the teenager's guide on how to suck at life
introduction
Most kids at high school strive to be popular, and those who are already considered to be so strive to grind the faces of their peers into the dirt. To put the above phrase into more metaphorical terms, the social hierarchy is a bit like a food chain - just like the ones you learn about in Biology.
You start out with the dregs of society – the retards and the rejects, who spend most of their time in the library not fitting in. And then you move up onto the geeks and the nerds, who spend most of their time in the Maths rooms sucking up to the teachers and each other. They're not particularly well-liked but they do have friends.
And, as I'm sure you all know, friends mean everything in school. The more friends you have, the higher up you are in the pecking order.
And then you sift through the rest of the student body - through the vast band of middling and medioka kids - until you reach the very small percentage of populars at the top, surrounded by tag-alongs and wannabes who live by the phrase 'individuality is for the weak'.
There are some exceptions in this vicious spiral, however.
Kids who don't really belong anywhere, kids who throw the whole system out of synch, kids who tip the perfect little balance simply by existing.
Problem kids.
Kairi was one such child, problematic as they come. She didn't want to be popular and she didn't want to laugh in the faces of others.
In fact, she didn't really want anything out of life apart from attention, or so it seemed.
Let me give you some small pieces of information before we dive head first into the teenager's guide on how to suck at life; facts, figures, names, places - the skeleton of the story. You can piece it together in any way you wish, the world is your oyster.
To start off: her name was Kairi, as was mentioned before (see above).
Her best friend's name was Naminé and they'd been inseparable ever since the tender of six. All the way back in primary school, through middle school, on over to high school and up, up, up into the sophomore year.
Her boyfriend's name was Sora (Kairi's boyfriend, that is, not Naminé's – the blonde was single). Kairi and Sora had been going out for two years and were the school's 'it' couple. Neither was particularly popular, but out of all their fellow sophomores they had the longest-standing relationship, and that was something to brag about. And Kairi did – quite often, to be quite honest.
Remember these details now – each character will be mentioned several times in the guide. Maybe you want to jot that information down somewhere safe before we continue? Maybe in that notebook to your right, or perhaps on your arm in blue biro? – make sure it washes off, mind.
Right – back down to business, assuming you've just written down the preceding information and stored it in a safe place for further reference.
The school was called Oblivion High, proud home of the largest social food-chain imaginable – maybe because it was the largest school imaginable in Traverse County, with a student body of over 3,500. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger, a seemingly endless stream of new children arriving from a seemingly endless waiting list. It wasn't just a big school; it was a very, very good school to boot. Kids from all over Traverse County flocked there in droves, and teachers were hard pushed to find places for all the new arrivals.
If there were too many smart kids wanting to transfer from one school to another because they weren't being stretched enough it's obvious what the teachers would do – they'd expel the children with the slack attitudes towards education, the ones who didn't apply themselves enough or try hard enough. The ones who talked in class, who passed notes, who made rude comments, who only got 20 percent in their exams – like Kairi.
Believe it or not, but it's very hard to get noticed amongst 3,500 peers, all of whom are expected to act as good as gold at all times if they wanted to cling onto their place in the schooling system.
The only plausible way Kairi could get noticed (save for dying her hair blonde, putting on lipstick and swanning off to Rikku and the popular girls, which was hardly plausible anyway) was to muck about in class and this, in the words of the headmistress, Miss Gainsborough, was unacceptable. One more black mark in your book and you'll be out of this school, Kairi – her exact words, complete and unabridged.
And Kairi tried hard – she settled down and stopped mucking about, got her act together and started to achieve 80s and 90s in her test, much to the joy of Miss Gainsborough.
Even though Kairi couldn't get noticed through shoddy schoolwork, she managed to become the subject of many-a bitchy conversation and/or awed stare as she marched through the corridor, head held high – mainly because she had other methods of attention whoring and rumour mongering. She showed Sora off every chance she got, flaunting her title of 'longest-standing girlfriend' to the extreme – and to be honest, Sora was getting sick of it.
Sick enough to consider asking out Naminé, who'd had a crush on Sora ever since she first laid eyes on him – too bad her best friend got in there first. She'd been too shy to ask, and Kairi had managed to snatch potential date-material out from under her pretty little snub nose. Of course he never asked Kairi why she needed all the publicity, whether it be good or bad – but then again, nobody seems to think of other people's problems, do they? Apart from maybe Naminé – all her worrying over her best friend reduced her fingernails to bitten-down stumps. Not at all attractive.
Things started to go from merely unattractive and unpleasant to downright ugly pretty damn quickly – Sora, not having the guts to tell Kairi she'd been officially dumped, started to go to the cinema with Naminé as opposed to the red-head behind his former girlfriend's back, and he always seemed to be off 'doing homework' at her house whenever Kairi invited him over.
Needless to say, the red-head got suspicious – the suspicious were increased tenfold (all the way up into the lands of confirmation) when she saw both teens making out by the sports hall, escaping from Kairi by using the excuse they'd been collecting Naminé's forgotten PE kit.
That had been yesterday and, right here, right now, is where the guide really starts, what with our red-headed heroine walking into the school grounds hoping to spill some blood and smash some skulls.
The seeds of hate had been planted and the air was rife with the feeling of impending doom - a great battle was approaching, set to produce only broken jaws, bloodied-up fists, angry teachers and spells in the guidance counsellor's office.
Fasten your seatbelts, get out the pen and paper and flip to the next page for the first lesson on how to suck at life, starting in the bitch-fight of a century and ending in sweat, blood and tears – it's not something you'll want to miss, I can assure you.
a.n: ahhh, this is my entry for Inspire-Illuminate's contest – i haven't added the words in yet. they will come next chapter. the next chapter should come quickly – i really want to get this little ficlet finished xD.
EDIT; fixed spelling errors and changed some clunky sentences. will do the same to each chapter.