"Might be the hardest mission of my career."

"I believe it might."

He snorts. "I just had the funniest mental image of hiring shinobi with the mission of 'make my - boyfriend? lover? - blush'."

"I don't think lover is quite the word, yet," he says, looking Tetsuma up and down.

Yeah Dayo's won this round of 'fluster Tetsuma.' "Not sure which word to use to refer to - us."

"Boyfriend probably works. We can go with lover after I fluster you out of your clothes."

He groans. Because now he's thinking about it. Thiiis is definitely something to meditate on. "You're more likely to fluster me into testing if the merge with earth jutsu works on the ship!"

He just smirks. "Wanna bet?"

"I know better than to make that bet." A pause, and a very deep blush. "Though - it'll probably have to wait until I can figure a transformation jutsu that'll - hold up - or until I shift back from male. Dysphoria and - stuff - do not mix."

"—yeah, of course. I can imagine." Hug?

Hug!

"Your magic's very flexible, though, I'm sure it's feasible."

"Yeah, definitely..." A thought occurs to him. Before he can overthink it, he blurts out: "I could probably figure out a jutsu. That would. Not directly involve me. But still be - fun."

"You might need to be more specific."

Dayo's doing this on purpose, isn't he. Tetsuma's blush is extending past the collar of his shirt. "Like. You know. With the wood jutsu. I can animate - things."

"Is that so."

Ahhhh Dayo's worse than Tetsuma's kunoichi friends. "Though I'd need to practice, uh, a lot, to get it right, and I don't think the Captain would appreciate us using her ship as - materials."

"Perhaps we should collect some materials inland before taking off, then."

"We'll have to check the departure time, but we could also wait until next dock. I got the impression they'd be fairly frequent. And I'd still like time to - think things over, and my jutsu development priority's going to still be a better transformation..."

"Yes, those make sense. So we could stick to just kissing for now."

"Yeah. And the jutsu definitely holds up to - minor stuff. Heavy petting, as long as I don't get distracted enough to drop it."

"—'heavy petting.' What a phrase. I should kiss you for it." Dayo kisses him for it.

Tetsuma approves of kisses! He'll step a bit closer and get hands slightly involved, too, since talking's reduced some of the - jittery. Entirely above-waist so far.

He can match that, for sure.

Tetsuma will be very glad to continue until they're interrupted, if Dayo is!