Jack Ryder's Story

It was embarrassing but a majority of the work was passed off on Yuuki. Kaori was able to do a few things here and there, adding a few words like 'Bus Stop' and 'Train Station', but overall her role anything special. She felt like she was essentially little more than dead weight that Yuuki was dragging through to the finish line. While she knew that she had always been like this, often flirting at her old school to charm boys into doing the work for her. It wasn't like that now, she couldn't bring herself to manipulate people the same way that she did in the past, not after she experienced her first real humiliation, and it seemed that when her life went awry, it went for the gold medal. Though she knew some good came from her traumatizing experience, she wasn't the same selfish and cruel person that she used to be. If a fall from grace was what it took for her to wake up and realize that she had a lot of growing to do as a human being, Kaori could accept that. What she couldn't accept is that Kei was trying to get back into her life with some lame apology. One good taste of her own medicine was all it really took for Kaori to realize that the person she used to be was not someone she was interested in becoming again, but even so, what Kei did was unforgivable. It was far worse than anything she had ever done to anyone. None of those things ended up online. It wasn't fair to hold that against him as he wasn't the one who posted it to the internet or even recorded the video, but Kaori couldn't get past the grudge to see that. She hadn't evolved enough to accept that, she had a long way to go before she'd even consider revisiting the idea of friendship with Kei.

Yuuki's attention shifted when she heard the commotion in the back of the room, her brow quirking as she looked over her shoulder, writing down Kaito's and Rocco's names at the bottom of the list, right under that of the disruptive girls from earlier. She would leave things up to Akira on how to correct Rocco this time and she would handle the other one. It would work out better that way. She knew Akira could handle taking a hit after what happened in the gym, he may have been small for a guy, but he was resilient. She didn't feel that she would have to worry about pawning Rocco off on him, not too much anyway. Returning her attention to the flash cards, Yuuki let it go for now. It could be handled later when other students were not concentrated on getting the assignment done. Doing something at that moment would only lead to further disruption. It wasn't a full-fledged fight, so it probably didn't warrant reprimanding either boy at that exact moment. Further disruption and unrest would only make it harder for anyone to get work done. I'm not going to grace the disturbance with a reaction, it only feeds the problem. We will handle it swiftly, come Monday. I have responsibilities after class with the Airdalen Overachiever's Committee.

Giggling when she noticed that Yuuki had shifted into class president mode, Kaori kept writing the Japanese translations, only to have Yuuki crumple up any that were incorrect, which was quite a few of them. It was a huge waste of paper living up to the class president's view of expectation, but she felt she would make the other girl even more irritated if she gave up. Her effort was being received as well as she could hope, even if having her work end up for naught most of the time was annoying. At least she wasn't getting yelled at or ridiculed. Her phone vibrating in her pocket took her by surprise, her blood running cold for a moment. Kaori was hesitant to retrieve it from her pocket to see who sent her a message. She nearly dared not read it at all. It wasn't often that anyone texted her in class these days, the only person who had her number at this school was Rocco, and she wasn't expecting a message from him. After what happened at her last school Kaori had to block most of her old friends and even change her number. The last number was flooded with daily messages, each one just as cruel as the last.

"I'm bored :( You're lucky to have a cute and smart partner."

Turning to look in his direction, Kaori stuck her tongue out discreetly, only for a moment. Though she was determined not to get distracted in class, so she only wrote a quick reply: "It's called Karma, and it's pronounced Ha-Ha-Ha~~~♥♥♥ ;P Kaori replied, adding the heart and the emoji to express her usual playful nature, but also the amusement she felt knowing he wasn't happy with the cards he had been dealt. Though shortly after she returned to work with Yuuki, the bell rang.

