Disclaimer: Digimon is Toei's.
Author's Notes: I believe the current exchange rate is roughly: one dollar for every hundred yen. I haven't been to Japan in years so I can't quite recall the normal range of prices but I'll make a guess. Oh and I suck with making notes so we'll just assume our dear characters are diligent people who take down everything. :P
Sigh, who knew that stories planned in your head so perfectly could be so hard to transfer onto something more permanent. I keep on getting ideas for these stories, and I end up writing them and then leaving them to die barely finished. Therefore I'm terribly sorry if the writing is choppy and unclear. It's getting harder for me to wonder how to end chapters.
Post Upload: Ok so FFN does not like tables nor tabs. Sorry for the mushed up list below. Also thank you to Uin for the pointers on culture. Question, would it be alright to refer to teachers by Mr. Surname throughout the story and in dialogue have them be Surname-sensei? I've edited the story so it doesn't sound so weird (writing those -chans really got to me after awhile) but I've left the doors heh.
Summary: Yamato's in his senior year of high school. What is he doing in the junior girls-only class, home economics?
MANNERS MANNERS
—Chapter Three—
by Ascendo Tuum
Yamato took his seat, pulling out a notebook and calculator. The girls in his class still tittered over his presence, but he got used to it. He eyed the girl sitting two seats away to his left, the whiny girl, Hoshiko. She was absorbed in her doodling, her brilliant silver pen attracting light as it moved in curlicues on a blank page. He rolled his eyes, contemplating whether or not to make some comment, but decided against it.
"Ahh Hoshiko, your shoes are so cute!"
He winced at the volume of the squeal, and looked up to see its source. It was none other than Mimi, who was now fawning over her best friend's rather unremarkable looking shoes. They were cute shoes? He begged to differ. They looked like a pair of normal brown loafers. He leaned over, about to say something when Mimi plopped her bag onto her desk, effectively obscuring his furtive view.
"I love your skirt Mimi!"
Yamato couldn't take it anymore. These two girls were talking about absolutely normal, mundane things when there was nothing remotely extraordinary about a pair of shoes or a school skirt. "What's so special about her uniform that makes her so different from all the hundreds of other girls?" He asked dryly, really wanting to know what he wasn't seeing.
Mimi glared at him, hands on her hips in outrage, not liking his interruption. "No one asked your opinion."
"I'm curious, I really am."
"Good for you, but you don't need to know." Mimi flared as she took her seat and smoothed invisible wrinkles. She was nice, but when people pushed her buttons… Ugh. She hated people who tried to act clueless and were in fact, mocking her. She never enjoyed being treated like some airhead who cared only about the latest fashions. She had a heart, she had a mind, she didn't go to school for years for nothing. There was more to Mimi Tachikawa than met the eye, and woe to the person who dared think otherwise.
"Would you mind telling me what is so special about her shoes and your skirt?"
"Nothing," Hoshiko interjected. "You're just not seeing things."
"Okay then please, enlighten me, what are you seeing?"
Hoshiko rolled her eyes and as the bell rung, she pulled Mimi's chair over closer to hers. "None of your business, you nosy jerk."
"How am I being nosy? I just want to know!" Yamato responded, astounded at her sense of logic.
"Whatever."
Yamato sighed. These girls were so darn confusing! But before he could say something else, Mrs. Sato began roll call. He didn't want to risk a reprimand or even detention for disrupting the class, so he kept his mouth zipped.
"Good afternoon. Today we will be learning about budgets, and how to manage them. Ideally you will want a balanced budget where you will have little or no impulse buys. In case you have not noticed, there are notes on the board. Please take them down and then we will take out calculators for those of you who have them."
He took out a pen and began jotting down the notes, amazed at the copiousness of it all. He didn't think budget lessons required such copious notes, but apparently they did.
Budgets
In order to keep your spending in check, a good way to track your expenses is to make daily budgets and list things you've bought. Though this may seem a time-consuming and unnecessary task, it is an important and helpful way to understand where your money comes and goes. Because most of you do not have jobs, we will assume that your parents are the breadwinners and therefore pay living expenses such as rent and groceries and utilities such as electricity and water. Consequently, your budgets will be much more simplified. List items or services you have purchased each day with weekly budgets.
Take a look at this sample daily budget:
day item/service
money spent
Sunday Udon
noodles
650¥
Newspaper 100¥
Manicure 3350¥
Monday Water
110¥
Book 1250¥
Rice balls 365¥
Earrings 1700¥
Yamato's eyes began to unfocus themselves from the endless rows of notes. Once again he asked himself why he was in home economics, when he clearly knew how to balance a budget. He never went on a shopping spree—he likened it to binging—and was for the most part thrifty with his money.
