JOB...
"See you later after my shift?" Emma asked once she and Kat reached the Quad where they were to separate ways.
Kat nodded, placing her earphones on. "I'll be at the library. Pick me up?"
Emma nodded. Her friend had a thing for forgetting the time once she starts up on a good book. She was sure if Kat could, she would spend the rest of her days indoors, quietly reading a good read.
Both girls were about to part ways, but Emma remembered a thought, and stopped.
"Kat."
The wallflower stopped and looked back at her, her expression waiting.
"You know I wouldn't mind if you tried making more friends, right?"
Kat looked disgruntled.
Emma raised her hands in the air. "Just sayin'! You aren't the only wallflower at school, y'know. I've heard of a few others, heck I've heard of one of them dating a heartthrob!"
Kat shook her head. "Emma, we're not having this discussion again. I told you, I'm perfectly happy with just you, so can we just drop it?"
Her shoulder's dropped. "Okay..."
Kat's smile was small. "You don't have to worry about me, you know. I appreciate it, but now just isn't the time for my social debut."
Emma laughed.
Kat smiled wider.
"And people tell me I'm funny."
"Bye."
Emma looked over at her friend, and for the briefest moment, she saw a little girl with long, brown hair as straight as hers, standing alone with a face unnoticeable at first, but once looked close enough upon, would be seen fairly pretty. She wore a thin white jacket suitable for the coming summer season, and her wrists were lightly adorned with multiple bracelets, her hands were busy writing on her notebook about something. Her cold gray eyes as though into a world different from her own.
A moment later, another girl walked toward her, long black hair as straight as dull, her face plain but friendly, her brown eyes warm and kind.
The cherub Kat looked up at the young Emma, and smiled, her gray eyes coming out of her world and growing warmer, as though like a cool, morning fog.
Emma smiled at Kat, the memory passing, and nodded.
Both girls waved goodbye, and separated.
Kat was such a dear, sweet, loveable, beautiful friend, Emma thought. Oh how she would worry for her most times.
"Emma!"
The class clown girl looked toward the voice that called her name, and saw a redhead walking toward her. She smiled lazily and waved as greeting. "Angelena!"
"Off to work?"
Angelena Bennett was one of her batch mates, a hipster so to say, who kept a sociable aura around her. Though most times, she would hang out with boys, a tomboy despite her girly outfits, Emma seemed to have been one of her few exceptions to socialize with.
Emma nodded. "My shift's about to start. You gonna grab your usual later?"
Angelena nodded. "Get it ready for me, 'kay?"
"You got it."
Emma continued down the slate path she took as Angelena went up it.
DDA was a very big school for a high school, with acres and acres of land reaching all about to house its five departments and four year levels. Each student, upon taking the entrance exams, would be graded into graphs that would show their talents, interests, and preferences. Each graph would identify with their hangout, in layman's terms. With whatever graph showed one's best at would be where the student would end up being associated with, though only few actually use such identification if they weren't very big on hanging out at school.
The graph results were usually given at the second week of school for non-dorm and non-scholar students, like her.
If Emma ever needed anything, she would be most suited to look for it at the Academics Department, the Nerd Hangout, so to say.
Ironically, however, Kat showed she would best fit the Social Studies Department, the hangout which the wallflower girl loathed to go to the most because of all the preps situated there. Meanwhile, Oliver, with all his basketball prowess, got into the Sports Department where he was one of the few sophomores to become a regular player.
Emma held onto the straps of her bag, looking over at her surroundings.
The Social Studies Department, or most commonly known as the Prep Hangout, was a really posh place. Everyone she met seemed to be so in the loop with everything trending or what will, from movie stars to fashion to every other event in the world concerning human newscast, even politics and the hottest nightclubs!
"Oh, Emma!"
The class clown girl looked up at the girl who spoke, and an authority figure made her smile wary.
"H-hi Megan!"
She cocked a brow. Megan Snow was a member of their student council, a group Emma found a tad intimidating. Breaking rules was one thing, Emma could still get along with that group since they still seemed human enough to make mistakes, but the student council? They always gave off the flare that they were... perfect. Megan was no exception to Emma's assumptions, despite them being the same batch.
"You really do act strange sometimes." Megan commented with a shake of her head. "Anyway, I just wanted to make sure if you got the memo? The café's going to go through a little renovation spree and you might get a break for the rest of the week and the next couple weeks after."
Emma's eyes widened, her mind suddenly alarmed. "No, I did not get the memo!" She marched pass Megan, stopped to thank her for the news and said goodbye, and kept marching toward the Department's building in distress, the students she passed making way for her.
The Prep Hangout's building was a cozy-looking grey structure that reached four stories high, including its attic, which reminded Emma of one of those British townhomes. Located there was DDA's own Café, The Fluorescent, serving coffee and lattes of all sorts and shapes and flavors. This was a popular hangout for preps of all kinds, and her part-time job was being the one serving them.
She passed the first few outdoor tables, nodding and smiling to a pair of her coworkers she passed, and entered the building through the finely-crafted doorway.
She walked straight through the rows of neatly distanced round tables and chairs, passing by the beautiful, lush structure of modern furniture and state-of-the-art equipment. Outside, the building looked as though it was mere grey bricks with glass windows, but inside was marble of a light beige that gave the place an elegant demeanor Emma had easily adapted to the first time she came in there. Her manager, who was wiping the surface of a nearby table, watched her every movement with a cocked brow.
