"Ahhhh," Eri dragged out a long-winded sigh as Sasuke saw himself out of his apartment. She went out of her way to be dramatic, all while seated atop the railing, kicking her feet much like an impatient child. After all, she had to let him know just how unbearable it was to be left waiting for him like this every morning. It was typically the same routine - most of the time she was such an early-riser that she showed up extra early, acted as his alarm clock, and then had to spend forever waiting for him to get ready. The rare days that she didn't follow this routine either came when she found herself sick, or the even more rare days that she overslept somehow. On those days it felt more unnerving than anything.
After all, silence was rarely allowed with her flitting about, and it had to take something serious to keep her from dragging herself to his house every morning anyway. He was honestly convinced that she could die come back from literal spirit realm to drag him to class.
He finished locking up his apartment, stowing his key away into his pocket, then turning to look at the way she balanced herself up on the rail, staring as if waiting expectantly for something.
Rather than say a word, he kept the same blank disposition, prompting her to murmur a quiet, "what, no 'good morning'?"
"Do you expect one?" He eased his hands to stay settled in his pockets, cocking his head to the side with a knowing look, simply because he was already aware what that question would yield.
"Do you expect breakfast?" She coiled her feet around the railing bars to keep herself steadied, then dug through her side satchel, rummaging around until she pulled out a thick cloth. Tugging at the corners and unwrapping carefully, she teasingly brandished freshly baked jam buns, though the aroma would have been the first thing to greet him before the actual thing. "Hmmmm~?" She hummed teasingly once more.
"Your mom made that for me though, didn't she?" He started down the outside stairs, not looking back to see if she was following, since he was already well-aware that she would be.
"Well, yeah," She huffed from the corner of her lips, briskly rolling her eyes, "but she doesn't have to know what I do with it..."
"Maybe you should hold onto it," Once again, Sasuke knew how to maneuver this situation, well-trained and well-spoken. All of her reactions were usually pretty easy in everyday conversation. No matter how high-and-mighty she wanted to seem, she would probably wind up thinking herself into a hole after a year's worth of arguing morality with her conscience: all over something silly like a jam bun. "You may have grabbed the wrong lunch again."
"Ahhhh," She groaned, acting just as he'd predicted and shoving the other wrapped bun towards him while plucking out her own, "take the dumb bun." She bit into her own, a twinge of pink across her cheeks at just how simply she had been manipulated. She knew full-well he was baiting her, and she had half a mind to bite them both, but she knew just as well that it wouldn't have stopped him from digging in anyhow. She hated when he won.
"Anyway!" To preserve what little grace and dignity she had left -which probably wasn't much with the way she had already managed to get a dot of jam stuck to the corner of her mouth-, she changed the topic, "Are you excited? Eager, even?"
His eyes traced her newfound energy as she rushed ahead of him just slightly, twirling on her toe to now walk affront him, but backwards to face him, all while so casually having his own bite of the jam bun. Oh, now it may have appeared like he was tuning her out, what with the way he looked down at the bread in his hands. Her mother must have gone out of her way, making this jam with the intent to not make it too sweet for his palette. How nice of her. It was good. Really good. He'd have to thank her sometime.
"Do you maybe have somebody specific you want to be on a team with? Anybody you think will complement your skills? Any idea who's gonna wind up with who?" Eri hadn't even yet noticed that there was even a slight possibility he was tuning her out, she was too busy caught up in the excitement that she had been wrestling with since the night before, "Ahhh I'm so excited, I can't stand it!"
He peered up, watching her flit around from place to place like some kind of child, twisting and twirling around and getting to the point where it sounded as if she were talking a mile a minute. "I haven't the slightest idea how someone can have this much energy this early in the morning," after all that she said, that was the only thing Sasuke could say in reply, expectedly causing her head to raise in surprise.
She opened her mouth as if to protest his sentiment, but then, she simply rolled with it, locking her fingers beneath her chin as an exaggerated bundle of sparkle and shine exuded from her person, "I'm a morning person~. You're a spooky, scary, terrifying night owl~."
The slightest of smirks twitched on his lips as if acting of its own will.
It was her own fault.
She gave him ammo to tease her.
"Really? You're that afraid of me then?" His voice leaked with a condescending drip that twisted his words into a taunt of sorts.
To be fair, it didn't take much ammo for him to weaponize it. She was incredibly reactive, and her expressions and words were so animated and exaggerated, that he could have quite literally said anything and still gotten something satisfying out of her. Was it rude? Maybe a little, what could he do? She honestly did it to herself.
