First Real Mission
The journey to Sunagakure was a long one, but one I was happy to have. We finally had our first real mission. It was something small, and barely a mission, but at least it was something.
Hasano had jumped up and down and squealed like someone had given him his deepest dreams. He had switched from suckers to gum now, and was constantly chewing, chewing, chewing that gum, with the occasional pop.
Umegi had been starting to come out of her shell finally, and she was also just as excited about our first real mission. She hadn’t squealed, but she’d giggled.
“The Kazekage will see you now.” The words came from the tall, scarred Shinobi who’d just walked out of the office. Behind him, a group of three people came out. They turned in our direction, and I recognized at least one of them.
Red hair, pale teal eyes lined in black, pale skin. “G-Gaara?” Six years. It had been six years since I’d last seen him. I’d met him at my fifth birthday party, and again at my sixth, but my family had died on my seventh birthday, so I hadn’t seen him since. Seeing him there, at that time, it made me freeze actually. His name came out as a whisper.
He was followed by a blond girl, and a boy wearing a black hoodie. They were all about our age, and had come from the Kazekage’s office. He walked past me without saying a thing. His eyes focused straight ahead, not even venturing to the side for a second to see me. He walked past me like he’d never seen me before. He was a good five, six feet ahead of the other two, and walking much faster.
I turned. “Ga-!”
Someone grabbed my arm, turning me toward them. The boy with the black hoodie. He smiled, but it was a tense, unfriendly smile. “Hey, I remember you. You’re that girl from Hoshigakure.” His eyes ran up and down me. “What are you doing with a Konoha headband, in a Konoha shinobi team?”
“I’m a Leaf Genin now,” I said, my mouth slightly dry. “I’m sorry, I was trying to talk to-!”
“Yea, I know. I stopped you. You’re welcome. I just saved your life.” He let go of my arm a little forcefully. “A scrawny little brat like you wouldn’t stand a chance against Gaara.”
I tensed. “Gaara’s my friend.”
“Gaara doesn’t have friends. Gaara has victims.”
I glanced back toward Gaara, who’d paused slightly, and saw his back tense before he continued to walk. “Gaara is my friend,” I said more firmly this time.
“No. He’s not.” He brushed past me, knocking me to the side as he did. “Count yourself lucky that I stopped you.”
“Hey-!”
“Seishiryu, we have business to attend to,” Kita-Sensei tapped my shoulder, “so let’s get on with it, please.”
“Yea, our mission went well,” I paused, taking a drink of my milk, “but I was disappointed that it wasn’t more challenging.” Also disappointed I couldn’t talk to Gaara.
“Challenging. At least you’ve gotten your first real mission.” Sasuke was nursing a cat scratch. “Our mission was chasing and catching someone’s pet cat.” He took a bite of rice.
“Well, that sounds fun.”
He let out a frustrated sound. “Naruto makes things so much more difficult. He jumped on that cat.” A small, tense pause, then he smiled slightly. “The only consolation for that is he got scratched. Bad.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed at that. “That’s kind of awesome. How bad?”
“Bad. Everywhere. I’m surprised he still has a face left.”
“Now that, I wish I’d seen!”
“Is there any rice left?”
I nodded. “Yea, there’s enough left for you to have another bowl.”
He stood, grabbed his cup, my cup, and his bowl, then went into the kitchen, coming back moments later with his refilled bowl, and another cup of tea. “Here.” The cup he was holding out to me wasn’t his. It was mine, and it had milk in it, not tea.
“W-where’s yours?”
“I gotta go back to grab it. Take this.”
I took it, staring at him. “Thanks.”
He set his bowl of rice down on the coffee table and went to grab his tea. Sitting next to me, he grabbed the remote, settling deeper into the couch. “I’m not really getting sucked into whatever this is. What about you?”
“Nah, change it.” A knock on the door made me jump. “Hold that thought.”
“Expecting company? Should I leave?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s probably just Hasano.”
It was. Standing there, bouncing up and down as fast as he could. Hasano, with Umegi. “Hey, hi, what’s up? What are you doing tonight?” Not waiting for me to invite him in, he brushed past me, freezing when he saw Sasuke casually sitting on my couch, sipping his tea. “Uh, am I interrupting a date?”
