Disclaimer: Here's a random fact: Today is but yesterday's tomorrow. Here's another random fact: I don't own Prince of Tennis, or any of the characters. :)
Rating: G to PG
Warnings: Mentions of shounen-ai/yaoi, crack, brief mildly angsty fluff?
Summary: A week out of the life of Kirihara Akaya at the start of 2008. Ah, how far our rabid puppy has come, eh? And yet, he doesn't seem to have changed too much. Hm.
Author's notes: Another Rikkai drabblething. You don't have to have read the ones that come before this, but it might help a bit. The full list can be found on my profile.The latest ten drabblethings are:
The Waiting Camel
Operation: Gentleman Hunt
A Little Autumn Tale
Cases in Point
The Theology of Scarves
"He'll Live."
Kick the Trickster!
Mr Rubik, I Want My Sunday Back.
Merry Rikkai Christmas
Dear Diary: Winter Whingings
Adoration and thankies for everyone who reviewed any of my fics since last time!
Britix and generally everyone: I know. I know. I know. I'm such a bad person. And my promise-keeping rate is negligible. It's testimony to me as a person that I opened up the third chapter of Operation: CP, wrote the AN, stared at the screen for five minutes, and realised that I was going to write this instead.
I heart-feltedly apologise. My reasoning is: I haven't updated in two weeks/ I had/have a lot of revision to do for my exams last week/this Wednesday, which I have barely started due to being Me. It is now Saturday evening. Therefore, either I write and post this now, or I try and fail to write O:CP, forgetting to revise in the process, and then not updating for about another two weeks. n.n;; Out of those two options…
Dedicated to LiQuYu and Britix. I'm sorry I'm me. x.x
If you haven't read my previous Drabblethings, then here's what you'll need to know: Mr. Wiggles is Niou's pet tarantula, Not A Cat is his pet African snail, and Haruhi is Akaya's (second) goldfish. Akaya is currently living under Niou's roof for reasons I can't be bothered to go into n.n;;. Yukimura is generally referred to as Mura-buchou by Akaya, and Marui as either Maru or Maru-chan. Akaya is in his third year now, and everyone else is in their first year of highschool. And finally, Yukimura's been offered a position to be coached for the pro circuit.
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January 5th
Dear Diary,
Why is it so cold? It's stupid being winter at the start of the year. If there are four seasons and there are twelve months, then twelve divided by four is… three (not three point eight as Maru-chan said the other week. He said he was joking, but who knows with him), so starting from the new year, January to March should be spring, then April to June should be summer, then July to September is autumn, and October to December is winter. That's so much smarter.
But wait. Winter's only fun for about a month and a half. The first month is fun because it's nice when it's not five hundred and eighty-seven degrees in the shade for a change, and the half is fun because winter makes Niou-senpai sulk. So he has less time to annoy me.
I guess the extra month and a half can go to… Well, spring can have a month, because spring's the best season. Then summer can get an extra week, and autumn can get an extra week.
I'm so smart. They should pay me a trillion billion yen to redo the calendar, and then everyone will be happier because seasons will actually make sense.
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January 6th
Dear Diary,
8:14 – Woke up earlier than usual, so I went downstairs and out to the greenhouse with Haruhi so she could get some fresh air, only to find Mr. Wiggles and Not A Cat in a very compromising position under Not A Cat's mini-log.
I think Mr. Wiggles and Not A Cat are having an affair.
What should I do? What should I do?! How did Mr. Wiggles get into Not A Cat's tank anyway? He must have developed either teleportation skills or dimension-warping magic or little knives on his feet that can cut glass, with special glue on his other feet that turns the webs he spins into glass so he can cut through the side of the tank then seal it up again.
… Or maybe I left the top of his box off. Oops.
But anyway, it's not my fault! It isn't! I told them off very firmly for scarring poor Haruhi. I'm sure they looked guilty. I put Mr. Wiggles back in his house and said that he mustn't ever do anything like that again, because Mrs Wiggles would get very upset.
Although, come to think of it… Where is Mrs Wiggles? Niou-senpai's never mentioned her, but I assume because Mr. Wiggles is called Mr. Wiggles instead of just Wiggles there must be a Mrs Wiggles somewhere, because otherwise… No, wait… If there's a Mr. then there must be a Mrs, right? Or, or… is it the other way round… or…
I need to ask Yanagi-senpai. He knows about English and Western stuff.
8:31 – Yanagi-senpai wasn't happy that I'd disturbed the one day of the week when he has a lie-in. But I said to him, I said, "Yanagi-senpai, this is more important than your lie-in. The married life of a couple is in great danger. In order to help them, you must tell me stuff when I ask you questions, and then everything will be fine."
