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Corybantic Dance	By : fantards Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 844 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Disclaimer:
Naruto is not our toy, although
sometimes we wish it was. Almost everyone you meet here belongs to
Masashi Kishimoto, we just borrow them, occasionally. Hayate's
parents, Gekkou Ken'ichirou and Gekkou Shizuka, belong to Haya Madison,
and Genma's mother, Shiranui Riza, is all Penbrydd's fault.
Author's
Note: Penbrydd sincerely wishes that Genma would quit throwing
up � the constant puke spatters against the inside of his skull are
making it hard to eat anything.
The
Wryly Fantarding Q&A panel for Corybantic Dance is still located
at wrylyfantarding. livejournal. com / 5948. html
Warnings: Violence, expletives, eventual yaoi
(KoIzu, KoIzuRai (more funny than sexy), GenHaya).
***
Chapter Five

Hayate was glad that, for
once, his father wasn't home when he leaned his bike against the
faded brick wall of his house. He figured his dad was still at work,
but he found no note about when he'd be
returning. Not knowing how long it'd be until his dad was home
to cook, Hayate dropped his backpack on the kitchen floor and opened
his literature textbook on the table. He rummaged around in the
nearly bare fridge for a moment -- maybe his dad was out doing
grocery shopping -- and produced a half-empty jar of peanut butter,
missing its cap with a spoon stuck in it. A very cold spoon, he
learned as he tried to jerk it out with his bare hand. Rubbing his
palm on his pants leg, he pulled it out more carefully and set the
jar next to his textbook, carefully licking the spoon as he read.
An
hour or two and several spoonfuls of peanut butter later, Hayate
heard the front door open and shut. He looked up as his father
entered the kitchen carrying several grocery bags. "Hi, Dad,"
he said thickly around a mouthful of peanut butter. He swallowed and
sucked at the roof of his mouth, and his father frowned.
"Please
put the peanut butter away, Hayate, I'm going to make dinner soon."

He dumped the grocery bags on the table with a tired sigh, shaking
his head. "How was your day today? Anything happen?"
"Not
really." Hayate cleaned the spoon of all traces of peanut butter
before sticking it back in the jar. His chair scraped against the
linoleum floor loudly in the otherwise silent kitchen as he got up to
put the peanut butter away.
"Really? Absolutely nothing
of interest happened today? Didn't you have chess club today?"
All Mr. Gekkou got was a noncommittal shrug from his son as the
refrigerator door closed, and he gave another sigh, this one notably
wearier. "Come on, Hayate. At least tell me about your day.
Every time I ask I always get one and two word answers."
Hayate
looked vaguely apologetic as he sat back down, sniffling. "Um...well,
today I got asked to join another club," he offered slowly. His
father looked somewhat relieved.
"See? That's something."
Leaving the groceries for later, he sat down opposite his son on the
table and pushed the bags to the side so there was nothing between
them. "What club was it?"
"Tech. For
theatre."
"And?" His father raised an eyebrow.

"Are you going to join?"
"I don't know yet."
Hayate fiddled idly with the drawstring on his sweatshirt. "Maybe.
They said I could think about it for a little while."
"Well,
I know I'm just your father, and my opinion doesn't count for
anything," Mr. Gekkou started off wryly, "but I personally
think you should take them up on the offer. I had a few friends in
theatre tech back in college. You learn some interesting things doing
that. And," he added, his tone somewhat more careful now, "I
think that joining another club would do you some
good."
"Yeah...yeah, I know." Hayate shifted a
little uncomfortably in his chair. "I said I'm thinking about
it."
"I know, I heard you." His father patted
Hayate's arm and got to his feet again. "Just thought I'd offer
my two cents. Now let's you and me tackle these groceries,
hm?"
The pen that Genma was chewing on was no longer
even recognisably a pen. Instead, it was a gnawed and twisted strip
of plastic with which it might still be possible to write. It was
also the sole and only sign of the truly ridiculous amount of strain
that Genma was under. He'd sent Izumo to go ask Hayate to take one of
the props slots, but he really didn't think the kid would do it. He
stopped trying to tie the pen into a knot with his tongue as the
backstage door opened, and the Caffeine Twins entered. Kotetsu was
trying to grope Izumo as they walked, and kept getting his hands
slapped away. Izumo shoved Kotetsu in Genma's direction and then
stormed off across the stage with what appeared to be murderous
intent. Genma was suddenly extremely pleased that he hadn't had the
misfortune of pissing that boy off.
"The kid says maybe.
Best we could do." Kotetsu shrugged, almost sympathetically.

