The computer program

13. Tobirama and Madara

I jerked as something jingled above my head.

"What was that?" I exclaimed.

And there went my one shot at a cool, calm and collected first impression.

I looked up, and above my head was a bell made of brass attached so that it chimed every time someone entered the door. Why would you do that?

"That's a doorbell."

The voice was soft, tender. I looked up and saw a man of roughly the same shape, size and colour as Izuna, but their faces were very different. This man's face was more angular, not as soft as Izuna's, yet it managed to display a kindness that immediately made me calm down.

"Why?" I asked, which I knew was a strange follow-up question to "That's a doorbell".

"For me to hear if anyone comes in if I'm in the back", the man said. He was holding a beautiful bridal bouquet of pastel pinks, corals and greens. "Also, it makes me happy. Hello, Tobirama. Nice to finally meet you."

It struck me then that the man in front of me had operated on me, implanted the chip in my brain. Or Hermes' brain. He was, without a doubt, a skilled neurosurgeon.

"Thank you for giving me a body", I said. I was still standing in the doorway of his flower shop, not quite daring to come in. He looked oddly comfortable to be a man who had a computer program in his shop. I wonder if anything could ever displace this man. He was, in that sense, Izuna's opposite. A calm bay whereas Izuna was the storming ocean.

Maybe, I was a pier in between them?

"Oh, it was all Izuna. I only did what I was told to do."

"I'm here because I'm worried about him."

I expected Madara to look confused, to ask me why, and then dismiss me exactly the way Izuna had. To my great surprise, he didn't. Instead he sighed, put the bouquet down on his desk, sat down on a chair.

"Me as well", he said.

I tentatively came closer. It hit me full-force what it actually meant that this man had performed neurosurgery on me, that he was responsible for my life, and something within me clicked into place as I realised how intimate the situation was.

"What's your favourite colour?" he asked suddenly.

I decided to just go with it and not linger on the strangeness of the question.

"Green", I said, without having to think; I knew this was a common question so I had put a great deal of thought about what colours were pleasant to me. "I also like white, because snow is beautiful. I wish I could see it at some point."

"You will", Madara said and got up again, opened the glass door of the fridge full with cut flowers behind him.

And after some thought, he started assembling something.

"Tell me", he said.

And I did.

I told him everything that had happened, leaving out the sex I had witnessed out of respect for Izuna's privacy. I told him everything Hashirama had said, what his plan was including the code I couldn't crack, not because I didn't understand how I would go about it but because it was unbreakable. And all the while, Madara assembled a bouquet of dark greens and whites. His brows were deeply furrowed, but out of concern or concentration as he assembled, I couldn't tell. In fact, his facial expression didn't change as I told him that Hashirama had planned to kill his little brother to use his body, which made me worried that Madara didn't believe me. Ice cold dread grabbed at my heart as I realised that I would be completely alone if he didn't.