Apathy ~Minizerk~

Apathy

Apathy - Noun.

1. A lack of interest, enthusiasm, feeling, emotion, motivation, or concern.

Apathy - Medical, also known as perfunctoriness.

1. A state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, and/or passion.

Josh truly doesn't care. When asked to give an opinion, he shrugs. He doesn't care if everyone hated him. He doesn't care if everyone loved him. Nothing mattered.

He doesn't have a favorite, well, anything. Some things are more distasteful than others, but it doesn't really matter to him what movie they watched, what food they eat, how much homework he has. But the little things aren't the only things he doesn't care about.

It doesn't matter to him if his parents died today or years from now. If something happened to them, he'd just end up with some relative far away. He doesn't care if he died soon or ended up immortal by some miracle of science. He wouldn't change anything anyways, what effect could he have?

In school, he did as little work as required, although with his natural intelligence he had straight A's. He did his homework. There was nothing else to busy himself anyways. The small amount of interest he ever showed was when he could manipulate people. Messing with his classmates was always fun, lying, spreading rumors, causing trouble, anything to keep his mind busy. He was above them all, anyways.

Of course, people thought other about that, the ones that lived and breathed in their textbooks with flying scores. The ones who cared about their future. Josh could easily have 100% in all of his classes, but he isn't that bored. He has friends, a lot, actually, if you could them that. He uses them as toys, discarding them once they bore him, which doesn't take long.

He treated his significant others the same way, playing with their emotions. It fascinated him to see people who could care, who felt joy, happiness. He liked to study what caused these emotions, and wondered why he seemed to lack them. It always puzzled him how people could get upset over such simple things. He had grown up observing his parents argue about such trivial things; what show to watch, what color they should paint the kitchen. He also observed this at other levels, from children fighting over toys at recess, jealous assholes fighting over who a girl was dating behind the school, all the way to idiotic politicians creating laws. He also enjoyed scaring others, sneaking up on them, jumping out, as this type of fear was also lessened for him, and it made him feel like he was in control of emotions, for once.

He observed small things effecting the amount of caring, from gender, age, hair color, sexual orientation, and when he was especially bored, he even studied up on obviously fake things such as people's horoscope and beliefs.

He has been living his life the same way he had been years ago, down to the exact morning routine; Wake up at 6:00, eat cereal by 6:15, get dressed by 6:30, pack up his backpack and catch the bus outside by 6:55 to arrive at school at exactly 7:22.

To each person he met, he displayed a different personality. To some, he was a charming lady's man, these people were more popular people of the school. Others knew him as a sensitive introvert, too scared to talk. These were the people he didn't exactly want to talk to, the more dim-witted of society that couldn't aid him in any way. The other honors students knew him as a respectable student, studying hard for tests and somehow juggling his social life at the same time, along with sports. Little did they know he's never even glanced at his textbooks outside of school. He had kept up so many acts for so long, that he no longer knew his own personality. Was he really who he was when he was near his family? Near his friends? Near strangers? When he was alone?

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Simon eagerly stood outside of his new school's double doors, carrying his backpack, clutching a pixelated map of the school him mom had printed from the school website. The map was utterly useless, as he couldn't read it to save his life, so he crumpled it up and tossed it in the nearest trash can. Hundreds of students milled around, waiting for their first class. By this point in the year, even the freshmen knew their way around the place. Moving halfway through the year sucked.

Simon spotted a group of girls standing around a locker inside of the building, and he made his way over to them.

"Hey, sorry, I'm new here, and I was wondering if one of you could tell me where I could find the office?" Simon asked, flashing a smile. A few of the girls giggled, but one, a brunette with green eyes, stepped forward.

"Yeah! Go straight ahead, and turn right. You can't miss it," She paused, smiling, "But wait, I'll write it out incase you get lost." She scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and handed it to Simon, who thanked her and turned to continue going down the hall.

As he was walking, Simon unfolded the paper, wondering how someone could forget such simple instructions.

"Of course," he sighed, looked at the paper which simply had what he assumed was the girl's phone number and the message 'Text me sometime. ;)' Simon again crumpled up the paper and threw it away. He wasn't particularly interested in girls, plus, he was planning on focusing on making new friends and getting used to this new country, along with trying to get good grades. It would take him a while to get used to American schools, and as a junior he probably never would before going off to university, or as they say here, college.

He stepped into the office to see a line of students waiting for something or another, some chatting with others in line. Even with them talking, it was much quieter than the crowded hallways.

"Ah! You must be Mr. Minter! The principal is waiting back through that door," the secretary stated, gesturing to an open door behind her.

Simon nodded and stepped through the door. Inside was a large desk, with an old man sitting behind it, intently looking at his computer.

"Hello?" Simon asked, "I'm Simon Minter, and I'm assuming you're the principal?"

"Then you would be correct! I'm Mr. Barrow, but most students just call me Greg," The man reached over the table, shaking Simon's hand, "Oh! Here's your schedule! On the back there is a map of the school, but I also assigned one of our best students to help you around the school so you don't get lost. He should have most of the same classes as you, also."

"Thank you, um, where could I find him?" Simon asked, looking over his schedule.

"You can find me right here," a voice said from behind him, causing Simon to jump. He had not noticed the dark haired boy lounging in the corner when he had entered the small office, although he must have been there as Simon would have noticed if someone had entered.

The boy chuckled and stood, revealing to be nearly as tall as Simon, but not quite. He had light blue eyes, but as he moved, Simon realized they changed with the lighting, even looking to be a darker shade of brown.

"Jesus Christ, you scared me!" Simon exclaimed.

Another chuckle, "That was the point," the boy extended his arm, "I'm Joshua Bradley, and you?"

"Simon Minter, but you've already heard," Simon shook his hand, smiling.

"Yes, I know, I was just exchanging formalities," Josh flashed a smile and picked up his backpack, "We should go before we're late to class, I don't think you'd want to be late on your first day."

A/N Woo new book! Thanks for reading!