"You really have to sleep, Genma. You look like shit. Why is
this so fucking important to you?"
"I don't know. I
almost wish I did." Genma shook his head and then cursed as a
trickle of blue ink ran down his chin. He caught it with his hand,
and spit the pen into the nearest trash bin. "Oh, gross. I swear
they make ink taste bad on purpose." He tried to mop the ink off
his face with his hands, but that just left him with ink-stained
hands. "Ko, go open the bathroom door for me. I don't want to
get ink on the handle. It'll end up on somebody's costume."
"I
think this is your clue to stop chewing on pens, Genma. That's really
fucking nasty." Kotetsu sniffed and led the way across backstage
to hold the door.
"Not the first time. Probably not the
last, either." Genma spit into the sink and then washed his face
and hands. "It's an old habit. I feel funny without something in
my mouth."
"Suck a bit too much cock growing up?
Maybe I should be glad you didn't take an interest in me, after
seeing what you did to that pen..." Kotetsu raised an
eyebrow.
"Oh, fuck off, Ko." Genma dried his face
with paper towels.
"I know no 'off' to fuck. And besides,
I think Izumo might get jealous." Kotetsu could not stop
teasing.
"Oh, are you finally fucking, then? I wondered
how long it would take." Shrugging, Genma checked his teeth in
the mirror, to make sure they weren't still blue.
"My
business. Not yours," Kotetsu snarled.
Genma smiled,
meeting Kotetsu's eyes in the mirror. "Point and game to
me."
"Bastard."
By Wednesday, Genma
looked worse than he had on Friday. His skin had gone sallow and his
eyes were dark and sunken. Still, he looked perfectly calm and
controlled, except for today's gnawed and twisted pen. He'd
remembered to take the ink out of this one before he put it in his
mouth. He'd taken to tearing into the techs, always in a perfectly
reasonable tone of voice, and even Kotetsu had started to step back
when he walked past. He could hear the whispers -- 'Stage manager's
got PMS' and 'Who pissed in his Cheerios?' -- but he couldn't care.
His chest hurt. He could feel the wind across the tips of his
collapsed ribs, even with a sweatshirt on. Of course, this was
because there was no wind, and his chest was fine -- but he'd still
taken to wearing a flannel shirt over the last few days. He was
sweating like mad, but still freezing.
Wednesday afternoon, he
cornered Izumo. "You were right. I've caught some strange and
foreign disease. Didn't even have to fuck for it."
Izumo
rolled his eyes, moving to shove Genma away. "You're not sick,
dumbass, and if you are, it's only because you haven't fucking slept
in a week. You need to chill out before you incapacitate
yourself."
"I'm not going to die from it. I'm
probably not even sick." That might have been a lie. Genma
hadn't been keeping much food down, either. "I just have this
pain in my chest, and I can't sleep. It's nothing serious. I've seen
serious, and this is not it."
"You're sick from
stress," Izumo informed him. "Go home and jerk off or
something." He turned his head as he heard someone yelling for
him, a fleeting look of irritation crossing his face.
"Hey,
Izumo, Kotetsu?" It was Aoba. Of course. "Someone's here at
the door for you guys!"
Izumo shook his head and sighed,
turning away from Genma to head for the door. Genma's face lit up --
a truly unpleasant image, in his current condition. He grabbed Aoba
by the shoulders. "How bad, man? How bad do I look, and does it
look repairable?"
Aoba tried to delicately pry Genma's
fingers away from himself. He failed in that respect and resorted to
just shoving him back. "Um..."
Izumo gave Genma a
warning look. "Genma, go backstage. You're a horrific wreck, and
frankly, you're a little bit terrifying. To us. If you jump
out at him, you're going to scare him shitless. I don't know if he
even knows you're here. So just...go backstage and...I don't
know. Do something useful."
Kotetsu stared back at Genma
for a moment as he followed Izumo to the door. If this was that
wheezy kid, maybe Genma would stop looking sick and snapping at
people. It was not easy to have a mentor who was too busy returning
his lunch to offer good advice. Aoba just shook his head and dragged
Genma backstage, leaving the two of them to deal with the kid at the
door.
Izumo would not admit to anyone, not even Kotetsu, how
relieved he was to see that it was Hayate. The kid looked a
little antsy and uneasy, shifting his weight from foot to foot,
like he might bolt any second now, but he was there.
Izumo gave him the most reassuring and friendly smile he could manage
under the circumstances and pulled the door open all the way. "Hey,
kiddo. Glad to see you made it."
Hayate offered what was
probably supposed to be a nervous smile, but really just made him
look slightly terrified. He coughed, shuffling slowly through the
door. "Um. Hi. Uhm, it's not...uh, it's not too late for me to
join still, is it?"
"Fuck no, it ain't. Come on in.
I'll go fetch the stage manager. Don't let him spook you -- I think
he's just caught something, recently. He's not usually this bitchy."

