This is a sort of... Test chapter. Bunch of words from my head, loosely conjoined together. It's short and sweet, barely 1.3k words.
... I say that it's a bunch of words from my head.., but this is actually based off of a true experience, however loosely it may be. It's a time of my life I don't really like to remember.
Think of this as the unofficial successor to "Walk Beside Me" for a while.
Disclaimer: Elsword(엘소드) is owned by KoG Corp., Nexon Korea, Kill3rCombo, Giant Network, Gamania, Gameforge, and LevelUp!Games respective to their own regions. Only this story is owned by the authors: Myself
"Aha! I found you!" Rena bust through the door of the roof of the school, her emerald hair trailing behind her
"Ahn?! You again? I thought I told you to leave me alone." Raven truly had the eyes of a thug, a true hardcore gangster. Again, he was skipping class to smoke a cigarette on the roof of the school.
Aisha and Elsword peeked through the door when the red-head said, "I don't get why prez still tries..."
"Well, I didn't even expect Raven to come to school today in the first place..." Aisha replied.
Raven had a sort of… fearful stigma among the student body. Raven wasn't a 'normal' kid persay. No, no. 'Normal' wouldn't be the right word to call him. A 'normal' kid isn't a leader of a gang. A 'normal' kid doesn't have all the power the streets of Hamel could bestow.
A 'normal' kid doesn't have a fake Nasod left arm.
"Your attendance is abysmal! It's your fault that our class attendance average is so low!" Rena was still yelling at him. This was a daily occurrence. However, the students, for the life of them, could not fathom why the perfect model, straight-A student would want to hang around such a… such a brute! Rena had been told many a-times that trying to convince him, Raven, the leader of the Crow Gang, would only get herself hurt in the end, whether that be physically, or mentally.
"Why do you care so much? Aren't I free to do what I want to?!"
"Not at school, you're not! Now come on."
Raven, as always, buckled. "Alright, alright. Fine. Just let me finish this."
Rena just scowled as she looked at the stick of tobacco. Her gaze was fixated on the burning rod that was slowly whittling away into ash. Her expression started to soften as she saw the smoke blowing out and the red, burning ring.
Flicking it, Raven got up and walked towards her.
"So, where to now, princess?"
"To class, you delinquent." Yeah, that's right. Rena was the only person he would listen to. Neither of them could explain why, but it just happened.
"Whatever…" Raven picked up his backpack and adjusted his school uniform's tie. He sifted his hand through his hair, slicking it back, and revealing a white streak that went through his hair.
Truth be told, Rena enjoyed having Raven in class. There were two specific reasons.
One was that he got the teacher to stop talking so much. Hey, even she got bored of him sometimes.
The other was…
*After school, in the library*
"Agh! What the hell is this!?" Rena crumpled her hair and paper in frustration. "Does this problem even make sense!?"
"Can I go now?" Raven looked bored to tears, yawning every other minute.
"No! The teacher told me to keep an eye on you, so I will!" Rena exclaimed while still eyeing the problem.
Was it a theorem she was using wrongly? Was it a typo in the question? How does the cosine of theta be found from something incoherent like this!?
"How do you even do this!?"
"Use the double angle principle to find the sine of x, then substitute that value into the tangent value and from there, graph to find the vertex of theta, then put into cosine theorem."
"Oh, okay, that makes sense…"
Wait a minute… who just….
"This stuff is easy. What are you pulling hair out for?" Raven was reading from behind her shoulder.
"D-Did you just… Were you the one who just explained this?"
"No, it was that dude who's in here other than just us two." Raven sarcastically remarked.
Rena decided to test her hypothesis.
"Do this one!" She pointed towards a random problem.
"Use Archimedes' number in coalition with Euler's number, substitute using triple angle theorem. Graph, then find the X-vertex."
That's right.
This was the other reason. Academically, he was a genius. A true prodigy of the ages. How should it be told? Raven was not one to… apply himself in a school-setting. This whole year, he has no less than five suspensions for getting into fights in school and skipping almost every other day…
He was Rena's check. It seemed as if Raven knew almost everything.
What's this compound? Balance this equation.
English? Infinitives and grammar, or whatever?!
Calculus?!
He had an answer. To all of them. It seemed sort of….
Sort of….
"It's not fair…." Rena murmured.
"What?" Raven moved closer to hear her.
"It's not fair!" she exploded.
Startled, Raven recoiled back slightly with a raised eyebrow.
"You have all these gifts, these talents! But you never use them! While on the other hand, I have to work my ass off! Everyday, I go home and hit the books for hours and hours on end! Do you know how that makes me feel?! You literally have the exact skills I want! And… And!-"
Raven cut her off.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Life really isn't fair."
"What?-"
"Isn't it the greatest when life is the one that swallows up everyone you know and love? Isn't it the greatest when life is the one that leaves you empty? Life, the one thing that's supposed to help you live fully?"
"Raven I,-"
"You, who has never had a shortage of love, comfort, security, and kind smiles." He let out a dry chuckle.
"Life really isn't fair, right?"
There was a long pause of silence between the two. Guilt hung over Rena's head.
"Hey, I have a question." She didn't know what to do. She had no idea. She didn't know what to do.
Raven stayed silent.
She asked anyways, "Why do you smoke?"
The hail-mary question.
After another period of silence from the black-haired teen, he responded, "Because it lets me forget."
"Because it lets me forget."
The words rang through Rena's head as she lied on her bed.
"Because it lets me forget."
"Because it lets me forget."
"Because it lets me forget."
"Because it lets me forget."
"It lets me forget."
"It lets me forget."
"It lets me forget."
"It lets me forget."
"Lets me forget."
"Lets me forget."
"Lets me forget."
"Forget."
FORGET
She sprang up quickly and walked over to her desk drawer. Opening it, she cleared everything away until she reached the very bottom. Where she revealed to herself
A box of cigarettes.
It was her dirty little secret. Every good girl has one. Hers was the occasional cigarette.
Rena knew her parents would be late again and after today, she really did need a drag. Removing one of the sticks from the box, she put it in her mouth and cracked open a window.
She lit it.
After a long drag, Rena blew it out. The soft edges of the smoke were almost ethereal, almost other-worldly. She had her first cigarette a couple months ago, when things looked hopeless. She was being swamped with school work on top of the exams that were coming up. Her parents were stressed because of projects at their own jobs. Rena had no one to turn to, to talk to. Getting them weren't hard. It was high school, after all.
Compared to other drugs, tobacco was pretty mild, she guessed. She wasn't going out and doing 'Nasod's sugar' or Alteresia-based amphetamines.
Her first drag is a memory she'll never forget.
The smoke filled her lungs, letting them absorb all the nicotine. She exhaled. Immediately, she felt a rush of relaxation, a stimulation of calmness, an ecstasy of tranquility.
Words couldn't possibly describe it.
All the way down to the filter, it burned.
And like how the smoke seemed to dissipate-
-So did her problems.
Now, I am in no way advocating smoking.
DO NOT START SMOKING. IT'S NOT GOOD FOR YOU.
It only exists as an external theme and object of conflict.
Also, like I said, this is based on a true story. Some of the events up in that story are literally copy/pasted from my own memories with the characters shifted with Elsword ones.
Why Elsword characters?
Because why not.
Also, Rena and Raven's pairing has this air of... maturity to tackle such a topic.
Thank you all for reading! No promises I'm going to update this with the most fervor, however..