ARC: Lots of swearing from frustrated "parents" ^___^
"Goood morning Class 2-3!" Professor Matsu cheerfully called out as he hefted a big box into the room.
This unusual display of happiness would have been enough to get the class' attention. The big box had them all staring, making no effort to help at all as their teacher gave a final pull and stood up straight to grin at them.
"Yo! Teacher what's in the box?" Sakuragi bellowed. "Didja bring your old clothes or something?"
The old man's grin widened despite the implied insult. He opened the box with flourish and everyone was presented with—
"Dolls?" the students asked in unison.
"Yes. Dolls. You see class I had a talk with Ms. Tanada about your little project and I learned that some of you have become "parents" recently. A bright idea hit me right away that this would be the perfect opportunity to have a hands-on mini-project that will tie-up that lesson with our lesson in Biology. And for that I have requisitioned for these special dolls."
He held up one doll triumphantly. His students just stared at him. His smile faltered.
"Hey! Old man the Genius has more important thing to do than play like a girl!" Sakuragi shouted, breaking the lull.
Prof. Matsu's face regained its usual frowning visage.
"Mr. Sakuragi, as it is you are barely passing this class, if you or anyone else in this room do not go through with this project then I will be forced to give you a failing grade. Do we understand each other?" he glared at the class in general before resuming his happy expression.
He began handing out the toys to those in the front rows who immediately passed them to those at the back.
"Besides class, these are not just ordinary dolls—I want each of the partners to please get one—they are highly technical models that are used to simulate real babies. All of them have microchips inside that will make them cry when hungry or laugh when taken cared of."
As an example he shook the baby a little and it began to emit a gurgling sound. This triggered the other babies to start emitting various sounds.
"All you have to do is to take care of them for one week. I will be giving you this," he held up what looked like an ordinary feeding bottle filled with milk. "This bottle has a chip at the tip that you will place into the babies' mouths when they are hungry to simulate feeding. The liquid inside can be replenished with just plain water."
He held out the bottle for the class to see and mimicked inserting it into the doll's mouth.
"Be warned though, the chip inside the babies are highly sensitive. If you "feed" them too much they will simulate indigestion or some such sickness, which you do not want to happen."
He grinned again.
"One week. You have to take care of it for one week. Feed it, cloth it, sing it to sleep, be its parents for one week. After that I want you to write an essay on your experience with it. Ms. Tanada told me that you have just submitted a weekly task guide. I suggest you follow that for this assignment too. Now, I don't think I need to tell you," he glared again at Hanamichi who was attempting to poke the doll with a pen resulting in high-powered crying, "that the babies must still be alive, and by alive I mean functioning properly, for you to pass this experiment. Does anyone have any questions? If you don't then I suggest you use the rest of the period to get acquainted with you babies."
Several students raised their hands and as he answered their questions, Prof. Matsu warily looked at the two tall boys at the back and wondered if they would pass this test or not.
— 0 —
"You take it!" Hanamichi said, shoving the crying "baby" into Kaede's hands.
"No, you!" Kaede answered, shoving the thing back.
"No, you!"
"Uh, guys," Youhei interrupted.
The two glanced at him. He pointed at the now choking baby.
"You're killing the baby," he deadpanned.
"Ak! Now look what you've done fox! You almost killed the thing!"
"Me? You were the one shoving it around!"
"Uh…guys?" Youhei interrupted again.
"What?" the two cried in unison then went back to glaring at each other.
"You're still killing it."
— 0 —
"No! No! No! And three more Nos! it's gonna be Kenishi Sakuragi!"
"No. Kentaro Rukawa."
"NO! His name will be Kenishi Sakuragi!"
"Idiot, Kentaro Rukawa!"
"Kenishi!"
"Kentaro!"
"Hey guys!" Youhei pleasantly greeted the two glaring boys while holding his own model baby. "What're you arguing about now?"
"The name of the doll," Hanamichi answered, still not backing down from the glaring match. "This stupid guy wants to name him Kentaro. Can you think of a more stupid name?"
"Yes," Kaede declared firmly. "Kenishi!"
