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There is a basket of food outside his front door.
Sasuke pauses mid-step, one foot on the first step and the other on the ground. He tightens the grip he has on his backpack straps.
It's not the first time.
They started appearing not long after he got discharged from the hospital, after that night. One basket every week, with enough to feed him for that period. He never eats him.
He is an Uchiha. He can feed himself. He does not need some random person's pity. They're probably trying to gain favour from the last Uchiha.
Sasuke scoffs and returns his walk up the steps. He crouches to inspect the card hanging from the basket strap. As always, it just simply says Nohara Rin and nothing else. And as always, Sasuke frowns and walks right past it.
Stray cats wind around his legs, blocking his path to his door. They always do this, as well. They meow and make noise and rub up against the basket, purring all the while. He thinks that they can smell this Nohara Rin person's scent on the basket.
His mother had always said cats were great judges of character. Sasuke doesn't think so.
He is tired of the unspoken expectations of this person. Tired of the pity. Just—tired.
This time, he is tired enough that he decides to do something about it.
--
Sasuke stands in front of Iruka's desk, his balled fists shoved deep in his pockets. He does not say anything. He does not need to. He is all of eight years old and commands the attention of everyone in every room that he enters.
Iruka looks up. He smiles and puts his pen down, clasping his hands together. “Is there anything that I can do for you, Sasuke-kun?”
Sasuke likes Iruka, as much as he can like someone. He treats his students fairly, from clan kid to civilian-born. He doesn't pity Sasuke, which is hard to come by. He's intelligent, too, even if he finds his lectures dreadfully boring. He's probably the adult, or person, that Sasuke trusts the most.
Sasuke's nails press into his palms. It grounds him. His therapist says that it's unhealthy but he doesn't particularly care about her opinion. “Do you know who Nohara Rin is?” he asks evenly.
Iruka's eyebrows raise. “Nohara Rin?” he asks with some surprise before his expression smooths out again. “Well—yes. She's the head of the hospital, and one of the most capable shinobi belonging to Konoha. If you want to meet her I'm sure you can ask her secretary and arrange something.”
Sasuke nods and walks away. Iruka goes back to his work because he knows by now not to expect a thank you.
The hospital director, huh? He wasn't expecting someone that high up in the food chain.
He scowls.
What does she need more power for?
--
When she gets back from her bathroom break, the Uchiha boy is standing in front of her desk, a frown marring his face. Hisako almost stops dead in her surprise, but manages to pull herself together enough that her steps only falter momentarily.
That must be enough because he looks straight at her, something challenging in his eyes.
Hisako sits down in her chair and pushed her glasses up, a real smile pulling her lips up. “Do you have an appointment with Nohara-san, Uchiha-kun?”
The boy shifts and shakes his head. He does not say anything.
She is used to dealing with his kind. Nohara-san can get like that on her bad days. Hisako smile deepens. “I can go see if she's available to see you now?” her schedule is clear for the rest of the day aside from a surgery at seven, but she knows that Nohara-san likes to be warned about company.
The boy hesitates a moment, but nods. Hisako grins and gets up her from chair. His eyes follow her every move. She is more than used to paranoid shinobi, so it does not bother her. Not like the young new receptionist at the front, who jumps and stutters at the slightest bit of attention.
Hisako knocks on Nohara-san's door, waits five seconds because the director does not like to answer if she knows that she doesn't need to, and pokes her head in. Nohara-san is doing paperwork. There is a crease between her brows and shadows beneath her eyes. She does not look up because she never does when it's Hisako.
Hisako has never known how to feel about it, even though she's been with Nohara-san since she became the hospital director. She does not think about it so that she does not have to feel it.
“Uchiha Sasuke is here for you, ma'am,” Hisako says politely.
Nohara-san's hand stops. She does not look shocked or upset at her interrupted private time, more thoughtful. She leans back in the chair, her pen pressed against her chin, as an amused smile grows on her face. They lock gazes for the first time in five days and seventeen hours. Her eyes are pools of melted chocolate and dying autumn leaves. Hisako's heart races.
“Let him in,” Nohara-san says, waving her hand. Nonchalance slides over her features. She resumes writing. Hisako mourns her rarely-shown emotions.
“Of course ma'am,” Hisako replies, leaning back and closing the door quietly. When she turns back around, the boy is still staring at her. His lips are flat and thin. He's impatient.
