A/N: For my birthday in August my best friend, Waffles4eva, told me that she would be writting me a birthday fic. She suggested taking some of my characters from "The Flight of Dreams" and "Strangers Like Me" and taking them out of a 'Shonen style' - card game anime and putting them into a 'Shojo style' - high school anime... and Over the Rainbow is the end result. She's been releasing them to me one episode at a time and she very very kindly has allowed me to post it.
Disclaimer: I only own Izzy and Alyssa. The plot and storyline belong entirely to Waffles4eva. Everything else isn't ours.
Over the Rainbow
Episode One- Arrival: Welcome to Noboru!
"Please fasten your seatbelts, we are now beginning our descent."
Izzy did so, drawing in a deep breath and unwrapping a boiled sweet as she went. She hated how her ears would pop as planes went down. Her heart thudded slightly. This was it, there was no going back. She hoped everything would work out. She hoped her Japanese was good enough, that she would get on with her classmates, that they wouldn't think she was odd. It had been a year since she had seen Alyssa in person too, what if her friend wasn't the same? What if she wasn't?
She was beginning to think this hadn't been a good idea. However, she was the sort of person who pushed her worries right back, deep into some forgotten corner of her mind, so she reminded herself that she would have a wonderful time. She should be excited, not nervous. If Alyssa acted differently, she would simply have to adapt to it. She reminded herself of this constantly as she collected her baggage and took her first steps onto Japanese soil.
"Izzy!"
She heard the excited yell and just had time to give a relieved sigh- clearly Alyssa hadn't changed in the slightest- before all the wind was knocked out of her by a slightly over-excited hug.
"You know." She said, conversationally. "If you will tackle-hug me at about ninety miles an hour, I'd appreciate it if you could be a bit more gentle."
Alyssa laughed and released her. "Gentle isn't any fun!" She answered, winking. "Well, anyway! Nippon e yokoso!"
"That's 'welcome to Japan', right?" Izzy asked, slightly uncertain. Alyssa nodded.
"See? The whole language barrier thing is not going to be a problem!" She smiled, and from then on spoke in Japanese. "I know you're going to love it here!"
"It should certainly be interesting." Izzy replied, and hoped it would be. She had lived a fairly ordinary life up until now. She wondered if Japanese high school would be as interesting as the animes all made it look to be. Probably not. At least, not according to Alyssa.
"Oh, great!" Alyssa exclaimed suddenly. "Hurry! Run! We'll miss the train!"
With that, she disappeared into the heaving mass of people, Izzy trailing after her with her suitcase. She rolled her eyes slightly. Whatever else was going to be different, it looked like it would be the same old Alyssa.
The train station, luckily, was directly opposite the airport, so they didn't have to run too far. Alyssa lead the way, clutching Izzy's hand luggage- she was either trying to help or was simply stealing it- while Izzy ran behind her, suitcase bumping over the pavement. Alyssa went into the station, forced her train pass into the barrier and dashed through. Izzy was left stuck behind the turnstile.
"Um... Alyssa?"
"Oh, right, sorry!" Alyssa ran back, pulling a rail ticket from her pocket and reached over to push it into the slot. The barrier opened, and just remembering to pick up her ticket, Izzy followed her friend to a platform where a train was just readying itself to leave. They slid through the closing door Indiana Jones-style and collapsed into some of the seats, laughing and trying to catch their breath.
"You haven't changed." Izzy said in the end, shaking her head in exasperation. "Why did you book such an early train? What if my flight had been delayed?"
"I didn't book it." Alyssa answered. "You can use that ticket any time today."
"Then why did we have to run?"
Alyssa just laughed more. Izzy glared, but was in too good a mood to keep it up for long. It was too good to see her friend again.
It still seemed strange to her that someone with as Western a name as 'Alyssa Trent' could have been born and raised in Japan. That said, her friend was half-English, on her father's side. This meant that although she lived in Japan, she had spent a lot of time in England too, visiting her father's family and friends, the ones he had grown up with. One such person happened to be Izzy's own father.
