Inseparable: A Mabudachi Trio fic
A Fruits Basket fanfic by Raberba girl
Third Grade
"Everyone, settle down now!" the teacher called out on the first day of school. The command had absolutely no effect on the roomful of chattering, laughing eight-year-olds. Bookbags and jackets were scattered all over the floor, and more children were sitting on the desks than in them.
Hatori Sohma leaned back dangerously in his chair, propping one knee against the edge of the desk for balance. Shigure Sohma was sitting quietly and unobtrusively on the desk behind him, while Ayame Sohma stood in front and leaned his arms carelessly on Hatori's desk. Ayame was currently gushing about the new school wardrobe he had annoyed his mother into buying for him.
"And there were these awesome leather boots that I wanted reeeally really bad, but Mom wouldn't get them for me 'cause they were expensive, so I cried and ran to a lady who worked there, and I told her that my father had given me boots like those just before he died horribly in a fencing accident, but they got stolen and I was afraid I'd forget even his face if I didn't have boots like those again to remind me, and the lady started crying and gave the boots to Mom for a discount." Ayame smiled proudly.
"How stupid," Hatori said. He tossed his hair out of his eyes in the cool way he had learned from a movie villain. "If I worked there, I'd never let you get away with it."
"You were lying, Ayame, right?" Shigure asked.
Ayame grinned prettily. "Of course!"
Shigure looked thoughtful. Then he pulled a sheet of paper and some colored pencils out of his backpack, so he could draw a picture.
"Look, Ayame, now you started him off again," Hatori sighed.
"Show it to me when you're done!" Ayame said insistently to Shigure.
"Like he's not," Hatori muttered. Ayame, however, was not satisfied. He walked around Hatori's desk, pressed close to Shigure, and stared over the dark-haired boy's shoulder at the picture taking shape.
"Is that me?" he asked, jabbing his finger at the figure on the paper.
"Yes, get your fingers out of the way!" Shigure said in annoyance. He batted Ayame's hand away, and Ayame gave him a little shove in retaliation.
"My hair's not yellow!" he said indignantly.
"Stupid. White doesn't show on white paper," Shigure returned.
"I know that, stupid, but you're supposed to color black lines, so my hair looks white."
"Who's the artist here, doofus, you or me?"
"Shut up," Hatori muttered. He brought the chair down with a loud thump and pretended to look busy and studious.
Shigure and Ayame, not catching the warning, continued to argue until the paper was suddenly snatched out of Shigure's hands.
"You tore it--!" he started to exclaim, but then fell silent. His shoulders hunched and he stared at the floor, while Ayame glared at the teacher.
"Stop goofing around, sit down, and pay attention," she growled. Shigure slipped into the desk's seat without a word and without looking at anyone, but Ayame made a face at the teacher while her back was turned. Hatori nodded his head in approval, and Ayame, grinning happily, took the seat next to his friend.
After forcing the remainder of the class more or less into submission, the teacher marched back up to the front of the room. In one motion, she carelessly crumpled up the drawing and threw it into the trash can. She did not notice Shigure's lowered face growing dark with silent anger, or the naughty twinkles in Ayame's and Hatori's eyes.
"Now that I finally have your attention, I am going to take attendance. Please answer 'Here' or 'Present' when your name is called." She rummaged around on her desk until she found the list of names. "Ishida."
"He's absent," Ayame called. On the other side of the classroom, a boy with spiky blonde hair looked startled.
"Thank you," the teacher said in surprise, and made a quick mark on her list. "Izumi."
"He's out, too," Hatori called. A red-haired boy in the front row glared at Hatori, but did not have a chance to speak before the teacher moved on to the next name.
"Kamiya."
"He won't get back from vacation 'til tomorrow," Ayame supplied. A boy with goggles perched on his forehead glanced up, confused.
"Thank you," the teacher said again, still surprised at the boys' helpfulness. "Kido."
"He missed the bus this morning," Hatori supplied with a straight face. A dark-haired boy with glasses looked up from the book he was reading in surprise.
The teacher frowned at Hatori and Ayame as she said, "Takahashi."
"What a shame," Ayame sighed. "He transferred to another school at the last minute." A small boy sputtered with indignation.
