Moonlight Sonata
By Luna Stop Swearing
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed all the past chapters of Moonlight Sonata! Most of your comments were on how short my chapters were... ^^;; I'm sorry about that! I thought chapters in bite-size pieces were more convenient for both the reader (and the writer ^__^V), but apparently not. I'll try to make them longer, but the catch is they might take a while, since I have periodical exams are coming up next week. You have been forewarned. Other ramblings located at the bottom.
A/N2: Hats off to my muses, who made future chapters possible, and made me conquer bouts of indecision, Allence of the Weed and B(ogart)-chan! *Takes off hat*
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.
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Episode 3: Vivace, Vivo, Vite
Homeroom class wasn't exactly as enthralling as anyone hoped it would be, but at least with Fuyutsuki-sensei, she kept them awake. Smiling brightly as she entered the room with her attendance books and other teacher paraphernalia, she said, "Okay people, settle down. I suppose you all have heard the news of your prom."
"Fuyutsuki-sensei, what is a prom?"
Azusa Fuyutsuki, as well as all the homeroom teachers of the seniors, had gone through extensive training just to be able to get an idea as to what a 'prom' was. They themselves had not experienced such a thing in their youth. 'Extensive training' basically meant sleeping over at Onizuka's 'house' one Friday night with several stacks of American movies that catered to young teenage girls, and reading several American magazines like Seventeen that had the words 'PROM FEVER' on the cover in big, bright, bold letters. And she had to endure several hours of staring into a flashlight reciting prom do's and don'ts until Onizuka was satisfied.
"Well, a prom is a party where you all wear fancy gowns and suits. It's uncommon for Seirin to have such events, but the younger teachers suggested it to Commissioner Sakurai, who agreed. It's supposed to encourage relations among the batch. As you all know, it is to be held on the 24th of March, a week before graduation, in the school gym. That's a Friday, so we won't have any classes in the morning so you can prepare, and the prom itself will start at 6:30 in the evening..."
"That's two weeks from now, isn't it?" Chikako Shirai asked Saeko Iijima, who nodded in response.
Their seating arrangement hadn't arranged since junior high; when there were new students, they were just asked to sit in the back row so they wouldn't disturb the arrangement. Kikuchi Yoshito, in his usual place by the window, wasn't listening to Fuyutsuki-sensei explain other details of the prom. He pushed the bridge of his glasses higher up his nose. He, like so many other times in his life, was extremely bored. Bored out of his skull type of bored, the kind where you would shoot yourself just to be amused by the fountains of blood gushing out of your body.
Nothing much could be said about Kikuchi, if change was concerned. Same 'ol, same 'ol. He still enjoyed smoking, online chatting, Photoshopping porn for Onizuka (he once tried teaching Onizuka how to do it himself but quickly gave up because Onizuka kept excusing himself to go jack off, sometimes not even making it to the bathroom), and generally being around computers. Not caring much for his appearance (as long as he didn't look like Frankenstein's monster, that was fine by him), he looked the same. 'Gel' was not in his vocabulary. Neither was 'contacts.'
Prom was just a trivial matter in the way of graduation and his entrance into the 'real world.' He knew what a prom was, and the whole idea of it seemed so retarded to him. So a hundred or so teenagers come to the school gym wearing expensive, saucy gowns and stiff tuxedos, several million yen's worth of foreign perfume and aftershave, and a minimum of ten pounds of jewelry. Dinner, dancing. Many young people also lost their virginity towards the end of the affair, when they'd downed enough piña coladas the equivalent of half a bottle of vodka. How bourgeois, he thought.
Clack.
Kikuchi recognized that as the all-too-familiar 'ballpen-falling-on-floor' sound, made by students who had reached the apex of boredom and indifference. He propped up his elbow on the table and rested his head on it, looking for the culprit. In a nanosecond, Urumi bent down and picked up the black G-Tec on the floor, sat back up, and resumed twirling it expertly with her fingers, as she always did when she found what was being discussed to be boring (which was most of the time). He watched on in fascination, as this seemed the lesser of both evils: it was either watching Kanzaki or counting the pimples on the back of Jun Morales' neck.
