Disclaimer: Not being the mastermind that is Kiyohiko Azuma, I turn to fanfiction so that I may pretend that I am. That said, Azumanga Daioh is not mine.
To Impress
Hi! My name's Kasuga Ayumu! It's great to meet you!
Hello. I'm Ayumu. Good to meet you.
Hey! The name's Kasuga Ayumu. It is so great to be here, let me tell ya…
Ayumu sighed, looking at the floor and away from her reflection. She hadn't even set foot in her new high school yet, but she already knew that being the new kid sucked. When she walked into homeroom for the first time, she knew that she'd be called up to the front of the class to recite some spiel about who she was and what her interests were and et cetera. And she was aware that, if she slipped or stumbled in her speech, if she said the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at the right time, that mistake would be forever ingrained in her classmates' memories. If they disowned her because of a blunder like that, Ayumu had no idea what she would do.
First impressions were everything, after all, and Ayumu intended to make one.
And so, the morning before her first day of school, she stood before the full-length mirror in her room, one with a crack that ran diagonally across its surface, and recited introductions as though she was an expert at saying them.
By the end of the day, Ayumu thought she would probably be one.
Yo! Kasuga Ayumu here. What up?
Hi. I'm Ayumu… tee hee!
¡Hola! Me llamo Ayumu. ¿Cómo están?
…
In the end, Ayumu decided upon, "I'm Kasuga Ayumu. Nice to meet you." Actually, no; while Ayumu did say that originally, her teacher, Yukari-sensei, pretty much forced her into saying, "Yo, how you doin'?"
Ironically, the results were staggeringly positive.
Her hailing from the streets of Osaka was enough to make her stand out, but retaining the city's infamous dialect even after moving impressed people. While Ayumu tried to be polite, as her parents always reminded her to be when around those she wasn't familiar with, the Osakan found herself falling into the image of the badazz new chick more and more often simply because that was what was expected of her.
At her old school, Ayumu had been slow, both physically (it took a great effort on her part to be able to run a twelve-minute mile) and mentally (also; a great effort to break 55 on an algebra final). Since she'd switched schools, she'd intended to make a new start and reform, try to make herself faster and better, become the Ayumu 2.0, if you will.
Still with so many people expecting her to play the part of her old self, Ayumu found that reform was becoming less and less of an option.
It was also no secret to Miss Kasuga that, in Osaka, she'd been classified by most of the student body as "strange". It wasn't so much that she'd had bizarre habits or didn't fit in; more likely, it was her ability to spontaneously burst out, "By the way, what do they mean when they say 'it's raining cats and dogs'?" that had been a little disconcerting. Ayumu was extremely inquisitive to the point where she'd been labeled random, and this was a quality that, in time, had become characteristic to her Osakan self.
She hadn't counted on it reappearing at her new school.
And, the more she thought about it, the more she'd begun to believe that it was Tomo that had made it stay put for good.
It had been as easy as her saying, "Hey everybody! From now on, Ayumu is Osaka, okay?" At first, it had made no sense to "Osaka"; if the world followed Tomo's declaration, everyone who hailed from a similar place would have the same name, and a simple action such as saying "Hello" to a friend in the hallway would become a confusing chore. In time, however, she'd begun to understand the logic behind her nickname. Already, Kasuga had noticed that she couldn't lose her Osakan attributes that had won so many people over. No matter how hard she struggled to be "plain ol' Ayumu", her more exotic, foreign side won out in the end.
Osaka refused to lie to herself; she didn't want that. She didn't want to fool her new friends into thinking she was a cool, if bubbled-headed, girl when all she desired was to be normal and blend in with the sea of other red uniforms.
But, then and again, why should she?
She already had her nickname attached to her like a stubborn "Hello, my name is" tag. Just as "Chiyo-chan" and "Kaorin" fit the image their names allowed, why couldn't hers?
Osaka could practice being Ayumu at home, she decided, where good manners were encouraged and spontaneity floundered like an asphyxiated fish. She got the feeling that her parents preferred Ayumu anyway.
But, if her friends at school liked Osaka better… well, darn, she could very well be Osaka.
And, with that, she looked down at cute, little Chiyo-chan, whose name fit her like a glove would her diminutive hand, and asked, "You know them cattails that grow next to the river? Why do they call 'em that, I wonder?" Truth be told, her response wouldn't matter. It was the question itself, and the person from where it came, that made all the difference in the end.
And thus, Osaka smiled.
And thus, Kasuga Ayumu transformed into Osaka 1.0.
One night in July, on the one-month anniversary since she'd accepted the guise of Osaka, Ayumu stood in front of her mirror again. She ran a hand across the crack down its middle, bending over so she could trace it all the way down to where it ended just below the floor. She couldn't help but consider how alike she was to this mirror; as it was splintered, so was she, divided between kind, blushing Kasuga Ayumu and slapdash, dense Osaka.
And yet, despite the unsightly rift between both halves, there couldn't be one side without the other, and hence they made a whole.
And it was then that Miss Kasuga recognized that she could never give up what she'd wanted to lose after changing schools; not really, since rejecting Osaka would mean the downfall of Ayumu, too.
She laughed.
On that first day, she'd been so concerned about first impressions.
Was it possible that, since then, she'd made one on herself?
Again she chuckled, nodding in approval at her unprepossessing, hideous, beautiful mirror and the fractured reflection that smiled two smiles back at her. Ya know, she thought, once again practicing her, "Yo, how you doin'"'s before it…
…I think it is.
End Fic. Reviews, especially constructive ones, make my day. Please do so.