Kankuro needed a therapy. For the first time he needed someone sane and calm to actually sit and listen to whatever he wanted to say, no other way around. Because this... this was madness.
'My brother is a woman.' he said, trembling and still a bit shocked, even if he had two days to subside it. 'He was a man and a man and a man and a man and suddenly BAM! He is a man who has pussy and uses femalish diapers to control himself. He never had a pussy before and now he has both. He can be father to his own child. Isn't life ironic?'
Silence. Kankuro moved to lean on the chair and look at the ceiling.
'And Naruto, this sweet candy-like Naruto is a freaking loon. He just went cuckoo on me and Kiba when we came to Temari's room which was covered in, hahaha, his menstruation blood. I don't know if I'd be here today if it wasn't for Kiba and his sudden reflex. Stupid douchebag, I wasn't asking for any protection! And now he is being moved out and I have to sit in one room with this creepy guy, Yorae or something like that. I swear, when he crackles his bones I hear them MOVING. I hate this.'
Another silence.
'And the blond almost killed more than twenty people. Because of some blood on the carpet that told him, somehow, that Gaara was DEAD. Can you believe that? And now he is crying all the time and locking himself in his room. Gaara isn't any better, he doesn't let anyone touch him and he is very unhappy. PMS or something. I have two sisters...'
Silence.
'I don't even want to think what's gonna happen now. Will he always have a pussy? How many eggs does he have there? Is he really waiting for someone to impregnate him? Pregnant brother, oh no, the image! I didn't say it, I definitely didn't say it!'
Silence.
'I need a beer.'
'Kid, by now I could use one, too.' The older man said, leaning back on a declinable chair and staring at the roof as well. 'Too bad we both have the same problem.'
Actually, Ibiki`s was a little bit worse than Kankuro's. His liver had actually turned to putty and had to be replaced about fifteen years ago. He'd had his reasons to drink like that, at the time, and when his liver decided to commit suicide while still inside his body, he'd found reasons to stop. Which didn't mean he didn't know better than actually starting.
'I can give you iced tea, if you want.' he offered distractedly, taking a sip of the sweetened beverage, not really tasting it. 'About twenty three peoplethat had had to be hospitalized, not counting Kabuto, Hatake and Zabuza. And they hadn't even tried to stop Naruto, they had just been on his way when he'd wanted to pass. He didn't want to think what would have happened if someone had actively tried to get on the way. Inuzuka takes his work seriously.' he said blandly, hinting the skinny brunet had three fractures over something like a sense of duty. Not that he wouldn't have done it if it were anyone else he didn't have a crush the size of the facility on, but it wouldn't have been for the same causes. 'Don't worry for him. He's used to getting roughed up, his sister told me he's going to be released soon, though I heard he's going to be reassigned. But I`m afraid I`m going to have to play nice old doctor and ask you how does this make you feel.'
Yes, Kankiro wanted iced tea. Anything could do, actually. Anything that made him sit still and told him to stay like that or else he would spill. A cup of tea would probably make this miracle. He was happy to have this offer. And he sipped it in silence.
Kiba Inuzuka - reassigned? He didn't know if it was the bad news or good. If Kiba got roughed up like that he'd probably be a bag of clattering, fragile bones soon. On the other hand - he was made to do this job. What a pity, huh. To be reassigned over the sense of duty you didn't even show to anyone. He sipped on his tea some more. The same problem, yeah?... That was an interesting fact. He would need to pester the old man about it later.
But now he had question to answer. He sipped some more and said: 'Like if my younger brother decided to become a transsexual hermaphrodite, that's how.'
He wasn't entirely truthful - he was feeling uneasy when Gaara just came to his room and changed his cunt-rags near him, which totally destroyed the idea of 'those days' for him and violated any of his future girlfriend's possible respect for her intimacy. And beside that - it was pretty screwed up, how he was supposed to feel? Like a main hero of Dali's portraits or what?
Ibiki poured him a glass and passed it to the brunet again.
'I'm asking outside the obvious. And not just about Gaara. Considering you are being so talkative today, let me ask you what are you looking for in relation with other human beings.' Ibiki leaned back, further on his chair, closing his eyes. 'You have to love your family very much to want to stick with them for so long. I know I would have gone running in the other direction a while ago… But you barely talk with your sister, talk even less with anyone else in here- and there's certainly enough for them for anyone to find at least someone they can relate to. The only people you ever actually interact with is Inuzuka, and its mostly him forcing you to it. And when you pet the fox boy, but you do that to shut him up, not because you actually want to touch him, right?'
'What am I searching in relationships in other people?' Kankuro snorted into his drink, then he started chuckling into his cup. What a nice question. So... philosophical, if he could say it like that. 'Life is a big, screwed up theatre.' he said slowly, looking at the floor 'And we all are actors. Like in Kabuki one's or in the one's with wooden puppets. Relationship is seeking for attention. The fucking publicity sitting near the scene.'
He laughed again quietly, drinking from his cup. He ignored the question about Naruto. What the hell talking about stroking some blond animal had to do with anything anyway?
'And I liked liquors here until the landlord decided to cut some people off it.' he added. The immortal talk about alcohols he couldn't have.
