The short intermission from his abode to school was a quick 22 minutes. It was quite nice, the sharp morning gale prickling against his skin, and the added tranquility of the walk was quaint—especially so given his partner's presence.
With an array of small talk exchanged between the two, Rue and Ritsue were eventually met with the dreaded gate of the school's grounds. The concrete terrace was decorated with a simplistic schematic, patterned brick of maroon and red decking the ground. Small gatherings of flowered vegetation ornamented the center and edges of the plateau.
With a short embrace, the two reluctantly diverged to their own respective classes.
"Tschüss, Dear!" Ritsue purred with an endearing wave.
In his own rotor Rue gave a wry smile and stiffened wave, his current demeanor a sharp contrast to his earlier affectionate display.
It wasn't that Rue was skittish or timid, no—it was simply that Rue believed this conduct was natural given the setting. After all, it was school.
It would be annoying if his friends caught wind of their relationship. Could you imagine the teasing he'd have to endure?!
Seeing this, Ritsue sighed with an unbidden roll of her eyes. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she led herself to her respective class.
Oblivious to her disappointment, Rue began his own quick stride towards his first period.
–Math!
Oh how fun!...
The halls were a dull monotonic white. The uncanny fluorescents illuminating the corridors added a texture of deweiriness. To any student, the school's interior design was mind-numbing, yet another reason to dislike their forced attendance.
Arriving at his locker, Rue swiftly imputed his assigned combination.
Click
With a swing of its hinges, a small cubicle of space was revealed. Just enough depth to stow his rucksack and textbooks.
Retrieving the necessities for first period, Rue cusped the sling of his rucksack before manhandling it into the locker.
With his possessions now stashed away, Rue—textbook in hand—headed off to his first class of the day.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Click.
With a swing of its hinges, a small cubicle of space was revealed — its depth just enough to stow his rucksack and textbooks.
Retrieving the necessities for the first class, Rue grasped the sling of his rucksack before manhandling it into the locker.
With his possessions now stashed in the refuge of his cubicle, Rue, textbook in hand, headed to his first class of the day.
The silver steel door swung open with an unwarranted push, and thus Rue entered.
Meeting his view was the sight of four rows of wooden desks, all parallel with one another and uniformly lined. It was a meticulous and conventional layout. Other than himself, the class was more or less vacant — with the exception of a few stragglers who sat in the back, he was otherwise alone. Rue shrugged, glad by the current desinence of the class than anything.
Not feeling the need to idly stand, Rue immediately began to search through the desks for one that fancied all his needs. Such a search was short-lived — his newly found desk for the semester chosen after only a few seconds of scrutiny.
The desk was stationed near the midst of the leftmost exterior row. It offered a splendid view of the front, Rue only needing to orient his head a few degrees to view its entirety. Most importantly, it was a window desk! Given a haze or a typical off-day, Rue could easily wander into a daydream while watching the splendor of the cityscape. The shade was perfect, the angle from the teacher's desk was fit, and though the total distance from the door to him was visceral, it was worth such a meager cost.
With a content smile, Rue perched himself onto the seat of his chosen desk.
BZZZZ!
The bell's tune sang its dreaded melody and thus began the preamble of the first class.
Several minutes after the bell, an array of students from all walks of life began to file through.
Some chubby, others glamorous, a few twinks, one or two show-offs, a so-called whore who dressed the part yet was utterly skittish, geeks, bullies, wannabes, and several of the so-called popular folks.
Rue more or less feigned ignorance of their existence as he leaned forward with feline grace, delicately resting his chin on his knuckles with a lazed expression.
The class plunged into a "state—of—chaos" as the students entered, a chaotic jargon rising in its dwelling.
Entering with stammered lazed steps was a middle-aged man with evident balding and panda-like black circles sinking his eyes into his skull. Clad in a brown leather jacket and khaki trousers, this was the teacher.
His expression showed disdain, jealousy, anger, and annoyance as he discreetly stole a halfhearted sideways glance toward the riled class.
"Quiet down!" the man uttered in an overly loud, grizzly tone. It was obvious his morning was troubled.
"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," a curly-haired brunette snickered in the back.
"Yeah, like… did he not have his morning coffee?" another retorted with a toothy grin.
"Nah, I'd do you one better — I bet his wife rejected his sloppy advances," a purple-haired girl voiced with a dismissive wave of her hand. Evident or not, she was attempting to note her presence within the group.
