Kyoyama Household
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Unghh. Just five more minutes," Tamao Tamamura groaned, slapping in vain at her alarm clock to no avail. She sleepily squinted into the bright sunlight that was filtering in small slits through her blinds into her bedroom. "'S too early," she slurred. She sighed, flipping onto her stomach and burying her face into her pillow. Tamao covered her ears and pulled her blanket over her head in an effort to drown out piercing noise, her pink hair the only thing visible above the covers.
Beep. Beep. Bee - Crash.
"Hunh?" She reluctantly opened her eyes and blinked a few times to get her eyes to adjust to the harsh morning light
"Get. Up. Now," ordered her fully dressed cousin, dusting her hands off and closing the window after the offending alarm clock had hit the pavement outside. "I refuse to allow you to make us late for the first day of school. Your breakfast is waiting for you downstairs. I expect you to be ready and in the car in ten minutes…Or else," Anna said mechanically, emphasizing her point with her trademark glare.
"Y-Yes, Anna. I'm on it," Tamao squeaked. That certainly woke her up. Who needs caffeine when you get to see a severely pissed off Anna at seven in the morning? Tamao exhaled as she unthinkingly pulled her sheets over her bed and firmly creased them on the sides, scooting around the edge of her bed to go on to fluff the pillows. "How can." Thump. "Anna."Thump. "Be so awake." Thump. "In the morning?" Thump, thump.
Later on, with her eyes half closed and still groggy from her sudden wake up call, she brushed her teeth and combed her hair in an attempt to make herself presentable and decent enough to be seen in public without causing any emotional scarring. Tamao furrowed her brow as she looked over her efforts in the mirror. "Why can't my hair be as nice and straight and pretty as Anna's?" Tamao unhappily sighed to herself as she touched her perpetually flipped up locks. "It's always so poofy…Anna's lucky hers is so smooth and perfect all the time."
Still frowning, Tamao splashed some ice cold water on her face and shook her head. It seems that all I do is complain that I'm not Anna. But then again, Anna has a lot for me to be jealous of. Like her determined attitude, her looks, Y- Tamao cut herself off before her mind could drift back to that painful memory. She paused and stared at the water draining down the pipe in the sink and finished thinking that one syllable, a simple three letter word that meant more to her than anything else in the world. "I'm just being silly now," Tamao stated dismissively, watching as the distorted pink reflection of herself swirled down the drain and disappeared. She closed her eyes and went back to her tedious routine.
She only snapped out of it when she changed out of her rose colored pajamas. Tamao stepped back and admired her new outfit in the mirror. One of the perks of going to a private school was the absolutely gorgeous uniform. Tamao smiled uncomfortably. "Well, I don't really know how other uniforms looked like since this is my first year going to school." Tamao had no formal education, a lá Lindsey Lohan in that one movie she couldn't quite remember at the moment, on account of her mother traveling the world ever since her husband died. Her mother insisted on home schooling Tamao herself since she didn't like those "stodgy institutions that deprive children of real world experiences and learning." Nevertheless, Tamao and Mrs. Tamamura had a lot of fun, falling asleep on the plane to Laos one day and waking up in Paraguay the next, thus giving Tamao one of the most unforgettable and colorful childhoods a girl could ever hope to have. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago and finally passed away last winter. Mrs. Tamamura's sister, Anna's mother, adopted Tamao as her own and now they all live together as a happy family (well, as happy a family could get when living with Anna, anyways).
Honk, honk, honk, honk. "TAMAO!! I said ten minutes! Not ten hours! Get in the car already!" Anna screamed from outside, banging her fists against the car horn, her eyebrow twitching. Tamao gathered her school things, grabbed a slightly burnt piece of toast with jam, stuffed her notebook into her bag, and kissed her auntie good-bye faster than Anna could insult some loser to tears at school (which, by the way, was extremely fast). "Bye, auntie!"
"Have a good day in school, Tamao!" her aunt called from the kitchen door. The pink haired girl waved back, stuffing the toasted bread into her mouth as she muffled out a response. Tamao settled into Anna's newly refurbished car seats, doing her best to avoid the death-stares her cousin was shooting her at the moment as they pulled out of the drive way and zoomed down the road. Despite the hectic morning, Tamao inwardly grinned and decided that today would, in fact, be a good day.
Usui Household
In which the two Usui siblings are engaged in an epic battle - a battle to see who can have the longest, angriest rant.
