I Built A Friend (Shigadabi)

Prank Pals

Tenko's p.o.v

   School was always something I dreaded. A room full of kids who, let's be real for a second, didn't like me. Kids are assholes. I don't think they realize some of the things they say hurt and can damage a person. Because as an eight year old, hearing that you're weird does something to your self esteem. And not in a good way either. That's why school was so much better with Touya. He was always a bit of a trouble maker in class, never afraid to get a yellow or red mark on his daily grade sheet because of his attitude.  Having him around was like a protection shield from all the other kids because nobody messed with him, so nobody messed with me. I was a few months younger than him but we still got put in the same grade luckily. We had one class up until fifth grade when classes would branch out from multiple teachers instead of just one. I always got into a class with Touya somehow. I think our parents had something to do with it though.

   Having Touya around didn't always stop kids from picking on me though. There were still loads of days where I was the pick of the class because I had social anxiety, bright red 'scary' eyes, and skin lesions which made my skin itchy and left scars and blisters on my neck and face. Kids would constantly pick at me, calling me stupid names and pushing me down in the lunch line or outside during recess. Kids most often called me 'freak' because I didn't look 'normal' to them. I didn't exactly look the friendliest but it didn't matter to me. I had Touya and he was all I needed. Having an older 'brother' or more of a friend to me, meant I would be his little pawn whenever he wanted. I never felt pressured to do pranks with him. We had done so many pranks and our parents were often unimpressed with them.

Our first prank happened when we were in the second grade. This was the start of our mischief. There was this one time a little before Christmas break when we were supposed to be decorating the classroom with streamers and lights and snowflakes made of paper. It was the day when we were cutting out the white paper snowflakes to hang on the ceiling. His snowflakes looked pretty while mine were a bit jagged around the edges. All of the sudden, a thought came to mind. Touya sat beside me, near the back row to the left of the room. There was a girl who sat in front of me in class, Himari, who had a long ponytail. She was always messing with it, swirling it around her fingers, fixing it constantly, brushing it out during class. She was obsessed with her hair. She had tossed the ponytail behind her and it was laying on my desk. I tapped my finger on the desk and Touya looked over, slightly annoyed. I picked up my safety scissors, pointed at her hair and made a chopping motion. His eyes went wide and he got a big smile on his face, ear to ear. I carefully grabbed her hair and snipped it right at the elastic band.

I held onto the chunk of hair, freaking out silently. I threw it to Touya who burst out in a fit of laughter, falling out of his desk. I did the same, giggling like mad catching the attention of the entire class. "What are you two idiots-" Himari started, reaching back to though her hair but feeling nothing. She soon saw her ponytail on the ground and let out a scream of terror and the teacher came rushing over. She was in a fit of tears while Touya and I couldn't stop laughing. She grabbed our arms and rushed us outside while another teacher came in to check on the commotion. We were sent to the principals office and had our parents called on us. We got suspended for two days for the incident. I felt bad yet somehow felt so cool. I impressed my older brother and he seemed so cool. He thought I was cool.

   Another incident happened in the fourth grade. This was the first year we had an elective class. These consisted of music, art, dance, writing, or computers. You got to choose which one you wanted to go to every week so you could either paint something awful, sing terribly, dance and get made fun of, write something nobody would ever want to read, or work on computers. Touya always chose art, very rarely chose anything else, so of course, I followed him right into the art room. There was this girl, her name was Yana, who had a crush on Touya now that I look back at it. She didn't like me, often choosing me as her bully target. For some reason, she wanted Touya's attention. She wanted him all to herself. Of course, he could have cared lass about her. We walked into class one day and the teacher passed around these little canvases, telling us to free paint whatever we wanted. Placing little pieces of paper down for us to use as paint pallets because our school wasn't exactly the most funded. Squirting dollops of paint on the paper, I started painting a background. I wanted to do a bird in the sky. I sat next to Touya while Yana sat across from him. She started painting a flower. Touya told me that when girls didn't know what to draw, they would just stick to flowers. I believed him.

   We started painting and all of the sudden, a cold brush came in contact with my cheek. Looking over at Touya, he had a big grin on his face. Sticking my brush in purple paint, I smeared it all over his face and arms. He gasped, grabbing his paper that was heavy with paint blobs and chucked it at my face. It smeared down my face and shirt, coating my hair in layers of colorful paint. I grabbed mine and threw it at him, pushing it down in his hair. The quiet kid at our table silently pushed his paper over to me and I scooped the paint in my hands, shearing it everywhere that paint hadn't already covered. He grabbed Yana's paper, who was screaming at this point telling us boys are gross, and smeared it in my hair. Once the teacher, who was out doing an errand for the principal came back, she pulled apart and forced us to the principals office. I was scared but Touya grabbed my hand and walked there with me and we giggled the whole way there. Our parents were called and when they opened the door and saw us, burst out into laughter. They tried being serious but I could tell they were amused which made me lighten up a bit. We didn't get in too much trouble luckily; just a detention and sent home early.

   The most troublesome prank, and last straw with our parents was what we liked to call 'The Cup Corruption'. We were in sixth grade at the time, split classes so we didn't share every class together. I never liked metal and glass silverware. It always felt weird on my teeth and lips and it look me forever to eat food because I would refuse to let my mouth touch the metal or glass. My parents, trying to come up with a solution decided they'd buy plastic cups and silverware. A perfect fix. I always threw away the cups and plasticware away after one use since it's that kind of thing. But one day, Touya told me to keep my cups. I said okay, he started using them as well and then stock piling them up after dinner. Some days, we'd take two at a time. We didn't want our parents suspicious so we did it slowly instead of taking a giant stack all at once. We eventually got together two backpacks full of plastic cups collected over the few weeks. Our plan was ago.

We brought the bags with us to school and nobody said anything since kids often came with an extra bag to go to a friends house or something like that after school. We had a few classes together and we couldn't contain our excitement. It was after lunch, all students were back in classes and getting prepared for the scheduled fire drill. Teachers told students a few days in advance about fire drills so they wouldn't freak out. Kids still freaked out and often rushed out of classrooms. That's how we knew today would be perfect. We had separate classes at the time and we asked our teachers to use the restroom about twenty minutes before the fire alarm would sound. We met up in the bathroom with our bags of plastic cups and made mini pyramids in front of each teachers door. When the cups toppled over, they would bang against the tile freaking more people out. Once our pyramids were set up, we rushed into the bathroom and waited. That's when the fire alarm went off. We listened in muted laughter as kids and teachers screamed at the loud sounds, the hallways covered in red plastic cups. Everyone rushed out as quick as possible, trying to avoid the cups at all costs. We slowed down the exits and the teachers were furious. After figuring out that it was us who did the prank, mainly the cameras that caught us making the towers, we were sent to the principals office. We got suspended for two weeks and our parents were almost more upset than the teachers were. Dad explained that what we did could have put others in danger if it was a real fire and to not joke about these types of things. He was upset with us and our mom just silently shook her head in disbelief. That put a stop to our pranks and our fun was over. But I always missed that feeling we had after we did the pranks. That feelings of happiness yet anxiousness. A calm before the storm type of feeling. But with him I felt better.

With him I felt safe.