The Night Bird's Plea

Chapter 5: Assumptions

Fourteen years ago...

Dead of winter. Dead of night.

Obito trained with vigor. Icicles clung to the branches on either side of him. His weatherbeaten feet blazed red. Perseverance dripped from his forehead, fogging his goggles. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and breathed deeply, eyes closed in concentration. Body quivering in effort to stay attached to the tree. Muscles aching the longer he desperately clenched them, too anxious to register it was making it harder to flow chakra to his limbs, not easier.

All the while he was making amends to the promises he made himself at the beginning of the year. Swearing that he'd do it this time. Do better, train harder, work more diligently. Even get along with his classmates if it meant achieving his goals.

"Hey!"

His concentration bubble burst.

Obito snapped his eyes open to an upside down face marred in annoyance.

Kotori hooked her fingers through the eye holes of her ANBU mask and flipped it to the top of her head, pushing it to where the bird's beak pointed at him. "I come back from my first big mission and you're not there waiting for me at the gates?" she huffed. "Some friend you are."

That was the first and last time he would fail her.

"How was I supposed to know you'd be home today?" he barked back. Twice a day, before and after school, he passed by her apartment and looked up to her window for a light on, but he didn't admit that.

Obito dropped from the tree, twisting his body and landing on his feet, opening his mouth to welcome her home.

Only then did he notice she was feeding a deer berries from her palm. At least, she was before he scared it away. He mumbled an apology at her blank stare.

"You're lucky I feel bad for you because you failed the exam again," she said, wiping the red juice staining her hand on her grimy pants coated in dried blood. She had hardly started the movement when he snatched her wrist, orange tinted eyebrows drawn behind his goggles.

"You got hurt."

He didn't mean for the concern to deepen his voice, nor did he mean to sound condescending. Kotori could take care of herself. She joined the ANBU in the time it took him to fail the Academy twice. He had no right to hold her hand to his face and scrutinize the soiled bandage like it was her fault for it being there.

"I still need to go to the clinic to get stitches if there's no healer available," she reconciled, speaking softly in the silenced forest. Losing the bite in her voice when their skin touched.

"You didn't get it looked at already?"

"No, I came here after giving the Third my report."

Obito ran the implication through his brain. Grasped it. Cradled it to the fire in his chest. Protected it. Kotori came to see him before seeking medical attention. True, the gash on her knuckle wasn't a matter of life or death, but still, she came to see him first..

He scanned her for more injuries while she wasn't paying attention; her face turned in the direction the deer hopped off to. After deducing she was in need of a shower to wash away the leftover gore streaking her vest, but otherwise in no imminent danger, he was aware there was no need to keep holding her hand.

And yet, his fingers curled to her palm, his thumb encased over top. Giving her other knuckles incremental soothing strokes. Not only was it unnecessary to soothe someone who proved to be a more capable peer, it was equally gratuitous to ogle her. Sweeping his gaze up and down her body. Eyes tracing the swirl of the ANBU tattoo on her bicep. Memorizing the easy smile lifting the corner of her mouth and the twinkle in her owlish eyes telling him he was being anything but subtle.