“What? No! We’re just . . . hanging out.”
“As friends.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, Umegi and I thought we should hang out and celebrate our successful mission.”
“Well, Sasuke and I-!”
“Let them join.”
I turned toward him. “Are you sure? Won’t you be uncomfortable?”
He shrugged, taking a bite of his rice. “There’s no food left, and I’m not cooking anything else.”
“What about popcorn? Could make popcorn and watch scary movies.”
“Okay. I can make some pop-?”
Sasuke was on his feet and making his way to the kitchen. “I got it, just sit down. Find a movie that isn’t boring.”
“I brought one!” Hasano announced, holding up a small, cloth bag filled with movies. “Let’s watch movies and eat popcorn!” He bounced his way over to my television, pulling a random movie from the bag.
I heard the pop, pop, pop of popcorn. A minute or two passed as I watched Hasano setting up the movie.
“What kind of movies do you have in there?” Umegi asked him, sitting down on my couch.
“Oh, all horror movies. I figured we could do a theme movie night after every mission. Tonight, it’s horror movies!”
“That’s not a theme,” carrying a bag of popcorn, Sasuke walked back in, set it on the coffee table, “it’s a genre. A theme would be ‘paranormal movies,’ or ‘serial killer movies.’ Not just horror movies. That’s too broad to be a theme.”
“Okay, well, having a ‘genre’ night doesn’t sound right.” Hasano frowned at Sasuke, which didn’t fit his usually happy-go-lucky face.
Shrugging, he turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll make one more bag.”
“Should I get the kitchen chairs? My couch isn’t that big.”
A couple minutes passed as I watched Umegi and Hasano settle on my couch. “Nah, Umegi can sit on my lap, you can sit on-!”
“I am not sitting on Sasuke’s lap.”
“What did I just walk into?”
Of course you’re standing in the doorway. I sighed. “Deciding on whether or not to bring the kitchen chairs into here for extra seating.”
“Ah.” He tossed the second bag onto the coffee table. “I’m not sitting on anyone’s lap.”
“Neither am I.”
“Alright then, Umegi and I will share a seat. I don’t care if she sits on me! She weighs, like, forty pounds!”
Umegi giggled. “No way! I’m not sitting on you!”
“Why not? There’s not enough room for us all on the couch unless we lap-share!”
“Lap share?”
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, shaking my head, laughing.
“How about we think about this? Se, do you have extra, thick blankets?”
I nodded. “Yea, yea, I do.”
“Extra pillows?”
“No-well, I have one extra pillow. And my pillow, I can use my pillow.”
“Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Fifteen minutes later, there were two, thick blankets and one thin blanket spread out on the floor, one pillow on each corner. Sasuke and I had taken up residence on separate corners, and Umegi and Hasano took over the couch.
“Okay. So this isn’t too uncomfortable. Not a bad idea, Sasuke.”
“Popcorn?” He tilted the bag toward me.
I took a small handful.
“Hey, Umegi, open your mouth!” Hasano had a handful of popcorn in one hand, and a single piece in his other hand.
“You’re not gonna throw that in my mouth.”
“Yea! Come on, open up!”
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Sasuke told him, rolling his eyes. “You’ll be cleaning your own mess.”
He said that like he was the boss here. I mean, I wasn’t going to ask him to clean someone else’s mess, but the way he said it, it was like he lived here. In response to that, I picked up a single piece of popcorn and tossed it at him. It hit him straight on the nose.
He blinked, then turned toward me. “Did you . . . just throw popcorn at me?”
I was very focused on the movie that was just starting to play. “Nope. Nuh-uh. No way.”
He twitched slightly. “You just threw popcorn at me.”
“I did not! I would ne-!” A single piece of popcorn landed directly in my open mouth. It made me stop talking, and I turned to look at him, narrowing my eyes.
There was an accomplished smirk on his face. “You missed. I didn’t.”
I ate the piece he’d tossed into my mouth, slowly, narrowing my eyes at him. Directly after that, I looked between my handful of popcorn, and him several times.
“Don’t you dare.”
Meeting his eyes, I smiled. “Don’t I dare, what, Uchiha?”
