Ryou scrunched up his nose and covered his mouth with his hand as the pungent scent of something salty and spicy entered the room. The scent was so strong, it felt like the surrounding air became three times heavier just with flavor. His olfactory senses were suffering and he could barely breathe without coughing.
As the older Kisarazu turned around from his locker to find out the identity of the smelly intruder, he wore an incredibly disgusted expression, hoping that whoever brought this putrid scent into the locker room would know they weren't welcome.
...Oh. It was his ridiculously impulsive teammate, Shudou Satoshi. The one who almost never showed up at practice because his reckless attitude sent him to the nurse's office nearly three times a day. In his arms was a huge box filled with about ten bottles of bright red hotsauce.
Shudou just grinned. Not a cocky one, more of an intense and determined, teeth-baring smile. Ryou stared painfully at the unnaturally bright, radioactive-looking reddish color of the liquid. He knew his teammate long enough to put two and two together.
Pinching his nose, Ryou spoke up, "Please don't tell me you're going to-"
"Think I can chug twelve of these in under five minutes?"
"No, that's stupid." Ryou answered flatly.
"Is that... A challenge?" Shudou responded, still grinning. Ryou sighed and rolled his eyes. There really as no point in trying to convince the team's "poison taster" not to do something reckless like this. It was in his nature.
Before Ryou could make a snarky comeback or another unamused attempt to deter his teammate, Aoi Kentarou entered the locker room.
"Hey, guys! ...Whoa," Aoi sniffed the air and held back a cough, "Whoa, whoa! What's (cough) that smell? It's like the sauce Kite put in (cough) our Yakiniku during Nationals!" Aoi spluttered, barely managing a continuous sentence without coughing and his eyes watering from the fumes of Shudou's hotsauce.
"Yep! With only the highest quality Okinawan spices."
"Wow, cool! What are you going to do with it, Shudou-senpai?" Aoi asked eagerly, rubbing a few tears from his watering eyes.
"Heheh... Well, I was just wondering, Kenchan... Do you dare me to drink twelve of these bottles? In less than five minutes?"
Ryou facepalmed. Whatever the result of this ridiculously stupid challenge was, he didn't need to see it.
"R-Really Shudou? I..." Aoi took a deep breath, "...I bet you could do it in three minutes!"
"Oh hell no." Ryou muttered under his breath, turning on his heels and making a beeline for the backdoor. On the plus side, stories of his teammate's idiotic behavior always made for good phone conversations with Atsushi.
Ryou yanked the door open, thankful to rid himself of this incredibly careless situation and the disgusting smell surrounding him. Then he saw Saeki Kojirou blocking the doorway, about to enter the locker room. Ryou glared. He had the same idiotic, confident and slightly patronizing grin as always. The silver haired fukubuchou smiled lightly, then flinched at the pungent scent which suddenly entered his nostrils. Still trying (and failing, in Ryou's opinion) to hide his discomfort at the burning scent of Okinawan spice, Saeki's eye twitched as he tried to blink away tears forming in his eyes.
"Well, well, well, where are you h-headed off to in such a h-hurry, Ryou-chan?" Saeki tried to say it cooly and nonchalantly, but the effect was ruined by his constant spice-induced sniffling and coughing. Saeki was still blocking the doorway. Ryou glared flatly at the his fukubuchou. "I'm heading to lunch, please move aside." He said with obviously faked politeness.
Both heads turned abruptly as Aoi's voice was heard from the back of the locker room, "T-This is your buchou speaking! Get over here, you guys need help me cheer our teammate on! GO, SHUDOU! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"
A vein pulsed in Ryou's temple. Dammit, if only Saeki had let him escape while he still could. Now he had to watch this disgusting spectacle since Aoi technically did have more authority than any of them. They all might be his senpais, but Aoi was captain and even though the hierarchy of leadership didn't mean much at Rokkaku, it still meant that he had to follow any of his buchou's (ridiculous) commands.
Grudgingly, he turned around and headed back inside locker room to find Shudou completely redfaced, chugging those bottles of Okinawan hotsauce like a madman. His expression was a mix of extreme determination and excruciating pain. Tears were streaming down his eyes as he downed the fourth bottle. Kentarou was standing next to him, continuously yelling "CHUG, CHUG, CHUG! YOU CAN DO IT, SHUDOU SENPAI! GANBARIMASU!"
Saeki was at Ryou's side, watching with an expression of equal horror.
"...I-wow. I feel bad for him, he's gonna regret that big time in a few hours." He said, still mildly shocked at the speed that Shudou was polishing off those bottles of hotsauce. He was on bottle number seven now, with two minutes left on the clock before his five-minute time limit was up.
"I feel bad for us." Ryou muttered. Then he tapped Saeki on the shoulder, pulling out a spare deck of cards that he always kept in his locker. Saeki raised his eyebrow questioningly at his shorter teammate and Ryou quickly explained, "Poker? Loser has to carry him to the nurse's office." Saeki smiled in response, "You're on."
Three hours later...
The Rokkaku Chuu school nurse was used to Shudou Satoshi's routine visits. He seemed like a nice enough kid, too bad she never got a chance to really make conversation with him; he usually arrived unconscious, dragged by a group of his friends.
Apparently, this time he had been dared or challenged by his buchou to drink twelve bottles of incredibly powerful hotsauce within five minutes. Eleven bottles in and he erupted into a fit of coughing and vomiting-And eventually slipped into unconsciousness. The school nurse sighed. Kids these days. Oh well, at least this one seemed to have very supportive teammates. The whole entire team was gathered at his bedside, anxiously waiting for their poison taster to wake up.
"W-Wow! Shudou did really well, but it was a really intense challenge!" Aoi exclaimed. He knew that Shudou would succeed next time!
"You know what else is intense...? Camping-"
Kick.
"...This has got to be his stupidest charade yet."
"Oh, come on now Ryou, you're not the one who had to carry him bridal style all the way to the nurse's office!"
"... And you're the one who should work on his poker-face. Tch. Remind me never to take you gambling."
Suddenly, Oji put his hand up to silence the surrounding chatter. "He... He's waking up." He said, pointing at the boy with his cane.
Everyone watched as Shudou's mouth twitched and his eyes slowly opened. He immediately groaned, having to adjust to the light."Y-You guys... I feel like... Unnnngh..." Shudou shuddered. Everytime he inhaled, it felt like one thousand peppers were entering his air passages.
"Yes?" Oji urged him to continue.
"I... Feel like... Trying the cinnamon challenge next..."
Ryou wondered if St. Rudolph was still accepting transfers.
~
This idea just came to me this morning... And originally, I was going to draw a comic for it. But then I decided that it had story potential and it turned into this oneshot!
I always like writing my Rokkaku fanfictions from (mostly) Ryou's point of view. It's always funny to view the sillier, more ridiculous characters from the perspective of the saner, more serious characters. Ryou's like the Zaizen of Rokkaku, haha.
Anyway, please review, as always! I'm always looking to improve!