Here's a story I've been working on on-again-off-again for the past year or so. I feel I'm comfortably enough ahead to start posting once in a while.
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Hello Old Friend
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Up until a certain point in his life, Hayner was completely aware of what it felt like to feel hate. The strong burning in his heart, the feeling of bile on the back of his throat when he screamed, the knowing that he could never trust in another person for as long as he lived. This person was his mortal enemy, his reason for wanting to fight.
Seifer Almasy.
"Even his name sounds royal. Like he expects something from us," Hayner mumbled from his corner of the table. It was only late into the first month of their freshman year of high school. Lunch table space had to be earned. Right now, they were sharing space with the freshman geek crowd a little bit of the Junior Wristcutters Association. Once the senior's graduated, the tables would shift and they would get better spots, but he hated wasting his life away in the dregs regardless.
It killed Hayner that Seifer, as a sophomore, got a window seat with his lackeys, something notably reserved for seniors and seniors only. It was just something else that the jerk could lord over him when they were passing each other in the halls, which happened more often than he'd appreciate.
The only thing Hayner was thankful for was that in the break between middle school and rejoining each other in high school, Seifer seemed to have cooled off slightly. Which even then meant that the usual beatings came once a week rather than every other day. It was a nice reprieve.
"Just don't look at him," Olette sighed. She was a genius. For years she had been preaching the 'ignore him and he'll go away' mantra. He knew that this was exactly the truth. The only reason why Seifer just loved to bait him was because Hayner always took it like a chump. But it wasn't that easy. Hayner couldn't stop paying attention to Seifer because somehow that would mean he would win, and in this sick competition that had been going on for the last five years, Hayner just wouldn't have that.
Luckily, Hayner had friends. Olette Rousseau really was a genius, seriously. She was actually supposed to be in the eleventh grade by now, but she chose to stay behind to be with her friends. In the long run it may not be the smartest move, but it proved she was fiercely loyal as well.
Sitting next to her was Pence, a gamer and total nerd, but he was also brilliant at the rumor mill game. Everyone was shocked when, out of all the dolled up frosh that lined up for resident junior queen bee Selphie Tilmitt to inspect, she chose homely Pence from the sidelines for all the incoming middle school gossip. It was like she had a sixth sense for this kind of thing. Pence had that kind of high school status that Hayner could only dream of.
Lastly, there was Roxas Strife. He had an older brother who had already graduated, but other than that Hayner was still learning about him. Roxas came from a different middle school, and while he had a few friends from his old school as well, he and Hayner connected in their shared algebra classes and he'd been hanging out with them ever since.
Hayner was getting tired of his bicep getting gouged out every time one of the creepy anorexic goth kids nudged him. The table was crowded – the whole school was crowded – and it was completely unfair that Seifer got to sit at a window seat on a table with three empty spaces on it. If Hayner could just get rid of one more person there would be enough room for him and his friends.
"Where are you going?" Olette asked suspiciously as her eyes followed Hayner when he stood and started walking towards the sophomore tables.
"Just throwing out some trash," he muttered.
When it became clear that Hayner was making a b-line towards Seifer's table, Pence started to stand up to get a better view. The other kids sitting at their table were aware of the vendetta between the two boys and instantly started turning their heads, whispering, and standing up as well.
Seifer seemed to be keenly aware that the volume on the other half of the cafeteria had dropped significantly. Years of boxing lessons and real-world experience had built his skills to an almost superhuman scale. His Hayner-Senses were tingling. Looking across the table at his two friends, Raijin and Fuu both seemed to have their eyes trained on someone who was approaching the table behind him, but they were keeping quiet. He knew Fuu wouldn't speak unless it was an emergency, and Raijin was beginning to learn from her example. The buff man's reaction came just a little too late when Seifer saw his mouth twitch to try and get a warning out.
The blond punk turned around just in time to receive a rookie punch to the brow. Hayner wasn't incredibly strong, but what he lacked in muscle he made up for in speed. Before Seifer had a chance to stand up, Hayner had already spun around him and shoved him away from his chair.
"What'd I fuckin' do this time, wimp?" Seifer cackled. Almost immediately the people sitting closest to the aisle between the two tables started jumping and running to get as far away as possible while the vying onlookers fought to get closer.
Olette, Pence, and Roxas couldn't see anything from where they were standing, but they didn't need to. They knew that Hayner was going to make a fool out of himself. He had already gotten a detention from the last time he picked a fight with Seifer in his first week. Something on this scale would mean expulsion.
Hayner threw another punch. Seifer dodged and landed a fist into Hayner's shoulder. Hayner recoiled and them jumped forward for some sort of melee attack. Somehow, Seifer was able to catch him and throw him across the fight circle at the windows. There were screams when the loud crash of broken glass rose above the crowd. Hayner hit his head on one of the table chairs as he landed and wasn't getting up.
"Shit!" a boy shouted. It wasn't Seifer, but hearing a masculine voice sounding alarmed was enough to get a good portion of the crowd to clear away an extra ten feet. Hayner groaned and curled into the fetal position. Seifer was still standing there, but with blood on his face. A shard of glass had flown at him and left a slice diagonally across his nose and the image of it was the most visually terrifying thing Hayner had ever seen in his life. The older boy smirked and claimed victory.
"Once a wuss, always a wuss."
There was a shrill cry from a whistle coming from a gym teacher that had been alerted by a hall monitor. He shouted angrily to get the crowd to split so he could make it through. "Almasy! Marshall! What were you thinking?!" he yelled, letting his sneakers crush the glass that had fallen onto the tiled floors to an even finer powder. He helped Hayner to his feet, trying to be careful but in no mood to be nice. "Diz's office, now!"
Hayner was left rubbing his head as he glared at Seifer angrily. All the older boy did was smirk. The coach was saying something about dignity and ignorance as they walked the short distance from the cafeteria to the main offices. Apparently someone had called ahead and alerted them of their arrival. The main secretary gave them a calculating glare before making them sit on a bench a wait. Before sitting down Seifer took some tissues from her desk and wadded them on his nose. He sat down closest to the door with a huff. Hayner sat as far on the opposite edge he could manage without looking foolish.
"I think I need to see a nurse," he told the secretary, having a hard time focused.
The coach overheard and didn't react kindly. "You'll sit down and shut up until Diz is ready to see you."
