| [Oct. 20th, 2009|05:12 pm] |
Being required to remain in-village, Hiro learned, did not actually imply that he was any less busy. Kotoe-san's note on his file had kept him Konoha-bound for the last three and a half days, but that just seemed to mean that his missions were -- to his mind, at least -- less palatable, not any less plentiful. After two more debriefings (including one with that notorious Uchiha prodigy which left Hiro reeling and, frankly, a little nauseous), no less than five extended meetings with various of Kotoe-san's subordinates working on Genma and Raidou's case, and an Internal Ops mission that he really would just prefer not to think about, Hiro was more than ready to get back out into the field and do a little old-fashioned skulking in shadows.
Instead, he found himself with the recently-unprecedented luxury of an entire evening off.
The ICU wing of the hospital was not exactly the first place he'd wanted to revisit anytime soon, if he'd had any other options. Still, he found that having his hands full of street-vendor food rather than mission scrolls made a considerable amount of difference, not to mention being out of his unpleasantly conspicuous Intel uniform. The nurses were kinder, and the few other ninja he found roaming the halls gave him sympathetic looks instead of imperceptibly flinching away.
Loitering outside Ginta's hospital room -- Ginta was inside, twitching and reading a magazine, and Hiro was not thinking about the too-intimate scene he'd glimpsed across the hall with his chakra-filled vision -- Hiro pondered the likelihood that startling Ginta would lead to a repeat of Genma and Raidou's IV-stand-flinging disaster. Concluding that the probabilities were small, he reshuffled the takeout bag and two steaming cups of tea into the crook of his left arm, and reguided the thrumming chakra flow away from his eyes.
With a short breath and a small smile, he reached out and rapped on the door. |
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