Please read and review! You can be harsh in your reviews if you want, it'll help me become a better writer.
"Remember everyone, your progress reports should have already arrived earlier today so make sure to check your mailbox when you get home!"
Immediately, some of my classmates either sighed in defeat or gripped their heads in worry while others seemed unfazed. As for me, I didn't feel too worried. Based on the scores I had received from past assignments, I believed I was in pretty good shape. That was a relief since for so long I thought I was going to struggle here, but it hadn't been the case. Either way, hearing Mrs. Nguyen speak in English meant this was a pretty serious issue. Oh well, I'd find out my scores when I arrive home.
Packing my things, I exited the classroom and walked deeper within campus, planning to meet Joe halfway.
"Aaron!"
Before I knew it, Joe had caught up to me.
"Hey man," I greeted him with a fist bump. "So, is everybody going? Are we all on for today? Dad let me go, but I can't stay past around 8."
"No problem, and I think so. It's Friday and I'm pretty sure the rest of us are free since we don't have soccer practice until next week. Beta, Lapis and Lazuli don't have practice today so...yeah. Don't think there's anything going on today."
"Alrighty then. So where to?" I asked.
"How about Kerning Square? It isn't too far from home and it's pretty big. I don't think we've explored every place in there yet. Have you?" he replied.
"Nope. I haven't been there since the first time you invited me."
"Well then, all the more reason to go. By the way, I saw your text telling me you wanted to bring someone?"
"Actually yeah. He should be coming right now..." I scanned the campus hoping to find a boy with a ponytail. Soon enough, he came into view and I waved my hands in the air hoping to catch his attention. He eventually spotted my waving hands and rushed over.
"Oh, Wally!" Joe cried out, also gesturing for him to come over.
"Anyoung!" Eun-Wol greeted, waving back.
"You guys know each other?" I asked.
"Yeah! He's in my Korean class! Actually, I've been wanting to introduce you guys, but I guess you're already acquainted with each other. How did you guys meet?"
"Soccer tryouts. Seriously, Eun-Wol knows how to pass."
Eun-Wol simply chuckled nervously and scratched his head.
"Well, welcome to the group Wally!"
"Gamsahamnida." Eun-Wol bowed as he performed some complicated handshake with Joe.
Huh...maybe we should come up with our own handshake.
After about a minute, everybody else arrived and after making a hasty introduction of Eun-Wol to everyone, we set off for the subway station. Because it was Friday, the subway was a little more packed than usual. Other students fresh out of school along with people coming home from work crowded the subway, forcing us to stand as we entered.
"So then, what are the plans?" Alpha asked in a muffled voice. "Are we just gonna go get bubble tea?"
"Nah, right now I'm in a mood for smoothies. Maybe check out the new music shop later? Orangutanz and All Time High just released their new albums after all. I wanna check them out. And then after that maybe get some new sports gear since mine are already wearing out."
Huh, Joe brought up a good idea. New albums from two of my favorite bands? New sportswear? I'd like to get my hands on some of those. The cleats and shin guards I brought to tryouts were dad's and getting tighter, so it'd be nice to get some for myself. When the subway train arrived at Kerning City, we were finally able to free ourselves from the cramped train and stretched as we walked to the shopping center. Checking my wallet, I counted my bills.
"Twenty...thirty...forty...thousand. Forty-thousand mesos..." Probably not enough to buy everything I wanted…
"Tch! You can't be serious!"
Lazuli's voice then brought me back to reality. Looking up from my wallet, I realized that I didn't know where we were. The huge building that we once went to was gone, and this time it was replaced with a barbed wire fence, cranes, wrecking balls, and construction workers. It wasn't until I saw the sign in front that I knew what was going on.
COMING SOON: KERNING TOWER
"All that time spent getting squished by all those smelly people...wasted!" she then humphed and stomped back to the subway station.
"She seems upset…" Eun-Wol said awkwardly.
