"I'm sorry, I don't have any lunch money at all..." Aster sighs.
A bully had him pinned up against a locker. The older boy stared him in the eyes angrily before socking him in the face, causing Aster to grab at his eye before sinking to the floor. Some other kids sat by and never got involved whenever situations like this happened. They didn't want a problem. Maybe Aster would be mad at them, but he sort of understood. They didn't want conflict, and they didn't need it. He could deal with this on his own, like he always does.
"Stanford!" A teacher shouts, stomping over with a stern look, "I've had it with you! Which do you prefer? A suspension or being expelled? I'm fine with both!"
The bully's face turns pale instantly. The boy jet down the hallway, attempting to escape the teacher. The teacher taught Aster's class, which so happened to be English. The teacher stooped down to Aster's level, his blue eyes giving a sympathetic look.
"That's the third time this month..." The man frowns.
"M-Mr. Felix?" Aster looks up steadily.
"Come on, let's get you to the school nurse..." Felix sighed. "You have to stop letting this happen to you."
- 88 -
During recess, Felix sat near Aster. The two talked very commonly about their lives, and were on very friendly levels. Felix was Aster's only adult friend at school, but that didn't matter much to the middle-schooler. Aster sat with his phone in hand, listening to music in one of his ears. The other earbud was out so he could listen to Felix.
"I mean, seeing you just sit there and take that doesn't seem right to me," Felix explained, "Stand up for yourself more often! You'll be stronger because of it, Aster,"
Aster turns to the man and frowns. "Fighting back only makes the situation worse. And I'm not strong, so I'm not pretending to be someone I'm not,"
"But you are strong! Look at you! You're pretty good at track, and you can keep a good enough pace to do lots of push-ups," Felix argues, "You're strong! You just need to think of yourself that way,"
"But I don't."
"But you should."
"But what if I get suspended?"
"I'll bail you out!"
"Wouldn't that get you in trouble?" Aster's frown gets a bit bigger.
"Does this face look like I care?" Felix points to himself, sporting a deadpan face.
"No..." Aster sighs.
Felix's Mind
Felix's Anger and Disgust were at the controls now, and they think they were doing a pretty good job. Felix's Sadness walked over, looking at the screen with some chips from Snack Island.
"We gotta go through this every day with him!" Felix's Anger yells, "I wish he would just do something! Or let me at that kid! I'll show him messing with others ain't cool!"
"Yeah, go berserk on them, Brickhead," Felix's Disgust says sarcastically, "That'll definitely solve all of Aster's problems. Uh, no! We're not doing that. What he needs is confidence, not a bodyguard," He waves his hand dismissively at Felix's Anger, who gives an offended look and begins arguing with him.
While they were talking, Sadness handles the controls. He presses a button, cocking his head to the side.
"I don't know if this'll work, but I guess I could try..." Sadness sighs.
"Are...you okay?" Felix asks.
"...I'm fine." Aster looks away.
"Aster, please, I want to help."
"There's nothing wrong with me."
"You can trust me, you know."
"It's not that I don't," Aster says, "It's just..." He falls silent.
"You know, whenever I feel down about something, I'd paint or draw something to take my mind off of it," Felix explains, "Maybe you could find someone or something to invest your emotions into. I don't exactly know if it will work, considering everyone has a unique way of approaching a situation, but I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't care,"
Aster looks down to the ground in silence and he kicks the dirt a bit. The bell rings and Felix looks to the open field outside the school. He sighs, realizing that he hadn't gotten anywhere with Aster. Aster gets up and begins heading to class.
"I'll consider it..." he says, walking off to his math class.
"Do you think he'll be okay...?" Felix's Sadness looks to his Joy.
"W-What if he doesn't listen to us!? Today was a black eye, tomorrow might be a broken leg!" Felix's Fear takes cover behind his Anger, the latter punching the jumpy emotion away with an angry grunt.
"I don't think a broken leg will be the worst of it." Felix's Disgust shrugs. "I mean, he's been at this for only this month. A broken leg's a bit much..."
"And that is exactly why we're going to help Aster!" Felix's Joy puffs out his chest, looking proud. "We just have to keep trying at it, and we'll get there!"
"Easy for you to say, Joy, you're always optimistic." Felix's Disgust sighs.
- 88 -
2:50 P.M.
Aster closes the door to his home and walks inside, covering his left green eye with brown hair and a camouflage jacket. His father, Tony, was in the living room, watching a program on the television, while his mother, Lisa, was in the bedroom, reading a book. At the sight of his son coming through the door, his father gives a small smile.
"Afternoon, Tyler," his father greets.
His father always called him by his middle name. It was just a display of affection. Perhaps Aster would smile, but he found it hard to.
"Afternoon, Dad," Aster answers.
"How was school?"
"Same as always."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"Uneventful."
Tony sits there for a bit and turns off the television. "Alright, what's wrong, kid? You have that look on your face."
Tony wasn't the kind of person to just let this go under the radar. Aster always figured that if he spilled his heart out to others, they wouldn't want to be bothered. He felt that problems were to be dealt with by who had the problem. He didn't want others to go to that much of a length for someone like him.
Someone like him.
Tony remembers when his son said that to him, and all his emotions could to was stare at the screen as if they watched their son get shot right in front of their faces.
'Someone like you?' Tony once said.
'It's better to not say anything. More trouble isn't needed where it isn't wanted,' Aster said before.
'But what if telling helps the problem?'
'But what if it doesn't?'
'But how would you know?'
'I could ask you the same question.'
'You're being difficult, Tyler!'
'I'm sorry.'
'It's alright - Wait I'm trying to help you! No apologies. Not yet.'
'Then should I stay quiet? I feel like apologizing, and that's all I want to do right now.'
A past Tony holds his head in his hands, groaning a bit.
'Are you mad at me?'
'No, kid.'
'But why are you upset?'
'Because I feel like you can't trust me, and all I want is you to trust me right now.'
'But I do trust you, Dad.'
'Then tell me how you feel!'
'I can't.'
'Then you don't trust me.'
'I'm sorry...'
"Nothing's wrong, Dad," Aster answers.
'He's lying and I know he's lying.' Tony thought, gritting his teeth a bit.
"...Alright, kid," Tony says, "But talk to me if anything happens alright?"
"Okay.' Aster heads towards his room.
Aster's Mind
A memory orb colored beige rolls among all of the other ones. A small, snow white emotion walks over to it and picks it up, looking it over for a bit. It was then when the other emotions began to come into the room.
"So Anger, how'd today go for you?" Aster's Joy asks.
"It's fine." The white emotion turns around, holding the memory orb. He was stone faced.
"...Is he always gonna be like that, Joy?" Aster's Disgust leans towards his Joy, whispering in his ear.
"It's fine, Disgust," Joy whispers back, "Besides, he gets along with Sadness a lot better!"
Aster's Sadness walks up to his Anger. "So...you want to obsess over the weight of life's problems again?"
Anger only gives a nod as a response. Sadness flops down on the floor first and Anger follows, copying Sadness. The memory orb rolls from his hands into that of Aster's Fear.
"...I really hope this doesn't get worse..."
And then there was Tony, who watched his son head towards his room with his hood still on. Perhaps if he looked a bit closer, he would've noticed his son's brown hair covering his eye. And perhaps if he had seen that, he would've asked him to take off the hood and move his hair. And just maybe, just maybe, he would've seen that black eye.