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Academy was over for the day, marking the end of the first three weeks of education. Children fled the building and headed towards the arms of parents, siblings, or grandparents who were waiting. Kotetsu did not have an aunty, a brother, or a grandparent to wait for him after school---he was expected to get himself home, alone, while his parents were at work. This was the loose agreement they had made once it was confirmed that their fuzzy headed son would be part of the next generation of shinobi (probably, maybe, jury was still out on that.)
If he could bring friends home he would but as it were his family was small, fitting together in a tiny apartment in the middle of Konoha---and Kotetsu hadn’t exactly made any friends yet, not close friends. The hours between leaving the academy and his mother getting home were Kotetsu’s favorite, where he could run through the trees at a haphazard speeds, try and cross apartment building tops without startling anyone, or use up his saved allowances to buy another bottle of sickly sweet syrup and eat it alone, maybe hiding it under some rocks for later if he got too full.
The last bottle of syrup Kotetsu bought was a few weeks back from the vendor, who had a hush-hush relationship with the boy and never told his parents what he did (except he completely had, and this wasn’t a secret to his parents by any means, but they let their son enjoy his perceived trickery in peace, laughing about it behind his back). He had taken the prized glass bottle with him into the woods above the Hokage’s heads and hidden it under his favorite set of rocks, just slightly off a beaten path that, as far as he knew, wasn’t used by anyone who would have cared.
But, back to the end of a hard school day where his instructors made him throw kunai for what seemed like hours (reality: less than an hour) and made him read pages of books for even longer, poor little Kotetsu was knackered, done for, about to obliterate himself with the finest syrup a couple ryo could buy when he discovered it missing.
In his Super Secret Hiding Spot of All Time (tm) there was naught but a ominous leaf that found itself picked up by the wind and slapping Kotetsu in his face.
With a heavy sigh, Kotetsu started to plop down where he stood when a movement to his left grabbed his attention. From the corner of his eye, he could see a thing---person? cat? deer? that weird kid with the face from school?---moving between some shrubs, watching him.
“Hey!” Kotetsu cracked the serenity of the woods with his shrill cry (puberty would be good to him later on) and whipped around, quickly moving towards the person-cat-weird kid from school with the face. Branches tried to trip him up but Kotetsu fought back, crashing noisily as the thing---which was now definitely a person, about his age, and not the kid from school with the face---took off, showing off by leaping into the branches, with his jar of syrup tucked under one arm.
Chakra control, that thing that all fine shinobi’s must conquer and make theirs, was something Kotetsu was still shaky on. His rage at seeing the thief bound off with it made him forget his lack of skill and ran after him, pushing through with his feet and landing haphazardly on a low-slung branch, before taking off again in pursuit.
They ran through the trees for too long. The fleeing body would occasionally look back and laugh, sometimes slowing down when he saw the other stumble on a branch or get too far behind. It hit Kotetsu like the barrage of leaves he kept diving through: this was now a game, and he wanted to win.
Somewhere in the chase he also realized the thief was one of the other kids in the school. He sat a few rows down from Kotetsu, closer to the door, his name was something with a G, or an R, maybe an I. Either way, what his name was going to be would be Bloody Pulp if Kotetsu had been paying attention.
He hadn’t been
With a loud “oof!” Kotetesu hit a branch square on, not realizing that the reason the kid ahead of him dropped a few branches suddenly was to avoid the overhanging deathtrap of solid wood. Comically, he hit a few more branches on the way down, each one forcing a cry of pain or anger from him, until he landed with a soft splat! On the forest clearing below. With the wind knocked out of him, and the edges of his vision a little blurry, and pain racketing his body, he accepted his fate, shut his eyes against the sun, and waited for the ravens to come pick at his bruised and battered, and probably a little bloody, body.
“Um,” said a little voice, hesitant. Izumo, as that would turn out to be his name, had stopped running when he head the body behind him falter and hit the ground. Wincing, he turned around and lept back and down with grace to land next to the passed out boy.
“Hey, uh, um...” shoot, Izumo thought, setting the jar down. In their pursuit he had completely forgotten why he had it in the first place. Cautiously Izumo leaned over, taking in the scratches and cuts on the boy’s face, grimacing at a particularly gnarly one was growing across the bridge of his nose and bleeding. “I’m going to get in trouble for this,” he huffed out loud, jostling the other boy’s shoulder roughly. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead! I’m sorry I took your jar, okay, you can have it back---!”
