School, just another part of life it seems like. You know, most of them are the same, big brick buildings built way back when and named after some guy or girl who's now dead. Bullies, nerds, and the plain old freakish people who give you the stare that always seems to say, "I'm going to kill you one of these days!" And let's not forget the teachers; some are the new and cool type while others that must have taught the dinosaurs. Ah school, just the place where a 15-year-old kid should be, not.
I've been around the world seeing my father's in the military but he retired a few months ago so now we're placed right here in Wisconsin, the US's dairy state with cows and a bunch of Indians. Anyways, as I said before I'm 15 and about to turn 16 in a few months seeing my birthdays in October. Whoop de doo a big ass party soon and I've barely got any friends seeing we moved here only a few months ago.
I go to Richmond High, named after some old dude who sacrificed his life for children's rights in education or some stupid reason. By the way, I live in a small town, no not a city because it was too small to name it a city, a town called Rolling Heights. The towns alright with its little shops and mom and pa stores, but real life is starting to move in and they got Wal-Mart's and Targets going up like weeds. Not to mention the huge mall that was here before we came. Not many young couples live here, mostly retired old farts that do nothing but read boring war books and watch old films. But, there are kids like me, 700 to be exact my age and right now in my grade, which is 9th by the way.
So back to me, I'm your average 15-year-old kid attending high school in a boring little town. I've got jet-black hair seeing I'm half Japanese and dark brown eyes. So far I'm still short seeing I'm only 15 but I feel that my growing spurt should be coming around the bend any time now.
"Akira! C'mon its time to get ready!"
That would be my mother. Yelling at me to get my butt out of bed and start the weekend. I usually don't do much on weekends, just sit around and finish homework that I need to do. But, today my mom wants to take me and my younger sister Nagami to go to the mall. My mom always wants me to get out of the house and find friends but with the two I already have, Michael and Stephanie, I think I'm set.
Two hours later, the expected happened. We get to the mall and now I'm walking around with my sister in and out of stores while my mom is fantasizing over pots and pans in Sears.
"Hey Akira, what about that girl? Or that one? They're cute! Do you know them? Do you like them? You should date them", Nagami goes.
She always has this sort of matchmaker thing with her and trying to pair me up with a random girl. That's another thing; I've never really taken an interest into a girl before. Sure, I've noticed them and hung out with a few before, but as far as liking them, it never pops into my head. I've considered being dropped on my head when I was little and that part of liking girls just got wiped out of my brain. From that to being an alien life form and having an attraction to like Chewbacca or Jabba the Hutt, I've never thought of anything else. Well I have, but I've denied them.
"Akira? Are you ok? You're not acting like yourself. You'd be yelling at me to shut up by now"
"Yea I'm fine. Just thinking, anyways so where do you want to go? You've got 200 bucks and I think you plan on spending it right?"
"Uh huh! Let's go in here!" she points to a store called Limited Too. Gah I hate little girl stores but if it gets me away from spending time judging cooking wear with my mom I'll do it.
As we're walking in, I spot somebody. Surprisingly it was a guy, standing outside the dressing rooms and sort of just teeter tottering on his heels. He looks familiar as if he went to my school, looks about my age, tall, sort of short brown hair that looks like somebody just got out of bed, and brown eyes.
Why am I noticing every little detail about him??!! It's not like I like the kid or think he's cute because that would mean I'm gay and I'm sure I'm not. Well, I've never liked a girl…Hey! I can't be thinking like this. I'm not gay, I've never had a hard on over a guy never will. Not like some kid I barley know would start to like me if I liked him.
Mentally slapping myself and shooting back into the real world, I tell Nagami to go run off and look for her stuff and I sat down in a chair that looked like an animal was shot and dyed pink. Thoughts kept racing through my mind and I was getting a pretty bad headache. Every now and then I'd sneak a look at him, just standing there looking like he was waiting for someone to pop out of the dressing room. Then it happened, a little girl looking about the same age as my sister came out and showed off her new attire to her brother.
I start to look away then something catches my eye again. He's coming towards me! He shooed away his sister like a fly on bread and is now walking over to me! I mentally slap myself again for getting worked up on him just walking over; maybe he's just getting something for his sis-
"Hey!" he says, "I mean Hi. I'm Josh; looks like you're stuck in here too huh?"
"H-hey. I'm Akira, nice to meet you. Yea, little sisters ya know."
