Great Lakes & Expectations, chp 17

They left the bar in a drunken blob, and Regina even let Jiraiya give her a bone-crushing hug and a kiss on the top of her head before she escaped into the diplomatic housing complex. 

Mr. Me who was evidently maybe a scarecrow waved goodbye and eye smiled at her, clutching that book in his little spidery hands. Regina carefully chose to never acknowledge that again.

She and Shizune crawled back into the genkan, over Momo’s unconscious body in the doorway, and back into their rooms. 

Shizune glanced around her room, face comically pulled into a moe of disappointment. 

“No futon.” She pouted. She cradled herself with both arms.

Regina looked over. Oh. It was in the closet. Japanese people put their beds away because otherwise it wasted space. 

She glanced back through the fusuma to her room, where she knew that her futon was on the floor with her blankets everywhere. 

Regina blinked gummily. Then she patted Shizune’s shoulder companionably.

“That’s hard. I’m sorry.” She slurred, before lurching forward to crawl to her bed. Opening the fusuma was harrrd right now. Where was the little handle thing. 

Shizune got it for her, and they stumbled into Regina’s room together. 

“When I was little, I used to share a bed with my sisters.” Regina offered clumsily, crawling under the futon, on top of the other one. Stupid Japanese, making covers and mattresses and cushions and… other things, all the same word. Very hard. Unreasonable.

That seemed to be all the permission Shizune needed. 

In the middle of the night, she stole Regina’s pillow and most of the blankets. Regina was drunk and tired and cold. She tried to sneak some of them back, but mostly ended up rolled up in Shizune’s blanket burrito. It was as good as she was going to get, so she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.

They woke up reeking of alcohol and smoke, which was… not cute. 

“My mouth tastes terrible.” Regina complained, trying to crack her neck. It was hard to sleep without the back support. 

“Ugh. Smells like it.” Shizune grumbled back, pulling the last of the covers over her. 

Shizune was not a sharer. That was good to know.

Regina carefully extracted herself from the tangled mass of blankets, clambered up, and went to bathe and brush her teeth. After she got back, Shizune was finally starting to get out of bed. She did that magic thing Tsunade did to get rid of hangovers, and gestured for Regina to sit down to get the same. Then she clambered out of Regina’s room to her own. 

“Whatcha wanna do today?” Regina asked, feeling remarkably blank. What else could they even do here? She’d already been rude in front of multiple important people and eaten steak.

Her temporary needs were pretty well filled. 

“Coffee, onsen, cake shop. In that order.” Shizune shuffled past her with her change of clothes, running her free hand through her hopelessly tangled hair. 

Ouch. Regina had forgotten that she’d tried to braid it last night in the bar at some point. Poor Shizune. It was probably sticky with fruit juice, too.

Shizune appeared fresh and clean about ten minutes later, and they drug Momo out for coffee and breakfast. 

The place by the Hokage Tower was the most recommended by the anbu Regina cornered, so they took off in a pack. 

She really wondered if they thought she hadn’t realized they’d be there. If they followed around assets like the Hokage and had shepherded her all the way here, why wouldn’t they be stuck continuing to do that? As well as guarding the general populace from Momo, a man who was apparently somehow more terrifying to them with every hour he didn’t attack someone. 

It wasn’t like she could sense them. Or find them if they didn’t want to be found. But they treated her like she was a twit who couldn’t tell a bunch of nerds in masks were always behind her in a crowd. 

It could be insulting, if she wanted to take it that way. Regina preferred the idea that she was just too important to lose. It was better for her ego.

The coffee shop was fairly crowded, but they managed to get seated quickly and ordered too much coffee. 

Ooh. 

The eggs here weren’t hard boiled. Regina thanked whatever God was loving her today. She politely dug in to her breakfast, and watched a bunch of civilians and shinobi alike walk by with suspicious eyes. She waved every time. 

After breakfast, they ditched Momo at the gate. 

She gave him a hug. Damn, he was big. 

“Tell Haku hi for me.” She said, feeling a bit melancholy. But she couldn’t subject a preteen to Tsunade’s tender mercies for long, and Momo couldn’t stay even if he wanted to. 

