Well, I'm only halfway through Chapter Four, but what the heck. And Huyen-n00b, I'm listening to the new Fahrenheit song right now, so look up the title.
Sorry if they're any mistakes, I did this in a hurry. Leaving to Boston for a few days, be back on Saturday. ^_^
For Chapter 1 and 2 scroll to the bottom and click the link.
Chapter Three:: Meetings
Air. He needed air.
He did
not just hear that. He was going deaf.
He was definitely going deaf.
There was no possible way that Nobuyuki Sho was within this building. No possible way. It had to have been someone else, with the same last name. There were plenty of other people in the world with the last name
Nobuyuki. Yeah, that had to be it.
Suddenly, he realized that he was alone in the hallway. Muscles must have frozen during his shock. The other two boys were no where in sight.
He inhaled through his nose, exhaling massively to slow down his skyrocketed pulse.
There was no way.
All right Hien, continue life as normal. Despite the fact that he was very aware of the nagging pull at the back of his mind.
A familiar name, so what? It can't be him. He moved off to who knows where and hasn't bothered to contact me and—damn it all, stop thinking about him.
He urged his leg muscles to move, and after a second of stiff protest, his locked limbs relented. He headed for the mouth of the hallway, his gait much slower and hesitant than before, and out of pure instinct, poked his head around the corner for anyone around.
...What am I—...dude, it's not like Sho's gonna pop up right in front of me just 'cause I heard his surname... Jeez...
Mentally slapping himself, he stepped out.
Besides, I should be worrying about where to find the cafeteria-place.
“Say kid, whaddaya doin' in the halls?”
He froze again, eyes wide, heart nearly skipping a beat. He turned and involuntarily gave the person behind him a pure deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression.
“...Uh, you okay?”
The junior—senior?—was a fair blond with a sharp chin, with a tall, athletically lean profile. His golden hair was swept in weird angles, as if it had never before been introduced to a comb, curly here and spiky there, yet somehow managing not to look too ridiculous. Large, sparkling periwinkle eyes assessed him curiously.
“S'ry,” Hien mumbled bashfully. “Dunno where we're supposed to eat lunch.”
The stranger brightened instantaneously. “You're new, right? Yeah, it's really common for sophomores to get lost around lunchtime. Why don't I show you 'round? Oh yeah, I'm Raphael. Eh, but people usually just call me Rafe, it's easier on the mouth. Nice to meet you!”
It took a moment, but Hien eventually processed the blond's speed-talk. “Uh, yeah, you too. I'm Hien,” the Vietnamese boy said haltingly, startled at the brightness that radiated like waves off of Rafe. He honestly never knew it was possible for anyone to be so cheerful.
Then again, he'd been caught up in his own teen angst for a while, so he supposed his opinion was to be expected.
“Hien! You're Chinese, right?” Rafe said, not unpleasantly.
“...Vietnamese,” Hien corrected bleakly, for the second time that day.
“Oh, sorry. I have a lot of friends who are Asian, so I'm stuck trying to figure out who's from where...” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Anyway, in this school we eat lunch both outside and inside. The food is bought inside a very small cafeteria where like, only fifty or so people can fit, so we mainly eat outside. You use your student ID to purchase it, but since you're new, your ID card probably won't come in another week or so... so you just tell them your ID number,” he chirped, smiling merrily.
Hien only stared, dumbfounded, at the openness in which this boy addressed him.
“Okay, so lets go before a teacher sees us and starts ranting about tardies even though technically we're not breaking the rules by standing around during lunch,” Rafe said, all in one breath, beckoning for Hien to follow him as he passed. “I honestly don't know why, but teachers always blame me for everything and people who are seen with me usually get shut in a detention room too and—oh! Well look who this is.”
A familiar pale-haired boy with a baseball cap angled on his head was obstructing their way, his arms crossed and quirking an eyebrow at them.
“'ello, Aki! How've ya been?” Rafe grinned, waving energetically. “Haven’t seen you since... well, last week or something.”
