Warnings: None
Lucky Child
Chapter 10:
"Do You Two Know Each Other?"
Halfway through our first semester of the eighth grade, Megallica released a set of rare B-sides from their latest studio album.
I, of course, was fucking stoked.
In a flash I ordered a copy from my favorite music store. The day it came in, I waited outside the shop until the business opened so I could be first in line to purchase the record. Apparently a bunch of people had inquired about the album in the past week; I didn't want my copy taken out from under my nose. I marched in as soon as the doors opened, walked up to the counter, and demanded my quarry be delivered unto me. The shop owner Masuo—who knew my name as well as my musical preferences by now—chuckled, made a crack about my enthusiasm, and jerked a head toward the record stacks after I paid for my purchase.
"Got a listening station set up with those headphones you like," he said.
"That's music to my ears—oh, ha! Pun intended."
He groaned. "That was terrible."
"Yeah. You might say I'm…causing treble."
"Get out." He pointed at the door. "Get out of my store."
"Don't be a fermata."
He looked confused.
"You know…holding my puns against me."
Masuo cringed as if physically pained. "Yukimura, if you weren't such a good customer, I'd kick you out for that."
I laughed, then absconded with my puns to the album section.
In this shop, well-known and popular albums were set up at stations where you could wear a pair of (super nice) headphones and listen to the album, to see if you wanted to purchase it. I bee-lined for the smallest listening station near the back of the store, hidden behind shelves of vinyl and CDs. American metal wasn't particularly popular in Japan in this era, but Masuo had cornered the local market on its distribution and always made sure to keep it in stock for the local metalheads. Even kept that one secluded listening station supplied with tunes for my ilk. Good guy, that Masuo. I made a mental note to thank him as I rounded the corner of a shelf, excited to finally listen to—
There was no way to avoid colliding with the guy. One second I was walking, the next I was face to face with a broad chest. I backpedaled but it was too late. I bounced off the guy like a ping-pong ball off a brick wall. Somehow I kept my feet under me, though, and when I looked up—
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Kuwabara Kazuma. His narrow eyes curved round with worry, blocky hands held up in clear apology. "I didn't see you!"
"Um," I said, because I'm eloquent and articulate and awesome.
Kuwabara had grown quite a bit since I'd seen him as a kid—not that that was a surprise. I'd caught a few glimpses of him around the Sarayashiki school campus, but since we were in different classes, I hadn't managed to get a good look at anything but the back of his head. Now I beheld him in all his towering glory, pompadour the color of a ripe carrot (seems he'd finally found his anime sense of style), chiseled features set in a pose of intense, sheepish panic. He'd lost a lot of baby fat over the years. Those cheekbones could cut you if you weren't careful.
Oddly, he didn't look nearly as…well, homely as he had in the anime. I mean the hair certainly wasn't doing him any favors (the Yankee look didn't do anyone any favors) but the transition from animation to reality had done several. He looked a bit like an awkward teenage version of that one guy from Wolverine and Chicago Med—Brian Tee, I think? It had been years; I couldn't remember exactly what he'd looked like. Regardless, Kuwabara had a long face, a defined jaw, great cheekbones, and eyes like laser beams (ones currently trained on my face). Give him a few years to grow into his features, he might turn out to be handsome like Brian. Or something. Keep in mind I wasn't feeling the most expressive just then…
"Are you OK?" he asked. His hands wandered through the air, like they wanted to do something productive but had no fucking clue how to accomplish that feat of engineering. "Really, I didn't see you and—wait."
Kuwabara stopped talking. His eyes narrowed, his mouth screwed up into a cartoonish purse, and he leaned down to get a better look at—my face, I guess? I hated how short I was in Keiko's body. She was a scant five foot four. In my old life, I'd stood at a statuesque five foot ten. I was accustomed to looming over other people, not the other way 'round. I couldn't help but squirm where I stood, uncomfortable under Kuwabara's intense scrutiny. Damn, he was tall for a fourteen year old!
