The Ripple Effect | Volume I
Chapter 1: First Day of Junior High School
(Early Morning in West City)
"The least he could've done was drop us off." A young girl utters in a pouty tone. "I don't feel like doing this 'walking to school' thing every day."
This girl has azure blue hair tightly knit into a short ponytail. She wears a custom Capsule Corp. long-sleeved shirt and loose-fitted long black pants, all in high quality tailoring. She also wears dangling star earrings and all white tennis shoes with blue stars on each side. A high-end, all-white, long thin-strap bookbag hangs off her right shoulder with her hand holding the strap. All complimented by a sluggish and weary look on her face.
A much shorter boy, shorter than the girl he's walking with, has an indifferent expression. He then sighs, "Yeah. It's annoying, isn't it?" He walks at the same pace with his hands in his pockets, head tilted up in thought.
Now this boy looks nothing like the girl. He has medium-short, spiky black hair in a very messy orientation. He wears a high-collared black gakuran with silver buttons and loose fitted pants similar to the girl's. Also like the girl, he has similar shoes with the opposite all black color and no distinctive design to them. On his back, he carries his leather designer bookbag which is littered in pockets. I forgot we had to go five days a week too…
A lightbulb goes off in her head as she turns around with a bright expression. "Oh, wait a minute." Pointing at the sky, "Can't you just fly us to school yourself? It'll save us a lot of time and work!" The boy continues to walk ahead, seemingly ignoring her.
"Dad told me not to use my powers in public." He then glances back stoically. "Besides, you're just using me, so you don't have to work as hard." Facing forward, "Like you always do." The girl follows up with his walking pace, looking irritated. "What a buzzkill…" Sighs.
"And what do you mean, 'like I always do'? Are you calling me a parasite? You don't want to stick out, do you? Is that why you cut off your tail?" She intentionally talks loudly in his ear trying to get a reaction out of him. "C'mon~n…answer me!"
He rolls his eyes and somehow masks his irritation, pulls out his hand out his pocket and draws one finger up. "Yes, you always do. It's a disgusting habit." Another finger comes up, "Yes, you're a parasite." Now with three fingers held up, "No, sticking out is bad. And no."
…
The blue-haired girl looks at him in anticipation but he puts his hand back in his pocket, probably wanting to bring an end to this conversation. She giggles and smiles at him, "No what? You gonna finish that thought~?"
"Shut up…Why do you like being annoying?" The boy's eyelids lower and his stoic expression from before slowly forms into a frown. It's already bad enough that I've gotta go to school, but going with you is gonna be like burning in hell… "Oh please, I'm not the annoying one, little guy." She emphasizes her point by placing her hand on her chest.
"Don't call me little. I'm older than you, you know." The girl laughs mockingly, then wraps her arm around his neck. She's about half a head taller than him so she's able to do it naturally. Her fist reaches over to his skull and she ruffles it as if she's trying to scrub out a stain. She looks at him with a smug grin, "When you start looking like an older brother, maybe I'll treat ya' like one. But for now, I'll be the one in charge!"
The boy pulls away and keeps his hands in his pockets but that doesn't last long because he takes one out to rub the pain out. "You ever heard of this thing called karma, Bulma?" He glances at her looking a little irritable, "Be careful because everything you do will come back on you one day." Bulma looks back at her brother and yawns, "Bite me."
They continue walking down the road in silence as they don't speak a word to each other. Further down the road though, a much more traditional building comes in sight, sticking out from the commonly tall and rounded skyscrapers that fill West City's cityscape. As they get closer, the traffic on the roads and on the sidewalk gets more and more dense, bustling, and busy. Mumbled conversation from every direction is being heard. They look over to their right and see a school bus pass by with the words West City ISD on the side. The bus is loaded with kids their age and older.
Now being much closer and with a much better view, they're able to see the school building in its entirety. Behind the bus, that at this point had turned the corner and parked in front of the building, unloading students, they look upon the front of the building. There's two floors with large squared windows covering every wall of the building. The roof is relatively flat but near corners of the building, and at the very front, the roof stands out and come up to a triangular point.
"This looks like prison," says the boy. Bulma finishes his train of thought, "But at least it's a fancy looking prison." They finish crossing the street and stop right before the path that leads to the front doors of the school. Bulma focuses her view on the front of the school and the lettering above the school's front doors which read in standing black letters, Nansei Junior High School.