"Ah!" Her cheek swelled with a tight pocket, a poorly structured glare taking her eyes as a red tint spread across her nose, "You know what I meant! Take the insult!"
"Mmmm," he dared not submit, only give that sound of haphazard agreement that translated in rough to something along the lines of 'sure sure, whatever you say', but the urge to call her a scaredy cat was dredging up. It was his go-to-remark, what with the obvious cat motif of hers, and should it have been a little less early in the morning, he probably would have taken that challenge. Instead, he continued his pace, now finishing the jam bun and dropping the cloth into her palm, "Clean your face, before you embarrass yourself."
"Hm?" Eri perked up, tilting her head and furrowing a brow. Clean her face? She could have sworn she ate that carefully, though drawing up her thumb to swipe at the corner of her mouth, she caught the stickiness of jam. Embarrassment surged onto her face, so light and faint that it went unnoticed, but she couldn't help but retort with sarcasm, "Bleh. Sure sure, dad."
It went without saying, but he was aware - that too had a rough translation: 'There's no way I can say thanks, but I secretly appreciate it'.
"But come on, really," Eri perked up again after clearing her face, skipping up to match pace with him, "aren't you even a little bit excited?"
"What's there to be excited about?" He huffed out, "I can't think of too many people that'd be better than nothing."
"How proud," She stuck her tongue out idly as they crossed through the doors of the academy, "You know there are people that can keep up with you, Sasuke. You're not just in a league of your own."
How bold of her to suddenly say such a thing. In fact, the level of certainty and clear lack of options led him to assume, "Are you talking about yourself?" His brow quirked as the subtle, challenging spark of entertainment overtook his dark eyes.
Oh, she could just take that same cloth from earlier and just vigorously scrub all of that smugness right off his mug, but instead she merely folded it up neatly and stowed it away. "No, not me! I'm not the best fighter," She murmured quietly, avoiding his prying eyes while focusing her attention firmly on her satchel, "I'm just saying our potential teammates are really good too."
Sure. Sure they were. Of all of the 'stand-outs' in the class, if he could even call them that, there were few that he would like to be teamed up with, and none that he would go actively trusting his life to. He cocked his head once more as they took their seats, uttering a -now much more quiet- response that hinged on the faint hint of sarcasm, "Name three."
"Kiba's one," Eri asserted, raising one finger in spite of the way Sasuke quite literally 'pfft' this answer off as if it were just that funny to him, so she tried again, "and have you had a talk with Shikamaru? He's a suuuper smart guy."
"And a sloth most of the time," It was a brief response, but in his head he had far more reasons to believe this. Shikamaru's jutsu was incredibly limited, and the few times he used it, he barely put forth effort past the bare minimum of getting it to work. Sometimes he didn't even do that. It was hard to gauge what he was capable of when he never gave any view of his extent, and quite frankly, to him, laziness was just as bad as weakness.
"There's..." Eri hesitated, but her head shook as she brandished her third finger, "That one bug guy."
"Don't you know everyone?"
"I just- I can't. I- I for the life of me just can't get his name sometimes. Was it Shio?"
A nasal breath that came substituting in place of a laugh told her that her assumption wasn't correct, and a pout upturned across her lips. "I'll ask Momo later, she'll know." She stuck to him like glue as it was.
Regardless, the brown haired girl twisted in her chair, casually scooting up to sit on the edge of the table while Sasuke relaxed back into his preferred seat nearest the window. The classroom was quiet, only a few people present within the room around this time, but every few minutes it seemed that someone else came trickling in. She recognized them, and for the most part she knew them by name, but she was so twisted up in her own thoughts that she could hardly muster more than a half a wave as they entered.
For such an important day, she expected so many more people to show up early. How was it that no one else was in as much of a rush as she was? Today was a new day - the new day. The day everyone would take their first real step into the life of a shinobi. Missions, mentors, squad mates and all the glamorous and unglamorous moments of a whole new world - she was excited for it all.
When she thought about it, she couldn't help but surge with nerves, fidgeting on her perch whilst her hand kept briskly moving against the cool metal of the headband at her thigh.
The dark haired male let his eyes shift from her sudden movements. He had no interest in what was going on in the rest of the classroom, and he had no reason to be interested in who came in and when. For all he cared, the assigning of squads could have continued with half of the class missing, and it wouldn't make much of a difference. The way she began to twist and writhe, however, well, it was distracting, drawing his attention and leading him to catch sight of the way her finger traced repeatedly over the leaf symbol of her headband -now strapped to her thigh like some kind of accessory.
