"Beautiful Disaster"
Chapter 7
He's magic and myth…
As strong as what I believe…
A tragedy with…
More damage, than a, soul should see…
"So, how have your first two days of school been, Keiko?" Shizuru asked over the phone. "The idiot just started at that all-boy school. The entire facility just makes me sick, Keiko. It's so tasteless!"
In the background, Keiko heard Kazuma flipping through channels and yelling profanities at the television. "Everything's fine here," Keiko replied.
"Hang on a sec," Shizuru said. "Kazuma! It's a one-way road! You can't talk to the TV!" There was a pause in which Keiko heard some silly bickering. She really missed that. "Anyway, it's great that you seem fine. How are your roommates? Hopefully they don't suck."
"Oh, no! They're really nice, Shizuru."
"Any cute guys? Get a rich one, Keiko, you hear me?"
"Shizuru…" Keiko picked up her geisha doll and toyed with it. "One of my friends, Shuuichi Minamino-kun, is the king of the school, but I don't see him as-"
"Minamino, eh? I like the sound of that. Go for him, Keiko." In the background of Shizuru, Keiko could hear Kazuma screaming about something at his sister.
"Shizuru, I don't like him! He's just a guy I know."
"Is he rich?"
"I don't know! But I can assure you, I don't like him and I never will."
"Okay, fine," Shizuru said, grumbling. Kazuma stopped screaming in the background. "Any other cute guys?"
"Shut up Shizuru. I don't look at guys and say, 'Oh, he's so cute'. I rate boys by their personalities and my tolerance of them." Keiko set down her geisha doll and sighed. Shizuru could be impossible.
"Okay, Miss Too-High-Standards. Are there any cute and tolerable guys?"
"For someone who accuses me of having high standards, you haven't had a boyfriend in a while, have you, Shizuru?"
Keiko heard Kazuma laughing and teasing Shizuru, and she thought she heard the elder Kuwabara punching him. "I have had a boyfriend. You, on the other hand-"
"What was his name?" Keiko asked.
"His name was Sakyo," Shizuru answered, "And let me tell you, Keiko, he was very, very rich, not to mention suave, handsome, and a smoker. But…something happened to him though, and I haven't seen him again. But he gave me a present that I've still got."
"What was the present?"
"Keiko, you're getting off subject. Now, are there any cute and tolerable boys?"
"I have another friend," She replied, tucking herself into bed.
"Really? What's his name, Keiko?"
Keiko yawned as she spoke. "Urameshi Yusuke."
"Hmm, Urameshi Yusuke, huh? That's a cute name. Go after him," She heard Shizuru lighting a cigarette, and Kazuma was again screaming behind her.
Keiko rolled her eyes. "It's time for me to sleep," She lied, "But thanks for calling, Shizuru."
"Anytime, Keiko, anytime." Keiko heard Shizuru heading up the stairs. "And really do go after that Urameshi kid, it'll do you some good to get a-"
"Bye, Shizuru." Keiko hung up the phone and went straight to sleep.
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"Well, today, um, class, we are, um, going to, um…"
Sasaki-sensei, Keiko's literature teacher, began to fumble through her desk and, like a volcano, the class erupted with talking and laughing. She'd discovered yesterday that the anger Sasaki-sensei had on the first day was completely false: Truthfully, the woman was old, confused, and pathetic.
Keiko rested her head in her palm and looked at Botan, who was doodling something on a bright blue folder. "She's a complete idiot," Keiko complained, "How can you not know what you're going to do?"
Botan shrugged and continued doodling on what seemed to be a unicorn. "She might be having a senior moment,"
"Hm," Keiko replied.
The class was quiet again as Sasaki-sensei stood up from her desk, seemingly ready. "We're passing out the textbooks today!" The class didn't share her enthusiasm, some students groaning.
"Textbooks?" Keiko said to herself, confused. She had only had one book per course, maybe even none, until this point, and now she was getting more than one for one class? How was she to carry all these books?
The classmates around her seemed perfectly used to the idea, though unhappy about having any books in general. Sasaki-sensei held up two textbooks, one an orange square and the other a blue rectangle. "The orange book is your grammar book. The blue one is your literature book. You'll need your blue book every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and your grammar book will be necessary every Tuesday and Thursday. Which means that tomorrow, you'll need your grammar book.
