Dragonfly

Chapter Ten: Grey's Anatomy

Naturally, shinobi training with Satoshi didn't take. But, really, did you expect it to...?

I was a natural slacker, even if I had a semi-motivated spirit; my laziness won out in the end and kunoichi life started to lose its luster. Satoshi never brought it up again, and I was left to my peace for the next two years.

It was a bit worrying.

Satoshi and Emiko weren't looking too sprightly, lately-clan tensions continued to rise and, soon, I was sure Itachi would become a chūnin and be ordered to enter ANBU by Fugaku, since the next exam was coming up and he was around that age.

Then, it was only a matter of time... it was a countdown.

If I could do it without seeming crazy (and I did have my limits), I'd string up a huge banner counting down the few short years that I had left in this lifetime. As it was, I just had a calendar.

There wasn't much to do but wait until that Fated Day came around.

In all actuality, I was...well, pretty much a bum. A NEET. Being a slacker kid at age twelve, even as a civilian, was considered something kind of negative. Even normal children were apprenticed in some type of trade or art by now. But me? There wasn't anything I wanted to do. So, Emiko had me take care of minor chores for the local housewives and busy kunoichi within the compound. Shopping, some babysitting, house cleaning, even a little cooking (with constant supervision-people still had trouble trusting me not to ruin everything).

At least she never brought up the marriage issue again.

Even so, during one of my grocery runs for one of the pregnant clan mothers, I ran into quite the interesting opportunity.

"Hey! You!"

I almost didn't stop, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I found a generic-looking, dark-haired guy dressed in hospital scrubs approaching me and shaking a flyer stamped with a large (and ugly) Leaf symbol, looking completely desperate. His pathetic expression totally read like he'd chase me down if I ignored him so I didn't have much choice but to stop and see what the deal was.

But...just to make sure, I glanced over my shoulders to check that no one else would respond before pointing vaguely at myself. "Me?"

"Yeah, you!"

He crossed his arms and looked me up and down, maybe checking for ninja gear or a forehead protector or something-kind of started to weird me out because he was looking at me pretty intently for an adult staring down a preteen and if he tried anything funny I did know how to defend myself. I'd learned at least that much from Satoshi and Kou. But, to be fair, he only looked about five or six years my senior, still a teenager himself. Still definitely a kid to me.

"You don't look like you have anything to do. How would you like to become an assistant at our village hospital?

I looked like I didn't have anything to do? Rude. I was taking care of chores! But...I guess I did look a little bored with it all. It'd been a while since I was able to stir up any fun, what with Emiko keeping me so busy with all this running around. And I didn't even get paid for it! I crossed my arms, mimicking the man, and tilted my head. "An assistant? Like, to a doctor? A nurse? What's the catch?"

Scrubs guy shook his head. "No, no catch. It's just-we need some help lately. Someone to help work the front desk, someone to aid the nurses with clean-up and check-ups, dealing with minor things. It's not difficult and you'll get paid for your services!"

"Paid?" I grinned. "How much are we talkin'?"

He scratched at his hair as he straightened up, looking towards the sky. "Not much, but it's not a little, either. Five-hundred ryō an hour is reasonable, right? ...I mean, it's better than asking for voluntary commitment. No one ever comes around when we mention volunteer work."