Psyker

1 - Open House

"Yo, Link!" My buddy Rocco called to me as I walked down the street of my hometown.

I turned to see him jogging up to me. His hair looked freshly buzz-cut, and he was wearing a pair of torn blue jeans and a grey t-shirt. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, and always carried himself slightly hunched over, like he had something to hide. I waved as he caught up with me.

"How's it goin' Rocco?"

He shrugged, "You're heading to open house, right?"

I nodded, "Yeah. Family not coming?"

He didn't respond.

"Same here," I sighed, "But whatever. Kind of feels like it's better that they don't, anyway."

He shook his head as if in disagreement, but didn't say anything else. His eyes looked shinier than usual, but he turned his head away when he caught my gaze.

"Aaanyway, what class are you in this year? I'm in 1B."

"2A," he answered, his voice cracking just slightly.

I pretended not to notice, "Oh, damn. I was hoping they'd throw us in the same group."

"Ehh, it's whatever, man. It's only freshman year, we'll probably have classes together at some point."

"From what I hear, all the freshman boys have gym at the same time. Same goes for the girls. So there's that."

We came up to a stoplight, and I pressed the button to walk. I peered around us as we waited for the signal. Traffic was unusually busy for our relatively small town. But that was to be expected for open house night, I guess. A group of upperclassman walked on the other side of the street toward the school, laughing and making a ruckus. The signal went green, but Rocco grabbed my shoulder as I started to walk.

"Not yet, amigo. We'll go on the next pass," His expression sent a chill down my spine.

"What's up, man?" I asked.

He nodded at the upperclassman, "We need to steer clear of those guys."

"Why?"

"Bad news," was all he would say.

"Rocco, if this is another one of your vampire stories-"

He shot me a dirty look.

"Fine."

I pressed the button again and we waited as the upperclassman headed further down the street.

"Hey guys! See you at school!" A deep voice yelled from a passing car window.

Rocco and I both shot our heads over to see our morbidly obese buddy Jason half-way out the backseat window of his mom's car. His curly red hair whipped around violently over his glasses as his mom sped through a red light. I caught Rocco grinning in amusement as he watched them pass. 

"He's in a good mood considering school starts tomorrow," I grumbled, reminding myself that I was about to have responsibilities again.

"He's always in a good mood," Rocco said, still grinning as we passed the street.

Rocco was always really fond of Jason and his family. I didn't really understand why, but whenever Jason and Rocco were together, Rocco just seemed in higher spirits. Maybe it's because he thinks Jason's general existence is funny, or maybe Rocco is secretly gay and has a thing for morbidly obese gingers with tons of freckles. Shrug.

Who knows.

"Did you hear what was on the news? Apparently another guy was killed in town a few days ago."