[Play Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMix OST - Lazy Afternoons]
"And that is how popular author Deanna Beaking managed to succeed in getting her name into a publishing house to release the critically acclaimed book 'Sins in our Hearts'. Now class, does anyone have any questions regarding the subject of Deanna Beaking?"
Sean sat there at the desk in the classroom with all of his other classmates, listening to his English teacher, Mr. Byer. Just like the first week of school, in the last class of every Monday to Friday, it was your usual English class with him being taught various subjects and new different words, which the next thing he was probably going to learn how to take in an essay within the next couple of weeks in this class.
School at the beginning of the day all the way to the current time that he had left in class before the bell would sound, it turned out to be like any other day at school. Walk into the school, classmate bully taunts him with his other friends, attend the first class in Geography, second class of Mathematics, third period rings in, signalling for him to go to lunch, have lunch, run late for Science class due to bullies making him late, leading up to this last class he had for the day.
In the same class, though desks apart, Sean's bully Greg Fernsby was someone he knew from the moment he first got into Grade 9, who saw him, taking every opportunity he could to pick on him, though he hadn't tried to attack Sean just yet... for now. For the most part, it was Greg and his friends taunting him, attempting to shove Sean into his own locker, or seizing every chance they could at lunch time to try and take his lunch. At the moment as the class was going on for just a few minutes more, all Greg was doing was crinkling up pieces of spare paper from his bag and tossing them at Sean's head to his own annoyance.
The teachers, like at any other school he attended growing up, did absolutely nothing about the bullying. The only thing that would happen when Sean reported the incident was the teachers telling Greg to knock it off with him getting away with it.
Two minutes... maybe one minute left to go until the bell rings to end the already long school day. He knew from the moment the bell would ring, all he would do is just get out of class as quick as possible, put everything in his bag and just ride his bike out back home like he usually did at the end of the day.
"Mr. Cans?"
The voice of Mr. Byer had caught his attention, Sean turning his eyes off of the clock to look at his teacher. The whole class turns to look at him, giggling a bit to his own embarrassment of him drifting off from the focus of the lesson.
"Were you drifting off into la-la land?"
Sean realizing the situation that he had lost focus of the lesson, jumps back to reality, and stumbles a bit on what to say. "I, uhh... I was thinking about the lesson, Mr. Byer." Sean lies.
A stern, yet suspicious look appeared on the teacher's face. "If you say so. Then, I suppose you remember what I was talking about to the class." Mr. Byer responds to him, seemingly able to see through Sean's lie.
"It was about an author named... named..." Sean struggles for a moment to remember until it snapped into his mind. "Deanna Beaking, and her success as an author." He continued, putting a smile on his face.
"Half correct, Sean," The teacher said with half an expression of being both impressed and disappointed. "But half is wrong, the other half you missed was her struggle with the need of getting her inspiration to write her book and get it published when twelve book publishing houses would reject her book."
Mr. Byer returns his focus to the rest of the class. "So, for your assignment of the week, I want you to look into more about Deanna Beaking, and to write up and research on how she managed to get the deal with the book publisher that had published her book and what kind of motivation got her into writing. Not an essay long writing, but enough for me to look into it." He says to the rest of the class.
From the moment the clock on the wall had hit 2:40pm, the school bell rang out, signaling the end of the day for all of the classes in the school as well as Sean's class. Everyone including Sean get up from their chairs at their desks, gathering their stuff and headed out to their lockers to get their bags.
Taking his notebook and handed papers from class, he places them into his binder and heads out, having waited until Greg had left the class as he did not have time to deal with him nor his friends. He heads outside of the class, directed to his locker on the first floor.
Typical deal when at school, he opens his locker, grabs his stuff and places them in his bag, closing his locker and locking it as usual. After that is done, he walks towards the front of the school where his bicycle is with the others that rode to school on them as well. He unlocks his from the stand where it stayed put, getting up onto it, and beginning to ride home.
