The moment Isa woke up, he knew it was going to be one of those days.
Or rather, he knew it the moment he fell out of bed and hit the cabinet.
First, his alarm clock had refused to go off. He overslept by five minutes (Five minutes! He could have been finished with breakfast by that time!) and the rest of the morning snowballed into another mess. Still half asleep, Isa had attempted to smash the alarm clock by reaching over… to the wrong side of the bed and promptly fell off.
There was a wonderful throbbing lump on the back of his head now, and Isa remembered why he did not (thankfully) take Lea's completely serious suggestion to substitute spikes as the handles. And he had been so serious about it too.
It was also raining, as he could clearly see from his window. Isa grimaced at the thought of walking to the school in that sort of weather. The rain was really coming down in buckets, splashing against the glass loudly and streaking across the window like a shooting star. He vaguely wonders if somewhere out there, someone was laughing.
He actually burns the eggs somehow while at the stove (How was he supposed to know that the unlabeled button was for the highest temperature setting?), the toothpaste at the sink was already squeezed empty (He swears it was still full a couple days ago), and he can't find his pencil case anywhere. To make matters worse, his favorite blue jacket with the yellow crescent moon on it was still in the washer. If there was ever a situation that called for a great, big, loud "I hate my life", this was it. But knowing better than that, Isa settled for wearing his other, slightly different blue jacket.
Grabbing his black umbrella and his schoolbag, Isa strides out the door with the naïve hope that this day can't possibly get any worse. It's just a bad morning, after all.
And it did get worse as he opened the umbrella outside, only to find a gaping hole in the fabric, right in the middle. Rain peppered the top of his head, in addition to getting his schoolbag wet. Taking a leaf out of Lea's book, Isa muttered an uncharacteristic profanity, before attempting to make do with the tattered remains of the umbrella. He expects to arrive at school utterly soaked.
He's right, more or less. He's completely wet when he finally gets to the classroom. Lea saunters up to him with that smug grin as usual.
"You look like a wet dog."
"Thank you for pointing out the obvious."
"No problem! Hey, do you mind if I take a look at your homework? I was kinda in a rush last night and-"
"Translation, you stayed up all night playing video games when your time could've been spent doing productive things." Isa deadpanned, flicking Lea in the forehead. "When are you going to learn not to copy off of my homework?"
"Right, right, productive things like reading textbooks and going to lectures. Sounds like so much fun." Lea sighed in that dramatic way of his, spreading his arms out in a shrugging gesture. "I'm not into that stuff, you know?"
"Unfortunately, I do."
"Settle down, class." The teacher called from the front of the room. "Take out last night's homework and we'll go over the answers."
"Oh man." Lea scrambled back to his seat, which was actually the one next to Isa's. "C'mon, Isa. Let me see it."
Isa sighed, knowing that it always came down to this. "Fine, fine." He pulled the piece of paper out without looking and tossed it to the flame-haired teen. Lea scanned the paper, before raising an eyebrow at the contents. He handed it back to Isa with a laugh.
"Either learn to write well enough so I can read it, or go get a hair dryer or something."
There was an audible thump on the desk as Isa introduced his head to the wood, seconds before remembering that there was already a bump on the back of his head from the wonderful cabinet. Great. Isa lifted his head and gave a muffled groan as he saw the paper. The rain had smeared all the writing into an illegible blob of black.
He handed the paper to the teacher with a muttered apology, who assured him that it wouldn't be worth that much of his grade. Said teacher then passed out the tests they had taken a few days previously. Her eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion, before depositing his test on the desk.
"Are you feeling alright, Isa? You usually do much better."
Isa's eyes widened in shock as he saw his grade; a C-plus. Just above failing. Meanwhile, Lea gave a whoop of triumph, flashing his paper around.
"Hell yeah! I got an A!"
"A-minus." Isa corrected flatly, glaring at Lea. How in Radiant Garden had Lea of all people gotten a higher score than he had? Lea never even did his homework!
"Whatever, man. Point is, it's an A! And I beat you!"
"Don't rub it in."
"Ha! Like you never rub it in my face all the time. Hey, HEY!" Lea covered his head as the heavy school textbook was thrown at him, courtesy of an annoyed Isa. "Jeez, no need to get violent… Tell ya what, I'll buy the ice cream this time, my treat!"
Isa scowled, before reluctantly nodding. "I assume you'll get sea-salt, as usual. Seriously, I don't know how you can eat the same flavor every day…"
"You can never have too much sea-salt ice cream, got it memorized? And don't tell me you don't like it." Lea tapped the side of his head, still with a mischievous grin on his face. "You eat all of it up every time."
It was lucky for them that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining brightly as the school bell rang, signaling the end of another day. Sunbeams danced across the colorful paved roads, making the entire street shine radiantly, especially after the rain. The looming castle in the distance seemed to be cheerfully waving its banners at the entire population of Radiant Garden in general.
Lea and Isa made their way to the usual ice cream stand, where Scrooge the duck was already busy passing out treats to other people. The usually grumpy duck waved to the duo. "Two sea-salt ice cream bars." He quacked, handing them to the two teens before Lea had even opened his mouth. Scrooge gave a secret wink to Lea, who grinned back. Isa regarded the two of them suspiciously, before taking one of the proffered bars.
"Wait, wait." Lea snatched back the blue ice cream, handing Isa the other one he held. "That one's mine."
"It's just ice cream." Isa scoffed, before biting into the second one. He always hated the salty part of the sea-salt, but the sweetness that came after was usually enough to make up for it.
Unfortunately, he would not be getting his daily sugar intake today.
"B-blargh!" Isa coughed out eloquently, grimacing as he spat out the chunk of ice cream. It had been disgustingly salty, much more salt than should ever be allowed in ice cream (as if ice cream was supposed to have salt in it at all).
Lea laughed loudly, almost dropping his own bar in the process. "Oh man, that was awesome! I should've gotten a picture of that! Did you see the look on your face?"
Isa gave Lea the harshest glare he could manage, before smirking slightly. Taking a step towards the other teen, he flung the ice cream off the stick and the remainder hit Lea squarely in the face, resulting in a gooey blue mess. Lea spluttered indignantly, attempting to wipe it off. "What the hell was that, man?!"
"I should have taken a picture of that. Did you see the look on your face?" The blue haired teen echoed Lea's earlier words with a completely straight face. Maybe this day wasn't that bad after all. It was worth it just for that moment.
Until he glanced down at the wooden stick in his hand. "LOSER" was printed neatly on the top.