A/N: I just realized that I didn't talk about the chapter titles! Every chapter is titled after a Duran Duran song. If you're feeling enterprising and inquisitive, you can seek out the lyrics to get a sort of undercurrent to the chapter. This is NOT a songfic or in any way inspired by the songs... I just thought it'd be a nice little tidbit, hopefully something that gets people interested in Duran Duran. They're more than just Rio and Hungry Like the Wolf... :-P
Bold italic sentences mean a flashback. Un-bold italic sentences indicate Yuu's train of thought, chugging right along.
Since this project is taking these different sort of narrative tangents in the storytelling itself, I'm definitely looking for criticism and reviews. So if you find anything that doesn't work well in the methodology of how I work this story, please don't hesitate to comment! I'd love to hear all opinions, good or bad.
Marivel was kind enough to remind me that 75 of all my fanfics thus far have been Yuu angsting over Kazuki in some way, shape, or form, so my aim is to actually have her do something. I hope to accomplish this forthright.
Mad props to Marivel as always for her criticism, and many countless thanks to Cendrillo for beta-reading and proofing. Hopefully my dialogue will suck less with her input.
Last bit of a/n, I swear: On my way back from work today, I got into a pretty bad accident... I was the third car in a three-car accident. The guy in front of me braked hard to avoid a crash with the car in front of him, and I braked too late. It was raining really bad, and my poor Neon's front-end is heavily smashed in. :-/ If you'd care to donate to help offset my deductible, feel free to make the donations via to my E-mail address. Every little bit helps, so if I've got a fan out there who can part with $500 to help a brother out, it'd be appreciated.
There were no injuries, and as Taishi would say, "You may be confined to a hospital bed, my brother, but can you still write?!" Expect a plot device of the car-crash sort at some point. :-P The point is, everyone is OK and Geico is good people.
Many, MANY thanks to Marivel and her father for coming out and picking me up in Fort Lee after the police report finished up with me.
On with the show!
1: Out of my Mind
January 3rd
Ichidai Private High School
Ichiguro-shi, Tokyo
7:30 AM
"I wonder why nobody likes these uniforms?" Chisa Tsukamoto remarked to herself as she walked up the path from the school gates. "They're not that cold..." she spun a little so that the dark navy pleated skirt of the Ichidai girls' uniform twirled outwards.
Of course, being a Monday, and the first Monday after the celebration-filled New Year's weekend, most students were less than alert to the patches of ice on the asphalt pathway. The patches, not yet having been iced down, made for some loss of footings, but in Chisa's case...
"Oww, oww, owwwww..." the petite blonde moaned, rubbing her right shoulder. Having slipped and fallen in mid-twirl, she had taken most of the force of the fall there.
"Tsukamoto-san?" a first-year boy from her class said. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine!" she said, bringing herself back to her feet and brushing herself off gently. "Don't worry about me; this happens enough to Chisa that she's able to recuperate really fast."
"You sure?" the boy asked, nervously standing by. He wasn't quite sure if he should take her to the nurse, help her out, or examine her head for a concussion. The fall did not look like it was a very fun thing.
"She'll be fine," an accented voice said from behind the two first-years. Yuu Inagawa, year three, class five, waved to Chisa.
"Inagawa-sempai!" Chisa exclaimed. "Happy new year!"
"Happy new year," she replied, returning Chisa's quick bow. "Did you have a good weekend?"
"Oh, yes; Chisa spent it with her family. We all went out for noodles, but ended up getting lost in Yotsuya-cho and got sukiyaki instead."
"Ouch."
Chisa nodded. "Chisa's father got a pretty bad burn from the sukiyaki, and Chisa's grandmother upended an uncooked egg. It was not a pretty sight in Yotsuya-cho, it wasn't."
Yuu held back a chuckle. "At least you made it back alive... that is, until just now." Yuu tilted her head. "Did you fall again?"
