Au Contraire
by
Raichutec
"You look like you just lost your best friend," Aoba commented idly, not looking up from the stack of papers in front of him.
Genma
could have scowled at him, but it took too much effort. Since Hayate's
death, he hadn't the energy for much of anything other than keeping
himself on his feet and moving forward in a vacuum. He reacted, he
spoke, he ate and he slept, but it was all one great big blur for him
and his body had long ago shifted into autopilot, letting his mind go
numb. Everyone noticed it, but no one said much about it, not even
Ebisu who dealt with the loss in his own way. It was the way of the
shinobi. You focused on protecting Konoha, accepted death when she
knocked on your door, and moved forward without looking in reverse.
It took Aoba to finally start digging. "Hey, Genma-san, did you hear
me? Do you ever reply to anyone anymore, man? I said you look like you
just lost your best fri-- ow!"
"Knock it off, Aoba," Raidou
snapped, having thwacked the other jounin over the head with a pile of
rolled up papers. "We have work to do, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah,"
Aoba replied in a sulky tone, adjusting the head protector knocked
slightly off-kilter before diving back into the papers again. "I was
just saying, this whole don't talk about it stuff is getting
irritating. I mean, Genma over there's a regular zombie these days and
you guys just let him do it to himself."
Raidou looked like he
was about to whack Aoba again, but then he unrolled the stack and
flopped down on the floor again. There were papers everywhere, some
stacked nearly as high as the ceiling. When the records warehouse had
been hit during the Sand attack on Konoha, they'd lost so much vital
information. Some of it had been salvaged, but now it was a complete
mess, pages everywhere. Much of it sensitive information, things no
genin or even chuunin needed to know. Some of it was even forbidden to
the eyes of the jounin, except that Tsunade had no time to be pouring
over what remained to make sure they didn't see something they
shouldn't.
She just smiled at the trio she selected to organize
everything and told them she'd kill them slowly if they ever revealed
something they shouldn't.
The three were chosen because at the
moment, they could not be sent away on missions. Confronting some of
Sound's greater warriors had left Genma and Raidou very near death,
though both had managed to live despite the odds against them. Aoba, on
the other hand, was a victim of circumstance. He just happened to be
walking down the hallway outside Tsunade's office and she dragged him
in.
He was the only one who spoke. Sometimes it was just idle
chatter to fill the silence. Other times he boldly asked questions
neither of his fellow jounin were willing to answer. And he seemed to
like prodding Genma, to see if he could get a reaction out of him.
"They always say you never really react to anything, you know. I mean,
I heard Anko-san say she could prick you with pins and you wouldn't
even flinch."
"Anko talks too much," Raidou said with a derisive
snort. "Aoba, would you stop prodding Genma for once and find something
else to concentrate on?"
Genma nearly smiled, though,
remembering the time Anko really had pricked him with pins and he'd
just stared at her before rather blandly saying, "Ouch."
He liked it when it rained. When the skies were overcast and the world shrouded in a gray, misty miasma. The streets shone like metal, revealing distorted versions of the world nearby until broken abjectly by a foot treading through murky puddles, or raindrops disturbing the stillness.
It made the trip back to his apartment far more pleasant, that feeling of stepping between worlds as rolls of fog billowed past. As if he could just move a little to the right and he'd find himself in another time, perhaps a time before Hayate had died. But no matter how many times he deliberately staggered his path, back and forth, he always ended up back at the old shop front and the rickety staircase that wound around to the back, where his apartment was located.
He hopped the stairs two at a time and swung the door open wide to the clutter he called his. Nothing had been moved since the night before Hayate's untimely demise. His shirt still draped over the back of a chair where he'd left it, telling Genma not to disturb it, it needed to dry. One of his precious katanas still rested against the windowsill. Genma supposed he should find Hayate's sister, give her the things left behind. But they lingered on like ghosts in the corners and he couldn't bring himself to disturb anything, even for her benefit.
Footfalls echoed outside. Genma lifted his head, arching a brow to himself in uncertainty. The tread wasn't the familiar, light sound Hayate once made, a sound he'd never hear again, but it wasn't the purposeful step of Raidou or even the sprightly scampering of Anko. Heavy and steady, whoever approached Genma's apartment wasn't someone who came calling often, if at all. He had the door opened before the mysterious visitor appeared, dressed in dark clothing unlike any uniform worn normally by Konoha's jounin.
"Ibiki-san, this is a surprise," he greeted without enthusiasm. "To what do I owe this rare visit?"
"No real reason. Do I need one?" Ibiki answered. His voice was more a deadpan than Genma's could ever hope to be. Nothing seemed to ruffle him, not even the slight breeze that tugged on Genma's hair.
"No, I guess you don't," he finally said, "Come on in, then."
Ibiki had the ability to dominate nearly anything, yet once inside, he relaxed in a way only a handful of people ever really saw. Anko more than anyone else, though the other tokubetsu had the honor of witnessing Ibiki letting himself cut loose a little sometimes. He walked right in, not bothering to remove the heavy overcoat before he glanced around briefly. Genma noted how those dark eyes landed first on Hayate's sword, and then on just about anything else in the room that obviously couldn't be Genma's, plus a few that weren't so obvious. "I brought the alcohol. Would you like one now or shall I just shove them into the refrigerator."
Only then did Genma even notice the bottles Ibiki held in one hand. "Are they cold?"
"Relatively, it wasn't a long jaunt to get here."
"Then toss one over," Genma felt himself actually grinning. He wondered who sent Ibiki over, or if the man had actually come of his own accord. Ibiki pulled one bottle out and deliberately held it out rather than throw it, making Genma close the gap between them enough to actually take it. "Is this why you dropped by? Just to gift me with beer?"
"No. But I figured it would break the ice." By then, Ibiki was already in the tiny kitchenette connected to the front room, opening the fridge to find room for the remaining bottles. "Do you ever clean this out?"
"Only if the tuna is spawning in the mystery soup."
"Mmm. That must be interesting to see." Ibiki returned with a bottle in his hand, twisting the cap off. "Sit down. You look like you haven't had a decent night's sleep in ages."
Genma didn't feel like arguing with him about it, flopping on the edge of his futon with the bottle still unopened. He stared at it for a moment, wiping away some of the condensation with his thumb. "Have any of us, really? How come you aren't on a mission right now, Ibiki-san?"
"I just got back from one. To find that two of my ANBU favorites were in the hospital recently with critical wounds. And to my dismay, there were no real reports on it. Too busy was the excuse I got from those I asked. So I came to talk to you since I can't find Raidou." He had finally removed the overcoat, draping it across one of the chairs as he emptied it and dragged it over toward the futon. "Open that and drink it, those are expensive."
"Is this some kind of new interrogation technique?" Genma asked, finally twisting the cap off and taking a swig, as ordered.
"No," Ibiki replied, a hint of a smile starting on his scarred face, "But it loosens up friends rather quickly."