Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Underwater ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

I grab a new seat I don't like the one I've got
The fabric's wearing though and it's wearing me out
Wearing me down

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I walk in thirty seconds before class is supposed to start. The neighbor's kid is already there, and we acknowledge each other with a not unfriendly nod. He's the closest thing I have to a friend and it's the same for him, but we don't walk to school together.

The teacher walks in, we stand, bow, greet him and the world, and sit. I slump in my desk and stare through the head in front of me. The girl's head isn't very interesting, the most exciting thing she's done with her straight black hair so far is put in a few white glittery clips, though the glitter was dull and faded and wasn't interesting at all.

Today it's nothing, as usual. It's only a little messy because of the wind and right when I think this, the girl reaches up with both hands and smoothes down her hair. It still isn't perfect, but it's closer to it. Now it's even more boring.

I find myself hating this girl, whose name I don't know though she told me once and she's responded to the roll call the few times the teacher's actually taken it. It isn't anything personal, and it isn't the sort of hatred that has me raring to gut her, I just really hate her stupid boring head and her dumbshit straight black hair. It isn't even very long, only shoulder-length. If it was longer then maybe sometimes the ends of it would fall on my desk and I could play with them during class without her knowing about it, instead of staring at and through her dull head and for minutes out of hours out of days out of months. What a stupid, inconsiderate bitch.

I'm stupid and it's a bad day.

Jun's mad at me. No, she's not. She's something worse at me.

I had thought that she'd blow up at me when she found out I didn't have a birthday present for her. Just like she does over all the stupid things I do to her, like stealing her pens or her shampoo, or spilling salt all over her dinner, but no, when she looked up at me and I mumbled happy birthday she just smiled, like some sort of tragic hero, and said thank you over the small pile of wrapping paper and the cake on the table.

Hate her hate her hate her. Like she's some sort of saint or something, because she didn't say anything when dad said we were going to move. She's a martyr because she gave up her life, the last sun-shining golden days of her life in high school for some strange ugly new place where she has nobody. She choked back her tears while packing and unpacking pictures of her friends like some sort of noble captive princess, faked enthusiasm during the long trip to this shit place, even went as far to try and "cheer me up." Like I could have been cheerful and gay when all she did was repeat the same lines mom and dad tossed us.

It's for the best.

We'll all be so happy there together.

It'll be an adventure.

She forced the last one out the most I bet because it's the one that doesn't taste as bad bouncing off her tongue and past her tragically strained smile.

I gave up on her immediately when she started that. I gave up on mom and dad shortly after. No matter what I said, they didn't listen. No choice, dad said. Try to see what's best for the family, mom suggested. It'll be an adventure, Jun repeated.

I hate it here. I knew people back at home. It takes me a long time for me to get to know someone, because usually people don't like me. I'm too energetic, they say, or I'm too dramatic. Too temperamental, too short-seeing, too stupid, too everything. They never make up their mind, I guess because I don't either.

Right now I'm feeling pretty temperamental.

I hate this place. I hate Jun. I hate this school, I hate our dinky apartment that still has unpacked boxes in it, I hate the friend-by-default neighbor's kid, and I really fucking hate this stupid girl's head.

I imagine myself stabbing a pencil into it, which is okay to do because I don't have pencils with me and I don't feel like grabbing someone else's so I won't end up really stabbing a hole into this girl's head, this girl whose name I don't care enough to remember.

There would be resistance, sure--I imagine it going through like a fork into a tough piece of meat, which I know is stupid because most people do have skulls--and of course it wouldn't mess up her hair. It would probably just sit there, and she wouldn't move, because she never does, and then her head would be a boring mass of straight black hair with a pencil end sticking out of it.

The image isn't as funny as I had hoped it would be.

A load bang sounds and I jump. The teacher's hand is palm down on my desk. I stare at that for a minute and then look up at his face. He's pretty young, but he already has lines on his face and the shadows under his eyes make him look all the more pissed off.

"Motomiya," he says. "Are you aware that I have called your name five times already?"

I am aware that the class is staring at us, sir; I don't even have to look. "No," I say.

His expression doesn't change--I know this because I haven't broken eye contact with him yet. I want to see if this will anger him even more. Not yet... Oh, there it is. Yeah, it did. That's satisfactory.

"Where are your class materials?" he asks, annunciating each word and drawing out the where, like I'm stupid and he wants to hit me.

"I don't have them." They're at home.

"Why?" he asks, and I bet he wishes teachers could still flog students because I haven't looked away yet so he can't either.

Would he really hit me, I wonder? "I can't afford them," I say blandly. Bullshit, bullshit, I had all my stuff with me last week. I didn't ever use any of it, but it had remained on my desk all day in plain sight. Will he call me on it or will he send me out of class before he decks me? There's the littlest bit of sweat on his brow, and I think he's gritting his teeth but I can't really tell because his mouth is so tight.

It's a wonder that he can open his mouth to say, "Well, I suppose I'll call your parents after class to discuss this sudden financial problem." Oh geez, what a threat.

"Okay." Do I say it? He still hasn't moved, so I figure I might as well. "Thank you. Sir."

He draws back from my desk all blazing and glaring like I just called his mother a whore.

"Stand outside, Motomiya. Seeing that you do not have the necessary materials to partake in the class."

I still haven't broken eye contact, and the sound of my desk creaking when my weight leaves it is the only sound in the classroom until my feet hitting the floor. The sound is louder than it should be. The teacher's on the other side of my desk so I can't do some sort of stand off and I'll have to break eye contact in order to walk out of the classroom. This doesn't make me happy but it's not so bad because I know I've really pissed him off.

So I look straight ahead and start walking, leisurely, down the aisle. It's only my footsteps until a nervous giggle sounds, but it cuts off almost immediately. I don't turn back when I get to the door, even though I want to see what the teacher's face looks like. I wait until the door is shut behind me to grin at the floor. If stupid stunts like this are all that's left for me to do, that's fine.

I don't care.