"Heh heh..." Chisa grinned and blushed.
Yuu turned Chisa around and brushed her uniform off a little bit. "There, let's just readjust your ribbons and you're all set," Yuu said, loosening one of the pink ribbons in Chisa's hair.
"Did you have a good trip home?"
Yuu froze for a moment as she was untying the pink ribbon.
"Sempai? Are you okay?"
"Oh, sorry about that," Yuu said, snapping back to the moment. "I'm just a little slow waking up this morning."
"It was just a quick trip home, that's all," Yuu evened out the ends of the ribbon as she tied it around the locks of Chisa's hair. "Just your standard baths in the hot spring, walking around town, sketching, talking to old friends, that's all."
"A hot spring?" Chisa asked, amazed. "I've never been to one before! Which one did you go to, sempai?"
"Oh, just my family's ryokan... nothing too special, but-"
"Your family has a ryokan?!" Chisa blurted out, eyes wide with excitement. "That's so cool! Chisa's never been to a real hot spring ryokan before!"
"Heh, is that so?" Yuu said as they started walking towards the school building. "It's really great. We've got an open-air hot spring and all the other goods."
"Your family really lives at a hot spring? No wonder your skin is always so soft, sempai!"
"Hey, you're starting to scare me a little there, Chisa-chan," Yuu said with a grin at the younger girl.
"She is merely showing concern, my sister," a voice from above said, followed by a whoosh of air behind the girls. "A very happy and healthy new ye-"
Taishi Kuhonbutsu's stealthy self-introduction was cut short with a leaping harisen slap at the top of his head.
"You're going to give Chisa-chan a heart attack, Taishi," Yuu deadpanned, helping the green-haired youth back up to his feet. "Honestly, you're all the workout I'll never need just trying to keep you in check."
"But comrade, I was far too enthused with the prospect of facing the new year with the burning passion in our hearts. Can you not feel it!" Taishi exclaimed, throwing a friendly arm around the girls' shoulders and looking up to the upper floors of the school. "Comrade Yuu, comrade Chisa, Can you not feel the breath of fresh air that is the new year, the chances that we are given and the opportunities that we make!"
"K-k-kuhonbutsu-sempai..." Chisa said, twiddling her fingers nervously. "Um... happy new year..."
"And a happy new year to you too, comrade Chisa," Taishi said, gracefully bowing to her. "Despite what fears comrade Yuu may instill in you, my desires for world conquest are in the noblest of intentions and you have nothing to fear from the likes of me at any time."
"That's not very much of a relief, Kuhonbutsu-sempai," Chisa said.
"It rarely is coming from him, Chisa-chan. C'mon, let's get inside. I don't know about you guys, but I'm freezing. Stupid skirt, same length for the winter as it is for the summer..." Yuu pulled at a pleat of her skirt and sighed.
Chisa waved and smiled as Yuu and Taishi headed upstairs for the third-year classrooms. Taishi slid the door open to room 3-5, stepping aside to let Yuu in.
"When did you start being Mr. Gallant?" Yuu said, stepping through the door.
"I am but the vehicle of change, comrade, and change is best accomplished through one's own actions."
"I doubt that holding a door open for someone will even get you a step closer to conquering even Liechtenstein, but thanks anyway," Yuu shot back, elbowing him gently.
"Hey! Welcome back, guys!"
Yuu turned to the source of the voice. "Kazuki!"
She headed over to the dark-haired boy's desk, leaning on his neighbor's empty seat. "How was your new year's? Oh, you went back home, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, it was pretty fun. Next time, though, I'm taking the entire break to spend back home. It takes more than a weekend at a hot spring to get a semester's worth of dojinshi and schoolwork out." Yuu rotated her arm and rubbed her shouder. "I stretched my shoulder a little bit too much, though. No more mural painting for me for a little while."
"Just so long as your wrist works, my sister. That is all that matters."
"Yuu, are you still up for that idea we were talking about?" Kazuki asked, turning in his seat to face Yuu.
