[X] Why oh why do you wanna say goodbye
Long story, tell you after class.
'Long' is ominously underlined.
=
Oof, civilian math is rigorous. The later years of the Academy math curriculum were given over to ninja applications for the subject, like determining the arc of an arrow, or measuring the concussive force of an explosion, or just balancing a budget on a limited salary. The Edajima school's take on things involves a lot more abstract stuff. What the hell is trigonometry and why do you somehow know how to do it despite never having studied it before?
(
"You're helping yourself cheat at high school math now? Isn't that kind of a waste of this gig?"
-_- "Trig is the Devil incarnate and I'm not learnin' it twice. She can fill the extra brain space with song lyrics like a normal kid.")
As soon as the bell rings, Mei and Sorato are out the door, arm in arm and leaning on each other like an elderly couple.
Not ten seconds later, Jou and Mirioni converge on you.
Before you can say a word, Jou grabs your hands. "Thank you," he says fervently, "thank you thank you thank you
thank you. You don't know how good it feels to know there's at least one girl on the planet who
doesn't think the sun shines out of Shinyuu's ass."
You stare, perplexed. "... what."
"I know!" he says, the relief of validation brightening his face. "He's the biggest douche in school, but every chick I know thinks he's some kind of prince among men! My
mother has a crush on him." He puts on a high falsetto: "'Oh, why can't you be friends with that nice Shinyuu boy? He's such a gentleman!'"
If you were drinking something you'd have done a spittake just now. "In what language is 'gentleman' a synonym for 'moron who flirts with complete strangers in front of his poor girlfriend'?" you demand, incredulous.
"If it exists, every girl in town speaks it," Mirioni says, sighing. "They're always hugging him and posing for him when he wants to draw-"
"He draws?"
Well, there's a possible explanation for the hubbub. Artists get cut an ungodly amount of slack thanks to the hotness factor. "Is he any good?"
Mirioni shrugs the shrug of a man who has given up on understanding the difference between 'art you like' and 'good art' and is happier for it.
"He says he's influenced by Expressionism," Momiji remarks. "But what he draws looks more like an attempt at Northern Mannerism, with a few odd colour choices."
"Ararara~?" You straighten up in your seat, eyes gleaming. "You're certainly well-informed, Momiji-kun. Do you draw at all?"
"No," he says. "I don't have the talent for it. But I do take photographs on the weekends."
"Really~? Think I could sit for a private portrait before I leave?"
"Oh, hey, I thought so; he left a sketch here," Jou calls, having gone over to Sorato's desk to check. He brings over a piece of paper and hands it to you.
On it is a drawing of a smiling Mei, and you can see what Momiji meant by 'an attempt' at Mannerism. The sketch captures all the details and contrast at once, like the shadow of her hair on her neck and the particular shape of her ears, but nothing is
said about these features; they're just presented, as though each of them were drawn individually for an anatomy study and then blended into one picture. You can't even call it a realistic work, because though the details are there, they've all been... idealized is the wrong word. Upgraded, maybe; they're lit in a decidedly unrealistic fashion, like a leading lady in a movie.
Curiously, Mei herself, as a whole, is not. There's nothing to the drawing that gets across any sense of the relationship between the artist and the subject - it's like the artist doesn't exist. Or worse...
"... it's like he woke up one day and said, 'I'm gonna learn to draw so girls will like me'," you say, disgusted. If there's one thing you can't stand, it's dumbasses trying to exploit loopholes in the dating game. Cool guys are cool because they care about what they do, whether it's art or fixing cars or swinging a sword; doing something 'cool' just because coolness gets you laid is cheating, damn it!
"That offer of marriage is still open," Jou says, only half-joking.
"Anyway," Mirioni says, "you wanted to hear about what happened to Hazuki-sempai, right?"
"Mm," you affirm. "First of all, was the blinding permanent?"
"In one of his eyes, yeah," Jou says. "The left one got some vision back a few weeks later, but he's still legally blind."
"Hey, am I the one tellin' this story or not?"
"Geez, sorry."
"That's what I thought."
=
The thing you gotta know beforehand, Ino-chan [
Apparently ninja don't warrant a -hime, you note with amused disappointment], is that Hazuki-sempai isn't the most personable guy around. He talked in class and when you talked to him first, but mostly he kept himself to himself. We didn't really give him a hard time about it; his parents died in a house fire about a year before he came to school, so no one expected him to be the life of the party or anything. He didn't like loud noises, and sometimes he could be downright rude, if he thought you were bein' too crass or whatever. But that's just how he is, y'know? He likes to be alone. Even now if you ask 'im, he'll say his hobby is napping.
