GAAAAH. Okay. The previous version of this was a complete failure in terms of consistency and strange mistakes so I'm re-uploading it. With a better title. Yeah...

Telly: Yay! I'm back!

Vaness: With a new goal in life!

Telly: To produce quality School Rumble fanfiction, the first of its kind on FFN!

Vaness: We're perfectly aware that SR fanfiction exists. We know about the yuri ones too. Heh.

Telly: However, I remain a mad yaoi supporter. Yeah... too bad SR is TOTALLY devoid of any yaoi hints... -stare-

Now, this story doesn't happen at a specific time. Since I'm not good with the School Rumble timeline, and things that I read in the manga may not have happened in the anime. Yeah...

Spoilers alert. Small ones, though. Like Imadori's house and stuff.

And even though I meant for it to be whimsical and funny in the classic SR way... it somehow turned into a soap opera!highschool-type fic. Please enjoy nonetheless!

It's not really that soap opera-y though. Not like the hardcore ones... well, it's kinda a softcore soap opera. If that exists, heh.

Dewa. Hajimemasho!

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Chapter 1:

"It all starts in a Chinese restaurant.

What's going on? The problems begin."

xxxxx

It was a remotely normal day in the School Rumble world. Because, you know when Super Saiyan-morphing, psychic spoon-bending and misunderstandings of gigantic proportions occur, everything is pretty much normal.

School was over. Tenma had run off to the supermarket to grab the bargains, Yakumo home to do housework and her own homework. Mikoto and Hanai back to the dojo to practice, Karen, Mihara and Lala to the amateur wrestling club, Sarah to the church and Eri back home. Even Imadori had been oddly conscientious, having gone back to help his parents at the 'Now Bird' beauty salon instead of going to flirt.

Asou had returned home to help his parents in the restaurant.

And Harima...

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Now, a few days ago Harima had decided that he needed a job. This manga artist thing was just not working out and he was broke. Itoko had been as sympathetic as usual, which translated to about none, and there was no way he'd ask for help from the few friends he had. A man had to keep his pride, after all.

So he scanned the classifieds with a steady and determined hawk's eye. Strange how many people wanted kappas. He paused for a while, then continued forging on. Nothing would get in his way!

Eventually, his eye landed onto a hiring ad from the Kouraku Chinese Restaurant.

'Hey, I have nothing more to lose!' he thought.

xxxxx

"Er... hello, Harima," Asou Hiroyoshi said.

"Who are you?" Harima replied. That guy seemed vaguely familiar, but Harima couldn't, for his life, place where he'd seen him before... You must, after all, keep in mind that while they were in the same class, they barely talked, and Harima had never called him by his name before.

"Your classmate? ...From school? Asou Hiroyoshi?" Asou reminded him, sighing. 'Of all the other people the new guy could have been...'

"...oh," Harima said.

"Anyway, Harima-kun, if you have any questions," Asou-san, the owner of the restaurant and the younger Asou's father, said, "feel free to ask Hiroyoshi. He's experienced with running the restaurant and can help you with everything. Good luck, Harima-kun!"

"Yeah..." Harima sighed.

The first day passed without any major mishaps, and Harima was quick on the job. He did not ask Asou any questions, talk to Asou or even LOOK at Asou, but diligently did his work.

'What a weird guy...' Asou thought.

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"Hey, does anyone feel like eating Chinese food today?" the fair-haired half-European, half-Japanese beauty, Sawachika Eri, asked her friends. "My treat!"

"Yeah, I don't mind!" the talkative, cheerful Suou Mikoto replied. "Where do you want to go?"

"Ne, ne ne ne ne!" the ever-excitable Tsukamoto Tenma said. "Let' go to the Kouraku Chinese Restaurant! Asou-kun's place! Want to come too, Karen?"

"Okay... I guess..." Karen said, smiling shyly.

Eventually, after school, Yakumo, Lala, Suga and Imadori also ended up going. They (with the exception of Yakumo; she went wherever Tenma went) had somehow managed to wheedle their way into going as well.