The secretary looked at the coach warily. "Jim…"
"I mean it," he said to her. "I'm sick of their attitudes. They're just stupid teenagers lording themselves over campus." He turned the most palpable glare Hayner or Seifer had ever felt. "You two need to shape up because the real world doesn't work this way, and in four years nobody's gonna give a shit about you."
"Jim!" the secretary called out. "Thank you, that will be enough!"
No more than two seconds after the coach stormed out, there came a beep from the secretary's computer. She glanced at the note quickly and sighed. "The principal will see you now."
While Hayner was no stranger to that sentence, this was his first time hearing it in high school. He'd dealt with the vice principal only once before, and she acted like herding students was a game. He hadn't heard any stories about Diz, which made him that much more threatening. Although with the way Seifer was acting, he had to assume that he'd been in dozens of times before. Hayner sighed and decided to follow his example.
Inside the office was a large oak desk, mostly cleared with organized stacks of paper and a computer in the corner. There were three different diplomas from three different Ivy League colleges on the wall, all with his name on it. Sitting in a comfy leather chair under those framed sheets of paper was a confident looking man with blond hair with distinguished gray streaks of age. He smiled and invited the two boys to sit in the chairs opposite him.
"Mister Marshall, it's a pleasure," he said almost happily. "Janice tells me a lot about you." She was the vice principal. Being on a first name basis with the staff was either a blessing or a curse.
"Hm. How's your wife?" Seifer asked. Diz raised a brow and turned his attention to the older boy.
"I'm going to assume you're talking about the appendectomy. In which case, it went as well as those sorts of things can, and thanks for asking." Hayner noted a framed picture of an older woman and two daughters sitting on the filing cabinet also behind the desk. "But that's not why we're hear today, is it?"
"Hey, I've been doing pretty good so far!" Seifer insisted loudly.
"I know!" Diz replied, almost sarcastically. That tone from a teenager would have seemed obnoxious, but coming from a school official it was just incredibly odd. "It's been almost, almost a whole week! Your parents must be so proud…" There was a quiet tone from his computer, probably an instant message from the secretary. "Okay, I'm bringing in a colleague of mine, a guidance councilor from SEED Academy."
Hayner's blood chilled. SEED Academy was a military boarding school for psychotic teenagers that actually enjoyed being screamed at as a form of discipline. Another man entered the room, taller and younger than what Hayner had been expecting for this older principal's colleague. He was wearing black slacks and a slate gray shirt. His hair was a bit dramatic, with medium brown locks styled back to reveal a rather interesting scar across his face. Hayner was to terrified to guess how he received it. "Hello, Hayner. Seifer." His voice was quite, yet commanding.
Hayner wasn't entirely sure what about this man rubbed him the wrong way, but Seifer seemed to pick up on the same vibe. The man leaned against the edge of Diz's desk. "We're going to try an experimental procedure I've been working on back at the Academy to help your little problem."
"It's not my problem dickwad, this wuss picked a fight with me."
The guidance councilor gave him a sharp glare. "Whatever. You sure as hell finished it, right? I'm a little curious about why you guys even bother. As far as I'm aware there aren't gangs involved. No territory disputes involved in school or at home. Hayner, apart from this problem your grades are remarkably good for somebody who walks up to people and assaults them with no introduction."
Hayner opened his mouth to argue, and Seifer just glanced over at him and chuckled. The imposing man held up his hand to stop Hayner from saying anything, focusing his attention on the older delinquent blond. "And Hayner has a problem because the way you carry yourself around him is purposely arrogant. To be frank, Mister Almasy, you're asking for it."
"Sure, blame the victim."
"You walk around baiting him to make first blood. It's not exactly a surprise anymore when you rag on him all the time. Especially given your history together."
Hayner snickered slightly, causing the ice-cold eyes to rove over to him. "And you. Apparently this aggression has been going on since the fourth grade? If it weren't for your good grades you probably would have been suspended by now." The councilor picked up a manila folder, embarrassingly stuffed with papers, pink slips, yellow slips, and forms. "And despite all the phone calls, conferences, and anger therapy classes you still feel a need to attack Mister Almasy without warning or cause."
"There's a cause!" Hayner objected. "You just said it yourself! He's so high-and-mighty you just want to punch him in the face!"
"You need to learn the difference between dreaming and doing. You can dream about punching Seifer in the face as much as you want, I can't stop you, but there are rules, regulations and laws against walking across the cafeteria and picking a fight simply out of the blue like that."
"So what are you gonna do about it?" Seifer challenged. "Put it in our permanent records?" It wasn't a newsflash, Seifer's parents couldn't care less about his son's behavior. He was the middle child of five offspring produced by his redneck parents. They were willing to cut their losses and focus their attention on which of the other four kids would pay for their future life support.
"Yes, actually." The answer made the nervous twinge in Hayner's gut crawl. Seifer may not care about his collegiate future, but that didn't mean Hayner didn't. Most colleges aren't necessarily worried about a detention or two. A mark on his transcript about school bullying… Well, that was a hot-button topic these days. There had to be a loophole.
Diz took over by adding, "But we're going to try something out, and if this works until you've graduated, we've agreed to erase this incident from your file. It never happened."
The guidance counselor nodded. "This is a new procedure that we're going to try. It's a little process that adults do. Normally kids your age have to wait until an embarrassing college encounter before you find out that fighting is ignorance, but I'm going to tell you how it is right now."
"Which is?" Hayner asked.
The man smirked and pointed to them. "Here's how I want you to treat each other from now on. As far as you're concerned," he said to Hayner, moving his index finger towards Seifer, "he doesn't exist." Hayner was confused. He glanced over at Seifer who was rolling his eyes. It would be impossible to pretend that Seifer didn't exist. He was too loud, too obnoxious to just let that personality bounce off his back.
The councilor turned to Seifer and said the same thing. "And for you, Hayner is just a new freshman. A nameless face in this big school. When you pass each other in the halls, it's just another person. You won't talk about each other, you won't look at each other, you won't acknowledge each other."
The two students looked more than unsure. There was no way this could work. "And don't worry," Principal Diz added. "We'll help you with this, because Lord knows we don't have the budget to fix any more broken windows. From now on you'll have different lunches." He gave both boys a pensive look. "We're serious about this," he stated.
"I get it," Seifer said defensively, turning to look at Hayner. "The chicken wuss doesn't exist, easy."
