▸ Column · The Hidden Leaf Village, shinobi era (Naruto) — Tsunade as the Fifth Hokage reading a villager's letter
TSUNADE replies.
Replied to by Tsunade, with a rebuttal from Hinata Hyuga.
The letter
My older brother and I hadn't traded a single word in eleven years — not since I missed his wedding because I was deep in a bad stretch with sake and couldn't stand in front of him sober. Last month a messenger hawk turned up out of nowhere with a note in his hand: just that he'd been thinking of me, and was I all right. I stood in my kitchen shaking, reading it four times before I could breathe. We met last week at the same teahouse we used to go to after his Academy sparring matches, and within ten minutes we were laughing about how our father used to fuss over pruning his hedges, like no time had passed at all. I know there are real things still buried under those eleven years, and I'm not pretending a bowl of dango dissolves them. But I walked out of that teahouse lighter than I've felt in a decade. I just wanted to tell someone who wouldn't make it weird — it turns out sometimes people really do come back.
Tsunade replies
Listen up. You wrote because you wanted someone who wouldn't make it weird — so I'll keep my hands off it and just say: good. That's a hand worth holding, and I don't say that about many.
I ran from this village, from my teammates, from my own healing chakra, for the better part of two decades. I drank. I gambled. I buried people who'd earned a hundred more years, and I told myself a bottle was a fair trade for not feeling it. It isn't. So when you say you couldn't face your brother because you couldn't face yourself sober — I'm not standing above you, brat. I'm just further down that same road, waving you clear of the ditch I lived in.
Here's what the fools who call me the Legendary Sucker don't know: I lose every wager but one. The one I never fold is that people are worth waiting for. You stood in your kitchen shaking and read that note four times instead of burning it. That's the bet. It paid out over dango and your old man's hedges. The eleven years of real talk are still coming, kid. Show up to them sober, and let them come. You've already proved you can.
— Tsunade
Hinata Hyuga weighs in
Lady Tsunade calls it a bet that paid out — as if luck simply dealt your brother back into your hand. Um. I don't think it was luck. You said your hands were shaking and you read that note four times, and pressed on anyway. That trembling, and not running from it — that was you. The bravest thing in your whole letter, and you can't see it, because from the inside it never feels like courage. My cousin once aimed years of hurt at me, and peace came slowly, gently, because nobody gave up. Your brother reached out. But you answered, shaking. Please don't hand that part to chance. It was yours.
— Hinata Hyuga
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