Ten

There were a few water fountains jotted around the school, but the closest to the gym was just outside the sports centre under a metal lean-to. Beside the fountains were toilets. The water was cool but felt oddly sharp on Naseru's tongue as he lapped it up. 

It was like muscle memory, being on the court again, and facing off with an opponent. It was clear from where Naseru was standing that Ryota was a confident, brazen player. His style of play, although unpredictable, wasn't inherently threatening. It was like he tried to undersell his skills in a standoff. 

Naseru shook his head. He shouldn't be even entertaining the idea of playing basketball at Hanagawa, he'd made himself clear – he wasn't going to do this. 

He splashed his face with the water from the fountain, still deep in his thoughts when he heard a voice behind him. 

"Oi."

It was one of the boys from Ryota's team. He was tall, with oily black hair that hung down to his shoulders, styled to accentuate his widow's peak. He had pale skin, and a chipped front tooth. 

"What?" Naseru said, turning on the spout of the water fountain again. 

"You're pretty good," he said, "At basketball. I mean. I'm more of a track and field guy myself." 

Naseru shrugged, "Thanks?" 

"I'm Kurosaki Katsuo."

"I'm Matsuoka Naseru."

"Nice to meet you," Katsuo said. He leaned against the wall beside the fountain. His long black hair was slicked back with a compound of hair gel and gym sweat. Naseru shuddered. It must be uncomfortable. Katsuo had white pinpricks on his face, from piercings he was supposed to remove during school hours, but most definitely had stashed inside his blazer. One in his nose, two by his lip and there were several hoops in his ears that were definitely against school policy. 

Naseru had seen him around, and clocked him as one of the actual delinquents of Hanagawa High School, as opposed to Hikaru, who hadn't come to school, being a prime suspect in the abduction and supposed murder of his girlfriend would certainly do that to a guy. 

"You seem pretty cool, Matsuoka." 

Naseru's eye twitched, "What gives you that idea, Kurosaki?"

Katsuo pursed his lips, "I've seen that sweet bike you take to school every day. That must have some wicked horsepower. Where was it today? I didn't see it in the bike shed with all the bicycles with baskets and tassles.

Naseru shrugged, "She wasn't playing this morning, but usually, she's alright."

She was more than alright, his bike was like a warm knife in butter. It was like that perfectly steamed bao bun or the crunch of the batter on a good tempura prawn. Alright was an insult. 

"Well, I don't know where you've been hiding about for the last week, Naseru, but I reckon you're the kind of guy I could hang with." 

Naseru lowered his head for another drink from the fountain. Katsuo gazed down at him and crossed his arms, grinning darkly. 

"I'm going back to the gym, thanks for the chat, Kurosaki."

Makoto and some of the girls were still in the gym, disassembling volleyball nets, and wheeling the posts into an adjacent closet for storage. The only boy on the basketball side was Makoto. Just the person Naseru wanted to see. He brushed past two of the girls from his class and quickened his pace to join Makoto. 

The girls ignored him, wheeling the last net posts back into the storage room. The boys were totally alone. 

"Hey, you okay?" Makoto asked quietly, "Sorry about Akamatsu Sensei she is really big on the whole 'if the girls can't do it, the boys can't do it' thing. Which makes sense but sometimes the fresh air feels so good, right?" 

Naseru shrugged, "She was fine; told me it wasn't how you guys do things, so I went to go and get some water. Hey, can I ask you about someone? He was on Ryota's team?"

"Sure?" Makoto shrugged, "I mean, you know Yuta is in our class… Who is it?"

"He said his name was Kurosaki. Kurosaki Katsuo."

Makoto hissed through his teeth. 

"That bad then?" Naseru asked, taking the last basketball, still in Makoto's hands and shot it. The ball landed perfectly within the basket alongside the other basketballs. 

"Damn," Makoto said, "That was a really good shot, you know?" 

Naseru shrugged. 

"I mean it, when you said you were good, I thought you were just bragging, you know, as the new kid, but wow." 

Naseru shrugged again, "I'm going to get changed." 

Makoto nodded, wheeling the trolley of basketballs out of the gym, passing Kaho and Mariah on his way. They held the doors open for him and offered him a smile. 

