The Evils of Schoolwork and Clothes Shopping
By sashax13
Summary: Yusuke always seems to lose his shirt in battle. Now, he doesn't have any shirts left! Looks like he'll have to go shopping now instead of studying… Aw, darn.
Disclaimer: I don't own and am in no way associated with the people who have written, produced, or otherwise assisted in the making of Yu Yu Hakusho; I didn't create these characters; I borrowed them to parody with. I am not making any money off this.
It was a morning just like any other for Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei.
They spent most of it trying to take down a particularly nasty demon that had taken up residence in a local library, of all places. This was just an ordinary Evil Demon who fortunately did not have any pitiful back-story or moral challenges for our heroes to overcome, so all they had to do was kill it. It had eight eyes like a spider and long claws in its natural form, but could disguise himself to look like a regular boring librarian if it wanted.
This guy obviously wanted to make himself out to be Yusuke's latest nemesis. Why else would he be pulling tricks and hanging around in human world?
The demon had been making a habit of eating children's souls when they came to Story Time on Tuesday mornings, not to mention grossly overcharging fines for overdue books and violently slaughtering a few students who had blatantly refused to use their Library Voices while inside. Honestly, he deserved to die.
But no longer, now that the Spirit Detective (and his sidekick spirit detectives) had arrived to put a stop to evil and restore justice!
...Or something along those lines.
It had been a fierce battle. Each member of Yusuke's team had taken turns attacking the beast, as was their usual strategy, despite the fact that they probably would be a lot more efficient if they ganged up on the bad guy all at once. But that, however, was just not the way Yusuke and company did things.
Hiei started off the show by tearing off his black cloak with a flourish. Unfortunately this cloak had seen far too much action lately and ripped in half instead of coming cleanly off. This made Hiei even grouchier than he already was by default.
Hiei hurled a bunch of insults in a row at the demon… but even his cleverest didn't even faze the beast. Hiei was a little disappointed that his enemy hadn't been offended- the insults had been completely original- but he cheered himself up by telling himself he could recycle them on Kuwabara later.
As for the moment… Hiei decided to let his sword do the talking!
(Too late, he remembered swords couldn't actually talk. So instead he rolled his eyes and slunk back into a corner to glare at his friends and criticize them from afar. He was already pretty mad about the cloak.)
Then, Kuwabara summoned his Spirit Sword and lunged for the monster. But quickly the librarian demon called his sword a knock off of Star Wars, which hurt Kuwabara's feelings. His lightsaber-reminiscent sword fizzled out into nothingness without meaning. Kuwabara cursed- he hated it when this happened! Too bad it was only a spirit sword and not an actual sword.
"Oh come on, guys!" Yusuke was moaning. "This isn't a battle of words! Just kill the guy already!"
"I'll take him, Yusuke!" Kurama came to the rescue.
Kurama launched a handful of rose petals at that ugly name-calling demon. It was one of his favorite moves and usually killed opponents on contact. Unfortunately, this one didn't seem to be taking any damage from the fragrant pieces of flower swirling through the air. He seemed immune- how odd.
Kurama just couldn't figure it out. He'd always thought flower petals were dangerous and frightening.
"Amazing! He's completely immune to having flowers thrown at him!" Kurama mused.
Yusuke was now very annoyed that his friends' attacks weren't having any effect. "Why aren't you guys using your good moves?" He demanded.
"You guys are lame." The demon taunted. "You're famous for being superheroes, aren't you? Is that all you've got?" He roared and cackled maliciously, exhaling green flames that burned with a thousand flames of hell… or, you know, whatever.
"Nope! I didn't get a turn yet." Yusuke put in. It was the closest thing he could think of to his usual cocky comebacks at the moment. Oh well. He socked the demon guy in the stomach.
Yusuke's muscles grew at an alarming rate until they broke through his T-shirt (like the Incredible Hulk always does when he gets Angry). Not another shirt destroyed, Yusuke thought as he moved.
"Ow!" The demon guy whined and crumpled to the floor from the impact of the punch. "Come on! No one told me we were actually going to start fighting now."
