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 Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:11 pm
And there he was again, only slightly bruised from the previous day's beatings as he sat at the table with four 'study buddies' stationed in various positions not more than five feet in any direction. They were supposed to work together on a group project and had agreed to meet at the public library because said library supposedly had better books on the subject of their project.
However, Jack knew better. He knew the main reason the boys had plotted to meet there, specifically, was because they had a much lower chance of being caught by the Romano's teachers. After all, he highly doubted the staff at the high school would have allowed an act of this nature to slide. Not only had the guys pummeled him into agreeing to join their group for the project against his will, but none of them planned to put in an ounce more effort than what had been required to make Jack consent. He was on his own.
Or so it seemed. The thing was, if there were no teachers to catch the bullies at their deeds, then there wouldn't be any to catch him, either. Knowing this, the redhead had come to the library prepared that day. He knew all four of his keepers would be present, if only to make sure he didn't try anything funny in the completion of their portions, but that was just as well. If they weren't all there, he couldn't exact his full revenge.
He was careful not to smile as he began to pull out his school supplies from his bag, eyeing his audience with a particular level of wariness - not enough to appear especially intimidated, but not too little to seem ready to try anything, either. He knew he was outnumbered and there was a certain resignation to the slump of his shoulders to prove his awareness of this fact.
In watching his peers, though, Jack seemed to entirely miss something else - a many-legged furry monstrosity about nine inches long creeping up the side of his head. As the teen began to open one of his books and set to taking notes, a group member saw it and began to stammer wordlessly. The lack of sound wasn't enough to draw the attention of the others, though.
Jack decided to add a touch more drama to speed things along. He stiffened, made a choking sound, and then slumped forward onto his book, eyes closed. There were shouts of ridicule and anger that quickly transformed into cries of panic and terror as his schoolmates each took notice of the arachnid crawling across his locks and concluded their own assumptions of what must have happened to him. Even after he'd heard them take off down the aisles, chased after by the chastisements of the librarians, he didn't lift his head. The book's pages felt cool on his cheek and the scent intrigued him as he tried to place it.Strickenized ((As always, please let me know if there's anything you'd like me to change~))
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:32 am
Rap rap rap rap rap.
Elex closed his eyes slowly as he felt his brow furrow. For the fifth time now, the painting instructer beat the back of her brush against her easel to gain the attention of her students. As the gaggle in the back often wore headphones, she repeated the motion with higher volume until she regained all attention from the class. She flashed an aggressively polite smile - all teeth, that one - and launched into an explanation of future techniques for rendering light reflection from one object to the next. Elex only picked out a few garbled words as the paned glass and walls proved themselves effective insulators against clarity, though he understood the teacher well enough from watching her. Ms. Caldwell fostered a habit of climbing in pitch as her stress levels increased. Either she would calm down on her own or call for an early break to stop herself from cutting headphone cords and slashing canvases.
As he watched the class continue, Elex wondered what she found so immensely infuriating about her students. Did she expect them to harken to her every word? Was she projecting onto them the troubles and helplessness she found in her own life? Was she facing a potential loss of job as students complained about price hikes and mediocre instruction? Perhaps, in a few months, he would know the answer.
Soon her voice returned to its normal cadence and Elex parted his attention from the scene. This week, he needed to prepare for a math test that would determine his academic track for Junior year - whether into the more theoretical, fantastical realm of calculus or the more mundane, useful realm of statistics. But numbers and letters seldom told stories beyond the constraints of their word problems, and Elex suffered terribly from a lack of focus. Once again his gaze romed the library, picking out friends and couples and family members as they searched for choice texts. Curiously, they each seemed bored or content despite living in a warzone.
A few kids darted through his peripheral vision, however, and Elex searched at once for the source. Initial instinct warned him of a youma here in the library - thoughts of the Negaverse and its creatures never once escaped him through the day - yet he found none in a quick index of his surroundings. Never once did Elex move from his seat while the boys bothered not with warning anyone. At last, his gaze settled on a prone form, slumped over a textbook, with what looked like a tarantula exploring his head.
Huh. Elex watched as one of the librarians rushed over at once. The woman knelt as best she could in her slim, knee-length dress and touched the sleeve of the boy while she pleaded for someone to take care of the spider. "Are you okay?" She asked frantically. "Can you hear me? I think he needs help!" Cell phones exited pockets and Elex looked on with intrigue.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 10:59 pm
Once his peace was torn asunder by the fretting that eventually reached him, Jack picked himself up off his book as if from a nap and yawned. He raised his hand to his hair to collect his pet Brazilian salmon pink bird-eating tarantula before anyone else could and slipped her back into his bag. Then he turned to the librarian, as if seeing her for the first time, and blinked.