"PIRIKA! Crap…what're you doing in there, thawing the North Pole with your freakin' blow dryer?! Yeah, I think I know what the sole cause of global warming is and its name is PIRIKA!" Horohoro yelled, his words being drowned out by the shrill screams of said blow dryer. "Come ON! We're gonna be late! Don't you want to see your precious Satoshi?" The door flew open with a bang, revealing an upset Pirika with her hair only half straightened and an eyelash curler poised in her hand.
"Horohoro! You know very well this isn't a blow dryer; it's a hair dryer, jerk-off! Hmph, why are you so mad anyways? I've only been in here for fifty-seven minutes, so shut up," the girl said as she repositioned her dryer's nozzle in an effort to avoid split ends. She rolled her eyes as she noticed her brother was still standing there, smoldering. "Who's Satoshi anyways? Never mind, I need to concentrate on warming my curler up. Go and do something…productive," Pirika said impatiently as she continued to fiddle around with her blower—erm—hair dryer.
Horohoro stood only half-dressed, showing no intent on doing anything remotely productive while his little sister turned their second story bathroom into a full fledged beauty salon. He stepped inside and waved his hand in front of her face (which was quite an impressive feat, considering there were a million things sticking out of her hair and head).
"Uh, he's the football captain. The guy you've been dating for, oh I don't know, the PAST YEAR—Damnit, Pirika, I don't have time for this! You're still in your pajamas, it's the first day of school, we're already going to be late, I need to call a mandatory newspaper staff meeting during first period, I haven't even taken a shower yet, you—whoa, girl!" Horohoro retreated a couple of steps backwards with his hands up in mock surrender, his angry soliloquy effectively interrupted. "Watch where you wave that thing! Jeez, you could gouge someone's eye out with that! What kind of weapon is that anyways?" He attempted to extract the eyelash curler from Pirika's death grip, only to have his hands brutally slapped at by the angry Ainu girl. Horohoro nursed his wounds and pointed an accusing finger at the metal vise.
"God, it looks like a flippin' torture device they use in concentration camps to get prisoners of war to talk!" Pirika's once busy movements came to a halt. She dropped her hair dryer and slowly turned around to face her brother, the atmosphere becoming quite icy all of a sudden.
Ooh, I probably shouldn't have said that.
Pirika's usually bright blue eyes narrowed and her face flushed. She put down the "weapon" and pushed Horohoro outside.
"Get out, you FREAK! Why did you even come in here, you perv! And how dare you call my eyelash curler a torture device! It's Shu Uemura, but you wouldn't know that now would you? I spent my whole month's allowance to buy this, and what do you do? You just come over here and INSULT it! Why would you ever DO that? Why? Oh let me answer that for you, smart one. You would do something that idiotic because you're an UNeducated, INsensitive, dumb, STUpid di-"
Horohoro clamped his sister's mouth shut with his palm. "Uh, I think I'm gonna do something productive now. Now you have fun with your shoe ew mirror eyelash whatever thing. Later," Horohoro sprinted back to his room before his sister exploded like a bottle of Diet Coke and Mentos on YouTube. "Hmm, I guess I won't be taking a shower today so I might as well look and smell clean…" he said while simultaneously shutting his door to drown out his sister's screams of "It's Shu Uemura, retard!"
He glanced at his digital clock on his dresser which was partially obscured by numerous snowboarding magazines and dirty socks: 7:27 a.m. "CRAP!" School starts in 18 minutes, the drive alone takes 25. He slapped some Axe on and found his uniform crumpled on the floor of his closet. After grabbing his notebook, he raced down the stairs, coming close to breaking his neck as he kicked open the front door and dove into the driver's seat of his car.
Maybe if I begged and groveled and explained everything, Anna won't kill me. Maybe if I paid her. Money fixes everything, everyone knows that! Yeah, I'll just keep throwing money at her general direction so I won't have to look at her and see what kind of punishment she has in store for me. And Anna likes money…I think. Who wouldn't like money? Everyone who is normal likes money so…wait, I forgot. Anna isn't normal. Well, I mean it's the first day of school, I'm sure she'll be nice...right? Horohoro began rocking back and forth in his seat, sweating just at the thought of the various ways Anna could torture him for this glaring mistake on his behalf. He could already hear his own screams of pain as she probably beat him to death. With his own arm. Which she would have somehow dismembered prior to the beating. What am I talking about…Joco already told me last year that she has a whole arsenal of torture devices in her locker for easy access—No! I'm not going to let this happen! I already decided that this is going to be a good day! It IS going to be a good day!
