A/N: Reeeeeally long delay, sorrrriiiieeee.
Having successfully yelled his piece to his obnoxious newbie teacher, Hanamichi stomped back to his classroom and went straight for his snoozing nemesis.
"Fox!" he boomed.
The other boy twitched but slept on.
"Rukawa!" Hanamichi's loud voice bowled over several bystanders. He hauled the other boy up by the collar and screamed, "Oi, you listen to me fox-face. We will do this stupid project together and this genius is going to prove to you that he can beat you in anything, even in cooperating—!"
Hanamichi stopped and cocked his head to the side. Somehow that last part did not sound right. He caught sight of Yohei's amused face and decided to just ask his friend later. He dropped Kaede and huffed back to his seat just as the teacher came in.
The rest of the class scrambled to their seats so it was only Youhei who saw bright blue orbs peeking out from lidded eyes. Youhei's eyes shifted to his best friend and he saw Hanamichi wearing a smug look.
A look the redhead wore all the way to their Social Studies class the next day.
"Good day class!" Ms. Tanada greeted.
Hanamichi smirked. He had forgotten to ask Youhei what was weird about his sentence the previous day but that didn't matter. He was ready for whatever the newbie would give out.
"Okay, today I'll be giving you your first assignment for your project," Ms. Tanada said with a smile.
Hanamichi snickered.
"Let's play house," she cleared her throat. "You are all working and earning around ¥300,000.00 every month."
Several protests erupted.
"What?! Only ¥300,000.00!"
"Why is it so low?"
"My monthly allowance is more than that!"
Ms. Tanada let the voices die down before speaking again.
"I told you, I've researched this too. That amount is what two average young working people would approximately make each month. Yes folks, people earn that little today. So, what you will be doing is making a budget with this amount. I want you to think what item should be in your budget and what percent that item should have. For example, food might be 40%. House rent might be 30%. It's all up to you. You must, however, be able to justify why you chose to budget each item that way. You have about two weeks to do this. Ask around. Interview your parents. It's easy," her gaze roamed and settled on Hanamichi, "if you can handle it."
Hanamichi met her eyes squarely. He harrumphed. Her challenge was easy for a genius. He transferred his sneer to Kaede and almost fell from his seat. The boy was sleeping.
His partner slept and ignored Hanamichi for the rest of the day—and the rest of the week except for those occasional bouts of fistfights in between practices and during breaks.
This was quite all right with the redhead. He was a genius. He would work on the homework when he felt like it and not before.
Hanamichi held on to this conviction until the afternoon Haruko reminded him of the deadline, which was the following day. He screamed and actually left his crush to look for his partner. Said partner was about to ride his bike and go home because practice had been cancelled that day.
"Rukawa! Wait! The deadline—the deadline for the homework is tomorrow. We have to do that budget by tonight! Are you listening to me foxy? We have to—" Hanamichi gulped. "We have to work together…tonight."
Kaede had been half-asleep when Hanamichi yelled at him. He was fully awake by the time the redhead had finished ranting. Unknown to most, he had also approached Ms. Tanada on the possibility of a change in partner. Anyone was preferable to the idiot who talked about himself in the third person. His teacher, unfortunately, had been as laconic as he was.
"No. Fail this and no more basketball for you."
Those had been her exact words. Threatened like that, Kaede was willing to go ahead with the stupid project. Shaking his head and returning to the present, the raven-haired boy pushed his bicycle back to the bike rack and walked away.
"Oi, kitsune, where the hell are you going? Didn't you hear me?" Hanamichi bellowed. "I said—"
"I heard you, idiot," Kaede growled. "I just don't want to do this assignment right here. I prefer to sit down somewhere."
Hanamichi's mouth opened to protest at being called an idiot but Kaede just walked away. The redhead was left to scream incoherently and follow. The dark-haired boy ambled towards the trees behind the school and sat down under a shaded area. He took out his notebook and was a bit surprised that he had actually written some notes on it. All of them were from Ms. Tanada's class. He had mastered yet another sleep-something activity—sleep writing!
Hanamichi plopped down beside him and also took out a notebook. An unusual silence pervaded between them. The fact that they had to work together finally hit them both.
Argh! I actually have to cooperate with this stony-faced amateur sly fox! Idiot. Why him?! Someone out there hates me.Grumbling, Hanamichi finally opened his pad and wrote down the amount they were going to budget.
"C'mon you fox!" he said. "Let's just get this over with so this genius doesn't have to stay in your polluted company much longer. So we have to budget this thing…"
"Food should be 75% with your appetite," Kaede said.
"Yeah…wait a minute! Are you insulting me you stupid fox?! Are you implying that the genius eats a lot?!"
"You said it," Kaede shrugged and wrote down the item on his notebook. "I didn't."
"Why you—"
Hanamichi attacked.
After several minutes and some torn paper and bruised faces later, the two settled down.
"Hmp! I knew that working with you would be a waste of time!" Hanamichi grumbled.
"Like I asked to be partnered with you, idiot," Kaede retorted.
They glared at each other.
"Yeah well, if I eat a lot then we have to put 50% of the money for your bike repairs because you always destroy it! There! Nya!"
"Idiot. That would be more than 100%. How did you manage to graduate grade school if you can't even add?"
Hanamichi pounced and they started round 2 of that session's fight. After several more fighting bouts, they realized that their surroundings had become dark.
"Argh! Now look what you've done," Hanamichi yelled. "It's already dark and we haven't done anything yet! Now we have to go somewhere else to finish this."
"I didn't do anything," Kaede replied angrily. "You were the one who punched me first. And I will never invite you to my house."
"After you insulted me first! Anyway, who said I wanted to go to your house!"
"Please, like insulting you would be possible. I also have no intention of going to your house!"
