The New Shot in School [Lenn X Yuzuru]

Saitou Yuzuru

Yuzuru was almost positive that the marksmanship class involved firearms but perhaps out of the desire to have something familiar and comforting with him, he had brought his bow along with him that morning. It rested across his shoulder, unstrung, and there was a quiver of arrows hanging at his waist. Not a traditional place to keep, but it was less awkward to carry around that way. It was hardly like he needed it for combative purposes, in any case.

The entire walk to the sports field was quiet and undisturbed. It seemed like it was still too early for most people to be awake yet. Yuzuru himself thought that it was an odd time to be holding class but seeing as he was used to sleeping at nine in the evening and waking up at five in the morning, the timing was not entirely awful to him. To be perfectly honest, it felt nice to be rising at the same time as others, and to actually have a purpose for doing so again. He had missed that.

It took him a little time to locate the instructor but Yuzuru eventually found the woman at her desk. He took a moment to glance at the time before approaching her. Ten minutes early, exactly as he had been taught. That was a relief. With a soft sigh, he he made his move. Internally, he shrunk back a bit as the woman greeted him, her accent strange to his ears and her blatant energy just as foreign.

He bowed to her, perhaps a little more deeply than usual out of unease, and stuck to basic courtesies. "Good morning. I am Yuzuru Saitou. It is very nice to meet you." His eyes fell to the gun at her hip and nodded to it politely, acknowledging the fact that yes, he knew exactly what he was getting into when he had signed up for the class. "I hope that I will be able to perform adequately."

Saitou Yuzuru

The way that the teacher said his name was wince worthy but he tried not to react to it. Considering that some of his distant relatives were from Osaka and speakers of that dialect had very strong accents, Yuzuru tried to draw comfort from that comparison. However, it was obvious that as accustomed as he was to Osakaben, whatever accent that this woman used was vastly different. For instance. Stereotypes. Osakaben was the loose, loud sort. Kyotoben, which Yuzuru used, was the -he really disliked calling it this way, however accurate the description was- the feminine and soft sort.

What he was getting from the teacher's accent was that it should have belonged to an Osakan yakuza. But surely that sort of person would have never made it to a teaching position at the school. Then again, there had been that thug faced teacher from the courtyard and the eccentric, dragon obsessed one from biology class. Yuzuru failed to be reassured.

"Very well then, Ms. Greaves?" Yuzuru tried, slowly. He picked through her accent and pieced together what she was saying. "I suppose, it seemed like a good fit for me. As you said, I am an archer. Firearms are rather tightly controlled in Japan so I thought that given this opportunity to actually work with them, I should pursue it."

Saitou Yuzuru

It might not have seemed like it but Yuzuru's response to any challenge was mental, slightly eager Is that all? It was maybe just a little indecent of him but he liked competition. More specifically, he liked being better than the competition but that was a very improper feeling and he should get rid of it. If his grandmother were here, if she could read his thoughts, she would be holding him by the ear. Humility, humility, humility!

So since he could not vocalize how he truly felt about the situation, he settled for a bow and small smile that trembled a bit with how much he was actually looking to it all.

Soon, the other students began to appear and Yuzuru instinctively edged away from the crowd while maintaining relative closeness to Ms. Greaves. The rabble was a little irritating this early in the morning and all of his classmates were complete strangers. Therefore, all of them were fair game. Forgive me, Grandmother, for thinking so but it is true. He frowned very slightly at everybody else's inattention but as the sound finally died down and attendance was taken, he felt more certain that whatever the challenge was, he could overcome it.

As Ms. Greaves went on, Yuzuru suddenly came to the conclusion that weeding would likely not depend on the simple Why are you here? that he had answered earlier. Though athletics in Japan heavily incorporated desk work, the fields seemed a poor place for that. Besides, Ms. Greaves hardly seemed like the sort to solve issues in that manner.

As she continued to explain what exactly she expected of them, he unfastened the quiver from his belt and began looking for places to set his belongings down. When she mentioned running, Yuzuru gave up searching for a spot of his own and quickly rushed forward to place them near the foot of her desk.

And then he was off with the rest of the class, thanking god that he had come on time. One mile, he could probably cover in nine to ten minutes. Two miles, he could be dead. If this was going to become a regular occurrence, he might need to rethink his exercise routine.

Saitou Yuzuru

All things considered, actually, Yuzuru thought that this could be the most normal class that he was -almost?- enrolled in so far. Of course, all he could compare with thus far was Mr. Evensman from "biology class" and Mr. Trang, who had started Vietnamese class by listing words for various mythological creatures, telling them that it was "important to understand their peers." Privately, he wondered if his hypothetical future roommate would be just as strange or even stranger.

In any case, the first few minutes on the field reminded Yuzuru of exactly how out of shape he had become in the last few months. Since his grandmother had died, he had become more and more reclusive, with fewer reasons to leave the house as his siblings and parents fell into a schedule of constantly wandering off into the night to commit acts of nonsense and returning early the following morning. It would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it but the obvious oddity that was his family frustrated him to no end. Yet even with how blatant that was, he was the one who had been shipped off to a strange boarding school on a strange island full of strange people.

If he were that sort of person, Yuzuru would swear up and down that the only sane members of his family were himself and his grandmother. He was supposed to be mindful of things like that, however, and how it reflected on the family as a whole. It was right to remain silent on such things. That was what his grandmother told him, anyways, but he still lacked her skill in being able to herd others according to her will. Not that he had enough insight to fully comprehend that sort of manipulation anyways.

The one thing that these frustrating thoughts were good for, however, was distracting him from how his body was disagreeing with the mere mile. When he had finished with his run, Yuzuru pulled off to the side, where he could keep a good eye out on his bow, and tried not to look too winded. The clock said that he had been running for ten minutes and approximately twenty three seconds. In other words, he was late and that bothered him more than it should have.

By the time the rest of the class had finished up, Yuzuru had long since recovered and was silently reorganizing his schedule so that something as embarrassing as this never happened again. For the first time, too, he was studying the people who had signed up for the class and increasingly felt less and less impressed. And the moment that some of the other boys opened their mouths, Yuzuru began to facepalm so hard that it might have even been audible, regardless of how poorly it reflected on him.

Physical labor was good and at least he knew had more upper body strength than lower so it was almost a relief to drop to the ground and start his push ups. It kept people quiet, too.

Saitou Yuzuru

Yuzuru had a good upbringing so he was able to say, somewhat generously, that the next two weeks of training were difficult. But since he was a stubborn person, which could also be generously translated as being "upright" or "of strong character," he stuck by his decision to take the class and went through every demand that the teacher had of him. After all, he did not want anybody to think that his genuine interest was so passing that a single, simple obstacle would deter him. In this way, too, his pride was left relatively untouched.

The two weeks, eventually, tapered off into a regular, predictable schedule. He came to class early every day to go through some light exercises before the real training really could begin. Afterwards, he would linger behind in order to get some archery practice done, which had varying degrees of success. It was an embarrassment to recall that on the first day, he had o