Hiei rolled his eyes. He decided to do the world, and his friends, a favor, and stabbed the monster (for real this time). Everyone cheered.
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Five minutes later (after some high-fives, good-games among the boys and a unanimous vote to "just leave the blood-soaked demon body on the floor for the police to figure out") everyone headed home. Yusuke invited Kuwabara over to his house so they could "study" for tomorrow's test together, "study" being their secret code for "spend six hours watching mindless television".
But after some snacks and a soda, when Yusuke opened his closet in his bedroom to put on a new shirt, he was greeted with yet another dilemma.
"Crap!" He announced, staring into his all but empty closet.
"Huh?" Kuwabara asked, eyes focused on the television screen and not at all concerned. (If there had been anything wrong for real, he knew he could've counted on Yusuke to have used a much more colorful swear word than plain old "crap".)
"I have nothing to wear." Yusuke whined.
Kuwabara still didn't look up. "Oh, stop being so vain and just pick one Urameshi."
"No, I'm not kidding. I honestly have no shirts left." Yusuke insisted.
"Well, where'd they go?" Kuwabara wondered.
"I have no idea. I mean, I lose them in battles sometimes." Yusuke pondered. In fact, his shirts seemed to get shredded a lot on missions, especially during fights. It was rare he saw a shirt that survived a fight, if he were to be completely honest with himself.
"You ripped up all of your shirts?" Kuwabara gaped incredulously.
"Yeah." Yusuke answered. "Looks like it. Makes sense, though actually, if you think about it…. I mean, I've been fighting demons for a long time, right? And if one shirt gets destroyed almost every battle, it's only natural for me to run out sometime."
"Geez. I can't believe you've gotten to where you don't have any." Kuwabara shrugged.
"Um, well, technically I do have one." Yusuke put in reluctantly. "But it's my school uniform."
"So why don't you wear that?" Kuwabara suggested.
"Are you nuts! That goes against all of my principles." Yusuke answered incredulously.
"Oh, wow, you've got principles now?" Kuwabara responded.
"Ummmm… yes, as a matter of fact, I do. And Rule Number One of my personal moral conduct is Never Follow School Policy, Ever."
Kuwabara just shrugged. "So what are you going to do now?"
"Uh… Dunno." Yusuke responded.
But then…
Yusuke got an idea. It was tricky, difficult, and the odds were against him, almost to the point of being crazy… but so crazy, he thought, that it just might work.
Ten minutes later…
"How come I have to come shopping with you?" Kuwabara complained blatantly as he and Yusuke walked in the local mall's entrance. "Why can't you try on shirts by yourself?"
"It's not like you have anything better to do today." Yusuke pointed out.
"Well, I could probably think of something better to do." Kuwabara said thoughtfully. "Better than this, anyway."
"Oh, come on. Be a good sport." Yusuke grinned. "I need you to tell me what stuff looks good on me."
"So call Keiko!" Kuwabara cried. "She's a girl. She would probably love to take you shopping, and tell you what stuff looks good on you."
"Nah, she'd just try to corrupt my unique style." Yusuke disagreed. "Plus, if I called her now, then she would realize that we aren't studying. And then there'd be hell to pay."
"Tell her you studied already." Kuwabara suggested.
"Okay, you call her, then." Yusuke shrugged. "She won't believe me if I say that."
"Nevermind. Let's just get this over with." Kuwabara sighed. They walked into a department store.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the mall and not to Yusuke or Kuwabara's knowledge, their two demon buddies were having almost the exact same problem.
"I can't believe I lost it!" Hiei was saying. "I looked everywhere. All of my usual hangouts!"
"Where are your usual hangouts?" Kurama wondered out loud. "What do you do with your free time? Besides sleeping in trees, I mean."
"Oh, you'll never know." Hiei informed him smiling mysteriously. "Nor will anyone else."
"Okay, never mind that." Kurama continued. "I take it you only have one cloak?"
