Genma blinked at Kaito, coming out of his own post-mission fugue. He stopped in the middle of the changing room and stood there, basket of toiletries and clean clothes in one hand, and touched his own greasy hair, mirroring Kaito's gesture. That was good. That was really good... Looked like the kid was learning something after all.

"Nice form, but you might want to cut back on the smarm just a little," he said with a grin. He walked over to the bench and set his basket down. Then himself. Slowly. "But the whole charm thing is definitely working. That lopsided smile is a winner for you. Also being half-naked helps."

Definitely helped. Kaito was damn well-built, with a face like one of those puppies with giant paws. Very easy on the eyes. Eros was going to be a good fit for him.

"How was your mission? You look a little tired." Which Genma had no business calling anyone else on, in his present state. "Did you just get back?"

Kaito glanced down at his bare chest, feeling blood prickle against his neck. Shouldn't the gay guys have to shower in the women's shower or something?

Then he decided it didn't matter and plopped down beside Genma on the bench, one hand still holding onto his towel while he leaned on the other, legs splayed. The towel split along one thigh, but didn't come untucked. "Success. Got back like, midnight three days ago." He frowned. "Two days ago. However that works." He let go of his towel, lifting his hand to scrub it through his still-wet hair. "I've been mostly sleeping, actually. Man, I haven't even gotten to debriefing. They just let me go straight to bed." Did it matter that it had been three days, now? They'd get him up if there was a problem, right? Maybe Natusmi had done it. She seemed like the type to get it all done right away. Or maybe she'd been sleeping for three days, too.

Genma pulling his shirt off dragged Kaito's thoughts back to the present. "Hey, Genma--" He stopped, eyebrows rising. "You look like shit." A blue-black bruise lurked under his skin, stretching from the edge of his ribs to the bony knob of a hip, which was exposed by the sag of ugly maroon sweats. The shadowing crawled along his stomach and, when Kaito leaned back to look, almost to his spine on the other side.

His mother had always told him to be sensitive when you saw someone with wounds like that. "You, uh, decide ducking is for us rookies?" He grinned. Hey, Genma was breathing...

"Oh. Yeah. Something like that." Genma gave Kaito a tired chuckle. "I see my lessons on being observant are having an effect. Next we can work on tact," he teased.

Pants next, but a half-hearted attempt at a bend convinced him to sit and wait a minute. He shouldn't still be getting light-headed, they'd transfused back all the lost blood, right?

"I got back um... What day is this? Thursday? I got back Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. They came to debrief me at the hospital yesterday. Was your mission with a higher-ranking agent? They probably did the formal Intel gathering with him, and let you sleep."

His eyes narrowed a little. Kaito looked relatively uninjured. Maybe a bruise here or there, but nothing major, and he was moving easily enough. "You having a soldier-pill crash?"

His shoulders hunched, his head ducking at Genma's narrowed eyes. Suddenly, he was sure he'd done something wrong. Should have--uh... He had no idea. He hadn't had any more chakra! He flicked a glance sidelong, and came to the uncertain conclusion that Genma was just tired. His skin was pale and there were circles under his eyes. Probably just tired. Kaito sat up, tucking his bare feet under the bench, hands coming together.

"No. I mean--probably. Yeah. Not bad, though. We just, we had this mission and--we had to bring this guy home, but he'd been like, tortured--" his gaze dropped unwittingly to Genma's hands, remembering Osamu's. He yanked it away, unable to meet amber eyes. "He was like, totally out of it and fighting us, and, and Natsumi--she was the other agent, and she was even more of a rookie than I am but she was really good--and she thought, if I used my limit then I could maybe get him to just come quietly, and, and I did, but it takes a lot of chakra, y'know? And I'm not used to it, so I ended up taking soldier pills, is all."

He plucked at his nails, remembered to stop, and tried not to feel so confused. They'd completed the mission. That was good. He'd been really proud of getting them all home--at least, he thought he was, under the exhaustion--and of finally using his limit for something good, feeling like maybe it wasn't so awful. Natsumi hadn't freaked out about it. But maybe he really shouldn't have used his limit, not at all. Or he shouldn't have needed soldier pills. Or he shouldn't have used it on a teammate. Or--hells, he didn't know.

Buddha's balls, he could feel it coiling in his chest. He stopped plucking at his nails to rub the heel of his palm against his sternum.

