*Author's Note - Okay, so, it's one-twenty-five... And we're really freakin' tired. So we're gonna keep this short and sweet. Enjoy, read, review. Please.
**Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't own The Prince of Tennis, 'cuz if we did Melissa would keep Fuji in her room and Eiji would sleep with Lex and her Adam Lambert blanket every night.

"Why does it freaking matter what English cognates are? And who cares about which road Robert Frost took? Mom, I'm never going to use this in my life!"

Being homeschooled sucks. Just flat out saying that. It leaves you with no friends, an ungodly amount of homework, and a nagging mother. That is all I've gained from the past… eight? Nine years of my life?

"You need to learn 'The Road Not Taken' so you learn how to not always follow the path of others, Chiaki."

As if I have others to follow. Peer pressure doesn't exist if you have no peers to pressure you. By eighth grade, you would really think that I'd have more to do with my life than this.

"Screw 'The Road Not Taken'! I wanna read Tolkien's 'All That Glitters Is Not Gold'!"

"Why would you want to do that? Tolkien wasn't even known for his poetry."

"So? I've read all the Lord of the Rings books and now I need more Tolkien!"

We have arguments like this on a regular basis. I get bored, she gets bitchy, and then I demand more fantasy books. That's just how things happen here. And I don't think that'll change any time soon.

At least I had my chores. Other people my age (I would assume) don't like doing chores. But it gives me a chance to get out of the house. Even if I only walk a block to get to the greengrocer. Regardless, anywhere outside of my place of residence is a good place to be. Carrying six bags of groceries back to the house can be a pain in the ass though.

"Tolkien is a fantastic author whose works are to be respected, but we are not in the fantasy chapter of our studies! We are in the poetry unit! So take a five minute break and we'll continue. Take care of that attitude so we can get back to work."

She talks at me like I'm an idiot. I'm not overly intelligent, but I'm not stupid either. I've got a B- average, thank you very much.

"Stupid, freakin'… Screw the world," I kept on mumbling to myself as I walked to the kitchen. Looking through the cabinets for something to keep me motivated, I came upon a box of honey-flavored Pocky. I grinned, removing it from the cabinet. "Forget it, oto-chan, this is mine."

"Chiaki! Break's up! Let's get back to work!" I glared at the doorway, trying to seal my mother into a demon realm with only my eyes.

"Come on, we don't have all day!"

Ugh. FML. I prayed to every God I could imagine that my mother would find another poem – Dear God, Allah, Yahweh, Ra…

"I'm sure you are going to be very displeased, but I'm discontinuing your study of The Road Not Taken."

I'm pretty sure that Ra is the one who took care of that for me. This time…

"Instead, we'll be moving onto a poem that deals more with fantasy and storytelling. That is what you wanted, correct?" Her tone was very teacher-like. I hate her teacher voice.

"Yes, oka-san, that is exactly what I wanted. Now what poem is this that you're speaking of?"

One word escaped my mother's lips and my world crumbled.

"Beowulf."

My eyes widened and I quickly began to protest, the disagreement escalating into an argument full of screaming. No matter what method I tried, she was unreasonable and ridiculously steadfast in her resolve that I was going to read Beowulf, which was totally not going to happen.

It was cut off by my mother yelling at me to go to my room until I got my attitude re-adjusted. Too bad that that'll never happen…

"Actually, no. I don't want you to go to your room. Go to the grocery store and get everything on this list." My dad called up to my room. He shoved a piece of paper in my face, waving it there and waiting for me to grab it. I took it gladly, as my mom stuttered out, "But, I just told her to –"

"Honey. We need groceries."

"Yeah, oka-san. We need groceries." I winked at her, and walked out the door. Thank you, Dad, I owe you one. He always manages to get me out of sticky situations with Mom. He's completely the opposite of her – laid-back, mellow, and easy-going. Mom's high-strung like no tomorrow. Regardless, I got out into the outside world and took a look at the list quickly. I did a double-take as I saw the atrocious number of items on the list.

"What the hell?!" Well, that would explain why I could only find Pocky in the cupboards. This would take a while. A long while.

I walked around town for over an hour getting everything on the list. It was written in English in my mother's awful handwriting. This was a vain attempt to teach me more English. Too bad Dad had written the items normally on the side of the paper in Japanese. I do love my dad.

I was about to head home with my eight million grocery bags when I heard someone yelling about something being on fire. I turned to see what exactly was burning and immediately fell down from the impact of something on my forehead, followed by some sort of liquid trailing down my face. And no, it wasn't water. It was some sort of sticky beverage. Water would be way too damn simple. My immediate reaction was anger, followed by embarrassment as the orange liquid covered my head.

I saw two boys, maybe a year older than I was, in full Seigaku uniform. One was holding a tennis racket, still screaming that something was 'burning' even though at this point the only things burning were my cheeks. The other had bright red hair, who was trying to wrestle the racket from the 'burning' man.

"Taka-san! Give me back my racket!"