Something like that, anyway. It might have been a little bit longer and more panicky. Maybe.
So Yanagi-senpai told me that if there is a Mrs there must be a Mr, but if there's Mr then there isn't always a Mrs. Isn't that kind of unfair? Because then people can tell if a woman is married, but not if a man is married. Unless they look at their ring finger. But what kind of stupid person goes round staring at strangers' ring fingers? And what if they were wearing gloves? And, come to think of it, is someone doesn't have a ring finger but they're married, what do they do with the ring so that other people know they're married?
Argh. Anyway.
9:05 – Waited until Niou-senpai woke up, then asked him if Mr. Wiggles was married. I made sure to ask him in Stage Three of his wakingness, because that's the time when he's most likely to answer questions without snark or violence. He said that there isn't a Mrs Wiggles, so I guess that's ok, then. Yay, I hope Mr Wiggles and Not A Cat decide to get married! That'd be so cool. They'd have the world's first ever snails with legs!
Yanagi-senpai said once that snails have a foot, but he's lying, because I checked.
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January 7th
Dear Diary,
IT SNOWED TODAY!! It was amazing!! Mura-buchou's the best; he organised a whole mini-winter Olympics! There was a snowball fight at the end, and my team won. Obviously. Maru-chan won the tobogobagoning and the kind-of-ski-jumping-where-you-have-mini-skis-made-of-wood-that-are-actually-more-like-skates-and-then-you-see-how-far-you-can-jump-off-a-slope. He won some toffee, and he gave half of it to me. He's the best boyfriend ever.
Ha, ha, Niou-senpai lost his earring in the snow somewhere. I don't know how it came off – it probably ran away from him as soon as the chance came. I spotted it while he was looking for it and kicked it away so that it could find freedom and start a new life, maybe as a baker. That was fun. He hates it when his stuff gets lost.
We all ate out for dinner (not for any particular reason. No particular reason at all. Just 'cause. Perfectly normal) in that nice restaurant with the waitress who has a Flirty Thing for fukubuchou. Which is both hilarious and terrifying. It was weird though, because after she came and got our orders, I thought I felt… You know that feeling, where it's kind of like… the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and you get a sudden mental image of a mushroom cloud with a scary face on it? It's the feeling you get when you're not in direct contact with Mura-buchou's Glare, but you're within about a four-metre radius of it. When I looked at him he was looking perfectly normal, but the waitress didn't come back again. A different waiter served us for the rest of the evening. I wonder why? Maybe she saw him Glaring at something and got scared, or something. Oh well.
I'm not thinking about tomorrow. Honestly. I'm just gonna go to bed like normal and sleep and then wake up in the morning.
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January 8th
Dear Diary,
First day back at school. It's evil in the extremeness. Still, we got the Monday off yesterday for teacher-training, whatever that is; it must be where the teachers get trained for some kind of competition. Like sheepdogs rounding up sheep, or maybe something to do with hoops. Yagyuu-senpai explained it was where they were briefed on important school-related things, and he talked at me for ages about syllabuses (I looked it up in the dictionary because I knew it couldn't be a cross between a syllable and a bus) and boring things. I didn't listen, and my competition idea is way better, so that's what teacher-training must be.
We got three hundred and twelfty-seven tonnes of homework to do over the holidays, but I managed to do all of it so I wouldn't get a detention this afternoon.
I lied a little bit yesterday. I kept waking up 'cause I was thinking about tomorrow, which is today now.
We all went to the airport at four-thirty to see off Mura-buchou. I didn't follow him to the luggage whatsit place thingy so it was just us and I wasn't able to cling to him for ages without Niou-senpai teasing in the background or Yanagi-senpai writing stuff in his notebooks or anything like that. Except maybe I did and was, a little bit… But he's my hero idol person, and he's leaving for stupid America! What else was I supposed to do? Who's going to pat me on the head and give me green tea when fukubuchou gives me unfair laps? Who's going to look really proud when I manage to take more than three games from him? Who's going to let me jump on them for random piggybacks, then ignore fukubuchou's protests about respect and just chuckle and tell me I've grown?
Well, I guess Maru could do all those, actually. But it wouldn't be the same. And I jump on him all the time so fukubuchou probably doesn't care, as long as we're what he calls "PG-rated" in public.
Mura-buchou's coming back in three weeks for a few days, and he's gonna keep doing that every month. But still. Three weeks! Three weeks! Three whole weeks!!
At least I didn't cry like Maru-chan looked like he might. And Niou-senpai might say that I was 'pouting tearfully' but he's lying, because he's evil like that.
