Disclaimer: I do not, in any way shape or form, own Naruto. Nor do I own Kouji or Kouichi, who belong to Digimon, which I do not own either.
A/N: I did say it would be uploaded quicker this time, and I did it. Yay! And yes, I know that it is, like the last, a tad on the short side. The next is probably gonna be really short, but I'll post it up really fast to make up for it.
Oh, and about those black lines… they don't show up online. So I win, hahaha! Erm, yeah… cough. Stupid lines…
And, um, right, you wanted to read the story, not some long author's note like last time so…
Team Four, Mission 1
"Alright, this is the location of your very first mission!" Malao chuckled slightly at the dumbfounded look on Panda's face.
"Laundry? We're doing laundry on our first mission?" Ryuji asked in disbelief, his voice echoing his sister's look.
"But I do that at home. Is this really the mission?" she asked.
"Yup. My first mission was cleaning out the stables, so count yourselves lucky." Malao laughed, remembering Kagemaru's death-glare when he'd knocked him in the back of the head with his shovel, before the catlike individual had become unerringly elusive. Fortunately, Yohji-sensei had been there, or Malao probably wouldn't be here.
"Oh, well, if this really is the mission, let's go!" Panda's enthusiasm was back, now that she was sure that it wasn't a joke that their jovial sensei was playing. Ryuji nodded, rolling up his sleeves as he followed his sister into the laundry room. Kouichi trailed in after them, Malao closing the door behind him.
"Okay now you three. Since this is your first mission, you guys try to do it on your own. If you need help though, just ask." Malao chuckled again as he perched on a stool by the door to watch.
"Okay, I do this all the time at our house. The white stuff and the colored things can't go together, so we should sort them first. Oh, and really delicate things go separate too." Panda explained to the boys, who nodded and went to work sorting the piles.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything, but how come there's so much of it? Do these people change every half-hour or something?" Ryuji asked from inside one of the baskets as he fished out yet another sock from the bottom, tossing it to the growing heap of whites. Malao shrugged, still smiling. At least his team was working together well.
"Um, I finished my baskets." Kouichi stammered.
"Wow, you're fast!" Panda exclaimed, looking up.
"It's just, I got, um, mostly white," he stuttered. Panda looked at his pile, then at her own and her brother's piles.
"I'd say we have enough to start putting them in. Kouichi, you do the white stuff in that one, Ryuji and I can use these for the colored things, since there are more of those anyway," Panda sighed as she hefted the detergent. "Aww man, it's too light, we're gonna run out."
"Couldn't we just use this one?" Ryuji asked, reaching for another bottle.
"No! That's bleach, you only put that in with white! Honestly, don't you know anything?" she teased.
"Laundry is your job," her brother replied. Panda shook her head in mock despair.
Kouichi didn't join in their banter, simply continuing to work instead. He filled the washing machine with the white clothes from his pile as the girl tried to explain to her brother how it was done.
"You just put a little detergent in here, and then turn the knob to the cycle you want," Panda was explaining, "NO! You have to close the door first! Honestly."
"What? Guys don't do laundry," Ryuji said defensively.
"Kouichi knows what he's doing."
The boy stopped and looked up when he heard his name. Seeing that she wasn't talking to him, he loosely screwed the top back on the bleach, placing it on top of the machine. Panda was demonstrating how it was done for her brother's benefit, emptying the last of the detergent into the other washing machines.
"That's it," she sighed, "we're out." Malao bounded nimbly to his feet.
"I'll go and get some more then. You kiddies keep up the good work!" With a jaunty wave, the jounin left to accomplish his own side mission, leaving his team to sort laundry again. Unfortunately, Panda and Ryuji seemed to have difficulty focusing for very long, resulting in a full-fledged sock-war. Kouchi managed to avoid involvement until Panda used him as a human shield.
"H-hey!" he stammered as socks pelted him. Panda, giggling madly, scooped up a few to throw back at her brother in retaliation. Backed up against the washing machines, he could only duck to escape the deadly barrage, deflecting what he could and taking the rest. The game might have continued longer, except one of the averted missiles had gotten stuck on a shelf behind the machines as the cycle ended.
"Oops," Panda giggled again. It seemed to be her reaction to most things. "I'll get it down. You guys start taking the clothes out, they go outside on the line," the girl told her teammates as she climbed up. She walked across the top of the machines, reaching up on tiptoe to get the sock down. As she stepped back after retrieving the sock, she inadvertently backed into the bottle of bleach, knocking it off the washer.
A startled yelp came from below.
"Kouichi! Are you okay, I'm really sorry!" Panda gasped as she sprang back down, sock in hand. The boy was half in, half out of the washer, he had apparently been reaching for something in the back when it had fallen. The bleach dripped off his hair and ran down the back of his shirt as he stood, stiff with surprise. "Don't move, it's really, really bad if it gets in your eyes!" Panda told him, as Ryuji passed her a white towel out of one of the piles. She grabbed it and tried to dry his back with it, apologizing all the while. Kouichi said nothing, his face scrunched up against the drops of bleach trickling along his jaw.
"What in the world…" Malao stood framed in the doorway, the bottle of detergent held loosely in his hand as he stared at the scene before him.
"I spilled bleach on Kouichi on accident, and now I can't get it off!" Panda blurted. Having given up on the shirt, which was beyond saving, she was trying to get the liquid out of the boy's dark hair. She squeezed a fistful of hair in the towel, causing the boy to make a small objecting sound as his hair was pulled. "Sorry!"
"Here, let me," Malao tossed the detergent to Ryuji as he picked up another towel to help Panda get the bleach off of Kouichi. Panda backed off when her sensei put his hand on her shoulder.
