Disclaimer: I don't own Shugo Chara.

Spoonful of Insulin (Helps the Sugar Go Down)

Ah, junior high school. A big step for a young child. Finally graduating on from elementary school and moving up on the stairs of education. One that is taken with pride and joy, relieved of leaving all the young students behind, or with regret and sadness, not wanting to leave all the familiar places behind.

Oh look at you, new junior high student! Standing there in front of the new and maybe, intimidating building, watching strange faces pass you by and soon sitting in an unknown classroom, listening to the teacher telling you about what you all will be doing this year.

And that will be a lot! It won't be so much new stuff as it is so much more stuff that you have to do: writing 5-page longs essays about a country that you are doubting the existence off ("Azerbaijan? Is that even a word?"), discussing math problems that you can only understand with a calculator, if you understand the calculator, and holding presentations about subjects that normally make perfect sense to you, but being put in a class as biology become complete abracadabra. Man, reading all this already screams the word 'STRESS!' in your face.

So don't be surprised when you find a junior high school student in the following situation –

"Yaya-sempai, are you even trying to listen to me?"

From where the 14 year old girl was colouring in her lollypop she replied without looking up, "yeah, yeah, Mr. Class President." She lay down her crayon and held her drawing up. "Now tell me: which colour makes a candy bar look yummier, red or blue?"

Just don't expect that said student will enjoy it.

Kairi Sanjo, also 14 year old and sitting in the same class as the girl sitting before him found himself in, let's say, a difficult situation. He and his partner, Yaya Yuiki, had a presentation coming up for this Friday for biology in the theme 'Healthy & Unhealthy'. Children were asked to hold a speech of ten minutes about food that was healthy or not and explain why. Not a hard subject you would say, but if there was someone who could turn a presentation about 'candy' into a task equal to climbing the Mount Everest, Yaya was definitely on top of Kairi's list.

The remaining question was now if throwing a biology book to her head was really going to help them finish their assignment.

Kairi pushed his glasses up and bit back a sigh. "Yaya-sempai, we have been spending exactly two hours, twenty-four minutes and," he checked his watch, "seven seconds in this classroom on something that in my calculations should only take one hour, fifteen minutes and zero seconds."

Yaya picked up her pencil and started sketching a stick of rock. "Sheesh Mr. President, don't work yourself up so much, we already have all the information we need. And look!" she held up her drawing and smiled widely, "I'm almost done with our presentation poster! Doesn't it look pretty?"

"Ace, we don't have all the information we need, that's our problem!" Kairi smashed his book on the desk in frustration. "That's why we have been sitting here for now one hour, nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds too long. Do you have any idea what kind of transgression this is on my schedule? I had to be at my sister's studio ten minutes ago!"

"Oh Kairi please!" Irritated, Yaya frowned and glared at him. "It's not me who makes such a big deal out of this! I already had everything written down about how we should do this, but then you came up with these scientific stories about gastric juices, the wearing off of your enamel or something, and some kind of disease called…diobeetles?"

"Diabetes, which is one of the most occurring diseases to people who eat food that contains too much sugar, like fast-food, soda's and candy!"

"But that's the thing Kairi." Yaya flipped her hair over her shoulder. "People don't care about hard-word-diseases like that! People want candy because it tastes so good and yummy and it makes them feel tingly and buzzy inside!" Yaya eyes sparkled when she thought about her favourite food. And why not, candy was delicious!

"And that's the problem Ace." Kairi saw Yaya pout at him calling her by her old title, but he wanted to hold her attention. "People should care. People and more especially children, should know about the dangers of candy since it is made of too much artificial flavours, citric acids and modified food starch, not to mention the-"

"Whoa – wait a minute!" Yaya's eyes grew wide as yens and she looked at Kairi like she did whenever he quoted his old samurai wisdom. "Candy is made of what?"

Kairi was a bit startled and annoyed by her question. "Artificial flavours, citric acids and modified food starch, along a lot of other ingredients." He said, debating if he wanted to scolded the girl for not listening before, but decided not to and give his arguments another round.

"That's what I have been telling you about the whole day, we have to put that information in our presentation too! It will show our knowledge on the subject and let our classmates about things like action-reaction." Kairi saw Yaya's confusion grow with every word he said and quickly explained; "you know, just like Newton's third law, the one that we discussed during physics last week."

Yaya huffed angry and leaned forward, pointing to him. "Oh no! Listen here Mr. Class President, we are not going to put a thing of your silly strange story in our presentation when I don't have a clue where you are talking about!"

She shook her head and crossed her arms. "What are all those strange thingies anyway, magic spells like in Harry Potter? Because I know for sure that lollypops don't make you float like Hermione did with that feather."

He bit back a snarky remark as he saw Yaya trying to make sense of the candy ingredients. Should he really give it another try? He could decide to simply ignore all his past tries to make her see the light and give it another shot, but that would be throwing away a total of thirty-two minutes and forty-five seconds spends on those past tries, and Sanjo Kairi was not a boy who liked to waste time.

