PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING:
This fanfic (of a fanfic) will take a little bit of explaining to make sense.
If you're at all familiar with my most well-known work, Lucky Child, you can skip this paragraph (or hit the "back" button to navigate away from this story). If you're not familiar with Lucky Child, here's the gist of it: LC is a self-insert fanfic in which my avatar is killed in our world in 2016 only to be reborn into the YYH timeline in the body of Keiko Yukimura. "Not-Quite-Keiko" ("NQK") relives the plot of YYH from start to finish, struggling with whether or not she's supposed to reenact the YYH plot or if she is free to act in ways that remain true to her real/former self. The consequences of not playing the part of canon!Keiko are, at times, extreme, which only makes her more reluctant to be herself, even though all she wants is to stay true to her own identity.
On August 4, 2020, I received an anonymous ask on Tumblr that read as follows: "Do you think that NQK would act any differently if she had died at this point in time in 2020 rather than in 2016?"
It was a great question. In a reply, I talked about my current job, personal life, and family life, and I ended my reply with the following: "I AM SO MUCH MORE POLITICALLY RADICAL THAN I WAS IN 2016? Like, I was pretty damn radical back then, but 2020 has turned me into a bulldog. It's possible my general feelings of malcontent and existential dread would make 2020 Not-Quite-Keiko much bitterer than she is in Lucky Child today. I'd for sure mutter a lot about when things took a dark turn in American politics after the 2016 election, which Yusuke would take as some sort of doomsday prophecy. Which is what it would be, technically, but still."
I thought this reply was innocuous enough—but then, to my surprise, the asks and comments started pouring in. Within minutes I had at least two dozen messages that elaborated on the topic of "2020NQK" and all the ways she'd differ from 2016NQK, ranging from small headcanons to entire scenes to random factoids about 2020NQK's mannerisms and opinions, all hinged upon the events and disasters of the year 2020 (mostly COVID and the current political unrest in the United States).
It was, frankly, INCREDIBLE to watch people come together and create this character.
Obviously I created Not-Quite-Keiko herself, and while I came up with some core details regarding 2020!NQK's existence and how she differs from the original Not-Quite-Keiko, I truly do feel that 2020!NQK is a collaborative effort of both myself and those who helped craft her on Tumblr.
To honor that collaborative spirit, I've decided to write some one-shots based upon this specific version of Not-Quite-Keiko. Some will be retellings/rewritings of scenes from Lucky Child. Some will be brand new scenes either I or someone on Tumblr concocted. Some will be silly. Some will be serious indeed. Whatever they end up being, I hope you find something to enjoy in this ongoing collection (even if it's just a sense of comradery as we all make it through 2020, the "Year from Hell," together).
And since FFnet doesn't allow chapters to only contain notes, here's the first one-shot in this collection: a recollection of when Urameshi Yusuke first encountered 2020!NQK.
STORY WARNINGS: References to 2020 politics, natural disasters, disease and other events
Chapter Warnings: None.
Chapter Note: Please re-read chapter 02 of Lucky Child if you'd like a better idea of the contrast between 2016NQK and 2020NQK re. meeting Yusuke.
RIOT CHILD
CHAPTER 01:
"When Yusuke Met Keiko"
As Yusuke swung back and forth, dragging his toes through the playground's scattered gravel, he watched the other children play—and he wished.
He wished for a lot of things that day. A decent lunch, for one; Atsuko only had chips in the apartment, and his stomach rumbled with the hunger of a growing child. He wished for shoes that fit him better than his too-tight sneakers, for another. And third (perhaps most importantly of all), he wished for other kids to play with.
This last wish was the most ironic of the three. The playground hosted roughly a dozen children Yusuke's age that morning, after all. He watched them slide the slide and whirl upon the merry-go-round from his spot on the swings in silence, staring in their direction through hooded, distant eyes. He had tried to go over and play with them when he first arrived at the playground, but their mothers had called them over before he could make friends. Defeated, he'd retreated to slouch moodily upon the swings, watching the kids have fun without him in the warm, springtime sun.
The mothers, standing in a knot across the playground, watched Yusuke right back.
