Chapter 9 – First Rays of Sunshine

I cannot believe it. It felt like yesterday was the day Blaire and I first set foot in this building. And now not only am I accepted into DA, but so are Blair, Meredith and Jesse. This year will be one of the best years of my life, I am shuddering with anticipation!

"Jaden!"

"Jaden! Snap out of it!"

I open my eyes, Blair's face is suspended about 10 cm from my face. "Oh! Sorry! I guess I got a little lost in my thoughts there."

"A little?" Blair smiles and pulls me up by my hand. "Let's go! Chancellor Sheppard's introductory speech is about to begin and I don't want to miss it for the world!"

I must have completely forgot about that, but then again, I have never been the most astute student.

"Good morning students!" We hear Sheppard's voice echoing through the entire area. Seems like we will arrive right on time, if not, just a spell late. Jesse beckons us over to him as soon as we arrive at the main square right before the entrance.

"Right on time, partners!"
"I was afraid you might not show up!" Meredith added, apparently having stood right next to Jesse for a while.
"There is absolutely no way I would miss the single most important speech of my career!" Blair looks at Sheppard with pure admiration.
"Tone it down, Blair. It's just the opening speech, not the graduation one." We all laugh, being an obvious hindrance for other students. Some give us vile looks, telling us to shut our mouths with their eyes only.

Sheppard continues: "Today marks the first day of your attendance as students to Dual Academy. To you all my heartiest and most sincere congratulations. However, if you think preparing for the entrance exams was a tough endeavor, this year will turn out to be more than twice as difficult. But fear not, young students, for we will nurture you and guide you through everything to secure you of the best education possible. We here at Dual Academy have oftentimes been praised for our excellent student guidance and follow-up into the real world." -you could virtually see the quotation marks confining the words as he spoke them- "You will not only be prepared to take on a career in the arts, but you will also study basic academic material preparing yourself for a career outside of the arts. The reason we pride ourselves in this excellent combinative approach is because we've learned that an academy on the grounds of nothing but the arts is too daunting for many talented students who daren't take such a risk. Now, the first few weeks will be introductory courses so you have time to settle into the dorms, meet your fellow talented students and adapt to your life here at Dual Academy. I wish you all the best of luck and may all of your wishes come true! Thank you."

A sign to start clapping is all but necessary, every single student, myself included, is banging their hands together to show Sheppard our appreciation.

After much of the commotion has calmed down and many students formed smaller groups to discuss the speech or have left to check out their dorms, Jesse, Blair, Meredith and I decide to take a small tour through the forest surrounding the building. Jesse and I are wearing a red blazer, showing our department being music. Visual arts students, such as Blair, are required to wear blue blazers and performance arts students, such as Meredith, need to wear yellow blazers. I guess that's what those colors represented back at the entrance exams, Crowler wearing blue, Banner wearing red and Valentine wearing yellow.

"What's up with this color discrimination anyway?" Meredith asks, pulling at her yellow blazer.
"I've read somewhere that this tradition started because they wanted to showcase the versatility of the arts." Blair answer.
"I guess that makes sense." Jesse says, still some uncertainty and doubt noticeable in his tone.
"Yea but why not just give us a badge or something? And why can't I share a dorm with you guys? I don't even know anyone of Yellow."
"It's not like I have a vast pool of friends to choose from in Blue, you know." Blair adds to Meredith's statement.
"I'm really jealous of you guys, being able to stay at the same dorm, you must be thrilled."
As Meredith finished her sentence, Blair gives me a little nudge. She, of course, knows of my unsubtle interest in Jesse. I'm most certainly thrilled, but not just because I have an acquaintance in Red.
"You should be jealous, Meredith! I'm really lucky to have a guy like Jaden be my partner in Red!" Jesse smiles.
"You make it sound like we're partners in crime or something."
Jesse laughs, "I'm sorry! I guess I'm so used to calling everyone partner back home that I hadn't realized it isn't customary for you guys."

