It was a particularly lazy Saturday, which almost seemed like an oxymoron. Not many customers came in that day and not many people were outside. Umiko was concerned with this, and when one of her regulars came in, she called to him.
"Hey, Tai, did something happen around here? There aren't many people out on the streets." She asked him, turning around to get his regular order from the counters behind her. "Don't you know? There's some sort of really bad sandstorm coming in. I saw Hitodeka and told her she should head home, but she just gave me some weird noise." He laughed as he was handed his 3 strawberry mochi and mint tea. Umiko was a bit worried over the coming storm, but her sister couldn't be that stupid?
The rest of the day was spent with Umiko's worrying becoming worse and worse; she fretted over storms anyway, but her sister was her top priority. Hitodeka always had been, but Hitodeka never realized it.
It was nearing sundown, and yet no sign of her sister. Umiko sighed, and closed the shop early to go look for her sister. She headed to the usual spots, hating the long trek around the village. After two hours of searching, and with the winds picking up, the dust and sand scattered everywhere. Umiko could stand the sand but dirt was… well, dirty. She was exhausted as she came upon the steep stairs that led up to the alcove in the wall surrounding the village; Masa came here just to spite her older sister.
"Hitodeka!" She called up. She saw two shadows move, recognizing one as her sister, and the other was unknown to her. She waited a moment before realizing her sister wasn't 'Hitodeka' anymore. She shook her head, annoyed as all hell. "Masa-chan?" She tried; she reminded herself to keep calm. It was the only way to deal with an angsty teenager who was in their pseudo-rebellious phase.
"If you want me, you know you'll have to come up here." She heard back. "And you know that I won't. Please, just come down; there's a storm coming and it's supposed to be really bad. I'll do anything, just please come down." She was almost begging as the sun was setting more and more. She hated the cold, and hated the darkness even more.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you're bathmophobic. It's a joke. No one can really be scared of steep stairs." Masa mocked her older sister, looking over the edge to see her sister. "You'll have to come up." She yelled down, smirking before returning to sitting on the opposite edge by the mystery person. "That was rather rude." Masa heard, looking over at the person, just shrugging their comment off.
Umiko stood there, deciding to either try to get up there or not. She took a small step towards the stairs, and she realized what her decision was when her breath hitched. Another small step and she reached forward to get a grip on the railing. Her hand slid off, her palms sweaty from fear. She stood wobbling on the first step, long hair blowing in the breeze. She gripped the railing to the right of her as if her life depended on it; she trusted the right railing far more than the left one. "Are you sure you don't want to come down?" Umiko shouted, her eyes shut tight as she made it up to the second step. Her head was facing downward to stare at her feet. She heard a quick laugh and a 'yes' yelled right back at her. She made it up one more step. By the sixth one a minute later, tears were flowing from her eyes. She didn't want to do this; she wasn't thinking straight.
The thoughts of her falling, her death, and all her nightmares centered on this particular fear were fresh in her mind and making her more and more frightened. She wanted to break down and just sob, but her body kept moving her higher and higher. "Please, just come down!" She choked out, voice cracked and all. Her sister Masa had a smug look on her face. "You have to get me, and then I will." She said back, turning to look at the person accompanying her as they stood up. "You need to go down there." Masa quickly jumped up defensively. "Never! This is good for her; she needs to not be so scared of such stupid things. She won't even give me the reasons." She scoffed, and turned to watch the ending of the sunset.
Umiko had, unbeknownst to her, almost made it halfway before her hands slipped off the railing. She couldn't properly balance herself on such small steeps, and fell backwards. She screamed as she tumbled down, the sick sound of her hitting the metal at a quick pace was ringing through her sister's ears. Masa quickly peered over the edge next to the other person, only to see a crumpled heap of a person at the bottom. She rushed down the stairs first as the other followed her. "U-Umiko?" She tried to get a response, but all she got was a whimper as she got to the bottom.
Masa turned Umiko over from her side to on her back, earning a yelp of pain from her. She had never heard of the phrase 'stabilize C spine'. Tears welled in her eyes.
She looked up at the Kazekage who had found her at the alcove and tried to get her to return home; a tear slipped down her cheek. "What do I do?" she asked, not knowing what else to say or ask. He sighed and grabbed one of Umiko's arms, placing it around his neck. Masa got the hint and took the other, but as they helped Umiko to her feet she screamed in pain. Masa's eyes flickered with fear. "C-can you walk, Umiko?" She stuttered in her hasty speech, looking at the swelling on one of her sister's ankles and one of her calves.