My discomfort intensified when I wondered if it was possible he'd recognize me.
Did he remember the playground incident after all these years?
"Hey," Kuwabara said. Suspicion filled every line of his sharp face. "Don't I know you?"
"Um," I said. Seems I had not, in fact, developed elocution in the last eight seconds. My heart beat like horses hooves, adrenaline filling my chest with heaviness. "I don't think—"
"Oh, yeah!" Kuwabara interjected. He snapped his fingers and pointed, eyes glittering like onyx. "You go to my school, don't you? The representative of class B?"
That…was not what I expected him to say. Seems he didn't remember the volcano incident in the park, after all. My heart rate eased (but something in the back of my mind darkened with disappointment I didn't care to examine too closely).
"Class A, actually," I said. "But yeah. You're in class C, right?"
"Yup! Name's Kuwabara Kazuma. And you're…" He paused, then triumphantly declared: "You're Yukimura! Yukimura…um…"
Suddenly the guy looked less sure of himself. Big, lovable lunkhead. I suppressed a smile.
"Yukimura Keiko," I said.
"Right, right!" He frowned. "You lookin' for somethin' back here?"
"The new Megallica B-sides. The station is still back here, right?"
Dark eyes widened. "Well, yeah! You like Megallica?"
I lifted my shopping bag. "Enough to buy it on CD and vinyl."
"What?! I didn't know it came on vinyl! I just got the CD!" He craned his head, looking over me toward the front desk. One meaty fist rose into the air and shook. "Darn it, Masuo! Why didn't you tell me!? I didn't save enough of my allowance for both!"
I almost laughed at his enthusiasm. He was just as dramatic as his depiction in the anime, that's for sure.
"Well, you can borrow mine if you want," I said.
Kuwabara's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. Took him a minute to stutter a reply.
"Oh, n-no, I couldn't do that," he said. He waved those gigantic paws of his again. "It's OK, I really don't want to inconvenience—"
"It's no big deal." I smirked. "Just think of it this way. I know where you go to school, so if you run off with it, I know where to send the Yukimura Yakuza."
Kuwabara's hands dropped. One thin brow arched—and then his eyes widened again.
"Oh—ha!" Seems he realized I was just joking. "That's funny. The Yukimura Yakuza. Nice one." He scratched at the back of his neck, looking at me sidelong. "Gotta say, I wouldn't peg you for a Megallica fan. It's pretty heavy metal, and you're—"
He stopped. I waited for him to continue. He did not. Instead, he averted his eyes and looked as awkward as a beached whale. But I filled in the blanks, and I didn't like what I saw. Please don't be sexist, please don't be sexist…
"And I'm…what? A girl?" I said.
"What? No!" Kuwabara looked genuinely shocked. "I was gonna say because you're smart! Don't you take top spot on exams?" He crossed his arms, chin lifting into the air. "And anyway, my sister likes rock music and pant suits. Girls can like whatever they want and it doesn't make them any less of a girl. That's what she always says."
Leave it to Shizuru to not fuck around with gender norms, bless her. "Your sister sounds smart."
He looked around, a secret agent in a spy thriller. "Don't tell her I said this, because she'd never let me live it down, but…she is." His smile was both fond and aggravated—the smile of a sibling. "Likes to nag me a lot, but she means well."
At that, we lapsed into silence…and it somehow wasn't as awkward as one might expect. We just stood there, sort of nodding and smiling at each other in pleasant silence, until I noticed the package tucked under Kuwabara's arm. I recognized the wrapping from a bookstore up the street. Another favorite place of mine. But who'd have thunk Kuwabara was a big bookworm?
"What are you reading?" I asked.
"Oh—it's about cephalopods!" He beamed; the look echoed the way I felt inside, elation jumping because had Kuwabara just told me he was doing recreational reading about marine biology? "I think they're cool."