Kotetsu held up his hands and backed up a few steps. "Izumo, you
good to show him around while I take care of this?"
"Yeah,
sure." Izumo nodded, putting a hand on Hayate's shoulder. "Come
on, Hayate. I'll take you up to the catwalks. You ever been on a
theatre catwalk before? No? Awesome." He nodded to Kotetsu, who
was quickly heading for the stage.
Backstage, Genma had glared
irritatedly at Aoba for a few moments before bolting for the john.
"Out of my waaaay! Throwing up now!" He slammed through the
bathroom door and dropped to his knees in front of a toilet seconds
before what was left of his lunch made its second appearance of the
day. He thought he'd already put it all back, but apparently, that
was not the case.
Aoba sighed, holding a hand against his face
as he leaned against the doorway of the bathroom. "You know,
maybe you should go home. Or not meet the kid. Or both. I
think you'll just scare him away or something."
"Mouthwash."

Genma shook his head and clutched at his chest, panting. "I'm
fine. Nothing wrong here. Mouthwash." He dragged himself to his
feet and flushed the toilet as Kotetsu stopped just shy of the
door.
"It's him." He took another look at Genma.
"Oh, hell no. Did you just puke again?"
Genma
nodded, and Kotetsu pushed past Aoba. "Mouthwash and ..."
Kotetsu searched his brain for the things he'd need. "Translucent..."
He looked at Genma, carefully, "510. Also a sponge and some
concealer. Go hit up one of the girls. We've got a couple of minutes
-- Izumo's got the kid up on the cats."
Aoba grunted as
he fished the mouthwash out of his bag. Much to the sheer bafflement
of everyone else, he always seemed to have a full set of toiletries
and hair products tucked away in his bag. "Hey, wouldn't it be a
better idea not to let him near the frosh? In case he pukes
again or something?"
"He's not contagious, and this
isn't just going to go away. Besides, I think he's empty."

Kotetsu handed the mouthwash to Genma, who proceeded to make thorough
use of it. "You ever seen lovesick, Aoba? 'Cause I haven't, but
I think this might be it."
"Fuck you. A lot. With no
lube." Genma's sense of humour seemed to be returning, if only
slightly. "Concealer. Good call." He nodded and then
started to wash his face and hands. At the very least, he should be
clean.
"Lovesick? Yeah, I'm not seeing that." Aoba
squinted at Genma. "I'm seeing more the stress, and maybe too
much bottled up lust. He wants to dick a frosh and he hasn't had the
chance yet. And now that the frosh is in tech, he's
all...excited. I guess you could say. Shit, I don't know."
Kotetsu
body checked Genma as the stage manager lunged. "Aoba,
seriously. Concealer. Translucent 510. We're running out of time."

