Kisame hands hovered around Hinata's face when she sat down, shy of touching the raw skin that still gave her face a red hue. Deidara shrank under the look Kisame gave him when Hinata explained what happened. Hinata tried to divert the blame to her not knowing or asking how to take it off, but that wasn't going to make Kisame any less upset about it. "It should go away in a few more days. This is going to take longer." Hinata pointed at a new bruise that could be seen from Kisame's rolled uniform sleeve.

Kisame grumbled, pulling his sleeve down to hide it. "That one I just hit off the wall."

"Because you were shoved in a fight, I'm sure," Sasori commented.

"When did you start to care?" Kisame snapped back.

Hinata waved her hand at Sasori to attempt to make him stop talking about it, but Sasori narrowed his eyes on her. "When I have to hear about constantly from her."

Too late, Kisame's face dropped. Hinata couldn't help but be worried. He was working more, increasing the days he was at the bar, increasing the fights he got in, and the odd injuries he was getting. She didn't want to complain about it to him. It was his job. He liked it, as far as she understood. Hinata wasn't going to tell him to stop working there because she was worried about him.

"Sorry, mouse," Kisame grumbled.

Hinata shook her head. "Don't be sorry. I shouldn't complain…"

"Maybe I can find something safer after we graduate." Kisame propped his head in his hand.

Hinata's heart dropped into her stomach. She still needed to talk to her uncle.

Hidan crouched down to Hinata lying out on the concrete. "It doesn't want to come out. You're not going to make it."

"He looks injured." Hinata reached a little harder for the ball of fur and yelped, pulling her hand back as she was scratched. She rolled back to sit up to look at the scratch on her hand. "Poor thing. I wonder if he's sick."

Hidan face twisted at her. "Fine, move over." Hinata scooted over while Hidan reached for the matted long haired black cat that backed itself closer and closer to the dead end it put itself in to get away from them. "Got it." Hidan pulled back the cat by the scruff of its neck. The cat hissed and yowled as he held it out.

"Careful!" Hinata tried to scoop under the angry little beast, but before she gets hold of him, he turned and latched his teeth into Hidan's arm.

Hidan cursed and dropped him to cover the bite. Off the cat ran before Hinata recapture him.

"Aw… poor thing." Hinata tutted.

"Fucking thing bit me!" Hidan whined. "Look at this."

Hinata took his arm and snack his hand away from touching it. "Hand me my bag." Hidan tossed it into her lap. Hinata dug out a first aid kit, digging into it for antiseptic.

"You carry that thing around with you?" Hidan wondered.

"Between Kisame-san and Deidara-san, I need to." Just the other day, Deidara jammed his finger in a drawer. He really just didn't pay attention, and Sasori was no help. He just made fun of him.

Hidan tried to pull his arm away as she touched the bite mark with antiseptic, but she fought with him to yank it back. "You should go to the hospital to get a rabies shot."

"I don't like needles." Hidan looked away from her work, clenching his teeth like she was digging into it with a knife.

"Last month, you put a stapler against your leg and slammed it down." Hinata snapped at him. Actually, he did it several times until he couldn't get the last one out, and he had to go to the nurse.

Hidan shrugged like she didn't have a point. "But that's funny."

Hinata sighed. There really was no getting through to him. "I am sure dying of rabies is fun too…"

"Do I have to?" Hidan whimpered.

"I'll go with you," Hinata promised. Somehow she knew that this was going to end with her holding his hand like a two-year-old.

Hinata felt like an idiot. She had a panic attack the last time she was at the hospital. Why did she agree to go with him?

Hidan whined about the small bite the whole way, like his arm was going to fall off. Hinata had a hard time taking him seriously when she had seen him purposely slam his head into a desk to see if he could break it. Why did he not feel pain when he was the one inflicting it on himself? What about it being funny to him made it not hurt because it hurt her to watch him do it.

Hinata took a deep breath. The emergency room wasn't what got to her last time. She could do this.

Hinata made him check in and sat down in the emergency waiting area, and that was when she started to feel her anxiety creep up into her heart. She swallowed the lump building in her throat. She just needed to focus on Hidan. He didn't need much, just a shot, but emergency rooms weren't known for being quick.

"You okay?" Hidan asked. "Can you get rabies from a scratch?"

Hinata looked at her hand. She completely forgot she got scratched. It had clotted now. It wasn't even that deep. "I'm fine."

"You look sick." Hidan motioned to her face with his bandaged arm.

"I don't like hospitals, but I'm fine," Hinata assured herself more than she was assuring him.

They waited a few hours. Hidan wanted to leave more than once, but against her better judgment, Hinata made him stay. The pit in her stomach stayed there, threatening to get bigger if she paid attention to sterile walls and uncomfortable chairs. Instead, she kept Hidan talking, and that meant hearing more than she ever wanted to about the religion he was planning on formally joining after he graduated.

Hidan was certainly passionate about it, and the silly way that he mixed sermons with swearing made her giggle. Surely they weren't going to let him do that when he joined a monastery, right?

They were finally called in, and Hinata let the nurse look at her hand and give her an antibiotic, just in case. Hinata had to hold Hidan down, a man one and a half her size and weight and a year older than her, and she nearly had to sit on him to keep him from running from the nurse like she was a bear, and he had the nerve to say once it was all said and done. "That wasn't that bad."

Hinata had never wanted to hit someone with her umbrella so much.

Deidara knelt down to try to see the puffball growling at them, unable to see anything but a messy outline and two yellow eyes reflecting the little light that reached him. "Aw, he's kind of ugly, uhn."

Hinata gave him a look as she opened a can of cat food, and slid under the mess of stacked crates and equipment the cat cowering beneath. "He needs a bath."

"You don't learn, do you." Hidan crossed his arms.

Hinata sighed, sitting up as the cat cautiously stepped forward and sniffed the food. "He's scared. I don't expect him to run out and greet me."

"He's pretty old. I wonder how long he's been out here, yeah." Deidara commented, moving around to get a better angle.

"Don't spook him while he's eating." Hinata waved at him to come back. "He can't have been out here the whole time. He would be way more matted."

"Maybe because he's an asshole, his owner threw him out." Hidan got swatted on the leg. "Hey, I can say that he bit me."

"You were dragging him out. He was scared." Hinata defended.

"I'm with Hidan on this one. Some cats are just jerks, yeah." Deidara helped her up.

Hinata brushed off her hands. "That doesn't mean that he needs to starve."

"Maybe you should get fish face out here. I am sure the little rat will love him." Hidan chuckled at his own joke.

"That's mean." Hinata scolded. Hidan shrugged and head back toward the school.

"One of these days, Kisame is going to deck him, and I am going to enjoy it, yeah," Deidara commented.

"Did I tell you that my uncle gave me a taser when he met him?" Hinata wondered.

"You have a taser?" Deidara's eyes lit up.

Maybe she shouldn't have told him that.