Chapter 10 : The Little Black Book
"Fuu-chan, it's eight o'clock."
Fujie stirred, only to remain sprawled at full length on the sofa. Kairi's soft voice calling again from the kitchen made her curl up on the velvet cushions.
"Am I to deduce that you're taking the day off?"
When Fujie mumbled inaudibly, Kairi set a foot back into the living room to hear her answer repeated.
" 'S shinobi training 'til Christmas. Don't need to call to not go to work today."
"Ah," he said, going back to the stove, "good then. I'm sorry to have woken you."
Slipping back into slumber for another two hours, she didn't move until a crashing sound, followed by a string of curses, startled her awake. She grabbed the nearest weapon she could find -a pencil-, and raised it menacingly over her head, looking for the source of disturbance. Her foggy mind could not process right away the sight before her; she blinked rapidly so that the blur of white, black, and red would come into focus.
She saw Kairi kneeling, grabbing a hold of his wrist, amidst broken plates, flour dust, and turned over pans, blood gushing out of his wounded hand. A cry escaped her lips as she jumped over the back of the couch to get to him. Unfortunately, her newly-awaken self did not have the coordination of the limbs she usually possessed, and her foot got caught; she tripped over the couch, falling heels over head, and landed on her back a couple feet away from Kairi.
The wind had been knocked out of her lungs, so she erupted in coughing fits of laughter, gasping for air. As she laughed uncontrollably, all the tension that had been left in her, all the worries that had bubbled to the surface of her consciousness after her last encounter with Ibiki and about the next few weeks vanished as she lay on the floor, holding her ribs tightly as she roared with laughter. Kairi, who had witnessed the scene from the threatening pencil raise to her somersault, couldn't hold himself any longer and joined her.
After fifteen minutes of undisrupted, heartily laughter, the two finally calmed down. Fujie crawled on all fours to Kairi, then helped him up.
"Here, here, let's fix you up," she said taking him by the forearm and leading him to the bathroom, "Or should I take you to the emergency room?"
"No need, Fuu-chan, really," Kairi said as she examined the cut in his palm, "it's not that deep."
Despite the bloody situation, the urge to laugh was still present, and they were grinning at each other. Fujie pulled the piece of porcelain out, reminded of her tending of Ibiki's back, cleaned the wound, and bandaged it. Blood did not make her queasy like the sight of scars did: as Chieki worked in the emergency room, Fujie had many times seen the bloody victims of accidents.
But those scars, to her, they represented hatred, torture, war, and isolation. She didn't want to think about it, so quickly she pushed those dark thoughts aside, determined not to let them ruin her good mood. She went back to the kitchen to clean the mess Kairi had made. And, as she picked up broken pieces of porcelain and stacked the pans away, a smile crept back onto her lips.
"Are you a klutz? What were you trying to do?" she asked Kairi while he helped by sweeping up the flour.
"You can't say anything about klutzing after that glorious fall earlier," she narrowed her eyes at him but he went on with the explanation. "I was trying to make a chocolate cake… I was moving the plates to get to the flour, and… didn't see the pile of pans."
His grey eyes showed disappointment; it made Fujie immediately want to change his spirits, "Would you want to try baking again, this time with me?"
He agreed to it only after eating breakfast and if he could treat her to lunch afterwards. They, in fact, stayed the whole day cooking in the kitchen, burning cake dough and chocolate, pausing to stir fry rice, beef and vegetables for lunch, then resuming the baking.
Kairi's eyes were stinging; he would rub them often with his hands full of flour, irritating them further, when Fujie was looking away. Nonetheless, he spent a great day in her company, and was greatly saddened when she announced she was leaving at the end of the afternoon. Just before she closed the front door, he asked if she would have a drink the next evening with him and Chieki, to which she agreed.
The snow outside had been packed by the villagers walking around, and a treacherous layer of ice had formed in some areas. Fujie did her best to avoid it by contouring the shopping center, where a crowd of people had no doubt walked, through small streets and crossing the park next to her building. The sky was pitch black, stars hidden, giving not a single clue as to what the weather will be the next day.
She lingered a moment on the stairs, expecting at every sound she heard to see Ibiki staggering from the corner of the street, but, convincing herself that the training might have erased whatever had troubled him the day before, she climbed the stairs to her apartment. As she ended out of breath on the last step, she caught a glimpse of Sado and his boyfriend entering his apartment. Haruki waved at her, Sado called out from the end of the hallway.
"Coffee on Saturday?"
To which Fujie replied, as she strode to her door, that she was spending the Christmas weekend with her grandpa. The black-haired man simply shrugged, smiling, and wished her family and her a merry Christmas before disappearing in his apartment.
After fumbling with her giant set of keys and finally fitting the right one in the lock, she got into her own apartment. Discarding her clothes on the floor, she went straight to her shower, trying to ignore the feeling of loneliness that overcame her when she stepped into her dark and empty flat, high in contrast with the whole joyful day she had spent with Kairi. Steaming water poured onto her body, clearing her mind again from worries to find something to keep herself occupied that evening.
After getting out of the shower, she picked up and arranged furniture around in her living room, and cooked an elaborate dinner. When she had finished clearing the kitchen and washing the dishes, she had no more ideas to procrastinate. So, she went into her closet, grabbed an unused black leather-bound notebook, and settled kneeling at her coffee table. Her shoulders and back were bent forward as she wrote, pausing to carefully choose her words. When the yawns were too frequent to ignore, she carried the book to her bed, and continued to write until she fell asleep on it.
