10 Miserable Comedy - 10
[Seth Lee]
First floor. Not that far away.
The cafeteria's just as massive as the rest of the place. It looks shiny and new, which is probably only possible when the janitor's magic.
There's actual catering here, but I don't recognize any of these chain names. I know this shit isn't Harry Potter, but it is reminding me of Diagon Alley. A couple of burger joints, but a couple of places with salads, too. The sun through the skylight stretching across the whole roof should be burning hot, but it just feels pleasantly sunny in here, with a lot of air conditioning. There's a lot of tables, a couple benches, some trees, some fountains, just super calming, y'know?
Only problem is, I don't know how to pay.
- - -
[Observer]
Rummaging through his bag, Seth Lee dug out first a shining chrome laptop with the Ilus logo of an I on it, then a similarly pristine phone with a similar logo in the center of the back. Instinctively pressing the button on the right side of the screen, the device flashed on with a symbol of an I, then took him to a screen with a multitude of boring looking utility applications.
As he was sitting alone on a bench, transfixed by the screen and exploring, a smaller figure crept soundlessly behind him.
A couple of people around him, chattering and eating lunch in established groups at tables, were intrigued by the new, messy looking boy who had walked in during the middle of lunch and started taking everything out of his bag. Several more were intrigued when they saw somebody approaching him silently. All of them turned away when they recognized who it was.
They didn't see what had happened, but they did hear a scream of "AAAAAAAAA" broken up by laughter, which was quickly joined by a yelp of "EEEEE" broken up by nothing and filled with sheer terror.
- - -
[Seth Lee]
GGGGGHHHHGHHGHHGHH-
- - -
[Observer]
Grant was leaning on Seth's shoulders, his chin on the other boy's forehead. Smirking and snickering, Seth was strongly reminded of a leprechaun, or maybe just a dwarf.
"God dammit, you scared me," he gasped out, having instinctively jumped in terror. The mischievous grin remained.
"That's the point," Grant responded, now standing on top of the bench, wobbling back and forth on it as he treated it like a tightrope. As the adrenalin wore off from his fight-or-flight, Seth became gradually aware that most of the cafeteria was now staring at them. Instinctively, he looked down, unused to the attention.
"This is not the entrance I wanted to make," he muttered.
"Can't say the same here," Grant said in a chipper tone. He was now swinging wildly back and forth, standing on his hand, lying down on the bench, and generally dancing around wildly, his hood still firmly on his head. Seth glared at him.
"Why'd you have to do that?" he demanded, his stare venomous.
"Didn't have to. But I did want to say hi," Grant responded. "You want lunch? Or are you planning to eat the phone?"
"How do I buy any?" he responded.
Wordlessly, Grant plucked the phone out of his hands, ignoring the mewl of protest to tap on the app named "Meal Ticket". "There ya go," he said, slapping it back into Seth's palm, hoisting the other boy up by the shirt, and almost dragging him towards the food court lineup.
Seth slapped his hands aside. "I can walk by myself," he told him, stalking towards one of the burger places.
For a second, Grant's eyes below the hood narrowed, and the people still nearby shrunk back instinctively.
Then the sensation vanished, the people shook their heads a little as they went back to talking and eating, and he bounded back over to Seth, much like a puppy. Noticing that by this point all eyes had gone back to their food, Seth begrudgingly walked at the same speed as Grant caught up to him.
"What classes you got?" he asked, falling into step. As Seth collected the order he had placed for one chicken sandwich with fries and a ginger ale, he passed the tray to Grant to free up his hands for another look at his phone.
"After lunch, my fifth period's Magic Throughout History with Mr. Martinez, my sixth period's... English, with Ms. Wilson, and my seventh period's Practical... Channeling with Mr. Wilson," he responded, peering intently at a schedule he had pulled up through a helpful app labelled simply, "Schedule".
"Hell yeah, I have fifth and seventh with you," Grant said. "Might want to look at the directory if you want to get to your classes on time, that map's probably disintegrated already."
Ignoring what he'd just heard, Seth pulled up a map of the school on his phone, which had been labelled in the same spartan way. He'd just started panning around the displays of the floors to find where room 315 was when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Expecting to turn and see Argus's genial face, he instead saw an unfamiliar, older looking boy behind him, with a serious expression and a bad bruise over his left eye.
Turning to Grant on instinct, he saw another boy and a girl holding the other boy down.
"Hey, what's-" he started asking, before being cut off.
"Hey, kid. How do you know Grant here?" the one holding him down asked in a slightly sinister tone. Seth belatedly noticed that he seemed to have an air of confidence about him, and that it felt like the other two were following his lead. He'd noticed this kind of hierarchy about bullying systems.
"Met him this morning, we're actually-" he went to say, only to be cut off again.
"Got it, then you can move on with your day," he responded, lifting his arms off of Seth and walking over to Grant. The three of them pushed him roughly towards an exit out of the cafeteria, and Seth was left standing still, confused, in the middle of the courtyard.
For a moment, he stopped. This was a new school, and he'd just drawn a lot of attention to himself. Any more curious gazes might be a bad idea. Even ignoring the magic, he didn't want to get in a deeper hole than he already was.
He already knew what it was like getting into this kind of thing. Nothing would end well for him, whichever way the outcome swung.
But it felt... wrong. He didn't want to abandon this kid who'd been friendly to him, even if he was kind of scary and they'd just met this morning. And even if he had been a stranger, it wasn't right to just stand idly by and let him get beaten into a pulp. The ones who'd shuffled Grant off had definitely been fighters. If Seth didn't at least stand up for his tentative friend, he might even be next.
