To be honest, I'm not even sure what it is anymore.
Um. Yeah.
I wrote this, like... four years ago? I didn't want it to go to waste - maybe I could get some tips on writing style or something, at least from someone on Project A.F.T.E.R., I'm sure - but I wanted to clear space on laptop. So here we are.
...I guess it's an AU-ish fic. where the whole thing gets out and Yusuke becomes popular... or something. Please, just don't ask.
I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or "Sk8r Boi".
He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?
Of course that was the most obvious difference between them... He was a boy, and she was a girl. Yusuke, he was a typical boy, and Keiko, your average girl.
"Dammit, Keiko..." Yusuke muttered as he rubbed the sore spot on his face. He had just snuck up behind her and flipped her skirt... again.
He'd have a red mark there in the morning – five neat little fingers, spread out evenly, at the end of a hand. He knew it.
"Yusuke..." Keiko fumed as she rubbed and massaged her hand. It was both numb and sore. Why couldn't he be more mature?
He was a punk. She did ballet. What more can I say?
Yusuke watched as Keiko walked down the stairs, her blue skirt disappearing into the dark distance. He spat on the school's concrete rooftop before glaring down the stairway. Then he turned away and looked upward at the sky, hands in his pockets. "Dammit, I don't need this," he muttered softly, looking down at the concrete. He sighed, and then walked down the stairs himself, his footsteps echoing through the empty hallways, and left.
- -
The bells jingled overhead as he pushed open the door to leave. "Hey, thanks," Yusuke called to the waitress over his shoulder.
"Oh, it's no problem, Mr. Urameshi," the pretty girl, who was gathering his dishes, answered with a smile as the door shut behind him with a jingle and a muted click.
"Hey! Urameshi!"
Yusuke looked up and took two or three steps forward when he heard his name called.
"Why aren't you in school?"
That was a weird question for Kuwabara to ask. "Why aren't you in school?"
A panicked look crossed Kuwabara's face as he grabbed Yusuke by the collar. "That's not the point!"
Yusuke almost gasped, surprised by the way his arch-nemesis/best friend was acting. "Let go of me before I punch your face in."
"Why should I–" Kuwabara's question was cut off by a grunt as Yusuke punched him in the stomach to make him let go, and then the face.
"I told you." That was all Yusuke said as he walked away, leaving Kuwabara in pain.
She didn't actually take ballet. It was meant to be symbolic... symbolic of her personality. Keiko was your traditional type, a sweet, old-fashioned girl. She followed the rules. She didn't smoke, drink, or even curse. She helped around the house, doing the chores her parents were too busy to do. She helped with the cooking, and she was good at it. She worked hard in school.
He wanted her. And she'd never tell, but secretly she wanted him as well.
There was a mutual attraction between them, and though they were so different they were alike in one thing: they denied it.
But both of them knew that it was something more than the friendship that had blossomed when they were four years old...
But all of her friends stuck up their nose. They had a problem with his baggy clothes.
As much as both of them denied it, everyone knew.
She was often seen talking to him both in and out of school. Everyone thought they knew what they talked about, but no one did. Usually she nagged him, because no one else he knew – not even his mother – cared enough to do so.
Her "friends" repeatedly warned her to stay away from him, trying to scare her away with false rumors and lies that they had started themselves.
She had such a bright future, they thought. He had nothing ahead of him but a jail cell or the death penalty, they thought.
They knew nothing of the truth.
"Honestly, how can you even talk to him?"
"He likes to act tough, but he's gentle on the inside, more like a lamb."
"But I heard that when he whistles he summons two hundred bad guys! With guns!"
"But Yusuke doesn't even know how to whistle! And he can barely control two people, let alone two thousand... He doesn't have many friends..."
He was a skater boy. She said, "See ya later, boy." He wasn't good enough for her.
He actually wasn't a skater boy, but that was a minor detail. When one hears the word "punk" used to describe a person, one imagines them with a skateboard, do they not?
He went away and left her, promising to come back. But she could only wait for so long.
"It's time I get what I want!"
She had a pretty face, but her head was up in space. She needed to come back down to Earth...
For some reason, she seemed to believe that everything would work out in the end. As long as she didn't forget him, he would come back.
But then, she suddenly stopped; she gave up on him.
Five years from now, she sits at home, feeding the baby. She's all alone.
After having left him, she found a new love interest. He was sweet, kind, and attentive to her needs... a nice change from her old "boyfriend".
He was never actually her official boyfriend, to be technical. It just went without saying, even though both of them denied it so.
But that was one of the reasons she loved him. He didn't pamper her; he knew she could take care of herself. It was a tough love.
They got married in a beautiful ceremony, and she wore a beautiful dress. But he wasn't there. She didn't know whether it made or ruined her day...
She lost her virginity that first night, and nine months later she bore a beautiful baby boy.
Though he and his father looked nothing alike, she swore he started looking more and more like Yusuke every day.
Three or so months later, he filed for divorce. He, unlike her, didn't care for a relationship not solely based on sex.
And knowing that it would be harder to get another girl with a child, he was left to her.
She turns on TV. Guess who she sees: Skater boy, rockin' up MTV.
It wasn't actually MTV that he was on. He couldn't play any instrument ever created to save his life, though he could sing pretty decently.
It was actually the news that he was on. More and more humans were becoming aware of the things around them that the previously knew nothing of.
