one_long_mission | how did this even happen...

"Of course it is. I'm fairly good with braids,mother taught me. You should learn if you're going to keep it, especially with the mess you made of it." He shook his head on a huff and looked to Tenten, taken aback by her expression. "Tenten...?"

"Ah, I concede that I probably couldn't manage that. The chains, you know. Things might get... tangled." His gaze moved to Itachi, and back to her. "You're right. I ought to learn to braid." And he perked slightly. "Your hair is lovely, Tenten-san. How long is it? Long enough to braid?"

She just smiles. "What a shame." Her fingers trace gentle patterns along the back of Itachi's hand as she watches his cousin. "Just past my shoulders. How else do you think I could get it up in these?" She gestures with her free hand to the twin buns atop her head. "It gets in the way sometimes, but I like it how it is."

"As do I." It was a murmur as he looked sideways at her. "You never leave it down long though."

He looked back to Obito. "Are you still as clumsy as you were when I was little or did you finally outgrow that?"

"If you take it down now, I could try braiding it for you." Obito suggested. "I'd be grateful for the chance to practice. That's just long enough. I couldn't do Itachi's, I don't think--too much of it." And his attention shifted to his cousin. He put a hand over his heart, mock-hurt. "Clumsy?"

Her eyes narrow at the corners. She's still not completely certain that she trusts this man enough to have him at her back, but she trusts Itachi enough to watch for her safety. Better he use her hair than Itachi's, anyway.

"I could braid it myself, but if you want to practice, that's fine," she says finally, drawing her fingers away from Itachi's hand to reach up with both hands, tugging the ties from each bun to let the hair fall down her back. A moment, then she passes one of the ties to Itachi. "If you want to fix yours," she murmurs, face turned away from Obito as she ostensibly gets herself into proper position for him to get behind her to braid, but communicating with her eyes that she expected Itachi to watch the other very carefully.

That, and she keeps a hand resting easily on her thigh, just above the two slits in the cloth that gave way to tape over her legs, tape concealing all manner of fun sharp things. Just in case.

Itachi gave them -both- a frown here. Especially given that Tenten kept brushing off -his- touching her since she sat down. He didn't understand the simmering hostile wariness as the undertone of the situation, but he didn't vocalize this, instead simply reaching up to tug his hair back into a tail as he looked from one to the other of them. "Yes, clumsy. I didn't think so then, but looking back, you were a walking disaster."

"I wasn't," he denied. And he got up and got behind Tenten, admiring the thick brown hair for a moment before he slipped his long fingers through it once, pulling down from top to bottom. Not a single tangle. "I mean there was Aunt Mikoto's vase that one time, sure. And maybe I wasn't great at getting out of the way of stuff Kakashi threw at me during training. And sure there was the one... the insignificant two times the library caught on fire. But walking disaster is putting it a little harshly."

There'd be something seriously wrong if it had managed to tangle after she'd tied it up, and she forces herself to remain still, trusting Itachi to watch for her safety. Her fingers still drum uneasily against her thigh, ready to dive into the bandages on her legs for a senbon if necessary.

Distracted as such, it's a fraction of a second late when she laughs. "Is that really what happened in the Uchiha compound?"

"I -knew- the fire was you!" He sat up straighter as he looked at him. "Shisui said that you denied it to him when he asked you, but you -did- do it."

He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. "You helped me catch the kitchen on fire too. When father wasn't home, of course. I can make rice now!"

"Yeah, that's because Shisui would have told. Anyway I didn't do it on purpose. And the kitchen thing was mostly your fault, you know." He pulled his fingers through Tenten's hair a few more times, tracing his nails against the back of her neck very lightly before he finally got it all into more or less three even sections.

"The Uchiha compound," he told her, like it exasperated him. "Is plagued by sudden, mysterious, large fires. Things are always going up in smoke or burning to pieces there. Particularly anywhere where our wicked broods of little, adorable children can be found at play."