The Trent family's visits had been fairly rare over the years, but each time they did, it was Izzy who had been given the responsibility of playing with and generally looking after Alyssa. Now, that had caused a few problems over the years. The first time they had met, aged three, their conversation had gone something like this:
"Izzy, this is Alyssa. You can play with her for a while, right?"
"Okay. Hello, I'm Isabella, what's your name?"
A laugh. "Eigo desu ka?"
"...Well, you can call me Izzy if you want. Do you want to play?"
"Nihongo!"
As you can imagine, until Alyssa's English developed, it was somewhat hard for them to communicate. Never the less, that was not really a problem for games that mostly involved running around in the garden anyway. During those three weeks, Alyssa had come over almost every day, and to everyone's surprise, her English got a lot better. She had been raised in a bi-lingual household, but although she could understand English had always flatly refused to use it. It would seem Izzy was worth talking too. More surprisingly however, was when Izzy started to speak broken Japanese too. When her parents asked if Alyssa had been teaching her, three-year old Izzy simply replied: "She's not very good at talking English so I have to talk Japanese or she won't understand". And that was all she had to say about that.
Unfortunately, Alyssa's family had not come back to England for several years, until the girls were seven, in which time Izzy had not used Japanese at all. Thankfully, Alyssa's English had gotten better, but by the end of the holiday the two of them were speaking quite happily in a mish-mash of languages again, just as they had in a time they could hardly remember. They were firm friends after that, writing to one another- in Alyssa's wobbly roman script and occasionally Izzy's even wobblier kanji- and eventually made the technological progression to e-mail at around age ten.
By this point, Alyssa rather fancied the idea of being bi-lingual after all and with her father's help spoke it as much as she could. Izzy, too, had badgered away at her parents until they had found her a Japanese class to attend on a Saturday afternoon and, not struggling with languages as much as her friend, learnt rapidly. There was the motivation of being able to speak to Alyssa, of course, but now there was an extra one.
Alyssa had introduced her to anime. The fiend. A life-long obsession was begun by something as innocent as a simple youtube link.
The last time the Trents had come for a visit was the summer when the girls were fifteen, Alyssa about to move from Middle School into High School and Izzy going into Year Eleven that summer. At which point, Alyssa very excitedly said:
"Guess what guess what! My high school, it arranges a student exchange with a school in the UK! I speak good English and I've applied, I have a good chance! I might be back here in September!"
"It's alright for some." Izzy sighed. "Can you believe they're running a Japanese exchange programme but they're only going to let sixth formers do it? And only one?" Then she paused. "Wait. Alyssa, what's your high school called?"
And, naturally, Alyssa came and spent six months or so at Izzy's school. Naturally, when the school appealed for a family or several families to put the student up for a while, Izzy's applied. It was strange, to be living with Alyssa for such a long period. But it had been a lot of fun, in school as well as at home. Izzy hadn't wanted to admit it, but having Alyssa explain to the rather dogmatic history teacher that America should have been charged as war criminals after dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fun to watch. Also, Alyssa's apparent inability to write a haiku in English classes caused a great deal of amusement for some. Especially when she had somehow gained the impression that English lessons were where the students learnt to speak English. That was, after all, what they had been in Japan.
Now, a year later, it was Izzy's turn. She had decided to stay on at her school for sixth form and in doing so had been eligible for a chance to go and see Alyssa's school in return. She had won over the other applicants hands-down. She was well-acquainted with the strange Japanese girl that had visited them, she could speak Japanese, read and write the basics, and would work enough so that she would be able to catch up easily with her AS courses upon her return. Also, she had scored some of the highest exam results in the year at GCSE. They didn't want the Japanese thinking the English were stupid. Then again, they had sent someone who had believed Nelson was a Frenchman.