Well, the paint, the obsession with puppets... It made a lot more of sense.
'It's human to want attention. It's telling there isn't a big empty space where you are supposed to be. Even unborn babies do everything in their power to show they are there. Heh, you probably know enough about that already... Everyone has their own way. Your sister commands it, your brother is unnecessarily aggressive, Naruto pleads for it, Kiba annoys you for it, Hana Inuzuka is a perfect lady so everyone will know she is not like her psycho of a mother... Neji has this neat list of steps to follow and if you take a single step out of place, he'll probably have a nervous breakdown. Hatake reads porn in public, Umino tries to be something between a mother and a teacher to anyone he sees, regardless of age, gender of social status and Gai-… let's not talk about Gai.' Oh, the philosophical talks... made him ache for a cigarette and a scotch. 'It`s normal to want attention. It`s normal to want other people to know you exist. And be appreciated for it.'
'Have I said it's not normal?' answered Kankuro, looking at Ibiki like if he went a little off his cracker. Some things shouldn't have to be known, now he'll spend eternity wondering if they're all led by a psycho of pedantry 'I said it's a big scene and relationship is attention. Everyone is an actor. Everyone wants attention. It's normal and expected from an actor to want and seek attention, he lives from it, dammit. I'm not in big space, I'm just in a shitty position in a chain of events. And it's all awkward. All because of the attention. I'm just a retired actor. Let puppets speak for my actions, as actions speak louder than words.' And with that, Kankuro stood up and made the simplest ballet figure, which made a clear message: the world is a cuckoo and is not worth speaking to.
Or maybe: I'm a cuckoo and I don't want to talk about anything to the world.
Ibiki laughed and clapped.
'You just sound tired of it, kid. And no offense, but you are a bit too young to be so cynical.' he leaned back, propping his feet up on his desk, taking another sip of his tea. 'If you want, I'll tell you a story. Nothing good enough to make bestseller, but something that might help you, in the long run. Not that I'm expecting you to understand it right now, but why not...? You`ve surprised me before.'
'I'm just a random, grey passerby in the tons of patients you will ever meet, so don't think highly of me. I don't have high IQ or level of tolerance.' Kankuro sat in the chair again and hunched up, laying half of his body on his arms on the desk. 'But I have time, shoot. Maybe I will be enlightened by some unknown truths I never knew before or something like that...'
This is the story of my life, the lies I have created. Another tell-tale with a moral, and he was the Judas tutored by Jesus. He had his rights, unholy, stubborn rights to not give a damn but he knew savoir-vivre rules better than that.
'Kid, I was brought here specially for you. You are my only patient.' Ibiki stared at the younger boy seriously for several seconds, before smirking lightly. 'Story time, then. How old would you say I am?'
Kankuro quirked his eyebrow, but didn't do anything else than that. Especially for him? Then what the hell this man was doing on the rest of the days?
'I dunno.' he muttered, then shrugged 'Thirty seven, maybe? Probably younger.'
'Only about five years or so. Still, better than most… I'd be tempted to say you were being polite.' Even as he spoke to the younger boy, the older man reached up for his bandanna and took it off, leaving it on the on the table and discovering what was underneath. 'I'm sure you have figured out by now I'm not a psychologist, not even a psychiatrist. I'm also sure you have a pretty good idea what I did before ending up here, so I'm not even going to mention it. Suffice to say that by the time I was your age, I was the best at what I did, and I was damn proud of it.'
Kankuro's eyes widened at the sight - he suspected that the scars, that ran the man's face were ending somewhat up there, but he wasn't expecting... this. And damn, were those holes? Real holes?
Yes, they were. He went speechless. So, he was examined by a man who was specialized in tortures. No wonder, such guys usually knew how to search through a mind and take it out, no matter slouched down again and snorted.
'That damn Hyuuga' he muttered 'So he was such a harpagon he decided to get you instead of a real psychiatrist. Nice.' He looked at the unholy sight of scars and burns and has hidden hid head between his arms with a groan. 'I was not being polite. So what now, if I won't change after your whole change-the-kid program you're gonna use a chainsaw on me?'
Proud of what he did. When he was younger, he was proud of being alive. It didn't take much to one to be proud. Just a sense of winning, not logical reasons or surrounding.
'You'd rather he have given you someone who had just stuffed you with a rainbow of pills?' Ibiki rubbed his scalp lightly, not really feeling any of it. He had very little feeling on the abused skin covering his skull. 'Neji didn't even know me, I don't think he ever even saw me, and I work for his uncle. Kabuto was the one to recommend me, and you should be happy he did. In my experience, shrinks are people who just stand there and watch you burn yourself out while taking notes and nodding approvingly when appropriate.'
There was real anger there, underneath the almost joking dryness of his voice, something that didn't exactly hint his dislike of the professionals as much as broadcasted it in cinemascope.
'I've retired from that, anyway… Nowadays I'm more of a bodyguard thing, for the little girl. I'm not going to change you, either. You'd have to want to change for that, and I can't make you that, even if I wanted to. And I don't really think you need to change. You are a surprisingly balanced kid, all things considered. Some perspective might help. And a little less make up.'
