A/N: I know what you're thinking: it took her long enough. Well, I've been writing lots of oneshots, been sick, uber busy, yeah. Plus I've been struggling with this chapter. This one is for YinYangWhiteTiger. So, this probably isn't what you had in mind, but it was what my crazy brain thought of.

This one is a little more about the friendship between Riku and Kairi. Friendship, not love. So it isn't supposed to Kaiku, though if you really want to I guess maybe you could look at it that way.

Their math teacher is based sort of on my own; and Kairi's last name (DeMer) is pronounced Duh (its a short e) Mare. It's an abreviation of "De la mer", which is french for "of the sea", since "Kairi" is japanese for sea and all.

Disclaimer:If I owned KH, there would be nothing to even inspire pairings like Akuroku.

Senioritis

Senioritis-(n.) a disease commonly affecting High School Seniors (12th graders) with moderate to severe symptoms of cockiness, pride, rudeness, selfishness, and all-around "I'm older and better and cooler because I'm about to graduate and you're not"-ness.

Riku had it. And Riku had it bad.

True, Riku had always been a cocky, proud little brat; and although his brief but ecstatic flirtation with darkness had humbled him quite a bit, the extended length between his, Sora's, and Kairi's last mission and the beginning of his senior year had caused the pride of being about to finish high school to overwhelm the shame he still felt for having tried to kill his two best friends.

While Sora and Kairi had grown accustomed to Riku's headstrong personality over the years, even they were put off by Riku's attitude. Frankly, Riku was being a jerk. They thought he'd have gotten over it after the first few weeks of school, but they were nearly a month in and Riku's ego was showing no sign of deflating.

"Hey, Riku!" Riku idly glanced behind him to see who was calling his name. The group of senior friends who he'd been talking to paused their conversation as Sora and Kairi approached, looking somewhere between worried and annoyed.

"Is your phone broken or something?" Sora asked, frowning at him. "I called you like, a million times this weekend, and you never answered. And where were you Friday? I must have called you thirty times just that night!"

"We were gonna go to the island on Saturday, remember?" Kairi scolded.

Riku raised an eyebrow at his two friends. "Sorry." He growled, although he certainly didn't sound it. "I was at a party Friday; I was a little preoccupied." He smirked at his older friends, who chuckled in fond remembrance of the party in question.

"Party?" Sora asked, confused as to what party his best friend would have attended without him.

Riku gave Sora his patented smirk. "Oh, I forgot, it was a seniors only party. No little kiddies allowed." His other friends laughed. Sora and Kairi glared.

"I heard about that party," Kairi said in a tone that was simultaneously honey-sweet and bitingly malicious, "Madeline and Louise's double birthday party, right?" Her smile was innocent, but her eyes glared daggers at Riku. "Interesting, Riku. I didn't know you hung out with such hussies."

Riku's friends started laughing. He sneered. Kairi's sardonic smile grated on his nerves. She looked so proud of herself for burning him so.

"I hang out with you don't I?" As he had predicted, his comeback wiped the smirk off of Kairi's face.

He also should have predicted that she would slap him. Her palm collided with his face so hard that his neck audibly popped as it turned his head around to face his fellow seniors. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at their shocked faces.

"Okay," he said, opting to keep his head where it was rather than turn so she could hit him again, "I suppose I kind of deserved that." His friends nodded at him.

Riku turned his head to face Sora and Kairi again, about to somewhat apologize.

He supposed he should have predicted that Sora would sock him.

)&(

Riku grumpily stomped into his PreCalculus class, still holding an ice-pack over his nose. It was still throbbing. At least it had stopped bleeding.

He plopped his books down on a desk in the back of the class. The day had started so well. Up until his conversation with Sora and Kairi, things had been going pretty smoothly. Sora and Kairi…They were his best friends, but sometimes they acted like such, such…such juniors. Underclassmen, what could you do with them?

So, he supposed, perhaps he had gone a little far calling Kairi a hussy. But it was all in good fun; it wasn't like he meant it. He could understand her being a little upset, but did she really need to hit him? And then Sora punching him…and then not even getting in trouble. Riku glared at the whiteboard. Well, he thought, at least Sora hadn't pulled his keyblade on him…little runt could still kick his butt…

Riku lazily doodled on his notebook paper as Mr. Forrest began writing notes on the board. Not that Riku particularly cared. The arctangent of the angle of the tip of his keyblade to the heartless's head; yeah, he'd really need to know that one day. He only needed to do enough to get to graduation, anyway.

The classroom door opened. Riku didn't bother looking up to see who had entered.

"Excuse me?" Riku froze. He closed his eyes. Oh Lord, no. The voice, light as air and sweet as sugar continued. "Sorry I'm late; I was told I've been moved to this class." Riku didn't even need to look up as the teacher confirmed the intruder's name on his class list.

