Carlitos ate her lunch silently while she looked over some of the classwork her students turned in, reading their answers and responses to the questions. So far it's only been ten minutes into an otherwise thirty minute lunch period. Carlitos had made her way to her desk in the teacher's lounge. Carlitos had learned during the meeting new teachers had to attend, that students stay in one classroom for subjects such as science, math, reading, writing, and things of that sort while the teachers were the ones to actually interchange between classrooms. It was only for electives that students left their classes to attend others.

Carlitos had a feeling that because of how the teachers did not have a steady place to work outside of the classroom, they placed desks in the teachers lounge. Then again, she could be wrong, but she felt that was the reason.

"On your lunch break?"

"Yeah," Carlitos responded placing her arm on the top of the swivel chair and twisting around to see Noriko standing right behind her with her lunch.

"How is your first day going so far?" Noriko asked, taking a couple of steps so that she was beside Carlitos.

"So far so good," Carlitos responded, noticing how awkward Noriko was standing. "Don't be a stranger, pull up a chair and sit down."

Carlitos scooted over a little bit to give Noriko room to sit beside her. She watched as Noriko took a chair from another unoccupied desk and pushed it over to her. She sat down and set her lunch on the desk.

"Thank you," Noriko finally said once she was settled. Carlitos waved her hand, as if dismissing it.

"No need to thank me."

"So Spanish, huh? I have to say, in the year that I've been working here, I've heard kids say they've wanted to learn German, French, English, and even Chinese and a few more, but I rarely hear Spanish." Noriko spoke as she opened her bento box.

"Yeah, well I'm sure not many here aspire to go to Mexico, Spain probably, but not Mexico." Carlitos responded, tapping her pen against the desk as she started scanning another page.

"Well, to tell the truth, the thought has never crossed my mind," Noriko said, putting her chopstick down and covering her mouth as she ate. "Spain I would love to go to."

"It's beautiful," Carlitos replied. "I haven't been to any of the big cities, just the smaller towns."

"I see. So I've been wondering, is there any difference between Spanish from Mexico and Spanish from Spain?"

"Besides the slang, not much in my opinion. People from the two countries can converse, but they might find themselves rewording or finding alternate ways to say or explain things. Some words and phrases from Mexico can mean completely different things in Spain and vice versa."

"Oh, okay. So can you speak both?"

"Yeah, I can," Carlitos said, flipping through another students page.

Noriko became silent and Carlitos sense a bit of awkwardness radiating from her, as though she wanted to talk but had no idea how to proceed. Carlitos took off her reading glasses and placed them on her shirt while she put her papers away and pulled her lunch closer to her.

"So how has your day been?" Carlitos asked.

Noriko set down her chopsticks and swallowed her food before responding. "Not too bad."

"I take it wasn't perfect."

"Never is," Noriko whispered, looking around making sure no one heard her.

Carlitos raised her eyebrow in question. "May I ask why?"

"When you constantly have your boss breathing down your neck and your coworkers riding your ass," Noriko trailed off, eating some of her food before continuing. "It irritates you. I can't even piss in peace."

Carlitos noticed the change in Noriko's demeanor, and her language, and the fact that she was now whispering.

"That bad?" Carlitos asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"You're new," Noriko whispered. "Most new people here think they just check up on you to see how you're doing. Then they realize that it's like this twenty-four seven."

"I see."

"Most of the people who work at and attend this school are well off. They're nice but at the same time pretty douchey. A lot of the students here, especially the female population are just..." Noriko trailed off and shook her head, still whispering. "They're a bunch of stuck of brats."

Carlitos took a bite from her lunch and side-eyed her, wondering why exactly she was sharing this information with her. Considering that fact that she barely even knew here, she didn't know if Carlitos was going to go to tell someone or not, which she won't but still.

"You must have a lot of confidence in me to share this kind of information," Carlitos responded lowly, just barely audible enough for Noriko to hear her.

"You don't seem like a lot of the people here, I knew that from when I met you earlier. I doubt you'll tell on me."

Carlitos laughed lightly. "You can you tell?"

"You don't talk or act like the people here. You seem more relaxed and...laid back, more easy going."

"I see..." Carlitos trailed off. "I take it you didn't grow up rich?"

"Quite the opposite," Noriko said, her voice raised back to a normal octave. "I grew up so broke that even the r..."

Noriko paused as a nearby teacher turned to look at her, Carlitos could tell that he was eavesdropping on the conversation. After the guy realized that both girls were staring at him, he turned around and resumed what he was doing. Carlitos and Noriko shared a look.

"Well, I'm going to get back to work before my big mouth gets me in any more trouble," Noriko said, her voice low while doing so.

"I will do the same," Carlitos responded gathering her things before pulling her bags on her shoulder.

"Alright then," Noriko started. "I'll see you around."

Carlitos nodded in response and silently trailed Noriko out of the lounge and made her way back to her classroom. The halls were semi-crowded with kids hanging out with each other on their lunch break. In fact, the chatter from these kids were loud enough to almost drown out the sound of Carlitos' heels.

Once back in the classroom, Carlitos made her way to her desk and began to prepare for the next class to come through the door. So far, the day was alright, nothing major, Carlitos really had nothing to complain about except the few kids in some of her classes who wanted to be funny but were in fact disruptive. Carlitos leaned back in her chair and pulled her phone out and began to respond to the unread text message from Claude.


