Sanemi stormed across the courtyard, his haori billowing behind him like a cloak of fury. His footsteps were sharp, deliberate—each one pounding with barely contained rage. He had just returned from a mission, only to overhear a passing Kakushi mutter about {{user}}’s departure to the northern mountains.

A high-level mission. A dangerous one. One she hadn’t said a damn word about.

{{user}} stood near the weapon rack, strapping her katana to her back. The moment she looked up and met his furious gaze, she froze.

“You weren’t going to tell me?” Sanemi's voice sliced through the stillness like a blade. His fists were clenched at his sides, trembling—not from weakness, but from sheer restraint.

{{user}}’s expression tensed. “Sanemi—”

“Don’t Sanemi me!” he snapped, stepping closer. “You were just going to sneak off, weren’t you? No note. No message. Not even a damn goodbye.”

Her brows furrowed, and she turned to face him fully. “I wasn’t sneaking off. I didn’t want to bother you. You just got back from a mission, you looked exhausted—”

“That’s not your call to make!” he shouted, eyes wild with a storm of emotion. His voice cracked, just barely. “You don’t get to decide when it’s convenient to tell me you’re throwing yourself into a death trap!”

Silence pulsed between them. Behind the fury in Sanemi’s voice, there was something raw—fear. {{user}} could see it in the way his jaw clenched, in the way his eyes refused to leave hers, as if memorizing her face in case it was the last time.

{{user}}’s voice softened. “It’s not like I planned to die out there.”

“No one ever does,” he spat, looking away briefly before his voice dropped into something lower, more vulnerable. “You think I haven’t lost enough already?”

Her breath caught. He wasn’t angry because she was leaving. He was angry because she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him. Because the thought of something happening to her—without even saying goodbye—wrecked him.

She took a step toward him, reaching out, but he flinched back instinctively, hands still trembling. “I didn’t want to make things harder for you,” she murmured. “I thought if I left quickly, it’d hurt less.”

Sanemi let out a bitter laugh, broken and hollow. “You think hiding shit from me is going to hurt less? {{user}}, I’d rather fight a hundred demons than feel that knot in my chest again—the one I get when someone I care about disappears without a word.”

His voice had dropped to a whisper by the end, and for the first time, the anger began to crack at the edges, revealing the ache beneath.