A/N: The chapter title does not mean the type of blizzard you think it is. XD Long chapter again. Be prepared for numerous pop culture references that appear at random moments. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that is mentioned.
Chapter 11: Blizzards in September
Homeroom is a high school obligation for everybody involved. No one wanted to set aside two days a week for it (Tuesday and Friday), but they did it anyway. Why? So we could get hand-outs and progress reports and all that crap. If not that, well, nothing. This was our first week of homeroom, our test run of it. Our cute little guinea pig of it—OK, you get the idea by now. Miss Lockhart is my homeroom teacher, and she thinks it's as much a waste of time as we do. Today, she sat at her desk, chatting on her cellphone about going to the bar later that night with some dude named Vincent, her boyfriend, I'm thinking. She's not a very old teacher, very young in fact, so she set some ground rules today with some reluctance. She clearly likes us kids and yet doesn't want to do any more than she has to. She's cool.
"OK, guys," she told us after talking with that Vincent guy. "I would be a hypocrite if I said you guys can't use your cellphones"—people laughed at that one—"or iPods during homeroom. So, my only rule is not to be unreasonably rude to each other, and we should be fine, OK?"
Kids cheered, including me. Rock music for me! And maybe country or older pop or some Broadway tunes. I was about to take out my iPod when that honors class girl sat down next to me. Her friend who looked like a guy who could easily be a Neo-Nazi (I hoped not) sat next to her, too. I hoped they didn't mind me starting a conversation.
"Oh, hey," the girl talked before I did. "You're that girl who was trying to talk to me on the first day, weren't you?"
"Yep, Namine. Spit Lady spat on me before I could say anything."
"Mrs. Johnson you mean?" she giggled. "Well, she is a spitter all right. I'm Olette."
"Hayner." The blond guy shook my hand. "Good to meet you, Namine."
I smiled out of relief. Whew, he wasn't a Neo-Nazi. If he was, I bet he wouldn't have had those blond locks to begin with. Unfortunately, the style reminded me of Justin Timberlake back in his boy band days. I couldn't really see him croon "Bye, Bye, Bye", though. In fact, he looked like someone who would punch his screaming female fans in the face.
I told him all of this, and he laughed. "I've been told that...especially by that Seifer. Ugh, dumbass."
Olette and I just laughed before she replied, "Well, that's a true statement if ever was one. I mean, freshman year isn't that hard...except math."
Me being the average student (straight B's, 3.6, boo-yah!), I agreed, "Yeah, I know! Math has always been the one that's killed me."
"How about all of them? I speak English, but I'm getting a D in it right now."
"Gasp! Hayner, how could you?"
"Meh, I don't need that grammar crap. And I don't need to know how to write essays."
"Um," I interrupted Hayner's oncoming rant. "I hate to be negative, but you have to write one for college entrance."
"Really? Aw, damn it!"
Aw, poor Hayner and his lack of writing skills! But, then, I looked at his outfit. Camo pants, camo shoes even—hell, he could be in the Army.
"Well, there's always the Army," I suggested.
"Nah, I just like the camo look."
"Of course you do, Hayner," Olette said cynically just like Selphie had with Axel earlier. We continued to talk to each other for the rest of homeroom, and we learned some interesting things about each other. Olette played the bassoon outside of class and in band as well as the violin and the piano. Hayner knew entire scenes from Napoleon Dynamite by heart, and I could run backwards rather well.
Yeah, yeah, interesting stuff, and then the rest of the day came and went. Demyx's random pop culture reference in French for today was "my cherie amour, pretty little one that I adore." Well, at least the "my cherie amour" part—again, Demyx got no detention. Instead, Mr. Xigbar gave him extra credit points, much to our complete shock.
"Dude," I told him, trying not to laugh. "You are seriously impressive."
"Don't tell me something I already know," he joked.
He must have some serious charisma. In art, Yuffie and Riku talked about Harry Potter and how dividing the seventh movie into two movies was an injustice to the fans. Darn right it was! Then again, I was too busy working on my DN collage to care.
P.E. was a war zone...again. Need I say more?
