A ten-year-later story
Some weird idea about the future of the Rappapa with a light twist. I just wrote it for fun while celebrating the 10th anniversary of 10nen zakura. Please forgive my messy and lengthy writing style.
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In a certain sunny day in February, at the usual busy airport, a girl with long black hair, which only had the left half tied up neatly, wearing black boots, black slim-fit military trousers and a camo sleeveless t-shirt, along with a deep green sukajan with white dragon embroidery on top, pushed her cart with at least a dozen of boxes on it around. She also carried on her back a military backpack. It seemed like she was waiting or looking for someone.
“Hey Gekikara! Over here!” A girl, also with long black hair and white shirt, black jeans and a black sukajan with white dragon embroidery but in a different design, who was standing beside a gray pickup truck, waved her hand. Gekikara walked right over with a newfound excitement; it had been 2-3 months since the last time they met.
“Thanks for picking me up, Black”, Gekikara giggled and started unloading the boxes on her cart into the rear trunk of the old truck after hugging the other girl, “By the way, you still haven’t bought a new truck yet?” Black helped with the unloading while answering, “I just don’t want to. And don't mention it, your goods need to be brought to the supermarket anyway. Are you gonna stay in a hotel this time? Wanna stay at my place?” Gekikara replied, “Well, I won’t refuse your kindness if you want to”.
After unloading everything, Gekikara put her backpack on top of the boxes and closed the trunk with a bang. “Take it easy, Gekikara, you will break my precious truck” Black said after seating herself on the driver’s seat. “Hey, it’s not my fault your precious truck is so old”, Gekikara replied while opening the door and comforting herself on the front seat of the so-called old truck. Black stoop on the accelerator and they were out of the airport’s noisy parking area in no time.
“How was your last mission in Syria?”, Black asked. “Decent. I saved a lot. There were so many abandoned children, you can't even imagine.” Gekikara answered in a soft voice. She was a soldier of a Voluntary Force, which main job was to come to terrored or devastated places to rescue the locals. Although the force was voluntary, they still got pay a lot due to the danger of the missions and also because the force was organized by private. Although the job paid good, it was not the reason for Gekikara's participation. It all started when she met a girl named Furukawa Airi a year after her graduation, after she sold her mother’s house and started roaming the world. The small girl was there when Gekikara passed by a terrored town and saved a child out of the fire. Airi asked Gekikara to join the force right away. “There are even more children that need help, will you join us?”, with a warm voice, Airi managed to convince Gekikara to join in the team. Gekikara was the one that understanding the feeling of an abandoned child the most hence she didn’t want to see any children suffering in her sight. Despite of being a private organized force, Gekikara was trained full-fledged military style and it helped her control her brute strength better, while also taught her the importance of defense and accuracy in fighting. She still laughed when fighting though, Gekikara-style as always. She was in the hand-to-hand combat team which was to handle hostage-involved cases, where they couldn’tshoot recklessly, and rescue people from collapsed buildings. Airi was in the tactical team and they were a great duo. However, Airi was shot 3 years after Gekikara joined the force and Gekikara went full monster to revenge for her dear friend. Nowaday, apart from her dog tag, she also wore Airi’s in commemoration of her friend and donated most of her salary to various orphanages. Money never delighted Gekikara so she only kept enough for herself and for her share in paying Yuko’s hospital bill. Yes, you heard it correct, Yuko was alive. The doctor said it was a miracle, but she needed to stay full time in the hospital. The Rappapa decided to split the bill among themselves since Yuko had no family or relative. Rappapa was her only family and they decided to do what family supposed to do. Even though Yuko protested a few times at first, she understood that she had no way to pay the bill with how she had to stay in the hospital all the time now. It was hard on the girls at first considering the only ones with real job is Sado, who was a nurse-in-training, Black, who was a clerk and Torigoya, who was a masseur. Maeda was finishing her study in medical university, Shibuya and Gekikara was jobless, or rather had not found the job they wanted.
Then things started getting better.