The boy closes his eyes and wearily sighs. He shoves his hands in his pants pockets and walks straight into the moving crowd of kids, leaving Bulma behind. She stands there frozen in the spot she stands until she shakes the feeling and runs behind her brother, doing her best to keep up in step behind him. But, it's an ugly process. Most of the kids in these crowds tower above Bulma. And in turn, they tower over her brother as well, making him hard to spot.
(Main Hallway)
The spiky-headed boy walks through the doors and stops to take in the sights. On the ground, there are taped down arrows that led to a door with the words Attendance Office plastered on the door's window. Around him, most of the shorter, younger looking kids seem to be heading in that direction themselves.
"Drawsah, wait a minute!" The boy looks back and watches as Bulma tries to squeeze her way through the fast moving crowd. "I thought you could handle yourself," he stated nonchalantly. The same stoic face he was doing his best to maintain from before is back in full effect. Bulma dusts herself off, breathing heavily, then walks ahead, noticing the arrows as well. "I'm not weasel-sized like you!", she clarified with irritation growing in her face and her tone. He watches as Bulma walks through the Attendance Office doors behind everyone else, scratching his head perplexed. Sheesh. As pushy as ever…
(10 Minutes Later)
Drawsah and Bulma hold a sheet of paper with 'Schedule' at the top of the page. Below that, lists their classes for each one of them all slotted into hourly times throughout the day. Their locker assignments are read next to their names as well and once they arrive, it's obvious that they'd have their lockers right next to each other.
"What classes did you get?" Bulma opens her locker and puts her bag inside, doing this all while trying to remember her schedule. Drawsah looks at his schedule sheet as he does the same thing with his bag. "Let's see…", grabbing a notebook for his first period. "Looks like I have Language Arts first, then it's P.E. Third period's Social Studies…then math, then science-" "Wait…", she stops him with trepidation in her voice. "…Who's your social studies teacher?", glancing at him.
He looks at her in confusion. What's her deal? He takes another look at his schedule sheet again, "Uhm…It says Mrs. Kettle." The spiky-headed boy looks up at his sister and catches her disgusted face, "What…?" His face loses its natural stoicism and starts to look annoyed. It looks like Drawsah can never catch a break when he's dealing with his sister.
"I thought the only bright side to school would've been getting away from you." She points at him expressively, "But it looks like that dream's been crushed too!" Reeling back as if she's seen something repulsive, her face changes from that extremely disgusted look into a more depressed face.
Ignoring everything she said and masking his irritated face with a sigh, he folds his schedule sheet and puts it in his pocket. He then reaches back into his locker, "Yeah, yeah, get over it. There was always a good chance we'd end up with at least one class together so don't get all overdramatic about it.
Bulma sighs at his answer, seeing that nothing's been able to break his stoic nature today. Nonchalant as always. She seems to be running out of ideas at the top of her head but had one more comment to add, "Whatever. I'll do better in that class than you."
Drawsah pulls out a couple books from his locker and closes it, "Well, I guess we'll see about that. But from the looks of it, you're already on the wrong track." He brings up his free hand and looks at his wrist, reading the time as 8:28am. "Huh?", the blue-haired girl looks confused until a prolonged bell sound plays over the intercom. "Er-…", her face becomes shallow as she finally starts to get the idea. "The schedule sheet said that first period starts at 8:30. And based off the time now, that's probably the two-minute bell."
He puts his free hand back in his pocket and starts further down the hallway, leaving her to her own devices. "Knowing you, I'm sure you've got everything covered, right?" Drawsah looks back at Bulma over his shoulder and throws up a two fingered salute, "Good luck!" Bulma stands there watching his back for a moment. Gah! Frantically, she turns back to her locker and quickly gathers her things for her class.
Drawsah finds himself in a small classroom with two squared windows on the opposite wall from the door. The class consisted of an average count of twenty students all about the same age. Every desk is filled and are ordered in five columns by four rows. Drawsah sits in the second column and the second row from the front of the classroom.
