Deprivations
A/N – Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. It means a lot. And thanks to my friend, FairTomato, for editing my story so far. I hope everyone is enjoying it and all I can say is make sure you're buckled in. Hands up in the air. Let's ride this coaster together. I'm having fun.
Jade finished sweeping all of the crumbs, shredded cheese, dirt, and other various items into a pile in the center of the kitchen. Ginta had already cleaned the counters and the ovens, swiping all of the excess crumbs onto the floor for her to sweep up. He threw the rag he used to wipe the counters and the outsides of ovens into a basket. He opened all of the oven doors before stepping back, fanning his face with his hand.
"I think I'll open the door. The heat from these is starting to cook me." Ginta sighed, turning around and walking to the back door. He squeezed past the refrigerators and opened the back door which led to the dumpsters and the small parking lot for the restaurant. He exhaled loudly when his skin was met with warm moisture, which signaled the approach of rain.
"It's probably not much better out there." Jade commented. Her last delivery was less than an hour ago. She remembered it feeling humid. Ginta nodded.
"Nope. It's quite disgusting out here, actually." Ginta announced, backing away from the door and deciding to leave it open. It was still better to let the heat escape from the building, even if it would be replaced with humidity.
"Do we still have that fan?" Jade asked, sweeping her finished pile of dirt and food into a dust pan that she held down with her foot.
"Um, good question," Ginta said as he strode across the kitchen to a small space where two doors sat. One was the closet for cleaning materials and one was the closet that held random tools for fixing or replacing items. He opened the random closet and spotted the box fan. He assumed that was the one Jade asked about, so he grabbed it and gently kicked the door closed behind him.
"If Koga cares about his life, he better get back here soon. This would go so much faster with three people," Jade stated bitterly, tying up the fourth and final trash bag and carrying it to the door. She placed it by the door on the inside. She didn't feel like making multiple trips to and from the dumpster, so she decided to gather all the trash and toss them away in one trip.
"He said something about grabbing food," Ginta stated, grunting as he reached down to plug in the fan, which he placed on the main counter where the registers sat, aiming it towards the kitchen to push the hot air towards the back door. He could have easily squatted down to plug the fan in, but Koga insisted on a full-body lift the previous day at the gym, plus sprinting. Every muscle in Ginta's body was tight and tortured, so squatting was not going to happen for a few days.
"He always leaves for food when we close and start cleaning." Jade reminded Ginta, who ran his fingers through his short silver hair, which was matted to his head with sweat.
"I know. It usually doesn't bother me when Hakkaku is here to help, but, oh well. I won't care when I start eating."
"Food won't make me forget this." Jade grumbled, leaning back against a counter while swinging the broom side to side in the air. Ginta snickered and shook his head, a toothy grin pulled onto his face.
"You seem to be in a mood tonight. What's wrong?" he asked curiously. Jade's lips pulled into a deeper pout. She hadn't noticed she was in a "mood." She felt fine, but apparently, her words spoke the opposite.
"I don't know. Maybe it's because tonight was supposed to be my other night off. I wanted to do a personal stream for extra money in my pocket."
"Did you not make enough tonight?"
"I made enough tonight, but I would have made more from a personal stream. My viewers tip better than customers." Jade pointed out, now mindlessly sweeping the floor in front of her, brushing invisible dirt into an invisible pile.
"Fair enough, but you know how Koga feels about personal streams,"
"I get it. The more the community has, the better the community operates, but I now have two jobs, three if you count the community, which I do a lot of work for, Ginta. Don't deprive me of money I could easily have." Jade said warningly.
"I know, I know,"
"I don't get extra payment for any of the editing I do for videos, I don't receive anything for the graphics we use in our streams, the little emoticons are my design, I have to handle the community money and make sure everyone gets their cut, the music synching, camera synching, and not to mention, I have to actually be good at the video games I play, which requires time and practice. I work five hours for five days a week in the lab, then I work six hours here five nights a week and then an additional six hours during the day on the weekends. All I ask is that weekend evenings are mine." Jade explained, her tone taking on more of a harsher tone than she meant it to.
"Well, I don't think Hakkaku purposely meant to get sick." Ginta said, having a hard time keeping his voice steady. It wasn't often Jade was upset, but when she was, he didn't know what to expect. He had never seen her explode, but she wasn't kind when angry, either.
