A/N: Once again, I beg your eternal forgiveness for having to wait two months for this. But this time, (get ready) I have some good excuses! I had midterms, I got braces (gah), my glasses broke, so I needed new ones (they look like Ishida's!) and I realized just how much of a nerd that appears to make me. o.O Rest assured, I wear black all the time and I don't have a pocket protector.

ON WITH THE FIC!

Disclaimer: Genma, Shizune, and all related persons belong to Masashi Kishimoto, not me. Sadly. OMG FILLERS ARE ENDING!!

Lyrics belong to Nickelback, or, more specifically, Chad Kroeger. Still not me.

Every time I try to talk to you,
I get tongue-tied, turns out
that everything I say to you
comes out wrong, it never comes out right.

A whack over the head. That's what I get for-- what was it? Oh yeah, an immense charkra build-up that caused my arteries to close up.

I have the best life.

"OW!! What the hell was THAT for??" I rubbed the back of my head. DAMN that girl can hit hard. Once more my head was propelled into my knees.

"For scaring me at the festival, THAT'S WHAT!" she shouted back. Behind her, beyond the door, I could've sworn I heard a thump that sounded suspiciously like someone falling over from shock.

"Well, I'm so damn fucking sorry my fucking arteries decided 'HEY!! Let's all fucking CLOSE and FUCKING KILL GENMA!! WHAT A FUCKING PARTY!'

Wow. Five times in two sentences. I'm getting to be obscene.

"Why the fuck didn't you fucking tell a fucking medical shinobi when you fucking realized that something was FUCKING WRONG?!"

Damn. A tie. And it looks like I'm getting to ba a bad influence, too.

"Well, when you kind of can't feel your arms and legs anymore, that gets to be a -what's the word? Ah, yes- a bit of an obstacle. And I made a valiant attempt to tell someone, I assure you. When one's arm feels like it's about to fall off, one tends to worry about that a tad." My temper was slowly hitting the boiling point, and I can be a real wiseass when I'm flared.

I opened my mouth just to ask her to leave. This wasn't going to help me at all, and my headache was only going to get worse.

I faltered when I noticed she was crying.

Yeah.

Crying.

I didn't even do anything this time!

Well, okay, I did.

Fuck.

It wasn't sobbing or anything. Just tears. That's all.

The kind that always makes my train of thought spiral off the track, do a few 360's, and land spectacularly off course about a mile from where it started.

There, that should put a good picture of what kind of position I was in at the moment.

And, of course, whenever I'm out of it, plus there is someone I happen to AHEM quite a bit crying over my safety, (double whammy right there) I do what I always do in times of a crisis.

I babble like a complete and utter idiot.

"Ah... look Shizune I know I scared you but it's not like I did it on purpose or anything and I'm sure the booze probably didn't help and it wasn't your fault either it was probably completely my fault for telling the doctors I was fine and really it couldn't've been that bad right well okay maybe it was but like I said it wasn't my fault and... hi," I waved pathetically at her as she stared at me, stunned. It occured to me very quickly that she didn't understand a word of that. I barely did.

God, just kill me now. Just kill me now.

Then again, why stop the torture? I must be a fun toy to play with and say "Aw, look at that! He's babbling, bless him! Romance escapes him so!"

I banged my bruised forehead on my knees, cursing. Again.

The added pain didn't help.

Then, something popped into my head. Something that may be the answer, and something that, being me, I hadn't noticed before.

I raised my head and looked at her. She was still looking at me in a very bemused sort of way.

I took a deep breath.

"I'm...sorry?"

She blinked. "What?"

I took another deep breath.

"I'm sorry. What I did was stupid, and I apologize for scaring you."

If you think that was easy to say, then you can ----------------------------------------.

Ahem.

Anyhoo, I'm sure this next part will surprise you as much as it did me.

She hugged me.

GENMA'S TRAIN OF THOUGHT: Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute. System restarting.

GAH! TWO PLUS TWO ISN'T EQUALING FOUR!!!

"Sh-Sh-Shizune?"

I was stuttering, I admit it, but honestly, do you guys really expect anything less from me?

"Stupid idiot," she said, muffled.

I sighed, grinning a bit. Maybe hitting my head wasn't the wrong thing to do after all,

Let's hope.

So I'll say 'why don't you and I get together
and take on the world
and be together forever
Heads we will and tails we'll try again
So I say why don't you and I hold each other
and fly to the moon and straight on to heaven
'Cause without you they're never going to let me in

-shrug- I think this chapter is one of my best, yet. And, oh yeah, Genma's tendency to babble like an idiot is based entirely off of me. I can assure you it is not a very helpful habit to have. Oi...

The 'Does not compute' thing belongs to my friend Anthony, who does that whenever he doesn't get something. The part following that is whatever I say when I don't understand people.

Yes. We all have our problems.

So, till next time, ja ne! I'll try to get chapter 6 up quicker, you guys rock for waiting so long!