[Broadcast Mind] All work and no play...
It’s all so very neat. You’re neat yourself, the dress shirt nicely pressed beneath the sweater vest, the tie so perfectly straight, properly tied, the jeans pressed stiff and wrinkle-free, the sneakers worn but so very clean.
It’s all so very neat. Each table in the room is perfectly clear of dust or grime, sterilized and smelling of some lemon-scented cleansing agent.
You pause to lean down and sniff at it, as you pass, because no one’s in the room with you and it’s perfectly okay to engage in a little weirdness when no one can see. Right? Right. It’s just for a moment, just the smallest of pauses and then you’ll be right back to work.
The work smells less nice.
It’s far less clean too. Your gloved hands confidently investigate the corpse, the blood and other bodliy fluids sticking to and sliding over the latex of the gloves no longer bothering you, as long as they stay off your skin.
You like to keep your hands clean, even though you know it doesn’t help, doesn’t make a difference in the long run.
Your hands - and they’re small, you’re small even for a fifteen-year-old boy, one who hasn’t quite finished growing and doesn’t seem destined to be very large anyway - are efficient in their movements, as you repeat the steps you saw the Kairoushuu’s investigator performing just a little while ago.
You’re not supposed to be here. It’s dark, and late, and this particular mystery has already been solved. The body lying here on the table before you was indeed killed by ninja techniques, and the details have already been figured out, categorized.
Tomorrow, yourself and your partner will go out to find the killers, and the sword shall fall in the name of justice, as the punishment force works to protect those of the surface world that you’ve long since left.
Tonight, however, only half the lights on in the lab, you close your senses against the chemical smells, against the organic stench beneath, against the realities of death. You close your senses against the knowledge that this man - for a man he was, a normal everyday man who happened to offend a ninja - had a life, perhaps a family, perhaps reasons for wanting to stay alive more than anything.
You close your senses to everything around you, until...
Suddenly, there’s a book flying toward your head. Your reflexes aren’t good enough to catch it, and besides you’re trying so hard not to think about anything but learning, learning, learning... so you don’t have a single moment to struggle before you’re being dragged by your collar (wow you wish you hadn’t worn a tie, that chokes quite a bit) to the sound of a voice beginning a tirade.
“You are entirely too young for this, and I told you that I didn’t approve of teenage boys dealing with this morbid sort of thing anyway, and I AM HEREBY BANNING YOU FROM THIS LAB UNTIL YOUR EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME GAU...”
[Gau wakes up choking on laughter and tears with the memory...]
It’s all so very neat. Each table in the room is perfectly clear of dust or grime, sterilized and smelling of some lemon-scented cleansing agent.
You pause to lean down and sniff at it, as you pass, because no one’s in the room with you and it’s perfectly okay to engage in a little weirdness when no one can see. Right? Right. It’s just for a moment, just the smallest of pauses and then you’ll be right back to work.
The work smells less nice.
It’s far less clean too. Your gloved hands confidently investigate the corpse, the blood and other bodliy fluids sticking to and sliding over the latex of the gloves no longer bothering you, as long as they stay off your skin.
You like to keep your hands clean, even though you know it doesn’t help, doesn’t make a difference in the long run.
Your hands - and they’re small, you’re small even for a fifteen-year-old boy, one who hasn’t quite finished growing and doesn’t seem destined to be very large anyway - are efficient in their movements, as you repeat the steps you saw the Kairoushuu’s investigator performing just a little while ago.
You’re not supposed to be here. It’s dark, and late, and this particular mystery has already been solved. The body lying here on the table before you was indeed killed by ninja techniques, and the details have already been figured out, categorized.
Tomorrow, yourself and your partner will go out to find the killers, and the sword shall fall in the name of justice, as the punishment force works to protect those of the surface world that you’ve long since left.
Tonight, however, only half the lights on in the lab, you close your senses against the chemical smells, against the organic stench beneath, against the realities of death. You close your senses against the knowledge that this man - for a man he was, a normal everyday man who happened to offend a ninja - had a life, perhaps a family, perhaps reasons for wanting to stay alive more than anything.
You close your senses to everything around you, until...
Suddenly, there’s a book flying toward your head. Your reflexes aren’t good enough to catch it, and besides you’re trying so hard not to think about anything but learning, learning, learning... so you don’t have a single moment to struggle before you’re being dragged by your collar (wow you wish you hadn’t worn a tie, that chokes quite a bit) to the sound of a voice beginning a tirade.
“You are entirely too young for this, and I told you that I didn’t approve of teenage boys dealing with this morbid sort of thing anyway, and I AM HEREBY BANNING YOU FROM THIS LAB UNTIL YOUR EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME GAU...”
[Gau wakes up choking on laughter and tears with the memory...]