Disclaimer: Rogueicephoenix doesn't own YYH.

Chapter 6: Kick Me, Please

Part One of Chapter 6

Yusuke kicked at the door of the house once again before sinking down onto the front step. Dammit, why'd he have to forget his keys today, of all days? He'd known Atsuko wasn't going to be there when he came back, and yet... And worst of all? Yusuke had been the one to tell her to take the keys out of their hiding place beneath the 'Welcome' mat.

Dammit! It was freezing out here. Then again, December usually is, in New York.

The last time he'd done this, he'd been able to knock the door down. However, his mother had forbidden him from ever doing so again, and had gotten a heavy metallic door in the place of the wooden one. Who else had the keys, then? Kayko. But, no cell and the neighbors weren't about to let him use theirs. Walk to her house? No, Yusuke remembered that she was tutoring some little girl at the girl's house. He could always pick the lock. Except... no tools.

Hold on there. Picking locks? Right up Yoko Minamino's alley.

"Forget your keys?" Yoko asked as examined the lock.

"Obviously."

"Mom's not home?"

"Obviously."

"Brain's dead?"

"Huh?"

"The door was open. Or did you disturb my meditation time in order to lure me here for some sort of weird guy-to-guy pow-wow?"

"Shut up, Yoko. Perv."

"Hey, I said pow-wow. I didn't say you were trying to seduce me. Or is that just some kind of subconscious thou-"

"FUCK OFF!" Yusuke swung at the laughing, sneaky fox, who just ran off in the opposite direction.

Kazuma was miserable. Completely and utterly miserable. Miserable beyond belief. He felt like the idiot that Hiei Koorime-Jaganshi had always accused him of being.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Botan had had a 'talk' with him.

"Listen, Kazuma. I'm sorry, but you seem to have the wrong idea about us."

"Are you talking about the idea that you and I are meant for each other?" He'd stared at her with intense eyes.

"Bingo! That's the idea. Listen to me, Kazuma, I'm sure that you're a nice boy, but... well, I'm already engaged. To a guy who's my age. Not 13. All right? Do you understand what I'm talking about, Kazuma?"

Yeah. He understood. Perfectly. He was a fool. An idiot. Imbecile. Same damn thing. What the hell was the matter with him? Hadn't he heard it enough times from his friends? 'She's too old for you!' 'She treats you like you're in kindergarten!'

Being headstrong and proud really sucked.

Sarah wanted the position of valedictorian. Badly. So very badly.

But with a grade like this, how would she ever?

Sure, 85's were okay for some people but she. Wasn't. Some. People. And if religion was her best subject, how would she do on her other tests? Damn, did she and Ana switch brains or something? Because it was Ana who got 85's. It was Ana who was the slacker. Not Sarah.

Even worse was the fact that Ana had gotten a 95. A full ten points higher.

No. She wouldn't let this get to her. Sarah Carroll would be valedictorian, no matter what. If she had to kill off the competition, so be it.

Wow, that was one helluva scary thought to have.

Sarah Carroll, serial killer.

Huh. Didn't sound half bad.

Suichi had been cornered by the math teacher after school. Karasu. Mr. Karasu. And to tell the truth? Suichi had been frightened. Not of what Karasu had to say, no, but by the teacher himself.

"Suichi, I've noticed that in the last few weeks, you haven't been preforming your best on these tests. Your last teacher had highly praised your ability, so it makes me wonder."

"Uh. Sorry about that. I just haven't been very focused lately. Thanks for pointing that out, Mr. Karasu."

And he'd hightailed it out of there.

Not very in-character of him. It also made him seem weak, like he couldn't stand the pressure of talking one-on-one with a teacher. So Suichi promised himself: If Karasu ever came up to him again, he wouldn't so much as flinch. Just because the teacher was a bit odd didn't mean a thing...

Who the hell was he kidding?

Anastasia watched the bare trees outside of her window. Something about them just reminded her of kindergarten.

Daydream

"Ooh, look, there's Yooooko! He's so cuuuuute, right, Ana!"

"Mmmmmmhmmmm!" Anastasia had said, swinging her arms, a difficult task to do, as she was bundled up in about a pound of winter gear.

"Eeeew! Girls have cooooooooties! C'mon, Yoko, le's go." Hiei stuck his tongue out at Anastasia. Ana and Sarah only followed them.

"Stop following! You're crazy!" Yoko just let Hiei do all the talking, grinning like the sly little fox he was.

"Am not!" Ana hollered at the top of her voice.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Hey, if you kiss Hiei, I'll tell you a secret!" Yoko yelled, and hid behind a snow-laden tree to watch. Ana and Sarah looked at one another for a moment, then at Hiei, who turned and ran. Sarah soon caught up with him and held him down while Ana pressed her lips to Hiei's and ran off to Yoko.

End Daydream

Now that was one weird memory. She couldn't even recall what the secret had been. To think- her first kiss was in kindergarten, with one of her (now) best friends.

Thank God they'd forgotten about it.

Part Two of Chapter 6

Suichi's latest math scores weren't getting any better. They weren't getting worse, either, but Karasu seemed to think it was important for Suichi to regain the status of Star Math Pupil.

Weren't there other kids for him to torture? Kids who were, like, failing?

"Suichi, is there a reason why you aren't doing well in this class?" Karasu asked straight out one day when he'd taken Suichi aside after class.

"Uh. No." Remember, no flinching. No running. No. I will be like Yoko. Fearless.

"You aren't afraid of me, are you, Suichi?"

Yes. Ding-ding-ding! You got it, you crazy psychopath with a vampire obsession!

"No."

Karasu's eyes narrowed slightly, as if saying he knew Suichi wasn't telling the truth. One of his hands raised and came closer and closer to Suichi.