His chin lifted. “You know exactly what.”
“And if I do?”
“You’ll regret it.”
I glanced back at Umegi and Hasano, to see him tossing pieces at her, and her tossing them back at him, before throwing my entire handful of popcorn at Sasuke.
He blocked his face with his arms. “Really?”
“Really! What are you going to do about it?”
A second handful was tossed at me. “There’s going to be popcorn everywhere if you don’t watch it.”
Once again using just a single piece of popcorn, I threw another one at him–right in his ear.
He shook his head, grabbing that piece. “You want this one in your mouth?”
“I’ll throw the whole bag at you!”
Probably not that possible, because he had the bag in his hand, and he switched it over to his other side. “Come get it. But if you do, you’ll be eating this piece.” He displayed the one that had landed slightly in his ear.
“So you think.”
“So I know.”
I tossed another piece at him.
He caught it, then lunged toward me, grabbing my arm. Feigning a scowl that even I could see was fake, he pinned one arm to the blanket, and held up that piece of popcorn. “I warned you.”
“Uchiha, Sasuke has a playful side,” Hasano murmured, and I craned my neck backward to see him looking at us. “Who knew.”
The boy in question cleared his throat, slowly letting my arm go. “It’s getting late. I should go. I’ll, uh, clean this up and. . . .”
“Oh, no, not yet. It was fun. Stay, please? No more popcorn throwing. I promise.”
His eyes met mine. “No more popcorn throwing?”
“None. Not from me, anyway.”
A slight nod, and a slight smile. “You actually asking me to stay?”
“Mm-hm. But don’t you dare tell anyone that.”
The smile grew, and he nodded. “You got it. I won’t tell a soul.”
Sasuke was actually still asleep on the blanketed floor when I was awakened by a knock on the door. I’d semi expected him to be gone by now. He usually was. Umegi was asleep on one end of my couch, and Hasano was asleep on the other. As quietly as I could, I stretched, stood, and made my way to the front door. It creaked as I opened it, and I winced, looking back, but nobody had moved.
Kita-Sensei stood there, tapping her foot, as impatient as always. The sun wasn’t even up yet. She had her arms crossed and was wearing her battle gear–which I’d only ever seen her in when she went on solo missions. “Umegi and Hasano aren’t at home, so I’m assuming they’re here.” It kind of was a question, but it wasn’t, at the same time.
I answered the question-not-question anyway. “Yea, they’re here.”
“Good. Wake their asses up. We have a mission. A real one.”
I blinked. “What?”
“We have a mission. And I’ve got you all some new armor, because on this mission, you just might need it.”
“Alright. . . . I’ll wake them up.”
Umegi was already sitting up, rubbing her eyes, looking at us. “Is that Sensei Kita?”
Nodding, I walked as silently as I could around Sasuke to get to Hasano. “Shh, I don’t want to wake Sasuke. I don’t know how much he sleeps, but it’s not enough, so let’s just let him sleep.” In order to keep the noise down to a minimum, I cupped my hand over Hasano’s mouth and shook him.
Bright blue eyes snapped open and locked on me. Both brows shot up to his forehead, his eyes widened, and he mumbled something against my hand. When I held up one finger to my lips, he nodded, face returning to a neutral state.
I lifted my hand from his mouth and pointed toward the door, then once again held one finger to my lips, and pointed down toward Sasuke.
His eyes followed where I pointed both times, and he nodded again, standing as silently as he could.
Sasuke was still asleep when we left the living room, and still asleep when I closed and locked my door behind me. Taking a breath deep enough my chest swelled with it, I felt pretty relieved, and hoped he’d manage to sleep for at least a couple more hours. It was still dark out, after all.
Oh, wait. What? It’s still dark out. “What time is it?”
“It’s a little after 3 AM,” Kita turned to lead us back toward the village, “but it’s important that we get started.”
“What’s going on?” Hasano yawned in the middle of the word “going,” so it came out like “Gooo-ahhhhhhhhh-gg.”
“We have a mission. A real one. I’ll explain more after you’ve woken up, eaten something, and gotten dressed. We’ll get ready at my place.”