"We have other workers. They asked for weekend evenings off. I get it. So did I."
"Maybe Koga feels better asking you to come in because you're his friend."
"Probably." Jade agreed, leaning over to one of the ovens and reaching inside it to test the temperature. It was still too hot.
"So, how is that lab job going? I don't hear you talk about it much." Ginta questioned as he walked to the back of the kitchen towards the sink. He began filling up a tub with soap and water to use to clean the ovens. He heard Jade make a loud groaning sound and then slap the broom against the wall.
"It's fine. It's laid back. It's my co-worker who isn't." Jade replied bitterly.
"That bad?"
"Dude, I can't even begin to describe him. There aren't enough words in any language."
"I feel that way with Koga." Ginta laughed, dropping a few scrubbing sponges into the warm, soapy water.
"No, Koga isn't even comparable on his worst days in his worst moods. I can still reason with him. This guy….there is no reasoning, even if he's in a good mood."
"Oh. Do you not feel safe with him?" Ginta asked, turning to Jade with a worried look on his face. Jade laughed and then sighed hopelessly.
"I don't think he'd injure me, but he came close the other day."
"Do you carry a knife? Or mace? I have both if you want to borrow them." Ginta told her.
"He's a legitimate masochist." Jade responded as she placed the broom back into the cleaning closet, along with the dust pan. The image of Naraku grinning after she struck him with a stick surfaced in her head again. She hadn't meant to hit him, but she still swung it. And he liked it. A lot.
"Oh….damn it." Ginta whined. Jade shrugged at him before turning back into the closet, grabbing two pairs of gloves and tossing a pair to Ginta.
"Plus, I don't think I could hurt him on purpose. I'm not like that." Jade said after pulling her pair of gloves on. Ginta nodded as he pulled his gloves on, too. He patted her shoulder soothingly before lifting the tub of water, grunting and groaning when he felt the stinging pain of soreness ring throughout his body. He toughed through it, quickly walking to the closest oven and placing the tub on the counter. Ginta panted as he wiped his sleeve across his forehead, pouting when he heard Jade snickering at him.
"It hurts." He told her with a whimper, rubbing his arms with his hands.
"I see Koga put you through the business," Jade said with a smile, remembering how sore she was after Sango introduced her to, "Leg Day."
"Woman, you have no idea," Ginta replied, grunting as he slowly squatted, hanging onto the counter with both hands to keep him steady. Once his knees bent entirely, they both popped loudly and he gasped when he realized he couldn't stand or lower himself any further. Jade bit her lips together, trying to fight away a smile and laugh, but Ginta was so pitiful sometimes. It was kind of adorable. And hilarious.
"Need help?" Jade asked him knowingly.
"Yeeeeeesssssss," he cried out dramatically. Jade walked over and stood behind him. She hooked her arms under his and slowly pulled him up into a standing position. Ginta moaned and mumbled as he bent forward, rubbing his knees.
"How about you clean the top ovens and I'll clean the bottom ones?" Jade suggested with a laugh.
"Stop laughing at me!" Ginta whined again, which only made Jade laugh harder.
Jade was still snickering and cackling at Ginta when they finished cleaning the ovens and mopping the floors. They had taken the trash to the dumpster, but Jade still had to actually toss the trash bags in the dumpster because Ginta couldn't lift his arms past his stomach by that point. They slowly walked to her car, which she parked directly in back. Ginta sat on the hood while Jade lowered her windows and began playing some music.
"Where the hell is Koga?" Ginta asked angrily.
"He'll show up now that the cleaning is done." Jade chirped as she sat beside him on her hood. She found it amusing that she and Ginta had swapped moods now.
"I'd punch him if I could."
"Yeah, might want to hold off on that," Jade replied, patting him on the shoulder gently.
As if he physically heard the threat, Koga came swinging around the lot in his car, music blasting so loudly it could be heard despite the windows being rolled up. His car was a dark blue and it had blue neon lights set up underneath it.
"Hey losers," Koga called out after turning his car off and stepping out of his vehicle.
"Don't talk to me right now." Ginta replied crossly. Koga looked at Jade with confusion, pointing at Ginta as if to ask, "What's his problem?"