Izzy examined her friend, trying not to look like she was. Alyssa had gotten a tiny bit taller in the last year, her hair was shorter, but that was about it. She supposed a year couldn't make too much of a difference. Alyssa caught her looking and raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"I was just wondering," Izzy said. "What your school is going to be like."
"Oh!" Alyssa perked up. "Well, it's a pretty big school. Nationally-recognised, too. Everyone knows Noburo High!"
"...Noburo?" Izzy repeated, switching to English for a moment for the sake of clarity. "As in 'Go up'? 'Climb'?"
"Yes!" Alyssa grinned wickedly. "You could call it 'Up High', right?"
Izzy groaned. This could be a long six months. Alyssa chuckled slightly and went back to Japanese to resume her explanation.
"Anyway, because people come from all over to go this place, most of us live in the school dorms. There's North and West blocks, that's for the guys; we're in East and the girls have South too. Oh, that reminds me! You may as well have this now!"
With that, she reached into her pocket again and took out a key. Attached to it was a pink keyring with E203 printed on it.
"Your room key." Alyssa explained. "And, guess what? It's right next to mine!" Here she held up a key reading E204. "It was my room last year too." She explained. "Se-chan used to live in 203 last year but she said she'd switch for a bit."
"That was nice of her."
"Mm! You'll meet her, she's in our class." Alyssa answered.
"Oh, yes. Your school year starts in April here, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, but don't worry, you haven't missed much. Most of the April-September run is taken up by the summer break." She scowled slightly. "I can't believe there's only two days left!"
"Hey, hey, I want time to get un-jet lagged." Izzy pointed out.
"Awww, but I was going to take you sight-seeing." Alyssa pouted. "You can sleep tomorrow! I have a student council duties then anyway."
"You have what?" Izzy blinked, sure she must have misunderstood.
"Student council duties. I'm one of the Treasurers."
"Wait, wait." Izzy said, "Now, I might be wrong here, but when you were in England on the transfer didn't you spend the entire sixth months teasing me about being on the Student Council? Didn't you say 'I would never do that'?!"
"Eheheheh." Alyssa laughed nervously. "Maybe I did, but people change. I joined back in the first year."
"Why the U-turn?"
She shrugged. "It looked fun. Ours does a lot more than yours seemed too. Besides, you have to give something back, right?"
"Right." Izzy said, but she wasn't convinced. She would have to wait and see, she supposed. For the moment, there were more important things to do as Alyssa jumped up and said with great enthusiasm:
"Let's get off here!"
Izzy followed her onto the platform.
"So, what's here?"
"I don't know." Alyssa answered, cheerfully. "But we missed the stop for the shopping district already so I figured better late than never!"
"I thought we were going to the dorms to drop my stuff off first?" Izzy asked.
"Oh, right." Alyssa paused. "Oh well."
A very long sixth months.
It was a busy afternoon but a fairly entertaining one. After eating lunch in a 'traditional Japanese restaurant'- although Izzy was fairly sure they had not eaten 'Super Chocolate Fudge Ice-Cream' in the olden days after their noodles and rice- Alyssa took her out to see some of the sights of the town, the shops and walkways and buildings. There was a market just to one side of the high street, which Izzy duly noted as a good place to buy bizarre souvenirs and trinkets to take back home for her family. Alyssa, however, had other plans for Izzy's spare change and somehow convinced her to spend most of the afternoon in an arcade. Still, it was fun. Plus she totally owned Alyssa on basically everything.
By the time they caught the train and reached the school-owned property that formed the dormitories, it was late. Izzy had been up for so many hours she had lost count, and been through a time jump of nine hours. She collapsed into bed, barely taking the time to look around E203. Alyssa left her to sleep, and slept for a long time. When she came to, it was dark, and the clock read 2AM. She wondered if it was the same night or if she really had missed an entire day. The only reasonable course of action seemed to be to bang on Alyssa's door and find out what the date was.
