Warnings: Uzumaki Sanada Shikamaru, don'tevertrytorefuseYukimurafortennis, paper-induced sparkly Yanagi.


Yanagi Renji had chosen Rikkaidai to spend the next three years of his junior high school life due to its reputation. The school excelled academically, which suited Yanagi as a being of high intellect. The school also offered plenty academically inclined clubs, such as the Mathematics club which Yanagi heard had won countless olympiads.

Yanagi had joined tennis club instead. That would allow Yanagi to pursue knowledge and at the same time hone his athletic skills in the competitive environment. It was never a bad thing to be a master of all aces.

Club application began right after the school ended on the first day. Yanagi had gone to the tennis club and participated in the trial. To his surprise, he managed to defeat one of the current regulars with ease. The standard of the team must have dropped ever since they made history, which was ten years, five months and thirteen days ago.

Without doubt, he was accepted. However it was apparently a common practice to have the freshmen pick up balls regardless of their skills, and Yanagi refused to degrade himself to such level. He sat at one of the stairs leading down to the courts. If any seniors were to scold him, which he knew there would be one in 3 minutes and 10 seconds, he would challenge them to a match. He would not be picking balls until someone managed to defeat him in tennis.

"Hey you." That was early.

The voice came from behind him. Yanagi turned to instead find a blue haired boy that looked about his age squatting down to his height with a stern looking guy standing beside him. Both of them were in the complete school uniform, which meant they were not in tennis club, unlike him who was in his PE attire.

"May I help you?" Yanagi offered politely.

"Guess what I'm going to say." The request came out of nowhere from the blue haired boy.

Yanagi stared quietly at the blue haired boy.

The stern looking guy sighed. "I'm sorry. You're the tenth person he's asked that. He's been going around-"

"Asking random tennis members the exact same question, is what you're going to say." Yanagi completed. "As for you, you are not planning to say anything until I have completed your request just now, through your friend there."

The blue haired boy was so happy he beamed, literally. Yanagi would have squinted to shield his eyes if he did not already have his eyes closed all the time. His stern looking friend, on the other hand, looked like he was struggling not to behave like a moth to the light.

Without any warning, the blue haired boy seized Yanagi's arm and yanked him with such force that it was either him following the boy or being dragged on the ground. Yanagi chose the former, at least he could spare his PE attire from getting dirty for no reason. The stern looking friend followed them closely behind.

"I may be able to predict your words," Yanagi began as he was being pulled back to the school building by the blue haired boy. "That does not make me a clairvoyant. Your names and the reason why you are forcing me to follow you is not something I can figure out at the moment without being told."

"I'm Yukimura Seiichi." The blue haired boy answered without even looking at Yanagi. "My friend over there is Uzumaki Shikamaru."

"Sanada Genichirou." The stern looking man coughed.

"I'm Yanagi Renji." Yanagi introduced himself, trying to ignore this weird tension between the two.

"The name suits you." Yukimura said in such a sweet voice that could make Yanagi swoon if not for his trained composure. Then he realized that Yukimura might be talking about the pseudonym he had arbitrarily assigned to Sanada. He immediately crossed that option when he sensed a raging soul burning behind him.

The rest of the trip went in silence. With his hands in Yukimura's grip, he was led around the stairs and up to the third floor. Even when they finally reached their destination which Yanagi found to be room 303, Yukimura was still not letting go.

"I believe this is the flower arranging club's classroom." Yanagi said. He could hear students chattering from inside the classroom.

"Gardening club." Yukimura corrected.

"Are you trying to get me to diplomatically steal their classroom?" Yanagi asked.

Yukimura gave that glittering smile of his again. "Oh my you're so awesome! How do you know that I am going to ask you to fight for the classroom because I want to use it for the club that I've just created today of which you're going to be a member of?"

Sanada blinked, trying to process the rapid fire of words. Thankfully Yanagi's highly intelligent mind was capable of dissecting them as if it was a normal conversation. "What if I say no?"