He snorted quietly to himself. He'd bet his guitar that Hoshiko and Mimi were compulsive shoppers, snapping up every shiny thing in their sight, just like practically every other teenaged girl in Japan. Sometimes when he took a walk downtown, he couldn't help but overhear other girls' conversations. Of course, given most of their unnaturally high voices, they weren't that hard to eavesdrop on.
"Oh my, that is the most adorable bag I have ever seen! It's much better looking than this trash I carry around."
"Those earrings are to die for! And I only have like twenty pairs!"
"insert name here-chan, you have got to buy that ribbon! It's only 2850¥!"
"Do you really think this looks good on me? Like I already have another one at home… but if it looks good, I'll get it!"
"Oh c'mon, you can never have enough shoes!"
Yep, life was filled with clueless girls who probably couldn't make it on their own if you threw them into the woods with nothing more than a lighter and a pocket knife. No wonder home economics was a girls-only class. Guys knew enough about life and money to survive on their own—at least in his experiences, such a statement was justifiable.
Yamato eyed the girl to his left, Mimi. Her hair was currently in two loose pigtails, the wavy brown strands framing her heart-shaped face. She was hunched slightly at her desk, taking down notes quickly yet neatly, her bright eyes looking up every now and then. The pink pen sloped back and forth across the pink-tinted paper, and her manicure shone under the artificial classroom light.
He shook his head. Manicure shining? Since when was he paying attention to trivial details like that? Surreptitiously, he pinched himself and winced at the resulting ache. Okay, he was not daydreaming that was for sure. Maybe it was just the toxic fumes coming off the girl, despite her hostility towards him.
Toxic fumes, what was he saying? Fine, he liked the perfume's scent. It wasn't too heady or strong, but rather light and girlish yet sophisticated without going overboard at the same time. That was all he was willing to admit. Push him even more and he'd adamantly deny a single feeling for her.
Wait a minute.
How the heck did he go from manicures shining to toxic fumes to feelings for a girl he barely knew?
"Sitting in a room full of girls is not good for me," he muttered to himself, grateful for Mrs. Sato's walking around taking looks at sample budgets.
Meanwhile Mimi had just finished taking down the notes. Hoshiko was still busy writing, being the prissy person she was when it came to writing, every i had to be dotted perfectly. Checking her watch, she noted that there was still half the period. Budgets were a boring topic. Mimi wanted to move onto more interesting things, like cooking or sewing. Heck, anything remotely interactive that involved more than just banging in numbers on a calculator would be fun.
Additionally, she had heard rumors about a most interesting final project. For some reason, every graduating senior girl refused to divulge to their younger counterparts what exactly it was, invoking some sort of pact made with their beloved Mrs. Sato. No girl had ever graduated Odaiba High with bad feelings towards Mrs. Sato, as it was extremely difficult and unheard of to hate such a sweet and kind teacher. And so, Mimi would have to wait the months out until Mrs. Sato would come around to telling her class about this final project that somehow incorporated just about every topic that had been touched upon in class and would last several weeks.
Having capped her pen, Mimi set it back down onto her desk and stretched her stockinged feet. She rotated them in lazy circles, to get the blood circulating. She was bored and she didn't want to get caught passing notes or whispering. It wasn't Mrs. Sato's fault, it wasn't the way she taught her class, it was just Mimi's ridiculously quick writing speed.
Furtively, she eyed the mysterious student sitting to her right. She was still shell-shocked to the fact that he wasn't kidding when he said he was programmed for home economics. Sure, schedules weren't always perfect, but this was a blatant error on behalf of some administrator. Who knew, maybe there was a higher purpose for him being in the class.
She had to admit, he was cute. While he wasn't built like some of the jocks, he still had a very nice body from what she could tell. She would die to have hair as blonde and brilliant as his, though she liked her own tresses more. He also had this cool smirk, which he reserved for his friends, something she had observed in hallways when walking pass
Mentally, Mimi smacked herself upside the head. She must have put on a whee bit too much perfume. Shaking her head slightly so as to not attract attention, she looked up towards the sideboard and was happy to see that after budgets, the class would go onto diets. There was nothing like baking to end a hard school day. Besides, the sight of Yamato in a frilly apron was further incentive to enjoy home economics. Oh yes, little Yamato in a baby pink apron and oven mitts…