"Don't tell me you're nervous," he prodded, not even bothering to keep his amusement at bay.
"Nervous? No," Her somewhat sharp canine dug into her lip, giving away her hesitance as she eventually let her pride give way to an uncertain groan akin to a whine. "Okay. Maybe... a little." She raised her thumb and forefinger with such a tiny, almost non-existent space between them, "Like... this much."
"You already know all these people," he lowered his chin into the cup of his hand, "what part of it could you really be nervous about?"
"It's not the same as just playing hide and seek or something," She rose her hands spastically, "this is real life stuff, you know? Peoples' lives are gonna be..." She lowered her upturned palms now, holding them in front of Sasuke as if it strengthened her narrative, "... right here! Right in my hands. What if I mess up or something?"
He closed his eyes.
Soft. She was always so soft. Too soft.
She was easily made nervous and being hit with abrupt bouts of anxious worry that, to him, didn't make much sense. Her clan and its union already had a name for itself as a result of its members' displays in physical strength, and the works of her older clanmates that came before her. If anything, he found it more reasonable that she would have the same concern as him - that some poor excuse for teammates would leech off of his effort and drag him down. Instead, she was frantic about the unlikely possibility that she would fail to pitch in enough, even when running herself ragged the way he knew she would and making sure she put in double the effort. It was almost pitiful, really.
"You're not gonna get somebody killed." He responded firmly, with a clear certainty that put her somewhat at ease. He looked at her though, that same firmness translating to a blatant honesty, "but don't go screwing around and getting yourself hurt trying to help these people either."
Alright, he had her in the first part. The faith he placed in her actually alleviated a good deal of her nerves. The second part though - well, it was such a Sasuke thing to say. How was she supposed to work alongside people so closely and still not have enough care for them enough to go risking her neck for them? He always made it sound like he was oh-so-tough and oh-so-cold, but in reality she was sure that if he got close to his team, he would go risking his neck for them too.
"Um. No offense, but... I'm pretty sure that's just teamwork," She quickly brushed it off in favor of his kindness, however, zeroing in on it to target him and coo with an exaggerated baby-voice, "but AWWW! You caaare!"
He merely scoffed at her bold, baseless assumption, and he seemed as if he was about to say more, but both his and Eri's attention was quickly snagged away by a ruckus in the hallway.
She hadn't even realized in that time how full the classroom had gotten until looking up just now, but the real attention-grabber was the way the classroom door shook and rumbled, only to burst open and give way to the force of the two girls trying to squeeze through.
"Ooohhh..." Eri trailed quietly, her fang digging into her lip once more at the appearance of her two classmates. Her demeanor seemed to take a light shift, awkwardness creeping into her disposition as she turned to peer over to Sasuke. "Hey I'm uh..." She thumbed over to a small group of students, Kiba and a few others included. "I'm gonna see what they're up to. That alright with you?" She didn't need to ask his permission, and she knew that, still, they were just having a talk and she didn't want to just leave him without a word.
Same with him, he offered a mild shrug, "Do you what you want." It didn't matter to him - she was a bit of a social floater anyway, so there were times that they didn't spend talking with each other through class or breaks. She had other friends, and he had no qualms with that. Besides, there were several occasions that she tried to invite him. He just preferred the status of a loner. Still, it would have been just plain careless of him to have not noticed the way she tensed at the appearance of the two girls.
In some ways, he couldn't blame her; he couldn't stand them. It was more so that distaste wasn't the response she had, it was hesitance, awkwardness. He'd have to ask about that later.
As for Eri, she scuttled away to the other table, and clasping her palms together, her brown eyes searched the friend group she had gravitated to. "Kiba. Momo," She addressed them both with deliberate attention and care before her eyes fell upon the 'bug boy' and her face drained momentarily of color. She sucked in her lips, then with a smack, raised her finger, "Um..."
"Don't bother," The shades-wearing boy muttered in resignation.
"Shino," Momo spoke up, correcting her friend again. She tucked her hands in against her thighs, staring incredulously at her friend, "this is the third time in two days..." Momo could understand that people often forgot the boy's name -she has no idea why, but she knew that they did-, still Eri was excessive by any stretch. The only reason the cat girl didn't forget her name more, though, was probably only because sometimes she omitted calling him by name altogether. The last time she had even referred to him as 'Mushino', and she dare say, that was probably one of the closest she'd ever come.
