De Facto Guardian 1.0: The Future Can Be Created
It had been another long and boring day at highschool, and finally it was the last class of the day. Takahashi Ryousuke leaned back in his chair and listened to Sensei drone on and on about the Edo period. Boring. Wasn't the future more interesting than the past? You couldn't change the past, and obviously, humans hadn't bothered to learn much from it, so wasn't it better to think of, and to prepare for, the future instead?
Futures were more important than pasts, Ryousuke thought, even though his own future had pretty much already been laid out for him, it was still a bit far away. There was still plenty of time to create a part of his own future before the one his parents created for him took effect.
The past cannot be changed, but the future can be created.
He took notes absently in his notebook, half-listening to his history lesson, wishing the day was over. A cool breeze came in from outside through a barely-cracked window, shifting the stuffy air of the classroom slightly and offering the promise of a crisp early fall evening.
It was great driving weather.
Ryousuke had recently passed the test for his license and was itching to get behind the wheel of his brand new treasure, a white Mazda FC3S, for a nice drive up and down the Akagi pass. His thoughts wandered away from his third year history class to thoughts of the crisp mountain air and to the sounds of engines and squealing tires from all the street racers who hung out on the togue weekend nights.
Someday soon, he'd be right there with them, or, preferably, he'd be right there leading them. There was really no point in doing something if you couldn't be the best, or so his parents had told him, so why not shoot for the stars, or maybe become one himself?
Sure, it was illegal. But, he'd been hanging around the galleries for a while now, and it was rare that he ever saw a cop; the only time he really saw people getting busted was when a fight broke out over the result of a race that one time, and he'd been able to slip away through the crowd of onlookers unscathed. It wasn't even that hard to do since he looked more preppy well-bred schoolboy than rough-and-tumble street racer. Cops weren't interested in him, apparently.
His parents weren't thrilled about his interest in racing at all, never mind the illegal racing of the togue. However, he'd managed to allay their fears by telling them he wanted to participate on tracks and break records, and, of course, official amateur races were perfectly above-board, and, of course, he would be careful, and, of course, he wasn't going to let his grades suffer, and, of course, he wouldn't crash, blah blah blah…somehow, they had bought it.
Or maybe they just got tired of listening to him talk about it.
Maybe it was because they wanted to allow him a little bit of freedom as a reward for everything else he dutifully did to adhere to their elaborate life-plan for him. He didn't really know why they agreed to let him pursue the sport rather than take more piano lessons, but, as long as there was money in his trust allowance every month to spend on mods for his new car, he didn't really care.
Ryousuke had been studying cars for over half his life already; even as a kid they held a special fascination for him. He spent countless nights of flashlight-reading under the covers as a child reading car magazines and learning all about vehicles, and mechanics, and racing, and mods, and anything he could get his little hands on having to do with cars.
It was quite the serious hobby, and his interest had deepened with every passing year in anticipation of that glorious day when he got that little card that said "I can drive now."
That little precious piece of cheap plastic, that mark of near adulthood and independence, along with that gorgeous automobile sitting back at home in the family garage, were to be his tickets for the creation of a near-future of his own making.
Driving was exciting, much more exciting than the lame social outings his mother always dragged him to month after month in preparation for him to be formally "introduced" to society. That was their version of his future.
Sure. Like all his parents' cronies hadn't known him since he was in diapers anyway. Seriously. What a farce.
The classroom door slid open loudly, and, like a whip to a racehorse, all the students immediately snapped their heads to the sound; Ryousuke was no different, his daydream rudely interrupted. The vice principal had walked in and was whispering something to Sensei.
Ryousuke looked at him, and looked at Sensei, meeting the young teacher's eyes for a split second before Sensei returned her attention back to the vice principal with a curt nod. The principal exited the classroom.
Suddenly there was a sour feeling in his stomach, a feeling that had now become familiar. He knew what was coming.
"Takahashi Ryousuke-kun?"
"Yes?"
"Will you please go to Principal Satou's office?"
'Here we go again', he thought as he rose out of the creaky wooden seat of his third year history class. 'What has he done now?'
