Eins
At least his dad will be pleased.
Rin isn't sure how it happened, but he's waiting for his friend to get out of work so they can study together for the entrance exams. While Shizuka wants to go to True Cross like Yukio, he doesn't have expectatives that high because, before meeting her, Rin was planning to just drop out and find work, so he doesn't think he can pass the difficult entrance exam of the private academy (and because Yukio was going on a scholarship, not sense paying for Rin's tuition when his little brother was the one that showed promise). But Shizuka is working hard (against school regulations and probably child labor laws) to pay her own tuition because her guardian will not be able to, and somehow she brainwashed him into taking the exam for a public school and find a part time work; at least his dad will be pleased.
The thing is that both of them have abysmal grades (the reason she can't apply for an scholarship). Shizuka is awful at social studies and is constantly skipping class to go to work, Rin has simply never done well at school, and neither of them is going to cram school for their own reasons. Thankfully she understands math and science, and has ok English, so she tutors him on that, and well, he can't help her with history, geography and literature, where she has most problems, but now he actually goes to class and can get the assignments and such for her, and then they review together.
The place she works at is not in a good part of town, but those are the kind of business that would employ her at an evening shift; Rin is comforted by the fact that she is secluded to the kitchen. The thing that actually worries him is whatever it is that she does on school hours, because she has never explained beyond "commission" and "freelance".
When she steps out the employee's entrance at the back, she is carrying a plastic bag with a container of leftovers on one hand, her school bag on the other, and the sports bag where she stashes her uniform strapped across her chest. He usually brings leftovers of his own from home and they eat them as supper while they study at an internet café (they don't allow boys at the rooms she's staying at), but his dad believes he has a girlfriend and has been incessantly teasing him about it, so today they'll go to the church and study well in everybody's view. She tells him it's going to have the opposite effect, but he knows his old man and he will believe her if she's the one to explain.
Δ
Shiro examines the girl Rin has just brought home. His boy is sweet but an idiot (the kind of idiocy that mostly goes away with age) so a girlfriend is not something he was expecting to happen for some years. At least Yukio is still predictably going nowhere with the Moriyama girl (something he doesn't want to deal with for many reasons, poor kids). The girl introduced as Uchida Shizuka is a pale wiry thing dressed in a track suit, with black hair severely held back and a scar on her face. Cute, he admits, like an underfed kitten or a tidier, more serious, baby Shura (but that doesn't sound like Shura, uhm). She is not Rin's type at all.
Maybe they are really study partners, go figure. But it's good, either way, girlfriend or not, his son is taking school and his future more seriously and getting closer to the people around him, it will ground him, he hopes.
When Yukio -entering the room after Shiro- sees her, he does a double take.
"Uchida-san?"
"Oh, uhm, good evening Okumura-kun".
"Did something happen?". Yukio frowns, looking from her to his brother, searching his face and knuckles for bruises and scrapes to fix.
"Rin was introducing me to his girlfriend".
"She is not my girlfriend", Rin says at the same time Shizuka answers, "I'm just helping Rin-kun with his math, and he lend me some history notes I believe are yours, Okumura-kun".
"Mine are really bad and she missed classes when our group covered that part", explains Rin, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "You don't mind, right?"
Yukio adopts a stern posture Shiro doesn't have idea where Yukio got from, because certainly, it wasn't from him. "You should have asked first, Nii-san".
"You and the old man weren't here when we got home".
"That's not excuse for looking through my things".
As his sons descend into an argument, Shiro focus his attention again on the girl and she looks back at him, expressionless, like she had been the entire time.
"Thank you for helping Rin", he tells her, and her face softens a bit.
"He's a good friend".
Δ
It's been a while since Yukio learned the truth behind Uchida´s doll-like ojou-san façade, but he still has problems believing that the soft-spoken girl, with her regulation length skirt, her approved color cardigans and her big white bow at the back of the head, is constantly skipping classes, has an illegal job at the bad part of town and constantly gets involved at his brother's fights; the scar – thin and straight, like it was made by a blade– that crosses her face would have been an signal, but he didn't want to make assumptions (in truth he made them, and they were wrong).
At the moment, she is sitting in seiza in front of him and his brother, eating cherry tomatoes with relish from her Our Neighbor Troll lunch box. Her lunch (like Yukio's) was made by Rin. They don't always eat together, Yukio used to believe (because he is in another class and usually too busy to notice these things) that the days when he and Rin ate alone, she was with other friends, now he knows that she simply isn't at school.
"Uhm, our homeroom teacher said that our grades seem ok and she will help us fill the papers before the deadline", Uchida says. Even with all her delinquent ways, she is a good influence on Rin. "She praised Rin-kun a lot".
Rin blushes and looks away, stuffing his mouth with rice so he doesn't have to comment. Shizuka puts a piece of kabocha on his bento and then gives Yukio a second one in a snake quick movement that leaves her looking quite pleased with herself.
"Her condition was that we have to apply to a public and a private school. I'll apply for the same public one as Rin-kun".
"I don't understand why we have to take two exams".
"Sensei wants us to have a Plan B, Rin-kun".
"My Plan B was to drop out".
"She is a teacher; her work is to try to keep us at school".
Rin pouts at her and points rudely at Yukio with his chopsticks.
"Yukio is only applying to True Cross".
Yukio doesn't have more options in the path he's chosen.
Δ
All of them pass.
When he sees his name in the acceptance lists, Rin grabs Uchida and twirls her around, then hugs Yukio with way too much strength before running away to tell dad.
When they get True Cross Academy's results, Rin and Uchida grab the other's hands and jump excitedly in place before lunging after Yukio to take each of them one of his hands, so he can awkwardly join in the jumping and then Rin drags them to tell dad.
Afterwards the rest of the term passes quickly; none of them goes to the class trip to Kyoto, much to Rin disappointment, but when they finally graduate he's excited once again.
Dad congratulates them after the ceremony, grinning broadly and ruffling their hair. Rin bears it bashfully and with ill grace, pleased and too prideful at once. Yukio thinks he did better, but he also blushed at the praise.
Notes
- What is Shizuka doing when she misses classes? She does translations. Eli, the dead girl whose memories she has, is based on me, obviously, so she speaks Spanish, English and French, on top of Japanese, which I don't speak but it's Shizuka native language. This is all wish fulfillment on my part, because now in my old age it is harder to pick up languages. Kids, if you are reading this, please take seriously your foreign language classes if you have them at school. Anyways, translation work never ends, because if you are doing it freelance it means that if a regular client asks you for a job and you decline, they will find another person and may never ask you again.
- Uchida is not a mistake, she changed her name, remember, for a more common one.
- Our Neighbor Troll is My Neighbor Totoro, in the spirit of brands like wacdonald's or bepsi