"Don't mind her." Lapis reassured. "She's always irritable. Although she does seem to be more angry than usual today. Guess she really didn't like being squished by all those people. Though I will admit I didn't like it either."
"Same goes for all of us." I chimed in. "So what now?"
"Hmm...you know what? How about we all go to my house?" Joe suggested.
"Are you sure? What about your parents?" I asked, wanting to know if his parents would let him, seeing as how when we were younger, nobody was allowed to enter the home when Joe was alone, which occurred pretty often.
"Yeah! Let's go, it's been months since we came to his house anyway!" Alpha and Lapis cheered, as they rushed back to the subway station.
"Don't worry about them," Joe reassured, "Now that we're all grown up, mom and dad became more relaxed. I can invite someone over almost every day now."
"Really? Wow, they've really changed. Last time I remember, they were strict on visiting rules, even more than my dad."
"Haha, weren't they? But they've become busier now and can't watch over me often anymore. Now I spend most of my days at home alone and since then they've become more lax with visitor rules."
Joe's parents being less strict really surprised me. From what I remember, they were nice people with really high paying jobs, but never let more than two people enter his house. They were also neat freaks as they wanted any visitor to put things back where they originally were. Thinking about it now, maybe I should appreciate dad more. He's nowhere as strict as Joe's parents were.
We then entered the subway and once again endured having our bodies twisted and crushed before making our way out and into the neighborhood. I could easily trace my daily run route as we walked through the neighborhood, but after a while we ventured into unknown territory and as we got deeper, I noticed the houses around seemed to look like they covered more ground and were more...royal. It suddenly made me a little excited as I had never walked into houses like these before. Thinking about it now, Joe and his family were always the type of people who wanted to live comfortably, so I guess it was understandable his parents would let him live in a place like this. Taking one last turn, we had finally arrived.
"Here we are." Joe said.
In front of us was a house covered by a neatly done front yard. The grass and the bushes were trimmed. In the middle of the garden was a stone tile walkway that led to a gate. On the roof were a set of solar panels and behind the gate were a variety of beautiful trees that I didn't know the name to and a fountain that wasn't running. Despite only being one story like my house, it seemed to have a larger square footage as the house was wider and and possibly longer as well. As we neared the gate, Joe used one hand to cover the passcode he entered on the gate as it opened. I wished I could stay a little longer outside to admire the view, but then I remembered there was also the interior to admire.
"Whoa…" I marveled at the sights.
"Remember to take off your shoes before you enter everybody." Joe said as he unlocked the door to his house.
Clean carpeted floor, a variety of antiques and soft couches, clear glass windows and a thin plasma T.V in three of the five bedrooms along with one in the living room which looked like it was attached to the wall. The kitchen practically sparkled as if it had been freshly constructed. In the center of the backyard was a large swimming pool in the center of neatly trimmed grassland along with a large pool house. There was also a pavilion not too far from the pool containing pillow-like and seemingly reclinable chairs.
"You live in a place like this?" I asked, amazed at the beauty and comfort.
"Nice isn't it? It does take some work though. Having to keep the pool clean along with cutting and trimming the plants does take some effort."
Everyone quickly made themselves comfortable as Alpha and Lapis plopped down on the sofas and turned on the T.V while Beta raided the cabinets and grabbed a handful of snacks. Eun-Wol and I weren't really familiar with the house, so we decided to look around and explore.
The bathrooms looked neatly polished as they practically shined in the light. The bedrooms contained queen or king sized beds along with drawers and cabinets and antiques, but they seemed largely empty save for two. One of the two bedrooms contained an unmade bed with laptop on a desk along with some action figures. Guitars and posters hung along the dark blue painted walls. Knowing Joe liked playing his guitar, it was easy to tell it was his room. The other of the two rooms was less animated as it was painted in a more light blue color. In front of the bed was a mirror and below it a desk full of makeup materials and documents. There was also a closet containing nothing but business attire and on one of the walls was a huge golden bordered portrait of Joe's family. Taking a look at Joe in the picture, I could tell it had been taken fairly recently as he looked more or less the same as he did now.
