Portraits of our dreams (Hashirama x Madara)

1. Everything a boy could ever dream of (Madara)

He had been kind at first.

They always were, weren't they?

I had just finished my five-year education to become a landscape architect and was loving my newly-granted job. But after my first week, I felt I needed some time to think of something else, and decided to go to a bar, alone. 

The bar was beautiful, classy and noisy, but not so noisy you couldn't hold a conversation. I went to the desk where a hot bartender was mixing drinks, and thought I'd try my hands at flirting. 

The bartender was male, tall and strong with chestnut brown hair cut in a mullet that could have looked ridiculous, but looked incredibly stylish on him. He also had a number of silver rings on his fingers, accentuating his white shirt and black tie nicely. Clearly gay, but he wasn't flamboyant, which suited me fine as I was quite feminine. 

"One espresso martini, please", I said, leaning forwards. "But more martini, less espresso."

The bartender smirked at me, amused by my request. But that was as far as I got in my flirting.

It was such a small occurrence. But even so, I would ask myself many, many times during the coming years what would have happened if he just hadn't been there. If it had just been me and that bartender and nobody to interrupt us.

In my most timid fantasies, we would just chat, me and the bartender, and my life would only be infused by the absence of him, rather than the presence of the bartender. In my wildest dreams, however, me and the bartender got married and had kids. 

Both would have been fine. In fact, anything would have been better than what I got instead...

"Make that two", a voice said next to me, and the owner of that voice handed the bartender a credit card as if it were candy paper.  

The bartender raised his eyebrow at the man next to me, then looked at me with eyes that asked are you okay? and then did as the man said when I smiled an apologetic smile at him. 

And so, since he had bought me my drink, I felt obliged to talk to him. Don't we all. 

A long, long time after that, I would curse myself for not saying no. No, I can pay for my own drink. No, I am not going to talk to you just because you've flaunted your credit card at me. No, I'm going to talk to this bartender right here. But I didn't.

And I would hate myself for it. 

The man was lovely. Perfect, in fact. So perfect that within the week, I had forgotten about the bartender as I believed I had found the love of my life.

That should have been the first red flag.

He took me on dates. He sent me flowers to work. He bought me gifts every time we saw one another, which was often. He was clearly well-off, living in a hyper-modern apartment to which he gave me the keys as good as immediately. The second red flag... Or honestly probably the hundredth, although my naive self hadn't been able to recognise the others. 

He showered me in compliments, and I drank them like a thirty desert flower being given water for the first time. He told me to rest, while he did all the chores that came with dates at home such as doing the dishes and making tea and bringing blankets.

But despite the loveliness, I thought there were some things that were strange, even back then. Like the way he insisted that I move in with him after only two months, and then demanding that I sold my own apartment, convincing me to actually go through with it as I would be with him forever anyway. He also never wanted to come visit my family. On the opposite, he spoke badly of them often.

Finally, after six months together, he told me to quit my job. 

"I want you well-rested", he said and kissed me on the lips in a way that made me melt. "I don't want you to burn yourself out. And I earn enough for ten people. You don't have to work."

I cried the day I quit my job, but I never told him, pretended to be grateful. I told myself the same thing my colleagues at work told me; that I was lucky to have someone provide for me. I would have time for other things now. I would take a course in botany and flower bindery, and perhaps set up an online business. I would join a running group to be able to run a marathon. I would volunteer at an animal sanctuary I had looked up. 

But none of those things ever happened.

It started right on the first day. At first, he just pretended there were things that needed doing at home. When he called me and asked me how I was, I was actually quite excited because I was going to the animal sanctuary, which I told him.

"What animal sanctuary?" he asked, and his voice wasn't curious and kind, but dark.

I frowned and explained.

"Can you have the laundry done by the time I get home at six?" he said, equally darkly.

"But I thought I'd go at lunch and be back at five. Can't I do it after?"

"I will only say this once", he said, and he sounded so different then compared to how he usually sounded that I wondered who had kidnapped and replaced him. "My laundry will be done when I get home."

He had hung up without saying that he loved me. And when he came home, he pretended as if nothing had ever happened. When I brought it up, asking if we could talk about it, he pretended he didn't know what I was talking about. 

There were other little things as well. Like how he liked to mess around with me physically. It wasn't clear enough that I would worry about it, but sometimes when we cuddled, he would suddenly wrestle me to the ground, no matter the surface. I thought it was his way of showing love, and I had nobody to tell me that that wasn't the case, that it wasn't normal for your boyfriend to turn a kiss into dragging you in one leg over tarmac 'for fun', because I had no friends.

Not anymore.

He isolated me, didn't allow me to go out at all. All of the things I had planned do while staying at home were forgotten. My life had been full of friends and acquaintances from university and from work and from going out. Now, they were none. I couldn't even go online, seeing he wouldn't give me the Wi-Fi password or allow me to have any data on my phone. I could call and text my friends, but since I could never join anything and never explained why, instead making excuses that made it sound as if I didn't want to, they grew tired of me and stopped contacting me altogether. 

Yet when I cried over my lack of friends to him, he would immediately soften, put an arm around me and kiss my head. 

"You have me", he said. "You'll always have me. And I am so lucky to have you."

What more could a boy desire?

I was convinced that I was happy.

And then came the first time he hit me...