The teacher slammed her list down on the desk. "You two, what are your names?" she demanded angrily.
"I'm Daisuke Niwa," Ayame said airily. "I just love helping out teachers, especially on the first day of school! It's so fun!"
"Satoshi Hiwatari," Hatori said calmly. "Glad to help."
The teacher frowned. "Hiwatari? Niwa? I don't remember those names on my list." She spent a few minutes scanning the names in growing frustration. The class began to get restless, and the kids who had had their names stolen were glaring at the Sohma boys and whispering to each other angrily.
"Guys, it's okay, you don't have to do this," Shigure whispered. It had been funny at first, but he didn't care about the drawing enough to see his cousins get into trouble. He had barely started the picture, anyway, it was easily redone.
"Nuh uh, Shigure," Ayame scolded. He thought he was whispering, though his voice was loud enough to be heard by nearly everyone. "This is justice. We must make the most of this opportunity to punish wrongdoers and thwart the spread of evil!"
"You've been watching too much anime," Hatori muttered.
The teacher stomped up to them. "You and you, out," she snarled, pointing at the door. "And you too, I know that you're mixed up in this somehow!" Shigure's face burned red, but he got up and headed for the door without a word. Hatori gracefully unfolded from his seat and sauntered out with his hands in his pockets. Ayame happily went off on a tangent, inventing a heroic-sounding speech. In the end, the teacher grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out, with Ayame still yakking all the way.
"Mom!" Ayame yelled happily when he got home, "School was fun today! And look, they gave me a paper! It says that I'm in trouble and they want to have a conference. I know what that word means, it means they want to meet with you officially and discuss my disgraceful behavior!"
"Ayame!" his mother groaned. "How are you supposed to be top in your class if you keep irritating your teachers?"
"Don't worry, Mom," he assured her. He shed his jacket and new leather boots, then handed the note to his mother as he skipped past her into the kitchen. "Once they start giving us homework," he said, settling down at the table with snacks, "I can win her over, no problem."
Hatori shoved through the front door, slung down his backpack, and dropped sullenly into an armchair.
Hatori's father was relaxing on the couch, watching TV. He raised an eyebrow at his son. "Dare I ask...how was school?"
"Stupid as always," Hatori grumbled. "If Ayame and Shigure weren't there, I wouldn't go at all."
His father flicked some ash off the end of his cigarette. "School isn't hard, you know, once you find an area of study that you like."
"You're wrong," Hatori mumbled. "I'll never be as smart as Ayame. He's always making A's without even trying. I can never be as good as him."
His father didn't reply. He only sat and watched Hatori thoughtfully, as cigarette smoke trailed slowly past his face.
Shigure sneaked in through the back door, so he wouldn't be held up by his parents. He darted upstairs, where he dumped his bag and eagerly spread his tools across the desk. He sketched ideas and jotted notes on one piece of paper, then began sketching more earnestly on a second sheet. Ayame's story had given him ideas...fencing matches, dead fathers, and leather boots; he could make something good out of that.
A couple of months into the school year, Ayame had easily taken his place at the top of the class. The teacher, having long forgotten his antics on the first day of school, now loved him. He was so clever, and such a beautiful child (oh yes, he knew exactly how to play his looks). She was not so sure about that dark child...the brooding, rebellious one who always stared at her out of sarcastic eyes, but the two of them were cousins, after all. Hatori Sohma couldn't be that bad.
The teacher hardly, if ever, thought of quiet Shigure Sohma. He spent most of the class time drawing, reading, or daydreaming, and rarely spoke to anyone other than his two cousins.
The teacher sat at her desk now, just before the first bell, organizing things and watching children trickle into the room. There were Ishida and Kamiya, arguing as usual, and Izumi toting that laptop of his. Oh, and the sweet little boy with scars on one cheek, laughingly enduring taunts from his delinquent friend. Various other, less interesting students; and then finally, the three Sohmas.
Hatori was sauntering along, listening to the ever-talking Ayame, who flitted around him like a silver butterfly. Shigure paced a couple of steps behind them with a bunch of papers under one arm, looking deep in thought.
