Chapter Text
Year 54 - Year 63
Kuroha Jun is born in the midst of the Second Shinobi World War, with smoke in his lungs and fire in his veins. There is a battlefield in his blood, his mother tells him, and he looks in the mirror and sees hair the color of charred wood, eyes the color of silver.
He looks at his mother, traces her face in his mind. She is all hard lines and stiff shoulders, with eyes that cut like sharp steel. Her hair is darker than his, the color of pitch, short strands choppy and haphazardly cut. She walks like a soldier, cuts paths through streets with a fierce gaze and a small child, and for a time Jun believes her capable of anything.
His clan is small, but they are there, present in the earliest memories, hovering in a hazy background. When he asks, his mother stares at him with steel gray eyes and tells him about the crows. “It takes the whole flock to raise a child,” she says, and her eyes are fierce even as her voice is gentle. “You are the clan’s child, Jun. The clan is your flock, and the flock always looks after their own.” Jun takes these words to heart, tucks them away in his chest.
He doesn’t ask about his father.
His mother never tells.
It is in the beginning days of the Third War that Jun begins to notice he is different. He stands with the other children on the streets, watching his mother and uncles and aunts leave for a bloody battlefield. His mother’s back is all hard lines, a shield in his defense. She walks like a soldier, wayward strands of hair streaking behind her like kunai, short and sharp. She leaves, and Jun hopes with all his heart that she can do anything. Will do anything, to return.
Eventually, the few adults staying behind begin to leave, one by one, ushering children with them. No one is there to take him home, so Jun watches until the sun stains the skies red.
Nobuko, his older cousin by three years, appears at his side, frowning as hard as she can. She grabs his hand and begins to pull him home. Nobuko is prideful and bossy and a know-it-all, but her grip is firm over his. Jun watches their hands swing above dirt roads, as different as day and night. Her skin is pinkish in the evening light, pale in the dark, porcelain where his is—not. His hands are dark, brown where hers are pink, the color of the almonds that sit on the table for guests. He’s never noticed before, not in any way that really mattered.
But his mother has hands like Nobuko, the color of porcelain and ivory. Jun doesn’t realize it at the time, but it is the first crack in the shield that protected him from the world.
At five years old, Jun spends most of his time alone. With his mother spending more time on the frontlines than at home, it should fall to her brother to care for him. But Kuroha Kenshin is the Clan Head, and with eight children of his own he hardly has time for another. Chaos fills their home, but silence covers his own, and both are either too much or not enough. “Home” is stifling, in so many different ways, so when his uncle asks, Jun jumps at the chance to enter the academy.
He falls into the same year as Uncle Kenshin’s son Norio, the boy’s three older siblings in classes above them, but once they enter the academy grounds his four cousins scatter and Jun is left alone.
When Jun reaches his class, he hesitates only a moment before opening the door.
Chatter dwindles as he steps into the room, and Jun hesitates, turning to see eyes watching him.
“What are you doing here?” Someone asks, and at first, Jun doesn’t even register the tone, far too confused by what’s happening.
Then another tells him, “Go back to Kumo!”
For Jun, who had rarely left the Kuroha Compound before now, the academy floors beneath him are like quicksand, threatening to drown him if he doesn’t act. His eyes find Norio, high up in the corner. They were flock, they always looked after one another.
Norio avoids his gaze with a grimace, and Jun feels the betrayal like a punch in the gut.
He thinks of turning around, of hiding away in the stifling silence of his house, but behind him the teacher enters and shuffles him into a seat. Class passes in stone cold gazes and distance as wide as the sea.
The academy becomes a form of slow torture, different from the stifling chaos or silence of home. With no one willing to talk to him (except to tell him to get out of their village, even though it’s his village too), Jun tries to bury himself in books, in learning. But words jumble in his head and his eyes glaze over until nothing makes sense, and the stares of his classmates are only more and more obvious.
Then their teacher introduces them to taijutsu.
Fighting comes naturally to Jun, in a way that nothing else before has. He teaches himself the katas their teacher shows them and everything else falls away. There are no stares, no jeering for the color of his skin, nothing but the movement of his limbs, flowing from one stance to the next. He remembers his mother telling him there is a battlefield in his blood and thinks that perhaps this is what she meant.
