Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Girl ❯ Chapter 1: A School-Top Meeting ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Author’s pre-word:

As I write this, I am imagining the dialogue first in Japanese, and then translating it into English. The only Japanese I am going to be using at all will be honorifics, as those do NOT translate, and I don't care which people say they do. Everything else can be translated quite clearly (with a bit of imagination), so if the characters suddenly sound formal or break out into what seems like a non sequitor, it's because I'm translating a word like gochisosama or okairinasai into its direct English phrase. Hey, I like the fact that Japanese is a very formal language in many places, you know?

BTW, the names of most of the characters, and even the title of this story (Bad Girl), are all just placeholders for now, until I finalize the story itself. I mean, there's a couple that I like, but several of them are just whim-chosen.


Chapter One: A School-top Meeting

Seeing the sunrise through the other side of the night, watching the streetlamps switch off one by one as the gray of false dawn brightened the sky, wasn't the young woman's favorite way of greeting the morning. It wasn't as though she had a lot of choice in the matter, though. Nothing seemed important enough to do any more, not even sleep, and that being the case meant... watching the sun burn away the early-morning gray in a way that seemed to mock rather than warm.

Being at school over an hour early cinched it: she was bored. Not bored in an ordinary way, that might be relieved with a new movie, a new game, or even a new boyfriend; but bored in a way that took every hint of joy from life and left it gray and meaningless.

She'd wandered through the empty halls of the school, occasionally nodding to a teacher or fellow early student, and eventually made her way up to the roof. Ambling over to the roof's fence, she leaned against it, watching the early-morning activity of the school grounds below her with a wistful expression, as though her elevation above and apart from her fellow students was more than merely physical.

Her black hair danced in the light morning breeze, but she ignored it. She was beautiful, though she would have laughed if you had said so to her face; not because she didn't know it to be true but because it no longer mattered to her. Being beautiful was just a matter of taking care of yourself, and taking care of yourself was just another part of going through the motions of living. Lately, the motions were all she had left.

"Struggle defines existence," she murmured to herself, "and I have nothing to struggle against."

Her eyes danced aimlessly through the school clubs and their morning practices, finally alighting on the archery club. There was something about archery (and the young men who practiced it) that she found attractive; on the outside it looked peaceful, almost meditative, but it was an activity with origins deadly and violent.

One boy in particular drew her eye, though she couldn't make out any details from this distance. She could, however, see that he was smoother, more skilled, than any of the others. With her distance abstracting the situation, she could see how the others deferred to him, though he seemed unaware of it; perhaps simply ignorant of the fact that he was better then they, perhaps too arrogant to notice unless the deference stopped.

The distant twang of strings and thwack of arrows hitting targets, the slow, deliberate motions of the archers, the workings of the distant little society, all worked to lull her into sleep, still leaning against the fence. Peacefully, for the first time in days, she stole a moment of slumber.

The first bells of the school stirring to life startled her to wakefulness, and the girl considered going to homeroom with her classmates. "Screw it," she said, "I'm gonna have a cigarette."

The door to the roof slammed open and a young man rushed out, half-running, half stumbling. He almost fell over as he moved across the roof, but steadied himself by blindly grasping the fence that warded the roof’s edge less than ten feet away from where she was standing.

He looked familiar, but it took a second for her to place him as a classmate, though there was something else that tickled her memory... Rather than dwell upon it, she said wryly, "Ya know, kid, ya really shouldn't be cutting class."

He jumped at the sound of her voice, and she blew a long plume of smoke as he turned to face her. He stared at her, trying to think of some reply, and just as he opened his mouth –

"'You're one to talk,' yeah, I know. But at least I've got a reason to skip out of this class."

"Oh," he asked defensively, "what's that?" As an afterthought, he added, "And I've got a good reason, too!"

She waggled her finger at him. "Hey, we barely know each other and you wanna swap life secrets? Before we're even introduced?" With a grin, she said, "My name's Kairi, by the way. Kairi Takahashi."

"Sei Adachi," he said reluctantly, a sullen note in his voice.

"Sit down, Adachi-kun. Get comfortable. If you're gonna to skip this period, you'd do better to relax some." He did so, squatting beside the barrier fence, and she pulled her legs up to her chest, looking very directly at him as she said, "Now that that's settled-

"I'm skipping class because Igarashi-sensei wants to screw me."

