Crouching Gangster, Flowering Quince

Chapter One

A/N: Main character in MM. Check out the cast. Dedicated to @TheOneWithABadName for the beautiful cover. :)

"So in the year 476, as you can see, things were pretty different than they are now..."

I can't hear her. There are too many distractions now. Sweat drips into my eyes, and the groans of the other kids are growing louder with each second. Some of them try to suppress their expressions of frustration, for the sake of our teacher and their peers. Others, the ones who need more practice in the field of patience, sound like untamed apes. You can find me somewhere in between.

Our teacher doesn't pay much attention to it. She doesn't have to try to figure out if our disdain is in response to her bland history lesson. There's no mystery to it: it's hot. We're about a week into summer and today is the last day of school—ever. Who would want to watch this poorly dressed, faintly masculine woman pace around the room with a miniature fan in her hand while her students stare at the open windows with sweat on their lips, praying that at least a tiny breeze will come through? Who would want to listen to a history lesson on this day, of all days, when we can't think of anything but the future (whether it be the next minute, the next few hours, or the rest of our lives)?

I don't, and based on the amount of students in this room who are either asleep, slouched in their seats with their eyes closed, or fanning themselves with the paper that we're supposed to be reading, no one else does.

"Students," The teacher stops in the middle of the room, resting a hand on her desk and keeping the other propped up to hold her fan, "what I'm essentially saying is that the opportunities you have now are no better than the ones that the Romans had. They fought for what they could back then, and you can do that now. Roman emperors didn't go to college, but they were emperors nonetheless."

"Miss, I have never paid attention to a damn thing you said in this class all year, but even I know that emperors went to college." A girl from the back of the class says. Under normal circumstances, that comment would've gained her a couple of laughs, but everyone is too hot and too annoyed and too on-the-verge-of-adulthood to even open their mouths.

At least, I know I am. I sit in the front of the classroom, so the wind from our teacher's fan reaches me every time it oscillates to the left. It comforted me earlier, but now the breeze makes my throat dry, and my thirst overcomes the minuscule relief of the wind. My tongue is dry and I've run out of saliva. The only moisture I can possibly feel if I spend another minute in this class will be tears of agony.

Mrs. Addison opens her mouth to respond to her rude students, probably on her way to comparing us to unsuccessful ancient empires again, and then—

Free at last.

"Bye, bitches!" JJ screams, leaping over two desks to get to the door as soon as the bell rings. The entire class runs as if they've seen a mouse. I watch them scrambling on top of each other, almost trampling each other in the process, and I can't help but smile. Rushing through that door with them would only take away from the sweetness of it all. I used to do that every day. I used to anticipate that bell and, once it rang, I'd leap out of here like there was a new Jordan release. Of course, back then it wasn't damn near 100 degrees outside and the biggest chapter of my life thus far wasn't about to end, but ending a day of school always felt like a victory.

But that bell, the one that just rang, means that I can never again call myself a high school student. I think that requires a different form of celebration.

I walk out of the classroom, still maintaining the smile. They all stream out of the rooms that I used to dread, swarming the halls like bees. I stop and take a moment, just a brief second, to take it in. I look at them, at the bulletin boards on our school's walls, at the sign above the main staircase that read 'Congratulations, Class of '92!'. As much as I want to get a perfect panoramic image of the entire setting so that I can tell my grandkids about it in detail one day, the thirst in my mouth has not subsided.