43 A Youthful encounter! Pt.1
[THIRD PERSON POV:]
"Ah… these cabbages are expensive Uncle! Any way you can bring the price down a bit?" Asked a young woman, inspecting a cabbage with her hands. She stood in front of a cabbage vendor in a populated area of the Leaf Village, the city was waking up and people were filtering in and out of stalls doing their morning shopping.
The man at the stall grunted and thought for a second, he normally shot hagglers down as he was the only one selling cabbages in this district and could afford to hike prices up. However, as he looked at the young lady he found her quite cute so the man waited a second before giving his best impression of a "handsome smoulder" and hummed thoughtfully.
After a moment, he decided to halve the price and in a deeper tone than he usually spoke replied, "Sure, why not? 15 Ryo, but only because you're so-"
"HURRAH! IF I CAN'T REACH THAT CABBAGE STALL IN 4 SECONDS… I'LL DO A HUNDERED PUSH-UPS!" a scream made him and the lady yelp in surprise, to his chagrin, his deep voice was interrupted by a childish screech from his own mouth.
The crazy child who screamed this was quite far away, he took a moment to glare at him before turning his attention to the woman who had a similar reaction to him.
"Anyway, 15 Ryo…" he paused for a second to get back into his groove, "You look very beau-"
"HORA! HUNDRED PUSH-UPS!" the boy had somehow teleported in front of his stall and was now completing push-ups faster than the man could count, he was enraptured by the sight of the workout and watched the boy complete his challenge, running off soon after.
The cabbage vendor turned his head to where the lady stood and was met with empty air, he looked down at his stall to see that a cabbage from his stash had gone missing and there was no sight of the young woman nor a single Ryo.
The man's first instinct was to scream out in indignation at the thief but then he looked at his belly sticking out of his shirt with a conflicted expression.
'I should work out some more before hitting on a girl...' he thought, storing the young boy's exercise routine in his mind to try later at home.
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[AOKI POV:]
Embarrassing! It's embarrassing but it's also freeing! I am cringe, but I accept the cringe… and I am free because of it!
Huzzah! Run Aoki Run!
Through the cringe we are free! Break through societal norms and take flight! Hurrah!
I think I'm losing my mind! Hurrah!
This year's schooling had concluded, and next year we'd all be eligible for graduation. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that I was falling behind. Through all of this, my training has been the one thing I have held onto and has been kind to me.
There's something wrong with me. Is this a form of Stockholm syndrome? The more I do this, the more I devote myself to training, the better I feel. There's a purity in this, every part of yourself primed to improve yourself further while caring nought for what others think of you.
'I am a beacon of growth, the embers of my pheonixial flame shall bathe me in the burning ferocity of training and lift me higher than the winds of Jutsu could ever hope to do!'
Maybe I'm losing my mind just a tad.
'Run! Run past the stalls! The tomatoes, the beetroots, the carrots! The scarecrow and the bean! The eggs and the-'
What was that last part? Scarecrow? Bean?
I did a double-take.
About 300 metres in front of me were two people walking side by side, I would've missed them both had it not been for one of them having unmistakable spiky grey hair that erupted from their head. The other was dressed in all green and was rocking a shiny haircut that glimmered in the sun.
'That… that's them…' I realised, my eyes growing wide in shock.
In all honesty, I had put the chances of operation "Guy-bait" succeeding at about 2%. What are the chances that I'd meet one specific ninja in a whole village chock-full of them? But I'm sure of it… who else wears all green and sticks closer to Kakashi than spouses on their honeymoon?
This was my chance.
"HURRAH! IF I CAN'T REACH THAT CABBAGE STALL IN 4 SECONDS… I'LL DO A HUNDRED PUSH-UPS!" I shouted out, belting my voice out further than ever before to ensure that they were in earshot.
I had put a ridiculously small number of seconds to reach my goal so I would have to do the push-ups, I didn't know if he'd be looking at me, but I wanted to show him the fullest extent of my capabilities.
"HORA! HUNDERED PUSH-UPS!" I screamed, throwing myself to the floor and cranking out push-ups with YOUTHFUL ferocity, I had gotten extremely good at these over the years. I doubt any academy student would be able to match me in sheer stamina alone.
'Are they watching? Please be watching.' I prayed, completing my push-ups and breaking into a sprint soon after.
'Where are they? They've disappeared?!' I thought as I started running again, the two Jonin had disappeared from where I had seen them last, had they missed me and run away? Did they see me and choose to ignore me? I seriously hope it isn't the latter-
"MY OH MY! WHAT A YOUTHFUL DISPLAY BY SUCH A YOUNG MAN!" yelled out a voice from behind me.
"GAH?!" I stumbled over my legs and fell down, doing a somersalt and landing on my back like a starfish. It hurt a bit, but nothing I hadn't toughed out before, there was a little dust in my eyes so I instinctively closed them.
"OH NO! ARE YOU OKAY KID? HEY KID!" A man in a bowl cut teleported to my side and started slapping me, trying to get a reaction.
"OWCH!" my eyes opened wide as I yelped out.
"Phew! Thought I almost lost you there!" I couldn't see the man yet but the voice alone was enough to recognise him.
As my blurry vision fixed itself, the image of a man with sparkling white teeth grinning widely filled my sight; there was no mistaking it. It was him.
'Calm yourself, Aoki. You prepared for this. Don't forget your lines… otherwise, you'd have fallen down on purpose for nothing.'
It took a bit of practising, but brawling with Sasuke had led me to master a few unconventional skills, this being one of them.
"Who- who are you! Why'd you jump at me?!" I shouted with fake indignation, employing Sasuke emotion: [stolen dessert] as a template.
Guy put on a sorrowful face and jumped up clapping his hand together and apologised repeatedly, I had no doubt that he was 100% regretful.
I said nothing for a moment and looked away, from the corner of my eye I noticed Kakashi leaning against a wall with a book in hand but I didn't train my eyes on him so as to not alert his attention, I was operating under the guise that I hadn't seen the pair so acknowledging him for no reason would be suspicious.
"It's ok… you didn't mean it." I said, looking down at the floor. Using Sasuke emotion: [falsely accused of stealing dessert by Tomo to only discover Aoki had done it], allowed me to act like I was still upset but looking forward to retribution in the near future.
"Thank you for understanding young man!" Guy said grinning widely. I noticed that his nose seemed to grow even wider as he smiled, what a strange man he is.
I nodded and smiled at him, there was no need to act this time; I was genuinely thrilled to be in his presence so all I had to do was tone down my excitement. I looked at Guy's headband with sparkling eyes, "are you a Ninja?!" I asked with an expecting tone.
Guy nodded and introduced himself, declaring himself as the Blue Beast of the Leaf. For some reason, none of the people around even spared him a glance, how many times did he have to do this for them to get used to it?
"Haha! Enough about me, what's your name kid?" he asked with his trademark grin.
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[A/N: What a YOUTHFUL chapter this is! I am BURNING WITH THE PASSION OF A THOUSAND SUNS!
Powerstone goal for extra chapter: 250
Update schedule: 1 Chapter each weekday from now on]