They recognized him for what he had done for them... or wanted to, anyway.
But it was easier to say MTV, as that was familiar to the generation following. And those of that generation were the least aware humans ever to walk on this planet.
She calls up her friends. They already know. And they've all got tickets to see his show.
Actually, it wasn't her friends she had called but people who used to be her friends that she lost touch with.
And it wasn't really a show that he was putting on, but rather, it was him taking center stage to tell the mob that assembled – in detail – all that he had done at the expense of demonkind to benefit humankind.
And if I am really to be truthful here, she only called one person.
"Yeah, I have two premium tickets... He sent them to me. He hasn't forgotten me, though it seems like everyone else has..."
She wanted to say that she hadn't, but the words wouldn't come.
"You want to go, don't you?"
"Yes," she answered. It was the truth.
"You can come with me, then. I asked Yukina, but she said she couldn't go…"
She tags along, stands in the crowd, looks up at the man that she turned down...
And that was what she did. It was almost like a rock concert, but without music. And when she saw him, all she could think about was how she lost him.
He was a skater boy. She said, "See ya later, boy." He wasn't good enough for her. Now he's a super star, slammin' on his guitar. Does your pretty face see what he' worth?
He had become a celebrity overnight. And she could have shared in that.
But no, she didn't want that. She didn't deserve this. He did. And she was happy for him.
He was a skater boy. She said, "See ya later, boy." He wasn't good enough for her. Now he's a super star, slammin' on his guitar. Does your pretty face see what he's worth?
Sorry, girl, but you missed out. Well, tough luck. That boy's mine now.
That was perhaps the thing that hurt her the most... It hurt her companion as well, I suppose, but his feelings are of little or no importance to the story.
I walked out onto the stage, delicately linking my arm with his and resting my head on his shoulder.
We had both rubbed off on each other. I was a lot stronger now, a lot tougher and more comfortable with the world and myself.
Even so, they both recognized me.
"Yu...kina?"
We are more than just good friends. This is how the story ends.
Having seen the two of them in the crowd, I kissed him briefly on the cheek before resting my head on his shoulder.
After she had left him, he was extremely distraught. He didn't want to go home... He didn't want to face his mother. So he stayed at Genkai's temple.
I was staying there was well, as I also didn't want to face those who were supposed to care for me but did and still do not.
It was amazing. I had always thought him so strong, so invincible. But I realized then that he was like me.
I wasn't as much a shoulder to cry on as I was someone to complain to and yell at so he could vent his frustration...
But I comforted him.
And gradually, something began to develop.
This is how the story ends...
Or so I thought.
Too bad that you couldn't see... see the man that boy could be...
That was a lie. She knew everything that he could have been, everything about him.
There were times that it seemed like she knew him even better than he knew himself...
There is more that meets the eye... I see the soul that is inside.
But she had seen it long before I even knew him, and she knew it so much better...
He's just a boy, and I'm just a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?
Boys and girls... so alike and yet a few differences set us apart entirely.
As we are now.
We are in love. Haven't you heard?
Or I thought we were in love...
I know that I loved him...
And we rock each other's world.
I surprised him, with the way I came onstage. Once he relaxed, he absentmindedly slipped a hand around my waist.
I'm with the skater boy. I said, "See you later, boy... I'll be backstage after the show."
"I'll be back later," I whispered in his ear. I had had enough of her glaring at me from her place in the crowd, her eyes filled with the most hate, loathing and envy I had ever seen, and all of it was directed at me.
He nodded, barely moving his head at all.
With as much poise and grace that I could muster, I let go of him, turned, and left.
"I'll be at a studio, singing the song we wrote about a girl you used to know."
But what happened... They followed me. Or, rather, she did.
And I told her of what he had gone through after she left him.
I told her of the story we had written without her.
I'm with the skater boy. I said, "See you later, boy… I'll be backstage after the show. I'll be at a studio, singing the song we wrote about a girl you used to know."
But after it was all over, when he couldn't stand talking about his past any longer, he found her.
I don't know if he even knew that she was there, but I know that he was genuinely surprised when he ran into her.
"Keiko?"
They had never been far from each other's mind. They couldn't – and wouldn't – forget.
"Yusuke?"
As he continued talking to her, he realized that she was still the girl he thought he knew and used to know.
She won him over, stealing him from the one who deserved him, the one who had loved him when she had thrown him away.
He was a boy.
She was a girl.
Can I make it any more obvious?
They got back together, the memory of what they had and had lost drawing them together.
He's just a boy, and I'm just a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?
And now he acts like there was never anything between us. To him, I am just a girl. To me, he is supposed to be just a boy.
But he can never... and will never... be just that to me.
I'll be at a studio, singing the song we wrote about a girl you used to know.
I dyed my hair and found colored contacts; I moved to America and changed my name to Avril Lavigne. I wrote a song, and I called it "Skater Boy".
I changed the story just enough to protect the identities of all involved and to make it familiar to the generation of the unaware.
Skater Boy was a big hit.
But no one realizes that it is not just about Keiko.
I'll be at a studio, singing the song we wrote...
Though I wrote the song, we all wrote the story that went into it.
And it was he that closed the book and took it away although I wanted to keep writing.
That song is as much about me as it is about her.
He no longer knows me. Perhaps he never did.
...about a girl you used to know.
- Kuramastrass -