Diz seemed less than pleased with Seifer's reaction, but figured that would be the best he could manage. "Hayner?"
The younger boy sighed dramatically, looking down at the floor. "Yes, sir."
In the end, this was like a wake-up call for Hayner. He had never heard stories about a faculty going so far to stop fights in their school. Was this something they were doing for themselves, or something they were doing for him? Hayner had always felt that his obsession with demoralizing Seifer was bordering on the edge of insanity. The way the bully would look down on him suggested Seifer was suffering from the same handicap.
Hayner remembered hearing stories from his grandmother about how there was a one true love for everyone on Earth. How every soul had some sort of divine match that was destined to live together in happiness forever. His feelings for Seifer felt something like this, but with hate. How the very instant you meet someone, without ever talking to them or meeting them, you know you just won't like them. It felt a lot like that.
As he was ushered out of the office, he thought about it more. If Seifer had never broken his toy in elementary school, the one that started this whole mess, and if Hayner hadn't felt the need to kick him in the shins with his soccer cleats right after, would they have been entirely different people? What kind of life would Hayner be living right now, what kind of person would he be, if he weren't dedicating his entire school life towards directing hate at one person? It wasn't a question he felt comfortable asking, because he was sure he knew the answer.
The guidance councilor led them outside. "So are we agreed? No more paying attention to each other. You don't even exist. The teachers are all aware of your behavior, and if they see you two interacting, we'll know," he warned them seriously. Hayner glanced around the hall to the few students who happened to be walking around at that moment, most of them wide-eyed as if they were experiencing some kind of history. He swore he saw a gaping girl texting blindly with her eyes watching them from behind her locker door.
"I get it," Seifer confirmed. There was something unsettling about the optimistic way he was agreeing to all this. In a way, Hayner felt a bit insulted. How could Seifer just ignore so many years of torment and abuse on either end?
"And for love of God, go to the nurse, already. See if you need stitches." The guidance councilor waved Seifer away.
The freshman felt his throat clench slightly, out of rage, when Seifer made eye contact with him for the last time. "Later, loser."
With that, he turned and walked off. Not even a single word of remorse. Hayner had half the mind to tackle him from behind if it were for the councilor standing right there. "Fuck off, Seifer!"
"Hayner," the man admonished, but he assumed it was Hayner's last hurrah and closure before this ended. "Go ahead and get to your next class. The bell will ring any minute."
His class was in the opposite direction of where Seifer was headed. He wanted nothing more than to just walk away and pretend like this never happened. Pretend that Seifer never happened.
oooOOOooo
The first week was probably the hardest. The rumor mill at school was soul crushing and all knowing, and as soon as Selphie found out at Hayner and Seifer's little arrangement, half the school was holding their breaths for the biggest fight of the year. Every time they were in the same hall, the same courtyard, or anywhere within a hundred yards of each other Hayner could hear whispers everywhere.
But after the first week, the whispers started to die down. Students got tired of holding their breath. By the first month, Hayner doubted ever really liking the toy or game or whatever Seifer had ruined to begin with. Before he knew it, the semester was over. His grades were improving, his relationship with his friends seemed less strained. Olette and Pence were really proud of him, and Roxas opened himself up now that Hayner seemed less intense and was becoming an invaluable friend.
His life was looking up. Freshman year ended, and he entered Sophomore year with a grounding, a personality, and an understanding about how high school works. He graduated into becoming a Junior and started diving into extracurricular activities that took his attention even further away from everything that had bothered him before. He was an honor student, dabbled in jazz band, took part in intramural sports, and even started volunteering to beef up his college resumes.
Then, before he knew it… he was a senior. On top of that, he was the king of the school. Friendly, gracious, humble… Students simply loved being around him. Hayner wasn't about to complain. He didn't understand the true implications of the first day of school until he drove into campus bright and early and met up with his friends by the front gate. He noticed Olette had a big, secretive grin.
"…What?" he asked, a cautious smile on his face.
"You know what happens today?" she asked, her voice barely able to contain her excitement. Hayner was no good at guessing games and simply shrugged his shoulders. "This is your first school year without Seifer!"
It was at that moment that, before Hayner was even aware, that name became a blast from the past. He probably hadn't even thought about Seifer for months, and that was when he was still in school. "Huh. Yeah, it is…"
Still with a smile on her face, she walked over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "I'm proud of you Hayner. You became the bigger man in this fight, and that's really hard to do."
"Yeah, now you won't have to deal with him anymore, like, ever," Pence added, also all smiles. "I heard he moved to California to be, like, a model."
That shocked Hayner a little. A model? Really? Seifer wasn't even that pretty, but then again his strongest memories of him were from those horrendous middle school years. "Hey, let's not talk about it too much," he pushed. "We've made it this far without talking about it. Let's just… file that under embarrassing, young, and stupid."
"Hey, c'mon," Roxas added, nudging him in the side with his elbow as they started walking inside. "If you don't remember the past, you're doomed to repeat it."
"Well as long as he's West and I'm East, there's nothing to worry about," he sighed. Talking about Seifer was really bringing him down. The longer they spoke about it the harder it felt to remember. "And as long as that remains the case, there's nothing to worry about."
And so Senior year happened, and above all the regular school drama, sports, and politics, Hayner managed to send off three resumes to prospective universities. Colombia was his first choice, but even that seemed to be a stretch for Hayner's slightly flawed GPA. If it weren't for the freshman year he squandered being generally squirrelly and rebellious, he probably would have had a decent shot at being salutatorian. Places like Colombia didn't have interest in top-ten-percenters with a record.
His second choice was Brown for engineering and computing, which he was fairly sure he would get in, no problem. If all else failed, he sent in a resume to the local university that would be required to admit him since he was in the top three percentile. He also had scholarships for a few colleges who were willing to keep their doors open for the standard lower-class rags-to-riches cases. There were options in Tuscaloosa, San Diego, Richmond, and Boston.
His friends decided to make a pact. They wouldn't open their college admittance letters until they had received all of their results. As their last semester in high school began, letters started pouring in for Olette and Roxas, who applied to any accredited university that seemed worth their time. "Apply first, then choose which one you want to go to," was her logic. Unfortunately, since Hayner and Pence were at the shallow end of the monetary pool and couldn't afford all the admission fees, they had to wait along with all the other students.