It was that admission that Kotetsu popped an eye open, only to shut it and try the other eye. The blood from the gash on his face was bleeding into his eye, the other was swollen and promised to turn black later, but it opened and it wasn’t tinting his vision red, so.
“Am I dead?” Kotetsu asked, aware he wasn’t dead but a little drama didn’t hurt.
“Um, no. I don’t think so. You’re, uh, you’re bleeding though?” Izumo shuffled back a little, careful to keep the blood off him, squatting in the dirt and sparse grass. Blood was gross.
“Oh.”
“Yeah...”
“You’re pretty fast.”
“You’re pretty slow.” The insult warranted Izumo a punch but he didn’t get it. A feeble attempt was made but Kotetsu’s body hurt and lifting his arm more than a few inches made the muscles lock in protest and forced him back down. He tried, that was good enough.
“Hey!”
“I mean, look, you’re the one that fell out of the tree. You were doing okay though!”
“I’m never going to get the hang of this.”
“Yeah you will!” With an air of positivity, Izumo stood up and offered his hand out to help yank the other up.
Kotetsu groaned and closed his good eye. “Go ‘way, leave me. Let the, uh, what... what lives in the woods?”
With a giggle, Izumo offered up the answers: “Foxes, some deer, birds, bugs.”
“...let the bugs take me.”
“I could get the Aburame clan out here, their bugs could take you.”
“Gross!”
“You started it!”
“Did no---okay, okay, I started it. Aren’t you going to help me up?!” Admonished, Kotetsu used his elbows to push himself up off the ground a little, ignoring the pain. Keeping the gross eye closed, he peered at his assailant and confirmed it: yup, this was the kid from class. Definitely not the one with the face, but the other one with the name that starts with an ‘I.’ This one was smart (face kid wasn’t) but kept to himself, and didn’t seem to have anyone in the village to get him after school, either, but he wasn’t one of those kids who lived on his own, either.
Laughing, Izumo offered his hand again, grinning when Kotetsu took it and helped hoist him up onto his feet. From a pocket he produced a square of cloth, a bandana, and reached out to wipe the other’s face off, or tried to. There was dirt, and blood, and leaves, so instead he pushed it into Kotetsu’s hand and stepped back. “You’re, ah, er, bleeding...”
“I know,” Kotetsu said, taking the bandana and wiping at the wounds on his face. His nose kept bleeding, the gash in a particularly weird spot that just seemed to have more vessels than anywhere else. “My mom’s gonna kill me,” he whined, stamping his foot and shaking a closed fist at the sky. Then, back to the other: “You’re, ah, um, Izum...a? Izumo?”
A feeling of happiness burst in Izumo’s chest just then. He started the Academy but hadn’t made many friends. He wasn’t from a clan and lived outside the village with his parents, so any friends he had were out there and none in town. It just happened to work out that he had some promise as a shinobi and was able to be enrolled. For three weeks only his teachers knew his name, he sat alone at lunch, alone during exercises, and, well, everything else he also did alone. So this feeling was new, exciting, joyful, making his eyes light up and a smile creep back onto his face. “Yeah! You sit behind me, well, everyone sits behind me...” Izumo pursued his lips and kicked at a pebble with his foot. “You’re Ko...tet...su?” he dragged out the name, being very cautious to pretend like he wasn’t sure of it when he was.
Izumo knew everyone’s names, even if they didn’t know his.
Surprised, the spiky haired one nodded his head. “That’s me!” because it was and there was a sense of joy at knowing someone else knowing his name. Taking one last swipe at his face, Kotetsu lowered the bandana and made a face. “Am I still bleeding?”
Izumo nodded, gesturing to his own nose to indicate where blood still trickled down on the other’s face. It needed pressure, that much he knew, and maybe a medi-nin. Taking Kotetsu to a medi-nin would only expose their antics and potentially get them in trouble. “You should keep your hand on your nose, it’s gonna keep doing that... are you, um, are you hurt? Other places?”
“Don’t think so, I...” Kotetsu realized now that nothing was broken, just very sore. He would be bruised left and right for awhile. “I hit every branch on the way down, didn’t I?”
With a cheshire grin, Izumo snickered, “you could say you fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way----ow!” a foot kicked at his shin, stopping his sentence and made him hop on one leg, rubbing furiously until the pain subsided. “Why’d you do that?”
“You called me ugly!”
“You fell out of a tree!”
“I’m not ugly!”
“You look like a black haired hedgehog!”
