Inspiration! I just watched Dazed and Confused for the umpteenth time and now I have multiple Aerosmith songs stuck in my head ; If you've seen Dazed and Confused, this chapter makes me think of the opening song when everyone is going to school. I always picture that yellow car driving up when I hear "Sweet Emotion"…
(sings) I LOVE THE 70's!
I need to get Vh1 so I can watch that again…it's the best show ever.
Chapter Four: Back To School(Sora's POV)
It was September 5th, the first day of school. The first day since summer began that I had to get up when it was still relatively dark: the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.
If I had any choice, I probably would've skipped, but Roxas convinced me since it was the first day.
And the fact he had robbed me of all my blankets, and was flogging me with a wet towel. Talk about an abusive brother!
But we had to catch a bus to Southeast, which would take the better part of a half hour, and then we had to walk up the hill on which our school sat like some hen on a giant egg. A giant concrete egg covered in asphalt, buildings, and druggies.
The giant hill aside, Eastwood High was in a pretty convenient location. For a brief history lesson, before it was built, it was a cemetery, but then the moved it, and the school was built. It is said that a couple graves are still underneath the school's foundation, forgotten, when they moved the graveyard. Naturally, this sprung a crow's nest of rumors and ghost stories, the most popular of which, is the girl in the polka dot dress in the library, which i will not go into details with.
The red brick building of EHS came into view; it's sixteen concrete steps hidden under a wide range of various pairs of Converse, Vans, Nikes, Adidas, boot, flats, and flip-flops. Seniors were greeting friends, and enjoying being at the top at long last. Freshmen, looked lost and terrified as they tried to find people they knew for support. Sophomores and juniors milled about saying hi to friends in all social groups and grades.
I became aware that Roxas had left my side, with a pat on the shoulder. "See you later," he said, before pushing his way through a group of hopeless looking freshmen to a group of four people dressed in dark clothing.
These are the only members of a former gang that Roxas was in that still went to school. Larxene Brown, a relatively pretty girl who could be very violent at times, Demyx Sinatro, he came from a troubled family, like me and Roxas, but he hid it under a mask of foolishness, and was quite a good guitar player, Zexion Dimichi, a genius if there ever was one, and the most quiet person I had ever met. He was the only senior in the group. Then there was Axel O'Leary, Roxas' best friend and the one who dragged him into the gang in the first place. He was a bit of a bad boy, but I guess he was cool. Normally I didn't hang out with those friends of Roxas.
"Hey Sora!" a pretty redhead greeted me with a smile. Her boyfriend, a tall blonde, nodded at me as they passed by to a group of jocks, most of the soccer team, I noticed.
That was Kairi Anan and her boyfriend Tidus Niccals. Kairi had been one of my best friends when I was a kid along with Riku, but as we grew older, and went to separate middle schools, we drifted apart. It was depressing, but that's life. She's also a cheerleader, and I bet next year, when she's a senior, she'll be the head cheerleader, unless Namine Asya beats her to it.
Speaking of which…
I looked around for the said blonde, but I couldn't find her in the crowd. Oh, well, I'll just have to wait until lunch.
Inside the building I pushed and shoved my way to my locker. Don't you hate it when you're stuck walking behind a group of people who are talking up the whole hallway and walking really slow? And then they stop to talk to even more of their friends? It's like driving on the freeway during rush hour after a big accident.
Riku jumped in next to me on my way to my locker. "What's up?" he asked.
"Nothing much," I replied rather dully. "You'd think these damn people would learn to stop blocking the damn hallway though."
At that moment I chose to flat tire one of the girls walking in front of me. She turned back to look at me with a "who-do-you-think-you-are?" look. I merely replied with a shrug. She flipped her hair over and returned to chatting with her girlfriends. Damn fucking cheerleader.
And then there were those freshmen.