"Yeah. I like the mantis shrimp," I told him. "All those colors they can display. But my favorites are octopuses."
His beaming smile went supernova. "Yeah, yeah! They're so cool!" he gushed. "The chromatophores in their skin are—"
Next thing I knew, we were sitting at the coffee shop next door, two hours had passed, and we'd spent the entire time geeking out over Kuwabara's new book and the cephalopods therein.
…yeah.
Not really sure how that happened, but it did, and for a minute there it felt like I was back in my old life—sitting with my nerdy pals at a café, talking about nerdy things with wild, geeky abandon, letting the rest of the world pass by as we crafted our own little world of nerdiness.
It felt like going home, weirdly enough…once Kuwabara got over the fact he was getting coffee with a girl and calmed down enough to commence with the geekery. I had to assure him ten times that it was OK to get coffee together, and that yes, I did actually want to spend time talking with him about octopuses. Seems he was less comfortable making a friend out of the blue than I was (granted, he wasn't a stranger to me the way I was to him, but still).
"It's just that nobody really likes stuff like this but me," he said after we finished looking at his book. He stirred his mug of cocoa with a spoon, sullenly staring into its brown depths. "I mean, I've got friends and stuff, but they don't like cephalopods. It's nice to talk about this with someone."
"Do you read other kinds of books?"
"Nah, mostly just science. I mean, some science fiction is cool, but mostly I just like science. I started off with earth science and chemistry, but now biology is my favorite."
My mug of tea stopped halfway to my mouth.
He started with earth science and chemistry?
So…volcanos and baking soda?
"What about you?" he asked. "What's your favorite?"
"Biology for me, too." I sipped my tea and set my internal monologue aside for the moment. "So...you like science and Megallica, huh?"
"Weird combo, I know." He grinned, obviously proud of himself. "Most people peg me for a meathead, and yeah, my grades aren't great—but I like science!"
"I think that's pretty cool."
After Kuwabara thanked me, we lapsed into another silence. Like before, this one didn't feel uncomfortable. We stared out the café window as shoppers strolled down the sidewalk, watching them flow and weave around each other like fish in an aquarium. When I reached for my tea, my ankle shifted and brushed the bag sitting at my feet.
"Oh, I forgot." I pulled out the vinyl and held it up. "Do you still want to borrow this?"
This time, Kuwabara didn't fight me. He ducked his head and mumbled, "I mean, if it's OK…"
"Sharing is caring." My lips curled. "Us metalheads have to stick together."
"Thanks, Yukimura." Another bright beam. "You know, you're actually all right!"
My brow lifted. "Why do you sound surprised?"
He hunched, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Kuwabara was turning out to be quite the easy blusher, and when he felt nervous, he always rubbed the back of his neck. He was doing that then. Endearing. Getting to meet my favorite character in person was so cool. Just wait until I met Hiei…
"Just, you know," he said, still doing that nervous neck-rub. "You're the class rep, you've got good grades, your family owns a restaurant…"
(Wow, he really knew a lot about me, huh? Weird.)
"…the teachers love you, and even people in my class come to you for help on their homework. So…"
What he said was true. Hardly a free period went by in which someone didn't ask me for help with something at school. But what did that have to do with—?
Oh.
Oh, I got it.
My hands curled around my mug of tea, and I realized it had gone tepid.
"You thought I'd be stuck up," I said.
His blush deepened. Bingo. I was a little sad I'd guessed right. For my favorite character to think I was stuck up…
"I mean…but you're not stuck up," he said. "So that's cool!" He offered me a reticent smile. "Guess I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover, huh?"
"Probably not." I set my tea aside. "But speaking of not being stuck up…you ever hear of Nirvana?"
"You mean Buddhist heaven?"
"No. The American grunge band."
Kuwabara looked positively mystified.
"Sweet Caesar's ghost. You'd love them." I stood up, chair rattling as the legs scraped the coffee shop floor. "We're fixing this now. I'm gonna lend you a stack of things to listen to."
