Love-ly letters - Side Story

It was nearly noon, almost quitting time for his courier job. And Kensai was on schedule darting over rooftops and down allies bounding from wall to wall to make it to the last address on his list. It was to the Hirohata's it was also stamped with the seal of the Honekage, Setsuna-sama. The elder of the two Hirohata's had been getting a lot of official mail recently, most of it addressed directly from Setsuna-sama and some of it addressed from Uzumaki-san, though it bore the official Hone seal Kensai somehow doubted the validity of it's officiality given Uzumaki-san's proclivities. Still mail was mail and everything had to be delivered before noon, or Kensai's training would suffer, and he didn't want that.

Still he'd been running since dawn, only stopping for a quick morning bite, and the messenger's skin had a slight glaze of sweat in the sun. It wasn't unusual for him to be dripping in sweat when he was done, however recently his body had become accustom to the exertion, and Kensai had thought about upping his training regiment. And maybe that would get him noticed and selected for a team. Considering the nature of the village and it's occupants there were far more Tokubetsu and Jounin than there were Gennin. That meant that most of the young students were snapped up as soon as they were deemed ready, but Kensai had yet to be selected for such an honor.

Jumping down from the rooftops and running along a flat topped fence the glorified mail-man approached his destination, jumping over an awning and landing in the front lawn of the apartment building. It was a well kept apartment building but usually housed single people, mostly one-bedroom. Kensai's apartment was nearby, and that's partially why he'd selected the Hirohata's as the last mail of the day. Approaching the door the white haired young man pressed the buzzer and spoke. "Express Mail for Hirohata-san." He then brushed himself off and entered when the door clicked, bounding up the stairs until he reached the apartment noted on the address line of the light weight and crisp envelope.

Kensai did a little do make himself presentable before knocking on the door of the Hirohata's home, and held up the envelope for the intended recipient.

Speaking of making oneself look presentable for social interaction, the woman who answered the door was as far from being in a presentable state as possible. Her hair was wet, not having bothered to wrap it up in a towel after her shower. One hand gripped the end of a toothbrush, lazily scrubbing her teeth as she opened the door, while her other hand loosely held up an almost too-small towel around her torso. She recognized the boy standing there as their mail courier well enough, with as much mail as he'd been bringing them in recent weeks, although she was hardly in a position to take the envelope at the moment.

"Uh...come in," Megumi said, her voice muffled by her toothbrush as she took a few steps back inside towards the kitchen. She waved for him to follow. "Just set it on the counter."

When she reached the sink, she spat and then rinsed off her toothbrush. "You'll have to excuse my state. I just got back from training and had to clean up."

Another voice cut across the tiny apartment with a groan, revealing a younger boy sitting there in the small common area with his arms folded over his chest. "You could have at least put a robe on or something. You've been wearing the towel for like twenty minutes."

Megumi rolled her eyes at Kenji. "Well yeah, but that requires effort."

The young man couldn't help but look over his client as she opened the door in naught but a towel. Realizing exactly what he did the young man blushed profusely, that made the pale skinned young man look more sunburnt than embarrassed. "Uh... Yeah Sure." He agreed, though in all actuality he should have just placed the envelope on her counter and left it was a letter from the Honekage so delivery had to be ensured. He'd literally had to hand the letter to the elder Hirohata. "It's alright. I have time to wait on preferred customers." It was a well practiced complementary line that the usually busy Kensai fell back on when customers made him wait, so they didn't feel bad for making the hurried delivery boy stop for them. In this case however he actually had the time. And a shower sounded nice right now...

"Well..." Kensai was a little blown away by exactly what was going on, and there was another guy here his age. Who was quick to admonish his... were they siblings? Or parent and child? Kensai didn't bother making himself comfortable. "I have to hand this letter to you personally." He responded dropping his eyes to the floor and envelope he continued to hold so he didn't see anything that he shouldn't.

Was such a person really an important member of the Village? So much so that she got a lot of missives from Setsuna? Reading people was a skill of a true Shinobi! One that Kensai would have to work on in the future because right now he wasn't seeing it.

"Oh, so formal," Megumi mused, with an intrigued sort of grin and a raised eyebrow. "So you're telling me you're not allowed to leave unless I physically take that letter from you? Theoretically I could keep you here forever then if I wanted." Not that she would, but it was fun to tease.

She watched him a moment, noting how his eyes drifted straight to the floor out of...respect? Embarrasment? Either way, it was amusing. "You know, it's usually more polite to look at the person you're talking to."

"Well maybe if you put on some clothes..." Kenji grumbled.

"Hey, enough lip from you or you get to sleep on the floor tonight," she shot back. Kenji quieted with with an annoyed sigh, flopping back in his seat. Looking back to the mail courier, Megumi leaned a little closer to him and furrowed a brow. "Huh, you know you're looking a little sweaty there."