Every time his nails brush her neck, her hand edges closer to the bandages on her leg, though she forces her breathing to remain steady and her smile to stay on her face. "Itachi-sama, you shouldn't say that like it's a major accomplishment, you know," she points out, smile more genuine as she looks to him. "You really should learn when Sasuke and I cook."

Her eyes slide sideways toward Obito, though she knows she can't see him from this angle. "Well, I guess that's to be expected from a clan obsessed with fire jutsu, huh?"

"I'm not a natural fire affinity." He peered at Obito as he said this. "But I still picked it up by the time I was six." He hummed lowly. "And the kitchen only caught fire because you weren't paying attention. I was four, you -knew- I couldn't cook anything. You're just lucky you're good at cleaning."

His gaze drifted back to Tenten. "It -is- a major accomplishment! My rice is perfect."

"We're a clan big on obsession in general," he commented to her, starting the braid one way and then pausing, undoing it and starting again the other way. "As far as that goes, fire jutsu are one of the more harmless things we let consume our waking hours."

And he cast a bemused look at Itachi. "So you never did learn to cook."

"Is that so?" It's harder now to resist the urge to turn her head to look at him, but through a supreme effort, she keeps her head mostly still. Trying to catch Itachi's eye, she tries to communicate that maybe later he should braid it, since it's probably going to be a tangled mess by the time Obito is done with it, but it can't be helped.

A glance toward Itachi, and she confirms, "He really can't. Rice is about pushing it."

"I can make things that are edible. That does not make them taste like it." It was a low murmur. "She hasn't actually had the dubious joy of my cooking. Nor have you since I stopped charring everything to pans."

He leaned forward in his chair, peering up at Obito and while he noted her look, he wasn't entirely certain what she expected him to do. "Have you actually ever learned to braid Obito-nii?"

"Well. I thought I'd sort of got the gist of it by feel from when you did mine." He gets to the end of the... okay, it isn't a braid. Not a braid at all. But it is sort of like a braid and after a moment's hesitation he winds the tie around it. "Ahem. This is just a... first try."

"You've told us both not to let you cook."

Loath to bring the other hand away from her thigh, she reaches with her free hand to run it cautiously down her hair. ...What there is of it. She goes a little pale and tries for a laugh. "Well... congratulations? Maybe you should watch Itachi do it, do you think?"

Itachi got to his feet, one hand moving to gently push Obito to the side. "Stand behind me and pay attention. This is clearly why you never had long hair as a teen. Other than the goggles." He looked at her hair a moment, then took out the tie, gently untangling the mess he'd made of her hair.

"I never had long hair as a teen because your dad kept making me hack it all off," he grumbled. And he stepped back, watching. He really did want to get this down. It seemed handy.

She stills almost immediately when it's Itachi's hands in her hair, eyes falling closed as she relaxes against the chair. Her hand moves away from her thigh to fold both in her lap, enjoying the light tug of his fingers in her hair.

"Well... until you could manage a spar without getting it grabbed... He was very adamant about that ideal. I kept my hair short until I was nearly a chunin for exactly that reason. You -were- a chunin, so I can see his persistence with you." He carefully worked up her hair, touch gentle. "Then again, the clan never was as nice to you as I thought they should be."

"Yeah. Nobody liked me back then." He remarked, observing. Under and over. It didn't look so hard. "Wasn't this the way I was doing it?"

Itachi's hands in her hair might be enough to lull her to sleep like this, but she glances sideways, trying to catch Obito's eye. "Not... quite. It felt more like you were knotting it than anything else. But hold on." She raises her eyes, trying to spot Itachi now. "How could that be? I thought this was the guy who taught you kunai, and you're pretty good at that. Why wouldn't they like you?"

"-I- always liked you Obito-nii... but when I was that age my parents thought there was something wrong with me too." It was a murmur, and he unwound a bit before rewinding the part of the brain her movement had made lopsided.

"I said he taught me. I didn't say he was as good at it as I am."

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