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January 9th
Dear Diary,
Moped around all morning, but then I got a text at lunchtime from Mura-buchou telling me not to sulk, so I'm all cheered-up now because he says I'm a Good Boy. (Fukubuchou and Jackal and Niou-senpai and Switched!Yagyuu-senpai if he's there snort whenever they hear this. I don't know why.)
Everyone got a text from him – Maru's text told him he'll bring back some American fudge or something, so Maru shouldn't eat too much sugar while he's away. Yagyuu-senpai's and Niou-senpai's told them to Switch as often as they liked to keep "Genichiroh" busy. Fukubuchou wouldn't let me read his, but it probably told him to be nice to me because I'm a Good Boy, and there might have been mentionings of green tea to be given to me on a daily basis. –Knocks on wood-
I don't remember what Yanagi-senpai's said… Something to do with keeping "Genichiroh's" stress levels at a good height (i.e. very high). Ha, Jackal-senpai's text told him he'll take photographs of as many bald people as he can so Jackal-senpai won't feel alone in the world of Heads. Mura-buchou makes me laugh. His sense of humour rocks. But not quite as much as Niou-senpai seems to think, because he read Jackal-senpai's text and was hysterical for about half an hour.
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January 10th
Dear Diary,
10:50 – I'm going to try and bake a cake today, because I bet Niou-senpai and that Shishido from Hyoutei that I could. The logic was this: everyone knows that you can't win a bet against Niou-senpai. But if he's coupled with someone else, then surely it must be possible to beat him? Especially if it's something easy like baking. Little girls can bake, so it must be really easy.
11:02 – The recipe book says to "beat the eggs". Is that the same as whisking them? But there's a kitchen utensil called a 'beater', right? So maybe I should find that…
11:10 – There's no such thing as a beater. And if there is, Niou-senpai's aunt doesn't seem to have one in her kitchen. Maybe Yagyuu-senpai has one? He lives only a few streets away, so I could just go get it. I'd whisk the eggs, but then the cake might explode in the oven.
11:12 – I phoned Yagyuu-senpai. He says a beater is a whisk. What a stupid thing to call a whisk.
11:17 – The recipe book says; "If you are baking a chocolate cake" then do this and that yadda-yadda. Then it says "If you are baking a layer cake" then do this and that yadda-yadda. It does that for about a hundred different cakes. What if I just want to bake a normal cake?! What should I do then?!
11:19 – I decided I'm going to bake a chocolate cake, because that has the easiest name. What the hell is a Victorian sponge? Why would you name your cake?
… Hmm, maybe you're meant to name your cake if you're a good cook. Mine shall be called Betty.
11:22 – Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. I can't find chocolate chips. And I can't change recipe because I already put in cocoa powder (it doesn't taste like chocolate! It tastes bitter and horrible! I put in lots of extra sugar to make up for it). Should I buy some? Maybe there's some in the greenhouse.
11:23 – Nope.
11:28 – Crisis over! I found some in Niou-senpai's tennis bag. I knew there must be some in the house somewhere, because Maru-chan goes slightly twitchy around them. Yay.
11:33 – I found some holly left over from Christmas! I put it in, just to see if it makes the cake turn into a hedgehog. That'd be so cool. It could live in a little house next to Haruhi's bowl, and it could prick everyone who annoys me. And it would smell really nice and chocolate-cakey.
11:39 – I hate scales. Why can't it like, direct you so that you can weigh out exactly what you need, instead of me having to stare at the little needle and take out tiny pinches at a time, or put back tiny pinches at a time? Why can't it say, "Ok, ok, you're nearly there. Take out a pinch. No, bigger than that. Great. Now add back a single grain of flour, and yay!" Baking's not quick and easy. The recipe book's lying to me. It takes so long to weight out exactly how much you need.
11:51 – Now the recipe book's telling me to find a baking tin. How do I know which tins you can bake in and which ones you can't? And how can I find a cake-shaped tin? They don't sell beans or anything in cake-shaped tins. Maybe I could do lots of little cakes in lots of those canned food tins. But then Niou-senpai would claim I lost the bet, because the bet is to bake a cake. Damn.
12:12 – I'm just going to ignore the recipe book and leave my cake as it is in the mixing bowl. Now, how do you work an oven…?
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January 11th
Dear Diary,
You can't win a bet against Niou-senpai, even if he's betting with someone else. You just can't.
Now I have to clear the whole front of the house plus the garden of snow, but without using a spade, shovel or any such large flat surface.
I hate winter.
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Sandy: I wish it would snow here…
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Questions, comments, rambles, constructive criticism, theories, etc are all much loved.
Until next time! n.n