AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hope you can all forgive the abundance of SOL stuff so far! I like to take time establishing character relationships and the status quo, makes it more interesting when it inevitably shifts, you know? It'll all be relevant in one form or another, that much I can guarantee.
"Mmm…"
"Oh great, the freak's waking up…"
"Wah?" Hisashi strained to open his eyes as a striking light pierced them. He felt like… he was on someone's back? A familiar voice responded to his inquisitive non-word.
"Ah, you are awake! Are you well? You had quite the fall." That sounded like… Lee?
"Fall?" He asked, as though trying to register the information.
"Yes, you fainted right after you were assigned to our team. It was quite the shock! Though, your brother assured us that it was nothing to worry about." Her tone was so sincere, almost eerily so for someone like him.
He fainted? That was odd. That hadn't been a regular occurrence since he was eight or so. Just what had happened to make him collapse so suddenly? He glanced over Lee's shoulder and was immediately reminded of the source of his woes—everything wrong with the world wrapped up into one person, the one individual he could not and would not ever get along with, Nara Fumiko! The two of them locked eyes and immediately glared at each other.
Lee shivered, suddenly feeling an unnatural tension. She looked at Fumiko, then back at Hisashi from the corner of her eye. They all had their issues coming from the doorway incident early in the day but this was a frankly uncomfortable level of vitriol between two teammates. Just what had happened between these two?
"I think I'm good to walk. Thanks, Lee." The boy on her back said, though with some edge in his voice from locking eyes with his eternal (apparently?) rival.
"Ah! It was no problem. We are teammates now, after all." She stood up straight and Hisashi felt right off onto his feet. He looked around his surroundings. They were in the middle of the street on an extremely familiar path—the same one he would use to get home.
"What are we…"
"Ah, yes, it was a suggestion from Shino-sensei. He advised us to take your collapse as a chance to bond as a team by walking home together." She had never seen the man so shocked before in her life—she was certain his jaw was seconds away from hitting the floor.
"...Did he ever say why we were put in the same team?" The boy crossed his arms, an utterly befuddled expression on his face. "This is just weird. Weird, weird, weird. It makes zero possible sense."
"Fumiko expressed a similar sentiment." She gestured at her teammate, who kept her eyes firmly in the other direction, as though she were ashamed to be seen with the pair. "His reasoning was that our skills made us conducive to the creation of a balanced team. My taijutsu, Fumiko's ninjutsu, and your genjutsu."
"Genjutsu? I don't even know that many techniques. You sure he wasn't just using it as an excuse to punish me for telling him to get a girlfriend so many times?" His inquisitive eyes widened, looking to the sky as he spoke, as though he had come up with the most logical conclusion possible.
"He wouldn't load us with someone like you for a reason that petty, dumbass." Fumiko responded curtly. Hisashi furrowed his brows at her, before turning back to Lee.
"Well, consider me team bonded." He pulled out a foldable fan that appeared to have been weathered by time, covering his face with it. Lee could feel an increase in enmity from behind her and the boy's eyes squinted in the foxish way they were known to as though he had accomplished something malicious. "But I actually had plans for after the meet, so I'll see you around."
"H-hold, please! Surely, it is more imperative that we learn more about each other, no?! When we meet our sensei, they will surely have a group challenge ready for us!" The girl slouched a bit as she pleaded with the short boy, who merely shook his head while moving an open palm side to side.
"Sorry, Lee, but this was a promise between blood brothers! If I don't make it there, our whole friendship'll be on the line, you know!" He declared with passion.
"I-I see… It's something of that magnitude, then…" She placed a contemplative fist on her chin. For some reason, she noticed a brief shift in his eyes that she could only call a mixture of pity and guilt.
"Well, don't let us hold you! Have fun!" Fumiko shooed him away, to which he responded with a simple "hmph!" before storming off. It was hard to understand how there could be so much animosity between two people.
"Did something happen between the two of you?" Lee tilted her head.
"Let's just say they don't call him a 'dogshit' ninja for nothing." With that, she was about to walk away, but the ever persistent Lee followed along.
"Wait, please!"
"What?!" She snapped.
"I understand we have our differences, but… we are a team now, so surely we can let bygones be bygones?"
"Water under the bridge." She replied shortly, before walking again.
"One thing you like, one thing you dislike!" The Nara turned back at the persistent girl, squinting her eyes with annoyance, before sighing and resigning herself to her company.
"Isn't that meant to be an icebreaker we talk about with our sensei?" Lee beamed at her willingness to speak, if only a bit.
"It is always good to have a headstart on things!" She clapped her hands together. "As I asked the question, it is only fair that I provide an answer of my own. I like collecting bijuu-mi and dislike tea drinking!"
"Eh?" Fumiko stared with widened eyes back at her, looking almost taken aback.
"Umm, did I say something peculiar?"
"No—I just wasn't expecting it." She further elaborated as she noticed Lee's confused expression. "Well, you're pretty… healthy so I was expecting you to say something like 'pumping iron' or 'running marathons' or something like that."
She put a macho bent to her voice as she mentioned the two possible responses, leading Lee to blush and look towards the ground, the once dignified girl and overly serious girl now embarrassedly tapping two index fingers together.