“Yeah, well you look, um, you look like a... pile of wet hedgehog poo!” This insult was terrible and it was recognized immediately: both boys started laughing at the poor retort. They laughed until they couldn’t breath, Izumo wiping tears from his eyes and Kotetsu wheezing.
Once their guffaws subsided, Kotetsu grinning and Izumo reflecting the smile right back, he held out his (cleaner) hand. “Hagane Kotetsu!”
“Kamizuki Izumo!”
“Am I still bleeding?”
“Yeah...”
“...I don’t want to see a medinin.”
“Oh! I know!” and Izumo did know! He could fix this, probably, maybe. Grabbing his new friend’s hand, he started to pull them out of the woods when suddenly Kotetsu stopped and put the brakes on.
“My jar!”
“Oh yeah!”
Izumo dropped his hand and rushed back to pick up the jar, tucking it back under his arm and grabbing his friend again. “I don’t live too far from here. We can go there. My mom has a box of first aid stuff and we can make your face look better before you go home. Hey! Maybe you can stay for dinner?” he asked, hopeful. His parents really wanted their son to grow up and be something, but his quietness held him back in the friend area. Izumo knew if he brought home this boy then his parents would have faith in him again, and he would have a friend.
Kotetsu weighed the options and decided this would be fine. He liked food, friends, and fun. Letting Izumo drag him through the outskirts of town to his family’s home took a little bit. The bandana on his face was tarnished for sure now but he could still feel wetness on his face and knew that his bridge was still wounded, along with his pride, though both could be mended.
It took a little bit of time but soon enough they were at Izumo’s home. Modest, one story. He pried off his sandals in the genkan, setting them neatly next to the row of shoes already out. Izumo left his pot of syrup with them. He took Kotetsu’s hand again and dragged him around back to the family area.
“Sit,” he commanded, and Kotetsu sat down at the kotatsu (he somewhat despised being named almost the same as a table) to wait while Izumo dashed out with the promise to be right back. He could hear the other going through cabinets and drawers, muttering to himself while he picked out supplies. It let Kotetsu look around the home. The table was empty save for a hot plate and tea kettle, but no tea or cups. Pictures dotted the walls, some of family, some of the previous hokage’s, and some were of nature or animals. The house was quieter than his family’s own apartment, where the noise of the city proper always leaked in and there was never a quiet moment. Here was silence, true quiet. It unnerved him and so he was grateful when Izumo reappeared, arms carrying a bandana wrapped around of cotton, cleaning solution, cloths, thread, handheld mirror, needles (was he that injured?!), and plenty of bandages.
“Okay,” Izumo sat down next to him, knees touching, as he opened the bandana to lay out the supplies before turning to flick on the tea kettle for hot water. Kotetsu pushed the needle and thread off the table when Izumo’s face was turned away, there was no chance he was letting that happen. Which was fine, as Izumo didn’t seem to notice it missing when he looked back up. “First, you have to wash the wound, so here’s a cloth.... And the water is, oh! It’s ready!” Izumo produced a tea cup from somewhere , possibly under the table, and poured lukewarm water in, and pushed the cup towards his friend. “I don’t like blood,” he offered as a way of explanation.
“That’s okay,” Kotetsu understood what the mirror was for now. He gestured for Izumo to hold it up while he dipped the clean cloth into water and wiped off his face, grimacing at the dirt and blood that came with it. Izumo’s grimace didn’t go unnoticed either and he made a silent promise to himself to never bleed in front of this guy again.
They went through the motions together. Izumo holding the mirror with one hand, pushing the next first aid item to Kotetsu with the other. Kotetsu traded out each thing as he went, even applying the bandages to the cuts on his chin and cheek, and one on his arm that had somehow managed to escape being noticed earlier, until he was spotted white and tan all over.
“Now you look like a cow-hedgehog,” Izumo cackled, pleased at his terrible joke. It was fine until he saw the smoking look on Kotetsu’s face, black eyes mischeivious. “Oh no.”
“I can’t get the one on my nose,” Kotetsu said, smiling with teeth. “I need you to do it.” He did not, in fact, need anyone to bandage his nose up, but he disliked being called a hedgehog and a cow, even if the image was somewhat accurate.
Blanching, Izumo stopped his laughing. “You can do that.”
“No I can’t.”
“You just did your others!”
“But I can’t see my nose!”
“I’ll hold the mirror up!”
Kotetsu took a deep breath and then let out a little loudly: “YOU STOLE MY JAR OF SYRUP AND MADE ME CHASE YOU THROUGH THE WOODS AND I FEEL OFF A TREE AND HIT THE GROUND AND I’M BLEEDING SO YOU HAVE TO HELP ME.”