As you can guess, a lot of the guys didn't like him, and Shinyuu flat-out hated his guts right from the start. He used to complain all the time about how Hazuki-sempai thought he was better than the rest of us, and how he was supposedly a jerk to women. Crazy, right? Considerin' who we're talkin' about. Hazuki-sempai had a few female admirers back then, 'cause he was kinda handsome, I guess, but he wasn't interested in datin' 'em; he was here on a scholarship, and he didn't wanna fall behind. I don't think I ever saw him say more than three words to a girl.
So anyway, we have open matches every October; anyone in the younger grades can challenge the seniors. Shinyuu challenged Hazuki-sempai. Now, Shinyuu doesn't completely suck at fighting or anything - at least he didn't back then, dunno about now - but he is definitely not what you might call a 'natural' at taijutsu, and Hazuki-sempai was and is; back then they were talking about hiring him as a teacher after graduation. So the fight was pretty one-sided, and it wasn't long before Hazuki-sempai had Shinyuu on the ground.
As he was getting back up, he said, "You're so smug, standing there looking down on everyone else!"
And, I'll never forget this as long as I live, Hazuki-sempai just answered, calm as anything, "Not everyone. Just you."
So Shinyuu pulled a little bottle out of his pocket and threw it at his face. Hazuki-sempai's, I mean, not Shinyuu's.
I don't know what was in it, you'd have to ask him yourself, but when it shattered, Hazuki-sempai started screamin'. Shinyuu got in one punch before the teachers separated them, and the second they declared the fight over he let out this... this happy whoop, like a little kid at his birthday.
Hazuki-sempai wasn't more than ten feet away. We could all still hear him crying, still see him thrashing while the nurses were holdin' him down to sedate him, and here was this kid doing a victory dance without a care in the world.
Shinyuu's good mood lasted about as long as it took for Edajima-sensei to disqualify him and ban him from studying Turtle-style ever again. I've never seen the teachers so angry before or since. He only managed to keep from getting expelled by telling them what was in the bottle and paying Hazuki-sempai's medical bills. To this day, he still says he won that fight and the teachers only disqualified him because of favouritism.
Hazuki-sempai's okay now, though. He owns a veterinary clinic, him and his wife. He still competes in tournaments sometimes, but only for charity events.
=
"... well," Asuma says. "Charming day you've been having."
Showing a massive amount of good sense, he is not smoking as he says this.
"I asked if the nurses who treated Hazuki-san were in town," you say, and hand over a business card. "One of them works at that clinic, the other moved away. I used the phone in the headmaster's office to make an appointment for four o'clock today; she sounds like she's willing to discuss it. The chemistry teacher who Sorato said gave him the idea for the acid-in-the-face tactic resigned in disgust when the kid wasn't expelled, and none of the boys seem to know where he took up work after that."
"Are we allowed to kill this guy?" Ami asks with a scowl. "He doesn't sound like he's likely to become any saner the older he gets."
"Don't talk about killing so casually," Asuma says sharply.
Ami flinches, and protests, "Didn't you hear what Ino just said, sensei?"
"Did you?" Kiba asks bluntly. "That Sukaha woman didn't hire us; Nabiki-san did, and her orders were to take any thieves alive so she could question them."
"Besides, we only have Sukaha-san's word for it that he's going to try anything at all," you add. "My sensing can barely do anything around these taijutsu specialists."
Ami looks troubled. "... but he's
evil. He's a clear threat to the public good," she says.
"Yeah, he is. And I for one am gonna enjoy stomping the shit out of his crazy ass," Kiba replies with a mirthless grin. "But killing him shouldn't be our first plan."
"Well, what is our first plan?" she asks, looking over at Asuma.
"Excellent question," he says. "You tell me."
"... but..." Ami is clearly floored, her mouth hanging open.
"I'll be back in half an hour," he says, heading out the door. "The out-of-town guests'll start arriving at 3."
"... did he just Kakashi us?" Ami asks you indignantly.
"Looks like," you say, grinning.
"What does a scarecrow have to do with this?" Kiba asks.
"Kakashi is Sasuke's jounin sensei," you explain. "He does this kind of thing a lot."
"He does?" Kiba's expression brightens. "Well, hell. I guess karma really does exist."
He dodges Ami's first slap, but doesn't see her followup until it's too late.
[X] What plan are you going to propose?
-----
Artistic terms have been adjusted from what they actually are in-universe to the closest real-world approximation. Sempai/senpai no longer looks like a word.
