| [May. 23rd, 2009|11:09 pm] |
She was about to defend that she didn't suck at lying -- very different than saying she wasn't doing it, though still a lie -- when he followed up with his next question. She linked her hands between her knees, staring at her fingers. "Oh. Well." She tried to shrug and glanced up at him. "It's Intel. What wouldn't upset me about a talk with them, right? Everything they want to know brings up more bad stuff." She waved one hand, taking in the world at large. "It was -- just -- clan issues."
He was still listening, sitting beside her on the weight bench as if he had nowhere else in the world he needed to be. Maybe he didn't. Maybe she was just a way to pass the time, a filler until his next -- whatever he did, when he wasn't on missions or with her. Or Kakashi.
Dark eyes watched her, waiting, and she didn't feel like she was just there to fill the empty space. She tucked her hair back and clasped her hands together again. "One of the other alphas in my clan told Intel I was colluding with one of the councilmembers." Her mouth twisted bitterly. "That I was blackmailing him. That Hana was, if you can believe it, his daughter." Her stomach twisted, and she was glad Kuromaru wasn't there to announce -- again -- that she smelled bad. "Intel takes threats like that rather seriously -- though," she hurried to add, "nothing really happened."
Morino had smelled so--
Goosebumps rose on her arms. Her stomach flipped again. He lived just down the hall, and now it seemed she smelled him everywhere. |
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