Ah, yes. That dreaded thing called school.
I'm excited to see where this goes. I'm just going with wherever it takes me.
Enjoy! :)
-------------------------------
Louis and Nick arrive first, parking in the student parking lot before getting out of the car and heading towards the building. Nick is ready for one last school year. Louis is just curious to know how his last first day of school will play out. They're ready.
Tony won't get his license until his birthday in two months, and Sean hasn't had his license long enough to be able to drive Tony to school, and since his parents are both busy, he has to take the bus. Luckily Charlie's with him. That makes riding the bus all that more bearable.
Charlie's glad for Tony being there. This means that he won't be entering the building alone. He's still a little unnerved, but having Tony there is really giving him a confidence boost.
Sean parks his car right next to Nick's. Having just gotten his license a month ago, this is his first time parking here, and it makes him feel more grown up. He beat the bus by just little; now he and Tony can walk into the building together. At least the bus will help Tony be on time.
Let's just get this over with, Jack thinks to himself as he gets out of his car. Surely it can't be that much worse than what we already have. But why should they only take what they're given? Wait. Where did that come from? School's messing with his head already.
Kathryn gets to school just a little bit early. Maybe they can surprise Sarah. She really hopes so. She hopes that Sarah still wants to talk to her. She should, we've been talking all summer, she thinks to herself. The thing is they don't know if Sarah's an early person, on time person, or late person. Kathryn can be patient.
"You ready?" Sarah asks David.
"Let's just get this over with," David grumbles.
Together, they walk through the door.
And walk right onto the edge of a sea of students.
"Remember where everything is from the tour?" she asks.
No. David does not remember. He's been in this building once. And he was not paying attention on the tour.
Sarah sighs. "I thought so." Then she starts walking in another direction. "Come on. Our lockers are this way." Last night, they took time to memorize everything about both their schedules, including locker numbers (and combos). It's handy having it printed it out too. David knows he's going to get lost.
"Why are the lockers so far from...everything?" David complains. "Like, besides a couple classrooms, everything else is far away."
Sarah shrugs. "At least this school wasn't designed by people who design prisons."
"There is that."
Their middle school was one of those old schools that did look like a prison, and it only got worse once everyone found out that it actually was designed by people who design prisons.
Not this school.
"People who design schools still make everything complicated," David grumbles.
After he gets everything he needs and closes his locker, he looks at his printed out schedule. "Okay, English is my first class. We should be heading in the same direction, at least for a little bit-" That's when he looks up, he realizes Sarah isn't standing next to him.
She didn't even close her locker.
She's standing next to Kathryn, talking and laughing with her.
David sighs. It did not take long.
Sarah comes back to close her locker and get whatever else she needs with a smile, saying, "good luck!" before walking away with Kathryn.
"Some help you are!" David calls back half-heartedly.
And now he's alone.
Well, not literally alone. In a school with this many kids, there's always going to be someone around.
But he is on his own.
Okay, I can do this.
Surely there are only so many possibilities in which I can go a wrong direction.
Let's go...that way.
Because that way is his best guess to where his classroom might be.
Turns out he can't find it.
He's lost.
He looks at the number in the classroom he's closest to. Is that the one he's looking for-?
While looking for the right number he isn't looking where he's going. He bumps right into someone. Someone who is tall, and probably annoyed by David, and-
Very, very good looking.
David stares into the stranger's eyes a second longer than he should.
"I-I-I-I'm so sorry," David stutters.
The guy smiles. "Don't worry about it." He looks more amused and surprised at the contact than annoyed.
So this is how Sarah felt when she found Kathryn.
And there's just something about him that David can't put his finger on...
Seems like the guy is having the same feeling about David.
There's a...sense of familiarity...something...strange.
David's going to be late. After muttering an apology one last time, he averts his eyes and continues hurrying on his way.
The fact still hasn't changed that he has no clue where to go.
There are several ways that he can handle this. He can either ask someone if they know where to go, or he can keep trying to figure it out. But it's getting close to the time when class starts, and if there's one thing that gives him anxiety more than anything it's being late to class. Especially at a new school. Especially on a first day at that new school.
So he's going to find help.
He sees two people a little bit away, they look like they could be brothers. They don't give the friendliest outlook, but David could be wrong.
Only one way to find out, really.
He walks up to them. "Excuse me?" he tries to keep any shyness or stammering out of his voice. "Do you know where..." he trails off as they go from unfriendly vibes to actually unfriendly.
