Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Chapter 3

Friends

The bell rang to signal the end of first period and the start of second. Jaden grabbed his timetable out of his pocket, folded it out and looked at what it said. Second period was French. He groaned inwardly; he really hated that subject. French was the subject that he had always fallen asleep in. How many detentions had he had at his old school thanks to the boredom he felt in that subject?

Jaden found a few other people complaining about how boring French was, and hastily pocketed his timetable once again and followed after them. He didn't say anything, too busy taking in the route, but he did follow them to the French rooms. From the French flags and pieces of work written in the foreign language, Jaden knew be was in the right place.

He followed the rest of the students into the classroom with the same number as was on his timetable - room B11 - and walked up to the front desk, fidgeting a little. He was going to have to do this for every single subject? Damn it.

The teacher sitting at the desk - a short, fat man with grey hair and a thin moustache - looked up and greeted him with an almost smug smile.

"Bonjour, my new student!" he said. "I am Professor Bonaparte, head of the French department and of French birth."

"Eh … hi, Bonaparte."

The teacher didn't even appear to have noticed that he had spoken.

"I trust you are going to behave well in my class?"

Jaden nodded, already thinking that he was going to fall asleep.

"Very well, then. You may take a seat … hmm," the short man said, scanning the classroom as he searched for an available seat for the new student. He located an available chair and pointed to it. "Sit there. Next to Syrus Truesdale."

At the mention of his name, a short bluenette looked up. When he saw the new student and Bonaparte pointing at him, he gulped. He didn't know they were getting a new student in the class, and one that was going to be sitting next to him. The brunette walking over to his desk didn't seem snobby or anything, but he didn't exactly seem like the person who would hang out with someone like Syrus.

Jaden sat next to the short bluenette where he had been told to sit. The shorter student smiled nervously at him but didn't say anything.

Jaden was about to greet the boy, but Bonaparte was suddenly in the middle of the room and speaking in French. Jaden sat with a half-bored, half-confused look on his face, not understanding a word of it.

He looked over at the person he sat beside and rolled his eyes, and the smaller boy smiled at him, shyly but friendly.

After a few minutes of speaking in two languages, one that Jaden understood and one that he didn't, Professor Bonaparte handed out some sheets with questions on them, and pieces of lined paper for the students to write the answers on. He then barked at them that they had twenty minutes to complete the exercise, and sat at his desk, grading some papers.

Jaden sat quietly for a moment, but soon he heard the vague whispers from around the class. In seemed that the teacher was so busy grading papers that he wasn't even noticing the quiet talking.

Jaden leaned on his elbow and grinned at the bluenette beside him.

"So what's your name?"

"I'm Syrus. What's yours?" the shorter boy said.

"Jaden Yuki" the brunette said. "So what's the deal with him?"

Syrus glanced over to the person, the teacher, that Jaden had indicated.

"What's he doing? Grading papers?"

"Yeah, probably. That's all he ever does, and he wonders why we don't get things right. Nobody understands French" Syrus muttered. "So, you're new here. Where was your old school?"

"Back at my old place" Jaden shrugged. "My family just moved here."

"Where are you living?"

Jaden told him the name of the street and Syrus nodded.

"Nice area" the short boy complimented.

"Yeah" the brunette said. "Hey, you got the answer to question one?"

"One? Jaden, I'm on question eight!"

"What? Damn it, I can't concentrate in here" Jaden groaned.

"Don't worry, Jaden. Nobody can. I just guessed all the answers" Syrus laughed, feeling more comfortable around this new student than he did with most of the other people in the class. "You can copy off me if you want."

"Really? Thanks, Sy!" Jaden grinned.

Syrus smiled back, a light blush on his cheeks. It was nice to have somebody so friendly to talk to. Syrus had really only one good friend in the school, and that was a boy in the year below him, so they weren't in the same classes.

Jaden and Syrus passed the rest of the French class talking quietly and making guesses to the questions when they remembered that that was what they were supposed to be doing.

After about half an hour, the short teacher collected in the papers, claiming he would grade them during the break and hand them back when the class next came into his class. Most people rolled their eyes, or similar reactions.

Bonaparte spent the last part of the class asking questions out loud - in French, of course - and demanding answers from randomly selected students. Very few knew the answers, and he got cranky. When the bell rang to signal the end of the class and the start of a fifteen minute break period, the students were relieved to be able to get out of the classroom.

Now, Jaden faced a slight dilemma. He had always hung out with Aster and his other friends during the break period at his old school. Who was he going to hang out with here?

Luckily for Jaden, he didn't have to worry about it.

"Hey, Jaden?"

"Hmm?" he asked, knocked out of his thoughts by the voice of the short bluenette.

"You want to come sit with me?" Syrus asked, his voice a little shaky. "I don't know if you know anyone here yet, so I thought …"

"Totally, Sy. So where do you usually hang?"

Syrus just grinned and led Jaden through various corridors - succeeding in making Jaden lose his path back to French - and eventually they ended up in what appeared to be the canteen.

The room was large and painted a very pale yellow. The floor was linoleum that looked almost like wood, and there were white tables scattered around the room, in no particular order but somehow managing to still look neat. Around each table were eight chairs, although most tables had only three or four people sat at them. Then again, a few others had fifteen people crowded around them.