...he'd been like, tortured... Kaito's eyes flicking guiltily at his hands, then away. Genma stiffened. He took a slow, painful breath, feeling bruised ribs expanding much more than old aches in his fingers. He was tired. Exhausted, all of a sudden, and not so sure he wanted this conversation to continue at all. But Kaito was going on, talking about his mission... About using his limit...

"You activated your limit on purpose? You can do that?" Genma asked, surprised. He'd thought the whole problem with Kaito and his bloodline was that it was outside of his conscious control. That gesture of his now--rubbing at his chest like it ached--that was what he did when the limit tried to flare up. It wasn't, though. Genma didn't feel any emotions other than his own: tired, surprised, and a shadow of old fear that he had no intention of letting see the light of day.

He frowned at his toes, long and skinny. "Well... yeah. I can start it. I just can't stop it. Or keep it from starting, sometimes." He didn't look up, caught between Genma's tone of voice saying it wasn't a big deal, and shame that he couldn't do something so basic.

He glanced over, but Genma didn't look disgusted. He looked tired, and mildly interested. If he weren't so tired it would probably be confused or really interested or something like that, but exhaustion wiped all that away.

Kaito stared at his hands. "My genin sensei figured if it was gonna happen anyway, it might as well happen when we wanted it to, right? And since anxiety causes it, he just..." His brows drew in. "Well, he'd get me to trigger it. My teammates knew to ignore it in a fight, but anyone we were up against didn't. Or if we were trying to get in somewhere, it was a great distraction." He offered a tentative smile. "And it's not like it's hard to trigger."

"That's better than I thought," Genma said honestly. "I thought from reading your file you really had no way to activate it on purpose. Like it was more like a seizure or something. Although I guess that's a little strong of an analogy." He stretched his neck back and sighed, feeling as if every muscle in his body was strained. The idea of getting a shower had seemed fantastic ten minutes ago, but the energy to push himself off that bench, strip down, and actually go stand under the hot water was draining by the second.

Maybe he'd just sit here and chat with Kaito. No one else was around; not surprising for a mid-day week day--they were all out getting themselves trashed on their own missions, poor bastards. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Sounds like your sensei could have used a few clues. So he just spooked you whenever he wanted you going all jutsu-y?"

He laughed uncertainly. "Not--not exactly." His muscles relaxed a little bit more. Carefully, he angled a glance up at Genma.

Genma still just looked tired.

Kaito leaned back a bit, fussing with his towel as it tried to slip. "I always knew it happened when I got anxious. Even when I was a little kid, though mostly after puberty. Normal bloodline limit stuff, you know." Genma was watching him with that polite interest that people got when they were too weary to invest much emotion. Kaito leaned back on one hand, gaze wandering absently. "He just sorta... encouraged me to be anxious, I guess. Taught me how to stress out bad enough to get it going, after I'd been in enough missions for it not to start itself." He shrugged. "Saved my ass a couple times. I know it doesn't sound good, but you use what weapons you have on hand, right?" He flicked at a cuticle while he waited for an answer, stomach fluttering.

"That sounds about as wrong as anything I've ever heard. Ever." Genma's eyes were open now, half-lidded but focused on Kaito. He was picking at his nails again... Genma let it go. "That's like what, the inverse of Rule Twenty-Five? I'm impressed you've survived and aren't insane. Seriously."

He meant every word of it.

"I think the only reason I'm here to talk right now is because I can turn my stuff off when I'm in the field."

Except when it came to Raidou...

"Usually, anyway," he admitted. "I can usually turn it off. I thought that was how everyone did it. Don't you just get... I don't know...." Another slow breath in. "I honestly have no idea. I'd be dead for sure if I revved my fear up instead of damping it."

"It's not wrong," Kaito protested, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. "I mean, on you maybe it would be wrong, but when I get upset people generally want to help me. So, it's different." He started to chew on a cuticle, then dropped his hand consciously, frowning at his feet. "Even if I choke, it's mostly okay. And it wasn't like he ever left me where I could get hurt. If we didn't have an escape plan, or if something went sour, he came back and got me. Limit makes me like a fucking beacon."

He tried to shrug. "So I just... kinda learned a different Rule Twenty-Five. You gotta change the rules for students, right? That's what good sensei do. They shift things to play up strengths." And weaknesses, the little voice in the back of his mind whispered.

He braced his hands on the bench, shoulders winging up around his ears. "'Sides, I was never very good at Rule Twenty-Five anyway." Madoka-sensei had said he had an 'anxious personality.' Something about trauma, but duh, he was a ninja. He didn't tell Genma that. Ninja weren't supposed to be anxious.

