The room was silent for only a moment before Nagisa stood up and briskly walked over to the table to claim the paper bag Shimamura Sensei had left for them.

“I dunno about you two but I’m starving,” she said, walking back towards the bed, hooking her foot around the chair Sensei had used and dragging it back with her. “Scoot.” she said to Fuuka, who obediently drew up her legs, clearing some space on the bed for Nagisa to tear open the bag and lay it down as an improvised table mat.

Freed, the bag’s contents tumbled outwards and the three children crowded around to examine their bounty. There were half a dozen sandwiches, neatly wrapped in white grease paper, three glass bottles of juice and a large, foil bag of crunchy lotus root chips.

Fuuka’s stomach rumbled loudly and she suddenly remembered she’d been running too late for breakfast.

Kaoru laughed. “Well let’s not stand on ceremony then,” he said, picking out one of the sandwiches and unwrapping it delicately. Nagisa took one next, her hand darting forwards like a viper to snatch one up and tearing off the paper with alacrity. Fuuka followed her teammates’ example and picked out a sandwich of her own, her stomach urging her on.

“Mmph, that’sh really good,” Nagisa muttered through a mouthful of food and Fuuka could only nod. Her own sandwich was made of soft, pillowy white bread and was filled with a fried pork cutlet and a salty sweet sauce underneath a thin layer of cabbage for freshness and crunch. It was one of the best things Fuuka had ever eaten.

For several minutes only the sound of chewing and the rustle of paper reigned over the room. There was a brief interruption when Kaoru’s rats poked their way out of his cloak and the boy placated them with several pinched off morsels from his sandwich. Nagisa looked openly uncomfortable at the rodents’ presence, but she said nothing and seemed to relax when they disappeared back where they had come from.

“So, are all jonin like that?” Nagisa asked suddenly, a few minutes later. The sandwiches were all gone and Kaoru had opened up the bag of lotus chips for them to share with much less urgency.

“Mmm I haven’t actually met that many,” Fuuka said, after swallowing the mouthful of juice she’d taken in during Nagisa’s question. “But Yoritomo sensei was pretty different, yeah. He was a lot um… friendlier, more laid back generally. The bell test we did with him was a lot different too,”

“Yes, that didn’t exactly seem standard,” said Kaoru, sounding faintly amused. “It was pretty interesting though and the debriefing. I feel like I learned a lot,”

Fuuka hummed thoughtfully. It was true that working back through what had happened together had helped her analyse her actions during the mission, Shimamura Sensei’s questions had been incisive and pointed, but not exactly cruel. Yoritomo Sensei had never really done anything like that, although he had always been encouraging and friendly to her.

“By the way Fuuka chan, will you be alright to get home?” Kaoru said, changing the subject as the lotus chips had slowly dwindled away to nothing. “We can walk you back if need be,”

“That really won’t be necessary,” Fuuka said quickly and she scrambled to swing her legs over the side of the bed and stand up to prove her point, suppressing a wince as her skin and muscles twinged with pain. “My home’s not far from… uh, wherever where we are,”

Kaoru laughed lightly. “We’re at the listening post we were trying to get to originally, it’s not actually all that far from where we split up, maybe a few blocks to the East?”

“Oh of course,” said Fuuka, feeling silly. She had known that some listening posts had rooms like these that could serve as infirmaries or bunks for shinobi moving through the city. Fuuka hadn’t had much occasion to avail herself of these facilities with Yoritomo Sensei though.

“I went past a street carriage stop before I got caught,” said Nagisa blandly, gesturing towards the window Shimamura Sensei had climbed out of. “‘Bouta block that a ways if you don’t feel like walking,”

“That would be nice,” Fuuka said. “I don’t think I brought my coin purse though,”

“What?” Nagisa asked.

“Wh- well I was kind of running late this morning,” Fuuka said, scratching the back of her neck.

“No,” Nagisa said, frowning. “I mean you actually pay the fare? Just climb in through the back after they start rolling. They only check for tickets at the door,” she said, in a matter of fact tone that suggestrf any other option had never occurred to her.