Alyssa was not best pleased. She pointed out that not all of them were working on English time, and they had school the next day. From that, Izzy could surmise that she had indeed missed the entire day that Alyssa spent with the student council, but at least she felt awake now. Alyssa did not, and her answers to Izzy's many questions about the school were kept somewhat brief.
"Look, I'll show you around in the morning, okay?" She said eventually, through a yawn. "Speaking of which, how long do you need to get ready tomorrow?"
"Hmm... An hour, maybe...?" Izzy shrugged. "I don't take long. Make it an hour and a half though, in case."
"Set your alarm for about six then." Alyssa yawned again. "I'd like to go soon after seven... seven fifteen, maybe..."
"Whoa, how early does your school start?!" Izzy exclaimed. Her school had been reasonably close to home. The earliest she had ever gone out was eight, and then she got there twenty minutes early.
"Earlier than yours. And don't forget we have to get there." Alyssa answered, somewhat grouchily. Izzy knew her to be a morning person, but apparently that meant daylight hours only. It was time to leave her alone, it seemed, and try to get a few more hour's sleep before dawn.
"I'll be knocking for you at six thirty so we can go get breakfast." Alyssa yawned at her as she left, apparently not so mad that she wouldn't have breakfast with her friend.
Izzy attempted to sleep after that, but to no avail. She had slept for too long already, she wasn't used to the time zone and she was somewhat nervous about starting at a new school. Eventually she surrendered and decided to investigate room E203 a little further. There wasn't much to investigate, in truth- the room was quite small. There was a wardrobe for her clothes, with a large drawer that she had found her bedding in. There was a small desk with one leg shorter than the other that she spent a good half an hour trying to prop up with some old magazines until the wobble was more or less dealt with. There was a chair with it, a lamp, some shelves and a bookcase. She pulled back the blue curtains to see what the view was from her window, but dawn wasn't even considering breaking and all she could see was a sheet of blackness. It seemed there was little she could do except wait, and try to sleep after all.
When Alyssa knocked on her door at six thirty am, Izzy was ready and waiting. She had dressed as smartly as she could- not sure what the dress code was- but she found out when she opened the door. Alyssa stood before her in what was presumably a school uniform. Presumably because Alyssa looked so uncomfortable in it she couldn't be wearing it by choice. The skirt wasn't too short, at knee length, but it was brown. The top was a traditional sailor-style fuku, with a brown bow. The neck pieces had some green ridges on it, as did the cuffs of the long sleeves. In all honesty, it didn't look too bad. It was just… so traditionally Japanese schoolgirl.
Izzy laughed. Heartily.
"Laugh while you can." Alyssa huffed. "You'll have one of these by the end of the day."
Izzy stopped. It may have been amusing to see her friend looking like someone in a cosplay costume, but it would be another matter entirely to do it herself. It was Alyssa's turn to laugh, back to her cheery self now that the sun had risen.
"We'll go to the school store and get you one later." She smiled. "Anyway, come on! Alyssa want breakfast!"
"Fine, fine…" She answered, and her friend was half way down the hall before she had chance to so much as lock her door. It was awfully quiet, considering how early Alyssa wanted to leave. Perhaps everyone had eaten already. Still, when they reached the small canteen at the bottom of the building, there was plenty of food left, and most of the seats were empty. "Seems like no-one else is here yet... weird, don't we all have to leave pretty soon?"
"Um, yeah!" Alyssa agreed. "It's just, most people eat first and get ready after! So they'll all have finished by now!"
"Right." Izzy answered, wondering what there was to be so enthusiastic about as Alyssa helped herself to some food- rice, and some warm stew of some sort- but a meal like that for breakfast wasn't in Izzy's English style, so she stuck to some toast and bacon. Alyssa's only comment was 'You'll have a hard time eating that with chopsticks', which wasn't terribly helpful.