The teacher writes her name up on the chalk board but most students don't pay attention. Drawsah writes the woman's name down in a notebook, definitely a parallel to everyone else in that classroom. What's he taking notes for? We ain't learning squat yet…
One girl seems to notice Drawsah's strange antics. She sits behind him and offset about one desk to his left. This girl has long and straight dark-brown hair with straight-cut bangs covering most of her forehead. She had sharp, hazel-colored eyes and wore a frilled t-shirt. All that complimented with bright-blue jeans and vans-like tennis shoes.
She takes a full scan of Drawsah and forms a quick opinion of him immediately. Looks like he has a lot of money to spend. Probably just your average rich, hotheaded nerd. She lays on her arm which is propped up on the desk in a very lethargic mood. It's natural for kids to be tired on their first day after a long break. Breaking that terrible sleep schedule from before takes a little bit of time until they're able to readjust.
"Huh?" Drawsah looks over to his right to look for the person tapping his shoulder. "What are you taking notes for, bro? You look a little strange." He finds a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. His demeanor stands out as someone who looks pretty happy to be there, unlike everyone else in the room. "I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything," Drawsah responded. He didn't pay the boy much attention as he went straight back to taking his personal notes.
The blonde-headed boy looked confused as the kid before him give him an answer like he's been used to doing this. "Like what? We can't forget these things cause the teachers repeat the same stuff everyday-"
"Ahem!" The class looks forward and at the teacher, who's sudden change of tone drew the whole room's attention. The blonde boy reels back startled but Drawsah nonchalantly looks up in mild confusion. "It's only the first day and you two are already giving me trouble?!"
…
The blonde kid keeps his mouth shut but Drawsah moves to answer her question, "…I wasn't the one-"
"I don't think that matters! One more outburst from either of you and it's straight to the principal's office! Do I make myself clear?!" The boy is quick to answer, "Y-Yes, ma'am…!" On the other hand, Drawsah nods slightly, "Yes." The class watches as she walks back to the board and once this happens, they immediately get back to ignoring every word she says.
Drawsah's eyelids lower a bit and his mouth forms a slight frown. "Sorry about that bro…!", Drawsah hears the voice from his right whisper. He looks over to see the boy grab the back of his head sheepishly. I guess Dad was right about other people. They're stupid, clueless, and uncaring…but I never thought they'd be this irritating… He looks back at his notebook with a few sentences written in it and closes the book. Drawsah then grabs the book and puts it under his feet beneath the chair.
Sighing, he puts his head down as comfortably as he could make it and looks blank into space like everyone else in the room. The girl from before watches him curiously and then faces back at the board like everyone else.
(About 50 Minutes Later)
The bell rings over the intercom, and everyone inside the classroom start to get up and gather their things. Some kids walk out the door with each other in short conversation, others by themselves. The teacher up front sighs and immediately stops whatever she was talking about, walking over to her desk and continuing whatever work she had for her computer. "Have a good day everyone.", she says without looking up at them.
Drawsah grabs his two books and holds them to his side. He then walks towards the door and looks down at his thin, elastic-looking digital watch. The time on the watch reads 9:21am in bright light, making it easy to see without even having to bring his wrist up. Until he bumps into somebody on the way to the door. "Oh!" He barely glances up, "Sorry-"
"Watch where you're going!" Drawsah's heart skips a beat, startled at the sudden shouting. He looks at the person he bumped into and it's revealed to us that it's the same brown-haired girl from before. "S-Sorry about that…" He puts his hands up in an attempt to cool the situation, "You don't have to get upset." The girl disregarded this attempt as if she never saw it and immediately crushes Drawsah's personal space, "Don't tell me how to feel!" She points her index into his sternum with her nose turned up at the sight of him, "I don't wanna bump into you again…You're so annoying…!"
Drawsah sits there with a stoic expression although his eyelids are higher than they usually are. The girl turns towards the door and walk away with an attitude, leaving him more confused than ever. His brows furrow and his eyes squint in confusion, and right before he takes a step to the door, "Sorry about Tor- Er…Kitsutsuki... She's usually like this on the first day." The voice giggles.
"I'm sure she'll warm up eventually." Kitsutsuki…? Drawsah looks behind himself to see who was speaking to him. It was a girl no taller than himself. She had dark-red hair in a long ponytail that passed her upper body and innocent brown eyes that seem to have never seen evil. She wears a graphic tee with a bright-colored unzipped jacket, complimented by a denim skirt that ends right above the knees with vibrant, converse-styled shoes.
