"Beautiful Disaster"
Chapter 6
He drowns in his dreams…
An exquisite extreme, I know…
He's as damned as he seems…
With more heaven than a, heart could hold…
Keiko awoke to a large, annoying bell blaring through the intercom on their wall. Tiredly she put her feet on the floor next to her bed, wincing at the sound. She saw on the opposite end of the room that Yukina had a similar reaction, and was using a pillow to block out the sound as she sauntered to her dresser. Botan stretched with a carefree smile, as though she was used to a wake-up call.
Remembering faintly that she had forty-five minutes to waste before breakfast, Keiko walked over to her own dresser and pulled out her uniform, laying each piece on her bed. She then picked them all up and started to head for the bathroom.
Halfway there, she remembered she wasn't home anymore.
"Oh, um…is anyone else planning on taking a shower before breakfast?" She asked, looking around at the room.
"I took a shower last night, before bedtime," said Botan, pulling her skirt onto her waist. "I don't need it,"
"You can go first, Keiko-san," said Yukina.
"…Thank you," Keiko whispered, going into the bathroom.
The bathroom was decent, if a little white for Keiko's taste. The sink had a crystal-like knob and the shower was triangle-shaped and backed into a corner. Next to it was a spotless white toilet, with the toilet paper roll hanging off a crystal-like rung. In between the shower and toilet was the see-through bar that held a blue towel with "Yamajiro" embroidered on the bottom.
Keiko realized when she turned on the water and stepped in that she hadn't placed any bath products inside the shower, and was relieved to find that Kazuma had put her shampoo, conditioner, scrubby, and body wash in a hole in the shower wall. She was done in the shower in about ten minutes, and dressed herself next to the toilet. She left the bathroom and ushered Yukina in for her shower.
Keiko combed and dried her hair for the next fifteen minutes, and then took a little while to apply makeup. She looked in the mirror, curling locks of hair around her finger.
"The outfit's made for you, Keiko-chan," Jumping, Keiko turned around and saw Botan, waving a deck of playing cards. "Did I startle you? I just wanted to know if you wanted to play a round of rummy…"
"Sure. Well, actually, you'd have to teach me the rules."
Botan sat on Keiko's bed and she followed suit. Her roommate dealt Keiko and herself five cards, and set the rest of the deck in the middle. "You see, the object of the game is to have no cards left. To get rid of cards, you put down three cards- they can either be one card in three suits, like three queens, or three numbers in a row that are the same suit, like a three, four, and five of diamonds. Also, you can add on to another person's set of cards, like if I put the last queen on your three queens, or if you put a six of diamonds on my three, four, and five. But the catch is that every time you put something down, you have to discard one card."
"How do you get new cards?"
"You can draw on your turn from either the deck, or the last card played. And every time you take a new card-"
"You have to discard one from your hand?"
"Bingo! I think you've got it down."
Yukina, fully dressed, came out of the bathroom, and just as she did, another terrible bell sound came from the PA. Sighing, Botan put away her cards, and the three students went to breakfast.
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Floor one, room six, floor one, room six…
Keiko had successfully got herself on floor one, but she couldn't seem to find room six, not to mention that she could hardly move in the giant blob that was the student body crowding in the hallways. She'd given up all kindness after just a few minutes, and found herself bumping into buckets of people and not even muttering an apology.
Keiko finally found her room and walked inside, seeing white walls and an ugly linoleum floor. She looked around for a place to sit, and found Botan sitting at one of the lab tables. She looked up in time to see Keiko and waved her over to an empty chair next to her.
"I was hoping I'd have you in here," She greeted, "I know I won't have any classes with Yukina for sure, unless she's in my study hall…"
Keiko rested her head in her palm, her elbow on the black table. "What's your next class?"
"Literature. I'm really excited about it- I never had much time to read back home…"
"With what teacher?"
"Sasaki, I believe…"
"And your third hour, Botan-san?"
"World History."
"So, we have the first two hours of the day together…"
"Really? That's great! I should have taken my playing cards with me though, and we could play rummy…but think about it, Keiko-chan! The first hour of the day, we'll cut frogs open together, and then we'll read together, oh, I hope those teachers put our desks close."
Keiko looked over at Botan, shyly smiling. "I've never seen anyone besides me be so enthusiastic about school."