"So will we be wearing kimonos, Fuyutsuki-sensei?" Fukuda Honda inquired.
"No, you will be wearing Western-style dresses. You will have your hair styled nicely and have makeup on. The boys will be wearing suits. It is also customary for boys to ask girls to the prom, and to buy them flowers and things to pin on their dresses. A DJ will take care of the music, and the food will be catered by the Tokyo Intercontinental. Honestly, I haven't been to one of those things. Onizuka-sensei just made us watch a lot of American teen movies with proms in them, like 10 Things I Hate About You, and we took notes. Any other questions?"
As there were none, she removed the rubber band off of a pile of thick pamphlets. The top half was colored baby pink, the bottom half was navy blue. She separated the two colors, holding the baby pink set of pamphlets in one hand, and the navy blue set in the other. "President? Vice President? Can you distribute these, please? Navy blue for boys, pink for girls."
Urumi, being the class president, stood up, rather languidly, as if savoring the feel of the desk. It could be likened to a sleep-deprived person being awaken at 5:00 A.M. Kikuchi, being the vice-president, also rose and walked over to Ms. Fuyutsuki's desk to get the navy blue pamphlets. They both distributed the pamphlets as energetically-less as possible, like walking mush. When they were done with the distributions, they each took a pamphlet, gave the extras to Ms. Fuyutsuki, and sat back down.
"Okay, people, these pamphlets are prom guides, for both boys and girls, and will give you insights on what to do during a prom…"
People were no longer paying attention to her, but were excitedly yammering amongst themselves as to whom they would take to the prom, and scanning the pamphlets. The boys had separated themselves from the girls, the boys occupying the north portion of the classroom and the girls the south. The boys mainly talked about who they were planning to ask (with backups in case they said no), while the girls discussed what they were going to wear and who they would like to ask them to the prom.
"And it begins," Azusa Fuyutsuki smiled wearily. Noticeable about her now was her hair, now long and tied in a neat ponytail. And her cheeks were rosier. One could say she was 'blooming.' Maybe it was because of Onizuka-sensei. Sadly, this new aura about her hadn't done anything for her chest. Onizuka didn't seem to mind, though.
Glancing around the room, she saw exactly 5 people not participating in any of the huddling and whispering and giggling. She wasn't exactly surprised to see them in their own little worlds. Gunji Mishima, Haruo Tokida, Mokuba Shirai, the Gundam Otaku, were bitching about how much of a sellout Gundam Wing was, while Urumi and Kikuchi merely stood by the open window and gazed at the scenery. It was nothing much, actually, just the view of the school quadrangle where they usually had their P.E. classes when they did sprinting, laps, or hurdles. They saw Fukuroda in his red jogging pants (rumor was that he never washed them) and gray exercise shirt. He was yelling at a bunch of freshman girls to hurry up with their laps, whilst slapping their asses gleefully. When he thought no one was looking, he sniffed his hand and rubbed it on his face.
If passivity were an Olympic event, Urumi could have represented Japan. Kikuchi could be her coach. Or vice versa. She just stared at Fukuroda, inwardly feeling sorry for the girls who had to go through the ordeal. She never had to take a single day of P.E., thankfully. All she had to do was pretend she had cramps and go to the nurse's office. Naoko Moritaka, the school nurse, knew that she was faking, and knew the reason why Urumi avoided P.E., and sympathized with her. Fukuroda had harassed her before, too.
"Are you going, Kikuchi-kun?" She tore off a page from her pamphlet and skillfully made a paper airplane. Then, taking a sharp pin from the hem of her skirt, she attached it to the tip of the airplane and threw the plane at Fukuroda. It hit his butt. He howled, and looked around for the perpetrator. Kanzaki waved, smiling brightly. Kikuchi merely looked on in approval.
"KISAMA, URUMI KANZAKI!!!!!!!!!" Swearing was as far as any teacher would go with her. After venting, Fukuroda then ran towards the direction of the clinic.
"I don't think I'd have the capability to enjoy it. And you?"
"I don't know yet. Probably the same reason as you, but as you said, I must try to enjoy things at the level of our peers."
