There was a knock on the door of my apartment, and I opened, terrified it would be Tobirama or Hashirama. But when I saw it was Damien, I felt relief.

"Where the fuck did you go?"

"Damien, why are you coming to me with a suitcase?" I wondered worried.

He pushed past me into my tiny hallway, dragging his suitcase after him. My landlord will kill me if it leaves marks.

"We have been looking all over for you! Called you, texted you."

"My phone is out of battery. Seriously, why are you here with a suitcase?"

"Just charge it, for fuck's sake! You're not on a remote island!"

"Seriously, Damien, why are you here with a suitcase?"

He looked at me as if I were dumb.

"The masquerade ball!"

"Oh", I said. 

I had forgotten about the ticket they had gotten me. It sounded amazing, a ball that started past midnight and went on into early morning. But I couldn't go. Not anymore, not after what had happened. 

"I actually don't think I'll go. It was very kind of you to buy the ticket for me, and I'm sorry for the waste. But I'm... Umm, I feel unwell. Migraine... cold. I have a migraine-cold."

"What are you dressing up as?"

"I'm not going."

Damien opened his suitcase and started to pull out what must have been the masquerade box of an entire army; there were feather boas and hats and dresses and boots and even a teapot, for some reason.

"What are you dressing up as?" he repeated

"I said-"

"Madara." He looked at me, and for the first time I saw something deadly serious in his otherwise kind, brown eyes in his kind, dark face. "I know there's something going on. I can't figure out if it's between you and Hashirama or you and Tobirama. But I am not letting you miss out on this because you feel love-sick. Stand by me. And if you all do this correctly, you won't recognize one another anyway."

"A bird."

"Where?" Damien immediately said and looked around him in fear.

"I mean, I'm dressing up as one, you stupid fuck."

He turned to me and grinned.

"Atta boy!"

Damien had described the yearly ball as burlesque-inspired and wild. Apparently, if you thought you exaggerated with your costume, you were still always somewhere on the lower part of the impression scale.

"Someone once came dressed as a boa, a real-sized one. Even so, nobody took notice of him."

So I had gone berserk for my costume. After everything that had happened, I was grateful for it; as I put the final detail on my face, a black, glittery mask with a bird's, Damien took a step back in shock.

"Shit, I don't recognise you.

Which was exactly what I wanted.

I had a thick black coat and big, black feather wings protruding out of the shoulders of it that I had sewn steady and added glitter to match my masque. My hair was up in an artful updo, cascading like a waterfall from the top of my head, two thin wooden sticks I had painted metallic turquoise with a feather ball on top coming out of that cascade, making me look like a bird of paradise. I had a lot of snow-white powder on my face and metallic turquoise lipstick. I had painted a black mask over my eyes and the bridge of my nose so that my skin would blend in with the holes in my mask. As if all of this wasn't enough, I had eight inch metallic turquoise heels, real stripper Pleasers, that I had bought from a pole dancing shop.

"Good", I said. "You... You look dazzling."

Damien smiled a pained smile.

"I don't really like dressing up."

He had basically just put on everything he could get on from the suitcase, making it seem as if he was dressing up as a kid who had managed to open their mother's closet in the eighties and played dress-up.

"I can tell."

"Shut up and share this with me", he said and took out a bottle of vodka from the bottom of the suitcase.

"Thank God for you", I said and took it.

As soon as we stepped into the venue, I lost Damien and was swallowed by the crowd. 

Or, I wasn't swallowed. People actually parted for me, staring at my costume in awe, sighing appreciatively, despite what Damien had said about how impossible it was to stand out. I could feel myself blush and was grateful for the mask.

Everyone else were, of course, also dressed up to their teeth, each with a mask on. I saw princess dresses and swords, LED-lit suits and pearls, scales and staffs. It was heavenly. Even so, I had managed to draw attention to myself, which I had to admit I did not hate.

The atmosphere was hot, dark, pulsing with bass and violet lights, smoke from carbon dioxide ice filling the air.

They're here... Tobirama and Hashirama are here somewhere.

I hadn't waited to meet them after the concert but fled home. I wondered if they were here together, or if they were avoiding one another as they had done on stage. I looked around me at the crowd, suddenly realising that just as they would have trouble recognizing me, I would probably have trouble recognising them.

I walked further in to the bar where I ordered a pornstar martini that I drunk in one go, then I ordered another one.

"On the house, this one", the bartender said, and when I looked closer, I saw he was actually very cute.

"Thank you", I said.

They had a Mac and cheese bar and an ice cream truck and a doughnut truck. I went to the ice cream bar and ordered a paper cup of mint chocolate and cinnamon bun flavoured gelato. Then, I went to the corner with my ice cream and my pornstar martini and watched people.

A dance was coming on, a whole string quartet taking their place on the main stage, playing classical music with their electrical string instruments. A neutral wallflower, I looked on as people found partners and danced together. The strobe lights created a fascinating contrast to the music, and as I finished my ice cream and my second pornstar martini, I found I was longing to dance.

I walked slowly into the pool of moving bodies, and was immediately swept up by someone.

Hashirama, was my first thought, not because I preferred him over Tobirama but because it just seemed more likely it was him.

But when I looked at the person dancing with me, in a pale blue silk Cinderella dress, a corkscrew wig and golden mask behind which hid a pair of blue eyes, I deflated. It was a female.

It was nice to dance, though, and I was surprised how easily I moved in my platform heels. The dance was quick, and the Cinderella girl was soon exchanged for a pirate male, and then for a plague doctor of unknown gender.

On and on it went.

And then, a couple of strong arms captured my shoulders, pushed me softly into and embrace, grabbing my right hand with their left.

"Hi."

It was the unmistakeable deep bass voice of Tobirama.