"Whatever you have, it better be good," Jade warned him. Koga held his finger up before he opened his back door, pulling out a few plastic sacks filled with his promised food.
"When have I let you guys down before?" Koga asked arrogantly.
"Well, I am working on my night off," Jade pointed out.
"I can't fucking lift my arms!" Ginta added on loudly. Koga chuckled as he approached his friends.
"Aw, poor Moon-Moon," Koga said to Ginta with pouted lips. Jade immediately began laughing.
"I'm not Moon-Moon!" Ginta shouted back.
"No, no you're Moon-Moon! Hahaha!" Jade agreed while holding her stomach. Koga gestured at Jade, as if she was the final decision-maker for nicknames.
"She has spoken." Koga said, pulling out a wrapped up sandwich and handing it to Jade. He handed one to Ginta, who ripped it out of his hand, only to moan and regret the movement when his sore arm rang with pain once more. Koga tossed them both a bag of chips before sitting down on the sidewalk in front of them, tearing into his own sandwich.
"No, seriously though, Koga. Fuck you." Jade stated as she unwrapped her sandwich and bit into it. Koga dramatically held his hands and sandwich up after biting into it.
"What did I do?" he asked frantically, his words slurring from the food in his mouth.
"Tonight is supposed to be my night off, douche."
"You're the only person who answered their phone!" Koga explained, catching a piece of lettuce that fell from his mouth.
"Because you called me from your personal cell instead of the work phone! We both know why!" Jade insisted loudly, laughing as she struck him in the head with the wadded up wrapping of her sandwich.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Koga laughed. He knew if he had called from the work phone, Jade wouldn't have answered, either. He wasn't an idiot.
"And thanks for being gone long enough so you wouldn't have to clean!" Ginta also threw his sandwich wrapping at Koga, nailing him in the cheek.
"Quit your crying, Moon-Moon!" Koga shouted back at him teasingly. Ginta rolled his eyes and took another bite of his sandwich.
"I hate this! Why am I Moon-Moon?" Ginta groaned after swallowing his food. Koga and Jade began snickering together.
"Because you're a giant fuck-up." Koga retorted dryly.
"Yeah, you do have a tendency to trip over your own shadow," Jade agreed calmly.
"Hakkaku sucks more than I do!" Ginta insisted. Jade and Koga glanced at one another skeptically.
"Mmm, that's debatable," Koga continued.
"Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to make marks on a calendar or something to check that hypothesis." Jade suggested, plopping a chip into her mouth and crunching it loudly. Koga snorted loudly in response to that proposal as he took another bite of food.
"Man, fuck you both." Ginta mumbled as he bit into his sandwich once more, shaking his head and looking away from his treacherous friends.
Once they finished eating, the manager, the delivery driver, and the cook all sat on the hood of the delivery driver's car, passing a joint between themselves. It was a ritual they practiced in the evenings. After a day's work and an evening's clean up, they would eat outside and smoke to relax and fight away the day's stresses.
"I wonder if we'll see another drug bust across the street," Ginta said with a grin. Koga and Jade chuckled and nodded their heads.
"That would awesome." Koga said, passing the joint to Ginta.
"I want to go to the KI Nationals." Jade announced, laying back on her hood.
"Do you want to go personally or with The Pack?"
"I don't care. I just want to go."
"Yeah, I kind of want to go, too." Ginta agreed, passing the joint back to Koga, who took a deep inhale from it, slowly nodding as he thought about his two friends' representing the community at a competition for a relatively popular game. They had done it before with Halo, Super Smash Bros, and Marvel VS Capcom, and it brought a lot of good attention to them.
"I would like for the three of us to go together, but that would require us to win some local competitions and win different regionals. We'd have to scatter."
"Not really. For local competitions, they usually make it to where if you make the top eight, you can move on to Regionals and in Regionals, if you make Top Eight, you move onto Nationals. They do this because they know that sometimes, a true champion player loses because of a bad button input, which isn't their fault, or something else that is uncontrollable, like having to leave the competition for an emergency. So, odds are, if you make it to Top Eight, you're a potential champion and can move to the next level." Jade explained as she sat up. Koga offered her the joint next and she plucked it from his fingers.
