Sugarcane Chronicles Volume I: One and Lonely (ryden)

Uke-gene

"Yeah, but not when you keep trying to give him stupid names like Uke-y and Uke-gene and Lele," he said.

"Hey, I worked hard on those names," I defended.

"Yeah, but Uke-y?" he asked. "Really?"

I sighed. "Then what am I supposed to name him? Steve? Carl? Bob?"

"No, just..." He closed his eyes and sighed. "Be creative, but try not to be too punny."

I sighed. "Fine. But that's like asking The Rock not be muscular or Josh Peck not to be funny or... you not to be handsome. It's just impossible."

He looked up at me at the end of my sentence. "You think I'm handsome?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'd be stupid if I didn't."

He smiled, and it was almost completely sincere this time. "Thank you," he said. "You are making my day better and better every second you're in it."

I smiled at him. "Well, you do the same for me. Especially with the pizza you always have."

He laughed. "Yeah, about that..."

"You don't have pizza?"

"No, I just got only one today," he said, picking up a pizza from under his desk and placing it on top of it.

"Oh, that's ok. I wasn't that hungry anyways." I scooted my chair forward. "Pepperoni or cheese?"

"Both."

I laughed and he told me that I did a good job playing the song earlier (I got a chord wrong, though (bleugh)).

I shivered as I took a bite of my second slice. "It's kinda cold in here today," I observed.

"Eh," he said, dropping his pizza crust into the box. "The cold never bothered me anyway."

I laughed. "Frozen? You went to see it?"

"Yeah, but there was some kind of incident, I dunno," he said. "The projector caught fire or something. I couldn't finish watching. And it was right around that big ending, too."

"Well, uh, I think my mom's a little obsessed with that movie," I said, "so when she gets it on DVD, which she'll be, you know, camping out at the Best Buy for probably, you're welcome to come watch it with me."

"Aww," he said. "Thank you. That means a lot. But I've already got it pre-ordered."

"Oh." I laughed.

A few slices later, he complimented my new haircut ("It's almost like you copied mine..." he said, looking up at his own hair. "I would make a joke about you being stupid by cutting it in the winter, but I did the same thing").

Throughout the session, I made as many jokes as I could and complimented him as much as I could and was really nice in general to him because I knew he was having an off day (I tried to make it more of an on day?). I hugged him before I left (apparently I'm a hugger now? (New Year's resolutions always come through anyways)) and he hugged back. He was really warm (and a really good hugger).

I kind of worried about him in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.

When I got to the lunch table everyone was at, they were all just about finished and I got to see Ryan a bit, but not much. My next class was with Ryan and I was grateful for that (although he still had that weird air about him (and he was really focused on class but time is time)). The rest of the day was kind of boring and bland (like school is every day) until music at the end of the day, because the original music teacher, Ms. Archer, was there. I wondered what had happened to her, because Dallon said that she was in an accident but turns out she was pregnant and got married. I congratulated her and said that I would've gotten her a wedding gift if I knew. She complimented my new hair cut (and so did Gerard (ew)) but said something about getting it cut in the middle of winter. I told her that I really had no other choice but to cut it and she asked why (because teachers always ask why to everything (I hate that)) and I told her that I got gum in it and she laughed and told me that I'd have to tell her the whole story sometime.