"Lady, aren't you a librarian here?" he asked, punctuating his reproachful question with another yawn. "You're being kinda loud." Keeping his gaze on the woman, the teen nodded his chin ever-so-subtly toward the camera-embedded phones aimed their way. "Thanks for your concern, but I would have hoped that if a kid like me can tell the difference between a toy spider and a fake one by the feel of its movement, then you, as an experienced, educated adult, would be able to tell on sight." He reached up to scratch the back of his head. "But I dunno...maybe I've just been pranked too many times to get fooled by it anymore."
Stupid. As indifferent as he made a show of seeming, inwardly, Sinope berated himself for having indulged in lazing about too long. He should have gotten back up and put Electra away as soon as his tormentors were out of sight and before anyone had been able to trace the commotion back to him. As it stood now, he had to clean up his mess by convincing the librarian and any other library staff or audience member watching that it had all just been a simply hoax.
While that in itself wasn't too terribly demanding, such implications, even if not outright lies, had consequences. Even if his cowardly group members somehow happened to miss the videos or pictures that may have been taken by those numerous cell phones looking on, there was always the possibility that word would get back to them that the whole spider situation had all been an act.
And while Jack hadn't counted on being able to use Electra as an excuse with them again, he knew those guys wouldn't respond well to having been deceived. He couldn't avoid them when they went to the same school and attended the same classes, so while he had appeared to have won this round, his mistake had created a setback he was willing to bet would cost him at least twice the suffering he had evaded this time.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. All his work for worse than nothing; now he would have to waste his precious reading time devising whole new strategies just to avoid another beating session. He heaved a ponderous sigh and contemplated just getting Electra to bite him after all.
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 9:08 am
The librarian herself tolerated none of his backtalk. Toy or not, she was train to take any instance of potential harm seriously and address it promptly to protect the occupants from danger and the library from future lawsuits. Not only did the boy have the gall to pull a stunt like that in her library, but he thought it a proper idea to backsass her about it in the face of concern. "Young man," she started, her voice quaking with anger, "you need to leave. Now. Marshall will take any books you have on hand and escort you out the front doors. He will take your library card, too. You may not return to this library with that kind off behavior. There are plenty of other, less esteemed libraries for you to fool around in. We won't tolerate that here." She snubbed him then, and radioed for one of the security guards to arive at the premise.
Elex himself continued looking on in interest. He hadn't expected the prankster to continue mouthing off after executing his stunt, which garnered Elex's continued attention. As he surveyed the room, others still looked on with cell phones raised. Were they recording, or just taking pictures? Did they pause halfway through dialing for assistance and left their phones hanging at an awkward angle? None of such options begged his interest, so he returned his focus to the young boy who remained in trouble with the librarian.
One of the security officers approached now, and Elex struggled between watching for further altercation or excusing himself from the table to take a walk outside and meet the boy who caused such trouble. An escort off the premises seemed inevitable at the moment, unless the kid made the decision to run, and Elex supposed the situation would devolve entirely into comedy at that point. Perhaps stepping outside proved the best option for both scenarios. After shutting his current texts with bookmarks inside, Elex settled on taking a walk to the outside premises of the library.
He passed the scene with purpose, though he turned his head to watch the dynamic of faces involved. The librarian looked stricken with righteous fury, and the approaching security guard seemed more inconvenienced by the matter. The kid looked fairly annoyed. Plans not working out? Elex turned back to his intentions as he pressed past the double doors to the outside courtyard.
David sighed through his nose, adjusted his officer's cap, and strode toward the situation. He cared very little for being pulled from his phone, where he wanted to finish catching up on old episodes of The Office. Instead, he needed to deal with another twerp incensing Natalie's sense of control over the establishment. Usually when these things happened, the kids ended up getting kicked out for good. Not that David minded - it meant they were less likely to cause trouble in the future. Except for the most annoying of them, and at that point, they just got sent to juvi after a while.
So when he arrived on the scene, David simply pointed to the kid with disinterest. "You. Up." He then pointed toward the double doors. "Out."
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:32 pm
The teen's thick brows shot up and his jaw dropped in apparent disbelief. "What?!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice, though he was careful it was only barely above a whisper. "Why do I need to leave? I was the victim, here," he protested. "Miss, how would you like it if you were forced to study at the library for long hours to the point of being bored to sleep, only to have someone wake you up with a toy spider on your head and then be subsequently kicked out, library card revoked, without being given any reason at all?"
