Chapter 2: Once Upon a Friend, or Two
...
'Domino High School'
The vertical sign on the front gate is rusted and scratched. Just how old is this place?
I slowly walk toward the front door of the main building. Is it just my nervousness, or is everyone looking at me? Is this school small enough that everyone would notice a tiny newcomer?
My mind dancing in my thoughts, I don't notice a small bump sticking out of the gravel path. And being the clumsy fuck I am, I trip over it.
Blood rushes to my cheeks as I tilt my head up an angle to see if anyone saw the small incident. Of course they all saw. They were all looking at me.
Fantastic first impression.
I quickly push my self up to my knees and dust my blue slacks when a pale hand stretches out in front of me.
"Need a hand?" Says a comforting voice. I lift my eyes another inch to get a glimpse of the owner of the helping hand. Bistre colored eyes stare back in to my searching ones, and I unconsciously confirm that the rest of the boy is just as pale as his slender fingers.
"Thanks," I mutter quietly while taking the offer of his help.
"You're welcome," he replies, flipping his shoulder length, silvery hair out of his eyes.
I step past him with a nod and continue my way, when he softly calls out to me.
"My name is Ryou, if you wanted to know."
I pause, and give another nod to show him that I heard his statement.
Huh, what a nice person.
It's too bad people are all the same on the inside.
...
I had been searching for the office for fifteen straight minutes. You'd think a place as important as that would be in the main building, but no. It's at the far left side of the school grounds.
"Can I help you?" Asks a visibly irritated counsellor.
"Umm, I need my schedule."
"Uh, name?" She inquires in obvious annoyance, chewing the life out of her blueberry bubble gum.
I sigh inwardly, resisting the urge to call her an unwanted hooker. "Yuugi Motou."
She types swiftly on her Apple keyboard and clicks her mouse. The printer next to her computer comes to life, winding a copy of my senior year classes.
"Here," she says as she slides the paper over the counter toward me. "Stay there and I'll get your books."
The counsellor struts out of the back room with my textbooks and places them by her computer.
"These are your copies to take home. You can come pick them up later, classes have separate copies."
"Oh, uh, I'll do that."
"'Kay," and she's back to doing whatever she was doing before I had interrupted. Probably playing online poker or something else useless.
Anyway.
I scan the list of classes slowly, while playing with the straps of my backpack.
First period: Psychology, room 4-A.
...
I stand in front of a wooden sliding door marked 'Psychology', waiting for the teacher to call me in to introduce myself. I'm not good with crowds- no, I'm not good with people in general. I'll just recite a line from a manga I read or something.
"Yuugi? Would you step in now, please?"
I bite back the urge to groan. I slide open the barrier between the class and me, walking in with my eyes on the tiled floor. The teacher guides me to the front center, in line of everyone's sight.
"I'm Yuugi Motou and I want to get used to this school quickly. It's nice to meet you all." Oh, the floor has such an interesting pattern.
"Well Yuugi, why don't you go sit at the desk by the window?" He questions.
I hurriedly shuffle my feet between the row of students, trying, without much success, to ignore the lingering gazes sent my way. I lightly drop my backpack on the floor next to my chair, and sit, while hoping that if I sit still enough, the other kids will lose interest in me.
The teacher must have noticed, because he yelled out, snapping, "Hello? Eyes up here, everyone!" Once he felt enough people were paying attention to him, he went on, "Then to continue where we left off last week, today I have a PowerPoint presentation to show you all examples of how a person's subconscious creates a dream. Now, no one knows their full purpose, so searching for theories of as to why we dream has always been a popular topic of the psychological world. Anyone, lights please. Thank you. According to Domhoff, ''meaning' has to do with...'"
The teacher's lecture becomes a mere background noise as I finally look up a little to survey the surroundings around me. In the darkroom, I can barely make out the outlined shades of everyone, but one stands out. It's that boy with shiny silver hair who helped me up when I tripped in the courtyard this morning. Our eyes meet for a second when he turns around, but I quickly focus my eyes on the student behind him, to avoid an awkward silent conversation.
Vaguely, I hear the teacher say class is over ten minutes earlier, and the lights came back on. Everyone started talking, offering to trade seats and walking around, trying to get to their friends. Me, I just sat where I was assigned to.
"Hey."
I turn around, and am greeted by the sight of a smiling Ryou, sitting at the desk behind me.
"Oh... Um, hey," I kind of have no idea what to say.
"You're new here?" I nod at the question. He should already know. "Right. So..." He folds his hands on the table and lay his chin on top, staring up at me.
"What's your next class?" Ryou queried, and I, not expecting that question, stare at him for a few seconds, processing what he had just said.
"Oh! Uh, hold on," I dig in my folder to find my class schedule. "Here it is, it's..." Before I can check, the wrinkled paper is out of my hands, and under Ryou's nose.
"Ah! You have all my classes! Well, except Art and English. I'll walk you to the other four; not counting this one, that is. We're already here. You don't really know where the classes really are, huh?"
I can't really tell if he talks just a little too much, or if I just talk a lot less. Probably the latter. I haven't really had a conversation quite like this is in a few weeks.
"No, I don't, thank you," I give in, because I do need a little help around the school. Maybe he wouldn't be so bad, maybe he can be my first friend here. I give him a somewhat genuine smile, to which he breaks out in a wide grin; happy that he could break my cold demeanor from the morning.
