Full Title: Taking Severin to the Lost and Found for Inka to find.
Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 8:02 pm
Trees grew in every direction as far as the eyes can see, standing tall and proud with their majestic crowns of bold reds and warm oranges. The occasional sapling grew among these robust trunks, protected by their elders but also boasting their own lively assortments of autumn leaves. Standing in this forest, beneath leaves that appeared to set the very sky on fire, was quite the impressionable experience to have in the Village Hidden in Leaves within the Country of Fire.
Kagerou had spent many a days this Fall season wandering around this forest, enjoying the very view described above. Today, however, her steps were a little more careful than usual. Her already quiet gait now stepped on a crunchy, crispy leaf less often than usual. Most jarringly, her wrist was strangely naked. The bells she wore, the ones that usually rang so gaily and filled in the sounds her steps lacked, were tucked away in an obscure pocket and silenced.
Today, Kagerou had a target. Well, perhaps that put a little more intensity to the situation than what she intended. To briefly summarize, she expected a certain person of interest to come around and enjoy this forest as he tended to at around this time in these circumstances. Stalking? Perhaps she had done a little, doing so right now and in the past. However, never in excess. Simply the occasional trip such as she intended to do now, when she would casually, either by chance or by effort, happen upon this certain individual and equally casually but discreetly follow him from a distance. A few times, she had brought herself into direct contact with the objective, such as one time when she introduced herself out of the blue, a wholly bizarre action to take for a stranger, while gauging his reactions to see if he still remembered her. However, never in any interaction did she bring anything bigger than small talk. She simply wanted to observe him, and answer for herself certain questions before brashly approaching him with conversation of great burden.
Severin, dear friend he once was. She had long since confirmed that, while much of him remained the same, he had forgotten his memories. She believed it to be true. Though, she admitted, that she didn't have the solid proof to say for certain if that is the case. She knew he could lie if he wanted. Though, she knew equally well that, if he was being dishonest, it would not be out of some villainous intention.
The crisp autumn breeze energized the body but also reminded one of what it was like to be lonely. While Kagerou certainly couldn't say she felt alone even if she never talked to Severin, she connected the emotion to that sense of loss that she had felt since that first day in Konoha. The feeling of missing her friendship with Severin had only grown once she had confirmed he really no longer remembered anything. Then continued to grow the more she figured out, from not just watching him but also slowly learning what their shared contacts had to say about him.
As of late, she had wondered if she should even approach Severin and help him regain memories. He appeared to be living well in his new life. She didn't even need to think of what loopholes to exploit and how to prevent the secret ops of Kiri from interfering with his life, if they so decided that he was worth the effort, because he had no memories that would make him either a threat or an asset. Of course, it wasn't Kagerou's place to decide for Severin to keep or lose his memories. However, she couldn't exactly ask him either... That was why she kept on not-stalking him.
Well, that and she will fully admit to just plain old missing him. They were hardly more than acquaintances. It was difficult for the two of them, working in different departments and Kagerou building up a hectic as all hell schedule as usual, to naturally build up a friendship, and despite definitely-not-stalking Severin, she didn't have the heart to manipulate a friendship with him either. Discreetly learning his schedule and secretly following him every now and then? A-okay. Discreetly learning his schedule to create "Oh! What a coincidence!" encounters to build up his friendship meter? Well... Planning it for others with honest intentions was okay in her books, but doing so for herself felt a bit manipulative...
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He had noticed it, it had taken a while because he was no stranger to being stalked but he had eventually noticed it. Green flashes would sometimes catch the corner of his eyes, around a corner or ducking down under a table. It was amusing, and he had pretended to not notice. After all, he didnt want to make her uncomfortable. They had met once, bumped in to eachother at the hospital during rounds. Her utter lack of a reaction at his stunning beauty is what originally tipped him off. She had seen him before. Perhaps even knew him before.
Today he had decided to go to his favorite spot in all of konoha, in the forest he was surrounded by nature and flowers and... it almost felt like home. He had discovered a small memory recently, sitting in a huge orchard of different flowering trees. He felt the peace of being there, the warmth. It was like he was among family... if only he felt that way now. He had managed to fight off the crippling loneliness for some time, telling himself he wasn't lonely, that he had many admirers... but he was alone. He trained alone, worked alone, lived alone, slept alone, existed... alone. Something deep in him remembered a time when he wasn't alone, even if he didn't physically remember it himself.
