Dragonfly

Chapter Twelve: Boredom Is A Dangerous Thing

For the next few months, I continued to work at the hospital and learned a few more handy life skills-I mean, knowing how to handle panicking patients and having to hold them down the proper way for them to get an immediate amputation was pretty important.

Only joking. They used anaesthetic for that.

(Who would hack off someone's limb without proper preparations, anyway? Actually, scratch that-some of the patients who came in with just bloody stumps had been victims of that. Shinobi didn't always have access to a sterile, safe environment and the tools needed for that type of thing, and sort of...just did it.)

Itachi was a part of ANBU, by now. Things continued to spiral downward with the clan and everyone was stressed out and worried, as usual. Sometimes I felt a little guilty about having all of this useful information but no way to really apply it and help out.

My goal was still to die-as morbid as that was-and see if it was at all possible to be reborn back into my own world. My own home. For all I knew, it was like some luck-of-the-draw lottery or Russian roulette where my little wayward soul was shot into another universe at random. I mean, I didn't exactly pick this world, to begin with. My hands were sort of tied in the matter.

I could only hope.

Working at the hospital kept me from causing too much trouble, much to everyone's relief. There wasn't really time to start up another bug-fighting betting circle, or even to try fishing in the canal again-the police department finally took down the signs, but I had a feeling it was still prohibited.

Itachi and Shisui were busy, like-super busy. I figured it would be a long, long while before I got to see either of them again. It was even rare to see Sasuke these days, because I couldn't snag another day off.

The longer I worked in the hospital, though, the less the patients around my age professed their undying affection for me. Apparently word got around and I'd been given quite a bad reputation as an ice-cold heartbreaker that would reject everyone. No idea where the "ice cold" part came from-I was always super affable with everyone! Even when I was crushing their hearts to pieces (hey, it's called a crush for a reason).

I managed to make a name for myself no matter where I went. But, it always worked out in my favor.

"Hey, Junichi."

It was an unusually boring day in the building, with a lull in the number of incoming patients and a dwindling number that were currently under our care. Halfway through the day, I'd already taken care of most of my duties and Junichi had, too, so all we were left with was free time to sit around doing...well, nothing. Until one of the patients called for us or a new one was rushed in. If the head nurse or medics happened to walk by, naturally we pretended to take care of paperwork and all that fun stuff, but otherwise time was filled with idle games of tic-tac-toe and bland pharmaceutical magazine browsing.

I would have looked for something fun to do in the hospital, but the first-and last-time I'd tried anything (surfing on the nurses' carts through the hallways) I almost got a concussion.

I almost got fired, too.

Talking to Junichi was all I had left to do.

Well, teasing him, really. He was sort of boring for an older teenager and there was a lot to criticize.

"Um, what?" He looked up from the mirror he was fawning over, fixing up his short, brown bangs and trying to find a new dorky hairstyle or something, and half-grimaced with uncertainty. We got along-we did-but he wasn't used to my bullying yet.

It was just how I showed affection.

"What the heck are you doing? Primping for a date tonight?"