Grant had held his own against Argus, and Seth was confident that if he could deal with one or two of them, then Grant could manage with a one-on-one encounter long enough for somebody to have gotten help. Glancing around, he saw a multitude of people staring at him with bated breath, and recognized that they might help if he did.
He ran after them.
- - -
[Grant Wisteria]
It's a boring day.
The chips today were pretty bad. They tasted bland and old. They felt pretty dry.
I wanna go get new ones. Where was the convenience store?
These guys are pushing too hard. My back is itchy. I wanna scratch it.
Where's the fun one? Did he really stay back?
This is so boring.
- - -
[Observer]
The trees lining the walkway gradually led off to a forest to the side opposite the beach. Here, the three older kids shoved Grant into a clearing, almost as if they had been steering him there.
They pushed him against a tree, grabbing his throat and lifting him upwards with it.
"You sure picked the wrong people to mess with," their leader snarled, spittle flying from his teeth onto Grant's shirtfront.
Vaguely, through the black hood, he saw a shiny array of smiling teeth, beautiful and white. They parted and clacked together imperceptibly as Grant responded, "Really? Where are they?"
This time, the other boy behind him stepped forward and sunk his fist into Grant's stomach, as the one holding him put his other hand over his neck. The wood cracked imperceptibly as water from a flask wrapped around the arms holding him, and the ground around the girl began waving.
"You don't know who you're messing with," the one who'd punched him said threateningly, raising one hand into the air and letting a fireball dance at the end of his fingers. Grant's smile widened.
"Yeah, got it," he said, yawning widely. For a moment when his mouth closed back up, his mouth was resting. Calm. Then it snapped back into a smile.
"I'll never need to care, either."
There was a light whooshing sound, then a meaty smack as the two behind the leader flew backwards. The girl managed to pull some dirt towards her feet and wrap it around her ankles to stop before slamming into a tree, but still hit the ground hard. The boy was not quite so lucky, and made a hefty impact into the bark, his flames having failed to change his trajectory. He dropped into the dirt as well, dust rising around his still form.
The leader roared, raising his right hand into the air as a glove of water began wrapping around it. He slammed it into where Grant's head had been, but the other boy had slipped out of his grasp in that time, and was now leaning against a tree, sucking on a lollipop. When the older one looked over at him, he grinned, bit down on the lollipop, and scaled the tree by jumping off the side, swinging up to the lowest branch and balancing nonchalantly atop it.
Tensing, the senior student's neck began showing veins as the water gauntlet spread across his body, forming armor, and he followed Grant up to the tree branch, swinging his arms at him with a grunt. Once again, he met little but air.
Roaring in frustration, he turned his head every which way, only to find his opponent sitting in the middle of the small circle of cracks made by the earth girl. Lunging at him, the armor around him forming two whips of water, one leading from each arm, he swept them into Grant, blinded by rage.
The pain was sudden and shocking. His right side had felt a sudden crack, and he could've sworn that it came from his ribs breaking as he fell to the ground, screaming and hissing intermittently as the pain started and stopped with every breath he took and every yell he let out.
The same feeling hit his left side as he swung blindly to the right, and he abruptly switched directions, directing the whips towards an area he couldn't see through eyes squinted shut in pain.
Then, his eyes were mushed in by a dirty shoe slamming into his face, and the world went dark for him.
- - -
[Grant Wisteria]
Where is the fun one?
Did he follow me or not?
Well, if he didn't, he wouldn't be the fun one, would he?
Ah, there he is.
- - -
[Seth Lee]
What the fuck was that?
What did I just see? Actually, no, what did I just not see?
I didn't see him move, I didn't see him hit the other guy, he just jerked around like he was having a stroke and then fell onto the ground.
Where'd the other two go? Why'd they come here? Why was Grant their target if they know him already? Was he just avoiding a fight and that's why they thought he was easy pickings? I can tell just by looking at him that there has to be easier kids to fuck up.
That was terrifying.
- - -
[Observer]
His shoes drenched, Grant waved at Seth cheerfully.
"Ahoy, matey!" he said, walking over to the other boy from the clearing.
"What the fuck was that?" he was cut off, as Seth stared at him with a mixture of shock, amazement, and fear.
"Oh, they wanted to settle some score or whatever, so they interrupted your lunch. Everything's fine now, though," he responded nonchalantly.
Seth gave him a hard look. "Everything's fine? What just happened? Did you just kick their asses? Why did you just kick their asses? You know that won't get them off your case, right? What happened earlier with them? Why did you let them hit you? What makes you think they'll let up after that?" he said in a rapid-fire chain of thoughts and concerns.
Grant laughed, already walking back towards the main school building. "What're you talking about? They won't want to try it a third time," he replied, almost giggling giddily. With that, he nearly skipped, only barely walking normally with a spring to his steps to the steps.
Seth stood back.
In his mind, memories flashed. "They won't come back, trust me" "We're even now, trust me" "He won't try this shit again, trust me" "I've got this, trust me".
For a moment, he looked at Grant's figure as it slowly shrank, retreating back to the school that he had seen firsthand the terror of. It occurred to him that he had read the first situation very wrong, so wrong, in fact, that he had recognized the opposite of what was happening, and this painted a target on his back.
Then, for a longer moment, he looked down at his hands, peering at each of them in turn, trembling slightly.
Shaking his head, he looked back at Grant. Like it or not, he needed all the protection he could get, and he had a feeling he could find that in Flowerboy.
"Fuck," he said softly and thoughtfully to himself.
And with that, he followed behind, catching up, hoping to get slightly ahead of the person who was now his best hope at a friend.
