Parking Fine

When learning to drive, Yuzu had been taught by Yoko Sakaki. Maybe it wasn't the wisest decision in the world on her dad's part but, hey, Yuzu had passed her test on her second try so clearly she wasn't that bad (unlike Yuya, who could ride a motorbike like it was no one's business but put four wheels on it and he couldn't even remember which pedal was the brake and which one was the gas).

During that time, she had learnt just about every feasible way to park. Parallel parks, regular parks, parks in bay, parks on driveways, reverse parks into bays and everything in between.

But right up until the Monday after her test, nobody had thought to warn Yuzu about the perils of parking in a school car park on a weekday morning.

Arriving five minutes before the first bell, one got to see the end of the chaos, but not appreciate its full magnitude. Yuzu had first come to understand the situation on a rare morning when her dad had taken her to school a good half-an-hour before the first bell, and she'd watched the drama unfold from the window of her classroom. It was about as thrilling and regular as a favourite TV show.

Since then, Yuzu had made it a point to try and drive in as early as possible so as to watch the entire saga unfold, but her body disagreed and frequently refused to let her wake up until far later than she'd wished for.

Today though, was going to be an exception. Yesterday, Serena and Yugo had both been over at her house, completing a project together. They'd worked almost to their curfews, which was when Yuzu agreed they should head home and she would finish typing up their report and give them a copy to review tomorrow at school. This was before she'd worked out Serena was going on a three-day trip that day and the bus was picking her up at school twenty-five minutes before the first bell. So Yuzu was left with no choice but to work late into the night and then wake up excruciatingly early to make it to school on time. She had her dad drop her off and then explained to him that she'd wait for Serena and Yugo.

Usually the pair of them were pushing getting to school on time – Serena because she took the bus to school and Yugo because he was plain lazy. But today Serena showed up just a few minutes after Yuzu, carrying a suitcase behind her.

"Is that the report?" she asked, eyeing the bus across the car park where other kids were getting on.

"Yep, can you check it?" Yuzu asked "I'm giving a copy to Yugo but, you know, it's Yugo."

"Yeah sure, nothing to do on the bus anyway" Serena shrugged, taking one of the two reports from Yuzu.

"SERENA!" a female voice called across the car park "WE'RE GOING!"

"COMING!" Serena called back, hurrying towards the bus "Bye Yuzu! Have fun!"

"Have fun!" Yuzu called after her.

As the bus pulled out of car park, Yuzu sat down on a bollard outside. Yugo wouldn't be turning up until the bell no doubt, so she had no reason to wait outside. However, it was a warm summer morning and a view from outside would make the spectacle even grander.

There were a few minutes of silence as she waited for the usual crowd. The first two were, as always, Crow and Jack. They liked to go on early-morning rides around the city on their bikes, so they were usually among the first to arrive. They didn't stop to talk – they liked to study whilst the library was empty. A wave from Crow as they headed inside was all she expected and all she got.

The next to arrive were known around school as 'The LDS Trio', simply because the three letters were incorporated into the license plate of the car that Masumi and Yaiba's parents had bought for them to carpool in. They arrived in a hail of smoke and yelling, the car stuttering into the car park before its engine cut out, just inside one of the bays.

Yaiba threw open the passenger's door with a little more force than necessary. "This is why I should drive!"

"As if you could make this heap of junk work better!" Masumi shot back, clambering out of the driver's seat.

"You took that speed bump too fast!" Yaiba insisted "You've probably bust the exhaust!"

"The exhaust doesn't make smoke come out of the bonnet!" Masumi insisted "It's overheated again!"

The third member of the trio, Hokuto, got out of the back seat and opened the bonnet, trying to stay as quiet as possible. He couldn't even drive a pair of roller-skates let alone a car and he didn't want to get involved in the usual morning argument.

"If it's overheated, then what are we supposed to do?" Yaiba complained "Stand around and wait for it to cool off? The first bell goes in fifteen minutes!"

"We'll just leave the bonnet open, I'll come out and close it in my free period" Masumi told him.