"Yes, I guess you could. But this letter is important, I assume." He did his best to try and focus on his job as she moved back over to him and leaned in, and mentioned that it was more polite to look a person in the eyes, his came up, looking over her ample cleavage for a second, though it was impossible for him to be anymore embarrassed he could feel his cheeks burning. He'd not even had the moment to realize what Megumi meant by Kenji sleeping on the floor.

She was so close now. What he began to fidget just a little holding the letter for Megumi to take at her leisure as she played with him, not that he didn't like the attention, but it made him a little uncomfortable. "I apologize for being unkempt, my job keeps me moving from dawn till mid-day there's a lot of communication in a village that's growing as fast as Honegakure." He explained parroting a speech he'd gotten about the importance of his job. Not that him being this close to such a woman didn't make him sweat just a little more.

"Now that's a canned response if I've ever heard one," Megumi said, with a low chuckle. She leaned back again, bringing her hands down to her hips. The towel shifted a little, looking as though it was about to drop for a second, but then somehow, miraculously, staying in place. "Do you always blush like that around women? It's kind of adorable."

"Ugh, don't call kids my age adorable," Kenji groaned, as he marched across the apartment. "It's weird."

"Hey, what did I say?"

"I heard you." Kenji promptly came between the two, grabbed the letter out of Kensai's hands, and then placed it into Megumi's. "There."

Megumi rolled her eyes again and raised the letter to open it. "Fine, fine. Ruin my fun." Slipping the paper out of the envelope, she lifted it to her eyes and scanned it quickly, muttering a curious hum under her breath. "Oh...looks like I've been given my first official student. Other than you, anyway. Someone named...Yamamoto Kensai. Huh, wonder who he is."

Of course, if Megumi had ever taken a moment to learn her mail courier's name, she would already know the answer to that question.

Kensai hadn't been properly introduced to Kenji yet but he already liked the guy. He released the letter without hesitation as blonde put it into his house-mate's hands. It made the little messenger boy give a little bit of a relaxed breath. He'd never been good at dealing with women especially playful ones. He'd not even known exactly how to address being called cute.

The biggest shock however was Megumi's partially clad form opening the letter and reading his name verbatim and saying that she'd been assigned as his teacher. Joy welled up in Kensai as his fidgeting ceased and his lips turned upwards. "Yes!" he called giving a fist pump!

Then the realization set in that he was going to have to deal with Hirohata-san every day he trained. It tempered his joy a just little. "Oh Yes." He'd completely forgotten his manners for a moment. "I'm Yamamoto Kensai. I'll be under your tutelage." He introduced formally, giving just a little bow, with the limited space the three of them shared, making sure not to get too close to Megumi when he did.

Megumi blinked in surprise at the boy's outburst, more than a little confused until he explained himself. She looked back to the letter again, then up at Kensai, and back to the letter. "Huh, no shit. What are the chances of that?"

"Yeah, no kidding," Kenji replied, with a raised eyebrow. He gave the other boy a quick once over, noting that this was essentially going to be his new teammate. It would be odd, having Megumi training someone else alongside him, but considering how their training sessions usually went, it was probably a good thing. "Well, uh, nice to meet you, Kensai. I'm Kenji."

As Kenji held out a hand to shake, Megumi grinned and gave her brother a smack on the back. Her towel shifted again, still somehow staying up. "And I'm Megumi, Kenji's sister! But you can call me Hirohata-sensai. Oh that does have a nice ring to it... Never could get this dolt here to call me that."

"It's nice meet you too Kenji-san." Kensai replied jovially taking the fellow student's hand. Hirohata-sensei would be easier to take if there was someone like him around as well. Not that Megumi wasn't nice to be around, she was definitely attractive, but that was part of the problem with getting the frog stuck in his throat. It wasn't just talking to women, it was talking to older attractive women, especially confident ones. Having Kenji around would be an extreme blessing.

"Thank you Towel-sensei-I-mean-Hirohata-sensei!" Kensai slipped for a moment it was like she was using some kind of technique to keep the towel on her body like it would fall away if she stopped concentrating on it for just a moment. The embarrassed teen couldn't take much more of this excitement but discomfort.

As subtle as the kid tried to be, Megumi caught his slip of the tongue, and she couldn't hold back the laugh that followed. Holding her arms over her stomach, she doubled forward with an amused bellow and a huge grin. "Oh man, Towel-sensai, that's good. I like you, kid, you're gonna be fun."

Kenji sighed, turning a look to his new teammate. "Before you ask...yes, she's always like this."

As the laughter started to die down, Megumi rubbed her tearing eyes dry and then clapped her hands together. "Okay! I hereby declare us an official team. I want us at training field two first thing the morning, bright and early for our first meeting. Got it? Okay, go team!"

With an excited jump, she pumped her fists into the air...and promptly lost whatever technique she was using to hold the towel in place as it tumbled down to expose her body entirely, likely leaving both boys trapped in a stunned stare.