He grunted and patted her on her head, gently. “I’ll see you around, yeah? If you’re out in non-shinobi countries, we can meet for coffee or something.”

Regina held in the sniffle. He really was a friend. A good friend. “I’d like that. I suppose if you wrote letters, they’d check them.”

“Oh, for sure.” Momo stood straight and cracked his neck. “Which is exactly why I’m going to do it. Prissy little shits.” Then he winked at her. 

“Don’t let them see you blink, princess.”

He turned away and left, lightly tossing his approved paperwork at the gate guard before shunshining off into the forest. 

“Ready to go?” Shizune asked quietly, still only about a foot behind her. 

Oh damn. She’d be leaving tonight, too. 

Life was a misery. 

“Yeah, ok.” Regina summoned up some false chipper attitude and followed Shizune through the crush of people, off on their way for their last day together. 

The onsen was nice- it was close to a park, and a little secluded. Probably optimal for a place you planned to go nude. 

Shizune led Regina into the building, and Regina went through the motions of scrubbing up. She washed her hair with the neroli and honey scented shampoo (yum, she’d never encountered that before) and scrubbed herself from head to toe before rinsing off and tying her waist-length hair up on top of her head. 

Shizune had taken less time, being that her hair wasn’t so stupidly long. Regina mildly regretted her hair-based vanity, even as she knew she’d never ever cut it. It took ten fucking years to grow out. 

Then she joined Shizune in the warm onsen waters. They’d move to different pools with increasing heat, but starting off there was unpleasant from start to finish. 

Regina slumped down in the pool, so that the warm water would reach her ever-tense shoulder muscles. Ohhhh that was good. Her eyes slid closed. 

“So, are you going to be okay here?” Shizune’s voice wafted over her. 

Regina opened her right eye. Shizune looked unhappy. She was worrying her lower lip, which was a very bad sign. 

Regina willed herself to sit up. It took more effort than she’d anticipated because she just really didn’t want to leave the hot water, but she got there. She looked around the onsen- there was no one around.

“I’ll probably be all right.” Oh, her neck felt ready for a pop. Regina reached up and put one hand on her jaw and another on the back of her head and gently twisted. The resulting crack was so satisfying that she nearly sighed out loud. 

Shizune flinched. 

“If you don’t want to stay…” her eyes darted in the vague direction of the city gates. 

“Thank you.” Regina said, and meant it. “I’ll stay here for now.”

Shizune nodded slowly.

“If I wanted to find you, how would I do that?” Regina asked, trying not to sound too desperate. “I evidently have quite a bit of vacation time, I might like to see you and Tsunade-hime.”

She and Shizune shared sharp grins. 

“I’m sure we can figure out something.” Shizune said, in a syrupy sweet tone. It set shivers down Regina’s spine. 

They spent the better part of two hours in a companionable silence, watching young mothers with children and elderly ladies come in and out of the baths. 

Life went on, didn’t it.

They left when their hands were shriveled prunes and their stomachs began to growl. As Regina stood up, she noted a hole in the fence. 

It was fairly innocuous, but for that it was at an eye height for someone. Say, someone who had suspicious onsen-related behavior. 

As she walked by, Regina violently poked her towel into it.

She was equal parts gratified and repulsed by the obvious grunt of pain and surprise on the other side. 

“Jiraiya-san is quite eccentric.” Shizune said, placid as a lake. She bent over to pick up a decorative boulder, and delicately threw it over the fence. Regina watched it get easily a hundred feet of air straight up, (enough to gain some significant velocity, she noted with some sympathetic pain), and came plummeting down to earth with a sickening thud. 

“He survives just about anything.” Shizune informed Regina, readjusting her towel. 

‘Kind of like a cockroach.’ Regina thought, with no small amount of amazement. ‘Also, I may have been too hasty in giving all of my adoration to Tsunade.’

They tried to go to a cake shop Shizune remembered from youth- but it was gone. 

