Little Pastel Boy (english ver.)

Chapter One: "Hassle"

The red haired boy enters the classroom as always, first thing in the morning, even earlier than the most studious boy of the class. He walks to one of the last seat in the back of the classroom and throws his backpack onto it. He then sits abruptly on the chair and waits until his classmates and first teacher arrives. He's already in his senior year and in no time he'll be done with high school and that fuels him with satisfaction. He won't have to see his classmates again and he can do what he wants when he wants and how he wants. Finally being left alone. Those kind of thoughts make him more impatient.

He always looks for solitude, all the time. He just can't seem live in this society even when he actually tries. He doesn't want anyone to talk or see him. He doesn't want to know anything about nothing. He just wants peace and quiet.

Sadly, that will have to wait a little longer. For now, he's got to begin another school year, invent new excuses to explain why he didn't do his homework, procrastinate until the last minute, and with luck to just pass this year, as he usually does. Mark never "tried his best" to be, at least, good in class. He never got interested and now that he's so close to finish, he won't ever do that.

The only good thing is he doesn't have to bear another new student. After doing absolutely nothing on vacation and spending day making smoke forms and watching the ceiling, he came to the conclusion there will be no new classmates this year. You see, as year goes on, the kids will make more stable friendships, more stable groups, which they never break away from ever. That's why, at this point, all those idiots obviously have their best friends and changing schools would be... how you'd say... a big deal, knowing that they will leave behind their long-time best friend groups. Long distance relationships seem impossible to him.

So he lays his feet on the desk and leans back in the chair. He's alone as anyways and nobody can tell him no.

(...)

Now Mark is mad. He takes one more look at his classmates to assure first-day anxiety isn't doing anything to his brain. He observes carefully his peers' faces. The girls are in their own group, there's another group elsewhere, a little further there's a "girls and boys"' clique and standing by the door, that damn white door, there's a boy he'd never seen in his life. He looks shyly at the class and squeezes his messenger bag strap tightly with his right hand. He looks really nervous... Mark doesn't care, but he notices it. He keeps looking for a while more, the guy doesn't seem to notice: he's looking to a only girl's group in a corner. Mark notices he's also squeezing his sweater sleeve, which looks like it's too big for him.

He goes back to his seat and crosses arms. Then thinks again about how his classmates sitting and, if calculations don't fail him, means that the only free seat is by his side. He sighs loudly and covers his face with his hands, making a couple of boys around him turn to see what's happening, although they don't ask.

The guys turn back around and look at one another, exchanging knowing looks. If that's only the first day, the rest of the year is going to be an actual hell.

The truth is, the way Mark feels about his peers is reciprocal. Nobody likes him, and in turn he doesn't like anyone. He's never tried to get along with them. There was once a point when he had his own friends. As time passed, however, he not only became grumpier, but he became weirder. His clothing became darker, he was less expressive, more closed off... Until he became what he was today.

(...)

Just as he predicted, after the professor came in, greeting the class and introduced the new guy, he sat him with Mark. He can remember hearing the man saying that the boy's name: "Sean", but he wasn't paying that much attention. In fact, the punk didn't even look at him when he sat down, just threw his bag to the floor so he could sit without saying a word.