He perked up like a puppy in a Frisbee factory. "Really? You mean it?"
"Of course I mean it." I tossed my hair, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him after me out the door. "I always mean what I say. Now hurry up! Kurt Cobain awaits!"
That was the day Kuwabara and I became friends.
That was also the day Kuwabara and I learned we had a "friend" in common.
Those quotes are there for a reason.
It didn't take long to walk from the coffee shop to my parents' restaurant. We chatted along the way, assessing which parts of my music collection Kuwabara would most appreciate, which made the walk feel all the shorter. Man, was it good to talk to someone like this about music. Yusuke liked rock, sure, but he wasn't nearly as into it as I was. Kuwabara, meanwhile, knew even more about the metal scene than I did, his lack of Nirvana notwithstanding. Talking with him was like—
"Keiko!"
Just a block from my parent's place, Kuwabara and I stopped mid-gab at the sound of my name. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of us, clad in a green jumpsuit with hair held back by an oil slick of gel, was…well.
You know who it was.
"Where the hell have you been?" Yusuke said, lips curling back over his teeth. "I've been looking all over—oh. You again."
He didn't aim that last bit at me. No, that ire-dripping barb flew directly toward Kuwabara. He'd frozen solid on the sidewalk, arms held awkwardly out from his sides like a child just learning to walk.
"Oh," said Kuwabara, eyes like saucers. "Shit."
"Lemme guess," Yusuke drawled. "You're here for another beat down, aren't you—um." The tough-guy act faded, replaced by his usual cluelessness. "What's your name again?"
Kuwabara's jaw dropped. "What the?! Even after the trouncing I gave you last time, you still don't know my name?!"
Yusuke smirked. "I only remember the people worth the space in my head. AKA, people who aren't weak losers."
Kuwabara sputtered, complexion approaching the shade of a ripe tomato. I, meanwhile, looked between the two of them with no expression whatsoever.
"Do you two know each other?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
Yusuke sneered. "He picked a fight with me few months back and keeps coming around for more." The boy cackled like a demon from hell (I, meanwhile, pondered the fact that Yusuke had never mentioned Kuwabara to me, if they'd met months previously). "What a frickin' moron!"
"Moron?!" Kuwabara shoved his book my way, so fast I barely had time to grab it, and shoved his shirtsleeves back. "That's it, I'm gonna—um."
He stopped talking.
He looked at me, and to my astonishment…I saw fear in his eyes. Hot and bright and gleaming. I knew that look too well to mistake it for anything else.
Was this fear of Yusuke? I couldn't tell. But I didn't like the look on Kuwabara's face at all. A grin suited him better than this grimace.
"You're gonna what?" Yusuke asked. He crossed his arms, foot tapping an impatient beat. "I'm waiting!"
"I'm gonna…"
Kuwabara faltered, then drew himself up.
He haughtily declared: "I am going to see you at school."
There followed a moment of prolonged silence.
It ended when Yusuke said: "What. You too chicken to fight?"
"N-no! I—um. I just…"
He glanced at me again. The fear in his eyes lingered.
That's when it clicked.
Oh, this sweet summer child. I closed my eyes, suppressing a fond smile that would look out of place on a girl he'd just met this afternoon.
"Don't hold back on my account, Kuwabara," I said. "I'm not the type to faint at the sight of blood."
"B-but—!"
"Aw, how cute," Yusuke simpered. I opened my eyes; he'd clasped his hands under his chin, batting his eyelashes like a pageant queen. "Just precious. You don't wanna fight in front of a delicate little lady, is that it?"
Kuwabara looked like the kid with the hand in the cookie jar. "Urp! Shut up, Urameshi!"
"Oh, don't worry so much, numb-nuts." Yusuke jerked his head in my direction. "She ain't a lady, and she sure as hell ain't delicate." Another demonic cackle, the kind only a teenager can manage. "She's a flat-chested kid with the soul of a grandma!"
