「 A YOKAI? 」| RC9GN

01 • last stall on the left

I lift my head up to scan the room, one by one, I see students slowly filling up the empty seats. My eyes widen at a familiar face, Wait, is that the same boy from before? He's with his friend too. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bell ringing, signaling class is in session.

A teacher walk in. "Welcome freshman, I'm sure you're bummed to be back in school. We'll so am I!!" He yelled, causing some student's hair to blow back, including mine. A person even flew off from their chair. Damn, take it easy dude. ​​​​​I fix my hair.

"500 words! What you did on your summer vacation!" He slammed his fist on the table.

I wrote down my name, grade, and the title on a blank sheet of paper. "Cunningham. Let me copy off ya'." I turn to the sound and see it's the boy and his friend from before. Turns out the purple haired was sitting beside me on my right. I didn't wanna eavesdrop, but it was kinda hard to ignore them.

"Howard, we can't turn in the exact same essay."

"But we had the exact same summer."

A shoe was thrown at the back of the boy's head. "No talking!" The teacher shouted, feet on the desk now with a shoe missing, showing a ripped sock with his toes sticking out. 'Gross.' I put my attention back on my own essay. I wrote about what me and my dad did before we moved to Norisville, since we just moved yesterday. Leaving out the part where I was chosen to be the Yokai of course.

After some time, the teacher announced the end of the time limit. "Pencils down!" He starts to collect back the papers. But before submitting, the purpled haired boy ripped up his paper and placing it in the teacher's hand.

"What's this suppose to be?"

"Uh, my commentary on the fleeting nature of summer?"

He look at him suspiciously before dropping it with a smile, "Excellent use of metaphor."

"Aced it!" The boy cheered.

"I'll give you a B."

"B'ced it!" He cheered once again.

Wow, well that was something. I thought, eyes still on the boy as I submit my paper. He caught my gaze on him and gave me a small smile. I freeze up and turned my head away quickly, feeling embarrassed that I got caught.

‐ - - - ★ - - - ‐

Once class was over, other students stood up from their seats and started to leave the classroom. Meanwhile, I'm still glued on my chair, my thoughts stuck on those two boys from before. Should I try to befriend those guys, they seem like fun people to hang out with. In the corner of my eye I see them about to leave. Like if it was on instinct, I quickly stood up and grabbed my bag, slung it over my shoulder and catch up to them. Just as they were about to open the door, I called out.

"H-hey excuse me?" I cursed my myself about my stutter. They turned to look at me, one looking confused the other annoyed. "I-I was wondering if I could hang out with you guys?"

"Hang out with us?" The ginger boy asked?

"Yeah, I mean, I'm kinda new to Norisville. I just moved and um- you guys seem like cool and fun people to hang with y'know?" I tugged on the collar of my cardigan as I sweatdropped nervously.