He grabbed Genma and leaned into him -- under other circumstances, it
might not have worked, but Genma was just too tired and underfed to
put up much of a fight. "Down, Genma. Pull your shit together.
We got you your Christmas present, and we even got him early. Now
calm the fuck down before you scare him off. We'll clean up your face
a bit, and then I'll take you out to see him, all right?"
Genma
sagged a bit as the fight went out of him. "Right. Nice.
Respectable. Presentable." He shook his head. "I don't know
how that fucktard keeps pushing every goddamn button I have."
Aoba
shot him an irritated look, stuffing the mouthwash back into his bag.
"Hey, I lent you my mouthwash and I'm getting you your makeup.
Quit shoving me around like I'm the frosh." He turned and
headed off for the green room, looking considerably
ruffled.
"Breathe, Genma. Not worth it. You know he's
always been like that." Kotetsu eyed Genma critically. "Give
me the flannel. It clashes." Too tired to argue with the one
person in the department he knew he could trust in an emergency,
Genma stripped off the flannel shirt and handed it over. Kotetsu
sighed and untucked the half of Genma's shirt that was stuffed in his
pants. "You're really bad. I know it's something about this kid
that's got you all fucked up, but nobody gets like this about dick.
Especially not you. You could have almost anything that walks -- some
kid with a big dick might be a prize, but you've got more sense than
this. What's really going on, here, man?"
"I don't
fucking know. I feel like shit --"
"You look like
shit, too. That's not normal."
"It's every fucking
flu I didn't catch, these last few years. I don't fucking know."

Genma waved his hand dismissively.
"I still say it's the stress," Aoba said as
he returned with the makeup. "Okay, listen, before you freak out
on me, okay? I'm trying not to piss you off here." He
sighed a little, letting Kotetsu take the makeup back.
Kotetsu
nodded his thanks. "Ass on the counter, Genma. Give me something
to work with."
Genma hopped up and backed up into the
mirror. He was about as well lit as he was going to get. He glanced
at Aoba. "Sorry, man. It's the puking. Throwing up makes me
bitchy."
Kotetsu climbed onto the counter, kneeling
across Genma's lap, and tilted the stage manager's head back, so he
could see what he was doing. He hissed in irritated disgust, but
started working, anyway. Aoba just shook his head, rubbing his
forehead.
"You said the kid like...what was it...he
confuses you, right?" he started. "'Cause you can't figure
him out? Man, I've known you since middle school. You can't stand not
being able to figure something out that interests you. I remember
when you lost two weeks of sleep trying to put together that
supposedly unsolvable jigsaw puzzle in seventh grade. This is like
the same thing. You can't put him together, and it's driving you
crazy."
"You're probably right. I don't know.
There's something there. I can hear it in the back of my head, but I
can't make out the words." Genma tried not to move as Kotetsu
tried to clean up the huge black smears under his eyes.
"Yeah."

Aoba nodded, reaching under his sunglasses to rub underneath his
eyes. "Well, hey. I don't know if you even want to hear my
advice, but here it is anyway. That jigsaw puzzle in seventh grade --
you spent two weeks awake trying to solve it before you finally just
passed out. Someone told you to give it a little time, and you did --
and then it came to you. Well, I mean, I know it's tough right now,
but maybe you should do the same thing here. Stop thinking so hard
about it and just let it sit. The harder you try, the more it's going
to elude you, right? Maybe right now you should focus more on making
sure the kid stays in tech."
Kotetsu rested one forearm
across Genma's throat as he used the other hand to blend the
concealer. "Don't fucking move. I felt that twitch. Don't
fucking move."
"That would, oddly enough, be why I'm
not allowed to look like shit, right now. I just have to go make sure
he's real. Stupid? Yes. Vital? Also yes. I don't make up the rules, I
just follow them when I know what they are." Genma spoke through
his teeth, trying to move nothing that was not absolutely necessary
to the act of speaking. Kotetsu nodded and climbed off him.
"Get
up and lean all the way over, face over the sink. I don't want to get
this shit on your shirt." Kotetsu gestured with his finger as he
wiped off his hands and picked up the bottle of powder. "I
fucking hope I'm right about the colour you're supposed to
be..."
Aoba largely ignored Kotetsu's makeup commentary,
leaning against the wall as he talked to Genma. "Yeah, well, I'm
just saying. After it ends today, I think you should go home and get
some sleep. We're all gonna try and make the new kid feel welcome
here. I mean, I know it was your idea to have him in tech and for
your own reasons, but I think it'd be good to have more freshmen in
tech. Always need new generations and all that stuff." He tapped
his fingers against the wall behind him. "Maybe we'll take him
to dinner tonight when we all go. Hey, do you want to go too, Genma,
or are you just gonna head home after?"
Genma couldn't
speak for a few moments; the cloud of powder around his face was a
bit thick for breathing. Once Kotetsu let him stand again, and
started doing the final cleanup with the sponge, he thought about
food. "I'm fucking starving. Ravenous. Like extra-large pizza by
myself hungry. So, yeah, I want to eat. I might even manage to be
properly sociable once my stomach contains something other than bile
and regret. However, I'm still not sure it won't come back up. Lemme
go have this conversation, and then I'll give you a straight answer,
whatsay?"
Kotetsu stepped back and examined his work. "I
think we're go."
Aoba gave Genma a proper look and
blinked. "Whoah. Okay, yeah, benefits of being on makeup duty
for performances are definitely interesting ones." He reached
over and patted Genma on the shoulder, an awkward apology. "I
think they're probably still on the cats. Kotetsu, you go on up with
Genma. I'm gonna go talk to Yamanaka to let him know we've got a new
kid on props."
"I'm on it. Catch you for dinner."