The bell rings, and we both pick up our backpacks to leave Psychology 4-A.
...
Walking down the crowded hallway, I suddenly get the urge to ask Ryou a question.
"Say, Ryou... what gave you the motive to come up and talk to me like that? Not many people would ever approach the new kid."
He gives me a smile. "Exactly. When I first came here to this school- a few weeks after the first semester started this year, by the way- nobody really... talked to me, or anything. There were a few girls who took an immediate liking in me, but I pushed them all away. Uhh, I was alone for a while," he shrugged. "It didn't really bother me. I've always been alone."
He continued, "I made some friends after a few weeks, but no one to really hang out with, or tell secrets to each other..."
"So I wanted to help you, because no one was here to help me," Ryou scratched the back of his head, as if embarrassed. "You could say I didn't want anyone else to be lonely like I was."
"Oh, wow... Ryou, thank you," I tell him, casting an admiring look. "Not many people would have done that; they'd usually treat people the way they were treated. But Ryou... thank you."
He blushes at my words. "It wasn't entirely selfless, I wanted a friend, too, and I thought you would be a good friend for me. You seemed just as lonely and sad as I was," He glances at me. "Right?"
I feel the corners of my mouth lift a little bit.
"Right."
"Tell me sometime?"
"...Yeah, sometime."
...
Me and Ryou-...Ryou and I-...We decided to go up to the rooftop for lunch, which is why we are seated on the cement floor of the roof, lunch trays on our laps.
"I always come here during lunch," Ryou says, leaning his head against the wired fence. "All quiet and peaceful. It's nice."
"It is."
"But the school food is gross, which just ruins everything," he complains, making a face and poking at his burnt pizza.
I laugh out loud at his antics. "It does."
...
He and I had finished what we could from our bland tasting cafeteria food and now are heading toward the cafeteria to throw our left overs away.
Ryou opens one side of the double doors and leads me to the trash can closest to us.
But then I see my hair somewhere among the crowds far away from us.
"Hey, is there a mirror in this cafeteria?"
He throws me a confused look, answering, "No, why?"
"Oh, nothing."
Huh.
Maybe I'm narcissistic?
...
I had no trouble finding my last two classes, which I don't have with Ryou, after the lunch break, because Ryou told me where to go.
I sit at a random desk no one was sitting in, and drift off into my thoughts.
Yay, art. No sarcasm. Really.
I always used to think that drawing and painting was the best way to express feelings. If you were sad, you'd draw rain pouring down on an elderly man sitting on a park bench, with his dog. If you were angry, you can go out to the balcony and throw some paintballs at your canvas. If you're happy, draw yourself running around in a field of marigolds and hyacinths with little bunny's and butterflies following you.
Of course, I know that's not true, now. No matter how many drenched old men on a bench you draw, your eyes will still be filled with tears. Even when your canvas rips from the force of all the paintballs you had thrown, you'll still want to tear off a stranger's head and throw it at small children. And if your happy, well... then you can go fuc-
"Yuugi? Is that you?"
I turn my head around to the source of the voice.
"Oh, Anzu!" Another genuine smile flutters to my lips, happiness radiating my face. Today is a record.
Anzu is a friend I had in elementary school, from when I had lived in Domino before. I never really expected to see her here. She was one of the things I had missed.
Her cerulean eyes were colored with surprise, but changed to joy once she realized I was actually there.
"I never thought you'd come back here again!" Yeah, me neither. "Jesus, Yuugi! Are you here to stay? We have so much to catch up on!" Maybe she forgot that I'm not a girl, for a minute?
"You cut your hair," I state, eyeing her neck length brown hair.
"Oh, yeah! It was getting way too long and it was such a bother to fix it every morning! You know, this hair cut was, like, forty dollars- oh, here comes the teacher! Listen, lets meet at the school gate! You're at your grandpa's shop again, right? I'll walk you home! 'Kay, see ya!" And she's gone before I can say anything.
I smile to myself. Girls.
...
And, as I'm walking to the game shop after school, with Ryou and Anzu, I think, maybe, being here for a while is going to be a little better than I had originally expected.
...
Homemade Italian Spaghetti for dinner. Yum.
"How was school, Yuugi?" Asks Grandfather cautiously.
I give a light shrug. "Fine. I made a friend. And I met Anzu again."
He seemed to loosen up a bit. "Oh, Anzu? And who is this other friend? You should invite them over sometime."
"...Yeah. Sometime," I promise for the second time today.
Well, whether or not I keep it, is my decision.
...
"Daddy? Where did Mommy say she was going to go? How come she's not gonna come back?"
"What? What did your mother say to you, Yuugi?"
"She said she's going somewhere far away, but it's okay because she's going to call and send us letters and-"
"Yuugi, stay here, I'm going outside." Where is Daddy going? It's raining. He'll get sick.
"Daddy?"
...
To Be Continued...
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God, this chapter sucked! Well, the beginning was, anyway.
Can somebody guess where I got Yuugi's introduction to the class?
And somebody, PLEASE give me advice on writing a story in this kind of style! I've never done it before! HELP ME! D:
Ahem, anyway. As always, review, please!