"It is very big house...almost as big as mine." Eun-Wol's voice brought me back to the present. It took me a moment to finish processing what he had said, but when I did, I looked at him with the most incredulous look I could muster.
"You live in a house bigger than this?" I asked.
"Ye." he replied. "I live with my grandfather and many of his students so the house is very big. We have many rooms along with a dojo and training grounds at home. In my free time I usually train in the training grounds."
I think he also said something about being a black belt in taekwondo as well but by then I had already stopped listening.
"Alright, alright. I get it, you're all richer than me no need to rub it in."
We both laughed a little before heading back to the living room. Alpha, Lapis and Beta all were watching some T.V show called "Gold Beach" while Lazuli read a book and was laughing maliciously for some reason.
"Aw man, I love Swanson!" Lapis said while laughing.
In the backyard, I saw Joe on the phone as he paced around his pool. I couldn't make out what he was saying as the door was closed, but I could see the bright smile on his face as he talked and several times he moved the phone outward from his face possibly to either take a picture or record his backyard.
"Oh look, Joey's talking to his girlfriend!" I turned and saw Alpha staring out the window with me.
Girlfriend? Joe had a girlfriend?
Beta followed suit and smirked. "You think she's coming over?"
"Probably not," Lapis chimed in. "With us here, he'd never bring her over."
"Good point. We'd probably follow them to their room and listen to every word they said to each other." Alpha laughed.
The T.V was completely forgotten as the show ran on without anyone watching it.
"Wait, how can you guys tell?" Eun-Wol asked.
"Simple." Beta replied. "The only time Joe ever makes those faces is when he's talking to his 'special someone'. We also caught and recorded him doing that with her once. He hasn't ever lived it down."
"Is it really his girlfriend though?" I asked, remembering the conversation I had with them before the school year started. "Joe keeps denying it."
"Well of course he would!" Alpha said. "If he didn't, we'd be all over them."
"Hah! Good point. We'd probably sneak to their room and find all the blackmail material we could." Lapis laughed again. "Isn't that right, Lazuli?"
Man...these guys were evil...wait hold on, did Lapis just say they shared a room?!
"Hmph. I couldn't care less. Now stop interrupting my reading." Lazuli replied, refusing to look up from her book.
"Yeah, just ignore her. She'd probably reenact one of the gore scenes from the novels she read if we kept talking to her."
This caught Lazuli's attention as she threw the book and Lapis.
"I won't!" she yelled indignantly.
"Whoa, you read gore novels?" I asked, grabbing the book and scanned through the pages. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for me to locate the words "blood" and "gushed" in the pages.
"Yes I do. Problem?!" The stare she gave me looked like she was trying to burn my eyes with her heat vision.
"No, no. Just wondering."
She didn't have to say much else as she held out her hand. I then handed her the book to which she swiped it away from my hand and resumed reading. That is before she slammed her novel down again.
"Alpha! Did you finish reading the novel I gave you?"
Alpha's face immediately froze. "Uhh...nooo?"
"What's taking you so long?!"
"I just haven't had any time! I've been busy!"
"That's no excuse! I expect you to be finished with it by next week!"
"Alright alright…"
"You read gore novels too?" I couldn't help but ask, but I made sure to do so in a lower voice. Didn't want to unintentionally offend Lazuli.
"No." Alpha whispered back. "More like she makes me read them and recite the whole plot back to her. I don't know what it is about her, but she's crazy for gore novels and horror movies. It kinda scares me…the weird thing is she only does this to me! She doesn't even do this to Lapis!"
Before Alpha could say anything more, Joe entered the room. "Well, it's dinner time. Who wants to go to the pool house to play some video games and eat some burgers?"
Everyone then cheered.
