A/N: Hell week is hell...
Also, here's a list of people that made a cameo in this chapter. (Also added in the nationalities that I've chosen for them just for everyone to see just how much of an international bunch these guys are.):
Hydron - Greek
Chris and Soon - British
Klaus - German
04. Uncivilized Discourse
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"Owwwwwwwwww… My handsome face."
"I told you I'd hit you if you didn't wake up so get over yourself and quit your whining already."
"How'd you get away with that anyway? My mom was home!"
"Your mom likes me enough to let me do that, go figure."
So began their day's banter inside a rather crowded school bus. On the outside it was a faded stereotypical yellow colored vehicle full of dents, wheels were caked with mud, and the windows were either cracked or drawn and written on with permanent markers.
The inside was even worse.
Noise was aplenty and it reeked of teenage body odor. Broken chairs and cushions ripped open to reveal their fluffy white entrails. The floor was painted by a cocktail of dirt, cola, fruit juice, vomit, and a few unmentionable body fluids. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages.
All in all the bus was a nasty piece of work. So nasty that Shun didn't even want his shoes touching the floor for more than a second. He grimaced just as the telltale sound of an upset stomach hit his ears, followed by the stench of stomach acids and beer. Dan sat next to him, holding an icepack against a particularly red spot on his cheek, a result of this morning's wake-up call, and began to whine about physical abuse and the like.
But Shun couldn't care any less for the well-being of his friend's face; he was too peeved at today's choice of transportation that he just settled for looking out of the window just to ignore the brunette.
He breathed a sigh.
He could practically hear the shrill squeals from the further back and the loud bragging of the jocks surrounding their seats who, up until today, still tried to put an end to his unwanted popularity. Why Dan wasn't bothered when just about everything about that little bus ride was grating on his nerves he would never know.
The noise, the dirt, the grime, the smell... The rest of the teens who sat in pairs who were obviously trying not to get caught as they tried to do something even dirtier than the moving bus...
He shuddered and felt like he was about to gag and puke his own breakfast right then and there.
"You alright, Shun? You look pale…"
"Thanks to you, jackass…" At that, Dan's head snapped towards him, shocked and feigning hurt in a manner that made him look like a drama club reject, palm atop the heart included…
It didn't work, sadly. So he just opted to verbalize his reaction instead.
"Dude! What the hell is up with you? You've been acting like a douche since yesterday!"
"To be fair, yesterday was entirely your fault…"
"Like hell it was!" Dan's outburst made things worse, for lack of better words. There was nothing more annoying than the migraine-inducing noise of an overcrowded bus, it was more noise….
Something that Dan was happily providing.
"Like hell it wasn't."
They glared at each other, quietly daring the other to say anything more, completely forgetting the fact that they, in fact, were not the only ones inside that bus.
"Well now, look who're strutting along the gay side!"
Immediately, they ended their impromptu staring contest in favor of glaring at the teen that sat behind them. Whoever it is was probably unaware of just how close to getting punched they are.
Either they really didn't or didn't care.
"Noting to say for being caught?"
Great. Even in his thoughts Shun couldn't hold back his own sarcasm.
He was about yay tall, if he were standing right next to Shun then one would see that his eye level matched that of Shun's shoulders, wore a pair of tacky, orange-tinted glasses, had blonde hair that was obviously bleached for it was the wrong shade, and had a fashion sense that went against the present season and to top that all off, he had a prominent Greek accent.
…
Just great.
It was Hydron, the self-proclaimed 'prince' of the sophomores.
"Oh, by all means don't let me bother you! Go on ahead. You were just about to kiss, I believe?" No one could even begin to describe the look of horror on Dan's face at that statement. But, Shun being Shun, he just had to file that image in his head.
That was probably the most horrified sneer that he's ever seen his best friend make in the course of the thirteen years that they'd been together a friends.
Considering everything they've been through together that was saying something.
"You-!" Dan blurted out as he rose from his chair.
The insufferable brat that was Hydron just waggled an eyebrow at the brunette, taunting him in a manner that had every single male in the bus cringing and almost made Dan, and Shun, want reach over and wring his neck. "Oh yes, little old me. Sorry, but if you want me to join you then I'll have to pass. I don't exactly swing that way."
"Shut the hell up you blonde little-!"
Before Dan could even hope finish his sentence, the small of his back collided with the back of the chair that had been in front of them. But this time, it was by no means caused by the Shun beside him, nor was it by the fault of anyone else that was present. The pain that shot through every nerve of his body forced him to double over, almost in tears, forehead stuck to the chair that his ass had previously warmed, hands clutching tight at the tightly wound faux-leather of the seat cushions in a futile attempt to override the pain.
Shun thanked the fact that he wasn't as oblivious to what was going on around him as Dan was that he didn't end up in the same state.
The bus had skidded to halt thanks to a big black dog that jumped in front of it to catch a flying Frisbee and Dan could only verbalize his ire by spouting out a few colorful phrases that would make even the most foul-mouthed delinquents in their campus seem like model citizens. Going on and on about how fucking painful it was and how goddamned unfair it was that Hydron didn't find himself falling face first into the embrace of the bus' putrid, rattrap of a floor.
Shun almost asked if he was okay but the muffled curses coming out of his bestfriend's mouth already gave him his answer.
Of course everyone, except for Shun had laughed. As much as he found that Dan deserved something like that done to him, Dan was still his closest friend. His best friend. He wasn't about to laugh together with a pompous, second year brat at what had just happened to the only person that he's ever considered his friend.
He opted to just scold him without seeming all that uncaring about his suffering instead.