A tone ran through the room, and a woman, apparently Watanabe-sensei, began blabbering about the rules of the laboratory and the classroom. Keiko wasn't listening, finding herself daydreaming, just as she had in April and May, about the discoveries and adventures in high school classes. A forgotten thought echoed through her head: Student council. She wondered if Yamajiro had a student council, and she knew that she was definitely going out for it if there was.
"Yukimura Keiko?"
She jumped for the second time that day. "Present!"
The smile she received made Keiko unsure whether the teacher was being kind or sarcastic, but she shook it off and fiddled with one of her pencils. After taking roll, Watanabe-sensei continued with the rules and procedures, and Keiko committed herself to listening.
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Keiko walked in to floor two, room three, successfully getting herself there without much trouble. She saw Yukina backed up in a corner of the room and joined her, putting her things on a nearby desk.
"You're in my Geometry class?" asked Yukina, surprised to see Keiko sit next to her. "But you're not a second year student, are you?"
"Um, no, I'm not, but I suppose they think I'm smart enough for the class," Keiko replied.
"That's good…you see, my second year friend took this course last year, so I was planning on being all alone…" She sounded slightly fearful when she said "all alone", and Keiko decided to keep that in mind. "It's tough going through these hallways- I try to apologize to everyone I walk in to, but I was late to my first and second classes doing so."
"That's sweet of you," Keiko said, wanting to say something else, but she found she couldn't remember what she had intended to say.
There was a bit of a silence until Yukina pointed out that there were a few boys looking her way, and Keiko groaned. She could tell that they were playing with her, because she heard the words "first year" in a joking manner. Keiko supposed it was better than having serious suitors.
"Murakami?" A few seconds elapsed before Yukina realized she was being called for, and she nervously answered, "Yes?"
"All right, she's here…" Abe-sensei moved her pencil down the list, calling names and marking down whether or not they were present.
"Yukimura?"
"Here." Answered Keiko, looking up from the scribbled designs on her desk and seeing five boxes of food sitting on the teacher's desk. She noticed a sign with prices for various snacks and breathed a sigh of relief. All she had to do was get a little yen, and she could have peanut butter cookies every day in her math course.
Aside from her hot-headed literature teacher, she found the first three hours of her school day to be amazing.
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The study hall room was an extremely hot, brown room on the fourth floor of the building. Three white fans blew cold air to three areas of the room, and there wasn't a single clock to be found on the wall.
Keiko scanned the heads sitting around the study hall. None of them were familiar.
She panicked. There weren't many seats left- who would she sit next to? It wasn't that Keiko was shy; it was simply that she was independent, and didn't need to talk to many people or have that many friends to please herself. She walked around the room, finally finding an empty seat and sitting quickly.
"You."
Keiko looked behind herself to an older, blonde-haired girl. "Hm?"
"Are you a second year?" The blonde asked, annoyed.
"Well, no-"
"Did you see our sign?" She held a makeshift sign, truly a folded piece of paper, into Keiko's face. The paper read, "Second Year Girls Only."
"I'm really sorry, but there's no other seat-"
"I don't have any pity. Find another seat." The blonde said her words slowly, as if Keiko was completely mindless. She got up and continued her search, finding another empty seat. A boy with fiery red hair and green eyes sat next to the seat, looking out the window.
"Excuse me, but are you saving this for someone?" she asked.
He looked up at her, curiosity in his eyes. "No. You can take it if you like."
"WHAT?" Keiko jumped and found the noise coming from the blonde and her comrades. "But, Minamino-kun, she's a first year, and first years aren't worthy of-"
The boy got out of his chair and put his face into Keiko's ear. "Just sit down, for my sake," He whispered.
"Um, thank you," Keiko replied, shell-shocked as she sat down. "Very much. Yukimura Keiko."
"Minamino Shuuichi. It's a pleasure, Keiko-san," She felt as though she should be flustering like a child, but somehow she wasn't.
"The first day," said a foreign voice to Keiko, coming from the left of Shuuichi. "And you're already the pretty boy of the school. Do you plan this, fox boy?"
The tone rang, and the teacher didn't seem to do anything but sit in her desk and stare at the students in the room. Keiko listened in to Shuuichi's reply.
"If I planned this, then why would I look so disgusted?...Why aren't you wearing the uniform?"