"I'll call you up in alphabetical order to get your two books for the rest of the class," The teacher finished, taking her seat next to two large book piles of orange and blue.
Keiko rested her head in the same fashion as before and gazed around the room, filled with boredom. She saw that Botan was working on the biology assignment next to her, tapping her pencil against the desk in frustration.
"You know, if I had been able to sit next to you, you wouldn't have to worry about that," said Keiko, laying her head on the desk now.
"Oh, it's nothing, see? I'm on number five already."
"There are ten questions, Bota-"
"Done!" Botan beamed with pride, setting down her pencil dramatically and then putting it away in her pink purse. "The last five were those connect the term with the definition things,"
"Kikuchi?" Sasaki-sensei called.
Botan went up to get her books and came back with her arms almost crumbling from the weight. There was a large bang as Botan put the books on the floor, shaking out her hands.
Keiko watched closely as Botan pulled something out of her purse and poked her shoulder with it. "Rummy, Keiko-chan?"
She nodded and Botan began to deal out a game. Keiko gave a look at her hand, finding she didn't have any cards that went together. On the desk next to the deck rested another queen, so Keiko took that to match her queen of diamonds, discarding an eight of spades.
Botan drew a card from the deck and tossed it lazily on the eight that Keiko had discarded. Keiko saw that it was a king of clubs, so she drew from the deck and got a jack of diamonds. She kept it, thinking somehow this would help her, and discarded a six of hearts. Botan took her six and laid down three cards: A four, five, and six, all of hearts. Smiling, she discarded a two of the same suit.
"Yukimura?"
"Coming," Keiko said, going up to get her books. Sasaki-sensei wrote her name inside an orange book and a blue book and handed her the books. Keiko went back and set the books down on the floor next to her desk. "Whose turn was it?" She asked, picking up her hand.
Botan said something, but the bell rang and drowned her out. Botan, barely able to lift her books, took her cards and staggered out of the room, Keiko following her. They turned in opposite directions, Keiko headed for her Geometry class.
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She walked in to Abe-sensei's room, dropping some yen into a box and taking a bag of two peanut butter cookies. Keiko walked to her seat in the front of the room, Yukina already sitting beside her. The older girl's face lit up and she smiled as she sat down, opening the package of cookies.
Keiko noticed that Yukina didn't have any snacks of her own. She held out the second cookie in the bag. "Would you like one, Yukina?"
Her friend held up her arms gently in protest. "I'm fine. I have my lunch right after this class,"
Keiko put the little cookie back in the bag and continued to munch quietly. The bell rang through the room and Abe-sensei stood up.
Of all her teachers, Keiko found that she liked Abe-sensei the best so far. It may have been her close attention to the class' work, or maybe, Keiko thought, it was that she seemed like what Shizuru would be as a teacher. She had a sarcastic, cool sort of outlook, with possibly a little satire here and there.
She watched as her instructor picked up her little green box and counted the coins and paper that was inside. The teacher looked up at the class and smiled. "I told them that selling this stuff would get quick money, and no one believed me. Thanks a bunch, you guys- your constant hunger for bon-bons and pickle chips is going to get the math department of Yamajiro big bucks,"
Abe-sensei was looking directly in the back of the room, Keiko noticed, to a boy with five bags of pickle potato chips arranged around his math notebook on top of his desk. Noticing the stares he was getting, the boy responded by shoving his hand into one of the opened bags.
"It can't be helped if you all like to eat junk for brain food, so let's get to numbers, shall we?" The teacher turned around and erased a few leftover numbers from the previous class off of her dry erase board. "I think I had a review sheet for chapters four through six of Algebra II, ne?"
There was a stoic "Yes" that echoed back at her, so Abe-sensei nodded, pulling out a paper from her binder. "Okay, any questions? Don't be afraid- just because you've already had this doesn't mean you won't have problems with it." Despite her words, no hands were raised. Keiko was almost positive she had her answers correct. "No?" The teacher sighed, beginning to walk in between the desks, starting with the aisle to Keiko's right and Yukina's left. She had looked upon ten papers, most likely, when she walked back to the desk. "Now, how many of you, for number sixteen, got eight, five and two?"
