mutated

chapter three: the official start of my descent into insanity

It was the end of the week. The rest of the class acted like nothing was wrong, but suddenly, Adrian had refused to talk or chat with me. Or anyone, for that matter. Now, he wasn't exactly the chattiest person in the world but leaving someone on read? Definitely not his style.

Unless I wasn't the only who remembered.

I sighed, putting my phone back down as I stared at the climbing wall, a chocolate-cookie frappuccino in my hand. Yes, I'm unhealthy, but at least I try to do some exercise. "Yo, Jade, can you try out this route that we made?" Liam walked over, tapping me on the arm. I looked up, face blank, before I slowly registered what he said.

"Oh, sure. As long as you actually climb instead of playing Clash Royale." I answered, and stood up, walking over to the 'cave' we liked to mess around in, where Thomas, Gabbi and Bobo already were. "What's the route?"

The rest of the climbing 'training' went on, with us either attempting a crazily hard route and seeing if we could reach the second hold, or making routes on overhangs that we had to canvas. My arms were sore and my back was tired as we made our way back to the mini-lobby as we prepared to leave.

"I can't believe you actually made me climb." Grumbled Liam, and I gave him a playful slap on the back, and he slapped me back. "You're not my Y9 best friend anymore."

"You only have one Y9 friend." I pointed out, and he rolled his eyes.

"Fine." He whined, and we both burst out laughing.

"Oh, you two are so cute. I ship it." Lara said from behind, the blonde girl skipping slightly.

"Ew, no!" I immediately said, face scrunched up in disgust. "He has Anneke."

"We broke up." "They broke up." Liam and Gabbi answered hastily, Gabbi eager to support her little brother.

"Shame." I replied.

Thomas took this moment to interrupt. "Do you guys want to take the shortcut?"

"Through the alleyways next to smokers and drunks? No thank you." Bobo snorted, shouldering past. "Safe way is better."

"But it's faster." Thomas argued. "And me and Aru have been through plenty of times."

"Aru and I." Bobo corrected.

"Fine, grammar nazi."

"Hey, I'm not the one in supported learning for English, so I advise you learn your grammar, mister."

"And you say me and Liam arguing was cute. What do you say about them?" I muttered to Lara.

"They're different. They used to be together so it's funnier."

"Guys!" Gabbi raised her voice, and they both went silent. "Thank you. We'll go the shortcut, we've wasted enough time arguing."

"Yes, mother." Bobo mocked, a wide grin on her face, and we trudged through the alleys, Bobo wincing every time she saw a puddle. Which was a lot. I glanced around, and spotting a smoker, began to fake cough.

"Are you alright, Jadie?" Gabbi said, and I nodded.

"Smoker. Make them feel bad. Normal drill." I stage-whispered, knowing that most of the people in these sorts didn't really speak English fluently. Bobo nodded, suddenly looking a little less disgusted.

"Wei, gum do sik yeen yun, gum m wan bo ga! (Hey, there's so many people smoking, that's so bad for the environment!)" Bobo said loudly, and I hid a laugh with my cough.

"Hai lo, you gum do yeen, o do zook cun la. (I know right, there's so much smoke, even I'm choking.)" Gabbi responded, and the smoker immediately looked bashful. The moment we were out of hearing range, we all began to laugh.