The mention of the uniform caused Keiko to look over at the boy talking to Shuuichi. He was slightly shorter, with slicked-back black hair and frightening but somewhat handsome red-brown eyes. His lean but muscular figure (As she could tell from two rolled-up sleeves) was covered in a green jumpsuit, just as Shuuichi had noted. His feet were up on the table, his arms acting as a pillow.
"Do you really think I'd wear that thing? It's frickin' powder blue, Kurama. And before you give me a lecture about breaking rules, it's been taken care of. I won't be bothered." The boy replied, carelessly.
"Kurama?" Asked Keiko, before getting a strange look from Shuuichi and his friend. "I'm-"
"It's a nickname," They answered, in perfect unison, as though they had practiced it thousands of times.
"I suppose I should introduce you, Keiko-san," Said Kurama, "This is my roommate, Urameshi Yusuke. He's in your year,"
Yusuke glanced in Keiko's direction, giving her an up-down look with a faint smirk. "You fill out that tasteless uniform pretty nice-"
Keiko slapped him in the nearest cheek, hiding no power even if he was still basically a stranger. She removed her hand, and she saw a red hand mark beginning to form. Victory was hers.
"-ly." Yusuke finished, rubbing his cheek.
"Pervert," She said, pulling out a pencil to doodle on a folder for the hour.
Kurama smiled, taking the same position as Yusuke. "Are you always so charming towards ladies?"
Yusuke mumbled a profanity. "Shut up, pretty boy."
A few tables away, five second years continued to fume over their newest enemy: a brown-haired first year by the name of Keiko Yukimura.
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It had been a terribly long trek to Keiko's room for English, and she saw it as a beginning of bad things to come. She'd been dreading this class beforehand, and this wasn't helping.
Keiko didn't mind learning to speak English, really- in fact, it was one of her ambitions to see England some day. But there was something that just bugged Keiko about being in…well, an all-level English class.
She knew the pace would be terribly slow, something Keiko despised. Sighing, she took a random desk, finding no companions in this class either.
And then he walked in. Yusuke took a seat next to hers, and she rolled her eyes. "More comments about my figure?"
"It was supposed to be a compliment," He answered, mumbling half the words.
"It means you're looking," She said irritably.
He couldn't think of a response, and she noticed he seemed to be fuming over something. She kept looking at him, and soon enough Keiko realized that no one was sitting within a two-desk radius of Yusuke or herself.
"Does it upset you?"
Yusuke looked at her like she'd grown a third eye. "What?" He said defensively. "What's there to be upset about?"
She cocked her head towards the empty desks. He nodded.
"Let them be scared. I'll get all the ramen I want at lunch." His tone led Keiko, still, to believe that he was extremely unhappy about something. She wasn't about to ask it straightforwardly, and she wasn't even sure why she cared so much. This had been the person who told her she'd "filled out the uniform nicely."
So why was she so interested in his feelings? He was a boy- she'd never cared for the feelings and conversations of any boy but Kazuma.
Then Keiko realized just how alike the two of them were. Yusuke and Kazuma- almost brothers! Neither wore the uniform, neither liked school, and everyone else was scared of them. If it was possible, Yusuke seemed like a bigger grump than Kazuma.
Maybe she could get to know him like she had him.
She took some lessons from her memories, and the words spilled out of her mouth. "Are you…lonely, Urameshi-san?"
"Why the hell do you care so much? I'm not lonely, anyway. I don't need friends." He was as defensive as ever.
"I think you do." She replied simply. "I didn't think I needed friends either, well, at least not very many, and then I got thrown into the sandbox in preschool-"
"And the punk who did it got beat up?"
Keiko's eyes widened. "How did you know?"
"Guy I know tells the exact same story whenever he sees his 'girlfriend'." He had gone to his emotionless tone once again. At least he wasn't angry anymore.
Keiko had no clue how to introduce the idea, and she found, once again, that words were coming out of her mouth uncontrollably. "Well, I don't have any of my roommates in my classes after my third period, and you're in two of those following classes and my lunch, and whether you'll admit it or not, you're definitely lonely." The words stopped flowing, and she began to get worried. "I…I think what I'm saying is, you could be my friend, and then-"
"Fine."
Keiko was not expecting that answer, and with his odd tone, she wasn't sure if he was truly happy, or annoyed with her. From the little she knew of him, she didn't think he would have let her know even if he was thrilled.