On the way home on the bus filled with secondhand smoke, I of course had to hear Sora talk about football. As long as he didn't put it in a superior tone, I would be cool with it.
"I'll probably have to play safety tonight," he almost complained but not quite. "I mean, I know I'm not a junior, but I can play better than those guys. In JV, I was like the king."
"Of the world?" I shook my head, laughing a little. "Please don't quote DiCaprio."
Sora pretended to look offended. "I wasn't going to. Besides, 'you jump, I jump', right?"
I laughed harder. "Ah, no way! You don't know that movie."
"My ex made me watch it with her twelve times. Get over it."
Titanic is one of those movies I tell people I hate but really love. It's irritating how melodramatic chick flicks get to my soul. But, the plots wouldn't even exist in real life, that's the thing. Love can't happen within 24 hours, right? And does one person have to die always? Why not both? Or, better yet, have everyone survive.
Aloud, despite my fond (secret) feelings for that movie, I pointed out, "That's not a movie I would watch with my boyfriend."
"Oh, what movie would you watch then?"
"Hmmm...Lord of the Rings."
Sora cracked up at that answer, but I'm not a typical chick. I would watch a movie I like that I know the guy would like, too. It's called fairness.
"God, you're a nerd!"
"And you watch too much of that robot movie."
"Hey! I'll have you know Transformers is the best thing that happened to—"
"It has too many mindless explosions!"
"All right, all right, whatever you say."
Our banter can get pretty epic. When Sora and I get along, we still seem to hate each other. But, we really don't. As soon as we got off the bus, Sora rushed into the house to change into his uniform. He was fairly psyched about the game.
Well, he was until Mom put a damper on everything as usual. We approached her at the computer (printer now had plenty of ink!) to tell her about the game.
"There's only one first game of the year, event of the season," I mentioned cheerily. I didn't think Mom and cheerily would be in the same sentence. I decided to be nice to her, though, give her some slack. And she'd been doing the same thing for me too, lately. No cheapskate-ness, no yelling, and no overly stressing—it was like going on vacation in the French Riviera. But, she had been dressing like someone ten years younger than her again. That couldn't be good, could it?
She smiled (somewhere, a Jedi Knight sensed a disturbance in the Force) and said, "I'm sorry, I can't go."
Was she taking delight in Sora's disappointment? If so, then let the party begin! No, seriously, that smile was more of an "I have to work too much again, but thanks for the offer" smile. Sadly, we got enough of that crap from Dad, but he couldn't help it. Looked like the Tasaki siblings would have to go at it alone.
"Why can't you, Mom? It's my first game tonight."
She stared at Sora sadly. "I have to work then I'm going on a date with a guy I met."
A-ha! Not the band, the exclamation, I actually thought. Still...she was ditching Sora for a random thirty-something guy? That explained things...and that also sounded wrong by the way.
After building the both of us up by giving us hope that she might possibly change back to her real old self, she killed those hopes again like spiders. That look on Sora's face wasn't easy to see, after all. Then, Mom explained herself...sincerely.
She turned away from the computer and told us, "He asked me out a week ago at Dairy Queen of all places. I was treating myself to a Blizzard. I should have known better than to do that to you, Sora. But, I also don't want to hurt this guy's feelings. I'll come to your next game, I promise. And I know that probably doesn't make it up. I'm sorry."
That...that was put so nicely I could hardly believe this was an honest explanation. But, it was, and Sora and I actually were OK with her not going after that.
So, with that out of the way, we ate microwave dinners (a step up from fast food) for dinner, and the two of us set off for the game. Mom stopped me before I went out the door.
"I want to talk to you before you and Sora leave for your father's tomorrow, OK?" she told me in a very motherly way. I swear she was only acting this nice because she scored a date.
I shrugged so awkwardly I could give Aoki a run for his money. "Sure."
It had been three weeks since our argument that went personal. Honestly, I lied to Mom. I wasn't so sure I wanted to talk to her. What if it erupted into royally epic yelling? Whatever. I had a game to go to.