.. It only made the feeling worse.
Severin sighed softly, holding a lotus from the pond in front of him in his hands. His slacks were rolled up, allowing his feet to dangle idly in the water. His shirt's sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his hair was lightly tussled as if he hadn't brushed it that day. It wasn't slicked back as usual, and gave him a disheveled appearance. Some days the crippling loneliness was at it's peak, and this was one of those days. He hadn't been able to stay alone in his small apartment any longer... at least here among the flowers he felt a little less scattered, a little less empty.
The sound of a crisp footprint dragged his thoughts away from his reflection in the lake, but he did not turn his head. He wasn't so concerned of who it was, he knew that Shi kept konoha safe. He forced a happier look to his face, and it was only a half lie-- perhaps someone had sought him out? Gently setting the lotus down on the water's surface to idly float, he straightened back up.
"Hello, whoever you are. Is there something I can do for you? I doubt you followed me all the way out here for the fun of it." A slightly shaky hand made it's way through his moonlight locks, making his hair a bit more presentable. His face hid all the hints of his depression except his eyes, tired eyes, ones Kagerou would be familiar with. Maybe Sev had changed, maybe Sev didn't remember, but his heart did. His heart remembered the pain of Kumotake in the hospital morge, his heart remembered the pain of her telling him to grow up, his heart remember the pain of Inka's distance-- even if he couldn't recall it, his soul remembered everything.
He just didn't want to remember. He didn't want that pain. Loneliness was better than losing everyone you cared about.
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Kagerou stared accusingly at the foot that had betrayed her, stepped on a leaf while she was lost in her moral dilemma. Oh woe! For one's own body to turn traitor! The tragedy of not being able to trust even a foot! Oh- Okay, yeah, Kagerou told herself to grow up and not use dramatics to escape the utter embarrassment she felt at making the most basic and cliche mistake of stepping on something that made a noise. Seriously, though. It wasn't like she was five! She should be able to walk better than this.
She considered, at first, using this sort of reaction as an ice breaker to the unplanned small talk she was going to have with Severin. Watching that shaky hand run through his hair changed Kagerou's mind instantly, however. Before she even saw the state the depths of his eyes were in, she knew from his trembling that now wasn't the time to play the part of a fool and create a flow of conversation that would end with a few small pleasantries exchanged. Perhaps, now was the time to put to an end all that waiting and biding her time. She had no concrete plan on what good that would do as opposed to prolonging her anonymity. However, especially after seeing those eyes of him once they turned around and faced her, she simply couldn't leave Severin alone and pretend he was a stranger.
What she saw in those eyes framed by his mask of a face was all too familiar. Indeed, it was something she had seen in Severin countless times. It had even been one of the things that had attracted her attention to him in the first place. They were eyes of a liar, eyes that were the first baby steps to her mother's kind of eyes, so naturally, she was greatly concerned and also interested. She had gotten use to seeing those eyes, worrying over them, and feeling helpless at being unable to help, until one day she rashly gave a piece of advice that, while she truly believed was well deserved even to this day, could not help but regretting. She remembered those eyes when they bored into the backs of Kumotake and Inka, as they summarily left Severin over and over again, or even when they didn't have the strength to bore into those backs and instead cast down onto the ground. She didn't want to remember, but remembered anyways how she had always thought that she had seen every angle of those eyes until one day, Severin cast that gaze onto her directly, and Kagerou realized that she had been wrong about how well she knew the look in those eyes.
For a moment of a moment, she forgot that Sev no longer remembered anything that would make the two friends. Her mouth opened in a half-formed word that had yet to come out. Her mind reeled as she tried to find that best first sentence to say to a long-lost friend. How should she approach? Apologize? Hug? Express how much she missed him? Hug? Let him know that Inka and Kumotake were well?
Then she remembered, however, and playing off that look of stupefied uncertainty as being surprised at being caught, Kagerou quickly switched to an appropriate smile, friendly but a little embarrassed. "Sorry about that," Kagerou apologized, not sure what for. She was firmly winging each word that came cheerfully out of her mouth, "I was just... enthralled by your beauty, so I couldn't help myself." A common excuse paired with an open-ended finisher. It was the best Kagerou could execute while the other half of her mind was busy peering into and unwrapping Severin's eyes.
