Journey 1: Orientation

An Early Encounter

For Aria, victory is never really a victory because that's just how he does things. Happened to be the first place for nine years in a row, won a singing competition he first auditioned himself in, known to be very kind and actually is a very kind person, also loved by people around him. He never really get frustrated by his life, except by the time he had to choose for a high school he must attend to in three months.

Life would be exceptionally good at him if he happened to be born in a descent family, have enough money to send him to a school he wants. But no, things are not that fortunate in this life's aspect of him. To start with, his mother left him when he was five, leaving him with his father only at his small house. His father is old and looks even older since becoming a truck driver. What life has been good to him in this case is that he has given so much love from his father, laughs rather often, and never feel really far from him even when his father is miles away driving his truck, load tons of sugar canes to it then send those to the company that hired him. To be able to feel happiness and loved underneath all the exhaustion of his father's eyes is a blessing he never feel ungrateful for. His father loves him and it should be enough.

Aria realizes that when someone wishes for something very hard and not getting that wish for the poor circumstances, it actually feels very stressful. He keeps looking at his report card, certificates, line of trophies and medals. He should have gotten into that school he was aiming for. He had more than enough to get that scholarship. But this morning he received a letter from his dream school that his application for scholarship has been declined. He lets out a desperate sighs. He only has two weeks left before the school year starts.

Blaming his conditions will not save him from this situation too. Honestly, he just feels tired that no matter how good he is, whenever it comes to a financial-related matter, he is always not good enough. He thought that it would be different this time, he always thought that every single time was just going to be different. He was always full of hope. But now he is just no longer feels to fight that hard anymore.

But life goes on, he must enroll to high school no matter what. In one morning when his father just arrived at home, he is out pedaling his bike to the only school that still open for registration. From what he knew, this school is really not the worst but must be close to be the worst. They always have at least one criminal case every year or so and made it into local paper. People just know that it must be that school even though the journalist already censored their name.

That's how famous this school is for their students' extreme characters. But on the other side, this school also became province's representative to gain national gold medals in PMR (Teens Red Cross) competitions for five years in a row, also has the best basketball team in national scale and get their members to be most recruited members in national teams. So Aria thought, maybe not so bad as long as he doesn't get into wrong circle of friends. After all, that's the only school he got for now and thank god for how many criminal cases this school has gotten impacting the decreased numbers of students, they don't charge that much for the administration. His father still can pay for this school.

He arrives at that school. For how bad the reputation is, the school is quite nice. There are paintings on the wall on the right side on the way to the school gate, some plants on the left side and some big trees. When he got through the school gate, he can see an outdoor basketball court next to soccer field on his left side. On the right side, there is a parking lot for teachers. One thing still bothers him though, some guys are shouting at the girls who walk through the gate before him. They are obviously seniors. Some girls are having an unbelievably tight clothes with makeup smeared on their face. They talk very loud and some even smoke in the teachers' parking lots. This is nothing new to Aria, but still, it bothers him.