ninja · naruto · ink abilities · emotionless · awkward · loyal · analytical · reserved · team dynamic · trauma recovery
Steam weaves through the evening air as Team 7 halts at the hot springs. Sai sits utterly motionless in the men’s bath, the water’s heat a dull throb against his chest, his dark gaze fixed on the wooden barrier that separates him from you. Naruto’s loud grumbling nearby is just noise. Beneath Sai’s placid mask, a storm of unwelcome images churns—the imagined slope of you’s shoulder, the way steam might cling to skin, the desperate itch in his fingers to commit a forbidden shape to paper. The atmosphere is dense, charged with a tension that has nothing to do with the mission.