When I was a freshie, I didn't get why the upperclassmen didn't like us. In my sophomore year I learned why. You see, there seem to be three types of freshmen: the cool kind, the meek and shy kind, and the obnoxious, immature, bratty kind. The cool and shy kind weren't too bad, except the shy ones would sometimes even run away from you if came to ask them for something. But the obnoxious ones… they acted like they're so cool because they're finally in high school, but they didn't realize that they're the bottom of the food chain now. The ones who played football were particularly bad as far as this goes. Earth to freshmen football players: the team is non-cut, not all of you deserve that jersey! Of, course I don't really like football players in general anyways.
Sophomores weren't as cool anymore. I realize now that one would get a major ego boost when you're a sophomore and those were the ones who picked on the freshmen the most. Then again, I never liked the people the year below me…
The first bell rang, causing me to jump slightly as I had been standing right underneath it. I grabbed my books for my first two classes, said good-bye to Riku, and climbed up the stairs to the English wing on the second floor.
Inside the classroom, Mr. Gofert, Mr. "Goofy", as we called him, was reclined in his desk chair, sleeping. He was a tall, lanky man in his forties, very nice, but also very clumsy, hence the nickname. His classes, like most of the English classes in the school, were said to be fun and the most entertaining of the day. Mr. Goofy was also infamous for wearing a hat with long earflaps that made him look like he had dog-ears. It was just part of his image.
As for my peers, I saw Wakka sticking out with his bright orange hair- what a ginger-, Dark Niwa, and Namine among many other familiar faces.
The final bell rang, signaling the start of class. We all sat down in our assigned seats (Mr. Goofy had posted a seating chart up) and "listened" to the announcements. In reality, though, most of us were mourning the sleep robbed of us, and craving breakfast in my case. In my rush this morning I had forgotten to eat something.
I took the time to look and see who I was sitting by. To my left, I saw Dark, and just in front of him and diagonal to me sat Namine. Wakka was somewhere on the other side of the room.
With announcement s over, Mr. Goofy stood up and introduced himself to the class. He then handed out a sheet of paper to each of us, it looked like some sort of survey you'd find in chain emails.
Name? Sora Inaya
Birthday? January 15
Hobbies: Eating, Sleeping
Favorite Food and Drink? Burgers, Hot Chocolate
Favorite Animal? Coyote (Isn't it spelled coolly?)
Super Power? Super strength and flight
Favorite Type of Music? Not country
Favorite Book? don't read much
Favorite Movie? Zoolander
The Ideal Breakfast? Waffles, eggs, hash browns, French toast, bacon, and hot chocoalte
Oldest, Middle, Youngest, or Only Child? I'm a twin!
It was fairly brief, and I answered pretty pathetically, but who cares?
Mr. Goofy collected the papers and started explaining what we were going to cover this year, and yada, yada, yada…
He finally turned us loose and let us talk for the rest of the period. Dark turned to me and smirked. He always smirks. It's not that he's a jerk or anything, he can be pretty full of himself at times, but he's pretty cool otherwise.
"What's new with you Inaya?" he asked, kicking his feet up on the desk.
"Life," I replied, putting my head down on the desk. "So sleepy," -my stomach growled loudly- "So hungry."
Namine turned around in her seat. "You should've ate breakfast this morning, Sora," she reprimanded playfully. I stuck my tongue out at her in response.
Oh, God, I acted like a total idiot right then. Why did I do that? Couldn't I have done something more mature?
Oh, well.
Namine then turned to Dark. "Isn't your brother starting today too?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Little Daisuke's finally a freshmen!"
"Unfortunately, yes. Now everyone is going to know he's my brother," Dark said rather mournfully. "God, I've been dreading this day for years."
I gave Dark a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "No you're not," I said bluntly. "You know the girls are going t o like him because he's the cute one, so you're going to use him to get girls."
"Was that a subtle hit my brother?"
I smirked. "Maybe."
We had a mini staring contest before Namine suddenly started laughing, which made Dark and I start to laugh. Damn you laughter for being contagious! But I like Namine's laugh… she has a good one.