Azusa saw them talking and wistfully thought what a cute couple the two geniuses made, and wished they would get together sometime. Maybe in time for the prom... Then she quickly remembered the other details she had to iron out before she dismissed them for lunch. "Minna-san?" Fuyutsuki-sensei called out tentatively. "Minna-san?" Realizing this was going nowhere, she banged her shoe on the table (a trick Onizuka had taught her a long time ago) and yelled out, "OI!!!"
This captured everyone's attention and the students rushed back to their seats.
"Thank you. Before I dismiss you for lunch, I would like to say that attendance is compulsory. Your participation in the prom counts as your project grades in homeroom, social studies, and PE…"
Collective groans erupted throughout the room.
Fuyutsuki-sensei smiled sympathetically. "Come on guys, it's not that bad. Oh yes, and two committees are being formed to take charge of certain aspects of the prom. There's the decorations committee and the main prom committee. The main prom committee will take charge of the theme for the prom, and certain trivial details. If anyone wants to volunteer for any of the committees, just raise your hand…"
Silence. They just blinked at her.
"O-kay…I'm sorry guys, but then I'll just pick out people-" More groans from the assembly. "Gunji, Haruo, Mokuba, Yoshikawa, Mayu, Anko, Tomoko, Megumi, Chikako, Saeko, main prom committee. Kikuchi, Urumi, Murai, Kusano, Miyabi, Fujiyoshi, Mayako, Naoko, decorations committee." While each person was being called, he or she showed some sign of pure displeasure at being chosen. Fuyutsuki-sensei didn't like forcing people to do what they didn't like, but that was what the faculty had agreed on. What Onizuka-sensei had forced them to agree on, anyway. "Please coordinate with the committee members of the other sections after lunch in the library until 2:30, after which you are supposed to return to your classrooms for the rest of your classes. That is all, you may now have your lunch."
The chosen students mumbled about how unfair life was and narrated to thin air (or to some very unlucky spectators) all the things they could be doing aside from planning a prom for a hundred-shy ingrates they called batchmates. The Gundam Otaku, however, tried to be optimistic, especially when Haruo voiced his idea.
"Maybe we can have a cosplay prom!"
"Yeah! I can go as Heero Yuy!"
"Baka, you're too fat to be Heero!"
"Not to mention ugly!"
"You can be-"
Miyabi Aizawa rolled her eyes as she, Mayako, and Naoko passed by them. Miyabi had dyed her hair back to its original color, after having to endure endless months of being called Rei Ayanami by Onizuka. She was a much friendlier person now, as she no longer lived with either of her parents, but with an independent elder cousin whom she liked. "If we're going to have a prom, it has to be fancy dress. I refuse to attend a prom that forces me to dress up like a silly anime character!"
"Kanzaki? You're shaking," Kikuchi pointed out. He was standing by her desk, his bento in his hand, the other one balancing him as he leaned against Hikaru Midorikawa's table. Every day, they had the same, unspoken ritual: Every lunch period, he would get his bento and wait for her to get hers. Together, they would meet up with Murai and the rest of the gang on the roof.
Urumi had overheard this too (since silence was not a virtue of the Gundam Otaku), and had the same feeling she had, three years ago, back in Okinawa, when she was forced to share a room with the three of them. Her eyes widened until they resembled those of a madwoman. She roughly shook Kikuchi's shoulders. "If they're going to have a cosplay prom, they're going to call me 'Sara-chan' again! I can't take any more Gundam, Kikuchi-kun! Three straight days of Gundam three years ago is enough Gundam for the rest of your life!"
After the trip to Okinawa several years ago, Urumi had told him about her ordeal with the three freaks who kept calling her 'Sara,' who apparently was a character from a Gundam series (Kikuchi himself had never been a fan, but he knew for sure that Yoshikawa was, and Onizuka may have been). She went on and on about how they kept talking and playing games, and how she couldn't understand a single word being exchanged, and how they kept calling her 'Sara.' That was enough to drive her to her wits' end. It didn't help much that in her last year at Seirin, they became classmates.
Apparently only driving motorcycles off of unfinished suspension bridges and anything Gundam were the only things guaranteed to rile Kanzaki's nerves. She grabbed her bento from her bag and ran to the rooftop before the Gundam Otaku or Kikuchi could say anything.
