When Shisui first met Mitarashi Anko, his first coherent thought is she could kill me with her eyeliner. His second is I need her to teach me how to do that, because knows he's a pretty boy; he gets sent on seduction missions too much for it to be otherwise. With that eyeliner, he would be prettier, like, Mitarashi Anko-level pretty. It would be devastating.

He has to be that pretty.

So he asks.

"Hey, Mitarashi-senpai!" he says, perfectly aware that they're on a mission and this really isn't the best time to ask this, "You're really good at eyeliner!"

And Anko, because she's gorgeous and perfect and she understands, turns to look at him, grins with too many teeth, and says, "Thanks, brat." Up close, even baring her teeth like a madwoman, she's the prettiest person Shisui's ever met. He half-thinks he's in love.

"Will you teach me?" he asks, but she doesn't get a chance to reply; because they are on a mission, after all, and well. Bad timing.

He almost jumps out of his skin when Anko drops down next to him as he cleans blood off of his sword, a snake draped around her neck and blood dripping from the kunai still held loosely in her grip. "You wanna learn eyeliner?" She says, and her grin is just as bloody and vicious as it had been the first time.

"Yes," Shisui breathes, and he knows he's basically got hearts in his eyes - this is hero worship, plain and simple. "Please!"

"C'mere," Anko says, pulling an eyeliner pen out of absolutely fucking nowhere, "What better place to learn than surrounded by the blood of your enemies?"

"You're so cool," Shisui breathes before he proceeds to sit still and let his new favourite person ever (Sorry, Itachi! Better luck next time) do his eyeliner, in a field half-drenched in the blood of those they'd killed together.

When they get back to Konoha, he takes to following Anko around like a lost puppy. (Shisui is self-aware, thank you very much, he knows he's practically stalking her, but she doesn't seem to care, so, where's the harm?) Anko seems to take it in stride, occasionally popping out of absolutely fucking nowhere to make him buy her dango—not that he'd ever not do it, of course; he's learnt from experience that those dango trips tend to be more educational than following her around is. And Anko works for T&I.

Honestly, watching her intimidate a man into giving her information without laying a single hand on him makes him fall in love with her just that little bit more.

She indulges his pranks—even helps him, sometimes, in what always turns out to be the most brilliant chaos—teaches him about poisons and senbon and some of the little, tricky bits of a fight. She teaches him more than he already knew about seduction, how to lure in men and women alike. He loves her, loves everything she offers to teach him and everything she does. She may be Orochimaru's student, but she didn't defect, and honestly? Her loyalty makes her all that much cooler.

Apparently, the majority of Konoha doesn't feel the same. Shisui, on the other hand, doesn't appreciate how Konoha treats his friend. As such, they clash. Repeatedly. And aggressively.

(If Shisui's pranks are more vicious when aimed at those who whisper behind Anko's back, well. She doesn't need to know that. She probably already knows that.)

When Danzo rips Shisui's eye from his head, the first person he goes to is Anko. She curses, wipes away the eyeliner smudged around his ruined eye—god, he'll never be as pretty—and says, "Tell me who did this and I'll tear out their throat with my teeth." Shisui almost laughs, at that, a snort that turns into a cough, blood splattering across his hands. "Shit," Anko curses again, "shit, who did this to you?"

"Danzo," he chokes out, "It was Danzo."

That's apparently all Anko needs to hear, because she heaves Shisui into her arms and runs. Thankfully, she doesn't take him to the hospital—she takes him straight to the Hokage himself, and, with his eye still bleeding sluggishly, he tells Sarutobi Hiruzen everything about what his old genin teammate has been doing. (And, for once in his goddamn life, the Hokage actually listens when it comes to matters of Shimura fucking Danzo. Thank god—half the goddamn village was aware of his blindness when it came to matters like Danzo.)

Regardless of willful blindness on the part of the Hokage, this is where he meets Genma. Honestly, it's surprising he hasn't met the guy earlier—they're the same rank, after all. Of course, the guy's an assassin, and one of the Hokage's guards on top of that, so, in retrospect, it probably isn't that odd. Either way, when Shisui first sees Genma, he's sitting crouched in the window to the Hokage's office, staring down at Shisui, splayed out on the Hokage's couch.

"You look fucked up," he says, the senbon in his mouth bobbing with each word.

"Yeah," Shisui chokes out, and is entirely unsurprised when Anko tackles the other man, cheering about something. He's too pretty to be anyone but one of Anko's friends.

Goddamnit. Surrounded by pretty people. Here lies Shisui: dead because everyone was too damn pretty for him to function. Ignore the blood loss.

Shisui goes through with what had been their plan from the start—to use Kotoamatsukami on Fugaku, cementing his loyalty to the village. He almost feels bad, before he remembers some of the not-so-nice comments the Uchiha clan head had made about Anko, and the horrendous regime he'd been forcing Itachi through. Poor boy. The kid's traumatised.

He also meets the pretty guard with the senbon in ANBU. Because of course he does. It's Shiranui fucking Genma, of course, renowned for his use of poisons and his supernatural ability to spit senbon hard enough to kill people. Shisui, meet the second person you're half in love with. Enjoy your obsession with poison users.

And then, because this is a goddamn trend apparently, Shisui asks the guy out. On a mission.

And proceeds to have his first kiss in a clearing while half-drenched in the blood of their enemies. It's another trend, apparently, and Shisui isn't complaining, as such, but aren't there better places to have firsts?

(There are, in fact, better places to have firsts. Shisui finds this out when they get back to Konoha, as Genma pins him against his apartment wall and sucks a line of purple bruises down his neck.)

"He gave me a genin team," Shisui says, staring at his hands. They've got a drink in them, because Genma and Anko took one look at him and decided he needed alcohol and, well, they're not wrong. "Me. He gave me a genin team and Sasuke is on it. Itachi's going to kill me."

Anko laughs, loud and completely unrepentant, while Genma smothers his snickers in his own drink.

"I hope you choke on that drink," Shisui tells his boyfriend, eyeing him balefully. Genma snorts, and proceeds to do just that. There's a vindictive sort of pleasure in watching it.

"Embrace it!" Anko tells him when she's finally done laughing, "teach them poisons and killer eyeliner!" Shisui thinks on that, then nods decisively.

"I'll teach them that," he says, "and I'll also teach Naruto how to shunshin, because he's already damn good at stealth." Genma stares at him in dismay, having been tasked with hunting Naruto down after his pranks multiple times. Shisui smirks, because he's Shunshin no goddamn Shisui, and if he's getting students, he's going to pass his legacy onto at least one of them, if not all of them.

"Hey, kids!" Shisui says, having just shunshined into the room and caused absolute chaos—just the way he likes it. "I'm Uchiha Shisui, team 7's new Jounin-sensei! Follow me, kiddos!"