For some reason this was hilarious to Kaoru and he started laughing openly until Nagisa turned to glare at him.

“I uhm, don’t think I should do that,” Fuuka said weakly.

“Whatever. I guess I owe you for the other day so-,” Nagisa said, digging into her pocket before tossing a handful of change at Fuuka that she had to scramble to catch.

“You don’t have to-” Fuuka began, before Nagisa cut her off. “Save it, I hate having stuff like that hanging over me,” she said curtly. “We’re square now,”

“Umm, okay,” Fuuka said, pocketing the change, which felt like more than she needed for a carriage fare.

"If there’s nothing else we need to go over, I think I’m gonna head out,” said Nagisa, sticking her hands in her pockets and glancing towards the staircase in the far corner of the room. “This has been great and all but I still have stuff I need to do today,”

To Fuuka, who wanted nothing more than to go home and collapse on her bed, the idea of actually trying to do something else after everything that had already happened today sounded like madness but she didn’t say that.

“I… don’t think there’s anything else particularly?” Fuuka said hesitantly. Shimamura Sensei had said they could take the rest of the day off and that hadn’t really sounded like some kind of elaborate test where they were really supposed to get to know each other better or something like that.

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“Maybe we should exchange addresses?” Kaoru said. “Well, I live at the Shinizumi compound which is pretty easy to find but if we have to meet up without Sensei it might be useful to know where to find each other?”

“Doesn’t your clan basically know where we all live so they can send messages? You could just find out from them couldn’t you?” Nagisa asked, narrowing her eyes.

Kaoru looked embarrassed and he coughed delicately. “Well, yes I could actually. I thought it would be more polite to ask first?”

Nagisa snorted, but she did answer him. “Whatever, I’m just living at the dorm anyway, you know where that is right?”

Kaoru nodded and Fuuka did as well. She hadn’t ever been to them but Yoritomo had mentioned offhandedly that the village provided free housing for shinobi of any rank who needed it. Financially desperate shinobi were a security risk as they could be easily bribed or blackmailed so many hidden villages had similar programs. Fuuka hadn’t realised that someone as young as her and Nagisa would need to use them though. Most genin still lived with their family, whether that was in a sprawling compound as part of a clan or with their more immediate extended family unit in one of the city's many residential neighbourhoods.

“Oh! I live in Haijing ward,” Fuuka said quickly, when she realised both of her teammates had turned to look at her. “I’ll write it down, it's nowhere interesting that would be easy to remember,”

Hastily Fuuka moved over to the table and picked out a pencil and scribbled down her address twice on a scrap of paper she tore from the bag their lunch had come in, then she tore that in half and handed one to Kaoru and the other to Nagisa.

“Great,” said Nagisa, tucking the scrap of paper into her pocket. “I really am taking off now though, I’ll see you two around I guess,” And with that the other girl left, waving casually over her shoulder as she took the stairs down and out of view.

After watching her leave, Kaoru turned back to Fuuka with a polite smile.

“Why don’t I at least walk you to the station,” Kaoru said easily. “It’s more or less on my way anyway,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he wasn’t running for his life, it turned out Kaoru had rather a slow walking pace and Fuuka found herself having to consciously hobble her stride to keep pace with him, even with her injuries. It was true that Fuuka was a bit taller than Kaoru, maybe half a head in total, but it didn’t seem like that was really the limiting factor here. Kaoru just… didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Maybe it was him being considerate, but Kaoru sort of ambled along in a way Fuuka wasn’t used to seeing in someone her age. He would sometimes slow and turn his head to watch someone he picked out of the crowd of other pedestrians or study a particular sign or poster with a private little smile tugging at his lips.

“I have to say I’m relieved,” said Kaoru suddenly, taking Fuuka by surprise because they hadn’t been talking at all for the majority of their travelling together.

“Because we passed Sensei’s test?” Fuuka guessed cautiously. She had known about bell tests because she had done one before but she supposed a clan child like Kaoru might have some idea about them from older relatives and be worried about the outcome. Fuuka didn’t know much about the internal relations of the Shinizumi clan, but her old teammates had seemed to be under a lot of pressure to do well from their clans.