"Oh, so we could each enter the same competitions and each make it to the next level," Koga said with a smile.
"Well, you have to fight through the entrance pools, first. When you survive those, that's when you make Top Eight." Ginta told him.
"I've been through some competitions, Ginta. I know. I'm just saying we could do it. We're the best. Obviously."
"One of us is the best, Koga." Ginta corrected, pointing at Jade.
"Nah, I just know how to play against you two. Well, we all need competitive experience. I'll ask the arcade people in the mall and the other game shops around here and see if they're interested in hosting a little practice competition." Jade suggested as she passed the joint back to Koga.
"No, you do enough already. Ginta, you ask the game shops if they're willing to help us set something up." Koga insisted.
"Me? Why?" Ginta asked skeptically, looking at Koga as if he'd gone mad.
"Yeah, why are you sending in Moon-Moon?" Jade questioned shrewdly. Koga snorted loudly and Jade began laughing once more.
"Man, fuck you both!" Ginta groaned, but he was now smiling and laughing, too. Koga and Jade both patted him on the back, silently thanking him for being a good sport about their teasing. They even allowed him the last few puffs of the joint to end the night.
"How about this? I'll call and ask them myself. Then we'll go from there." Koga offered. Ginta and Jade both nodded at him and agreed. Koga stood up from Jade's hood, stretching his legs individually. He raised his arms above his head and turned back to his two friends. Jade had relaxed back on her hood, eyes closed. Koga looked at Ginta and then nodded towards Jade. Ginta's face twisted with confusion, but his eyes widened when he realized what Koga was insinuating. He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head and mouth the word, "No," vehemently. Koga rolled his eyes and shrugged.
"Hey Jade," Koga began, a wicked smirk pulling on his lips. Ginta's face started turning red as he shook his head.
"Hm?" Jade asked.
"Are you going to need a ride home? You're looking pretty tired."
"I'm fine." Jade replied with a yawn, sitting up and stretching her arms. Ginta cast a glare at Koga, but he looked down when Jade looked over at him.
"Alright. I guess we can wait here a little while longer. I work the later shift with you guys tomorrow." Koga stated, stifling a yawn with his hand.
"Yeah, I'm not in a hurry for tomorrow, either." Jade said with a forced laugh.
000000
Naraku glanced at his watch as he marched around the hallways of the Science Building. The building was essentially a rectangle and the main hallways made a boxed figure-8 path. The secret hallways which connected some of the classrooms were narrow and ran straight along either side of the building.
'Thirty minutes to go.' He told himself. It was Day Two of his extraction process of the samples that were sent to him and Bruce. He had been awake for a day and a half now. Fraction One of the extraction took him the better half of the first day and Fraction Two took the rest of that day and was going to steal away this day, too. Fraction Three would be simpler and take half a day, and Fraction Four could eat him as far as he cared at this point. Caffeine was no longer giving him the energy he needed, so to stay awake while his samples shook for two hours, he was walking laps. Naraku turned a corner, hands stuffed into the pockets of the white lab coat he was wearing. He spotted a professor from another department chatting away on his phone as he pressed the call button for the elevator. He nodded familiarly at Naraku, who nodded back.
'That should do.' He told himself when he turned down the long hallway that led to his lab. He needed to start prepping for the next step. Naraku saw the door was ajar and slowed his approach, trying to remember if he closed it or not. It wasn't a big deal during the summer, but Naraku was usually the one who told others to close the door if they were leaving and no one else was there. He opened the door wide enough so he could walk in and froze when he saw Jade standing at the table, leaned over his notes.
'She came back.' He thought, finally blinking after what seemed like years. His eyes already stung from the lack of sleep, so staring at her didn't help. Jade looked up, smiling slightly as she waved at him.
"Good morning." She said. She watched as Naraku turned his head to the side, as if he had no idea what she just said. He stared at her, a thoughtful look gracing his face.
'It's nice to see something other than malice on his face.' Jade thought.
"You're here….early." Naraku finally said. Jade nodded and shrugged.