Yaiba nearly blew a gasket. "YOU WANT TO LEAVE THE CAR OPEN FOR ANYONE TO JUST GET IN?! WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

"Just the bonnet, I'll lock the car" Masumi shrugged.

"THAT'S JUST AN INVITATION TO STEAL!" Yaiba all but screamed.

This happened every day. It didn't matter if Yaiba or Masumi was driving – the other would complain about it viciously.

Sensing something even more explosive was about to go down, Hokuto slunk off into the school, muttering in Yuzu's direction: "Hi Yuzu."

Yaiba heard this though and turned his head towards Hokuto's vanishing form so quickly he nearly got whiplash. "Oi, where are you going? You have my lunch money! Oi! Hokuto!"

Yaiba hurried into the school after his friend, the car trouble forgotten, pushing past Yuzu and nearly knocking her off of the bollard.

Masumi locked the car with a sigh, leaving the bonnet open. It was as she looked up she saw Yuzu and smiled. "Heya, Yuzu! What are you waiting out here for?"

"Trying to give Yugo his report" Yuzu held the report up to show her "Thought I'd sit out here and watch the show."

Masumi, perfectly aware of what she was referring to, laughed. "Well, Yaiba certainly handed you the opening act on a silver plate. Can you watch my car until you head in? Yaiba thinks me leaving the bonnet up is going to get it stolen."

"No one's going to steal your piece of junk, Masumi" Yuzu told her "Just make sure to put it down during your free period – you're blocking Mr Marco's window."

Masumi's grin could've powered a third world country, as she headed inside after the boys. Mentioning her favourite teacher – Mr Marco – tended to have that effect.

"Is Yuya here?"

Yuzu jumped. She'd been so preoccupied with the LDS trio that she hadn't noticed Shingo enter the car park. Sure enough, his shiny white Toyota was parked immaculately between the bike rack and Yuzu's father car – the only place he felt confident parking in, as no students could possibly scratch it.

"No, his mum's bringing him in – I had to get here early" Yuzu told him.

Shingo looked disappointed but didn't say anything. He just shot her his usual wink and headed inside, whining to whoever was in there about the heat before the doors closed behind him.

Though it may surprise most people, Shingo was actually a surprisingly competent driver. He staked this on the fact that he'd had his lessons whilst his family were living in England, but waited to take his test until they had moved to their present home, reportedly because British driving tests only had a 10% pass rate. He'd adjusted surprisingly well to driving on what he called "the wrong side of the road" and was also the only one in school to drive a manual rather than an automatic, because apparently having a gearstick made you "a real man" or something. Most of the students were surprised Shingo Sawatari of all people chose to drive himself around rather than having coiffeur or something. However, what they didn't know was that Shingo treasured his independence and the ability to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted unrestricted was one of them. Yuzu had ridden with him a few times and had no qualms about trusting him with her safety.

The other anomaly pulled into the school car park a minute later, tires squealing as the car took the bend a fraction too fast and in completely the wrong gear. When it finally came to a stop, the car was parked over three bays and took five times reversing and pulling forward again before it was within the white lines satisfactorily enough not to get ticketed.

Just as people rode with Shingo for a smooth drive around the city, they rode with Reiji when they wanted a thrill ride. Not that Reiji let anyone in his car, but no one wanted to ride with him regardless. Reiji Akaba was perfect at everything, except for driving. It wasn't even like he was speed demon who racked up speeding tickets and got into car chases with the police (unlike a certain somebody Yuzu knew), he just was incapable of keeping the car under control. Every turn ended in a skid, every attempt to pull out of a junction required the car to stall at least once and his parking was the stuff of nightmares. A bet was ongoing over whether the permanent look of trauma seen on Reira's face whilst in public was purely because he had to put up with his big brother's terrible driving for so long, never sure if that drive to primary school was going to be his last. Yuzu considered Reiji's sucky driving retribution for being so good at literally everything else.