That was another thing. Her excuse was well enough executed, and her smile held no lies so there was no problems there. However, her red eyes had immediately fixated onto Severin's blue hues. No matter the familiarity in those eyes, just a glance wasn't enough for her, and she didn't recognize herself exactly how uncomfortably long she may have been staring, unblinking into the eyes of a complete "stranger." Peering. Piercing.
tab | | tab s e v e r i n tab r a i g y o tab | | L o s ttab a n dtab a l o n etab,tabi ntab atab w o r l dtab Itab b a r e l ytab r e m e m b e rtab. . . ▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅
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She was studying him again, like the first time they had met. Red eyes peering in to his frozen hues hoping to find something in them. Severin tilted his head in confusion, one eyebrow raising above the other. He had been studied in many ways; in the "you're gorgeous" way, in the way that made one feel like they were being undressed by sight alone, and... the pitying way. This gaze was neither of those, it was a look he had only seen once before and only with Kagerou. With his long strides, he quickly closed the gap between the two shinobi. He leaned forward and somewhat down to level himself with the shorter woman, hands in his pockets, eyes narrowing to study her right back. He looked over the features of her face, which was actually quiet beautiful despite being hidden by this god awful hoodie...
"Severin, you have to take your medicine."
The raigyo flinched back a little, his eyebrows knitting together in a mixture of pain and confusion. She had never said those words to him before, so why was the memory of her voice so clear? He never had memories this clear, most words were a blur to the tune of "womp womp womp", but not this time.
"You need to grow up and stop expecting this job to be easy, it's not."
"---settle down with a cute husband so I can fawn over you two."
"Sev, stop! That's not what I meant!"
Icy blue hues softened as his eyes widened in a look of recognition-- he still didn't know this woman, but he had known her. Severin straightened up, hands still confined to his pockets to hide their trembling. "Wait... I knew you, didn't I? Before..." His lips settled in to a line as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do with this information. Did he want to remember? Did he want to learn why he had nightmares at night, or did he want it to stay hidden? Did he want to be brave or did he want to continue to be a coward. He waited for Kagerou's response, his jaw setting in nervousness. This was his chance to learn about the kind of person he had been before, to know everything.
CHKR : : 00 // 00tabSTM : : 00 // 00tabRYO :: 17,000tabAC :: 30,000tabtab [ R A I G Y O ]tab[ L O S T ]tab [ B - R A N K ]tab[ G E N N I N ]tab[ KO N O H A ]tab[ S U N F L O W E R ]tab
Woah. Woah. Backpedal. Backpedal. Wait, Kagerou had literally backpedaled, stepping backwards several times, and she wasn't supposed to do that. Her red eyes stared straight at Severin's, their gazes level by his efforts. It had been a bomb of a question (boom booms). Sometimes, what was worse than getting caught off guard with something unexpected, was getting caught off guard regarding something that wasn't expected to happen until much later.
It all started when Severin came forwards and literally dropping his intense gaze onto her. What irony that Kagerou, an Uchiha, felt that she was currently faced with eyes stronger than her own. She supposed that's what happened when people were literally looking for a missing part of their life. Nonetheless, she didn't back down then, keeping her crimson gaze trained onto his icy one. Only after seeing shock, pain, and then finally a sudden, inexplicable softening, did Kagerou choose to look elsewhere. She recalled his hands were trembling earlier, when no other part of his body had. To add more evidence to build a case out of, her eyes quickly darted down. She saw the trembling of wrists right above the pockets that hid, no doubt, trembling hands. When her eyes looked back up, concern could be seen etched in their depths. The smallest wrinkle in her brow that she couldn't stop from creasing and how they probed less intensely for information. Because she was afraid? Distracted? Kagerou didn't have the time to answer herself.
That was when Severin dropped his bomb, and when Kagerou backed off on accident. If only Severin had asked the question as he bent down. Then she could have pinned the blame on being uncomfortable with the sudden closeness. However, she had been fine with the proximity. She wasn't bothered when Severin hovered his face right in front of her for who knows how long as he came to his revelation.
What to do now? Her eyes still trained on Sev, it hadn't even been a second since her mishap. She still had time to turn this around. She had reeled back in surprise because she hadn't expected that Severin would try to use such an obvious pick-up line on her. No, perhaps she was surprised that someone as amazingly beautiful as Severin had bothered to remember her. Maybe she could distract him even further by dissing him for how he obviously looked at her beloved hoodie like it an eyesore? He probably thought he didn't show it on his face, and for the most part he didn't, but Kagerou had noticed with their faces so close together earlier. She still remembered all of the little quirks and signs that she had learned to recognize in her old friend. Wait, no, scratch that. Someone he barely met wouldn't have noticed such a small detail.