"Of course I do. I have no use for more than one article of clothing." Hiei scoffed. "Who do you think I am, Kurama? A fashion designer? A princess? Nicole Richie?" He taunted.
"I'll just have to buy you some new clothes, then" Kurama sighed and resisted the urge to eye-roll. "That's why we came here. That's the whole point of malls." They walked into the same department store.
"I don't want to shop here." Hiei argued. "I hate human clothes."
"Human clothes are exactly the same as demon clothes!" Kurama exclaimed.
"Except they're contaminated." Hiei corrected.
"They aren't contaminated! They're way better quality, even! Better materials! Not to mention cheaper than demon made stuff." Kurama rattled off the reasons.
"I don't care." Hiei announced. "I don't want to buy any. I don't need clothes! I am above petty possessions like clothes. Look, we just went through this, remember?"
"I hate to break to you, but no, you aren't above clothes, actually," Kurama prodded.
"Yes! I'll just walk around like this forever. It doesn't bother me." Hiei gestured to his bare chest.
"It's conspicuous." Kurama sighed.
"I don't care. I refuse to wear anything in this store."
Kurama's eyes narrowed. "Look, do you want to go to Hot Topic?" he threatened.
Hiei glared back. "All right, fine, we'll stay at this stupid place."
Hiei was afraid of the creepy kind of girls who usually shopped at Hot Topic. They were Goths, usually, who always started to act uncharacteristically flirty and social as soon as they spotted Hiei. Plus, the alarmingly excessive quantity of Naruto merchandise on display inside ticked him off. Sure, a lot of things ticked Hiei off, but nothing was worse than too much unwanted Naruto merchandise.
Kurama took him by the arm and dragged Hiei into the menswear department. "Look, Hiei, our human friends are here shopping too." He spotted Yusuke and Kuwabara sifting through one of the racks near the back.
"Hn. I don't have any human…" He spotted Yusuke and Kuwabara.
"Oh. It's those two."
"So, these little numbers on the hangers… " Yusuke was pondering, "They're like, sizes, right? How come there are so many different sizes? How am I supposed to know what size to try on? I mean, there are like twenty different numbers! It goes up to twenty! Whoever organized the clothing industry must be insane…"
"Beats me," Kuwabara shrugged; he was just as incompetent a shopper as Yusuke.
"If this one is a three," Yusuke held up one of two shirts, "And this one's a five," He held up the second shirt, "Then where is four?"
"Maybe they're out?" Kuwabara suggested. "Hey, look, the five is bigger than the three!"
"Hm…. Wait, I think I get it! The higher the number is, the bigger the size! I bet all the shirts are organized this way." Yusuke agreed. "But wait… that means a whole bunch of them are at least big enough for me. So what do I buy?" He said flustered.
"Oh, screw this," Yusuke threw the shirts he was holding back onto the rack- "Let's go look at leather jackets. I've always really needed one of those… Hey, look, it's Hiei and Kurama!"
Kurama waved. "I see you are shopping for the same thing we are, Yusuke." He said cheerfully.
"Uh, yeah." Yusuke replied.
"Urameshi ran out of shirts." Kuwabara clarified.
"So did Hiei." Kurama continued. "Though I can't say I'm surprised. He only had the one. So I'm helping him pick something out."
"Ahem. The only reason I have not escaped Kurama's clutches yet is because I don't want Mall Security harassing me for having weapons on the premises." Hiei informed.
"Ohhh, yeah, ya gotta be careful with that." Yusuke nodded understandingly. "They don't even allow fistfights here at this sad excuse for a shopping center."
"Not to interrupt your conversational sadistic delinquent small talk, but now that you two are here, I can leave." Kuwabara announced. "See you, Yusuke, I'm going to go to the toy store-"
"Wait! I need you here!" Yusuke interrupted then said, quite seriously, "I need your opinions!"
"Ask Kurama." Kuwabara rolled his eyes.
"No, c'mon, seriously. Which color is better on me, gray or charcoal?" Yusuke snatched off two jackets and held them up at Kuwabara.