Horohoro closed the car door and revved up the engine, ready to go but—"Damnit! Pirika!" He punched the steering wheel in frustration. He got out of the car, ready to break down the bathroom door, put his little sister in a straitjacket, and stash her in the trunk when…
"What did I do this time?" Pirika asked from the passenger's seat as she pulled out a compact mirror to examine her handiwork.
Horohoro jumped in his seat and screamed. "What the hell?! When did this-? How did you-? Weren't you just in-? Where did you-? What happened to-? …Mah?" Somehow Pirika had eaten breakfast, changed, brushed her teeth, showered, fixed her hair, put on her makeup, and gotten into the car before Horohoro could. Basically, he looked like a hobo off the streets while she looked like a million bucks, just like one of the models in the Prada ads in Vogue.
"Just drive before you hurt yourself. You know that thinking is bad for you, big brother (on account of you not having a brain)! So what are you waiting for?"
"I'm trying to figure out how I know what the models in Vogue look like and why I even know what Prada is—aw, screw it! Let's go." Needless to say, Horohoro floored it, all the way to school (traffic regulations and pedestrians be damned…) and somehow they made it just in time for the five-minute warning bell.
Funbari High School
"…participate in at least two activities or clubs each semester. Or they'll keep sending you annoying letters and messages that can really clog up your inbox--Tamao are you even listening to me?" the blonde finally looked over at Tamao. Her cousin was currently turning her head from side to side, making her head look like a pink blur. Well, it is her first day in school so I could only expect her to try to take in and see as much as possible…but then again, she keeps whacking that poor freshman walking behind her. "If you keep whipping your head around like that, you could permanently blind someone with your hair…not that it would be a bad thing," Anna added darkly. The ice queen glanced back at the tiny freshman for a moment, but that second was enough for Anna to see the immense amount of relief wash over the first year student.
Tamao blushed and apologized profusely to the gray haired girl and turned back to Anna. "Oh, sorry Anna, it's just, well…so big. I didn't even imagine that one place could get so busy all at once. B-But," Tamao stammered, turning roughly the same color as her hair, "Why are there so many tables and signs all over the grass?" She looked down to the floor immediately, obviously embarrassed to ask such a question.
Anna's natural leader in her took over. "The grassy area with the tables is referred to as the 'quad.' The various signs and tables are for the different clubs and organizations that new students, incoming freshman, and returning students can go to so they can sign up for the activities. Funabari High expects each student to. Understand?"
Tamao looked at her older cousin. "Which ones are you in?"
The blond looked slightly surprised that Tamao had asked that. "W-Well, I'm the president of the Student Government, the head of the Spirit Committee, treasurer of the Environment Club…oh, almost forgot. I'm the editor-in-chief and student manager of the Literary and School News Collaboration, The Shooting Star."
"Anna! I never knew that you were so involved in the school! You're the leader for most of the clubs you're in and on the Student Council?" Tamao was noticeably impressed. "What's The Shooting Star?"
"It's the Literary and School New-" Anna stopped herself when she saw that Tamao wasn't following. She rolled her eyes and tersely said, "It's the school newspaper." Anna held up her hand to silence Tamao's inevitable Why don't you just call it the newspaper? "I prefer not to use such a term because it implies an office setting with rank and power which can stifle current members' creativity and rob them of a sense of identity. Well... and Literary and School News Collaboration, or LASNC sounds more professional."
"You never told me that you were the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper!" Tamao looked hurt.
"You never told me that you were interested in joining newspaper," Anna simply stated while Tamao pursed her lips. "Well, I suppose that you like writing, you always carry around your notebook. And you did ask me about the school newspaper over the summer…I guess I forgot to tell you. If you still want to join, then visit the LASNC table for sign-ups during free period. Don't worry," Anna said dryly. "Don't worry, there won't be a long line," she added, thinking of how much she scared the living crap out of anyone she came into contact with. "As for me, I'll be manning the booth with Miss Jun, the moderator and faculty manager of LASNC...and the only teacher smart enough to actually let her class learn. Now be a good little Tamao and run along to the front office to check in." And just like that, Anna was gone, leaving Tamao all alone in the quad by herself, confused by the immense amount of activity on campus but more so by Anna's long ramblings. She started to look around to ask someone where the front office was located.