She kept walking, until she reached the farthest end of the room where a long sofa laid pushed to the wall, a glass coffee table in front of it and a single prep sitting on it.
DDA was a private school owned by a very distinguished family with a lineage rooting back to the school's opening in the end of the 1600s. Beginning from the time of the academia's original owner, Zamia Dulcet, which the school was named after, the school had been in single ownership out of one birth per generation. An unprecedented accomplishment happened, however, that by the end of the 19th century, the most recent birth of the Dulcet lineage differed. Instead of the usual, single child birth that was common in academia history, the recent successor gave birth to five children for consecutive five years.
Usually, the school would end up in the hands of the eldest heritor, but upon reaching a certain age, each child showed off a talent that gave enough promise to be worthy of inheriting the school, thus, the parents decided to give them all a fair chance. Each inheritor was given a task to accomplish before they reach eighteen, and if they fail to accomplish the task, they fail in inheriting the school. If ever more than one accomplishes the deal, then they are given another, until there be only one. The actual details were never known to the public, the entire deal itself shrouded in mystery, but if anything was sure when it came to the four students known throughout school as the DDA Heirs, it would be one thing:
The deal bargained by parents to children was more of a gamble than a contract, and that was why each child gave off a certain air of dauntlessness around them despite their personalities. None of them were afraid to gamble.
Now sat in front of her was the second-born of the Heirs, Michelle Florence a gracious redhead who liked to tie her hair up into a ponytail, her demeanor always either that of a princess or a party animal. She was the owner of the café she worked at and one of her closest acquaintances, so if she ever did have any problems at work, she took it straight to her, much to the annoyance of her manager. Now she sat like a princess, back straight and legs closed, one ankle crossed over the other, a chocolate parfait on the table as she read an issue of Candy Magazine by her lap.
Emma waited for recognition, and thankfully, she needn't wait long.
Michelle closed the magazine lightly, before setting it aside on the table and looked up at her, hazel eyes meeting her chocolate ones.
"Yes?" Michelle asked politely.
Emma frowned, forehead wrinkled. "I was never told of the memo."
"What memo?"
Darn these Heirs and their digressions. "The memo." She stressed, clutching the strap of her bag. "About the renovation thingy and stuff."
"Ah...." The prep sounded in comprehension. "THAT memo."
Emma pouted, glaring.
Michelle smiled, holding up a peace sign. "I forgot to tell you about it. Sorry."
"How could you?" She whined, marching around the table and taking the seat next to the junior. "You know I need the money!" She whispered.
Michelle rolled her eyes at her. "I still don't understand why you can't just ask your parents for it." She answered in a low voice. "It's not like your family's short on much of anything."
"You know why I can't." Emma mumbled. "They'll go overboard again like the last time I told them I liked something."
"The Samder incident?" Michelle stated with a mischievous grin.
Emma glared. "Don't talk too loud." She hissed.
She shrugged, placing her elbow on the head of the sofa and leaning her head on her knuckles. "I'm whispering, just so you know. Have you ever considered telling them not to go overboard though?"
"Believe me, I considered it. Harangued them for it even." Her shoulders dropped. "But they're my loveable, sweet, dear, ditzy, out-of-this-world parents and you know they won't take 'no' for an answer."
Michelle grinned. "That's why they're so good at their jobs."
She sighed. "And I'm needing another one."
"You don't really need another one. Paycheck's come out after this week so you don't have to worry about getting paid. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Emma had a stupid smile on her face, her eyes fogged up from contained tears. She squealed, gave Michelle a bear hug which the prep rolled her eyes at but hugged her back nonetheless, then let go with her stupid smile now a stupid grin.
"You make me so happy!" The class clown stated, her hands still on the prep's shoulders.
"It was the most logical course of action though." Michelle giggled. "There's no need to get so giddy!"
"Oh, but I am giddy!" Emma stated, clapping her hands. "I am so very, very, unbelievably, irrefutably giddy!" She giggled.
"All right, all right. Your manager's glaring at us. You should probably get to work now."
"Yes Ma'am!" Emma stood, saluted as straight as squaddie, and marched off to the employees' room with her bag on her back.
Michelle looked over to the manager she herself appointed, meeting his slow shaking head with a wary smile and a peace sign.
"You favor her too much, you know." Aiden Elingston, a senior and the Fluorescent Café manager said in a disgruntled manner, hands on his hips.
Michelle pouted. "No, I do not."
Just as the words came out did the door to the employees' room open and Emma popped her head out of it.
"By the way," She said with a shy smile. "A friend of mine needs a job here too. If he doesn't get enough money, he won't be able to pay his rent next month. You think you can help him out, Mich?"
"Name?" Michelle inquired.
"Eliot Wander."
"Tell him to come by tomorrow."
Emma's face lit up. "I will!"
Once the sophomore shut the door, Michelle felt a hot glare on her again. She did her best to avoid the grim expression of the manager she always worked to the bone.
"Doesn't favor her my ass." Aiden said stoically, turning away and marching out the door.
Michelle sighed. God, why was he only ever snobby with her? A small voice in her head said it had something to do with her older brother, seeing as they were the same batch, but Michelle put the thought at the back of her head, giving her older sibling the benefit of the doubt, just this once.
Emma was as cheerful and hardworking as ever, cracking jokes to the delight of her customers and spreading a warm sunshine even in the cold autumn weather.