"Yeah," Shino agreed flatly, "Tell me ab-"
"YO!" Kiba spoke directly overtop of Shino, honestly having not the slightest clue that someone was even talking. Poor Shino. "Coming down from the high and mighty to mingle? Or are you just being evil?"
Eri's eyes seemed to shrink into two small dots, her head tilting all the way to the side, "...What." no, really. What did he just say, and what was it supposed to mean?
"I mean, you just ditched Sasuke like that. No way it wasn't on purpose." She and Sasuke didn't spend every waking moment together, contrary to popular belief, so it wasn't as if her coming to hang out with other people was abnormal. It was just that under these circumstances, with Ino and Sakura setting their sights on him immediately after Eri had vacated, it almost seemed like some kind of cleverly laid set up. Maybe a revenge plot.
"It isn't like that! That would have happened even if I was there," She reasoned, tucking her leg beneath her as she sat backwards in her seat, arms draped over the back of the chair.
"It's kind of scary," Momo quietly remarked. She didn't want any of the wayward girls to go hearing her speak ill of them; she definitely didn't want any of the extra trouble. Still, seeing them all clamor over each other for the slim chance of taking a vacant seat felt like seeing wild animals fighting over a piece of meat.
"If by scary, you mean sad," Shino supplemented in tow, though his blatant, shameless way of speaking sent a bead of sweat dripping down Momo's cheek.
"They might hear you..." though it seemed he had no care for that, being he merely shrugged it off.
"Aw come on," Eri motioned her hand to the crowd, mustering up a smile that seemed anything but easy, "they're just a bunch of girls that really like a guy. I heard when you like somebody it can make you kinda crazy."
Momo's dark brown hues shifted to Shino, then to Kiba, as if mentally seeming to ask one of them to contradict this attempt at defending that behavior, and thankfully it seemed the most outspoken one of them filled that request.
"I dunno," the Inuzuka muttered, "sounds like a load of crap to me." He threw his elbows back against the flat of the seat behind him, crooking his head over to the flock of girls, "I mean look at-"
"...Kiba?" Eri began, "you gonna finish th-" With his hand planted atop her head, forcing her to look in the direction of all of the girls, Eri was greeted with a sight unlike one she ever thought she would have the chance to see.
Naruto and Sasuke... did they just...
"Haaaah?" Okay, her brain was fried for a few seconds, but it all was cleared up the moment she managed to weave her sight through the crowding heads enough to see how vehemently they rejected each other just after. It was an accident then, oh heavens.
Though... if that were the case, that meant he definitely did not approve of that... and that meant he would most-definitely be less than pleased by that... and that meant...
"I'm... he's going to kill me."
"Whelp." Kiba shot, "G'luck with that."
Momo bounded up , leaning forward and furrowing a brow. "Huh? Why you?"
Was it Eri's fault? No. Though somehow she felt that if he hadn't a chance to cool down after that, he was probably going to tie it back all convoluted-like and search for a reason to seek vengeance and make himself feel better.
"Ahgh... I dunno, he's petty," She rubbed at her temples, completely tuning out the way Momo's muffled giggles and Kiba's outright laughter wormed their way into her ears.
It was settled then - for the duration of this half of class, just for these team announcements, she would stay put.
After the passing of the squad assignments, she would reunite with him, and hopefully by then he had let go of all of his irritation and decided to direct his playful vengeance to another victim.
It sounded like a solid plan... and now it felt like an even better idea. Eri found herself with even more of a reason she should allow him to cool down. Right after that little mishap with Naruto, Sasuke found himself wedged right into a squad with him. Well, he was also in a squad with Sakura, but that wasn't so bad, right?
Okay, so the plan was active. Just after the reading of squads, when allowed to wander freely for a break, she so quickly separated herself to give him space.
She, contrarily, got to spend a little time with her own squad, feeding her the perfect excuse to escape his -admittedly exaggerated- vengeful wrath. With prayers paid off, and the luck of the draw, she found herself comfortably wriggled into a squad with Momo and Tatsuo. Both of them were people she got along with well, the former being one she even openly considered one of her closest friends, and the latter being a pretty relaxed, and funny guy. She would have been happy with most of her classmates, but this just felt like an exciting lineup!
She came in from lunch with the two, Tatsuo taking the time to open the door for both girls that offered a chirped 'thank you!' in reply. They only had a little longer until it was time to be picked up by their new senseis, and she couldn't contain her excitement. Was he going to be tall? Was he going to be a hulking beast whose back she could climb onto and feel as if she were scaling a mountain? Would he be a master in 27 different types of martial arts, and know every single jutsu in history and- okay, she wasn't that naive, but it was fun to daydream.