Reiji certainly didn't appear to react to his horrific driving. He just picked his books up off of the passenger seat, pushed his glasses up his nose and walked purposely into the warmth of the school. Maybe he'd just gotten so used to it by now that he considered it the norm.

Twin brothers Tsukikage and Hikage shuffled out of the back of the car, following Reiji into the school building like obedient little puppies. Yuzu couldn't really say she knew the only two people who wouldn't cringe at being called Reiji's best friends – heck, she couldn't even tell them apart without their blue and red scarfs on respectively.

She knew Tsukikage only from her politics class, where he sat at the back without saying a word to anyone. She was reasonably certain he didn't drive, just got lifts from the few people he seemed to gravitate towards.

Hikage she knew only by reputation. In fact, most of the local suburbs were aware of who Hikage Fuma was. Whilst he did have his license, he didn't believe in parking spaces as they apparently restricted his right to walk upon the free world's earth, so something poetic like that. His tendency to park on double yellow lines or blocking people's driveways meant his car was forever being clamped. And it tended to stay that way, as Hikage's aversion towards using parking spaces bridged over into paying parking tickets. By this stage, Hikage's red Nissan was all but the town's mascot, with little kids peering out of their car windows as they drove around town, hoping to spot the red car with the yellow boots that seemed to hop around once every few weeks.

It was for these reasons the brothers caught a lift from Reiji every day to school and appeared to be the only ones with strong enough stomachs not to throw up in it during the drive.

(Yuzu had heard a rumour than the brothers were also parkour masters and used to parkour their way to school every day, until they got done for trespassing, but she couldn't confirm that without asking either them or Reiji, which was not happening)

It took another couple of minutes for the next big event to occur, during which the car park filled to all but capacity. Only three spaces were left by five minutes to the first bell. During that time, Yuzu said hello to five of her classmates and waved at eight who were too busy to stop for her.

Kaito also passed her but she knew not to bother him, as he looked rather tried. A group of other students stood around to admire his car – the second best in the car park after Reiji's – before shimmying into the school after him, because Kaito struggled to walk around anywhere without a crowd of teenagers following him.

Gongenzaka walked to school every day as he wanted to leave as small a carbon footprint as possible upon the world, but he still managed to arrive earlier than Yuya. He stopped and said hello, asked what she was doing, good luck with that because Yugo's always late, and headed inside to begin his class president duties of the week, whatever they may be.

Yuya eventually turned up a little after Yuzu had expected. He said goodbye to his mum in the same breath as he jumped out of the car. Yoko didn't even wait for him to close the door fully before she peeled out of the car park with an uncanny resemblance to a teenage drag-racer rather than a suburban mother.

"Yuzu!" Yuya's face lit up as he walked over "You didn't pick me up this morning!"

"Yeah, sorry, you wouldn't pick up the phone so I called your mum instead" she explained "I needed to give Serena her copy of the report."

Yuya seemed satisfied with the answer. "So why are you sitting out here? Someone stink bomb the classroom?"

"No, waiting for someone" Yuzu told him.

"Me?" Yuya guessed, then changed his mind "Sora?"

"How about Yugo" Yuzu informed him.

"Oh!" Yuya nodded "You know, I have my first class with him, I can pass it along to him if you don't want to wait out here for him?"

It was a tempting offer, since the wind was starting to get up and it was getting chilly. But on the other hand, the show was almost over, and she'd like to see it through to the end. Yugo couldn't be that much longer anyway.

"I'm fine, I'll see you at break, Yuya" Yuzu waved him off.

Yuya shrugged. "Suit yourself. Bye Yuzu!"

With Yuya disappearing into the school building, Yuzu checked her watch.

Five minutes until the first bell.

Should be any second now…

Right on cue, a red Honda took the turn at a nice gentle pace to enter the car park's north end. It sped up a little bit as it aimed for the last car parking space near to the school building – the other two were some distance away.

Immediately after that a blue Suzuki Swift (because bird puns never got old with this guy) drifted in on two wheels through the car park's east entrance and nearly side-swiped Meiru's car as it whizzed across the car park, cutting in front of the Honda to nab the space via a side slip.