"That was the world telling you that he's not worth picking a fight with Dan." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking at Dan's body that was crouched over his their seat, then to Hydron who was still laughing his head off while keeping a hand on the metal railings of the back of one of the seats, and then to Dan again.
...
Waiting for the bus to start moving again, Shun stood up and turned his body enough that he was facing towards Hydron. He probably shouldn't do what he was about to do but the moment he stepped over his doubled over best friend he already decided. His morning was bad enough as it is. A little bit of bad conduct to relieve his stress wouldn't kill him.
To hell with it.
Dan managed to groan out painfully. "Kick his ass, Shun…"
With pleasure.
Without warning and even a basis for his sudden anger, Shun grabbed the young Greek by the furry collar of his jacket, painfully yanking at the cloth, enough that it had the younger male yelping in a manner that sounded like a strangled cat as he was pulled towards the older teen with a force that literally pulled the breath out of him.
"What are you-!"
Crack.
Everyone winced. Hydron was now sprawled on top of an unfortunate pair of juniors that just happened to be sitting within the trajectory of his fallen body. Said juniors, though female and not really having such a strong dislike for the sophomore, had thrown him off of them and onto the waiting embrace of the floor.
The loud thud that his body made as it made contact with the flooring echoed throughout the bus. None dared to make a sound and all eyes were directed towards the senior that had taken out a student two years beneath.
It wasn't much of surprise to some. Shun had done the same to a German, graduating Senior last year. He was still a Junior then but for newer students, it was definitely not something that they expected from the usually calm and collected teen. This also wasn't the first time that Hydron found himself getting his ass handed to him by the very same student who threw him.
Shun Kazami punched him.
...
"Holy crap..." A weak voice broke the silence.
Shun did not fuck around when serious and to say that they pitied Hydron for not learning the first few times that it had happened to him was just stupid.
No one would pity such a masochist.
With his ego and nose broken, Hydron couldn't help but sputter and flail around as the realization that he'd been hit.
Shun, feeling rather proud and content, he looked back down at his best friend who was still doubled over the cushion of the chair. "Feel better?"
"Y-yeah… Thanks buddy…" He groaned in appreciation, lifting is head up partially to take a peek at how pathetic Hydron looked trying to cover the fact that he was bleeding from his nose.
This time, it was Dan who was laughing.
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"Okay like, spill! What do you use to make your skin look so vibrant and your hair look so shiny and silky?"
"I- uhmm…"
She had difficulty in describing a conversation like this. Never mind the fact that she couldn't care less about feminine products, but how everything seemed to turn towards these aforementioned abominations of womankind, she would never want to know.
"- No way! Like, I am so not totally going to believe that you're using just any kind of shampoo."
She felt a migraine coming.
"What about your lips?"
"My-… L-lips?"
"Yeah! They look so glossy and soft! What do you use, COVERGIRL, or something that can only be bought there? If it's the latter then can you send me a box?"
Oh dear lord.
"Actually, I don't-."
Please make it stop.
"Oooohhh~. You want to keep it a secret, don't you? You have a special boy that you like to try it on huh~?"
This is torture.
"No I don't and really, I don't use any-."
"Like I said, I am, like, totally not going to believe that you look that pretty and not be using some kind of special cosmetics."
"Shut up!"
She yelled at the screen, taking in the expressions of the two people that had left her out of their awkward little conversation.
"Like, you don't have to be so loud Runo!"
"You're one to talk! You're voice is so loud that I'm surprised that my monitor hasn't cracked!"
"Ah, I'm not loud!"
"Julie? Runo?"
"Yeah you are!" Runo yelled back, feeling a little immature for once and actually standing up from her chair and slamming the palms of her hands onto the desk in front of her. Seriously, the white-haired girl was just so infuriating with all her talk of beauty products and things that were the living embodiment of 'cuteness' and 'hotness'. Was it too much to ask for a normal conversation, something that didn't involve any kind of make-up and lotion?
"Well, so are you!"
"Urgh! If I could, I'd come over there and strangle you!"
"You're welcome to try you Hatsune Miku impersonator!"
"WHAT?"
"Ladies, please! Calm down! My grandfather is downstairs!"
Runo Misaki was not anyone's average type of girl. If anything, she hated being referred as such, even just referring to her as such is enough to get in under her skin. She hated the kind of girl that Julie was, loved the understanding ones like Alice who, not only tried to understand, but would try to be the mediator for her and anyone else that called her something that she found unpleasantly degrading…
Such as now…
She really needed Alice to pitch in now.
How much longer she had before she said something that she should, but would not care to regret...
"You are so going to get it when I find a way to make you suffer all the way from here in Japan you white haired, sexually addicted bimbo!"
... Absolutely zero seconds.
"Runo! Don't say things like that!"
"Oh that is it! You know what? Go ahead and keep your little beauty secrets! I am out of here and the next time we do a little face time, I'll look prettier than two of Alice combined!" Julie's box closed the second after she'd said that, gracing the two girls with the silence that they'd been asking for from the start.
Now that it was only her and Alice, the latter seeming a little dazed because of what the former had thrown at the currently absent Julie and because of what had just transpired before her, Runo took the time to catch her breath.
That was quite a workout for the lungs... On the other hand, she felt quite victorious, a smile tugged along the corners of her lips as she sat back down on her swivel chair, propping her chin up above her fingers as a mischievous grin spread across her features.
"So…"
Alice could only imagine what she was about to say.
"How was he? Dan told me that you liked him~." Somehow, the Russian already knew who she was talking about.
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A/N: Read and review.