"You look like you've been here a while," she replied with a giggle, pointing at him and then waving up and down his body. Naraku's hand rose to his face, feeling the bags under his eyes. He dragged his fingers down his cheek and felt the stubbles of an oncoming beard. Next, he looked down at his washed-out blue jeans, black T-shirt with bleach stains, and white running shoes.
"I don't look that bad." Naraku said in a low voice. Jade held back a laugh. She had a feeling he really cared about his looks.
"I didn't say bad; I meant tired." Jade corrected him. Naraku nodded and walked behind her towards the fume hood at the back of the room. Naraku flipped the two switches, one for the light and the other for the exhaust fan to start sucking out the fumes from the solution he had waiting for the samples.
'Not a talkative fellow today, are we?' Jade thought to herself, watching Naraku tinker around with a pipette. He placed it inside the fume hood on a piece of paper towel beside the solution, pulling the glass screen back down to prevent the fumes. Jade remembered Bruce telling her that once Naraku found something to work on, he was a different person. She exhaled quietly and looked at the bottles next to Naraku's notes. There were quite a few; over seventy if she remembered correctly. They were halfway filled with a liquid that had taken on a rusty orange color.
"So, you decant all of the solution into these?" Jade asked, pointing at the little bottles. Naraku was opening different drawers and cabinets, seemingly searching for something.
"Yes. Each fraction is extracting a different type of phosphorus from the samples. I have bottles filled from Fraction One, those are Fraction Two, and I have Fraction Three prepared, but Fraction Four," Naraku trailed off, opening another cabinet. He sighed heavily and shook his head.
"Need help with anything?" Jade finally relented. She told herself not to give into him, but she couldn't stand not doing anything. Naraku looked at her and blinked, his gaze quickly falling to the floor. Jade wondered if he had fallen brain dead for the moment.
"I found more bottles for Fraction Four, but they need to be cleaned with acid. Do you know how?"
"I'm imagining scrubbing at them like dishes while my skin melts off." She answered, scrubbing an invisible plate with her hand.
"No. It's simpler, actually. And less painful." Naraku replied, reaching into the cabinet and pulling out a giant bag of bottles. Jade had never seen such a huge collection of bottles before. It was almost comical. There must have been hundreds of them in the sack.
"I assume just seventy of them?" she asked.
"Seventy-seven. I haven't lost a sample….yet." Naraku corrected her.
"Wait. I thought it was only seventy-three or something?"
"Seventy-three samples, yes, with two blanks and two standards. So, I need seventy-seven bottles."
"Two blanks and two standards?" Jade repeated as she stared at the table. She vaguely knew what that meant.
"For me to measure the amount of phosphorus in these samples, I need a curve to compare it to. Otherwise, saying I had this much phosphorus in this sample doesn't mean much. I need to scale it. The standards hold the scaled amounts I'm comparing the sample amounts to."
"I'm going to pretend I understood that." Jade stated with a laugh as took the bag of bottles from his hands, moving to the other side of the table so she wouldn't disturb his notes or current bottles.
"You will figure it out." Naraku said, walking over to his notes and picking up his pen. He used the pen to point at the words he needed to read. He listened to the soft clatter of bottles as Jade counted them out on the table across from him. Naraku checked his watch again and sighed. He still had a bit longer and at this point, every minute felt like a year.
"Alright, I counted out eighty just in case," Jade announced, carrying the bag of bottles back to the cabinet and stuffing the bag inside. Naraku smirked and snorted quietly.
"Good. You're thinking ahead. Now, all of those bottles need to be filled with cleaning acid."
"Riiiiiiight," Jade sang, motioning for him to continue. He put too much faith into her intelligence.
"I already have it set up in the storage room. Fill the bottles with it and then," Naraku stopped talking when he saw Jade glance at the storage room and then slowly turn her head back to him. Her facial expression remained the same, but her eyes….those green eyes held Hellfire within them once more. Naraku smirked and nodded his head. He knew.
"What do I do with them after I fill them up?" Jade questioned, her tone taking a dangerous edge to it. Naraku tried to fight his smile away, but he only ended up snorting as he held back laughter. Jade rolled her eyes and allowed him to have his moment. She could tell he wasn't really able to control himself.
"Heh, well, you have two options; put them in the oven for a day or shove them up my ass for revenge's sake." Naraku suggested, wiping a tear from his eye, his smile as wide as possible.