"What the-? I can't even tell the difference!" Kuwabara whined. "Gray and charcoal are the exact same color!"
"Have you considered magenta?" Kurama suggested.
"Now, see, that is why I won't take your fashion advice seriously, Kurama." Yusuke scoffed. "Who wears pink?"
"Not pink, magenta." Kurama corrected.
"Oh, please. Like I'm going to take fashion advice from you." Yusuke scoffed. "Besides, pink and magenta are the exact same color!"
"Hypocrite." Kuwabara muttered.
"No. They really aren't." Kurama informed Yusuke. "Magenta is much darker, although if you were to be technical, you might consider it a shade of pink, since they are both in the same part of the spectrum. Although, it is different when you're dealing with pigments, because it means they are each reflecting different balances of red and purple light, although they might seem similar, really, they are not at all. So technically, pink and magenta are different colors."
He realized he was thinking out loud and stopped abruptly.
"You're a nerd." Yusuke informed Kurama. He threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay, fine. You're right. I'm wrong. End of story."
Kurama looked at him. "Why wouldn't you trust my fashion choices?"
"Well, it's just that, the way you dress, I mean, not that, you know, I mean, it isn't ugly or anything, but it's just that I don't really want to…" Yusuke trailed off.
You dress like a girl! Yusuke didn't say this out loud. (Hiei, the telepath, smirked behind Kurama's back.)
"You have terrible fashion sense." Yusuke finally settled on. "But… Look, it's nothing, okay?"
"That's fine. I understand." Kurama replied. "If you won't listen to me, I'm not going to force you." Turning his attention elsewhere, he added, "Come on, Hiei, let's see if they have some of those in your size!" And Kurama dragged Hiei off in the direction of a rack of hideous green-and-orange V-neck heart patterned sweaters.
Hiei gave Kurama a super glare.
"Is that smoke coming out of his ears?" Kuwabara wondered watching Hiei.
"Probably." Yusuke shrugged.
"Whatever." Yusuke shrugged. "Oooooh, look at those!" He walked over to a case that displayed various shirts with crude sayings on the front. Yusuke hoped some of them were funny. Maybe he could find one to wear to school…
"Well, have fun, you guys…" Kuwabara said even though he was pretty sure no one heard him. "I'm going to the toy store! To, um, buy a gift for my kid cousin. That's why I'm going there, yeah." He left quickly. (Really, Kuwabara just wanted to look at the action figures.)
"Okaaaay, fine, let's be boring and try on plain black t-shirts instead." Kurama was heard still trying to appease his angry little demon friend.
Yusuke, now reduced to shopping alone, was not having any luck. He had been afraid that Keiko might corrupt his style, but when it came down to it, he wasn't even sure what his personal style was. Usually, he'd labeled it as "anything that's against the dress code at school", but here, in this store, everything seemed to fit that description.
Finally, Yusuke, too, found himself wandering over to the rack of plain black t-shirts where his friends were shopping. Yusuke almost forgot how much he loved plain black t-shirts! Actually, he liked most colors of t-shirts. But black was the best.
Kuwabara had sometime wandered back empty-handed from the toy store.
"Didn't find anything?" Yusuke asked Kuwabara slipping on one shirt over the one he already had on. It seemed to fit good enough. He grabbed twenty identical shirts off the rack and put them in his cart.
"They didn't have Shadowcat." Kuwabara answered idly.
"For your cousin?"
"What? Oh, yeah, that's right." Kuwabara hastily corrected himself. He'd taken a leisurely stroll around the mall a few times after leaving the toy store, and stopped by the pet store to look at the puppies and kitties. He'd dragged it out as long as he could in the hopes that Yusuke might finish his shopping early. "Did you have any luck with shirts?"
"Yeah." Yusuke answered. "I'm just gonna get a whole bunch of the same kind. That way I never have to match more than one outfit and I still look good every single day! Because black matches everything! It's ingenious, I tell you!" He exclaimed triumphantly.
"That's a pretty good one, Urameshi. I'm not gonna lie." Kuwabara agreed.
