Sunday, March 29, 2009

Opus 3

'Boyfriend?'

Her smile went out like a light.

'That Yune is your boyfriend?'

'Uh...yeah. Why - '

'Are you even on the girls' basketball team?'

'...No. I'm not very good at sports.'

'I thought so. Poor Yune.'

Jessica's face softened once more as she turned away from me towards the court.


"Airi?" My head snapped to attention. Oh. Had I been off in my own world? "Sorry Yu! I was just remembering something and I guess I just..." Yune sighed. "So you haven't listened to a word I said?" I smiled up at him apologetically. "Could you repeat it for me? I promise I'll listen this time!" "I guess there's no helping it," he said with a half-smile. "I was telling you that there's a new student in my class, a boy who seems to be related to those two new girls in your grade." This piece of news had my attention in an instant. I couldn't believe I'd zoned out on him. "His name's Tom. Nice guy inspite of all the family problems." "What family problems?" I queried. This might explain his sisters' absolutely abominable attitudes. "His parents divorced and he chose to live with his dad, but apparently his dad didn't want him around for his last year. Some new wife or something. So he was shipped out to live with his mom and sisters."

I lowered my head trying to imagine what parental rejection would be like. Oh wait. I'd already experienced that - Yune's mom positively loathed me. "You know what else?" said Yune suddenly. "Hm? What?" Yune stopped and turned sideways to face me. His mouth curled up in a mischievous smile. "You won't have to sigh and miss me so much in Jazz Band anymore. Tom's a tenor saxophonist. And he's really good." My face flushed red. "How do you know stuff like that..." We'd stopped in front of my house now and Yune gave me a goodbye peck. 'Poor Yune'...

"Wait!"

Yune jerked, surprised by my outburst. My hands tightened around the handle of my bass case. "Yu..do you -? Do you ever..." It was no use. I couldn't get the words out. Immediately Yune's hands were cradling my face. "Is this what's been bothering you the whole day?" he said seriously. "I...I just want to know if you think I'm lame for not playing basketball." Whew. It was easier if you said it fast!

"Hmph."

I looked up at Yune. He turned away and 'hmphed' again. Was he...laughing? The colour rose to my cheeks again and I growled, "Yuuu!" Yu now burst into full-scale-fits of laughter, his eyes crinkling up as he held his sides. But just looking at him like that made me cool down. "I don't," he finally breathed. "You play the bass, and the piano. And most importantly, there isn't anyone else in the world like you." Yune took my hand then and squeezed it gently. "Makes me feel so lucky that I have the limited edition," he whispered. Tilting my chin with his other hand, he kissed me.

I wished this moment would last forever. Everyday I tried not to think about how close Yune's graduation loomed but the one thing you don't want to think about is invariably the one that occupies your thoughts the most. So it was with Yune's departure. 'I've got 4 months left!' he'd tell me. But his face would pale a little.

Especially now that Yune was applying for Mechanical Engineering.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Opus 2

For the most part it was easy showing Jessica around - she pretty much had all the same classes as me except for Music and Biology, which she swapped for History and Physics. Throughout the first half of the school day though, Jessica never said a word to me. All my attempts at conversation had been binned relentlessly and so I just chattered endlessly, on and on, about anything I could think of. It was because I found the silence between us unbearable.

And then came lunchtime. As Jessica's official buddy I was meant to make sure she wasn't alone during lunch, whether that meant sitting her at a table with my friends, or just sitting with her at a table of her choice. I'd been looking forward to lunch all morning since I'd had to sit through double Higher Biology (Cell Respiration, what the heck was with the Krebs Cycle?!) and I knew Mum had packed a particularly sumptuous lunch for me today. My stomach growled in anticipation. Boy, was I hungry! "Your choice of table or mine?" I offered Jessica. Of course, no answer. I don't know what I was expecting. "Alright then, let's go with mine," I began making my way towards the table where Tink and my other two friends usually sat.

But then...Jessica spoke.

"I'm actually not hungry." "Huh?"

I was dumbfounded.

"Yeah, you heard me right. I'm not hungry at all." Her eyes narrowed at the small blue icebox at my side that carried my packed lunch.

Oh no. Oh no she wasn’t. She couldn’t make me! I’d waited all day for this moment! I was STARVING. COME ON!

"Okay then, what do you want to do instead?" I heard myself saying. Why me? Why me?!

"I...." her static expression flickered for an instant. What was it I had seen there...longing? "I want to see the basketball club."