“Rafe, what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Akira deadpanned.
“Well, I was about to show Hen around before you showed up—”
“Hien,” Hien blurted, torn between feeling offended with being labeled as a chicken or amused by Rafe’s obvious lack of memory.
“Hien, sorry,” Rafe corrected embarrassedly.
“You were going to show him around,” repeated Akira flatly, his voice lilting incredulously. “
You.”
Rafe’s bottom lip stuck up in a childish pout. “You’re so mean, Aki.”
“If I remember right, you have a detention during lunch,” said Akira, ignoring Rafe’s puppy-eyed expression. “If I were you I’d report to Garawn’s room right now before you’re ten minutes late.”
Hien goggled. A detention on the
first day of school? Was that even humanly possible?
Rafe grumbled complaints under his breath. “All right, all right. But then
you’re gonna take my place, ne, Aki? Can’t leave a starving sophomore wandering the halls, eh? Even if you’re also a sophomore...”
“I know the hallways better than you. Now scram.”
“Ouch, that stings.” As if to accentuate his point, Rafe rubbed his arm. “First day of school and cast out of the circle twice already,” he sighed melodramatically. “How torturous!”
“
Rafe...”
“Okay, okay, I’m going!” The blond reluctantly trudged off in the opposite direction. A few ways off, he turned and called, “Call me if you need companionship, ‘kay, Hayne?”
And he was gone.
“...Hien,” said Hien lamely.
Akira rubbed his forehead. “Rafe, the idiot, can’t remember a name longer than a syllable. He’ll give you a nickname soon enough, if you keep hanging around him.” He eyed Hien. “Wandering the hallways, you were?”
Hien flushed. “No, I just didn’t know where to go.”
“Which is another way to say you were wandering the hallways,” said Akira bluntly. “Lets go.”
As Hien fell in a step behind his first acquaintance, he wondered hesitantly, “Detention?”
Akira snorted. “Rafe doesn’t care much about anything, especially rules. He’s been known to yell back at teachers, upturn tables holding chemicals, scream that the school is on fire when it isn’t... you name it.”
Hien was more or less unsurprised.
Akira continued on nonchalantly, “Even though his first impression is that he’s very friendly, it’s actually pretty hard to win his acceptance as a friend. He’s very cautious with the people he deals with.
“Then again, he’s no match for Takashi—who you’ll probably meet sooner than you’d like.”
“Takashi?” Hien echoed, then inwardly banged his head against a wall.
Eloquent. Very eloquent. Two one-word questions in a row. Nice, Hien.
The change in Akira’s demeanor was immediate. “Takashi is... will probably be the most vicious person you will ever meet,” he muttered, guarded but venomous. It did not take a genius to assume that mutual dislike coursed throughout the relationship.
Yes, very nice, Hien.
Akira noticed when the Vietnamese boy halted, and he also stopped, closing his eyes for a moment before relaxing. “Sore spot, sorry,” he said shortly.
“Uh... okay?”
Silently, they headed downstairs, Akira leading him through a mini hall that Hien had not seen before. A double door stood at the very end, and they headed into a small cafeteria, which in turn led to the outdoors.
Bright sunlight streamed upon the green grass, a few large trees shading the medium-sized expanse of space, before it expanded into a large soccer/baseball field. Students loitered about, cliques crowding in the shadows of the tree trunks, others just lying there and soaking up the sun.
“In order to save money, the district built the cafeteria small,” explained Akira, as they made their way to the lunch line. “They told us to go eat outside if we wanted to, since clearly not all of us can fit inside here. It gives us a chance for fresh air, so no one complains.” He shrugged.
“My science teacher told us we only ate outside,” said Hien warily.
“Who was it?”
“Miusk.”
“Oh, her. She’s known for teasing her students and loving her chemicals and materials as if they were her own children...”
“She told us that in the winter we eat in the gym,” added Hien.