Firstly, Sado got promoted into the head nurse. Then Gekikara met Airi and joined the Voluntary Force. After that, Shibuya had been irritated by her underlings being beaten by boy yankees for a while now and started teaching them her boxing skill, then some other yankees came and asked to join her lesson. Ultimately, Shibuya turned her hideout into a boxing class for girl yankees and had made quiet a name for herself. The class, of course, had fees and even though it was not too high, the amount of trainees were enough to make up for that. Dance, still as loyal and faithful as ever, also joined the class, sometimes as experiment object for Shibuya, but also for serious lesson sometimes. Dance also helped with the equipment and gate-guarding for the class. When Maeda graduated from university and became a real doctor, the hospital fee for Yuko turned into a really small matter and to top that off, Torigoya saved enough to open her own massage parlor while Black inherited the supermarket from its previous owner. He was a lonely old man with no heir or any relative, so he decided to give it to Black, his loyal and hardworking employee after hearing Yuko’s story and how the Rappapa girls had decided to split the bill. The supermarket was in between Majijo and Yabakune’s territory, where no one dared to open up any form of business which boosted Black’s supermarket sell greatly. The students from both school also agreed to be on neutral term when encounter each other in her supermarket (or Black, and sometimes the other girls, would beat them into pulps). But what made Black’s supermarket become a hit was Gekikara’s goods. Gekikara usually got 4 breaks a year and due to another agreement between the girls, which was to come and take Yuko outside once a month for fun (didn’t mean she had not tried to sneak out but with Sado as the nurse and Maeda as the doctor, she stood no chance), she came back periodically with souvenirs for them everytime and one time, Gekikara brought spare military supplies back, and Black felt that the yankees would love these for sure, so Gekikara brought back more for Black on her next break, which sold out almost immediately. All type of fighting supplies like gauntlets, knee caps, camo suits, cargo pants,... were sold out in a flash. So Gekikara became Black's supermarket's fixed supplier and she sometimes brought back some of her job’s destination’s food or goods. Although they were not as good sell as the military stuffs, they were good seasonal products nontheless.
Black’s truck pulled up beside a small, neat-looking supermarket and the two started unloading the boxes again, now from the trunk into the store’s storage. After all was done, they sat together on the staff’s room and chatted for a bit. “Thanks for the goods, Geki. Just list the stuffs and prices out for me like last time. I will pay you later”, Black said while fidgeting with the water bottle’s cap after taking a huge gulp of water. “Don’t mention it, this supermarket was technically ⅓ mine anyway”, Gekikara said while smirking then went on and took another gulp of water from her military water bottle. Black facepalmed at what her friend just said, “I have told you that’s a bad idea so many times”. “Well, we did it anyway”, Gekikara laughed. It was years ago, after the Gekikara’s goods had been going on for a while, Gekikara suddenly suggested Black to sell her ⅓ of the supermarket’s stocks since she was technically a shareholder now with how much effort she was invested in the supermarket’s well-being. Black hesitated at first but finally did it and from then on, Gekikara had used it to reject her payment for the goods whenever she could. Black always had to force her to take it and Gekikara seemed like she enjoyed making Black angry.
“Where should we go next?” Gekikara asked while tugging her water bottle back into her already over packed bag. “Shibuya asked me to pick her and Torigoya up from the ring and then we can go to the hospital together” Black answered. “Oh yes, I almost forget, Yuko-san…”, the atmosphere suddenly turned quiet and heavy, Black, not willing to look at Gekikara’s sad face and also to hide her sad face, stood up first and walked out to the truck, “Let’s go, the others are waiting”.
Gekikara had a month break every year and to fulfill the girls’ agreement to come and bring Yuko out for fun as frequently as they can (usually once a month), she came back every 3 months and spent a week with her family - the Rappapa, and mostly Yuko. Therefore, she usually scheduled to come back at the end of March, which was to bring Yuko out to see cherry blossom, end of June, end of September and end of December, which was to celebrate new year together with her family. But this time, Gekikara had to take her break in mid-February because of a dreadful news from Yuko: she had fallen into a coma and her time was coming to an end, in which the doctors agree on letting her to go home for there was nothing they could do anymore.
