School Girls' Stories

A/N: You think you know, but you have no idea. Originally I wasn\'t going to make it a two parter, but it was getting to be a long chapter, and I am ready for bed at the moment. So instead of giving it all at once tomorrow, I\'m breaking it up so I can post this part tonight.

Chapter 35 – New Years Day – Part 1

New Years Day was spent ringing bells and saying prayers and wishes for all of the girls. It was a day of celebration of a New Year, and time to have their charms that claimed what sort of luck they would have for the year. Shai was promised the best fortune of them all, while Fuji came in a close second. Yuki’s was full of heartache and Danko and Kaori’s just looked grim. Kaori and Danko threw their charms away, wasted money and time, they complained, while Fuji and Shai tied theirs around their wrists and made sure everyone saw the great fortune they would have for the year. Yuki tried many times to throw hers away, but instead kept holding onto it through out the day.

“This crowd is amazing,” Shai pointed out, looking around at all of the people in the shrines. “So many people are wishing for good fortune this year.”

“No one needs it like Yuki,” Kaori interjected. “Perhaps she will find herself a real boyfriend this year.”

“At least I’m not dating my brother,” Yuki grumbled.

“No, because that would make two of us,” Kaori said snidely, not letting the remark put her in dampened spirits. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked around at the swarm of people nervously. “I think I want out of the crowds,” she told Danko, who nodded her agreement.

“Will you kids be all right alone?” Danko asked condescendingly. All sociability the group had shown one another in their time of need was beginning to die out slowly, and Danko and Kaori were slowly returning to their snide selves. Yuki was almost relieved to see her sister acting almost human again, though what counted as human for Kaori was still a major burn on how the turn of the teenager was going.

“I think we can handle ourselves,” grumbled Fuji, happily watching the two girls go. She turned to Shai and Yuki and smiled happily. “I want to go by the river and just relax. It’s cold, and we will probably freeze, but it will be nice scenery with everyone at the shrines.”

The two girls acquiesced and followed Fuji out onto the streets, pushing through the New Years Day crowds and towards the river banks. There the three girls sat down and just watched the water flow, drinking their last cups of hot chocolate while the true winter spirit was in the air.

“Do you think things will really be different this year?” Shai asked gently.

“They have to be,” Yuki said forcefully. “Fuji’s going to get married, Shai’s going to have her baby, and I… am going to do something with my life… besides video games, cross my heart!”

Fuji let out a small laugh. “I am only getting married if we can get my legal guardian to sign the document,” Fuji explained. “My mother is not a stupid lady, and she won’t just sign anything. I thought of giving her a detention form from one of the teachers, and telling her I was in trouble and she had to sign it, but she would probably call the school to receive exact details on my crime. Same with permission slips.”

“What about slipping it in with all of the other things she has to sign?” Yuki asked. “I mean, she must sign about a billion papers every day.”

Fuji shook her head. “No luck on that one,” Fuji explained. “She does not actually sign any of those papers. Her lawyers sign her name.”

Yuki blinked, staring at Fuji for a couple of seconds. Fuji was looking quite like a space cadet, her mind anywhere but on the conversation at hand. Yuki almost could not believe that Fuji had not thought of it. “Then have one of the lawyers sign it.”
“That’s forgery,” Fuji cried out. “That’s…”

“Illegal,” Yuki nodded. “And your mother’s lawyers do it every day because your mother can’t catch it. If you pay one of those lawyers off, they will sign it with your mother’s perfect signature, and how does she claim someone forged it when someone could bring up that that is what her lawyers do everyday.”

Fuji’s eyes widened and she looked back to the river. “I’ve never tried blackmail before.”

“It’s worth it to escape, isn’t it?” Yuki asked. “I mean, do you want to live with your mom and Mr. Tennison?”

Shai and Fuji exchanged a look. The answer to that was already known, but was she brave enough to take that step. This was still her mother, and she was pretty much fighting for emancipation from the woman. Fuji was not used to living poorly, and she would need to find a job to help out around the cramped apartment, since Kyoei lived there as well. It was a scary prospect. She was supposed to be the one who went to school after high school and did not let marriage stop her. She suddenly had doubts and second thoughts.

Looking at her best friend, carrying the baby of a man who had sold himself to marry a woman with money and broken Shai’s fragile body and heart, Fuji knew what she had to do. She could not live in the same house with that man. Every day she would pass him and every day her morals would be degraded just by being in the same room with him.

“It just might work,” she finally said. It was all she had left to say on the subject.

Shai let out a sigh and began to push herself up from ground. “I hate to leave,” she said, “but I am feeling so very tired. This is a lot more work than I thought it would be, just by breathing I exhaust my whole energy supply.”

Fuji and Yuki both offered her a smile. “Do you want us to walk you home?” Yuki offered.

Shai shook her head gently. “No thank you,” she said in her polite manner. “I just want to walk. I love you two, but sometimes you need a moment to yourself.”