She had already backed away. Her eyes had already bugged out. Two seconds had passed now. Still, it wasn't too late to amend the situation. If she didn't know what to do, then she could only buy time by neither confirming nor denying the question. She knew what Severin meant to ask, but for the time being, she would play dumb. Recovering from her shock, Kagerou relaxed and showed an amiable smile. It wasn't part of her character to be so surprised just from someone stepping close to her. However, it also wasn't strange for anyone else to be surprised at such sudden close proximity, especially with a beauty like Severin. Nonetheless, she worried, and rightfully so, that maybe the transition was too sudden.
"Sorry," Kagerou quickly sought to divert attention with a disarming smile and the first thing that came to her head, "I couldn't catch my breath while drowning in those blue-tiful eyes." Flirting and a b/dad pun were the results of her, relative to her usual temperament, frantic reaching, a subtle indication that she had been caught off-guard. Still, while a little embarrassing, it would probably do the trick of distracting. "It'll be okay. I didn't dislocate anyone's shoulder and it's the exact opposite of spurning him so it's not like it'll have much effect," Kagerou assured herself that her ship was intact.
Offering a real "answer," Kagerou added, We've met before in the hospital, yes. I'm Kagerou from the psychiatry department, technically, but I nose around pretty much everywhere else, as well." Some might say she was avoiding the real issue. Others might say she was offering Severin a chance to back out and pretend that nothing had happened because if she had answered his question directly, then there really was no way to pretend. The truth, which Kagerou admitted, was that it was both.
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Ah, s**t, he had spooked her. Severin watched with a frown as Kagerou stepped backwards several times, putting space between them. Of course he had spooked her, who wouldnt be spooked by that sort of question? Maybe he was going crazy, the green haired female was certainly looking at him like he was... Moments passed, and he gently waited to either be slapped or proven right... only to get neither. Kagerou mentioned that they had met at the hospital, but nothing more. He didnt even seemed to realize she had flirted with him.
He had been wrong. He wanted so badly to be wrong he didnt press further.
“Ah, right, the gorgeous doctor~ You’ll have to excuse my outlandishness today, I promise I don’t always sound this crazy.” He straightened up, smiling charmingly, trying to bury what had just happened. Severn turned, gesturing to the pond. “Would you like to join me? I was doing some research.” Whether or not she followed him, he turned his back to her. His body didnt portray the turmoil he felt going on inside him, the fears and confusion. Those memories seemed so real... but he supposed it could be a psychosis. Is that why he didnt want to remember? Was he someone horrible before?
If Kagerou decided to follow behind him, the closer she got to the pond, the more details became vidible that were hidden from view before. Along the bank were several specimen collection containers and teat tubes. Some were filled with various plants or sediment, some were still empty. Severin kneeled down to close a container that held lotus petals. Before the lid snapped shut, the Uchiha would faintly be able to see transparent parasitic worms wiggling on it’s surface.
“This pond feels familiar, it reminds me of a place I’ve forgotten... Ah.” Ice-like orbs darting up through his disheveled bangs, looking at Kagerou. “I should probably explain; I suffer from retrograde amnesia. I woke up here, in Konohagakure, singed and still smoldering from some kind of fire. No one knew who I was, and all I had to identify myself by was a photo with my name.” A snort ripped it’s way out of him, the male pinching his nose, as if he knew how ridiculous the situation sounded. “I promise this is not some horridly complex pick up line... though I guess that’s what I would say if it was.”
Goddamit it, he was screwing this up, wasnt he? “Anyways, there were hints I was once a shinobi. I had several shinobi tools on me, from soldier pills to kunai, but I had no headband. Lots of scars though, the ladies go nuts over them.” He waggled his eyebrows, smirking slightly. Humor to cover the discomfort.
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With bated breath hidden behind a flattering smile, Kagerou waited anxiously for Severin's reaction. However, when he didn't push her, didn't ask any further, she didn't know what it was she was hiding. Was it a sigh of relief or disappointment? Of course, she hadn't figured out yet whether she was more scared of Severin returning or more lonely without him. She watched him straighten up with a perfect, happy expression, feeling guilty but taking some small reprieve in being certain of what would happen next.