“Oh- no, I mean- sort of,” said Kaoru, looking embarrassed. “To be honest I had heard of the test but I wasn’t worried about it all beforehand. To be honest in retrospect I underestimated it quite a bit. Actually what I’m relieved about is you. Well- you and Nagisa chan,”

“Huh?” said Fuuka, eloquently.

“Mother was very concerned about who my squadmates might be,” Kaoru explained. “Probably you already know this but it's pretty rare in the shinobi world for a whole clan to focus on non combat operations and a lot of people don’t think very highly of that. I was a little worried I would be stuck with teammates who wouldn’t respect me or want to work with me, or possibly worse: teammates who were incompetent and would hold me back,”

“I don’t think that kind of attitude would last once they saw you in action though,” said Fuuka, frowning. “Your techniques were really impressive during the test! We wouldn’t have even known where to run to without your rat finding the listening post for us and Shimamura Sensei basically said your decoy was the highlight of the whole exercise,”

“I'm pleased you think so,” said Kaoru. “I think my techniques are impressive too, but that’s why it’s so important that I do well. I mentioned before that my Mother was the one to develop the techniques I need to be useful in combat right?”

“Yes I think so,” said Fuuka, then to be polite she added. “She sounds like an interesting person,”

Kaoru laughed lightly. “Yes I think so, very interesting. Regardless, she had to get permission from the clan elders to train me this way. These techniques are new and thus unproven and clans dont really like to break with tradition at the best of times. Mother had to… she calls it spending ‘political capital’. She had to call in favours that were owed to her and stake her reputation on this venture. If it doesn’t go well, if I don’t do well then she’ll be in a bad position. Her rivals will be able to point to my failings as evidence of her incompetence.”

Fuuka had been too frantic during the test to really observe Kaoru deeply, so this was her first time really seeing him with a serious expression instead of the polite or playful little smiles he seemed to favour. Right now his mouth was set in a firm line and behind his glasses his pale green eyes were angled sternly.

Fuuka tried to imagine what it would be like to be in such direct competition with her relatives for status and resources. Even civilians could be organised into clans although they ran along a wide spectrum in terms of how organised and controlled they could be. The extended Kurokawa family was on the pretty loose end already and Fuuka’s father Fuuken had moved away from his ancestral village to establish his bakery in the city. Whatever flagging authority some distant patriarch might have tried to exert over Fuuka was well and truly extinguished even before she became a shinobi.

The other Kurokawas were mostly just people Fuuka saw at occasional reunions and that was about it. She knew her mother didn’t really like Uncle Jinbei and his sons because they drank too much and told off colour jokes, Tomoki said he had even made a pass at her once but Fuuka didn’t even know if that was true. It probably wasn’t and that was the dramatic height of ‘Kurokawa family politics’

What would it be like if Fuuka’s performance as a shinobi could somehow impact her father’s business? Or cripple her Mother’s social prospects or Tomoki’s education somehow? The thought caused dread to settle like a layer of grease in the pit of Fuuka’s stomach. Worst of all even if things like that did ride on her career as a shinobi they would still look at her with those same trusting, proud expressions like she could do no wrong.

Kaoru was probably a lot more mature than her, Fuuka decided.

“I don’t know if I’m really the best team mate you could have,” Fuuka said hesitantly. “But I definitely respect you and I’ll do my best not to hold you back. I… don’t want to let anyone down anymore,”

Kaoru smiled sunnily at her, revealing white, even teeth that seemed slightly more pointed than was normal.

“Thank you Fuuka chan, that means a lot,” said Kaoru. “But like I said, I’m not worried about it anymore. After today I’m certain you and Nagisa chan as well will be excellent teammates,”

Fuuka wasn’t sure how to respond to that or what exactly she had done to earn such certainty. It didn’t seem like Kaoru really needed one though, because he just kept on walking and in short order they arrived at the carriage stop and parted ways, leaving Fuuka alone with her thoughts.