'Hey, my makeup is perfectly fine! And it's not make up by the way, it's a PAINT ON MY FACE. It's artistic!'Kankuro responded immediately, shooting an offended glare and pouted (which he did only occasionally and not always when he had an occasion).'I don't know, maybe some pills would help me sleep like a stone and I would not see half of the things I see nowadays here. If I'm not a nut, then everyone else here is insane - even Kabuto and that little girl. Hanabi is a murderer on a leash, I assure you.'
He stopped, then groaned again, twirling on his chair like a little kid.
'If you can't help me then what the hell am I doing here! Waste of time! My views are perfectly clear and nothing is gonna change them, and especially not the fact you're a retired sadist. I don't even see the point of mentioning it, actually.' He stopped twirling around and grabbed the rest of his tea drinking it like if he wanted to just shut himself up and not talk anymore. And that was what he exactly wanted to do.
'Hehe, of course she is. Why do you think I was assigned to her and not the little heiress?' said Ibiki. He was the leash. 'But don't you wonder why Kabuto recommended me, when there are so many active interrogation members who should be attention to little white eyed girls?'
'You get paid with cancer sticks and Neji is a harpagon so he likes that?' Kankuro grumbled, having no idea.
'Hmm, cancer sticks.' The man opened a drawer, rummaged through it, and when he came up empty handed, started looking through a second one.'As I was saying… My younger brother and I were on the same facility, but in different divisions. He managed the data, I extracted it...' the older man grimaced slightly, as if he'd tasted something bitter. '…and all was fine and good for a long while. I had money, I was respected, I had a girl—everything anyone would have wanted. Then one day these funny men came to my home, beat the living shit out of me, nearly killed my girl and then dragged me to this funny little room that was so familiar I could have sworn I worked in it.'
He finally found the unopened package of cigarettes and ripped it open with his teeth, extracting one and tossing the package away. Then started looking around for the lighter.
'It turned out my dear baby brother had been two timing the people I worked for and had disappeared with very important data. Needless to say, these funny men that had me in that room wanted to know where my brother was. I didn't know it at the time –I had a few ideas of where he might be, but I knew what funny men like these would have done to Idate if they ever found out where he was - so I didn't tell them a thing. So the funny men decided to be oh so funny with me until I told them what they wanted. They had loads and loads of fun until one day, they just let me go.'
He finally found the lighter hiding beneath a small blue agenda that had been lying open over the cluttered desk and stared at the flame for a moment before using it to lit his cancer stick.
'I spent a lot of time in the hospital after that, by the time I was good to go, I was reasonably sure I wasn't being trailed I did my best to find Idate… But I never found him.' Ibiki took a deep drag, letting the bitter smoke coat his lung and decided this was the only one he'd have during the session. He didn't smoke that much, but they weren't outside, and there were no windows.
'He'd been hiding at some little nowhere backwater town, where we used to go as kids. My parents had a house there… It was a mess. Blood everywhere. I suppose they buried him somewhere close, but I didn't have time to check. Had to leave before someone saw me or the funny men decided to get funnier and frame me.'
Ibiki flickered the consuming ash on his cigarette, then put it to his mouth again, his expression unusually serious. 'And that, kid, is how the story starts. Just keep in mind this is the nice part.'
Kankuro looked at him weirdly. He could tell it was not going to be a nice story and indeed it was not nice, though Ibiki softened it for him on some parts. He felt a little cold at the idea that Temari could have died back then and thanked gods for giving him no sense of reasoning when it came to helping her or she'd probably bleed out before he could reach her. Then he remembered the people Gaara killed when he was very unstable and felt uneasy. He didn't have to vomit, like he had to when the idea was still fresh in the back of his mind, but... he felt a little green.
He looked at Morino and wondered where it was leading. It didn't even answer the question properly, it just came out that Ibiki was not paid with cigarettes. Which was good, because that was a really bad brand and Kankuro wished he really just stopped smoking them. But he couldn't blame him for what he was saying.
'I believe it's the funny part. Full of rainbows and unicorns. Where's the bad one?' he asked, not changing his position, but keeping his eyes on the man in front of him. Ibiki smiled, closing his eyes again. It wasn't a particularly happy smile.
'So there I was, at the ripe age of twenty six: my only brother likely hacked off to pieces and buried God knows where, my girl had a nervous breakdown the moment she saw what they'd done to me (a creep or not, Kabuto is a master of plastic surgery, but the time there wasn't very much to work with…) and even if they hadn't left me like Jason after a frat party, she would have left me anyway after what they did to her. My mother would call and ask to see me and I'd tell her I was busy. Which I was, but not with work.'
Drag, inhale. Exhale.
'I couldn't work anymore. Then she'd ask for Idate and I'd tell her he was even busier, and then I'd start hoping she'd die soon so I wouldn't have to tell her what happened. I'd see her in the ID of the phone and think Please dear God, be nice and make her have a heart attack before she decides to come have a visit. Just a little heart attack and I can burn her off and spread the ashes to the wind and be over with this. But I picked the phone anyway and told her that her younger son was on a trip, that he was out in a date, that he was rising a yellow submarine with the Beatles—I told her anything I could think of, just so she'd be satisfied and stop calling for a little while, so I could stop thinking about it for a little while. And like most people who don't want to think about things what do you think I did?'