"Eiji! Justice must be fought for! I will stop at nothing! We must get the purse snatcher!" The red-haired boy managed to get the racket out of the other's grip, and immediately his composure changed.

"What the hell?" I started to mumble, "I just go out to get some damn groceries and I get covered in juice or something. I don't even know what this stuff is! And this was my favorite shirt!" I said the last bit louder.

"My juice! Where is it?! We must find it, Taka-san! I need to see if there's any left!" I started to sit up, still fuming.

"Uh, Eiji," the 'burning' man said quietly, pointing in my general direction. "I don't think you'll be able to salvage any…"

"What?" the redhead said, craning his neck towards me. "Oh, no! My Ponta!"

"Your Ponta?! Your freaking Ponta?!" I was livid. The boy with a split personality quickly came over, apologizing profusely.

"Is there anything I can do to apologize for this? I feel awful about it!" He seemed genuinely sorry, but I wasn't about to completely let him off the hook, and not his friend either. I was still seething.

"You and your friend can help me carry home my freaking groceries!"

"Uh, uh, yes! Of course! Eiji!" The redhead turned to us, sad look firmly planted on his face, even though it was extremely difficult to take him seriously with the band-aid on his cheek.

"But I don't want to, nyah," he said, tilting his head to the side slightly.

"But… Eiji…I think that we owe her at least that much. We did make her spill all her bags, after all. Just think of it as, uh, weight training…?" the apologetic one said timidly, starting to help me pick up my bags.

"She spilled my Ponta, nyah," he said with a slight air of general dislike.

"Eiji…" he pleaded as he held out a bag for the one named 'Eiji' to take.

The redhead pouted slightly before taking a load of bags in his arms. "I hope you know you owe me a Ponta, Taka-san."

We walked, and they introduced themselves as Kawamura Takashi and Kikumaru Eiji.

"I see. Hmm, so, Kawamura-san and Kikumaru-san, correct? I'm Hasegawa Chiaki."

"No! Call me Eiji, nyah!" Eiji was clearly not crying over spilt Ponta anymore.

"And please… Call me Taka-san, at least."

"Okay. Taka-san, Eiji-kun."

"Ah, Aki-chan, so cute, nyah!" This Eiji guy was… something else, to say the least. Just a moment ago he'd hated my living guts because of the incident with his Ponta. At least Taka had the sense to keep his trap shut every now and then.

We made it to my house, after what seemed to be an infinitely long ten-minute period of Eiji's incessant babbling.

"Do you want us to leave these outside or –"

"Um, hell no," I interrupted Taka, "you have to bring these to the kitchen. It's required."

"So, where do you even go to school?" I chuckled at Taka's question, and pointed to the adjacent room.

"Right there, Taka-san."

"You're… home-schooled?" He sounded as though the concept was completely foreign to him.

"Yup. Count your lucky stars that you two go to public school… Er, private, I guess. Seigaku, right?"

"That's right, nyah! Seigaku's the best that there is!"

Eiji was posed with his right arm pumped in the arm, other hand on his hip, as my mom entered the room.

"Chiaki, why am I hearing strange voic-" she stopped in mid-sentence and her jaw dropped to the floor.

Eiji's eyes went wide before he ran up to her, and bowed low with a big smile plastered on his face. "Kikumaru Eiji, nyah, senior at Seigaku Middle!"

"Hello, sorry about this Hasegawa-san. We'll be out of here soon. I'm Kawamura Takashi," Taka said with a slight smile and a low bow. I could tell that he was my mom's favorite out of those two - and rationally, if Eiji had been her favorite, I would have laid down and died.

My mom stared at them in silent concern. "Uh, yeah… I don't have many friends, let alone guy friends, so this may be awkward for my mother to deal with…" I said quietly, breaking the awkward silence.

"I think we better go, Eiji. We don't want to make Hasegawa-san feel uncomfortable in her own home," Taka said as he started to push Eiji out my door. Eiji, of course was causing a ruckus.

"But I want Aki-chan's number! She's so cute, nyah!" My mom looked aghast, and my cheeks turned pink. Did this boy have no filter at all?

"Uh, I think I'll, uh, show them the way out," I said quickly as I followed them out, praying to God that I would still be allowed out of the house after today.

"Aki-chan! Aki-chan! Can I have your number now?" Eiji looked so hopeful as he bounced around on my doorstep.

"No, Eiji-kun. Now get out of my house."

"But, but, Aki-channnn!"

"No."

"I'm very sorry for any trouble we caused…"

"Don't sweat it, Taka-san." Truly, I meant that. I liked Taka.

"I will be back here every day, nyah! I will come back to Aki-chan's house every day until I get her number! It's my mission, nyah!" It seemed as though Eiji's resolve was unshakable.

"Yeah, um… You have fun with that." Taka apologized again, and I shut the door as Eiji was continuing his pledge to one day acquire my phone number.

If all people are as troublesome as they are (they being Eiji, of course), maybe being home-schooled is better than going to public school.