The kid named Josh sat down in the chair next to me, that one looking uglier than the one I sat in. He pulled it over towards me, sat in it like a bird ready to take off for flight, and stared at me.
"Hmmmm, are you new to Rolling Heights? I don't think I've ever seen you around before. What school do you go to?"
"I go to Richmond High. And yea my family moved here a few months ago after my dad retired from the service."
"Oh really! That's awesome! I go to Richmond too, by the looks of it you're a freshman I take it. Same here, just a freshman."
As soon as he said that, I felt something warm on my thigh. My cheeks starting to blush a little, I look down to see his hand on my leg. WHAT HIS HAND ON MY THIGH!!! NOOO I AM SO NOT GAY! NOT GAY, NOT GAY!! He smiles at me then gets up and rolls up his sleeves.
"Well I hope to see you around sometime in school." Josh says and then starts to leave in search for his sister.
Nagami showed up a few minutes later carrying three big bags and a smile that stretched from ear to ear, "C'mon Akira lets go! I'm set for the next four years!"
"Alright" I say as we walk out the store I turn around to catch Josh looking at me, smiling.
The next day, I spent most of it locked up in my room wondering. Events from the previous day rolled through my head like a movie, josh in the store, his hand on my leg, what am I going to do! I barely met the kid and already I think I like him, but I can't I'm not gay, I don't think so at least. These questions made me want to rip my brains out and throw them across the room.
I must be an alien. I can't like Josh I met him only a day ago I can't like him! Maybe this is the end of the world and God is just punishing everyone one last time before the apocalypse comes. Yea, that must be it any day now the floods and disease will start to spread and I'll never have a chance against them. But what if I am? But, well now that I think about it, I've never liked a girl, never thought of sex with a girl. Gah!!! I can't stand it!
Getting up I start to pace my room. Thinking of past events that got me aroused, how many girls I've almost liked, how many boys I've noticed, and the little things like that. Doing that til I thought I'd wear a hole into the floor and drop into the room below me, I flopped down onto my comfy bed and stared at the ceiling. Turning to one side I lazily pulled my iHome to me and turned it on playing a random song on my iPod. Sitting, well more like laying there, listening to the thump of a rock beat to a song I barely know the lyrics to, I think. The scenes from the store pass through my mind, when I'll see Josh next, if he really truly likes me, if I truly really like him.
Maybe, just maybe it's true. Maybe I'm not an alien, just a different kid than the others. I've never liked a girl, never thought of boobs or sex, yet get all shy around some guy that thinks I'm cute and I think he's awesome. His brown hair, eyes, tall body and by the looks of it his…oh my god what am I thinking? Wait, I thought I wouldn't deny myself if I am, and if I am then I must like him why wouldn't I notice every little detail. Well, what am I going to tell mom and dad, they have always said if I was gay they'd accept, but will they so easily? And what about Michael and Stephanie, oh what will they think?! Its bad enough being new and trying to make friends, but being gay and trying to make friends must be worse!
This went on and on for a few more hours, then it just got to the point where I accepted my orientation and that I like Josh, but as for my parents I still have no clue what or when I'm going to tell them but when the right time comes I think I'll know. As for my friends, tomorrow is Monday and I see them so I'll tell them. Josh is another thing, is he the guy I like even though I only saw him once in my life? Can he be the one and only one for me? Well, it's getting late and I got homework to finish, so I start and push the thoughts of that boy to the back of my messed up 15-year-old mind for another day.
I can only say one thing before anything else. I hate Mondays, in a come near me anytime between 6 am and 8 am and get your head ripped off kind of way. I am not a morning person and everyone knows it by now. Standing out here, waiting for the bus is very boring. Especially at 6:30 in the morning when nobody is even awake except for me and other teens waiting for the bus. The government knows we hate mornings, and yet they force us to get up this early. It's like we stepped out of line as a teen nation and now the government is taking it out on us with this. I hate it.
So like every other American teen who goes to school, my morning began like theirs. After getting picked up by the bus, which always seems to like give birth to two more people every day making the bus more cramped until its three to a seat, it takes all of us to school where its supposed to go! One day, just one day I wish it'll make a "quick" stop and McDonalds or Burger King for some breakfast. But anyways, after we get dropped off at school which is always twenty or thirty minutes before anyone else arrives, half the kids just roam the halls. I know I do. This is really off topic right now in my mind but it just seems like the bus drivers always have a race to get their passengers to their respective school first. And lucky for me, our bus driver always wins!