No flinching. Don't flinch. Don't move. Don't flinch, dammit!

The teacher's fingers landed in Suichi's hair. He flinched slightly.

"You really should grow your hair out, Suichi. It's a lovely color."

Ana saved the day.

"Hey! What the heck did you deduct five points off this problem for?! I got it right!" she asked, her voice disbelieving as she barged in, her eyes on her paper and not on Karasu, whose hand dropped from Suichi's head.

"Let me see that... Fine. You have your five points. But do not use the word 'heck' with me and do not address me with the word 'hey'. Disrespect is a valid excuse for me to give you detention, all right, young lady?"

"Sure."

Suichi wanted to shave off all his hair. Or wash it a hundred times and dye it green. God, that was one scary creep! So much for not flinching- he should've run!

Kazuma, before today, had never really noticed the similarities between Botan and Yukina. Maybe he hadn't wanted to. After all, the last time he'd really paid attention to Yukina was in fifth grade. And that was also the last time that he'd hit on her.

Why?

Because Hiei had smashed up Kazuma's face so bad he hadn't been able to see for weeks. The dentistry had cost a fortune, too. Thankfully, Yukina had broken them up before her brother broke any more ribs. Not that there were very many left unbroken, of course. Sure, Yusuke had beaten Kazuma up pretty bad at times, but this... Anger caused by the discomfort of a sibling was way more destructive than just beating people up for the hell of it, that was one of the two lessons that Kazuma had learned. And the other lesson: Size doesn't matter. Hiei might be short in comparison to Kazuma, and very compact, but just thinking of his punches made the red-head ache.

But as Kazuma watched Yukina walk home with Kayko, he realized that Botan... She just wasn't up to the standard that was Yukina. She lacked the grace, the gentleness, and the light tinkling laughter that the younger girl possessed.

Or maybe he was just on the rebound.

Yoko could just die for Christmas vacation. Okay, yes, there would be candy practically raining from the sky, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he was up to his neck in high school stuff. No, stuff wasn't a good word for it, because that implied that he might actually like to do some of it. No, the word was s-h-i-t. And there was a lot of it.

Yes, a lot of it had been done in, like, October and November, but there was still a lot of standardized testing left to do. Homework was being piled upon them like a sack of bricks. Bombardments of tests came flying from thin air.

Pearl Harbor had been hit hard on December 7, 1942- or something like that. But the eighth graders of OLF were being hit harder. Not to mention the fact that they were being bombed over 60 years later.

"AAAAAAAGH!" Yoko yelled at the top of his lungs. Damn, that felt good. Even better was when he threw a Tootsie Roll at the wall on the other side of the room and it chipped the plaster.

"What's wrong?!" Suichi asked as he ran to his brother's room.

"Life sucks, that's what's wrong."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Oh, I think I do. What's wrong with you? Your hair's all freaky."

Suichi brushed a hand through his red locks. "I was trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to pull it out."

"May I ask why?" Yoko asked, raising a silver eyebrow.

"Just for the fun of it, Yoko. I wanted to see how I'd look bald."

"I'll answer the question for you: Stupid."

"Hey, remember..."

Memory

Kindergarten teacher Genkai was almost pulling her hair out from stress. Today, Yusuke had brought in a pack of gum, chewed it incessantly during class, (though Genkai and her assistant had told him to spit it out) and had put it into various classmates' hair. First it was Kayko, who'd screamed and slapped him; then it was Hiei, who'd chased his 'friend' around with scissors, threatening death; and then it was Yoko. And it was Yoko who gave Yusuke the best punishment of all.

During nap time, Yoko, his twin brother, and Ana (who'd gotten roped into this, no one knew how) carried out their plot. Ana kept Genkai and the assistant busy with a stomach, head, and back ache. Suichi kept the lookout, just in case one of the teachers came into the boys' napping room and found them out. And Yoko...

When Yusuke woke up and went over to Genkai, she didn't know whether to scream or to laugh.

On his face, in black magic marker, was written the word 'POO' and all over there were red and green marks. A chunk of the child's eyebrow had been taken out, and his hair was chopped off in odd places.

Oh, boy.

End Memory

"Yep. That was one great revenge. Do you think maybe we could do that to Karasu? Because that guy has been giving homework like there's no freaking tomorrow." Yoko didn't notice the way that his twin brother stiffened at the name of the math teacher.

"Shave him bald, stick a few scissors through various body parts, and throw him out the window."

Yoko was a bit shocked at that. Suichi was the one who said stuff like, 'Nothing too harsh, okay, Yoko? Don't dig your hole so deep you can't climb out of it.' He shut his jaw after a moment, then devised a test to see whether or not his brother was that POed.

"Can we castrate him?"

"You read my mind."

Karasu must've flunked him.

Stupid teacher should've known better than to piss off one of the Minamino twins.

Notes (Read For Info):

The FORMAL author of this fic would like to assure her readers that this was not an indication of any pairings, or whether there will even be pairings! Just wanted you all to know. Now I'll circle back to the rather unimportant ramblings...

i.l.k.e.! What the hell did you do!?

I made the story better! That first flashback! I just couldn't resist! It was so- so- so- KAWAII when it came into my head! ::giggles:: I love that word!

That was inspired by our brother Thomas, who was such a ladies' man even at age three or four that he had all of the girls participating in kiss-tag with him as their target. ::shakes head:: And so, r.i.p., i.l.k.e. and I would like to dedicate this particular chapter to Thomas George, the guy who got even the pickiest of our friends to admit that they liked his eyes. ::sigh, sweat-drop:: Now that was mortification beyond belief.

Umm... anything else significant? Oh, yeah, this was originally two chapters (hence the double-flashback), but I felt that it was just a little to short. So, until next time! REVIEW!!! (Sorry I forgot to put up the responses! )