, you found the boy staring at you with a serious expression.
You tried to smile.
- What’s wrong, Shuji?
His manners didn’t alter.
- I think you got distracted because you were worried about something, mom. Is it about us, or about father?
You stood still for a second, then sighed. Straight to the point, just like him, you thought. Sometimes, it annoyed you, but other times you were glad for this.
Hashi interrupted, angry.
- Shuji, don’t speak like this to mom!
Before they started to argue, you interrupted:
- Your brother is right, Hashi – you said looking from the younger child to the older – I’m worried. And it’s about your father. I should have talked to him before, but I couldn’t. Anyway, you two don’t need to be worried about me. I’ll be right back.
You took the knife, cleaned it on the sink and went to take care of your cut.
***
You were leaving the bathroom with your injury cleaned up and wrapped with a bandage when Tobirama came home. He found you on the corridor, and even before you spoke the first word, he spotted the hurt finger.
- What is this, y/n? – he asked while walking toward you.
You tried not to look so worried. It was just a small cut, after all.
- It’s nothing. I was peeling apples in the kitchen and probably got distracted, so this happened – you shrugged – But it’s small. It will heal soon.
He nodded and said nothing, but you knew that look in his eyes. He’s got something in mind, but he thought it was too soon to tell it to you. You also knew that in such cases, it was impossible to make him talk, so you let him go. Tobirama went to your room as you walked back to the kitchen to finish the work with the apples.
***
You had some difficulty to peel the last fruits because of the bandage, so the work took a few more minutes than usual. By this time, Hashirama went to take a nap, but Shuji was still there; now he was reaching the edge of his scroll.
While you were there, your husband didn’t show up, despite knowing Shuji was there and might have needed his orientation here and there. Well, as the private man he was, he always took some time alone after coming back home, but this time there was something different, and you didn’t understand what it was. You were eager to talk to him, but all you could do for now was to wait.
As well as you were waiting for Amaya to come back. She went to see his grandfather and took her daily lessons; you sent a message to your mother through her, asking her to lend you a cake pan, which the girl was going to return in the next day. But she should have come back by that time; yes, she got late other times before, but it only happened when she was learning a complex lesson or had to stop at a shop and buy something on her way back. That was not the case now. Something must have happened…
You were telling yourself these exact words when the front door was opened and you heard Amaya’s steps on the corridor. She arrived at the kitchen’s entry and left the pan on the table.
- I’m sorry for the delay, mom. Here’s your pan. Grandma wasn’t sure if this is really the one you’ve asked for, but she sent it anyway.
You looked at the object and confirmed it was the right one. However, when you laid your eyes on the girl, you noticed something different in her. It took you a second to understand it: her cheeks seemed a bit rosy, though she wasn’t gasping (the walk wasn’t that long to make someone tired), and her manners were… well, how would you describe it? Cheerful? Charming? Yes, something close to it, something that made her look more like a young lady than a child.
Your daughter was growing up, you told yourself. Of course such change was going to happen. But you didn’t have time to think about it: when you asked her about the delay, she stuttered and the redness on her face seemed to increase as her eyes turned to you; it was something so blatant that even Shuji raised his head from the scroll to watch the scene.
- Well, I… met a friend of mine on my way back. We’ve stopped to talk, so I’ve ended up late. I’m sorry for this.
You raised your eyebrow.
- A friend? Do I know them?
Her discomfort couldn’t be concealed.
- No… I don’t think so.
You tried to think of something to say, but you couldn’t. So you just nodded and decided you were going to take care of this later. For now, the most important was to focus on the practical matters, so you told her to see if Hashirama was still sleeping and then come back to help you with the pie. Amaya said yes and left.
***
Later that night, when the children were sleeping, you were alone in your room, lying on your back on the futon, thinking. You felt your body tired, but you suspected you weren’t going to sleep so soon.
The truth is that remembering that day’s events made you feel lonely. Tobirama was spending more and more of his time on his personal studies, and if it wasn’t for Shuji’s training he would be even more distant; as if it wasn’t enough, he was skipping his meals again, something you hated. That evening, he asked you to leave his bowl on his table, for he was going to eat as soon as he was finished with the scrolls; you did it, but later when you came back to take it, it was cold and full, and the chopsticks were at its side, exactly where you put them. You sighed and took it back to the kitchen. All against your will (since you were tired and annoyed), you went back and passed your hands around his shoulders while he was on his chair; you kissed him on the top of his head and told him you were going to sleep; he kissed your right hand in response, saying that he was going to join you soon. However, the hours passed and you didn’t even hear his steps on the corridor.
And that was not everything: you sensed your kids were getting distant too. Amaya was spending much time away from home, and seemed to get along with her grandparents more than with her own parents; Shuji was developing all his father’s habits, including that one of spending hours with the scrolls and forget about the life out of them; even Hashi was different: with all the changes in his life as a new student of the Academy, he no longer depended on you for basic things as before. Yes, that was perfectly natural, and you should expect that: as your children grew up, your relationship with them and their needs would change. But it was being harder than you expected.
You turned on the mattress, and the vision of the empty space on your side brought tears to your eyes.