Nine: Someone should have kept Sai away from the children's books, and Sakura away from the sharp objects.
A note on prompts: They are all being worked on, promise! It's just that they're all being worked on simultaneously (I'm weird how I write, sorry!) and they're probably all going to be posted at the same time (one of them's getting pretty long too…it's at six pages already O.o). So don't think that I've forgotten you! I haven't! I'm just a flakey writer!
"Damn it!" Swore a very worn out kunoichi as instant tea from a vending machine sloshed over the Styrofoam cup and scalded her fingers, causing her to drop the cup on top of her open-toed shoes. "That was my last ryo!" Her face was downright demonic as she used her above average strength to start shaking the machine.
Bad day.
"Haruno-senpai, your patient in the recovery wing is asking for you," squeaked a nervous genin apprentice, obviously quite apprehensive of addressing the less than pleased medic. "He wants to let you know that he feels he is receiving substandard care and wants to request a medic with a less distracting forehead." The poor little genin felt his heart skip a few beats, somehow knowing that repeating the prior statement was akin to signing a death warrant on his precious, potential medical career.
Sakura handled her frustration rather delicately as only one of her hands actually went through the metal plating of the tea machine.
The genin paled, about faced, and subsequently fled as fast as his little, prepubescent legs would carry him.
Sakura groaned, now her underlings were afraid of her. Bad day.
Bad week, actually. A few days ago, two squads of ANBU had entered the hospital, all in critical condition from a reconnaissance mission gone horribly wrong. Sai had been included in said group, and after the initial freak-out-panic-and-cry stage Sakura had for about thirty seconds, she buckled down and had helped her teammate back from the brink of death. Out of all the nin in the mission, only one had been beyond any help, and the rest were peacefully recuperating in the recovery wing for the next week.
Sakura would have never had a problem with this, if she hadn't been assigned as Sai's bedside attendant. He was her teammate, and she was relieved that he had come away from the mission unscathed, but he was a very, very irritating patient. The past three days had been hell, elegantly put, as Sakura balanced training, a series of complicated operations, and enduring Sai. She was tired, drained of chakra, and very-
"Sakura-senpai, the man in room 253 is requesting that you wear a surgical mask while treating him-" came another nervous apprentice, apparently sent by the same man to convey the message.
"Tell him he is going to be seeing my ugly mug for the next few months after the beating I give him!" She snapped, ripping out the fist that was still embedded in the machine.
-prone to emotional outbursts.
The girl's eyes widened, and she quickly decided to make a run for it.
Sakura sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as guilt overcame her at frightening two genin beyond repair within thirty seconds of each other. Absently, she picked the Styrofoam cup off of the floor and placed it in the fist-sized hole in the machine, patting it down gently before straightening her hair and marching towards the dreaded 253.
Sai stared at the picture book in his hands with a strange combination of intrigue and distaste. It depicted a smiling little rice ball, who was holding hands with some type of fish and learning how to count. This confused Sai, as he failed to see how a rice ball or a fish learning to count would be beneficial to their lives and it seemed like wasted energy.
Clad in a hospital gown and underneath sterilized sheets, Sai had been working his way through a large pile of children's books that one of the small ones (genin apprentices) had gathered for him (quickly snatched from the pediatrics wing) after instructions from Sakura to keep him entertained ("Get him to shut up or so help me-!"). So far Sai had read about colors, how to make healthy snacks, and the adventures of a small bunny rabbit named Ni-ni. Oddly enough, there had been an orange book snuck in there, and Sai was relieved to discover that children were learning about penises. After that finger painting episode a few weeks ago, he had come to the mild conclusion that they were unaware of their existence.
He flipped the page, and the rice ball and the fish had put aside their counting differences to become friends.
The door slammed open, and one agitated medic stood heaving angrily in the entrance.
"Hag," greeted Sai, flipping the page, "I see that you have not spoken to the short female yet-"
"I did, and I would appreciate it if you would stop pestering the genin." Sakura said in an even, threatening tone.
Sai didn't even look up from his book, "Perhaps you cannot hear because your forehead extends over your ears then."
He could hear the teeth grinding, "What?"
"I requested that a surgical mask be worn-"
Sai was cut off as a clipboard came sailing towards his head. He had enough time to use the friendly adventures of Ni-ni as a barricade and it went sailing onto the floor. After a pause, he looked up, still smiling, "I was unaware that having objects thrown at me was conductive to a healthy recovery."
Sakura could have sworn her eyes went red, which was odd, as there was no doujutsu in her family, "Driving your medic to the brink of insanity isn't conductive either." She said, and the anger deflated almost as quickly as it had spiked, as she soullessly reached down to pick up the clipboard that had Sai's medical charts. She walked over to the diagnostics machines and idly wrote down the numbers, flipping through the sheets with a numb, haggard sort of expression that belonged only to the deeply defeated and sleep depraved.
Sai observed his teammate and current caretaker with something bordering unease. Her posture, normally straight and flaunting her never developed chest, was slouched over and her eyes were even less attractive with dark circles under them. He noticed that her hands were scalded slightly over the palms, a sign of over using chakra, and that her hair was shiny from grease, indicating that she had not gone home the night before. This did not sit well with the artist shinobi for some reason, the forefront of which was probably that it was even harder to look at her now.
So Sai decided to do what Sai did best when fixing a problem.
He made it much worse.
"You must turn it upside down," he said matter-of-factly.
Sakura eyed the heart monitor with confusion. Why would she turn that upside down? "Excuse me?" she muttered.
"In order for it to work, you must turn it upside down."
Sakura groaned, "Sai, I don't know what you're talking about, the machine won't function properly if it's upside-" turning to face him she felt her mouth twist even more downwards. "Sai, what is that?"
Sai was holding open a page from the happy times of Ni-ni that showed the adorable rabbit smiling with creased eyes, bearing an uncomfortable and downright creepy resemblance to Sai's current expression. "Frowns must be turned upside down."
She exhaled, "You've got to be kidding me." A pause, "So you were the one who took the books from the pediatrics-"
Sensing danger, Sai immediately cut her off and began to recite the page's message from memory, "Turning a frown upside down will make the whole day turn around."
Her eyes widened and all she could do was stare at him in bewilderment.
Sai stretched his smile wider, obviously waiting for Sakura to do the same.
Levelly, "I'm reducing your pain medication."
With that, Sakura started to turn out of the room, clipboard securely under her arm. Sai's voice carried out behind her.
"When the day is full of gloom, laughter will brighten up the room."
Sakura shook her head, shutting the door behind her and walking quickly down the hallway. As soon as she was certain that she was out of hearing range, the grin that she had been fighting down during the exchange emerged and she let out a stifled giggle.
"What a dork." It seemed the only word fitting, and she continued to smother her giggles behind her hand as she made her way to the records office to file Sai's charts.
She walked by the two genin from earlier, who were cowering behind the administration desk pretending to look preoccupied with fixing a stapler. At seeing their terror-stricken expressions, her giggle escalated slightly into rest deprived chuckles. The boy and girl eyed each other fearfully.
"Um, senpai?" The boy ventured carefully. "Are you alright?"
Sakura's grin morphed into an actual smile, "I'm fine, just turning my frown upside down." She echoed as she strode passed them and towards the filing room.
"Should we call someone from psychiatrics?" whispered the girl to her colleague.
"That wouldn't be fair to them," reasoned the boy after a long hesitation.
