"Dude, get up." A piercing alarm rings through your mind. Sitting up in your bed, realizing half the sheets fell onto the floor, you tilt your head slightly upwards and find yourself being towered over by Eli. "Mind getting out of my room?" You retorted. "Yeah dip-wad, I wouldn't have walked in here if you would've woken up on time." "What?" "Check the time asshole." He shouted making his way out of the door and down the hall. Cranking your head to your nightstand, you rubbed your eyes to make out the numbers on the alarm. /6:50/ absolutely fantastic. School started at 7:15, 7:30 being when first hour starts. Thank the gods you were finally able to switch over to actually going to school, rather than sitting around all day being homeschooled. Swinging your legs from off your bed and planting them on the floor, you made your way out of your room into the kitchen.
"Any food?" "When have I ever made you breakfast." "Fair point" "I know, that's why I said it" "Someone's cranky" Eli turned his head over his shoulder to look back at you, just to be able to mock your words. Stumbling over to the cabinets, trying not to let the sun completely deteriorate your eyes, you reached for a bowl and the last of the cereal you guys had. "We're gonna need more food if ya don't mind good sir" "Yeah, I know. I'll probably run by the store sometime soon." "Thanks Eli. Sucks mom and dad are never around, but at least I've got you." "Ew, don't get soppy on me, it's too early. Thanks though, I'm always here for you" "Pretty sure it's sappy" "What" "Sappy, not soppy" "To think you were nice for a second" "I was. For that one second, at least" You smiled and laughed with him as he passed you over some milk. He rustled through the silverware and tossed you a spoon as well. After a while of side conversation and hastily shoving cold cereal down your throat, you headed back to you room to throw on some clothes. It was your first day at this "West Valley" school, new people, new impressions, but you still couldn't give half a shit. You grabbed some sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt that was handed down, and you honestly couldn't tell if the graphic on it was supposed to be faded or not. Slipping the clothes on along with some socks, you and your brother shouted from opposite ends of the house discussing whether you would walk to school or need a ride. Considering the numbers on the clock now read /7:10/ you were definitley going to take up a painful ride with your brother. To be fair, the highschool was right next to mine. The fact that you're so close to being a highschooler, pretty much only a semester left of school, was pretty cool. Finally, being able to ditch the "eight grade" and just saying "highschooler" was significantly less humiliating.
"Jesus christ, could you take any longer?" "I can if you want me to" "Just get out here already" being late on your first day was something you weren't trying to achieve, but dressing up couldn't have less importance to you. Slinging your bookbag over your shoulder and practically being shoved out of the house, the cool air hit and the car started up.
/ - / -/ -/ - /
Inside the school was significantly different than imagined. First off, it was so much smaller, and second off, nothing, and I mean nothing like movies made it out to be. You wandered around, having 4 minutes to spare and glancing at your schedule once more. Not being a complete idiot, you managed your way around turns and halls and crowds of people and found your first hour. Gym. It wasn't insanely hard to miss since it had to giant double doors leading up to it and large letters above it spelling out G Y M in blue, as if the giant empty court inside wasn't enough to let you know. You walked in, two minutes before the bell to ask the teacher about seating so it wouldn't be awkward. He said it didn't really matter much, since most of the time we would be off of the bleachers anyways, so you made yourself comfortable towards the top, letting your bag hit fall onto the floor beneath you. It was nicer being towards the top, no one was staring at your back, and no one could stare at your phone. A nice sense of privacy, I guess. You pushed your headphones into your ears and leaned into the back of the bleachers to get comfortable as you just kind of took in the surrounding area for the next two minutes. People started to fill in about a minute before the bell was to ring, coming in sometimes in big groups that would sit by eachother, small groups who would, and just two or so people who would sit an awkward distance from eachother. a whole row in front of you was empty, and you were taking a guess the last people in the gym were gonna fill it in. You was wrong, they were close to being last but not quite. They all headed up towards me, took a glance and quickly sat down. The coach made an effort to talk pretty loudly, as expected. "These spots you're in now will be where you sit for the semester, I'm only doing this because it's easier for attendance and we won't be on them much anyway" murmuring broke out, but only for few seconds before the teacher began again. "Take this time to get to know some of those around you, today we won't be doing all that much other than a bit of basketball and maybe a few ice breakers" everyone groaned at that, which you didn't blame them for.
