January Boy

Chapter 2

Shit.
I cursed silently.

What situation did I get myself in?
I looked away immediately, but turned back after realising they are all staring at me.
Or worse, us.

"How embarrassing..."I mumbled.I wanted to dig a hole under the classroom, hide and bury myself.
But it seems like May had different plans.
"January?""Y-yeah?"

She looked pleasantly surprised.
"January! So you have your name as a month as well!"
"May...Yup."

I was mentally speechless. I couldn't speak too much under this much stress.

"Calm down! They're not looking anymore."

I tried to pinch my eyes, and looks like she was right. Everyone had their own friends to talk with.
"Thank god..."I slammed my eyes shut and sighed in relief.
"And thank you too, May."
"No big deal. I know it can be hard."
I opened my eyes to look at her. There was a certain emotion under her clean, blue happy eyes.
And for a slight second I felt bad for her. How much did she endure to get that look?

"You're staring."She said gently.
"Oh, I'm so sorry."I moved my vision away, and tried to focus on the class we were having.

As much as I hate biology, the next class was history, which I was hopeful and skeptical about.
"This semester, we are going to learn about the great world wars."
I clenched my fists in excitement. I loved modern history, even if it was brutal and cruel, there was something about those battles that fascinates me.

"You like history as well?"
"Yeah. I adore this class."

May seemed to have the same enthusiastic energy towards history, which was a strange thing.
For me at least, every female friend I have absolutely despised history (no offence), which is maybe because they could never pass those classes.

And then there was maths. Which I pretty much slept through. I mean, who can pay attention to maths?
The bell rang after some time, and I went to my locker. Unsurprisingly, there were a concerning amount of garbage and chewed gum inside.

"I guess they didn't bother cleaning it."
I said to myself, while trying to pick out the sticky stuff. Glad the bathroom was nearby.
The cafeteria was huge. Way bigger than I expected.
"Jan! Took you a while."

"Mars!" I sat down with my plastic plate in my hand. The food looked less than appetising but I needed energy for the next few classes.

"So..."Marwin took a bite and mumbled as he chewed:"How did morning go?"
"Ok, I guess...""And what about your name?"
I sighed in a 'whatever' manner. He noticed and giggled with shrugged shoulders.
Then I remembered something.

"Actually, there was this one girl in my class called May. The month May."
Marwin looked just as confused as I was sitting in the classroom.
He struggled to swallow his food, and almost choked to death.

"Woah."He looked around as if he knew her face."Your secret sibling?"
I chuckled tiredly and ate my lunch slowly. It was definitely not healthy, but didn't taste too bad.

The last semester, there were complaints about the school lunch by the parents, because they allegedly saw the cafeteria and was disgusted to say the least.
"Well, see you on the console Jan."

"Can't come over today?""Nah. I need to get new glasses."

I haven't mentioned before, but Marwin had a pretty bad vision. He never bothered to tell me why and I never bothered asking."
"Bummer.""I know. Maybe on Friday tho?"
Was that a question? Sometimes I can't read him.

I frowned as I walked back into the classroom. Not only was Marwin not gonna be around, I need to deal with something awful.

"Why do they have to make us do something like this? It's only day one!"
I hate assignments involving other people. The issue is that teachers always seem to be intrigued with 'teamwork' or whatever.