"Damn right it is. Now, let's go pay for these." He set off in the direction of the cash register-
…And his path was intercepted by something black that was going so fast it became a blur. It raced right past Yusuke and Kuwabara, down the aisle, and out of the store.
Kurama appeared behind them. "Oh, dear. It seems Hiei has escaped."
"Where is he in such a hurry to get to?" Kuwabara wondered.
"Away from me, apparently." Kurama answered. "He really hates shopping for clothes."
"I bet he just knows they don't have anything small enough to fit him." Kuwabara said smugly.
"Actually, you may be right there." Kurama agreed. "But don't mention this around him, okay? He's terribly sensitive."
"Uh huh," Kuwabara responded. He rolled his eyes.
"Look guys, nevermind about Hiei. We have bigger problems." Yusuke redirected. "How am I supposed to know how much this stuff costs? My mom only has, like, $200 on her credit card."
"Well, how much do your shirts cost each?" Kurama asked. These were the moments Kurama lived for- the chance to use math in the real world.
"Sixteen dollars." Yusuke answered.
"And how many shirts do you have?" Kurama continued, patiently.
"I dunno." Yusuke counted the shirts hanging on his arm out loud, "One, Two, Three…" and finally stopped at "…Thirty."
"So multiply sixteen by thirty." Kurama offered.
"I don't know how to multiply." Yusuke whined. "I need a calculator."
"I'll give you a hint. It equals four-hundred and eighty." Kurama skipped straight to the fun part. (The fun part for Kurama, anyway.) "So, how many shirts can you buy with your 200 dollar credit card?"
"I don't know." Yusuke moaned. "I can't do it in my head. We aren't all math geniuses like you Kurama."
"We learned this process in fourth grade, Urameshi." Kuwabara reminded Yusuke.
"Shut up." Yusuke replied. "I bet you can't do it in your head, either, Kuwabara."
"I could with a pencil and paper," Kuwabara shot back.
"Don't you have any?" Yusuke was desperate.
"Hm. I might have a calculator." Kurama intervened.
"What do you mean, you might have a calculator?" Yusuke asked incredulously. "Do you or don't youI need to borrow it."
"I may have forgotten where I last left my calculator, however." Kurama mused. "Although, I must say that depends on whether or not you are planning on taking back your comment earlier about my fashion sense."
"Come on. Please let me borrow it?" Yusuke begged.
"Actually, I really don't think I have one after all. I was mistaken." Kurama amended his earlier statement while still keeping a straight face. Yusuke glared at him.
"Fine." Yusuke sighed, "Okay. I'm sorry about criticizing your fashion sense. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion even regarding clothes and each person has his own unique style clothing, even if one guy's clothes are way more stupid looking than everyone else's, I still shouldn't criticize him because it's… uh mean. And although pink still does not match red, I will allow for the fact that certain redheads can indeed pull off, uh, magenta."
Kuwabara was snickering the whole way through.
Kurama sighed. "That's close enough, I suppose." He took a TI-84 out of his coat pocket and reluctantly handed it to Yusuke. "You don't really deserve this…"
"Thank you so much, you are the man, you deserve to be the ruler of the universe." Yusuke groveled taking the calculator. "I love you. I worship the ground you walk on. You are totally not a nerd."
He held it in his hands and stared at the hundreds of buttons, dumbfounded. "Holy cow. What kind of psycho mathematician's torture device is this?"
"It's a graphing calculator." Kurama said idly. "The arithmetic functions are on the right side."
"The what?"
"The numbers and the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division keys." Kurama elaborated impatiently. "The ones you're used to using on a regular calculator."
"You use this thing on a daily basis? You're insane." Yusuke informed Kurama. "Geez. I even forgot what the problem was now."
"Sixteen times thirty." Kurama answered.
"Insane, yes, but also smart." Yusuke punched some buttons. "Crap- it's four hundred and eighty dollars. That's too much. Now what do I do?"
"Try dividing two hundred by sixteen." Kurama offered. "That tells you how many shirts you can afford."
