Chapter 10
Even if the ICU is familiar, it's still disorienting to wake up in one. Konan checks the sides of the bed to see if she's been handcuffed. (It would be like Jiraiya to do that.) Mercifully, she isn't– and there's no trace of any law enforcement for the time being. The pillows crunch behind her head as she turns towards the window. Her eyes land on Kisame sitting at her bedside with a book in his lap. He's deep in concentration, reading with tired eyes. Should she feel relieved or threatened by his presence? All she knows is that it's nice to not be alone.
"...Hoshigaki-san…" She says, finding her throat parched and lips cracked. "Are you here to kill me?"
“Ah, Konan-san. You’re awake.” Stating the obvious. Kisame closes his book, then looks at her with steel in his eyes. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."
The answer is sufficient for now. There are more pressing questions.
"What about Madara?"
"Dead." He replies plainly.
To betray one's master is something Konan never expected from him.
"Why?"
Kisame sighs. "If it's all the same to you, Konan-san, I'd rather not discuss it here."
Fine. She has more questions. Konan is tired, but not so tired that she forces a firm tone.
"What are you doing here?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"No."
He grins in a way a beaten dog would. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
His answer takes her aback. She starts to lean forward, propping herself up. But the stitch in her side yells angrily, causing her to wince and guard with her hands. Oh, right. Madara stabbed her in her back. How fitting.
Kisame gets out of his chair and takes his jacket. She notices it's still speckled with blood. "It's too early for you to be getting up. I'll get the nurse. They're gonna want to run more tests."
Before she can protest or stall, he's already left. A familiar scene, except she's the one in Nagato's bed; watching the back of another, more capable. Is she to succumb to Nagato's same fate? Would the world be that merciful? If she was going to die from a stab wound, it would've happened by now. Kisame stands in the back of the room as the staff come to talk to her. A watchful presence but not intrusive. They tell her she has a laceration on her liver that they patched up and stitched together. They tell her they haven't gotten the police involved; but now that she's awake and stable, she can't stay. They say she's going to have to be careful with her stitches and tell her she needs to use a wheelchair until she's completely healed. They pile bottles of antibiotics and painkillers on the table. They give her one measly roll of gauze and a packet of cotton pads. She has nowhere to put them. She doesn't even have a set of clothes. They assume Kisame is there to take care of her, but he doesn't ever step out of the corner. They tell him she's going to need intensive care– and that he should find a female caregiver for the first week to help change her bandages. An aunt or a sister or a best friend. The words sound so foreign to her that she might laugh. All their orders feel like a fog that she wades in.
When they're done talking, they say they'll be back with a chair for her to use. The room falls to an uncomfortable silence. She looks to Kisame, hands stuffed in his pockets. He wears what he always wears— dark-navy shirt and gray trousers. She can tell they’re custom-tailored. No off-the-rack place around here carries his size well enough to look that fitted.
"You don't have to do this." She tells him, trying to be convincing.
I don't have anywhere else to go.
"What will you do?"
I don't have anywhere else to go.
"I can find someone from Ame."
I don't have anywhere else to go.
"Who?"
I don't have anywhere else to go.
Konan's lips purse as she struggles to find an immediate answer. Her whole life has been spent with Akatsuki; with Nagato and Yahiko and doctors and hospitals and yakuza politics. She has no friends or aunts or sisters. Would she really trust someone from the Ame district just to avoid Kisame? It seems silly.
Her time to answer is up.
"Don't be difficult, Konan-san. I've taken care of sick people before."
Except they still died.
"I'm not sick. I'm just injured."
(But maybe Kisame can keep someone injured alive better than he could a sick man.)
It's too bad you can't smoke in the hospital, because Konan could use one just about now. She holds her stony gaze for as long as she can stand it; before a wave of nausea and exhaustion snuffs that fire out. She presses back into the pillows and exhales, looking up at the ceiling.
"Why would you do this, Hoshigaki-san? You could go anywhere, do anything, find a better life. You don't have to stay."
He smirks in a callous way. "Do you mean to exile me, Konan-san?"
I don't have anywhere else to go.
He's already given her an answer.
She closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It won't be Akatsuki anymore. Are you okay with that?"
He takes an uncomfortable amount of time to answer. Konan thinks he might have an explanation, but all he says is,
"Yes."
A true yakuza.
'To death.'
So Konan goes with him, if only because she has nowhere else to go.