Hearing this, the teacher's ill will toward his students grew, but as always, he feigned oblivion. Suppressing the emotions threatening to stage their own internal coup, the man recalled his therapist's words: take deep breaths, Walter. Muttering the quote as a mantra, the teacher began his lecture.
"Trigonometric identities," he wrote in black marker.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Oh, the lecture was a blast. Truly. Wrestling with the manipulated Pythagorean theorem was, of course, a rather easy endeavor, only needing the values of the legs or another side, squaring the 'a' and 'b' values before placing the equated value into a radical — BOOM! — your 'c,' the hypotenuse. Simple.
Yet now imagine trig added onto this. While in the beginning it may seem easy, given all you really do is determine the adjacent, opposite, or hypotenuse of the right triangle and use Sin, Cos, Tan to determine those values—
Still with me?
Good…
Yeah, simple. Now trigonometric identities: sin²θ + cos²θ = 1. We use a unit circle and Cartesian plane, plugging in those once-simple values into this.
Oh, and it gets better. Reciprocal Identities, Quotient Identities, Co-function Identities, Even and Odd Identities, Sum and Difference Identities, Double Angle and Half Angle Identities, just to name a few.
~~~
~~~
~~~
By the end of the lecture, Rue was splashed with the cold, hard truth of Pre-Calc. His mind, already half in a daze, was now fully gone. Three hours of math. No break. And hell, the vindictive teacher exhibited his discontent in the most unoriginal of ways: by restricting restroom access.
"Well, you should have gone before the bell," he would say whenever a student voiced nature's calling.
"That son of a bitch," Rue gritted under his breath as he frantically rushed toward the male facilities.
Seeing a line trailing from the restroom, Rue cursed himself for his slow pace. Yet this minor setback failed to deter him. His bladder felt on the verge of exploding, a searing pain rising from his nether region and legs with each step.
Finally, after a panic-stricken search, Rue was faced with the faculty break room.
Throwing logic to the wind, Rue pried the door open before rushing toward the restroom.
Slamming the door shut behind him, Rue locked it. With quivering hands filled with anticipation, he opened the fly of his shorts, only to be met with—
"Fuck!" Rue seethed under his breath as he saw the predicament of his member. His shaft, much to his dismay, was erected.
Much… oh, so much to his annoyance.
Tears threatened to spill from his eyes from its betrayal. He had to piss, and the pain was unbearable.
With all his might, Rue tried to calm his riled manhood. First, he vacated his thoughts of anything that would arouse a young man. Yet to his displeasure, the opposite occurred. As if his subconscious was against him, lewd thoughts began to surface — kissing Ritsue, her warmth, the softness of her breasts when she pressed against his chest for a hug, the texture of her tongue during their noble dance, the smoo—
"What the hell am I thinking about, you sick (BLEEP)!"
Dashing his gaze across the restroom, Rue stared hungrily at the sink. Without much contemplation, he rested his manhood against the lip of the sink's bowl before finally releasing. An unsanitary, selfish act paying no heed to others — but so what?
Sue him.
Relieving his bladder felt more euphoric than masturbation.
Spilling the rest of his clear release into the sink's drain, Rue sighed. Only then did it occur to him that he had just pissed into the sink of the teachers' facilities.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Crack!
The uncanny bursts of an all-too-familiar weapon rang through the school.
[Staff.] came the shallow short burst of a voice laced with fear though the intercom [This is a lockdown it is not a drill–]
Several seconds of silence ensued…
[Vice principal what are you doing?-] The principal questioned his tone now torn with fear and–
Bang! –Burst! –Bang!
A sickening thud echoed through the intercom.
[All you had to do was ditch the school, Roger] Came a mocking tone drenched with amusement [Well well, students, teachers, staff…] a voice guised with honey said though the intercom
[Do you believe you will live?] The voice said once more now with an added giggle [Do you believe your precious law enforcement will save you?...]
[WELL NO!] they laughed profusely
[Oh and don't get your hopes up,] The voice said with a singing tone [This event is taking place in hundreds of schools across the country, and each is surrounded by a signal jammer & land lines have been manipulated… Whelp have fun surviving! –Click– ]
A deafening silence came once more.
Rue's heart raced in an irregular rhythm. An ice-cold feeling crept up his spine. His eyes widened. His vision sharpened.
In a shaken voice, Rue whispered rhetorically to himself, "Ritsue… please be safe."
He clasped his knees to his chest, tucking his head between them.
"Please be safe."