Sora was an eternal optimist, always believing that Kingston might have a decent football team, even with those so-called jocks. He thought for sure the Kangaroos (oh dear Lord, why that name?) should win.
Well, Pence did his thing out there with the costume. He even managed to get everyone to do the wave, which was his goal. Maybe my favorite nerd would get a popularity boost. And Selphie did her cheering, and Olette played her bassoon at the half-time show. Of course, since high schools are famous for overplaying stadium rock anthems, the band played "Welcome to the Jungle." I think the team was getting attacked by the jungle. They lost 35-7, those juniors and seniors playing like girls (coming from an actual girl). But, Sora played like a champ out there. Once my throat got hoarse from rooting for him, I bought a Sierra Mist. However, even though the Kangaroos did more hopping than passing (Hahaha), Sora was still in a good mood.
He told me to meet him and some friends he made over the past few weeks at Dairy Queen—the same one where Mom met her...boyfriend? I'm not sure if they'll date seriously yet. Anyway, I was concerned about these friends. Were they popular kids? Chicken as I was about that, I asked him.
He shook his head. "Not for the most part, though there's this one girl who is..."
After blushing so red in the face I thought he turned into a cherry, he told me, "Look, most of these people you already know."
Thank Buddha for that. I guess Sora didn't hang out with the popular kids all the time. Well, Dad always did teach us to be open-minded. He has more of an artist's mind than a business guy's mind, that's for sure. Anyway, I rode my bike over to Dairy Queen.
At the parking lot, among all those cars, there was a certain black motorcycle with bold scarlet and blue streaks. I grinned. Sora met Axel, sure as the world and maybe Roxas, too. I wondered if my brother met any more of my friends. Then again, he did say most of them weren't popular, which probably meant they weren't loaded brats. And I had befriended quite a few sophomore kids who were rad. Hm, what to order at Dairy Queen...Hm, I definitely hadn't ate a brownie Blizzard in a while. Maybe this was just coincidence or genetics, bit I was craving a Blizzard just as much as Mom had...on the day she met her date. What if I met a guy while getting ice cream, too? Nah, sounded too Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to me. Sure, I loved those books to death, but life couldn't play out like that.
I went inside Dairy Queen finally, after thinking about fate and guys and yes, aliens. Somehow, I've always believed in those Martian dudes. They're gonna take us all away one day on their Frisbee ships. Some call them saucers, I call them Frisbees. Artist minds are a bit on the lopsided side. So, I went in, yes, and searched for Sora and his gang. I heard him yell, "Hey!" and I went ahead toward his table, forgetting about that Blizzard. I'd order it as soon as he introduced me to his friends, who in various tones greeted with, "Hi, Namine."
"What's up?" I beamed like a hyper, happy anime character. I'm thinking Tohru Honda.
OK, so there were some familiar faces like Axel, Roxas, that Wakka kid, Pence, Hayner, Olette, and even Xion showed up. I wouldn't have thought Sora would hang with mostly freshmen in this group. There was Demyx, my favorite musician/nerd/skater/might as well belong in every stinking category, and a redheaded girl sat near Sora. She smiled brightly and waved at me. But, but...then, on Sora's other side was...
Riku Aoki. Oh, hell no did he show up! I was in a nightmare!
And he was without Yuffie. WTF, WTF, WTF? Did the Martians recruit Yuffie? Did he happen to sleepwalk all the way here? Or maybe the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kidnapped him and took him to Dairy Queen to force him to eat Blizzards in September.
My mind was on panic overload, warp speed to insanity. Was I wearing Traveling Pants?
That was when I slipped on a rejected napkin on the floor.
A/N: Yeah, for some reason, I'm into the Vincent/Tifa pairing, have been since last summer. Anyway, sorry that there is cursing, but it's the whole real life thing and all that. And yes, apparently school bands do play too much rock anthems. I know. Apparently, my school's band had to play "Crazy Train" until they practically killed the song with overplay. And "Welcome to the Jungle." And, sadly enough, "The Final Countdown", a song I DESPISE.
Tell me what you thought of other random things you came across. Those two things I put that I mentioned I just happen to remember the most. XD
