"Dude—" My gaze darted upwards, snapping out of whatever la-la land that had taken me away to be greeted with a pair of oh-so familiar eyes. My brother, but more importantly my reasoning for wanting to jump out of a speeding car. "We're here." By here he had meant school, the bane of my existence and certainly the most hellish experience that any teenager was forced to live through. Now don't get me wrong, school life wasn't bad for me at all. I was popular, much to my displeasure but that really had nothing to do with me. See the thing was, my brother that I just mentioned was your typical jock; good looking, adored by all—in other words, he was exactly what everyone wanted to be and exactly what I didn't want to be.
"I'm well aware." At first I just sat there, staring absentmindedly out of the car window. It was my junior year so you'd think by now I'd be used to this, but news flash, I wasn't. I absolutely hated this place and could not wait for the day that I'd never have to look back. I didn't have much reasoning behind my disliking to the place outside of the small fact that I really and I mean really hated social interaction.
"Helloooooo, earth to Jaxon?" Once again, my mind was pulled out of my ass as a hand frantically waved in front of my own face. It was definitely safe to say that a good majority of my life was spent within my own head as an escape. It was definitely easier getting through the boredom that greeted me for the last 3, well no, last 17 years of my life.
"Yeah yeah," I quickly swatted his hand out of my face and got out, my bag lazily thrown over my shoulder as I turned to face the large school building. It was just as ugly as I remembered it. "I'm coming." With an almost longing look back at the car, I followed alongside my brother and soon enough, his brigade of idiots followed suite. It wasn't much of a stretch to say that these idiots were my friends as well. We all had one small, teensy tiny thing in common and that happened to be the sports team we all played on. Yes, I was played a sport and yes if you must know, I was pretty damn good at it. Despite what most thought of me, I was actually a pretty active person outside of my obvious introverted attitude towards well, everything and everyone. It wasn't necessarily my choice to play on a team, but my brother had sucked me in the moment I had hit my freshman year and now here I was, the libero on a pretty decent volleyball team.
As myself and the other dumb fucks entered the school, I was once again brought back into the land of everything that I hated. It was loud, smelled of teenage desperation, and the exact reason that I found myself slowing down from the rest of the group. Don't get me wrong, I much preferred disappearing in the throng of my teammates, but I'd much prefer sneaking off and doing my own thing. What amazed me the most about myself was how easily I did in school despite my lack of well, existence within the building. I cut class whenever given the chance, but my grades hardly suffered. I wasn't going to sit here and call myself a genius by any stretch, but I was smart enough to know when I needed to both and when it didn't matter.
Today was the first day, it definitely didn't matter. Big whoop, time to miss out on a syllabus and an introductory.
Luckily I was able to fall behind enough to sneak passed Jacen who had immersed himself into a deep conversation with one of his friends. I couldn't really tell who since well, I wasn't really the tallest guy. I could only assume that it was Malicai considering those two were inseparable, but of course I wouldn't be that lucky. Ah yeah, let me explain the situation with Malicai: he was like an annoying itch on your back that you were just inches away from being able to reach. In other words, I thought he was hot, tried my best to avoid him, but no matter where I went, he was there. He and Jacen had been friends since middle school meaning I had to suffer through several and I mean several years of the same hopeless, obnoxious crush that I was hellbent on getting rid of. It definitely wasn't easy, specifically since he had this weird tendency to annoy me and well, exist in my own bubble and as some may already know, you don't interfere on my bubble.
Malicai just well, he didn't listen.
"And where is it you think you're sneaking off to?" As if on cue in this godforsaken school, there he was in all of his idiotically pretty glory. He stood staring down at me, an amused smirk plastered on his skin. Malicai radiated confidence and as most cliche romances entailed, he had girls lining up left and right for him and while I wasn't the type to get all jealous over it, it was definitely the type of thing that could humble a person and made them well aware of where they stood. I had no choice and even if I had, Jacen would kill me or him... or perhaps both of us. Yeah, that was more accurate.
"Class?" The questioning I look sent his way was hopefully enough to convince him to step aside, but unfortunately for me, he knew me well enough to know that I wasn't being quite truthful.
"Jaxon Anderson heading off early to class? My oh my, I must have a fever." The amusement in his eyes lingered for a moment longer as he feigned shock, his hand feeling his own forehead to further his mocking. I rolled my eyes and shoved past him, but God—assuming that he existed, hated me. Malicai grabbed hold of my arm, preventing me from moving any farther and instead, spun me around in an attempt to push me back into the group that had formed.
"Why do you feel the need to butt into everything I do?"
"Why do you feel the need to avoid your friends?"
"They're teammates. I don't necessarily count half of them as friends." The reply was a bit more sour than I had intended for and as I casted a glance back, Malicai seemed.. well, I couldn't really read the look on his face. I managed to wiggle my way out of his grasp and turned to face him, a look of defiance plastered on my face.
"I'm your friend."
"You're Jace's friend."
"I'm your friend too."
"No. I'm the little brother of your best friend and was forced onto a team. There's a difference." I was lying to some extent; there were quite a few members on the team that I genuinely enjoyed being around and considered my friend, but I wasn't going to out right admit that he and I were friends. I was far too stubborn and well, there were obviously some other reasonings behind why I didn't want to consider him a friend. For starters, it was kind of hard to avoid friends and I did my absolute best to avoid him.
Malicai clicked his tongue, his arms now folded across his chest as I seemingly got the same defiant look I had given him seconds ago thrown right back at me. "I can always tell Milo how you feel. The last thing we need is for someone that is uninterested to be a starter for our team." Milo, the captain and the rock that held the team together and the second closest person to my own brother. Though he hadn't known Jacen as long as Malicai had, they definitely acted like it. That being said, Milo took the sport very seriously and despite being his little brother, I knew that it didn't matter. He wouldn't play favorites. That being said, I had a bad habit of acting on impulse and saying shit that I didn't mean.
"See if I care. Just means I won't have to deal with you as much." The response seemed to do the trick because without another word, I was shoved - a bit rougher than I'd expect from him - to the side and off he went, right up to the captain who furrowed his brows and peered at me from behind Malicai. I turned away and stalked off, feeling the annoyance prickling at me.
Sometimes I understood Malicai; he seemed like a genuinely nice dude which was where the crush had even came from in the first place, but other times he just acted like I was some sort of annoying fly. The problem wasn't that he acted that way, it was more how quickly he seemed to shift his emotions towards me. He was more than happy trying to coax me back into the group, but the second things seemed to be going in another direction, he was clearly satisfied with getting rid of me entirely.
Jackass.
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A/N: okay, so again I have zero idea what direction this story will be going. I'm just going to go with the flow. With that being said, I'd like to formally apologize for this beginning. Just like descriptions, I suck at starting stories so hopefully as time progresses, it gets a bit better.
Face claim for Malicai is Froy Gutierrez and Jaxon is Paul Craddock.
I don't really have much of a face claim for Jacen yet, but he's similar to Jaxon, he just died his hair an obnoxious shade of purple : )
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Expectations, Minus the Reality
Romance"He'd kill us-no, he'd kill me if he found out." There was a hint of something lingering in his voice, guilt perhaps? There was no doubt in my mind that the uncertainties circling in his gaze no doubt came from the fact that I was merely the little...