"Everybody sucks at Rule Twenty-Five at least some of the time," Genma said. "Even me." He took in the hunched shoulders, the nail chewing, however abortive, and the thready quality of Kaito's voice: seriously unhappy kid... Guy. Not a kid, that was clear with him clad only in that towel. He'd been a kid, though, when that sensei screwed him up.

At least he hadn't left his student to die.

"Is that how it is for everyone in your clan? I mean, do they all do like you? I guess that makes sense, if that's how your limit works, but man... Must make taking missions with other people a major hassle if you have to explain it all, and make sure they don't get their wires crossed."

He picked at the scab on his shoulder, wincing when his probing disturbed the deep bruises around it. Wasn't that thing they did at the hospital before they cut him loose supposed to take care of clearing out the bruises? And there couldn't be any more anticoagulant in his system, could there? He checked his fingertips, relieved to find no fresh blood smeared there.

Kaito was looking at him.

"What'd you tell the chick you took your mission with just now?

"Gave her the short form. Y'know, messes with emotions, just ignore it," Kaito mumbled, skin heating. "And the rest of my mom's clan isn't like that--it's like, person specific and they can control it and stuff after training. But I'm a half-blood, so..." His heart wasn't in the explanation, though. He was thinking about the chick from his mission.

Kaito took a deep breath and dove in. "She didn't seem upset. Natsumi. I mean, I ramped it way up to get the agent's landlord to tell us where he was, right? He was freaking out, and she was standing right there and hadn't kai'd or hurt herself or anything, and she seemed okay. It was her idea I use it again, later, and it totally worked."

He crossed his legs, scooting sideways on the bench to face Genma, one hand shoving his towel down over his crotch. "You think, maybe, it didn't bother her?"

If Kaito's aim had been to draw attention away from his nudity, he was going about it all wrong. Genma's eyes tracked Kaito's hand and the drape of the towel: damn.

Also, that Natsumi was one stone cold bitch if she could take Kaito's jutsu at full strength and not do anything to counter it. She must be some kind of serious dyke.

"Did she say anything about it?" he asked. His gaze traveled back up lean, rippling muscle accentuated with just a hint of hair, in all the right places. Damn.

"She must have some major stones. I don't think I know her. What's she like? Short hair, built like a brick wall?"

He ignored the second question, already shaking his head. "She just said it was okay, I think." Kaito wracked his brain for anything she'd hinted at. "She avoided me for a bit after the first time, but... she seemed to be okay. I mean, I warned her to ignore her emotions and all."

And then the rest of what Genma said got through. Kaito leaned back on his hands, shaking his head. "Man, no, she's not like that at all. She's like--like--" he sat up to gesture, realized he'd cupped both palms about a foot in front of his chest, and self-consciously dropped them. "She's so freakin' hot. She's got really long hair, and--" His hands had come up to his chest again. He dropped them. "And she's like a princess or something. No shit." Something like that. He couldn't quite remember.

Then his face fell. "But I'm pretty sure I totally botched everything." He sighed, leaning back on his hands. Genma sat in front of him shirtless, still multi-colored and pale. Even his bruises seemed pale. "I seriously suck at talking to girls. How do you do it? I always end up sounding like a total dork!"

Genma's eyes crinkled in genuine laughter. Quiet laughter, almost silent, as his body's valiant attempt to keep those bruises from jostling fought with his sense of humor. He had to hold his aching side, watching Kaito describe Natusmi's evidently considerable charms. "Oh man! Did you? Oh man!" He needed to catch his breath, had to stop laughing before he shook loose something vital.

And before he hurt Kaito's evidently already tender feelings. Poor kid. But it was funny.

"OK well first thing is, you gotta... Where were your eyes when you were talking to her? Because I'm kind of guessing they weren't on her face."

"They were!" Kaito protested. "I mean--well, half the time I was running behind her, anyway, and she was wearing a mask, but I'm sure I was looking at her face all the time! She had like..." Suddenly, he couldn't remember. "Big eyes," he said firmly.

Genma looked like he was trying not to laugh again.

"Brown! No--no, they were blue! Totally blue! I think. It was dark!"

Genma was way too amused by all this.

"Come on!" Kaito grumped. "I know how to look at a girl's face! It's just I open my mouth and--dude, I told her she looked good. And then I told her she didn't look good! And then I told her she moved well! I mean, what is wrong with me?" He really was lucky she hadn't killed him.