Not even a few seconds on the street, and here comes Greg with his own friends who see a good opportunity to bully Sean again, this time outside of school grounds.
"Look who it is, boys," Greg speaks to his friends behind him with look at me with glares and smiles on their faces as they anticipate the taunting. "It's Sean, on his way home."
"Leave me alone Greg," Sean says to him. "I'm not in any mood to deal with you at the moment."
Greg's friends get rather excited with Greg even looking rather impressed of Sean being that dismissive to him. "Aww, what's the matter Sean?" Greg taunts him. "Afraid that your momma's going to be disappointed if you are late getting home?"
"Please Greg," Sean says, his voice lowering a bit, trying not to be aggressive but more with a passive tone. "I just want to get home."
Seriously though, Sean was lucky that Greg didn't go to the same elementary and middle schools as he did.
"You hear that boys?" Greg said, turning to his friends. "Seany-Wony doesn't want us to bother him. Ohhh, boo-hoo."
In Sean's right hand, he removes it from the handle of the bike as he was stationary. His hand begins to form into a bit of a fist as his nerves with him are starting to get more annoyed. He doesn't want to attack Greg just as he doesn't want his bully attacking him, but his taunts were beginning to get a bit more past annoying.
Greg rides his bike, blocking Sean's path of leaving, staring down the boy in front of him. "You're not going anywhere," Greg says to him. "We're going to have a little fun with you."
"I really need to get home." Sean was strict on his word when he meant it by the tone of his voice.
"And be a total complete loser like you usually are?" Greg's friend Kyle taunted the boy who stood his ground the whole time.
"You've got nowhere else to go, not even home," Greg says, with a tone in his voice that sounded rather eager to give Sean harm. "I waited for the right time for you and me to get out of school..."
Sean turns down his eyes towards the stones on the ground, his brain picking up a bit of an idea. His eyes are set right back up onto the boy in front of him, who is still a bit of good distance from his face, but close enough to look threatening.
"Poor Sean, no friends, and not a care in the world for that sad, pathetic middle class life of his," Greg taunts him. "Whatever will he do?"
"Well, I know I can do something!" He exclaims to his bully.
From that moment as Greg and his friends began to laugh, Sean grabbed one of the stones on the road below his feet and chucked it right at Greg's head, missing and instead striking him in the chest with it. Sean places the both of his feet on his bike's pedals, while Greg was trying to recover from the blow.
[Play Final Fantasy VII OST - Hurry Faster]
"After him!" Greg yells at the rest of his friends on their bikes as Sean began to pedal as hard and as fast as he could to get away from the bullies in pursuit of him. He keeps his eyes ahead on the street, making a sharp turn to the left, directed towards the field by the forest.
Perhaps... maybe perhaps he would be able to sway the cards in his hands and get away from Greg. His bike transitions from the concrete road to the gravel path, leading onto the grass itself with Greg taking the charge after him with his friends right behind him for the chase. Sean turns his head quickly to see the distance between himself and Greg who is approaching.
Turning his head back to look ahead of him, he did not expect to have the front wheel of his bike ram right into a bit of rock from the edge of the forest side. With the slam forward, Sean is sent flying forward from his bike, falling and rolling a bit on the grass before slowly getting up.
Greg and his friends approach the scene, seeing the bike with it's now broken wheel from the impact it had on the rocks that they move to the side from seeing it. Greg gets off of his bike, walking towards Sean who is on the ground and grabbing him by the front of his shirt.
"You think you're so clever to throw rocks at me?" Greg says to him with a low-tone in his voice. "Now you will see what I can throw at you."
Greg was the first to throw a punch, slamming it into the chest of Sean, who grunts a bit from the pain that came in its aftermath. He is pushed straight to the ground as his friends gather around to keep him from running away.
"Where do you think you're going?" Greg's friend Alex taunted as Sean slowly gets up onto his feet.
