At the Back of The Class

The Sun You haven't seen in ages

Though you knew hope wouldn't do much for you- you were left out for the wolves on the orders of Lady Luck herself.

"Yeah," You choke out with much more effort than anyone would've liked to admit.

"Sora, name's Sora," He smiles brightly, "Hope you like our school so far,"

The last statement rings in your head. Where have you heard that before? Ah, that was almost (if not identical) to the thing Ventus said earlier. They really are quadruplets.

"Sure do," You reply before immediately feeling the crippling need to back up your claim, "It's...pretty nice here," you add.

"It'll be even funner when the school year goes on, we usually have a BUNCH of different events, like last year we had game night and-" He rambles on like an excited puppy, so much so that you could ignore the world-shattering question of if funner was actually a word.

"Uh-huh, sure- I'll take your word for it," You tell him. You blink for a second before catching your own tone of voice that maybe could've sounded sarcastic. But Sora didn't seem to notice, or perhaps he did but just didn't care enough to mind. He just kept that smile that probably hadn't ever wavered in 20 lifetimes.

Either way, you bit the tip of your tongue and elected to just nod and smile for the rest of the conversation.

"Yeah so like- sometimes the school hosts Halloween-themed events. The older classes have to make booths and all. Last year, we got 2nd place for the Halloween attraction thingy. Our class is almost the same as last year so it's like our 2nd try on the comp, kinda thinking of a haunted house but we're not sure,"

You can only imagine the face of horror that some poor middle schoolers had made.

If you were lucky enough that they went with the haunted house idea again, you'd have the good grace to see it yourself.

That should be fun.

"And usually during Christmas we-"

"That's enough, Sora," A silver-haired kid tells him. "You've already bombarded her with enough information that her brain could melt,"

For a split second, what seemed to be an invincible smile on the boy's face slips away.

"Oh, right- oops," Sora gazes at you through the side of his eye, rather sheepishly, opening his mouth to apologize. But before he can even enunciate the first syllable, you interrupt.

You just had to.

"Nah it's fine, let him talk," You say without missing a beat and with a bit more edge than anticipated, "I think it's neat since I'm kinda curious- you know?"

The other boy pauses before a sliver of a smile crawls up on his face as he slumps deeper into his seat, "Suit yourself," as he glances at Sora- his eyes glimmer. No, no, it was past glimmer.

Ventus raises his eyebrow, "You got all day then?"

"I got time," You shrug, "As if I'd have anything better to do,"

"Then that means you can hang out with us after classes?"

You freeze up for barely a second. Shivers crawl up your spine, those skeletons of insecurities you thought you'd gotten rid of by this time rendering themselves as fully fleshed zombies that'd tear your limbs apart as they'd dig their rotten teeth into your skin as blood pours drip by drip down on the ground. The echoes of those feelings you can't name wrap around your throat and shove something down it. Difficult to swallow away but you'd prefer dying over spitting it out. So there you were, choking on the pill all the way through as it reached down to your twisting stomach and cold feet. All contained in a fracture of a second.