So there you all stand with torches and pitchforks, perfectly recreating the mob song in "Beauty and the Beast". And the only thing I have to say to that is… um, this isn't what you think it is? But anything I reveal about my intentions for this will be spoileriffic, so you're just going to have to trust me on this one.
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING ANY FURTHER. The school system in this may seem a bit wonky, but that's because it loosely follows the Japanese school system – start school year in April, end in March. Grade school = grades 1-6. Middle school = grades 7-9. High school = grades 10-12. So though Sonic will be entering high school in this, he'll be going into tenth grade (sophomore year).
I hope you enjoy?
Sonic
He woke to his brother's voice screaming in his ear.
"Good morning, sunshine! The earth says hello!"
"Sun's not even out yet," Sonic muttered irritably, flopping over onto his stomach.
"You can't know that!" Tails proclaimed with a dramatic gasp. "You didn't even open your eyes!"
"Well is it out?" Sonic retorted, cracking one eye open, hoping that the power of his glare could incinerate his little brother on the spot.
"You won't know until you get up!" Tails replied in an infuriatingly cheerful voice. Sonic curled in on himself as Tails pulled the blanket off him in one clean sweep. "Get up! You can sleep when you're dead!" Sonic made a noise oddly reminiscent of a dying whale. Tails promptly snatched one of the pillows propped up against the headboard and smacked Sonic with it mercilessly. "Come on, Sonic!"
Sonic was not at all nervous for his first day of high school. He liked people, and people liked him (or they seemed to anyway), so no problems there. Waking up at ungodly hours and sitting still for eight periods was going to suck major balls, though. Still, all necessary evils that made up one little hurdle on the Track Field of Life.
He could never conceivably answer the one question that plagued everyone his generation: what do you want to be when you grow up? Sure, they asked that time and time again, but now it actually mattered. And, just as it was for every time they asked him what he wanted to do with his life, Sonic still didn't know. Maybe he'd travel the world once he graduated. Maybe he'd start a rock band (but that required time and dedication and effort, which simply would not do). Maybe he'd just run and run and run until his feet finally gave out.
(Honestly? That didn't sound like such a bad idea.)
It baffled his peers to no end that he decided not to try out for Station Square High School's track team. His parents were more angry than shocked. "No ambition whatsoever!" his mother had ranted the day she suggested it to him. "And you'd actually be good at it too!"
His father had made a weird hand gesture that perfectly conveyed the full meaning of "blah," muttering: "What your mother just said."
Sonic had responded with a dismissive hand wave and a "meh, sounds boring."
Tails was waiting for him downstairs with a plate of eggs sunny side up with the yolks cooked all the way through – so in essence, they were just eggs – and a piece of toast that was more black than brown, except for the yellowish splotch of something Sonic was only half sure was butter. Sonic leveled the barely edible food with a flat stare. "Leave the cooking to me next time, kiddo."
Tails pouted adorably, and Sonic almost felt sorry that the middle school kids were going to decorate the eight-year-old's ass with their footprints. Almost. "If you had it your way, we'd be eating chili dogs for breakfast."
Sonic didn't bite into the toast so much as hack away at it with his teeth. "Hey, chili dogs make up a very important food group."
"You should open up a chili dog stand when you graduate," Tails suggested.
"Mom would die from high blood pressure," Sonic refuted. "While we're on the topic of matricide – that's kind of overkill, isn't it?"
"Nah," Tails replied, his mouth half full with eggs. Most would have found the site of chewed up yellow blobs of chicken fetus trapped in the cavern known as the mouth disgusting, but on Tails, it was rather endearing. "She's too tough for that." The blonde-haired boy swung his backpack over his shoulder and ran to the door. "I'm off! Wish me luck!"
"Remember, Tails!" Sonic called after him. "Assert your dominance!"
"I will!" Tails yelled from outside, the front door almost completely shut. "You can have my toast!" And with that, he slammed the door shut.
