You Make Me Smile
By astrogirl23
A/n: I do not own FoR or any of its characters. :)
Chapter 1: Rock, Paper, Monkeys
Yo, Mikagami!
Come up to the rooftop after class. I'll give out your home phone number to your panting batch of admirers if you don't.
-Recca
If Mikagami Tokiya was annoyed with what he just read, it certainly did not show in his impassive face. With a low grunt he slammed his locker door shut and threw the crumpled note to the nearest bin.
"Mikagami-sama! Are your classes over? Let me walk you home!"
"Mikagami-sempai, would you like to have some latte with me at the café?"
"Mikagami-sama, let me carry your bag!"
Ignoring the senseless ramblings of his female fans, he stomped his way to the rooftop, where he would be meeting monkey-boy for whatever godforsaken idiotic thing he wanted.
"Oi, Mikagami, here!" Recca Hanabishi hollered from the far side of the rooftop as he stepped outside the school building, accompanied by Yanagi and Domon.
Rolling his eyes at Recca's lack of finesse, he strode over to them, nodding in greeting at Yanagi and a giving a brief, uninterested glance at the ape-man Domon.
"What do you want?" he asked coolly, brushing back strands of his silvery hair.
To his surprise, it was Yanagi who answered his question. "It's Fuuko-chan's birthday next week, Mikagami-sempai," she stated with a huge smile. "We should prepare a surprise party for her!"
"Monkey-girl?" Tokiya clarified, more used to calling her with his special nickname for her rather than her real name.
"Hey! You watch who you're calling monkey, Mikagami!" Domon protested with a glare.
"I'm actually doing you a favour; at least you're in closer species level with her now, gorilla,"
"Why you—"
"Okay, so I'll be in charge of the food!" Yanagi cut in between them in a panicky voice. "Recca-kun volunteered to set up the fireworks, so what do you and Mikagami-sempai want to do?" she turned to Domon pleadingly as she said this, since he looked ready to pummel Tokiya with his ham-sized fist.
"I'll take her to the secret location!" Domon said enthusiastically, at the same time Tokiya blurted out, "I wanna go home,"
Yanagi looked affronted at this; with an unusual display of temper, she said, "Mikagami-sempai! Don't you care for Fuuko-chan at all? After all she's done for us, all we're asking is for your cooperation to help us surprise her on her birthday, and you won't even give it!"
It took Tokiya a minute to digest Yanagi's words. Despite what they all thought, he wasn't as callous as he seemed. He would rather pole-dance in a thong than admit it to anyone, but he had a soft spot for the tomboyish monkey, whom he had noticed, had kept a valiant effort in keeping the former Hokage team together since the war was over.
At first he had been a little confused with why she had been giving so much effort in keeping all of them close when the battle had already been over, and they no longer had a need for each other's company. Then as the days passed by, he realized that friendship did have its importance; he no longer sulked as badly as he used to, and he was opening up a little, at least to them.
He owed it all to the purple-haired monkey, who always forced, dragged and beat him into coming along with them for little get-togethers, which he grudgingly admitted he enjoyed.
"Tell me what else needs to be done," he finally said.
Recca pretended to heave a huge sigh of relief. "Whew! I thought you had died there thinking about helping us with Fuuko's party," he laughed stupidly at his own joke.
"Well, we still haven't got a group present for her…" Yanagi began, her smile and composure returning to normal. "Could you do the shopping for us, Mikagami-sempai?"
Urgh. Next to idiots and traitors, Tokiya hated shopping.
"Why don't I be in charge of bringing Fuuko to the location, and let Domon do the shopping?" he suggested, and Domon waved an angry fist at him.
"Fuuko-chan will think it weird if you were the one to come with her to the location, since you don't really go out together that much…" Yanagi pondered. "Unless you start getting close to her today…"
"No way in hell am I gonna let that happen! Fuuko-chan is mine, you hear me? MINE!" Domon shouted in rage, spraying spit all over them as he continued to rant in rage.
"Who says I'm stealing her away from you?" Tokiya scoffed. "I just don't want to do the shopping. Oddly, I'd prefer some bruises from monkey-girl than battling my way in groceries and malls,"
Yanagi sighed, knowing that no one between the two would be willing to give way to the other.
"I know!" Recca said, snapping his fingers. "Go have a tournament of rock, paper, scissors, and whoever wins gets to take Fuuko to the location while the loser does the shopping!"
"Brilliant," Tokiya grumbled, wondering why he chose to be friends with these idiots. "I'll play for only one point. If I win, Domon will do the shopping,"
"Are you sure? One point only?" Domon asked in disbelief. "You better say your prayers then, Mikagami,"
"Yeah, I won't forget to thank the almighty for kicking your butt," Tokiya muttered.