"Excuse me? I didn't mean to listen in on your conversation but I overheard that you were going to the office," the little gray haired girl remarked, with a slight accent. "I was just wondering if you would like to walk to the front office with me since I need to check in too. I think I saw a sign back there by the bookstore." Tamao sighed with relief but felt slightly ashamed that this freshman had more guts to approach an upper-classman than Tamao had when asking for directions.
"That would be great. Thanks, I'm Tamao Tamamura, and you are…?"
"I'm Jeanne-Demoiselle de Fer…or just Jeanne if you prefer," she added hastily after seeing Tamao's unsure expression. "A pleasure to meet you."
Tamao and Jeanne had a lengthy conversation, considering that their destination was only a building over. Turns out, Jeanne was a French exchange student visiting the area for a year. She admitted that she was apprehensive at first but she later found out that a few other European students would be attending Funbari High School as well. "I want to find out more about the music program so I can play the violin…I've heard FHHS has a great orchestra." Tamao nodded, slightly envious that she wasn't quite as talented as Jeanne in any department. "But I'm actually really interested in joining the photography club. I was looking through my father's old things in the attic and I came across an old point and shoot and it just developed from there I guess," Jeanne said enthusiastically. The two girls were so deeply engrossed in their conversation that they both started when the front office door banged open and guidance counselor Goldva stepped out and immediately saw Tamao and Jeanne.
"Freshman! Over there!" he yelled, pointing at the long queue that had formed. Jeanne smiled politely and waved good-bye to Tamao before running off to fall in line.
"New girl! Junior?" the short man looked at her inquisitively. Tamao could only incline her head in a weak attempt at a nod. "Good. Schedule," he handed her a spreadsheet that dictated her classes for the rest of the semester and also her locker assignment. "And lock and combination. Oh, and a student to show you around campus and crap. Usui! Get over here!" A boy with spiky blue hair and an armload of books and papers rushed over. "Show new girl here the ropes." And with that being said, the guidance counselor clapped the teenage boy on the back and strode off to scare another group of freshman shitless. The boy sighed and let his burden fall to the floor.
"Uh, hey, so I'm supposed to show you around and…don't let him get to you, he's always like that …such a strange, angry, little man" the blue-haired boy shook his head when he caught Tamao looking a bit flustered as Goldva began harping on a group of bumbling sophomores who, in a moment of poor judgment, thought it would be a good idea to balance their coffee cups on their heads as they made photocopies of their schedules. "Ah, let's see if we got any classes together," he took the schedule from Tamao. "We got…Chemistry…World History…oh, hey, you're stupid in math like me! Er, well, no offense…Algebra II…and AP English. You must be smart to get into that English class; the qualification exam was killer, eh? Miss Jun of the lovely Tao family is an incredible teacher though…But can't say the same for her brother though. So you're…Tamao, right?" Tamao stared at him blankly, her mouth slightly hanging open. She never knew that it was humanly possible to say so many words in only one breath. "Helloooo?"
Horohoro waved his hand in front of Tamao's face. "Oh, God." Horohoro's eyes widened in genuine fear. "I broke her. Somebody, help!" To her surprise, Tamao let out a small giggle. She suddenly slapped her hand over her mouth lest another laugh escape and widened her eyes. No one had made her laugh ever since Y- She shook her head to snap herself out of it. "Wait, so your name isn't Tamao? I'm so sorry!" Horohoro apologized profusely and went on a little rant on how inefficient and impersonal the system at their school was until Tamao started laughing again (and widened her eyes again at her unexpected reaction) and told him it was, in fact, okay. Wow, twice in one day…Tamao was impressed. Who is this guy? He sure talks a lot...but oddly, I don't mind.
"Thanks for showing me around, Horohoro-san." Tamao, embarrassed, stared at the ground, making it appear that she had suddenly found a passionate interest in the school's mandatory beige floor tiles.
