Work Text:
Don’t Drink and Kunai
Written for: Genma Week 2021
Prompt: ‘But Did You Die’
Rating: T, SFW
Genma swished the whiskey in his glass as he sat alone in the bar. The barkeep picked up another glass and swabbed the inside, ensuring a crystal clean finish. Every so often he would look up and raise his brow towards the lone shinobi at his bar. Genma sighed and set down his glass when he heard someone slide onto the stool next to him. The other man ran a hand through his short curls before propping his chin on the palm of his hand and staring at him.
“Can I help you?” Genma asked testily.
“Nah, I was just wondering how long you were going to mope for.”
“Very funny, Shisui.”
“So. Why are we moping, senpai?”
“You think calling me ‘senpai’ is going to butter me up for your interrogation?”
“Never hurts to try, senpai .” Shisui turned and winked at Genma who rolled his eyes in response. The ice in Genma’s glass chinked as it settled on the bartop. It slid slightly from the condensation before coming to a stop.
“Shizune turned me down. Again.”
“Ah. And this is a problem for the village’s most infamous man-whore, because…?”
“You’re more infamous than me by now…”
“Tch, don’t change the subject. It’s therapy with Shisui time. I gave up valuable poontang for this, I’ll have you know.”
Genma chortled, “Poontang, seriously? Are you nine?” He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his neck before settling it on the top of his bandana. The barkeep had gone to the storage room. They could hear the rustling of boxes and the crash of a glass bottle. The man swore loudly and the dark smell of red wine wafted through the open door.
“Right, well. I asked her out again today. I was trying to be romantic about it too. I brought her some lily of the valleys. They’re her favorite.” He smiled ruefully. “Poisonous and beautiful little things.”
“Please don’t start crying.” Shisui slid over a box of tissues the barkeep had surreptitiously placed on the counter hours beforehand.
“This is the fifth time she’s turned me down, you know.”
“When was the first?”
“When we were at the academy together. I think we were maybe, uh, twelve? She turned me down pretty quickly. Said she didn’t want to date some ruffian who didn’t know how to find properly sized clothes.”
Shisui took a long drink from his own glass before responding. This was the second bar he had been to that night, and he was already well on his way to getting drunk. He didn’t want to admit to Genma he liked to hide at this hole-in-the-wall place.
“Ouch. And the second?”
Genma sighed in response, “Why are you so interested anyway?”
“Out with the poison and all that.”
“Fine. The second time we were fifteen. Said I wasn’t youthful enough for her. Then she went and kissed Gai. That didn’t last long. She only did it because he was my teammate.”
Shisui nodded in encouragement.
“The third time we were nineteen. I was on a mission and saw her with Tsunade. I kind of yelled Tsunade’s name in the middle of the village we were in to get Shizune’s attention.
Then I yelled that she was the finest woman I had ever seen. And well, that alerted the local Yakuza, who then wanted Tsunade to settle a debt. Everyone was fine of course, they just had to hightail it out of there.”
Shisui set his glass down abruptly and looked at him. “Wait, you yelled: ‘Tsunade, you’re the finest woman I’ve ever seen.’ While trying to get Shizune’s attention?”
“I meant it for Shizune. But yeah… that’s what came out.”
The Uchiha howled with laughter and nearly fell off of his barstool. Genma responded with a hard punch to his shoulder. His friend only wheezed as he settled himself in his seat. His mouth ticked up in a barely suppressed smile.
“Please, proceed,” Shisui said in a higher pitched voice, lips pressed together to contain a laugh.
“You’re an ass, you know that?”
“But I’m a pleasurable ass.” Shisui waggled his eyebrows suggestively earning another punch in the shoulder. “Oh, yes, please continue beating me. Then I get to have a hospital bed and a sexy medic. Hmm… now which medic should I request for my sponge bath?”
“I will kill you and make it look like an accident.”
Shisui put a stack of money on the bar that the barkeep then counted out and put in a till. “No need to work for free, my dear friend.” Shisui threw an arm over Genma’s shoulder. “Tell you what, I’ll help you get the woman of your dreams. You just have to follow my advice.”
The barkeep rolled his eyes.
“Right. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” Genma slurred as the door closed behind them and the cold night air kissed their faces.
When Shisui led him out of the bar, half of a bottle of whiskey in hand, he thought they’d go to his place and finish drinking. Now they were at the ANBU training grounds, and he had no idea why. A kunai was flung towards his foot, and he sloppily dodged it.