Crickets chirped somewhere outside.
Chewing on his lip, Izumo weighed his fate. On one hand, Kotetsu was right, on the other... “Wait, that’s syrup?!”
“What?”
“What?”
“That jar is syrup?”
“What did you think it was?”
“I don’t know! A sealed soul, maybe?”
“Why would there be a burried jar of souls in the forest?”
“Why would there be a jar of syrup in the forest?!”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Kotetsu replied haughtily, arms crossed, nose in the air. “Hrmph.” Oh, wait, that plan wouldn’t work out.
And it didn’t. Izumo picked up on that quickly. “If you want me to help you you have to tell me why.”
Kotetsu didn’t say or move for a minute. Realistically, there’s no reason he should have hidden a jar of syrup in the woods except to keep it from his parents. “So... I’m hiding it.”
“Duh.”
“From my parents.”
“You’re dumb.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
“Are too! youfelloutofatreebecauseyouwantedsyrup, ” Izumo hissed, poking the other squarely in the chest. “So you’re dumb!”
A look of hurt crossed Kotetsu’s face. “If I’m so dumb then why are you helping me?”
“I---oh, well, because you fell out of a tree like a dummy when I stole your jar of syrup.”
“Exactly. Maybe this was all my original plan!” A maniacal laugh erupted from Kotetsu, or tried to, before Izumo thumped him hard on the back. Sputtering, because that hurt , “fine, it’s not my original plan...”
“I’m helping you because we’re friends now.”
“We are?”
“I, er, well...” It was Izumo’s turn to sputter, coming up short. He wanted friends. Needed friends. Needed them like a soul needed a body, or a jar syrup. Kotetsu was the first kid to acknowledge him, even if it took running off through the woods to get that.
Kotetsu smirked and then hit his friend back in retaliation. He knocked the knee that was closest to Izumo’s with his own and smiled. “Totally. Best friends, even.” This was a stretch, a shot in the dark. Kotetsu also needed friends (along with his syrup) and this kid in front of him, well, he also acknowledged his existence, even if that had hurt a little. “And best friends help each other by putting bandages on their faces when they’re bleeding.” Totally. It is known, spread through the creed of Bestest Friends that this is what they did.
“Okay,” Izumo whispered, smiling to himself. Bestest friends. Why, he liked the sound of that. That warm happy feeling in his chest was back, growing brighter and bigger. Best friends! In one day he not only made a friend, but a best friend, who should stick around and be a cool shinobi with. (He’ll share that dream with Kotetsu at a later date.) Dutifully he picked out a long bandage and tuft of cotton. Using the same cream his mom always did for his wounds, Izumo soaked the thing through until it was sticky and slapped it over Kotetsu’s nose with little fanfare.
“That hurt.”
“Shut up. I’m fixing you.”
“I’m going to get a new best friend.”
“No you’re not!” this came out as a mild shriek. Izumo’s cheeks pinked and he brought himself back to a normal voice. Reluctantly he admitted the truth. “I don’t have any other friends.”
Somewhere a kunai jabbed itself into Kotetsu’s heart and twisted. He understood Izumo. “You’re my only friend too,” he said bashfully, tipping his head down to look at the floor. It was a good floor, solid wood, some scuffs, well loved. Yeah, a good floor. He liked this floor. He would stare at it until he had to leave if he had to. Kotetsu knew he didn’t want a new best friend and would be more than a little mad at himself if he’d just messed this up.
Brightening back up, Izumo put on a grin again and grabbed the last thing he wanted: a roll of cotton to hold the bandage on with. They were out of tape (the cut on Kotetsu’s arm was actually small but they had gotten carried away with tape and now his arm looked casted; it was worth it) so he thought, and thought, then figured it out.
Standing, Izumo slid behind Kotetsu and wrapped the cotton over his nose to pin the bandage in place, tying it just a little lower than the the hitai-ate they would wear one day. “There,” he admonished, leaning over his friend’s head to look at his handiwork. Kotetsu looked up, a little disoriented seeing his friend upside down and grimaced. “I look dumb.”
Before Izumo could say ‘ that’s because you are dumb’ Kotetsu was throwing his dirty bandana at his friend’s face and laughing. This was revenge.