Kairi, with some effort, restrained laughter as Adachi's face went from slightly sullen to bright, embarrassed beet red at her plain statement. "Wh-wh-wh-whaaat? A teacher wants to… to…" Although it wouldn't have seemed possible just a second before, his face grew even brighter as he tried to force out the next word.

She decided to help him out. "Screw me? It's simple. I have an easy reputation around this school because I like to fuck, our teacher makes a pass at me last week in a club, I turn him down, he gets forceful, I get more forceful, he ends up with a broken thumb, and now he's gonna fail me whether or not I sit in his fucking class. So, why bother?" She flicked the dead cigarette butt away and put her hands behind her head, leaning back. "Might as well take some time out to stare at the clouds. Ya know, I don't look at them enough. They're very pretty."

"Igarashi-sensei wants to s-screw you, Takahashi-san?" It seems to defy his world concept, she thought irreverently to herself, as though he considers teachers to be some far-off godlike creatures that stand at the head of classes because of their supreme nature.

It was, unfortunately, an all-too-common mistake among her fellow students. Hell, she'd thought the same herself until, what? The third grade? "Teachers're people just like you and me, Adachi-kun. They're just older." She turned her attention from the clouds back to the boy. "Now, for your problem."

"What?"

In one smooth motion, she uncrossed her legs and stood up, striding over to where Adachi was sitting. Putting her hands on her hips, she stared down at him. "Look, I shared my class-cutting problem. I expect you to at least do th'same."

He tried to inch backwards, so she relented her menacing posture somewhat by pivoting on one foot and plopping down on the cement next to him, leaning against the fence. "C'mon. You've got my curiosity peaked." Even if it is just 'cause I'm bored, and you're so cute and shy that you blush if a girl says the word 'screw', she qualified mentally.

"Well, when the teacher rearranged our seats yesterday, he, er..." He mumbled something, so she put her arm around him and pulled him closer. He stiffened in surprise at the contact, but didn’t pull away.

"If you're too shy to say it out loud, just whisper it in my ear."

"ThegirlIlikeissittingnexttomeinclass."

After puzzling out his slurred words, she couldn't keep a peal of delighted laughter inside. "Is that it?" she said, still laughing. "Oh, I wish I had your problems!"

Now, he did pull away indignantly, breaking her grasp and standing up. Before he could take a step, she grabbed his trouser’s leg. "Wait!" He did, and she added, "Maybe I can help you."

"Yeah, right. I shouldn't've told you anything. You're going to string me along for just long enough to humiliate me." Adachi broke free and strode for the door, but Kairi followed him.

"No, I really am sorry for laughing! I wanna make it up to you."

Adachi whirled around at the top of the stairs leading downward. "I don't want your heeeeeeeeellll-" he started to say, then yell, as he teetered on the edge of the stairway. Immediately, Kairi reached out to catch one of Adachi's flailing hands, but instead of pulling him out of peril was yanked down the stairs along with him. Showing fast reflexes, Adachi folded his arms protectively around the smaller girl and curled up as they bounced painfully down the stairs, still yelling, when they finally hit the bottom.

"Urk..." Kairi blinked and lifted herself somewhat from Adachi's embrace. "Y'all right, Adachi-kun?"

"Maybe..."

"Takahashi-san, I know that you're aggressive, but this is out of line!" At the sound of Igarashi-sensei's indignant words, Kairi looked up to see that they had an audience of their entire class, which had emerged from their room next to the stairwell. Adachi opened his eyes and froze as he saw the group watching them, another red flush creeping up his face.

On a hunch, Kairi followed his line of vision and saw that it matched up with one of the prettier girls in the class, a blonde girl with vaguely half-Japanese features - not that that meant much, these days. Restraining the urge to hug Adachi close and declare him her hero in full view of this girl that he was obviously crazy about, she slid off him and pushed herself to her feet.

"Hey, teacher, I'm gonna help Adachi-kun here to the nurse's office. He saved me from a pretty hard fall down the stairs," she stated with studied indifference; enough to say that she thought it was the right thing to do, but with the implication that she didn't really care about helping Adachi one way or the other. Turning her attention away from the teacher and towards the prone boy, she held out one hand. "Can you stand up?"


****

Sei limped down the hallway, leaning heavily on Takahashi. He wasn't seriously injured from his tumble down the stairs, which made him feel somewhat lucky; on the other hand, his back, legs, and pride were bruised very badly. What had taken the worst bruising, though, was his pride As though it had needed any more bruising… Sullenly, he glared at Takahashi, but didn't feel sturdy enough to try to walk on his own, yet.