“That’s odd.” Shizune wrinkled her brows and stood back. “I could swear it was here… oh. Maybe when…”

“When what?” Regina piped up, mildly curious. Pauses were full of interesting information. She wanted deets. 

“Nothing.” Shizune said a little too quickly, which really only hardened Regina’s resolve to find out exactly what she meant. The look on Shizune’s face showed that she knew it, too. Her mouth set in a stern line.

“Don’t ask.” She warned. “It’s a state secret.”

“I am the state.” Regina countered with a coy grin, gesturing at the Hokage Tower for emphasis. “Or, I will be… next week.”

“You can wait until next week then.” Shizune smiled. She held up her palms, as if to say it was out of her hands. 

Oh, she was the best. The worst. The best of the worst. 

“I will find out.” Regina said. It wasn’t a warning. It was merely information. “I like to know everything. No secret is safe from me.” She stepped forward and made a kissy face. “And I will not rest until there are no secrets between us, Shizune-chan.”

Shizune snorted, and Regina’s face cracked. They started giggling in the middle of the street.

“I seem to remember there was another, less-good cake shop over on Tobirama.” Shizune wheezed. “It might be passable.”

“Oooh, passable cake. I have to know what esteemed establishment earns such a high ranking from you.” Regina cooed. She held out her arm with some pomp and did her best Jiraiya impression, dopey grin and all. “Shall we go for a cake adventure of incredible romance and daring?”

Shizune was obviously about to lose her shit, but took her arm and let Regina gallantly lead her in the wrong direction for about twenty minutes. Then she gave up the ruse and brought Regina to a little cafe with overly cutesy curtains and about two million more items of cat-themed decor than any business had any right to have.

Regina got the maple chiffon cake, and Shizune went for a chestnut creme tart. It was pretty good, actually, which was a surprise. Either Shizune’s standards were even higher than Regina had previously considered, or that other place had been heaven-sent. 

It seemed like Regina would never know. That was a tragedy. 

It was fun! But. Every once in a while, Regina remembered that every hour that went by meant that Shizune would leave her increasingly soon. It was a tough cycle. Couldn’t they ease her off of friends by spacing off their leaving at least a couple days apart?

Of course, she knew she’d been pushing it anyway. Both Shizune and Momo had a person that was counting on them. Haku was a child, and Tsunade… she needed someone to depend on her, otherwise her self-destructive tendencies would veer entirely off the rails. 

To be honest, Regina only wanted to leave with them. But she also knew it wasn’t rational. Tsunade and Shizune lived a nomadic kind of life. Regina wasn’t suited to it. And Momo had never invited her along for whatever the hell kind of ride he was on. 

She suspected it was rather more murdery than the crimes Tsunade had had her do.

And sure, Konoha was full of weirdos, and it smelled like sweat, and the Hokage was a troll. But…

Um. 

Well, no one had attempted to threaten her since she got here. 

Wow, that was Konoha’s best feature? Regina actually scowled. 

Shizune looked a bit startled. She had been in the middle of telling Regina about the time that Tsunade had gotten them thrown out of Tea Country after an incident with a watermelon cart.

“Sorry! Sudden unhappy thought.” Regina apologized quickly, with a smile. “Please go on.”

Shizune resumed quite happily, but Regina went back to examining her life choices. Absentmindedly, she noted that Tsunade was not a fan of grammatical mistakes. Apparently that was how some sorry bastard had lost his arm. 

She had been right to not go with the man who had threatened her in the toilet. That contract from Orochimaru-san was creepy as fuck. Who seriously asked someone to initial next to a clause that expressly gave him permission to perform live surgery on their person? And added that it was agreed that it wouldn’t necessarily be under pain medication. Or sedation. 

Yikes.

Not living in Iron was probably where she’d boned it. Mifune-sama was nice, and the samurai weren’t jumpy and weird. She even missed the terrifying Fujita-san.

There was nothing for it. Regina would have to make friends. Or enemies. Whichever, really. 

She glanced around the coffeeshop at the next conversational opportunity, noting a suspicious shock of silver hair.

Didn’t Jiraiya have anything better to do?