It was just another Friday not long after classes had resumed after winter holiday. Hayner and his friends were walking over to his house to hang out when he stopped at the mailbox, as always, to get the mail for his parents. The letter on the very top spot had been stamped with the Colombia letterhead.
"Oh my God," Hayner mumbled.
"Oh my God!" Olette cried. "Oh my God! I left all my letters at home!"
"Me too," Pence added. Everybody knew that Roxas had been keeping all twelve of his admissions letters in a folder in his backpack for just such an occasion. "We're gonna go get them. We'll be right back."
Olette took off sprinting towards her house with a gleeful hum, while Pence started jogging in the opposite direction towards his own. While they were away, Hayner shuffled through the mail and found out that all his letters were mailed on that very day, including letters from some of his scholarship schools. His palms were getting sweaty and he could feel his face heating up.
"I- I'm really nervous," he told Roxas. His blond friend was in the top five percentile, and only bothered applying for colleges in their state so he would be automatically admitted.
"Are you serious?" he asked. "The East Coast would be stupid not to have you."
Olette soon arrived, panting and sweating, with an armful of collegiate letterhead envelopes with her name on it. Pence walked in not long afterwards with at least five letters.
"Okay," Olette said happily. "…Who wants to go first?"
There was a short moment of silence as everyone glanced nervously at everyone else's letters. "Oh, screw this," Roxas said, tearing open a letter from a college up north.
"Dear Roxas Strife, congratulations on be admitted into Twilight University's Liberal Arts program!" he read with confidence.
"Go Roxas!" Olette said happily, tearing open a letter from Dartmouth, her first pick. "Dear Ms. Rousseau, we are delighted to inform you that the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aide have offered you a place in the Dartmouth class of 2005!" she shrieked, hurling her other, unopened envelopes into the air.
"No way!" Pence said with a huge grin, taking the letter from her and reading the first line. "You're a genius, I knew it!"
"I called it!" Hayner declared. He knew Olette was a genius the moment he met her. He gave her a celebratory hug and let her run off into the other room so she could call her parents. While she was out, Pence opened a letter for his first choice. He read the first line in silence, but the grin on his face and the light in his eyes gave his friends the answer.
"So guess who's going to MIT next semester?"
"Get out!" Olette screamed from the other room. Apparently she had gotten off the phone with her parents and came barreling through the doorway to tackle Pence with a giant hug. "They're only like two hours away! We can totally make this work!" Pence and Olette had only been dating since last summer, but they were determined that it was destiny and would do anything for each other, the way best friends should.
Roxas laughed and smiled with his friends before he turned his attention to the one person in the room that had yet to open a letter. "Hey, dude, you're up."
Some of his envelopes were feeling suspiciously light, but he figured the real meat of the information wouldn't come in until he committed to somewhere. The first letter in the stack was his first choice, Colombia. He started mumbling the first line aloud. "Dear Mr. Marshall, The Committee on Admission has examined your application for admission to Colombia University and has carefully considered your credentials, blah, blah blah…"
His face paled as he read the following sentence to himself.
"We deeply regret that we are unable to include you among those selected for the class entering in the upcoming fall semester."
The letter continued from there, spilling forth excuses and apologies, even a blue, mass-printed copy of the Dean of Admission's signature. He glanced up slightly to see his friend's faces staring expectantly at him. Olette was the only one to seem slightly warily of Hayner's silence.
The boy just smirked and threw the denial letter over his shoulder. "Who needs Colombia, right?" he chuckled, picking up his letter from Brown grimly. His friends were waiting on pins and needles for him to read it.
He tore the envelope open, ripping a bit of the letter itself in the process. This time he read the letter quietly. "Dear Mr. Marshall, The Committee on Admission has examined your application for admission to Brown University and…" No. NO. "Regret… unable… sincere apologies… good luck…"
"I didn't make it into Brown."
Olette was the first to respond almost immediately. She frowned and reached across the table to grip his arm. "Hayner, I'm so sorry. Ivy League schools are so hard to get into, though. My dad was an alumni from Dartmouth and that means a lot to those kinds of places…"
"Yeah, but…" Hayner turned to her with a confused look, "it's Brown."
Roxas grimaced and reached across the table to the rest of the college letters that were resting there, picking up the one from the local university. "This one feels a little fatter, I bet you got accepted here." Of course, colleges wouldn't waste paper on a reject, so usually it was only a single letter for denials and maybe a few more pamphlets if prospective students needed a bigger push to enroll.
Hayner looked down at the letter in Roxas' hand and frowned. He really didn't want to waste his time at the local university. He applied on a whim because he knew he'd have to be accepted. The part that hurt the most was that he wasn't even considered for a spot on their registry. In the letters it mentioned he was outright denied. Not even placed on a waitlist or suggested to try again next semester.
"Maybe you can call them?" Pence suggested. Olette lit up at the idea.
"Yeah, call the admission's board!" she exclaimed, taking the denial letters from Hayner's hands. "Their number's at the bottom. It's only four-thirty. Go ahead and give it a shot. They might tell you why you weren't enrolled. If anything, it'll show that you're really interested and they might consider you again."
"…You think?"
"You've already got your worst answer," she said, holding up the letters. "What's the worst they could tell you now?"
She had a point. The number was printed in a small, classy font on the bottom of Brown's denial letter. All he had to do was call and see if they had any notes on why he couldn't be admitted. He nodded towards his friends and stood up. "I'll be back in a bit…" he mumbled, taking the kitchen phone into the den to make the call in private.
There was a ring tone for a few moments before an automated speaker answered. Hayner pressed one for English, three to speak with someone about application procedures, five for miscellaneous questions, pound to repeat the options, and finally seven to be connected to a human being. After fifteen minutes of holding, a frazzled woman named Cathy answered and asked him what he needed.
"Uh- Yeah, my name is Hayner Marshall, and I just got a letter from you saying that my application for admittance had been denied…"
"Well, sir, the application process for Brown is challenging and competitive. We receive well over the amount of applications than we can admit into-"
"I understand that," Hayner said. He was told from the very beginning that he probably wouldn't get into an Ivy League university because of how competitive it was, but he figured he would have at least been waitlisted. "My application was right-out denied, and I would like to know what was on my application for that to happen… You know, for future reference…"
After some more finagling, being forwarded to a different operator, giving his birth date, social security number, and first-born son, he finally managed to get an answer. "It appears in your transcript history was a little… convoluted."