"Alright, Mikagami, are you ready to battle the expert?" Domon asked with a smirk. "You know how to play?"
Tokiya shot him an icy glare. "I'm sure that's the only thing you can brag about being good at, but I assure you, I know the basics to get through this,"
"Alright then—rock, paper, scissors!"
Domon groaned aloud as he slapped a hand to his forehead.
His rock had been defeated by Tokiya's puny paper.
"I thought you were an expert?" Tokiya said with a derisive snort. Turning to Yanagi, he asked, "Where am I supposed to take her anyway?"
"Oh, Recca-kun and I decided to hold the party in the beach, since Fuuko-chan loves to swim," Yanagi answered cheerfully.
"How the hell am I going to take her there without arousing any suspicion?" Tokiya wondered aloud.
"You think of something, Hime and I still got plans to do," Recca said, wrapping an arm around the blushing Yanagi. "See ya!"
Mikagami watched as the couple exited from the rooftop, chatting energetically about their after-school plans.
"I can take Fuuko to the beach without her questioning me," Domon said helpfully. "We can still exchange tasks, Mikagami!"
Tokiya gave him a satisfied smirk. "No thanks. Hanging out with monkey-girl seems more appealing," he said before turning to leave.
More appealing indeed.
"Miss Kirisawa, if you fail another test in my subject, I assure you, you would be spending the spring break differentiating sines and cosines of isosceles triangles," Fuyama-sensei said in a warning voice, his glasses and bald spot glinting under the sunlight rather malevolently, and for a second, Fuuko felt rather uneasy.
Well, damn it all if she'd spend the break in school while Recca and the others enjoy themselves hanging out somewhere! She hated being left out from all the fun. She hated trig the most though, like a kid hated broccoli and spinach.
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Miss Kirisawa?" Fuyama-sensei practically growled, and Fuuko tried to focus on what he was saying.
"Trigonometry is a subject that shouldn't be taken lightly, it would be a great asset if you would…"
Again her teacher's droning voice were blocked out by Fuuko's ears as she began to strategize a way to pass Fuyama-sensei's next quiz, which was two days away.
Obviously, Recca and Domon would be of no use to her, as they were just as clueless as her in the subject. They barely passed their tests though, and Fuuko had a nagging suspicion that they were cheating.
Yanagi seemed to be a better option, but she was currently busy with being part of the Student Council and playing Recca's girlfriend that Fuuko didn't have the nerve to ask her.
Which leaves… before Fuuko could finish her train of thought, Fuyama-sensei distracted her by waving an angry fist in front of her face. She blinked, gave a dazzling smile which temporarily diverted the teacher's attention and said, "Yeah, yeah, I understand you completely sensei. I promise I'll pass the next quiz with flying colours!"
Before the teacher could do as much as bat an eyelash, Fuuko had disappeared from the faculty room.
"Mi-chan! Oy, Mi-chan, wait up!"
Fuuko jogged as fast as she could to catch up with Tokiya's retreating figure, and to her relief and slight surprise, he actually stopped to wait for her.
"What's up, monkey?" he asked, watching her with his impassive blue eyes as she halted by his side, panting from the effort of running.
"I… I… I need your help," Fuuko managed to say in between breaths. "Got this… this… this trig test on Friday…"
She gave a loud gasp when she felt his hand pat her gently on the back. Now that was a surprise. Tokiya never laid a finger on her unless absolutely necessary. Necessary meaning she was dying or he was retaliating for her beatings.
"Slow down monkey, breathe first," he said, and she complied, still all too aware that his hand was still rubbing her back. The sensation was causing a hot feeling to spread all over her body, and she silently cursed when she felt the traitorous heat seep to her cheeks.
"I'm fine now," she mumbled after a few more seconds, and she felt oddly disappointed when his hand left her back. "Anyway, as I was saying, I need your help, I got this quiz on Friday and I need you to tutor me,"
Fuuko had said all that in a haste, as she knew he would decline, as usual. Why would he bother, right? It's not as if she—
"Alright," Tokiya answered, surprising her once more. Really, he was acting so weird today. Fuuko wondered vaguely if he was engaging in illegal drugs, or was replaced by a kind, gentlemanly clone.
"Really?" she squealed nonetheless. "Thanks a bunch! Can you come over to my house this afternoon then?" she asked excitedly.
"Sure, monkey," he replied. "Though I'm already thinking that my efforts would only go to waste, since no one of your species has yet proved to be smart enough to learn trig,"
Okay, so that was more like the Tokiya she knew and lo—knew. Knew.
"Take that back, you fag!" she hollered, reaching over to yank a great amount of hair from his ponytail.
"Ow! Stop pulling my hair, you ugly monkey!"
This was what she really preferred—the ordinary. The unusual usually tended to make her nervous.
A/n: So tell me what you think. :)