But then again, he really had her attention right now, and seeing as she was now trying to think the way he did…well, that was an opportunity he simply couldn't let slip away.

"Okay Yaya-sempai, I will explain it." He started, hoping that he had made the right decision this time. "It doesn't really matter what those ingredients are that are put into candy, it matters what kind of effect they have on your body. For example…"

While thinking of a good one, his eyes met hers and suddenly he felt nervous, but not because of him trying to think of something. "For example…what the connection is between glucose and insulin and diabetes. You remember what diabetes is?"

"That disease that people can get because they eat too much good things like soda and candy?"

"That's correct. Now, insulin is a ubiquitous fuel in your body that reacts when it comes in contact with carbohydrates, amino acids and glucose. Glucose is a very known nutrient that you can find in food such as potatoes and bread, but also in candy. When you're eating candy and your body notices that it gets more sugar or glucose, the body reacts to that and activates insulin. Are you still following me?"

Yaya nodded and Kairi smiled gratefully before continuing. "Now, insulin can make sure that all the energy that you get from your candy gets…locked up so to say. The problem when you have diabetes is that when you eat candy, your body notices the sugar and the glucose, but it can't activate the insulin. That way your body can't lock the away the sugar that you don't need, and therefore making sure that the sugar level in your body is always high."

Yaya chewed on the back of her pencil and raised her brow after his last words. "And high sugar levels are…bad?"

"Absolutely," Kairi nodded in agreement. "High sugar levels rise the chances of heart problems, cause danger to your blood circulation and can even damage your brain."

Yaya's eyes widened. "Oh no, that doesn't sounds good!" She tapped her pencil on the table while she thought everything over. "Hmm, so when you're sick, that insulitis can't lock away the sugar…"

Kairi stayed silent, watching the girl taking his words in and praised himself for his patience. 'It doesn't matter how many times the otter has to swim upwards, if he reaches the fish in the end, his hard work will be worth it.' Ha, I knew that Miyamoto-sama was right!

Still a frown appeared on her face. "Say Kairi?"

"Yes, Ace?"

"That nutria thing you told about, that thing that's in sugar…"

"Glucose?" he helped, wondering why that nutrient had caught her interest.

"Ah yes, glucose," she exclaimed, "you said that that stuff sits in sugar, right?"

"That's correct."

"Does it taste sweet too then, like candy?"

"Uhm, I have to say… I'm not sure." Kairi became a bit irritated. The functions of the body weren't really his cup of tea when it came to reading books. "I have never read anything about the taste of sole glucose, but I guess that it is possible that it tastes sweet too, yes."

"But you told me before that glucase sits also in food like potatoes and bread and stuff?"

Honestly, why does she get so worked up about that? "That is correct too Yaya-sempai. Glucose is a nutrient that you can find in different kinds of fo-"

Yaya threw her pencil on the table. "But Kairi, that makes no sense! How is it possible that that glucosium can make candy taste so sweet and good while it can't make bread and other stuff taste the same?"

And…oh, yeah, that was indeed a good question. Sadly enough none of his idolised old masters had an answer for it.

"Uhm…well that's because you also have-"

"And it isn't like this glocose works different when it is put into a different kind of food, because I don't think that nutrients have an on/off-button." Yaya once again ignored him and simply ranted further. "I mean, those things are so small, buttons wouldn't even fit on such a little thing!"

Say Yaya, have you already met my biology book? Here, let me introduce - no, hold yourself in! "Yaya, if you could please listen to me then I could explain to you-!"

"No, you can stop this Kairi." Yaya shook her head in defeat. "I'm sure that you mean it right, but I think it's better if we just go with my story. Because let's face it, nobody is going to believe your story."

...

...

...

Somewhere in England, Charles Darwin turned in his grave.

While Yaya simply kept rambling and explaining the flaws in Kairi's story, the boy stayed silent and stared in front of him. He looked strange empty and full of too many emotions at the same time.

After a few minutes of her talking, Yaya noticed that something was up with her partner. "Kairi, are you okay?"

No reply. He looked right past her out of the window.

"You look like saw a ghost! Don't you feel good?"

Nothing. More staring out of the window, his fists clenched and his eyes filled with something she couldn't place.

The young girl thought hard for a moment, thinking of what could be wrong with him, until-

"Of course!" she said happily and grabbed the staring boy by his arm. "You are all out of energy! That's not so strange, we have been in this classroom for way too long, phew, Yaya is all out of sugar. Let's go outside, the sun is shining and there is an ice cream bar close by - that's it, let's get ice cream! Then you can get more energy and we can both raise those sugary levels that you talked about. Sounds like a good plan, right?"

"You know what, Yaya-sempai?"

"No?"

Kairi didn't look at her, but he unclenched his fists and exhaled deeply. "I think it's indeed the right time to get some ice cream."

"Really?" she asked happily surprised. Kairi never gave up their candy-debate this easily. "You don't care about the damage to your blood circles or those other sugar dangers?"

"Well," he muttered as the excited girl dragged him out of the classroom. "At least I will have the cavities as a living proof of them."

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See ya!