“...That’s true, believe it or not. Mind you, we’re still allowed to eat outside, but since most students would rather stay where it’s warm, and the cafeteria isn’t so big, we use the gym.” Akira tipped the bill of his cap down a bit. “Snowball fights are frequent. Lunch is like a recess for high schoolers.”
“That’s a very... strange but welcome concept,” mused Hien. “The high schools I’ve known cooped us up in the building for the entire day.”
“West Mount High is a very strange school,” agreed Akira, his originally flat tone tilting slightly towards blitheness. The cheer sounded strange coming from the sardonic sophomore.
The selection area was fairly large, its four walls lined with refrigerated shelves of different foods. Cafeteria ladies hung behind glass panes, handing out hot dishes to anyone interested. Posters hung on the walls, brightening the blankness of white wallpaper.
The different varieties of food was impressive. There were, of course, the basic lunches, such as burgers and pizza, but the shelves and handouts also included a huge array of foreign cuisines that seemed so utterly out of place in a school cafeteria.
Hien stared in surprise at the oriental dishes covered in plastic wrap.
“...A strange school,” he repeated. “Is this food any good?”
“It doesn’t taste half bad,” admitted Akira. “Avoid the burgers and pizza though. Disgusting slabs of slime, they are. It’s weird—no matter which school you go to American food tastes horrible.”
A wry noise escaped through Hien’s lips as he shifted and withdrew a salad. At Akira’s questioning look he elaborated, “I eat Vietnamese food every day already.”
“Ah.”
“Speaking of which... they’re a lot of Asians here, aren’t there?”
In the Ohioan area where he had once resided, there had been barely enough Eastern Asians to be considered a minority.
“Well... not nearly as much as California, but still quite a few,” mused Akira, escorting him down a cashier lane, where Hien inputted his ID number. “Enough where you won’t be considered different,” he added on second thought. “Outside?”
“I think I’ll sit inside today,” said Hien apologetically, setting his tray down on an empty table.
Without a second thought Akira dropped down beside him.
“Where’s your lunch?” Hien asked awkwardly, noticing that Akira was empty handed.
The pale-haired boy shrugged. “Not hungry.”
“Oh, all right then...” Picking apart the plastic container which held the salad, Hien dribbled dressing over the vegetables. He could almost
feel Akira’s stare on him, and he did his best to ignore the nervousness at the pit of his grumbling stomach.
In fact, practically everything about Akira made him nervous. It was as if the smaller boy already knew everything about him without him voicing it, just by assessing him and deducing the rest. This kid was
smart—Hien was absolutely certain of it.
And why did Akira bother to stay with him? Hien would eat the fork he currently held if the sophomore didn’t have any friends.
“Akira?”
...Speaking of which.
Akira turned around lazily, and Hien looked up.
The teen striding towards them was unmistakably attractive, tall and swarthy and well-built. Uncombed midnight hair spiked primarily in the back, a fringe parted to one side falling into catlike eyes of amethyst-tinted onyx. He held himself with the pride and grace of a cat, maneuvering easily and fluently through the tables.
“Ne, Chibitensai, where’ve you been?” the boy grumbled, and Hien was suddenly struck with the notion that this guy was more immature than his appearance let on.
Akira smirked. “Missed me?”
“Dream on, brat. Seth was too lazy to go look for you.”
“And you volunteered.”
“Did not. Stupid narcissist forced me to.”
“You let a fifteen year old force you to do something?”
“Urusai.” The boy sat down next to Akira with a huff, then suddenly noticed Hien. “Who’s this?”
For a reason that Hien could not comprehend, Akira hesitated before answering. “Hien. He’s Hien.”
Dead silence.
“...You mean—”
“Yeah.”
Coal black—no wait, violet?—eyes were staring at him curiously, slitted pupils thinning further.
Self-consciousness swept through Hien rapidly, and he involuntarily shrank away. What was with the weird reaction?
After a moment, the taller teen nodded. “Yeah, I think I see it...”
See what? Huh?