Hisako brings a smile to her face. It is easier after seeing Nohara-san, as everything is. “The director will see you now,” she says, stepping aside.
The boy nods and opens the door, closing it much more carelessly than she did.
Hisako sighs and returns to her desk.
--
Sasuke is angry.
She can feel it radiating off of him. It pollutes the air and her mood. His chakra is a raging mass of ozone and untempered flames, ready to consume everything in it's path. Uchiha always felt so deeply.
That was her thing. Sensing. Kakashi had his genius and Obito had his determination. Rin only had her sense and her medical jutsu and her fists, so those are the things that she honed. Now, she can feel an ant a country away. That's better than Minato-sensei ever managed to accomplish.
It has never been enough.
Rin snaps back to the present. She shoves her thoughts of regrets and old ghosts to the corner of her mind to be dealt with never.
Sasuke is still standing in front of her. His arms are crossed and there's a deep glower on his face. Rin has no idea how long she's been away from her mind. She forgets that everyone isn't aware of her habits.
Rin tucks her pen behind her ear, stopping a strand of long brown hair from falling in her face. She was supposed to cut it a month ago or maybe three years ago but she hasn't gotten around to it. She meets his eyes and waits patiently. If he's going to try and make her talk first, he's got a long afternoon ahead of him. She's always been too patient—that’s what Kakashi always said, anyway. She takes his advice with a grain of salt.
Eventually, he realises that she isn't going to crack first. He grits his teeth and takes in a deep breath. Rin almost tells him that the bathroom is down the hall but traps her words behind her teeth at the last moment. An angry eight-year-old wouldn't understand her sense of humour.
He straightens his stance. “Why do you keep sending me those baskets?” he asks, accusing. His eyes narrow. “What do you want? Power? The backing of the last Uchiha?”
Rin does not scoff because she has more tact than that. “I don't need power,” she says simply. She was going to add on 'from a kid' but he would probably think that she was looking down on him.
Rin has had her whole lifetime of dealing with arrogant brats.
His glare would probably make a fresh genin cower. Good thing she's not a fresh genin. “Then why—”
Rin interrupts him. “Let me tell you a story,” she says, her fingers itching for a cigarette. Too bad she doesn't smoke in front of children.
She doesn't like telling stories all that much. Usually because when someone asks for them they want to know stories about her. Rin would've loved the attention people gave her because of her position when she was a child, but she hasn't been a child in a long time.
“When I was a brat a little bit older than you,” she starts, gesturing to one of the two chairs in front of her desk. He takes a seat reluctantly. “I graduated the academy and was placed on a genin team. War times back then, so we graduated younger.” She rolls her shoulder. She hates thinking about anything to do with her younger years—and her years in general—except for that time she blew up an Iwa supply base with her seals when she was fifteen. That was epic. Her therapist would probably say that retelling her past to an eight-year-old is progress. Rin disagrees.
“One of them was an Uchiha,” she continues. Sasuke stiffens. Her unsteady gaze is focused somewhere past his right shoulder. “A real determined kid. Kind and brighter than sunshine. Used to always show up late to practice cause he was helping old ladies cross the street. Wanted to be the next Hokage.” Rin snorts. “Not very talented but his will mostly made up for it. He wasn't like any other Uchiha that I had ever met.”
She taps her fingers against the table. Her gaze focuses. “Course, he ain't around anymore. Died in the third war after taking a blow that should've hit my other teammate.” She exhales harshly, not really caring about this kid seeing the lines of exhaustion and grief carved into her face. “He wouldn't have wanted you to be alone. I guess that's all there is to it. I love him too much not to carry out his wishes.” That part is always hard to say. She hides the ache in her soul behind indifference. It's never worked. She's never been able to be indifferent about Obito.
Sasuke looks at his hands. “That’s it?” he asks quietly. Uchiha don't like to question devotion.
Rin shrugs. “That’s it.”
They sit in silence. Rin returns to her work. She opens the window behind her. When she turns back around, the boy is gone.
--
There is no one left to carry out Obito's will, no one left that remembers him aside from their old classmates, so Rin tries her best to memorialize him through her actions.
She helps old ladies cross the road, helps get cats down from trees, and picks up any rubbish she sees floating around. Rin can't smile like Obito could and she has more bad days than good days but she's trying.