As Sonic stared at the uneaten piece of toast on Tails's plate – which was even blacker than his own, if possible – he couldn't help but wonder if his little brother was intentionally trying to poison him. He would certainly be capable of it – the kid was eight years old and about to start his first year in middle school, for crying out loud. Now what required less effort – throwing away his breakfast and then taking out the trash so that Tails wouldn't notice, or taking his breakfast with him and throwing it away on the way to school, so that Tails still wouldn't notice?
Quickly deciding on the latter, Sonic slung his school bag over his shoulder with one hand and precariously balanced the plate of unfinished breakfast on the other, kicking the door open and leaving the house. Yup, high school was going to suck major balls. People were going to pester him to join clubs, and then his old friends from middle school would bug him about hanging out all hours, and if he didn't get at least an hour of homework and studying in every day, there was no way in the seven levels of hell that his mother would ever stop nagging him.
It was these negative thoughts that plagued him as he finally stepped into his classroom. It was almost full, since Sonic had taken care to arrive precisely two minutes before class started, but thankfully, there was still one window seat left open. He strode over confidently, reveling in the awed stares people gave him, like Fuck yeah, my hair's really blue. He dropped his bag by the desk and sat down, putting his feet on top of the desk and accidently kicking the person in front – a boy with red streaks in his dark hair.
The boy sitting in front of Sonic turned his head sharply to glare at him. "Do you mind?" he asked in an irritated voice. And then, Sonic's jaw dropped open.
Weren't you supposed to die when you saw your doppelganger or something? 'Cause this kid looked way too much like Sonic. "Well hello there, handsome," Sonic greeted with a wave. The boy's eyebrows furrowed, and he turned around, refusing to dignify him with a response. Well that's just rude, Sonic thought.
And the boy didn't speak up for the rest of the period, choosing to peer out the window with his chin resting on the palm of his hand instead. When the class period finally ended, Sonic slinked over to him, sitting backwards on the seat of the desk in front of the moody, bitch-faced boy, and smirked casually at him. "You got a name, pretty boy?"
The boy raised his eyebrows at Sonic, then looked out the window again with a bored expression. Though he wore his uniform properly and all, there was something about him that just screamed "troublemaker". Maybe it was his red eyes (colored contacts?) that probably scared off anybody and everybody else. Maybe it was his formidable demeanor that said in a cold, dead voice: Leave me alone to die. But for some reason, he answered. "Shadow," the boy said in a quiet, yet firm voice. "Shadow Robotnik."
Sonic grinned. "Is your hair naturally like that, or did you dye it too?" he asked conversationally.
Shadow fixed him with a flat stare. "What do you think?"
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Yeesh. No need to be such a whiny bitch about it."
"I refuse to dignify that with a response," Shadow retorted.
Sonic's grin widened. "I have the distinct feeling that we'll be best friends. Minstrels will sing ballads about us for years to come, regaling the awesome tale of our epic bromance."
"You really do have no filter between your brain and your mouth."
"Life's just more interesting that way." And then, an image crossed Sonic's mind. In retrospect, it made no sense whatsoever – the stars cartwheeling below him, impossibly enough, a pretty blue sphere standing calmly amidst the stars, Shadow by his side as they did… something. He didn't know what it was, but it was definitely important. Maybe the world depended on it or something. And then, all too quickly, Shadow was gone, falling into the blue sphere below, and all that was left of him was a single golden bracelet hanging limply in Sonic's hand. "Yeah," Sonic said finally, shaking his head to clear it of the strange, yet somehow familiar image. "Bros for life. You and me. Definitely."
"Go to hell," Shadow said flatly.
"You're just saying that because you're completely enamored by the epic bromance that will soon be ours," Sonic replied.
And at that, Shadow was back to glaring at him. "No. No."
And then, Sonic burst into uncontrollable, slightly hysterical laughter, ignoring the strange look Shadow sent his way. But there was something else – a softening in the dark-haired boy's eyes, a release of tension in his shoulders – that told Sonic that Shadow didn't completely hate him. "Faker," Shadow said in a low voice.
"You're the faker!" Sonic yelled back on impulse. And he couldn't explain, for the life of him, why, in that moment, everything felt so right – more than it ever had in his entire life.
If you had the patience to make it through to the end… please… review?
