A Life Less Ordinary

I've Traveled All This Way For Something

Sean came back just as I finished changing into my own clothes. I'm not sure how Gabriel found so many combinations of the basic three-piece uniform. I now had enough skirts to wear a different one every school day. He found me both colors of the skirts in my size. Gabriel told me that everyone should have some variation of the basics in their wardrobe. He also found me the school approved training gear and a warmup suit to wear over it to try outs. New shoes rounded out the last of my clothing choices. Gabriel told me that the store would send them over to my dorm, so I didn't need to carry so many bags across campus. I caught Sean giving him a look. I wasn't exactly sure why, but I had a feeling that most other students had to carry their own stuff.

"Come back anytime Sang, you are a lot more fun to fit than these enfoirés." Gabriel emoted, his accent thickening as he gesticulates wildly, the ridiculousness of the whole situation made me giggle. Honestly all he needed was a beret and a cigarette and he would be a walking French stereotype. The two girls that had followed Sean into the store got glassy eyed, and I could almost see their knees weaken. He caught my eye and winked. I realized right at that moment he was playing directly to the stereotypes I was thinking of on purpose. When other people were around, he was a completely different person to who he was when it was just him and those he considered friends, when he was comfortable he had a very slight accent. With that understanding I walked over to him and gave him a hug.

"Merci Gabriel. I truly appreciate the help. I'll be back, even if that's just to keep you company." Rising on tip toe I kissed his cheek and then stepped back beside Sean.

"Oh, heads up, Jessica talked Kota into dying his hair again. Red this time." Sean told Gabriel before draping his arm over my shoulder and leading me out of the store. An inarticulate scream followed us out.

"That was mean." I murmured in Japanese.

Sean just grinned and replied in the same language, "Maybe, but it was funny. I think I like having someone I can talk to like this. The others have tried, and Owen is fluent if formal, but you get the nuance."

Switching back to English Sean started pointing out the various academic buildings as we walked across the campus. It was like walking through a timeline of American architecture. Second Empire mansions sat beside Art Deco office complexes, Neo-classical manors were neighbors to stately Queen Anne townhouses, two hundred years of architectural history was on display. I could have sworn that tucked in behind a beautiful Italianate mansion was the worlds ugliest post-modern monstrosity. I wasn't hallucinating, a large roughly bird shaped building was decorated in what could politely be considered the school colors, except they were glossy candy-coated tones. Maybe I just wasn't the right audience for that style of building.

"Why is that building painted in garish versions of the school colors? Is that chartreuse instead of gold? Is there a reason it looks like a constipated chicken?" I asked Sean softly not wanting to be overheard.

Sean let out a belly laugh, "I need to tell Gabe you said that. He's been petitioning the school council to do something, anything to remove the 'eye-sore' from campus. That is the unfortunate home of the visual arts department. I have yet to hear anything positive about it from any of the art students. They hate the candy apple red and chartreuse panels and that blue is supposedly cobalt, but Gabe swears it's been irradiated. It practically glows in the dark, not the building just the blue. The story about the shape is it is the school mascot; I take offense to that interpretation as I get to play that mascot and it looks nothing like that. We are noble gryphons not radioactive, constipated chickens The architecture students who use a rather bland Federal Era building gush over the amazing lines and use of color in the post-modern era, no one has dared tell them we are still in that era and the building is the most hideous one on campus. Gabe and his art friends figure the architecture students are all color-blind and can't tell that the colors clash terribly."