"Damn you—like I'd invite you there!"
The two were about to do another round when a new voice interrupted them.
"Hey you two, what're you doing here?"
The two squinted at the dark and saw Youhei walk towards them.
"Youhei!"
Hanamichi leapt to his feet.
"Let me guess, cramming for that assignment for Social Studies?"
"How did you know?" Hanamichi asked.
Youhei shrugged.
"With you two, it was an easy guess. So I take it you haven't even started yet?"
"We have! We would be finished if this stupid fox would just stop being so stupid!"
"I should be saying that," Rukawa uttered. "Stupid," he added for emphasis.
"Whatever," Youhei said. "I'll leave you two alone. I'm going to my partner's house now to check on the graph and the written report she's supposed to be printing out."
"Encoded?" Hanamichi asked.
"Printing?" Kaede echoed.
"Yeah. Boy, I'm glad I got a partner who's good with computers."
"Computer?" Hanamichi and Kaede asked in unison.
Youhei looked from one boy to the other.
"Yeah…computer. Wait, wait," he held out his hands. "Don't tell me that you didn't know that we have to submit a printed report for this?"
The two looked at him blankly. He slapped his forehead and grunted.
"You didn't know."
"I thought we were just going to—" Hanamichi started.
"Write it on a piece of paper," Kaede concluded.
They briefly frowned at each other before looking back at Youhei.
"You can do that for a seat work but this is a written report. Students don't submit handwritten reports anymore. They all submit printed copies now."
An idea hit Youhei with enough force to make him wince.
"Let's backtrack a bit…you have no idea what a computer is, do you?"
A sheepish shake of a red head and a glare from blue eyes answered his question. Youhei groaned.
"Wait! The genius has an idea!" Hanamichi suddenly said.
His companions shuddered. They both knew his ideas usually meant trouble or something stupid, more often both.
"You said that your partner is good with this camputah thing—"
"It's com-pu-ter, Hanamichi."
"Whatever. What was I going to say…oh yeah! Since she's good with things like that and you two are finished already, then you will let the genius copy your work and print…that's the word right? Print? Yes, print it!"
Hanamichi laughed at his brilliant idea.
"Nothing doing," Youhei said.
Hanamichi abruptly stopped laughing.
"What?!"
"I said I won't let her do that," Youhei answered.
"But—but Youheeeeiii!"
"No Hanamichi. I won't let Seishirou cheat for you two."
Hanamichi looked at Kaede and pulled Youhei away.
"Okay, okay. I know you don't want to help the fox but we can just say to the newbie teacher that he slept all the time that we—no—I worked. That way she will see that I'm really a genius. Nya-ha-ha!"
"No. N-O. No."
"You-hei…"
"Ha-na-mi-chi…"
The two friends glared at each other.
"I heard all that you said stupid," Kaede interrupted them. He faced Youhei. "Even though I hate to admit it, the idiot has a point."
The two stared at Kaede like he had grown three heads. They saw him visibly steer himself for something he didn't like, open his mouth, and hold it like that for a few seconds. Hanamichi immediately laughed at his comic face while his friend's face twitched. Kaede glared at them both. Youhei just smiled.
"You need help, is that what you're saying?" he asked.
Kaede nodded.
"Oi, Hanamichi stop laughing already," Youhei whacked his friend. "I suppose we can help…"
Hanamichi stopped laughing and whooped.
"But I'm going to ask her to just show you how the computer works. She won't show you what we've done for the project and you won't ask her for a copy or else…agreed?" Youhei glared particularly at Hanamichi.
The taller boy just ignored his look and dragged his arm.
"Yeah, yeah, so show us the way already so we can finish this before morning!"
Youhei sweatdropped while Kaede trailed behind them.
They reached the Seishirou residence after a few minutes. Youhei fretted until Mina Seishirou opened the door. He immediately stepped forward and explained everything. Fortunately for all, Mina smiled shyly and led them to the living room where the computer was.
Once inside, Hanamichi's exuberance threatened to overwhelm her into mute terror and Kaede's coldness threatened her, period.
Youhei's earlier threats, however, must have worked because the two managed to stay civil with each other and act less violently while she delivered her lecture.
Strangely enough, Hanamichi took to computers like he did to basketball. He absorbed Mina's instructions and went right on tapping, maybe not like a pro but at least like a madman let loose on a new toy.
"Oi, Mina maybe we can work on your computer whenever we have homeworks. After all, I don't have a computer and I don't think the fox—" Hanamichi glanced at a napping Kaede, "the fox doesn't have any. He didn't even know what a computer was. Nya-ha-ha!"
"You didn't know it either, Hanamichi," Youhei said. "And I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Yo-Youhei! I wasn't asking you! I was asking her!"
Hanamichi turned his gangster charm on. "Right Mina?"
"Uhm…uh…" Mina squeaked. "I—I suppose it would be okay to let you use it. We-we, uhm, we might be able to get ideas from each other…"
"Yay! Thanks Mina!"
"Oi, oi," Youhei protested but Hanamichi was already on to another, more dangerous task: trying to wake up Kaede. He was using a ruler to poke the other boy. Youhei couldn't help but laugh at the sight. After several misses and gasps of suspense, Kaede managed to join the waking world again. He and his partner then went on to argue the night away.
I want a bigger bed than yours!
Idiot, can't you even add one plus one?
Youhei looked at Mina.
"Still think it's a good idea to let them work here?"
"Uhm…"
You're putting that much for band-aids?!
-TBC-
A/N:
1. Again, sorry for the long delay! ^___^
2. I think of Hanamichi as a very good case of tabularasa. He has little information in his head therefore any new data inputted in are absorbed quite easily, especially when he's really focused. Anyway, on to the interlude. Hope you all like it.