Disclaimer: All characters based on characters belonging to Square Enix. You can not sue me for using them as a physical base for my characters. Eat it.
"Gippal you've got so much potential. Really. You do!" Right. Shut up. I don't care.
"Gippal, they want to interview you for the summit conference. In Ha-wai-i!" If I'm going by myself you can take it and shove it up your ass.
"I don't understand, Gippal. You have such a mind for computers and you're so intelligent and your standardized tests are off the charts! If you only applied yourself..." Why should I apply myself somewhere I'm not wanted?
"Gippal! You've been accepted for the Summit!" Shit. I'm going to miss regionals.
"They said that if your grades come up, they'll give you a scholarship for it." I don't fucking WANT a scholarship for ANYthing. I just want to go to the local college, get my mediocre degree in mechanical engineering, and make my living off of what I love with the person I love.
Why am I here again? I'm standing in a line. In a suit and tie. Lai would love to see me in this. Everyone around me looks like a geek. Everyone else has two eyes. Everyone else is a wunderkind with computers.
But no one else here can take a computer apart and put it back together again in full working order. No one else here earned their stripes as a programmer when they were four. No one else here has the best boyfriend in the world.
Waiting in line to be paraded out on a stage in front of old farts spending their money sending kids like me to school to dominate the world, that thought is my only comfort. When I go home and tell him the 'Summit Conference' I was attending to be lectured was really a surprise scholarship awards assembly, he'll be so proud. I lean back against the wall to think about it. Another boy is staring at me. Oh well. Yes, Baralai will hear me out. I'll drive over to his place in my green Karmen-Ghia with the one orange door, and he'll meet me on the lawn. We'll act nonchalant, but flirty outside, then as soon as we get in the door we'll hug like there's no tomorrow. I'll tell him everything about the convention and the scholarship assembly. He'll hear me out, then make that odd femme-scream noise that he does (it's not a squeal, it's not) and bounce on his toes before hugging me around my neck. I'll wrap my roped arms around his tiny little waist, and he'll bend down a bit. I'll raise my chin to get it out of harms way, and he'll jump up, legs wrapping around my waist. Then, he'll take his head off my shoulder and kiss me. After being completely deprived of air, he'll tell me how proud of me he is. I'll smile my dashing grin insert sparkle on canine here and tell him I couldn't have made it this far in school without his s brainbashing disallowance of my dropping out /s love and support. Then I'll tell him that I'll be able to take care of us for the rest of our natural lives together, and he'll get all vulnerably loving and cute and do that eye-search thing that I love but won't admit to loving, then he'll kiss me again. Slower this time. It'll go from cute, sweet, and loving to serious, demanding and loving. We'll fall on his bed and everything will be slow. When we were both still in school, training for the road ahead, we never had the time to do ANYthing we wanted, much less EVERYthing we wanted. Now, we spend whole afternoons just wrapped around each other, finding new and even more pleasureable ways to heighten the experience. Now, I'm a month away from out of high school hell, away from all the rules and all the competition. I can just be with my boy. And that's what I'll do. This will be the party for pre-freedom. The first real predecessor of freedom. It makes waiting in this line in this airless hallway in this heavy suit worth it.
I open my eyes. A small smile is playing about my mouth. We've moved up in the line. I'm the next on the stage. The boy staring at me smiles back. "Thinkin' about your girl back home?"
I laugh lightly, just as my name is called. "No," I say over my shoulder. "Thinkin' about my boy."