One day in Raimon Junior High…
"Finally, break!" Toramaru stretched.
After he made sure all the old Inazuma Japan/Raimon Eleven members had left, he made a beeline for the new girl Hitomi.
Hitomi joined class just that morning. She had sleek black hair covering one eye, but that was all to her. She was very mysterious, and she seemed bad tempered and shy.
Toramaru was determined to say something to her. Something about her attracted him. Maybe it was her other eye, which was emerald green. Maybe it was that he was sure he'd seen her before. Somewhere. Related to soccer.
As he approached her, she whipped her head around and stared at him with steely eyes.
He extended his hand. "I'm Toramaru. Nice to meet you."
Hitomi seemed surprised that someone would have talked to her. She extended her hand stiffly. "It seems you know my name."
"Hitomi, do you like soccer?" He immediately asked, trying to see if she had any reaction.
HItmoi seemed very affected by the question. She narrowed her eyes, and looked as if she was going to retort something but thought better of it.
"Might. Might not. Used too." Her baffling answer left Toramaru speechless.
"You know, you're the first person here to talk to me." Hitomi stared out of the window, tilting her head upwards.
Toramaru raised his eyebrows.
"And?" Hitomi asked again, still staring.
Does that mean I have to say the 'hard' thing? Whined Toramaru in his head, then said, "Can we be friends?"
It was almost unheard that boys automatically asked a girl if she wanted to be her friend, but getting closer by some sort of club was more common in the second years.
So that day a strange friendship sprung up in the classroom of second years between the mysterious girl no one would meet and the boy who played in the FFI.