Kita’s house was modest, on the edge of town, not too far from my little cottage. It had two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a living room twice the size of mine, a kitchen that was, again, double the size of my own, and a dining room. She brought us to the dining room, where the dining table was covered in gear. Backpacks, clothes, shoes, weapons, the works. “Your usual gear for missions won’t work for this one, so I went ahead and got you all the real deal. We’ll all be matching. In your backpacks is your food. Find a breakfast bar and eat, or don’t, it’s up to you.”
We all did, including Kita. We ate our breakfast quickly, knowing we’d need the energy, sipping at our water since we didn’t know how long we’d be gone.
“Your battle gear will help minimize injuries. It’s also weighted, so you no longer need to wear weights. When we get more synchronized as a team, I’ll let you all customize your gear later. For now, we’re all just gonna match. Grab your gear, and get dressed. You may use either of the two bathrooms to do so, or just put your gear on top of your clothing. It would be better to just put your gear on top.”
And that’s what we all decided to do. Kita hadn’t been lying when she’d said our gear was weighted. It was heavier than the weights she had us wrap around our arms and legs. Not by too much, but enough that it was noticeable.
“These are heavy.” Umegi made a small, soft squeak when she tried to walk after putting hers on.
“Yes, I wasn’t planning on giving you your battle gear yet, but . . . here we are.”
Our battle gear happened to be black, thick, fitted suits into which I had to tuck my long hair to put the hood on. Our faces were fully covered by black cloth, including our eyes. Hands covered, feet covered, every inch of our skin was covered, and the entire thing was heavy, and hot.
“Sensei Kita, how are we supposed to move with these on? I can’t see a thing!”
“Yes, well, as I said, you aren’t quite ready for these suits, but you can slide the face covering down just enough to show your eyes. No lower than that. Our faces must be fully concealed. Especially for this mission.” I couldn’t see her, but I heard her take a deep breath. “Seishiryu, because of your . . . unusual visage, it would be best if you kept yours up as much as possible.”
Right. White eyes, white skin. Easy to track. Is that why Kita-SenShi had our suits made to conceal every inch of skin? Adjusting my suit just enough for me to see out of, I glanced around my surroundings. Hasano, being the tallest, was the easiest to find. He was standing the closest to the door, and was still struggling to get the right amount of himself uncovered just to see, and nothing more.
Umegi was the furthest away from the door, but the closest to Kita. She had already adjusted her suit to see and was squinting around the room as though she’d been left in the dark for hours.
Kita, slightly shorter than Umegi, but taller than myself, was standing beside Umegi. The only reason I could tell them apart, probably, because Umegi, though young, had a figure closely similar to Kita-Sensei. I often heard other girls our age lament over Umegi’s more mature figure, wishing they, too, had matured that way, but Umegi hated that it had made her into more of a social pariah. Most of the girls our age were jealous of her having already matured, and treated her pretty badly over it. I couldn’t really figure out why it mattered.
Kita was actually more slender than Umegi was, which was something that was noticed by many of our peers. It made me feel bad for Umegi, if I was honest, because she got more attention over it than she could handle. It was another way I could tell the difference between the two of them.
“So what’s the mission, Kita-Sensei?” Hasano had finally figured out the perfect amount to reveal for him to see. His feet made no sound on the wooden floor as he crept closer. “What’s going on? And how did we get so lucky?”
“Well, all the more experienced teams are busy at the moment, so we were sort a last resort here,” she admitted. “We weren’t their first choice, but it came down to us, Kakashi’s team, and Kurenai’s team. I just happened to have updated your progress, and Hokage-Sama decided we would be the beset choice. But again, we were up against Kakashi’s team and Kurenai’s team. Now, there’s nothing wrong with either team, but Kurenai’s team isn’t quite the heavy hitter we are, and Kakashi’s team is still working on teamwork, so we just barely managed to be the better choice.”
“Yay for better teamwork!” Hasano crowed, pumping his fist into the air. “Yay us!”
“Yes, yay you. You’ve managed to make yourselves into a compatible team, and outperform other teams in the process. We haven’t quite outperformed is Kakashi’s team, but our teamwork far outshines theirs.”
“Naruto and Sasuke, they’re gonna have a hard time getting along,” Umegi pointed out. “The two of them are like fire and dynamite–they’re just waiting to explode.”