"I'll think about it." Jade sighed, walking to the sink. Hanging over the sink on hooks were two plastic tubs. They looked like they could hold the bottles quite nicely, so she grabbed them and carried them back to the table, placing the bottles inside them. After grabbing a set of gloves and a pair of goggles, she carried the bottles into the storage room. Sitting on the edge of the sink was a five-gallon jug with a spout to pour the liquid into another container. Usually, these were filled with water, but she figured since Naraku mentioned, "cleaning acid," she probably shouldn't drink it.
When Jade entered the storage room, Naraku checked his watch once more, standing in front of the shaker where his samples waited out their last minutes of movement. Naraku shifted side to side with the rhythm of the shaker, his head following his movements in the opposite direction. The movement kept him awake.
"Oh Goddamn it! This smells like HCl acid!" Jade's angered voice rang from the storage room. Naraku immediately began laughing. He didn't have time to even try to hold it back, nor did he want to.
"Haha, it's diluted HCl acid, dear. It won't hurt you. Though, I still wouldn't breathe it in." Naraku replied, glancing towards the door, expecting to see her fly out and throw acid-filled bottles at him. But, she didn't. Naraku heard her cough and curse again, but she seemed to be fine with the task. Otherwise, she would have told him no, he imagined.
"Did you dilute it with one milliliter of water? This is still pretty strong, dude!" Jade coughed again, tightening the cap on another filled bottle and placing it back down in the plastic tub. Jade filled another bottle while holding her breath, screwing the cap on and exhaling. She felt a finger tap her shoulder and she quickly turned, seeing Naraku standing behind her with a smirk on his face. He held up his other hand, a face mask dangling from his index and middle fingers. Jade stared at it for a moment and then back at him. When she reached for the mask, she expected him to jerk it away from her, but he didn't. He let go of the string without even a second thought and stayed long enough for her to pull the mask over her nose and mouth.
"Thanks. I didn't know we had these." Jade said, poking the mask with a single finger.
"Second drawer to the left of the sink in the main room." Naraku told her. He reached up and stuck a single finger under the string of the mask, and with one single jerk of his hand, snapped the string. The mask fell from Jade's face, floating to the floor pathetically. Jade could only stare at him while trying to fight away a smirk. He was insatiable.
"Thaaaaaaanks." Jade replied dryly, her shoulders slumped. Naraku winked at her before turning around and walking out of the room to take his samples off the shaker and begin decanting the liquid solution from them. Jade followed him and walked to the drawer he told her about, pulling it open and spotting the box of face masks.
'At least he cared enough to tell me about them.' Jade thought with a giggle. She grabbed another mask and walked back into the storage room to finish filling the bottles without choking.
After placing the bottles in the oven and setting it to the needed temperature, Jade walked back to the table and sat down across from Naraku, watching him actually do work. She never doubted that he was good at lab work, but she had only seen him read and study articles or organize the materials in the lab. He organized materials so often that Bruce said he stopped trying to remember where lab items were a long time ago. Jade noticed small things moved around, too, but not to the extent that she couldn't eventually find them.
'He's not human. He can't be.' Jade told herself quietly, watching Naraku's swift and smooth movements as he pipetted a solution into the tubes holding the samples. He would stick the pipette into the solution and suck up the needed amount, which the pipette was already set to absorb. Then he would inject it into a tube. Suck up more. Inject. Over and over he did this without losing momentum or messing up. Jade knew she would be moving slower than him and probably would have injected into one tube twice or something. But he was focused, determined. Naraku injected solution into the last tube and placed the pipette back into the solution jar, which was now empty.
"You made just enough of that, huh?" Jade asked, flicking the empty jar with her middle finger.
"I used a simple calculation to figure out how much I would need. I don't like making excess solution." Naraku replied, now placing caps back on the tubes. Jade saw that beside the foam holders, which held the tubes upright, Naraku had taken off and placed all of the caps in the appropriate order right beside the tubes. That way, a cap was placed back on the tube it belonged to. Jade stood up and walked around to the second foam holder, grabbing the cap from the top left and grabbing the top left tube, quickly tightening it on and making sure she twisted it as far as it would go. Naraku glanced at her, but he said nothing, continuing with his portion of the cap-less tubes.
