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genma disliked ebisu. heavily.
many would have said he'd decided this far too early into their first interaction, but he trusted his own intuition, and his initial impression had only strengthened through the few months they'd been teammates.
there was something inherently irritating about him. he was one of those kids that tried to act way more mature than they actually were. always a bit too early to training, obnoxiously uptight, dangerously neurotic. the type of guy to jump off a bridge if someone told him the water was made of moral purity.
"you need to take those off at some point, y'know? pretty hard to be a shinobi if you're seeing everything through a dark lense." he pointed at the boy's sunglasses. he'd never seen him without them.
"that's none of your concern." ebisu simply replied, not even bothering to break his perfect posture to look at genma when he did.
genma narrowed his eyes.
alright, fucker. it's on.
//
training fights were a pain in the ass when might gai was your teammate. but at least they were an interesting pain in the ass.
choza observed the boys from the sidelines, his eyes struggling to keep up with the action.
all three of them had relatively strong taijutsu, though gai was the most diverse in his technique.
he moved like a beast on the battle field, both fast and strong, overwhelming his opponents with unique moves. he had a long way to go to catch up to his peers that had more abilities in ninjutsu and genjutsu, but his sheer work ethic was truly something to behold.
genma, on the other hand, made up for what he lacked in taijutsu with his expert ninjutsu. choza truly believed he had never seen the boy mess up a hand sign. his chakra control was another strength of his; he was the least likely of the three to overuse for simple jutsus, and therefore the most reliable to still be at full strength at the end of a spar like this.
ebisu's taijutsu was...interesting. he was nowhere near gai's physical strength, but his speed was, at the very least, equal. and there was something to the way he moved...balanced, graceful, always landing directly on his feet, posture unchanged. he moved like a gymnast.
his ninjutsu wasn't bad either, though he seemed entirely resistant to learning fire style, for whatever reason.
choza started paying attention to the spar again, just in time to witness genma snatch away ebisu's sunglasses when the boy was distracted trying to defend against gai's onslaught of attacks.
ebisu yelped in surprise, then in sudden pain as he quickly shut his eyes, distracted just long enough for gai to land a harsh punch directly to his jaw. he fell backwards, eyes still tightly shut, as gai slowly realized the spar had been cut short.
"oh!! i'm sorry, i didn't realize we had stopped, are you alright? can you keep going?"
"of course i can't, idiot!" ebisu snapped at gai, still crouching down on the ground in a defensive position, apparently unable to open his eyes, for whatever reason.
"genma! give ebisu his sunglasses back. the fight's over." choza intervened. he didn't need to fully understand why the boy needed them to see that he very clearly did.
genma bit down on his lower lip, unsure whether he'd done something bad or not. in any case, he quickly obeyed his sensei's orders, silently handing his teammate his sunglasses.
ebisu opened his eyes again once he'd gotten them back on, glaring at genma angrily, though the effect was slightly tainted by the visible tears in his eyes.
ebisu stood up faster than natural, shoving gai out of his way somewhat aggressively as he ran out of the training field with what sounded like a choked sob.
//
"-and i feel like he's been holding a grudge against me ever since. which is, like, more than fine by me, but it makes teamwork during missions pretty hard." genma sighed, before closing his lips back around the senbon in his mouth.
"well, i mean, it kinda makes sense..." kakashi mumbled, eyes still fixed on the puzzle he was preoccupied with.
"no, it genuinely doesn't, man! i used to think he was just this...boring, irritating loser, but now...i mean, it's none of my business, but why does he need those sunglasses so damn much? and why haven't i ever heard about his clan, or even heard anyone say his last name?"
kakashi eyed him, somewhat hesitantly.
"and you think knowing more about ebisu would help you work with him, right? there's, like, nothing else you'd do with that information?"
"like what? it's not like i actually care, i just wanna know why he's so mad at me."
"well...i mean, it's just a rumor, and if it is true, it's important that it stays secret, but...i think i heard a few elite jonin talking about how he's a defector from the yoakete clan. him and his mom, who's raising him alone."
genma's eyebrows rose slightly at that.
"a clan defector, huh...? why do you think they defected?"
kakashi shrugged. "the yoakete have a dojutsu kekkei genkai called netsugan. my personal theory is that ebisu just...failed to present at the appropriate age, or maybe something went wrong when he tried to activate it- the netsugan works basically as a thermal image of your surroundings, so if something went wrong with that, it'd be pretty easy for it to translate into 'something in your eyes gets singed so bad you become extra sensitive to light', which would explain the sunglasses."
"....oh." things were clicking into place in genma's mind.
"what is it?"
"no, nothing, i mean...he's just...you know what he's like. uptight. repressed. he doesn't...cope with failure all that well. i've seen him barely holding back tears because he didn't get a substitution jutsu right on the first try."
"well, yeah, that'd explain it, i guess."
"...shit. do i have to, like, go apologize to him now, or something?"
//
he found ebisu in the training field, practising his aim with shuriken.
"what do you want?"
"calm down, i just wanted to talk."
"i don't believe you. you never want to talk to me."
"well, now i do."
genma took a deep breath.
"look, man, i'm sorry. i shouldn't have taken your sunglasses. that was a dick move. i won't do it again."
ebisu stopped for a second, but didn't turn to look at genma.
"...alright." he simply replied.
"...is it true? y'know, that you're a..." he glanced around to make sure no one was around to hear them, but ebisu seemed to have understood what he meant from the incomplete sentence.
"who told you that?" there was anger in his voice again, but it was almost overpowered by the sheer hurt in his voice.
"hey, woah, it's okay, i- i won't tell anyone!" he hurriedly assured.
all the energy seemed to deflate from ebisu out of nowhere, and he sat down on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest.
genma sighed, walking over to him. he sat down next to ebisu on the ground.
"hey."
"go away."
"i don't wanna. i wanna stay here and be next to you."
"no, you don't. why would you? i'm a failure."
"i don't think so."
ebisu raised his face up from where he'd buried it in his knees, and genma saw just how miserable he looked.
his face was red and his eyes were puffy and full of tears behind his sunglasses.
"but i am, though. i- i failed at activating my netsugan. nobody knew that was possible. they all said that...that it was the easiest thing in the world, that it was supposed to come naturally to a yoakete. but i guess i just-"
his lower lip quivered, and his voice was shaky.
"-i guess i never had it in me, to be a yoakete. that's why dad disowned me. that's why he told mom to raise me somewhere else, where he didn't have to see me and be reminded of what a failure his only son was."
genma stayed silent. there was honestly nothing he could say to that.
so instead, carefully, gently, he removed ebisu's sunglasses again, and pulled the boy into his arms, holding his face to his chest, so that his eyes were shielded from the light but free to cry.
ebisu sobbed openly into genma's shirt for several minutes, before managing to calm down.
he wiped his eyes, and placed his sunglasses back on.
there was a moment of silence.
he looked down shyly, mumbling "please...please don't tell anyone."
genma grinned slightly.
"tell anyone what?"
ebisu smiled softly.
"thank you."