Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me…they are all property of Miss Naoko Takeuchi-sama, and Jessica Mack. Jess gave me the idea, I decided to write it. The teachers are all real, and yes, I have kept them in character as much as possible. Ms. Bystrom is one of the coolest teachers at school though, and all that don't think so…need to get a life or something. Anyway, Bunny-chan is not Usagi, she's a different character, one of Jess's. Usagi may appear in this later on, but as to not confuse you lovely readers too much we'll call her Usagi-chan instead of Bunny as is in the English translated Manga comics okay?
Onto the wonders of Chibi-Yukito's brain…Please review ^_^
THE ART DEPARTMENT series. Part One.
"Ms. Bystrom Leaves Yaten In Charge Of The Kiln" by Chibi-Yukito.
"Hmmm…hair as red as the setting sun…eyes as blue as the ocean…oh stuff…why don't I just take some photos of Taiki for her? She'll like THAT."
Yaten threw his ballpoint pen to the ground in disgust. He then methodically ripped up the paper he was attempting to write a poem for Bunny-chan on and threw each piece into the large white bin sitting beside his dangling feet. He swiped his long grey hair back from his face in annoyance, it was summer, and Keiren had ripped the hair-tie from his ponytail when he attempted to join in on the game the group played at lunchtimes. No one had had any rubber band even to give to Yaten after the incident.
There was a ringing sound in the distance. The lunch bell.
"Oh, goodie. Maybe I can find ONE LITTLE hair band…or maybe someone's got some scissors?" Yaten mumbled darkly to himself.
"Talking to yourself now eh mate? You do realise it's the first sign of madness right? And the second – "
"Yes the second is answering yourself back…shutup I was lost in thought give me a break."
"Ooh…" Seiya said to Yaten. "It's a girl isn't it? Oh I'll bet its that chick…Kagome was it? That you had your eye on since last week?"
'No she was a cover-up…' Yaten thought to himself. "Yes, actually it was her, how'd you guess? I have to go eat lunch, I never had any breakfast this morning…Make sure Ms. Bystrom marks me off on the roll when she gets back from the kiln room okay?"
"Sure mate, whatever you say," Seiya said to him. "She'll be pissed that you left without her consent though."
"And she'd rather be sued for starving a poor defenseless kid?"
"Good point."
Yaten went out to where his school bag was stacked along with the rest of the classes outside on the port racks.
"Where are you going Mr. Yaten?"
Yaten nearly died on the spot. He turned around slowly. "Uh, I was going to er lunch Miss, you see, I hadn't eaten breakfast and –"
Ms. Bystrom gave him the 'fish' look. "Well, you should eat breakfast."
"But I didn't."
"Come back inside. Now."
Yaten inched slowly backward into the art room.
"Never go to lunch without my consent."
"Yes Miss, sorry Miss, I won't do it again Miss."
Seiya was laughing over in the corner. "It was you wasn't it," Yaten hissed at him. "You TOLD her I was going."
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did."
"No I didn't."
"YES you did!"
"YATEN! First you try to sneak out without me knowing, and now you're yelling while I'm marking the roll? You've now got yourself a detention. You'll be helping me fire all the plates for this class today at lunchtime and during third period. Got that?"
Yaten slowly slid off his chair and onto the floor. "Yes ma'am," he said.
"GET OFF OF THE FLOOR!"
"Sorry Miss!"
After Ms. Bystrom had finished marking the roll, she dismissed the class and stalked over to the remaining Yaten.
"Yaten, you are one of my prized photography students. Never before have I had to deal with someone sneaking out of class to go to LUNCH. Never have I had my best photography students do so either. Now, come with me, you're helping me fire the remaining plates."
Yaten glared at her retreating back as she went into the corridor leading to the room-with-the-kiln. "Yes Miss, no Miss, go jump off a cliff Miss."
"WHAT did you just say?"
"Nothing Miss, sorry Miss, it won't happen again Miss?"
"Right."
As Ms. Bystrom led Yaten into the room with the kiln, he got a little, er, sidetracked by the shelves that hold all the students unused art folders in. he squeezed into one of the rows, ending up next to the 'A' section.