"But don't annoy me with your guy problems, or crap like that."
She wanted to laugh, but he seemed downright serious (Making it all the more humorous), and after that last phrase, her English class started.
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"So, how did your classes go after Literature, Keiko-chan?" asked Botan, as she combed her wet blue hair. "You were so quiet at dinner, and I didn't want to bother you." Yukina nodded in agreement.
"Well, in my study hall, I made some friends, I suppose, but I also think I made an enemy out of almost every second year girl in the school, because I was getting glared at for the rest of the day." Keiko answered, pulling a pair of pajamas over her legs behind her screen.
"You didn't happen to sit by Minamino-san, did you?"
Keiko blushed. "Is that really why? A few girls protested in study hall, but I didn't think…"
"Quite the lady-killer, isn't he? Don't worry, I'll let it slide. It'll be our little secret." Botan put a finger to her lips.
"Botan, the whole school probably knows by now."
Her roommate turned beet red. "Oh, did I say that? It was just nonsense, nothing at all!" Botan fell back on her bed and was saying something harsh into her pillow. For a slight moment, Yukina gave her a suspicious stare. "I'm going to bed. Sorry about that- my tongue just had a mind of its own for a moment, I quoted a novel I read over the summer without realizing it…goodnight Keiko-chan, Yukina-chan!"
They responded with their goodnight wishes, and then there was a slight pause.
"So…who else did you befriend, Keiko-san?" said Yukina.
"Umm…his name's Urameshi Yusuke. He reminds me a lot of a friend I have back home, only…he's a little more angry, but also sad, almost like he's…two extremes at once." She said the words without realizing what they meant, and when Keiko was finished, she wondered if she'd suddenly become a poet.
"Yuu-san is kind, don't be fooled," Yukina replied.
"You know him?" Did everyone seem to know the people Keiko was suddenly meeting?
"He's an acquaintance of mine," She answered. "When my life turned around earlier this year, he was one of the new people I met,"
"Your life turned around?"
"It's…not a pleasant story, Keiko-san,"
She nodded. "Well, goodnight, I suppose,"
"Mmm hmm. Goodnight, Keiko-san,"
Tucking herself under the covers, Keiko found she heard voices again, this time of a different group, but the same raspy dialect as the first night. She could barely hear them tonight, and just as before, a swoosh sound echoed through the mountains, and the new voices ceased to speak.
This night, however, she dismissed it as school workers, and slept easily.
End Chapter 6
Note 1: Geez, was this chapter a doozy! It took me three days to write it and perfect it- I think that's a new record, my friends. So, Keiko met Yusuke, and I'm probably going to get some complaints about how that happened…Well, all I can say about that is that I've been trying to recreate some of the things that happened in the actual YYH, except fitting the guidelines for this story (Note Keiko getting a haircut?), so if you guys remember that Keiko (Or was it Yusuke?) goes up to Yusuke in kindergarten and says, "Will you be my best friend?" and he says, "Okay!", and things go on from there. So, I tried to recreate that, except they're fifteen, stubborn, and fitting the spoilers about Yusuke…
Personally, I was so anxious to write this chapter, and when I did, it sucked. Arrgh, I feel terrible.
Note 2: If you have suggestions for a better summary, please tell me! I'm getting a bit bothered with the one I made.
Mama Moose: And you did update!
ThebigW: I went back and fixed it, just for you (And how guilty I felt…). Feel free to tell me about any more character blunders- I know there's probably about six million in this chapter. As for Yukina, fansites can't agree on her and Hiei's ages, most saying 500+ and some sixteen. So I decided to make her sixteen/posing as sixteen. And your talking about tennis had me in a good mood- I miss my dear tennis, and Federer's hurt…
HottyTottie90: Sorry about the slight delay! Now, about InuYasha vs. Ranma 1/2, the only reason I really despise InuYasha is Kagome. But Kouga…-drool-
Tsukigana: Oh, I wish I could tell you how Hiei's going to be Keiko's friend, I really do! But alas, I can't…
Also, a great big gigantic thanks to these people for putting me on their favorite stories and story alert lists!
Bradybunch4529, Hirui, hottytottie90, Mama Moose, moonlight fenix, reader713, tsukigana, what a scene, residentgothgurl, and smartpants42! Thanks a bunch you guys!
Until my next update…