"Alright, Kouichi, you need to come out of the washing machine. Keep your eyes shut though, and watch your head." Kouichi carefully backed up. With one last swipe, Malao wiped the last of the bleach off of his student's face. "There, it's off."
"Oh no! Kouichi, your hair! And your shirt and, OH NO! His freckles are gone!" Panda gasped. "I'm so, so sorry, I didn't mean to! It was an accident, honest, I wouldn't do something like this on purpose! I'm sorry!"
"Um, it's okay," the boy stammered, at a loss for dealing with what seemed to him to be hysterics.
Malao frowned slightly. He has freckles? I don't remember that…well I was preoccupied yesterday, maybe I just didn't notice.
"N-no, really, it's okay… my hair will grow out and, um, I do have other clothes…" Kouichi was saying nervously.
"That has got to be the most I've ever heard you say," Ryuji grinned. Panda flicked another sock at him, hitting the side of his head. "Hey!"
"I really am sorry though, if there's anything I can do…" she trailed off, her green eyes focused on Kouichi's face, his dark blue eyes the only real patch of color left.
"It's fine," Kouichi said quickly, relived that she was acting normal, or at least, normal for her.
Malao looked around at his team, an apologetic Panda was standing beside her twin on one side while Kouichi stood slightly apart from them, looking awkward. It wasn't very noticeable, but it was clear to him that they were divided. The jounin thought he knew why too. The twins were an inseparable pair, and, though the two weren't deliberately excluding him, Kouichi was too shy to bridge the invisible gap himself. Well, that was all right. He'd cross it, one way or another. Malao didn't understand people who were shy at all. Kouichi was going to come out from his shell, whether he liked it or not. The jounin cleared his throat.
"Alright, you two finish up in here, and please keep the fooling around to a minimum. At least until I can get back. Kouichi, come on, we're going to get you cleaned up." Malao took the boy's shoulder and pulled him along, despite the youth's stammered protests that he was ok, and could finish the mission.
"See you later Kouichi!" Panda waved at him before picking up the bottle of bleach. "Aww man, this one's almost empty now too," was the last thing he heard her say before the door swung shut.
"Um, it-it's really okay…" he mumbled.
"You should still wash up, I can't send you home looking like this."
Kouichi ducked his head, and said nothing as he allowed himself to be led up the street.
"Here we are. Lucky for you, I live on this road," Malao said, opening the door to a smallish apartment. "Don't mind the mess."
Kouichi trailed obediently inside after him, looking around the small room. A table stood in one corner, near the counter. A sink filled with dirty dishes was between the oven and shabby refrigerator. There was a bed tucked away on the other side, it looked as though it hadn't been made for months. A number of items were strewn randomly about the floor, and the closet door looked as though opening it would be the last thing you ever did.
"There's a shower through the door over there," the jounin offered, throwing some of the clothes lying about into an empty hamper. "You should probably rinse that shirt out too, though I don't think it will ever be red again."
"W-what?" Koichi looked startled, glancing apprehensively at the door Malao had indicated.
The jounin looked puzzled for a moment, then snorted, shaking his head.
"I don't bite you know," Malao told him, stacking the dishes on the counter to make room in the sink. "Come here," he said, running the water until it felt warm. "Just stick your head under the tap for a while, maybe we can get your hair black again."
Hesitantly, Kouichi did as he was told, the warm water running down his neck and face.
"Here, dry off with this," Malao instructed, laying a clean towel on the counter beside his student. Kouichi straightened up, turning off the water as he rubbed the towel over his head. "We need to wash your shirt too, otherwise the bleach will eat a hole in it."
"Um…okay," Kouichi finally agreed. He pulled off the shirt he'd been wearing, sighing slightly at it's coloring. Not that there was anything wrong with pink, but he'd liked it better red. Malao took the shirt from him, rinsing and wringing it out until he was satisfied.
"You've probably guessed that this kind of stuff happens to me a lot," the man joked. Kouichi shrugged, feeling slightly chilled in his damp fishnet. "You want to borrow one of my shirts?"
"No," Kouichi mumbled. Malao shrugged, if that was what he wanted then that was fine. He'd definitely had enough for one day anyway.
"Here. You can dry it at your house, you're less likely to lose it I'm sure," the jounin passed the shirt back to its owner, then dumped the dishes back into the sink again. "You can go home now, if you want. I think you've had enough, and the others are probably done by now."
"Um, okay," Kouichi said softly. Passing the towel back to the jounin, the boy took his shirt and left. He walked home quickly, hoping to get everything straightened out before his mother got back from work.
Malao dumped the towel in the hamper with the other clothes before heading back to where Panda and Ryuji were waiting.
"We're done!" Panda announced when the door opened. "Huh? Where's Kouichi?" she asked, seeing that Malao was alone.
"I told him to just go home, I figured that if you two were done, then he wouldn't need to be here, and if another world war had been started, well, I'd say he's already had his disaster for the day," Malao chuckled lightly.
"He is okay, right?"
"A little paler than before, but he's fine. A few hours of sun should bring his freckles back too, although he'll have white hair for a while. Now, if we all take two baskets, I'd say we could finish brining all this back upstairs in one trip," Malao said affably, grabbing two of the baskets for himself as the twins each took theirs. "Ah, Panda, maybe just one," he suggested, watching her struggle to balance two on her hip. She giggled, but did as he asked, running back down to the laundry room for it after dropping off her first basket.
"Okay, good job you two. We had some problems, but it was only the first mission. We'll get better when you start to get to know each other. Anyway, same place same time tomorrow." The twins grinned and nodded, excited to have completed their very first mission, such as it was.