Warnings: Language?
Lucky Child
Chapter 09:
"A Promise He'd Break"
"Dude. Are you doing your homework early?"
I jumped. The top of my head collided with the bottom of Yusuke's jaw; his teeth clacked together as pain electrified my scalp.
"Ow!" I said.
"Crap!" he said. He clutched his cheeks in both hands and threw himself across my bed. "Ouch! Your head's even harder than mine, you big nerd!"
I snagged a pillow off the bed and chucked it at him. He caught it and threw it back. I stuck out my tongue.
"It's harder than yours because I'm smarter than you," I said.
"Nah, just more stubborn. Remember how you always used to nag me about homework? It was like arguing with a donkey."
"Pretty sure you're the only ass here, Yusuke."
He cackled. "Don't let your mom hear you talk like that!"
I turned back to my work with a grumble. Yusuke was right—I had already finished my summer homework and was starting on my assignments for the actual schoolyear. Nerd alert. Not that this was challenging. 8th grade fractions, long division, basic algebra? I could do this in my head. I'd only have to start studying in earnest when we got to calculus in high school.
"Speaking of you being an enormous nerd, why'd you stop nagging me about homework, anyway?"
I looked at Yusuke from the corner of my eye. He lay with hands behind his head, foot crossed over one knee. The portrait of devil-may-care laziness I'd come to know, love, and (when he wasn't being an annoying ass) tolerate over the course of the last few years.
"Why?" I said. "Do you want me to start nagging you again?"
He shuddered. "No. No way. I'd rather eat a needle."
"That's what I thought." I wrote a new answer. "To answer your question, you never do your work no matter how much I nag, and nagging gets boring, so I stopped."
In truth, I was a little disappointed with myself for not nagging Yusuke the way Keiko had in the anime. Keeping Yusuke in line had been her job, after all. I had tried so hard at first to be just like Keiko when it came to Yusuke's homework, but try though I might, I just couldn't get my heart into it.
For fuck's sake, he and I had all the same opinions about school! I hated the same teachers he hated, had the same (lack of) desire to be stuck in a classroom as he did, and harbored the same disdain for our academic material as him. I mean, he hated the material because he was lazy and I hated it because it wasn't challenging, but still—same hate, if not different flavors.
Telling him not to feel those things would be hypocritical. And in the end, I wasn't his teacher, or his mother. That meant it wasn't my job to pester him about his schoolwork.
Right?
Or was it my job, after all, since I was now Keiko?
Was nagging another thing I was obligated to do?
Did I have to match the anime perfectly or not?
ARGH.
I'd been asking myself shit like this for 13 years. For all my efforts, I had precisely zero answers, and roughly a decade of existential-riddle-induced headaches.
Call it wishful thinking (and/or outright delusion, take your pick), but I comforted myself with the knowledge that even when Keiko had been at her nagging peak in the anime, she hadn't had any effect on Yusuke. Nagging seemed pointless in light of that. Why force myself to do something I hated when it wouldn't make a difference, anyway?
Or was I just making excuses?
Yeah, I was probably delusional.
I tried not to think about it.
(But while we're on the subject, did not nagging Yusuke count as breaking the rules? I still hadn't heard from Hiruko again, after all. Seems any rules I'd broken weren't big enough to warrant his attention. If he was even real. Maybe that one encounter had been a dream after all. I'd begun to doubt its legitimacy in the years that followed…)
"Anyway," I said. "I'm not your mother. It's not my job to nag."
"That's why I keep you around, Keiko," Yusuke said. He grinned, closing his eyes as he relaxed. "You're the best friend I could ever ask for."
"Damn straight. Oh, speaking of mothers—mine thinks you're up here doing homework, doesn't she?"
"Of course."
"You're going to get me in trouble one of these days."
"Who, you? The blessed child?"