'Hmmm…Asahi...Asahi…' he thought.
"YATEN! Get back here! Stay out of the shelves! They're out of bounds to students!"
Unfortunately, Yaten didn't want to get into any more trouble so he left the oh-so-tempting art folder of Bunny Asahi's on top of the pile.
"Urrgh…Miss, how long did you leave the paint to dry on these pallets? It's peeling off in great big flaps…or something…"
Bunny Asahi was helping one of the other teachers – Ms. Gardener – in another art room. She was cleaning/washing the pallets used to paint the plates for Ms. Bystrom's introduction to design unit.
"Heh…" Ms Gardener replied. "It's been there for about three weeks now."
Bunny suddenly felt an aura behind her somewhere. She fought the urge to look though, as her teacher was prone to ask questions. 'Hmmm…I recognise it too…maybe it's one of the crowd or something…' she thought.
Yaten heard some voices in another room. He went to the door leading to the voices and saw that it was Bunny-chan, the object of his complete and utter desire and affection. He stopped, dead still, and visibly swooned over her in the doorway. He completely forgot she could feel auras and people 'moods'.
"Yaten! Here's the kiln room, I want you to mind it a while when I go get some lunch okay? Don't touch anything! Let it fire the plates that were in there this morning and don't touch anything!"
"You already said that…" he muttered, miffed at being drawn away from his angel.
Ms. Bystrom left the room.
"Hmm…what to do what to do…" Yaten muttered to himself. He then decided to have another shot at poetry for Bunny-chan who he now knew was in the next room. She could serve as his muse for a while.
"Roses are red
violets are blue
you said you suck at writing poetry
WELL I do too!"
Yaten felt like screaming. Instead, he ripped up the paper, threw it on the ground near the base of the kiln, and picked up another piece.
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
AND I love you!"
"That isn't original…gyah…"
He then ripped up the paper he was using and picked up ANOTHER one. This time, instead of making holes in it while leaning on his knee, he leant up against the hard outer surface of the kiln. (A/N I know the kiln probably has soft fluffy stuff to stop it from going hot, but this is what happens and this is what's going to happen ^_^) He was so lost in concentration in making the best poem, she only deserved the best poem, for his angel…who belonged to Taiki, but anyway.
The heat traveled through the kiln wall and came to rest on Yaten's palms. At first it was pleasantly warm, then soon after, it became unbearably hot.
"AHHH!" he screamed and dropped the paper…right into the open kiln. It immediately blew up in flames, and soon after, spat out little tendrils of fire onto the floor around Yaten, catching onto the bits of ripped up paper he had thrown before in annoyance.
Pretty soon flames were dancing around his feet. He yelped and danced right along with them, his hair just touching the ground. Unfortunately, he completely forgot about it, and soon his hair had caught alight also.
Ms. Bystrom finally heard all the commotion coming from the kiln room and ran to see what was up. She looked through the glass in the window of the door and hurriedly tried to open it.
But it was locked.
"OPEN THE DOOR!" she tried yelling through the keyhole. "TURN OFF THE KILN!"
Ms. Gardener ran out from washing pallets and asked what was wrong.
"You LEFT Yaten alone with a firing KILN? Have you gone mad!"
"NO! I just left for a second…and he's managed to light everything on fire!"
Yaten was still hopping and jumping around the floor, trying to put out his hair.
"Oh-Kay what seems to be the problem," a very pissed Ms. Harrison asked the yelling two teachers in the corridor.
"Yaten's blowing up the kiln!"
"My God! You can't be serious!"
Yaten was wetting himself. His hair was alight and the flames were slowly creeping to the electrical circuits about his head.
"Eep!"
"OH idiots! Call the fire department! Get Mr. Smith! Hurry it up!" Ms. Harrison yelled at the two freaked out teachers. "Wait – Jan, get the fire hose, quickly!"
Ms. Bystrom ran to the fire hose, which was (luckily!) right outside in the corridor next to the kiln room. She unrolled it and handed the end to Ms. Harrison. Ms. Harrison turned the end so that water streamed out of it. Unfortunately, she forgot that the door was locked and closed tightly so there wasn't any place for the water to get through.