So as I walk through the deserted halls of a ghost school, this is like a ghost town but only one building. Anyways like I was saying, I finally got back to my other senses and started thinking about Josh again. What was I going to tell him if I see him? Better yet, what was I going to tell my friends? They were probably the traditional homophobic and would pray for God to smite me where I stood as soon as I told them.
Then again, Stephanie wasn't that hard on me. She well, was the girl who could make anybody laugh at a party or an event of some serious sort. My family let her come to my grandma's funeral one time because both of us were close to her before she died, and well at the reception which was supposed to be even worse than the funeral, Stephanie was making jokes and accidentally tripped into the little platters of "comfort foods" and "assorted beverages". She made quite a mess that day and yet everyone got a laugh out of it even though we were supposed to be in the fetal position crying our eyes out for the loss.
"Akira! Hey wait up kid!"
Looking behind me, I stare at the floor for some reason, as if an ant was calling my name because he smelled cookie crumbs in my backpack or something. All I found instead were two black high heels shuffling towards me. Traveling up the legs, I stare at a pencil line skirt, which was also black, and then a gray button shirt with a black coat on. Who else could dress like this and know my name? No other than the Stephanie herself!
"Whoa! Stephanie! What happened to you? Did you like go to college yesterday night and they turned you into a robot and gave you a suit to wear every day?"
"No, my mom wasn't using this suit today and I thought I'd see if I could pass as a teacher so I can skip fourth block today", she replied with a huge grin across her face. Stumbling a bit, she walked the last few steps towards me with great difficulty.
"Um, you're going to like crawl through the halls today if you think you're not going to trip. You sure you can do this?"
"Yea" she said confidently, and then tripped a little. I had no faith in her today and if she got caught which was way more than likely, well I wouldn't go with any of her ideas for a very long time.
As we were walking, I totally forgot what I was going to do today. I was going to tell Stephanie that I'm gay and see what she says, she should go easy on me but if she doesn't that really doesn't matter because I'm faster than her in a skirt or no skirt. But knowing her she posed no threat of serious danger to me, she was more of a threat to herself actually at the moment. At this, I laughed a bit then kept walking. So, when am I going to tell her? How am I going to do this? Questions of all sorts raced through my mind as I walked, and she, well, shuffled. I finally came to my full senses and well my mind was set on telling her, but looking at the clock on one of those old decrepit walls, I noticed I only had 5 minutes. Great, well I have lunch with Stephanie so I could tell her then, but with a bunch of the usual preppy bitches sitting at our table or one of the good old emo kid just sitting there reading dark poetry and thinking of death. Either way if they over heard it whether it was the bitch or the depressed, I was bound to get gossip and rumors around the school about the "nobody whose gay". They'll have so many rumors in the end they mine as well put it across every loudspeaker in the building! So lunch was ruled out, as for the possibility for school-wide humiliation maybe even town-wide if the newspapers published it because some random kid blurts it out to the public audience.
BRRRIIINNNGGGG!
And there went the bell. So I didn't get to tell Stephanie, didn't get to think of when I was going to tell her, and now it is going to bug me for the rest of today! Somewhere along the way I lost Stephanie so I didn't have to say by to her, probably because she left to "get to class", if she didn't break her entire leg before she got there. So here it is, my first day in high school as an officially declared gay kid, declared by no others than me and the aliens who I will fall in love with, if Josh didn't like me.
All right, let me tell you a tidbit of information that I really don't like. What is ten times worse than waking up and everything before now, and lasts an hour and a half? You guessed it correctly! It's my biology class. You see, I have this old shriveled up lady that looks like she took a bath and forgot to get out after a month. Her name you may ask is the one and only Mrs. Clements. We think her husband died in like world war two, her frail little heart eventually turned into a black hole, and that's why she has been around for such a long time. The old lady comes up at a max height to my chest which is short compared to me! Yet, she has had so much experience at scaring the wits out of people Al Qeuda would have accepted her the minute she stepped into Iraq! Oh yes, this old women was the source of all my troubles.
I took my usual seat and looked around the classroom. Noticing the people walking in and taking their seats, some doing they're homework that was due the night before but they're too lazy to do it on time. Turning back around I notice someone walk in, looking back I notice only his head, the back of it too. But, slowly it turned around and oh my God it was Josh! He has been in my biology class this entire time and I've never noticed this!! I can't believe he has known me because of this and I have never noticed him!
"All right class! Take your seats!" the old bat said to us, and so another day began, just totally a bit unplanned.