Unbelievable. After half a day of trying to get her hobbies out of her she finally decided to tell me at the most. Inconvenient. Time. I gave a resigned sigh, patted my icebox one last time and then shoved it under the nearest table. It would be safe. People knew from experience what happened if they tampered with my lunch.

This time, I didn't bother making useless chatter. I knew she wouldn't listen to me anyway and I was still a little peeved at her. So instead, I just walked sullenly on in the direction of the indoor basketball court. My mind began drifting to other things. What day was it today? Wasn't it a Tuesday? Which meant....Yune probably had a lunchtime basketball practice! This considerably improved my mood. At least I would get to see Yu. I led Jessica in from the court's side entrance and stopped immediately. There was Yune. The sweat streaming off him in rivulets yet giving his skin a sparkle in the pale light. I could watch him forever. He crouched, ready to spring up for a jumpshot -

Ah.

I was supposed to be showing Jessica around. Idiot. "Um..this is the boys' basketball team. Well I mean...obviously, but yeah um..they've lead the school team to the regional high school championships three times." I paused. "And this year since they've been developing their three newest players, they're aiming for the nationals." I turned to look at Jessica to check if she'd been listening. I noticed her face immediately. It had literally come to life and her eyes were bright with unrestrained excitement. I smiled inspite of myself. I'd often seen Yune make the same face before games and so I thought maybe I'd begun to understand her a little. "Who - ?" she whispered. "Oh! Sorry, I forgot to tell you the players' names! Well that's the captain, Joe," I pointed to Joe who was marking Videl, "and then we have the three hulks: Mack, Phil and Adam." I now pointed to the practice-opposition. "Videl's new this year but he's seriously got some flair. He works the best with Talal and Stefano, who're high school juniors. Felix is the one on the bench watching, he's second-string since he's got a bad knee."

Yune dunked. The game was over. He turned to high five his team-mates and caught sight of me. His face lit up instantly in my beloved grin and he waved.

"And who's that?" I smiled. "Yune the ace-regular," I said.

"He's my. . ."

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Opus 1

Although me and Yune made bets all the way to school on whether I'd be late...I turned up 2 minutes early for homeroom. Yune's penalty? He had to watch the latest chick flick with me and buy me my favourite peanut M&Ms. However, he didn't seem too upset about it. He kissed me on the cheek before he left for the Grade 12 commonroom. Hmph. Yune was always too cool.

Slowly, a hand clamped around my shoulder and I was conscious of a looming figure behind me. Any minute now..."AIRI! WE HAVE TWO TRANSFER STUDENTS!" exploded Tiffany. She swivelled me round to face her. "Did I get you? Did I scare you?" "You touched me before you said anything," I laughed. "Anyway, what's this about transfer students?"


If you want to know anything about anyone, Tiffany is the person to ask. She literally keeps notebooks on transfer students as far as I know and she has this obsession with green, leggings, fairy wings and pom-poms on shoes. Hence the nickname 'Tinker Bell'. But believe it or not, Tiffany hasn't even watched Peter Pan. On my crazy friend list, she's definitely number one.


"They're not boys," she suddenly began to pout. "They're a pair of identical twins but they're nothing like each other. Oh I wish they were an indentical pair of guy-hotties!" Tiffany also tended to speak in a whine which sometimes got annoying. This was one of those times. As I walked into the classroom, I located the two of them almost immediately. One was tall and thin, though quite toned, with chocolate brown hair which extended to her hips. And as usual, the guys were already forming a crowd around her. She was pretty. I found her sister harder to locate, mostly because she seemed intent on watching her desk do nothing. She was noticeably shorter, but maybe it was because she was hunching. This one wore glasses and her mousy brown hair was cut short in a bob that fell around her ears. Nobody was talking to her.


"Hey Tink, how come none of our friends are talking to her?" I whispered to TB. "I don't know." But she seemed to not want to get into details, for she pranced away to talk to the pretty brunette too. Well I wasn't going to give up that easy! I put my bags and bass down by my desk and walked towards her, trying to figure out what to say. 'Hi!' Was that too trite? 'Hey Babes!' Nah...she'd probably think I was hitting on her and bring out the pepper spray. GAH. This wasn't the time to be joking about! I'd stopped in front of her desk and she'd straightened up stiffly. "C-Can I - ?" sit here...?

"No." Her eyes were smoldering and her lips were a line. I felt like I needed to go find a stone to hide under. So this is what Tink had been implying. Just then, I was saved by my homeroom teacher. "Isaki!" "Yes!" I squeaked. "You'll be Jessica's buddy for the whole of this week, got it?" The pretty brunette was staring at me.

