>>5828758You spend a lot of time training with Junpei and his sister, Junko. Your failure to find the Mrs. Sato in the woods made you want to get better at survivalism in general; you had realized that you were an urban creature. You were a little bit better at living off the grid than average due to your house’s lack of amenities as a child, but that wasn’t a substitute for actual wilderness lore.
Learn you did! You wouldn’t go as far as to say you’ve become some kind of specialist, but every weekend you spend at least a few hours wandering around the forest outside the village walls with Junpei and Junko. Eventually it’s not some kind of impossible Hail Mary to do basic stuff like track someone or accomplish basic stealth.
Junko in particular was nice to spend time with, despite the fact that she had a really weird lack of physical boundaries. When she’s showing you some advanced shurikenjutsu techniques, she has a real bad habit of always pressing her whole body against yours as her hands drift along your body, correcting your posture and making sure you’re moving right. It made it really hard to focus. Real hard. She spoke quietly too, maintaining her habit of whispering in your ear. She actually has an explanation for that: She had breathed in a bunch of poison gas once when she was ambushed by an enemy ninja. She survived, but she had some laryngeal nerve damage. That’s why she became extremely concerned with stealth.
(With a note of mild disappointment.) You realize that she’s like that with Masami and Naoki too, though Masami abjectly refuses to train with her, for reasons. She just really hated Junko.
You let Junpei know that there’s a party happening soon, organized by Naoki. He agrees to come.
—
Masami is all excited about seeing True Ninken II: Raiton Boogaloo. Out in theaters now.
You ask Naoki if he wants to go see it with the two of you, but he gives you a prolonged stare full of abject disappointment as his only answer. You take that as a no. It was just you and Masami.
For some reason she straightened her hair and wears a trendy outfit bought just for the occasion, which was utterly bizarre. It was a kids movie about animated ninja dogs, not some kind of formal function where she had anyone to impress. She asks you what you think of her new look and then gets irrationally pissed off when you point out that it seemed a little extra for a dog movie, but sometimes Masami’s moods weren't comprehensible. You wish you could read minds like Inoichi could. She did look a lot prettier than she normally did… She usually dressed a bit frumpy so it was easy for you to forget that. Despite being a bit on the spindly side, she had soft shoulders, a lithe figure and a thin waist that made her hips - Better stop that train of thought and stop staring, she’d slit your throat or something.