Kotetsu dragged Genma out with him to the catwalks, leaving Aoba in
the bathroom alone with the makeup and the mouthwash.
"Ko,
I'm fucking nervous." Genma wasn't sure he'd even be heard at
that volume, but if there was an embarrassing admission to be made,
Kotetsu could hear it through three feet of battleship steel.
"Don't
worry about it. Izumo's up there with him. Izumo's got all the tact
-- all of it. I'm pretty sure he got yours and mine, too, the lousy
fuck." Kotetsu patted Genma reassuringly as they ascended into
the loft.
"If he's a lousy fuck, what are you still doing
with him?" Genma joked. Sense of humour definitely coming
back.
"Pigfucker." Kotetsu punched Genma in the
back, forcing the stage manager through the door to the catwalks.
"Izumo? I found him!"
Izumo turned away from Hayate
and his explanation of whatever had been the topic of discussion,
calling down from the opposite end of the catwalk. "Oh yeah?
Great, come on over here! I was just telling him about what we do in
the booth!"
Kotetsu grabbed the back of Genma's shirt.

"Breathe. And let me go first."
Genma nodded and
swallowed, letting Kotetsu push past him and lead the way across the
cats. He kept his head down, looking through the mesh floor at the
stage below.
"So, ah, kid -- what the fuck is your name,
I keep forgetting? -- I think you know our stage manager. Everyone
does." Kotetsu leaned aside and pointed up at Genma who was
managing suave fairly well, considering that he thought he might puke
again.
"Hi." Genma waved. "Yeah, I know this
one. How are you, kid?"
Hayate's eyes widened slightly,
and for a moment he looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Genma...stage manager? Izumo and Kotetsu had failed to mention
that.
Oh, he was well and properly screwed.
"Um --
hi," he said, decidedly awkwardly, but managed to catch the look
off his own face and go back to looking as he usually did. Izumo
raised an eyebrow at Kotetsu discreetly, a silent comment on the job
he'd done on Genma's face.
"So, I hear you're our new
props f--" Genma stopped himself. One did not say 'props fag' to
the new kid. "-- guy. Hope you're just as stubborn as I think
you are. You'll probably need it. Actors are a flaky bunch of
assholes, one and all, and they lose shit." Stretching
lazily, Genma arranged himself attractively. Regardless of the
strain, some things always worked properly -- the sexy stretch among
them. Kotetsu could feel it happen, and found himself exceptionally
glad that he was not facing Genma. Yeah, he wanted to study that, to
learn it, but now was not the time to get caught staring.
Izumo
coughed pointedly at Genma, and Hayate just seemed to shift his
weight from foot to foot. "Um," he said, clearly lacking a
good deal of eloquence just then, and looked at Izumo. "What do
I do now?"
"Now, you go back downstairs and help
Anko not kill someone over a missing prop. The table's all taped up,
so you know where everything belongs when it's not in use. If
something's missing, and it isn't on the list for the scene being
run, you go tell Anko, and she'll tell you what to do about it."