Hayner arced a brow at this. "Convoluted how?"
The operator sighed loudly and the sounds of computer keyboard typing filled the void. "You've had more than one occasion where you took part in school bullying. Apparently it got to the point where a professional had to be brought in?"
"But… that was freshman year." It seemed like ancient history, as far as Hayner was concerned. He had a clean record for over three years now. In fact, we was positive that Principal Diz and their councilor told him that his past with Seifer would be wiped from his record if there weren't any more altercations. "I may have had a rough past, but I was able to turn it around… I don't want to brag, but my teachers call me a star pupil… Did the letters of recommendation really mean nothing?"
There was more sighing, more typing, until the woman finally spoke again. "That I don't know. The recruiter didn't make any notes about it, but it never hurts to apply again next year. Go to an accredited college for two semesters and work hard on your grades. Show the Admission's Board that you have what it takes to not just pass, but excel at higher education. Keep your nose down and forget about bullying. You know how competitive Ivy League schools are." If Hayner heard that warning one more time he was going to bash someone's teeth in.
"So… all this happened because I started a fight with Seifer Almasy?" Hayner asked, talking slowly. The lady on the other end seemed unsure of how to respond.
"If that was the case, then possibly. Like I said, try again next year and-" Hayner didn't let her finish, clicking the end call button and grunting furiously.
"Hayner?" Olette called from the kitchen. As much as they wanted to give him privacy, they couldn't help but overhear. "…Is everything okay?"
oooOOOooo
It was a clerical error. The man in charge of keeping up with transcriptions was hired after the settlement was made between Hayner and Diz regarding Seifer. He didn't know he was supposed to erase the warning. The fact that Hayner had bullied Seifer had been lurking on his high school transcript for four whole years, unnoticed by any other of the main office staff.
Hayner was furious. Hayner's mom was a livid, fire-spilling mess. They reported at Diz's office and made him change his transcript, but by then it was too late. The open spots on Brown and Colombia were already filled, and wouldn't be accepting new applicants until q-drops, and even then their waiting queue was already filled as well. It happened so fast.
"You know, honey," his mom said warily a week later. "Getting into any college is a feat these days. Don't let this get you down. You can go to Twilight U with Roxas and maybe transfer to Brown your sophomore year? That sounds like fun, huh?"
For some reason, Twilight University wasn't really where Hayner wanted to go. He was automatically accepted there, yes, but only because of his grades in school. There was something a bit cheat-ish about the concept that he didn't feel comfortable with. There were other schools, however, that he was offered scholarships for.
Later that night, he sat on his bed with a calculator and looked at the information at hand. Some schools offered free housing with his scholarship, some offered to pay for books, while others gave a certain amount off his course fees if he kept up good grades. Although he lived on the east coast, he found out that the scholarship that was offered by a college in California, Traverse College, would make it cheaper to attend than if he stayed home and went to Twilight U.
There was a thought niggling in the back of his mind of something Pence had said at the beginning of the school year that he didn't even know he remembered. Seifer is in California. Hayner felt a faint, well-concealed rage in his heart, and he knew that his feelings for the older bully never truly went away.
The following morning he discussed his idea with his parents.
"I dunno, kiddo," his dad sighed. "California?"
"You'll save three thousand dollars every year I go there. Even with moving costs, it'd be cheaper if I go to Traverse instead of staying in town for Twilight U."
"But we're willing to spend the extra three thousand to keep you nearby," his mom stated, knowing how ridiculous she sounded. She shook her head and looked to her husband. "What do you think?"
"He love you, Hayner. But Traverse College? Really? If you're going on scholarship, it can make transferring to Brown a little difficult. It might not be worth at all it if you're transferring…"
"Yeah, but…" Hayner had a difficult time laying out the words. He was being called to California. If he didn't go, it seemed like one of those decisions that would haunt him the rest of his life.
"You used to be all about adventures when you were little," his mom sighed. "It started with exploring in the backyard, and in backstreets and alleys around the train depo… I went gray early just trying to keep up with you. I felt a little sad, because it seemed like so much of that went away during high school."
It had been such a long time since the Seifer incident that even his parents rarely brought it up. It would be a stretch to say that they condoned his behavior back then, but it was easy to believe that the school system metaphorically beat the adventurous tar out of him when every time he spoke out became a means for detention. Now that the system had backfired, Hayner was finding it less and less reasonable to stay obedient.
"If you want to go to Traverse," his mom said, reaching over and placing her hand in her husband's, "you have our blessing."
While his father was more concerned with the simple logistics of the plan, he didn't have a decent argument why not to let his son go. Hayner nodded, grinning like a fool, and rushed out the door to school. He didn't understand why he was so happy about the idea. The thought of moving so far away from everything he knew was understandably horrifying, but he couldn't stop smiling.
When he told Roxas, Pence, and Olette the news, there were mixed reactions. Roxas was silent, Pence laughed, and Olette nearly cried.
"The west coast is going to eat you alive," Pence chortled. "There's no way you'll fit in."
"You'll never get into Ivy League with Traverse on your transcript!" Olette lamented. She turned to soak her tears into Pence's shoulder as the too boys shared a certain look and eye roll.
Roxas finally called himself to attention while Pence tried to console his girlfriend. "Isn't that where…" the blond started, but trailed off.
Hayner glanced at him. "Isn't what?" They shared a very distinct look. Roxas raised a brow and shrugged his shoulders with a certain meaning. Hayner remained purposefully ignorant. "I could be going to California for any number of reasons. I think it'd be cool to check out the beaches. The nearest one is only an hour away from the school." He turned his attention back to the group as a whole. Olette seemed more collected and was willing to listen to what he had to say.
"I guess they are pretty," she sniffled.
Hayner had been to the beaches near Twilight Town a handful of times with his friends in the past years. They were usually surrounded by pines and early mornings were too cold to swim. He had yet to visit a beach with sun-bleached sands and palm trees. The waves always seemed so much bigger from what he'd seen in movies and maybe he'd finally get to learn how to surf. The more he thought about it, the more he was looking forward to moving to California.
"And besides, there's Christmas and summer vacations, too. I'll be staying at the dorms and they'll be closed during then. I'll have to come home sometime," he said with a smile.