Umiko lazily shook her head, as if she didn't have the energy to do so. Tears were running down Masa's face guiltily. Gaara picked the girl up and started walking to the hospital nearby; this was one of the few times he was glad he commanded a relatively small village. Masa followed dutifully behind him, trying to get her tears to stop. "Is she going to die? Because of me?" Her irrationality that seemed to run in the family kicked in. Gaara looked back at her, his face as incredulous as it could get. Not much, mind you, but he was still working on the whole 'emotion' thing. "No." He simply gave, which gave almost no relief to Masa.
The winds started to pick up, and the howling from the desert pushed everybody still out to move faster to safety.
It was an early Sunday morning, no later than 8 am. Umiko kept her eyes half-shut as she was staring directly into the window letting the light in. She felt an intense pain in her ribcage as she took a deep breath in, making her moan in pain. She heard a chair fall, as if someone got out of it so quickly it just got knocked over. Umiko tried to move her neck and look to the other side, but she found it hurt too much. She finally turned over, to be met with her younger sisters violet eyes. Her own eyes opened wide, and she scooted back a bit in the bed. "I'm so sorry!" Masa said loudly, sounding like she had screamed it straight into Umiko's ears. Umiko groaned loudly before turning onto her side. She tried to center herself as best as she could, smoothing the wrinkles out of her bed sheets so it could be symmetrical. Her obsessions came before her own wellbeing sometimes.
"What happened?" Umiko's small voice came. She wasn't loud or outspoken like the rest of her family.
"I'm so sorry! 'msosorry!" She said hurriedly, earning a confused look from her sister. Umiko just nodded, feeling very lucid.
"Were you okay from the storm?" she slurred her words, and she felt like her statement didn't make any sense. Was she on pain medication? It was at that point she realized she had a splint on her forearm, and a type of soft wrapping around her right calf and right ankle. She couldn't freak out, nor did she really feel like it.
"Yes, she stayed here the entire night with you." She jumped at the sudden deep voice in the room; was there someone else there? A doctor? She would've recognized a family member's voice, and it was unlikely they rushed within a few hours to the other side of the country. She lifted herself to sit up, wincing from the pain. Her eyes opened wide and her face got considerably warmer. "Lord Kazekage… why are you here?" She asked, looking to her sister and back. "He tried to get me to go home, 'cause of the storm, but I didn't want to go back, so he stayed and we were talking, and then you came, and, and…" She was talking so fast, she lost track of what she was saying. Umiko was about to say something, but a knock on the door to her room stopped her. It was a ninja that had come for Gaara; some important matter he must attend to urgently. Umiko gave a quick thanks and watched him leave.
Umiko and Masa continued to talk for a few minutes until it fell silent. "I told the doctors you were sick. Like, in the head. They said they're gonna give you some psychological exam. I think they think you tried to kill yourself, but I told them that's wrong… but they told me something interesting." Umiko looked at her little sister, unsure of what that could mean. "You didn't come to the village on your own. They have records from when you were 10! So please, explain to me, why you told me you ran away from our 'wartorn home' because if you've been lying to me about all of that…" she trailed off, a sharp look in her eye. Umiko was about to avoid explanation as soon as they heard another loud knock on the door.
The doctor came in, and after doing a general look over, picked up her arm to look at it closer. He moved it in different ways, gauging the reaction from Umiko. He continued to do that with both of her legs as well. He said nothing, just giving small 'hms' here and there.
"They don't look that bad, but the swelling might stay awhile. Your sister told us you have a few phobias and other problems. She sounds pretty worried, so why don't you make use of your time here, and maybe get some help? What's wrong?" He was patronizing her, and she knew it; her sister blew things out of proportion to make her seem like a lunatic. She decided to humor him.
"In alphabetical order? Antlophobia, aphenphosmphobia, apiphobia, asymmetriphobia, ataxophobia, automysophobia, bathmophobia, blennophobia, bromidrosiphobia, claustrophobia, cleisiophobia, dinophobia, helminthophobia, herpetophobia, illyngophobia, isolophobia, koniophobia, lilapsophobia, ombrophobia, osmophobia, polyphobia, scoleciphobia, and zemmiphobia. I'm a compulsive cleaner, and everything. Must. Be. Done. Correctly. I have a system for everything I do, everyday."
A/N: Yes, kind of a cheap thing to just list her phobias in the open. But they'll all be defined in the story, so don't worry. And no, she will not get over all of them.