Yusuke did. "I don't know why you didn't just tell me that in the first place." He grumbled.
"Because you weren't being nice, and it's more fun if you do math the hard way." Kurama replied cheerfully.
"Well, it's settled." Yusuke sighed looking up. "I can buy twelve and a half shirts. Not sure what I'll do with the half of shirt, though." He mused.
"You can't buy half a shirt, idiot." Announced the familiar voice of Hiei who had mysteriously reappeared out of nowhere, as though he was now the expert of the merchandising industry. He wasn't, of course, but this was just that obvious.
"Hiei is right." Kurama concluded.
Hiei, now fully dressed, was wearing a brand-new outfit that looked, well, exactly like the outfit he'd always worn before. This one was the same pattern, only newer.
"Where on earth did you find a shirt that looks exactly like your old one?" Kurama wondered. "Don't you ever change your style?"
"I'm not telling you where, and no." Hiei answered (while secretly disposing of the awful, poisonous, crumpled Hot Topic receipt in a trash bin behind his back).
"I would suggest you buy twelve and save the remaining money in case you need to pay sales tax." Kurama told Yusuke.
Sales Tax was Yusuke's absolute worst fear. Apart from school uniforms.
"Uh-oh. Sales tax? Kurama how do I do that?" Yusuke asked panicked.
"I am sure you'll find a way." Kurama grabbed back his calculator. "As of now, I'm on my way out. I am running late for an appointment with my image consultant."
Kurama and Hiei turned and walked out, leaving Yusuke standing alone in the dust and stony silence.
"Kurama has an image consultant?" Kuwabara spoke.
Okay, so technically Yusuke wasn't actually alone.
"I really have no idea." Yusuke shrugged. "The only thing I know is that now I have to do all this math stuff all by myself and with no calculator. I hate it when Kurama's in a bad mood."
"Hey, you started it. Just buy eleven shirts and pray that the extra money left will cover the tax." Kuwabara suggested.
"While I don't usually follow advice that suggest I rely on my ability to pray," Yusuke answered, "It doesn't look like I have much of a choice."
"Good." Kuwabara answered. "I'm glad this is over with. I'll catch you later, Urameshi," he walked away before Yusuke could protest this time.
"It's a good thing I have such loyal friends." Yusuke muttered sarcastically as he approached the cash register and slapped the credit card onto the table. The cashier rung up his purchase and handed the card back to Yusuke informing him that he had now maxed out his card and needed to pay up before it would work again.
"Ah, screw it." Yusuke mumbled, ripping the tags off of one shirt and pulling it over his head as he walked away with the plastic shopping bag in hand. "Next time I'm just going to shoplift and I won't have to go through all this trouble."
"Hey! I heard that!" Exclaimed the cashier from behind the counter a few feet away from Yusuke.
"Uh, I was kidding!" Yusuke shouted back not turning around.
"You'd better be!" The cashier shouted again.
"Whatever!" Yusuke yelled and walked faster away. He was walking so quickly and without watching where he was going, he accidentally plowed down an innocent teenage shopper on the way out of the store.
The girl stood up, dusted herself off and shoved Yusuke back hard. "Watch where you're going, moron." She snarled
"Maybe you shouldn't push me around, b!" Yusuke shot back.
Then they both realized whom the other was talking to. The girl was Keiko!
"Oh… it's you. Sorry." Yusuke mumbled.
"Oh, It's you."Keiko replied. "Where are you in such a hurry to get to anyway?"
"Away from here. That clerk thinks I'm going to steal stuff." Yusuke explained quickly.
"Which you were not going to do, I hope." Keiko finished.
"Of course not." Yusuke replied.
"Then why would the clerk think you were?" Keiko asked.
"I have no idea. It's not that important." Yusuke brushed off quickly. He changed the subject. "Hey, wanna see what I bought? T-shirts!"
Keiko looked at the specimens. "They're all black."
"Well, yeah. That way I always match." Yusuke explained his thoughts.
