Hanahi shuffled through the front gate of the school. Her eyes were stinging from the cold dry air as she walked towards the school. The morning was a mess, it had started to snow the night before and hadn't stopped in the last several hours. From what she could tell these storms got worse and more frequent each year, but maybe they had always been this bad, she really wasn't sure. She wondered through the abandoned hallways of the school, it seemed like there was only the barest skellition of a staff here. Before going into the woman's change room she popped her head into the gym, it was completely deserted, she sighed wondering if anyone was even going to show up for morning practice with all of the snow that they had been getting.

She didn't take long in the change room, she'd worn her workout clothes underneath the red coat she'd worn to school that morning instead of her uniform, since she'd just change out of it. She wasn't wearing anything particulairly flattering like some of the other girls were, for her it was a pair of bun shorts, a neon sports bra that was half hidden under an over-sized basketball jersey she'd managed to dig out of a donation bin. As she came to up to the weight room, she was surprised to see that the light was on, and even more so to hear the sounds of music coming from in there. She figured someone had forgotten it on all night, when she walked into the weight room she was surprised to see another girl actually in there. Instictively she greeted her. "Hi!" She found herself yelling over the music. "Do you need a spotter?" She offered, since without one you were unable to use something like a third of the machines in the room safely..

Rin doesn’t notice the other girl at first. Usually, she was the only one in at that time until one of the sports teams came in for weight training. However, the shouting does catch her attention. In black shorts and loose pink tee, Rin looks up front the weight set. Her baby face seems at odds with her muscular build. “Oh sorry!” She rushes over to her phone which sits near the back wall of the weight room and fiddles with it turn off the high energy pop music. She bows deeply, “I’m sorry if I was being too loud.” She stands herself back up, but doesn’t look at the other teenager directly. “I was just about to do squats, so I suppose I could use one…” She was planning to do overhead squats alone as she normally did, but having a spotter would be safer.

She picks up one of the bars and starts adding weights to it. When she’s done, there is about 200lbs on the bar. “I normally do 3 sets of 10 reps,” she says quietly as she gets in to position. “Ready?” she asks.

Hanahi starts waving her hands in front of her to let the girl know that it really is fine. When she started to bow Hanahi followed suit, bowing back. "Don't worry about it, it truely is fine." When she stood back up she took a moment to look at the other girl, she was clearly younger than her, probably only in her first year at the school, which made her presence here all the more impressive. With each bar that she adds to the bar, Hanahi can't help but be impressed at how much weight she was putting on, when Hanahi did these she only did a little more than her own weight, though in her defense she did quite a few more reps.

Hanahi stood in front of Rin, in a half squatting pose ready to help her up if she needed to. "Ready" She watched as Rin started her first rep. "Good. So what brings you here so early? Are you on one of the teams?" She asked the girl absentmindedly.

As Rin lowers, she inhales, and then exhales with each lift. Her form and control is that of someone who’s been doing this for awhile. She doesn’t answer the other teen’s question right away, trying to maintain focus. However, when she’s done with the 1st set of 10 reps, she sets the weights down carefully. “Cheer. I’m a base. I mean, I’m one of the people who tosses people into the air,” she says, ”Normally, I’m the only one here. I don’t want to take space away from people on teams.”

Rin looks at the other teen for a bit, trying gauge why she was here. “You?” In truth, she wouldn’t be surprised if the girl was trying to strength train for a support. After all, she was so small.

Hanahi watched as Rin moved up and down, ready to catch the weight if Rin started to have any trouble with it. Once Rin finished with her first set Hanahi listened to her talk about throwing people, and she couldn't help but giggle a little as she thought about how much of a help with would be to get tossed the first few metres up the wall. Hanahi looked around the empty weight room. "Yeah... my coaches are much more fond of tying tyres around my waist and telling me to go with that instead of coming down here." She gave a sheepish smile, it was a half joke.

"Well, I guess I need to be able to better throw myself into the air." She paused for a moment. "Uh that is I'm a climber." She felt so small suddenly, was this girl going to make fun of her for doing something that no one went out to watch. "It must be nice to be part of a team, it gets so lonely when everything you do is solo." She forced herself to stop talking lest she just ramble on.

Rin’s eyes go wide at the idea of having to climb up with tyres around one’s waist. “Really?” she asks. Evidently, the girl might be quite a bit stronger than Rin thought. However, she was so small and light, being built like some of the other flyers on her team.

She nods when the girl claims to be a climber. That put the previous statement into some context for her. “I’m too scared of heights to do something like that,” she says. She gives a sad, sympathetic look as the other girl says it is lonely to do a solo sport. “But aren’t you still part of a team or are you the only one? You can always join cheer. You’d be a good flyer.” Feeling like she’s spoken too much, she grabs the weight again, and starts her 2nd set.

Hanahi did her best not to smurk as Rin's eyes grew wide, herhaps she was exagerating a bit, mostly she just had to climb with wrist and ankle weights, the tyres were more for track, though there was that one time.

