Three Dollars and a Singular Cent

Prequel

A/N: i got 90 notifications the other day from a person rereading this fic and when I was looking at (all) their comments I got the idea to write a little prequel thing about how the reader met the Yabusames. I thought it'd be a cute little thing so that's what this is! I'll talk more about this at the end.

~ * ~

When you were sixteen, you fell in love with a boy.

You'd met him in Chemistry, and he was such a dick. Not only that, but he had the most disgusting hairstyle of all time. You kind of loved it, though. You sat next to him for a few months before the first time you decided to speak to him, because you noticed he was watching something you liked on his phone under the table.

"What's your name?" You asked him after a brief moment of bonding.

He opened his mouth and hesitated before responding, "Gonbee Yabusame."

You smiled softly and before you could respond with your own name, the teacher said, "Alice, phone off. If I see it again, it's mine." And Gonbee was quick to pocket his phone. You turned back to him with a glare, wondering why he'd decide to lie to you in your first conversation ever with him.

"...Seriously?" You asked.

"...Sorry." He said, shaking his head and directing your hushed conversation to a different topic.

~ * ~

It was not rare for people in your school to have the same last name. Hell, in an American school, there were probably at least ten Smith's in a single grade. The fact that this boy and your new friend who was a year younger than you had the same last name didn't even clock in your head as a fact.

A few months went by and when the first sprout of a thought that you may be beginning to like Alice grew in your head, you immediately went to your other Yabusame friend.

"I think I like this guy, Reko." You said during lunch. Neither of you were eating. Instead, the two of you sat on the roof of the school listening to rock music.

Reko was a lesbian and that was a fact anyone could tell just by looking at her. She simply exuded woman-loving energy and was very much a man-hater for the most part. She said there were few men in her life she could tolerate, but you'd never been given an example. Her head rolled over to look at you, that look in her eyes saying Oh, brother. "Why? And who?"

"I don't know why. He was kind of a dick at first, but he's just... kinda cute. We have a few similar interests, and his humor is... crude... dry... perfect for me, I guess. It's really the smallest feeling, but I felt the need to share it."

"Who?" She repeated.

"Secret." You said, holding a finger up to your lips, "'Cuz I don't want you to beat the shit out of his wimpy ass."

Reko rolled her eyes, "I would never. But if it's a wimpy guy you're going after..." She paused, then shuddered, "Yeah, I guess that would be your type."

"What?"

~ * ~

You'd hung out with Alice plenty of times after knowing him for a couple of months. He'd been to your house, and you'd never been to his, but now you were going to the mall together to hang out at the arcade. Something about the whole thing felt so strangely intimate to you, but the way Alice acted made it seem like he really was just there to play Mario Kart and rhythm games, eating almost the entire pizza the two of you ordered, only sparing you a few pieces.