It’s another two years before they tell him.
Jun likes to do his homework on the engawa during the fall, when the worst of the heat has dissipated in favor of the coming winter and the humidity drops considerably. Soft footsteps approach him as he struggles through a math assignment, and Jun looks up to see his Uncle Kenshin, steel eyes that of a dead man’s. He knows what’s coming, feels it in the way his stomach drops out from under him. He knows, and the last thing he wants is to hear the word aloud, cementing in his new reality. His uncle says it anyways.
“Naoko… Your mother, died a shinobi’s death on the frontlines against Kumogakure.”
Sound fizzles out, and all Jun can hear is the crackle of flames, the smell of smoke and charred wood.
It was always Kumo.
He takes a heaving breath, chokes. He feels fire in his eyes, in his blood, against his skin. In the next moment Uncle Kenshin’s arms wrap around him, lifting him in a firm hold, and Jun turns and sees smoldering wood where he’d been sitting. He breathes in smoke and charred wood before his uncle pushes his head into a broad shoulder.
Jun closes steel gray eyes and hears the voices of the other children in his head, the stares that see him and see someone from Kumogakure. He presses his face into a broad shoulder as his mind conjures up images of his mother, dying at the ends of shinobi with hands like his, skin the color of almonds and trees.
Fingers card through his hair, and the tears finally come in great heaving sobs. Jun cries in his uncle’s arms and hates himself for the first time.
In the end, despite protests from his uncle, Jun only misses one day of school. He feels like a livewire, sparks jumping across his skin, and he thinks if anyone so much as looks at him wrong, he’ll ignite. He walks into the classroom knowing the day will burst into flames, perhaps even literally.
He braces himself, but no one says anything. They don’t even stare, casting only furtive glances with discomfort lining their shoulders, hunched up in something like shame. Jun looks at them all, feeling like it was the first day all over again for all that he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Only Norio meets his gaze with a small, shaky smile. (The flock looks after their own, he thinks, and perhaps it doesn’t make up for two years of alienation, but it’s a start.)
At lunch, Jun hides in the stairwell. He picks at his food, but the sight of his hands—of his skin—makes him nauseous. He thinks of taking a nap instead, but the night before he dreamt of driving a kunai through his mother’s chest, and the thought of seeing that again puts off any notions of sleep.
He goes home to an empty house and collapses onto the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling until his uncle comes to get him for dinner. Norio makes a point of sitting next to him while Nobuko tries to goad him into conversation on his other side. He picks at his food, speaks in short phrases and only when spoken to. Nobuko’s voice gets louder with every failed attempt, and Jun hunches further and further over the table. It takes Takuma, the eldest of the siblings, to finally shut her up. Jun escapes as soon as it’s considered an acceptable time. He returns to his silent house, staring at the ceiling and trying not to fall asleep.
The days pass in this fashion for a little over a week, Jun moving through them in a haze. His nights are filled with either sleeplessness or nightmares. On the worst nights he hides in his closet and waits for his father to come home, a faceless man with skin the color of almonds, covered in his mother’s blood.
On the ninth day, Jun hides in the stairwell again, not even attempting to eat his lunch. He presses his forehead to his knees and counts his breaths while idly wondering if suffocating would turn his skin blue permanently.
Jun feels more than hears another person sitting beside him. He peeks out of the corner of his eye, half-expecting one of his cousins. Instead, it’s a boy with eyes as dark as his hair, wearing a high-collared shirt and lounging back against the steps. An Uchiha.
Jun doesn’t otherwise acknowledge the other boy, who seems content enough, and so they sit in silence for several minutes. Then, out of the blue,
“I lost a cousin to a Kumo shinobi.”
Jun presses his forehead harder into his knees, keeps pushing until it begins to ache. He doesn’t want to hear it, whether it’s an accusation or a form of pity. He’s not sure which would be worse.
“But that has nothing to do with you.”
Jun blinks. That… was not what he expected. He doesn’t lift his head, not yet, but the pressure against his knees lessens.
“You’re a Konoha citizen too. That’s what really matters, right?” Jun lifts his head to see the Uchiha boy smiling at him. At the sight of his face, Uchiha’s smile widens into a grin. “Good to know I wasn’t talking to a corpse.”