At long last the bell rang. I made a beeline for the cafeteria where they were serving food. You hear about cafeteria food being really gross and all, but it's actually quite good. During break, they have breakfast-y foods like hash browns and breakfast sandwiches, and cinnamon rolls on occasion, but they also have cookies. And I wanted my cookie.
Of course, you have to get there quickly since everybody wants a cookie.
Unfortunately for me, my classroom for English happens to be one of the farthest from the cafeteria and by the time I got there, the cookies were all gone. Woe is me.
Time for plan B. I mingled into the crowd in search of someone I knew relatively well. The first person I chanced upon was Ahna, who just so happened to be carrying a paper plate with a chocolate chip cookie on it.
"Oh, Ahna, my love," I said sidling up beside her. "You wouldn't mind sharing some of that delicious cookie with me, will you?"
She pretended to look thoughtful about it before amicably replying, "And what do I hope to get out of all of this?"
"My eternal love and gratitude?"
Once again she had a mockingly thoughtful look upon her face before shrugging and breaking off a piece and giving it to me. "You owe me your soul now," she joked smiling broadly. She then ambled off, probably to find her boyfriend or whoever.
And so, munching on my delectable cookie, I wandered off towards where my next class was to take place, which happened to be US History with Mr. Sprinkle. I won't be going into too much detail about the class, but I will tell you that generally the most exciting thing about history, besides when our class talks about current events, is when Mr. Sprinkle throws the chalkboard eraser at people because either they're annoying him, or when they fell asleep.
I have this class with Roxas, Riku, Ahna, and Kairi. Sadly, I don't sit next to any of them, but I figure that we can pass notes well enough to communicate during class.
After history is lunch. Being the lazy person I am, I tend to mooch off other people, namely Riku and Roxas. But half of the time, Roxas is off with Hayner, Pence and Olette, or with Axel, Larxene, Zexion, and Demyx, so he's not as reliable as Riku. Don't worry; I'll pay Riku back someday after my debt has surpassed more than I'll ever make in a year with my current job.
Ha ha, as if.
During this time, if I were the ideal me, I would try to talk to Namine, but alas, she always sits at the table full of football players and cheerleaders, not my kind of people. And so I sit in the courtyard with Riku, wallowing in my own self-pity and eating his food.
Third Period is some math class, that i can't even remember what its called. In layman terms, my worst class of all time. Roxas, being the little smarty-pants he is, is in some Calculus class for the smart people. Well, he can go get raped for all I care. At least I don't have a creep for my teacher.
Anyway, I share this oh, so enlightening class with Hayner, Kairi, Yuna (which is good, because then she can do my work for me, hopefully), and Rikku, as in the girl one. Most of the time I either sleep or pass notes with Hayner in this class.
I wish they'd give us naptimes in school, like when we were in kindergarten. Did you know that teenagers need 8 – 10 hours of sleep to be healthy? Well, most don't get that much at night because of school and work, so the school should make up for that by either starting school later, or giving us a period where we could just sleep.
I actually had one teacher back in my freshmen year for Health who sometimes let us sleep the entire period. It was marvelous. Alas, those days are gone…
Fourth period, my last class for the day, is Aquatic Science with Mr. Duck. Tomorrow I'll have periods 5, 6, and 7.
Anyway, about Mr. Duck. What can I say about him? Well for starters, he's a really short man; almost everyone is taller than him, with a fine head full of snow-white hair. It's not that he's that old…well he is in his mid-fifties, but the fact that 1) he always had really light colored hair and 2) teaching for as long as he had comes with a guarantee of more than a few grey hairs. He's one of my favorite teachers. I haven't had him for any classes, yet, but I remember first meeting him at the freshmen lock-in two years ago.
We bicker a lot, he has a bit of a temper, you see, but I know he doesn't mean it half of the time. Especially when I just call him by his first name -Donald- or when I make variations of that like "Donnie Darko", or when I say his middle name, Fauntleroy.