"Do you want to know what happened to the ten students I've asked before you?"

Yanagi swore for a moment he saw black aura oozing out of the blue haired boy. He shook his head, he had to be imagining things. Yukimura took that as an affirmation.

Before Yanagi could say anything else, Yukimura placed a piece of paper on his hand, kicked the door of the classroom open and shoved Yanagi inside. "Good luck~" Was the last thing he heard before the door slammed shut. Yanagi stood there, uncomfortably being in the centre of hostility from the eight people sitting around a large makeshift table in the middle of the room.

Yanagi read the paper Yukimura had given him. It was a form, upon close scrutiny revealing to be a club creation form. The entire premise, starting from the name of the club to the reason of formation was absurd that there was zero percent chance of this being real…except that it had gotten the teacher's approval. Although the teacher's handwriting was obviously forged, the signature and the stamp had to be real.

He had heard a loud explosion an hour earlier. This had to be what that was about.

"Forgive me on this." Yanagi cleared his throat, holding the paper out for the eight people in the room to see. "This official document dictates that this room now belongs to the…" Yanagi paused for a moment. "The 'Rikkaidai After School Club'. As law obedient citizens, please pack your things and move to another room."

Everything seemed to be going well. None of the students could question anything upon seeing the signature and the stamp. Although whilst grumbling, they were standing up and starting to clean up the bits and pieces of nature on their desk. Yanagi was glad that things went without a hitch. "Your cooperation is greatly-"

"Leave the things." Yukimura whispered from outside, loudly. Yanagi glanced at the form. That part was definitely not included in the proposal. Yanagi was about to protests, but the inhabitants of the room had heard Yukimura clearly and thought it was Yanagi speaking. Dropping whatever they were holding, they all opted for roses, crushed the petals as they all pointed the thorny parts towards him as if they were wielding a sword.

"How dare you take our precious babies!" One of them hollered. "Prepare yourself!"

Yanagi stared at the flower knights before him, and then turned to look at himself. A lone man standing there armored in white short sleeve shirt and equally white short pants with a piece of paper as his weapon. He looked up again to inspect just how sharp those thorns were just as the flower knights lunged at him.

Just what had he done to deserve this...


"As expected from Yanagi. Thank you for being so dependable." Yukimura said in his extremely honey sweet tone as he pranced around the classroom.

Yanagi hissed. Instead of patching his scratches, Sanada had ripped off the one he had pasted on in reaction to Yukimura's words, causing blood to seep out from the thin line. With a firm apology, Sanada took another bandaid to cover the newly opened wound.

They got the classroom and the flowers in the end, though Yanagi earned something extra; A total of 21 scratches from the 1 vs 8 scuffle: two on his left leg, three on his right leg, six on his left arm, nine on his right arm and one on his face. The flower arr- pardon him, gardening club members refused to let their flowers go without a fight. After that, Yukimura was quick to dispose of the bodies to probably the same place as those ten students Yukimura had briefly mentioned about, Sanada assisting quietly in carrying their bags out of the class.

Thankfully none of those flowers were poisonous, or none of the attacks were aimed at his vital areas such as his eyes, though one got pretty close, which gave him the small rectangular white plaster right below his right eye.

While Sanada was treating Yanagi's wounds, Yukimura took the time to clean up the place. By cleaning up, he meant decorating the place with flowers. Now the vase on the table was filled with colorful flowers, arranged in a specifically intricate manner. Yukimura had grabbed another vase and filled it with the leftover flowers for the teacher's table, also beautifully arranged. At least Yanagi could feel relieved that he was forced to fight for those flowers for someone who could appreciate them.

Yanagi rose up from the floor as Sanada bent to pick up the plastic wrappers from the patches. Yanagi approached Yukimura who had grown bored with admiring the flowers in the room. He was currently humming as he looked outside the window at the school's flower garden. Yanagi placed the form, now crumpled and slightly torn, on the table and joined Yukimura several feet away.

