Disclaimer: These characters are the property of their creator, I don’t claim to own them, please don’t sue me.

Rachel-chan’s Greenwood Fanfic

Chapter One: An evil villain, or just a failure?

Mitsuru stepped happily into his dorm room, noticing absently that Shinobu had taken the desk, again. He had long since resigned himself to doing homework at the table in the middle of the room. "Hey," he said casually, already in the process of changing into his regular clothes.

Shinobu looked up from his notebook, where he was doing some sort of calculation that didn’t look like homework. "You’re home late. You usually can’t wait to get out of uniform."

Mitsuru tried to shrug, but had his shirt halfway off so it wasn’t too effective. "I stayed late talking to my English teacher. He wants me to tutor some of the people in my class. I need to get back to the school as soon as I change and get some food. I said I’d meet Hiroku at the library in ten minutes."

Shinobu’s expression changed from amused to slightly hostile. "Hiroku Tanaka? The one who ran against me for Student Council President?"

Mitsuru winced. He knew he shouldn’t have mentioned the name. "Yeah. Apparently he only got 37 out of 100 on the last quiz, and the teacher’s worried about him. I would have refused, but I had already agreed to tutor three other people, and couldn’t think of a good reason not to take one more."

"Well, I’m sure he could use the help. How is he?"

Mitsuru looked a bit nervous. "Not bad, I guess. I didn’t talk to him much." He paused for a moment, then asked, "You aren’t still mad at him are you? I mean, it was more than a year ago, and you got more than 80 percent of the votes anyway. He didn’t have a chance."

Shinobu smiled. "Of course not. I’m not one to hold a grudge. His attempt to sabotage me was childish at best. I won’t hold his foolishness against him."

Mitsuru wasn’t convinced, but decided not to worry about it too much. "That’s good. I had better get going. I guess I’ll see you at dinner."

"See you then." As soon as the door shut behind his roommate, Shinobu’s smile melted from his face. This did not bode well. Mitsuru was far too trusting. Hiroku could have all kind of devious plans behind this meeting. Shinobu thought about following his friend, but decided against it. It was Mitsuru’s own fault if anything happened to him. He could hang out with that treacherous failure if he wanted to. With a rather sour expression Shinobu returned to his calculations.

Mitsuru stared coldly across the table in the library, a pencil in one hand, a rolled up magazine in the other. He was no easier on his peers than he was on underclassmen. Well, not much easier. Hiroku was struggling through a list of spelling words.

"’determined’: d...i" Whack. Hiroku winced and started again. "d... e...t...u" Whack. "Can we take a break? We’ve been doing this for over an hour."

"And you still can’t get this right. We’ll stop for five minutes, and then you have to practice some more."

"Thank you." He looked relieved for a moment, then irritated. "Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to get hit with that thing?"

Mitsuru smiled cruelly. "Doesn’t it make you try harder?"

"I suppose." Hiroku tried to look friendly. "I really appreciate you helping me out. I couldn’t bear to fail this class. Maybe I could make it up to you sometime."

Mitsuru seemed a bit confused. "That’s alright. I tutor people all the time, it’s no big deal."

"No," Hiroku said smilingly, "it is a big deal to me. You were willing to do this for me, even with what happened last year. I thought you and Shinobu would never forgive me, but you didn’t even mention it. I hope Shinobu is as forgiving as you are."

"Shinobu has more to forgive you for. After all, you didn’t really do that much to me. Besides, I promised the teacher I would help whoever needed it."

"I know, but it still means a lot to me." He was looking at Mitsuru almost adoringly. Mitsuru looked quite uncomfortable.

"Well, we had better get back to work." He picked up the magazine again, and began to look more at ease. "Alright, spell ‘negotiate’"

The sound of the magazine slamming into the student’s head echoed throughout the library intermittently for another two hours. By the end, Mitsuru’s arm was very tired.