I rolled my eyes. 'Blessed child' was a variation on one of my name's possible spellings, making his comment a bit of a pun. Generally I made most of the puns in this relationship, not him…
"You'd have to drop out entirely to disappoint them," he continued, "and even then, fat chance."
"You know that's not true."
"Do I, though? Your mom thinks you hung the moon."
Guilt stabbed hot and grating. I forced the feeling aside with a fake, breezy smirk.
"If you say so," I said.
Uncomfortable, I looked away and answered yet another math problem. Yusuke wasn't wrong. Ever since the guilt of stealing the real Keiko's existence sunk in, I'd made sure to do my absolute best in school for the benefit of my wonderful new parents. So far, I'd done a good job…not that doing well was hard. Elementary-school math was too simple to be difficult, learning English was sort of redundant since I already knew it, and I'd always loved science (had an above-perfect average in Honors biology in high school, though chemistry was a much different and less impressive story). The most difficult subject in this new life was Japanese history, but learning it hinged on reading comprehension and retention, and mine was pretty damn good. Reading had always been a favored hobby. I anticipated that I'd only start struggling academically once I reached calculus and chemistry. One of the perks of being reincarnated with intact memories was good academic performance, I guess.
Plus, Keiko's brain was just better than my old one. That helped a whole freaking lot.
I'd always been smart. In my past life I'd been that annoyingly lazy kid who got passing (though not great) grades without ever cracking a textbook. Intelligent, but not motivated. Meanwhile, Keiko's brain was a gigantic, enthusiastic sponge or something. I'd flat-out hated studying in my old life. Now, though, it felt almost meditative. And, somehow, fun.
Hell, Keiko was even coordinated. PE had never been easier than when I was Keiko. I could even dance well in her body. In my old one, I'd lost my balance while standing still, and an injury had rendered sports impossible when it gave me extensive nerve damage and arthritis in one arm, hand, and shoulder. Took me years to stop favoring that side of my body in Keiko's skin. My new parents had thought I was in pain as a child, but really, I was just becoming accustomed to pain's absence.
Anyway. Being Keiko made me a better person in a lot of ways. And good thing, too, because the Yukimuras deserved the best daughter possible.
They hadn't asked to have their real daughter stolen, after all.
I owed them more than they knew.
"Hey! Earth to Keiko!"
I snapped to attention. Yusuke nudged my chair with a toe.
"You zoned out," he said. "Take a break."
I eyed my homework. I mean, I was ahead in every subject, so…
"I have the new Nirvana album."
"WHAT?! Gimme!"
I all but tackled him when he pulled the CD from his jacket pocket. He held it above my head, taunting me, but eventually I drove my elbow into his ribs and let the album go. He knew better than to keep me from my music for too long.
What he didn't know is that this music was a remnant of my old life. I'd loved 90s grunge rock and metal Back in the Day (my affectionate term for the life I'd once lived). Those were my favorite musical genres, along with blues and rock n' roll country like Johnny Cash. Reborn in this world, I was alive at the time grunge bands were actually producing music—and it was fucking exciting, lemme tell ya. I had mentally catalogued when new Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Soundgarden albums would be released, and I waited for them like a dog under the dinner table, salivating for scraps. I'd become a real fixture at the local record store, that's for sure.
Oh. The record store. I shot Yusuke a suspicious glare. "You didn't shoplift this, did you?"
He looked at me innocently.
Too innocently.
I breathed a long sigh. "I'm going to pretend like I trust you for two seconds. Try not to ruin it."
"I make no promises."
Yusuke knew better than to admit he'd stolen the album. I loved these bands too much to not support those brought me comfort in the form of familiarity—and all these bands were familiar.
Of course, some bands from my old life didn't exist here. Metallica and Megadeath, for example, seemed to be represented by a hybrid band called "Megallica." A few other favorites from my old life had made the transition to this one with some odd changes here and there, too, but the Megadeath/Metallica mashup was the biggest aberration.