"Yeah, right," Pence sighed towards Roxas and Olette. "Once he hits November in the west he'll forget all about spending another winter over here."
"He wouldn't," Olette insisted. "Would you?"
Hayner rolled his eyes. "What could possibly keep me in California?" he laughed. "That place is plastic."
Pence turned to Roxas. "You've been awfully quiet lately? Anything to say to our abruptly departed?"
"Sure, I guess," Roxas mumbled with a shrug. "When d'you leave?"
oooOOOooo
Paperwork was filed. Housing arrangements were made. Half of Hayner's belongings were sold, and most of whatever was left was locked away in storage. Classes were scheduled. Plane tickets were bought. The eve of the big move found Hayner alone with Roxas, Pence, and Olette in their usual hangout, a safe alleyway hidden in the shadows of one of the main thoroughfares of town.
"I can't believe it," Olette sighed. "I don't know if I can last a whole month without seeing everybody, let alone four…"
She was staying in town another week. Pence followed, leaving in two. Roxas was staying in town with his parents during freshman year, since he was attending the local university.
"It won't be so bad," Pence promised, reaching over and squeezing her hand. Their eyes met and held for a moment, and he smiled crookedly. Hayner let them have their moment and focused on Roxas.
"So how long do you think you'll last before you decide to move out?" he prodded.
Roxas shook his head and took a nip out of his soda. "If I had it my way, I wouldn't even be there right now. They said they'd help out with my apartment if I can keep my grades up the first year." He sighed loudly and leaned against a brick wall. "It's gonna seem like high school never ended, I swear."
Hayner stewed on that last comment a while, eating the last sea salt bar of his summer. This would probably be the last time he'd see his old friends for nearly half a year. What kind of person would he be when he returned? What would he have learned at school that would change his views on the world? What kind of friends would he make? Part of the reason why he wanted to go to school so far away was to escape the feeling of college being an extension of high school. The small part he had been ignoring was his real feelings on the matter.
How can he say he's moving across the country to escape the past when his whole reason for doing so was to find the man who destroyed his chance at a future?
oooOOOooo
Hayner had spent a week and a half on campus, and most of that time was spent exploring campus on the phone with Olette.
"Where are you now?" she asked.
"On my way to the library. The other library. There's like eight libraries." This one would be the third one he explored since arriving. Supposedly it had the most engineering texts that his orientation mentors told him he'd spend sixty-seven percent of his time plowing through before the semester was over.
"Only eight?" she mused.
The library Hayner was venturing in was like a big cement block. It was the most uninteresting-looking structure he had ever seen. He supposed it was suited for an engineering major. Hayner rolled his eyes at Olette and stepped inside, enjoying the blast of air conditioning. The entrance led to a large atrium at least five stories tall, where silent rules hadn't been implemented yet. There were lots of chairs and couches around, and a small satellite coffeehouse set up in the corner.
"They have coffee here," Hayner noted. "The building's not as pretty as the art one, but at least I won't have to go across the street for it."
"What was that? You're breaking up," Olette replied, her voice heavy with static. The big block of a building didn't have many windows, and the layers of cement and steel probably weren't helping.
"I'll have to let you go. I still need to find that book I need for class," Hayner said. The response he got from Olette was so garbled and fuzzy that he didn't even bother trying and simply hung up the phone. She was a smart girl, she'd figure it out. There was a large map with a layout of the library pinned up at the wall. Hayner approached it and tried to find out where Engineering books would be found. His best luck would be the third floor.
He took the stairs, and when he reached the top he had this strange feeling. Like there was a shadow in the corner of his eye. He turned and looked behind him and saw a boy standing in the recessed entryway of the elevator door, right by the stairs. It looked like he was hiding. When they made eye contact, the boy frowned and shook his head.
Hayner was debating to just walk downstairs and out of the library after that weird moment or to continue finding his book when another boy bounded up the stairs. "Hey, hey!" he said towards Hayner. Hayner looked over his shoulder to make sure it was actually him he was talking at. He noticed the other boy hiding in the alcove stepped back.
"Uh… Yes?" Hayner said. What on earth was going on?
The boy, panting from rushing up the steps, was wearing red shorts and a black shirt. His skin was tanned from the sun, and his brown hair spiked in almost every direction. "Did you see a guy? Tall, light hair, blue eyes? Yellow shirt?"
That described the boy hiding behind the brunette's back. Crap, were they playing hide and seek? The last thing Hayner wanted to do was blow anyone's cover. "Nnnno. I haven't. Why?"
"We're just-" Before he could finish his sentence, the boy in hiding jumped out from his spot, let out a ferocious RRRAAAHH! and shot his friend in the back with a water pistol. The brunette broke out into a huge grin and turned. "You cocky cock!"
"Five minute rule."
"You suck."
"Count to three hundred."
"Can I at least get a hint?"
The taller boy thought about it for a moment. "You will never feel a greater power, or sample all the bonny flowers, and get attention at every hour, from my magic…"
"…Your magic what."
"That's it. Can't tell you. Later." And he sprinted off down the stairs.
The brunette boy sighed angrily towards the ceiling. "Art majors," he spat, turning to Hayner. "Did you understand any of that?"
Hayner was having difficulty processing thoughts into words. "What?"
"I know. Me neither. He was rhyming, though. Power, Flower, Hour…"
Oh, right. "The clock tower," Hayner said. "There's a garden right by it at the east courtyard and every hour it chimes."
The boy looked at him like a savior. "That's perfect! Thanks! Now I gotta wait three minutes. This is the worst part." He pulled out his phone and started tapping keys. "What's your name?"
"Uh. Hayner."
"Cool. I'm Sora. Do you have a water gun?" he asked, pulling a neon orange pistol from one of the cargo pockets on his shorts. Hayner hadn't owned a water gun since he was in middle school. He slowly shook his head and Sora tossed it too him. It was heavy with the weight of water and he fumbled with it for a moment, but managed to grab hold before it fell.
"I don't- I mean, what are you guys doing?"
Sora glanced up from his phone. "Water tag."
"In a library."
Sora looked up for a moment, surveying the corners of the area before his eyes landed on a security camera by the elevator, where they were in plain sight. "You're right. We've had this problem before. Water guns look bad on black and white security cameras. We should go. The reception here's horrible."
