Undesired Romance
Chapter Three: A Balancing Act Of Love And Hate
I hate everything about you
Why do I love you
You hate everything about me
why do you love me
I hate
You hate
I hate
You love me
I hate everything about you
Why do I love you
Jiraiya groaned as he came to his senses. His head snapped up from its place resting against his arm. His arms were crossed over each other, laying on the desk of the Hokage. The last thing he remembered was Shizune leaving for the night and him telling her he would go home when he was done sorting all the reports she had given him. He must've fallen asleep while he was sorting the paperwork, what a shock. Jiraiya sighed and lifted his arm from the desk, he peeled a paper from some mission assignment off of his arm and threw it into the messy, unorganized pile. He looked at all the out of order mission assignments and incident reports and nervously scratched his head. Tsunade was gonna kill him for this. He turned around and looked outside, squinting at the bright sun that came in through the windows. He peered down at the street and smiled when he saw and could faintly hear small children playing tag.
Clack, Clack, Clack, Clack
Jiraiya turned his head towards the door and waited for whoever was outside to come in. He half expected it to be Tsunade.
Knock, Knock
Jiraiya shook his head, Tsunade wouldn't have knocked on the door of her own office.
"Jiraiya? Are you here yet? Can I come in?" The timid voice of Shizune asked, unsure if Jiraiya was in the office or if he had forgotten to come in.
"Yeah, I'm here, obviously. And yeah you can come in," Jiraiya called, just loud enough so Shizune could barely hear him.
"Thank-you, sorry I'm late I kind of over slept, will you forgive me?" Shizune said as she struggled to open the door with her hand, since her arms were full with folders containing reports on various Konoha missing-nin.
"It's fine, I over slept too in a way," Jiraiya chuckled as he tried to catch up on the previous night's sorting. But finally he threw papers down with a sigh, completely giving up hope on ever being able to sort the mound of ever growing papers. Jiraiya leaned his elbows on Tsunade's desk and lowered his head, supporting his forehead with his thumbs.
Jiraiya suddenly looked up when he heard a thud and the Hokage's desk sharply vibrate. He groaned when he saw the new stack of folders Shizune had dropped onto the desk with an apologetic smile.
"More reports? I haven't even gotten through the ones you gave me last night! I don't know how Tsunade does this," Jiraiya said as his head collapsed into his hands in despair
"I thought you said you were going to leave when you had finished. What did you do?" Shizune said with horror, seeing for the first time the current state of Tsunade's desk.
"Well that was until I fell asleep while doing that and woke not long before you came," Jiraiya yawned while rubbing his eyes.
"You've been sleeping this whole time? It's one o'clock Jiraiya!" Shizune almost cried out, not sure what else to say.
"Oh it is? Damn, I must've been tired," He casually remarked as if sleeping in til one o'clock was a normal thing for him.
"Well I guess, but you should probably start working on-" Shizune started to say before Jiraiya stood up and stretched his arms and back.
"I'm gonna go check on Tsunade, make sure she's still alive and all that good stuff. How about you get to work on sorting this stuff, I'll help you when I get back, 'Kay?" Jiraiya said, flashing Shizune a big grin before quickly leaving.
"Check on Tsunade? Pah, yeah right. You just wanna get outta work, don't you? And leave me to do it too! Humph, you probably won't even come back until, what? Six, maybe, if I'm lucky," Shizune muttered to herself crossly as she sat down in the chair behind Tsunade's desk and began to go through the load of papers that needed to be sorted, signed and stamped as quickly as possible, and it was just Shizune's luck that she was the only one to do it.
...
Tsunade cracked one of her eyes open slowly with hesitance. Her body was spread out on the bed in a spread eagle like position, she took up practically her whole Queen sized bed. Tsunade groaned, her head swayed gently from side to side, and her vision spun in circles. What was going on? The hangover should've been done by now? Why did she feel like all she wanted to do was sleep? Tsunade hazily turned her head to the side and looked at her nightstand through groggy, half lidded eyes, and suddenly it hit her. Sleeping pills. She had taken twice the dosage she should have taken the previous night and now she was paying the price. Tsunade groaned and closed her eyes, she just wanted to drift back to sleep, but she knew she couldn't. She had work to do, she wasn't about to let Jiraiya of all people help her do her job.
Tsunade struggled to push the thick and heavy covers off of her body. She slowly sat up, her head was violently spinning and her stomach lurched. Tsunade swung her legs over the side of the bed and she shivered, goosebumps rose on her fair skin. Unfortunately one of the side affects of the sleeping medication was feeling extremely cold no matter how much Tsunade tampered with the thermostat.