Well - until her whimsical thoughts slammed yanked the emergency brake. As she eased through the door of the classroom, she so soon caught sight of a certain Sasuke, hating the world and turned up to maximum brood levels.
"Uh oh," She began beneath her breath, dropping her hands against her hips, "he's still mad..."
"Hum?" Momo quickly turned to Eri, then traced her line of sight to the boy seated near his usual spot. She narrowed her eyes, raising her hand even to push up her glasses and make sure she was seeing correctly. "He looks the same as he always does."
"Are you kidding?" Eri dragged, her arms limply falling with her lunchbox in tow, "he's livid! Urrrrrrgh." She stowed her lunchbox under her arm, peering back to the two, "I'm gonna make sure he's okay real quick."
"Feel free," Tatsuo replied simply, though Momo spoke up to briskly add, "be safe!"
'No promises!'
"Heeeeeeey," She awkwardly dragged, sliding up to lean on the vacant edge of his table, "how ya dooooin'?"
Much to her surprise, when he turned, his anger was still quietly existing beneath the surface, but she was surprised to find how serious it really was. "Whoa," She cautioned, raising her hands up just a tad, "really. Are you doing okay? Did something happen?" She was expecting a comically embarrassed raged at the absolute maximum. This wasn't flustered huffiness, bent on inflicting the same flustered huffiness on her, this was genuine anger.
His gaze floated away, and for a brief time as it leaned towards a specific target, it reeled itself back in to Eri instead. The silence lingered for just a second longer than she anticipated, his tension practically visible as he finally spoke begrudgingly, "We'll talk."
She frowned, stacking her fists atop each other then setting her chin atop those, "There's no way you're this mad over this kiss thing, right?"
The bland intensity of his stare that grew more and more tasteless -though admittedly more comedic- forced the cat-girl to step back, hands up defensively and palms showing like trying to prove to a creature that she was no threat. "Mmm right! We'll talk!" She agreed simply and hastily, bead of sweat streaking down her cheek.
She'd leave him be. She knew, after all, that he would probably feel much better talking openly in private, but while a part of her wanted to believe it was someone else doing something simple that worked his nerves, another part was well aware that her friend was no team player. He had a bad attitude sometimes, and it was entirely possible that he created as much trouble for himself as others may have for him. Still, with a squad of Sakura and Naruto factored in, the possibilities were endless.
"Is he okay?" Momo prompted upon her return, receiving a shrug and the echo of his words from Eri.
"He said 'we'll talk'. So I guess I'll find out soon enough."
"I bet it was Sakura that did it," Momo put so simply. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her hoodie dress, completely nonchalant and unbothered, especially in the way that her lips quirked to the side to form such a nonchalant face.
A light sympathy took hold of Eri's face, as she faintly scolded her friend, "Don't say that..."
"What? It's probably true."
"Ah yes, gossip," Tatsuo sarcastically loosed, his lime green eyes simulating a 'roll' to poke at them, "my favorite part of teamwork."
Eri's lips twisted into a small smile as she also rolled her eyes, lifting her hand to offer the male teammate an unbearably light 'shove' so much so that it would hardly even be called such a thing, "Sure sure, and I bet that isn't sarcasm either."
"Oh, no, it isn't," He furthered, "How else will I learn about all of those entirely significant social details?"
"You're unbearableeeee. Come oooon," Eri dragged, pulling them both by the hands, "let's wait for our sensei."
A/N: Wheeeeewoooo! I usually do something more akin to weekly uploads, and the chapters aren't as long, but. SINCE This is a new story, I go a bit overboard, trying to smooth everything out and find myself in a rhythm where I can write more short and idle chapters.
SO! Hopefully you enjoy me spoiling you a bit for now. :3
Also - I'm not sure I explained this, but I literally write a ridiculous amount of Canon x Oc stories. It started as a challenge and I decided to alter the ships and OCs I came up with into a working ecosystem that all tie in together. So even though this story is about Sasuke and Eri, there will be quite a few OCs popping up as side characters that will most-likely have their own stories at a later date, similar to how I wrote this one after getting over the midway point of 'The Boy Called Trouble', which is Naruto x Oc.
Hope you enjoy it! Thanks for reading and I'm excited to hear what you think! Love you, Byeeeee!