“What the hell, ‘Sui?” The shared bottle of whiskey in his pocket sloshed as he moved.
“Here’s the deal. You inspired me. So. I’m going to throw kunai, and you’re going to dodge. Oh, and they’re poisoned. Be fast.”
Three more poisoned kunai flew towards his arms and right leg. When had Shisui possibly gotten the time to retrieve them? Two more were thrown towards him. He quickly dove to the side, and the whiskey bottle in his pants exploded with the impact. At that moment, he was just thankful it was plastic. Even though his pants were now soaked, he wouldn’t have to face the indignity of getting cuts treated from a broken bottle.
“You’ve lost your damn mind!”
A kunai twirled around Shisui’s finger. “Hey, I’m just helping out a friend. A little gratitude would be nice,” he responded drunkenly, his words now heavily slurred.
There was no way Genma could let the man push him around the field without pushing back. Genma spat his senbon at him, tearing a hole in the right sleeve of Shisui’s shirt.
“Very nice! See, realism! It’ll make it all better!”
‘What the fuck in all of the mad Uchihas?’ Genma thought. They danced and traipsed through the thick mud on the ANBU field. It splashed up his pants and covered the tops of his sandals. Shisui was running towards him, and his inebriated mind only saw a blur. Another kunai came at him, this time ripping through his shirt. He swayed slightly, and the night’s colors blurred together. Goosebumps sprang up on his arm despite his heavy intoxication.
“Huh,” Genma said, falling unconscious before he hit the ground.
A woman jumped down from the treeline, slightly out of breath. “Shannaro, Shisui! When you sent that crow I thought there were intruders in the village! Who the hell spars with poisoned kunai?” Sakura said as she jumped onto the training field. She went over to Genma and started a diagnostic jutsu. The smell of whiskey and beer was overwhelming.
Shisui threw an arm lazily around Sakura’s shoulder. The alcohol on his breath made her want to vomit. In the last ten years of knowing him, she had never seen him this drunk. “My dear, Sakura-chan, I would never purposely spar with poisoned kunai. I merely mistook them as regular kunai. And I certainly would never spar with poisoned kunai covered in poison from the special locked cabinet labeled ‘Shizune,’ in the ANBU headquarters.”
“You didn’t.” Sakura’s face dropped. She effortlessly picked Genma off the ground and threw him at Shisui. Hopping into the treeline towards the hospital, she yelled over her shoulder, “You’re carrying him!”
He fumbled with the body in his arms slightly before getting a grip.
“Yes, ma’am,” he yelled back after he finally slung his friend’s unconscious body over his shoulder.
Sakura threw open the doors of the hospital and barked at a nearby nurse, “Get me Shizune. Now. Tell her dumbass one and two were playing with her new poison. Those exact words.”
“Hai.” The nurse ran down the hall to the guard on duty. The jounin would be able to get to Shizune much faster than the civilian. Shisui laid Genma on a nearby gurney and perched himself on the end, his foot slipping once. He took a kunai out of his pouch and twirled it around the end of his finger.
“What’s the hurry, Sakura-chan? He’ll be fine. He gets Shizune all to himself for the next couple of days. Ouch.” Blood welled up from the tip of his thumb, and the kunai clattered to the floor. He quickly stuck it in his mouth to try and stop the bleeding.
“Not all poisons are the same, moron. Shizune has been working on developing that for over a year.”
Shisui started swaying slightly. “Uh. Sakura-chan. I think I may have nicked my thumb.”
He fell off the bed and Sakura caught him. She proceeded to throw him on top of Genma.
“What happened?” Shizune asked, frantically running into the hospital corridor.
“Apparently, moron one,” Sakura pointed at Shisui, “convinced moron two,” she then pointed to Genma, “to play a round of catch the kunai while they were black-out drunk. And get this. He stole the poison from your locked cabinet and laced the kunai with it. Please tell me you developed a cure.”
“No, I haven’t developed a cure yet. But it’s not lethal. It just knocks them out and makes them tell the truth for the next forty-eight hours or so when they come to. I developed it as a favor for Inoichi-san.”
“Oh joy. Would it be ethical to gag Shisui?”
“Sakura!”
Sakura raised her hands in surrender.
The next morning’s light burned as Genma groggily tried to open his eyes. A blurry Shizune was sitting in the seat by the window with her arms crossed over her chest.