The Honda beeped its horn before circling around to take the next nearest space.

The Honda wasn't the only thing venting its warranted frustration though.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!" Yuto wasn't known to lose his temper and swear very often, but at this time in the morning it was guaranteed. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US ALL!"

Shun snorted, clearly irritated, as he got out of the driver's seat. "I knew what I was doing. I wasn't going to let those losers steal my spot."

"That poor old lady on the bicycle!" Yuto protested.

"She got up again" Shun shrugged, shouldering his bag as he slammed the car door shut. "If you have such a problem with the way I drive, get a ride with Kaito. Or better yet, drive yourself."

That hit a nerve.

"You know I can't do that!" Yuto complained, scowling after Shun with a look of rage "You were there!"

To calm him, Ruri emerged from the back of the car and patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "He's just being a jerk, Yuto, just ignore him. I haven't even managed to pass my test yet."

Yuto just slumped his shoulder, clearly not reassured at all.

In all fairness, Yuto wasn't all that bad a driver. Of course, there was that whole stigma of having 'license suspended for reckless driving' on his record.

Yugo was entirely to blame, he claimed, but the cops had no evidence because the motorbike was blazing out of town by the time they showed up and Yuto had to take the fall alone. Yuto still complained about the fact that he gets baited into being reckless once and got his license suspended but Shun – who seems incapable of calm driving – has never gotten caught once. Didn't seem all the fair.

After saying hello to Yuzu, the pair headed inside after Shun. Which was probably a good thing, since at that moment the Honda successfully parked and Sora all but kicked the back door off of its hinges

"YOU SCUM!" he yelled "YOU DON'T GET TO MAKE A FOOL OUT OF US AND GET AWAY WITH IT!"

"Sora, please" Yuzu called over to him "I told you to stop calling the entire English class scum – just because they got the air conditioned classroom-"

"Yuzu, they just stole our space again!" Sora protested, approaching her with a pout fixed on his face.

Dennis and Yuri – the driver – followed behind him. Dennis was also pouting, but in that unnerving playful way of his that made it difficult to know if he was upset or what. Yuri was completely blank, but his clenched fists were an indication of the white hot anger he must be feeling inside.

"I know, he's completely immature" Yuzu agreed with Sora on that point "But you keyed his car. Something tells me that qualifies him for a big of payback."

Sora glared at her before racing into the school after the previous trio. "HEY, GET BACK HERE YOU SCUM!"

With Sora gone, Dennis now turned his attention to Yuzu with an unnerving grin. "Hello, my dear Yuzu!"

Yuzu groaned. "Not this morning, Dennis."

Yuri appeared just as irritated, grabbing Dennis' arm and yanking him into the building without a word. He must be having a bad morning – usually he would've stopped to harass and creep her out too.

Not that Yuzu blamed him in the slightest. If she had to carpool Dennis and Sora – easily the most obnoxious people in school – every single weekday and probably most weekends, she'd be having a bad morning every morning.

At least Sora was retaking his test next week and stood a chance of passing. Dennis kept on forgetting about the handbrake. Yuri texting them to inform them of him passing his driving test with flying colours on the first turn – because Yuri was in a heated competition with Reiji to see who could be the most perfect apparently – found himself with two replies begging him to drive them to school every morning because the bus smelled and you're our friend, right?

Yuri had regretted giving in to them ever since and Serena now got best friend privileges.

The first bell rang out behind her and Yuzu debated whether she should head to Homeroom or risk being late. Thankfully the decision was made for her when two motorcycles pulled up the car park, parking next to Crow and Jack's. As always, Yugo was starting off his morning getting a thorough scolding from Rin.

"If we get detention because we're late to Homeroom again, I swear Yugo, I will shove that can of hair spray right up-"

Yugo cut her off, but the look of fury on Rin's face when she took off her helmet gave Yuzu an idea of where the can of hair spray would be going.