"Ah, yes. Kairi DeMer?"

"Yes, sir."

Riku groaned softly. Perfect.

"Have a seat anywhere. We were just getting started."

Riku was still staring at his notebook and yet he could still feel Kairi's icy glare.

This day just kept getting better and better.

)&(

Riku was starting to see why Kairi had been moved to a senior math class.

Brilliant was the understatement of the century. She was excellent at art; why did she have to be such a genius in math too?

Riku, on the other hand, was surprised he hadn't been moved to remedial math yet.

"Alright, to give you all some practice on this, I want you to do this worksheet with a partner. You can pick your partner," the teacher said. Riku exhaled. It was great when the teachers didn't pair them up.

"Riku," Riku's breath caught in his throat. "You seem to be having some trouble with this. I want you to work with Kairi; see if she can't help you get this." Riku could've sworn he died, right then and there. Kairi? Why, why!?

Kairi didn't look thrilled about working with him, either. Apparently she was still upset.

Riku let his head fall onto his desk. He could hear Kairi placing her books on the desk beside him and getting out her things. He waited and waited for her to say something, but after several minutes of silence he looked up. Kairi was working on the assignment. Alone. She was already halfway down the page. Riku looked at his own worksheet. He didn't need her. How hard could this be?

Riku didn't have the slightest clue how to do this.

He looked over at Kairi. "Well?"

She made no reply.

Riku sighed. "Aren't you going to help me do this?"

Kairi didn't even look up. "You are a great and almighty senior. You don't need the help of a lowly junior like me."

Riku rolled his eyes. "Okay, look, so I'm a little bit excited about this being my last year of high school. Why is that so wrong?"

"Because," Kairi growled, turning from her paper to glare at him. "You're acting like a jerk. The last time I can remember you acting like this, it was when you were working for Maleficent and trying to destroy the worlds and kill Sora!" She angrily returned to trying to work on the class assignment.

Anger flared up in Riku. He grimaced. "That was low. Really low, Kairi."

"Well, it's true." Kairi replied without looking up.

Riku scowled. "I may have tried to destroy the worlds, but I'm not the one who screwed up the memories of their occupants. And I may have tried to kill Sora, but at least I didn't forget him."

Kairi's pencil halted. Riku knew he shouldn't have said it, but he was so mad he didn't care.

Kairi's pencil snapped. Riku felt strangely proud that he had hurt her.

"Well, it's true." Riku said softly, mocking her. He'd said it quietly, half-hoping she hadn't heard; half-hoping she had.

Apparently she had. Kairi stood and rounded on him, glaring at him with a fury Riku had encountered few times before. It was the look she'd given Saix; it was the look she'd given the heartless standing between herself and Sora; the look Naminé had given DiZ after he'd had her erase Roxas's memories; it was the same look of furious hatred she'd always reserved for those who threatened her friendship with himself and Sora.

And now she was looking at him with that same fury. Riku felt his heart sink.

"How dare you!" she shouted. Everyone else in the classroom quieted and turned to stare.

Riku rose from his seat to glare down at her. "You started it!"

"I started it?!" She shrieked incredulously.

"You brought up what happened with Maleficent!"

"You brought up Castle Oblivion!"

"Well you're the one who called me a jerk!"

"You called me a hussy!"

"Enough!" Riku and Kairi turned to see their teacher glaring angrily at the both of them. "Come with me. Both of you."

The two teens silently followed their teacher out of the classroom and down the hall to an empty classroom. He turned to face them.

"Okay, I don't know what this is about, but clearly you two need to work something out. Friend troubles, relationship drama, whatever, work it out! I don't know what's wrong; all I know is that you're disrupting my class. So, after you've fought it out because he cheated, or she's pregnant, come back to my class." Mr. Forrest sighed as he finished his tongue lashing.

"A guy and girl are fighting, so automatically you assume it's romantic drama. How stereotypical." Kairi hissed quietly.

The teacher rolled his eyes. "Whatever! Whatever is wrong, don't come back to my class until you figure it out!" And he turned and left.

Silence reigned.

"I can't believe you got us into this mess."

Riku rounded on her. "I got us into this mess?"

Kairi turned to glare at him. "Yes. You got us into this."

Riku rolled his eyes. "You're the one who started yelling!"

Kairi huffed a sigh. "Because you brought up Naminé! Because you brought up everything that happened at Castle Oblivion! You were guilt tripping both sides of my heart! You were taking jabs at both Kairi and Naminé! That was low! Lower than me bringing up you giving into darkness!" Riku was silenced by Kairi's outburst. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, and yet she still stood her ground; even though she was obviously exasperated. "You're just being such a, a…jerk!" Riku could tell from her expression that there was another word she was dying to replace 'jerk' with.

