| One Of My Kind | [Feb. 20th, 2015|10:19 pm] |
[Takes place May 13, Yondaime Year 5, a few hours after Trouble Round My Door]
It took real effort to sleep in when Katsuko had been trained her entire life to rise with the dawn. Because she was an elite shinobi who laughed in the face of impossible challenge, she pulled the pillow over her head and determinedly stayed unconscious for the entire morning. The sun was at its zenith when she finally dragged herself out of her apartment and up to HQ. Sleep still clung to the corners of her vision, making her trek to Team Six's office as wobbly and treacherous as a ship at sea.
Ryouma's chakra was a warm, welcome presence on the other side of the office door. Katsuko rubbed at her eyes and pushed the door open. The first thing she saw was Raidou’s empty desk. Her eyes immediately skittered away. Something sharp curled up underneath her ribcage.
Then the scent of mildew and dried blood hit her in the face. Katsuko made an inarticulate squawk of protest and clapped her hand over her nose and mouth. The door swung shut behind her with an offended bang. "Ryouma," she spluttered. "Why?"
Ryouma blinked and looked up from where he was seated on the floor. He looked recently showered and far too awake for Katsuko’s liking. The tight band t-shirt and jeans he was wearing, however, did incline her a little more towards forgiveness. Team Six's ruined uniforms were piled in front of him like souvenirs of slaughter. "Just in time. I was sorting all the underpinnings out to drag down to the laundry. You got your gear?"
"Yeah," Katsuko tried to say, shuffling away. Filtered through her nausea, it came out more like "Yegh."
She’d retrieved her battered uniform from its sealing scroll when Team 6 had returned to Konoha, but she’d been too exhausted to do more than hang her armor up. Now, almost a week later, she cracked her locker open again, peered inside, and recoiled. She snatched her armor underpinnings off their hook and slammed the door shut, reeling away.
Ryouma seemed unsympathetic to her plight. Katsuko tossed the mess of her underpinnings onto the clothes pile and collapsed over his back, propping her good elbow on his head.
He scoffed at her. "C'mon. It's not that dire." He picked up one of her shirts from the pile and inspected the long slice that parted it on one side from collar to shoulder hem; Katsuko recognized it as the shirt Raidou had had to cut off her to get at her broken collarbone. "This is, though."
"Shuddup," Katsuko said into her hand. Through the stench she caught the scent of clean citrus. Closer inspection revealed Ryouma to be the source. She sniffed at him a couple times, buried her nose in his hair, and breathed in orange blossom shampoo. A sigh of relief escaped her.
Ryouma laughed softly. "You don't have to hang out here. Leave it to the Stink-Badger Brigade. I'll get everything cleared out and cleaned up by the end of the day."
"And deprive you of my company?" Katsuko said without moving. "I wouldn't want you to pine."
He started to crane around, attempting to look at her. “You okay?”
“I just woke up,” Katsuko said, wrapping her arm around Ryouma’s head and refusing to let him move. “I have to do paperwork.”
He tugged gently on a lock of her hair. "I just left Genma and Kakashi in the hospital with a stack of paperwork for each of 'em. Including those punishment training logbooks for Kakashi. Yours can't be worse than than that."
“Oh?” She paused. “How are they doing?”
Ryouma shrugged, muscled shoulders lifting Katsuko up with the movement. "Lieutenant's doing better. He had a PT specialist in, so he was hobbling around on crutches trying to set a good example and not swear in front of me." Ryouma gave a quiet snicker. "Like we don't know he's as bad a patient as we are. And Kakashi had an Intel agent there. The same one who hauled you off the other night, the red-eyed girl. Yuuhi."
Katsuko brightened. “Kurenai-chan? Interviewing Kakashi? I would have paid to see that.” She hesitated and leaned a little bit more of her weight on Ryouma. “You… don’t seem thrilled about meeting her, though.”
He made a rough, frustrated sound and tossed Katsuko’s ruined shirt aside. "She just keeps— showing up. She was there when I went to check on the lieutenant, that first day we got back, and she basically shut the door in my face. And then she pulled you away, and then she was there with Kakashi... Argh." He scruffed his free hand through his hair, accidentally bumping Katsuko’s chin. "And she knew you and Kakashi already."
Somehow, the emphasis Ryouma put on that last offense made it sound like the worst by far.
Kurenai was exceptional at her job; unfortunately, her job sometimes put her at odds with ANBU’s agents. And for all that Ryouma’s grievances seemed like a result of Kurenai being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Katsuko felt like there was something she was still missing. She wavered, caught between conflicting loyalties, and attempted to compromise by giving Ryouma’s head a comforting pat.
“There, there?” she tried. After a moment of pointed silence from Ryouma, she sighed. “I saved Kurenai-chan’s life in Tea Country a couple years ago. We’ve been friends ever since. I don’t know how Kakashi knows her, but she’s a great Intel agent and a good person. If she’s assigned to our case, she’ll do everything she can to help taichou.”
He echoed her sigh. "Well, you're a better judge of character than Kakashi. Oh, but—" he tried to twist around to look at her, which Katsuko prevented by draping the rest of her weight on him and refusing to budge. "Yondaime-sama came by to see Kakashi. And Kakashi actually argued taichou's case with him. I mean, the Hokage said he wasn't talking about it until the investigation's done, but— Kakashi's got Yondaime's ear if anyone does, right?”