“…Who are you?”
“It’s common courtesy to introduce yourself before asking someone’s name.” The boy parrots with an overly dramatic haughtiness, far more expressive than Jun expected given the other Uchiha students. He doesn’t wait for Jun to speak though, grin returning to his face a moment later. “The name’s Uchiha Shisui. You’re Kuroha Jun, right?”
Jun doesn’t know what else to do but nod. Not even Nobuko speaks to him with such an easy smile.
Shisui nods to himself in satisfaction before picking up the bento box at his feet. He starts unwrapping it eagerly, grinning to himself. “What do you have for lunch?” Jun looks down at the untouched bento beside him for a moment before picking it up with sluggish movements and unwrapping it. Shisui leans over as soon as Jun removes the lid, and he tenses at the sudden closeness.
“What’s with your lunch? It’s like bird food!”
Jun scowls on reflex, turning away as much as he can without touching the other. “It’s a normal lunch. My cousins get the same thing.” He rears back a moment later when another lunch is shoved under his nose.
“This is a normal lunch.” Shisui declares, right before he swaps out the two boxes.
“Hey!” Jun shouts, but Shisui is already digging into Jun’s lunch, inhaling at a ridiculous speed.
Shisui points at Jun with his chopsticks, mouth still full of food as he speaks. “I know for a fact that you’re not eating enough, so that’s your lunch for today. And since I so generously gave you my lunch, you better eat it.” Shisui’s bento is filled with over-sauced tonkatsu and rice, and Jun grimaces. He glances longingly at his rice noodles, even as they disappear at an alarming rate into Shisui’s mouth.
Shisui stops eating long enough to give Jun a look, so with great reluctance Jun begins to pick at the food in his hands. He goes for the small pile of fresh veggies first before starting on the rice. Beside him, the Uchiha leans back with a gusty sigh. “Ah man, I’m still hungry.” He looks over at where Jun is picking slowly through the rice. His eyes are far too sharp. “Hey, you can’t leave the pork. You need protein!”
Jun wrinkles his nose at him. “It’s fried.”
“It’s protein.”
They stare each other down, the tonkatsu sitting innocently between them, until Shisui’s arm snaps out. A slice of pork cutlet is shoved into Jun’s mouth before he can react. Jun chokes, but chews and swallows to Shisui’s victorious smirk, grimacing at the way the fried food settles heavy in his stomach.
In the end, however, he’s still only able to eat about a third of Shisui’s lunch, to which the boy narrows his eyes but doesn’t push any further.
Shisui is already at the stairwell by the time Jun arrives the next day. He doesn’t admit to the pleasantly warm feeling that settles in his chest, but after days of feeling fire under his skin, he welcomes it nonetheless.
“Jun-kun,” Uncle Kenshin starts, standing amidst the forested training grounds with eyes the color of gravestones. His pitch black hair feathers out around him, and Jun stares at the older man’s shadow and thinks he understands why their clan is known for crows. “I think it’s time you start training as a Kuroha, not just as a shinobi.”
Jun nods; he knew this was a long time coming. Norio had started several months ago, and Jun suspects the only reason they held off so long for him was to let him grieve. (He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop grieving, really. But at least when he’s with Shisui, he feels something like normal.)
Uncle Kenshin nods, but there is a tense set to his mouth that Jun doesn’t like. “Unlike a lot of other clans, our techniques aren’t particularly flashy; however, our clan’s taijutsu is built around these techniques.”
Jun knows this—every Kuroha child does. It’s hard to miss when relatives flit from rooftops, light and soundless as they move faster than the average shinobi. He doesn’t understand why Uncle Kenshin is walking through this so slowly.
The man sighs. “These techniques were created in part because most of our clan members have wind nature chakra.”
Oh.
“And I have fire.” Jun remembers charred wood on the engawa where he sat, the feeling of smoke in his lungs and fire in his veins.
Uncle Kenshin nods, but he places a firm hand on Jun’s shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean it will be impossible for you; it will just require more work. What I want you to start with, however, is your chakra control.” The man explains the basics of tree climbing before pushing Jun towards the nearest tree trunk. Jun concentrates his chakra, puts one foot against the bark. It sticks, and carefully he lifts his other foot, sticks it to the trunk of the tree.