"No problem, Tamao-san, the pleasure is all mine," Horohoro said with a sweeping bow as he energetically shook her hand. He paused in mid-shake. "...Yuck, '-san' sounds so formal and boring. Bleh, howzabout you call me idiot. Or dumbhead. Or "Hey, you!" The lovely Anna Kyoyama came up with that name just for me the first time we met. Pretty clever, isn't it? That Anna…" Horohoro trailed off, ending with a shiver. "You'll be lucky if you never have to meet her. Or come into a thirty foot radius of her. Ever." Tamao opened her mouth to inform the blabbering teen that she actually lives with Anna but was cut off with a renewed burst of enthusiasm from Hororhoro. "Anyways, where was I?" He paused and cocked his head to one side, giving him a look reminiscent of that of a dog's. Tamao smiled, unaware she was doing so until she caught her reflection in the mirror. "Oh yeah. I was just about to give you another name. Something, short, simple, easy to remember…Just like you! Hmmm…can I call you…Hime? Is that okay?" Tamao blushed in surprise.
"P-Princess?" Horohoro smiled and nodded. "Okay, but I really don't think that it fits me at all, I mean, Princess? I'm not even remotely close to being or resembling one. I'm like the complete of opposite. I'm not even kidding. That implies that I'm-"
Horohoro laughed. "I think it fits you perfectly."
Tamao couldn't help herself. She smiled. Again. "I-I suppose it's fine by me." She tapped her chin thoughtfully and drew her lips together. "But I don't think I could ever call you stupid though."
"But everyone calls me some kind of word that points out my lack of intellect!"
"But everyone calls me Tamao," she said briskly. She clapped her hands together after seeing him with a look of defeat on his face. She giggled as he scratched his head but stopped herself. What's wrong with me today? I've never felt so, so…bubbly before. This guy sure brings out my weird side…
"All right! Let's get this show on the road!" Horohoro punched his fist into the air.
Free Period
"Hey, Hime! Hurry up, you're gonna be late for the meeting if you don't run!" called Horohoro. She smiled as she jogged to catch up with the blue haired student. Horohoro had been such a great help to her on her first day of school. Tamao opened her mouth to ask him a question about newspaper before a loud announcement from the PA system cut her off.
"Hey, hey, hey, Funbari! It really is that time of year again. I bet you really missed your friend Joco and his announcements over your vacation!" A loud chorus of groans resounded down the hallways. Horohoro groaned and smothered his face with his hand.
"Um, what's going on?" Tamao asked, confused.
"You really want to know?" Tamao nodded. "Well, my friend Joco does announcements every day. He's hilarious but sometimes he takes it too far, y' know? Last year he had to publicly apologize to librarians, the principal, lawyers, the janitor, Swedish mattress makers, trash cans, the students in building 600, the Toyata company, and Anna."
Joco continued his announcement. "And let's see who our very own Funbari Shamans will be taking on this Friday on the football field. Ugh, it's the Kame Souls…or should I say the Camisoles?" A ripping sound was heard over the crackling announcement system and sheer pandemonium erupted in the office.
"Agh, put your shirt back on!"
"Why are you wearing girl's clothes?!"
"Urgghh, my eyes, MY EYES!"
"Make him stop! I'm begging you!"
"Mr. Goldva, Joco is wearing a camisole!"
Goldva's voice emitted from the speakers. "Students, announcements have been postponed until further notice-W-wait, Joco! Come back here! Don't you run away, you little--!" Click.
The entire student body population stood still, absolutely speechless. "See what I mean? Anyways," Horohoro said, changing the subject. "Wait up. I want you to meet someone." He craned his neck, and after evidently spotting someone, he waved his hands. "Hey, Ren!"
A strikingly handsome, yet extremely short, dark haired boy emerged from the crowd, along with a whole group of giggling girls. The boy, obviously annoyed with his fans, looked relieved after spotting a chance to ditch his admirers. "Don't you girls have something better to do? That's right, get out of-hey, that's my jacket! Don't take--ow, let go of me please! Put me down, yes, nice and slow now, okay…" He grabbed Horohoro and pulled him behind a cluster of lockers before another girl could seize the opportunity to hug her little precious Ren. "Thank you," the fierce looking boy said, sheer gratitude shining in his eyes. "I've been tryingto avoid those girls all morning. You would think that they had never seen a guy before by the way they act," he growled in frustration. He flicked his eyes upon Tamao's gawky stare. "And who's this?"
Tamao blushed after realizing how stupid she must have looked. "Sorry, that was rude of me. I'm new here. My n-name is Tamao Tamamura," she bowed deeply, the ends of her hair sweeping the floor. Ren looked a little surprised at the sudden formality.
Horohoro put his arm around the shorter boy. "And this is Ren, my best bud. He's also the captain of the lacrosse team and he's very—"
"I didn't know that freshman could be the captain of a sports team," Tamao interjected.