When Rin admitted her fear of heights Hanahi couldn't help but smile. "It's not that bad, you have a rope to catch you if you fall." As she was asked about the size of her team she contemplated how to answer. "Well, it depends, we're in a squad of three, but if the competition isn't teams all of a sudden we're all fierce rivals, with nary a moment's notice." Hanahi thought for a moment of being tossed in the air, but before she could answer Rin started another set, so she watched to make sure that nothing went wrong, once she was done with this newest set she spoke. "Do you really think?" The entire idea of being a cheerleader had never really crossed her mind, or being on any team before she had come to this school for that matter, and now it seemed like she couldn't say no to any offer, no matter how taxing it would be on her.

“I can’t imagine competing against my own team either,” Rin says. Her team was akin to family. They spent so much time together. Went through failures and successes together. Depended on each other. “Does your team do stuff together outside of competitions?” She pictures that a team of 3 would be very close and tight-knit. Her team was so much larger, and she knew everyone pretty well.

The other girl seems to be considering cheerleader for a moment. Mitsuki was so much better at recruiting people. Rin nods, “Confident. Aren’t afraid of heights. Good balance. Light. You just need to learn the motions.” She always felt inspired by the flyers confidence. Never afraid to make a mistake.

"It is tough, but when it does happen our coach always insists that we take all three places on the podium." She gave a bit of a shrug. "I guess, but they still see me as something of an interloper. They've known each other since their mothers were yelling at them not to climb out of their cribs, they've known me for a lot less time." She gave a smile, hoping that Rin would understand where she was coming from.

"I don't know, I don't think I'm all that well balanced, I'm kind of awkward, and for me running is more like a long fall forwards." Only someone who didn't know her would call her balanced.

“That doesn’t seem much like a team,” Rin says in regard to the rest of the track club’s attitude to her. “If you guys don’t support each other that seems awfully lonely.” What was the point of distancing yourself from a new member like that? Where was the sense of camaraderie? Rin looks more than empathetic. “All that seems so terrible. Why stick with it?”

She shakes her head when the other girl claims to be awkward, "No, you aren't." Rin smiles a bit on the subject of joining cheer. “But that’s fine too. The spotters and bases help catch people.”

Hanahi did her best to smile plesantly as Rin spoke, though each thing she said stabbed at Hanahi's soul. "Well..." she said trying to find the right words. "To this school I'm little more than a thrall I guess." She smiled sweetly, but her eyes were sad. "And I'm not really good at much else, I'd be without a meaning in my life." She wanted to defend the people on her team, but it was so hard with how distant she still felt towards them.

She bit her lip before saying what she did, hoping that what she was about to say would sound as good as it did in her head. "So if I somehow managed to join the team does that mean you'd always be there to catch me whenever I fall?" She instantly regretted it, in her head it had sounded so suave and cool, in the air of this room it sounded like she was looking for a girlfriend to her ears now. Just what in the hell was wrong with her, she wanted to say something but her voice had been seemingly stolen by little gremlins.

Rin feels guilty for making the other girl sad. Her eyes look away from her spotter and towards other things. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…” The other girl was being so rough on herself, and she wasn’t sure entirely what to do or say. “You’re probably good at stuff… I mean, I’m not great at cheer, but I’m still on the team.”

The line that the other girl gives is unexpected. However, being awkward in most other people’s company herself, she understands. However, the words are choked from her throat, so all she gives a very forceful nod, which she is sure makes her look like a bobblehead doll. “I’m Rin by the way. You should… you should come by practice later this afternoon. See if it is your thing.”

"I guess you're right." Hanahi couldn't help but feel that she was bringing Rin down and could kick herself for it. "I'm sure you're great at what you do in cheer." She didn't want to see Rin putting herself down for seemingly no reason.

It seemed that for a time Hanahi's stupid comment had stolen Rin's voice as well, though the head banging of a nod made her smile despite herself. It was a moment before Rin introduced herself and Hanahi wanted to yell at herself for not doing so sooner. "Oh! My name is Hanahi." She paused for a moment trying to figure out if she'd be able to make it. "I'll try to come." She bit her lip. "Isn't it time for your last set?" She smiled shyly not really wanting to interrupt their conversation but knowing that she should.

Rin smiles as Hanahi says she’ll come by. “Well, we always like having new recruits or people interested. The team was very nice to me when I first came by.” She is sure Hanahi will fit right in, far better than she did her first day even. When Hanahi mentions that Rin should finish her last set, she flushes with embarrassment. She somehow managed to completely forget about being in a weight room. “Oh yeah,” Rin says. She picks up the weights and finishes her remaining set. Then looks at Hanahi, “How about you? What about your workout routine?”

Hanahi watches as Rin does her last set, and looks down at the weights that are sitting there, when she's asked she looks back up to Rin. "Well I guess I can start here." She takes a few steps over to the rack where the rest of the weights are sitting and plucks up a pair of ten kilogram weights and adds one to each side of the bar and looks at the monstrosity. The thing now weighed more than twice what she did. She looked at Rin. "I normally do four sets of seven." She started on her first set once she was sure that Rin was ready to catch her if she fell.