Kankuro looked at the shining surface of the desk, then back again at Ibiki. He really didn't think he had to guess here.
'Got a booze and drank till you barfed more than you weight.' That really sounded like a breakdown, and no wonders, he'd probably try running away from home or drowning the phone if it pressured him like that.
'That and get high. People wanted me to get back to the job, but I couldn't. And I didn't want them to get persuasive, either, so I left. I spent the following two years somewhere between the stratosphere and waking up to bloody noses and the fine taste of stomach lining in my mouth. All the money I had was gone by the end of year one, and I did the most mechanic and manual jobs I could so I could afford more of the stuff. I knew I was addicted, but I didn't care. I wanted to be on this bright little pony for as long as I could because I knew if I stopped long enough to sober, not only would it feel like hell, but I'd have to remember, and then I'd have to think about it, and accept it. And I couldn't do that.'
He finally finished the cigarette, leaned in to put it out, then leaned back. The acrid scent of the cigarette still remained, despite the air conditioner.
'But I got found anyway. By no one other than myself. Have you ever had a blackout, kid?'
Kankuro looked briefly at the ceiling, checking if there was something interesting there. There wasn't. 'After mad drinking for a few weeks, I forgot we had a car.' he said and shrugged 'Nothing big, happened only once and I would probably stay like that if Temari hadn't reminded me that I don't have to walk by foot everywhere because we have it. And we probably still have it. Somewhere. I don't know, I never really remembered where I saw it last.' Then he looked at Ibiki like if he was sucking on a very bitter candy. 'But I suppose it's nothing compared to yours.'
'Not that I'd enjoy making a competition of this, but no, I doubt it. I blacked out pretty often, I didn't really care. Sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few days. I'd wake up without knowing where I was, but that didn't really matter, it wasn't as I was supposed to *be* anywhere, and after a while you ended up knowing almost without looking where to get the stuff you needed. Sometimes I'd wake up and think I should do the world a favor and kill myself, but then I'd think I wanted to be really wasted when I did it and go drink or snort something and I'd wake up later and start all over again.'
The older man reached up and fingered a different kind of scar he had on the side of his head.
'No, I didn't care at all. Until one day, instead of waking up in a pile of my own waste, I woke up in a cell. Not the funny men kind, but the law and enforcement one. I had blacked out for almost three days. Sometime in between I'd shot a kid.'
'A kid?' Kankuro repeated after him like an echo, not closing his mouth after he said it. For a moment. Then he relocked his jaw and looked at the floor with his usual, indifferent stare. There wasn't anything interesting on the floor also, not that he did care. 'At least you weren't haunted by its face in the moment of when you shot it.' He spoke quietly, but his words were now louder than a machine gun to him. So he didn't tell more. That wouldn't change anything. Conditioner buzzed like an enormous group of lazy bees in the background. He barely heard it.
'I guess not. Not that I could remember my face, by then, but that probably was a small blessing. What haunted me was thinking why did I do it. I don't even know where I'd gotten the gun. At that particular moment I doubt I would have remembered what my name was if my life depended on it. Don't ask me how I found the kid, or what could a twelve-year-old brat have done to get me going. Supposedly, I drank so I wouldn't care, so what could he have said that would make me care so much to get me going?' The large man shrugged, sighing deeply. 'The kid was alive, but barely. I'd shot him twice – I'd shot him a lot more, but I wasn't a particular proficient shooter in my state- On the neck and shoulder blade. I was transferred to prison a week or so later. I`d OD by day two in.'
Kankuro didn't comment on that. He just sat there, staring at the floor, thinking. Or rather, not doing that. His head was void of everything. He didn't want to THINK what the kid had to do it to trigger a man in his state. He had an idea, but he didn't want to go by it. His mind was troubled enough already. Or that kid...
'They patched me up and sent me back there. A little after, mi enforced deintoxication gave me nice little case that medics like to refer as `cirrhosis`, and I like to think as my liver trying to become alcohol, while still inside my body. Rubbing alcohol, possibly mixed with acid. I'm not going to bore you with all the symptoms, as I'm sure you had them listed to give you a scare, but trust me: they just sound fancy. The worst of is feeling like if your ass is trying to crawl out of your body and imagining your organs screaming `This is for all you did to me, this is for what you did, motherfucker`!'
He made a grab for the cigarette box, then seemed to think it better, and put it back in one of his drawers.
'…organs take revenge seriously. One of the doctors seemed to think I was missing a few ducklings in the line and that's how I ended in a neuropsychiatric. I spent about eight months feeling like I was drowning in the world's biggest lava lamp from the pills they gave me and being so happy I nearly ate my knuckles while sprouting bullshit about this and that. And the shrinks would just hmm and nod appropriately and ask me bullshit like if my mother breastfed me, if I'd only had black crayons and these kind of things.'
Pause.
'Then I got released, so I guess the things I made up for the unmentionables was so good they bought it or they didn't care. I'm betting on the latter. They said I was fine, stamped me over and let me out. By then I still had a prescription and was in the gooiest part of the lava lamp, so I didn't think to stop and wonder why I hadn't gone back to jail. I was too busy being happy. I was so happy I shot myself.'