Ren's golden eyes narrowed with anger. The imposing peak of hair atop his head began to shake violently. "You think I'm a freshman?!" he erupted violently. "You think I'm that short, do you? Huh?! Yeah, that's right, the short guy is alwaysthe freshman. That's how it is, now is it? I'll have you know that I'm a junior--Don't look so surprised, girl! What an impudent, foolish, rude, crass—"
"—sensitive about his height," Horohoro finished, cutting Ren off. "Take it easy, Ren. She's new here. Why don't you walk with us?"
Ren cooled down a bit. "I'm sorry about blowing up at you. It's just that I don't like it when people mistake me for a freshman." Ren sharply nodded in response to Tamao's squeaky It's okay. "I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm Ren. Tao Ren," he said, extending his hand. Tamao took it in her own.
"Tao? Are you related to Miss Jun by any chance?" Tamao asked, recalling her previous class with the green haired English teacher.
"Actually, she's my older sister," Ren replied looking quite bored. "And yes, I am aware that we look almost nothing alike."
"Oh, I wasn't going to say that. I just wanted to mention that she's an amazing teacher!" Tamao gushed. "And she's so pretty."
Ren looked at her blankly. "Well, she would have to be at least decent looking to be a model, wouldn't she?"
Tamao looked shocked. "She's a model?"
"Well, when she was our age she was. Jun just loved it. What girl wouldn't love to work with all the big name designers and wear expensive clothes and make tons of money?" He looked faintly disgusted. "Not that we needed more, that is." Tamao finally realized why her English teacher looked so familiar. She remembered seeing a Chanel billboard in one of the airports with the jade haired Jun sporting a full fledged designer outfit and handbag.
"Why did she stop then?"
"At one of the shows she was in, Jun wanted to donate the proceedings to charity. But her company wouldn't have it. The big CEOs couldn't comprehend why they should give any money to starving kids and needy families when they could rake it in for themselves. So Jun quit and dedicated herself to making difference in people's lives," Ren said, pausing to take a drink from a nearby water fountain. Tamao paused in her walking, attempting to soak in all of this information. This is turning out to be a very interesting school.
"Hi there, Ren!" A big muscular man came up and clapped him on the back. "Still joining this year?" The man looked slightly worried about what Ren would say.
"Of course I'm joining the lacrosse team this year! Who else would lead those other incompetent players in the games? Manta Oyamada, I suppose? The team's water boy?" Ren's bark of laughter rang through the hallways (and later proved to be the sole cause of his demise). "Don't be a fool, Bason! I'm taking the team to the finals this year, don't you forget it!"
A look of sheer relief washed over the lacrosse coach's face. "I wouldn't dream of it. I'll see you at practice next week then." Bason left, looking quite cheerful.
Ren shook his head. "Well, that was a complete waste of ti—"
"THERE HE IS!" a female voice shrieked over the murmuring outside the classrooms. "I told you guys I heard him laugh over there!" Suddenly a whole herd of screaming, giggling girls stampeded down the hallways, in hot pursuit of a sprinting Ren.
"We'll see you at lunch, Ren!" Horohoro called out as the azure haired boy ran and let out a distinct Damnit!
Room 522
"Great meeting, Horohoro!"
"Yeah, way to go!"
"I think you even made Anna proud!"
Horohoro could barely conceal the joyous look on his face. The meeting indeed went very well, even though Tamao got the skinniest folder in the whole room. But she already predicted, as she opened her manila folder, that she would have to work her way up from the lowest point. And the lowest point just happened to be writing the itinerary of the lost and found. But she would do her best job at writing what items had been misplaced by her fellow schoolmates. It was a very important job, Horohoro let had let her know. "I mean, I was the keeper of the lost and found before. A lot of people found their missing books and shoes and retainers because of me," he said proudly. "I was very descriptive."
Tamao waved and Horohoro came over to join her and Joco.
"You did a really good job, Horohoro. So what's your post on the paper?" Tamao asked.
"Well, this year I'm the news editor. But if I'm lucky and Anna decides to be kind to me for once, I might be the front page editor when we're seniors," he said.
"Aw, come on! My man, Horohoro, here is gonna be student manager and the editor-in-chief next year," Joco said, throwing his arm around the blushing blue haired junior. "Everyone knows, even Anna, that when she's not here, you're the one who gets everyone organized and on time for the deadline," the gag page writer stated. "So don't forget that your old friend Joco has dreamed for three years of being the features editor when Anna names ya student manager."