"Yes, Sensei," he replied, grabbing his books from the desk. For extra shits and giggles, he had to weave through the quickly-gathering pathetic beehive of whispers and snickers emanating from his classmates. 'Yeah, keep it up, assholes,' he thought silently as he finally finished the "walk-of-someone-else's shame" from his desk to the front of the classroom.
"Quiet!" admonished Sensei to her buzzing classroom. She followed Ryousuke out the door to the hallway, softly closing it behind her.
"Takahashi-kun?"
"Yes, Sensei?"
"Are you all right?"
"Of course. I'm sorry for the disruption to your class," he said with a bow. It was always best to be polite in these situations, even if it was mainly fake.
"I'm not worried about that, Takahashi-kun, I'm more worried about…you…"
Ryousuke flashed her one of his best fake-smiles. "Please don't. I take full responsibility."
Sensei frowned a little. "That's what I'm worried about."
Ryousuke let the fake-smile drop. Sensei's lectures might be boring as hell, but she wasn't stupid; he could tell she saw right through him.
"Thank you, Sensei, but please do not concern yourself further. It's a family matter; it's fine."
He bowed again and started to walk down the hallway.
"It's been happening a lot lately," Sensei called after him, causing him to stop in his tracks. "Shouldn't your parents be taking over at this point?" she asked.
Ryousuke turned around to face her. Sensei really wasn't stupid, but God, she was persistent. Gambling on the notion that she probably respected him enough as a responsible student, he decided to tell her the truth so maybe she'd just drop it for good.
"I'm taking over for them, Sensei."
He could tell that she got it because her eyes widened a bit and she stood up a little taller. "I see."
"I'm very grateful for your concern. Now, I must go to the office."
"Very well, Takahashi-kun. I'm dismissing you for the day."
"Thank you very much."
Bowing again with some more necessary politeness, Ryousuke resumed his brisk walk to the guidance office, a place that he was starting to know all too well for all the wrong reasons.
He slid the door open and approached the secretary.
"I'm here to see principal Satou."
Before she could press the button on the intercom, vice principal Satou came blustering out of his office with an exasperated energy, the door swinging open violently, the knob hitting a well-worn place on the wall behind.
"Takahashi-kun! Come in here. Now!"
With a firm "Yes Sir," Ryousuke walked into the office and stood at attention at the principal's desk, barely glancing at the reason for his having been called there. Said reason was slumping in one of the cheap pleather chairs along the wall doing a very good job of looking like a little shit.
"Do you know why you are here today, Takahashi-kun?"
"No, Sir."
"I caught This One ditching class. Again!" he yelled, with a pointed finger and a glare to match toward the slumping Little Shit in the chair, who acknowledged the declaration with a very audible "Tch".
"I terribly sorry for my younger brother Keisuke's behavior-"
"And that's not all!" interrupted the principal crossly, shouting again, or maybe he wasn't shouting, but the office was tiny and his voice filled it to the point where Ryousuke couldn't help but to wince a little. His voice seemed to reverberate off all the cheap metal office furniture in the room, adding an annoying ringing after-effect to the sound of it.
Satou then reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a metal flask. "Do you know what this is, Takahashi-kun?!" he shouted-not-shouted, and, there it was, the metallic ringing again. Lovely.
"It appears to be a flask," Ryousuke responded calmly, as Satou was unscrewing the cap.
"Smell this," he commanded.
Ryousuke did as he was told and took a sniff from the flask: whiskey, likely purloined from their parents' liquor cabinet, for which he'd thought he'd managed to have found a Little Shit-proof lock. Guess not. Back to the drawing board on that one.
"It does smell like Whiskey."
"Tch," Keisuke, uttered again, toward which Ryousuke shot him what he hoped was a very cold death glare.
"This will not be tolerated!" yelled the metallic-ringing Satou, turning his tirade toward the younger brother of source. "Stand up, Takahashi Keisuke-kun! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
"Bite me."
