Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Through Raven’s Eyes ❯ Lunch Room Spectacle ( One-Shot )

Through Raven's Eyes

By, Jamie1317kast

 

Every teenager in the world knows someone like Raven. The one who sits quietly in the back of the class, eats lunch at her own table, gets picked on by the jocks, and falls hopelessly in love with the cutest boy in school.

 

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is copyrighted to Natsuki Takaya, not me. And Raven and Midnight belong to Kirenia.

 

Rated PG for the general high-school life of teenagers.

 

Through Raven's Eyes:

 

Raven awoke to the sound of her alarm clock beeping for the third time that morning. She nearly contemplated the idea of unplugging the loud thing and going back to bed. But, as luck would have it, skipping school was not destined to be in her near or immediate future.

Her onee-chan rapping impatiently on the door betrayed the time. “ Raven! I'm going to be late for work! C'mon, it's time to get up!” Sighing heavily, Raven rolled out of bed, going into automatic pilot. She dressed, ate, preened, and hurried out the door to her onee-chan's waiting car.

 

Substitute sensei Midnight strode into class 1-D, toting Raven behind her, who quickly shuffled to her seat at the back of the class. Several of the students rejoiced at the sight of the substitute, because any student worth his or her money knows that substitutes are a chance to goof off and cause general mayhem.

Walking up to the sensei's desk, Midnight faced the grinning class. She'd already caught the eraser in the door, and she wasn't about to sit down and give the little brats a chance to laugh at her.

Mayu-sensei had called Midnight earlier on that morning, asking her to fill in for the day with some lame excuse about a new boyfriend and something about a seahorse. Midnight had stayed on the phone just long enough for the information to register itself in her sleep-induced brain, and to tell Mayu-sensei that she was delusional, and that there was no such thing as men who turned into random aquatic animals.

 

Settling herself into her seat, Raven dared to cast a sidelong glance toward her secret crush. Or rather, and for that matter, every girl's secret crush; Yuki Sohma. Yuki was the cutest, most popular, and downright most handsome man Raven had ever laid eyes on.

Unfortunately, since there were so many girls that felt this way about Yuki, he didn't even know that Raven existed.

Her onee-chan was starting class, so Raven reluctantly tore her gaze away from her secret prince, and tried to pay attention.

 

Morning lessons went as usual, Midnight caught every single one of the students pranks, and even hurled a few spit-balls of her own when the orange-haired trouble-maker wasn't looking. His reaction was always to shout something obscene and to blame his cousin sitting on the opposite side of the room.

She couldn't help but notice how her little sister's attention wasn't on the lesson plan. She decided not to bring it to the public attention of the class and ask Raven at lunch.

 

When lunch came around, Raven didn't even notice the soft, far away bell-chimes. In fact, the reason Raven even noticed that it was lunch was when Yuki left the classroom, leaving her alone with her onee-chan.

“ Hey.” Midnight announced, shifting through the papers on sensei's desk, while Raven took out her lunch box. “ You love him, don't you?”

Poor Raven nearly choked on her limp baloney sandwich, and it took her a few minutes to get her fragile bearings back in place. “ Wha-wha..?” So shaken by her onee-chan's usual bluntness, she paled, then blushed furiously.

“ Oh no, I-I c-c-couldn't.” Her voice barely a whisper, long black hair falling in wisps over her pale face.

“ Yes you can.” Midnight argued, sitting on Raven's desk with a rustle of black cloth, grabbing her sister's sandwich. “ Because you already do. Now, you don't want this, it's gross.”

Midnight scoops up Raven's brown-bag lunch and throws it into the trash by sensei's desk. “ O-onee-chan, d-don't!” Raven's chair scraping the tiled floor as she stands to retrieve her dead lunch.

Held back from the trash can by Midnight, her onee-chan smiles a mischievous grin down upon her little sister. Pushing shy, little Raven toward the class room door, Midnight's very eyes radiated sensible mischief.

“ Go get lunch from the cafeteria, good luck!” Midnight grinned, shoving Raven out the door, slamming it shut behind her, giggling evilly to herself.

 

Alright, I can do this. Raven thought to herself as she made her way down to the lunch room. Attempting to convince herself that everything would go smoothly. All it is, is buying hot lunch, nothing special. And it's not a guaranteed fact that you'll have to speak to Yuki. Right. I can do this.

Twenty minutes later.

How long is this lunch line, anyway? At this rate, I won't have much time to eat.

5 minutes later.

Right, now I've got my lunch. All I have left to do, is to find an empty table and-there he is! Okay Raven, don't panic. I repeat, DON'T PANIC! Right, not panicking. Just walk right by him, keep your eyes on the floor, don't make eye contact-

 

*CRASH*

 

-I made eye contact. Oh my goodness! I bumped into him, oh no, now he's got food all over his uniform! What do I do?!

Raven lay on the cold floor of the cafeteria, a third of the contents of her lunch-tray on her uniform, a third on the floor, and a third on Prince Yuki himself. Who, for all the world, looked like it could have been worse.

He reached down to Raven, offering his pale hand to her assistance. “ Can I help you up, Miss Raven?” He smiled, kindly, either unaware or ignoring the fact that all the other students were pointing and laughing at her.

The blood rushed to her pale cheeks, and Raven scrambled to her feet, fleeing the lunch room blindly. She didn't want Yuki, of all people, to see her cry.

 

The bell-chimes had already rung, warning all the students that they were late about an hour ago. Raven was hiding out behind the gymnasium, her uniform was folded neatly beside her on the grass, wearing her gym shorts and T-shirt.

Yuki's soft footsteps went un-noticed by Raven, as she continued to cry into the valley between her knees, curled up against the wall behind her.

“ Miss Raven?” Yuki's tentative, soft voice cut across Raven's thoughts of self-hate and ridicule. “ I don't know why you ran away, but… I wanted to say ` I'm sorry.' It was my fault, I should have been watching where I was going. And now you're upset, I'm sorry.”

Raven looked up, seeing Yuki now in an even more princely light than before. It didn't matter if he'd have done the same courtesy for any other person, right now it was her. Right now, he was here with her, drying her tears and making her smile with a silly joke. Nobody else in the world mattered, because at that moment, it was only Yuki and Raven.

Yuki extended his hand once more, “ Now, let's just start by walking back to class, okay?”

Raven hesitantly smiled, blue-grey eyes glittering with post-tears, dark hair cast out behind her. “ Y-yes. I think, I can manage that much. Arigatou.”