(Outdated) The King of Elements

The Angelic Voice

"Proud of yourself, Wolf-Boy?" Coach Falls asked as he stood on the outside of the opened pool doors with a face of absolute bitterness. "Thanks to you, we might not even make it to state this year."

Sure that's because of me and not your severe lack of coaching skills? Dre would have said if he had the guts to. Instead, he simply said, "What do you mean?"

"Thanks to you wanting to play hero, our starting Center is concussed, and we lost Dixon as well. So, are you proud of yourself?" he repeated.

"You mean for finally sticking up for myself? Yes, I am. Proud as an Olympic medalist."

Falls growled in his throat as he tightly balled up his fists, and Dre knew exactly why. Since his crutch had been taken from him, Coach Falls actually has to rely on the players to make high enough grades to stay on the team. A joyous feeling began to swell in Dre's chest. "Just... get in there, Wolf-Boy," Falls said in a low growl.

"Certainly, sir."

The strong chlorine smell had barely made him cough as he strode inside, but the fumes added with the uncomfortable contact lenses made his eyes water. The students all gave Dre an evil glare. Just as well, Dre never liked them anyways. He noticed, however, that enormous blob, Peewee, was missing, as well as his snake-like best friend.

"I was told by Principal McManus to have Dre show me to the rest of my class, coach," he heard Megumi's voice call from behind him. He quickly spun around at her handing Coach Falls two slips of paper, radiating in pure, unaltered beauty.

Samantha would be pissed off at you, Dre.

Then again, I doubt she'd pay enough attention to me to notice.

"Principal McManus?" Coach Falls said as he snatched the slips of paper from her and surveyed them quickly. "Like hell, he's the principal. Fine then. Get this piece of trash out my sight."

Dre bit down on his tongue to keep him from saying, "Screw you too, sir."

Megumi pouted as she looked up at him and spoke to him in Japanese.

"Do you mind repeating what you said in English?"

"I said, 'Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.'"

Falls scoffed under his breath. "Wolf-Boy! Get out of here!" he barked at Dre.

"Yes sir." He stood beside Megumi, hoping to get some type of positive response from her, but she hadn't even batted an eye at him. She instead turned around and began walking down the hallway. Damn. Guess she's still mad. What can I say to calm her down, he asked himself as he caught up to Megumi.

"So, I'm guessing that you don't really like Samantha much."

"Really now? What gave me away?" she asked with so much sarcasm that even Dre could detect it.

"Look, I'm sorry about how she acted. I really am. I had hoped that you guys would have met in a different way, but I guess that it really wouldn't change much, though."

"Understatement of the millennium, dude. I want to slap the taste out of his mouth, and I bet that if I met her under different circumstances, I'd still want to knock her teeth in."

"Yeah, she seems to have that kind of effect on people," he said with a forced laugh. "So what did you really tell coach?"

She paused at the exit door and turned towards Dre. "I told him he can go sodomize himself with a nail-studded 2X4."

"That's sounds painful."

"That's the plan. So, I'm curious to know how you two met each other," she said as they left the building. The humidity was already beginning to affect Dre. He felt as if he was being smothered by the air and his shirt.

"Well, he is the swimming instructor so-"

"No. I meant how you met your whore."

"Ah. That's the million dollar question, huh?" He stuffed his hands in his pocket as he looked up at the cloudless sky, trying his best to recall how they actually started going out. "Er... It's a bit hazy. The only thing I remember was some of the jocks had stolen my lunch in the cafeteria. To make things worse, just about half of the school was in the cafeteria and were cheering them on. So I had to shut them up."

After a moment of hesitation, Megumi asked, "So you fought them?"

Dre couldn't help but grin at his own foolishness. He had fought three football starters, each of them two times as tall and wide as Dre, risking his already humiliating reputation as the school's punching bag, just for something he didn't plan on eating. "Yeah," he finally said with a chuckle. "Kinda stupid of me, now that I think about it. I didn't even want the lunch. I just remember an angelic song going through my head. It encouraged me, made me feel like I actually stood a chance against them. The funny thing was that I actually won. It was like I was being controlled by a completely different force or something, like my primal instincts kicked in at the last minute.

"After the fight, Samantha came and congratulated me, and even gave me money to replace my lunch. Ever since then, I guess we've been an unofficial couple."

"Unofficial? I don't know. Sounds like bullshit to me."

"I know, but it's better than being alone right." He smiled at her, a remorseful, forced smile.

"Honestly, no it's not," she said with resentment in her voice that stung. She went pulled a sheet of paper from the front pocket of her satchel and handed it to Dre. "Here. Think you may need this to show me to my classes." Her voice was much softer. Dre figured it was partially because of her knowing that she was a little harsh with her voice.

True, but harsh.

"Wait. You have Beginner's Japanese as your distance learning class?" Dre asked as he scanned her schedule. "Aren't you from Japan?"

"Born and raised. Japanese is basically my native tongue."

"Then why, no how are you even in this class?" He knew it was a stupid question, considering how the students are often placed in random classes.

"Easy credits. I guess luck was on my side for a change," she said with a smile.