Youhei just sighed. "Glad Minna and I didn't argue about little Hinoki's name."
"Hinoki?" Hanamichi parroted, glancing at his friend.
"Yeah, Minna said it was a cute name and I agreed."
"At least you thought up a good name," Kaede muttered. "This idiot can't think of one even if he thought all week."
"What did you say you stupid fox? You think you're so smart? You're nothing but a stupid fox! And you're not naming my baby with some stupid name either!"
"It's mine too! And I say his name is Kentaro!"
"Uh guys…guys?"
The two tall boys transferred their glares to Youhei who just smirked at them. He was getting used even to Kaede's icy stares.
"Why don't you just name it Ken," he suggested.
The two blinked at him.
"Well you seem to agree with the Ken part so why not just use that?"
The two continued to blink in unison.
— 0 —
"Hey mom I'm hooome!" Hanamichi called out
"Hello dear," his mom greeted from the doorway to her room. "Oh my, what is that sticking out from your bag?"
"Oh this?" Hanamichi plucked out the model baby and held it out. "It's for this Bio-class. Me and Rukawa have to take care of it. It's…"
Hanamichi noticed something dripping from the baby's body. His eyes widened and he shoved it to his mother as he frantically opened his bag. His eyes widened even more as he touched his things and realized just how extraordinary the model babies were.
"What is it dear?" his mom asked gingerly holding the naked doll.
"AAAAARRRGGG! That thing just peed on my things!"
— 0 —
Kaede glared warily at what he had dubbed as "evil thing from hell worse than Sakuragi's laughter and singing voice." The thing emitted a gurgling sound then settled down. The boy continued to stare at it. It was truly an evil thing because it hadn't given him any peace for the whole night. It seemed to know just when he was about to fall asleep and when his eyes were just about to close—
"WAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
Kaede jerked awake and glared at the evil doll from hell.
"Dammit Ken! Let me sleep!"
— 0 —
"Dammit! Ow! Arg! Hey mom! How the hell do you put this diaper thing again?"
Mrs. Sakuragi peeked into her son's room and almost burst out laughing. Hanamichi had managed to bunch up the makeshift cloth diaper around the doll's lower body. Another cloth was on twisted on top of the boy's head, which she was sure was a failed attempt at folding the diaper the proper way.
"Ouch! Arg! Stupid pin! Why won't it stay—arg! still! Aha! I have finally conquered the diaper! Ha! Beat that Rukawa!"
Hanamichi proudly held up the baby for his mother to look. The poorly pinned cloth promptly fell to the floor.
"ARG!"
— 0 —
"Excuse me."
The young girl at the sales counter of the local grocery store turned and froze as she breathe, "Rukawa…"
A tick popped on Kaede's forehead but he ignored it. He was desperate. The moron had conveniently forgotten to tell him that the evil thing from hell could actually emit water to simulate peeing. The boy had found out in the worse possible way—it had peed on him after he had fed it. So now here he was at the grocery store trying to find some disposable diapers as every cloth diaper Hanamichi had given him had been used.
"I need to buy some diapers," he gritted out, ignoring the impulse to shake the swooning girl in front of him.
"Rukawa~"
Then again maybe he wouldn't need the girl after all. The store wasn't that big. He would find his way—eventually. With this in mind, he promptly turned on his heels and went to the first aisle.
"Ruka—eh?" the fan suddenly snapped awake. "Where'd he go? Wait a minute did he just ask where he can find diapers? And was that a doll sticking out of his bag? Oh well, maybe I'll see him again when he checks out whatever it is he needs from the store. Rukawa~"
Half an hour later, Kaede finally found the aisle containing the products for babies—the aisle containing many brands of diapers. He knew somehow that there were a lot of brands but he never knew just how many they were.
He cursed softly. Then his eyes glinted as he approached the first brand of diaper. It was an evil thing from hell but he would still buy the best diaper for it. He began his search. His fan was already off from her four-hour shift by the time the boy had made his decision.
