#ALL I DID HERE WAS PUT THOROUGHFARE ON AND HE VOLUNTEERED TO LISTEN TO MORE BC HE LIKED IT SO MUCH

[hella1975]

WHAT JUST HAPPENED

about to play thoroughfare in the car with my dad 🙏🏼

[sosaidthedragon]

Oshogastu

(In honor of it being the new year, have a sappy, somewhat New Year’s themed one shot. Oshogatsu, by the way, is the Japanese New Year holiday/festival.)

Guy X OC

Rated E

For three days, Konoha was home to one of the world’s largest New Year’s festivals. Tourists flocked to the village from all over not only the Land of Fire, but other neighboring countries, in order to enjoy the specialty foods and festivities the village had become famous for over the years. Genin decorated homes with beautiful ornaments and strung warm, decorative lights throughout the main thoroughfares, where merchants rented storefronts or opened stalls to ply their wares.

Mitsume hadn’t been able to attend the festival since her days in the Academy. It seemed fate always conspired to see to it she was away on a mission of one sort or another whenever the holiday came around, returning home in time to see the vendors packing up and genin cleaning trash off the streets. For once, however, she had managed to avoid being saddled with any such mission – largely because Tsunade hadn’t cleared her to return to active duty, but she was free, nonetheless.

Unexpectedly, Guy was as well. He had actually been given a week long mission to the Land of Waves, however, Kakashi had kindly volunteered to take the escort mission instead, claiming he was going stir crazy after two weeks in the hospital himself. Even Tsunade had realized what he was doing, and once he and Guy – who was sobbing and thanking his rival for his sacrifice – had finally left her office, she had handed Mitsume a few ryo to buy Kakashi some sweets for his return, since he would have to leave before the festival actually started.

The hardest part about getting ready was prying Guy away from his rival, which took not only Mitsume but Lee, Neji, and Naruto - after Lee stopped crying about how beautiful it was for Kakashi to give Guy the opportunity to spend New Years with his loved ones, anyway. She still had the kimono her mother gave her a couple of years ago, the one made of dark purple silk, that she hadn’t yet had an occasion to wear, hanging in a clothing bag in her closet, beside the montsuki hakama Guy tended to forget he owned. She briefly thought about trying to get him to wear it, but it was a bit too formal for a festival, and it was generally not a good idea for Guy to not wear pants in public.

They had both learned that one the hard way – four years later and they still weren’t allowed back to that restaurant. Or that bath house.

It was really just better for everyone if he wore his jumpsuit.

After a fair bit of struggling to get everything to lay properly, she stepped out into the living room, where Guy was waiting. His hands were tucked behind his back, and his cheeks had a suspicious red tint to them – combined with the fact he was staring at his feet told her he was up to something. She would have thought that, after four years together and nearly ten more of him chasing her, he would have gotten over being shy about something as simple as giving her a gift, but he still acted exactly as he had that first time he asked her out in the school yard when they were kids.

He lifted his eyes briefly, looking her over from toe to head, his tan face growing even darker before his gaze traveled swiftly back to the floor, and his hands suddenly shot forward. Held tightly in one fist was a boquet of flowers, their stems half-crushed by the pressure – anemone, lavender, and forge-me-not blossoms were among the ones she recognized immediately, though there were several more she couldn’t immediately identify. In the other he held a piece of paper, folded into a lover’s knot, or what one looked like after a nervous Might Guy held onto it for too long.

“Arara,” She drawled in surprise, carefully tugging the items free. “What’s this now?”

Laying the flowers down on the table, she carefully unfolded the note, revealing the poem on the inside. It didn’t quite look like Guy’s handwriting, mostly because it was actually legible, and there was a wiggling in the lines that almost made it look like he’d been trembling when he wrote it.

Passionate heart

Soft touch of a flower

In its fullest bloom

For a moment, she wracked her brain to try and remember if she had ever heard that particular haiku before, but no author sprang to mind. Curious if he had put the author at the bottom, she unfolded the bottom seam, only for something to tumble out. She caught it without thinking, not quite recognizing the small, round item in her hand by sensation alone, but before she could figure it out, Guy stole all of her attention.

“I wrote that.”

Guy still had his head bowed down, fists clenched and trembling at his sides. He was clearly uncomfortable, eyes screwed up tightly so he wouldn’t accidentally look at her, something he only ever did when he was about to do or say something he was seriously worried someone wouldn’t approve of.

“Back in the academy,” He continued. “When Joben-sensei asked me to deliver some forms to Keitaro-sensei, I saw a girl, sitting in the front row of his class, and she was so beautiful I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t know her name, but I knew the moment I saw her, she was the only one I would ever want to be with. So I promised myself, if I didn’t confess to her the next day, I would do three hundred laps around the school yard, and I wrote that poem intending to give it to her. But I lost my nerve, so while I was running those laps, I promised myself if I didn’t confess the next day, I would do three hundred and ten laps around the school yard.”