Tsunade swiftly jumped from the bed, not realizing that with her condition it was a bad idea, until she collapsed onto all fours. Tsunade was breathing heavily, almost gasping for breath as her vision went blurry and became unreliable. Colors became to blend and shapes began to lose their definition. She slowly lifted her hand and reached out for the nightstand. Once she grasped onto the side of the nightstand she reached up for the top of it. When her hand was placed on the top of the nightstand she used it to push herself up. Tsunade slowly and carefully stood up on wobbly legs, her knees shook and trembled violently. She tried to step forward only to stumble. The only thing that had kept her from falling on her face was the fact that she had reached out and stopped herself by placing her hand on the wall.
Tsunade sighed, sleeping pills were a real pain in the ass. She turned around slowly so her back was leaning against the wall. After a few seconds she fell onto the floor with a thud after her seemingly dead legs gave way under her weight. Tsunade groaned as she unconsciously brought her legs up to her chin and rested it on her knees. How was she going to overcome this? …..Stimulants! Tsunade had almost a box full of stimulants used for situations when a shinobi had late night guard duties and they needed to stay awake, however they aren't supposed to be used in excess or for any other reason. But this is an exception, right?
'That's what you said about the sleeping pills too,' A voice deep inside the back of Tsunade's head said. 'If you don't watch it you'll get into a cycle, and you of all people, being a medical-nin and all, know how very dangerous that can be.' The voice said again. ' But what if I don't, I'll be a heap of uselessness, I can't allow that. Those stimulants won't hurt, just as long as I only do this once I'll be fine.' Tsunade reassured herself, the voice in the back of her head had no response, leaving Tsunade to her decision. The only problem was how was she supposed to get to the closet? She had to get to those stimulants somehow, but how could she if she couldn't even walk so as long stand up even?
'Even as degrading as it is, I guess I'll have to crawl. How embarrassing, the Hokage having to crawl to her closet to get a stimulant drug because she overdosed on sleeping medication on purpose, humph.' Tsunade crossly thought as she stiffly pushed herself out of her sitting position and began to crawl towards the closet, thankful no one was there to see her. She crawled across the floor of her bedroom despite her fading vision that came in blotches and unclear spots. When she came to the closet she reached up to the doorknob and turned it, opening the door to reveal a closet full of boxes. Tsunade blindly reached for a shoe box and pulled it out of the closet.
Once Tsunade had retrieved the box she sat down on the floor and reached inside it, taking out the smallest of all the needles. With trembling hands she carefully inserted the needle into the crease on the inside of her arm where her elbow was on the outside of her arm. Her finger trembled as she thought of all the blood that must be inside her body, even if she had mostly gotten over her fear of blood, if she thought too hard about it still gave her the shivers. She sighed a sigh of relief when the needle's liquid had emptied into her body and the needle itself was empty. She carelessly tossed it into the trashcan, barely making it by an inch.
Tsunade smiled as she felt the sudden rush of energy flow through her body. Almost immediately her vision cleared and became useful again, her head stopped pounding and she was no longer sluggish. Tsunade stood up slowly, still cautious just in case the stimulants hadn't taken full affect yet. This time however she could stand without collapsing, though her steps were a bit unbalanced due to the sudden burst of energy.
Tsunade walked to the kitchen and got herself what was breakfast for her, but lunch for everyone else. she was actually quite surprised when she looked over at the clock and noticed it was almost one o'clock, she scolded herself for sleeping herself so late even if it wasn't actually her own fault.
Knock, knock, knock.
Tsunade's eyes quickly darted to the door from her place in the small kitchen.
"Come in!" She called, figuring it was Shizune or possibly Sakura.
"Well someone's bright and shiny this morning...er...afternoon," Jiraiya said not so sarcastically as he usually would have. He scratched the back of his head and smiled. A small smile played upon Tsunade's lips as she washed her dishes in the sink.
"You can sit in the living room, I'll join you in a few minutes. Tea? Or coffee?" Tsunade asked, a bit more cheerfully than she usually did. Something was definitely going on, Jiraiya decided at length as he sat down on one of the chairs in the living room.
"Nah, neither. I just came by to check up on you, you seem to be doing all right, am I right?" Jiraiya asked, making sure not to arouse Tsunade's suspicions.
"Yes, I'm fine actually," Tsunade pleasantly said as she came over to join Jiraiya with a cup of tea in her hand. She sat down on a chair across from his and crossed her legs. She smirked and looked expectantly at Jiraiya, waiting for him to say something.