"Testosterone, if I have to guess," Genma sputtered through laughs that were making his eyes tear. Oh gods, he was going to rupture something! He wrapped both arms around his belly and panted for air, struggling for something even a little like composure.

"You never even looked at her eyes, did you? Is she really all that stacked? And if she was in ANBU gear, I'm sure that view from behind was pretty fabulous, too, if she's as built as you say."

Which let out her being one of the manly women of ANBU. Maybe she was another new Eros recruit who'd been running those sorts of missions from the regular ranks? That would explain her having a tight lid on her emotions, anyway.

Shit, had they already sent Kaito out on an eros mission? But he'd said it was a rescue... Torture.

"Your objective wasn't a seduction, right?"

Kaito shook his head in frustration, moving his hands in the air like he was cutting off someone's sentence--or thought, in this case. "No! Rescue! And if I was supposed to be seducing her, I totally failed!" Then he grinned. "But, oh man, the view from behind was great. She's got these legs--and this butt--" He gestured for that, too. "And I guess she's not really all that stacked, not compared to some, but she has these curves..."

He looked at Genma hopefully. "Can't you teach me how not to make a complete moron of myself every time there's a pretty girl around?"

"If I can't, I suck as a sensei, don't I? Which I might, actually. Hope not, but that's always a risk." Genma's hands came up, sketching the same shape in the air that Kaito's had. "So was she built like this?" Busty, slender, then a somewhat compact ass. "Or this?" Much bigger chest, tiny waist, and a rump to die for.

"Actually I like the first type myself. Nice, curvy ass, but not too curvy. And she's tall, huh? If she's got long legs? And a princess? Makeup and jewelry type?"

Kaito laughed and shook his head, looking much more at ease than he had minutes before. "Not at all," he told Genma.

"I'm thinking she was an advanced lesson you're not quite ready for yet. Like trying to do a water canon jutsu before you've even figured out how to do a condensation." Genma grinned. "Do what'd you do, stutter? Drool?"

Damn. He unfolded his legs, dropping one foot to either side of the bench, then spent a moment making sure his towel was still covering him. He re-tucked it on his hip, though doubted it was any more secure than it had been. Advanced lesson? Sounded like code for dream on. "I don't stutter," he said, flashing a halfhearted grin at Genma. "I mean, not like st-st-stuttering." He just repeated words sometimes, and that was different. The school psychiatrist had told his mom so. "And I didn't drool!" This time, he actually snorted, rolling his eyes. "I just say the stupidest things. Like, I keep trying to come up with something good to say, and instead I sound like a retard."

The bench was plastic, worn through on the spot between his knees, showing the polished metal undercasing. He rubbed at it with his thumb. "Girls like you." It didn't sound quite like a compliment. "I bet they liked you in the Academy, too." The look he angled up was almost accusatory. Genma had totally been one of those guys.

Then his expression shifted, pleading hopefully. "Can't you teach me how to be just a little bit cool? I mean, even if it was only so I didn't put my foot in my mouth..."

Genma's hand snaked up to rub at the back of his neck, and his tired eyes showed a hint of self-consciousness under Kaito's indicting gaze. "Um, yeah. They did." It was something he'd always taken for granted, before his Eros training. By the age of ten he'd had girls trailing him around, leaving him valentines and whispering to each other about him. And boys, a gang of friends who would pretty much do what Genma said.

Charisma was what Amari-sensei had called it, when she took over his training. And taught him how to use it.

He studied Kaito, the handsome face showing boyish innocence and mischief in equal measures, the lean, athletic body built for style. The only thing Kaito lacked, Genma could almost hear his sensei's voice saying, was confidence. Well, and a whole lot of training.

"You already know how to be cool. Remember? You can be cool with me, right?" Genma grinned and dropped his hands into his lap again. "Look at you, totally at ease, talking about girls with a guy in the locker room. That's got some major cool points."

Kaito leaned back on his hands, tipped his head to one side, and gave Genma a distinctive, Don't patronize me, glare. "I can be cool," he drawled, as if Genma had said just the opposite, "with my friends." All one of them. He was under no delusions that he'd been cool around either Genma or Raidou. Shit, he'd been doing fingerpainting and failing at learning how to control his limit with Raidou.

"But I get around anyone whose opinion I actually care about--" anyone with breasts, anyone above him, anyone better than him, anyone period, "--and my brain totally fails me!" It was hopeless. He sagged on his hands. "How'm I supposed to learn that?"