"So, it's THAT girl, is it?" Sei stumbled and Takahashi had to tug mightily to keep him on his feet.

"Wh-wh-what?"

With her free hand, Takahashi patted his cheek. "Don't bother lying to me, I saw you looking at her... what's her name?" When he hesitated, she added, "Eh, just tell me! I can find out from the class roster easily enough."

"...Cherie Hasegawa."
"Ah, she is a half," Takahashi said neutrally. "I was wondering if she was a natural blonde or not. Which of her parents was foreign?"

"Mother, I think," Sei replied, feeling a bit off-balance by the lack of emotion in her voice. What is she going to ask next? She's so... direct. Whatever questions she had were interrupted by the pair's arrival at the nurse's office. .

Takashi slid the door open a bit. "Are you here, Yusashi-kun? Eh, I guess not." She opened the door the rest of the way and helped Sei in, guiding him to a bed and plopping down on another bed opposite his.

"So..." Takahashi said, smiling slightly, "all I have to do is convince her you're a hot date and help you work up the courage to ask her out, eh? Not a bad deal. Does she have a boyfriend?" She waved one hand. "Never mind, you probably wouldn't have a clue."

"I don't want your help." He tried to say it calmly, but the words came out strained and a bit angry.

"Look, you hurt yourself protecting me on that tumble when you didn't have to, and that's not something I let slide. I always pay my debts." Takahashi placed one finger against her lower lip thoughtfully. "You know..." Her hand went to the top button of her uniform, unfastening it, and she leaned forward, "there are other ways I could pay you back," she breathed seductively.

Sei found himself leaning away, aroused by her offer, but with more than a small amount of outright fear mingling with it. Oh, no! Is she serious? Is she joking with me again? I... don't know what to do!

Her pose lasted for all of perhaps three seconds before she started laughing again, lying back on the bed. It's strange, she's laughing at me... but there isn't a hint of scorn in it. She doesn't seem to be mocking me, but there's a hint of desperation in that laugh. I don't understand it. I don't understand her.

"What's all this?" A stern voice inquired, and then added, "Ah, it's you, Kairi-chan." The school nurse closed the door behind him as he strode into the room.

"Yusashi-kun, long time no see!" Takahashi propped herself up on one arm to look more directly at the tall man, pushing herself to a sitting position. "How have you been?"

Yusashi? Sei frowned. Is that his first name? All I know is his family name, Daidouji...

"All right, of course," he returned, his grimly handsome features melting somewhat as something vaguely resembling a smile appeared upon it. "And you?"

"I'm..." For the first time since she'd spoken to him on the rooftop not a few minutes ago, unsurety appeared on Takahashi's face. "I'm... alive."

"My mother worries for you, Kairi-chan. She asked last weekend if you would come to our next family dinner." Daidouji lifted an eyebrow. "Confidentially, I believe she wishes to set you up on some marriage dates. We've all heard rumors, and she is more concerned than the rest of us about them. My mother is... rather old-fashioned."

Dismissively, Takahashi waved her hand. "I have no interest in that kind of thing. But I will come by for the family dinner, at least. I owe that much to her." She looked at the clock and eep'ed. "I'd best get back to homeroom!"

As she hopped to her feet and walked quickly out the door, Takahashi added, "Take care of this guy for me, OK? He took a nasty fall down the stairs protecting me." After that, she was gone, the door slamming shut once again behind her.

"So, how badly are you hurt?" Daidouji asked, turning a grim gaze on Sei.

"Not... really that bad. Just some bumps and bruises, really. They kinda hurt right now, but..." Sei couldn't restrain himself any more and burst out with, "You know her? Personally?"

"Reasonably so, yes. My father is her personal attorney, and several years ago she stayed with our family for a time." The gaze turned even sharper. "Why do you ask?"

"Er.... it just..." Sei stammered for a moment. "Well... it just seems like something out of my little sister's girl comics, you know? School nurse knowing plucky heroine, helping her out of any tough spots she gets into?"

Once again, the craglike features of Daidouji softened into a slight smile. "Kairi-chan is adequately... ah... 'plucky' to get herself out of any tough spots. I chose this job out of practical considerations a number of years ago. Any resemblance to girl's comics, newly published or long out of print, is purely coincidental." The appearance of softness vanished as the gimlet eyes once again pierced Sei's.

"Now, what is YOUR involvement with her?"

Sei blinked. "Ummm... I'm not sure, really. She says that she wants to help me out, but even though I tell her I don't want her to help..."

