[Wow! I actually got reviews! This amazing! Excuse me while I print them
and shove them in my scrapbook. Well. If anyone's wondering why the story
has suddenly…erm.. deteriorated, that's mostly due to the fact that I
just…erm….can't write O_O. Which, in turn, can be attributed to the fact
that I have no frickin' clue where this is going. This is why I'm on my
knees here, humbly begging that you give me your plot suggestions. Be they
one word (i.e.: kiwis) hey! That's actually a halfway decent idea… they
could catch an illegal…kiwi smuggler and…O_O anyhoo, I've just been reading
random fics and what the MOO is a beta? A little help…]
[Ken]
I made it. I actually made it out of an apathetic mass of self-important chibis. I actually made it. I try to put the soccer balls in some sort of order, preparing to tear out of this school like I'd been given an opportunity to escape damnation. Okay, a pile, roughly a circle of soccer balls, but it's good enough. I'm a TA, not a janitor. A slightly organizationally challenged one, but we mostly overlook that. I take a few hasty steps toward my car, then break into a run. Must get out of here before they eat me…
I skid (literally- there's a lot of loose gravel in this lot I didn't notice before) to a stop in front of the car and fumble in my pocket for the car keys.
It's a rental, a big, ugly, green van with a ski rack at the top. The ski rack serves no purpose known to me, but Youji "ordered" the car, and, maybe he knows something I don't. Maybe he thinks we're going skiing? Ah. Here we are. The key with the orange tag and some completely illegible English on it. I think it's a serial code or something, but if you turn it sideways it looks like someone's daughter drew a bunny. I shove it in the little key hole thing.
It's upside down.
I shove it again.
The door still won't open.
I jab to key in the general direction of the lock several times.
It still won't open.
What's wrong with this thing?
I'm locked outside my car.
Smooth, Hidaka, smooth.
I lean against the front door, deciding to look nonchalant until Aya, Youji or Omi gets here.
This nonchalance stuff is harder than it looks, as I have absolutely nothing to do. A newspaper would have helped a lot…or even something to look at…
Teachers who weren't as quick in their escape as me are starting to trickle into the parking lot, looking very important and, well, looking at me.
I can almost hear their thoughts.
1 Incompetence will be the death of the Western civilization! What an idiotic assistant…
Nyah. Bite me.
[Omi]
I made it through a day of school! Needless to say, I was kind of hoping that maybe a mission in another country might get me out of school, but then again, that might be asking a little too much.
School must run all lives, even of those who habitually take them.
I try to remember what homework was assigned.
I can't.
Not that I'm planning on doing it anyway, but sometimes we need to prepare for the inevitable losing of sanity.
I decide to dump the books that I'm currently carrying into my backpack (a wonderfully impractical yet authentic American school necessity) and wrestle it off the little coat hook and out of my locker.
Lockers are generally horrid, but this one seems very ambitious in the horridness category, even for a locker.
To start, it's orange. Not Tropicana Pure Premium orange, more like Aya's Sweater Orange, The paint is chipped off in some places, revealing an even more revolting guacamole green.
While we're discussing the outside of the locker, I'd like to add that it's about as thick as seven toothpicks bound with duct tape.
And then there's the inside. In the short version,
Rust.
Holes.
Possible alien life forms.
Such is the fate of those who come in the middle of the year, when the locker left are those previously in locker death row.
Ah well.
It's all in the name of work, anyway. No matter what school things they do to me here, I can take comfort in the fact that I am part of a much more intricate, dangerous night life than the rest of the students.
Am I better than they are?
If I am, the universe is indeed as twisted as it has shown me in the past.
I slam the locker door, after several tries it gives a submissive groan and creaks into place.
Not bothering to spin the lock (I don't want to move it any more than necessary – I'm not all too sure that's really gum on the dial) I walk awaaaaaay from the locker, going into assassin mode again.
I peek into classrooms. Oh yes, peeking into classrooms. So very scary we are.
Lessee here…
Empty…
Empty…
Locked…
Empty… with a bag of cookies on the desk…hm…
Locked…
Why are all the doors in this school either locked or empty?!?! School's only been over for about fifteen minutes! What's wrong with these people?
Ah. What's this?
"Are you here for detention, sonny?" a very angry beluga whale is towering over me, brandishing an ungraded test and scowling something fierce. I can never escape these scowls, it seems.
"ah..no." I get the heck out of there. Sonny?