"Keisuke!" Ryousuke snapped, shocked, because it seemed that his brother was experimenting with a whole new level of being rude, effectively rendering the principal speechless and about ready to pop a blood vessel.
The Little Shit refused to stand; he just sat there, rolling his eyes and, oh God, did he just adjust himself in front of the principal?!
That was it.
Ryousuke took the two steps needed to get to the pleather chair and grabbed his brother by the elbow and dragged him in front of the desk. He roughly put his hand on the back of his brother's head and pushed, hard, forcing the Little Shit to bow with him.
"Please forgive me, and forgive my younger brother's incredibly rude comments. I will take full responsibility for his disrespectful actions, and I will pledge to you that he will receive very stern punishment for them."
Keisuke was struggling to get himself free but Ryousuke was keeping him in place with his hand on his head and one leg hooked around his ankle, bracing him between his own two legs. God, the kid had gotten strong; it was all Ryousuke could do to hold him.
"This is outrageous behavior! I'm calling your parents!"
"Yes, Sir," Ryousuke responded, keeping his head down, holding Keisuke as tightly as he could manage, but also knowing that the principal would likely not get through to either of his parents at this time of day.
"Takahashi Ryousuke-kun, you may raise yourself and stand. Takahashi Keisuke-kun, you get down on your knees. Now!"
"Do it!" Ryousuke hissed to his brother, giving him an icy stare that meant business.
"Fine by me," Little Shit snarked as he got down to his knees with added help in the form of a stern push from the elder. "I was getting tired of that tacky plasticky chair. It was making my ass sweat!"
Satou dropped the phone receiver he was holding onto the desk where it landed with a clatter before bouncing with a loud metallic bang against one of the drawers behind it.
Ryousuke stood there, silently, flabbergasted, not really knowing what else could be said after that pronouncement. This was probably it for Keisuke.
"Takahashi Keisuke-kun, you are expelled from this Academy. Do you hear me?!"
'Ah fuck,' Ryousuke cursed to himself. There really were some times when he hated to be right.
"Awesome! It's about damn time!" Keisuke shouted back sarcastically from his knees.
'I'm going to kill you, Keisuke!' Ryousuke thought wildly, knowing that once their parents found out his brother had gotten expelled, again, he'd be getting a lecture from their father just as assuredly as would Keisuke.
It also meant there would be no driving on Akagi tonight. Another reason to fucking kill him.
And, likely, Keisuke would definitely be getting the crap beat out of him again as well. Didn't he know by now that's what was coming?! It pissed Ryousuke off to have to keep apologizing for this fucking brat almost every goddamn week. What the hell was Keisuke thinking?!
Ryousuke went down to his knees alongside the Little Shit and hung his head. "Principal Satou, I beg of you to please reconsider. It would be best if Keisuke could remain here; I will do a much better job of watching over him-"
"No, Takahashi-kun," Satou replied, lowering the volume of his voice and picking up the phone receiver. He tapped the the button on the cradle for a new dial tone. "You're parents need to become involved now. Your younger brother is a disgrace to this school, and now it is reflecting upon you as well. As one of our best students, I simply cannot allow the chance for your own academic performance to falter because of having to care for this incorrigible child. You are a senior now, and this is a critical time for you with entrance exams on the horizon. I must insist that this distraction be removed from your already full plate."
Well, Ryosuke supposed, that was that. 'Good luck trying to get past my Father's three secretaries,' he thought as Satou appeared to be looking for his parents' phone numbers.
"You may take a seat in the chair and wait for your parents. Your brother is to remain on his knees as is."
"You sure you trust me not to bolt?" Keisuke said, digging himself deeper. Why in the hell can't he just shut the fuck up?!
Apparently, the principal didn't trust him, because he abandoned his desk phone and exited the office, ostensibly to attempt to call their parents from outside. Ryousuke heard a very distinct "click" which said for sure that he thought Keisuke might indeed try to escape from their cozy little metal-and-pleather furnished pseudo-jail.
Great.
"Ah, what a day, what a day," Keisuke remarked casually, standing and rubbing his knees and stretching.
"Do you understand the situation you are in, Keisuke?" Ryousuke asked quietly from his new seat in the gross chair.
