12:00 PM – McCree's Classroom, Royal Winstonian Academy
"It's High Noon, which means lunch in these parts" exclaimed the awfully cringey McCree. As soon as he dismissed the class, everyone – minus Angela, Lena, Hana and myself – ran off to the cafeteria to go buy their lunches. Thankfully, I have a pre-packed lunch (may the Gods have infinite blessings upon my mother!) so I don't have to waste money on the shitty food they provide here for us. Angela and Lena bring their chairs over to my desk, as they always did at lunch time. Despite the two girls being as chatty as ever, it feels…odd not having Jack here with me. We'd often make quips or banter out of Lena's accent, or make fun of Angela's distinctly polite mannerisms (they didn't mind too much, thankfully. They knew we were joking around!). I open my phone and begin to write my reply back to Jack.
"Hey man, things are well, though I'm pretty bummed that wasn't streaming this morning. As McCree would say, it's 'High Noon' right now so me, Angie and Lena are about to have lunch. Missing you, man!
PS: The New Girl's name is Hana Song. She's from South Korea according to McCree. Dunno much else. She's pretty cute, lol"
"So hey, what do you think about Hana?" Angela asked quizzingly. Looking over at her briefly, I see that Hana is absorbed in some game on her PS Vita. All I can see from the screen is some two-toned bear laughing menacingly. I can't hear anything as Hana has a pair of pink noise-cancelling headphones on, so she wouldn't be able to hear much – if anything – of what we said.
"It's hard to tell." Responds Lena. "She was awfully quiet during class, then again that old geezer McCree didn't ask her a single question!" Lena then looked at me, with a sparkle in her eye she asked the question that we had both been wondering about since we saw Hana walk in
"Do ya think she's a fan of or what?" she nudges me a bit, dying to get my answer out of me it seems.
"Well, that Bunny (or as it's officially called on her Official Store) is definitely the logo of . I don't see why she would have it otherwise, unless she thought it was cute or something." I finish off my ham sandwich as I reply to Lena. She begins looking, along with Angela, at Hana.
"You two and your video game obsession" sighs Angela. Angela plays games too, but she's not really into it as much as Lena, Jack and I are. She'd sometimes come and play something "easy to grasp and relax with" in her words, so more often than not, we'd end up playing something like Minecraft or some casual games of Smash Bros on Wii U. I think it's hard for her sometimes, as she studies an awful lot. She gave up so much fucking time last year to try and get that scholarship into a Medical School in Switzerland, and still hasn't received any word back from them.
"Oh come on Angie! Ya don't have to be like that! Maybe she could be reeealllyyy into Medicine too, you never know!" Lena says with exploding optimism. I smile a bit at that. Before I could make a reply back to her, I notice that someone else has walked over beside us.
"U-uhm, hey there. Do you guys mind if I sit here? My Vita's battery died and I don't feel like going outside or getting lunch, and I don't want to just sit there alone. So, do you mind?" asked the new girl, Hana Song, looking rather awkward. Immediately, Lena jumps in with a "Sure Love!" and Hana – awkwardly – smiles back in reply to her. She grabs her chair and sits between Angela and I, and directly across from Lena.
"So uhm…what're your names?" asked Hana, timidly. Lena stood up, puffing out her modest chest and said with a triumphant voice "I'm Lena Oxton, fastest girl these halls will ever see! You can call me Tracer if you like!" she says, offering her Twitch name up as an alternative.
"Please, don't call her that, nobody around here does, even us" Angela interjects. "I am Angela Ziegler, pleased to meet you" she says with a kind, charming smile. She reaches her hand out towards Hana, and Hana accepts with a light shake. Lena looks back at Angela with a frown.
"I'm Jonathan Cujoh. Nice to meet ya" I tip two fingers on my forehead and give a weird salute which, in my head looks cool, but probably isn't. Lena, and even Angela both laugh at my try-hard introduction. Hana began scribbling down my name on a notepad, to which I gave a puzzled look.
"Jo…nathan….Cu..jo..h" she murmured.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked. I was wondering why she was staring at my name like that.
"Could…could I call you JoJo for short?" she asked, looking right into my eyes. I sigh, with a smile.
"You're not the first one to ask that, but unfortunately, like these two, I'm gonna have to decline your offer. I don't particularly like that nickname, not because it's the same name as some Japanese Manga from the 80's, but because it's what my mom calls me. It's kinda awkward I think." I say, rubbing the back of my head from embarrassment. Hana gives me a light smile.
"Okay then, Jonathan it is." I reply with a simple "thank you" and begin gulping down some of my favourite drink, Dr. Pepper.
"So then love, what's your story? What's your hobbies n' all that?" Lena begins quizzing Hana, who while looking slightly pained at being asked a question, should've expected it considering she is the new girl and all.