Riku wasn't quite sure how to respond. "You're still mad about this morning, aren't you?"

Kairi groaned and rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm still mad about this morning! You called me a hussy!"

"It's not like I meant it! And so what; you called Madeline and Louise hussies," Riku bit back.

Kairi chuckled darkly. "Madeline and Louise are hussies." She said matter-of-factly. "Everyone knows that those two are the skankiest you-know-what's in the whole school. I can't believe that you ditched Sora and I to go to one their parties!"

Riku sat down in one of the desks. They were never getting back to class. "Just because I don't spend as much time with him as you do doesn't mean I was ditching you."

Kairi took a seat in another desk and crossed her arms. "Look, just…" She shook her head. "Nevermind. We're not getting anywhere here." She blew her hair out of her face. "It isn't just that you ditched us. You've been treating us like dirt for weeks! But, oh, how could I forget, we are underclassmen." She continued sarcastically, "We are lower than dirt; we are the scum of the earth. Lower, even. We are the stain of the scum of the earth! And you are the almighty, infallible, amazing senior!" She stood and mock-bowed. "We are not worthy! We are not worthy!" She plopped back down in her seat and refused to look at him.

Riku didn't know how to respond. Oh sure, he had an arsenal of appropriately sarcastic comebacks at his disposal (the classic 'Go take a Midol' seemed good for this situation), but Kairi's attitude was starting to get to him. He hated having his friends mad at him; especially Kairi. Kairi rarely got this angry; Sora ticked her off on occasion, but it took something really striking to infuriate her to this level. This got Riku thinking; perhaps he had been a bit mean to his friends lately. Okay, so maybe he had been more than a little mean.

The more Riku thought about it, the more he realized how horrid of a friend he had been lately. Kairi was right; he had been treating his friends like dirt. He'd been such a 'jerk', which probably translated into something a lot worse in Kairi's mind, but came out as 'jerk' because Kairi was too moral to curse.

Wait, Kairi was right. Crap.

She hadn't said anything yet. She just sat there and focused on not looking at him. Aside from being a Princess of Heart, Kairi was also a Princess of sucking all friendly warmth from the room when she was angry at you.

Riku hated swallowing his pride. There were few things he loathed more than admitting he was wrong. Especially to Kairi; mostly because it also meant admitting that Kairi was pretty much always right. But Riku also despised Kairi being mad at him. Crap.

Riku took a deep, deep breath. "Kairi?"

"What?" she snapped, still refusing to look at him.

Riku took another deep breath. "I…I'm…" Crap. He'd have to go through this all over again with Sora. Kairi turned to look at him skeptically.

Riku sighed. "I'm sorry." Kairi still looked doubtful.

"You're sorry for what?" She asked sardonically.

Riku groaned. "I'm sorry for treating you and Sora like dirt. I've been a horrible best friend and I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! You were right, and I was wrong! There, are you happy now?" Riku stared at her exasperatedly. He expected Kairi to give him that soft smile and tell him that she forgave him, but that didn't mean she wouldn't yell at him if he didn't drop the attitude; or something like that.

Instead, Kairi sprang from her chair and flung her arms around his middle. Riku stared in confusion at the top of her auburn head. Riku wasn't quite sure what to make of the tiny Kairi currently clamped to his chest. He was about to ask what had gotten into her, but Kairi smiled up at him.

"It's good to have you back, Riku," she told him sweetly. Riku smiled and pulled her into a brotherly hug.

He released her and she frowned playfully at him. "Now, if you don't lose the senioritis attitude, dear sanpai, I'll turn my keyblade on you. I've got a new keychain I'm just dying to try out." Riku honestly didn't doubt that.

"Lesson learned," Riku assured her.

"I suppose we could go back to class now." Kairi suggested.

Riku thought about that. "I suppose so. Back to Pre-Calculus, and vectors and factoids…and I don't know what else. I don't get it anyway."

He and Kairi exchanged looks.

"Or we could just fight some more." Kairi suggested cheerfully.

Riku smiled. "I vote we fight more."

I really liked that one. "Madeline and Louise" is a reference to the charecters on Gilmore Girls. These two went to high school with Rory, and they were exactly what Kairi described them as. And yes, Riku getting slapped is totally a POTC reference.

I'm still taking requests and ideas. Just tell me your ideas, and if I like them, I may use them. But that means you have to review.

SHAMELESS PLUG: Like Namixas? Read Much Ado About Nothing. Like general drabbles? Read Glimmering Snippets. Like pure, goopy, sokai? Read Sukairain. I don't know how to improve them unless people review and tell me why they aren't working.

Thanks for reading! Everyone, really, you guys are great!