About eighteen people, Keiko estimated, raised their hands. She and Yukina weren't among them. Keiko worried that that meant she was one of the silly ones that had the wrong answer and said nothing. "Those of you raising your hands…would you like me to go over the problem, or do you know what you did?"
The exposed students nodded and Abe-sensei began to do number sixteen, an augmented matrix problem, on the dry-erase board. Keiko doodled in the margins of her notebook, awaiting the next review sheet.
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"Now don't you all start talking," Keiko's instructor announced in study hall, "I actually have something to say to you children today,"
The class groaned and temporarily put away all of their work, looking up at the teacher. The second years from the first day paid no attention, glaring at Keiko.
"Fossil," Yusuke mumbled next to her, flicking a piece of folded paper a few inches to the right of the old woman's long skirt. The teacher didn't notice, and he gave a tiny smile.
"After school today, there's a meeting for students interested in student council. I don't know why it's so early, as I'm sure none of you know anyone's names yet, but I'm not in charge, now, am I?"
Keiko's face broke into a catlike grin. Student council- Just hearing the words made her blood pump with excitement. She knew, somehow, that she was going to be the class president and no one was going to stop her. She wouldn't let them.
She could hear Yusuke tapping his pencil in aggravation, gritting his teeth. Keiko looked over and his eyes were widened in complete annoyance, as though staring would get the lady to be quiet. She covered her huge grin and burst into a giggling fit. His eyes narrowed and he looked at her, seemingly confused.
"My speech is over. Work, talk, I don't care: Just don't burn the school down."
Yusuke took his normal position, rolling his sleeves up and resting his head on his arms, feet propped on the long table in front of him. Keiko began working on the review sheet she'd received in Geometry.
"Don't you have something to do?" Kurama asked his roommate, coming back to his seat to Yusuke's left with an ice pack.
"All the teachers surround me like hunters during class, so I end up doing all the damn work they give me then." He moved around his legs on the table. "Shouldn't you have something to do, smart ass?"
"Finished it. Even if I did have work, I need this hour to heal my back." He gave Yusuke an intimidating glare that took any future words out of his throat.
"Your back? What happened?" Keiko asked, looking up from her work.
"Someone rammed four textbooks, three notebooks, and three folders into it," He answered, his words completely emotionless.
"How do you know that? And doesn't it hurt?" She questioned.
"I helped pick them up after they fell. It was a girl, most likely a first year. And it's a more annoying ache than a painful one."
"Did she gawk at you?" Yusuke mumbled, a small smirk on his face.
"Strangely, no. She didn't even stare, just apologized a thousand times, thanked me, and walked off. Exotic looks, too." Kurama seemed to trail off on the last sentence, tossing his hair onto his back.
Keiko thought she heard an underlying tone of vanity and flirtatiousness in his voice, but she supposed it was her imagination. She remembered his comment about exotic looks, wondering if he could be talking about one of her roommates. "What do you mean by that?"
"Her hair was blue and her eyes were sort of a pink-purple hue, and for all their strangeness they matched nicely." He mused, staring off into space.
Keiko's eyes widened. "Botan ran into you?"
Yusuke was laughing loudly in between the conversing pair.
Kurama glanced at her. "Botan, ne? A nice name for a girl, now that you mention it."
"She looked like she was having trouble with those books in Literature," Keiko thought aloud, returning to work on the review. Chapter seven had seemed to bring up a memory to her, and she remembered that memory now: Keiko was terrible at parabolas, if she was reminiscing correctly.
Yusuke had stopped laughing and was staring over her shoulder. Keiko didn't notice him for a while. "You need something?" She asked, amused.
He didn't answer, just looking at her paper. "Yusuke…?"
"What's a…pair-uh-bowl-uh?"
Kurama and Keiko both laughed and he turned bright red. "Shut up! I haven't had any of this crap!"
"Yusuke, it's called a parabola," Kurama informed him. "Surely you didn't skip so much that you missed that,"
"Let me tell you, skipping was so much more fun that learning about…para…bola…s!"