It resulted in getting the three teachers and the surrounding area wet. Soaking wet.
Everything except the room where the fire hose was needed was wet. Art books were soggy, clay was in piles of wet mud, children's art work completely ruined.
Ms. Harrison started to hyperventilate.
"I'll lose my job…the kids will hate me…what has my life come to?"
Ms. Bystrom in the background sniggered.
"Everyone already hates you, and Mr. Smith was going to fire you tomorrow."
Bunny dropped the pallet she was cleaning when she heard the teachers yelling at each other. Then she smelt smoke. Lots of it.
She ran toward the noise.
She first saw Ms. Bystrom and Ms. Harrison fighting over the fire hose in the doorway. She pushed past and found her love's best friend dancing around flames with his hair on fire.
"EEK! Miss! Stop arguing! Open the door!"
She started to panic.
She found a brick that was used to squash down some art folders and smashed the window in the door with it. She then picked her way through the window and across the flaming room and yelled to Yaten to get to the door and to safety. Yaten nodded and ran as fast as he could with his hair alight.
"STOP DROP AND ROLL!"
Yaten stopped, he dropped, and he rolled.
His hair was smouldering when he finished stopping dropping and rolling, but there was no sign of Bunny as of yet.
Ms. Harrison and Ms. Bystrom were still fighting in the corridor, completely oblivious to what was going on. Yaten looked, concerned to the flaming doorway. Still no sign of Bunny.
"Come on Mr. Smith! You gotta come quick! The art rooms exploding!"
Ms. Gardener yanked on Mr. Smith, the school principles arm.
"Wait a sec Hon, I'm finishing my Milo. And there's some erotica fiction to read up on this webpage too Hon, care to join me?"
"URGH! No you perverted freak! Get to the art lock, it's kinda like, EXPLODING as we speak!"
Mr. Smith, the perverted principle who banned porn from the school network sat down and searched pussysrus.com on the browser on his work PC.
"Bunny? Bunny?" Yaten yelled into the smoke billowing from the door. Tears choked his voice. "Bunny, I hadn't given you my present yet, what about Taiki? Come out already please!"
Bunny heard Yaten's voice from her place on the floor of the art room. She coughed, once, twice, and luckily he heard her.
"Bunny, come out please, you'll die from smoke inhalation or something! Do come out!"
Bunny forced herself to move. She saw the light from the now open art room door. She stood shakily on one leg, and then the other. Then suddenly she found her inner and outer strength and ran for the exit. As she ran, it seemed to get further and further away. Until finally, she got to the door. No wait – a few meters back from the door. She ran the last meter or two, and at the very last centimeter, tripped over an electrical cord.
And the entire city heard the sound of an exploding art department that day, that fateful day in March. That very, very, fateful day in March 2003.
"We'll all miss her Yaten, not just you. She was our friend also."
Taiki patted Yaten's shaking shoulder as the priest said the last few words of encouragement to the few friends that were standing around a small mound of dirt in the cemetery.
"But she was my Bunny! My beautiful soft, caring Bunny! She always stood by me, when I needed a friend. She was always *sob* there, when I needed a…friend…"
Yaten broke down sobbing in the middle of the priest's speech. Everyone looked his way funny. Even Seiya.
A red-haired girl with a broken arm came over to them. "Yaten it's okay, she'll probably be happier in the world with no pollution anyway. She's watching you. From up there. Always."
Bunny Asahi then dropped some pansies on top of the little mound of dirt in the pet cemetery.
Authors little endnote.
HAH! I'll bet you all thought Bunny was dead ne? Well, Yaten had a bunny. A very soft, caring, bunny. Named…Bunny. Bunny died one day, form over eating.
Bunny: Uh…
Yaten: SHE'S GONE!
Bunny: *whacks Yaten with a pen* Stop ya blabbering! It's only fiction.
Yaten: But it's so sad! *Sob, sniffle*
Chibi-Yukito: Stay tuned for the next episode of, The Art Block Series!