Kankuro still stared at the floor, his jaw unlocked and eyes wide opened. If he held something he'd probably drop it on the floor. His muscles just weakened. How much tragedy can one man take and yet, live? Were they still not at the bottom of it?
'Who gave you a gun?' he mouthed faintly, not feeling strength to speak louder than a dying mouse. 'How...' The rest of sentence died on the way through his vocal chords.
'I got it myself. Two years before it had been my job to know where to get those things, remember…?' He shrugged apathetically, then turned and showed him the different scar on the side of his head, around the height of his eye. 'I bounced right off, and I even had to cure it myself when I woke up. I didn't want to have to explain what I had been trying to do and get even more treatment, or tell anyone my life was such a disaster that I couldn't even kill myself. And to tell the truth, by then I was scared I couldn't die. When I woke up I sincerely thought I couldn't. See, I had this little idea I deserved everything that was happening to me and that I wasn't allowed to die until whomever had the dibs felt like I was done paying.'
Another pause. Silence.
'I was too scared to do anything because I kept wondering what would come next. I'd have nightmares that you are probably better off not knowing, but the highlight was I didn't want to live anymore and I was too scared to try to kill myself again.' Ibiki took a deep breath, drank what was left of his tea and slumped back on his chair, swiveling it in Kankuro's direction. 'That's the worst part, and it's over. Do you want me to tell you how I got out of all of that?'
'If it wouldn't be too much to ask of.' Kankuro never really cared for happy endings, but when he had one, he liked to know what he missed. And the last piece of puzzles was sitting just before his own very eyes, so it was obvious that this story led to a nice, or at least - peaceful conclusion.
'My liver finally had enough and decided to die completely. I went to the hospital again, only a fancy one this time. I'd been found, but by the Hyuugas this time. Back then they wouldn't have let me with their perfect little princess, but they still wanted me to do things, so they wanted me to get better. I tried to tell them the best thing they could do for humanity was let me die, but you know how they are. Most weren't really that bad people, especially the older princess, but almost without exception, they fully believed God had put them there to show the world how things got done. As far as they cared there were two ways to do things. The bad way and the Hyuuga way.' The man had smiled knowingly. Kankuro shyly responded with the same expression. Yes, he knew what it was all about.'I got a transplant and real disintoxication. It took much longer than I expected, but I guess I had a lot of shit needing to get cleaned out of my system.'
Another shrug.
'Either way, by the time I could pee by my own means, they assigned me a counselor. His name was Sarutobi, but he could have been called Jesus of Arimathea and I wouldn't have wanted to talk to him just the same. I'd had enough of shrinks and feeling like if I was swimming in cotton and syrup. I didn't need any more shrinks. I still got him, though, and I guess I wouldn't be here if I hadn't.'
'He was that good?' Kankuro asked, though he didn't have to. He saw a living proof sitting in front of him.
'He was the best, but not for the reasons you think. He was just an old doctor that had retired and stayed in the hospital to talk to people like me, I guess. He was a good person.'
Damn, he really missed the old man.
'I'm not gonna tell you all we talked about. I would like to, but I don't think it would help you much, and it was a long time ago, and most I've forgotten. I didn't want to talk to him, but he made me talk anyway. And I was just tired, you know? I guess I wanted to stop thinking. If I didn't talk, he'd tell me stuff himself. About his family, about his grandson- he's a good kid. I still see him sometimes. But the thing is he did get me talking.'
The older male trailed off, apparently lost in his thoughts, then turned his gaze on the younger boy.
'I want you to think about what I've told you, and about what's happened to you. I know you haven't told me everything that you did or you had to do, but I know it's eating you inside. Just think about it and tell me the truth: Do you think you deserve to be happy?'
Kankuro twitched. He looked at Ibiki like if he saw him for the first time in his life.
'What?' he asked in disbelief, looking at him in astonishment 'Do I deserve to be happy?' For a moment, Kankuro froze with the same mimic on his face. 'DO I deserve to BE HAPPY?' he repeated, this time louder, something of a shy smile showing around his lips 'Oh gods, no, no, no, oh no...' He curled into a ball, while his quiet 'no's became small barks of a choked sound.
Ibiki let the brunet be for about a minute, but no longer than that. He still had a lot of things to say, and Kankuro had a tendency to get things the wrong way if left alone for too long.
'That's what I thought. Back then, too, when he asked me. I was fresh out of the operation, feeling like a waste of humanity and thinking how many people were dying for a liver and all I'd done to get it was take up space in the world. I thought he was accusing me, actually. Kind of like if he were the one asking me if I deserved a second chance… third, fourth.'
He waited another moment to let the brunet finish composing himself, then continued.
'I told him that no, that I didn't think I deserved it. Then he laughed and told me I was the most arrogant bastard he'd ever met.' He chuckled lightly at the memory of his own jaw-slacked face. 'He tells me who the hell did I think I was to decide that the higher powers that be, whoever they are, hated me. Then he started talking, and I guess I might have still be high on the morphine, because I let him talk. He told me something, which I really hope helps you, because it did help me. Not back then, but eventually, it did.'
He could still remember the old, kind face, the funny hairdo and the odd and very unpleasant odor of whatever the old man had smoked.
