Hawaiian Translation:
Aloha Ke Kahi I Ke Kahi-We Need One Another
"Taylor?"
Zack takes a breath of the cool mountain air from the front steps of his house.
The morning is quiet despite the nearby military base. It's been quieter and quieter since the big failed Jaeger experiment that almost bankrupted their town. Now it was downright peaceful on the mountain.
His phone trills in his pocket, startling him.
5 minute warning.
"Sh*t," he says to the quarry.
"Zachary Taylor." the teacher repeats, not even bothering to look up to see if the student had appeared,
Zack leaves a trail of dust and displaced pebbles in his wake. He ducks under the peeled up fence that guards the quarry side of the military base. It's worth the risk to save a few minutes. It's not like there's ever anyone guarding an abandoned rock hole.
"Hey!"
And that's just his luck, isn't it? He adjusts his backpack to fit tighter to his back and runs on.
"Sorry, man!" Zack yells back.
The students alternate between sighing, rolling their eyes, and continuing their pre-class dozing. They've come to relish this extra 5 minutes of non-class in the morning.
The chain link clatters loud enough he's sure the rest of the base can hear it. He tumbles over the top, laughing triumphantly even as he lands hard on his back.
Then the guard is yelling again and Zack leaps to his feet, sprinting off again.
He quickly rounds the corner and the high school is in sight. He's totally going to make it on time for once.
"Ah, right on time."
"Finally!" Zack crows with the last of his breath, "The shortcut worked!"
"No, I meant you're right on time for second period. When you normally get to school."
Zack finally recognizes that Billy Cranston is coming out of their History class and not going in, as Zack was about to.
Zack curses and Billy blinks at him,
"Hey, uh, don't worry, man. You've got a few more weeks to figure it out before it's summer break!" he supplies cheerfully as Zack mopes off to his second period.
Billy shakes his head as he makes his way to second period. How Zackary Taylor manages to have such a poor grasp of time is beyond him.
Billy slides into a seat at the long table. The other students shuffle away, shooting him indecipherable looks as they do. It's easy to shrug them off. It's not like they were ever nice to him in the past, anyway.
"Billy. What is that?" the teacher asks from over his shoulder,
"It's my assignment, Mr. Nakagawa." Billy indicates the tangle of wires and scrap metal sitting on the table, grinning up at his teacher as if enough enthusiasm will distract the art teacher from his current project,
Behind him, he hears a snicker.
"Oh no, not in my class. Not again," The art teacher deftly sweeps Billy's project away despite his brief protest, "Try again, Mr. Cranston. This time with the materials provided in class."
Billy frowns, considers taking his back-up project out of his bag, but a quick glance at Nakagawa confirms the teacher is watching him like a hawk.
"Hey, it's not so bad," Jason Scott says, sidling up next to him at the supplies table, "You don't have to learn anything for an hour."
Billy shoots him a scathing look, "That's the whole problem."
Jason holds up both hands in front of him as if to ward off Billy's sentiment, "Whatever floats your boat, but you know we're, like, not supposed to like being in high school, right?" he chuckles,
Billy finds his lips curling upwards despite himself, "I think I've got that part down, at least," he retreats back to the table with his supplies after that, missing the look that passes over Jason's face.
Once Jason is away from the fun un-learning of art class and into the boredom of English Lit, he finds himself revisiting what Billy had said to him earlier. He didn't get the impression the other teen was joking… But Jason had always assumed Billy had things pretty easy in terms of high school. He didn't have many friends, sure, but he also didn't have the hopes of an entire town riding on his future. Or all of the extremely awkward crushes from an unending stream of underclassmen. Jason grimaces.
He glances around the classroom, looking at the other students in a new light. Was Barry really as stupid as he seemed? Jason squints, considering this new idea. At that moment, he witnesses Barry open a book upside down and proceed to not realize it was upside down for a full minute. So, that was a no.
He just needs a better example. Like the new girl. She sits right in front of him, always seems angry and too cool for school. But maybe that's just a front to cover how lonely she is and—
"Ever hear of 'keep your eyes to yourself'?" she hisses, looking at him over her shoulder,
Jason jumps, "How did you—?"
"Scott!" the teacher zeroes in on him.
Trini smirks as she slowly turns to pretend like she wasn't the one who instigated this.
Trini smirks into the book she's pretending to study as their teacher chews out Jason for a good five minutes. Serves him right for staring at her like a creep. The teacher clearly has it in for the kid, probably thinks he's had it way too easy, and Trini wonders if she can bait him and their teacher into another time wasting talking-to tomorrow.
By the time she's made it to her next period—Senior Exobiology— she thinks she has a pretty good system worked out and is ready to try it the next time she needs five to fifteen minutes of me-time in the middle of Lit.
Still, she notices her mood dropping considerably as she settles into her assigned seat. It gives her a clear view of Kimberly Hart, which she was super psyched about when the year started, but with the year almost through, it seems like its true function is to illustrate how much the other girl will never even know she exists. When the teacher announces that they're starting another lab today, Trini glances at the empty seat her usual partner's left her and frowns. While she's scoping out the back of the class to see if someone is miraculously without a partner, someone slides into the open seat. She gears up to tell whatever greasy teenaged boy dared to enter her space when all of the enmity drains out of her. Kimberly Hart is sitting at her table.
"My partner's out today, too, so I figured us pairing up makes the most sense." she states simply,
As if this wasn't about to be either the most exciting or disappointing thing to happen to Trini since her family moved to Angel Grove.
"Um… sure, I mean, yeah that makes sense, I guess…" Trini manages to get out.
She spends the rest of the period resolutely not looking at the other teen because she can't afford to get distracted in the only class she's really doing well in.
Kim clears out of exobiology as fast as she's ever managed. Not that she's looking forward to her calculus class- the class so boring it was worth a week of gossip if their teacher copied an equation incorrectly- but right now she could use any distraction. She'd paired up with Trini last period thinking it would be a pretty good chance to finally get to know the "new girl" (who'd already been in their school for almost two years now), but she seemed to prefer ignoring Kim. Kim feels the hot bubble of fury start up low in her stomach and uses it to shoulder past several kids blocking her way. There's definitely no reason for her to be upset with Trini. It's not like Kim, cheerleader Kim, is hurting for friends. But… that's not a reason to ignore someone, right?
Kim's so busy thinking about possible slights she could've committed in the past two years to alienate Trini and can't even think of more than two occasions when they've interacted, she barrels straight into Billy Cranston. Speaking of misfits, she thinks to herself before bending quickly to help him,
"Sorry, sorry! I was—," she isn't really sure what she had been doing, "I didn't see you there…"
Billy doesn't even look up, focused fully on gathering the scattered pencils and… electrical wire? Nails?
"What the hell, Hart?!"
And that voice is shockingly easy to identify despite the fact it had spent most of the last period keeping her in chilly silence.
"I—" Kim starts before yet another voice cuts in,
"Come on, new girl, she clearly didn't mean it," Jason insists,
Kim glares at him but he's busy eyeing Trini nervously as she pointedly looks him up and down, a demeaning smirk on her lips.
"You can totally take him, crazy girl! Fight! Fight!"
They all turn on the new voice,
"Seriously, dude?"
"Zack Taylor, what the fuck."
"Really, though?"
"Cranston, are those nails…again? What have I told you about that." Kim grimaces as their overzealous vice principal draws herself up next to the group, "All five of you, you're coming with me."
"But nothing even caught on fire this time," Billy insists to no avail, looking helplessly at them.