The two sat and ate together, chatting and talking. A few others, from other floors, arrived and Alyssa greeted most of them cheerfully. They all seemed to share a great interest in Izzy and after a somewhat dizzying round of introductions she was glad there had only been about five of them and all reasonably spread out. How she would manage meeting her class later, she didn't know.
"Ahh!" Alyssa yelped suddenly. "It's already seven fifteen?! We have to go! We'll be late!"
Without further ado, she grabbed her school bag- or 'the briefcase', as Izzy jokingly called it- and ran from the room, leaving Izzy to follow. They dashed out of the halls, arranged around a central square with North, South and West at the appropriate points. Alyssa didn't pause, however, running right out of the courtyard and up the street.
About two minutes later, they arrived at the school. No-one else was around, and with good reason. School didn't start till eight.
Izzy glared at Alyssa, trying to catch her breath after the mad dash. Alyssa was even more breathless than she was, but still managed to collapse into giggles. It didn't help the breathing situation much, and eventually she was gasping for air. Izzy didn't feel the least bit sorry for her.
"Why did you panic me like that?!" She snapped. "I thought I was going to be late on my first day!"
"Wasn't it more fun, though? Can't you feel your heart pounding?!" Alyssa laughed a little more, but calmed herself. "Come on, let's go to class!"
"...It's a pretty big building." Izzy commented as they headed across the playground. "Bigger than most schools."
Alyssa laughed. "It's deceptively tall. Seven floors!"
"Wow..."
"It's good because we can have all the classrooms in one building." She explained, but then frowned slightly. "Though it means we spend half our lives climbing stairs."
"What's that bit?" Izzy asked, pointing to a block jutting out of the side of the building, roughly three stories high and joining onto the rest of the school. The side of this smaller building was covered in bobbles and lumps, and the surface itself was uneven. At the top was what seemed to be a metal handrail, and from the roof, a long ladder that ran all the way to the roof of the building.
"That's the gym." Alyssa answered. "It's a climbing wall on the side! I think we're trying that soon, so you'll get to have a try... it's not that easy, though, I haven't gotten to the top yet..."
She didn't sound terribly enthusiastic, and entered the school building without looking too closely. Stopping at the shoe lockers, she slipped out of her outdoor shoes and changed into her indoor ones. Izzy felt a little lost.
"Um..."
"They're alphabetical." Alyssa answered the unspoken question. "You'll be under 'Ko'."
"...Ko?"
"Yup. You'll be writing your surname 'Ko-be-i' while you're here, by the way, because the headmaster refuses to accept Romanisation in his school no matter what."
"Oh." She didn't really know what to say to that.
"Think yourself lucky." Alyssa answered. "At least yours didn't become Te-n-tu."
With that, Kobei-chan and Tentu-chan, as it seemed they were to be known, conducted a brief search for Izzy's shoe locker and then headed up the stairs. The ground floor, Alyssa explained, was all the 'necessaries'- the canteen, the shoe lockers, the reception and administration offices. The other six floors contained the classrooms themselves, with homeroom for the first years held on the first floor, for the second years on the second, and so on. Theirs was in room 87. A small sign above the door read '2A'. Izzy wondered what it thought it was doing there if the headmaster was so opposed to the English alphabet.
"This is it." Alyssa announced, loudly and dramatically, with her hand ready to slide the door open. "Are you ready, Isabella Corbey?!"
"No need to shout." Izzy replied, covering her ears. "I am right here."
"You're right! You are right here!" Alyssa repeated, a tad suspiciously. "So, I'm going to go ahead and open this door...!"
She did not.
"...Go ahead." Izzy said, eventually. "Come on, I want to see!"
"Okay, I'm opening the door!" Alyssa announced again, and did so.
"Surprise!" Yelled the class at large, and Izzy found herself assault by a thousand questions and greetings in various levels of English.
"What is this?!" She asked Alyssa, when she could manage it.
"A welcome party!" Alyssa answered, pointing at the party food and the streamers and banners strung up around the room.