[Youji]
I swear, half of these children must be related to Ken. At least, they have inherited his pyromaniacal talents through some strange fluke. It turns out that we weren't making the cinnamon (what the heck kind of word is that? It has two "n"s. What do you do with two "n"s?) things, we were measuring the combustibility of the ingredients.
High.
Seven periods of this! This was not in the job description.
Of being an assassin, I mean.
I didn't read the job description of teaching.
Heck- I didn't even read the resume.
Well, positive things… I learned how to use a fire extinguisher today… um…
I walk down the hallway, smoking a cigarette (nobody specifically told me not to…) and swinging my briefcase. (Yeah, a briefcase. Lah.)
Okay, apparently I've been going down the right hallway, because I can see the faculty parking lot through the glass doors.
I walk through rows of cars (the number of rows having doubled since we came) and find our car. I put the key in the door, open it, take the key out, and start the car.
Wait.
I should wait for the rest of the team.
Argh… can they hurry? Ken was going on about being the first person out of the school…
I lean against the driver's door (on the wrong side, just to bother me) and wait…
[Aya]
After spending my day interpreting ancient glyphs on worksheets (without the aid of the Rosetta Stone, no less) I'm able to escape whatever other torturous post classroom activities my mentor has planned, only to find
Ken leaning on one car, sleeping.
Youji leaning on another, smoking.
Unless I'm seeing double (quite possible, considering the circumstances) or have missed some major decrease of money…
We did not rent two cars,
This promises to be interesting, or very trying of patience, or both.
I walk over to Youji first.
"What re you doing?"
"Waiting for you, Ken and Omi."
"Ken."
"Yeah, Ken and Omi. I just said that."
"Ken's right there." I gesture to the former soccer player, who seemed to be engrossed in loose gravel.
Youji pulls his sunglasses lower on his nose (dangerously so) and squints in Ken's general direction. After a few seconds, Youji radar locates him without the aid of obsessively protected sight.
Ken lifts his arms in a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil pose, clearly confused.
And then Omi pops up behind me.
"So which is our car?"
"This one." Youji pushes his sunglasses back up on his nose.
"This one!" Ken shouts to us.
This team is giving me a headache. I reach for my wallet and take out the key. The plastic covered tag chain has the license number on it…
More illegible handwriting. It haunts me.
"Okay! Youji's got the right car, get over here before that one's owner comes back!" Omi calls, apparently leaning over my shoulder and more adept at reading physician-turned-rental serviceman handwriting.
Ken jogs over, muttering something about "no wonder the key didn't work".
This is going to be a very long mission
[Ken]
I made it. I actually made it out of an apathetic mass of self-important chibis. I actually made it. I try to put the soccer balls in some sort of order, preparing to tear out of this school like I'd been given an opportunity to escape damnation. Okay, a pile, roughly a circle of soccer balls, but it's good enough. I'm a TA, not a janitor. A slightly organizationally challenged one, but we mostly overlook that. I take a few hasty steps toward my car, then break into a run. Must get out of here before they eat me…
I skid (literally- there's a lot of loose gravel in this lot I didn't notice before) to a stop in front of the car and fumble in my pocket for the car keys.
It's a rental, a big, ugly, green van with a ski rack at the top. The ski rack serves no purpose known to me, but Youji "ordered" the car, and, maybe he knows something I don't. Maybe he thinks we're going skiing? Ah. Here we are. The key with the orange tag and some completely illegible English on it. I think it's a serial code or something, but if you turn it sideways it looks like someone's daughter drew a bunny. I shove it in the little key hole thing.
It's upside down.
I shove it again.
The door still won't open.
I jab to key in the general direction of the lock several times.
It still won't open.
What's wrong with this thing?
I'm locked outside my car.
Smooth, Hidaka, smooth.
I lean against the front door, deciding to look nonchalant until Aya, Youji or Omi gets here.
This nonchalance stuff is harder than it looks, as I have absolutely nothing to do. A newspaper would have helped a lot…or even something to look at…
Teachers who weren't as quick in their escape as me are starting to trickle into the parking lot, looking very important and, well, looking at me.
I can almost hear their thoughts.
1 Incompetence will be the death of the Western civilization! What an idiotic assistant…
Nyah. Bite me.
[Omi]
I made it through a day of school! Needless to say, I was kind of hoping that maybe a mission in another country might get me out of school, but then again, that might be asking a little too much.
School must run all lives, even of those who habitually take them.
I try to remember what homework was assigned.