"What, you mean the big team-up?"
"Yeah, you, me, and Aya. She and I could definitely use the exposure, and Karamitei's well known enough."
"Yuu, I can't thank you enough for everything that you've done all this time, I really can't."
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad that you're enjoying creating dojinshi again. It was touch-and-go for a while back there."
"Yeah... it just took something like this to bring everything back together. Really... you don't know how much this means to me."
I know I was blushing when he said that. And I do NOT blush. It's a good thing I'm too blunt to do anything but play it cool.
"Kazuki, I had nothing to do with this. I just bugged you in all the right places and times. It was you that put pen to paper."
"Even so, I need to ask you for one last favor..."
"Sure, anything."
"You remember Aya-chan, right?"
"Of course I remember her! She's not in any sort of trouble, is she?"
"No, no, it's just that... well, she and I were talking about joining up to produce a joint Brother 2/Jamming Book Store dojinshi, and we were hoping that you'd be willing to join up as well..."
Yes, of course. I wouldn't trade in fame and fortune... well, then again, that'd be nice... but I don't think I want to be in that position, nor will I be there. I'm not that good.
"Well, you can definitely count me in," Yuu said, flashing a thumbs-up and a wink to Kazuki. "We'll kick some otaku butt and generate some press for a couple of up-and-comers. Of course, we'll do a 60-20-20 profit split..."
"Nice try, Yuu."
"Man, you're killing me here! How can you extract every single last drop of blood from me, so that my entire family goes hungry!"
"My sister, I believe you are intruding on my turf," Taishi said with a mischievous grin. "The melodrama should stay on this side of the room."
"He's got you there, Yuu," another familiar voice remarked.
"My sister, do I sense a conspiracy of the fairer sex afoot?" Taishi exclaimed, standing up and planting one foot firmly on the seat of his chair. "Know this! Though our century is one of equality and recognition, there are no breaks for-"
"Taishi, siddown!" Mizuki Takase said exasperatedly, firmly pushing down on the top of Taishi's head.
"There is no need for violence!" Taishi exclaimed as he was pushed off-balance enough to cause a rather quick sit-down in his chair. The few students in the class had a good laugh at that moment.
"How was your weekend, Mizuki?" Kazuki asked.
"Bor-ing," Mizuki mocked with a fake yawn. "I just sat around the house because Kazuki had some hugely important thing to do with King Otaku over there."
"Mizuki, for the last time, Minami invited us to her place for New Year's and you didn't want to go because you had to go shopping with your friends," Kazuki sighed.
"Well, that doesn't mean it was any less important than getting sloshed at Minami's apartment!" Mizuki riposted, sticking out her tongue.
"Sloshed? I never figured you guys for big drinkers," Yuu said, raising an eyebrow.
"Neither did I," Kazuki said, shaking his head. "It was just fun, nothing too bad, but Taishi's a lightweight beyond all lightweights. He had a necktie around his head, he was totally nuts singing karaoke, and that was only after a couple little things of sake!"
"Whoa, Taishi!" Yuu exclaimed. "I didn't think you had it in you!"
"World conquest is difficult work, comrade, and there is nothing wrong with the ability to kick back and feel free every once in a while with friends."
"Taishi, everyone but Minami was underage at that party," Kazuki interjected
"Kazuki, just let it go," Mizuki grinned. "If he loses a few brain cells, maybe at least Europe will be safe from his onslaught."
They had a good laugh as the school's electronic bell sounded and more students started filing in, the day just starting to begin.
"Oh, Yuu," Kazuki turned around in his seat. "Aya and I are going to meet up at Marvel Burger after school tomorrow to start brainstorming. Wanna walk there together?"
Do birds have wings? Does takoyaki have octopus in it?
"Sure!"
Their homeroom teacher came in with the next cluster of students, just before the starting bell rang, and the class went right into homeroom business as usual.