'I'm not going to bore you with the theological view, just with what I think. Everyone is here for a reason. Absolutely everyone. You can be as self-hating, as masochistic as you want, but you are here now for a reason. All that happened to you is not a test, is not punishment. It's what you and your own decisions brought onto yourself. No God told your brother to sell information when he knew the consequences, and it wasn't your responsibility he did. Each one has to be responsible for their own decisions, and to try and blame yourself for other's is arrogant.'
The old man was sitting on a chair next to his hospital bed and he kept talking. And for some bizarre reason he kept listening- actually *listening* to what he was saying, because even if he knew the man was wrong, he couldn't stop himself.
'The things you did are condemnable, but you are not the same person anymore. I'm not telling you to be kind or merciful, it's just what I see. I'm not sure you are even a person anymore, but more of a ghost of it. The only thing you own is your own life, and for some reason you are ruining it.'
'I told him I wanted to die. That I was tired of what I'd done and what I'd seen and what I had to live with. I told him I was scared of the world not wanting to let me die until I was done paying. I told him everything I had promised myself I wouldn't.'
Another chuckle.
'Old man just stared at me and told me if I'd wanted to die, I would have killed myself. He asked me why I bought a .22, when I knew they were small ammo, instead of something that would leave my brains feng-shuing the wallpaper. He told me that people want to live, even when they think they don't. Then he left, and I had to stay there and think about it, because those aren't the kind of things you can't tell yourself didn't happen and you didn't hear. In a way it was worse, because I think I had expected things to go wrong. I had expected my life to be a disaster, but not that I might still want to live it, or that I might still be allowed to live it. And I was scared of what would happen if I tried.'
'I see.' said Kankuro and looked at him like if he didn't see him at all. 'How did you got to enjoy your life after all that?'
Ibiki thought about the question, and slowly straightened, his impressive built cracking lightly after being still for too long.
'I don't think I'm enjoying it. Even now. I try to, but it's not easy. I still have to live with all I did. I still remember things I wish I didn't, and there is nothing that I can do that will erase them. But I want to try. I have to, if not for me, for the things I did. Or the kid I shot. Or because the old man, for some reason, thought I was worth a damn and didn't want me to die.' He smiled lightly at the other. 'Ready for another question, courtesy of old man, philosopher of all times?'
Kankuro still looked at him like if he was staring at something that was not here in this room. probably the post images from the Ibiki's memories.
'What question?' he asked 'There's more?'
'Quite... You are walking on the street and see a person about to jump a bridge, not ten feet away from you. What would you do? This is another serious question, so please; tell me what you really think you would do. Not that you would like to do or what you think you should do. What you would.'
'I'd probably run to him and push him over because I like when my view is not interrupted by any obstacles. How the hell am I supposed to know that? Do you think I've met someone like that before or what?' asked Kankuro, clear astonishment written on his face.
Ibiki stared at the younger boy, shaking his head slowly. Kankuro wouldn't do that, and he knew it. The kid probably knew it himself, but that was something he'd have to figure out for himself.
'I had to think this one for a little time, before answering. I didn't want to, either, but I wanted to know what he would think of my answer, if it`d make his opinion change. I told him I'd drag the bastard or bitch down and probably beat the shit out of them. Not very psychological, but that's what I sincerely felt I would do at that moment. Old man stared at me, lit his goddamn pipe and said And scream at them `Why are you doing this? Your life can't be that bad, It can't be worse than mine, why are you doing this, you can't make it easy when I can't, when it's never been easy for me. You don't have a right to make it easy when I don't`?" "And the thing is that I don't know if I would have been screaming that, I don't know if I'd be thinking something so… articulate. But that's how I would feel, you know…?'
'No, I don't.' The 't' of the word 'don't' was nearly bitten by Kankuro, while he looked at the floor again.
He trailed off, not quite there at the moment, either, but remembering things so vividly as if Sarutobi were right next to him and talking. He finally shrugged.
'Either way, that angered me too. Who the hell did he think he was to try to tell me how I should live my life, or talk as if he understood what I'd gone through? How could he talk about things I didn't even know how to think myself when he wasn't me? That's when I started talking. I guess after all I did want to hear I had another chance, even if most of what I did was try to counter what he told me. He had very particular views of life. He didn't mind expanding on them, either. He said life gave everyone something. Both good and bad things, and that people chose what kind of things to take. Bad things might happen, but the possibility for good was still there, even within the bad things you had to swallow. It was people who cornered themselves and chose to look at the bad things. Being miserable isn't hard at all. He'd say But being content is not that complicated, either. It's all in the human mind. What makes having a brand new porche that much more wonderful than knowing your kidneys are working? That was an easy question to someone that had spent the past year with a liver threatening to carve its way out of your stomach: because the person's kidneys were fine. The moment they started failing he'd probably be willing to hack the thing he sold his mother for two pieces for a bit a painkiller. Because that's human nature. he said. Humans are the only creatures in this world able to measure what makes something valuable based solely on how much you suffer to get them. That's the kind of thing old man Sarutobi liked to talk about. Needless to say, I wished he got run over by a monster truck very often. Never heard of the phrase When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?` Personally, I would have liked to take salt and tequila to go with it, but after all that had happened, I was a little attached to my new liver to put it past the other had gone through. And what do you do when life gives you shit? The bastard laughs and tells me. Wipe yourself off the best you can, of course. Would you go around covered in shit?'