(Of course, these weird changes to music made me wonder about the truth of my appearance in the world of Yu Yu Hakusho. Was I in another reality entirely, or had I just gone back in time in my own world, somehow, with a few Yu Yu Hakusho-style additions as a result of my transition? What was the nature of this world in relation to my original plane of existence? How many differences were there between my old world and this new one, aside from the obvious inclusion of Yu Yu Hakusho characters?
Somehow I doubted I'd ever know the truth, unless Hiruko chose to make another appearance. And at this point I was pretty convinced I'd never see him again.)
"You really love that band," Yusuke said as I loaded the CD into my Walkman (somehow there were Walkmans in this era, when in my old world those didn't come around until the mid-90s). His smile was as wicked as it was jovial. "Hey, what would those goodie-two-shoes friends of yours at school think of your little obsession?"
He nodded at the black and gold Megallica poster above my bed, Kurt Cobain by my closet, and Johnny Cash flipping the bird on the back of my bedroom door where my mother wouldn't see it (hey, I was originally from Texas; old country music, greats like Cash and Keane and Haggard, was in my blood). The rest of the room was pastel and clean, just like Keiko's room in the anime. Those posters didn't fit Keiko's image at all—certainly not the squeaky clean one she (or rather, I) put on at school.
I'd managed to make two friends at school, since my parents told me I had to. Hayashi-san and Tojo-san. They were nice girls (the same ones from the anime, judging by their hairstyles) but were both pretty typical teenage girls. Definitely not the type to like American grunge rock, or tolerate their straight-laced friend attending the occasional punk concert. Best to hide my hobbies rather than suffer their disdain, and wear my Keiko-face-persona like camouflaging armor.
Ugh. Being two-faced was exhausting. Why couldn't I just be me?
"Seriously!" Yusuke was saying. "I don't know anybody who likes those bands as much as you do. What would your friends say if they knew you were secretly a metal-head?"
"If you're planning on blackmailing me, I'll deny everything." I jerked my chin toward the window. "The usual spot?"
"Duh," Yusuke said. He grabbed his school satchel from its spot by the door and gestured at the window with it. "After you."
"What, so you can ogle my underpants while I climb out? I don't think so. You first."
"There you go, always spoiling my fun."
"Speaking of things that aren't fun—why are you bringing your school bag onto the roof?"
He smirked. "You'll see."
Yusuke clambered out the window ahead of me, and then we helped each other climb up the roof, ascend to the tallest rafter, and climb over it toward the back of the house. We sat directly above my parents' bedroom, overlooking the backyard and the labyrinth of drainage ditches and bayous beyond it. Greenery rose toward the twilit sky, leaves backlit by the setting sun so they glowed like chips of jade. When night fully fell, the city would light up at our feet like stardust in the gloom. No one could see us from the street, and since the next mile behind the house was all ditch and undeveloped woods, it was basically the most private spot Yusuke and I had ever found.
This was our spot. The place we went to get away, and sit in companionable silence.
Turns out silence was something Yusuke was rather good at, when he wasn't being an annoying teen.
Yusuke opened his schoolbag and triumphantly showed me the contents. I groaned and clapped a hand to my forehead.
"We'll fall and hit our heads and die," I lamented.
"Yeah, but we'll die happy," he said. "C'mon. Want one?"
I took one of the beers in his bag and popped the tab. I recognized the brand as his mother's favorite, cheap and strong and so-so flavor. Clearly he'd stolen it from her. Went down smooth enough despite the theft, I guess. One was enough to make Keiko's body thrum, languid and heavy, but not enough to impede her agility. I sipped my beer as Yusuke guzzled his. When he cracked open a second, I cautioned him against falling to his death again.
"Oh. My. God," he said. "Keiko. Lighten up!" He knocked his can against mine. "Think of it this way. I fall off the roof and die, you'll finally get some peace and quiet around here. Cheers to that, right?"
His easy smile did nothing to soothe me. My mouth dropped open in horror.