Genma stuffed his hands in his pockets and backed up a few steps.
"Good to have you on. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go
make sure nothing's on fire."
Kotetsu raised both
eyebrows at Izumo. Do I stay or do I go with him?
Izumo
shook his head as Genma left. Stay here. The kid looked
slightly nervous. Izumo patted him on the shoulder. "Come on,
we'll introduce you to Anko, and stick around there for a bit. I take
it you've met Genma before. He's a pretty good guy, and he's not a
bad stage manager, either." He wondered to himself just why his
mouth was going out of its way to put it in a good word for Genma.
All so he could bang some sickly little frosh? This entire thing was
way beyond him.
Hayate just nodded, looking a little relieved.
"Thank you," he said, and the sentiment seemed
sincere.
Genma wandered back down from the loft and caught
Anko. "Hey, got you some more help. He's up on the cats, getting
the grand tour, but he'll be down in a sec."
"That's
great, Genma. I don't have enough hands for this." Anko leaned
around Genma, hand on his shoulder as she shouted at another props
tech. "Frankie, you fuckwit! Don't just leave shit on the table!
Put it where it fucking goes!" She stepped back and looked up at
Genma. "Airheads. I hope this new one isn't like the witless
morons I have."
"He's a good kid, Anko." Genma
took a deep breath, weighing his interests against his intent. "Two
things I want clear, now. You don't yell at the new kid. You don't

hit on the new kid, either. Not yours."
"What
is he, then, yours?" Anko was walking a very fine line. She
liked to push Genma -- liked to see how hard she could push before he
pushed back. Usually, it took days, but the past few days it had
taken only minutes.
"Yes." Genma rarely looked
intimidating, but this was one of those very few times. He stared
Anko down, and then turned and walked away as if nothing at all had
transpired. He smacked Frankie up the back of the head as he passed,
on principle. The sophomore let out a whining sound, but no actual
complaint, and Anko clenched her jaw and made a bitter face at
Genma's retreating back.
"The fuck does he want with some
kid, anyway?" she muttered, glaring at Frankie until he left the
green room. "Yeah, go on, keep running," she called after
him, a bit of a smirk to her voice, and shook her head as she went
back to organizing the table.
"Whoah there, man."

Izumo narrowly avoided being slammed into by the retreating
sophomore, looking up at Anko. She seemed to be in a crazy, bitchy
mood -- but then she usually was. Why, exactly, had Genma assigned
this little slip of a kid to work with Anko? "Yo,
Anko."
"Fuck do you want, princess?" Anko's
mind was on cleaning up whatever the hell it was that Frankie had
done to the table. "If you don't have my new props fag, get the
fuck out."
Izumo cleared his throat pointedly -- he could
just about feel Hayate getting more nervous. "As a matter
of fact, Anko, I have the new props kid here. His name's Hayate.
We're showing him around."
"Well, when you're done
wasting his time and mine, bring him back. Frankie's gone and fucked
everything up again. I need someone to just watch the damn table
while I deal with those fucking worthless primadonnas," Anko
snarled, dismissing them with a sweep of her arm. Hayate swallowed,
suddenly feeling reluctant to set one foot inside the green room.
Genma was weird and a little scary, yeah, but Anko was a nightmare
with breasts and legs.
"Hey," Izumo said, a little
more firmly now. "Listen, the kid's new to tech. Think you could
at least tone down the bitch factor on his first day?"
"Go
back to the booth and cry it off, princess." Anko hadn't looked
up, the whole time they'd been in the room, her hands moving
mechanically across the table, turning, straightening, rearranging --
checking and double checking. "Maybe I'll be nice the day I meet
someone competent."
Kotetsu cocked his head at the door,
looking sternly at Izumo. Take the kid and go. I'll be a sec.

Izumo grunted, looking fairly irritated, but he tapped Hayate on the
shoulder and led him away, muttering something to him about showing
him around backstage. As soon as Izumo and the kid had cleared the
room, Kotetsu stepped up to Anko, standing directly behind her as she
continued to move with absolute precision.
"Can I help
you with something, or do you just like breathing down my neck?"
Anko was not about to put up with shit from anyone, if she didn't put
up with it from Genma.
Kotetsu placed both hands on Anko's
hips, to keep her from turning around while he spoke. "Izumo is
a kind and reasonable individual. Genma doesn't hit girls. I am not
constrained by either of these things." Without another word he
turned and left with Anko shouting after him, still not moving from
the props table.
"If you're such a man, take a fucking
shower!"
When he spotted Izumo and Hayate, Kotetsu walked
over to them. "Just had to have a few words. I'm better, now."
Izumo raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Hayate did not look
terribly reassured. "Do I have to work with her?" he asked
plaintively. "Can't you just teach me the stuff you do?"
"She
gives you any shit, you come tell me." Kotetsu flexed his
fingers and all of them popped from the second knuckle. "I can't
teach you because I'm still learning from Aoba. Booth only passes
every third year. We were the lucky ones."
"Oh."