If I thought Kuwabara had turned red earlier, I was wrong. Now he was dangerously mauve. The veins in his arms stood out as he clenched his fists. Wow, kid was 14 and had arms like hams.
"How, how dare you!" Kuwabara growled from between clenched teeth. "That does it! I'm—"
"Kuwabara."
I'd put my hand on his arm without thinking. For a second he just froze (as did I, if we're being honest), but then he looked down at me, and his expression…well, it broke. The tension drained from his face. His fists unclenched. Now he just looked bamboozled, granted, but that was better than enraged, right?
"It's OK," I said. "That guy's an asshole."
His expression further cleared. "But, Yukimura…"
"There's no need to defend my honor, if that's what you're worried about. Here, hold this."
I handed Kuwabara my shopping bag (which he dutifully took; Shizuru had clearly taken this boy shopping as her pack mule before). I turned to Yusuke. When I gave him a sunny smile, he looked confused—and that was all the opportunity I needed to pounce and put him in a vicious headlock. I clenched him between my elbow and armpit and dug my other hand deep into his hair.
He issued an indignant yodel. I ignored him.
"I can defend my honor myself!" I screeched above Yusuke's curses. "Take that, asshole!"
"Watch the gel, you dumb bitch!"
"Why don't you watch your mouth!"
We carried on like that for some time. Eventually Yusuke dug his fingers into my ribcage, right where he knew it tickled most, and I had to let him go—what a bastard. I couldn't help but laugh, though. Couldn't keep a straight face when tickled. Yusuke grinned as he pulled away.
"Don't act like you got the jump on me!" Yusuke said as he straightened his collar and smoothed his hair. "I know all your weak spots. I was just letting you win."
I started to reply but fell quiet. Kuwabara was looking between the two of us with dawning comprehension.
"Wait," he said, suspicious. "Do you two know each other?"
"He's been a pain in my ass since we were 6," I said. Kuwabara looked quite alarmed at that prospect. "But don't worry. He's all bark and no bite." I delivered unto Yusuke my most ferocious scowl. "A toothless dog. Harmless."
"Harmless?!" The boy in question pounded a fist into his opposite hand. "I'll show you harmless!"
I stuck out my tongue. "Only if you can hit me."
Although I knew Yusuke and I were just bickering, following the lines of a script we'd played out a hundred times, Kuwabara had no such insight. In a flash he'd thrust out an arm and put himself between Yusuke and I, a human shield made of quivering willpower and earnest determination. That adorable, annoying, lunkhead. I'd have to disabuse him of the notion I needed protecting, and soon…
"Don't you touch her, Urameshi!" he said—and suddenly I was reminded that Kuwabara, despite his cuddly side, was still a street punk whose badass quotient was second only to Yusuke's. How had I forgotten that? He had a voice like grinding rocks, just then. Angry, seething rocks that set my skin to prickling. "You wanna prove you're not harmless, you pick on somebody your own size. You pick on me."
I snorted. "Stop it, Kuwabara."
And then he was cuddly again as he looked over his shoulder, surprised and mystified.
"I'm sure I'd find your concern for my safety endearing if I wasn't so insulted," I said. When I winked, to let him know I wasn't actually insulted, he blushed to the roots of his hair. "I can handle myself."
"She's not kidding," Yusuke said. "Watch."
And with that, Yusuke raised his fist and leapt in my direction.
Yusuke, at this point in the Yu Yu Hakusho timeline, wasn't anything special. He was an ordinary (if not extraordinarily ornery) street punk, lacking spiritual awareness or enhanced muscles. We were the same height, the same build, and just about the same weight.
But I had something he didn't.
I knew that something wouldn't give me the one-up over him for much longer…but I was going to use it for as long as I could.
