Day 21: "Drain"

Keiko took one look at him and said, "Well, you look beat."

Kuwabara hefted his schoolbag higher up his shoulder. "Uh. Yeah," he said, grinning at her. "I probably do!"

Keiko frowned. Kuwabara kept grinning. He kept grinning because even though his eyes were as heavy as sandbags and his throat ached with the yawn building inside of it, he was happy. He was so happy he could bust. People on the sidewalk that morning were even staring at him, he grinned so hard, but Keiko didn't pay them any mind. She never seemed to notice when people stared. Keiko was confident and she didn't give two craps about what anyone thought, and that's why Kuwabara had stayed up all night. He'd done it for her, and he'd do it again, screw the fact that he'd probably fall asleep in class today.

She didn't quite understand any of that, though. Keiko stared at him with a frown, weight shifting to one foot as she studied his face. "Wait. But you're smiling." Her head tilted further, hair nearly sweeping the shoulder of her bright red Meiou uniform. "Weird combination, but let me guess. Smiling by tired, smiling but tired…" Her eyes lit up. "Bad sleep, good breakfast?"

He shrugged, still grinning. "Something like that."

Nothing like that at all, actually, but he didn't want to give away the surprise… although the fact that he couldn't stop smiling was kind of giving the game away. He fought to keep walking, to wipe the smile off his face and keep walking Keiko to school like he always did—but it was hard. That smile had been on his face since 4 AM, stuck there like gum under a table ever since he'd called the radio station at just the right moment and won that pair of Megallica concert tickets. He'd stayed up every night for a week for that chance, and somehow the universe had aligned and he'd won the tickets fair and square.

Call him a sap if you want, but to Kuwabara, the whole thing felt a little bit like destiny.

Not that he'd tell her that just yet. Keiko fell into step beside him, staring intently at his twitching lips, and that only made him smile harder.

After a minute she spoke. "You're not gonna tell me the reason you're tired-but-smiling, are you," she said, and she didn't bother phrasing it like a question.

He answered her anyway with a chipper, "Nope!"

Keiko huffed. "Rude."

"Yeah," he said, still cheerful. "I'm sort of the worst."

"You're not supposed to agree!" She socked him in the arm, but playfully, and he could tell she wasn't really mad. "You're supposed to be shamed into telling me the truth!"

"Oops, would ya look at the time!" He glanced at the watch he wasn't wearing and broke into a jog. "Gotta run!"

Keiko shouted something after him, but he just waved over his shoulder and turned a corner as fast as he could. He'd have to avoid her for a day or two, until his enormous smile faded and he could look at her like normal again. He'd tell her the truth about why he looked so drained eventually—but he had to wait for just the right moment to give her those tickets and explain the entire truth.

It was tough, though, when he felt this goshdarn excited to see the look on her face when he finally did.

NOTES: This'll provide context to chapters 93 & 94 of LC. Thanks for reading!