"Rin! Rin, I work hard on my hair, and you love it!" Yugo insisted with a pout.

Rin appeared to count to five and take a deep breath. "Well, maybe if you put all that energy into waking up at a decent hour instead of organising that mess on top of your head every morning, we may be able to get to school on time without breaking every speeding law in existence!"

Yuzu honestly didn't know why Rin was protesting – they had this argument every morning and Yugo hadn't been on time to school in three years.

It was at this point Yugo looked up, noticed Yuzu and his face broke into a huge grin. "Yuzu!"

"Don't glomp me-!"

He glomped her none the less. No one could ever fault Yugo for being unenthusiastic in everything he did.

"Hello Yuzu" Rin smoothed her features into a pleasant smile "Has the bell not gone yet?"

"It has, but I need to give Yugo his report" Yuzu told her.

Yugo pulled away, clearly confused. "Report? What report?"

"The report we were working on last night" Yuzu reminded him.

Yugo still looked confused. "We did a report?"

Rin facepalmed, no words necessary.

Yuzu loved Yugo, she did, really, but times like this he could be infuriating, so she just shoved the report into his hands. "Just please review it – it's worth 30% of our grade."

"Okee Dokee!" Yugo grinned, shoving the report carelessly into his backpack, which didn't exactly raise Yuzu's hopes.

"Hey, Yugo!" All three jumped in surprised as Yuto emerged from the school "Hurry up! I was sent to find you!"

"Coming!" Yugo hastily pushed past Yuzu and chased after the other boy who had disappeared into the school again.

"It needs to be done in three days!" Yuzu called after him, but she got no reply "He's going to forget, isn't he?"

"Hey, don't worry, I'll remind him" Rin promised her "Want to walk to Homeroom together?"

"Sure" Yuzu agreed, sliding off the bollard so they could walk together "I'll cover for you. I'd like to see them put the Headmaster's daughter and her best friend in detention anyway."

Rin and Yugo were always the last to arrive. The only thing left moving in the car park after they headed inside of the steady stream of steam rising from Masumi and Yaiba's bonnet.

It was chaos every morning, with Reiji terrible driving, the endless war over spaces between the Kurosakis and Yuri's crew and Yugo and Rin's reckless speeding. But it was a welcome chaos, Yuzu felt. If the day didn't start out with chaos, it wouldn't be their lives. And Yuzu quite liked her life – it had taught her the values of parallel parking and walking the few hundred yards between the street and the school so she wouldn't have to get involved in the daily parking space war. It taught her to trust people – at least, everyone could be trusted to arrive at their own times so she knew when it was safe to try crossing the car park and when it was suicidal to attempt to do so.

At least, almost everyone had turned up at their usual time.

Suddenly, she came to a realisation and stopped. "Did you see Allen and Sayaka as you pulled in?"

Rin frowned. "No, doesn't Kaito normally drop them off?"

"Well, yeah, but I haven't seen them" Yuzu said "I just assumed Allen's mother would bring them in but-"

"AHHHHH!"

As if they'd been waiting for a cue, two individuals on a push bike whizzed into the car park. Sayaka, sitting in the cross bars of the bike, was screaming shrilly, her eyes wide behind her glasses. Allen, who was pedalling the out of control bike, was screaming at an even higher and shriller pitch. Weaving their way through the parked cars, they aimed for the bike rack and missed, going straight into the back of Shingo's car. The car's alarm blared across the car park louder than an air raid siren and just as conspicuously.

"Are you going to tell Sawatari?" Rin questioned, staring at Sakaya and Allen picking themselves off of the asphalt in alarm. Both looked as if they were perfectly aware that they were about to be devoured by the dogs of hell.

Yuzu scoffed. "Hey, I spent four hours putting that report together last night. I'm not about to be murdered by a teenager who'd just had his car dented on a Friday morning."

And with that, the girls headed towards their Homeroom, which they were now rather late for.

Yes, chaos was good. And it was also her life.

…

How did she end up being friends with all these people again?