The Ordinary Life Of Chizuru Yukimura

Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.

I am very glad my breasts aren't bigger. This was a phrase that Chizuru never thought she would ever say, however their small size did prove useful when attempting to hide them. Once she had fully covered up all parts of her that looked remotely feminine, she exited the bathroom.

Last night when she had informed Kaoru about being dragged into the kendo club he had just laughed. The lucky bastard had even avoided joining any club and had come home early as she had wanted to do. Forget everything it said in shoujo manga about all the bitchy group warfare, being a girl was so much easier.

Kaoru had still been in bed when she left. He was planning on meeting up with his new 'bestie' Sen. Part of her was envious that she couldn't go and have fun with a friend like that. Heisuke was nice but Chizuru wasn't planning on getting close to him. Her brother was a lot ballsier than her.

She'd left the house at a reasonably early hour and so could enjoy the peace and quiet of the streets. The place they'd used to live was a lot more urban and the few natural spots there were had been quite crowded. In comparison this rural town was pretty blissful. There were a few other students around but no one she recognised and even at the school gates most people weren't around.

There was a reason Chizuru had come in earlier. Hijikata had insisted that she and Heisuke go and hand in their forms this morning. The person she had to give it to was the supervising teacher, who sadly was the scowly home-room teacher. For this reason she'd gone in earlier whilst he was less likely to be in the office, so she could just leave the form on his desk.

Sadly this plan didn't take into account the fact that Sannan was quite hard working and so was one of the only teachers in there. Chizuru gulped, knocked on the door and walked in.

"S-Sannan-Sensei!" Damn that was too loud and too feminine.

"Yukimura. Is there a problem?"

"I was told to give you this!" She held out the form which he took from her and carefully scrutinised it.

"Ah, a new member. Excellent." He scribbled a quick signature on the bottom of the form and put it in one of the trays of his desk. "Do you know if anyone else will be joining?"

"Heisuke is." It was kind of strange to see him being nice when he'd been quite angry yesterday. Probably because she was joining the club he supervised.

"Toudou… Well that brings us up to seven." He made a note on another piece of paper. "Is that everything?"

"Oh yes! Thank you." She bowed slightly and left the room, walking right into Heisuke as she turned to go down the corridor.

"Woah, Ruo you were in a rush."

"Sorry…" Both Chizuru and Heisuke rubbed their foreheads.

"Just handed in your form, eh?"

"Yeah…"

"Sweet, wait there a sec." Heisuke wandered into the office and stood awkwardly in the hallway. A few other teachers wandered in and out of the office and slowly the corridors started to get noisier. Just as she was starting to worry about where the boy had gone, Heisuke leant out of the door.

"Hey Ruo, come here a second." With feelings of apprehension she followed. Sannan was waiting next to his desk.

"Yukimura, could you help Toudou carry these to the classroom?"

"Of course!" They were damn heavy but she didn't want to appear rude.

By the time they got to the classroom Chizuru's arms felt like they were going to drop off. Heisuke hadn't noticed and was chattering on about something. Mainly food related she thought. It was hard to tell since she couldn't concentrate. The relief she felt when she got to her seat after depositing the books on Sannan's desk was a great feeling.

"You're not so good at carrying things are ya?" Heisuke had just dropped into the chair behind her.

"No…"

"Ah well, you'll get a lot tougher after a few weeks of kendo."

"Yay?" Getting fitter would be nice but she doubted she could handle any harsh training. Kaoru had been telling her stories about early morning training sessions and club trips to put her off.

"It's gonna be great so don't worry." Heisuke was a very optimistic person.

The first few lessons were pretty uneventful and breaks were spent in the classroom just chatting about mundane things. It was when they got to the fourth lesson, maths, that the problems occurred.

Sannan-sensei decided to set them as homework a set of questions at the back of the textbook to be handed in the next day. Chizuru wasn't overly keen on this but her reaction was nothing compared to Heisuke's who started hitting his head on the desk as soon as lunch break started.

"Are you ok?" He looked up at her with pouting lips.

"I can't do it!" His voice rose in a pitiful whine.

"The homework?"

"I suck at maths so bad!"

"We could do it together?" His response was to jump up and lean in close to her.

"You can help me?"

"I can try?" She struggled a little with maths but she usually got it eventually.

"You beautiful man!" Heisuke actually hugged her, an act that had her tensed up. Mainly she worried about him noticing certain parts of her anatomy. "What's wrong?"

"Um…" It wasn't something she could say.

"Oh! Sorry forgot how shy you are." He tapped her on the back. "Wanna head to the library?"

"Sure." It would certainly make up for the time spent at the kendo club later if she did her homework now.

The library had a fair few people in it and most of the tables seemed to be taken, but as she went to suggest they find somewhere else Heisuke started waving.

"Look it's Saito and Souji!" The two of them were sitting at a table in the centre of the room, the rest of which was deserted. "Score, we can sit there."

"O-ok." Obviously she'd be spending time with them at kendo club but being around other boys still felt awkward.

"Hey guys." Heisuke dropped into the chair opposite Saito, with Chizuru sitting opposite Souji who gave her a slight smile.

"Heisuke, Ruo."

"H-hello."

"What are you guys doing here?"

"Attempting history." Souji held up a textbook.

"Ahh it's maths for us. Ruo's gonna help me."

"A brave decision there."

"Eh?" Souji was smiling whilst Saito seemed quite blank-faced still. Heisuke was not best pleased with this comment.

"Everybody's tried teaching him maths, he's basically allergic to it. It'll end up with you doing all the work and him copying you."

"No I won't!"