"Ah." Comprehension entered Daidouji's eyes, along with some measure of sympathy. "Kairi-chan is rather like that, charging ahead and doing as she thinks to be right without sympathy for foolishness or hesitance. Fortunately, she's very often right."


****


Am I doing the right thing?

It was a question Kairi asked herself often, and just as often pushed it aside as irrelevant. Now, though, she brought the question close and examined it, and her motives along with it.

Kairi knew she was doing this, helping out Adachi, out of pure boredom. There had seemed to be no point to anything, this morning; and while she objectively knew that life was just as pointless now as it had been a few hours ago, it at least felt as though there were some reason to go on for a few more days.

Of course, having decided to help him still left her clueless about HOW. Walking none too fast and having no real desire to go back to the classroom until the teacher was gone to his next class, Kairi drifted to a halt next to a bulletin board. Her eyes looked over the various notices stapled to it, but didn't read a single one.

The only way I can see is to become friends with the girl, Cherie Hasegawa... urgh. I haven't been friends with another girl since the second grade, she thought, and that's something that I don't miss at all, not while watching the crap that girls put each other through. Guys are at least honest about hating each other...

But all this backbiting still don't solve the main problem.

Kairi's eyes wandered over a small notice signed "Cherie Hasegawa" at least four times before she actually noticed it. It was decorated with cutely-drawn crying faces that attracted her attention and sympathy even before reading it, which Kairi did quietly aloud. "Please help me! I haven't enough money for a cram school, but I need a tutor for math!! I'm in Class 4-C!!! -Cherie Hasegawa (thanking you very muchly!)"
"Math?" she murmured. "Well, if it gets me an opening..." As an afterthought, she tore the notice free of the board and looked it over once more before folding it in half and tucking it away. "She draws pretty good."

Heading back to the classroom before she'd intended to didn't seem such a bad idea, now, so that was what she did. Igarashi-sensei glared at her as she stepped into the door, but Kairi returned the gaze neutrally for a moment, then dropped her eyes to the bandage swathing his thumb and smiled. He flinched back, only a little bit, but enough to let Kairi feel as though she'd gotten the best of the exchange.

Plopping down in her seat, she was surprised to see Adachi appear in the door bare moments afterwards. Huh. Maybe he really wasn't badly hurt in the fall... here, I thought it was male pride or something like it that kept him from admitting any pain...

It wasn't until lunchtime that she could put her plan into action safely, so Kairi just leaned back in her chair and let the lessons wash over her. The moment the bell rang for lunch, however, she put her plan into action, striding to where Adachi and Hasegawa sat side by side. Kairi could see by the look in his eyes that Adachi thought she was approaching HIM, and mortification warred with anger visibly on his face -

It really was too bad Kairi turned away from him at the last moment to address Hasegawa, because Adachi's expression would have no doubt been priceless. "I saw your notice on the bulletin board, Hasegawa-san, and I was interested in it."

"Really?" the blonde girl asked, her entire face brightening. "Oh, that's great! Can we meet tomorrow night?"

Kairi blinked, surprised. Just like that? "...Yeah, sure, tomorrow night will be fine. We can meet at my place, unless you'd feel uncomfortable-"

"No, no, not at all!" Hasegawa shook her head as though to dismiss any concerns the other girl might have. "I'll be glad to visit your home!"

"Meet me after school tomorrow, then, and I'll walk ya over there." Give me a chance to have the service clean my house, too.

"Hurray!" Kairi stared, surprised, as Hasegawa waved both her arms in the air, actually beaming with happiness. "I finally found a tutor that won’t try to grope me!"

"What do you mean?"

Hasegawa closed her eyes and stuck out her tongue cutely for a moment before saying, "Well, the only ones who offer are boys, and they always try something funny…" Then, she looked suddenly serious. "But… wait… are you going to try anything funny, Takahashi-san?"

Kairi laughed. "Absolutely not! I don't swing that way, 'cept for that one time, and it was a pretty exceptional mo- er, no, I won't do that kind of thing, I promise!"


****


Catching Takahashi after school was harder than Sei thought it would be. For some reason, many girls had her hairstyle, so more than once he'd tap a girl's shoulder and then end up having to apologize.

Finally, just as he'd decided to give up and go home, he glimpsed her at an intersection down the street. Striding fast to catch up to her, Sei demanded when he got within earshot, "What are you thinking, Takahashi-san?"