That was . . . actually a good description of the two of them. I was a little impressed. “Very true.”
“And Sakura having a crush on Sasuke, while Naruto has a crush on Sakura–that doesn’t help things either.”
I shook my head. “Nope, it really doesn’t. It’s all gonna make for a rather hostile team environment.”
“Which means, yay for us, that we got chosen for a real mission instead of them because of our teamship.”
“Teamship?” Really? Making up words now?
“Well, it’s true!”
“It’s also not something to boast about,” Kita gave him what I assumed to be a harsh look, since I couldn’t see her face, “because that means that, while your teamwork is satisfactory, your skills have much room to improve. Besides, we shouldn’t be happy that our team is better than another. We should be happy that our team is better than our team was. We are only competing with ourselves–not with our fellow Shinobi. Remember that.”
Hasano nodded. “Right, right. Sorry.”
“Our mission is to gather intel. It’s simple, straightforward, and we mustn’t be seen. Several young women have gone missing in the past few weeks in the Land of Fire. They’ve all been between 16-24, and they’ve all disappeared in the past six weeks. There have been, so far, seventeen young women who have gone missing. There have been no witnesses, no evidence, and no trace of them since they disappeared. It’s as though they’ve just vanished into thin air. We will be traveling to the small village where most of them have vanished from. Once we get there, we’ll set up base camp, and I will be going out as bait.
“You three will be watching everyone who comes into the building, and everyone who leaves. If you see anything suspicious before I come out, you intervene, but if we manage to hook some big fish with our bait, I’ll lead them outside, we’ll take them into custody and bring them back to Konoha for interrogation.” She tugged her backpack higher. “Ready? Let’s go.”
The building was painted a dark color on the outside. I didn’t know what it looked like on the inside, because we were stationed outside, on the tops of other, nearby buildings. Kita-Sensei was inside, having dressed up to look like a regular person, instead of the sometimes terrifying kunoichi she really was.
She’d done her hair in artful curls around her face and wore a silky red dress and six-inch high heels that made me think she’d break something wearing them, but she wore them like a pro.
Hasano was on the building directly across from the building Kita went into. I was on the building to the left, and Umegi was on the right.
I couldn’t see the door as well as Hasano could, but I could see who was going in and out pretty well. It was boring, standing atop this building, just watching the people come and go, but I knew it was important to do this, and to keep my eyes stuck to the door.
Three hours, I thought to myself. Three hours of waiting. So far. How much longer will we be here?
“Kita-Sensei just came out,” Hasano’s voice buzzed right into my ear, making me jump. “She’s wobbling and leaning on some guy’s arm.”
“Does that mean it’s time to go?”
I nodded at Umegi’s question. “Yea, that means it’s time to go! Hasano, now!”
Hasano jumped down first, landing in full view of our Sensei and her catch, like we planned, keeping their attention.
And Umegi and I jumped down while sticking to the darkness, so that we wouldn’t be seen until it was too late. “Umegi, don’t panic, we’ve got this.”
I could hear her panting slightly through our communication devices. She was nervous.
In truth, so was I. Sticking to the shadows of the building Kita had come from, I crept up slowly behind them.
“Who are you?” I heard a strange voice. “Get out of my way!”
Kita suddenly twisted out of the man’s grip, slamming her foot into the back of his knee as hard as she could, forcing him to his knees. She pulled both of his arms back behind his back and Hasano pulled the bow and arrow from his back, aiming it at the man’s leg. “Shoot!” Kita told him.
Hasano let the arrow fly, watching it strike deep into the man’s leg. “That’s a poisoned arrow,” Hasano said sternly. “It will paralyze you in five minutes, and kill you in forty if you’re not given the antidote before that. It’s in your best interest not to fight.”
He struggled against Kita’s obviously stronger hold. “Who are you people?”
“We are your downfall,” Kita said, twisting his arm tightly. “And-!”
Umegi suddenly screamed, and we all seemed to jump. I started to move toward her when I felt movement behind me. I twisted to the side just in time for a blade to hit the building, right where I was just standing, and stick deep into the wall. I turned toward the movement just as soon as they lunged at me, and pulled out a kunai to block the one aimed straight at my throat. Knocking that kunai away, I kicked out at their knee.
