Unedited & Originally Posted: 11/06/2016

Only Human

"It's too hot," Sen whispered as she sighed out, trying not to pant against him as she wriggled in his lap.

"Try to be more still," he murmured against her ear and she couldn't help but roll her eyes as she adjusted herself on top of him. Not unsurprisingly, it was hard to get comfortable, especially with her steadily numbing legs clinging around his waist for dear life. Even worse was when she acknowledged that her arms would have been more productive if they weren't clasped in between his chest and hers. If they were anywhere else, she might have even been able to help them out of their predicament.

"Hurry up," she groaned out impatiently, trying not to let even a hint of her fear leech into her voice.

Genma grunted, shifting his arm up her back as if just for the sole reason to hear her yelp in terror. In return, she grunted at him for lack of anything to say without cursing. Under his breath, he apologized softly but something in his tone didn't entirely convince her of his sincerity.

Must have been the sarcasm.

"You're being insufferable," she told him bluntly.

"At least I dressed appropriately," he commented and she stiffened, eyes narrowing before she braved moving her hand up to swat him in the face. She did not reach that far, however. Seemingly anticipating this, he squeezed her closer to his chest, completely restricting any movement from her arms.

"Don't hold on so tightly," she told him breathlessly, swallowing as she tried to think of ways to distract herself from the clenching fear in her gut. Sen squeezed her eyes shut, clearing her throat once more as she murmured in her head all of the calming songs her father used to sing to her as a child.

Genma didn't respond to her. Instead, with a soft sigh, he muttered something along the lines of, "got it" before she heard the snap—then the songs flew out of her mind as it went blank.

She could only hear screaming.

Against her face, specks of what felt like rocks hit her in the cheeks and forehead, right up until she pressed in closer to Genma. Smushing her nose against collarbone and hunkering down, she was only slightly protected against the spray of crumbling rock.

With what little her brain could process, she realized they were descending down the side of the cliff and entering into the forested landscape below. Except they were going far too fast, and for she knew shinobi were capable of, surviving this didn't seem like something likely to happen.

"S-stop! Slow it down!" she yelled against his flak jacket, squeezing all the tighter with her legs. Tears were in her eyes as they slid down into the forested canyon, wind whipping at her cheeks and long burgundy hair. It felt too fast, the speed that Genma was letting them travel at, something inhuman and oh no, no, no, she was going to die.

In his arms, she was going to die.

"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!" she yelled furiously even as her voice was eaten up by the sound of the wind slapping against every speck of visible skin and her already slipping jacket. It was hard to keep her hold on his body, hard to even process what was happening as Genma shouted for her to keep close.

"I'm jumping," he told her and while it took a few bad seconds to understand him, when she finally did, it was far too late.

She was screaming too much to formulate the words to insult him and by that point, there was the feeling of pure weightlessness. Like the two of them had been suspended in air, just hanging there—right up until gravity took over and it was as if the entirety of their weight was being topped onto them as they began to freefall.

"Don't let go of me!" Sen desperately shouted, not even sure if he could hear and understand her.

That was right about when he let go.

He shouted something that sounded quite dumb to say in their given circumstance, something she was sure to ask him about later if they made it out alive. In fact, she would be happy to do it, happy to question him on every single action that led to their predicament in the first place—it would mean she survived and lived to complain about it.

Sen was sure she was about to die, falling through the air and being both unable to breathe and unable to see anything. She couldn't help but shut down, clenching her teeth shut and keeping her eyes closed as her body's instinct took over. Spreading out her arms parallel to her head, bending her knees and letting her back and pelvis naturally arch, she was certain it would all be meaningless—hands reached around her waist and with a force that jerked her up like a ragdoll, Sen found herself being held once again by her bodyguard.

With tears in her eyes and limbs too weak to protest, Sen realized a few moments later that they were almost gently floating down to the ground. Like they were stepping on small puffs of air, a staircase descending into the forested area below them. His arms came to wrap around her in a way she would almost say was romantic if it weren't coming off from a near-death experience high.

In fact, she felt more like throwing up then actually living through the hell of finally making it to solid ground.

When they did—it was of no surprise to her—she fell to her knees, slipping through his hold and exhaling a loud, haggard sigh. She was cold, she barely had any clothes on, her body was aching, and she was still alive.

"How did we get into this mess?" she mumbled out, but it might have been too slurred to understand.

"Sen," he whispered, kneeling in front of her. His eyes followed where her jacket slipped off her shoulders, eyeing the nicks and marks found all along her bared skin. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she struggled to make sense of what she had just been through.

Reaching a weak arm up to rub at her eyes, making it all the more messy, she looked at Genma seriously, "How did this happen?"

He didn't answer but even if he did, she wouldn't have heard it.

Instead, she slumped forward, caught in his arms again as she fainted and fell into a dream.

Bodyguard

Sen woke up screaming.

Or she would have if her voice wasn't absolutely shredded.

It was a good reminder of the incident to hear her voice turn into a rasp, more so than it had ever been when she was sick in fact. Falling to one's death really took a lot out of a girl—she couldn't even sit up properly. Her limbs refused to cooperate and her legs especially felt a little too numb for comfort.