"I… felt speaking of such things would not be conducive to team bonding. Though I have hit my 500 kilogram bench press goal and upped my body weights to 150 kilograms if that is of any interest to you." She looked back up at her teammate, who was staring at her blankly, as though her brain was attempting to register that piece of information. Lee could have sworn that a shiver went down the other girl's spine. "Oh! I also enjoy cooking!"
Fumiko sighed. There were a lot of pieces that were falling into place now. For example, why Lee had been completely exempt from the ninjutsu and genjutsu portion of their exam.
"I… like bijuu-mi, too." She finally admitted, with a sigh. "But I dislike cooking because I'm awful at it."
"Oh! Please, please elaborate! Which of the bijuu-mi is your favorite?" Lee clasped the other girl's hands with the delight of one like-minded soul finding another.
"Umm, Shukaa-ku." Lee appeared absolutely astonished by this revelation.
"Truly? I thought that those were very unpopular in the Hidden Leaf Village."
It was here that the detached and guarded girl's eyes filled with a fierce passion unbefitting a Nara, yet so perfectly in line with her mother.
"There's just no accounting for taste in this village—it's all 'Kuraa-ma' this 'Kuraa-ma' that but Shukaa-ku is objectively the better made—" Fumiko stopped, noticing the shock on Lee's face. The two stared at each other for a brief moment. And stared. Until their silence was torn to shreds by their laughter.
"Well," Fumiko began, a little warmer, "my house isn't that far from here, if you want to tag along."
"Mm!" Lee replied with a grin, content with her success. It was actually a piece of advice from her father: 'be sincere with your intent and the lotus of youth will spin eternal!'
As the dawn of one friendship began, a calamity was springing up within another! At least, that is how it appeared to Tsubomi as she sat in between a cold war between Hisashi, Kazuya, and Akihiko. It was a two against one debacle. Originally the three boys were planning on visiting a BBQ Restaurant but her two new teammates decided to take it to a karaoke restaurant because they figured girls didn't play video games—a statement only Hisashi pointed out as completely absurd considering a solid 25 percent of their conversations revolved around them. Still, she supposed she could appreciate the attempt.
That, in and of itself, was not the source of the conflict, however. They were actually having a fairly nice time in their room, despite being too shy to sing herself. She was actually introduced to an interesting fact about Hisashi she had never known before—he had quite the singing voice! Kazuya not so much, but his favorite genre was metal and, as he said, "you don't have to sing good, you just have to sing with passion!"
After his turn, however, they hit their first roadblock, the moment Akihiko chose his song. She had immediately noticed a grimace overcome the two brothers' faces.
"It starts with—huh?" Akihiko looked puzzled as Hisashi paused the music.
"Pick another song." The twin brothers said in unison.
"...Why?" He asked in disbelief.
"You always sing the same few couple of songs whenever we come in here. Can't you pick something new for once?" Asked Kazuya.
"No I don't, what are you talking about?"
"You do." Hisashi said with exasperated hands on his head. "Every. Single. Time. If I have to hear 'it starts with you' or 'let the bodies hit the floor' one more time, I'm gonna scream!"
"I do not sing them that much."
"Aki, neither of us have ever willingly played any of the songs you like but both of us know them all word for word." Kazuya chimed in.
"Because it's good!" Akihiko responded defensively, increasingly growing more and more irritated. Tsubomi's eyes were merely darting from boy to boy as this scuffle transpired, silently munching on the plate of chips with wasabi flavored sauce on the side they had ordered.
"Absolutely not! I've seen your playlist before with my own two eyes and you played the same five songs over 1000 times each! That's sick! Where's it at now? 2000? 3000? You have a problem!" Hisashi outstretched two palms into the air to emphasize his point, to which Kazuya nodded his head in silent agreement.
Akihiko stood up from his seat (which Hisashi had conveniently made sure was right next to Tsubomi) and the twins immediately recoiled as he started to approach them.
"H-hey, hold on a sec—" BONK. Hisashi's plea was interrupted as Akihiko grabbed the sides of their head and slammed them together, swiping the remote control from him. The two slumped over to their respective sides of their two seat couch as Akihiko clicked his teeth and sat right back down with Tsubomi, whose body immediately tensed up and face reddened, though to an unnoticeable degree given how dark the room was.
"Here," He put the control in her hand, "I'm not feeling it anymore so you can close us up for the night."
"A-ah, b-but th-there's…"
"Jus… pick somefin…" She heard Hisashi's slurred voice from the other side of the room. "Can' be much worse tha' Aki…."
She took a deep breath in. "Alright."
She scrolled through the available songs on the karaoke machine's screen until she found it, one of her absolute favorites. Though she could not see it, Akihiko was smirking as she selected it. A classic…
"Hem hem." She cleared her throat as a familiar violin solo started to play, followed soon by a drum beat, and guitar solo. Like two victims having a trauma response, the twins were shocked into sitting back up, a look of unparalleled despair creeping onto their faces as the true inevitability of fate hit them both at once. No… No! Not her, too!
"I am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard—"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