He scratched his head. "What kind of behavior? Tolerate what here? I'm not even sure what you're accusing me of." His features spoke of emotional injury, though inside, Jack silently seethed. If he got permanently banned from this place thanks to those four buffoons at Romano's...oh, there would be hell to pay.
Though the approach of the security guard was not missed in Jack's peripheral vision, he continued speaking to the librarian as if she were the only one his attention was focused on. Even when the man spoke up, he didn't look over, pretending to either have been deaf or thought that the officer had been speaking to someone else. If he was facing the librarian, hypothetically, he wouldn't have necessarily seen the accusatory finger that was homed in on him.Strickenized ((Jack's going to continue to try to do what he does best a bit longer and be a pain in the a**))
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Posted: Mon May 01, 2017 8:08 pm
"Look, kid, I don't have all day." The pudgy security guard stood with hands on hips, his fingers brushing the leather snap over his taser. Blatantly ignoring him did the kid no favors; he wasn't sure why people ever thought it was a good idea to blow off a security guard. Didn't they know any better? This kid sure didn't. "She wants you out, you get out. If I gotta escort you, then you're not coming back in ever again. And she'll make sure your parents know about it." He'd say nothing more on the matter.
"Marshall — err, David, this boy's trying to pull stunts in the library. I saw a bunch of boys running and he was slumped over like something happened to him, and now he's trying to play dumb about it."
David shrugged off the explanation. He cared less for the librarian with each passing interaction - especially when she confused him for his partner nearly every day now. "And?"
"And now he's trying to make me look like a fool! You don't believe him, do you?" The librarian stammered out, then looked between the troublemaker and the security guard, expecting validation. Her husband gave her enough trouble with his constant gaslighting, and she refused to be made to second-guess herself at a job she knew well. She signed up for the books, not for the babysitting - so even if she was wrong about this, she never claimed to have any authority on children's behavior.
"I know the type," David offered in response. "Last chance, kid. Get up and go." Leaning over, David reached for the discarded backpack and hoisted it onto his broad shoulder. Books thumped against his back when he straightened, and he gave a short jerk of a nod back toward the door. "I'll take your library card now."
Outside, Elex grew thin on patience. The kid hadn't yet left, and Elex would not be made to wait.kitomyx elex, being rich and spoiled, is going to leave on the next post if jack hasn't yet left
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Posted: Mon May 01, 2017 9:10 pm
Hazel orbs flickered to the security guard, the man's visual, unspoken threat not lost on Jack. He frowned deeply, but knew better than to talk back. As the librarian responded instead, the freshman contemplated whether the words, 'if I gotta escort you' meant he still had a chance. If he wasn't quite being banished forever just yet, then he would have been happy to comply.
The redhead was still caught up in pondering the meaning of this David guy's initial warning when he was issued a final one and his bookbag was snatched up. As the texts in his pack audibly knocked against the guard's back, Jack's eyes widened and a strangled noise left the mouth he'd opened in shock without realizing.
Yanking out his wallet from his pant pocket, the teenager slapped the requested card onto the table before tentatively reaching for his backpack from the security guard. He couldn't speak. He could barely breathe, but the look on his face silently begged the man to let him take back the bag without a fuss.
A few minutes later, Jack stumbled out of the building with his pack in his arms as if it were his own heavy heart...or the corpse of a dear friend. He didn't get very far before he slumped down onto a concrete bench, laying the bag in his lap and staring at it. He wanted to unzip the thing, but his hands were trembling too much. The young man cursed under a shuddering breath and put his face in those shaking hands, too distraught to notice his dark-haired peer nearby.Strickenized ((Not sure if that was god-moding too much to assume Jack was able to leave taking the bag from David, but if it was, let me know and I'll change it.))
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Posted: Wed May 03, 2017 10:01 am
Before Elex could change his mind, the youth in question stormed out of the library and sat himself down on one of the nearby benches. Quirking a brow, Elex pressed his palms flat against the brick behind him, the small of his back resting against their bony surfaces. He looked far less enthused about his doings as Elex would have imagined; something must have gone wrong between Elex's leaving and the librarian's arrival. Lectured, perhaps? Kicked out? Phoned his parents? Elex could only imagine.
"Quite the stunt." He spoke no louder than indoor conversational tone. Crossing one leg over the other, his heel rested against the ground and rocked restlessly. "It sent those kids scrambling like they saw the rest of their lives." Out the door they went, wholly disappeared - not even loitering on the premise to repay the favor to the prankster.
