Comfort | Tobiizu One Shot

That Simple Comfort in Life

Tobirama blinked slowly, trying to conjure up any last shard of patience that had been lost in the last hour of sparring.

"What?" He asked, hoping he had simply misheard.

Izuna's smile across from him was unwavering. "We should get married."

So Tobirama had not misheard, after all.

"You and I?" Tobirama narrowed his eyes. He watched Izuna's shallow breaths, quick from the spar that neither of them truly won. His hair had slipped from its tie and spilled ungracefully over his shoulders. Tobirama had to glare at the ground to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

And Izuna had the audacity to laugh, whether it was at Tobirama's words or his likely similar stare of unruliness. "Yes, us."

"But—" Tobirama was uncharacteristically short of a response, searching with futility his mind for a retort. All he could manage to come up with was, "Why?"

Izuna shrugged, as if his marriage proposal was a simple, everyday request. "For a number of reasons. Madara will get off my ass about marriage, it might give you something to do other than work 'till you die, and we won't have to spar ages from the village out of fear of an international incident." He counted on his fingers to list each point.

Tobirama dragged his gaze to the unfamiliar forest around them, the only territory not belonging to a clan (that they were aware of) in plausible vicinity to Konoha where they wouldn't fear a simple spar causing trouble between the Senju and the Uchiha.

The fact that their respective brothers were the leaders of the village did not typically mean that any damage caused would be quickly and easily brushed away. It was a good point; if they were married, their sparring sessions would not be seen as vitriolic or even troublesome. However,

"Surely there are other ways to go about this than marriage. " Tobirama put as much indifference into his voice as possible, because the worst case scenario would be for Izuna to find out the real reason for his avoidance.

Izuna's smile turned wicked, and Tobirama cursed internally. After years of being something close to friends following their years of rivalry, Izuna had gotten scarily good at reading Tobirama. He'd had to work on closing off his expressions even more because of how well Izuna knew him. It was infuriating.

"Probably, but it is the simplest." Izuna walked over to Tobirama, taunting. "Why, are you waiting for true love?"

"No," Tobirama responded swiftly, ignoring the new proximity. "What concerns me is that you aren't. I was under the impression that the Uchiha considered such frivolous matters essential to marriage discussions."

Izuna glared, presumably at his word choice. Tobirama may be friendly with a few Uchiha, but that did not mean he had to respect their customs. The glare had no heat, though, which was why Tobirama was unafraid to say such things in front of him.

Generally, Tobirama wasn't worried about what he said in front of Izuna. The Uchiha typically overtook most conversations, which Tobirama certainly didn't mind, but when he did speak he knew that there would be no real repercussions for whatever he said.

And there was part of the problem—Tobirama found it far too easy to relax around Izuna. Any unwanted feelings followed not long after, to his utter dismay.

So now, when Izuna glared and the sunset framed his long hair, Tobirama couldn't help but stare. That paired with the context of the conversation caused a light flush to find its way to his face, unbidden. He disliked when he wasn't in control of his emotions.