So… I suppose I'm back.
I got super frustrated at a bunch of unrelated stuff, and decided that I needed to take a break from this to get my priorities in order. Things are doing just fine in some ways at the moment; in other ways they're worse than before. But it's worth the tradeoff, and at the moment, I'm looking for a distraction and perhaps a little bit of ego-stroking.
Joking about the last bit ;)
Hope you guys enjoy this updated and edited first chapter of Against the Grain, and leave a review telling me how I did. As always, it's greatly appreciated!
You always admire what you really don't understand.
- Blaise Pascal
Juxtaposed
The whole assembly was a blur, a smudge of purple and more purple against the unremarkable expanse of the gym's white walls.
I lifted my hand and nudged the focus knob on the lens slightly. The camera focused on one boy, and stubbornly refused to bring the student body into clarification. I frowned and reached for the lens again, but then froze as the boy yawned. Before the look of complete and utter boredom could fully leave his features, I hurriedly pressed down the shutter and recorded the moment onto digital film.
Not exactly the effect I was looking for, I thought critically but with fondness as the picture popped up on the camera's digital screen, but far too metaphorical to delete. The lethargy of the first day back… priceless.
First Day Project. That's what the yearbook editor- in- chief had christened the otherwise unexceptional day. 'Capture the life and lies of the student body,' or some poetic crap like that. I laughed quietly to myself as I remembered the glassy- eyed look on his blissful face, shaking my head. Someone didn't have anything better to do with his time.
Upon hearing the small noise, Ms. Kenshin, the school's hawk- eyed librarian, zeroed in on the happiness and gave me a beady look of indignation. I stifled my derisive giggle and pretended to adjust the neck strap on the camera.
Twenty minutes of dress code guidelines, general school regulations that nobody would follow, and several Kodak moments later, we were unleashed into the hallways and maternally directed to homeroom. Along the way, I spotted a boy I recognized from middle school nearly crying as he tried to pry his locker open, ignoring the lock as it clanged against the metal door.
I smirked and snapped his picture, then turned and walked into homeroom, and, consequently, four years of brainwashing.
"Omigosh I'm so confused! Everything's so different…!"
I looked up from my book, eyebrow raised as I searched out the owner of the annoying voice. It was another familiar face from grade school, framed by (unsurprisingly) bleached-blonde hair and screwed up into a pained expression. I personally didn't understand it. You had your class, you stayed in it, the professors came to you. Not that different from middle school, really.
Right now it was lunch. Apparently on the first day, Meiou High fed all of their students in the auditorium. There were some tables set up, and a lunch line over by the exit. I had already claimed my food, and was picking at it unenthusiastically. I appreciated their hospitality, but it was rather nasty.
All my childhood friends had gone to different high schools, so I resigned myself to having to make new friends and sat with the yearbook staff. Chief, my nickname for the pompous editor, was almost crying with satisfaction over the pictures stored in my camera, which I had dutifully surrendered to him as I sat down for lunch.
"Miss Shueisha, I see potential. These are wonderful." He announced rapturously, beaming at me.
"…It's Reina." I corrected, not glancing up.
"He's wonderful, isn't he?" The girl sitting next to me asked with a small smirk and an eyeroll. I nodded a bit in agreement, but before I could voice it, she continued: "My name's Hikari. Marana Hikari, that is. It's nice to meet you…?" She offered her hand in a Western-style handshake, her smile open and friendly.
I took it. "Shueisha Reina." I replied, smiling in kind. "It's nice to meet you too."
We fell into easy silence, which was a good thing. I wasn't exactly a talkative person, so I appreciated the non- conversational quietness. It wasn't awkward.
Sometime towards the end of lunch, Hikari glanced up, frowned, then grumbled, "Ugh, they're at it again."
"What...?" I twisted in my seat to see what she was looking at.
"Minamino Shuichi," she said. Her voice was a mixture of disgust and grudging admiration. "He used to go to my middle school. He's the one with the red hair," she verified.
Now that I knew who I was supposed to be looking at, I just barely caught sight of him between two flirting girls. "Every girl in my school was infatuated with him... and every one of them asked him out. Apparently nothing's changed," Hikari sniffed, rolling her eyes again. She had quite the knack for it.
Sure enough, there were about ten or so blondes surrounding him, fairly drooling over the boy. I rolled my eyes, turned around, and picked at the congealed mush that some claimed was lunch.