Germs. Blood. Izumo shouted, flailed, and fell face-forward over Kotetsu and into the kotatsu, knocking supplies askew and narrowly avoiding tipping the (cold) tea kettle. Flailing arms whacked his friend’s already sore head and they ended up in a heap, legs, arms out, grunts and moans from each. Izumo, because his head now hurt, and Kotetsu because now everything hurt again.
They stayed like that until they both stopped grumbling and sat up, Izumo crawling back on hands and knees to sit where he had been before, their seats resumed. He rubbed at his scalp and looked at Kotetsu who was staring back with wide eyes. “What?” Oh no, was he bleeding too?! Izumo’s hands felt all over his head and neck, pausing when he came across a lump forming on his temple hairline. “What is it?!”
“There’s an egg on your head.”
“We don’t have chickens?!” This was a dumb retort. “How is there an egg on my head?”
“No, dummy, you have a bump. My mom calls them eggs.”
“Oh no.”
“Welcome to the broken club!”
A high pitched sound came from Izumo as he felt the egg---no, bump he reminded himself, bump ---over and over. Sure, Kotetsu’s face was a little messed up, but Izumo’s precious image would be damaged and he knew that kids would tease him. This was apparent on his face as Kotetsu leaned over and looked at it.
“Yeah, you’re totally gonna be called egg head now.”
“I don’t want to be an egg head, you hedgehog!”
“I’m not a hedgehog!”
“You look like one!”
“Well you look like an egg!”
“I’m not an egg!”
“You, oh, fine, just come here,” Kotetsu gave up. This was useless. He spied the clean bandana Izumo had wrapped the supplies in and picked it up. It was blue and a little big for either of their heads but would hide an egg just fine. Motioning for his friend to lean over towards him, Kotetsu folded the bandana up into a triangle and dropped it over Izumo’s head. A chunk of hair got caught and held down, covering Izumo’s left eye and subsequently the egg that was still forming on that side of his temple. With a flourish he tied the bandana up and pushed his friend back over, shooting him a double ‘v’ and a toothy grin. “Now your ugly face looks a little better!”
“I’m not ugly!”
“Are too!’
“You hit the ugly tree!”
“BECAUSE OF YOU!”
“Right, so, why do you have a jar of syrup in the woods again?” a tactic to switch topics emerged and worked.
Sighing, Kotetsu explained it again. “I’m hiding it from my parents, they don’t like me to have a lot of sugar. They say I get too hyper, whatever that is. And anyway, the old man who runs the store I get it at totally doesn’t tell my parents so it’s my secret.” Pause. “Well, our secret.” Yeah, that was a little better.
“I bet they know.”
“No one knew before today!”
“Parents always know these things, Kotetsu, don’t be dumb.”
“I’m not---fine! Okay, I’m dumb. Shuddup. We should put this stuff away before your mom sees it.” Another change of conversation, a good tactic indeed. It worked again.
Together the boys put back the supplies, Izumo giving a tour of the house at the same time. They paused in his room and Kotetsu marveled at how much room the other just had for himself, and invited Izumo over on another day to see just how small his room was in comparison. Izumo had readily agreed.
Going back to the family area for snacks, which Izumo produced a few pieces of fruit and some rice leftover from breakfast, they sat back down and shared a meal, talking about other kids in school. Halfway through a pear and Kotetsu yawned, reaching his arms up and then grimacing when he realized everything still really, really hurt. Wordlessly Izumo fetched a floor pillow from somewhere magical and passed it over to Kotetsu, who immediately understood the offer and laid down on his side to nap. Today was hard, school was hard, trees were hard, and making friends, well. That was easy.
“Mom won’t be home for a little bit but you can sleep,” Izumo whispered, fetching his own pillow before dragging the small table away from his friend so he could lay down next to him. Their shoulders touched and that provided him with a sense of comfort he never knew he missed. Kotetsu shuffled around a little until their arms touched and snorted softly when he realized the same thing.
They were totally going to be best friends forever.
“Hey ‘zumo?”” he asked, feeling the fingers of sleep pulling at his eyelids.
“Yeah, ‘tetsu?”
“I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me too.”
“Good, because I’ll hurt you if you tell anyone where I keep my syrup.
“You’re dumb,” Izumo huffed and looked over, waiting on a retort, but none came. Kotetsu was asleep. “But you’re my dumb friend.”
Kotetsu smiled and said nothing. He liked being the dumb friend.
***
Izumo’s parents were utterly thrilled their son had a friend but were very confused by the jar in the genkan. When they asked about it over dinner both boys clammed up and said nothing, twisting their pinkies together under the table, relishing their new secret.