FAKE Ficlet: Summer’s End

[badly_knitted]

 


Title: Summer’s End
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Bikky, Carol, Ryo
Rating: G
Word Count: 578
Setting: Early in the manga.
Summary: Summer is coming to an end for Bikky, so he’s trying to make the most of what remains of his summer break.
Written For: My Mini Summer Bingo Prompt ‘Last Days Of Summer’ at fffc.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters.
 
 


 
The long, hot summer of liberty and leisure was winding down; fall would be here before anyone knew it, but sooner even than that, the new school year would be starting.

 
For Bikky, it was a gloomy prospect; the fun and freedom of summer break would be a thing of the past. His days would be filled instead with brain-numbingly boring lessons full of facts and figures he’d never remember, and would never have a use for anyway, and his evenings with endless mountains of homework. All he’d have left to look forward to would be the weekends, and he knew from experience how quickly they passed. Sometimes he could swear the school bell rang on Friday afternoon, then he blinked, and it was Monday morning again.

 
But summer wasn’t over quite yet, and Bikky wasn’t about to waste these last few gloriously carefree days thinking about what was to come. He had far more important things to do, such as playing basketball with his friends, going rollerblading with Carol, and Ryo had promised they’d have one last trip to Coney Island before school re-started next week, so that was where they were headed now for some fun in the sun.

 
The day at the beach was almost idyllic, according to Carol, and Bikky agreed, promising himself he’d look the word up in Ryo’s huge dictionary when they got home, so he’d know what it meant for future reference. Using big words always impressed the other kids and made him seem way smarter than he really was; he figured he could use all the help he could get.
 

Street smart and book smart were two very different things; Bikky knew he had the first down pat, but the second was a work in progress. He was doing the best he could but judging by his grades at the end of last semester, he still had a very long way to go. As far as Bikky could tell, not too many people were lucky or clever enough to be both book and street smart. Dee probably was, although it galled Bikky to admit it; he’d grown up in a rough neighbourhood the same way Bikky had, but he'd still done well enough in school, and gotten other qualifications in college, that he’d had no trouble getting accepted into the police academy.
 

Bikky wasn’t quite so sure about Ryo; his foster father could be kind of an airhead. He was definitely book smart, he’d done well in school, and he helped Bikky a lot with his homework, taking the time to explain complicated stuff like algebra in ways the boy could understand, but street smart? He was a cop, and spent a lot of time on the streets catching criminals, so… Yeah, probably. On a good day, when he wasn’t so busy thinking about something else that he forgot where he was and what he was doing.

 
Idly digging in the sand, not that he expected to find anything interesting, Bikky was broken out of his thoughts by Carol yelling something about racing him down to the sea, and jumping up he ran after her, easily beating her despite her head start and longer legs. For the rest of the day, he pushed everything else out of his head and concentrated on having the most fun he could before summer came to an end. He’d worry about school, homework, and grades when he had to, and not a moment sooner.

 
 
 
The End