Chapter 2:
Ritatsu sat through his classes, seemingly paying attention; His eyes always wide and alert, his pencil scratching down notes in his various work journals. It was merely an illusion. Behind his pale green eyes, was a mind, racing. The thoughts of Kitsune had not stopped, but had instead gotten more frequent. Ritatsu felt unusual for thinking about another guy in this way, but he couldn’t help it. The boy’s mysteriousness drew him in. His confidence was mesmerizing. Everything about this boy drew Ritatsu in.
At lunch, he had planned on sitting alone, but that plan was quickly soiled by a too-optimistic brown eyed girl who sat down across from him at the tiled picnic tables in the main courtyard, located at the center of the school where all of the bottom floor hallways fed into, like small rivers leading into a huge lake.
“What, Yuzuki.” Ritatsu grumbled as he took his lunch bag out of his backpack, opening to inspect its contents; a bottle of cola, an apple, and a large, flakey scone that had been wrapped in tissue paper with care.
“I just wanted to sit with you today! You look like a loner out here like this!” Her smile began to fade as she pulled out a protein bar and a bottle of water. Ritatsu nodded and reluctantly said nothing more on the matter. He quickly changed the subject.
“That’s all you’re eating for lunch…?” He frowned in confusion, gesturing to the water and protein bar. Yuzuki nodded quickly and unwrapped the protein bar, taking a small bite out of it, speaking as she chewed.
“Yes! It’s more than enough for me. The girls said I would need to lose weight if I wanted to make the competitive dance team this year.” She tilted her head to the side; her wavy, jet black hair falling to the side as she did so before taking a sip of her water, continuing to eat.
Ritatsu looked her over quickly and scoffed, shaking his head in distaste.
“You are kidding me right? Look at you! I don’t think anybody could get any smaller!” He frowned and sighed quietly, biting into his apple, juice dribbling down his chin. Yuzuki shrugged and looked down, whispering
“I need to be thinner.”
The word ‘anorexic’ ran through Ritatsu’s mind, but he shook his head as if to shoo away the terrible thought. He began on his scone after finishing only half of his apple, breaking off a piece of the pastry to offer to the girl, she quickly and politely declined with a wave of her hand.
“O-Oh no Rita! I can’t! We just finished talking about how I needed to lose weight! Not how I need to eat a scone and put on three hundred calories!”
He snorted at ‘three hundred calories’ and set the last fourth of the scone down, wrapping it up and tossing it back into his bag as the bell rang out over the courtyard marking the end of lunch.. Ritatsu stood up, and took a swig of his cola before stuffing that in his backpack too, then tossing the apple into a waste basket on his way out of the courtyard and to his final two classes for the day; Math and Earth Sciences.
Ritatsu considered taking a nap in his calculus class, but decided against it as he didn’t care to ruin his reputation as top student, even if he didn’t care for math. Kitsune hadn’t crossed his mind since the beginning of lunch, and once he thought the name, he was hooked again; The boy’s dark chuckled laugh echoing in his head. He flinched and sighed quietly, math class seeming to go by much faster than he expected.
Science however, was much more interesting than usual. As he sat down, he caught Yuzuki glancing at him from two chairs down as he sat in his usual third row, fifth from the right, desk. He pulled out his notebook as the class began. Dr. Akashi was lecturing about the different eco systems. Ritatsu had never seen any other eco system besides the utopia town that he lived in, the government worked hard to make sure that everything stayed constistant. He was born and raised in the same house for all of his 16 years, and didn’t expect to ever leave Block 1A. He was loyal to his city.