At least he might be around for a couple more days. And wasn’t going to murder her on accident or on purpose. 

It looked like Regina was going to have to have some fun family time. 

Shizune insisted on walking Regina back to the house, where she gathered up her things slowly. It wasn’t even that much with it all packed. 

They stared at the empty house together. The mood was palpably depressed.

“I’ll miss having you around.” Regina confessed. “I don’t think I’m going to make many friends here.”

Shizune nodded, shoulders hunched. Her nose was suspiciously red. 

“I’ll miss you, too.” Shizune offered, looking down and away from Regina. “It was good to have someone my age around.”

“Write me?” Regina asked. Her throat felt tight. It was hard to open herself up to friend rejection. It wasn’t like Shizune lacked for things to do. 

Shizune choked. “Could you read it?” she joked, running her hands through her hair. 

Regina felt like pouting. Seriously. She had flaws. So many flaws. Was not being fluent the only one people were ever going to notice?

Actually, that was a good thing. Never mind. She retracted the grumpiness. She’d eventually get fluent, and none of them would be the wiser. Then she could continue to sin in peace.

Shizune chuckled. “I’ll write you every week.” She promised. Then she swept forward and lifted Regina in a hug. It was nice and comforting. 

Unlike Jiraiya’s hugs, which were like being crushed by a trigger-happy python. 

She waved goodbye to Shizune as she walked off. If they said goodbye in public, Regina was going to cry. They both knew it. 

Regina watched her best friend disappear down the street, and willed herself not to bawl like a little baby. She wanted to. She just couldn’t afford the luxury. 

Shizune was long gone by the time she looked away, down to the garden path where she knew Jiraiya was waiting. He looked sad for her. It actually kind of made her mad. He didn’t get to be unhappy for her- he’d put her here.

“Well.” She said, swallowing the excess saliva that had appeared instead of tears. Stupid body, making liquids. “Are you going to come in, or what?”

Jiraiya leapt into the house, and twirled on his geta on the nice tatami mats.

No matter how many times he did stuff like that, it never failed to surprise her how bad his manners were. Regina pointed to his shoes, then the genkan. Where they were supposed to have been left. 

He looked mildly ashamed for a second, but didn’t move. 

“I have to live here.” She reminded him. “This is a nice house.”

He silently chucked his shoes into the genkan, before plopping down next to the nice table. 

Momo’s sword had left some scratches in it. They both kind of looked at the long, un-repairable gashes silently. 

He looked at her. 

She stared back. 

“You try telling Zabuza-san what to do, see where that gets you.” She said dryly, not leaving any room for comment. 

He held up his hands, evidently surrendering. 

They sat in silence. God, it was weird. He was never quiet for that long, unless he was planning something awful. 

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, ducking his head in what had to be a learned reaction from knowing Tsunade. His hands flickered to protect more sensitive areas.

Regina got the impression Tsunade did not like fielding questions about her personal life or feelings.

“No.” She offered instead, giving him a wan smile. “But thank you for asking.”

“You know, Tsunade-hime probably won’t leave for another day or two.” Jiraiya said quietly, averting his eyes. “To give you a chance to escape.”

“Escape what, exactly.”

He blanched. 

“You know…” he gestured around slowly. “All of this.”

She stayed silent. 

“The politics, the death, the fucked-upness of everything.” He shrugged. 

He was obviously going through some of the same doubts she was. Only he had more history and context. 

“But it’s safer.” Regina simply said.

He nodded, staring at the wall. He was obviously lost in thought, somewhere far away from her. 

“You know, when we were together, some man attacked me on the toilet.” She said, conversationally. “When you and Ando-san were talking.”

He didn’t register that immediately. Regina watched it filter through, and he stiffened. He did not seem to know that. 

“I think he worked for your other team mate.” Regina shrugged. “Orochimaru-san offered me a very terrifying work contract at about the same time as Kumo and Iron.”

Something seemed to dawn on Jiraiya. He looked pretty mad. 

Regina scooched back, out of radius. 

“That bastard,” he seethed. Oh no. This version of Jiraiya was kind of scary. All affability was gone. 

