Chapter Text
"Hey, umm... Tomo?" Came the whisper from Kagura. Two of the Knuckleheads had moved over to study as a group, though only Kagura was actually trying to make something of it. Tomo had been copying Yomi's notes for the last ten minutes, in addition to the last ten weeks, ten months, and ten years.
"Oh? What's up?" The wildcat responded, just a tad louder than Kagura would have preferred. Her more sensitive counterpart cringed a little, wanting to keep this conversation quiet.
"So, just from me to you," Kagura started, her tone hushed as if she were about to deliver a horrible secret. "Doesn't it feel like Osaka's a little bit... you know, weird?"
At this revelation, Tomo pulled back with an expression so perfectly neutral and unflinching that one would think she had been replaced by an alien. Although she was looking at Kagura like she, too, came from another planet.
"You're gonna need to be more specific," Said Tomo, not even looking to see if she had jotted down all of Yomi's notes before the bespectacled girl turned the page of her own notebook, "Like, a lot more specific."
"Well, Osaka, it's a really odd name. It's not just me who thinks that, right?" Kagura clarified, her expression crossing over into a hint of shame. She liked Osaka, she really did, so to even whisper something potentially insulting about her, even as she was asleep four desks over, felt like betrayal. But the question had been nagging her for a bit. "What kind of parent names their kid Osaka like tha-"
Kagura trailed off when she saw just how quickly Tomo's face morphed into that familiar visage of barely suppressed joy at someone's expense. Specifically, the way she was struggling to hold in laughter, like the time she was convinced reindeer didn't exist.
Oh no. Kagura had said something Tomo found funny, easily the cardinal sin of Class 3-3. Considering the athlete didn't really do a ton of joking around, clearly trying to be serious, this was not a good sign.
"AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" A belly laugh so loud it nearly got her to double over came from Tomo. It startled everyone in the vicinity, nearly made Yomi jump out of her seat, got her looks from everyone else in class, and went totally over Osaka's head. She was a heavy sleeper when she wanted to be. There were attempts to bring her to order, but Yukari eventually gave up and decided Osaka's terrible daytime nap habits weren't her responsibility.
"OSAKA'S NOT HER NAME!" Tomo practically shouted between brief fits of continued laughter, stopping only to catch her breath. That (and just barely dodging a swing from Yomi's notebook targeted to the back of her head) got her to quiet down a tad, thankfully.
"That's just her NICKNAME! You're so STUPID, Kagura!" She said with a smile, taking absolutely zero note of the sudden flinching back or genuinely crestfallen look on Kagura's face. Only when someone was crying or fuming with rage did Tomo ever actually recognize when she'd gone too far. At breakneck speed, she turned to her friend, who looked moments away from punching Tomo right in the kisser.
"Can you believe it, Yomi?!" Exclaimed Tomo, as if her sheer volume hadn't already made a recap unnecessary. "Kagura really forgot Osaka's name isn't Osaka!"
"Kagura wasn't in our class until after first year, Tomo," The long-suffering girl sighed, emphasizing her friend's name as if it were an insult just to address her, face buried in her hand. "She wasn't here when you started calling her Osaka."
"...Oh." As soon as the wind was taken out of Tomo's sails, Yomi's mood immediately improved. Showing Tomo she was wrong and cutting her down to size at once? It was a good day.
"But, I mean, come on! That's just a normal assumption, who is named Osaka?" And it was no longer a good day, as Tomo found her way back to being on top of things, taking Kagura's own point and turning it against her.
"Alright, I get it..." The Knuckleheads' unofficial leader muttered, hoping to just drop the subject entirely. No dice, Tomo was still going. And worse, she didn't have Kagura's consideration for volume with a napping Osaka nearby.
"And even if Osaka was her name, I don't think you'd have much room to talk, little Miss Kagura!" Tomo crowed, batting her lashes at the end for effect. "You're the only person I know who's called Kagura. It's a cool name, I can't lie! But-"
"Tomo," Kagura cut her off at long last. "...Kagura is my last name."