Horohoro smiled. "Thanks for the ass-kissing, Joco. But if hell somehow freezes over and Anna names me the student manager and the editor-in-chief, I'm going to assign people to their posts according to their skill. Nice try though."
"It was, wasn't it? God, look at Anna," he said, after noticing that she was already at her desk working. "Sometimes I think that she loves this newspaper more than she could love any other human being." Horohoro paled and Joco's face fell into a look of sheer horror as he realized the magnitude of his seemingly harmless observation.
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" The amiable chatter that had been going on was suddenly cut off. The blond senior suddenly looked like Emily Rose from that Exorcism movie. "How many times have I told you to NOT use that word around me? As I have said time and time before, newspapers are for people who don't mind being treated like hamsters running around on a wheel. They have no sense of identity or creativity. It's like a freaking emotion vacuum, it sucks everything out of you. This school has already taken its first step to becoming an institutionalized holding pen for mindless drones by mandating that everyone must wear uniforms. If you ever call this nurturing environment of free thinkers and writers a newspaper again, Mr. McDaniel, I'll have you singing and dancing in the glee club's next performance faster than you can crack another one of those crappy jokes of yours. Now, everybody, GET BACK TO WORK!"
"Yes, Anna!" the entire classroom full of students squeaked.
"I think I'll go cry in the corner, quietly, wondering why a full grown young man of seventeen years lets the shit get scared out of him by a hormonal, blond she-devil," Joco whispered hoarsely while he staggered off to said corner.
Tamao's face was beyond pale. "Is that t-the lunch bell I hear?"
Horohoro was still shaking. "Yeah, I think it is let's go before the lines get long." The two practically ran outside to escape the feeling that a bomb was ticking away, ready to explode, inside the room.
Chemistry Lab
Oh God, I HATE this class already. Pirika sighed as the final bell rang, signaling the start of her chemistry class. She was the only sophomore in this class. If that wasn't bad enough, she was stuck in the same room for forty-five minutes with her dorky brother and his weirdly serious friend. Everybody else was just a junior that was stupid enough to not take biology their freshman year. At least she was good at science…well that was the only thing she was good at. Every year she aced science and math. Just last year she managed to effortlessly pull off perfect A's in her biology and trigonometry classes. And PE. PE was easy; Pirika couldn't understand why the majority of her class was left gasping after their three mile conditioning while she felt just fine. Pirika tapped a finger against her lips. Maybe it's the fact that I've been enrolled in the most rigorous and fast paced dance classes that were government approved for the last twelve years of my life... Nah, that's probably not it.
Well, at least that pink haired girl over didn't look like one of those drooling imbeciles. She turned her disinterested gaze over the rest of her classmates as her teacher began to talk. Why am I stuck with these losers when I could be having an intellectual discussion with smarter people? I mean just look at everyone in here. They're either airheads or losers or jerks or the occasional antisocial emo or…Oh. My. God. Who's that? Pirika's hand slammed down on her desk as she scrambled out of her bored slouch and keenly leaned forward as she fixed every milligram of attention on the being that was in front of her.
"Class, as you all know, our school is having a foreign exchange student program this year. One of the students is joining our class. This is Lyserg Diethel and he came all the way from England to join us. He's..."
Beautiful! He's gorgeous and perfect and wonderful, that's what he is!Pirika was stunned as she observed her new green haired classmate. Lyserg was smiling warmly and looking on at them with his bright jade eyes and greeted all of them cordially with his "adorable" British accent. Pirika swooned as she noted his "flawless" skin and his "mediumish but not weirdly girly long hair" and his "perfect two rows of pristine white teeth and his toned but not overly muscular frame and—"
"...any volunteers to show our new student around?" Pirika let out a cross between a scream of ferocity and a shriek of delight as her hand shot up into the air. The entire class stared at her and she could feel her face burning up with embarrassment but she didn't care. She had to get that guy to sit next to her. Had. To.
"Hey, I think Pirika wants to show the new kid around. But that's just a guess." Ren said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Pirika glared and Ren smirked in response.
"Uh, ummm. G-good....good. Then it's settled. Miss Usui will show you around the school." Pirika could barely contain her excitement as the new student sauntered over and sat next to her.
Oh God, I LOVE this class already.