Mhm. She already saw the scene flash through her head. Severin would turn her down and then she would she would simply shake it off like it was nothing an insist on being her friend. It had always been the case that Severin didn't see her in that way. Bisexual, he was, but it was more like 90% gay and the remaining 10% straight was reserved for proclaiming how hot the top 1% of beauties were. What was more was that he had never treated her in any sort of flirtatious manner. Of course, neither did Kagerou until now, so there never was a chance to reciprocate prior to now. However, Severin wasn't the shy type. With or without goading, he would have already said something to her by now if he found her attractive.
When she heard the actual answer, the nodding chibi Kagerou in Kagerou's mind froze and shattered. An apt description of what would have become Kagerou's thought process if she hadn't always had that supernatural ability to remain calm and carry on. Kagerou blinked and then blushed at the compliment, but altogether remained in steady control.
"Severin... did you hit your head that hard? Is that why you have amnesia? Because you hit your head really hard while unconscious?"
She wanted to shake him by the collar. Of course, she didn't do that, and seeing him mask the pain in his eyes with the infamous smile that had broken so many hearts in Kiri shook her fully back into her usual self. The sweetness she felt rising in her chest was quickly quelled with a complicated tincture of emotions. Severin actually wasn't okay, and honestly, she would rather see him give that smile to someone else. At least then, he wouldn't be using it to try and forget the wounds in his heart.
The blush faded, but of course, Kagerou's specialty, her smile, remained. "I would love to," she naturally agreed, giving a wide, toothed grin as she followed after Severin to the pond. Leaning to look around him, she got the general gist of what was happening. "Oooh~" Kagerou exclaimed, three parts genuine interest and one part continuing to act like nothing had happened, "Botany?". It was a rhetorical question, more of an observation framed as an inquiry than something she expected an answer from. Kagerou walked out from behind Severin to get a closer look at what he was doing. Research on aquatic plants, of course, but what exactly about them? The particular vial with the lotus petals that Severin closed seemed to have some parasites within it, but that could still be any number of possibilities. Though, somehow, she felt bad for the pretty petals that were trapped within the vial. All things were meant to die, and a flower's petals were meant to wither. However, trapped within a vial, separated from their home, the petals were now doomed to decay in an even earlier, lonelier death. Stuck with parasites to boot, too. Kagerou just hoped that the parasites weren't the kind that harmed plants.
Catching that nostalgic blue in the corner of her vision, Kagerou reflexively turned her eyes from the vial she was so focused on to Severin. She slipped a little just then, if such a thing could be considered an error. Like so many times in the past when they would discuss over research or work, she smiled calmly, ready to patiently listen to whatever Severin had to say. For a moment, standing at this pool side, a tiny thing compared to the great lake that was Kirigakure, studying plants or whatever, she forgot herself.
Of course, she remembered herself in the next few sentences. So it was as she had expected. Severin did forget. Clenching her hands, which rested upon her legs to balance herself as she leaned forwards, Kagerou resisted the urge to pat, her natural reflex for physical contact. She didn't deserve it, anyways. The more she listened, the more she felt like she didn't deserve it. She, like everyone else at the time, was almost impossibly busy, so she didn't learn about Severin's MIA status until the day after, when she finally decided to go check. Then, instead of storming off to find him, she allowed herself to be stopped with stern words and the constant call for more help with one thing or another. Back then, she had made her choice, as she always did, to do what she thought she would regret least. Saving and helping the immediate, bigger matters over holding out a slim hope for a single friend. Alas, no one could live a perfect life, and she regretted that choice now. Making the choice had hurt, but nothing close to the pain Severin had gone through.
A stranger telling this story would not have affected Kagerou's smile, it would not have melted it away into thin, pale lips that firmly held their place, resisting every urge to turn into a grimace or anything else that would better reflect the painful guilt Kagerou felt within her than a blank, uncaring line. Kagerou tried to smile, to hide, but she couldn't. She wasn't that good yet. She had to simply settle for and hope that Severin, who remembered naught about her, wouldn't realize anything was strange. Still, she felt bad that her tightened expression would probably cause no end to Severin's worries, make him question if he had done anything wrong when he hadn't.
