01 | BARBARIC STONE THROWING
Don't leave before saying goodbye you ass!
The bell rang signifying the end of the school day and year, Gabriel heaving his backpack over his shoulder still staring at the message that Isa had sent him.
The emoticons that followed told him that if he did leave right now, he'd be in for a lecture. Isa nagged him enough about his smoking and another lecture was most unnecessary.
Before he could get out of class though, the doorway was blocked by Evelyn who walked over to him with fierce determination. "Hey there, Bad Boy."
He gritted his teeth. Bad Boy. That term infuriated him to no hell. He was remotely bad. The only bad thing he might have ever done was get into drugs at one point in his life.
Gabriel Sato had been nicknamed the School's "Bad Boy". Not that the man of the title ever got why. His aloof personality, a penchant for wearing a leather jacket, biking, smoking in the back of the school and that one fight in the beginning of Freshman Year which left a senior with a broken nose certainly helped add on to the image.
Evelyn handed over an invitation. "Shall I be seeing you at my summer pool party tonight?" The invitation was glossy and too extravagant for a mere school party.
The past five attempts to hand him over the invite had ended in failure, with him simply brushing it off. Looking around, he could see his classmates were engrossed in what the head cheerleader had to say to him.
There was a lot of noise, seeing as it was the last day of School and it wasn't every day that Evelyn went up to someone to personally invite them – Gabriel Sato of all the people; the same Gabriel whose eyes were so sharp that the term 'if looks could kill' seemed as though they'd been invented for him.
She'd brought out her best charm, curling up a hand around his arm, nonchalantly brushing up her chest against his body and purred, "Come on. Everyone's going to be there." She trailed a finger down his arm and he wondered how someone could purr – something he'd never know or understand. "It won't be the same without you, Bad boy." Her confidence was betrayed by the nervous look in her eyes, but she bravely amped it up.
He sighed and muttered a single, "No," before brushing past her, out the doorway where droplets of water splashed on him. The commotion in the hallway came to an immediate stop, as Gabriel immediately sent a glare to Dylan, who froze with a bucket, in the air, his intended victim – an overweight girl whose name he couldn't remember having gotten the brunt of it – her clothes sticking to her body – a sight from which he averted his eyes.
Breathe In. Breathe Out.
He averted his eyes, and resisted the urge to push him as he walked past him to get to his locker at the end of the hall. The noise came back – Dylan, it seemed had decided to do his final prank of his high school life, with the rest of his soccer team, taunting and jeering the victim with Evelyn inserting a few remarks here and there.
He passed by a teacher's room and it was terrible how the teachers wouldn't even intervene – not wanting to go home to their families late and it wasn't as though they could really punish the graduating class.
As he opened his locker, he looked back. She had been pushed to the ground and the people gathered around her, as though she was a sacrificial lamb and said things like,
"Oh God, did you see the way her stomach hit the ground?"
"She's definitely not bikini body material."
"Bikini? Oh please. She probably wears a diving suit at the beach."
"Man, her boobs are huge!"
He couldn't understand why people of the 21st century would even act this way to a human being. A group of Female Seniors stood beside him, as he continued to ignore them, hoping he'd sign their yearbooks.
He shut it harshly, causing them to flinch and stare wide-eyed at him, clutching their books even closer to the chest; him nearly smirking as he walked past them.
The second he stepped out of the building, he took a packet from his bag and pulled out a cigarette. A Security Guard watched him as he lit the cigarette, not bothering with him seeing as the School Year had ended and the boy had three more months without Administrative supervision to get one step closer to reducing his life.
His bike was in the parking lot, parked very close to the bleachers, overlooking the field where the Soccer Team was practising. Their coach was incredibly hard on them, seeing as the School had had their best year yet, and with major players like Dylan and Connor graduating, he had even tasked them with coming a month before the next school year to start early practise.
He leaned against the bike, put the cigarette to his lips and took a puff. He leaned his head back, letting the smoke swirl in the air, closing his ears to the giggles erupting from the groups of girls that passed him to get to their own vehicles.
A sweaty hand came from behind to snake around his neck, pulling him into a headlock as another hand messed up his hair. He got out of it and pushed Isa away, the latter stumbling back and nearly falling to the ground.
"Hey! I was just messing with you!" Isa shouted, rolling his neck on his shoulders while Gabriel checked himself out in the mirror, combing his jet-black hair with his fingers. "What plans do you have for summer?"
"Might go on a road trip or two. Just chilling, really. What about you?"
Isa did a little bit of a happy dance, shaking his hips around, shouting out, "Off to the D-U-B-AI for a whole month." And then the dance stopped as he brought on a solemn expression. "And I think my mom plans to take us to Lebanon."
"Everyone's going to have a whole lot of hummus jokes when you get back - you know that right?"
The two of them had a friendship that no one had really seen coming. Gabriel Sato, the School's Bad Boy with Isa Wahid, one of the school's most popular boys. Isa was proud to say that he'd seen sides to his best friend that no one else had – right now, everyone, especially the girls who was taking note of the way Gabriel spoke to him, would assume that he was saying something uninteresting and unfunny, but years of their friendship and him mostly chatting his ear off had taught him what to infer from even the slightest movement of his eyebrow.