“I hope you're proud of me,” Rin mumbles to the memorial stone, taking a drag of her cigarette. There is no reply, just the rustling of the trees. She didn't expect one so she's not disappointed, is what she tells herself.
She stands there until the first rays of dusk hit the sky. Her therapist would say that talking to a stone is unhealthy. Rin knows this and doesn't care enough to stop.
She lights her cigarette on fire with a lick of chakra. It burns and becomes ash. She tells herself this is how she does not litter.
Rin turns and walks away. She has a consultation in fifteen minutes.
--
Obito's cousin returns a week later.
He walks into her office with a neutral face. His chakra rages but it is not as angry as when he first met her.
Like last time, Rin continues with her work. Sasuke sits down on one of the chairs in front of her desk. He does not say anything. She had a good sleep last night and is feeling kind, so she puts her pen down and waits for what he wants to say.
He doesn't glare at her but it's a close thing. “Why,” he starts, visibly struggling with his words, “Do you send me food baskets.”
Rin blinks slowly. “I thought I had explained this last week?”
Sasuke huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean,” he grits out, “Why the basket. Why not—something else.”
Rin thinks that she understands what he's trying to say. “I thought that it would be the easiest way to care for you,” she says, “If I had, say, just showed up and declared my intent to make sure you don't die, I didn’t think that you would take it well. You hardly took my food offerings well.”
Sasuke glowers but doesn't deny it. “I don't need your help.”
Rin shrugs. “Maybe you don't. But from my understanding, the Uchiha were a rather patriarchal clan. I imagine you weren't taught basic life skills; cooking, cleaning, budgeting. If you decide that you don't want to figure it out by yourself, I can help you.”
Sasuke glares and walks out.
Rin returns to her work.
--
In her memories she is sixteen. Kakashi is fourteen. It is the oldest that he will ever get.
They are sitting on her kitchen floor, leaning against each other, pressed against her cabinets. The tiles are cold underneath them. There is a half-eaten tub of chocolate ice cream with two spoons sticking out of it on her lap.
Rin is licking the chocolate from her fingers. Kakashi is trying to memorize ANBU code. She doesn't think that he should be doing it with a non-ANBU but they both care for little these days.
She takes another bite, shivering a little at the cold. Kakashi presses against her more, his gaze shifting to the bouquet sitting on her bench. Kushina-sensei dropped them off yesterday and she has yet to put them in a vase. She doesn't know if she owns a vase.
“Aloe,” he says, “for affection or grief. Baby's breath for everlasting love. Basil for good wishes, and oak for strength. Minato-sensei?” he asks, turning his head to look at her.
Rin shakes her head. “Kushina-sensei.” She peers at him curiously. “How do you know that? I thought only kunoichi learned flower language.”
Kakashi takes her hand and writes on her palm in ANBU sign, 'My father taught me. My mother loved flower language.'
--
He comes back three days later.
He's mad, she knows. She can feel it. It crawls over her skin and settles underneath.
He glares and reaches up to slam a folder onto her desk. When Rin raises a questioning brow, he looks away. “The Hokage,” he says grudgingly, “assigned me a fortnightly budget for food and... other things.”
She does not ask if he does not know what to do, instead, she opens the folder silently. It contains Sasuke's weekly expenditures and the total amount the Hokage gave him. It's very generous, for an orphan's stipend. She wonders if he's taking from the Uchiha fortune.
“You said you knew how to budget,” he mutters. Rin did not say that, but she supposes that she did imply it.
“I can, yes,” she replies. She doesn't do it much nowadays because she doesn't buy anything except toiletries and takeout, but she can do it. “I can teach you?”
He scowls. Rin blinks blandly. He looks away.
His gaze lands on the bouquet of flowers one of her patients gave her the other day. Rin leans her cheek on her hand. “Yellow tulips for thanks,” she explains. One moment she is in her office and the next she is sitting on her kitchen floor with a tub of ice cream and the saddest boy in the whole wide world. “And pink carnations. They mean 'I’ll never forget you.'”
His brows furrow. Rin yawns and shoves her grief to the bottom of her chest. Her eyes scan over the sheet once more. She squints. “Why did you spend four thousand yen on tomatoes?”
The boy flushes and gives her a dirty look. Rin sighs and gestures him over.
They have a lot to go through.
--
Minato-sensei takes her hands in his and presses a small, cold item into her palm. His eyes are sad. She is seventeen.