Kankuro smiled, and crossed his arms, leaning on the chair.
'What, do you expect me to react, or something?' he asked, visibly amused.
'No, but I'm glad to see you can appreciate the wonders of the man`s sense of humor better that I did… Kabuto finally finished fixing me so I look remotely human, and I was finally free to go and start working. I didn't really feel like if I could, but I didn't really want to stay either. I was angry and hurt over the fact someone else wanted to tell me how to live my life, and I was angry at myself for starting to doubt if he was right or not.' Reaching across the table, the older man grabbed the ashtray and emptied on the bin, clearing the bits of cigarette still on it.
'I left. I started working as security. I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, and the world didn't explode. I didn't do much of anything, to tell the truth, it was just a way I had of existing. Some days I felt like if I was standing still and the world was the only thing moving, but I still didn't do anything. I guess even someone as stubborn and scared as me finally had enough of being something and not someone and I started trying to do more. Things got better. I would like to make things better for other people. Gai and Kakashi are insufferables, but I'm glad they are my friends. I would like to help Hanabi to see away from what her family and her father had turned her into. I would like to know someone as sweet as foxy is going to get better and find a way to never do that again, and I would like to be able to make Hana and Kiba leave their mother. I would like to see you get better, and not to pay for anything I've done. Not for being selfless, not for being nice. Those things are done and over with, and nothing I do can ever affect them. I want to help other people because I like them and I want to know they are well. But I can't do any of those things for them.'
The man reached across the table and touched the top of the brunet's head for a moment, ruffling lightly.
'I didn't tell you all of this to compare myself to you, or make you think what I did gives me a right to give you my opinion. I know your life is yours, and I know you had to do and see… and stand things that might or not have been better or worse than mine. But they were things that happened to you, not me. I told you something that was mine because I hope it might help you someday. Your life is yours, and the only one who really knows what you can do is yourself, but for all that matters, I really hope you might think you deserve to be happy someday. I hope you'll want to try, and that when you do, it'll be just for yourself.'
Kankuro didn't move at the touch. He only smiled at him even wider.
'Are you done?' he said in an unamused voice 'I hope you are. You know what did this blabber do to me? Now I need a beer. And a shot of gin. And rum. And a bottle of vodka. No, two. Or three. Or the one big fucking spaceship of it. And you didn't even tell me how much are you paid for this shit. Mind telling me now?'
Ibiki smiled lightly, removing his hand and leaning back.
'The same way I`ve been getting paid for as long as I`ve been here. Bed, food and not telling the feds who I really am.'
'Nice to know the price of my sanity. Bed, food and not telling the feds who you are. I guess you repay yourself with what you do here. Had fun?' This time Kankuro's face was not happy anymore. if anything, he sounded more than angry. 'Much of it? Because I had loads. Tons and gallons, until I saw you're doing what you're paid for. Your job. Tell me, am I a successful example of how mindfuckery works? Did I get an A plus, doc?' And now he was beginning to scream. No, he wasn't happy anymore. If anything, he was unamused like hell.
'And you're an idiot of a worker, I've been sitting here for more than twenty minutes, staring at the wall and ignoring your manipulations and all you did was talking, talking, talking. Are you really a professional in any of those things you said? Or maybe those scars are reminders that you actually aren't and Neji just waved me off with whoever he found because he couldn't just throw me out like a trash to a garbage can!'
And now he was yelling. Sitting on a chair was enough. He sat there, counted dots on a wall and listened to some fairy tales of a broken liver, some irky grandpa and all that stuff and wondered where exactly the path changed from something believable to a Jesus' story with a twisted moral for kids who decided to believe in those. Help, of course. Professional, suuure. Only for him. A lost cause. Always a lost cause. Why was this happening to him? He didn't do anything wrong to those people! Why was he sitting here and not his psycho brother who would just go by any manipulation?
If life gives you lemons... like if he knew how to chop a fruit! He wanted to kick something for being so stupid and for believing that maybe someone or anyone at all was willing to listen, for having faith in this dead, broken theatre, but it was all the same. He wanted to punch something for this, wanted to bite anything, but because he couldn't he stood up and banged his hands on a wooden desk. Fuck.
'You know what? When I came here I had a problem with my menstruating brother, wounded people and me not being able to drink anything! Now I'm having a problem of trusting anyone at all and I actually don't give a damn anymore about what's going to happen now! I've been thoroughly fucked with, I feel sick, I feel tired and I feel so goddamn unhappy that I want to go to a fucking bridge and push the goddamn man from it just to see how long it will take me to go down there! I'm unhappy, angry and I don't see my future nor this world moving or unmoving!'
His throat and lungs hurt from the ominous screaming now, but he stopped caring.
'I just want to sit down, carve down my liver and have a blackout of a lifetime! Well done, doc! You fucked me up so much I'm just gonna go now and rob people of their alcohol to have some peace! Question for one million of dollars: are you happy now? Are you? Damn you, if you are, but hell, what can I say? I've been the one fucked here, not the other way around! Cool?' He stopped screaming after the 'cool' word, because as cool as it sounded, his throat went hoarse. And he really didn't have so much strength to be angry. He just was in pieces, undone, not working and fallen.
