Open Warding Off Boredom

[Akiyama Tomiko]

Among the numerous shops in the oak district, the Akiyama Confectionery was slightly smaller than average despite being two stories tall. A colorful sign helped to draw attention to the shop, bearing the shop's name and a depiction of autumn leaves and assorted sweets. Although it wasn't especially eye-catching, even passing near the shop would draw attention to the lingering aroma of sugar, spices, fruits and pastries that perpetually hung around. For good reason, as well, with the first floor of the shop packed full of a wide variety of kohonha's favorite sweets on display - from the shops signature filled pastries shaped like autumn leaves to colorful and crystal-like jelly candy.

Every morning, the handful of members of the Akiyama family that resided in the second floor would wake bright and early and engage in many of the household activities any other family would. Then after breakfast was had, they would descend to the first floor to set up and get ready to open the shop for the day. Anything getting stale had to be thrown out, though they only rarely had to do that as the family usually ate whatever didn't sell themselves, and fresh product had to be made to replace it.

Even at a younger age, Tomiko herself was no exception to this routine, and the only real deviations from it were the occasional errand. Today, the young girl was clad in a simple blue dress and a white apron as she swept the shop floor and was left in charge of handling any customers for the morning. It was the job she disliked the most, finding it incredibly boring. The rest of her small family was dealing with the much more fun tasks, either busy in the kitchens or handling other errands out and about.

Simple tasks like sleeping the floors couldn't last an entire morning, and the early rush of customers eager to get the fresh made pastries and other such goodies eventually trickled off as it got closer to noon. Which was the part she disliked so much, where she had nothing left to do but sit and wait for a customer to maybe show up. Eventually she found herself perched on a stool behind the counter looking as bored as she felt: one elbow propped up on the counter, hand squishing into one of her soft cheeks as it supported her head, pigtails dangling down onto the counter beside the book she was idly reading. It was a book she had already read before, and if she had a choice she would have preferred to at least study - but her parents had made it clear that while she would be given plenty of time to train and study for the academy whenever she needed it, she wasn't allowed to when tending to the family business.

Worse was that Tomiko knew for a fact many of her friends were either still free to roam around playing, or busy studying and training. Sure, she knew the shop was important, and she had promised to help out whenever she had the time in order to get enrolled at the academy... But she was really, really bored!

 

[Yamashito Kei]

Kei was wandering throughout the district, just to explore some of the new shops set around. It was still early yet he'd managed to finish up the few chores he had around the house and was eager just to wander around the village. He would have loved to stop in to get a snack or two, maybe look at some of the new books that might be out and spend the afternoon curled up in the shade to nibble at his treats with something to read... but unfortunately, the young boy was completely broke. Going a little crazy with his first bit of yen to get a few textbooks on chakra, shinobi history and an introductory book about jutsu... as well as a bit of gear to help the fresh new student, Kei wasn't left with any spare yen to play around with. And he felt foolish to go begging to his mother for more when she worked hard enough to just take care of her and Kei. Guess he'd just have to be more diligent with his yen when he earned a little more from the Academy... which was a rather hard thing for a boy his age!

As he started to wander about, he took a few random turns just to see where he might end up but mostly because he was lost in his own head and wasn't paying much attention where he was going. But he did slow as there was a faint, rather sweet scent that lingered in the air and started to draw the young student closer. Careful to keep his nose from tipping up and risk looking like a bloodhound sniffing after a meal, he blushed to see a shop up ahead.... a 'confectionery' shop, that he realized must mean a candy store! He didn't recognize it, but it smelled like they had lots of good treats inside.

Kei went closer to the entrance to see the sign out front. Akiyama Confectionery. Wait... why did that sound familiar? He paused there on the side of the street, scratching to his head and absently pushed the glasses back up a bit further on his nose before it started to come back. Wait... that girl... the one he met during his first class. Didn't she say something about candy? Was this... was this her family that ran it? Even more curious for the chance to peek in, he started to head inside just to look around as well as keeping an eye out for anyone familiar. If he was right, then he wanted to try and say 'hi' to a fellow classmate. Maybe even see if they could talk about the crazy lesson, check if she was practicing like the teacher suggested. He was kind of excited to meet someone to finally talk with about this, since his whole family wasn't into anything with shinobi.