Sora started trotting down the stairs, eyes glued to his cell. Hayner was willing to leave it at that, but realized he was still holding the gun, and promptly followed. "I-is this some kind of orientation thing?" he asked Sora.
"No, just dicking around." He put his cell phone in his back pocket. "Riku's an old friend of mine. He's a second-year. I'm a first-year, and… There she is!" Sora perked up and waved his hand as they reached the ground level. A small girl standing in the middle of the atrium saw them and waved back. "And that's Kairi. She's a first-year, too."
"Why do you keep saying 'first-year?'" Hayner asked. Where he was from, he would be called a freshman, not a first-year.
"Riku told me it's a college thing. The chances of someone graduating in four years these days is the same as someone spitting on the sun. So for the years that it matters, the first four, you just call each other by how long you've been attending. After that, you sort of drop the labels and you're just a 'student.'"
"People don't graduate in four years?" Hayner asked. According to what the college was asking of him, it would require eighteen credit hours a semester to get his degree. That hardly seemed like a heavy course load.
"Well, considering one of Riku's friends is a 'seventh-year' or a 'third-year-senior,' he prefers to just be a 'student.'"
Hayner wasn't sure about the idea of being twenty-five and still in college. That's when most people had a job and a family, right?
"Who's this?" Kairi asked as they approached. She was a slight girl with razor-edged red hair, but a friendly smile. "New recruit?"
"This is Hayner. He's the best and the bravest," Sora said, wrapping his arm around Hayner's shoulders and patting him in the chest. "We think Riku's gone to the clock tower."
"I'm always the last to find you guys," she sighed, turning around to lead the way out of the library. Hayner noticed she had a water pistol in her back pocket, too. "From now on let's work together. Don't separate the party."
"Roger," Sora replied with a mock salute, even though Kairi couldn't see. "So, what's your major?"
It took Hayner a moment to realize Sora was speaking to him. "Huh? Oh. Engineering."
Kairi perked up at this. "Really? Me, too!" Hayner had heard so many stories about how engineering was only for nerdy boys, and girls were a luxury. Even if that rumor were true, he guessed it was fortunate that he found a lady friend from his department so early. That is, if he felt comfortable enough calling this strange trio of students his friends. "Where are you from?" she asked.
"Twilight Town. Little coastal town up on the East Coast."
"East Coast?" Sora asked. "Dude, what are you doing so far away from home? And why would you want to come to Cali? I'd kill to live out East."
"I hear they actually have seasons there," Kairi mentioned. "Like… winter. With snow."
Snows in Twilight Town were more like blizzards. Hayner never understood why people from the southwest had such a fixation on it. "Well, where're you guys from?" Considering their reaction, probably somewhere nearby.
"Riku, Kairi, and I are from Destiny Islands, a couple miles out west off the coast," Sora answered. Hayner knew Destiny Islands, if only because he'd spent so many sleepless nights watching the Travel Channel explore the nation's top beaches as the snow piled up outside his window. Destiny Island was famous for its white sands and epic waves.
"So do you guys… surf at all?"
"That's Riku and Kairi's territory," the brunette replied. "I'm more of a sand castle man, myself."
"That's so cool!" Hayner said, turning his attention to the redheaded girl still a step and a half in front of them. "We never got any waves in our harbor. I always wanted to try it…"
"Then we should!" Kairi said happily. "We don't have time before school starts, but I promise you'll be a surfing champ by the time you go home next summer!"
This just made Hayner elated. He thought about going out into the sun, getting a tan, running around in the shallow beach waters and getting the taste of salt on his tongue, the grit of sand between his toes. He wished they could go now. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts about beaches that he almost missed Sora's next questions.
"Huh?"
"I said, why are you here? There're lots of schools out east, right? What made you choose California?"
Oh. Oh. "I was just in the mood for a change of pace. You know. This is the time of life that's good for that, right?"
"Did you have a lot of friends in Twilight Town?" Kairi asked.
"I had friends," Hayner said, remembering all the people in class who helped him get where he was today. The faces of fellow students he shared classes and neighboring lockers with, all of which would be lost as time went on, but he would always have his best friends. "Roxas, Pence, and Olette. Roxas was a little serious, couldn't take a joke, but he wanted what was best for everyone. Pence loved to joke around, and loved learning, for better or for worse. Olette was the smartest but always kind of a dramatic. She didn't like the idea of me moving across the country…"
"Yeah, our parents were pretty broken up that we were leaving, but you pretty much have to. The only thing on Destiny is a cruddy community college, and nobody back home is really impressed in an underwater basket weaving degree," Sora commented as they approached the clock tower in the center of campus.
"All right, keep a look out," Kairi advised. Hayner remembered the water pistol and held it up.
"Do you need this?" he asked Sora.
"Nah, I'll be alrrRRIGHT!" Sora's eyes widened over Hayner's shoulder and the brunet grabbed his shoulders and pulled him aside. Hayner felt the stomach-jilting sensation of ice-cold water soaking into the fibers of his shirt. Kairi was already halfway across the courtyard, and once Hayner had a chance to turn around Sora was already ducking behind a recycle bin.
Riku walked up to him, sporting a water gun styled like a sniper rifle in bright neon blue and yellow. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll catch on. You're smart, aren't you?"
Hayner was thoroughly drenched and wasn't really in the mood to play along. "What?" he mumbled, thinking about how he'd have to go back to his apartment and change clothes, maybe even take a shower… He hadn't even finished unpacking yet. Now that doing laundry cost money he had to be careful with the way he treated his clothes.
"My riddle. 'Clock Tower,' right? That was you? Sora wouldn't have known how to solve it and he wouldn't have remembered it long enough to repeat it to Kairi."
"I would too!" Sora shouted from behind the bin.
Hayner sighed and hoped the fresh California sun would help dry his shirt quickly. "So what does this mean, then? Are you going to hide again?"
"I'm feeling a truce," Riku sighed. "It'll be getting dark soon. I wanted to eat."
"Eat?" Kairi asked, popping out from behind a tree with all context of a water pistol war forgotten. "We should go to that cafeteria in the dorm hall. All you can eat pizza."
"I heard about people sneaking in with Tupperware and making off with enough pizza to last them a week," Sora said, suddenly appearing by Hayner's side. "I'm in."
"Born in," Kairi added.
Riku nodded. "Alright, let's go."