“It's the key to the Hatake compound,” he says. Rin's heart leaps up into her throat. “In the event that he died, Kakashi wanted you to have it.”
Rin's eyes are dry but her heart is pounding so hard she's surprised it doesn't leap out of her chest. She closes her fist around the key. There are faint wisps of Kakashi's chakra clinging to it. Her fingers buzz with static.
“Thank you,” she whispers hoarsely. She doesn't know who it’s for.
--
Sasuke walks into her office after two months of weekly visits and stops. He squints so hard she think that he'll activate his Sharingan.
Rin grins and gestures to the piece of furniture settled against the wall to her right. “Do you like it?”
Sasuke scowls. “It's ugly.”
It's an abomination, is what it is. “It's cheerful,” she counters, casually going back to her paperwork. “It is so comfortable, though. I sleep on it all the time. Now I don't have to go home.” It's been great. She has never gotten through her paperwork so quickly.
Sasuke eyes it dubiously but cautiously sits down on the couch. Rin smiles, watching him go completely limp. It is the most relaxed she has ever seen him.
“I hate it,” Sasuke says, “Where do I get one?”
Rin forces down her laughter. “Unfortunately, it was the last of its kind.”
Sasuke doesn't groan, but his chakra does flare up in agitation.
Rin grins.
Within the hour, he's fast asleep.
--
It's one in the morning, and Rin is nowhere near sleep.
She leans back in her desk chair, staring hollowly at the door. She contemplates knocking herself out with medical chakra. It's not the first time she's done it.
She's not out of it enough to not notice the hurriedly approaching chakra that has been tearing through the village for the past ten minutes. When it reaches the floor her office is on, Rin pulls herself together.
Sasuke bursts through the door, stumbling through the room until he reaches the couch. He curls up on it, wrapping his arms around his knees. His shoulders shake with repressed emotions.
Rin gets up from her chair and slowly approaches. She sinks into the couch next to him and gently pulls him into her arms, threading her fingers through his oily hair in soothing motions. He clutches her, completely still. She is sure he would not allow this if he were fully coherent, but it says something that the first person he sought out was her.
“Sasuke,” she says, “let it out. It's okay.” Her therapist would be so proud.
He bursts. She aches.
--
They're nine years old, and two weeks away from graduation. She doesn't remember what it’s like to be that young.
Rin is standing in Obito's living room. His apartment is a mess. He stands by the door, sheepish. He can't meet her eyes. His are red.
She feels determination well up inside of her. She walks over to him and takes his hands in hers, gripping them firmly. He looks at her in shock.
“It's not unfixable,” she says, “Not between the two of us.”
Obito's face falls, his eyes glossy and his lips trembling. Rin panics, but he throws his arms around her. “I'm sorry, Rin,” he sobs. She'll never forget the way that his voice breaks on her name. “Ever since baa-chan—you know... It's been—it's been really ha-hard.”
He shakes in her arms, a young boy all alone in the world. Rin bites her lip and squeezes him. “You never have to apologise. Not for this.”
His cries follow her into her dreams.
--
When Rin walks into her office the next day, her steps are smooth but her eyes are tired and unfocused. Sasuke looks up from the spot he's claimed on her hideous couch and watches as she opens the window and her cigarette packet. None of the smoke reaches him.
Rin takes a deep drag and exhales slowly. Her mind is full of thoughts of a young boy who feels like the warmth of a campfire and smells like toasted marshmallows. That was what Obito always smelt like. Marshmallows. She hasn't had one in ten years.
Obito has been dead for ten years.
She leans her elbows on the window sill and ducks her head, pressing her knuckles to her forehead. She doesn't cry—she doesn't like expressing grief in front of children—but her hand shakes.
“Were you not,” Sasuke says, not looking up from his book, “The one who said that it was okay to let it out?”
Again, those were not her words. What a brat. Rin smiles despite everything. “One should not burden the young with their troubles.” God, she sounds like her mother.
Sasuke is quiet for a moment. “Minami-sensei said that it's okay to express grief.” Since when did he start listening to his therapist?
Rin breathes out slowly. “It is okay.” That was probably the first time that she had fully accepted that. “You're a real piece a work, kid.”
She turns around. He is smiling, and there's a mug of hot tea on her desk.
Yeah. They were going to be alright. Both of them.