「f r i e s w i t h t h a t?」kris stew au

1

She is drawing something inside her French book, on the school bus. The large vehicle is crowded, but no one is next to Kristen. In another fifteen or so minutes, they would arrive at school. The windows flash slides of green and gray and brown, the colours of their city. Green not because trees, green because mold is slowly devouring the city. It's quite a large city. The kids roared on the vehicle, passing other buses clocking in from the north district. Surprisingly, there was only one traffic jam this morning.

The bus stops abruptly, and the school is in view.
The girl stays in her seat, sure to be the last one to get off as to not get tripped up by anyone's shoelaces or accidentally step in gum. All the students rush off the bus, eager to meet their friends on the school lawn after summer. The bus driver tips his head at the last student to get off, then drives off, deserting all his passengers to fend for them selves at their destination.
Its sunny, just breezy and clear of dust or smoke unlike the west side if town. The school lawn is littered with children and nearly-adults, all immediately dividing into sects upon arrival.

Busy busy busy, that's how everyone's been since their friends last saw them,
Me? I've just been to a few concerts, and it was just so busy...
You wouldn't believe how sunny it was in Spain....
The airport was just so busy...
Did you go to Seth's party last week? Wild...
Busy busy busy. Of course, there were a few people who weren't so. Most of them snaked around the chatting cliques and tried to get to their locker, where they pretend to be looking for something until lessons start, or just hide in the toilet.

Her first lesson of the day was PE, so Kristen left the girl's bathroom a few minutes before the bell rung, to get her kit from her locker, then to the changing rooms.
Once there, she took her track bottoms and shirt to change in the bathroom cubicle, then she sat on a bench, slipping on her trainers as the coach was instructing the lesson for today. The girls will just be doing track

The field is vast, and it was only a class of fourth five students. Of course, about a dozen slipped out of site and sat under the few trees on the edge of the spray painted track. Kristen had her legs stretched out and leant on her elbow, watching the hot girls and guys jog in the heat. A boy did the the same next to her, he sat with his legs folded and one arm over Kristen's shoulder, she was leant on his armpit.
A few other kids were in the shade, one obese kid and a few punk rockers who refused to join in on the exercising, then there were the rest who were just some of the popular kids who were climbing the tree. But the first two were just sitting there, quietly soaking up the oxygen and sunshine.
This was routine for the two friends, Kristen and Jesse, it was almost an unspoken agreement. Since the first day Jesse arrived in class in Middle school, the two participated in two different friendship groups and have never spoken, but then, once entering High school, their respective groups dispersed and they just became friends. Most lessons, they sit next to each other, not usually talking, just drawing on each other's arms or scribbling messages in their books. They were inseparable.

The teachers also had an understanding with them. Kristen and Jesse were good students, didn't mess about and were glad to help out in and out of class, so the teachers didn't mind that half the lesson they were preoccupied, since they probably have done the work and were harmlessly enjoying their existence. More over, there was another understanding among the school.
Everyone knew of Kristen and Jesse, Jesse was junior prom king and Kristen was the year book editor, and people respected that, since they weren't in some 2007 teen flick about how school sucks and everyone hates you.
Of course, they were technically the "out casts", as they didn't hang out with anybody else, and there were the cheer leader types and quarter backs as well as what you would call geeks and freaks, but then again, this was the school that has three geography scholarships from the cheer captain and two football players, and the only boy in school with braces as well as suspenders is dating the other yearbook editor, further more, it would rather seem unnatural if the preppy kids didn't sit with the metal heads and hip hipsters at lunch. Point proven? Well? No?
Okay.

As Mr. Nardole became increasingly frustrated with how so many of the runners were making false starts deliberately, he assigned the teaching assistant to take over, while he went to get some water, and on the way, he saw the punk rockers and preps climbing trees and sitting in satanic-ritualist circles (not really, the punks were too weak to climb), he shouted at them to join the class or they would get a detention each. All the kids jogged up the main track least for Kristen and Jesse. Mr. Nardole, of course seeming to have selective tolerance as he has an understanding, proceeded to walk down the field to where a water fountain is. He liked Kristen and Jesse, they were by far his favourite two students even if they had zero participation in class, but that didn't matter, as they were both on the sprint team and Jesse essentially the best runner in school. He would give them both A's if PE was a gradable subject on the curriculum, but it wasn't, so he just gave then a free pass to chill out during his lessons.
Kristen and Jesse don't mind this, neither do the other students.
You see, there is an understanding.

There was almost an understanding between everyone, that the two should be left alone.
And although it was comforting for the emo and the geek, two seemingly obvious targets, to not be bothered by the others as others might've thought, the understanding was also partly what made them leave.