It’s not so hard, Jun thinks, so of course that is the moment he falls on his ass.
“Try again,” Uncle Kenshin says with far too much amusement, and if he weren’t the Clan Head Jun would think about sassing him back. He does, but only in his head.
(He thinks of Shisui’s words—you’re a Konoha citizen—and doesn’t linger on the way his skin is the color of almonds and tree bark, the way his uncle’s is not.)
Shisui graduates first, several months later. It’s three years ahead of his classmates, ahead of Jun, and Jun tries to pretend he’s happy that his only friend is leaving to fight in the same war that killed his mother. Shisui, of course, sees right through him. “Don’t worry, Jun-chan, I’ll visit often! Someone has to make sure you’re eating.”
True to his word, Jun goes to dinner and finds Shisui sitting across from the twins with a smile.
Dinners are communal for the Kuroha clan, and every night all the members gather in the large pavilion at the center of the compound, each family bringing dishes to share. Even though it’s a daily event, it’s considered an almost sacred time for the clan.
Yet, Shisui sits with the other children, looking for all the world like he belongs there with his dark hair and relaxed demeanor. Jun stares for perhaps longer than necessary, but he feels that this time he could be forgiven the stupor. The only outsiders he’d ever seen at clan dinners were people marrying into the clan, until Shisui.
Shaking himself out of his stupor, Jun sits on Shisui’s left, still feeling hyperaware of the Uchiha’s presence.
“What are you doing here?”
His words are flat, and Shisui rears back, clutching at his chest with an audible gasp. “Rude!”
Jun feels his face flush when several of his cousins look over, pinching Shisui’s arm in retaliation. “Seriously, why are you here? People don’t just join in on clan dinners.” He hisses.
Shisui shrugs, like he doesn’t understand what the big deal is. “I told your uncle we were friends, and he invited me to dinner.” Jun levels a look at where Uncle Kenshin sits at the other end of the table, but the man pretends not to see it. Instead, he stands and greets their fellow clansmen as dinner is brought out, each dish passed first to the clan head before he in turn hands it to his wife, who hands it to the next person and so on.
When the first dish reaches Shisui, he takes it with a grin, spooning out a large helping of the stir fry. Jun smacks his hand, snatching the platter before the other boy can serve himself.
“Hey!” Shisui pouts, cradling his hand with a pout. “What was that for?”
“You can’t take that much.” Jun hisses back, putting a much smaller portion on Shisui’s plate before serving himself. He passes the stir fry to Minori across the table, grabbing the next dish before Shisui has the chance. “There has to be enough for everyone; if there’s any left after everyone has been served, then you can get more.”
Shisui continues to pout, but doesn’t complain as Jun serves them both.
By the time everyone has been served, chatter arises as people begin to eat. Shisui looks mournfully at where the empty stir fry dish sits further down the table, even though he has the biggest plate by far.
“You’re not the only one who eats like a bird after all.” The Uchiha muses around a mouthful of pork. Jun wrinkles his nose at the sight.
“I told you.” He mutters.
“It’s because we prefer snacking throughout the day.” Minori pipes up, slouching sleepily over the bench across from them. Compared to their siblings, the twins were much more laidback—too much so, at times.
Tadashi, Minori’s other half, leans into his brother with a yawn. “We don’t stuff ourselves three times a day like the rest of you.” He adds. “Although,” at this both boys offer Jun a shit-eating grin, “We appreciate you feeding our Jun-chan.”
Jun makes sure to kick them both under the table. “Respect your elders, brats.” Despite his words, there’s no heat to it. (He knows better than anyone how he was a year ago, before meeting Shisui. Remembers the way he stared at his skin and thought about suffocating.) It’s hard to be annoyed at the reminder that there are people who care.
Shisui and the twins snicker at the flush staining his dark skin. Traitors, the lot of them.
Long after dinner is over and cleared away, Jun has to physically shove Shisui out of the compound gates to get him to leave, and even then he has to suffer the twins ribbing him for the next several hours.