— 0 —
Hanamichi jerked awake as the "baby" cried its mechanical lungs out. He glanced at the clock and groaned.
"Why would this thing cry at two in the morning?"
"Hanamichi?"
Hanamichi jerked from his bed and covered Ken with his blanket. He then rushed to the door and peeked at his mom.
"Eh-he-he. Sorry about that mom. I dunno why the baby suddenly cried in the middle of the night."
"Where is it?"
"Uh…under the covers."
"Hanamichi if it were a real baby it would suffocate from there! Get it out now!"
Hanamichi scampered towards his bed and extricated the still crying doll and checked it. His mom smiled at the way he immediately cradled the thing in his arms—something she had taught him only the night before.
"I'm going back to bed," she said as she began to close the door. "Good night dear."
"Night mom," Hanamichi answered distractedly.
"Oh, Hana-dear?"
Hanamichi looked up to find his mother smiling at him.
"If it won't eat, why don't you sing it a lullaby? That's what your father and I would do when you were a baby and you would wake up in the middle of the night."
The redhead blinked as she finally closed the door.
"A lullaby?" he mumbled, looking at the doll.
He wracked his mind for a song, discarding the "genius song" several times until he remembered a melody his mother would hum whenever she was cooking. He experimentally hummed a few bars while he swayed the doll. He was surprised to find it calming down after a while. He proceeded to lie down, still cradling it and still humming his song. By the time he had found a good position, Ken was already "sleeping" and it wasn't very long before Hanamichi was fast asleep too.
— 0 —
The whole gym hushed up as Kaede dribbled the ball in preparation for a penalty shot. He took his unique position, inhaled, and—
"WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Kaede dropped the ball as he and everyone else in the gym stared at the Shohoku bench were several freshmen players tried to shut up the model doll.
"Hanamichi! Rukawa! If you don't shut up that baby this instant I will personally make sure that you don't play in the game tomorrow!" Captain Miyagi shouted at his two juniors.
"What the hell is going on? What is that thing?" the referee yelled as the crying continued. "If you don't shut that thing up I will give charge a penalty against Shohoku!"
Hanamichi and Kaede rushed to the doll.
"Idiot! I told you to feed it before we started practice."
"I did! You were the one not paying attention to it!"
"Well it's your baby!"
"It's your baby too!"
— 0 —
Kaede placed the evil thing from hell on Hanamichi's head, slumped into his seat, and proceeded to slobber all over his table even before the first bell rang. Hanamichi looked at his partner then at the "sleeping" doll. He extricated their report from his bag as he looked around. He saw that most of his classmates were also practically dead on their feet. Well, except for Youhei and Minna, who were playing with their doll as if it were a real baby.
"Gee, Youhei and Minna sure enjoy being parents…" he thought as the bell rang.
Just as Prof. Matsu entered the room, two of their classmates entered the room looking like they had been in a fight.
"Professor!" the girl wailed. "Someone killed our baby!"
"Eh? What happened?" the teacher asked.
"Well," the boy explained as his partner began sobbing, "see we were kinda in this party last night when we left the thing near the pool for a while and when we went back it was gone."
"All that was left was this!" the girl sobbed as she held up a pink bracelet.
Before the teacher could respond they all heard a knock and a senior student entered.
"Excuse me professor but I found this hanging from our tree last night and I knew your classes were having an experiment on it so I brought it today."
The boy held up a model doll wearing a gaudy pink dress with a pink ribbon tied in its hair and pink shoes.
"Momo!"
Prof. Matsu sighed.
"I really hope they got the real lesson of this assignment," he thought as he looked around the room.
"Sheesh!" Hanamichi blurted out loud. "Taking care of babies is really hard work! What the hell are those people thinking making so many babies they can't take care of!"
Prof. Matsu smiled.
-TBC-
ARC:
1. Again, thank you to all who reviewed. To annedrew, I'm okay with you posting my fic in your site, just please tell me what site it is. Thanks.
2. Ken is such a nice name. Oh and just in case anyone wants to know, Matsu is Japanese for pine tree while Hinoki is a Japanese cypress and Momo is a peach tree.