"How are you doing, Makoto?" Kaho asked. 

He shrugged, "I'd be better if half the school didn't think my best friend abducted and killed my other best friend." 

Kaho nodded, "We're really sorry." 

Makoto sighed and went to the locker room. The girls shared a confused glance and watched him go. Was he okay? 

Naseru left the art room five minutes before Makoto, and made his way back up to his classroom. He was the first one to make it back to class, so he rummaged in his pockets and produced the two matcha 'Kit Kat' bars, and placed one on the desk beside him, and one on the desk in front of that. He nodded, content and left the classroom again. 

The boy from the fountain, Kurosaki Katsuo was leaning on the wall opposite the 2C classroom. He beckoned Naseru over. He crossed the hall and leaned against the wall with him. 

"Where are you from, Matsuoka? Tokyo, right?" 

Naseru made a non-committal sound, and ran a hand through his hair. 

"Must be a big change, right? For someone like you to go from living it large in the big city to moving all the way to the burbs," Katsuo said. 

Naseru shrugged 

Was this suburbia? He supposed it wasn't as urban and loud as life in the city would have been, but the prefecture wasn't completely without it's bars, nightclubs, thugs, and other things that made Tokyo what it was. He sighed. 

"You don't talk much, do you, Matsuoka? Like you don't want to give anything up about you. I haven't seen you hanging out with anyone or anything, like you don't want to plant roots. What are you scared of?" 

Another shrug. Katsuo's eye twitched. The warning bell echoed through the hallway, and students who'd been enjoying lunch in classrooms with their friends made their way back to their rooms. Naseru's eyes scanned the crowd, but he couldn't see either three of the people he wanted to. 

"I bet it's something cool like a gang. They're worth being scared of, I guess. Especially if you ditch out on them after something happened!" Katsuo declared, his eyes gleaming. 

Naseru hummed, crossing his arms. 

"You know – I noticed something when you were getting changed. You have an almighty scrape along your back, angry bloody and scabby. Is that from your tattoo?" 

Naseru swallowed the lump in his throat – what kind of person did this guy think he was? Some kind of city thug, clearly. He eyed Katsuo again, looking for a mark on him that branded his loyalty to a gang, like a burn scar; he'd heard of gangs indoctrinating minors with a cattle brand that was innocuous enough, so the scar tissue would mark them until they could get their tattoos, but even then, he'd only seen one or two people like that, and always from far away. For Katsuo to assume he had a tattoo, though, was a stretch? Who did he think Naseru was running with? Someone who would marre the skin of a minor and risk going down for child abuse? He took a long, slow breath and looked away from Katsuo. 

Katsuo crossed his arms and rolled up the sleeves of his blazer. His arms looked innocent enough, some black hair along his forearms, until Naseru spotted a small, white line of skin from his right wrist to his elbow. It looked like it had been dealt with surgical precision, and maybe it was just that, an operation, but from the look of Katsuo, and the wild-eyed anticipation on his face, Naseru wasn't so sure. 

Katsuo raised his eyebrows, waiting for confirmation Naseru didn't want to give. That mark on his back was just a scrape. It was from a poorly taken corner when he'd been out on his bike over the weekend; he'd fallen from his seat and skidded across the concrete, battering his arms and legs, and ruining his shirt from all the gravel that cut him up. It was full of holes and blood, and while he'd had elbow pads and knee pads on, as his brothers insisted he did when he was riding his bike, his back was gnarly.

Katsuo stared at him, expectantly, a smirk on his face. 

"It's from a cheese grater," Naseru said, as the second bell chimed and he crossed the hall, slipping back into his classroom, beating the teacher and the last few stragglers. 

A cheese grater? Could you actually remove a tattoo like that? Potentially, but it would be grotesque and far more painful than a laser. But then again, if Katsuo thought he'd been tattooed by a gang underage, maybe he also figured that he wouldn't go charging into a laser removal clinic to have it removed, still underage. He hoped Katsuo wouldn't think too much of it. 

Makoto was grinning at him, his eyes flickering to the girls, Maki and Emi, who were both holding their matcha 'Kit Kat' bars, flabbergasted, they whispered to each other, considering who would have left those for them. Naseru smiled and took his seat.