What's ordinary

Prologue

They came in, one by one.

Then in pairs and then groups.

Eventually they came in as a hoard of grade nine students with their parents being dragged along in the current of anxious excitement.

Tonight was a huge event considering it was the open house for John. McClair high school. The band played a vast collection of pieces at the end of the foyer as the student council members acted as the front line representatives of their high school. The sounds of various greetings, directions being given and questions being answered could be heard as a distinctive mumble as the band played "Hey Jude" by the Beatles in the background.

All of the student council members could be found in a horseshoe formation in front of the entrance doors that winter night to make sure none of the visitors could escape into the school without being at least greeted once. The doors stood wide open letting the cold breeze seep into the old school brick by brick. Everything was going according to plan, the opening ceremony was due in thirty minutes, the band haven't messed up any of their pieces and of course he wasn't here. Yet.

Kai stood at the middle of the horseshoe. Greeting everyone he saw and especially everyone he knew. He was glad that he saw so many familiar faces in the crowd. Most of them were part of his junior high school when he himself was in grade nine and they were in grade seven. Some were from his elementary, others acquaintances he made over the years. Kai also kept watch of his fellow student council members, making sure none of them were struggling with the bombardment of questions being thrown at them. As he looked around the foyer his eyes froze looking out the open doors, into the parking lot. Even with the bare illumination of the street lights Kai could tell. He was coming. Kai's body froze up like his eyes, his ears tuned out all the white noise that surrounded him and then he walked in.

It was as if Kai couldn't look anywhere else as the boy and his friends walked in. All of them wearing hype brands and black apparel. One of them even had a man bun while the other kept his hair up with a black and white bandana. Their laughs echoed in Kai's ears and then Kai left. Kai left the formation of his fellow members and walked the opposite direction to the opening ceremony. No one dared to question where Kai was going but just let him be. Minutes passed and the hoard of visitors left the opening ceremony for an unguided tour of the school. The school itself, minus the gymnasium, theatre room and cafeteria, was basically two floors of classrooms stacked upon each other in the shape of a half circle. It was the role of the various student council members to offer themselves as guides to the visitors who were lost and to help the faculty members with their demonstrations and advertisements. But Kai decided to disregard his role and walked the halls avoiding the boy and his friends. He did this with great success considering his heart could tell wherever the boy was in the school. It wasn't that hard, the boy was important to him once but then again since when was life ordinary.

Kai was walking down the hall when his friend Abi stopped him and said all the student council members were regrouping in the music room to hand out cleaning jobs. They began their way down to the music room when Kai's heart dropped. He could feel it, the boy was walking towards them. The laughing echoed in the halls and Kai tried his best to move to other side of the hall away from the group of grade nine boys parading their way to the other side of school. But the flow of the visitors in the hallway wouldn't let Kai do as he wished. And then it happened. Bodies collided and eyes met. Mouths turned into O's as the two recognized each other. Both groups stopped in the middle of the hall like a rock. Once again everything froze for Kai. The boy in front of him was his height, his hair spiked in a way that made most wonder how long it took to get it like that. His build was more defined and broad then it once was, his smile seemed to be slipping too and then time unfroze.