"You're new, aren't you?" one of them looks him up and down, look of disdain on his face.
David squares his shoulders. "Yes. And I just want to know where-"
"Do we look like we give out directions?" the guy interrupts. The other guy (who looks too much like him not to be his brother) hasn't said anything yet, but his eyes are just as mean.
This was a bad idea.
"Hey."
All three look at the new person who just spoke.
It's the guy David bumped into.
"You," David says at him quietly.
The guy steps forward. "It isn't nice to pick on new kids, Oscar. I thought I already told you that."
"What are you going to do about it?" Oscar sneers. "Remember, if you get caught punching someone again, you'll get expelled."
"And you really want to see how I react if you keep picking on new kids?" Jack counters. "It didn't end well last time for you." Oscar looks less certain now. Jack leans forward, and murmurs in a low voice, "and if you come near Tony, Sean, or Charlie, it'll be the last thing you ever do."
He stands up tall, holding his ground.
He is so good at that.
David is thinking that purely from a spectator's standpoint. Nothing else.
To his relief, the two leave.
The guy turns back to David, and offers him a smile.
David stands up a little taller, trying to make himself look less meek. "That was-that was-" he clears his throat. "Thank you. For that."
"Don't mention it," the guy assures him, smile bigger. "I'm Jack." he holds out his hand.
David looks into Jack's eyes, searching for any bad intentions. He can't find any. "David." He shakes Jack's hand.
David can't think straight right now.
"Are you lost?" Jack asks gently.
"Yeah," David admits. He shows Jack his schedule. "I know what classes I have when, but I don't know where any of these classrooms are."
"Well David, you're in luck," Jack says. "We have our first two classes together. I can show you around then, at least a little."
"Really?" David internally sighs with relief.
"Yeah. Of course."
"But can we hurry on to class please? Wherever it is? I don't want to be late."
Jack chuckles. "Oh, I see how it is. Well darn, there goes my plans of strutting into class five minutes late."
David nearly has a heart attack.
And then he sees that Jack is just joking.
Not. Funny.
Jack's not going to let David know that he actually was planning on showing up to class five minutes late. "Come on. This way."
And so together, they walk off to their first class together, ready to start the day.
--------------------------------------------
Everyone knows where to meet up for lunch. Well, they had to tell Charlie where they were going to meet up, but they know. During the first month of school or so when the sun still shines like it's summer (because season wise, it is), almost everyone eats outside. And they had claimed a little patch of shade underneath a willow tree.
A little distance away, Sarah and Kathryn are on the ground too, talking about books, getting excited. They're not paying attention to this group much.
The six of them will need the shade of the willow tree: Tony is wearing an oversized sweatshirt, and they can't have him overheating.
They understand that during the school year, he gets most gender dysphoric, so the more layers he has on, the better. And it's fine inside with all the air conditioning. Out here is a different story.
They want to talk about past lives a little more.
"Where's Jack?" Tony asks as the five of them sit down.
Louis and Nick shrug.
"Jack's late to everything isn't he?" Sean throws in.
"You'd think he wouldn't be late to lunch."
"Has anyone found at anything more about..." Charlie trails off. "You know."
Tony shakes his head. "Nah. I wish, though."
Sean looks towards the building, and sees Jack coming out of it. "Oh there he is."
As Jack walks over, Tony starts calling out to him, "Hey Jack! Know anything about..."
He stops when it finally registers to all of them that Jack is bringing someone new to their group.
"This is David," Jack slings an arm around this new person--David. "He's new. I told him he can sit with us."
None of them are about to object. They'll just have to work around their plans of talking about past lives.
But there's something about David.
There's that small remnant of déjà vu they felt earlier this year.
Something is just right.
And so, Tony and Louis motion to the empty space between them. "Have a seat."
-------------------------------------------------
Sean knew that this was going to happen.
It's the class after lunch, and he is ready never to hear the end of it.
Once it starts, that is.
Right when they walk into the building again, it starts.
"I don't know why I have to be stuck with Spanish another year," Tony complains.
Right on cue.
Sean is going to have to listen to this all the way to their lockers, and all the way to the Spanish classroom. He's heard it many times before. There's not much he can do about it.
"I mean, why do we need two credits minimum anyway?" Tony continues. "I know many people who don't even want to take one year. People that are fine being monolingual their whole lives. Why would anyone want to be monolingual? That's a lonely existence. And it cuts them off from so many languages and cultures."