Then it hit me. I had to buddy her. I couldn't decide what was worse - being horrifically snubbed by a new student or having to walk around with Jessica for a week! On the other side of the room, Jessica raised a sharp eyebrow.

Yep. It was gonna be one hell of a week.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Atarashii Story ^-^

Been a while since I've written in this blog (as Yu-chan will tell you), but I've decided to become a regular blogger. I won't be writing about my personal life or anything, but I'll be continuing the story you read below. Let's just say I've decided to expand on my creative writing skills!

The main character's named Airi and she is in some small way modeled after me. I'll be writing in first person and although I know it has a lot of limitations as a literary tool, I can't be bothered writing in 3rd! XD I hope you'll enjoy my blog-story.

Please come back for more! New chapters will be added on a weekly basis.

Astal~

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Prelude

My 'ten minutes more' had turned into twenty.

Oh yeah.

I was in deep trouble.

Pa was already tapping his fingers in an annoying way on the other side of my cleverly locked door. I can't stand being woken up, especially by him. "Airi? Airi, you're going to be late! It's 6:40 already - " "I know," I groaned and practically dragged myself off the bed. "Yune's probably already waiting for you, you know!" yelled Mum from somewhere deep in the house.

Yune.

Pa grunted and shuffled away from my door. Yune is my boyfriend. Cringe. I hate using that word. It's such a loose term and it sort of denotes...I don't know, a sort of temporary existence before the guy's thrown on the pile of reject-exes. I guess that's what it made Pa think of as well. He'd only recently begun to accept Yune as part of the family and that was all because of my older brother Senri's valiant efforts at inviting him round for family game nights. Yune even let Pa win at chess just to get on his good side. I laughed to myself as I remembered Yu's carefully constructed face of hopelessness, just before he moved his king in for...well...doom. But the rest of my crazy family loves him. Senri's in college and is two years older than me and a year older than Yune. Then there's Yuri who's 9 and Fritz, our Pekingnese-Lhasa Apso dog. Mum however, seems to like Yune even more than I do. Now that's scary. But Yune says that's just the way my Mum is. ( How does he know that?! )

By the time I'd gotten dressed and grabbed myself a piece of toast, it was 7:00 am and Yune was, naturally, already waiting by the gate. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him leaning nonchalantly on our fence. He saw me and grinned - the grin only I could get out of him.

"Let me guess. You hit the snooze button every ten minutes?" I stuck my tongue out at him and closed the gate behind me. I had this feeling like I'd forgotten something, but I couldn't figure out what it was...

"Well maybe you should try getting some more sleep like me sometimes. I'm the happiest person in homeroom!" He chuckled. "I'll give you that!" Pulling me close he whispered, "You forgot your bass, silly."

Oh.

Shoot. So that's what I'd forgotten. And we had that practice first break for the gig! Looking at Yune I suddenly felt a pang of loneliness. Or rather...frustration. If that was even the same thing. I'd met Yu last year when we'd both transferred to Lafayette High and enrolled in the Jazz Band as bassist and alto saxophonist. I am not kidding when I say Yu was beyond amazing. He'd flawed the supervisor the first practice just from warming up on his sax. And of course, he'd peaked my interest since I only wanted to accompany good soloists on my bass. But it turned out that saxophone wasn't the only thing he was good at. And here was where it always got to me. Yune simultaneously tried out for the hardest basketball team in school, and got in. First string! I was happy for him at first but when the practices began to be scheduled on the same days as Jazz Band, I wondered whether Yune would quit basketball. But Yu didn't want to quit basketball or jazz. So he has this setup now where he spends two semesters out of four playing basketball, and the remaining two with the jazz band. Basically he gets to play jazz when they don't have any important games. I missed the sound of his sax when he was away. I didn't enjoy playing my bass quite so much when he wasn't around.

But of course I wouldn't tell him that.

"Are you after school?" "Hm? Yeah, I have basketball practice. Want me to carry your bass?" He shifted his bag so he could hold my bass with his free hand. I had a bad habit of carrying more than I could handle. It was a beautiful morning. The sky was just beginning to lighten into a brilliant azure blue and I craned my neck to get a better view of the clouds above me. I could hear the inner tinkle of an undiscovered melody just waiting for me to compose it. I'd do it, after I'd caught my favourite J-drama. So for the timebeing I swung my hands like a kid and hummed my new melody.

Beside me, Yu harmonized.