Although Yusuke didn't know it at the time, even at age seven, he already had a reputation. He was the neighborhood troublemaker who stole lunch money and swore, teaching other neighborhood kids all kinds of bad manners—evidence of his poor upbringing, the mothers whispered behind their hands. His mother had Yusuke much too young. Barely even a child, herself. And his father was no doubt a criminal, too; they'd all seen the tattoos rippling across his arms. No wonder Yusuke was such a lying, scheming little—
He ignored the moms as best he could, gripping the swing's thick chain in tiny hands that shook with emotions he couldn't quite explain, but ones that made his stomach feel as rumbly as a hive of bees. Or perhaps that was the hunger talking. He wasn't really sure. All he knew is that he didn't need to make friends with those stupid kids who had those stupid moms, anyway. He was fine by himself. He didn't need them, even if his stomach churned at the thought of spending another day alone.
He forgot all about his churning stomach when she showed up, however.
Yusuke wasn't sure when she appeared; truly, it seemed to him that one minute she was absent, and the next she was undeniably present, completely alone and unaccompanied by any form of adult (not that that in and of itself was unusual for the place and time). She stood off to one side of the playground away from the moms, the other kids, and Yusuke, not moving to go play, but not running away, either. She wore a pair of yellow overalls, and her brown hair had been pulled into pigtails—but those weren't the things that Yusuke noticed about her first. No, the first thing he noticed was the bright blue medical mask strapped tightly to her face, completely engulfing her nose, cheeks, chin, and even part of her neck. It was too large for her face, nothing but her bright brown eyes showing beneath the fringe of her thick bangs and above the blanket of blue fabric.
These eyes, Yusuke noticed, were trained directly upon him.
Or they were for a few seconds, at least. The girl in the mask looked away when a child broke away from the pack on the playground, veering toward her with a ball clasped in his hands. An invitation to go play, as Yusuke understood it—only the girl in the mask wasn't interested. She shied from the other kid with her hands up, skittering away from him across the gravel-strewn ground in an obvious effort to keep her distance.
The kid with the ball stared at her with his brow furrowed.
Then he shrugged, and he went back to play with the other children.
Yusuke watched, curious, as the girl in the mask's shoulders sagged with relief—and then his own shoulders tightened, because her eyes found Yusuke's once more. She crossed the playground in a series of short, quick strides, standing before Yusuke where he sat upon the strings with her head held back, body half turned away from him… as if she didn't want to get too close, perhaps. Her body language clearly said wasn't happy about their proximity, at any rate. But why the heck had she come over, in that case?
Boldly (because "bold" was Yusuke's default setting in the face of the new and untrustworthy) Yusuke met her eyes and snarked, "Are you sick or something?"
The girl in the mask shook her head, once.
"Then why're you wearing a mask?"
"Cuz other people might be sick," she said at once, voice muffled by the cloth on her face. "Duh."
The thought that others might be sick, and that a mask could protect Yusuke from them, had never really occurred to Yusuke. He'd been taught in kindergarten to wear a mask when he didn't feel well in order to protect others, but… it made sense, he supposed, that the opposite could also be true. But if that was the case, why didn't everyone run around wearing masks every day, like this girl did?
The girl didn't let him think about it for long. Before he could ask any follow-up questions (and Yusuke had several), she drew in a deep breath, seemed to brace herself, then reached out and grabbed him by the hand. Without a word she hauled him off of the swings and toward the opposite edge of the playground, away from the pack of mothers still shooting daggers with their eyes.
"Hey!" Yusuke said, digging in his heels with a spray of gravel. "What are you doing?"
"Just follow me, dammit!"
Yusuke obeyed, mostly out of shock. He'd never heard another kid curse before (especially not a girl), and besides—her tone of voice was like a barking dog, aggressive and loud. Definitely not the voice you'd expect of a girl in yellow overalls and pigtails. He marveled over this as she dragged him down a street and around a corner, then down an alleyway between some houses. When Yusuke developed a stitch in his side, however, he wrenched his hand from the girl in the mask's and skidded to a stop on the pavement, a little surprised when the girl skidded to a halt, too. She didn't even try to snatch his hand back up again, as he half expected she might. She just held her hand out and away from her body as she reached into her pocket with her other hand. Out of this pocket she pulled a small plastic bottle with a white cap, which she tugged off with her teeth so she could squirt a crystal clear liquid into her palm.
Hand sanitizer, Yusuke realized. He knew what it smelled like, and the reek of alcohol as she rubbed her wet fingers together told him she had slathered herself in hand sanitizer. Made his nose curl, too. He didn't like the smell of it at all.
"Those aunties were talking about you."
He jerked his eyes away from her hands. "Huh?"
