On the day of my fourteenth birthday I was more excited than I have ever been before. My parents had said nothing about it, and that meant they were planning a surprise party. It was Saturday, and I woke up at my usual time of 6:00 in the morning, and met my equally early-bird friend in the parking lot behind a local Wendy's. The day was all too normal, but that was what I had counted on, normal. Each abnormal day was a day that I enjoyed just a tad less than a normal day. We talked about your average nerd stuff, but the whole time, I was really thinking about writing. It is, after all, an activity I enjoy above all other, something I had come to realize as of late. The subject that started us off was anime, and it brought back memories of fanfictions at every turn of subject matter. We moved gracefully to TV, video games and, at one point, girls. I could confide anything at all in my friend. Some say there are things that they can let nobody know, but I can let him know anything with complete comfort. His name was Calvin, and he had a look that didn't exactly fit a person of our social division. He was of an average height, and had dirty blonde hair that stuck out in messy strands outward and down his face. He was slim, but still relatively muscular, and to be honest I somewhat envied him, my structure was undesirable next to his. The skin was slightly tan, as he spends a fair amount of time outside. His eyes were green, and through all the time I knew him, those eyes became nothing short of mysterious. It showed, in a way, complexity and cool intelligence, so very contrasting to his normal actions. If he breathed out of his mouth and hunched over, you might think him a victim of drug-abuse, who was respectable before they got into that bowl of crap. His shirt was like a Swedish flag.
"Hey, dude?" Calvin said, questioningly glaring at me. In Calvin Language, this meant "Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" I inquired.
"What do you think of-" He paused, "How do you feel about gays?"
"Well there's nothing wrong with being queer, if they have that mindset let them," I stated, something I've said plenty before.
"What if someone had that mindset about," He looked straight into my eyes, I hated it when he did that, like I said, his eyes were so strange, "you?"
There was an awkward silence following that, I was under an impression that something a bit less than desirable was happening. My face was in pure surprise, stuff like that just gets to me, I tried to talk, but my mouth just quivered. Then he burst out laughing, a loud, raw cackling.
"Dude, you should have seen your face!" He said between outbursts of laughter, "Classic!"
"Jerk," I called, but by this point, laughter was starting to come over me also. We both just laughed, and kept on laughing, it went down after a few minutes.
Then he looked into my face again, "No, seriously." So we both burst out laughing again. It was certainly funny, the kind of thing that's only funny because of the exact situation it happened in. It's just the kind of great times I have with my friends, if anything this was one of the most dull. Life was at a peak, and all seemed right. My birthday wasn't needed for everyday to be fun... well most days, to be honest, certain things happened in the walls of the school that could put any man down, and we were just boys. It was in general great though, and I loved life, the summer vacation was even coming up. My birthday is March 20th, so it was right around the corner. The summer that set the stage for many, if not most, of the events that happened in my freshmen year. My freshmen year that mixed good and bad into some strange mix of undeterminable moral.
Later that day the expected surprise party took place, several of my friends from school were there. We had a merry time, played a few video games and watched a good movie: "Paprika". Most of them had something or another to do though, so only two stayed to sleep over. We all shared the same room, our house was of a moderate size. Three bed and two bath kind of deal, one story and made of wood. Each of my friends slept on their own sleeping bags, and our early bird selves woke up at about 7:00. Well Calvin and I did anyway.
"Hey, dude, let's grab some left over cake," Calving suggested, a breakfast of sweets was one thing I was definitely up for. We went into my kitchen, just down the hall from my room and cut some pieces. We started eating after we had also poured some glasses of milk.
"Cheers to being fourteen!" I said, just quiet enough not to wake anyone else. Calvin's birthday was in November.
"Cheers!" We hit our milks together, some of it getting on the floor.
"You know, part of me will really miss being a middle schooler," I started, while turning to face my friend Calvin.
He looked back at me, a little confused by the looks of it. "I can't wait to get into high school man," He replied, "The only thing better will probably be summer vacation, but think, driver's license, part-time jobs and, for the first time, a real girlfriend." He nudged my shoulder with his elbow as he said the last part. It was something the ponder, I decided right then and there that most people, and certainly I, would never feel one way or the other about their own, personal coming of age stories. The girlfriend part also had me thinking, I never really got interested in a girls(no not guys either) while over there, one or two maybe. My feelings became more geared towards that kind of thing after I moved to Japan.
"You know, not trying to be offensive or anything, but I've always thought it was a little cool to have a Japanese friend," Calvin mentioned, leaving the subject of high school lying in the dust, while also, unusual to him, showing a little bit of consideration to what comes out of his mouth. My ethnic was a subject for much of the school during 6th grade, but I never fully explained it to anyone other than Calvin. You all know me as former class reprasintitive of a Japanese high school, but I spent much of my childhood in an American suburb. My genetic mother died of breast cancer when I was still a baby of a few weeks. Next, when I was about two or so, my father fell in love while on a vacational trip to America. Saving you the sappy love story, he moved to America. I became more or less fluent in both languages, and absorbed much of the American culture, while at the same time my father made sure I knew how to act like a respectable Japanese boy. He went as far as to give me lessons in Japanese history and the likes, explains my perfectly Japanese attitude and vast American knowledge don't you think?
"It's fine, I wouldn't take offense to something like that," I assured, we continued chatting in this fashion for a while longer, but at about 9:00 my other friend, Tago, woke up. We called him Tago anyway, on his request, his real name was Tad Goneth. I really have no clue where he had the idea for the nickname Tago, and he always avoided the question. He was indisputably overweight, but not in the least shy or self-conscious about it, or as far as I could tell. He had very short hair, which was brown, along with his eyes, and pale skin.
Just after announcing his presence with a yawn, Tago spoke up, "You two never cease to amaze me with how early you awaken," He declared, his voice slow and somewhat boisterous.
"We've only been up a few hours man," Calvin retorted.
"Nonetheless, if anything more," Tago continued, "Shouldn't your mom be here soon Calvin?" In a fit of perfect timing a horn honked outside, doubtlessly it was Calvin's mother, here to prepare him for church. He opened the door and ran out, us watching him from behind. Tago began to wave his trademark way-over-the-line wave goodbye, and I did my more normal one. His mom's car was a very nice one, a silver Toyota Corolla, I'm not sure which year. According to her however, it was one of only three of it's kind, specially made in a way she refused to reveal. We did know it was not quite a normal car though, and called it the "Gloria Mobile" after the name of Calvin's mother of course. This car had a knack for getting you there in half the time, but strangely while following all of the rules of the road to the very line, Gloria was possibly the best driver the world has ever known.
"Want to settle the score on Tekken?" Tago asked, while turning to face me, a grin on his face. He always beat me at fighting games, but I agreed anyway. He left later at 11:00, leaving me to bask in the glory of my writing and reading hobbies. Today the book was "The Green Mile" and my writing was on a whim, it was a poem. Tomorrow was school, so I went to bed in a timely manner.
Hope this one turns out al lright, the way I see it there are a near infinite amount of possibilities for me to explore, and this introduces a few of the more important OC's along with the basic story.