January 4th
Ichidai Private High School
Ichiguro-shi, Tokyo
3:30 PM
"Taishi, come and help me with the sandwiches, will you?"
"But of course, my sister. I could not leave a comrade to the wrath of an enemy in any form, sandwich or otherwise."
"Yeah, that's great. C'mon."
Yuu grabbed Taishi by the wrist, pulling him out of the classroom. "We'll be back soon!" she yelled to Kazuki and Mizuki, who were pulling the four friends' desks together for the lunch period.
"Why the rush, comrade?"
Yuu let go of Taishi's wrist as they were out of earshot of the classrom and stepped in front of him, turning to his face. "Loosen your necktie a bit, will you?"
"Loosen my necktie?"
"Yep, loosen it."
"If you insist..." Taishi pulled the knot of his tie down, loosening it. "But I don't know what this is-"
"Just humor me a sec," Yuu said, reaching up to his tie. "I need to figure out how to straighten this, and you're going to help me practice."
"My sister, I fail to see what use you would have for straightening up a mens' necktie."
"Heh. You should notice these things. Kazuki's is un-straightened all the time and I want to be able to fix it for him."
"Ah, yes. Kazuki's skills in dojinshi may propel him to world conquest, but he should consider himself lucky that once we rule the world, the dress code will be business casual at the most. I am surprised, though, comrade; I never thought you would employ a plot device so common to anime wherein a girl is trying to look after the object of her affections."
"Take this one at face value, Taishi," Yuu growled, grabbing Taishi's tie and yoinking him down a few inches. "Believe me, I don't like having to be all cutesy either."
Yuu straightened Taishi's tie after fiddling it with a moment and pulling on the thin end. She loosened and straightened it up again just for good measure. "Great. Let's go get those sandwiches for the guys."
Now why, Taishi thought as they walked along, would she be wanting to fix up Kazuki's tie for him?
"Kazuki, bend over for a sec, will you? Your tie is loose."
"My tie?" Kazuki set down his school bag as the two students walked out of the gate and fiddled with the knot. "Man, it must have been like this all day..."
"No, no, let me get it," Yuu said, reaching up to the striped silk necktie as she stood on her toes. "I can see it from a better angle."
Yuu tried to ignore the fact that she reached for the tie at the same time as Kazuki, just feeling a brush of air as her slim hands reached past Kazuki's.
So close, and yet so far... next time, I just won't warn him, she grumbled to herself. But I don't mind taking care of him a little like this... hell, maybe he'll see me as more of a girl if I start up with these little things.
"There, all set," Yuu said with a smile, patting his chest playfully. "Now you look a little more presentable. You don't wanna let Aya down, do you?"
"Definitely not," Kazuki said, picking up his bag and tossing it over his shoulder. "More people need to see her work, and to do that, she's gotta get her name out there. I'm really looking forward to this entire project; it'll be a big help for her."
"I'm glad you're looking out for her," Yuu said, pulling on a pair of gloves. "She does have a fantastic style and aesthetic. Short of totally modifying her personality, a better presentation and marketing effort is the best thing she can do for herself to sell more dojinshi."
"Any thoughts as to what kind of dojinshi we'd be doing?"
Marvel Burger
Ichiguro-Minami, Tokyo
3:45 PM
"So we were thinking about a blend," Kazuki said, gesturing with a French fry. "Aya-chan, you have such a gift for simplified, stylized interactions between people and their environment. Combine that with your artistic abilities and it's almost as if we'd just be your assistants." Kazuki popped the fry into his mouth.
"Oh... I'm... I'm really not that good," Aya Hasebe replied, avoiding Kazuki's eyes and folding her hands in her lap."
"Give yourself a little credit!" Yuu said between bites of a Double Marvel. She set the wrapper of the burger aside, dangling it out of her mouth, furiously sketching on a piece of paper. "We jutht ave to ekthibith thomthing oonique to the genre..."