Which was why, when he got around to promising that this wasn't some sort of pickup line, Kagerou once again tried her best to give a smile, giving it her all this time. She looked down at Severin, at his glossy hair, his pale skin, his, as she put it earlier, blue-tiful eyes. All of it, very pretty, yes, but more importantly, it was almost like she had remembered. He was still alive. He was still here, and that, she figured, was something she could be happy about. Kagerou gave a sad sort of smile, small and timid if it weren't for the eyes that remained looking steadily down on Severin, "I'm glad..." She didn't want to make this about herself. Severin had survived by his own power and he had made his own life here. She had no right, possibly even no ability to insert herself here anywhere, no matter how much she might have mourned for him, grieved over him. Nonetheless, given this second chance, she could not help but resist promising herself that this time, to whatever extent she could possibly manage, she would make sure to protect him. "... It would have been a pretty terrible pick up line if it was." she finished her line and straightened up.
She was mid-shoulder roll, holding that pose from earlier really made her shoulder stiff, when she froze and stared down at Severin. The cue was obvious. It had been the mention of scars. Inside of her busy little head, Kagerou entertained the idea of actually grabbing Severin by the collar and shaking him vigorously.
Scars?! On his perfect, beautiful, medically trained body?... If they had been on for this long, then removal was likely impossible. He still had so many years, too... So many years of youth and beauty to use his looks as a tool. Now, all of that potential was lost, wasted. Sure, the ladies might go gaga over the scars, but get anyone with more than two brain cells and grounds to be suspicious. The scars were just a liability then, ruining the illusion of the harmless medic, the perfect individual to trust because they were both useful and harmless.
Plus, not to mention, back before Severin's "death," Kagerou had worked so hard to keep Severin scar-free, always going out of her way to make sure he had them treated right, and when her work picked up and she couldn't see him after every mission, she nailed it right smack into his head. After all, he was her friend, and while it might seem like a strange way for a friend to care, it was only normal for Kagerou. Seeing all of that hard effort now lost really made her feel like she would be justified in giving Severin maybe one, tiny little headbutt. Just one.
She held back, however. She was no longer his friend, after all. Not to him at least.
Her eyes stared, all but exploding with concern and frustration, then they blinked and the emotions were under control. "It didn't hurt, did it? When you got wounded and then recovering from it?" Kagerou asked quietly, her emotions under control but still unable to break her stare from Severin's body, as if by looking hard enough she could see through his clothes and assess the damage. Well, perhaps if she was a Hyuuga, that would be possible. Even if she could suppress her comical urge to scream at him for his scars, it appeared she did not have the skill to really hide everything she felt. The pain of her friends had always been her greatest weakness, after all. She almost felt too scared to ask her next question, but she felt she had some kind of responsibility to, as if she deserved the pain of the knowledge, "How long did you have to go without treatment? Even if it was a day after, it shouldn't have been too late to heal the wounds so that they wouldn't scar..." Kagerou could even stretch it to several days longer depending on the injury. It just took more time but she didn't realistically expect a hospital to go that far. Giving up on trying to hide her expression, the space between her eyebrows scrunched and she bit her lower lip, "It must have been hard... I'm sorry..."
What the ending could have been instead except Kagerou is a pruuuuuude.
She was mid-shoulder roll, holding that pose from earlier really made her shoulder stiff, when she dropped everything and immediately bent down again. This time, she really did pull up on Severin's collar, pulling him all the way up when she straightened up. "Scars?! Where?!" she shook him with an aghast expression on her now pale face, very much so making a bigger deal out of this than it really was, but it was kind of a big deal still? Sort of? She vigorously shook him, "Why?!".
Confusing, but she had called herself Severin's fan earlier. Maybe she was just disappointed that such a beautiful body had been marred by scars. Perhaps she was just very, very worried to hear that Severin was injured.
The reality was... actually shallower than that. Scars... on Severin's perfect, beautiful, medically trained body... If they had been on for this long, they were probably impossible to remove, and he still had so many years, too... So many years to potentially use those means for his missions. Now, so much of that potential, lost. Sure, the ladies might like the scars and go gaga over them, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the ideal body was one that didn't elicit any suspicion, that looked as weak as possible, and scars completely ruined that illusion of the harmless medic, the perfect being to trust because they were both useful while not having any means to be dangerous.
Plus, not to mention, back before Severin's "death," Kagerou had worked so hard to keep Severin scar-free. She would always go out of her way. After all, he was her friend. She wanted to see him succeed. While none of that had been done selfishly or with any expectations of any returns, seeing all of that hard effort now lost really did something to her spirit.