He was an older man, probably in his thirties or so. Older, fit, with brown hair and green eyes. He swung his other fist at me.
I ducked, gripped his arm in both of my hands and twisted it with me as I ducked.
He yelped, but yanked his arm away before I could do any real damage, and was coming at me before I could recover fully from the duck. He kicked out.
Once more, I ducked under his leg, and struck upward with my kunai as I did, hitting right below his knee.
Another strained, hurt sound fell from him and he crumpled, grabbing his knee and breathing a little harder.
I started to lung toward him and someone grabbed me from behind. Before I could react, a sharp pain exploded in my side. Looking down, I saw the handle of a kunai embedded in my side. I gasped, reaching down to grab it, while someone shoved me toward the ground. Twisting before I hit the ground kept me from hitting my injured side. I pulled the kunai out as I twisted. Kunai in hand, I got to my feet.
The man I was facing now had blond hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin. He was tall, muscular. He had another kunai in his hand, and he held it like he knew how to use it, unlike the brunette.
The kunai felt heavier in my hand then. My side hurt, but it was manageable. I threw the kunai at him, and when he paused to block it, I pulled my traditional katana from its black sheath and held it out in an offensive position, feet shoulder-length apart, balanced on the heels of my feet, ready to leap forward at the first chance.
He lunged forward before I did, and I swung my katana at him. Blocking it with his much smaller kunai, he shoved his fist into my stomach, like he was trying to shove his fist through my stomach.
It hurt, but I ignored that and kicked at his knee as hard as I could from our closeness.
He jumped backward, throwing something through the air, toward me. It sliced across my cheek before I could move, and I could feel warm blood flowing freely from that. A shuriken.
He’s a Shinobi. What do I do?
He moved toward me in a speed that I could barely follow then, and struck me across the face.
I hit the ground and slid, hitting the back of my head as I did.
An arrow whizzed through the air, and I looked up in time to see it barely miss my opponent. Hasano ran into my sight, standing between me and the blond. “You lay one more finger on her, and next arrow won’t miss!” He’d already aimed at him.
He made a “hmph,” sound, and lowered into a fighting crouch, like he was ready to fight some more, but Kita and Umegi appeared. Kita dropped the paralyzed prisoner beside me as she walked past.
“Three highly skilled, highly trained Shinobi against one you. I like those odds,” Kita said, and I could hear the smugness in her voice. And also, her bluff. We were not highly skilled, or highly trained.
He took one more look at us and jumped up onto the top of the closest building. Kita let him go.
“Ready to go?”
Home at last, I was relaxing on my couch, holding a bag of pees to my ribcage. It still hurt. I was partially convinced I’d bruised a rib. Not broken, it didn’t hurt that badly, but definitely bruised. I still hadn’t gone to a medic for the wounds, and I had no intentions of doing so.
I was in and out of deep sleep, leaning against the couch armrest, when I heard a slight bang. My eyes were heavy when I sat up straighter to look at my front door, where the sound came from.
“You look horrible,” Sasuke told me, having closed and locked the door behind him. His eyes narrowed and his look turned intense. “You’re injured.” He crossed the room in three big strides, plopping down on the couch beside me. His hand cupped my injured cheek, and he leant closer toward me. “Your mission?”
I nodded. “If you think that’s bad, you should see my side.” I laughed a little as I said it, which then made me flinch from the pain in my ribs.
He had pulled my shirt up to just under my chest to look at my side before I could move. There was a slight sound that came from him. Almost like a pained gasp. But he wasn’t in pain. “That looks . . . bad.”
I pushed his hands away. “What the hell, Sasuke! You can’t just go flashing my body to you!”
“Roll your shirt up. I’m going to go get the first aid kit.” He stood, then looked down at me. “But you should go to the medics.” He turned away and started walking toward my bathroom.
I leant against the armrest again, falling almost completely asleep before he came back. It was the touch of his fingers against my cheek that made me startle back away. I’d grabbed his wrist and shoved him off of me while flipping over at the same time. The result had him flat on his back, with me straddling his waist, his wrist still clutched in my hand. My other hand had fisted in his collar. I blinked, once, twice, staring down at him. “Oh.”