The ride was filled with small conversation for Black and Gekikara to update each other with the 2 months gap. When the car stopped in front the boxing class, Dance immediately came and opened the door for them, “Black-san, Gekikara-san, Shibuya and Torigoya-san are waiting for you two”. “Thanks a bunch, Dance. Has the class ended?” Gekikara asked with a smile toward Dance. Even though not recognized as a Rappapa’s member, the girls all adored Dance’s devotion and loyalty toward her Shibuya-san and also to their small group. They all saw her as part of their little family. Whenever Shibuya couldn’t come to take Yuko out, Dance would go in her place and although being teased by Yuko a lot, the girl did her job perfectly. “They are coming to an end soon. Please come inside.” Dance said while holding the door open for them. “Okay, see you later, Dance”, Black said while the duo stepped inside the place. Shibuya was observing the sparring between her trainees and making criticism on their fighting stand while Torigoya was just dazing off, as always.
It was truly an amusing thing how much a person can change, for better. Teaching other yankees helped Shibuya to be better at controlling her emotion and temper. She was still a hot-headed though and nothing gonna change that, but she got really better at listening and instructing others. Back then, she could only boss her underlings around but now she was a great teacher herself.
Also, similar to Black’s supermarket, Shibuya’s ring was a neutral ground and all the yankees from different school agreed to stay neutral here (or, again, Shibuya and the others gonna beat them into pulps).
The class finally drew to an end and while trainees were pouring out of the class, some recognized Gekikara and Black and bowed to them slightly. Dance ran in and started cleaning up the place, also putting equipments away for tomorrow lesson. Shibuya and Torigoya approached the duo right after and while Torigoya gave Gekikara a tight hug, Shibuya only shook hands with her. Then, they exchanged some words of merriment while Shibuya cooled off and drank some water off her high-fashioned water bottle. Shibuya was wearing a black legging with a pink tank top and a pair of training shoes and Torigoya was wearing casual t-shirt and jeans with her red sukajan on top. She left to take a shower and then put on her pink sukajan to join them for the ride to the hospital. The four queens were coming for their boss.
When they arrieved at the hospital, heir vice boss and vice vice boss were already waiting beside Yuko, in their fur coat and jean jacket, silently.
The ride was silent, a peaceful silence shared among them since forever. The traumatized child, the introverted, the hot-headed, the air-headed, the sadist and the serious (plus the scaredy catl), they all came together around Yuko and Yuko had made sure that even when she was no longer around, they could still stand beside each other, silently, as always. They were no longer comrades, they were family. Family was different from friends or comrades. They didn’t have to always stuck beside each other, they didn’t have to have the same goal, the same dream, the same life values, but they would still come back to each other side at the end of the day. The girls were a family. And their home was the good old wind instrument club. They would occasionally take Yuko back to the room on their take-Yuko-out-of-the-hospital days for some nostalgia and with Black and Shibuya’s connection with new generations of Majijo’s students, the room was left untouched, silently waiting for its rightful owners to comeback.
Yuko was coming home.
It was weekend, so no one was at school right now. The school stood quietly embracing the early-spring breeze while the old cherry blossom tree shaking its dried branches as if welcoming Yuko and the Rappapa’s appearance. Cherry blossom season was nearby but Yuko wouldn't be there to see it.
Rumours said that Center was the president right now and she also helped maintaining the wind instrument room as it was for them.
Sado princess carried Yuko into their good old clubroom, which Yuko would loudly protest if she was conscious but today, she stayed quiet. They put her onto her golden chair, the chair for the top of Majijo, their top. Yuko was quiet, so unlike her, with her head slightly leaned to a side. If not for her pale skin, the Rappapa sweared they could see the old days playing in their head, where their precious Yuko-san, after causing lots of mischieves, soundly taking a nap on the same chair, her small figure embraced by the golden silk. At those time, the girls would usually sitting silently around her and let Yuko have her peaceful snap. So they did the same. Black sat down on the long chair and started reading her bible, Gekikara stood beside her while biting her nails silently, Shibuya sat down and stared at her newly done nails, Torigoya fidgeted with a feather, Sado rolled the kendama’s ball on her hand and Maeda read her book, Dance stood silently with bowed head beside Shibuya.
It almost resembled the scene from their good old days, except for all of them were praying this time. To gods, to demons, to heaven, to hell.
“Please don’t take Yuko-san away.”
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Well, how will this end, you may ask? That's up to you.
This piece was written as a prologue for a fanfic of mine, but the fanfic itself will need more time to be polished, so I just post this as a one shot for memory. Maybe I will finish that fanfic one day.