‘Oh shit,’ he thought. The moment it passed through his mind, the thought fell out of his mouth. “Oh shit,” he repeated out loud. Shizune’s eyebrow raised in amusement.
“A game of ‘catch the poisoned kunai’, huh?” she asked sarcastically.
“I didn’t plan it. Shisui did. I was just sitting at the bar when he came around. Moping over your rejection again.” He didn’t mean to say that.
The words started spilling out of his mouth like word vomit. “You know I’ve always loved you. There could never be a woman on this planet that compares to you, Shizune. You’re brilliant, kind, and yet cunning. And so strong, as a person. Oh gods, I can’t shut up. I need you in my life. I wake up with you in my mind and fall asleep dreaming of you.”
“Genma…” she started uncomfortably.
“I know you’re going to say no again. And that’s okay, I just want you to be happy. Even if I’m not the one making you that way. All of the times that lunch randomly appeared in your office, that was me. The flowers at your front door, I picked the ones you liked. I even got Tenzo to teach me how to grow those lilies out of season. I’d really, really like to shut up now.”
Sakura walked into the room with a clipboard in hand and walked towards Shisui’s bed. She moved the lines and cords that were attached to him. “It’s an interrogation poison combined with anesthetic. You’re not going to be able to keep your thoughts to yourself. And your dick is going to fall off.”
Genma looked at Shizune in terror. “Wait, what the fuck? You developed something to make dicks fall off? What in the Ibiki wet dreams is that?”
“Your dick is not going to fall off,” Shizune reassured him.
“Wha? My dick’s falling off?” Shisui asked groggily from the other bed.
Sakura leaned over so that their eyes met. “Absolutely. That’ll teach you to play with untested poisons.”
“Wha? That’s my favorite thing? Sakura-chan, how am I gonna get girls now?”
“You half-wit! You’re the reason we’re in this mess!” Genma growled irritably from the other bed. He tried to move to strangle Shisui but found he was unable to move his body. “And now I can’t move to make sure my parts really are still there. I wouldn’t put it past these two.”
“Me a half-wit? You’re a half-wit! You couldn’t just tell her that you love her? You had to go mope in a bar and get pissed drunk? You didn’t even ask her out I bet. I bet you just handed her the flowers and assumed she knew what you meant.”
“Well, you really never did ask me to be exclusive, Genma. I assumed after our first date that you weren’t interested.” Shizune looked down at the book in her hand and fumbled with the pages.
“Shizune, there’s no one I could be more interested in than you. I love just watching you,” he said earnestly.
“Stalker,” Shisui said under his breath.
“I love the way you smell. I love the way your eyes light up when we watch the sunset. I love how you fit perfectly in my arms. Or the way you add only one cube of sugar to your tea and seven to your coffee. I like the way the bathroom smells after a mission when you shower.”
“Glad I’m not the one making love confessions right now,” Shisui chimed in.
“No kidding,” Sakura added, hiding a slight giggle behind her clipboard.
“Be quiet, you two. I want to hear what he thinks,” Shizune said quietly from the other side of the room. Genma gulped. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”
“I didn’t want to scare you off. And I was worried I would come off as insecure.”
Shizune moved closer to him and grabbed his hand. “Genma, if you had just told me all of this? I can’t read your mind.”
“Will you marry me?”
The other man’s jaw dropped. “Oh shit. He did it. Without a plan.”
“Shut up, Shisui!” Sakura said, hearts were practically coming out of her eyes at the scene before them. She slapped a quick hand over Shisui’s mouth.
“Um, how about we just try dating exclusively first?” Shizune suggested with a small smile.
“Yeah, that’d probably be for the best,” Genma admitted.
The door opened again, and Itachi walked in the room with a vase of sunflowers and a box of dango in hand.
“Itachi! I love you, bro!” Shisui yelled, muffled by Sakura’s hand.
“Kaa-san said that you had been injured during a spar,” Itachi said politely. He placed the vase and box on a bedside table.
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Sakura grumbled under her breath.
“He tried to kill me!” Genma hollered over Shisui’s protests.
“But did you actually die? Because I don’t recall actively trying to kill you.”
Shisui relaxed against the pillows and felt his hand twitch slightly. His friend got the girl, and now he can luxuriate in the hospital for two days. Mission accomplished.
AN: Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment.
Beta’ed by: Binkerbell Thank you so much for all your help!
Happy Genma Week!!!!