Kazuki could barely hold back a chuckle at Yuu's dangle-burger-speak.
"What?" she asked, mouth full of burger.
CRAP! I must look like a slob!
"Anyway," Yuu said, pretending nothing had happened after another bite of her burger—this time setting it down—"we just have to focus on the freshness and uniqueness of Aya's artwork and Kazuki's eye for scene work. That one hostage sequence from Not Hundred was one of the stronger points of the comic, Kazuki."
I'm an idiot. How can talking through a fast-food burger be at all cute? I barely know what kind of girl he'd really go for, but even I know that the table manners of a five-year old are no good. Dammit.
"Well, we'd be at a loss to use all the skills we have to contribute if we exclude Aya's scene progression. I could learn a lot from the minimalist way she implies the progress in her stories. I mean, here," Kazuki said, pulling a copy of Aya's Pinwheel from his school bag. "Look at these frames, here, here, and here. It's almost as if the viewpoint becomes disembodied and totally unrelated to the characters, yet the emotional connection remains when it picks up here." Kazuki turned the dojinshi to point it out to Yuu, much to Aya's blushing chagrin.
"So what do I get to bring to the table?" Yuu asked enthusiastically, folding her fingers together and propping her chin on them. "I know I can do more than just attach the Karamitei name to you guys' dojinshi."
"Yuu, you've got the most all-around experience in dojinshi. We need your guidance and support in basically all areas of production. Aya and I are-"
"We just want to sell more dojinshi," Aya said unexpectedly. "Making something unique is all well and good, but... but it's just..."
"Go on," Yuu said, leaning towards Aya. "What do you want to achieve?"
"I just... I just want people to come looking for me at conventions... the way you have people coming up to you, Inagawa-san..."
I would so much rather be working with you alone, Kazuki... Aya worries me. She's the type that guys go for all the time... it's like some dating sim; the quiet, beautiful one just draws you in.
I don't care. I want to spend time with you... open myself to you... and when you see the parts of me that feel the way they do, I want you to feel the same way.
"You can count me in," Yuu said with a thumbs-up and a triumphant grin. "I'll do everything I can to help."
"I... I... um, thank you very much," Aya said, smiling lightly with a formal bow.
"Yeah! Thanks so much, Yuu!" Kazuki said, raising his fists in a very Taishi-esque victory pose. "We'll be all over the next Comic Party for sure!"
"We can definitely do this," Yuu affirmed with a nod, crossing her arms in determination.
Time spent with him will be good time indeed. Now I have so much more time outside of school just to hang around with him... we could go out, just him and I, after a long night of working on dojinshi... just before we got to the station, I'd offer him some of the tea from the can I was drinking... yeah, an indirect kiss.
No! Bad thoughts! Come on, snap out of it, Yuu. That's such a Mizuki move. You're better than flirting like that. You don't need to be cute for him. Who you are is damn well enough.
"Here's to cooperative effort," Yuu raised her medium Coke in a toast.
"To cooperative effort!" the other two voices echoed, tapping their sodas together.
December 31st
Kobe
I remember how cold it was that morning, back at the Kobe Waterfront Shopping Arcade... still the same old convenience stores, still the same old shops. The Korean take-out stand was conspicuously absent, judging from the air that didn't have the spicy smell of freshly pickled kimchi anymore...
I guess I really am just a Kansai girl at heart... a little box of takoyaki and a can of oolong tea for lunch is like walking around with a prefectural flag. But they can't do it like this in Tokyo.
But what do I make of this... I can't go back to Tokyo, not yet. I have too much that I have to think of here... too much to wonder about and too many things to sort out.
Is that café by the shipping office still open?
Time to think, that's why I came back to Kobe...
Now that I know how I feel... I have to do something. There's an answer to these feelings, I know it. I haven't had the chance to act on feelings like this before... and for the life of me, I can't figure out what to do with 'em.
To be continued...