"Scars..." Kagerou's head drooped powerlessly, the creation of the Severin milkshake put on hold now. She mumbled something incoherent as her hands dropped and, too depressed to care anymore, she just plopped her forehead onto Severin's chest and made him act as her support wall.
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Severin watched, one eyebrow raised, while Kagerou stared at him with an intensity that could have burned through his clothes. He couldn’t help the soft snort that escaped through his nose as his hand lifted to his mouth to try and cover the poorly stifled smile, his blue eyes glimmering under the dappled light falling through the leaves. Was she always this adorable?
She must have spent so much time as a medic, taking in everything about her patients, that Kagerou had become unaware of just how... easily it could be mistaken for something else. He somehow knew better, something deep inside him knew that she wasn’t here for that. Despite the flirting, despite the compromising look, some deeply buried voice told him she was here out of worry.
Her next string of responses almost confirmed it for him.
Severin’s smile slowly faded and his face became serious. With a soft sigh, the Raigyo made a movement to sit on one of the sturdier containers. He rested his arms on his knees, leaning forward, his bangs slipping in to his eyes as he appeared in thought. A lot of his time in the hospital was a blur, but he remembered the pain. He remembered the fear, the hushed voices of panic, doctors barking orders...
”I was unlucky.” He started, sighing softly. ”I don’t remember much of that time but I’ve been allowed to read the reports; I had been injured for several days before I had arrived at Konoha’s gates. By all means, I should be dead— I had lost about half my blood volume, and a fourth of my body was covered in burns.” He grumbled under his breath something about at least having the sense to protect his face before readjusting where he sat to look at Kagerou.
”Konohagakure was in bad shape when I showed up, the hospital was over capacity and under staffed. I was a John Doe and possibly even an enemy shinobi, I was... less important. The resident doctor assigned to me ******** up, his handiwork was sloppy. So after surviving all that, I nearly died to sepsis. Bad stuff, I don’t recommend it.”
He stopped for a second, then chuckled. ”The fever dreams were a trip though.” The white haired make rose from his feet, putting away some of the samples, his back now turned to the Uchiha while he slid test tubes in to holes in foam.
Keeping his hands busy when he was anxious was a habit for him, so he fiddled with vials and petri dishes and microscope slides as he tried to settle the shaking in his hands. ”He was ultimately fired but the damage had been done. Now here I sit, disfigured... Thank god my patients can’t see under my clothes. I wouldn’t blame them for the things they’d think. What kind of medical shinobi has scars?” He stopped, realizing he was missing a vial and counted them again under his breath... One, two... five... seven... where’d the eighth one go?
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In the smallest of voices, easily lost in the rustling of the autumn leaves as the wind picked up and Severin's own grumblings, Kagerou mumbled an indistinct, "I'm sorry," as she continued to stare at Severin's chest, covered as it may have been, it didn't stop her from imagining what he must have gone through. No matter how many times said, it never felt any amount of apologies would be enough.
When she felt the icy blue eyes peering at her, Kagerou moved her gaze to connect with Severin's. Hidden guilt and the emotion she tried to avoid at all costs, regret, wracked her insides, though they never made it past the shell of her skin. Kagerou didn't feel like she could maintain the eye contact, especially not after hearing about the malpractice case. A widened, red eye twitched... Flinched? It was hard to say with how stiff Kagerou's face had become.
Luckily for her, Severin turned his eyes away first, cleaning up his little research project. Kagerou gladly took the excuse to also turn her eyes elsewhere. She recognized herself that she needed to calm down. The spinning merry go round of causes and effects, things she could have down better, and hindsight 20/20 was distracting her from the real issue at hand.
"Severin has been found. Hurt, but alive. Be happy about that."
First, suppress the urge to find that quack of a doctor and punch him. Then, suppress the urge to punch herself twice. Baby steps.
Finally finding her voice with her calm, Kagerou assured with a smile, a sad smile trying to be as cheery as possible, "Not at all. Some might find the scars scary, but some of the kindest medics I know have them. It's a matter of personal preference and occupation." She knelt down besides Severin as she spoke, bells ringing as she reached over to a spot he hadn't looked to retrieve the missing vial. She could see it in his face that he had been searching for something, just as she could see the shaking of his hands that he tried so hard to hide. How terrifying it must have been, to wake up in an unknown place... an unknown body. Perhaps, he still found it terrifying to this day? She wanted to hug him, comfort him. Assure him everything would be alright, but she no longer had that right. She reached across Severin to place the missing vial in the one empty spot left on the tray.