"Well, there's not much to tell. I like playing video games and watching live streams. I occaisionally try doing some amateur voice acting but I never show anyone. And before you even ask, no, I won't show you guys. Ever." She says sternly but that doesn't deter Lena from asking the question she's been dying to know all day long.
"You like Live Streams? That must mean you know who is, right? You have her Bunny logo as your keychain!" she says in glee. Hana smirks for a brief moment.
"Of course, who doesn't know about ?" Lena and I both point at Angela, who has never shown much interest in live streams, let alone in . Angela looks at the heavens for a brief moment, wondering why she's even friends with us sometimes. Lena gets back to the topic at hand, not wanting to waste a moment on discussing one of her favourite topics.
"Oh goodie!" exclaims Lena. "Perhaps you, me, and Bigshot over there can watch some of her streams together sometime!" she says, putting me into a headlock and rubbing my head with her knuckles.
"E-ehm, I don't think that's possible. I-eh, I ehm prefer to watch alone, so I can be totally in the zone with her" says Hana, much to Lena's disappointment. But her stupor only lasts a brief moment as Lena quickly becomes her cheerful self again.
"Shame about that love! Perhaps we could game together then! I'll give you Jonathan's, Angela's and My Own Steam, PSN and NNID's for you if you want!" she says joyfully. Hana responds with a nod, and Lena begins frantically writing down the usernames on a scrap sheet of paper.
"Here you go!" she says, handing the sheet to Hana, who was impressed by Lena's incredible speed. She mutters out an astonished "thank you" to Lena, who takes pride in her ability to do things as quickly as possible. We talked for a while more, discussing our favourite video games and plans for the future. Hana has a fondness of Strategy RPG's like the old Warcraft games, Starcraft (typical of a Korean gamer) and even Fire Emblem. She doesn't know what she really wants to do in the future, but being a pilot is something which has crossed her mind "more than once", in her own words. She slowly began to come out of that shell she seemed to be stuck in when she first came in here. The four of us continued to get to know each other as lunch continued, and as the bell rang, everyone regrettably went back to their own seats for the final period of the day.
After School – Just outside the Main Entrance
With Lena busy with Track, and Angela getting a ride home with her dad, I was left by myself to walk back home. It's a short walk, so I don't mind it. As I began to put my headphones to my ears, I heard a voice calling my name from behind me. I turned around to see who else, but Hana Song.
"Jonathan, wait up!" she said, walking hastily towards me. "Are you walking down towards Mura Street?" she asked. I nodded.
"Yeah, I live there. Why?" I pondered.
"Oh it's just I live on the corner right before that street, so I guess we can walk home together, right?" she said with a soft smile forming on the corners of her beautifully glossy lips.
"Ehm, sure!" I replied. I don't have any reason to reject her request, and as such we began to walk in the direction of our homes.
"So how was your first day at the Winstonian?" I question. Hana looks at me for a moment, then looks straight ahead, slightly flustered.
"It was okay, it wasn't what I was expecting. I was sort of expecting the cold shoulder and boring people to be honest, I'm glad I'm wrong about that!"
"Yeah, with Lena around it's hard to find a dull moment in the Winstonian haha" I chuckle a bit as I think about my friend. Despite Jack being my best friend, Lena and I were relatively close. While not on the level of what I would call a true friend, I still talked to her at lunch every now and then.
"You and her seem quite close.." says Hana, a wry smirk forming on her face.
"You've got the wrong idea, Song. Besides, I only am friends with her really through Angela and Jack, who used to go to the Winstonian." I say, a small glimmer of sadness overcoming my face.
"What happened to him?" pondered Hana.
"Oh his parents got transferred to the other side of the country. He was Angela's boyfriend for a while."
"Was?"
"They decided to mutually break up as they both didn't see a long-distance relationship really working out. No bad blood between them at all. That's not to say that it's not awkward between them, but it is what it is I suppose." I say, shrugging. We continue to walk on for a little bit until Hana stops, at what is assumedly her house.
"So, this is me" she says, shuffling her feet awkwardly. She looks up at me with those gorgeous eyes of hers.
"Do you want to come in and play some Fire Emblem or something?" she asks me, totally out of left field. Despite me really wanting to, I do have plans for later this evening on Final Fantasy XIV Online which I really need to get to.
"Ehm, I would love to, but I can't today, sorry." I say, looking at her awkwardly.
"Oh…okay" she says, a tone of disappointment contained in her voice. Damnit Jonathan, fix this!
"But if you're free tomorrow I could probably hang out with you, you know, show you around and stuff!?" I say, courage boiling inside me.
"Sure! I'll see you at school tomorrow then!" she says with a smile as she walks towards her front door. I wave goodbye and continue to my home, thinking only of that sweet smile.
A/N: NNID is 'Nintendo Network ID' for those not in the know. I hope some of you caught the reference in the title of this chapter!