She could remember that day clearly, although she never much thought about it. Keitaro-sensei had been droning on, as he so often did, and she had begun to drift off, listing off everything she could be doing that was more worthwhile than listening to Keitaro-sensei’s endless monologue. She hadn’t even noticed an upperclassman had entered the room, until Keitaro-sensei started telling him off for getting distracted, and she only managed to briefly glimpse a boy in a bright green jumpsuit fleeing the room as fast as he could manage.

“Although I did find the strength to confess, I was never strong enough to give her that poem, not even after she returned my affection. I’ve carried that note in my pocket every day since then, for almost twenty years, trying to work up the nerve. This morning, I made myself a promise that today would be the day I would finally give her that poem.”

As he finished speaking, she turned her hand upward and looked at the item she had caught. It was a ring, with a band made of silver and gold that swirled together like the marks in a wooden board, with a single, almost flower shaped diamond. Just as she began to comprehend what she was seeing, Guy’s massive hands took hold of hers, and pulled them towards his chest as he dropped onto one knee. He had apparently lost his battle with his tears, because they streamed heavily down his face, though he had finally managed to open his eyes, staring at her with obvious determination.

“Kedamonoshu Mitsume, please, do me the great honor of saying you’ll marry me.”

After a little more than a week on the road, Kakashi was relieved to see the familiar skyline of Konoha appear at before him. Hands in his pockets, he slowly made his way towards his apartment, taking every back road he knew of to avoid his students so he could get some much needed rest. This route just so happened to take him past the training grounds his “eternal rival’s” girlfriend often used with her genin squad, and he stopped to watch for a few moments as she put the kids through their paces, much to their displeasure.

Judging by the sweat, scratches, and general wear and tear, they’d been running drills since early that morning. The fact none of them had collapsed into an exhausted heap begging for a merciful death, however, told him she was probably in a good mood, though her scowl would have made most people think otherwise. She spotted him across the field, and motioned him to come over, something he did with great reluctance and a heavy sigh – he could just keep going, but then she would probably just sick her genin on him, and he’d spend the next week dealing with the little demons annoying him in unfathomable ways.

Some of his underwear were still pink, and he had yet to find a certain novel from his collection – he suspected it wasn’t so much hidden as one of the boys on her team had taken it and wasn’t about to give it back, but he had yet to figure out which one.

“How was your mission?” She asked conversationally, never taking her eyes off her students.

“Ah, pretty quiet, actually. We saw a few bandits on the road, but that’s about it. Did you enjoy the festival?”

“Yeah, it was pretty nice. Guy won a goldfish – we let Lee pick the name.”

“What did he decide?”

“Hire, The Great Hot-Blooded Golden Fish of Konoha.”

He resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment, and instead just rolled his lips between his teeth and gave a short series of affirmative grunts. She seemed to know exactly what was going through his mind, the corner of her lip twitching as she fought a smile, before she changed the subject, reaching into one of her inner vest pockets. She produced a large but thin boxes, which was wrapped in a bright blue piece of fabric, which was littered with an obnoxious number of cartoon cats. It was tied off with a bright yellow ribbon, and festooned with what he suspected was actually a hair tie, with a plastic white cat face attached to it.

“Here. Guy made sure we got all your favorites. We even got some specialty dog treats for Pakkun and the other ninken.”

Absolutely not to his surprise, the jubako itself was also primarily decorated with cats – even less surprising was the fact that nearly every cake and candy had been painstakingly carved or shaped into cat faces or paw prints. Silently contemplating his revenge, he snapped the lid back on the box, tied it back together, and stuck it into his pocket before accepting the three other smaller, plain packages.

As he did so, he caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye. Although her focus was on her students, there was no question she had noticed his stare, as the smile she had been resisting finally broke through, tilting the corners of her mouth. Not unexpectedly, this mild display of emotion in front of her students immediately made her uncomfortable, and she slugged him in the arm as she walked towards the trio, who had apparently decided it was time to stand up to their sensei by sitting down.

“By the way, you might want to swing by the bookstore on your way home.”

“What did you do now?”

“I didn’t do anything. Guy, on the other hand, may have gotten wind that the ninja who so kindly gave up the opportunity to enjoy the New Year’s festival for his benefit has a little crush on a certain red-headed employee. He’s gotten it into his head that the best way to thank this kindly ninja for his help is to set the two of them up on a date.”

“You monster.”

“The new year is a time for change, Hatake. Besides – Guy and Lee worked really hard on that banner.”