As the glass bottom clinked against the floor of the tray, Kagerou found the crisp sound not unlike the clear ringing of her bells, but it was different. A different tone, a different sound. A difference that shook her mind and cleared it. Pushed forward by that clear tone, she steeled herself and asked, "You say you don't remember your past... Do you ever wish you can remember?". She stared at their reflections in the pond, remembering all the times she would catch glimpses of hers and Severin's reflections in the water that permeated throughout Kirigakure. She smiled, bittersweet, despite how hard she tried to ask like she was but a stranger.
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A sigh of relief was released as Kagerou found the last vial and placed it in to the holder for him. He finished packing up the rest of his research equipment and then turned to face her fully, his face scrunching up for a moment as he thought. Did he want to remember? That was a loaded question and a loaded answer.
"It depends a lot-- on the day, on how I'm feeling, and so on. Some days I want nothing more than to remember." Standing, he slipped a strap of a bag over his head to rest on one shoulder, looking back over the pond. "I've constantly got this feeling like I'm missing something so important, like I'm missing a part of me. How many people did I leave behind? Is someone out there looking for me? Missing me? Did I have a family?"
Once again, another sigh-- he sighed a lot these days. "But then there are times when I'm so scared of remembering, when my body freezes in fear. Something terrible happened to me, or maybe several terrible things happened. I have nightmares, but they always fade away before I can remember them when I wake.... I don't get a whole lot of sleep. My restless nights outnumber my restful ones."
Severin seemed to blink out of some kind of daze, his eyes widening as he looked back at Kagerou. "Ah... that was really heavy for two people that just met. Sorry, I seem to have a horrible habit of spilling my guts around you."
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When Severin worried that what he said was too heavy, it only made Kagerou try harder to show a smile. "Not at all," Kagerou assured as she stood up, "Well, I guess it is a bit heavy," she laughed a little at her bad choice of words, "but I don't mind." After brushing the mud and dirt off her legs, she looked up.
Her eyes looked out into the distance as she brushed her hands off, red hues unfocused and detached as she thought. "There is definitely someone out there looking for you. Even if everyone else gave up, there will always be that one, and there are even more that miss you," those ruby irises refocused and turned to Severin. She spoke the truth as she knew it. However, to preserve his right to choose, she could not let him know that. To the end, she tacked on, albeit reluctantly, "or at least that's what I believe," giving the illusion that she spoke empty words of optimism.
Nonetheless, if there was one thing Kagerou could do right, it was being needlessly nosy. If there were two things, it was being needlessly nosy and optimistic. Therefore, optimistically, she suggested, "The choice is something you need to make, but... if you don't mind the advice of a stranger you just met, I think you should slowly try to remember. At your own pace, of course. It sounds like on a good day, you want to remember, but on bad days, you're scared of what you don't remember. If you can't stop fearing the unknown, then maybe it's better to know what it is?".
"But like I said, the choice is yours," Kagerou reasserted, shrugging casually as she put her hands in the front pockets of her hoodie.
The last words were left to linger in the air between the two before Kagerou interrupted the silence herself. Like the weighted conversation of prior didn't just happen, the teenager gave a sudden, lighthearted grin, "But hey, since you feel sorry for just laying that all down on me, how about taking me out for dinner after I help you sort out your samples?". Her eyes crinkled up with her smile as she leaned to a side, body relaxing and tension releasing. Extending a hand, Kagerou asked to seal the deal, "How's that sound? Ramen is great and all, but I could really go for trying out some of the other good stuff in Konoha. A guide will be nice."
What Kagerou really wanted was to hug him. Just envelop him in all the warmth his cold, sad soul needed and bring him back to Kiri where she could chuck him at Inka and show him. Show him that despite all the emotional torment the blasted kage gave her dear friend, he was the one, even more than the missing one's own best friend, who believed Severin was still alive. That had to mean something, right?
However, a stranger couldn't do that. She couldn't do that. Therefore, at least for now, she would be satisfied with Severin simply accepting her hand.
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Trees grew in every direction as far as the eyes can see, standing tall and proud with their majestic crowns of bold reds and warm oranges. The occasional sapling grew among these robust trunks, protected by their elders but also boasting their own lively assortments of autumn leaves. Standing in this forest, beneath leaves that appeared to set the very sky on fire, was quite the impressionable experience to have in the Village Hidden in Leaves within the Country of Fire.
