Dreaming In Stereo

Part 9 ~ Early Morning 'Perks'

"Lara!" Chris called. He slowed to a stop.

"Hey Chris!" Lara replied. "I'm still pissed, you know." As if to prove this, Lara punched him on the arm.

"Ow! That hurt!"

"It's what you get for waking me up this early on a Saturday morning," Lara replied. "Are you even human?"

She set down her board and rode down, wobbly at first, but then as they cruised along the road Lara smoothed. With every sharp turn, her hair flew across the air, exposing her bare shoulder to the early wind for a second, before touching back down.

"Where are we going?" Lara asked.

"Somewhere special."

"Which is...?" Lara pressed on.

Chris paused before answering, pushing his hair back with his hand. But the wind blew black locks back over his eyes, which Chris rolled. "Skate park."

"We go there all the time. How is it special?"

"You've never been there this early in the morning, though. It's giant and everything is empty and it's just you. Just wait. It's fantastic."

It was surprisingly empty. The skate park was outdoors and one of the largest ones in Sydney, and the most popular too. It was always teeming with people--small kids with helmets going down baby ramps, small kid prodigies going down big-kid ramps, teenagers who hung out in their only little zones making conversation with girls, all sorts of people. Now it was completely and utterly empty. Not a single soul but Chris and Lara.

Chris did some tricks, skated down a ramp and leapt into the air and landed cleanly on the ground. He skated to Lara and handed her his phone.

"Can you take a picture of this?" He asked.

Lara nodded.

"Don't pull an Ethan," Chris said, which made Lara laugh as they remembered the hiking incident. Chris skated off, gaining speed, up a ramp, he did a flip in the air, and in the moment of maximum height, Lara snapped a photo. Chris landed down and skated over, and they admired the picture together.

It was beautiful. Early morning sun blended into the photo, casting a warm light on Chris and a soft shadow murking in the bottom of the photo. In the background were the colourful graffiti walls of the skate park, and the curves and the ramps.

Chris posted the picture on Instagram, tagged Lara, and wrote a caption:

// gonna grab clothes, six in the morning go // Early morning perks with @_laralouise_ // Guess the Ed song :)

He waited a second, and then saw the first comment pop up:

Jeez, Chris... are you even human? So tumblr

"That's what I said!" Lara screamed. She snatched Chris's phone and typed in, "YES That is what I said this is Lara.'

Chris glared and snatched his phone back. An endless amount of comments and likes were now piling in.

Meanwhile, a twenty minute drive away in Sydney, Jakob Delgado was groaning in bed, with his pillow clutched over his ears, trying to tune out the sound of Mikaila singing (well, she called it singing. It was more like screaming) Paramore's tune 'Still Into You'.

"SHUT UP!!!" Jakob yelled.

"JAKOB! BE QUIET!" His dad yelled in response.

"NOT ME SINGING!" Jakob replied.

"JAKOB! THAT'S ENOUGH! NO MORE SHOUTING THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING! GO BACK TO BED!" His dad screamed.

Jakob sighed and rolled his eyes. Well, at least now Mikaila had shut up. He rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. He almost did, too. He felt himself drift away when suddenly a pair of hands grabbed him and nearly rolled Jakob off the bed.

Jakob looked up and saw a blurry black-haired figure in a gray tee shirt.

"Mikai-mikara..." Jakob mumbled. "Leave me alone..."

"Get up," Mikaila said. "Up, up, up, up, up... It's like... seven thirty."

"SEVEN THIRTY?! SEVEN?" Jakob yelled. "THAT'S LIKE, DAWN!"

"JAKOB!" His dad roared.

Jakob muttered under his breath as Mikaila roared with laughter. Jakob turned to Mikaila with a sour look on his face.

"What do you want?" He grumbled.

"Jeez, Jakey. Someone's grumpy," She grinned as Jakob glared at her. "Kidding."

Mikaila left, and Jakob sighed 'finally'. He rolled over onto his side and pulled the pillow over his head, trying to fall back asleep. But sleep was too stubborn--it wouldn't come, no matter how hard he tried. Jakob stayed in bed for a couple minutes, idling, but finally he got out and found Mikaila drinking some orange juice downstairs.

"Morning, sleepyhead," She said, bright and chirpy.

"Sh..." Jakob whispered, stumbling down the stairs. "Pour me some juice."

Mikaila laughed and got a glass from a cupboard. She poured a glass of orange juice just as Jakob sat down in a chair and gazed around. Everything was very bright. Light shone off the whitewashed walls. Jakob saw his phone lying on the kitchen counter. He grabbed it and turned it on. It was on 37% battery. Oh, well. He could always charge it later.

Jakob sipped the orange juice as he tapped into Instagram and scrolled. The feed seemed similar to last night's. He doubted anyone was awake at this time. Seriously, they'd have to be a never-sleeping voodoo vampire-zombie-pirate-ninja thing.

Then, something caught Jakob's eye. A post from @chrislanzonmusic from 1h ago. ONE HOUR AGO. It was a pretty sick picture of Chris midair doing some sort of skateboard trick in that skate park him and his mates always went to after school. Except the skate park was empty, which was pretty rare. Jakob liked the picture and saw that Lara was tagged in that picture. Seriously, how could they be awake at that time.

Jakob mumbled as he read the caption.

"Early morning perks?" Jakob repeated. "early morning PERKS?"

Jakob clicked on his phone camera, which was already on Selfie mode. He was wearing a cotton tee shirt three sizes too large, purple underwear with green dinosaurs on them, was barefoot, and his was a mess of tangled black. His eyes were droopy and tired. Jakob fumbled for the button and snapped a disgusting looking selfie. He posted it on Instagram and tagged Chris. The caption, which he typed with shaking fingers, read:

now thas more like early orning perks @chrislanzonmusic

Yeah, so that's Part 9. I realise this is the third chapter where Jakob is actually in it. I need to add some more baekob in there. Anyway, I hope you like it. I haven't been active for a while because I'm really busy with schoolwork and activities, but I'll try to post more, if not DIS (dreaming in stereo) chapters than some other hsort story or something. I've decided to post, starting from tmr, on: Wednesdays, Fridays and some Sat/Sundays. 

So every week there'll be at least 2 updates from two of any one of those four days. Yeah. Pls comment and vote, I can't believe I've been writing this since like late Sep and it's already on 300+ views!