| [Aug. 15th, 2010|11:57 pm] |
Hiro towel-dried his hair roughly, sparing a moment to thank superior Hyuuga genetics as it settled back, slightly damp, into smooth and ordered arrangement with a single shake of his head. Too bad superior Hyuuga genetics doesn't allow me to be in two places at once, he thought, casting through orderly drawers of black and gray clothing for something that didn't look like a uniform. Even if Kotoe-san thinks it does.
Apparently satisfied with his report on Genma's debriefing after several more probing sessions, Kotoe-san had promptly removed the hold from his file that kept him from field missions. She had also wasted no time in informing him, when he stumbled into his first psych class dripping wet from a cloudburst thunderstorm and covered in leaves and torn bark, that returning on time for the classes was his responsibility, not the mission desk's.
At least he had been on time, if not a minute or two early. He hadn't expected to see her standing in front of the small class herself, truth be told, but the old adage -- better safe than skewered -- held true, and he had settled into his seat with nothing worse than curious sideways glances from the other four crisp, gray-suited attendees. He'd held his head high, summoning the starched Hyuuga hauteur that came so easily to him anywhere outside the Hyuuga compound, and thought he caught a brief approving glance from Kotoe-san out of the corner of his eye.
The next few days had gone similarly, being pulled out to run reconnaissance for a quiet kidnapping, the details of which he preferred to gloss over in his memory, before rushing back to settle into his seat just as Kotoe-san was embarking on the first words of her lecture. At least he'd stolen a few minutes to shower and change, that time.
He was sure Kotoe-san, or the mission desk -- whoever was scheduling his time like this -- had some motive for what they were doing. Hiro just couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it was.
This morning was almost the last straw, when sharp pounding on his door had dragged him out of bed and back into a debriefing room without even the opportunity to change out of his pajamas. But of course, there was no last straw. Just more questions, and answers, and running through every memory trick he knew to extract even more detail from panoramic glimpses caught through pale eyes and stored, but not indelibly. A Hyuuga with a photographic memory would be a powerful creature indeed, he thought, and wished that he were one.
Now, hours later, and days later than he'd meant to, Hiro finally pushed out the door of his apartment without an Intel agent in tow or a mission scroll in hand. Last Sunday he'd penned a rushed apologetic note to Ginta when he hadn't been able to visit, but considering the quality of hospital food -- or lack thereof -- and the look on Ginta's face when he'd bitten into that first pork bun, Hiro judged that something more was in order. Armed with the knowledge of Ginta's "best favorite" mochi, he headed off to the market.
If anyone at HQ wanted to talk to him, they'd just have to wait. |
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