'Why am I screaming, it's not like such a liar would feel guilty over me or something...' he whispered and turned his back to Morino. 'I won't be coming again, forget I existed.'
Ibiki let the boy rant, let him scream all he wanted. God knew he needed it, because keeping all that shit down wasn't doing the boy any wonders, but he had a last thing to add.
'You know perfectly well I do want to help you. You can tell yourself that all you want, but you know what I told you is true. Do you want to see the scars of my operations? Will seeing the marks drugs leave make you feel better? I'm not doing this for anyone but you. I could have simply sat down and take notes and fucking nod and still get the same, so why the hell would I try?'
He got up, trying back his bandanna in place, almost as if what was under had never really happened.
'And you know other people care for you, but don't want to acknowledge it because if they get taken away, you don't know what you will do. I care for what happens to you and I want to help you. Tell yourself whatever you want, but don't tell others things you don't believe yourself.'
'I'm not falling for it.' Kankuro blocked out everything that was said to him. Possibly it was something important or maybe believable, but executioners were masters at those. And he had enough of this. 'As I said, I'm not coming here again.' The door were unlocked. He opened them and he just knew he won't make it to any alcoholic stance. He felt too defeated. He decided to go to his own room, lie down and stay like that until gods decide he had to do something else. 'Goodbye.'
He didn't get too far before bumping into something that let out a high pitched yip of surprise. Finally having been driven out of the room by hunger, Naruto had pretty much sneaking around to the kitchen so he could steal something to eat, nothing but a bright flash of yellow that the cameras could barely catch. Naruto fell to the floor and stared up at Kankuro's face, distorted with the way the makeup had ran and his eyes widened and welled with tears.
He could have killed Kankuro two days ago. Kiba was in the hospital because of him, and he could have hurt Temari and Shika, he'd hurt so, so many people and he didn't, didn't want to know what the people he loved so much thought about him. He didn't want to see them look at him and call him monster and be afraid of him. Even Gaara hated him. Everyone hated him. He whimpered and curled on the opposite wall; drawing his knees to his face and hiding in them, hands digging on his hair and shoulders shaking.
'—'
Kankuro looked at him, still shaken from his own experience and wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to ignore the thing as he usually did, but this time Naruto looked so psychotic he decided to react. 'Stop it, Naruto.' he muttered in annoyed tone 'Nobody died, everyone forgave you and you're acting like a fucking loon. I'm the one who is supposed to be a nutcase, you know.'
The younger boy flinched as if struck, a very human sob escaping him as he curled even more on himself. No, he hadn't killed anyone… But he could have. He could have, so very easily and Kankuro didn't know that at the moment, if it had happened, he wouldn't have cared. If he'd hit Zabuza on the back of his head instead of his side, his brains would probably still being removed from it. If he'd hit Kabuto on his nose instead of jaw, his forebrain would have turned to jelly. And If he'd used his claws instead of fists…
'Who the hell are you? Go away from me!' Naruto cried.
'Oh jeez.' Kankuro looked at Naruto in helplessness and wondered why did he have to endure such people. There was no worse medicament for depression than other depressed people. He looked at the ceiling and sighed dramatically, rising up his arms and letting them fall down in a one heavy movement. Just his luck. 'Somebody must hate me up there.' he murmured to himself and did what he thought was best for all of them - he left the blond without further comments and went down to his younger bro... something's room. He went in without knocking. It didn't really matter if he knocked or not, if Gaara didn't want him there, he'd kick him out despite the fact of he was on this or other side of the door.
Gaara sat in the corner with knees curled up and looked at the wall as if it called him names now and then. His usually stoic mimic was now changing without a sign and it made quite a show for anyone who sat close by, if angry and sad faces could be funny. But to Kankuro it looked like anything like those. He moved closer. After fourth step he got hit.
'Ow! What the hell?' he exclaimed, getting the thing out of his face 'What was th- EEEW! Gaara! How could you throw a sanitary pad at me! And it's all bloody! Temari told you to throw it out, didn't she?'
'So what.' was the cold murmur 'My blood, my room and my rules. If I want, I'll collect it. And you're here without permission. What do you want.'
'I'm your older brother, would it hurt to be nice for once-'
'Speak up or get out, my stomach hurts!'
Kankuro sighed, lowering his head and shaking it, like a broken doll. This was hopeless.
'You're so nice to Temari, why can't you be nice to me too?'
'Cause you're stupid and useless and I don't give a damn for a trash.' Kankuro's face fell down even more. He knew that before, of course, but hearing that said out loud was a totally different matter. It hurt. 'Why are you still here?'
Kankuro twitched, remembering that Gaara had a short span of attention. He looked at Gaara through bleary eyes and coughed to cover his lack of attention.
'It's Naruto.' he said, looking at the wall on the left. Nothing interesting there, just a faded picture of some unknown people 'He is going nut in a corner, cries and so on, so I guessed you'd want to know.' That got Gaara's attention. He slowly got up, holding on his stomach, then he threw off the bottle with hot water and came closer to Kankuro.
'Lead the way.'