"I don't give a fuck."
"That's the problem, you Little Shit!" Ryousuke snapped, keeping his voice low.
"Whatcha gonna do about it, Onii-chan?" Oh, how Keisuke loved to call him that in these moments. There was no love in it, nor was there any respect, only his snarky little fucking attitude.
"Not much I can do now that you've gotten yourself expelled, now is there?"
Keisuke just shrugged and plopped down into the other plasticky chair. "Dude's such a buzz kill," he remarked, nodding toward the closed door.
"Do you think school is the correct place to be getting buzzed? You're not even sixteen, and I thought I made it very clear the last time I caught you with liquor that I did not want to catch you drinking again!"
"You need to get a better lock for the cabinet then, asshole. Stop playing pretend-parent, you dick."
"You say that as if I have a choice."
"That's your problem."
Ryousuke sighed. "This is the third time you've been expelled in the last two years. Father and Mother are running out of schools. They had to pull a ton of strings to get you here with me so I could watch you, don't you get that?!"
"I don't give a fuck."
"Is that your favorite line? I'm sick of fucking hearing it," Ryousuke spat.
"Oooh…look who's trying to be a badass!" Keisuke laughed, curling himself up in a fetal position in the chair with pretend-fright. "Onii-chan, you so scaaawwwwy!"
Before Ryousuke could retort, Vice Principal Satou unlocked and opened the door with a very displeased look on his face. Ryousuke stood and bowed again, hearing Keisuke chortling again on the chair to make fun of him for doing it.
"Takahashi Ryousuke-kun, I've been instructed by your Father's representative to allow you to take your brother home. They are sending a car service for you both."
"Thank you very much."
"Here," Satou said, handing him an envelope, "Since I was unable to speak to either of your parents directly, please give this letter to them. It is to inform them of your brother's expulsion from this Academy with my deepest regrets. Please have them phone me at their earliest convenience so that I may assist with transferring your brother's records to his next school."
"I will tell them. Thank you. Again, I am deeply sorry for the trouble Keisuke has caused."
Keisuke huffed again as he stood from the chair and began to walk out the door saying, "See ya later, Pops!" over his shoulder.
After another hurried bow and a quickly spoken "I'm very sorry", Ryousuke rushed out the door, and grabbed his brother's elbow again. He led him to the front of the school to pick up their shoes and belongings, and the little pissant was fake-whining and laughing about his "Scary Onii-chan" all the way.
"Get the hell off me!" Keisuke finally yelled, trying to free his arm and elbow away once Ryousuke had dragged them to each of their lockers to replace their shoes. Apparently he was already bored with making fun of him and laughing at him and now he was just being an overall pain in the ass.
Ryousuke released him with a shove and kept close to his brother's heels as they walked out of the school. The last class had let out and other students started to filter into the locker area and outside.
Keisuke was stripping off his school blazer and yanking off his tie, throwing them both on the ground as he walked away from the building. "Guess I won't be needing this lame-ass outfit anymore!" he shouted, raising a twin middle finger salute over his head to anyone who cared to look or listen to him.
Ryousuke heard a few annoying girls gasp in fake-shock and a few boys whooping it up to add fuel to Keisuke's fire, sensing some good entertainment afoot. Great. His brother had apparently decided to be the star of his own personal fucking after-school special.
Ryousuke quickly picked up the discarded pieces of his brother's school uniform, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around to face him. "You are making a scene!" he whispered hotly, less than three centimeters from his brother's annoyingly happy-go-lucky face.
"Doesn't matter, I'm gone from this hell-hole!"
"But I'm not!"
"Aw come on, Onii-chan, I'm seriously giving you popularity points here! Look at the girls feeling so bad for you for having to deal with me," he quipped, nodding off to an apparent gaggle of girls who'd come closer to fake-pity him as the long-suffering elder brother. Ryousuke didn't need to turn around to hear them talking about "Poor Ryousuke-kun", only to probably blab the juicy scandalous details out at their parents' dinner tables later that night, with certainly no concern for either Takahashi brother's reputation.