The three turned and started walking off towards the dorms. Hayner wasn't incredibly hungry and wondered if it was okay to follow them. He hadn't been directly invited anyway, and maybe it'd be better if he-
Kairi squirted him on the head with her water pistol. "Hey, you coming?"
"Uh," Hayner stumbled, "y-yeah, sorry." He caught up with the group with a feeling of gleeful levity. No way did he just make his first college friends that easily. He always thought this was something you had to work for and achieve. Finding a new group of friends so quickly would definitely make the rest of the year go by just as fast.
And, in a way, he was right. Before he knew it he was walking into his first lecture class that was supposed to teach everything he already knew about computers for his future engineering classes. He glanced around the taller, auditorium-style seats and saw a fleck of pink in a sea of black tee shirts and greasy hair. Kairi saw Hayner enter the room almost immediately grinned and waved her hand for him to come over.
All the other boys in the class who'd been staring at Kairi from the corner of their eyes looked defeated as Hayner made his way up the stairs, shimmied down the row of chairs, and placed his backpack by his seat. "Been waiting long?" he asked, sitting down.
"Not terribly. I have a Lit class right before this in the building next door. It's a quick walk." She had her computer open and was already well settled with eleven tabs open on her internet browser. However as soon as the professor walked in and stood at the front of the class, she hid the browser and quickly opened up Word, fingers at the ready.
Hayner only brought a spiral and pencils with him, feeling a little backwards from all the students with laptops open and taking notes of every little thing the professor said. The professor introduced himself and the TAs, and they passed out the syllabus to all the students in the hall.
The real bullet point was when he said the magic words, "All the slideshows for class will be posted at the end of the day."
"Well, sweet," Kairi said, shutting her laptop with a quick and delicate fingertip. "Wanna go meet up with the guys for some ice cream?"
Judging by her tone and the way she was sliding her laptop into her backpack, she was talking about now.
Which was how Hayner ended up at a pop-up ice cream stand in the middle of the campus square instead of in his engineering lecture. Although according to the syllabus, everything seemed rather banal and common sense. Hayner wasn't terribly worried. Sora and Riku were eating sundaes while Kairi and Hayner enjoyed cones.
"There's this restaurant I want to try out," Sora announced, stabbing the banana with his spoon. "It's downtown. Really swanky. My friend said he met a movie star there once!"
Riku looked unconvinced. "A friend? When was this?"
"A new friend," Sora replied. "In one of my other classes. He's older and handsomer than you. Satisfied?" He turned towards Hayner and Kairi as Riku rolled his eyes and waiting for Sora to continue. "Okay, so maybe not a movie star so much as, y'know, like a model I guess? That one dude from that show? That one?"
"That one show," Kairi said.
"The one on channel three. The one with the three guys? And that one girl with the blonde hair."
"Ahuh," Riku said, smirking with his elbows propped on the table and his cheeks in his palms. "Go on."
Sora was getting more aggravated as he tried to remember the details. "Jeez! She's like this struggling actress-"
"In real life or in the show?" Kairi asked.
"In the show! She's this struggling actress who lives in a town home with these three other guys in New York. One's a jock and kind of a bully, one's a nerd in the worst way, and one's a hipster douchebag. My friend said he met the jock character at that restaurant I want to go to."
"Oh, you mean Tetralogy," Hayner said. "I've seen blips about it online, but I haven't actually watched it."
"You should," Sora replied. "Are we agreed, then? The place is called Huckabee's." He pointed to Riku and Kairi. "Huckabee's? Huckabee's?" And lastly pointed to Hayner. "Huckabee's?"
Once again it looked like Hayner was being pulled into another side quest with Sora, who was turning into a force to be reckoned with. Once he finally broke away from his new friends for the day, he made it a point to call his old ones. It was later in the evening when he was alone in his dorm that he gave Olette a call, and she happened to be with Pence at the time.
"So, how was the first day?"
"Okay, I guess. I only have one class on Tuesdays and New Girl Kairi convinced me to skip and get ice cream…"
"Oh, and is New Girl Kairi turning into Just Friends Kairi? Potential of becoming More Than Friends Kairi?"
"Not like that," Hayner said with a grimace. He caught himself wondering why he was grimacing at the idea. Perhaps Kairi seemed so far into friend territory that thinking of her in anyway else felt borderline incestuous. It also helped having Sora and Riku as examples of how to act around a girl who wasn't Olette. "We met up with New Guy Sora and Art Student Riku… There's talk about going downtown sometime next week, after we've settled into our classes."
"Ohh, that sounds like fun! I haven't really had time to explore outside of campus much, besides driving to Michigan for Pence… He needs to get a car!"
Hayner could hear the muffled sound of Pence teasing her over the line. They talked back and forth for a moment, and Hayner turned on the TV and kicked his shoes off. The television was on channel three, and had a short promotional spot for the show Sora had been talking about earlier, the one with the actor his friend met at Huckabee's. The spot only featured the actress, but it led Hayner's mind to wander.
Sora had said something about the actor being a model, and…
His attention was brought back to his phone call when it occurred to him that Olette had asked him a question. "Sorry, what?"
She laughed, "I asked if you had any plans for winter vacation yet. I was chatting with Roxas online earlier and he said something about skiing."
After spending a few golden weeks in California, Hayner doubted he'd ever want to return to soggy, cold New England anytime soon. He still had a few good months to make a decision as far as holiday plans went. "I don't know. It depends on what my parents have planned for Christmas," he answered with a hint of distraction as he pulled his laptop out of his bag. "Hey, listen, something's come up. I'll talk to you guys later, alright?"
"Sure thing. I'll call you later then!"
He tossed his phone at the foot of his bed and opened up his web browser on his computer. A quick search for Tetralogy revealed an IMDB page. The actor who played the model-slash-jock Sora was talking about was a man named Balthier Bunansa. According to his profile page, he was an easy ten years older than Hayner. He sighed and typed his fingers on the keyboard softly. After a moment, he clicked on the search bar and slowly typed in a new name.
"Seifer Almasy."
He frowned as he typed it, and almost closed his eyes when he hit the enter key. The name revealed no results. He sighed loudly, in an emotion he labeled as 'angry,' and put his laptop away. Without thinking too hard for the rest of the night, he turned his attention to the mindless sitcoms of channel three.
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Thank you for reading. More to follow.