School Girls' Stories: New Generation - Finale

Chapter 5 – 22 Hours Remaining (4:00 PM)

“Shu!”

“What?”

“There’s some babe here to see you!”

Shu rolled out from under the car, his coveralls and face covered in the grease from the machine above him. The blue car, that had been worked on more than he could count on all of his fingers, and possibly toes, was ready to go. The owner, however, insisted that she still had life in her. Something had to have some life in that man’s life. His wife left him for the younger woman, yeah, you heard right, and now she was gallivanting in the Caribbean’s while he waited helplessly, ever hoping she would return, with the Mercedes. Shu could see how a man would miss his Mercedes, but not so much the wife.

Shu’s love for the Mercedes was probably why he had chosen his current girlfriend, Mercedes. Of course, before that he had gone out with a girl named Portia, who did not mind being called “Porsche,” for short. At least he had found something he liked, even if it did not come close to paying the bills.

Mercedes was exactly as Shu’s boss, Rob, said, a babe. She was a little muscular for Shu’s taste, but she made up for it with the softest looking sky blue eyes that nearly appeared white in the right lighting. She was friendly, but always dressed in black and leather, with too many earrings and a few assorted other types of jewelry that were not visible while she was fully clothed. Neither Rhapsody nor Bliss knew that if it had not been for Mercedes they would have been in a terrible fate from someone they both had trusted very much. Unfortunately Mercedes knew that deep dark secret when he confessed one night but she still had stayed with him anyway. She was too good for him, but he thanked his lucky stars for her every day.

Mercedes sat in a customer chair in the front office, crossing and uncrossing her legs impatiently. She looked up at him when he walked into the front office and smiled, but the smile was forced. “You look decently greased up,” she told him, flipping back strands of purple hair. She claimed her natural hair color was red, but one person would never be able to tell by the top of her head. Her hair color was always changing, and she had dyed it appropriately deep purple to go very well with the dress she was wearing to the wedding tomorrow. Shu was one of the only people who knew that her hair really was red, and that was from a much closer look.

“Well, that’s what happens when you work on cars all day,” Shu explained patiently. “Unlike the rest of the rich bitches in my family, I work hard for a living.”

Mercedes shook her head, flinging her magazine to the side. She stood up and walked over to face him. In flat feet she was nearly eye level with Shu, in heels she had a few inches on him, but it never intimidated him. Many people wanted to glimpse the statuesque figure and he was always proud to have her on his arm, more so in the later years than in the beginning of their relationship.

“You are going to the bachelor party tonight, aren’t you?” Mercedes asked of him. “You are forcing me to go to the bachelorette party; I find it only fair that you must be forced to go to the bachelor party.”

“I’m going,” Shu promised her. “I just have to finish this car I’m working on. I feel sorry for the old guy, so I am doing this one more as a favor to him.”

“Awww, that is almost sweet, is Shukufuku Memeshii growing a heart?” Mercedes laughed.

“What would you know about a heart?” he joked back, but it did not keep him from leaning forward and giving her a small kiss on the lips. “Babe, you should go change.”

“What do you mean change?” she asked with a glimpse down at herself. “I thought this would be perfect to wear and kill the senses of all those dressed so properly.”

Shu wanted to laugh but instead the terrible racking feeling in his gut punched him harder than he would have liked. “If Bliss can dress appropriately, I daresay even you can.”

There was a flash of light in Mercedes’ hazel eyes before it dimmed down and died again. Shu could not feign ignorance at her whisper of jealousy. In the beginning she had never been jealous, she was using him as much as he was using her, but somewhere in the midst of their affairs they had found themselves continually coming back to one another. It was very close to being love now, and if it was going to be love that meant no more adultery or affairs, and for Mercedes that meant never another thought about Bliss or Rhapsody for Shu. Worse, here the girl was going to the bachelorette party of the girl Shu had fallen for first and hardest. There would never be another woman with the backbone of Mercedes again to walk into Shu’s life.

“How are you going to introduce me?” Mercedes asked. “You know in all of this time I’ve never met anyone in your family.”

Shu smirked. “You knew Waza, which was as close as I wanted to let you at first.”

“Waza’s not your friend anymore,” Mercedes pointed out.

“Ah, but he’s still my half-brother,” Shu pointed out.

Mercedes sighed. “Do they even know about me, at all? I mean, even as a friend.”

“Did you come down her to argue with me?” Shu’s voice was soft, but Mercedes was not fooled. The man had learned to temper his temperament in the last few years; it did not mean that the temper was not there.

“No,” Mercedes sighed. “I’m sorry. I brought this, you forgot it at your apartment and I found it when I picked up my dress that you had so wonderfully kept for me.”

“I thought you were going to change at my place tonight?” Shu asked suspiciously.

“Rhapsody’s family rented out the whole floor of the hotel so that no one would have to drive home. The club we are going to is right down the street, we literally could be a raucous group walking down the street just a few feet.”

Shu paused. “Don’t tell me they rented a floor for the entire bachelorette party in the hotel they own.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Our bachelor party is going to be in the penthouse, which takes up half of the top floor, of that hotel.”

Mercedes let out a bellowing laugh. “Familial discount!” she cried. “Well, here,” she dropped the box into his hand and Shu stared down at it, unrecognizing for a moment. “You had the wedding band engraved for Sora, remember?”

“I did, or you did?”

Mercedes just smiled. “Just don’t forget to give that to him.”

“I still can’t believe I am best man…” Shu seemed utterly confused by that rash decision. Sora and Shu had not much seen each other since the incident with Ashe nearly ten years ago now. When Sora had called and asked Shu to be his best man Shu had nearly dropped the phone, and for some stupid reason had said yes. Well, a promise was a promise.

“So I’ll stay in the hotel, I’m in room 4211 if you want to sneak on by,” Mercedes winked.

Shu ruffled her perfectly placed purple hair and saw her off. He sighed as she walked out that door and reached into his pocket where another ring box, quite similar to the one she had just dropped in his hands, lay. Maybe now she would finally believe him if he gave it to her, but then again, who could believe someone who had never been exactly perfect for her?

He took a deep breath and went to finish the car he was working on before he readied himself for an accursed bachelor party.