One of the perks of being late to your first day of school is that when you stride into the classroom, filled with all your new curious classmates, in that moment they get the image that you're the cool guy who's always stylishly late to places permanently engraved into their skulls.
Highschoolers were judgey as hell, a lot of the time their first impression of you becomes their all-around point of view on your personality, that's why you always gotta try and be smooth, or at least be a good representation of yourself during first impressions. Otherwise, you're stuck in a false identity, and if you're easily influenced, you actually do, over time, become that representation.
If highschool was good for one thing, it was good for sucking out all your personality.
But that was only if you cared what others thought of you. Me? Well, after being in school, after school, after school, you start to lose the fuck you once gave.
It'd practically been pulverized into my brain that it's the worst thing I could worry about.
And I wasn't fucking brainwashed or any of that shit. It was the truth.
I was a Hunter, and that meant sacrificing things like that.
Friends, any kind of relationship.
It wasn't even really a good idea to be tight with other Hunters. And that reason being, our deaths were all inevitable.
Okay, okay, I know all death is fucking inevitable.
But ours were… among some of the more inevitable ones.
When news spread around the hunting community claiming that yet, another Hunter was dead, no one was shocked, no one even blinked an eye, because that was just how it was.
From the age of 13 years old, I'd known that I was going to die, and not pleasantly. I knew that if I was lucky, I'd make it my thirties, but even that was less than likely, most of us died young, and it made sense, seeing as we spent our lives throwing ourselves into deadly situations.
I knew that I'd never be able to get out. I knew I'd never be able to settle down. I knew that even making friends was a luxury I couldn't afford. Once a person became my friend, it either meant I'd have to break away from them, which would most likely sting, or they'd get involved.
That's all there was to it.
I stumbled down the hallway of the school, struggling to find the classroom. And seeing as the hallways were empty I was on my own.
This was such a repeat of every other school I'd ever been to, that for half a second, I forgot why I was there in the first place. For a brief second in the moment, I actually believed I was normal. I pictured myself as just another awkward kid, not being able to find his classroom on the first day of school.
It all came crashing down on me when I realized, that I wasn't normal, and I wasn't even there to learn.
All right, no more secrets.
Dirk had spotted out this gig, it was spur of the moment, until about two days ago, I had been planning to follow Dirk and Rose on the hunt that the two of them were doing.
I was pretty shady on the details, basically all I knew was that some shit went down a couple years back, some people got hurt, some people died, blah, blah, blah. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I figured I'd probably just have to get a couple of names out of someone, and then go salt and burn a couple of bodies.
It probably wouldn't take more than a day.
I finally found the door to my first class. I took a deep breath.
Stay cool, Strider. You're cool. You're motherfucking fly, you can do this.
With that, I opened the door, and hesitantly walked into the room.
The teacher, who was a pretty young chick, probably in her late-ish twenties, stopped writing whatever it was she was writing on the chalk board, and turned to me.
I felt what felt like a million pairs of eyes on me at that time.
"Oh! You must be, uh…" The teacher started, then trailed off, looking down at a piece of paper.
"Dave? Dave Strider?"
I gave a solemn nod, before tilting my shades down, and giving the teacher a subtle, or more likely, not subtle at all, wink. (I liked to think I was subtlety cool as fuck).
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
The classroom erupted in laughter, and the teacher looked embarrassed.
"You can take a seat, David." She said, clearing her throat, using my full name, as if trying to make a point that she was being serious.
I didn't protest, and I made my way down the rows, taking one of the few empty seats.
A guy rolled his eyes, probably annoyed by my attitude, and a group of girls whispered to each other, giggling quietly, and glancing over at me, with a small bit of hesitance.
I looked their way, and nodded a little, acknowledging them.
They all quickly turned away, giggling, and whispering even more.
"All right, class, settle down—"
And that's when I tuned her out.
Like I'd said, a billion times already, I wasn't there to learn.
It was once all the students settled down, listening to the teacher's lecture that I began scanning the room, going through my usual new-school-routine.
My routine being, looking around the room, studying the kids in it. Putting a label on them.
Basically, de-humanizing them.
It was a trick I'd been using since I was a kid.
Whenever I went to a new school, I took a look at a person, and labeled them.
Jock, giggle girl, dweeb, etc.
If I let myself believe that everyone was the same, then I could avoid becoming attached.
I looked to the group of girls who had obviously been whispering and giggling about me.
Popular girls, no doubt.
I looked to the guy who had rolled his eyes at me.
Blue button up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, not looking extremely intelligent, nor extremely stupid.
Clean-cut.
Just an all-around nice-guy. The kind of guy who despised guys like me, they despised the cool-type, or the badass type because those types always got the girls, while they, themselves were overlooked.
(ex: That group of girls had begun giggling and talking about me the moment I'd entered the room, while, he had been there for god knows how long, and they had no doubt written him off as a potential boyfriend, or even a friend, probably.)
The problem with this type of guy was, they wanted to be noticed desperately, but by all the wrong types of girls. This type of guy always went for the popular girls, the typical cheerleaders, and didn't notice when any other girl took notice of him.
They thrived so much for the attention of the popular girls, and didn't even let it cross their minds that maybe they wouldn't even be a good match.
What would a guy like that have in common with a fucking cheerleader? Exactly. Nothing.
While they were daydreaming about cheerleaders, there was the class book worm, crushing the hell over that very same guy, and they'd never know that she felt that way, because this type of guy always had his goddamn head up his ass. Even though, in reality, this girl would be a much better match for him than any cheerleader.
I went around the room labeling.