~*~*~*~*~
Will Seirin Private High School Batch 2004 have a cosplay prom? Where the hell is Onizuka-sensei? Will he be in the next chapter? Who the heck is 'Sara' and from what Gundam series is she from? Can someone please tell me? Is this long enough for you? All this and more in the next episode of…Moonlight Sonata! Stay tuned!
A/N: Attention, readers! The rating for _Moonlight Sonata_ might go up. Things will happen to our favorite characters. Some deliciously evil, evil things that are not rated PG13. If you don't see this fic next week when you go to the GTO section (target update date: March 21), don't despair, I haven't taken it down. Just check the R section. I apologize to the younger readers who have filtering software and things like that, but these things must happen. 'Tis the law of the fanfic writer. ^__^V
What else… ah yes! We will have fanart! *Cackles* Yes, I have commissioned Allence of the Weed to do several drawings of Kikuchi/Kanzaki. I'll post the links soon, when she gets them done and I figure out how to use the G-D'ed scanner. Lastly, yay! I've learned how to put stuff in bold and italics in my fics! I also apologize to Sir Isaac Newton.
Right… *cracks knuckles* Let's get started on them reviews:
Angel-wing2: Yeah, I'll try to make my chapters longer! I'll try to upload at least 1000+ words with every chapter, how's that? And yep, Kikuchi/Urumi: Ultimate Power Couple, The L337. 'Nuff said.
Allence of the Weed: Em… what bad habits? There are so many that I cannot decipher the idiosyncrasies that are making us experience this quagmire! [/private joke]
Elle30: Yes, be among one of the millions amazed… a Kikuchi/Kanzaki fanfic, finally! ^_~
Mari Kreuz: Nasaan na si Onizuka? Si Onizuka ay… nasa likod mo! Nyek, corny. Putsa, hindi ko nga alam kung anong kagaguhan 'yung mangyayari… prom! Santissima, prom! Mi ako nga, walang alam 'diyan! Nagbabasa na nga ako ng Candy eh, research. Oh yeah, do you have a blog? I think I stumbled upon it while doing research for Moonlight Sonata. If you do, is the theme pink? And does it have the lyrics to Sugar Rush by A*Teens?
Scarlet: What's more, they censor the stuff on the weekdays. I'm not sure about episodes on the weekends. I stopped watching after my friend told me that they started chopping it up. Sadly, I'll be somewhat preoccupied, exams coming up and all. But I'll update more frequently during the summer.
Aeris: Glad you thought the Kikuchi/Kanzaki moment in the last chapter wasn't cheesy. The first draft of that chapter seemed so wrong, so I rewrote the whole scene.
Riyuji.Raicho: Wow, a new name here! Sugoi! ^__^V Is 'nice and slow' meant in a negative or sarcastic way? Just wondering. Thank you for your interest!
Ayce Shade: Yeah, everyone seems to be complaining about the shortness of my chapters…They are 17 right now, which means that this fic is set three years later.
Tanya-crest: Thanks, everybody's been saying that about my chapters… hope this one was long enough for everyone! And as for the feel of the original series… well, **sigh** I tried.
Cryxxy-Chan: Yay! Someone figured it out! It's sort of an experimental thing for me. I've used that theme in two fanfics already (the first being a Love Hina one and martial arts-themed). In music, you describe the pace or rhythm of the music. I just used the terms to describe the flow of the story-whether it's fast, slow, or what. It's to your advantage if you know what the term means.
Kairi21: Sure, I'll check out your fics… but I don't know what Threads of Fate is, neither do I play Ragnarok Online… hehe, sorry, pare. About the Yoshikawa/Anko fic… I'll definitely try something of the sort. Not now, since Moonlight Sonata's already taking a long time to tweak, but probably after I finish it. I'll see what my muses and I can come up with. If you're craving for some Y/A action, check out Embrace by Anko-Yoshikawa for the meantime. Seems to be the only Y/A fic so far on FF.Net. Pinoy din yung sumulat 'nun.
Oh, and if anyone wants a transcript of all the Filipino being exchanged here (I tend to leak out plot lines in Filipino, nasty habit), just say so and I'll put translations in the next chapter. Ja!