"I'm glad. That hangover was pretty bad. But even though you seem fine today, you aren't getting back into the office," Jiraiya sternly said as friendly as he could. Tsunade's shoulders slightly slumped but other than that she showed no obvious signs of disappointment or anger, like he expected. Instead she just shrugged it off.
"So how's being Hokage for the day coming along?" Tsunade asked.
"Not too well, I have loads of papers to sort through and all that good stuff. I have Shizune working on it now, but there's only so long she'll do it before she explodes in my face," Jiraiya chuckled.
"You know if you let me back in the offi-" Tsunade slyly started to say.
"Oh no you don't," Jiraiya said smirking, so Tsunade was in there somewhere, huh? Jiraiya looked down at her fingers and noticed they abnormally twitching against her pant leg every few seconds. He also noticed her body was always moving in some way, whether it was shifting positions, sipping her tea, tapping her feet, playing with the bracelet around her wrist, or just twitching. In other words, she hadn't sat still the whole time he had been there.
"Is something wrong?" Tsunade suspiciously asked as she watched Jiraiya, who was watching her.
"Are you sure your okay?" Jiraiya asked skeptically.
"Yes! Of course I am sure. I think I would notice if something was wrong, don't you think?" Tsunade said, rolling her eyes, obviously exasperated. Well, at least Tsunade was acting normal again, what had made her so...happy?
"I guess. You just seemed...twitchy, I guess," Jiraiya said, struggling to find the right words.
"Twitchy? You're a famous author and the best descriptive word you can come up for my 'odd behavior' is twitchy?" Tsunade asked with a certain amount of amusement while putting air quotes over "odd behavior".
"Yeah I guess so. Well I better go before Shizune gets even more pissed at me for leaving her to do all the work, bye, and take care of yourself" Jiraiya said chuckling as he got up and showed himself out, slamming the door behind him.
"Help Shizune? Yeah right! You're biggest slacker of all time! Humph," Tsunade scoffed as she took a drink out of her tea cup. "Well I guess I have to be careful with those stimulants, for a bit there I was deliriously happy...hmm that must be side affect. But thankfully not one that lasts long, however the twitching thing must be from too much energy in my body and not enough ways to get rid of it...hmmm. If Jiraiya or Shizune see me like this too many times they'll get worried. And if I begin to fall into a cycle, not only would they worry even more they'd try to send me to a doctor...maybe even a shrink. Ugh, no thanks, I'll have to use stimulants only if I absolutely need it, I can't afford to fall into a cycle," Tsunade said rubbing her head, while noticing her fingers were subconsciously twitching and her body was trembling a bit.
…
"Hey, Shizune, sorry I left you hanging," Jiraiya said smirking as he came into the Hokage's office. Shizune was slumped behind the desk of the Hokage, she looked utterly exhausted.
"Yeah, okay," She said yawning and stretching out her limbs.
"So did you get any progress?" Jiraiya asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
"Yeah, I sorted through and filed all of the papers I gave you last night and I'm going through the ones I gave you this morning and the ones that I just got," Shizune said with an exasperated sigh, she was so tired she even forgot to ask about Tsunade. "Oh, I forgot, how is Lady Tsunade?"
"Good...but I do have a question for you. Can you think of anything that would make someone, let's see what's the right word for it? Basically they couldn't sit still, and have quick and sudden mood swings," Jiraiya asked, acting as if it was just out of curiosity.
"Oh, lots of things...let's see any number of drugs. But the most common among shinobi, would be taking an overdose of sleeping pills then when they wake up they inject themselves with stimulant drugs. Why? Is something wrong with Tsunade?" Shizune nervously asked, standing up out of her chair.
"No, no of course not," Jiraiya reassuringly said with a realistic looking fake grin. Shizune sat back down, however she cautiously watched Jiraiya like a hawk, wondering where this sudden curiosity had come from.
'Damn it Tsunade! I saw those sleeping pills! Don't tell me you fell into one of those cycles. I mean I know you can get addicted easily to things at times. But please, just don't tell me you did that of all things. That's practically suicide….I'll have to talk to her when I get the chance, but I can't leave now, not without arousing Shizune's suspicions. It's best if only one of us is worrying about Tsunade 24/7, like I'm sure I will be if I don't watch it.' Jiraiya wryly thought, hoping that everything he had seen had been one big coincidence, however he never did get that lucky, not with Tsunade at least.
Every time we lie awake
After every hit we take
Every feeling that I get
But I haven't missed you yet
Only when I stop to think about it