Since I was the only other person who knew how to cook, I offered to help Joe with grilling the patties. First was getting all the raw beef and shaping it into small patty discs. After the discs were formed I used my thumb to make a dimple in the center of the discs for them to cook evenly. Next was turning on the grill and putting it on high heat for it to preheat.
"What kind of cheese should we use? I've got cheddar and mozzarella." Joe asked.
"Doesn't really matter to me. But let's keep it the same for everyone." I replied.
"Cheddar it is then."
Before adding the patties to the grill, I made sure to season them evenly with some salt and pepper. As they grilled, the smell radiated through the air. I took a deep breath to take in its scent. It had been a while since I made something like this. Having this other than some other food from the motherland was nice. It also helped that grilling hamburgers was an easier task.
"Thanks for the help, Ronnie. I'm pretty new to this myself, so I was a bit worried I wouldn't get things right." Joe said as he prepared the cheese.
"No worries. Actually, I was surprised you actually grabbed the meat and turned on the grill yourself. Were you actually planning on cooking by yourself? When did you learn how to cook?" I asked.
"Not too long ago, actually. Just a bit before you moved in. I haven't really done it since though. My...friend usually does it for me."
There it was again. The "friend" he told me about. I figured he was still shy to talk about her, but it still wouldn't hurt to tease him a little.
"Was that her you were talking to earlier on the phone?"
…
"Maybe."
That was a yes. Sometimes I didn't understand why he just didn't answer so. He wasn't as subtle as he thought.
After two minutes Joe and I flipped the patties over and placed the cheese over the grilled side.
"Should we use the spatula to press on them?" he asked.
"No need. Doing that would just take out all the juices of the meat." I replied.
As they cooked, Joe also started grabbing out the buns, onions, tomatoes, pickles and lettuce. Placing the buns over the grill, he let them sit until they were properly toasted and then spread butter over them, which allowed me to concentrate on the patties.
"Alright everybody, grub's on!"
"Whoo! Let's eat!"
We then spent the rest of the day in the pool house playing Joe's video games while we ate.
"Alright, see you guys at practice next week!" I said, leaving.
"Alright, see you at practice, Aaron!"
Joe then volunteered to walk me out the door.
"Thanks for seeing me off, Emmie." I said.
"Aw come on. I thought you had forgotten that nickname!"
"Yeah, no way. We've called each other by nicknames for too long for this to be forgotten."
"Emmie" was my nickname to Joe which was based on his last name, which was "Emes". He hated being called that. I couldn't blame him, it sounded like a girl's name after all, and when I called him that, so did everyone in elementary school. After a while I felt bad, I stopped calling him that, but that didn't mean I had forgotten.
"We should do this again sometime. Maybe I'll introduce you to her when we do."
"Sure thing."
Feeling my full stomach, I decided to jog home instead of walk. I didn't want to gain back all the weight I had lost, and with a heavy bag slung over my shoulder, I was sure I could burn some calories.
The lights were still on when I had reached home and through the window I could see dad in a T-shirt and shorts reading a newspaper on the kitchen table. Grabbing out the door key from my bag, I fumbled around with the lock forgetting which way to turn before I could finally open the door.
"Anh hai về!" No sooner had I stepped one foot in the house, Rose tackled me in a tight embrace. (Big brother's home!)
"Hi em." I greeted simply as I rubbed her head.
Dad also came to the door, smiling as he did so. "Hi con. Đi chơi với bạn có vui không?" he asked. (Hello child. Did you have fun with your friends today?)
"Dạ vui. Bữa nay con được vào nhá Joe. It's actually pretty big." (I did. I went to Joe's house today.)
"Well that's not surprising. His parents make lots of money after all. Speaking of which, lâu quá mình không gạp ba mẹ của Joe." (...it's been a while since we've talked to his parents.)
"Dạ. Nhưng bay giờ they're out of town working. It'll probably be a while before they come back."
"Mm. Anyway, con ăn chưa?" (...did you eat yet?)