The bell rang a minute later, and everyone slowly took their seats. The teacher stood and picked up the stack of papers she had finished grading the night before. The classroom was more or less quiet, with the exception of:
"...and I told the morons it was harmless, but they just told me to get lost and kept throwing stuff at it, so I kicked the first guy in the knee and grabbed the snake, but then they grabbed me and one of them pulled my hair, so I called a bunch more snakes to scare 'em off, and they ran screaming like--"
"Ayame," the teacher finally managed to cut in. She smiled and held her finger to her lips. "When the bell rings, what are we supposed to do, Ayame?"
"We be QUIET!" Ayame yelled. Some of the kids giggled.
"Ssh, ssh, ssh! That's right, Ayame."
Ayame lowered his voice to a perfectly audible stage-whisper. "Supposed to be quiet like this, right?"
"That's right, Ayame," she answered with an encouraging smile. Ayame smiled back, brilliantly. His hair and eyes seemed to sparkle.
'Sickening,' Hatori thought in annoyance. 'Why does he play along with her like that?'
"Now, class," the teacher announced, "I am returning your essays to you." She began passing them out. Most of the kids stuffed the papers into their backpacks or their desks without looking at them. They had been told to write a paragraph on their favorite animal, pending a unit on watered-down biology.
"I would like to point out," the teacher continued, "that Ayame Sohma turned in the best paper I have ever seen from a third grader. I was impressed to find that his essay about snakes was written almost at a middle-school level."
"Aha ha ha!" Ayame laughed. "You must not compliment me so much, Sensei, or my classmates will get jealous! After all, not everyone can be brilliant and beautiful; there's always..." The ones who had not tuned him out by this time were fuming, and lengthening their mental "I Hate Ayame Sohma" lists.
Hatori flipped his paper face-down the instant it was placed on his desk, without even looking at the grade. He didn't have to guess that the single line, "I hate seahorses, and dragons are much cooler" wouldn't score very high.
The teacher stopped beside Shigure's desk. "Shigure," she said seriously. Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen. "Honey, you were supposed to write a paragraph. We are not in art class. This is a very nice picture, but you needed to write about dogs, not draw them. Do the assignment correctly next time, okay? Or I will have to speak to your parents."
Shigure kept staring straight ahead. The other kids were snickering. Hatori and Ayame were looking dangerous.
The two of them settled down, however, when the teacher moved away. This was because, as soon as her back was turned, Shigure had flipped to a blank notebook page and started rapidly sketching. Hatori and Ayame, satisfied that something was being done, pretended to pay attention to the lesson.
A few minutes later, without looking at his cousins, Shigure folded the drawing into a tiny packet and tapped his pencil against the desktop. Ayame flipped his hair back in response. Perfectly timed, Shigure's tapping pencil flicked the piece of paper into the flying white mass. The hand Ayame was running through his luscious locks met the little piece of debris that had gotten caught, and it disappeared into his half-closed hand. Then he folded his arms on his desk, staying still for a while to offset the distraction of his hair.
At the right time, he lazily unfolded the packet with one hand, still looking to the front of the room. When the teacher turned to write something on the board, Ayame glanced down at the drawing and nearly choked trying to keep back laughter. Pretending to cough, he held his fist up to his mouth to stifle it, crumpling the paper in the same movement.
Hatori had been rolling a marble back and forth across his desk in boredom. At that moment, he happened to miss, and the marble rolled onto the floor between his desk and Ayame's.
"Hatori," the teacher said in annoyance, "put that away and pay attention."
"Yes ma'am," Hatori mumbled. He bent sideways to retrieve the marble, just as Ayame did the same.
"Do let me get that for you, Hatori!"
"I got it," Hatori said, but their fingers had already met. Ayame laughed and withdrew his hand. When Hatori came up, he was cradling the crumpled ball of paper in his palm alongside the marble.
He leaned back in his chair again, propped his knees against the edge of the desk, and opened a textbook in his lap. Behind its cover he quickly uncrumpled the paper, then smiled at what he saw: a hurried but still detailed sketch of the teacher being roasted to a crisp by a fearsome creature. It was a three-headed, serpent-tailed dog that breathed dragon-fire from its mouth.