She looks at him smiling, piquing Drawsah's interest. "Who might you be?", he asked. "My name's Suzuki Cheri! Nice to meet you!" Her tone in voice is very light and radiates cheerful energy which infects Drawsah's energy in a positive way. He slightly smiles back and bows, "I'm Drawsah. Nice to meet you."
"I haven't seen you here before so you must be new, right?"
Most schools in West City have a fine line of zoning laws, meaning everyone who went to the same primary school would be expected to see each other at the secondary school. For most areas, this would still carry out at the high school level as well. In the case of Drawsah and Bulma, this is their first time attending public school in general. Before then, they've always been homeschooled since they day they could talk for themselves which was pretty early. The Briefs would hire new tutors for their children to be taught by every year or so and usually, they'd be finish with their courses in the span of a week.
"Yeah. This is my first time attending a public school. I used to be homeschooled and taught by a private tutor, but my dad decided to stop." Outside the room, we find the girl from before watching and waiting on the wall, leaning on one of the lockers. She scoffs, of course this kid had a private tutor. He's just another one of those snobby rich kids…
Drawsah and Cheri walk outside into the busy hallway, failing to notice Kitsutsuki posted up on the other side of the hallway. "Well since you don't know your way around, how about I give you a tour around the school? You're a second year, right?", asks with a bright smile.
"C'mon Cheri! We gotta get to our next class." Before Drawsah gets a chance to respond, they look at where the voice is coming from and find Kitsutsuki across the hallway. She walks forward and casually points at Drawsah, "Stop talking with the snobby rich boy, we don't have time like that on our hands."
The 'snobby rich boy' pauses for a moment as his face goes from his signature stoic mug to a slightly confused one. 'Snobby rich boy'? He looks down at himself and then looks at everyone else who passes by. Every student at school wears casual attire which is completely different from what he wore. He looked like he dressed for a private school fifty years in the past. Immediately realizing that he stands out more than he wanted to, his face becomes a little depressed. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to try Bulma's take on fashion…
Cheri fans at her friend, "Relax, Tori. Our class is literally right down the hallway…" Looking at Drawsah, "We can kill a couple of minutes, can't we?" Kitsutsuki just rolls her eyes, looking unimpressed, "U~Ugh…It doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure he has a different class to go to anyways." She glances at Drawsah with eyes that could cut stone. "What's your next class by the way, Drawsah?", Cheri asks him out of curiosity.
He wakes up out of his depressed daze and pulls out his schedule sheet from his pocket. "Let's see…", he comments before unfolding it and reading the room number. "361…"
"Oh! That's the gym! I can show you the way there if you want!", Cheri holds her arms behind behind her back. "Uhh…Thanks.", he replied pretty nonchalantly. Kitsutsuki sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose in irritation. She never wanted to meet new people and make 'friends'. She knew that most people weren't genuine. This kid even looks like he could care less.
Further down the hallway though, the crowding in the hallways grew thicker and louder as a voice all too familiar to Drawsah is heard. They look over to where all the commotion is happening and find a blue-haired girl at the center of attention of every kid in sight. Most kids follow the girl as if they made up her personal entourage and kiss up to her as if she was some sort of celebrity. Or maybe she might be some sort of celebrity everyone is familiar with.
Drawsah's face drops as he audibly groans at the sight. Kitsutsuki and Cheri look at him in confusion as they're seeing him display emotion that isn't stoicism for the first time. And Dad said we need to work on our social skills? Please get her outta here, she's a natural…
End of Chapter One.
AN:
This is going to be my first and probably only story I'll write. But I have pretty big plans for this story as well and I hope that I'll be able to make them last for as long as possible.
I don't have any plans for an update schedule either but I don't think I'll leave any readers in the dark for too long when it comes to updating. As I'm writing this, I've written about thirty five chapters so far. But they aren't in novel format but in short-script format and I've noticed that it took me a little while to write all this out off of just a couple paragraphs I've actually planned out for chapter one lmao.
I'm sure the speed will get better as I write along though. I hope this first chapter intrigued you enough to bring you all back for the next chapter. :)