"Dạ rồi, nhưng ba và An Nhiên ăn chưa? Con sợ vì ba không biết nấu ăn,,," (I did, but did you and Rose eat yet? I'm worried because you guys can't cook…)
"Trời ơi*, it's not like we can't buy something. Ah, and before I forget…" Dad then went back to the living room and handed me a red and black envelope. "Đây là thơ của con. Con mở đi. " (You've got mail. Open it.)
Examining the envelope, I realized dad was right. Using my long nails to open the tightly sealed envelope, I pulled out a folded sheet of paper. As I unfolded it, I saw the names of my classes across letter grades. It was my progress report.
"Giỏi quá." Dad said from behind, rubbing my head. "That's my boy." (Very good.)
My first progress report:
Biology - A
PE 1 - A
World History - A
English 1A - A-
Algebra II - A
Vietnamese 1- A-
I sighed as I set my bag down in my room. Grabbing out all my homework, I immediately got started, intending to finish everything before the day ended. I didn't know how long I had been at it, but soon my hand started to cramp up. There were several moments where I wanted to put the pencil down and rest, but I couldn't stop. If I did, I'd probably stop doing it immediately and stretch it to tomorrow, but weekends with homework were no fun.
*BZZZZZ*
Figuring I could spare a few seconds to check my phone, I dropped my pencil and double tapped the black screen. Once the screen lit up, I saw a notification that read "2 unread messages." Weird...did I forget something at Joe's house? Tapping on the notification then brought me to the messages screen. Immediately I noticed that the message wasn't from Joe, but someone else. Looking at the contact, I saw it read My Beautiful Idol.
…
Uh...
My Beautiful Idol? I had a contact like this? Much less, I typed something like this? Before I read the messages, I tapped on the name, which made it reveal information on the contact, but all I could see was a phone number I didn't recognize. Huh...but how was that possible? I was pretty sure I recognized all the phone numbers I added as contacts. How could I have just forgotten this one? What's more, it was shown that the contact was added fairly recently. Deciding not to think about it further, I went ahead and read the texts.
Sent 8:09 P.M: hey there, u uncultured maple boi.
Sent 8:10 P.M: what do u think ur doing, completely ignoring me after I went thru the trouble of adding myself as ur contact?
*BZZZZZ*
Sent 8:10 P.M: I also know you've read my texts! Now u have no excuse for not replying!
"What...the? Who is this?"
What should I do?
1. Ignore the texts. Probably spam mail. Even if it wasn't, why should he answer to some random stranger?
2. Answer the texts, but tell the stranger to leave him alone. Anyone with an attitude like that isn't worth talking to.
3. Answer the texts, and try to figure out the stranger's identity in the process. He/she seems to be someone I know.
*Trời ơi is a term typically used to express surprise or exasperation. In this case it was the latter.
Name: Lapis Kessho
Gender: Male
Birthdate: January 1
Age: 14-15
Height: 6'2"
Interests: Acting, animation, photography, creating new choreography.
Hobbies: Basketball, weightlifting, breakdancing, skateboarding.
Strongest subject: P.E
More interesting info: He was blessed with high physical strength and endurance ever since he was young, which allowed him to take up a variety of sports and physical activities. He is actually five minutes older than Alpha who is also five minutes older than his sister, Lazuli, as they were born ten minutes apart. Because of his cheerful personality, he is very easy to get along with as he makes friends almost everywhere he goes. Despite his cheerful and easygoing personality, he can also take things very seriously, such as losses in competitions and schoolwork. Although his strongest subject is P.E, he actually has exceptional grades in all other areas. It's just his P.E grades that are the highest.
He and his twin sister are polar opposites in many areas. While he is cheerful and outgoing, his sister is more sullen and shut-in. He enjoys the day and she enjoys the night. He has many friends while she has few. Although there are times when they fight often, they complement each other in their daily lives in more ways than one.
His favorite type of girl is an energetic girl.