| [Feb. 29th, 2008|01:06 am] |
"Then I guess this is purely for my benefit," Haruichi replied viciously, not about to plunge into self-pitying drivel along with Kakashi. Haruichi had loved people and he'd lost them, and he'd been left all alone - and irregardless of how much it tore him up inside and threatened to kill the better parts of his nature not one time had he ever ever felt sorry for himself for being the one left behind. Not once had he ever spat on the sacrifices his family had made in protecting and loving him by acting like it wasn't worth it. Like he wasn't worth it.
His forehead was aching now, straight through to his brain like little needles, so Haruichi snarled and clenched his fist around the strap of the armour, ready to swing again. And again. Until Kakashi wasn't able to keep him from healing him up.
Only... the blow didn't come. Haruichi's shoulder just wouldn't move. And in concentrating on the pain in his seal, Haruichi hadn't realized he'd been ignoring that Hinaji's heart didn't feel all that great either right now.
Hinaji always, always used to say he took things too strongly to heart. And here he was willing to beat a patient unconscious so he could treat him because he cared too much about the living and the dead. Hinaji used to say it was a good thing he didn't want to be a healer, because it took a different kind of heart to try and heal than it did to fight a war and she hadn't thought he knew how to be detached enough. Looking at Kakashi busy martyring himself on a carpet and half-seeing himself doing the same only hours ago back home on the compound's polished floor... Haruichi realized she'd been right.
Well, the girls always were. Haruichi listlessly ditched the armour, looked away down the hall where the other chuunin had vanished, and then reached down and grabbed Kakashi's unsplinted wrist, the one not hovering over his face. An exhausted and ugly sigh fell out of him and he started dragging Kakashi down the hall. "You're lucky I still care what they'd think. I already earned one slap from Rin-sensei, it strikes me as the height of poor behaviour to earn another when she's not around to deliver it." |
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