dusk [dream o5]
The setting sun is warm on her back.
You know, one of them says, she doesn't listen hard enough to differentiate, you should come down sometime.
Or you could come up sometime, she yells down to Izumo and Kotetsu on the ground. This is what they have gone through every day for the past four or five days. Anko climbs a tree at some point during a daily argument (usually instigated by her) and then stays in it until they go away. The first night, they stayed at the foot of the tree until dawn.
But they never come up.
It's easier to sit up here than admit defeat, so she swings her feet a little and admires the mountain from a distance, adorned with the faces of Konoha's leaders. They're still finishing Yondaime's face, she notes.
The branches rustle slightly beneath her and suddenly Izumo's feet are by her hand on the trunk, and he's standing perpendicular to her, arms crossed.
Why don't you ever come down when we ask? he scolds. We're teammates now, okay?
Why don't you ever come up when I ask? We're teammates, is her retort, delivered with less bite because she's a bit surprised he'd go to this length. Climb this far.
He sighs, calls down, You were right, and suddenly Kotetsu is up here too, grinning at her underneath the bandage across the bridge of his nose where she punched him two days ago. And without another word, both take up residence in branches above and below her.
Nice view, one of them says, but she's not listening hard enough to differentiate, because she's too busy holding back a smile and swallowing against the lump in her throat.
She feels warm even after the sun sets, when they're walking home together.
~~~
[ Anko stirs, rolls over a little, her back pressed to Deidara's. She cracks an eyelid, sees the Hitomi, and tries to turn it off, but ends up pushing it off the bed.
Muffled: ]
Nnng, whatever.