'Nice,' Hatori thought. 'But it's no revenge if only the three of us get to see this.' He brought his chair back down to all four legs and lowered the textbook, chuckling audibly as he studied the drawing.
"Hatori Sohma," the teacher snapped. "What exactly is it that's so much more fascinating than my lesson?"
"Nothing," Hatori said quickly. He whipped the paper behind his back. Ayame looked delighted, Shigure alarmed.
The teacher marched up and confiscated the drawing. When she saw it, her face turned red. "So, Hatori, you aim to be as good an artist as your cousin."
"You weren't supposed to see it," Hatori whined artfully.
Ayame, playing his part, took the teacher's side. "Hatori!" he exclaimed, "How could you ever make fun of our sensei like that? She is hard-working and beautiful and much to be praised, and here you are drawing mean pictures of her!"
"If she didn't go poking into other people's pictures..." Hatori grumbled, but it was as far as he got before the teacher wrote him up. She marched to hold open the door for him, and when her back was turned, Hatori winked at his cousins and flashed a thumbs-up. Shigure glared, but Ayame winked back and returned the gesture.
Hatori was not in the principal's office for very long; he had been there too many times. All that resulted was that he was not allowed to play during recess, and had to sit next to the teacher the whole time.
Ayame and Shigure were on the swings as usual, making up adventures for their super-hero characters. Ayame shamelessly invented adventures for Hatori's characters, too, as Shigure stored up more and more ideas for his artwork and the two manga series he was creating.
They only managed to do this, however, for the first ten minutes of recess. Then Shigure frowned and dragged his feet, bringing his swing to a stop. "Ayame..."
"What, you think they ought to fight rabid mermaids instead of dragons? That is a bit more interesting--"
"Ayame, let's go play on the slides." Hatori and the teacher were sitting near the slides.
"The slides are all the way on the other side of the playground," Ayame complained. Then he saw the small crowd of kids coming toward them, and he dragged to a stop, as well. "I wonder what those losers want," he thought out loud, sounding unconcerned.
"Let's go, Ayame."
Ayame only smiled, leaned over, and hooked his elbow through Shigure's. "Scaredy-cat."
"I am not. Don't call me a Cat."
"Cat, Cat! Shigure-neko!"
"Shut UP." The kids were now within hearing distance. Shigure stopped speaking and looked down.
"Hey Kaiba," Ayame called. "You can't play here, these swings are ours."
Seto Kaiba stopped and crossed his arms, leveling a glare at Ayame that would have had most kids shaking in their shoes. "Yo, teacher's pet. We're sick of you." The children gathered around him were staring at Ayame with hard faces.
"And I'm sick of you, Yu-Gi-Oh freak."
"Oooohhhh!" the other kids chanted, and looked eagerly at Kaiba to see his response.
Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "You're annoying. You're a cheater. You're not leaving this playground 'til I bash your face in, pretty-boy."
"You take one swing at me and Hatori will beat you up," Ayame said defiantly. He realized that the air was filled unnaturally loud, insistent barking, from pet dogs in the nearby neighborhood. 'Calm down, Shigure,' Ayame thought in amusement. 'It'll be fine.'
"Looks like your jerk friend isn't here," Kaiba observed. "Come here before I count to three, or I drag you here."
Ayame started swinging again. "It's not my fault you losers are too stupid to do good on the homework. It's easy stuff, you know. Maybe you all ought to get held back a grade." He began loudly singing a commercial jingle.
Kaiba stormed toward him. The other kids, spurred by his movement, ran forward and dragged Ayame off the swing. Shigure shouted, then charged forward and flailed at the boys who were hitting Ayame. Someone pulled him back and punched him hard enough to send him to the ground in a daze.
Ayame was yelling furiously and trying to hit back. Snakes were suddenly wriggling all over the ground. Some of the kids were frightened and ran, but a few were too angry to be scared off. Ayame screamed in pain and outrage when they began yanking mercilessly on his hair.
By this time several shouting teachers had arrived to break up the fight, and Hatori was with them. He had most of the attackers efficiently leveled before anyone was able to stop him. Kaiba, in the grip of one of the adults, glared at Hatori as a scratch on his face burned red. Hatori's eyes were icy, and he clenched his fists as he was held by another teacher.