The sounds of Carlitos' heels rang loudly through the deserted halls of the school. It has been an hour since class ended and most of the kids were either attending after school clubs or on a sports team. Either way, it left her classroom eerily quite. Carlitos rounded a corner and nearly ran into the red headed Shuichi Minamino, if it wasn't for her taking a quick step back, she would have.

"That was a close one wasn't it?" Carlitos said light-heartedly.

"Indeed it was," Shuichi responded, a friendly smile on his face. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Carlitos responded.

Carlitos smiled, her eyes thoroughly scanning the red headed boy. She couldn't shake this odd feeling she felt when he was around, she knew something was off about him but she couldn't place her finger on it. Carlitos would say that she doesn't care to find out, and that it was just another one of her students, but in actuality she does care, she wants to find out. This boy had her interest piqued and she was a rather nosey person. Nothing slips past her.

"I don't recall any extracurricular activities being hosted in this hall," Carlitos started, pausing to give the boy leeway to respond.

"I am meeting with one of my teachers," Shuichi said, his voice soft and sweet.

"I see." Carlitos moved to the side allowing him space to walk past her. "I won't keep you then."

"Nos vemos manana, Profesora Escutia," Shuichi said as he walked past.

"Adios," Carlitos responded, a smirk forming on her lips. Carlitos walked away, thinking about Shuichi the whole walk from her classroom to her car.


"She's back!" Claude cheered unenthusiastically from the couch as Carlitos walked through the door.

"I'm back," Carlitos cheered unenthusiastically as well as she closed the door behind her. "Did you miss me?"

"Totally," Claude responded, flipping through the TV channels. "How was your day?"

Carlitos walked past Claude and into her room, placing her bags next to her bed as she kicked her heels off and placed them in her closet before stripping out of her clothes and changing into a big t-shirt, some basketball shorts, and a pair of socks.

"It was alright," Carlitos said as she walked out of her room and into the living room. "For the most part it was boring."

"Ah, so not to bad?" Claude asked, looking up at her.

"No. Do you have cigarettes rolled?" Carlitos asked, looking down at Claude.

"On the plate," Claude responded, standing up from her seat on the couch and walking over to the counter to get the cigarettes as Carlitos went on the balcony.

Carlitos sat down in the seat next to the table holding the ashtray and took her cigarette from Claude as she walked out. Carlitos lit her cigarette and inhaled.

"Did you even smoke the cigarettes I rolled for you?" Claude asked as she lit her own cigarette and leaned against the balcony.

"Oh shit," Carlitos said, smoking coming out of her mouth with each word she said. "I forgot I even had them."

"Well, now you got some for tomorrow," Claude said.

"Yeah."

Carlitos looked around the balcony before her eyes settled on the bong placed underneath the the small, plastic table. She looked up and locked gazes with Claude before pointing at the bong with the two fingers holding her cigarette.

"Did you smoke?"

"Yep," Claude smiled.

"We're out of weed," Carlitos said.

"No we're not," Claude pulled out a small clear, plastic bag with three blunts inside and tossed it at Carlitos.

Carlitos caught the bag and examined it before placing it on the table beside her and looking back up at Claude with a questioning gaze.

"I got it from some kid I was smoking with at the park."

"Well," Carlitos said. "Lets break it up and smoke a bowl."

"Get it started, I'll go roll another cigarette," Claude said as she put her out in the ashtray and went in.

Carlitos put her own cigarette out and opened the clear bag with the blunts and pulled one out before she turned her chair to face the table. Pushing the ashtray to the edge of the small table, she placed the clear bag down next to it and proceeded to tear the wrap off of the blunt. Carlitos grabbed the bowl from the bong and loaded the weed in it, packing it lightly before putting the bowl back into the bong and picked it up, placing her mouth over the opening and lighting the contents in the bowl.

Carlitos smoked the whole bowl in one hit and set the bong down, blowing out the smoke and coughing as Claude walked through the door. Carlitos proceeded to break down the other two blunts and packed Claude a bowl before handing the bong to her, getting her cigarette from her in the process. Carlitos lit her cigarette and watched as Claude lit the weed and took a hit, clearing just about the whole bowl. Claude lit her lighter and sucked the rest through.

Carlitos took another drag from her cigarette and watched as Claude set the bong back underneath the plastic table and lit her own cigarette, taking a huge drag off of it.

"How do you feel?" Claude asked, turning her head to look below their balcony and at the street.

"I feel..." Carlitos paused for a moment, thinking. "Not to bad. The weed isn't the best though."

"No, definitely not. It's just something to skate by," Claude responded.

"Yeah," Carlitos took a couple more drags off of her cigarette and put it out. "I am going to go play the video game."

Carlitos walked up to the sliding glass door and opened it, walking through and turning around.

"You," Carlitos pointed at Claude. "Are going to wash all of your dishes and clean up your mess in the living room."

Claude nodded and Carlitos shut the door behind her and made her way over to the couch and sat down, grabbing the Xbox controller from the coffee table in the process and turning it on. Claude came in not to long after and cleaned up her mess before sitting down on the couch next to Carlitos, laying her head back to stare at the ceiling.

"What are you playing?"

Carlitos turned her head to face Claude and moved her left arm to that it was rest right behind her head. "Halo probably."

Claude nodded and grabbed the spare controller from the coffee table and turned it on.

"Well then let's play," Claude said.

Carlitos nodded. "Alright."