"No. Not cheers to that," I said. "Yusuke, you don't really think—"
"Holy shit, Keiko, relax. It was a joke." When he pouted, he looked like a kid again. "You barely bat an eye at underage drinking, but I can't make a joke without you blowing up!"
Thing is, his words didn't feel like a joke. When he died in the anime, he really thought the world would be better off without him. This was unacceptable. Hadn't I done a better job impressing his importance to me? How could he not know he was wanted?
How badly had I failed this kid?
"Yusuke—I don't want to hear you talking like that again," I said.
His hands went up. "Sheesh, last time I tell a joke around you!" Shoulders hunched as he glared at me from the corner of his eye. "For someone with such great grades, you'd think you'd study a sense of humor sometime."
It was my turn to glare. "Yusuke."
"Think taking a joke will be part of the curriculum this year?" he asked. "Eighth grade starts next month. They should make you take that class. Maybe finally you'd stop getting perfect grades, huh?"
The wind whispered through the tree above us. Cicadas screeched in the dark of the oak's spreading branches. Most nights I found the summer cicadas comforting. They reminded me of Texas, way out in the wild country where I'd been raised.
Tonight, though, they merely sounded frightened—insects screaming as they shed their shells, squirming forth into a new, unknown world.
8th grade. That's when Yusuke was destined to die.
That eventuality had seemed so far away for so long, and now it was almost here. Just weeks away, maybe.
Was I prepared?
Was Yusuke?
Forcing myself to sound casual, I shot another joke back at him. "Maybe they'll make me take a sense of humor class, but you should take a course on basic human responsibility."
Yusuke rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to rib at me—but then he looked me in the eye. Whatever he saw there stopped him cold. His head pulled back while he blinked, confused by and suspicious of something I couldn't name.
"Keiko…why do you look like you're about to throw up?" he said.
I looked away. Damn. Still a shit actress, even in this life.
"I just—look, Yusuke. I know you hate it when people get mushy, but you keep me sane. You're pretty much the one person I can be myself around."
I glanced up. Yusuke stared like I'd just sprouted a second head, eyes practically bugging from his skull. I almost smiled.
Almost.
"With Mom and Dad, I've gotta be the perfect daughter," I told him. "At school I have to be the perfect student. Class rep, great grades, you get the idea."
He snorted. "Must be hard, being so perfect."
"Actually, yeah. More than you know." I dragged a knee to my chest and hugged it, fingers digging into my thigh. "I feel like a liar."
"You are a liar," Yusuke said, not knowing just how right he was. He nudged me with an elbow. "You're nowhere near as perfect as people think. Remember that one time I put glue on Iwamoto's seat?"
My lips curled. "How could I forget?"
Iwamoto had immediately suspected Yusuke when he sat in a puddle of superglue, since Yusuke had been berated by him earlier that afternoon for poor attendance. He had come marching into our class with the chair sticking awkwardly to his ass, face an alarming shade of puce. And then they'd found the glue in Yusuke's school bag…
"Only reason I didn't get expelled is because you gave me an alibi," Yusuke said.
"A fake one." I laughed as wind rustled by, as cool and calming as Yusuke's presence. "Iwamoto would never suspect I'd lie to him. You'd've been screwed without me."
"Yup. And that makes you a liar." He chuckled. "You lie every time you walk in the school gates."
I frowned. Yusuke gave me a look that said he didn't think my confusion was genuine.
"It's like watching you put on a mask. One minute you're Keiko, the next you're…school-Keiko." He smirked. "All smiley and helpful and patient and bullshit. And then the bell rings and we walk home and you're a total bitch."
"Yeah, I'm two-faced," I said. Yusuke yelped when I punched him in the shoulder. "See? This is why I need you! I can be the not-at-school version of me when I'm with you. I can play pranks with you. Drink beer on a roof." I gestured at my Walkman, sitting silent by my side. "Listen to Megallica albums."