He swings open his locker. "And a lot of people taking language classes don't get it! Speaking the basics is a game to them. Like they can throw around the words and sound cool, and if they know what those words mean they must sound smart. With the worst American accents ever. They don't even try. They're insulting everyone, including themselves, with that attitude."
He slams his locker. "I mean, I know not everyone is like that. There are good people with an actual interest in the language. You included."
"Gracias, Tony." Those are the first two words Sean has spoken in a while.
"And I mean, there's nothing wrong with Spanish," Tony continues. "It's how it's become the default language that's my problem. You want to learn or have to learn a language? You're probably taking Spanish. There's a fifty-fifty chance that anyone taking Spanish was taking it for 'easiness,' or a fifty-fifty chance that anyone taking Spanish actually wants to learn the language and the culture and travel to a foreign country and speak that language."
"You're fluent in Italian," Sean brings up gently. "I'm just curious. Why does it matter so much to have this school teach Italian?"
Tony knows that Sean isn't insulting him. He's just bringing up a good point. And doing so in the gentlest way possible so Tony's RSD doesn't mess up his way of thinking about Sean. Tony notices. He's grateful. And is grateful that Sean is even asking in the first place.
"Because I'm tired of everyone assuming that Italian is basically Spanish," Tony answers, calmly, having put a lot of thought into this. "I want to be able to speak Italian without people going Oh, is that Spanish? Or maybe just to know that people are interested in learning Italian. And so I don't have to hear people pronounce Italian with a very nasal a sound. So maybe people stop doing the thing with their hands and going, mamma mia! as if it's nothing. Because they don't understand it. They don't understand any of it. The mannerisms, the phrases, the history. Why do people think it's okay to imitate things that they have little to no understanding of?"
"We need you to speak in front of someone important about this, Tony."
That makes Tony glow inside.
"And why is it only popular languages too?" Tony asks. "I mean, I get the importance of Spanish and French and Chinese, but surely there are a lot of languages that we could be saving? Minor romance languages. Dying dialects. Endangered languages. I don't care about the languages that might take over the world. I'm more worried about the little languages being forgotten as we speak."
And finally, Tony has run out of steam. Good thing, too: they're about to enter their Spanish class right now.
-------------------------------
Now, it's the last class of the day.
Freaking finally.
Afterwards, all of them are going to the drama classroom; today's meeting is optional, but there's no way any of them will miss it. Especially with Ms. Larkin as their teacher.
But for now they just have to worry about the last class.
This journalism class is open to all grades as an elective. And they don't know why, but they were all intrigued by the idea of this class, and they all keep coming back.
Kathryn and David are there too.
After everyone starts, Mr. Denton begins.
"Hello, everyone," he begins. "I'm Mr. Denton. Some of you I recognize, some of you I don't. No matter how much or how little experience you've had with journalism, I hope that throughout the year you will enjoy this class."
-----------------------------------------
There's a lot to unpack there.
I needed a Javid meet-cute. And them bumping into each other and then Jack saving David from the Delanceys'? That was. Just. I loved it.
This is only the start of Javid.
Honestly, Javid was what I was most excited for about this chapter haha.
My middle school was designed by people who design prisons. That's an actual fact.
I know that a lot of high schools work differently, so I was trying to keep a lot of things open-ended.
I didn't realize how much I needed to write Tony/Race's rant until I wrote it. Like, I've been building that up in my head for him to say for a while now. And it's some things that I needed to say. Because I want to learn Italian in school. And because my dad wanted to learn Italian but had to take French instead. Because back when immigrants were coming to America, their languages were one of the many things that they had to sacrifice. And so neither of us could learn the language of our ancestors from our family. And a lot of people just don't get the importance of taking another language, and why you need all those accent marks, or what the culture is. And there are plenty of endangered languages out there that we could be learning more about. Learning a language isn't just for credits. It's about preserving the language, and everything that comes with it.
Denton...being a teacher about journalism...because he worked for a newspaper and such...I don't know, that's just how I wanted to end the chapter haha.
Ms. Medda Larkin is a drama teacher now, everyone. That sounds fun.
Alright, I am short on time, so I hope you enjoyed this longer chapter and are excited for what happens next! :)
Please, no homophobia or transphobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section.
Best,
~Your Beloved Author (who probably needs to learn time management skills)