I can't.
Not that I'm planning on doing it anyway, but sometimes we need to prepare for the inevitable losing of sanity.
I decide to dump the books that I'm currently carrying into my backpack (a wonderfully impractical yet authentic American school necessity) and wrestle it off the little coat hook and out of my locker.
Lockers are generally horrid, but this one seems very ambitious in the horridness category, even for a locker.
To start, it's orange. Not Tropicana Pure Premium orange, more like Aya's Sweater Orange, The paint is chipped off in some places, revealing an even more revolting guacamole green.
While we're discussing the outside of the locker, I'd like to add that it's about as thick as seven toothpicks bound with duct tape.
And then there's the inside. In the short version,
Rust.
Holes.
Possible alien life forms.
Such is the fate of those who come in the middle of the year, when the locker left are those previously in locker death row.
Ah well.
It's all in the name of work, anyway. No matter what school things they do to me here, I can take comfort in the fact that I am part of a much more intricate, dangerous night life than the rest of the students.
Am I better than they are?
If I am, the universe is indeed as twisted as it has shown me in the past.
I slam the locker door, after several tries it gives a submissive groan and creaks into place.
Not bothering to spin the lock (I don't want to move it any more than necessary – I'm not all too sure that's really gum on the dial) I walk awaaaaaay from the locker, going into assassin mode again.
I peek into classrooms. Oh yes, peeking into classrooms. So very scary we are.
Lessee here…
Empty…
Empty…
Locked…
Empty… with a bag of cookies on the desk…hm…
Locked…
Why are all the doors in this school either locked or empty?!?! School's only been over for about fifteen minutes! What's wrong with these people?
Ah. What's this?
"Are you here for detention, sonny?" a very angry beluga whale is towering over me, brandishing an ungraded test and scowling something fierce. I can never escape these scowls, it seems.
"ah..no." I get the heck out of there. Sonny?
[Youji]
I swear, half of these children must be related to Ken. At least, they have inherited his pyromaniacal talents through some strange fluke. It turns out that we weren't making the cinnamon (what the heck kind of word is that? It has two "n"s. What do you do with two "n"s?) things, we were measuring the combustibility of the ingredients.
High.
Seven periods of this! This was not in the job description.
Of being an assassin, I mean.
I didn't read the job description of teaching.
Heck- I didn't even read the resume.
Well, positive things… I learned how to use a fire extinguisher today… um…
I walk down the hallway, smoking a cigarette (nobody specifically told me not to…) and swinging my briefcase. (Yeah, a briefcase. Lah.)
Okay, apparently I've been going down the right hallway, because I can see the faculty parking lot through the glass doors.
I walk through rows of cars (the number of rows having doubled since we came) and find our car. I put the key in the door, open it, take the key out, and start the car.
Wait.
I should wait for the rest of the team.
Argh… can they hurry? Ken was going on about being the first person out of the school…
I lean against the driver's door (on the wrong side, just to bother me) and wait…
[Aya]
After spending my day interpreting ancient glyphs on worksheets (without the aid of the Rosetta Stone, no less) I'm able to escape whatever other torturous post classroom activities my mentor has planned, only to find
Ken leaning on one car, sleeping.
Youji leaning on another, smoking.
Unless I'm seeing double (quite possible, considering the circumstances) or have missed some major decrease of money…
We did not rent two cars,
This promises to be interesting, or very trying of patience, or both.
I walk over to Youji first.
"What re you doing?"
"Waiting for you, Ken and Omi."
"Ken."
"Yeah, Ken and Omi. I just said that."
"Ken's right there." I gesture to the former soccer player, who seemed to be engrossed in loose gravel.
Youji pulls his sunglasses lower on his nose (dangerously so) and squints in Ken's general direction. After a few seconds, Youji radar locates him without the aid of obsessively protected sight.
Ken lifts his arms in a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil pose, clearly confused.
And then Omi pops up behind me.
"So which is our car?"
"This one." Youji pushes his sunglasses back up on his nose.
"This one!" Ken shouts to us.
This team is giving me a headache. I reach for my wallet and take out the key. The plastic covered tag chain has the license number on it…
More illegible handwriting. It haunts me.
"Okay! Youji's got the right car, get over here before that one's owner comes back!" Omi calls, apparently leaning over my shoulder and more adept at reading physician-turned-rental serviceman handwriting.
Ken jogs over, muttering something about "no wonder the key didn't work".
This is going to be a very long mission