"It's not pronounced as hum-muss. It's pronounced as Hu-moos," Isa lectured. "And anyways, I'm not telling anyone that I'm going to Lebanon. Doesn't matter how many times I tell people that not all Arabs are Muslims, they'll never listen. Not me. Besides, you're the only who knows."
Gabriel scoffed, his lips curving up just the slightest. "You're not going to be updating your life on Snapchat by the minute? What's going on?" he mocked, knowing how much the app dominated his life.
"Dude!" he shouted, hitting his head as he remembered something and pulled out his phone. "Did you see the video of the guys dumping water on the fat girl?"
He pulled up a video, showing the scene which he had witnessed in 3D.
"Fat Girl? Doesn't she have a name?" Gabriel shook his head. What kind of entertainment did people even get from this?
"I'm not sure. Everyone just knows her as Yo Mama – the Fat Girl."
He couldn't keep the disgusted expression off his face as he recalled past incidents. "Isn't she the one everyone pranks at the end of the year?"
"Yeah," Isa said, nodding his head as he remembered, "They once laddered maple syrup all over her locker and I think-," he trailed off, laughing as he continued, "-they once dumped cake and juice all over her. I think that one went viral."
"Man, what's wrong with our School?" He frowned, wondering if it seemed a little too mild this year.
He put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder, letting out a laugh as he said, "That's what I've been asking since Day One."
***
Gabriel entered the doors of his father's house. While he'd always thought that School was like a stifling prison and was glad that the summer had only just begin, it didn't make him any happier to return to his first and foremost prison.
He was starving, having only smoked a pack during lunch and crossed the hallway, dropping his backpack on a sofa, to the kitchen door in order to get their cook, whose name he couldn't remember, to cook something for him.
He swung open the kitchen door, halting in his steps when he saw his brother casually eating a sandwich as he spoke to their cook.
Lucas looked back to see his twin brother staring at him. His smile froze, knowing that Gabriel wouldn't be happy to see him and his hands shook, wondering what he should say to him.
"What are you doing here?"
Shock paralysed his body, allowing Gabriel to utter only a few words. What was Lucas doing in this house? How could he simply sit like this in the kitchen like everything was alright?
Lucas looked like he wanted to say so much – he wanted to convey so much but words failed him as he stuttered, fiddling with his glasses – the only thing that really distinguished the brothers apart from the colour of their hair.
Lia then entered the kitchen, her eyebrows raised at the sight of Gabriel blocking the entry, and when she noticed his twin's presence in the room, she immediately rushed in between them and spoke to Gabriel, "Gabe! How was your last day of School?"
She flinched when he turned his glare on her. His eyes were like his father's. Sharp and pointed. While she loved Ken Sato's eyes that were usually gentle in her presence, Gabriel's constantly emanated anger and hatred.
"What is Lucas doing here?" he coldly asked, nodding to his brother's presence.
"Didn't your father tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
She bit her lip, knowing he would get even more angry. "Lucas is taking a gap year before he goes off to college. He's staying here and interning at your father's company."
"Aah," he said, walking over to the kitchen table and plucked a apple from the grasps of the fruit bowl. "Getting started on continuing father's legacy, huh?"
The bite he proceeded to take from the apple sounded through the room, causing everyone in the room to flinch as though the sound physically hurt them.
"It's not like that, Gabriel. I've just -," Lucas tried to inject, but was interrupted by a deep voice.
"At least he's planned out for his success in life."
Gabriel continued to look straight ahead, refusing to look at his father as the latter uttered, "Unlike my other son."
He took another bite and spoke in Portuguese, "Whatever, asshole."
"Is this what you're learning at that School of yours?" His father rushed forward, shouting in Japanese as he raised a hand. Lucas immediately rushed to him, holding his hand trying to prevent it from meeting Gabriel's face.
Gabriel said nothing, anger fueling his blood as he wanted to nothing more than to retaliate. Breathe In. Breathe Out. He wanted the feeling of the grass beneath his body and the wind against his cheeks and hoped that Miaka wasn't hearing this.
Lucas tried reasoning with Ken. "Father. Calm down! It's not good for your heart."
Gabriel's fists were still clenched at the side, as he stayed stationary; the father-son glaring at each other. He hit the table with his fist, and rushed out of the kitchen leaving without so much as a word.
Ken breathlessly sat on the chair, his hands in his head. "When will my son grow up?"
Lia stared at her husband, wishing that things were different between him and Gabriel. Their relationship had been in ruins, months before she entered their lives, and no one in the family, save for Miaka, had seen good sides of Gabriel.
Her husband always told stories of how Gabriel had been the happiest child – but when his mom died, his personality took a complete one eighty. She put a hand over Ken's and told him, saying nothing and wished that her husband would also be more courteous.
The Cook on the hand, remained at the counter, having watched the dysfunctional family's antics and drama for the past couple of years. It was definitely better than Reality Television.
***