"Which we haven't even started playing yet, by the way," Yusuke said, ruefully.
"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. I hugged my knee again, hand slipping around my lukewarm beer. "Just…if my mom saw us up here, she'd be disappointed. My friends at school wouldn't like me."
"So?" Yusuke asked. He chugged his beer, crushed the can, and tossed it into the bayou beyond the roof. "Screw 'em! I don't let anyone tell me what to do or who to be."
His bravado was oddly encouraging, not that I'd tell him that. His head would swell.
"And that's working out great for you," I snarked.
"Well, I've got you, don't I?"
It wasn't often Yusuke paid me compliments. But right then, he looked at me with an oddly open earnestness, one that froze me in my place. My mouth fell open. I wasn't used to sincerity from this jerk. Yusuke and I stared at once another for a long, long moment, one broken only by the cicadas screeching in the background. His brown eyes gleamed black like slick oil in the near-dark.
"Seems I'm doing OK, if I've got you," he said. His voice was softer than normal. "Right?"
"Yeah," I said. "That's right."
The moment, whatever it was, stretched thin. He looked away. I looked away, too, out at the sun setting above the ditches and undeveloped woods. A flock of birds took flight a dozen yards away with a riot of calls. The dark smudges of their bodies dappled the pink and gold horizon—soot spilled on the colors of dusk.
"Can we just listen to the tape already?" Yusuke murmured.
"Not yet."
I balanced my tepid beer on the sloping roof, turned, and grabbed Yusuke by the collar with both hands. He squirmed and whined and tried to scoot away, but I shifted so I was kneeling on the shingles, looming over him and glaring like a playground bully.
"Yusuke. Promise me something," I demanded.
"If it's to take you to prom, the answer is no."
"I'm being serious."
"I know. You're always serious."
"Yusuke."
He calmed at my tone. Our eyes met again. The same stillness descended, thick and charged. Some of his hair had fallen into his eyes. I resisted the urge to brush it aside. I resisted the urge to tell him to get better hair gel, his was ineffective and dumb.
"Promise me you'll be careful," I said. "Promise me that if you need help, you'll ask me. That you'll never lie to me if you're in trouble." I forced a smile, cracked and broken. "Don't be like me. Don't have two faces. Just have one, and always show it to me exactly as it is."
"Keiko," he said.
My voice broke. "I need you too much for you to keep things from me. OK?"
It was pathetic, how much I relied on this punk. But what I'd said earlier was true: around Yusuke, I could be a version of myself that wasn't totally artificial. I could like the music I liked without apology. I could swear, and say crass things, just let loose and—
Yusuke's hands wrapped around mine. He eased my hands off his collar, making me sit back on the roof tiles. Then he picked up my Walkman, pressed PLAY, and shoved an earbud in my direction. The street light switched on, on the other side of the house. It turned his features a shade of silver that made him look like a ghost.
He'd be a literal ghost soon.
Talk about foreshadowing.
"OK," he said, oblivious to my observation. "Fine, I promise. I won't lie to you." His mouth curled into an annoyed smirk. "Now can we listen to this album already?"
Sensing that was as much earnestness as I'd get from Yusuke in one night, I said yes.
I let myself lie contentedly beside him on our favorite rooftop, Kurt Cobain's voice humming tinny through the darkness, and enjoy the presence of the boy who allowed me to be myself.
But his earnest promise gave me no comfort, because I knew it was a promise he'd break.
NOTES:
MANY MANY MANY thanks to those who reviewed. I'm honestly surprised at the feedback this story has received. You're rockstars: DarkDust27, xenocanaan, FireDancerNix, Mein Benutzername, randomvirus, DiCuoreAllison (Muchas gracias por los comentarios y el estímulo! Lo siento por mi gramática!), Marian (Estoy muy contento de que estés de acuerdo con su decisión! Lo siento por mi gramática!), Kuroyuki no Ryu, and reebajee!