What she now knew to be killing intent was filling the air, muddling her senses and activating her flight or fight instinct.

Regina tried to remain still and suffocate it. Her dad wasn’t going to hurt her. And if she balked every time a shinobi did that, she’d be laughed right out of the country. She’d be useless. 

She couldn’t be useless. 

A moment later, he seemed to notice where he was and stopped. 

The air seemed much more breathable again. 

“Sorry.” he said, leaning forward cautiously like she was a scared animal. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He looked off to the wall. “He just makes me so damn mad.”

She hummed. Regina really didn’t know what to say to that. And she knew better than to pry. 

Her nerves felt raw. She was tired. At least the killing intent had shaken the sadness off of her.

“You know, you made some killing intent of your own last night.” he said, which startled her. He sounded…. Happy?

Regina eyed him mistrustfully.

“It was kind of weak, but a really good first try. If you keep it up, you can get these chumps into line in no time.” He winked. 

“I wasn’t trying to.” She said with some irritation. “I was trying to be polite.”

“And I was goading you.” He grinned. “Looks like I got your number, Reji-chan.”

Ugh. 

He was probably right.

“Yanno, funny thing…” he scratched the back of his head, “Tsunade-hime gets angry and punches me like crazy, but I don’t think she wants to hurt me. You…” his eyes sparkled, “I genuinely believe you’d poison me if you knew how.”

“I’d never.” Regina defended herself from accusations of crimes she had definitely mildly fantasized about, but usually only when working in retail. 

“I don’t mean you’re a murderer.” He waved his hands as if to dispel the illusion. “But your intent is different. Feels more… serious. Like you mean it.”

She turned that over in her head, biting her lip. She felt her eyes go wide, into her ‘blank face’. “Is that… good?” Regina asked. It would be nice if she actually had that power. A lot of people around here sucked, and she’d prefer that they were aware.

“Does your face always look like that when you’re thinking?” His voice was flat. 

She blinked. Once. Twice. She looked at her father. 

“Yes?” She said. “Is that a problem?”

He grunted. “It’s creepy. But not a problem.” He perked up. “Could be useful, actually. It’s very… unusual.”

“Thank you for your diplomacy.” She grumbled. 

He suddenly flopped down on the floor and wriggled on the tatami. “It is really very nice in here.” Jiraiya stretched. Then he eyed her again. “Shame you’ll have to live here alone.”

“What do you even mean by that?” Regina asked warily. What was he doing to her now? And was it going to involve more of his awful friends?

Probably. What else could he even mean by that?

He rolled over and picked her up so fast she missed it happening. Suddenly, she was flying in his arms across the power lines. 

‘Why did I ask? Why would I ever give him an opening?’

They jerked to a stop outside a crappy looking apartment building. Regina looked down. 

She did not like that, no sir. She looked back up. 

“In there.” Jiraiya whispered, gesturing with his chin. 

Oh. There was a window. 

Regina obediently looked in. 

“Are you spying on kids now, too?” She turned and asked, probably too loudly. 

He winced. 

The kid didn’t stir, though. No wonder- he was snoring up a storm. 

It was the same boy she’d seen in the ramen place. Probably. There couldn’t be that many blond children in this place, right?

“My godson.” Jiraiya whispered. Wait, he had a kid he was responsible for here?

Regina remembered the kid’s sunken face and obvious lack of social skills. It made her angry.

She glared at her fake father. “You suck.”

He looked hurt. He probably deserved it. 

“Who’s watching him, then?” She asked, kind of dreading the answer. There were a truly improbable amount of orphans in the bingo book. 

Silence was her answer. 

“You want me to do it.”

He didn’t say anything. 

Regina thought about it. She had… roughly zero parental experience. Her own relationship with her real parents was nightmarish. She’d seen healthy parent-child relationships in like, two movies. 

She remembered her first interaction with Naruto. And how being nice to him had made him so upset that he’d run away. In retrospect, that was a damning kind of observation.

“You suck so hard.” She sighed, running her hand through her hair and then turning into his chest for comfort. “I’ll do it, though.”