"...Before half seven in the morning?"
"Of course!" Alyssa grinned. "In Japan, it is always time for a party!" At this, the class cheered, and the introductions began.
"Okay, so this is our Class Rep!" Alyssa said, grabbing hold of a girl with long brown hair. "Honeka-chan! She's in charge here, so do what she says!"
"Please ask me if you need anything." Honeka smiled.
"Oh, thanks, I-"
"I'm Hachiro, I'm the one who really knows what's going on around here!" A boy inturrupted.
"Hey!"
"Sorry, Class Rep, but it's true."
The argument was soon swallowed by a clamour to introduce themselves.
"I'm Kiku."
"Mei, pleased to meet you."
"My name is Isamu, don't forget it."
"H-Hoshiko..."
"Katsu! Are we eating this or not?"
"I'm Emi, it's good to meet you."
"Call me Daisuke."
"Over here, I'm Goro, look me up if you're stuck."
"Momoko here."
"And I'm Nanami."
"Ryota Jindai, pleased to meet you."
"Um, I'm Shinobu, welcome..."
"Takumi is my name, but Taku will do, if you want. This is my beautiful girlfriend-"
"Yuzuki, and I can introduce myself!"
"But..."
"Hey, I'm Satomi. Good to meet you."
"...Nori."
"I'm Miki!"
"Akemi. Do you use that name in England?"
"Asuka, I heard that's a guy's name in England, you know..."
"I'm Hiroko. Pleased to meet you."
"Junko. Are we going to party or not?!"
"Megumi. Um... I made the banners... I hope you like them!"
"Ah, I'm Chiyo!"
Having introduced themselves, the class dispersed slightly. Izzy stood, trying to take all this in and failing utterly.
"Overload..." She muttered to Alyssa. "Am I meant to remember all that?!"
Alyssa laughed. "You'll get the hang of it. I-"
"Oi, Hako-chan!" Someone inturrupted. "Get over here and get the music on!"
"Be right there!" Alyssa replied, turning.
"Um, Hako-chan?" Izzy asked, bewildered. "Is that you?"
"Sure." Alyssa beamed. "It's short for my name."
"Hako is short for Alyssa?"
"No, it's short for Haruko." Alyssa laughed. "A lot of people don't like saying my first name so they use my middle one."
"Music!"
"Coming!" Alyssa yelled back. It seemed this class wasn't one that was unfamiliar or formal with one another. "You'll like this, Izzy, we did our best to learn some British music!"
A few moments later, ABBA was blasting out from a CD player in a corner of the classroom. Izzy didn't have the heart to tell them ABBA were not actually British. It didn't seem to matter. They were certainly having fun. A lot of rather noisy fun, at which Izzy seemed to be the centre. Finally, as the party got far too excited, she was able to take a step back. In fact, she found herself watching Alyssa, the Class Rep, and several other girls standing on the desks performing their somewhat unique version of 'Dancing Queen'. Alyssa and the Class Rep seemed to be the ringleaders. Between Alyssa's horrible voice and the Class Rep's broken English, and the bellowing of the entire group, she had never heard a version quite like it. Particularly when some of the boys decided they were not to be outdone and were up on the desks joining in.
It quite simply slaughtered the song, but she had never laughed quite so hard as she did that day. Izzy was laughing so hard, in fact, that she almost didn't notice the boy hovering awkwardly in the doorway, watching the proceedings.
"Um... can I help you?" She asked, lamely.
"Oh! No, it's fine." He assured her, seemingly embarrassed at being spotted. "I just, um, wanted to talk to Alyssa-chan. But, um, it looks like she's... busy."
Izzy attempted to hold back a laugh and failed. "That's one way of putting it, yes. Don't worry, the song is almost over."
"Right." He answered, still seeming slightly embarrassed. "So, um, are you new here? You wouldn't be the exchange student she mentioned, right?"