"I could see this getting annoying after a while," Jade announced, scratching her cheek after an itch surfaced.
"See what?"
"Taking off and putting on caps."
"You have no idea." Naraku chuckled, but Jade could almost feel the annoyance emanating from his body. She imagined it would be stressful. He had seventy-seven tubes of samples, taking those on and off for each step. Then he had seventy-seven bottles for decanted solutions from the samples, meaning another seventy-seven caps to take off and put back on. Four total fractions, each divided by multiple steps. Jade felt annoyed just thinking about it.
"Now we break up the sample. We want every particle to react with the solution." Naraku explained, grabbing a handful of tubes and harshly tapping the tips against the table. Jade glanced at the centrifuge behind him and then back at him.
"Sooooo….you break up the sample to react and then centrifuge them when you want to decant, which makes it harder to break up the sample," Jade recited, trying to probe him for some kind of emotion.
"When I decant, I want the sample to be cemented at the bottom so none of it pours out. When I want it to react, I want the sample to be unstuck from the bottom. It's a process." Naraku corrected her, closely examining a tube to see if he loosened the sample. Jade grabbled a couple of tubes and began tapping them against the table, too.
"That's annoying." Jade chirped.
"Are you trying to sympathize with me?" Naraku asked suspiciously.
"Nooooooo," she sang sarcastically.
"Stop it. Don't you have an experiment to set up and perform?"
"Yeah, but that won't take me long. I can still help you." Jade insisted. Naraku stopped banging his samples on the table and exhaled.
"Do your work first."
"But,"
"Go on. If it won't take you long, then you'll finish in time to do whatever." Naraku told her, motioning for her to place the samples she held back into the slots of the foam holder.
"Not do whatever. I just wanted to help. That's it." Jade explained to him as she placed the samples back into the slots.
"Who said I wanted help?" Naraku asked, now looking down at her. Jade held her hand to him, her face almost saying "This motherfucker" for her.
"You're unbelievable. Have you slept?"
"Stop asking about me. Go to work."
"You're the one who kept saying that I was going to be your assistant. How can I be your assistant if you won't let me help and learn?" Jade pointed out, now crossing her arms. Naraku placed his loosed samples into the slots, keeping the cemented ones in his hand.
"I don't think you understand. I want you to be my lab assistant; I don't want your help." Naraku stated carefully, looking down when he realized his accent was completely obvious in that last statement. He couldn't look at Jade. He didn't want to. It had been so long since he heard his Japanese accent when speaking. He had worked so hard to force it away, but it would pop back into his speech every now and then.
'Here is her chance to take me down,' he thought to himself.
"You need help." Jade stated with a heavy sigh, walking away to begin setting up her experiment. Naraku gritted his teeth and glared at her.
"I don't need help! I can do all of this myself!" Naraku snapped, no longer caring if his accent was audible or not. Jade turned back to him while frowning.
'He's obviously not on his game today. Just let it go, Jade.' She told herself. She inhaled through her nose deeply and exhaled.
"Alright, then." Jade said to him, casting him half a smile. Naraku waited for her to turn her back to him before making a gagging expression, a violent shiver raking over his entire body and driving straight to his core. She pitied him? She pitied him!
'I'd prefer a kick to the nuts.' He admitted silently, grabbing a few more samples and hitting them against the table much harder than before. Jade watched him for a moment before she began reading her notes and checking her equipment. She willed herself not to say anything to him. She figured he was beyond any kind of reasoning.
'He wants me to be his assistant, but not help him? What does that….oh,' The realization hit Jade like a truck. He didn't want her to volunteer; he wanted to force her to help him against her will. The smile that stretched on her lips at that moment was wide, wicked, and wondrous. All she could do was shake her head. She couldn't even think about what she was writing down on her notes. Naraku's eyes met hers and his eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
"What?" he asked her.
"You're amazing." Jade responded, lowering her gaze back to her notes, forcing herself to shut up and keep writing. Naraku blinked, ceasing his physical abuse of the samples in his hand.
"I'm amazing?" he repeated questioningly, trying to urge her to continue. But, Jade shook her head once more and continued with her experiment, saying nothing more to the sleep-deprived grad student.
