[center][b]Shou | Day 1 | Places, People, Things[/b][/center]

A single ray of light entered the room through a small gap in the curtains. It lingered on the wall for some time before it slowly started to inch its way down. Below it a man slept. Not much could be seen of him, since he slept curled into a ball, with his covers pulled up almost all the way over his head. The only thing you could say for sure was that he had blonde hair. 

As the ray of light travelled down the man turned around in his sleep and ended up on his back, snoring lightly. A few minutes later the now tiny ray positioned itself right over one of the man’s eyes. At first it didn’t look like he noticed, but then his eye opened and he was instantly blinded. He groaned and closed the eye again, but it was too late. He was awake.

About half an hour later he was dressed, the bed was made and he was eating breakfast. The slim salary of a ninja without a mission couldn’t sustain a very high standard, but he had enough to get by, even if he had to cut down on the meat sometimes… 

After breakfast it was time for some light training. Three reps of ten pushups, three reps of twenty crunches, three/ten leg squats, three/ten pullups… 
Time passed quickly and before he knew it another half hour had passed. He had barely broken a sweat and realised that he’d already managed to do everything he had planned for the day. Well, almost, doing the dishes didn’t count. 

He looked around his home for some form of stimuli. He had some shelves, and some books. he’d read some of them, but not all. He looked at them for a while and decided that he could read another day. After casually dismissing every other form of stimuli he could find he decided to leave his home and find something to do in the village. He could swing by the academy and see if they needed any help. 

He got ready to leave, but stopped halfway through the hallway, in front of the mirror. His blonde hair was normally standing straight up, but the nightly tosses and turns had gotten to it and the perfectly straight line of hair looked like a disaster area. He formed a seal with his hands and small sparks began to form between his fingers. He raised his hands above his head and then quickly slammed them together with his hair caught in the middle. When he removed his hands the hair was standing straight, just like it should. With a smile he turned toward the door and opened it. 

The first thing he saw was the extremely bright shine from the sun, and a closed fist coming closer. There should’ve been someone at the other end of the fist as well, but that didn’t matter much. His right hand formed a guard and shot out toward the fist as fast as it could move. At the same time his eyes went into overdrive to clear away the excess light so that he could see, yet he couldn’t afford to blink. As each microsecond passed his vision became clearer and clearer until the human shape that held the fist became embarrassingly familiar.

His hand stopped a few inches before the fist in an awkward half-guard and floated there for a second before it dropped down to the man’s side. 
The man outside the door was much younger and wore his golden red hair long. He was both bigger and stronger, so the block wouldn’t have done much good if it had actually been an incoming attack. 

“Hayashimoto Daiken” The lesser man said, before he corrected himself. “Dai.”

His fist rose to scratch the back of his head and he laughed. "Hey, Shou, relax, I'm not going to try and kill you just yet." 

"Relaxation is a comodity we cannot afford, you know this." The man known as Shou gave his companion a stern look. "What brings you here anyway? Have we finally gotten a mision?"

Dai raised his eyebrows. "Good words, from a man who prefers to spend his days sleeping." He laughed again, a deep, rumbling laugh that came from the depths of a cave. His face crinkled in mirth, like a particularly happy sheet of paper. "You'll be glad to see me, then! We don't have a mission," and at this his eyebrows furrowed, "but I was going to suggest training."

"Training?" Shou asked as he thought back on the excercises he'd already performed. "I've already done my training for today, I was on my way to the academy." As he spoke he pushed himself out of the doorway and past his companion, closing and locking the door behind him. "You're welcome to join me, I guess..."

"The academy is so dreary," his companion replied, stepping in beside him. "Patience, Hiroshi will say," Dai did his best to imitate their mentor, "for impatience leads to demise." He paused. "I was actually thinking of a hunting spree. Much more interesting."

"You shouldn't make fun of Hiroshi-sama like that." Shou said, but was unable to completely hide his amusement. With the door locked he swiftly put his keys away and turned to face Dai. 

He chuckled. "You know I love the old man, really." Dai began to walk briskly. "So, off to the academy it is?"

"By the holy spirits, have I managed to persuade you?" Shou asked, adding a bit more drama than was necessary to the phrase.

Dai's eyebrows furrowed. "There is nothing to do here, Shou. I would go anywhere to relieve my boredom. Even if it means listening to one of the old man's lectures." He paused, scratching the makings of a beard. "They're good joke material, at any rate."

Dai was right, of course. In his own impulsive and simple way, he had put his finger right on the problem. Of course he could not have known that Shou's own motive for visiting the academy was his own boredom.
"You'll be glad of his lectures one day.. but for today I'll go easy on you and only poke you when you start to snore. And perhaps today you will be rewarded, we might get called up to demonstrate something."

Daiken laughed. "Let' be off, then."