"I believe I have completed your favor." Yanagi began.

"Hmhm~" Yukimura hummed in reply.

"Then could you do me a favor in return?"

Yukimura turned his head to face Yanagi. "And what could that be?" He asked with a gentle smile, his head resting on one hand.

"You mentioned about me joining this club of yours. I'm afraid I have to decline."

Yukimura was still smiling, but Yanagi swore he saw that black aura he had imagined earlier swirling in his cerulean orbs, threatening to swallow his soul whole.

"Why is that?" Yukimura asked in a sweet tone, too sweet that it felt like sticky spiders were crawling up Yanagi's skin.

Yanagi braced himself. What's the worst that could happen? "As you are already aware of, I am currently a member of the tennis cl-"

SMASH!

It happened in a blink of an eye. Yukimura had grabbed something huge and black from his back and hurled it through the window, shattering the glass in the process. From the corner of his eye Yanagi could see the black item, which he recognized to be a duffel bag, landed several distance away from the flower garden.

"That's my bag!" Sanada protested.

"It helps to get the point across, to both of you." Yukimura smiled. Yanagi did not need his high intelligence to know that it would be him next. "So Yanagi, you were saying?"

With his mouth wide open, Yanagi was at a loss of word. That's a first in the thirteen years of his life. "I…" Yukimura's intense glare and the tranquil fury Sanada was exuding did not help.

"I believe we should find someone to repair the window." Yanagi finally found something to say that would not result in him getting thrown out of the room.

Yukimura fisted his palm like a lawyer slamming his judgement hammer. "Great idea as usual, Yanagi!" He praised with his sweet tone. As expected, Yukimura's sweet tone was always accompanied with murderous aura coming from the other man. Yanagi silently thanked god Sanada was not holding anything near him. He had learnt few minutes ago that even a plaster could be deadly.

"Then we should go to the workshop club and ask someone to repair it." Yanagi suggested.

"Or we could go to the tennis club."

Yanagi threw Yukimura an incredulous look. There were so many things wrong with that answer that Yanagi did not even know where to begin to question it.

"It's okay Yanagi." Yukimura suddenly said. Yanagi blinked at the non sequitur. "I know it's hard for you to face the tennis team after you've betrayed them for my club."

"That's not-" Yanagi paused ahead before Yukimura could interrupt him. He knew Yukimura would.

"I'll go hunt for a repairman with Sanada." Yukimura latched himself onto Sanada's arm. Yanagi could see the taller man trying to hide his blush behind his short bangs. "You just stay here and rest."

With that, Yukimura dragged the flustered Sanada out of the classroom, leaving Yanagi alone.

Yanagi heaved a sigh.

He did not expect junior high school to be so…crazy.

He allowed himself to enjoy the soothing breeze and the calming silence that finally arrived in the room, until he realized that the breeze came from the hole in the window. Even though most of the shards had fallen outside along with the bag, some of those sharp pieces were scattered inside. Club member or not, he should get this cleaned. Then he would go and retrieve the bag for Sanada.

Yanagi had just picked the broom up when the door suddenly slammed open, jolting Yanagi. Yukimura's head peeked inside and he fired another rapid sentence. "I forgot to tell you that I kinda leave a lot of explanation out when proposing the club to the teachers so they're on their way to ask you about it good luck~!"

Translation: I forced the teachers to approve my proposal so they're going to hunt me for it and I'm leaving you to be in charge. Try to stay alive~

Yukimura disappeared before Yanagi could respond, again. Not that Yanagi would respond. That would be a waste of breath.

Not long afterwards, he could hear sound of a stampede going up the stairs, definitely the ones Yukimura had warned him about. Yanagi turned to look at the broken window.

He could do as Yukimura had kindly requested him to, or he could go against him and get thrown out of the window, or he could throw himself out of the window before Yukimura could.