“I’m Daisuke. Sadaharu Daisuke. Hey.” The teen—Daisuke—abruptly leaned across the table and ruffled Hien’s hair, leaving it a disheveled mop on the shorter boy’s head.
Hien paused, surprised at the show of affection. “Hien,” he replied, with lack of anything better to say. “Thai Van Hien.”
A knowing grin broadened across Daisuke’s face, before he turned back to Akira. “Ryouma knew about this, didn’t he?”
Akira rolled his eyes.
“Say Hien, what class do you have next?” Daisuke asked, grin not relenting.
“Uh... Art?”
“I knew it,” the catlike boy declared triumphantly. “That guy is a genius.”
Saying that Hien was currently very confused was a serious understatement. “Huh?” he mumbled intelligently, his fingers playing with the fork in his hand.
Daisuke only laughed. “Have fun next period, kid,” he said, rising from his seat. “And Chibitensai, tomorrow you’re eating with us, got it? Seth’ll go berserk otherwise. And having a narcissist go berserk on you is not very pleasant.”
Akira snorted. “You’re exaggerating. He isn’t that bad.”
“Whatever you say. After all, you’re the one who knows him best.” With an oddly irritating smirk, Daisuke was gone, and this time Hien noticed a few groups of females giggling in his wake.
Hien opened his mouth to ask just what the hell Daisuke was talking about, but stopped mid-motion after noticing an inconspicuous flush on Akira’s cheeks. He raised an eyebrow, and began to wonder...
“Bastard,” was all that came out of the pale-hair boy’s mouth, despite Akira’s visible attempts to further the insult. “Bastard.”
Akira escorted Hien to the art room after the bell rang, informing him of what he should expect upon meeting the art teacher. They stopped in front of the door, and Akira wished him good luck before merging into the throng of students rushing to class, leaving a thoroughly horrified Hien staring at the doorknob. He swallowed and reached for the knob, only to stumble back when it abruptly turned and the door swung open.
“A good day to you, Ms. Garawn,” drawled a familiar voice as someone stepped out. Blue eyes locked with brown. “Oh, hey, it's you again. Hayne, right? How's it been?”
Hien didn't even bother to correct his name. “Fine,” he mumbled. “Hey.”
Rafe grinned. “I was just leaving detention, if you were gonna ask.” He threw a glance over his shoulder, making sure the teacher wasn't listening, before lowering his voice. “That woman's an ol' hag. Intense favoritism. You've gotta be really nice to her the first time you meet her to get on her good side, and she'll bitch at you if you're not. Trust me, I know that firsthand, she hates my guts. Well, see ya.”
Chuckling, the blond slipped away.
Well, I'm reassured, thought Hien dryly, and cautiously entered the room.
It was spacier and lighter than the others, with large windows lining one wall and a screen door leading into a small courtyard. Adjacent to the windows were counters and cabinets, multiple drawers providing much storage space. Instead of desks, four-man tables were scattered around, with metal stools stacked neatly in one corner. The room was completely devoid of people.
Hien set his books on the nearest table, just as a strained, raspy voice called out, “Good afternoon.” He whirled around, startled.
Mrs. Garawn was a middle-aged woman and tall and lanky, her wrinkled face slathered with excessive and bright makeup. Her graying hair was curled and fell across her shoulders, and she both carried herself and dressed as if she were thirty years younger than she was.
Forcefully resisting the urge to back away, Hien smiled weakly. “Hi.”
Much to Hien's relief, another voice interrupted before he had to say anything else. “Hello, Mrs. Garawn. How was your summer?”
The hideous woman's face broke into a beam as she turned to address the newcomer. “Why, good to see you, Mihael. The vacation to Hawaii was excellent. How was Alaska?”
“It was beautiful,” replied the boy with a disarming smile. He was a head or two taller than Hien, with dark brown-blond hair framing his heart-shaped face. Almond-shaped caramel eyes complimented his coffee skin, which was smooth and unblemished, all for a small mole against his revealed collarbone.