"Even Hijikata couldn't help you," Saito added despite looking down at his own work.

"It's ok, I don't mind." She was a pretty nice person after all.

"It seems you got lucky in your choice of friend for once."

"More like the rest of you guys are dicks."

This continued for a little while until Heisuke realised he needed to be working. Chizuru took a while but eventually worked out what she needed to do. The same could not be said for Heisuke who spent most of the time groaning and even scribbling over what he had done. She attempted to explain what he need to do but every time he seemed to miss something. After a long period of attempted explanations and with only ten minutes left of lunch, Chizuru just pushed her book over to him.

"You sure?"

"Just don't copy it exactly," Sannan was likely to notice.

"I owe you for this!" Heisuke eagerly started scribbling everything down.

"I told you." Souji yawned at the other side of the table and shut his textbook.

"Oh shut up." Heisuke paused to quickly give Souji the middle finger then resumed work.

"Souji, should we get going?" Saito was pointing to the clock.

"Yeah sure. See you guys later." The two older boys left and after Heisuke had finished rushing through, they had to practically dash to get to the last class. An hour of world geography later and they were on their way to kendo. This time they weren't the first ones to get there. Hijikata was sitting by the table reading but he looked up when they entered.

"Why is everyone so late?" It seemed he'd been waiting a while.

"Classes running late?" Heisuke and Chizuru went and sat with him. She was glad she went with Heisuke since being alone with an angry guy wasn't something she wanted to try. When the other four arrived the awkwardness lessened and she started to relax. Until Hijikata made an announcement.

"Ok, get the gear on, we're going to be practicing." Oh no. "Heisuke you know what you're doing. Yukimura come with me."

"O-ok." He led Chizuru over to the protective gear on the wall and after staring at her for a minute grabbed one of the smallest and least dusty of the lot.

"Put your PE kit on underneath and stick this on."

"Ok!" I really need to expand my vocabulary. When she turned around a horrifying revelation came over her. The others had all stripped down in front of her and were starting to change. It seemed she was also expected to do this.

"What you doing newbie?" Once Shin had called attention to her, everyone was looking. Looking at half-naked guys wasn't a problem since obviously she had a brother but there was no reason she could strip in front of them. Plus they were a lot more masculine than Kaoru. Chizuru froze like a deer in headlights.

"Um…"

"What's the problem? Just get changed." Hijikata sounded angry even.

"Oh yeah! Ruo's kind of shy." At least Heisuke was helping her.

"Really? What are you, a girl?" Shinpachi had meant it as a joke but she took it more seriously.

"I'm not a girl!" She roared it so loudly that she surprised herself.

"…You can get changed in the back room." Hijikata pointed to a door and after grabbing her bag, she hurried in. After she slammed it shut she sighed. It had been a stupid thing to do. Through the door she could hear them talking.

"You idiot!"

"Ow! What?"

"What if the poor kid has some kind of complex? You insensitive asshole!" It seemed Sano was having a go at him.

"Yeah Shin, you jackass." At least they seem supportive?

Once she had finished getting her PE kit on, she struggled a little to get the protective gear on over it. Chizuru had never worn it before and although it was relatively obvious what went where, it wasn't amazingly comfortable. When she finally got all the armour on, she practically stumbled out the door and into the back of Souji.

"S-sorry!" And now I'm being clumsy… Great.

"Right, pair up and do basic drills. Heisuke I want you to go with Saito, Souji you can help Yukimura."

"Guess we're partners then."

"Yeah…" This wasn't a bad thing but she didn't know the boy that well and he seemed kind of difficult to talk to.

The drills they gave her to do were only very basic but she had little to no hand-eye co-ordination and slow reaction times meaning she ended up being knocked a lot and ended up missing him. The guy started feeling sorry for her and did slow down. This didn't make much of a difference. Towards the end of the session Souji started coughing. This wasn't surprising when you considered how dusty the room was but when this happened everyone else stopped.

"Are you ok?" Instantly Hijikata was next to him. He really looked concerned.

"I'm fine!" Souji sounded annoyed more than anything else.

"You're sure?"

"I said I'm fine!" He knocked the other boy's hand away. "Stop fussing!"

"I see… Well that'll do for today." After this everyone began to get changed out of their clothes and so Chizuru dashed to the side room again. She couldn't help but wonder why that happened. It was an overreaction for what it was.

Heisuke had been waiting for her and they left the building together. Just as she went to ask him about why they had over reacted so much she noticed that Kaoru had decided to wait for her and was sitting on a wall opposite the club building. He waved when she appeared.

"That's your sister, right?"

"Yeah."

"You guys are so alike."

"I guess we are." They were fraternal twins but they looked very similar.

"Hey Tsuruo."

"Hi Kaori."

"I'll see you later Ruo."

"Oh yeah!" Heisuke headed off to meet Shin and Sano and Chizuru walked off with Kaoru.

"What was it like then?" He'd waited until they'd gotten fair enough away to talk privately.

"I had to change in a separate room."

"Heh, that's pretty funny." For you. "PE's gonna be fun."

"Don't remind me." They had that tomorrow and she was not looking forward to it.

"Anyone guess anything yet?"

"Not yet."

"Me neither. We're not doing too bad eh, 'brother'?" Kaoru winked at her.

"It's not going to end well though." Because it would be so hard to keep it up for three years if they weren't found out. Even worse would be after they left school. Chizuru had images of going to university, still dressed as a boy because someone from school was there.

"Ahh it's a joke. Anyone can see that." He laughed and walked ahead with Chizuru following behind looking dejected. Hopefully it would get easier as time went on.