a time for morning; minato x femme!shisui (x kushina) — pg-13.
(au, darlings.)

for yukari rin, with looooove (ohoho, belated birthday present) ♥

-

I would've said so earlier but you just never listen to anything I say.

(They were all empty steps; she never really felt anything, and so what was the point of living when you were living only a shallow lie?) And she decided that the silence was too deafening (what an oxymoron! What—an—oxymoron—); that this man in front of her was too young to get married to aruffian of a girl who had no country to call her own and had absolutely no manners (Carrot Top ate like a wolf); that they had (why "they"?) seen too much and heard too much and got into too much trouble for him to get married to that girl.

"You really don't like her," he bit out sharply but cleaning the fragments from his sentences (did he sound too accusing? Was he too demanding of her? Why was he even talking to her?). "But, Shisui, you don't evenknow her. You don't bother getting to know her." His breath hitched audibly. "Shisui… you're just too… too formal and you're just too… you know? Uptight. Demanding. Kushina says—"

"What is this?" she snapped, her hand resting on the wooden sliding door (cedar wood—how appropriate for such a situation). "What is this? Some game I don't know about? Is this Let's point out all of Shisui's damn personality flaws and see if she can take it or not?" (Her nails were digging into the wood by now.) "You always talk about her. Always. Always Kushina says this and Kushina says that and Kushina suggested this to us and Kushina suggested that to us—I pity her—god damn it, Minato, what is she to you? Your life?"

And she thought she had a pretty good argument until she realized that his defeated, quiet, grim expression on his face made him look like she was his life. (She raised her chin, making her look ambitious and composed and respected and crazy, crazy, crazy.)

"Get out of my house." Stay for a moment, you asshole.

"Shisui, I'd give you anything."

"Give me your wedding ring." What would I do for a second chance?

"I can't do that."

"Then get out of my house." Everything.

"I don't know anymore, Shisui."

"Are you going to go?" Are you deaf?

"No."

"You mean Yes."I would take you to the Nakano River and serve you tea.

"Yes."

"Then go." But you never stop to think and listen.

(Somewhere and somehow, she finally understands that this is what it means to be bitter and this is what the world wanted all along—the world wanted Minato, that hopeless romantic of a blonde boy, to marry Carrot Top, that crazy, crazy woman who ate like a starving wolf; the world wanted to pull them apart; the world wanted her to walk down the street with the rain coming down and her to shout for everyone to hear, I'm mad, I'm goddamned mad!—but who will restrain her? But who will stop her and say, You're not mad; it's okay now; everything going to be just fine.)

And, as she watches him walk slowly away, wonders when he will understand, and when the world starts to spin again.