Hayate looked dismayed, and he looked back over his shoulder at the
door to the green room apprehensively. "Will she teach me what I
need to know, or is she just going to yell at me?"
"She
has to teach you before she can yell at you. Something about being
Lawful Evil." Kotetsu laughed, and Izumo stifled a snicker
despite the sour look on his face. "She'll never rip your ass
off about something she didn't tell you about, first. I don't promise
she'll only ask for things that are easy or even particularly
probable, but she'll tell you what she wants before you get your ass
chewed for not doing it."
"Okay..." Hayate
still looked considerably nervous. "Um. How long does this go
for?"
"Can't tell you exactly. Probably another hour
or two, then we'll go grab dinner." Izumo offered a grin. "In
fact, it'll be on us for you tonight. How's that, kiddo? It's usually
me, Kotetsu, Aoba, and sometimes a couple of other people. Very
rarely Anko, though, so don't worry."
"Pfft. He
means dinner's on me." Kotetsu gave Izumo a pointed look
and then laughed. "I don't mind, though. Aoba thinks you should
come with us -- he's a nice guy, but the stupidest shit comes out of
his mouth. Don't take him too seriously, and you'll be fine."
Hayate
nodded, and Izumo gave him a helpful little shove back toward the
green room. "Okay, kiddo, we'll bring you back to the green
room. We have to go back to the booth with Aoba soon. Don't worry,
it'll be fine."
Hayate just swallowed, bracing himself as
he stepped into the green room with Izumo and Kotetsu. Anko still
didn't look up, hands never stopping over the table.
"What
the shit do you guys want now?"
"Just bringing back
your shiny new right hand." Kotetsu smiled politely, in a way
that wasn't polite at all, even though Anko couldn't see him. "You
just remember what I said, earlier."
"Yeah, sure. As
long as you remember to fucking wash." Anko didn't look up, but
waved behind her. "Come here, new kid. What the fuck is your
name, again?"
Hayate edged toward her, his feet dragging
on the floor, and Izumo and Kotetsu backed out of the room slowly.

"Um, Hayate. I'm Hayate." He came to stand beside her
uncertainly, looking over the props table.
"Great. Well,
Hayate, I hope you have a good memory, because you've just inherited
the props table. Scene lists are at the top left. They'll tell you
what you need to know about what should be off the table at any time.
If something goes missing, you tell me, and I go after the last one
of those snivelling primadonnas to touch it." Anko turned her
head, finally looking at Hayate, and just stopped to stare. What
in the fuck is Genma doing with this skinny little piece of roadkill?
"Oh, and for the record? If I catch you doing Genma instead of
your job, I'll break your hands."
Hayate opened his mouth
to voice his assent, but nothing came out. Instead, his mouth just
hung open as he stared at her in mild horror. "U-um -- that's
not...no. Um, that's not going to happen." In fact, he looked
faintly terrified and fairly averse to the mere mention of it. What
had prompted Anko to say something like that? Well, Genma had

mentioned something about being the "district slut", or
something, and it had probably happened before. Maybe that was just
some sort of routine warning to new kids. That had to be it.
Anko
smiled contemptuously. "Well, it's nice to see that you've
already got more sense than half the department." She smacked
the last prop onto the table -- a coffee mug -- and handed the scene
lists to Hayate. "Start memorizing. I have to go get the gloves
back from that dimwitted bitch." She spun and exited the room
like a low-hanging storm front.
Hayate just nodded wordlessly,
taking the scene lists, and sat down against the wall with a quiet
sigh. He started reading the scene lists to himself aloud in a quiet
voice -- it was the best way he knew how to memorize anything.
This
was going to be a long first day.
- 4
- 5
- 6
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Corybantic Dance