"Stay away from my cousins," he hissed at Kaiba.
Things happened quickly after that. Almost ten kids were sent to the office for fighting, including Kaiba and the three Sohmas. Many of them were suspended, including Kaiba, Ayame, and Hatori.
At Ayame's house that evening, the three boys were in his room. Shigure lounged on the bed, and Hatori sat leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. They watched as Ayame stood in front of the mirror, bewailing his bruised face and swollen nose.
"I cannot believe this!" Ayame fumed. "Look what they did to my face, it's horrible! They have compromised my loveliness! And my HAIR! Look at this, it keeps coming out!" Ayame brushed his fingers through his hair, tugged gently at the ends, and came away with several long, loose strands. "I hate them!" Ayame yelled.
"It's okay," Shigure murmured, trying to comfort him.
Hatori paused before he spoke. Then he said quietly, "You shouldn't have said those things to them, Ayame."
"Shut up," Ayame growled, not really meaning it.
"It's because you keep making such high grades. And the teacher loves you. They're jealous."
"I know."
"And you rub it in their faces."
Ayame was silent. Shigure had his eyes fixed intently on Hatori.
"Sometimes you even annoy me, Ayame, the way you keep going on about how smart you are and how stupid everyone else is."
Ayame's eyes widened. He stared at Hatori. "I do not!" Hatori didn't answer. "Do I really annoy you, Hatori?" Ayame pleaded. "Do you hate me, too?"
"You keep--" Shigure started. He stared at the floor, and it was difficult for him to go on, but he did. "You keep bragging about it. It makes me feel bad."
Ayame stood there, shocked, feeling as if the ground had been pulled out from under him. Getting beat up at school was nothing, compared to the realization that his two dearest friends didn't like him.
Shigure came over and put an arm around Ayame's shoulders. "But you're still cool, Ayame," he added. "Just 'cause you're annoying doesn't mean I don't like you."
"Hey." Ayame turned to face Hatori. "You're still my brother, Ayame, and Shigure too. The three of us, we're inseparable."
"A trio," Shigure spoke up.
Ayame smiled. "We need a name."
Hatori shook his head in disgust, and Shigure frowned. "A name?" he repeated.
"Yeah! All brotherhoods have names! We can be...the Gorgeous Flower Trio!"
Hatori cussed. Shigure laughed.
"That's stupid," Shigure said, but he was grinning.
"No, no, look! We are dazzling, three beautiful blossoms of youth, united under the same curse, facing the world together!"
"I am not going to be known as a Dazzling Blossom or a Gorgeous Flower or whatever," Hatori said threateningly.
"Hatori," Shigure said soothingly, "believe me, if you show up at school calling yourself a Gorgeous Flower, it won't ruin your image."
"Yeah, Hatori," Ayame chimed in. "After the way you flattened all those jerks today, they'll be kissing your feet in terror even if you call yourself a Sparkling Bunny or a Jet-lagged Penguin."
"Now you're just being silly," Shigure said. He reached for his pocket, where he always carried a pencil and a bit of blank paper. He drew their three faces, surrounded by flower petals. At the top he wrote their new name in curling, fancy handwriting.
"Yeah!" Ayame cheered. "Go Mabudachi!"
"What did I ever do to deserve these two?" Hatori wondered.
Author's Notes: The inspiration for this fic came when I saw some little kids in a restaurant. It started me wondering about what the Mabudachi Trio might have been like in elementary school, and bam! The idea for this story was born. I also got a few ideas (not as many) for their experiences in middle and high school, so I wrote those out as well. Possibly that was a mistake, seeing how much trouble I've been having with the middle school sequence.
I know nothing about what all-boys schools are like in Japan (or anywhere else, for that matter). I hope, if you are knowledgeable about such things, that you will forgive any inaccuracies.
This fic is not a crossover, but I used characters from other anime/manga series as extras, since I didn't feel like making up my own. For anyone who's interested, the kids who had their names stolen are the boys from Digimon Adventure; Daisuke Niwa and Satoshi Hiwatari are from D.N. Angel, and Seto Kaiba is from Yu-Gi-Oh!.