"I really don't want to fight, Greg..." Sean says, not willing to put up even his own fists.
Greg has his fists kept up the whole time, glaring at Sean. "You don't? I wouldn't want to fight me neither." He says to him, running up towards him.
Sean was too late to make any quick moves to avoid being pushed from the punchs as he steps back, slipping on a bit of the wet mud near the edge of the forest and falling. He could feel himself slipping downward into the muck by the nearby trees of oak within that forest, slipped in the shadowed part where the sun wasn't shining.
When he raised his head and got ahold of his own self, he looks up, the front of his shirt and pants covered in the brown mud as he lies there, trying not to make any moves - making it look like he is hiding. Greg and his friends were laughing as they thought Sean was a target to bully too easily from what they just saw.
"Sean must be hiding down there, you should go down there!" Kyle was encouraging Greg to continue.
Greg laughs and says "Nah, I think he'll really like his new muddy appearance. You know what? Mud boy! Yeah! That's his name now!"
His friends began to laugh at hearing the sound of that name to tease Sean with. Oh good grief... another name to be taunted by. Last time in seventh grade, it wasn't the usual name-calling when they were making rumors about him and a girl in his class that didn't really care that much for him anyway.
"See you, loser mud boy!" Greg laughs, walking away with his own friends as Sean could hear the sound of their bikes as they got up on them and rode off back to their homes or to go to the nearby shopping centre.
[Play Kingdom Hearts OST - Strange Whispers]
Sean rises out from the mud, ready to get out from that part of the forest. He gets back up onto his feet and starts to climb up the dirt. A grip onto some mud and he falls backwards with another slip, tripping over something in the lit shadows.
He gets up, shaking his head and slowly getting up onto his feet. His eyes are then set onto the figure in front of him...
It looks to be somebody lying there in the mud, almost like someone had died there. That person was wearing a black coat with a hoodie that covered their head, their face being a bit visible, but looked to be almost the same height as Sean.
In normal situations, the best thing to do when seeing this was for someone to normally panic and go running, but Sean didn't want to make any presumptions just yet. The hooded person was still breathing, so they were still as alive as ever.
Sean moves closers to the person, eager to see the entire face of this stranger that he was seeing before his eyes. He kneels down, more of his left knee getting dirty from the mud. He slowly lifts up the person, and takes off their hoodie was a surprised expression on his face when he saw the full appearance of the mysterious figure.
It was a girl!
Her short black hair looked absolutely fine, protected by the hood of her coat from the mud. But who exactly was she? Sean had never seen this girl before, not even in any other school he went to nor the high school he went to. There had to be a clue somewhere that would help identify who this was and if she was from around here.
He searches around her, looking for any piece of identification or the usual stuff like wallet or phone that would keep said girl up to date on the time. Nothing... Maybe the tag on the neck underneath her hoodie within would tell. He opens up the back of the hoodie, looking at the tag and seeing a rather unusual name that he hadn't recognized before.
Xion.
"Sigh... on? She-on? She-oh-n?" Sean was trying to pronounce her name, but even so it would probably take some time to master on how her name is said.
His eyes turn to the top of the mud where his now-broken bike was still there. With no transportation other than the public transit, he could just leave her here and just get going back home. But something inside from his own curiosity... it was telling him something else.
He turns his head back to the girl. The blank expression on her face as she was still in such a sleep. A look of sympathy was on his face, that he really wanted to help her, and that this was the first time he was ever doing something like this.
He places an arm around the girl to keep a tight grip to prevent her from falling back into the mud. He lifts her up, carrying her with one arm as he looks about and begins moving to get out from this part of the forest and to head back home.
The only concern he would have to face is: what will he do regarding this Xion when he arrives home with his parents and other siblings around? What will he have to do to keep them from finding out that he was going to help this girl that he has never seen before?
Sean exhales a sigh. He'll figure out the rest of what to do when he gets back home.