Genma gave a thoughtful sigh. "Well..." He looked down at his lap, then up at Kaito again, with his lips pursed in thought. He licked his teeth and chewed his lip and wished he had a senbon or a cigarette. That would make thinking easier. "I don't know," he said at last. "That's kind of a hard problem."

Whose opinions did Genma care about? Raidou's obviously. The Hokage's, Arakaki's, Amari-sensei's and Kazuma-sensei's, though neither of them were around to share their opinions any longer. What about when he'd been younger? His parents', Uncle's, Yumiko's... He'd cared a little about impressing his teachers, but it had been easy. He knew he was good, and he knew he'd impressed people. And as for peers, classmates, villagers, the men and women he dated now.... He never gave it a second thought.

"Maybe you could pretend? Like... fake it? Like on a mission? I once had a mission where I was supposed to infiltrate this office and steal some documents, so they got me into the mail room as a clerk. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. But I faked it. After a while of faking it, I realized I could do it."

"You mean like... use my eros training?" he asked doubtfully. "I guess..." Then he shook his head, gaze dropping. "I don't wanna lie to people. If I fake something, and they like the person I'm pretending to be... then what's the point?"

Maybe the point was that he'd have friends. People would talk to him instead of laugh at him. He'd never been able to act how his mother wanted, but maybe if wasn't living with the person... maybe he could do it, then.

So what if he didn't actually feel however he was pretending? If they liked him for it, maybe that would be worth it. Maybe Genma was right, and he should just... not be himself. He wasn't doing so well as himself, anyway.

OK, that didn't seem to be useful advice. At least not from the dejected look on Kaito's face. "That's, um, not exactly what I meant," Genma backpedaled. "I mean like, be yourself, but fake being confident?"

That sounded stupid. Damn, he was shitty at this whole teaching thing; what he wouldn't give to have Amari-sensei still alive...

Kaito's insecurity seemed to be contagious.

Although it still wasn't the jutsu. Good thing, too, Genma thought, because he was far too run-down to fight off Kaito's bloodline limit right now. He eased a hand along his thigh, rubbing at another bruise there, where that sliver of a katana wound had bled and bled into the skin, under the influence of poison.

He had no idea what to do next.

Kaito stared at him. "Be myself... but pretend to be confident." He frowned. "I'm confident! I mean, okay, not with girls..." He thought about it a bit, and then finally shook his head. "How am I supposed to pretend to be confident when I can't think of anything to say?" It seemed impossible. Even Genma had been looking like he was floundering.

"Never mind," Kaito said before Genma could do anything. "I need to get dressed and find out what happened with that debriefing, and you came in to shower." Genma needed a shower, but Kaito didn't envy him trying to work around those bruises.

Putting one hand on his towel to keep it in place, Kaito swung off the bench. His pajamas were still in a heap in the corner.

"Yeah. I need a shower. Kind of surprised you could stand sitting next to me this long, actually." Genma clambered to his feet, using the wall for leverage, and sniffed at his pits. "Damn, seriously! You're either a masochist, you've got no sense of smell, or you're a really good friend, Kaito."

He should try to answer Kaito's question. He should at least make an attempt. But he had no idea what to tell him, and he was just too tired to figure it out right now. Maybe a shower and a nap would get his mind working again.

He kicked off his thongs and untied the waistband of his sweats, letting them fall to the floor around his ankles. Getting his feet disentangled proved to be a bit more of a challenge. Leaning over with slow, careful deliberateness, he tugged them free and balled them up with his dirty t-shirt.

Standing up again required another careful walk up the wall with his hands. He gave Kaito a tired smile, and ran a hand through his hair. "Guess I should dodge next time, huh?"

Kaito glanced at the very naked man, snorted, and rolled his eyes without looking over. "Yeah, seriously. You're gonna be as girl-less as me, you keep showing up black and blue."

Genma grinned at him. "Nah, girls like to play nursemaid. I'll be all right."

From the corner of his eye, Kaito thought he caught a wink. He could definitely tell that Genma was doing nothing to encourage privacy. He laughed and shook his head, picking up his stuff and bundling it all under one arm.

Natsumi had said her dad got her mom by bleeding all over him. Maybe there was something to this injury thing...

"If I see any girls hanging around, I'll send 'em in," he said, and with a last grin ducked out the door.

Just a few feet to his room and--

Shit! He grabbed for his towel, nearly lost it anyway, and ducked into his apartment. Clothes and towel all pooled around his feet. At least no one had been watching.