His eyes shifted to the bag, to the boy, then back to the bag. He stared at it so; Elex considered the shocked countenance he wore, like one who expected to find his dead mother's head in the bottom of that bag. Elex could guess the reasons, but the library proved enough of a show that he would rather see the finished production for himself. "But something happened in there, didn't it?" Elex felt certain of it.
No man looked so forlorn after successfully scaring away enemies - or friends.kitomyx that's fine! they're just npcs
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Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 9:36 pm
The moment the voice reached his ears, despite the indoor volume, the redhead jerked his head up like he'd heard a gunshot. His red-rimmed hazel eyes alone shifted toward the speaker with the sluggishness of prey avoiding the attention of a predator.
The high school freshman took in every inch of the unfamiliar young man from the way he held himself to his expensive-looking garments to the word choice he used to communicate. Other than the redness of his eyes, his facial features expressed nothing but neutrality for the first few fleeting moments of taking in his addresser. Usually the time it took was instantaneous, but Jack had been caught off-guard by this particular individual. He was almost never caught off-guard. He prided himself on it.
Irritation at himself conflicted with irritation at the newcomer and he couldn't decide who he was angrier with just then. The potential of the other's initial comment having been meant as a compliment won him over, though. It tipped the scales in the dark-haired fellow's favor and the redhead forced a grin to his face.
"How much did you see?" To the average person, the combination of that grin and those words may have indicated pride, but to the more attentive, his tone almost seemed to carry a hint of warning. It was left ambiguous whether the question referred strictly to the events within the library or included those that followed after.
Jack followed his peer's gaze to the bag in his lap and it gave him pause once more. Taking a deep - this time steady - breath, he looked back at his new conversation partner and displayed a smile completely devoid of mirth. "...How much did you see?" he repeated.
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:00 pm
"I saw enough," he answered in kind. Fingers pressed together in an idle steeple. He wanted to pace with all his restless energy. "I left when the librarian was calling for 911." If Elex took the question one way or another, he showed no outward signs of it. Ever spoiled by the weight of power carried in money, he took little heed to threats.
"She seemed worried. Panicked, even. Like she might lose her job over what happened today. I'm sure she'll be hearing about it from her boss." At this, he broke into a pace, and hands found each other behind his back. The ever-present shade from the upper balcony kept the patio area cool, and the foliage out front further blocked view of them from the more public playground area. The unfettered cries of children at play formed a ubiquitous cover to all sound there, thus the library's inner workings remained inaudible to them. If more came of Jack's transgressions, Elex could not see or know of it. And, perhaps, that was part of the interest.
For what else was promised him that evening but more study? At a point, he knew he'd have to return indoors and finish his work before heading home for the evening. His mother expected that much of him. But the story of a scare at the library, a light evacuation, meant for a reason to tear himself from dull moilings. He preferred it this way.
Assignments due tomorrow could be done now or at midnight; interpersonal affairs such as these only happened in a time-sensitive manner.
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 7:09 pm
Meticulously taking note of the dark-haired boy's comments, Jack's expression remained fixed. He watched the stranger pace, ignoring the noisy kids on the playground gym as he attempted to work out what the guy was getting at. "...Do you know her? You seem pretty invested in the life of some random woman. Or are you just one of those people-watchers impartially making observations because you're so high above everyone else?"
Though his smile remained unchanged, his eyes narrowed. "Let me guess. You're one of those well-bred rich kids who are so bored with their own predictable, controlled, mundane lives that they have to resort to nosing into others' to get any form of entertainment." Very gingerly, he lifted his bag and held it out to the other teenger. "You wanna know what 'something' happened in there? Open that and tell me. I don't feel like looking."
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 7:44 pm
Elex snorted lightly, hiding his smile behind his severe expression. He did not falter in his pace for the other boy's accusations. "It sounds like you think there's something wrong with people-watching." The strength of the vitriol coming his way suggested that the boy never thought much of it himself - that he never fully registered that people live lives beyond that which he saw, and that effects of small dealings could spread broadly or not at all. Often people walked through life in their own microcosms, unobservant and uninterested in those around him, and this one might be much the same.
But that was part of the enjoyment, wasn't it? The anger, the objections. It was something different, like hte boy said.
And 'something different' meant a lot these days.