Finally, as the sun dips fully below the horizon, Jun is able to escape. Mostly.
Nobuko follows Jun back to his house, the moon lighting the short path between their homes. Her dark hair has grown out a little, small high tail swinging as she walks. A knowing smirk graces her lips, but she remains silent for the duration of the walk.
It isn’t until Jun is opening his front door that Nobuko hums and asks, “So when are you marrying him?”
Amongst the Kuroha clan, Uchiha Shisui becomes known as Jun’s “intended.”
Jun had known this was going to happen from the first time Shisui showed up to dinner, but his subsequent appearances only added fuel to the fire. Jun gives up trying to correct people when, for his ninth birthday, the twins invite Shisui over and claim him as their present. Besides, Shisui thinks it’s hilarious.
So of course, when Jun’s youngest cousin is born—Uncle Kenshin and Aunt Makoto have nine children now, sage—Shisui invites himself over and calls himself “onii-chan.” He switches back and forth between cooing over baby Masa and playing with two year old Riko, who seems to think Shisui is actually her brother. To make matters worse, no one bothers trying to correct her.
Shisui finally gets his turn holding the newest addition of the clan, a cheesy look on his face as he makes ridiculous noises at her, trying to get a laugh.
“She’s only two months old, Shisui. You’re not going to get any laughter from her.”
Jun curls up in a corner of the large sectional in his uncle’s living room, careful not to touch the feet of his dozing elder cousin, Takuma. The older kids have been rotating shifts for Aunt Makoto (which apparently includes Shisui now). Takuma had insisted, as the eldest, that he get at least as many shifts as Nobuko, even though he was already juggling duties as a chuunin and Uncle Kenshin’s successor.
“Oh, so you’re a baby expert now?” Shisui snips back, making kissy faces at Masa.
Jun rolls his eyes but wisely doesn’t respond. (Nobuko had made everyone a how-to-care-for-newborns guide, and insisted they memorize it. Jun still has nightmares of diaper changes.)
“Jun-chan, look! She’s smiling at me!” Shisui gasps, and Jun tries to appear disinterested, but he can’t help peeking out the corner of his eye at where Shisui sits on the nearby rocking chair. He’s clearly not subtle enough, as Shisui looks up at him with a bright grin on his face.
Jun stares at Shisui’s dark eyes, wide with delight, and curly hair dark enough to let him pass as part of one of the Kuroha branch families. Shisui’s cheeks are flushed with the force of his grin, arms gingerly holding Masa, whose chubby pink face is curved up in a wide smile to match Shisui’s. It’s ridiculously domestic, and Jun can’t help but think flock.
He’s quickly distracted from such sappy thoughts when Shisui pushes into his personal space, baby in tow. Jun leans back as far as he can against the cushions, but largely to no avail. “C’mon, it’s your turn!”
Jun sinks further into the cushions, crossing his arms and tucking his hands out of sight. “I’m good, thanks. You keep making faces at her.”
Shisui’s grin melts away into something more serious, and Jun looks away from his knowing dark eyes. “You won’t hurt her, Jun.”
Jun scowls—if there was one annoying thing about Shisui, it was that he was too meddlesome for his own good. “I know that.” He mutters, but Shisui doesn’t move.
They both know that isn’t the issue here, but Jun doesn’t know how to explain the nausea that builds in his gut when he takes Riko’s hand in his, sees pale skin engulfed in almond brown. He’s come a long way from those first few months after his mother’s death, but trauma doesn’t go away so easily. But then, neither does Shisui.
“Hold her, Jun. Just for a minute.” He insists. Jun holds out stubbornly for another couple of minutes—but Shisui has always won in that department, and Jun eventually gives in with a sigh.
He unfolds his arms, and Shisui is quick to put Masa in them, though he doesn’t move away like Jun expects. Instead, he stays right there, and helps Jun rearrange his arms to properly support Masa’s head. Shisui’s hands are there, steady and pale against Jun’s skin and it… helps. When Jun looks down at the baby in his arms, he doesn’t feel that immediate wave of disgust and fear. It’s still there, lurking, but seeing Shisui’s hands as well, reassuring and warm against his skin, makes it easier to push those thoughts away.
Jun relaxes.