Thankfully, the car service pulled up before Keisuke could attract any more attention. "Get in!" Ryousuke commanded as the driver opened the door to the back seat.
Keisuke basically threw himself into the car and Ryousuke quickly got in after him. "Please take us home, Nobu-san," Ryousuke requested of their driver.
"Yes, Ryousuke-san. Right away."
"Thank you."
The drive was quiet; Keisuke seemed to be running out of steam and was sulking in the seat, aimlessly flicking the buttons of the blazer of his now-former school uniform.
"Keisuke," Ryousuke began.
No response.
"Keisuke!"
"What?!" he snapped, and followed with a muttered "Asshole…" under his breath.
"Watch your mouth," Ryousuke admonished sternly, nodding in the direction of their driver.
"Oh, is that all you were gonna say? Here I thought you were going to dazzle me with another one of your long lectures," grumped the Little Shit.
"No, I want to ask you a question, if you would just stop back-chatting me for half a second."
Keisuke rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird low in front of his stomach, ostensibly so that their driver wouldn't see it if he glanced in the back mirror.
Ryousuke sighed. He understood why their parents had gotten frustrated with his brother; he wouldn't listen to anyone anymore. But, they'd pretty much made Keisuke his problem now and it really pissed him off, especially since they created this little monster themselves.
'Thanks a lot, Parents, abuse your kid and treat him like second class at best for the whole of his childhood, then throw up your hands and make me deal with it,' Ryousuke thought angrily.
As the familiar streets and lavish homes passed by them outside the windows of the sedan, Ryousuke looked at his brother. God, he was so fucking predictable. The closer they got to their house, the more he slouched and sulked, knowing he was going to get the shit kicked out of him by their Father. And it was like he didn't even fucking care about his life any more.
Wait.
He didn't care about his life anymore.
He didn't care.
He didn't care about his life anymore.
Ryousuke sat up straight in the plush leather seat as that horrifying thought struck him. A wave of compassion came over him; of course Keisuke knew the consequences that were coming. He'd been dealing with it since he was a little kid. Getting swatted with a belt and punched in the gut by their Father, the Good Doctor, who was oh-so-careful not to leave visible injuries that would raise questions…Of course Keisuke didn't fucking care anymore.
The past cannot be changed, but the future can be created.
"Keisuke," Ryousuke began again, softening his tone.
No reaction, but no snarking either. Okay.
"What do you want for your future?"
Keisuke shot him a raised eyebrow. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"If you could do anything you wanted someday, what would it be?"
"I don't know. Why do you care, Mr. Perfect?"
Ryousuke chuckled a little. "I'm not perfect, not by a long shot. I'm just curious to know where you see yourself in a few years, that's all."
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me."
Keisuke considered the statement for a moment as the car continued to make its way through their neighborhood.
"I don't have a fucking clue."
Ryousuke winced a little at his brother's word choice because they still weren't alone, but the answer was about what he'd expected. "Maybe you should start thinking of that unknown future before you get kicked out of your next school, and create something for yourself."
"That's a crock coming from 'I'm Mommy-and-Daddy's-poster-child-for-awesome-future-doctor-extraordinaire'," Keisuke said with a snort. "You already know your future, dumbass. I've got nothing."
The car stopped in the driveway. Keisuke slumped down in the seat.
"You know, Keisuke, I am envious of you. As the younger, you are free to have any future you want to create. Please try to remember that sometime."
Keisuke shot him a quizzical look, but he said nothing as he reached for the door handle of the car, got out, and then ran up to the house, likely to hole up in his disaster of a room until the inevitable occurred.
Ryousuke wasn't sure if he'd gotten anything meaningful through the Little Shit's thick skull, but maybe, just maybe, he'd start to think about his future a little.
When Ryousuke walked inside the house, though, he could already hear Keisuke throwing stuff around in his room and blasting his stereo to an ungodly decibel level.
'I guess it won't be today,' Ryousuke lamented to himself as he went to the garage and sat in the peace and quiet of his brand new FC.
~end~