Chapter 205: Konan [5] 18+

**Chapter 205**

Days passed, and Konan still woke with the same restless heat under her skin.

She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown across her eyes. The house felt too quiet. Every small sound—the creak of wood, the distant call of a vendor—seemed to wait for something that never came. Why hadn’t he come back? The question surfaced before she could stop it. Then another, sharper one followed: Why do I want him to?

Her face burned. She grabbed the nearest pillow and pressed it hard over her mouth, muffling the frustrated sound that tore out of her. The fabric smelled clean and ordinary, nothing like him. When she finally lowered it, her breathing was uneven.

She should not have told him to leave that night. The thought arrived with a twist of regret. Yet the opposite argument rose just as quickly. What they had done was wrong. She had let the boy she once called little brother take her on her own table while Yahiko and Nagato still waited for answers she had never given them. How could she have done anything except send him away?

The old confusion about her two teammates had gone strangely quiet. In its place sat only Naruto—how his mouth had felt, how easily he had pinned her wrists, how deep he had been when he finally finished inside her. The memories arrived in flashes and left her shifting restlessly against the sheets. She pressed her thighs together and hated herself for the small spark of want that followed.

A knock at the door cut through the spiral.

Morning light already filled the room. Her mind supplied only one answer: *Is it him?* She scrambled out of bed, yanked on the first clean clothes she found, and nearly tripped on her way to the entrance. When she pulled the door open, the hope died at once.

Yahiko and Nagato stood on the porch.

"Oh," she said, the disappointment slipping out before she could catch it. "It’s you two."

Yahiko raised an eyebrow. "What’s with the tone? Sounds like you’re disappointed to see us."

"No. It’s not like that."

Nagato studied her face a moment longer than necessary. "Anyway. Tomorrow marks the start of the Kage Summit. The village is already in festival mode. You promised you’d come with us."

Konan hesitated. The idea of walking through crowded streets with them felt heavier than it should have. "The Kage Summit... can we cancel?"

Yahiko frowned. "You’ve been canceling a lot lately. What’s going on with you?"

She forced a small smile and waved the concern away. After a few more exchanges she gave in. "All right. I’ll come."

They set out together toward the main market district.

The village had transformed. Paper lanterns in red and gold hung between rooftops, swaying gently in the morning breeze. Stalls lined both sides of the wide street, packed so tightly that the wooden frames nearly touched. The air smelled of grilled fish, sweet bean paste, roasted chestnuts, and the faint metallic tang of new steel from a weapons vendor. Children darted between adult legs clutching cheap toys and sticky candies. Shinobi in formal wear mixed with ordinary civilians; laughter and bargaining voices overlapped until the whole street felt like one continuous hum.

Konan walked a half-step behind her two friends. Yahiko pointed out a stall selling wind chimes and made some joke that pulled a rare smile from Nagato. The sight of them side by side—alive, relaxed, teasing each other—stirred something soft and painful in her chest. This peace was so different from the rain-soaked graves of their childhood. She should have been able to enjoy it fully. Instead her thoughts kept drifting sideways, searching the crowd for a flash of blond hair that never appeared.

She was glad, in a careful, deliberate way, that he had stayed away. Distance was safer. Maybe he understood that too. Maybe that was why the knock on her door had never come. A thin thread of regret still pulled at her, but she told herself it was better like this.

They paused at a stall selling dyed paper and simple origami kits. Konan’s fingers brushed a sheet of pale blue paper before she pulled her hand back. The memory of folding frogs on her living-room floor rose unbidden, followed immediately by the heat of his mouth and the way the table had creaked under them. She turned away too quickly and nearly walked into a group of genin arguing over skewers.

Yahiko glanced back. "You okay? You’ve been quiet."

"Just thinking," she said. It was the truth, if incomplete.

The crowd thickened near the central square. Festival banners snapped overhead. A group of musicians played somewhere out of sight, the notes bright and slightly out of tune. Konan let the noise wash over her and tried to focus on the present: the press of bodies, the smell of sugar and smoke, the easy way Yahiko and Nagato still moved together like two halves of the same old promise. She cared about them. She always would. Yet the sharp, selfish want that had opened under Kael’s hands refused to close again.

She was still turning that contradiction over when a hand closed around her upper arm and yanked hard.

The world tilted. She stumbled sideways into a narrow gap between two buildings, the sudden shade cool after the sunlit street. The market remained visible only a few steps away—people laughing, vendors calling—but no one looked in this direction. The alley was the kind of overlooked space the village seemed to grow in its cracks.

Konan’s body tensed on instinct. She did not cry out; making a scene would only draw attention she did not want. She was more than strong enough to handle whatever this was. She turned, ready to strike.

"Who are you? Reveal yourself."

Two hands slid under her arms from behind and cupped her breasts through her clothes, squeezing firmly. The contact was so sudden and so familiar that her mind blanked for a full second. She twisted, caught the wrists, and forced the person into the thin strip of light that reached the alley wall.

Blond hair. Blue eyes. The same face that had haunted her for days.

"Naruto?"

The name left her on a shaky breath. All the careful arguments she had built since that night—distance is safer, it was a mistake, he understands—collapsed at once under the simple, overwhelming fact of him standing there, hands still warm on her body, looking at her like the days apart had not cooled anything at all.

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