He just stared at me, one eyebrow raised. “What, did you forget I was here?”
“Um. Kind of.”
He shifted slightly. “Would you get off me now?”
I nodded, climbing off of him, jumping up onto my couch. “S-sorry! I didn’t mean to.”
“You fell asleep. Now just sit still and let me take care of you.” He had ointment on his fingers, but it had smeared a little since I flipped him off the couch. He rubbed it on my cheek anyway, then applied more on his fingers and rubbed that on my cheek too. “It’s not too bad, but it’s deep. You should be careful with it.”
I sat there, studying him, as he rubbed the ointment on my cheek. “Why are you doing this?”
He jerked slightly before applying more ointment, and pulled my shirt up a little. “Hold it.”
I held it out of the way. “Sasuke?”
He glanced up at me as he rubbed the ointment into my skin, but said nothing. Once he was finished, he rubbed his hands together, then grabbed the wrap bandage from the first aid kid. “Sit up, keep your shirt out of the way. Your ribs are bruised, and they need to be tightly wrapped to avoid any further damage.”
I sat up, still studying him, watching him wrap the bandage around my ribcage. He was silent, and his hands seemed steady, but when I looked closer at him, there was a slight tremble. Finished, he put the first aid kit back together, closed it, and stood, taking it back to the bathroom without saying a word.
He was gone for several minutes this time, and I waited. When he came out, he wasn’t trembling anymore. He sat beside me on the couch and took a deep breath. “How about, I make some food tonight?”
“Sasuke?”
“Or we could just order something.”
“Sasuke!”
“What do you want me to say?!” He shot to his feet, turning toward me as he did. His eyes were burning, fists clenched. He gestured toward me. “You’ve been stabbed, and you refuse to go to a medic. It could’ve been worse, Se. You could’ve bled out here on your couch and nobody would’ve been here to stop it! But you just sat here and bled, and ignored your injuries. Turning the wrong way, moving the wrong way, you could’ve broken your already bruised ribs, and punctured a lung, and you’d just . . . sit there, and die, wouldn’t you?”
I stared at him. “I-what? No. I-I’m just . . . I’m not bleeding to death. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine because I came here when I knew you were here, and I bandaged you. One wrong move, Se, and you could’ve died here. Not to mention, whoever attacked you could have done worse. Could have killed you.”
“But . . . he didn’t. I’m fine.”
He looked away from me then, turning just his face toward the wall. “Yea, you’re fine. Doesn’t matter that your shirt is soaked in blood, or that your couch is soaked in blood. You’re fine, right?”
There was something about the way he said it that made something in my chest clench. I looked at where I’d been laying on the couch and, sure enough, there was a large spot of blood. And my shirt was bloody.
He was still staring intensely at the wall, as if he could stare a hole through it.
I stood, flinching slightly when my ribs protested. “I-I . . . I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t think. It’s just . . . I’ve been hurt worse,” I shrugged, walking a little closer to him, “I didn’t think about it. You’re right, I was being stupid.”
He turned toward me then, and his eyes met mine. His eyes were glistening, a little shiny. “Just. . . .” He let out a deep breath, like he’d been holding his breath for a few minutes. “Just please, next time, if you don’t want to get medical help, at least ask me. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. Alright. I. . . . Okay.” I tilted my head at him. “But . . . why does it matter to you?”
His eyes twitched slightly. “Se, you’re . . . you’re asking me, why I care if you die?”
I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like. . . .”
“It’s not like, what? Like we grew up together? Like I come here almost every day and eat here? It’s not like losing you would matter to me?”
I looked down at the floor, brows furrowing. “Have you been coming over that often? Yea, I guess you have.” I looked up then, and smiled, ready to break the mood, and snapped my fingers. “I get it, you don’t want to have to cook for yourself!” I started to turn away and he grabbed my wrist, turning me back toward him.
“Just. . . .” He sighed again. “Just please, be more careful from now on. Okay?”
I nodded. “Alright. I will do what I can, I promise.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders, in a way he usually didn’t. “So . . . want me to cook, or do you want to go get food?”