The guys before you turned to one another and started to jokingly re-introduce eachother to themselves. Seeing this as a good opportunity to learn some people at this school, you tuned into their conversation. "Names Anthony, and you good fellow?" The boy with the longer, blackish hair said, in possibly the worst fake British accent ever known. "Oh me? Well sir my name is Thompson. Zack Thompson that is!" another one of the boys mocked the same terrible accent, but this one had blonde curly hair. "Sup I'm Slade." The last dark-haired boy replied, cutting off the chain of interestingly bad posh accents. The blunt contrast made all of them laugh, and you tried your best to suppress yours. It wasn't even that funny, it was just the way you would've definitley made fun of them for it if you knew them well enough to consider them your friends. One of them leaned back pretty harsh as a reaction to their unnecessary fit of laughter, ramming their elbow into your leg. As a normal reaction you just blurted out "Dude-" and you took quick notice and intake of the blonde's face, as he was the one who just shanked you with his arm. He had quickly whipped his head around and sputtered out an impulsive "Sorry man-" before turning back to his friends. You moved your leg, not wanting the same thing to happen again and then he turned around to face you. You thought maybe he was stretching or something and not really looking at you, so you didn't look up and kept your eyes on your phone. Turns out he actually was looking at you as he began a conversation, that his friends were also intently paying attention to without any efforts of hiding it. "Wait who the hell are you?" he furrowed his brows, and the so-called Slade returned the elbow action Thompson had given to me. "Pause- I didn't mean to say that. What I meant to say was: Who are you?" Your first takeaway thought was: no way this kid audibly just said pause. "That wasn't any better man." Anthony snickered. It honestly hurt to see the kid try to form anymore sentences, so you put an end to both their, and your, suffering. "Take a guess" "Rain" You paused "What." "Wait what am I guessing" Clearly you were going to need to supply an insane amount of extra effort to get it through to these guys. You went on with the simplest sentence you could form. You told them your name, and the fact that you were new here.
"Okay but what the hell made you blurt out 'rain' as a first instinct to my question" You asked. They all pitched in a short laugh and Thompson shrugged. "Well, I mean now you've got a nickname. At least your first one wasn't something horrible" you guessed he was right, but you weren't expecting to be given a stupid nickname, considering this isnt a 2000's Disney show. Luckily, any future bad nicknames weren't really in sight so far. You nodded and shrugged in a questionable agreement with Slade. To that group, you were officially, "Rain" which you didn't mind. It was just a fun little nickname, and it was nice to be included. If it became a regular thing to substitute rain for your actual name, you didn't think you'd even care that much. Soon enough the coach blew his whistle, and you officially knew three people. That was more than at the start. "Form teams with those in your row, four people maximum! Only two teams on one court please, and refrain from getting bloody noses." A few people laughed, and everyone started clinging into groups of four. You then took a notice that everyone was wearing the same exact outfit, and you weren't. Other than this one kid, in a bright orange shirt. At least your outfit was considerably less eye-catching. You weren't really one for being into sports and being a new student without a uniform and absolutely no friends, also wasn't looking forward to joining a group either. You had it set in your mind that you would walk down to the other kid and pair up with him and whoever he knew, but then your name was called, not 'rain' but your actual name, so it's nice to know they hadn't completely thrown that out the window. Stopping in your tracks, you turned and saw Thompson and his group of three waving you over, but you also saw another person running up to them, and they seemed to accept him with grace and continue on. Anthony looked to you with a sort of apologetic look, and you just returned him a smile and walked the rest of the way towards the orange shirt.
"Hey" you stood behind him. He turned around looking relieved. "Wanna join my team? I've only got one spot left. Don't be mistaken, I was given some pity teammates." laughing, you agreed to join. You learned the orange shirt kids name was Kenny, and another was also Lia, your wonderful first girl encounter, and another boy by the name of Joseph. Lia and you exchanged small conversation while waiting for another team to join our court. "If I'm being honest, I'm not the best at basketball" Lia smiled and said she was the same way. Hey, if throwing some kids out on the floor with a ball would earn them an A, you weren't gonna miss the chance. The first round against that team went well, Joseph and Lia both having shot most of the baskets. You shot one, and Kenny mostly played defensive or whatever that's called, and he was fairly good at it too. He was our main reason the other team didn't score half their points. "Man Kenny, you're good!" "Thanks, you're pretty good too!" "Lia, who knew you could shoot" "Haha, thanks really. I didn't know I had it in me honestly" We all laughed and stood around, talking about random things and also strategizing for next game. "Larusso's team, over on Lia's!" the coach yelled out. They made their way over, and we all took positions again. Kenny backed up slightly and looked less amped up. "Kenny you good?" "Yeah, no I'm alright just worn out" such an obvious lie but you let it slide. It didn't seem to affect his play; he was still blocking like crazy and even made a hoop. "C'mon Lapusso, you gotta block that!" Thompson shouted. The nickname was creative, but also pretty petty. Anthony had the ball, and he was about to shoot. You jolted forward a bit to stop him, but Kenny beat you to it, knocking the ball back into Anthony's face. He immediately backed up "I.. I'm sorry man I didn't mean to" Larusso pushed himself off the floor and walked up to Kenny "Bullshit" he said, adding an extra emphasis on the end of the word. You walked up between them, because honestly, you didn't really need any fighting between the few people you got to know on your first day. "Guys, chill out. Let him be Ant, he didn't mean it." It took about two seconds to process the nickname you just sputtered out. He looked slightly down at you, which was when you realized he wasn't even much taller. It was about an inch or so gain he had. "Yeah, yeah you're right. Sorry. Uh, I'll see you later Y/N?" You nodded and he smiled before running a hand through his hair and walking back to his friends who started shoving him around in a playful manner. "Bell rings in five! Take this time to change out!" You ran up the bleachers to collect your stuff and waited on the bells que to find your way to English.