Chapter 2 – Creativity

"You're being forced to do community service?" Mai repeated slowly, sipping her iced coffee and staring intently at Tea, who nodded her head and sipped her own iced cappuccino.

"Yep," she answered.

"Well, doesn't that sound like fun?" Mai asked sarcastically. "I am so glad to be out of the school system and on my own. You guys are your assignments make my head hurt. Do you have anything in mind for it?"

"Not a damn clue," she answered honestly. "I'm not going to rake or do yard work, I can tell you right now. I have no idea what to do, Mai."

"They did kind of just throw you into doing that," Mai commented. "That's not very fair. You're busy enough as it is, taking a lot of the upper classes at school. Imagine the kids that are into sports and stuff? They're probably dreading this assignment. How long do you have to do it for?"

"We have the rest of the year to accumulate thirty hours," Tea explained.

"Wow…well, you can always be happy they didn't give you fifty hours of work to do."

Tea rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I guess."

"Why don't you check out that newspaper over there?" she asked, pointing in the direction of the magazine stand. Tea turned to see a stack of newspapers in the corner beside the rack. "If you find something interesting, like a babysitting job or something, maybe you can get paid while getting hours in."

"Babysitting isn't community service work," Tea argued but nonetheless stood up and grabbed the top newspaper. Sitting back down on the wooden stool, she opened the newspaper up to the jobs section and began searching through.

"See, I'm so useful sometimes," Mai commented, sipping iced coffee again. "Maybe if you find something really out there, they'll give you bonus points for it."

"Highly doubtful," Tea remarked, skimming over the pages.

"Who else is doing this, anyways?"

"The whole class," Tea answered. "Or at least those who never signed up for community service. Apparently the administration went in to see which kids didn't do community service this year and made a list up. The teacher was assigned to give only the students who didn't do community service this assignment."

"Geez, that sucks!" Mai exclaimed, her eyes wide in surprise. "I wouldn't exactly appreciate that."

"Oh, don't worry. Everyone was groaning. Yugi rolled his eyes at me, and I had to hide my laughter. But you'll never guess who didn't get one…"

"Who? Joey?"

"Kaiba."

At this, Mai slammed her drink down on the table and leaned forward. "How did he get out of the assignment?!"

"Who knows? I figured he probably gave some organization money, you know, like a contribution thing, and the school considered it community service."

"Yeah, I couldn't picture Seto doing chores for community service. I don't know why, but something about him doing that kind of thing just doesn't add up."

Tea chuckled at her friend's sarcasm and smiled. "That's what I thought. Either he does that or maybe gets his brother to do some. You know, just to make KaibaCorp look good."

"They do that in the modeling world sometimes. If an agency is starting to lose clients, they'll do an add supporting something just to gain the public's interest again. It's cool, though, because they always pick something that the model wants to support, so it all works out well. I know one of my friends is actually—"

"Here!" Tea exclaimed, placing her finger on the newspaper. "I can do this!"

"What, dearie?"

"Work at the nearby orphanage. It says that they're in need of part-time workers, preferably young, and will pay. I can work with kids."

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Mai asked, raising her eyebrow and giving Tea a questionable look. "I mean, I've heard a lot about orphanages, and not many of them are positive things. You really think that's what you want to do?"

"It's not yard work, and it's pay," Tea replied. "Besides, it's creative isn't it? I mean, nobody from school would think to work at an orphanage, so I might get points for creativity. Yeah, I don't know why, but I think that's what I want to do."

Mai chuckled and shook her head. "Once you have your mind set on something, you never change it. If that's what you want to do, I guess I'll support you with it."

"What, you want to help out too?"

"Heck no! I didn't say that, girlie! Imagine my model-self being found at an orphanage! That orphanage would get so much publicity they wouldn't know what to do!"

Tea shook her head and closed the newspaper up before placing it back on the pile. Returning to her drink, she sipped down the rest and sighed. "I'll go by soon and see if they are willing to hire me for school. Good thing I brought the paper along. The person in charge may be able to sign it, and I could get started right away. The sooner I get this whole thing out of the way, the quicker I can get my homework done and start looking for a real job."

"Who knows? Maybe if they like you enough at the orphanage, they'll hire you there full-time."

"That is a possibility…"

"Hey, isn't that the point of this assignment? I mean, aren't they forcing you guys to do community service so that you think it's part of your daily lives or something?"

"I guess so. I mean, I understand that it's important and all, but I have enough on my plate. And to put it on me at a time like this…"

"Yeah, I know. You're looking everywhere for a dance school, aren't you?"

"Yep. That and the money to go there."

Mai laughed and nodded her head. "That's the good thing about modeling. You don't have to pay to do it. On the contrary, you get paid to do it."

"Same for any job. Modeling just doesn't take that many courses that are required before you become a model."

"Hey, it takes a lot more than you would imagine to model. It's all in the eyes, honey. You have to convey whatever emotion the client wants from you in a split second merely with your eyes. Oh, I love it!"

"Man, the way you put it, maybe I should be a model."

"Um, I think you're better off sticking with dancing."

"What? You think I wouldn't be a good model?"

"I didn't say that. I just said that you should stick to dancing. That's your passion, isn't it? Always go with your gut feeling, honey, otherwise it'll come back to bite you in the ass someday."

"Tip of the week, Mai?"

"Just some useful advice. Now don't you want to head over to that orphanage? Who knows what hours it's open for visitors and soon-to-be-part-time-workers?"

"Good point. I guess I should've written down the directions and address from the newspaper."

"Those generally are effective," Mai remarked as Tea turned back around and grabbed the newspaper. Opening it back up to the page, she quickly wrote down visitor hours (which were luckily within reach today), the address, and looking at the map on the back, figured out the best way to walk there. "You want me to drive you over there?"

"Nah, it's okay. It doesn't look too far away from here. Maybe about a twenty-minute walk, is all."

"Twenty minutes? Girl, I don't know what planet you're from, but a twenty minute walk is a rather long walk."

"I'm used to walking around. I don't drive yet, so I always walk everywhere. I enjoy walking around the city."

"Whatever floats your boat. Well, I gotta be off I'm afraid. The next photoshoot is in a couple of hours, but they want me there early to go over a couple of things."

"What's the photoshoot going to be about today?"

"Oh, I'm so excited! It's a naked shoot where I'm going to be against a tree, kind of blending into the wilderness. Aw, it will be so sexy! I think they're going to make me a faery or something along those lines."

"Hey, isn't it all in the eyes?" Tea mocked, smirking as her friend stuck her tongue out at her. "Well, I should probably be going too. Thanks for inviting me along again."

"You say that every time we go out, and how many days a week do we come here? Three? Four? You don't have to say thank you every time. You're too sweet for your own good."

"Don't you have a naked photoshoot to do?" Tea countered, smiling at her friend as she stood up and grabbed her brown backpack. "Well, I'm off. See you…Thursday?"

"Thursday sounds good, sweetheart. Take care."

"You too." And with that, Tea turned around and walked out of the coffee shop, looked down at her directions, and began walking towards her destination.