His gaze fell on Hien. “I'm Mihael,” he said automatically, setting his own books down opposite of Hien's. “You?”
“Uh, Hien,” he stammered.
Damn it, curse my lack of charisma to hell.
“Well, good to meet you, 'uh-Hien',” Mihael said, with a slight quirk of his lips. Hien flushed. “You're new here, aren't you?”
“Yeah.”
“Mm, I can tell.”
Wondering just how this boy “could tell” that he was new to the district, Hien sat down and turned to watch the sudden horde of students pouring through the door at the last minute. He glanced up at the clock hanging beside the windows, then surveyed the room.
The tables had filled up rapidly, with a few empty seats here and there. A few boys and girls randomly approached Mihael and greeted him, however none of them made a move to occupy the seat by his side.
Mihael seemed to understand the puzzled furrowing of Hien's eyebrows as the latest girl sauntered away, and laughed. “It's reserved. Same with the stool beside you.”
Hien blinked, and briefly considered moving, until Mihael continued, “You don't have to move. In fact, I'm sure that they'd be delighted to meet you.”
Was that sarcasm?
“Here they are now.”
Loud laughter resonated from the door, drawing the class' attention to the two students who had just arrived. Barely a second later, the bell rang.
“Mr. Kusakabe, Mr. Nobuyuki, please take a seat,” Ms. Garawn drawled. “Mr. Nobuyuki, please refrain from laughing so loud. People will be able to hear you from across the hall.”
Hien's gaze snapped instantly to the two almost-latecomers. Nobuyuki? Nobuyuki.
The teen on the right was lean and ghostly pale, his windswept hair inky black with a splash of white against an uneven fringe. Sharp, piercing eyes glowed a chilling mercury beneath naturally long, thick lashes, oddly intense against expressionless aristocratic features.
His companion was slightly taller, although his complexion appeared much healthier. Tousled bronze hair was split at one side of his forehead, falling just above rectangular glasses that rested on the bridge of his narrow nose. The corners of his brown eyes were crinkled slightly, implying a playful, blithe demeanor.
Hien's breath hitched. He was familiar. Very familiar...
The two ignored Mrs. Garawn's disapproving gaze as they neared the table, and Hien was suddenly painfully aware how elegant the first boy was compared to the latter. Even Daisuke's easy grace paled in comparison.
“Yo, Mihael,” grinned the bronze-haired teen, plopping down next to swarthy boy as the ravenhead seated himself beside Hien.
As Mrs. Garawn began to list the rules of her classroom and whatnot, Hien's forehead met the table. The cool wood had little effect on his frayed nerves.
Okay, first of all, the guy sitting diagonal of you is familiar. Second of all, if I heard right, one of these guys' names is Nobuyuki, and I'll be damned if it isn't the familiar guy. Third of all, every girl in the classroom is glaring at me because, unless I've become incredibly stupid, I'm sitting next to a female magnet.
Oh, how I love my life.
Dimly he heard the Mihael's slow, melodic voice interrupt his inward ranting. “So, how's life, Sho?”
Sho?
“Meh, nothing much. Mom canceled the trip at the last moment, but it's not like Dad or I cared, since we didn't want to go to Jamaica in the first place... Say, who's that?”
Who's me indeed.
“I met him earlier—oi, that isn't the way to get someone's attention, you know—”
“Hello? You alive?”
Someone was poking his head.
He didn't like it when someone poked his head.
Swatting the offending finger away, Hien looked up. The—familiar—bronze-haired boy was peering at him curiously behind his rectangular glasses, and Hien was suddenly struck with the urge to bang his head on the table. No wonder he was familiar.
Spirits, Hien, you idiooot....
He swallowed.
“Hey, Sho.”
And Nobuyuki Sho stared at him for precisely two seconds, before his eyes widened in recognition and he promptly fell off of his stool.
END CHAPTER 3
Chapter 2 -->
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Chapter 1 -->
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2008
Tired
Relief
Uneasy
Cheerful