"YOU!" Yanagi looked over his shoulder towards the door, where a teacher was pointing a finger at him and looking like he had just run a marathon. There were other teachers behind him, looking equally exhausted. "You're not that blue hair kid but you're here and you're definitely not from the flower arranging club so EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

Gardening- oh wait. So he was correct after all.

Yanagi sighed. Just what kind of heinous crime had he committed in the past for him to deserve this, he pondered as he slowly made his way to the large table. He placed his hand on top of the crumpled form. Suddenly he could feel a surge of power rushing through him. It was similar to the one he kept on seeing in Yukimura, only instead of black his was…green?

He gave up on trying to justify this one.

He was feeling absurdly confident as if he had taken a shot of adrenaline. Maybe the paper was laced with it. No matter. "I won't lose in diplomatic fights." Yanagi snapped his eyes open at the teachers. "Bring it."


"So." Yanagi announced, emphasizing his point by slamming his notebook down onto the makeshift table in their club room. Yukimura and Sanada were seated at each side of Yanagi who was standing in between, Yukimura looking curious with both hands on his cheek and Sanada sitting so straight as if he was in a parent teacher conference. One would expect that Yukimura dragged the other two males here directly after school ends, right?

Right.

That was why Yanagi had prepared enough material so that they would actually be doing something as a club.

"Before I begin, I'd like to confirm that you did not manage to find anyone to fix that?" Yanagi gestured at the source of refreshing air behind him.

Yukimura pouted. "I've searched every single one of the tennis club members yesterday. No one is good in witchcraft."

"Woodcraft." Yanagi pointed.

"Witchcraft." Yukimura persisted. "There is this guy that can suddenly become another person, but it's not magic. It's just some lame illusion."

In just one day, Yanagi had learnt when to save his breath and let Yukimura proceed with his logic.

"Moving along. After the…encounter with the teachers yesterday," Yanagi glared at Yukimura behind his closed lids. "There are several things we need to settle in order to be officially acknowledged as a club."

Yanagi flipped the notebook open to a specific page where he had listed down the points he was going to address. He directed the two men's attention towards it. "First, we need to meet the minimum number of members, which is a total of seven student, by this week."

"Second, we need to present a list of activities the club will be doing for the entire first year. We would need to set hierarchy to the club too once the member quota is met, by this week."

"Third, we need to find someone to fix that window, by this week."

"And last, we need to do all the three above. By this week, I must emphasize."

Yukimura looked like he was thinking seriously, even going as far as to pose like the thinking man statue, his hair gorgeously fluttering in the breeze. Sanada crossed his arms with a solemn look. "A week is very short of a time."

"Exactly," Yanagi agreed curtly. "Though I believe our club is one that values time greatly, as clearly demonstrated by Yukimura here who paralyzed every single teacher to get his proposal approved in a minute."

Sanada had nothing to say to that. He was actually thankful that this new member was taking the effort to actually support whatever Yukimura was pulling and trying to turn it into something official, when he could have just abandoned the two of them. With dire consequences, Sanada corrected himself upon catching sight of the white plaster still pasted below Yanagi's right eye.

"I got it!"

Both Sanada and Yanagi turned their heads at the blue haired boy who was beaming even more brightly under the sunlight.

"Our first club activity: Member Recruitment Project." Yukimura announced.

Sanada and Yanagi exchanged curious glances. For once, Yukimura seemed to be taking this seriously. They should not waste this rare opportunity. "Then may I suggest we find members of diverse background? It would add credibility to the club." Yanagi said.

"Diverse background, got it." Yukimura nodded. He snatched Yanagi's notebook, tore two blank pages, and scribbled down on it furiously. He passed one piece of paper to each person. "I need the two of you to bring these things here in an hour."

Both male picked up the list Yukimura gave them and raised their eyebrows simultaneously.

"Sweets in ridiculous amount..." Sanada began.

"… golf club, screwdriver and wrench." Yanagi finished.

Yukimura was smiling so brilliantly and emitting pitch black aura that turned the brightly lit classroom ominously dark. "We will be getting the most diverse of members, trust me."