Both girls nodded knowing how Shai felt without really knowing. Shai walked away slowly, heading down the street towards her modest home. With the amount of money her father had he had them living like upper-lower class instead of upper class, period. Shai never complained, and honestly it had never bothered her, but now she wanted that money in a greedy sort of way, to take care of her like nothing had taken care of her before. She had begged her father to let her leave school and home school, but he had refused. He wanted her to be as normal as possible through her ordeal, and she hated it, but she went along with his wishes because he was her father, and despite everything, he knew best.

“Shai!” a voice called behind her.

Shai turned around and smiled at Shinwa. “We always seem to run into each other like this,” he told her with a grin.

Shai nodded smiling happily while her body ached to go lay down. “Yes we do. Happy New Year. How did your luck charm come out?”

Shinwa held out his charm which said Awesome Luck across it. Shai held up her own charm which read the exact same words. They both laughed like children at the silly coincidence. “I guess it’s going to be a good year,” Shai told him.

“With your baby, it will be the best year,” Shinwa said. “The Gods will be happy that life was preserved. What are you hoping for? A boy or a girl?”

Shai thought of that for a moment. “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess right now I am just hoping for healthy. Does that already sound like a very mom thing to say?”

Shinwa nodded his head with amusement. “Yeah,” he explained, “but it’s the nicest thing to say. Names?”

Shai shook her head. “It will come to me when the baby is born,” she explained to him. “I left Yuki and Fuji at the river,” she continued. “I am on my way home for some rest.”

“Let me walk you,” Shinwa insisted. “I don’t think I want to interrupt Fuji and Yuki again. Fuji still just glares at me and looks less than thrilled at my appearance. I understand her dislike, but it still makes me uncomfortable.”

Shai let out a small sigh. “I wish I knew why, besides karma,” Shai said before he could interrupt her. “Fuji’s not so instinctive.”
“She found true love before sixteen, didn’t she?” Shinwa pointed out. “That right there is instinct. When you know that person is the one for you.”

Shai took a few more steps, pondering this thought. “How do you know when someone is right for you, really?” Shai asked. “Is it how you feel when you are around them? Is it how you feel without them? Is it comfort? Is it lust? How do you really know?”
“Still bitter?” It was not an unkind question, just a prying hand into her personal life. He meant no offense, just curiosity at the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes.

“Yes,” she admitted through the tears that were threatening to fall. “I don’t believe I ever thought he was the one, though,” she admitted as well. “I think it just felt good to have someone pay so much attention to me. Yuki and Fuji always seemed to be closer, I always felt like the outsider, walking three steps behind them. Then he came and made me feel like I was the only one. I’m not, though.”

Shinwa swung an arm companionably around Shai’s shoulders. “You are to someone,” he admitted. “You just don’t know it.”

Shai rolled her eyes, recovering from her moment of relapse into her feelings for Mr. Tennison. They came up to her house and Shai suddenly longed for escape from this conversation, and Shinwa, though he was trying to do nothing more than keep her mood at the top of its game. She appreciated it, but she wanted her bed.

“Thank you for walking me,” she said to him. She leaned on her tiptoes and went to kiss him on the cheek farewell, but he turned into it, maybe meaning to kiss her cheek, but instead it was an understated brush of lips. Nothing life or death, nothing kismet, but enough to send tiny electric shocks through both of their bodies and have them jump away from one another.

“See you at school,” Shai hurriedly said, then raced into the house to come face to face with her father, who was hanging up his coat from coming in as well. “Dad!” she cried, almost shocked to see him standing there. “I thought you were going to be gone for a few more hours.”

Mr. Taiikuka shook his head, his jovial smile still painted across his face as it always was. “Nope,” he said, “my date got tired. It seems Yuki’s date got tired to.” He was referring to Shai. He often teased the girls they needed nothing more than each other. Yuki once pointed out that that was how Danko and Kaori were, and the three of them didn’t want to be like the older girls. This bit disturbed Mr. Taiikuka and he stopped teasing the girls of this fact.

“Yes, I need a nap,” Shai explained, heading towards the door slowly. She stopped halfway up the stairs and turned back to her dad, sitting down on the stairs to face him. “Did I tell you what Fuji got for Christmas?” she asked him.

Mr. Taiikuka shook his head. “What did she get?” A car, a cell phone, an entire new wardrobe?

“An engagement ring!” Mr. Taiikuka nearly passed out at Shai’s announcement. He started sputtering, but Shai barely noticed. “She’s going to get her mom to sign these papers so she can marry Amatsu when she turns sixteen next month. Then she won’t have to live with that cruel woman and her husband.”

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Taiikuka said before he could restrain himself.

Shai’s confusion showed through. “What?” she asked softly, suddenly stricken by his concern for the other girl.

“She can’t get married, she has too much ahead of her,” Mr. Taiikuka went on. “There has to be another way out of that woman’s house. There has to be something that she can do to escape her mother other than getting married and ruining her future. What about her father?”

“Fuji’s father is dead, Daddy,” Shai said, standing slowly and moving back down the stairs to stand at her dad’s side.

Mr. Taiikuka looked to his daughter and shook his head slowly. His eyes were sad, and for once he began to look his age instead of like a twenty-year-old businessman. “No,” he told his daughter, “he’s not dead.”