Warnings: Yusuke being a sexist little ass-face, but that's no surprise…


Children of Misfortune

Set during Not-Quite-Keiko's childhood

"Flippin' Brilliant"


Even my cold, shriveled, kid-hating heart could see that Japanese kindergarteners were adorable as fuck.

Despite all the anime I'd watched in my first life, I wasn't prepared for the uniforms my fellow kindergarteners would wear in my second. Picture tiny, pudgy-cheeked kids toddling around in puffy white bloomers, diaper-like and hilarious. And picture them also wearing smart, sailor-collared navy blazers with gigantic white buttons lined up and down the front like buttons on a clown's suit. Enormous duck-yellow hats with wide, floppy brims completed the ensemble, and when it rained, we all wore colorful rubber booties and stomped in puddles with abandon. We were the very image of clumsy ducklings when we followed our teachers to the local park for recess.

Super cute.

Super, stinkin', disgustingly cute.

Apparently we wore the buttercup hats so teachers could spot us if we ran off during our daily trip to the playground. I thought they made us look like walking flowers, dandelions come to life to run roaring across the jungle gym. Sometimes kids would fall down, staining their bloomers with grass or mud, and they'd cry until a teacher patted their cheek and brushed the embarrassment away.

Yusuke entered my life shortly after we traded the bloomers for khaki shorts (and skorts for girls) in elementary school. We still had to wear the hats, though, which he hated. Even at the tender age of seven he possessed an undeniable disdain for authority, throwing his hat into every single toilet made available to him until the teachers got tired of washing the damn thing and said he could go without.

"I can't wait till we're in middle school," he'd grumble when they scolded him. "The big-kid-uniforms are cool."

And then he'd glance at me sidelong, grin shit-eating and devious. He'd never tell me what he was thinking when I asked him about that grin, of course. Just said "you'll see" in an annoying, demonic singsong voice (I don't care what anyone says: when children sing, all I hear is Satan) and run off to antagonize the fourth graders.

Little did he know I knew exactly what he was planning, and that I wouldn't take such disrespect lying down.

On our very first day of middle school, I met him at the gates. He wore the proper blue winter uniform he'd long envied (I guess he hadn't yet had time to figure out he liked the green summer version better). I wore the standard girl's uniform: a sailor-collared blazer and a long, pleated skirt. He broke out in a grin when he saw me…that same, shit-eating smirk he'd worn so many times before.

Oh. It was on. Good thing I'd come prepared.

"Ready to start middle school, Keiko?" he said when I trotted up. For what was perhaps the first time in his life, he acted the gentleman and bowed, ushering me ahead of him through the school gates. I lifted a brow at the out-of-character gesture. What a little faker.

"I'm ready," I said. "Are you?"

"Sure I am." He waved his hand a little harder, smile twitching at the corners as he held back an impish giggle. "After you."

"Sure. OK." I walked past him and through the gate. "C'mon. Let's not be late on our first day."

He didn't answer. He did exactly what I thought he would, instead, and flipped the back of my skirt up over my head.

I stilled. I stood there, vision obscured by pleated fabric, as Yusuke crowed and laughed and bellowed and guffawed.

But then, just as quickly, he fell silent.

I shrugged my skirt off my head. Yusuke stood behind me with the single most stricken expression I'd ever seen from him, face going first white, then red as he realized he'd been played.

"Hey," he said. His fists clenched at his sides. "Hey!"

I waited for him to berate me. He did not. His mouth moved, but no accusations came out. What he'd seen had rendered him speechless.

I mean, of course it had.

He'd flipped my skirt and beheld a pair of his own shorts, stolen from his house…with the words "Nice try, LOSER" stitched across the butt in bright pink yarn.

He hadn't been expecting this, judging by his crimson cheeks. Nice. But I still had one final jab up my sleeve (er, skirts?). I tossed my hair, winked, and adopted a shit-eating grin that put his to absolute shame.

"Nice try. But it won't work on me, because…I'm flippin' brilliant," I said.

And then I turned and walked away, heels clicking smartly against the school's cobblestone courtyard.

A minute later (talk about a delayed reaction) I heard Yusuke shriek, indignant, at my truly terrible pun.

Score.


NOTES:

NQK wore under-shorts for the rest of her life and gave him a lecture on street harassment, the objectification of women, and consent once he started speaking to her again.

This came to me today while shopping. I realized I never talked much about Yusuke's chronic skirt-flipping, but I also realized that I would NOT allow him to get away with it (raging feminist, that's me, lol). Yay for pranking a prankster!

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