Leo

Serpentine

"Mitsuuuu~"

"Hn."

It had passed a week after their last encounter. To Mitsuki's luck, the day after they met, he had a mission so he hadn't been around Konoha all this time. When he came back it turned out team 10 was out as well. He heard Chouchou's voice through the phone which took him out of his thoughts

"I have a double ticket to the movies, wanna go?"

"...For today?"

"Yep, it's a drama, Nanadaime recommended it!"

Mitsuki chuckled but then he remembered he promised to help Boruto and Shikadai to buy some guidebooks about scrolls.

 "Could it be tomorrow? I have things to do today."

He heard Chouchou make a raspy, angry sound

"No, It had to be today. Ah well, I will ask Sarada then."

A small smile appeared on Mitsuki's face thinking that Chouchou had asked him first since he would expect her to choose Sarada to go to the movies on the regular. But then his smile became a long, forced one when he felt his heartbeats accelerating gradually. He shook his head slowly and asked

"Has your sleeping pattern gone back to normal?"

He heard Chouchou giggle and that didn't help to his now strong agitated heartbeats

"Yep! I feel way better now."

"But you know, Mitsu? That day I wasn't feeling that good so I couldn't say this."

"Even if you decided to change your personality... If that was you really really really wanted then..."

Mitsuki smiled, now feeling his face hot

"I... understand."

He heard Chouchou make another angry sound

"Still! I want you to know that you can rely on me, OK?"

"I want to help you too, that's what good friends do!"

"Alright, it's fine."

Chouchou let a sweet giggle escape her lips

"Let's meet up another time then. Later, Mitsu!"

"Goodbye, Chouchou."

Mitsuki hung the phone, sighing a bit. Then he took a hand to his chest finding the heartbeat rate strange, but now that happened more often it wasn't that scary at the very least. He caressed his face when he remembered the events of that evening a bit before Orochimaru left

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Mitsuki, you are just embarrassed."

Orochimaru said with a peaceful expression but Mitsuki wasn't convinced

"Em... barrassed?"

He looked away with a frown on his face

"That's impossible..."

The dark-haired sannin didn't remove their eyes from Mitsuki and with a wide smirk, asked

"And how do you know? Have you felt this before?"

Mitsuki now looked back blankly

"I..."

Orochimaru half-closed their eyes and asked

"Let's conduct a little experiment. Tell me when did you first felt like this."