| [Oct. 17th, 2008|10:48 pm] |
Raidou took a tangerine and tossed it gently from hand to hand, forcibly reminded, as he always was, of the first night they'd ever eaten this particular fruit together. Back before they'd ever been friends, when he'd broken into an anonymous apartment in the middle of the night because he'd heard screams on the other side and he'd thought he could do something about it.
And he had, come to think of it. Still did occasionally, when the nightmares got bad.
Solid, Genma called him. It was a good word. Made him think of strength. Dependability. Proof that he was good at what he did. The guy that stood behind his teammates and guarded while they struck. Or the shield that stood in front, taking the blows before they fell.
But--leadership? That wasn't his gig.
He listened to the soft curl of jazz music drifting through the air like mellow smoke, and put the deaths of three nameless chuunin out of his mind. He wasn't taking Kaito out on missions--not yet, anyway. They were just training together. Probably until Intel pulled their heads out of their collectives asses and worked out what they could do with the kid--or couldn't, and stripped him right out of ANBU.
Genma thought he could do this.
"Yeah," said Raidou quietly, and skinned the peel off his tangerine. His shoulders eased down a little. "Thanks." |
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