"Sen?" Genma's voice called out and she made a noise of acknowledgment, too tired to think of some words to say. She had thought about badgering him with insults before, had been more than happy to at the time, but now the anger was gone. Washed away from her—or better yet, beaten out of her via wind currents and an inability to vocalize her thoughts.

His face appeared over hers, senbon in mouth and looking as unimpressed as ever. Cool expression, eyes that expressed a mixture of boredom and resentment. Then, as she frowned at him, he seemed to soften, his tongue sliding his senbon to the other side of his mouth before he gave her half a smirk.

Like that, her anger was rebirthed.

"Why did you do that?" she croaked out.

His smirk didn't change but as if to spite her, he let the senbon roll over his bottom teeth and return to it's original position. If her hands were working the way she wanted them to, she would have been certain to snatch it out of his mouth.

"Do what?" he asked, tone bland but a light mixture of mischievous humor in his golden brown eyes.

"All of it!" she accused, struggling to sit up to face him properly. He blinked at her as if surprised, only causing her to growl for the hell of it and regret it seconds after when her throat protested vehemently. She settled for glaring, swallowing a few times in attempts to clear the pain away and ultimately giving up to brace the pain, "I was taking a bath, you shouldn't have been there in the first place!"

Because, really, nearly falling to her death was just the half of it.

Genma looked at her incredulously, "I'm only doing my job."

Sen shook her head and viciously jabbed a finger at his chest, "Your job doesn't include attempting to r-romance girls right where I can h-hear it!"

He crossed his arms over his chest, one brow raised in question, "Romance girls? Really?"

She flushed, jerking away from him. Unable to say anything else, she clenched her teeth together and stared at him silently. Sen wasn't in the wrong here; she'd heard all of it! Regardless of what people actually referred to it as, the end result was the same. Genma Shiranui had attempted to do, uh, things with girls—and right in front of her!

He didn't seem to agree.

"I wasn't. Kiyoko had towels to give you and—."

"'Maybe you can drop by towels when I take my bath?'" Sen grumbled out as she attempted a lower tone and failed, speaking in direct verbatim to her memories.

Genma hesitated, opening his mouth.

"'Hmm? Maybe I will, if it means I can scrub your back for you...'" Sen continued, experiencing some success with her vocal chords as she raised her pitch higher.

He promptly snapped his mouth shut.

She narrowed her eyes at him, this time enunciating every single sound she possibly could to the fullest degree, "'Only if I can scrub yours.'"

Sen honestly didn't know what was more awful; the weak dialogue between the two of them or that she had been around to hear it.

Genma grunted, clicking the senbon in his teeth before shaking his head, "So? Is it so terrible for two people to be mutually attracted to one another?"

"No, but it's certainly unprofessional," she accused him, crossing her arms over her chest to mirror his posture, "Aren't shinobi supposed to be trained better than this?"

Genma frowned at her, all humor in his eyes lost as he kept his gaze steady with hers, "No matter the training involved, I'm still a human being."

As the words sunk in, Sen winced. In a moment of shame, she looked away, fingers curling around the flak jacket she barely noticed had been laid over her in her sleep.

Softly, she murmured, "Sorry."

He sighed and she prepared for him to snap at her like she had done to him—but it never came.

Instead, when she looked at him through the corner of her eye, he brushed his hand over his face and shook his head. She had no idea what he was thinking.

Then, "No, I'm sorry. I should have been more professional while I was on duty."

Sen hummed in agreement, happier for them having settled it.

That was right about when the situation settled in and she looked around them. It was still a bit chilly but less so with the added warmth of the flak jacket. There was also a good amount of protection from the wind in the shape of trees that surrounded them. The two of them weren't in an open clearing and instead, Sen found the two of them in the middle of two thick trees and surrounded by hanging branches and miscellaneous shrubbery.

How perfect, she was facing her worst nightmare of the outdoors.

"Genma?" she murmured, "Can we head back to the inn now?"

"I would love to," he agreed, letting out a haggard sigh, "but it'll take us a while."

Sen was silent.

He chuckled weakly.

"How long?" she asked, staring at him and hoping for frankness.

"About a week."

"Hah?" Sen breathed out, the ability to comprehend language escaping her as she replayed those three words in her head.

"So, I suppose I'll continue to protect you," he told her coolly and with a wink.

Bodyguard - End

A/N: (I've been really feeling Howl's Moving Castle, cough) This chapter may be a little confusing but more context will be provided in the next chapter. Actually, I'm not that satisfied with it (at all) but I wanted to be on time and I'm generally awful at first chapters in the first place ;;

Anyway, I'm writing this story for Genma Week 2016 (hosted by kissmenaru and lisaflowers on tumblr)! This will be a full multi-fic with a chapter brought to you each day fitting along the lines of the daily prompts. Don't expect quality in this fic, we'll get to that bridge when it's officially completed and I can rewrite it.

On Timeline; pre-Minato inauguration. Genma is eighteen. If the story is continued past the week's end, then it will most likely develop into an AU where Minato never dies, Uchiha Massacre never happens, and I don't have to plan around such a sadistic plot. For now, it's just pre-the majority of the bad stuff.

Dedication; lisaflowers for being so nice to me when I was going through a hard time and for inspiring me to create more (also for spreading the infection that is Genma). Thank you!