Notes: I wrote this for a prompt from a friend and first posted it in May. :3 I thought I'd post it here to share.
English by Post-Its
By Miki
Momoshiro's sticky notes are yellow; generic, not as sticky as Kaidou's Post-It brand ones, and to make up for it, he pays Kaidou out about the fact that his are pink.
Kaidou's mother chose his for him so it's hardly his own fault. Hazue got the orange pack first when he got home from school and Kaidou was stuck with the other, leaving him contemplating just putting them on his desk at home.
The thought that his mother might find out and feel hurt stops him though. She's bound to notice if she goes into his room, and she'll inevitably ask him about them and he'll have to tell the truth or lie; neither of which appeal to his sense of filial duty.
Kaidou shoves the pad into his bag when he leaves for school and it turns out that they're useful in English.
Momo's worked out that sticky notes are simultaneously better and worse than scrunched up balls of paper. Better because they stick to the target. Worse because they can't be thrown long distances and because they're too easy to trace back to the culprit in cases where they get poached en route to their destination. Or after arrival. Not everyone has sticky notes.
Besides, it's not as fun throwing paper at Kaidou now that their desks have rotated for the term and they're right next to each other.
"Oi, what's that pink stuff in your book Mamushi?" he asks when Kaidou sits down.
Kaidou shoves the pad of Post-Its further into the pages of his book and hisses. He hadn't meant to let anyone see them.
Momo doesn't pay attention to his attempts to avoid eye contact, snatching the book and flicking it open.
"What's this crap?" he asks. "Why'd you buy pink stuff?" he questions, as though Kaidou would ever actually buy something so criminally pink of his own will.
Kaidou snatches his book and the Post-Its back.
"Shut up," he hisses, warningly.
Momo doesn't take the hint.
"Mine are yellow," he sneers a little, pulling out his pad and waving them at Kaidou.
Kaidou ignores him and the teacher walks in then, causing a hush in the room.
Ten minutes later when Kaidou's been lulled into a false sense of security, Momo takes the offensive. Because they're in English class, he thinks he'll be smart and write in English.
Girl, he writes, and sticks the note to Kaidou's forehead when the teacher is turned around.
Kaidou looks perplexed for a moment. Then he retaliates. He thinks adjectives. He thinks insults.
Ugly, hairy boy. He sticks the note on Momo's shirt sleeve.
Momo half regrets having thought of using English. He should have remembered Mamushi was better at it than he was. His own vocabulary is lacking in insults and what he's learned from the X-rated English pornos his friends have shown him really isn't suitable for Kaidou in any way.
It's man hair, he retorts, hoping that what he's written means what he means it to mean.
Kaidou turns and glares at him just as Momo's about to slap the note to his head again.
Momo only falters for a bit before returning the look and slapping the note right on Kaidou's nose.
Kaidou flinches and pulls it off quickly. His own reply is quick and he doesn't bother using one of his own notes to reply, simply scribbling out what Momo's written and writing on a corner of the yellow note.
Monkey hair. He writes.
You don't have some, Momo replies, not caring if Kaidou's giving him a look again for the fact that his English is probably weird. He doesn't care.
I don't want any.
You're stupid.
You're stupider.
You're ugly. Like a dog, Momo writes, pausing and reflecting that with their limited vocabularies, it isn't as fun as it could be in Japanese. He wonders if he should pay more attention during English so he'll be able to impress Mamushi with a better insult next time.
Kaidou ends up using up half Momo's stack in the next thirty minutes and Momo feels a bit like he's gotten the raw end of the deal.
By the time class ends and they walk out, practically snarling at each other as they go, the rest of the class is giggling at them.
Kaidou thinks it serves Momo right and Momo thinks Kaidou's just a stupid jerk who knows a few more words than he does.
Kaidou's back reads Girl on a generic yellow sticky note and Momo's reads Monkey on a fluorescent pink Post-It.
Neither of them is any wiser for their exchange of sticky notes during class and it's probably better that way.
.fin.