“Get food, and let people see us together?” I made a face. “Why not. Let’s shake’em up.”
His eyes widened, and he looked at me then. “Yea? Alright. Let’s go, then. What do you feel like getting?” He headed toward the door, then stopped, turned back toward me. “Oh, you should change your shirt. It’s still bloody.”
I looked down at myself then. “Actually . . . I should shower. There’s dried blood on me everywhere.”
He reached toward me, and I flinched slightly. He paused, but still ran a hand through my hair, pulling it forward so I could see the dried blood matting it together. “In your hair, especially.”
“Ick. Yea. I should shower first.”
“I’ll wait. Take the bandage off and I’ll help you put it back on when you come out.”
Flashing him a quick smile, I jogged toward my bathroom, then paused and realized I needed to grab clothes. So to my bedroom first. Grey, long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and black sports bra with matching undies, that’s what I chose. Then to the bathroom.
For a solid thirty seconds, I stood under the steady stream of the showerhead and watched the blood wash down the drain. It spiraled around and around and around, and I found it hard to believe that much blood had been on my body. Although, maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe. After all, I’d definitely been pretty badly injured, and I could feel my injuries stiffening up. My body ached.
It took some serious scrubbing to get the dried blood out of my hair. For a few minutes, I honestly thought my hair would be permanently crimson. But no, it finally ended up coming out, and I shampooed and conditioned my hair thoroughly, pleased when it felt soft and clean beneath my fingers.
Once I got out, I dried quickly, wincing as I dabbed at my injuries. The pants were a little loose, and I had to tie them tighter to fit. When I’d pulled on my sports bra, I hesitated. It covered enough. It wasn’t like I had any breasts to hide, and he was going to have to expose my abdominal area to bandage it, anyway. It was just as covering as if I wore a tank top with it cut in half. Actually more covering, so I grabbed my shirt in one hand and the first aid kit in my other and walked out of my bathroom.
He looked up when I entered my living room. His eyes widened, and he rubbed a hand over his nose as if it was suddenly itchy as he looked away. He had my smallest glass in his hand, filled a quarter of the way with some kind of red liquid. “Um, here,” he said, holding the glass out.
I recognized that liquid, and gave him a dirty look. “Is that-?”
“Yea.”
“I have the ingredients here for that?”
He nodded. “It doesn’t take much to make.”
With a sigh, I threw the first aid kit down on my couch. “I guess I don’t need that then, do I?”
Shaking his head, he bent to retrieve it. “Drink that. I’ll put this back.”
Before I drank it, I watched him walk down the hall. Turning my attention to the liquid in the cup, I narrowed my eyes, studying it. It was thin, and red, but clear red. I remembered it being a darker, thicker red the last time I drank it. Must be diluted this time? Sighing again, I swallowed the content of the glass. It was about two or three swallows, and then gone. It had that familiar, hot, fiery taste, but it tasted better this time, and less spicy. Almost watery. He must’ve watered it down?
He came back in then and took the glass from me. “Looks better,” he said softly, gesturing toward my abdomen.
The bruises were gone. So were the cuts, and the scrapes. I let out a sharp breath. “One day, you’ll have to tell me what’s in that.”
Nodding briskly, he took the glass to my kitchen, and, as I pulled my shirt on, I heard him running water.
I almost yelled out to him that I could’ve washed it, but I was distracted by someone knocking on my door. Glancing back toward my kitchen, satisfied that he wasn’t in sight, I went to open it.
Kita stood there, arms crossed, foot tapping, a scowl on her face. “Good. You’re up. We’re doing the interrogation. Want in?”
I hesitated. An interrogation would take a lot of time, and I’d just made plans, but I had been wanting to learn to interrogate efficiently for awhile. . . .
“Go on,” I heard Sasuke say.
Jumping, I whirled toward him, not having heard him come in. He stood in my kitchen doorway, glass in hand, soap suds on his hands. “But-?”
“Go. I’m going to get the . . . stain off your couch. Before it dries too much.” He gestured toward the couch cushions.
“Sasuke, you don’t-!”
He smiled slightly. “Interrogations are big. You can’t miss this. I’ll be here when you get back. It might take that long just to get the couch clean anyway.”