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"Suou?" Asou said, surprised. "You didn't tell me you were coming... and with all these people..."

"Well..." Mikoto replied, grinning sheepishly, "I figured I wanted it to be a surprise, I guess. You can handle it, right?"

"Of course," Asou said in the Asou-style. Confident, but not too brash or arrogant. Just Asou. Taking out a pen and his notebook, he asked, "What would you like to eat?"

"You know what I want, Asou," Suga said, grinning.

Asou sighed. "Ramen again, right? Suga, this is a Chinese restaurant, you know... only for you," he conceded. 'Where the hell is Harima...?' he thought. "He's supposed to be doing this sort of thing!'

Suga gave him the thumbs up and grinned.

"I'll have fried noodles..." Karen said.

"I want those chashuu buns!" Tenma said excitedly. "Yakumo and I will share!"

"Soup with chestnut and watercrests," Akira ordered, the epitome of professionalism.

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Meanwhile, Harima was feeling very socially awkward. He did not want to be seen working as a waiter in front of anybody he knew. Asou had been bad enough, but at least he was the boss' son. The people out there were bad. His Tenma-chan was worse. And the thought of what that Princess would say... his position as class delinquent would be shattered.

Wait... that was good, wasn't it? He needed to show Tenma-chan that he was a socially responsible man! And he could hardly afford to be seen wasting time on his second day. Imagine what a bad impression that would give.

He walked out and leaned against a corner, radiating waves of apathy and awesomeness. 'Be cool... be cool...' his mind intoned over and over again.

Asou sighed mentally. Again. "Harima. Next time, can you take the orders?"

Harima opened one eye and looked at Asou through the corner. Raising an eyebrow and slowly bringing it back down, he said, "Hmmm," in what could be interpreted as a 'yes, whatever'.

Harima, Eri thought, was making an ass of himself, as usual.

"D-cup, D-cup, D-cup!" Imadori's face lit up with glee as he stared at Lala, who was sitting next to him. Oh dear.

Ichijou Karen bit her lip and looked away.

Lala caught Imadori staring and promptly started to beat him up. Karen tried pacifying her again, but the effort was just not there.

xxxxx

Kouraku Chinese Restaurant had closed for the day. Asou was returning home, determined to take a shower and get a start on his homework.

"I'm ba—" he almost started to say, before he noticed that the house was eerily quiet. His mother was not cooking. His father was not making jokes or fixing something. There was no rustle of the newspaper to indicate that it was being read, nor there were any sounds coming from the TV.

Asou crept in and as he stood by the door of his parents' room, he heard them talking.

"They've called again..." his father said in a tone Asou could not immediately place. "This is the third time in a week and even though they haven't progressed to money threats yet, it's just a matter of time..."

His father, his cheerful, somewhat crazy, fighter father sounded defeated. That tone felt so out of place coming from the elder Asou.

"But what can we do?" his mother sounded sad. "The police won't help us. These yakuza are everywhere. They won't help us when everyone else is clamoring for help..."

"We'll just have to suck it up," his father said, grimly determined. Now that tone felt familiar. "Maybe we'll be able to work out a deal." But he did not sound confident.

"And we can't let Hiroyoshi know!" his mother said, turning distressed. "He already works so hard for the restaurant... we can't let him know about this. It would only worry him more."

Asou, still trying to process this, quietly, wordlessly crept back outside before walking in and calling, "I'm back!" There was immediately a bustle of activity as his mother started cooking and the TV was turned on. When Asou walked into the living room, his father turned to him and gave a perfected, as-if-natural grin. "Hey, Hiroyoshi. How was school?"

"It was all right," Asou said, giving a forced small smile back, before going up to his room.

xxxxx

Yeah... hope you enjoy this!

I tried doing a School Rumble x Harry Potter cross at first, but I loved too many of the characters to select which ones to give to Hogwarts. But I can still imagine Imadori going, "D-Cup Power!" and kicking the ass of all the Death Eaters. Heh.

Yakuza – Japanese triads.

Please read and review!