"Maybe I am," he conceded, and went no further with it. He paused at the edge of the concrete precipice and turned about, starting his short patrol back to the fore. Restless legs matched a restless mind. He wondered, then, if others disdained him out of envy for the money beholden to his name. Did this kid eny him for the structure of his life, the dinner parties, the second face worn to every second place? Did he want to know the life of a socialite and eat hors d'oeuvres worht more than a minimum-wage paycheck while chatting about the next fundraiser? Or was it simpler to show the power of inclusion by calling him an outcast? He couldn't guess.
"If you don't feel like looking, you'll find out when you get home." Elex answered simply, his decline evident in his words.
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 8:02 pm
"There's plenty wrong with it," the redhead began, launching into an irked tirade. "Not minding your own business, for starters. You must have a pretty sucky life to have to dwell on what's going on in others'. And for another matter, what do you care? The world doesn't give two shits about you, so why waste your time on it; particularly the people and things that don't pertain to you at all? Isn't living your own life enough? No one else is gonna live it if you don't."
It wasn't that Jack didn't wonder about other people and their lives. He knew there was always more to the book than the cover, but unless he was required to know a passage from it or it held some interest to him for some reason or other, he didn't see the point in wondering about or taking a peek into every single tome he laid eyes on. He knew he was selfish and egocentric, but that was how he liked it. It made the world more simple and easier to take. He didn't have to worry about anyone else but himself. What good would it have done to concern himself with things he couldn't change, anyhow?
Perhaps this kid actually had a decent answer to that question, though. His calm and thoughtful demeanor made the Romano's student ponder just what nature of intelligence lay beneath those still waters; what sort of content could be read between the covers of that book. It was certainly a stark contrast to the myriad of superficial morons within his age group that he'd had experience with thus far.
He set the bag down beside him when the guy passed up his offer and stood to properly face him. "Y'know, when I make blatant assumptions about them, most people tell me when I'm wrong and what I'm wrong about."
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 8:48 pm
Elex understood what the kid said, certainly, but more and more his acerbic returns hashed out more a difference of opinion than any real wrongdoing with Elex's intentions. "I must," Elex conceded with a light shrug and c**k of his head. The bitterness and bite behind such words said more about the boy before him than what he expressly claimed - that he was unhappy with his own life, feeling ignored, and likely frustrated. Elex wagered that he was one of the target demographic that his father aimed for in his philanthropic pursuits. Perhaps he even received a handout from the Yorke family.
Maybe none of that was true, and the boy that sat clutching his backpack on the verge of bitter tears really found his life quite jovial outside of times like these. Maybe all the hate he held in his heart right now stemmed purely from what happened inside the library. Elex doubted it, but he knew it better to keep an open mind about such affairs. Still, spreading his assumptions out only dampened the surprise when he turned out very right - or very wrong - about someone.
When the boy stood, Elex halted in his continual pacing, thereby coming face-to-face with him. The look of him - disheveled, ruddy-faced - spoke of a life handed without gloves, and Elex wanted that for himself. But it would not do to dwell on it now, not when faced down with statements of a different sort. Now, it sounded as though the kid aimed to get a rise out of him, rather than projection of his own personal woes. Though, Elex wondered if those fed into it. No matter - this held his interest enough.
And it did him just as much good to be proven pleasantly wrong.
"I've always been told who I am," Elex answered simply. "Whether that's a well-bred rich kid who's bored with his own life or a porcelain doll meant to be seen and not heard. It makes no difference to me." He spoke with honesty, not with bitterness.
"But you weren't completely wrong," he added as an aside.
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 9:11 pm
Crossing his arms over his chest, the pierced-eared young man raised a thick brow inquisitively. His smile had dropped, but he wasn't frowning, either. "I'm obviously not completely right, though," he pointed out, wondering just how often the other teen engaged with those outside his family's income brackets, or even his society's.
"That woman in there didn't give a rat's a** about my circumstances, so I don't know why I should give any more about hers. Her problems are hers and mine are mine. What more can anyone ask for?" Recalling the other male's prior statements about the librarian, he continued, "It's easier if everyone keeps to themselves. Then we wouldn't have idiots so obsessed with trying to help others that they forget about their own well-being."
At first he'd worried this guy was one of those, but the more he studied him, the more Jack got the sense the dark-haired juvenile was simply an observer rather than someone who interfered with the on-goings of what they witnessed. But again, he had to wonder...toward what end? To what purpose, if any?
First things first, though. "I'm Jack," he stated, not bothering to offer a hand. "I'll skip the rest of the formalities since you're probably more than sick of them and I don't see the point." He tilted his head as if viewing his peer from a different angle might have helped reveal something more about the stranger. "If you had no one to tell you who you were, who would you say you were?"
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