Heavy Blood

6. Izuna

On Tuesday evening, the day before we were going back to the church, I was a nervous mess. I kept walking back and forth, back and forth in my little apartment, brushing my teeth even if I hadn't had dinner yet, brushing my hair, putting it in a ponytail, remaking it, washing my face... I couldn't get a grip of myself out of anticipation for tomorrow. What should I wear? Why did I even care so much? He was a catholic priest, sworn to celibacy and not allowed to have a partner. Even so...

E-mail him, a little voice in my head said. No... No, I can't do that. Absolutely the fuck not! I don't think so, I thought as I went to my laptop and opened it up, signing on to my Gmail. I wrote the e-mail down, deleted it, re-wrote it, closed my Gmail, closed my laptop, made tea, came back to it, wrote again, regretted it, wrote it again, regretted it again. In the end, I just wrote and pressed "Send" faster than you could say "Bad Idea".

From: i.uchiha@applegreenelementary.com

To: contact.greenparkcatholicchurch@gmail.com

I am nervous.

Kind regards,

Izuna Uchiha

(The "kind regards" was my attempt to save face.)

As soon as I pressed I regretted it. What were you thinking?! "I'm nervous?" Are you dumb? He is a CATHOLIC PRIEST, Goddamn it. He doesn't care if you're nervous. Holy shit, what if there were more than him looking at the e-mail? It didn't contain his name, just "contact.greenparkcatholicchuch". My God, Izuna, you STUPID-

Suddenly, I heard a ping from my laptop. I looked on the screen.

From: contact.greenparkcatholicchurch@gmail.com

To: i.uchiha@applegreenelementary.com

Don't be.

T, xx

Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God. I took my phone so I could take it to bed, a simple mattress on the floor that was way too thin, and threw myself on top of it, phone in hand and opened my mail box on my phone instead. I looked at the two x:es over and over. Oh my God... I put the phone to my chest and found I was smiling like a madman.

In the morning, I thought I would have calmed down as I knew I didn't have to wait more than a couple of hours before I would see him again, but I was even more of a mess than last night. I put water in my cereal, hand cream on my toothbrush and accidentally decreased the shower temperature to freezing instead of turning the shower off. I blow-dried my hair more carefully than usual, and put on ripped olive cargo trouser, a black T-shirt and my black-and-white checked shirt on top this time, having the buttons open. I took my black coat, the only expensive thing I had bought since Madara fell ill, and left.

At eight-thirty, all the children had arrived, so I thought we'd start walking, even if it meant we'd be fifteen minutes early. I thought the children might have some time to look around then. Oh, who was I kidding; the extra fifteen minutes was for me to calm the fuck down. As we started walking, I felt a little hand in mine. I looked down.

"Don't worry, Mr Uchiha", Lisa said, looking up at me. "You look very handsome. I'm sure he will like you."

"What are you talking about?" I asked stupidly.

She looked at me. "That priest. You're crazy about him!"

I opened my mouth to protest, then decided to just leave it. "Is it that noticeable?"