Keiko let the boys duke it out, watching Yusuke intently. He was as much of a mystery, probably even more, than Kazuma was. Her first analogy was that he was two extremes at once, and in the past few days he'd seemed to her like an abused child- totally innocent and yet completely scarred.
Yes, he was interesting indeed.
"Eh, whatever," Yusuke concluded, taking a relaxed position once more. "Beating up high school kids was definitely more rewarding at the time."
Very interesting.
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"And, students, go over to the man standing in the corner to sign up to run for office," The woman on the podium said as students began to stand up and walk towards the said person. "Speeches will be in a week. Thanks for attending and good luck!"
Keiko rushed over to the man, ending up fifth in line. She was quickly up at the top.
"Name, miss?" The man asked.
"Yukimura Keiko, sir," She replied, peering down at his clipboard as he wrote her name in four perfect symbols.
"And your office?"
"Class president," Keiko announced proudly. He jotted that down and gave her the nod. She walked out the nearest pair of double doors and to the right, to her dormitory.
She noticed Yusuke leaning up against the wall and waved. "Yuu-kun!"
He did nothing but look at her as she walked up to him. "What are you doing out here?"
"Purposely tripping people and watching their stuff fall on the floor," He answered, laughing at the look of shock on her face. "For the girls, I blow up the skirts. I saw you smirking like a molester in study hall and figured you'd be here, so I-"
The sound of her slap echoed through the hallway. She gritted her teeth, making a noise she hoped sounded cutthroat. He was rubbing his cheek but still smiling slightly. "I was lying. I only tripped a guy once. The other part…"
Keiko continued her attempt to look threatening. "You do know you look like a complete idiot," He told her.
She grabbed his hand and started walking. "You know, just for that, let's walk down to my room together,"
He tried to pry her fingers off of his hand, but she wouldn't let go. "You can't make me do this! I'll look like a complete softie!" He screamed, while being dragged across the hallway.
Keiko smirked back at him. "You know, Yusuke, girls tend to like romantic guys. Look at Kurama- he could probably overthrow all of the school and everyone would back him,"
He tried to form several different words at once after that, finally succumbing to Keiko and walking beside her, his face stoic. Seeing this, she led him speedily up the stairwell to the girl's dorms, but he still didn't change emotion. Keiko gave up and let go of his hand. He immediately dug both of his hands into his pockets, mumbling something to himself.
They were a few yards from Keiko's door, and she ran up to it, leaning against its whiteness. She began to turn the knob and smiled. "Thank you," She said, softly, as she slowly opened the door.
He barely made any sound, but nodded slightly and walked off. Keiko watched him go down the hallway, mesmerized until he became a speck disappearing down the stairs. A few moments after he was gone, she blinked, opening the door completely.
She walked in the room and Botan and Yukina immediately looked up from their card game at her.
"Where were you, Keiko-san?" Yukina asked. "You've been gone for half an hour after classes,"
"Eh, student council," Keiko replied, tossing her briefcase onto her bed. She walked over and sat next to Botan. "I'm going to run for president of the class,"
"President?" Botan said, "Wow! I'm sure you'll win- I haven't met anyone smarter."
She blushed. "I'm not so sure, but thanks. Could you deal me in?"
Botan nodded and dealt three new hands, flipping up a king of hearts.
"So, how was your day?"
End Chapter 7
Note 1: I really, really, really don't like the new review system. Let's just get that straight.
I'm going to be honest: This chapter is positively horrible. I'm a tad busy trying to write my second Christmas story, "Selfish", a Hatori/Mayuko story, but I decided that before starting that I would update this again. So, due to my very, very bad day today, I decided I would finish this today so I don't have to worry about it and can just relax. And so you guys can read a little more of my terrible story. –laughs-
So, anyway, don't tell me flat-out this chapter is horrible- I know that. Otherwise, go ahead and critique, but keep it light- I'm having a very bad start to my week.
Note 2: Thanks to these new story alert people!
Sailor Greeny, Takeno98, Forgotten-Heart, Feral Panda Chick, and…Silver Eyes Bright? The writer of "Downtown", one of the best Yusuke/Keiko stories I've read? Wow…-faints-
Until my next update, I cry, because, guess who lost…