"That's me." Izzy answered. "I'm Isabella Corbey. Call me Izzy, though."
"Pleased to meet you." He nodded. "I'm Marik, I work on the Student Council with Alyssa-chan. We're the treasurers..."
"Oh, really?" Izzy smirked. Now, this was an interesting turn. Unfortunately, Alyssa noticed his presence before Izzy could probe him any more and promptly stumbled down from the table and across the room.
"S-senpai!" She stammered, blushing bright red and staring at the carpet. "Um... what brings you here?"
"Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt." He answered. "I just came to see if you have the reports we talked about yesterday..."
"Oh, yes! They're in my locker! I'll go get them!"
"Don't worry." He assured her. "We don't need them till later. I was just passing, so, um, I thought I'd, um, check. Well, I'll leave you to it!"
With that, he disappeared. Alyssa groaned and rested her head on the doorframe, but otherwise said nothing.
"So. 'Giving something back', huh...?" Izzy smirked.
"Don't. Even. Start."
"Oh, but I think I finally worked out your real reason for joining the Student Council!" Izzy said, enjoying herself greatly. "Don't you want to hear it?"
Fortunately for Alyssa, the teacher entered at that point, and looked around in slight bemusement at the state of his classroom.
"I take it you've all met our new student." He said, eventually. "In that case, everyone in your seats for registration, please!"
Alyssa shoved the door to her locker short, deftly twisting the dial to input the combination. "Right!" She declared. "You have your room, your shoe locker, your book locker and your timetable... now there are only two things left to get hold of!"
"I'm guessing one is a uniform..." Izzy speculated. "What's the other?"
"Lunch!" Alyssa said cheerfully. "And the queue is going to build up in the canteen so let's go quickly to the shop, okay?"
"Fine by me..."
As they walked down the corridor, there was no-one else around- the halls had cleared already for the lunchtime rush. When they rounded a corner, however, they met someone coming the other way. Izzy couldn't help but stare. He made a striking figure. Alyssa noticed him too, and forced a slightly uncomfortable smile.
"Atem-senpai, hi! How are you?"
He walked past with just the briefest glance in their direction, and continued on his way, disappearing round the corner. Alyssa gave a noisy sigh.
"Geez..."
"Who was that?" Izzy asked, watching where he had been.
"Atem-senpai." Alyssa said. "I know what you're like with your offers of friendship. Give up now. He's completely uninterested. He's popular with the girls and people try to talk to him... but he doesn't want it. He wants to be alone, I guess. Come on, let's get to the shop."
Izzy followed, silent. She didn't believe anyone would choose to be alone. Not really.
Atem rounded the corner, leant against the wall, and willed his heart to slow down, clutched his head and tried to make it stop. Even when he closed his eyes, he could still see that the shadows were there, all around him, and it was him they were reacting to. He could stand up to them, but how long would it be before they consumed someone else? He had no answer to that question, nor to a million others. The shadows swirled around him.
A/N: (Waffles4eva) I didn't know what I was getting into when I started but it's fun, so I guess I'll just have to finish. That, and you'd shoot me.
A/N: (scooby2408) I really enjoyed that - she'd been teasing me about what exactly was in it and more precisely which characters that she was using; she only gave me the barest details in the previews that she created and so I shall leave you with the preview for next time and thanks for reading...
"No way! That's not fair!"
"Alyssa, stick to the script..."
"I'm not doing it!! I don't like this episode!"
"Fine, then I'll narrate! Next time on Over the Rainbow... A mysterious figure-"
"Don't steal my job!!"
"Do it then!!"
"But it's embarassing..."
"Ahhh! Have you seen the next episode script?! It says I-!"
"I know!"
"We know! Alyssa PLEASE just do the narration!"
"... I can't."
"Arrgh, why not?"
"Because... We're out of time! Over the Rainbow Episode Two: Phys Ed - The Climbing Wall of TERROR!!"
"That was so overdramatic..."