“Holy shit,” Katsuko said, before her brain could catch up with her mouth. She blinked and refocused. “I mean— yeah, Kakashi’s the Hokage’s golden boy. I’d completely forgotten.” It was still hard to connect Hatake Kakashi, the young legend, with Hatake Kakashi, her irascible pretty teammate.
Ryouma almost radiated smug satisfaction. "He agreed to come clubbing with us, when your arm's better."
“Holy shit,” Katsuko said again. If she’d been anything less than a highly trained ninja warrior she probably would have fallen over. “Did you check for a henge? Wait, how much drugs did they have him on?”
"They took him off the drugs a while ago. He was sober." There was touch of awe in Ryouma’s voice. "He said no glitter, though. I figured maybe Club Celadon? Should be classy enough not to scare him off, but not so stuffy we can't have a good time."
“That’s one of the newer clubs, isn’t it? I’ve heard good things about it.” She stared into the middle distance. “Do you think we can get him to dance? Wait, I don’t think my mind could handle that. What will I wear?”
"Borrow something from your friend. If she's Intel, she's probably got access to a wardrobe like a film star." He tugged her hair again, teasing. "You might have to pad it a little, though."
Katsuko tugged Ryouma’s hair back in revenge for the joke about her (admittedly svelte) figure, thinking. It’d been too long since she’d spent time with Kurenai outside of work, and Kurenai did have a sense of fashion that eclipsed Katsuko’s own. She’d even know what to do with Katsuko’s hair. “That’s perfect. Kurenai-chan will be able to tell me if this is all genjutsu or not. Clubbing. With Kakashi. I thought the only clubbing he knew how to do was the kind with violent sticks.”
Ryouma stiffened and tried, yet again, to twist around and look up at her. Katsuko admired him for his tenacity even as she dug the sharp point of her chin into his head in warning. He subsided, still alarmed, and said, “Wait. You’re inviting her? Kakashi won't bother with the sticks, he'll spend the whole time duelling her with sarcasm."
“Of course not. Kurenai would drink you both under the table, and then I’d have to drag you back to barracks because I’m a good senpai. No, I’ll go see her before I meet up with you guys.”
"You are a good senpai," Ryouma said, relaxing underneath her.
Surprise wasn’t a good look on Katsuko. It was why she did her best never to be surprised by anything. This would be the third time in almost as many minutes that she’d been rendered boggle-eyed by something Ryouma had said, and if he wasn't so pretty she’d resent him for it. As it was she coughed and managed, “And you’re a good kouhai. I mean, you’re acceptable.”
"I'm doing your laundry, senpai." Ryouma’s put-upon sigh didn’t even try to be convincing.
“But I have to do paperwork,” she remembered, with no small amount of despair. “And I’m still hungry, even with the stink.”
Almost a month in her company had trained Ryouma well, or at least weakened him to her complaining. He relented with good humor. “Get something to eat now, then. I’ll come back and keep you company, once I’ve got these in the machines. Need to sort out the armor I can repair and the stuff that's missing or ruined before I appeal to the QM, or he'll have my ass on a pike."
Ass on a pike. Katsuko chortled into Ryouma’s hair. “Isn’t it supposed to be ‘head on a pike’?” Then the rest of what he’d said registered. She clutched his head in alarm. “You’re going to the QM after we did this to our uniforms?” She indicated the general state of the team’s armor with a frantic wave.
"Promise I won't flirt with him. Anyway, it's better than last time. No one's rolled in demon guts." Ryouma tipped his head back this time instead of trying to crane his neck around. Katsuko blinked at his upside-down gaze. "I still want to know what happened when you flirted with him."
“He yelled at me and I died,” she said immediately. “It was horrible. There were no survivors. If you buy me takeout, maybe I’ll tell you more.”
Ryouma laughed, making Katsuko’s mouth tilt up in response. "Anything for a story." He straightened and shifted slightly, reaching for his wallet in his back pocket. “I’ll pay if you fetch. Meet back here, or somewhere less rank?”
“Barracks courtyard,” Katsuko decided. She’d gotten over the fear of windowless basement rooms years ago, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still prefer open skies above her head. She accepted the bills Ryouma handed her and stuffed them into her pocket. “Better hurry, or I’ll eat your share too.”
She dodged Ryouma’s half-hearted swipe, laughing, and escaped from the room. Her stomach growled as she took the stairs, already looking forward to yakitori and egg rolls. She didn’t let herself think about anything except food until she was standing in line at the vendors’ stall.
There was only so much running you could do from your own mind. The anxiety that had wrapped around her ribs in the middle of the night came creeping back while she placed her order; it had been hovering, biding its time ever since she’d walked through the office door and seen Raidou’s empty desk.
“Miss?” The cashier was looking at her in concern. Katsuko shook herself and offered an apologetic smile to the boy, who didn’t seem convinced but handed her her finished order anyways. She tucked the heavy paper bag against her side and headed out again at a slower pace. If she took her time getting back, she’d have her expression under control again by the time she met up with Ryouma. |
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