The flutter of displaced air was the first sign that Boruto had returned, followed promptly by the young Shinobi falling flat on his face beneath the branches of a sprawling tree.
Koji sighs, taking one more sip of his coffee before setting the cup down. When he stands, the joints of his metal leg whine in protest, lubricating oil among the supplies desperately needed at their camp.
The older shinobi shakes his head, examining his young companion as Boruto struggles to flip himself onto his back. “You always overdo it,” he says.
“I ran into an old friend unexpectedly.” The boy allows himself a small smile, a rare sight these days. “Then, the Hokage wanted a word.”
Koji’s eyebrows rise a fraction, the only sign that he’s surprised. “You will tell me about it while I tend to your wounds.”
“I’m not really wounded.” Boruto pushes himself up on his elbows. “My chakra reserves are just about tapped.”
A disgruntled huff comes from Boruto’s jacket as a palm-sized toad wriggles out of the fabric. “Too much Flying Raijin,” he tells Koji, hopping over.
Koji bends over, retrieving the toad and placing him onto his shoulder. “You need to practice more in order for it to be more efficient yet equally effective.”
Boruto nods to himself, though he already knows. This had been an ongoing theme in his training for the past three years. Do the most with as little chakra as possible so as not to cause Momoshiki to stir.
“Yes, sir.”
Boruto explains what happened during the long day to Koji as he boils water and dumps in a bag of dehydrated soup. By the time they’re eating, Boruto has managed to sit himself up, a tree trunk at his back and a steaming bowl in his hand.
A dense silence has fallen between them as a moonless night fell. Boruto pushes a hunk of mushroom around the bowl with his spoon rather than eating, hardly characteristic of the usually ravenous teen.
Koji ladles out a serving of soup for himself. “You can’t go to Konoha and fight with them. It’s too risky. If you use more chakra, Momoshiki—”
“I know,” Boruto mutters into his soup, making no move to eat it.
Koji eats one spoonful of soup, then another, all while staring at the brooding boy over top of the crackling campfire between them.
“What is it, then?” he finally asks.
Boruto glances up, firelight reflected in his one blue eye. His lips part before he presses them back together. He directs his attention to the forest behind Koji rather than meeting the older shinobi’s gaze.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Koji’s white eyebrows rise far higher than they did when Boruto admitted he’d been in contact with Shikamaru.
“I don’t think that’s something you should be asking me.”
Boruto’s shoulders slump lower, his cape suddenly looking too large for his teenage frame. “It’s not like there’s anyone else I can ask.”
Koji frowns, the shadows making the furrow between his brow appear deeper than usual. “Given the difference in our ages, I don’t think it’s an appropriate topic of conversation between us.”
The very suggestion that he might be too young for something needles Boruto, prodding at scars of his youth. “Hey, you’re not that much older than…” The blond abruptly shuts his mouth as he adds up everything he knows about the clone's past. “Holy shit, you’re younger than me,” he finally exclaims.
“I am an adult and you are a child,” Koji snaps, a shade of red close to the shade of the paint beneath his eyes flaring unbidden on his cheeks.”
“I’m older than you, Koji-kun,” Boruto snaps back.
“Do not call me—”
“I bet you haven’t even kissed a girl,” Boruto declares over Koji’s protests.
“I have so kissed a girl,” Koji yells, forgetting for once that Boruto is technically a rogue shinobi on the run and should be hiding.
Boruto’s eye brightens, a crooked smile on his lips. “And did you love her?”
He manages to eat a few spoon fulls of soup while Koji sputters, but eventually the older shinobi has to admit his defeat, putting his bowl to the side and folding his hands in his lap. “Yes, I loved her. Are you pleased?”
The boy cocks his head, watching his companion’s discomfort. “But you’re not with her now.”
“I’m not with her now,” Koji confirms. “I doubt that I will ever be again.”
Boruto offers him a hopeful smile. “Come on. I bet you’ll get her back some day.”
Koji shakes his head. “I’ll never get her back. Her father…” The shinobi trails off, staring at nothing for a moment before he turns his black eyes to Boruto.
“If you’re old enough to ask about love, then you’re old enough to know that sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes, it *can’t* work out. Because there’s more important things a shinobi has to do. That's true for both you and I, do you understand?”
The smile Boruto had been wearing slips, his gaze turning inward. After a moment, he nods once.
“Good,” Koji says, picking up his bowl of soup once more. “Now, eat. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”
Sarada stands on the roof of Konoha’s hospital. Without a moon above, the bright lights of the village have no competition. There was surprisingly little damage in the battle with the Shinju, at least to the village’s infrastructure. The casualties were a different matter.
She hugs her jacket around her, a cool breeze chilling her legs as she stares up at the stars, wondering where Boruto is. She might have stood out there all night if the roof access door didn’t bang open, Delta striding out.
The cyborg’s boots click loudly on the cement roof as she stomps toward the edge of the building, stopping only when she sees Sarada.
“Your friend is awake,” she spits. “Sumire is with him now.”
Sarada cocks her head, staring at the mechanical pink eyes alight with fury beneath the harsh spotlight. “My friend?”
“Kawaki.” She pronounces his name like a curse, a twist on her delicate lips.
Sarada looks away, caught as always between the reality everyone else believes in and the reality she knows to be true. “He’s not my friend,” she says quietly.
Delta’s yellow eyebrows snap together. “Don’t lie to me, little girl. I know you two were raised together. That you were on the same team. Everyone sees me as a weapon, but I have ears like anyone else.”
“That’s… That’s not it.” Sarada pushes the hair out of her face. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
“Well, *I* hate him,” Delta sneers. “Especially how he treats dear Eida. You’d think a Hokage’s son would have been raised better than that.”
“I suppose,” Sarada says quietly, hoping Delta would leave her alone, but the cyborg continues ranting.
“Eida is so kind and sweet to him, and he doesn’t care at all. Meanwhile, I care, and all she does is order me to watch him. How is that fair when I’m the one who loves her?”
That word—love—makes Sarada's heart bounce up into her throat, remembering how it felt to have Boruto’s arms around her only hours earlier. But along with the wash of nauseous euphoria comes a second sickening emotion. Pity.
Pity that Delta is stuck loving Eida through her charm, falsely compelled to give her heart to another. It seems so shallow, so sad.
“Well, we all love her, don’t we?” Sarada says with a nervous laugh, making sure to maintain the belief that she’s just as affected by Eida’s powers as everyone else. “But haven’t you loved anyone else before?”
“Love?” Delta’s nose wrinkles at the suggestion. “Who would I have loved before dear Eida? I really should be getting back to her.”
“I—” Sarada stammers. “I don’t know. I just thought, in your past, you might have—”
The cyborg scoffs, brushing past Sarada to step up onto the edge of the building.
“Well, if I did, I don’t remember it now. I don’t remember anything before I woke up in Konoha.” With that, she launches herself off the hospital’s roof, hovering in the air for a moment before flying in the direction of Eida’s home, her cape rippling behind her.