"They were saying you're a troublemaker and they should call the police." Somehow, even though a mask covered her face, he could still tell she had started to scowl—not at him, though. At the absent aunties. Voice dripping with derision, the girl said, "Calling the cops on a child. What a load."
Yusuke's skin crawled at the thought of the police. He was young, but he knew that calling the police was serious. Atsuko had told him a hundred times never to talk to them, and his dad always walked the other way when he saw a policeman coming. This was, of course, because his dad was part of the Yakuza (not that Yusuke really understood what that meant)—and if Yakuza didn't like the police, and neither did this girl…
Yusuke looked at her with new understanding. "You Yakuza or somethin'?"
"I'd rather be Yakuza than a cop," she said.
Though Yusuke would grow to resent his father in time, at that point in his life, he loved his father very much. And since in his eyes this girl and his father were the same, at least as far as being Yakuza went, he decided that he liked her, too (even if she was weird and hadn't taken off her mask yet, and even though she'd backed away from him by at least two meters). She was the only one who hadn't run the other way when she'd spotted him coming, after all. And she could swear really well. And she'd gotten him out of trouble before it even started, without him having to ask first, so…
Mask-Yakuza-girl, Yusuke decided, was useful—so he grinned and jabbed a thumb at his chest, hoping he looked cool.
"I'm Yusuke," he declared.
The girl glowered at him. "Yusuke what?"
"Urameshi."
"Right." Her eyes shut above her mask, but only briefly. "Of course you are."
"What's that mean?"
"Nothing." For a moment she hesitated, but then she pulled her mask under her chin. "I'm Yukimura Keiko."
In time, Yusuke would learn the significance of Keiko removing her mask in front of him. Just then, he had no idea what her actions truly entailed. All he saw was a cute young girl with big brown eyes, pursed lips, and freckles staring back at him above a crescent of bunched-up blue fabric. Was she cute? Girls were gross, so he wasn't sure. All he knew is that she seemed weird. After she lowered her mask, she kept looking around, wary and shrinking in on herself like she was scared someone would sneeze on her or something.
He'd eventually learn that this was exactly what she was afraid of. Eventually. She'd keep her secrets for a while longer yet.
"Weird name, if you ask me," he decided to say next, hoping to get a rise out of her.
But it didn't work. "Not as weird as yours," she shot back without missing a beat.
Yusuke sputtered. "Is not!"
"Is too." Before he could reply, she pulled her mask back up. "You want some ramen?"
His brows knit.
"My parents run a ramen shop. You can have anything you want."
Yusuke's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. "Anything?"
"You don't have to pay for it." Her eyes glittered. "We take care of each other where I come from."
"You—" He blushed when his stomach growled; her eyes narrowed, but once again, she didn't seem mad at him or anything. "You mean it?"
"Of course I mean it. I don't say things unless I mean them." She turned away and gestured for him to follow. "Now c'mon. Let's go before the cops show up."
Yusuke watched her walk away in silence. Although it wasn't normally his style to tag along with girls, soon enough he followed after. To his surprise, with every step, the rumble in his stomach grew quieter and quieter. It stopped altogether after his first bite of the Yukimura's ramen, and as the noodles warmed his belly, he realized that at least two of the wishes he'd made that day had actually come true.
He still needed new shoes, of course.
Little did he know that Keiko would help him get those, too.
NOTES: You'll notice I lifted some dialogue directly from chapter 02 of Lucky Child when writing this. This is what I mean by a scene rewrite: A reimagining of an event, just with a slightly different twist. I hope you liked it! If you want to suggest something for this collection, please visit me on Tumblr (luckystarchild dot tumblr dot com) and submit an Ask.
In case it's not obvious, I think NQK being from 2020 might result in some obsessions with sanitation and not getting sick. Social distancing, mask-wearing and hand sanitizing have become second-nature to me, so she's retained those habits (with comical tenacity) in her new life.
For the next chapter, I'll be writing about NQK teaching Yusuke to shoplift responsibly. After that I'll write about either A) 2020NQK stockpiling stuff like I did at the start of COVID quarantine, B) more of NQK's germophobe tendencies, or C) NQK being super Rage-Against-the-Machine thanks to my attendance at 2020 protests. Let me know which you'd like to see!
(Also for those wondering if there will be an LC chapter this weekend… unfortunately I left my draft of chapter 113 at home when I went on vacation, so I wrote this instead to fill the void. Thanks!)