痛み
Itami – (n) pain; ache; sore; grief; distress
It was dark. Pitch black, if one wished to be specific. He immediately tried opening his eyes, praying it would work and that the pain wouldn't start again. Hmm, now it was slightly less dark. Nighttime? His vision was blurry. He must've had his eyes closed for some time. Where was he? His brain was still so fuzzy…
His vision started to clear even though his mind wouldn't quite focus as well as his eyes. He still couldn't see much. He was on his back. He could hear breathing that wasn't his own. Who was there? Should he try to turn his head and look around? He didn't want the pain to start again. Avoiding that horrible pain was his main goal. The longer he attempted to think, the more tired he became, the fuzzier his mind was. Before he could decide if it was worth the risk, sleep claimed him.
The next time he opened his eyes, it wasn't dark. Wherever he was had been filled with a light that can only be found in the early morning. As the sleep cleared his vision, he became aware of two things. Well, one feeling and one color; a dull ache that he could feel through the haze of his mind and white, lots of white. He blinked to clear his vision more. Ok, pain, lying on my back and a ridiculous amount of white. Hospital? Where?
He hadn't noticed before but he was propped up slightly. As he became more aware, he surveyed his surroundings. He was definitely in a standard hospital bed in a private hospital room. A window was to his right with a chair beneath it. A wall with a table under a generic floral painting was across from the foot of his bed. A wall was to his right with a door in it and several cabinets along it. With effort, he turned his head in that direction and saw a water jug and glass set on a small table.
Water. He was thirsty. How long had it been since he'd had something to drink? His mouth felt drier than the desert in Suna. He reached out to pour himself a glass. Or at least he tried to. When he realized that his arms weren't working, he looked down.
He was tucked in up to his chin. An IV line trailed under the sheet, presumably to attach to his arm. Painkillers. Explains why I can't feel much. Before he could try to move again, the door slid open.
"I see you're awake." The pink-haired medic walked towards him. Sakura. Sakura means Konoha. What the hell happened? Why am I here? He tried to ask his questions but they came out as unintelligible, raspy grunts. Smooth, man. How long have I been out? Sakura's smiled widened as she walked over to pour him a glass of water.
"Look, Kankuro, I know that you enjoy my company, but we have to stop meeting like this," she joked. She propped him up further into a seated position before holding the glass to his lips. She allowed him to swirl a few sips around his mouth before slowly helping drink about half of the glass's contents. "And as much I love to see that muscular body of yours, I'd rather not be patching it up."
"And here I thought I was doing you a favor. I doubt it's every day that you get to work on a hottie like me." Kankuro's voice was still raspy, but he also managed a weak grin. Sakura merely rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll save you the trouble. 'When are you going to leave this village of sissies and visit Suna, where you can find some real men?'" She did quite a good imitation of him. She even managed the leer that he always gave her. Kankuro quickly found that he was too tired to laugh. Looking more serious, Sakura sat on the edge of his bed. "How are the painkillers working? Do we need to up the dosage? Any specific areas in worse pain than others?"
She let him take a moment to assess. "It's working pretty well. Everything aches equally, but it's not too bad." Certainly not like it was.
"Can you move anything other than your head?"
He was about to say something dirty (like he usually would have, even in this situation), but he realized: What the hell kinda question is that? He felt panic start to rise as he realized how badly he must've been hurt. Sakura watched silently as he managed some weak shifts of his major limbs. She pulled up the bottom of the bedding to see if he could move his toes, which he thankfully could. But then…
"Sakura… I can't move my hands…" He was definitely panicking now. A small, detached voice in his head was vaguely surprised that he had the energy to panic. Kankuro tried to shift the blankets off of his arms. They're still there, right?! "Sakura. Why can't I move my hands?!"
Sakura had carefully schooled her features to the calm, yet caring, look that she used with her patients. She pulled the covers down and spread them neatly across his lap, revealing a broad chest with several newly healed wounds and two heavily bandaged hands. Kankuro ignored his other injuries. My hands…
"We're not entirely sure what happened. You were obviously in a fight, but what's confusing…" She paused, as though trying to think of what words to use. He looked so distraught, so broken. He was her friend and it was hard to be clinical and objective. "It's almost like… Even Tsunade has never seen anything like it before. We had to bring in a Hyuuga to find out what was wrong." A Hyuuga? What…?
"It's like you've been electrocuted, but through your chakra system. The entry point must've been your hands. It's where… there's… the worst damage." Sakura finished in a whisper. Kankuro's features had become more and more set as she spoke, more and more cold.
In a hard, yet shaking voice, he asked, "How much damage?"
"We healed them the best that we could, but all we can do now is wait." He didn't have to ask what they would need to wait for. Sakura – precise, perfectionistic Sakura who was always blunt and open with him – was being vague. That was enough to tell him what he needed to know.
It would be a miracle if he could use his hands again.
A/N: Next chapter – The arrival of Temari