"Attack of the clones." I muttered dryly as three girls laughed hysterically at something the Minamino boy had said in identical hyena-esque tones. I winced a little. "I feel sorry for him. The company he keeps is painful to even listen to…"
Hikari gave me a look of indignation. "Well, I don't." Hikari said resentfully, all traces of the grudging veneration gone. "He's a stuck-up git who can't settle on a girl. He thinks he's too smart for everyone."
I hid a smirk. Apparently, Hikari knew this "Shuichi's" dating habits from personal experience. Judging that mentioning this observation wouldn't be very helpful to my first shaky friendship, I simply shrugged, conforming my face into a somewhat neutral expression, and picked at my lunch some more.
The rest of the day passed fairly quickly. Hikari was in my class, as were some of Shuichi's fangirls who had not managed to get into his class. One of them was actually in tears. Hikari and I distanced ourselves from them and talked through boring classes, like Geometry and our literature class. That disappointed me a bit; usually I liked any form of the written word, but our literature professor was as interesting as a sack of potatoes.
When the last bell rang, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed down the crowded hallways. Within seconds, they were deserted. I sighed and took longer strides. I wanted to be home, too, but Chief had solemnly announced (over the intercom) that we should all turn in our cameras in at the end of the day for examination. I could dimly hear his stiff, dignified voice drifting from the yearbook room.
I turned another corner and ran headlong into Shuichi.
"Sorry, sorry!" I said, flushing as I bent down to help him pick up the stack of books I had knocked from his hands.
He kneeled to my level and smiled. "It's alright, really." He said politely, taking the notebook I held out to him. Green eyes held mine as we stood. He smiled.
"I'm Shuichi." He offered after an awkward moment.
"Reina."
"...You work on yearbook?" He had obviously spotted the camera. His tone was quizzical, but not insultingly so. I wondered why.
"Mhm," I said vaguely. "They had a recruitment-type program over the break. I was bored, so I went…" I fingered the camera, "And now I'm here," I finished with a small smile.
"Ah, yes," Shuichi supplied, nodding his head and rearranging the books in his arms a bit. "I was invited as well. So I take it you are a freshman then?" He continued the small talk with no strain at all.
"Yep. And I take it you are as well." My reply was more of a statement than a question-the program had been a incoming freshman-only event, because most of the yearbook staff had graduated the previous year.
"Perceptive," Shuichi commented with an absent (though not unkind) sort of smile, and started walking around me, heading for the exit, lifting a hand in a wave, "I'll see you later, Rei-"
In that second, several things happened at once.
I flinched as the back of his hand brushed mine as he passed, but I didn't cringe from the contact.
It was like a jolt of electricity, focused on that tiny point where his skin just barely touched mine, and I felt something that reminded me wildly of lightning coursing through my veins. My mouth popped open in shock, and Shuichi recoiled a considerable distance from me, eyes wide and laced with defensiveness. I saw all this through eyes widened with horrified fascination.
My breath came too fast and too shallow. My head was spinning. My mouth was dry. I felt and unpleasant sensation of millions of ants crawling over my skin, itching, burning. Tears stung my eyes, and I didn't exactly know why. I couldn't look away from Shuichi. He was like a magnet-I desperately wanted to look away and run away, but I couldn't.
As I watched, the wary look on his features cleared, and he gave me a Look.
He looks weird with a frown on his face. I thought distractedly, head pounding. There was a roaring in my ears like wildfire. His eyes were narrowed but not unfriendly... like he was working out a complex math problem. Evaluative and unsure.
It didn't look... right...
And I didn't understand it.
It wasn't natural. I couldn't put my finger on it, the elusive something that told me this was wrong; I should go. I ripped my gaze from his and dropped it to the floor. My eyes felt scratchy and irritated. I couldn't seem to force my eyelids to blink anymore.
The silence continued, and I sucked in a steadying breath, gaining control of my resolve again.
"Right. See you later." I squeaked in one breath, then turned and nearly ran for the yearbook room, fighting the instinctive and bewildering urge to turn and protect myself the whole way.
Well, there were numerous syntax errors that I fixed, and a couple cultural accuracy mistakes as well. Like putting "Reina Shueisha" instead of putting the surname first, first name second as Japanese culture dictates you should. Little things like that shall be taken out and replaced, because I am nitpicky. :D
Thanks for reading, please leave a review on your way out!