Syrus led Jaden to a table at the back where a tanned boy wearing a yellow vest - with torn sleeves - was already sat. Syrus pulled Jaden over and the two sat down, Syrus in between Jaden and the other, black haired boy.

"You're late, soldier" the mystery boy said.

"Aw, shut up" Syrus groaned. "Hasselberry, this is Jaden."

Jaden grinned and said hello to the other kid. Hasselberry looked around their age, maybe a year younger.

"Jaden, this is my best pal Hasselberry. He's in the year under us."

"At ease, soldiers" Hasselberry said. He pointed to Jaden. "You! Name and location!"

"And he thinks he's in the army" Syrus whispered to the rather confused brunette. "Don't worry about it, you'll get used to it."

Jaden shrugged and smiled at Hasselberry.

"Wow, bro. You seriously talk like that all the time?"

Hasselberry looked briefly stunned. Then he grinned at Jaden.

"You know, son, nobody's ever had the guts to ask me that" he said, smiling broadly. "I think you'll fit in just fine round here. Sarge!"

He saluted Jaden, and Jaden looked at him, confused again. But he smiled.

Syrus then launched into a conversation about his next class that bored him, as he put it, to tears. He asked Jaden what class he was in, and the brunette shrugged and pulled out his timetable. He scanned it quickly and folded it back into an untidy square and shoved it back into his pocket.

"Music then History" he said.

Syrus laughed and wished him luck, saying that he didn't take those classes.

Jaden talked with Syrus and Hasselberry until the bell was due to ring in two minutes, and he said that he had better try and find his way to music.

His two new friends looked at him anxiously.

"You don't know your way, Jaden?"

"Nah" the brunette shrugged. "But I'll find it."

"Hasselberry, where's Jim?" Syrus said.

Jaden looked confused again. Who was Jim? He watched as Hasselberry and Syrus got up and began walking off down a corridor, the taller of the two signalling for Jaden to follow them, which he did.

They walked to the end of the corridor - Jaden mentally trying to commit the route to the canteen to memory - and then stopped in front of a tall boy with black hair in two long spikes. He had a bandage over one eye, and his showing eye was a soft teal colour. He smiled at Hasselberry pleasantly and nodded to the other two.

"Hey, Jim" Hasselberry greeted. "I need a favour."

Jaden stood a little awkwardly while Hasselberry had a conversation with the two, and then the tallest of the group turned to him.

"So, then, mate, what's your name?" he asked, in a friendly way.

"Jaden Yuki" the brunette said.

"So I hear you take music? You can walk up with Shirley and me" Jim said.

"Okay" Jaden agreed. "But, who's Shirley?"

With a slight chuckle, Jim turned around and Jaden noticed the crocodile on Jim's back - how he had missed it before he didn't know.

Jaden jumped a little and then grinned.

"Wow, she's amazing!" he grinned.

"Thanks, mate. Shirley's my best girl" Jim said.

The bell rang then, and Hasselberry called goodbye and started running down an adjacent hallway. Syrus turned to Jaden.

"Meet us at the same table at lunch, Jay" he said. "It's where we always sit. You're a friend, now, right?"

"You know it" Jaden said, giving Syrus the thumbs up.

Syrus grinned and then took off down another corridor.

Jaden looked up at Jim, who smiled at him.

"Music's this way" Jim said, leading him along two corridors and up a flight of stairs. They walked to the very end of a corridor and into the room at the end.

Jaden prepared himself to have to talk to the teacher, but instead he found that Jim led him over to the desk at the front - at which a white haired, plump woman was seated. She smiled at the two boys.

"You must be Jaden Yuki" she said with a smile.

"Yeah" Jaden said, a little confused.

"Atticus already said that you'd be in this class" the teacher continued, and Jaden remembered the clumsy brunette from chemistry. How had he known which classes Jaden was taking? Oh well, he'd find out later.

"Anyway. My name is Miss Burns" the teacher said. "You can take a seat next to Atticus at the back and then fill out this form" she continued, handing a piece of paper to the brunette. "It just lets me know what you can do, music-wise. For example, Atticus is singing, and Jim does guitar."

Jim grinned at Jaden as the brunette raised his eyebrow quizzically at him.

"You play guitar? That's so cool. Can you teach me?" Jaden asked, and Jim nodded.

"Hey, Miss Burns?" Jim said. "How about you let me take care of Jaden? I'll see to it that he gets on okay."

"Well, if that's okay with you two" the woman said.

"You bet" Jaden grinned.

"Very well, then. We're beginning the class with a listening exercise. Jaden, you take a seat next to … Atticus?"

Atticus grinned mischievously and waved to Jaden, who grinned back at him.

Jim, it turned out, was sitting at a nearby desk, and he agreed to talk to Jaden later, while Jaden sat down next to Atticus.

The listening exercise began, and Atticus and Jaden were told off several times for talking through it. Atticus, it turned out, was great company, albeit he had a bit of a big ego and was quite confident. Then again, Jaden was naturally confident, too.

So he already had friends in most all his classes, and it seemed he would be hanging out with Syrus and Hasselberry out of class.

Jaden had a sudden feeling that he was going to actually like this new school.


Please R&R