The violet-haired girl was the first to stand, quickly gathering the materials, "Thank you for your help, I will finish the rest on my own from here." Yuuki informed her. She planned to double check over every single answer to make sure that the other girl wouldn't be able to damage her grade, but she wasn't going to divulge that information aloud, it was unnecessary. Gathering her things she immediately made a beeline for the exit. She needed to get to the library as soon as possible. Somehow she managed to get voted as the president for the after school studying club, AOC, the Airdalen Overachiever's Committee even though she was just a freshman. It was a lot of pressure, there were a lot of topics she never had to study before that she was sure seniors were working on, but she hoped it would be okay. Looking over the roster of the club, Yuuki absentmindedly waved her hand in no real direction, " Osaki ni shitsurei shimasu, Himewari-san. ( Excuse me for leaving first, Himewari-san) " and with that Yuuki kept a brisk pace, wasting no time to leave the classroom. Getting out into the hall before any disruptions could hold her up, Yuuki was determined to get a handle on her first club day. I'm not going to fail at this too. By the time she made it to the library, Yuuki was mentally prepared to take on any task at hand, even if it meant she would have to teach herself the topic to help others. Sitting down she began reading over her cram school packet, going over the math, taking a break from French. Should I bite the bullet and accept Belrose-Senpai's help...? Even though he already offered his help...is that too much to ask of him..? she thought staring at her phone that laid on the desk. She wasn't getting a good headstart on her foreign language. A few hours studying at the school and she could go home, but she doubted she would get any sleep knowing that she would be leaving on a trip with a certain delinquent that she wasn't on the best of terms with, for the vast majority of their first weekend since school began. All that kept her going was reminding herself that it was for her father.

" Ki wo tsukete, Kaichou! (Take care, president!) " Kaori responded cheerfully before moving her belongings into her bag. She didn't have any club activities so it seemed she would be able to go home and get some much-needed rest, or not. She still had to figure out what to get her 'boyfriend' for Christmas. Faking a relationship was hard enough, but being unlucky enough to draw the name of the person she was pretending to date was just the world being sadistic. Kaori didn't wait to be caught up in more of his antics, if she was quick to make her escape from the building she was confident she wouldn't have any interaction with the senior that got her in this mess anyway, but she also was thirsty and wanted to walk and get a milk from the convenience store without an escort. She already told her father to meet her there earlier that morning so it was all in order and she didn't intend to lie to him as well. Kaori didn't manage to fully relax until she purchased a small milk carton and gulped down a generous amount. She made it to the store down the street, she actually made it out of the building and down the street on her own without becoming a damsel in distress again. Two years ago thoughts like that would have never crossed her mind, back then she was hardly ever alone, but now, it felt like she had no one truly in her corner. Even Tou-san felt the need to adopt new kids... I'm not even enough for him anymore... Kaori thought to herself with a sigh.



When her father picked her up, he was unfortunately subjected to many more noises in that category, but no greeting whatsoever. The entire time she stared at her phone, using his data plan, looking up Christmas gift ideas, "Secret Santa?" Takuto Himewari asked his daughter with a curious quirk of his brow, but only was answered with a nod. He glanced to see her face light up and return to a hopeless and depressed state many times throughout the car ride and as much as he loved her, he didn't anticipate hearing her gasp, incoherently mumble, and then groan the entire way home. It was testing even his patience and he liked to consider himself as a 'cool' dad. He wanted to be someone she could turn to if she had questions, raising a teenage girl alone... he had to be approachable enough or she might put herself at risk. He constantly worried he wasn't doing this parenting thing right, but he had an idea that could make it all better, he just needed to know the gender.

Once they made it home and she finally wandered off to the bathroom, Takuto picked up her phone and began snooping. It was wrong, it was a total invasion of her privacy, but if she sighed one more time he'd go mad. He had a meeting soon he would have to conduct over Skype and he did not want to lose his mind before then. Looking at her google searches he discerned the gift was for a boy and all of the searches seemed to be 'date like', and upon looking in her 'notes' app, he found the name. Wasting no time he compared it to her contacts and constructed a text as quickly as he could, Have you ever been to the Aquarium? If you haven't, would you like to go with me~~? ♥♥♥ Takuto made the assumption that his daughter liked this boy, and before he could question his logic he heard her footsteps approaching so he quickly sent the message to one Rocco Murray while pretending it was actually from his daughter and replaced her phone just as it was before quickly moving across the living room as if nothing happened. Kaori could tell that her father seemed a bit tense as he spoke to the board of directors via Skype, but she couldn't figure out why, unaware that the answer laid dormant in her texts, a ticking time bomb. Laying on the sofa, she continued to scroll through lists of present ideas. They were all pretty lame. It all felt hopeless.