the found family i am about to create with midori murayama and tsukasa-

five

big machine

Over the course of the next two weeks, I found that I was spending more and more time at Oya Kokoh, training with Murayama. Seki even tried to teach me how to barbecue once, but I ended up burning everything. They treated me like one of their own, or at least, the part-timers did. The full-timers and the first years did not like the fact that I fought Muryama once and suddenly I was 'in'. Like it was some exclusive club or something.

Everybody noticed the changes in my behavior. Noboru remarked that I seemed less stressed, and that he had never seen me leave the house this much. Like, ever. Daichi seems to think I spend so much time there because, and his words, not mine, I'm 'banging Murayama'. As if.

Even my dad noticed when he Skype called me from Florence. Aldon Yamada was hardly around when I was a kid. My father was in the freighting business, driving tractor trailers all around Japan. When I was in seventh grade, he started sticking around more, and I was the closest to him out of everybody in my family.

"You're glowing." He had remarked "I don't know what you're doing that seems to be cheering you up and giving you purpose, but keep doing it."

If I had told him I was at Oya, he would have disowned me, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Muryama was getting better with literature. Either he was smarter than he looks or I'm a damn good tutor. I would literally put money on the second one.

Today I was training on my own. All the part - timers had gone to fight Daruma Ikka, something about a 'grudge match' between Murayama and Hyuga. I had no idea why they couldn't just be like Sannoh Rengokai and get along with everybody. Being a hot-headed idiot must come with the territory.

I had a Velvet Revolver album on in the background, head pounding from my usual dehydration headache as I continued to beat the crap out of the punching bag Todoroki had hung from the ceiling. While Murayama was gone, he was in charge and he was loving it. That also meant that his little hangout was empty and I had free rein on the punching bag until he noticed.

Outside that small room, the blond from yesterday was roaming the hallways, stopping in front of the open door as he heard the music. He cleared his throat, rapping quickly on the door.

I fired off a quick roundhouse kick, startled when I heard the noise.

"I thought the halls were mostly empty. Hell, for a second I thought you might be Todoroki." I chuckled sourly, grabbing my tie dye sweater from the floor and pulling it over my sports bra. "He doesn't know I'm in here, it should probably stay that way."

The blond boy laughed "Yeah, he's something else. I would have thought he went to Daruma, seeing as how he was a part of the Container Fight."

I chuckled, shrugging my shoulders as I let down my hair, still trying to figure out where I'd seen this kid before. "Who knows. Things in S.W.O.R.D have always been outside the realm of my understanding."

"You've never been a part of S.W.O.R.D?"

I shook my head "Unnecessary drama, even when kids I knew were being scouted by yakuza families. I just wanted to focus on surviving high school." I started peeling the pink tape off my hands when I realized where I might know this kid from ""Hey, did you go to Sato?"

The blond nodded, a look of recognition lighting up his face. "Yeah, I would have been a freshman when you were a senior."

"I think I dated your brother." I laughed "Is he still a dick?"

The blond howled with laughter, moving to sit next to me on the leather couch. "Still is and always will be. I'm Tsukasa."

"Midori, but you probably remember that." I laughed, shaking his hand

"Didn't you have green hair back then-"

"We don't need to talk about that!" I interrupted

"I remember watching you kick a kid down a flight of stairs. I was awestruck. To be honest, you scared me."

I smiled, remembering the pointless fight I'd had with Sannoh's Dan back in high shcool, Tetsu standing off the the side with his video camera, obviously thinking that Dan was going to win. The fight spanned three hallways and should have ended with me being victorious until we got to the staircase and I accidentally kicked him down the stairs. Not my finest hour, but even with video evidence nobody dared snitch. I had a competition in a week, and nobody wanted to jeopardize a kid from Oya getting to nationals. Well, I wasn't actually from Oya.

"So, you're from Oya then, right?" Tsukasa asked, obviously referring to the Oya Township, which was definitely a wreck, but one I'd come to love "How were you never involved with S.W.O.R.D?"

"We didn't live in Oya. Not really. I lied sometimes, pretended I was from your part of town so that being the way I was made sense. We're actually from a small strip of land between Oya and the Rascals territory. My Uncle Marumo is drinking buddies with Seki though. That's the closest I think I ever got to S.W.O.R.D connections."

We drifted into silence, each enjoying a silent reverie of what our glory days once were. I broke the silence first, offering Tsukasa a stir fry.

"This is incredible." He said, practically shoving the rice and curry into his mouth "Why do you only make lunch for Murayama and his guys? The rest of us deserve to feel the love."

I chuckled "Well, the plan was always culinary school. A lot of things happened when I was growing up, and my mother was incredibly pissed off when I quit judo. After high school, I moved back to Okinawa, went to art school. There I realized that I wasn't anything special, not like at Sato where I was a brilliant artist in a sea of nobodies. I got to real art school and I realized that I was simply average. I sorta realized I was average at everything, got scared of trying. Trapped myself in endless college classes so I would become super over qualified an no longer average."

"And then you came back here. And spend all your spare time at Oya?"

"Yeah, that was an oversight."

Tsukasa laughed, coughing as he choked on a chunk of ground stewing beef. "From what I saw of you and Murayama the other day, you're anything but average."

"Thanks.Hey, since I came here to train and my partner ditched me, you wouldn't mind stepping up, would you?" I asked the younger boy stretching my arms behind my head "Punching bags don't fight back. Although there was this one at my dojo that I kicked when I was in a crap mood once and it just hit me right back."

Tsukasa chuckled, taking off his flannel shirt and following me over to the small space of mat. "If you beat the crap out of me, I will officially lose any respect the other first years have for me."

I giggled, getting into a fighting stance as I turned my music back on. As 'Big Machine' started playing, I made the first move, kicking Tsukasa in the stomach. He blocked the kick, reaching to punch my jaw. I blocked, twisting his arm and positioning my body under his so I could throw him. He countered, elbowing my shoulder. I snapped back with a grunt, driving my elbow into his stomach and getting back to my feet to kick him backwards. He scrambled back up, firing off punches quicker than Murayama had.

"You learn all this at Sato?" I questioned, throwing a half-assed punch to his face as a distraction so that the could drive my knee into his chest as he doubled over.

"I'm from the Districts. You pick up a lot of street smarts." He grinned widely, coming in for another kick when the horns on Oya High's lorry transports rang out.

We froze.

The part-timers were back from Daruma Territory.

NOTES!

so i might be considering writing a the worst: episode 0 book.

somebody stop me before this franchise becomes my entire personality