| [Jul. 25th, 2013|06:24 am] |
Copy-ninja Kakashi, ruiner of moments, crossed by Raidou’s shoulder and stood in front of the pair on the sofa, looking down at Ryouma. He made the blank gesture of a man with too many questions to juggle and not enough time to ask them all, and settled on, “But how?”
Ryouma shrugged again, this time with both shoulders. “The guy who found me, Abe Shintaro—he's not a bad guy. Most people aren't. Give 'em a smile, they'll go out of their way to help.” His expressive mouth twisted. “Good thing I didn't run into Akiyama first, I guess.” He glanced at Genma and Raidou. “Or either of you.”
Raidou exchanged a glance with Genma, who smirked.
Kakashi shook his head and settled into a crouch, surprising Raidou. On anyone else, it would have put him at head-height, but Ryouma was ridiculously tall, so it actually dropped Kakashi’s eyeline to about chin-level. “That’s not what I meant,” Kakashi said. “If you can’t read— I mean, scrolls. And signs, and maps. Menus. Money. How?”
Raidou suspected Kakashi had not had many friends in childhood, because seriously, social skills. There were none here.
Genma caught Raidou’s eye, light brown eyebrows lifting in a clear question: Are you going to let this play out?
Raidou dropped a hand: Wait.
Any other issue, he’d step in. But this one would affect missions. In some places, they couldn’t afford to protect sore spots. Ryouma had raised the subject in-group. In theory, he had a game plan to deal with the fallout.
“Ask a teammate to read the scroll,” Ryouma said. “Ask the waiter for the special. Puzzle it out myself, if I really have to and I want a headache.” He settled further back into the couch, making a show of unconcern, but he looked more like a man who wanted to step outside of the conversation he was having. “You can do all the reading, since you're curious. We can start with that book you've been hauling around.”
That better not be the book Raidou was thinking of.
“So you can read, just not well,” Kakashi pressed.
A thin line drew down between Ryouma’s eyebrows. “If it's all written in kana, but I'll be slow and I'll make mistakes. They tend to move. Kanji, I know maybe one in fifty. Trust me, we're better off if you do the reading.”
“No, I get that,” Kakashi said, and made that same open-handed gesture again—too many questions, not enough words to shape them. What understanding was he trying to reach? “You created jutsu. You created a whole new class of jutsu. That doesn't just fall out of the air. It takes research."
Ryouma's expression darkened.
At that extremely obvious clue, Kakashi finally seemed to realize that his captive audience wasn't a happy one. He sat back on his heels, and—smiled, visible eye curving in a friendly arc. “What I’m trying to say, is that’s smart,” he said. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”
Raidou resisted the urge to put his hand over his eyes. Genma cleared his throat pointedly.
The little moment of silence stretched—Genma cleared his throat again—as Ryouma gave Kakashi a long, flat look, and finally drawled, “I’m more than just a pretty face.”
“Are you guys going to start beating your chests next?” Katsuko asked, fascinated. “Or is this a verbal contest only?”
Ryouma thumped his ANBU chestplate with his good hand. “It loses something without the shirtlessness,” he said sadly, and cocked his head at Raidou. “What’s next, taichou?”
Katsuko leapt on that with the light of mad glee in her eyes, opening her mouth—
Genma got there first. “No,” he said, quietly firm.
The change from firecracker joker to professional shinobi was smooth as silk. “Training,” Katsuko said, as if that had been her intention all along. “What are we going to do while Tousaki’s hand heals?” |
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