False hope is a dangerous thing. I have told myself that so many times before, why do I keep catching myself hoping for impossibilities. Being Jesse's partner… Get a grip, Jaden!

"Don't worry, partner, I'll get accustomed to it eventually!" I laugh and give him a small push with my side.

A couple of days of introductory sessions pass. On one of our traditional strolls around campus we run into a small group of girls wearing yellow and blue. One of them looks familiar, she has long blond hair and she's wearing yellow.

"Look what we have here," a girl in blue says, "it's a group of failures. Rumor has it none of you passed the first entrance exams but your rich mommies and daddies made up for your lack of talent with their abundance of money and bribed Sheppard into allowing you in."

"Don't do that Mindy, leave them alone." The familiar-looking girl says, preparing herself to leave.
"Oh shut up Alexis, you and I both know they don't deserve to be here." Mindy snaps back.

"Excuse me? You must be mistaking us with someone else." Blair says and we try to move past them.

"I don't think so Blair. I know you, Jaden, Jesse and Meredith aren't worthy of being in this school. Just admit you all failed your exams."

"The only thing the exams seem to have failed is weeding out the ill-mouthed, self-entitled, condescending brats." Blair responds.

"What did you just say?" the black haired girl managed to stammer, completely taken aback by Blair's sudden comment.

"Let it go, Mindy. Let's go get some ice cream at Blue." Another girl in blue adds.
"Jazmine, don't you get that this failure not only insulted me but all of us!"
"I did no such thing, now listen to Jazmine and leave us alone."
"You won't last a week at this school, mark my words you little shit."
"I'll put it in my notebook when I get to my dorm."
"Come on girls, let's leave these failures alone."

How did this girl hear a rumor that we had all failed our entrance exams? She even knew our names. Something is definitely off here, just when I got excited for a new adventure without any difficult people to deal with.
"What was that all about?" Jesse puts in the air after a few moments of silence.
"She even knew our names." I look around, still not understanding what had happened.
"It's high-school level rumors, whatever their deal is, just let them distract themselves with this pre-pubescent bullshit and move on with our lives."
"You're right Blair", Meredith says, "We're at Dual Academy, for crying out loud. There is no time for negativity."

Night has fallen.
Blair and Meredith have left for their respective dorms and Jesse and I are chilling in our joined dorm room.
"So, Jaden, have you met any interesting people so far?"
"Not really, I talked for a bit with this guy with sleeked back black hair, don't really remember his name, though. Brandon? It was something like that, he was cool. You?"
"Yea, I saw that Zane guy talking to Alexis today. They look like cool people, perhaps a bit haunted by their past." A silence of a few seconds fill the room. "Kinda like us. Their expression seemed grim when they were talking, too." Jesse lets out an audible sigh.
"I really wonder what was going on with that Mindy girl though. I know we decided to not let negativity into our lives but I cannot get it out of my head. I mean, if she knew of the four of us being special cases, albeit for the wrong reasons, then how did she not include Alexis in that? I mean, she was with us that day. Has she not come clean about it to Mindy?"
"Maybe Alexis was the one starting the rumor about us?"
"But then why would she be so defensive when Mindy called us out?"
"Perhaps she wanted to cover up her own partaking in this whole rumor problem?"
"Could be. I don't know, man, girls are weird." I let out an awkward laugh. I don't like to make gender-based stereotypical jokes, but I let it out before I could think.
"Alexis was acting very different when I spotted her with Zane though, so maybe there's more going on with her than we can think of." Jesse lets out a yawn, which I can only consider an obvious sign of boredom with me. "It's getting late though and we need to be fresh for tomorrow, goodnight partner!"
"Goodnight, Jesse!"

As I turn off the light, the only thing that is left in my mind is partner. Not Mindy, not Alexis, not Zane but Jesse calling me partner. For some reason that fills me with hope again. I don't even know what I'm hoping for anymore. I guess I should just go to bed instead of wracking my silly brain over a silly word used by a silly person as a silly habit. God, I'm so silly. I plug in my earplugs and turn on my silly music and go to sleep.