000000
Naraku paced back and forth in the lab in front of his shaking samples, hands grabbed onto his hair as he tugged at the strands harshly. He was entering two straight days with no sleep and barely any food to eat, so he was doing anything to keep himself awake for the next step. Once he finished that step, he was finished with that fraction and could allow himself some sleep before moving onto the next fraction. It wasn't that Naraku had never stayed awake for days on end, but he was able to conserve his energy and keep his stomach full in those instances. The situation was different when he stayed busy and didn't eat.
"Thirty minutes, thirty minutes," he told himself quietly. It was almost five in the morning, so the Science Building was asleep and mostly empty except for him and maybe one other person who was probably also asleep in their lab. Naraku gave his hair another yank when he closed his eyes and sensed how hard it was to open them. When he opened them, they rested on the other side of the table where Jade's experiment was sitting. She had to let it sit overnight so it would fully react. Naraku walked over to her experiment and moved the items around, wondering if she would even notice. He pulled his pen from his pocket and scribbled a dick in the corner of her notes. Even though he was a capable artist, he was certain that he couldn't handle any complicated images, otherwise his brain would have a meltdown.
"Decant, go to sleep," He told himself, thickening the lines of the dick so that the image was engraved onto the few pages beneath it. He capped the pen and placed it back into his pocket, but his eyes remained focused on her handwriting. Naraku sat on the stool and stared down at her notes, spotting a few question marks she scribbled beside some text.
'So studious. It almost sickens me.' He thought wryly, ripping his eyes away from her notes. He remembered the sickening feeling he felt earlier when she kept asking him about the extraction process. And how she kept saying certain things must have annoyed him….was she planning something?
'Is she searching for something to use against me? A crack in my armor?' Naraku wondered, now crossing his arms. His leg began to shake, signaling his irritation. But, then again, she seemed to be genuinely interested in the extraction process. She even offered to help him without a second thought, despite what he did to her the previous week.
"Perhaps she is just kind," he said aloud, now pressing his thumb to his bottom lip. Naraku remembered the tone of her voice when she yelled at him after regaining consciousness. It was such a strong voice, one that showed no fear. He knew better than to think she had forgotten about the storage room incident, let alone forgive him.
'That smile she had when she called me amazing….she hungers for some form of revenge. She's trying to play me.' Naraku closed his eyes, trying to see her image in his head. The one with the smile from earlier. Was it truly malicious or were his tired eyes playing him instead?
"She just wanted to help." He stated, his own voice shocking him, as if it spoke without his command. Naraku kept his eyes closed. It felt too nice to close them to open them again. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on her notes, exhaling slowly and realizing the sickening feeling was leaving his body.
'She's too smart to want to help someone like me. She doesn't like me. She doesn't care about me. She doesn't care about my work. She wants revenge.' He reminded himself. His mind went blank. He didn't remember anything else, nor did new thoughts surface his mind.
Naraku's eyes snapped open when he recognized the beeping of his watch, alerting him to tend to his samples. He slowly pushed himself up from the table after tapping the button on his watch, looking down at Jade's notes. Apparently, they served as a fantastic pillow, because he drooled on them. Naraku looked around the room, making sure no one had walked in at five in the morning for some obscure reason and then used his sleeve to gently wipe his saliva from her notes. Unfortunately, it left a smear. He lowered his arm and exhaled dramatically.
"Back to work." He announced, walking around the table towards the shaker.
When he finished decanting his samples, he placed them on the table and sighed with relief. He could go home and sleep now. The next fraction could wait. Naraku grabbed his keys and notes, deciding to leave his mess on the table. He grabbed the door handle, but then remembered his bottles in the oven. They still needed to be taken care of and they had quite a few hours to go. They had to be emptied and then dried in the oven. Naraku's thoughts shifted to Jade again and he grimaced while shaking his head.
'She needs to go. But first,' Naraku walked towards her experiment, grabbing a piece of paper and uncapping his pen. He wrote a note, asking her to empty the bottles and place them back into the oven, and then placed it over the spot of her notes where he drooled. If she wanted to help so badly, then maybe she could finish that task. He then started asking himself, "What if she refused?" She could easily set him back a day. He shook his head, marching out of the lab. A problem for another day.