Hipster, goody-two-shoes, shy girl, dweeb, nerd, trying-too-hard, douchebag, and then my eyes stopped on a particular face.
There, a few seats away from me, sat a girl, with long, messy black hair, and big round glasses. She wore a long skirt, and a long sleeved shirt with some type of weird atom symbol on it.
She licked her lips every few seconds, as it appeared to be a method of concentration, as she jotted down everything the teacher was saying, taking notes.
Her eyes were a bright green color, and there was something about them.
I didn't realize how long I'd be looking at her, I only noticed when she finally glanced back at me, obviously knowing that I'd been staring.
I quickly looked away, and stared at my empty notebook.
Fuck.
Had she turned because she'd seen me looking? Did she just so happen to glance over for no reason? Had she seen me?
Goddammit.
I felt like a fucking idiot, I knew I was being overly dramatic, because this had happened before. I'd been caught in the act of staring, and labeling before, but I'd never felt this dumb about it.
I glanced over my shoulder, and saw she was smiling, and shaking her head a little.
I noticed in that moment, that she had a slight overbite, but it wasn't ugly. It almost looked quirky, or dare I say, cute on her.
Realizing that if she caught me looking again, she'd probably write me off as a total creep, I turned back, and just stared at my notebook, taking out my pencil, and doodling, pretending to take notes.
I hadn't labeled her yet.
Nerd?
No, that felt wrong.
Dork?
No, too soon to tell.
Dweeb.
That must have been it, she was a dweeb.
Yup.
For the rest of that class, I actually found myself taking goddamn notes, in an attempt to distract myself.
. . . .
I'd forgotten how fucking loud cafeterias were.
There were like 60 billion conversations going on in that one room, or that's what it felt like, and it was fucking insane.
I was used to talking to just two other people.
Dirk and Rose, with the slight noise of my brother playing one of his mix CDs.
There was like 60 billion conversations going on, and I wasn't part of even one of them. I was just standing in line with an empty tray waiting to get the school lunch, feeling a huge amount of culture shock.
I knew this wasn't a different culture, it was just another dumbass, all-American school. But it felt like a whole other culture to me.
I finally stepped out of line, once I got the food, which didn't look all that fucking appetizing to be honest, but I felt hungry enough to eat it.
This place felt so goddamn crowded that I hadn't even really found an empty table yet.
"Dave! Come sit with us!"
I was startled when that same group of popular girls from my first class came up behind me, one of them entangling her arm with mine.
Whoa, I'd apparently made a very good first impression.
These chicks clearly dug me, and I had no interest in them whatsoever, but I had to get information out of someone to find out what sort of thing I was dealing with here, and they were inviting me, so what was the harm?
I followed them to their table, and set down my tray where a couple of other girls were sitting, and a couple of jocks.
I'd somehow weaseled my way over to the popular kid's table on my first day.
"Guys, this is Dave!" One of the girls announced.
"Me and Lindsay share a few classes with him, he's new."
"I saw him earlier in the hallway." A girl announced, as she played with her hair, which was clearly "I'm into you" body language.
I came to the realization that I had just been standing there like a douchebag this whole time, feeling too awkward to sit down.
Upon realizing that, I was about to sit down, when I heard the jumbling of trays behind me, I heard a lunch tray hit the ground, and I heard the suppressed scream of a female, and just by instinct, because I'd been hunting for what felt like forever, I swung around, threw myself forward, and like a smooth motherfucker caught the girl, who had tripped in my arms, like I was fucking Spiderman, or some shit.
The popular girls all "oohed and awed".
It took me a moment to look down at said girl, and instantly I became startled when I met the green eyes of the same girl that had caught me staring in class.
My eyes widened behind my shades, and I unfroze, quickly setting her on her feet, finding that, for the first time in a long time, I was flustered.
And I had no reason to be, I wasn't the one who had tripped.
"Whoa!" She stared at me with wide, excited eyes.
"That was… like, really smooth!"
She was grinning a big grin, not seeming the least bit embarrassed that she had tripped, this spoke to me saying that it was a normal occurrence.
"Who are you, Peter Parker?"
Oh sweet Jesus, this girl was amazing.
No.
She was a dweeb. Typical dweeb.
Or that's what I was trying to convince myself.
"Nah, I'm not Parker. I'm not a hero like him, just good reflexes, that's all." I informed.
She still had a big smile on her face, her green eyes shining, as she laughed softly.
"You're cooler than Peter, anyway." She retorted.
I wanted to come back at her, and say something cool, but I was drawn at blank for the first time in a long time. She saved me from saying anything stupid though, seeing as before I could say another word, she waved very slightly.
"See ya around, cool kid." She said, and then she got lost in the crowd.
There was silence at the popular kid's table after I sat down, but it didn't take long for one of the girls to chip in, asking me questions excitedly.
"That was, like, amazing, Dave! How'd you learn to do that?"
I shrugged.
"Years of practice, I suppose."
A/N: I actually meant to post this earlier in the week, but, I got distracted this week! Thursday is my update day anyway, so yeah, expect an update every Thursday, though, I might try to post an extra chapter earlier. Thank you to everyone who has read so far! I hope you're beginning to get a grasp of what this story is going to be about. Though, I suppose the full plot hasn't been revealed yet, so it might be hard to tell. I'll just say it now, Jade and Dave are the only Homestuck characters in this school. Sadly, there will be no appearances of any other characters, other than the Striders, and Jade. I'm just trying to stay focused on the plot. Buuut, I hope you all enjoyed this, follow or review if you can because that would really help me out, and yeah! See you all soon!