The world seemed to slow as Yusuke came at me. He threw a straight right hook. Nothing fancy. Easy enough to deflect and redirect. As his fist extended, my arm came up. I smacked my forearm against the inside of his wrist, snaked my arm around his elbow, and gripped into the fabric of his jacket near the shoulder. Then I propelled myself forward and twisted, hard, ducking beneath his arm so I stood behind him. The motion dragged Yusuke forward and used his own momentum to send him flying.
I let go of him just as I finished ducking. He landed in a heap on the ground. I landed where he'd started, facing him.
Took, like…two seconds? Maybe less. Kuwabara certainly seemed impressed. He stared with his mouth wide open, ignoring Yusuke as he picked himself up off the pavement and sullenly dusted his pants.
"How—how the hell did you do that?" Kuwabara asked.
I primly replied: "Physics."
"What?!"
Yusuke let out a longsuffering sigh.
"Keiko's no fun to fight," he whined. "She just does shit like that all the time, and you can't hit her."
"Slippery like the octopus." I winked again at Kuwabara, just to see him blush. "That's me."
"Slimy, too," Yusuke said. His pout morphed into a smirk. "But too bad you can't fight back for shit. Those fancy lessons you've been taking are stupid!"
Oh, that little jerk. He'd hit a sore spot of mine and he knew it. Not that Kuwabara had any idea. He edged away from me as I growled, clearly disturbed by whatever my facial features were doing. I regulated my expression before smiling at him.
"Actually, Kuwabara," I said with artificial sweetness. "Go ahead and defend my honor. This guy needs his ass beat." I flipped Yusuke off before plucking my shopping bag from Kuwabara's oversized hands; he blinked, stunned by my sudden about-face (or maybe it was the flipping of the bird; who knows?). "If either of you winds up needing first aid, you know where to find me."
"Ha!" Kuwabara said after a moment's deliberation. He rounded on Yusuke and raised his fists. "You hear that, Urameshi? I'm gonna kick your ass for Yukimura!"
"Fat chance. I'll break your kneecaps before I let you get a punch in." My childhood friend and main source of personal aggravation glanced at the shopfronts lining the street. "But not here. Follow me."
The pair promptly set off in the direction of the bayous—the same ones where I'd met Yusuke so many years before, behind the ramen shop I called home. For a minute I thought they'd forgotten me completely, caught up in the heady rush of street-punk brawling, but then Yusuke looked over his shoulder. He grinned, waved, and told me without speaking that I'd be seeing him later, once Kuwabara was on the floor.
Kuwabara, meanwhile, actually used his words. He turned and walked backwards as he followed Yusuke, hands cupped around his mouth so he could call to me.
"I'll come back a stronger man, Yukimura!" he said. "Just you wait!"
Yusuke glanced at him, annoyed. "What the hell are you babbling about?"
They began to quarrel. I didn't hear what they said next, because soon they disappeared down an alley and out of sight.
And so their rivalry began.
Or rather, so it continued. They'd actually met a few months prior, per Yusuke's recollection. I'd forgotten when they met in the anime; it wasn't depicted on-screen, at least not linearly. Yusuke had certainly never mentioned Kuwabara to me in this timeline. But regardless of whether or not Yusuke had mentioned it, it was clear they'd begun the rivalry that would one day become friendship.
With that rivalry would come change.
With it would come strength.
With it would come adventure.
And just like now, little old Keiko would get left behind. On the sidelines. Watching.
The supporting character.
The occasional damsel.
The loyal girlfriend.
Too bad passivity wasn't in my nature.
In this timeline, there would be no (lucky) child left behind. Not if I had anything to say about it.
NOTES:
I imagine my soft spot for Kuwabara became pretty obvious this chapter. LOL.
THANK YOU to those who reviewed! Was stunned by the turnout last week. Honestly still a little stunned this thing is getting readers at all. So grateful to you: Mein Benutzername, Chiasmus, xenocanaan, Marian, DiCuoreAllison, Miqila, FireDancerNix, Kuroyuki no Ryu, reebajee, rezgurnk, Nanouchy, and Inaya.