Takahashi whirled around and stuck her tongue out at Sei before replying cheerfully, "You’d better be careful about following me after school, else someone might think we really ARE going out."

"I… uh… I just don’t understand. Why are you doing this to m- for me?"

"Because, Adachi-kun, I can tell that you’re the kind of guy who’d think he got rejected even before asking a girl out – in other words, you’re hopeless, and you'll end up watching her get snatched by some other guy if someone doesn't give you a hand. Not to mention," she added casually, turning away from him, "I’m bored, and helping ya is reason enough to put off suicide for at least a few more days."

"Suicide?" Sei stared at Takahashi’s back for a moment as she walked away. "But why-"

"Why would I want to kill myself? No reason. But then, there’s no reason to go on, either – why bother?" She stopped again and leaned against a nearby wall, looking upwards. "Why not make a choice, for better or worse? Life has to have something to it beyond waiting for the next chapter in your favorite comic, going to school, having sex…" Takahashi looked down at the ground and after a short silence added slowly, sadly, "Shouldn’t it?"

"I…"

She flashed a brief smile at Sei. "So, I’ve been finding little things to do that keep me going, day to day, because I’m also a little afraid of makin’ that choice. And, ya know, you seem to have reasons to go on, which makes your life worth more than mine."

Sei was shocked beyond belief, at a complete loss for words. The girl in front of him seemed to have everything. She was beautiful, had amazingly good grades, and though he knew it only by rumor, she was rich, a rumor confirmed by what the school nurse had said earlier about his father being her lawyer – what kind of ordinary person would have something like that?

But… even with all that… she didn’t think her own life was worth living?

I don’t understand her. I definitely, absolutely don’t understand her.

But… I’m starting to want to.



Notes:

You might notice that Sei and Kairi address each other by family name only – even their thoughts, when they think of each other, is like that. Calling someone by their first name is a big deal; it means that you're inside their 'inner circle' as it were. There are people who have known each other for years who still only address each other by family name and honorific.

To be honest, most of the dialogue in here would be somewhat less formal than in an ordinary school day, but it's on a level with politeness in most manga, so I don't feel as though I've broken any big rules.

For those who want to know a bit more about the way it would be in Japanese: Kairi is VERY informal, treating Sei like an equal man-to-man instead of man-to-woman. In point of fact, she'd certainly use the young-informal word 'boku' to identify herself, rather than the normal 'watashi' or the feminine 'atashi'. This has more to do with who she is than the way Japanese people are; she distances herself from feminine usages because of her past and because she just doesn't care who she shocks –she also doesn't talk much at school.

Though Sei would like to treat her formally, she doesn't allow it, and manages to throw him off-balance enough that he can't.

Japan has a very different attitude towards suicide than we do; though it's seen as an abandonment of responsibility, it also has a certain… dramatic respectability. In older days, a samurai who had received orders that went against his honor would oftentimes kill himself after fulfilling them as a reproach to his lord; love stories from medieval Japan invariably came to a tragic end where the woman would commit suicide after seeing the man she wanted marry another, etcetera… it's hard for us to fully understand this, because we've had better than 2000 years of priests telling us that suicides are damned to Hell, do not pass go do not collect eternal salvation, but suicide has a cultural weight to it in their culture that's missing in ours.

Some might say, incorrectly, that "Suicide is no big deal in Japan," but the truth is actually quite the opposite. That's why Kairi is so hesitant about taking the big plunge, as it were.

What to expect for next time? Well, stay tuned and find out!

By the way, here's a character profile for you (just as though this were a real manga!) so enjoy!

Character Profile: Kairi Takahashi
Birthday: November 3rd (Scorpio)
Blood Type: AB
Height: 173 cm (5' 7")
Weight: 62 kg (137 lb)
Favorite food: Expensive sushi (especially when she's treating someone else to it)
Least favorite food: Hot dogs (reminds her of a bad childhood incident)
Best subject: Math
Worst subject: History
Hobbies: Whatever distracts her at the moment. She spent several years in martial arts, dates men almost frantically, but always drops them when they forget "who's in charge." Loves to go out and party, dance all night at the clubs, and do all the things that everyone told her 'good girls don't do.' Rarely plays video games, and then only of a highly specialized genre.
Personality: Is very fatalistic. Hates other women, can't stand to be around them. Has a philanthropic streak; likes to help others… but rarely gets around to it.
Favorite movie: The Shining by Stanley Kubrick
Favorite saying: "What does it matter?"