The next morning, she woke at a late hour. The sun was as high in the clear sky as the winter season would permit; droplets ran down her window as the snow melted slowly. She listened for a crashing sound, like the one in her dream or the one that had woken her the day before, but everything was still and quiet.
She just lay immobile, pondering on how to occupy herself the whole day. The answer came naturally when she tried to pull herself up, her weak abdominal muscles unable to get her to a sitting position. At that moment, she realized just how out of shape she was: her stomach and arms had gone soft, her waistline was unsuitably wide on her; only her legs had remained lean.
The good mood she had tried to preserve from the day before left her completely under her critical eye, but she still got up full of resignation, and, after getting dressed and savoring a carefully balanced breakfast, she walked to the other side of the village to the public library. She climbed the stairs, angry at herself for letting herself go.
'I shouldn't be so tempted to eat raw dough whenever I'm baking... Dammit... I should have taken the hint when Midori had that nasty smile plastered on her face when she saw me in a skirt.'
The shelves were impressive, stretching up to the high ceiling. From the inside, it resembled more a church than a library, with its stained glass windows and arks supporting the roof. Fujie took her time to wander in the maze, stopping at moments to look up the titles of ancient looking books or to climb the ladders as to have a general view of the sanctuary of knowledge. She only borrowed three books: one explaining routine work-outs promising quick results, another on nutrition, and the last one on the calming effects of herbs. When she got back to her apartment, the rest of her day was dedicated to the reading of those books, spaced out by poorly-executed sit-ups and push-ups.
Additional care was taken to stretch her now aching muscles before she showered and got ready to go out with her two friends. She wiggled into a pair of jeans and tucked on an empire waist shirt to cover her love handles and compliment her bust: the only positive aspect she could see from that gain of weight was that her cleavage had now an appreciable size.
Thankful that her winter coat covered warmly her bare arms, she briskly walked to the main bar street of Konoha. Chieki and her roommate spotted her first, and the three huddled into the first bar they saw to escape the cold night wind. Their first choice was a mistake. They had to leave moments later because it was filled with an aggressive atmosphere: the ninja drinking there seemed not too pleased seeing civilians walk in, and already there was tension rising as two billiard players were gripping each other's collar.
"I think the situation would be much better if they were named in the army, and not hired on missions like mercenaries... We wouldn't have so many rogue ninjas," Kairi said as they walked further down the street. "Here, I know a pub where they hardly ever come."
But it seemed that on a Wednesday night, a civilian couldn't expect more that a bar bustling with shinobis, as they enjoyed their mid-week spared of missions. Chieki decided the Southern tavern was their best option, so they settled in a horseshoe-shaped booth apart from the other tables. Fujie looked at the two on her left wondering if having siblings would be like that, as they all argued over which finger-food they would order. Kairi was pulling Chieki away from the menu as the waiter came, ordering food and drinks for all of them.
"My treat," he said to the woman to prevent her from pouting. It was, indeed, effective: she flipped her white hair, smiling, and turned to Fujie.
"So, what did you do today? Kairi told me you didn't have to work. I'm so envious!"
But Fujie had a completely other matter on her mind. "How is the paranoiac patient?" she blurted.
"Really? That's what you want to talk about when you're out with friends?" The look on Fujie's face made her friend regret her tone, "Sea-san took charge of him today, but this morning he still scratched his forearm skin until it bled."
"Sea-san," Fujie repeated as she searched her memory, "is that person new to the hospital?"
"Dr. Sea Kentaro is the person now in charge of the psychiatric service. He seems nice enough, and quite focused at work. It wasn't really an event worth mentioning to you," Chieki dismissed the subject. "So you're not seeing your boss for a few days, really?"
Fujie shook her head, "I have Christmas shopping to do, it'll keep me occupied. Also I soon have to give in a r-"
A loud noise interrupted her. A man had stood up kicking away the table in front of him, which tipped upside down near the entrance door. He had his back to them, but she and Chieki had no problem recognizing Ibiki. Kotetsu, who had been drinking at his table, had fallen backwards in his chair, and was looking at him with a pleased, drunken look on his face.
"Hit the right spot, didn't I?"
Ibiki grabbed Kotetsu by the shirt and punched him in the jaw. Somebody in the back yelled 'Fight!', and then the bar fight lit up like a house on fire.
Chieki pulled Kairi out of the booth as he grasped Fujie's hand. They tried to make their way to the main door, avoiding being clubbed by glass bottles or knocked over by someone, but Fujie dropped Kairi's hand when an unconscious man fell on her. Chieki however, not noticing it, tugged her roommate out of the tavern.
"Chieki! Help me!" Fujie cried, fumbling to roll the heavy man off her, "I'm here, help me!"
She finally succeeded as a dropped bottle sprayed glass near her face, and she got to her feet shakily against the wall. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward, pushing fighting and cussing men, until she almost got to the overturned table. A tall man was actively beating another one right in front of her, but Fujie gathered her courage and pulled his shoulder backwards with both her hands to move him out of the way. Automatically, the man swung his opposite arm in her direction, crashing his large fist against her temple, and knocking her out.