"You bought twelve of the same black shirt. Are you trying to become Goth or something?" Keiko wondered. "Wow, Yusuke. I can't believe your mom let you buy all those."
"Oh, my mom doesn't know about them yet." Yusuke told her. "I decided to come shopping on my own this time! What would people say if they saw me buying clothes with my mom?"
"They'd say, 'Oh, that boy is always so well dressed! And look how sweet he is letting his mother shop for him!'" Keiko gushed. "As opposed to now. They're going to say, 'Geez, that kid wears the same thing every single day. He must not know how to shop. What a loser.' "
"Or maybe they'll say, 'Wow, black is such an intriguing and fashionable color! That Yusuke Urameshi is so hot!'" Yusuke shot back.
"You don't know the first thing about clothes." Keiko sighed. "You're in no condition to be shopping alone."
"Of course I am!" Yusuke cried. "I even figured out what sizes are now! And I wasn't shopping alone."
"Really?" Keiko hadn't expected him to say that.
"Yeah, I brought Kuwabara." Yusuke replied.
"Oh." Keiko rolled her eyes. "Nevermind. Come on, Yusuke. We're going back to that store and exchanging those- I'm going to pick you out some good clothes."
She grabbed his hand and dragged him along back into the store.
"Noooo!" Yusuke cried. "I'll have to divide up the prices all over again!"
But as it turned out, he didn't have to after all. Keiko handled the exchange process with a smile and even the grouchy cashier, though obviously peeved at having to ring up a purchase she'd just sold minutes before to a potential shoplifter, was polite and cooperative. Keiko was also an excellent shopper. She hunted through the sale and clearance racks and special savings deals until she found the perfect items. She picked out sweaters, shirt sets, and tees in a variety of colors and styles. (All colors except for pink, that is. Yusuke put his foot down there.) In fact, most of the things Keiko picked out ended up looking good on Yusuke.
Keiko had forced Yusuke into the dressing room dozens of times and made him come out and model each outfit every single time before they were finally ready to pay. As they got in line, she whipped out a dainty hand calculator (the fact that everyone seemed to have a calculator except Yusuke was really starting to annoy him) and did the math so Yusuke wouldn't have to.
In fact, it was a rather enjoyable experience. It wasn't so bad, shopping with Keiko. She had better fashion sense than Kurama and was much more cooperative that Kuwabara. Yusuke remembered that she was his usual shopping partner. Why hadn't he just asked her to come along this time, too?
But then…
"My mom is on her way to pick me up now." Keiko announced as they walked outside into the parking lot. "I have a good idea. You can come with me to study for tomorrow's test."
Crap. That was it.
"Aw, come on." Yusuke groaned. "Do we have to?"
"Yes." Keiko said dismissively.
"I have an idea. Let's get ice cream instead." Yusuke offered.
"No! This is no time for ice cream, Yusuke! Your grades are in jeopardy. And I know how much you suck at science. I am doing you a favor." Keiko insisted. "We're going to the library as soon as my mom gets here."
"What? But, I was there all morning!" Yusuke whined. "And the librarian is evil! And I don't suck at science! I'm actually really good at it… I'm so good that I don't even need to study!"
"Stop making excuses. Librarians aren't evil. And you only have a sixty percent in that class, so I still stand by my comment that you aren't very good at it. And if you still can't do math, then you aren't going to do very well on your science test, either." Keiko argued. "Whoa. Wait. Did you just say you were in a library this morning?"
"Uh huh." Yusuke answered. "I was at the library or, like, three hours before I came to the mall."
"You were?" Keiko asked, clearly surprised. " All by yourself?"
"No, the guys were there, too." Yusuke admitted. "We were all working together. On a… a group thing. A group assignment." He adlibbed.
Keiko's eyes shone with admiration. "Wow. I'm impressed, Yusuke! I really doubted you… But it looks like you've finally learned to take initiative and get your schoolwork done on time."
She hugged him happily. "You deserve a break from your hard work. Forget about the test. We'll get ice cream!"
Ah, well. Who was Yusuke to argue with that?
The End