Not much of my good friends are in this class sadly besides Riku. Shiro Takeda's girlfriend, Ashe is in this class, too, but I don't really know her that well.
Pretty much like all of my classes today, nothing interesting happened. I sit next to one of the aquariums, so I spent my time tapping on the glass, trying to get the fish's attention until Mr. Duck yelled at me for disturbing the fish.
At long last, the bell rang at 2:30, freeing me from all scholastic duties. Scholastic… I like that word. God bless the dictionary.
"Sora! Hey, Sora!" I heard someone call to me outside on the steps.
It turned out to be Roxas.
"Hey, Roxie," I sauntered over to him. He was with Hayner and Pence. Olette was nowhere to be seen.
He frowned at the nickname. He hated being called that, I knew that, and he knew that I knew that. That's what made it funny.
"Stop calling me that," he said. "Anyway, we're going to Mojo's as soon as Olette gets here. Wanna come?"
Mojo's was a nearby coffee shop a few blocks up the street. It was a pretty snazzy place to hang out at. Although you couldn't smoke inside, outside was a covered patio with tables and chairs, and a little wooden wall thing so that the wind and rain weren't too much of a problem.
I didn't really have any plans tonight…"Sure, why not?"
When Olette finally came back, we set off. Upon arrival, we stepped inside and ordered our drinks, and a giant croissant to share. Hayner demanded we sit outside so he could smoke. The weather was nice, so no one really minded.
Outside, Hayner pulled out a pack of Marlboro's and put one cigarette in his mouth. He then offered the pack to us. Everyone except for Pence said no. Most people wouldn't expect Pence, the chubby, slightly nerdy kid, to be a smoker, but, in fact, he was believe it or not. Olette sometimes smoked, but in the entire time I've known her, I've only seen her light up a couple of times. Roxas, like Olette, only smoked cigarettes on occasion, usually when he was stressed out or nervous.
Me? I've only smoked once. I'm afraid of addiction, of being dependent on something, even if it is as petty as a cigarette. Besides, I don't like how they taste.
Hayner took a long drag from his cig. "Man that feels good," he sighed as he let out a puff of smoke. "I was dying all day."
"Maybe you should cut back a bit then," Olette said, sipping her coffee.
He blatantly ignored her, and instead attempted to blow smoke at her. I emphasize attempted. The wind blew it al right back at him.
"So…" Roxas said, changing the subject, "I'm quitting at Lucy's."
That was unexpected.
"Why?" asked Olette. "I thought you liked it there."
"I do," he said, shrugging. "But it's on the Westside. I want a job that's a little closer to here and with more manageable hours for the school year."
Hayner snorted. "You're such a geek, Roxie-poo."
"Go die, Haynkie-chif."
"With pleasure," Hayner sneered.
"Okay, break it up you two!" Olette interrupted. She checked the time on her cell phone. "Shit, I got to go. Pence, can you give me a ride?"
Pence shrugged and took one last drag on his cig before tossing it on the ground and grinding it under his foot. "Sure, let's go."
Olette turned to us. "See ya later."
We waved good-bye and soon they left. Hayner, Roxas, and I sat around Mojo's for a little while longer, drinking our coffee and (in Hayner's case) smoking. Later we hit the town. We started on Burnside, and worked our way to Hawthorne and then Belmont, where we caught the bus across the river to downtown and met up with various people throughout the night. Somewhere around 1 A.M. we trampled into Hayner's house. We made milkshakes and eggs; then Roxas and I fell asleep on the couches in the living room while Hayner retired to his room.
That was long.
Thank you readers and reviewers for the fantastical time you wasted on my humble story.
I guess I should point out that while the story takes place in Portland, a lot of places are either fictional, or tweaked a bit for the purpose of the story. Yeah….
I got kind of lazy describing some of Sora's classes. And, yes, Dark from DN Angel made a guest appearance. Also, ignore that almost everyone has Japanese names even though they live in America.