a boy, his cello and his internal monologues.

Chapter 4: Cerebrite

Doesn't it suck?
It sucks.

Rustica wakes up in a terrible mood, Lumie nearly shakes him so hard he falls over, which means it's going to be a rushed morning. Dad isn't home again though and Rustica just wants to sleep.

"We have to go, Rustica. Please, just hurry up."

Lumie sounds utterly exhausted, and Rustica doesn't blame him. Thankfully, the hip brace takes the least amount of time today, and leaves neither of them struggling. It's just a shove of a lunch bag into a backpack alongside keys (which mean that Lumie will once again, be unable to pick Rustica up, leaving the 45 minute long walk to him) and a rush to the car.

Lumie seems particularly upset today, so Rustica doesn't speak, but the tense atmosphere makes the car ride nearly unbearable, and he almost feels motion sick. He has permission to roll a window down, but he doesn't. He'd rather Lumie not get mad.

To be frank, Rustica is not in the mood for all four of his classes today. French is a decent subject, with a humane teacher, math is god awful and he never makes it out of that class with a good feeling, and it's usually accompanied by Mario talking his ear off, which he usually appreciates but knows he will not appreciate today. Lunch is the "resting" period, and most likely if he sits anywhere but the stairs that his friends all clamour up to midday, he'll get found by Finch and dragged back. He doesn't want to sit with anyone.
Drama is okay depending on what they're working on, but today is stressful in terms of process writing, so that's another thing Rustica is dreading. Computer Science however, is his favourite class. He enjoys the coding, and the typing, and the generally fun banter between the teacher and a very particular student, a girl named Brianna who consistently pushes as many of the teachers buttons as she can in that period.

So in Rustica's mind, his schedule goes like this
- shit
- shit
- shit
- shit
- good :)
Isn't that helpful.

He thanks Lumie and immediately starts walking away after grabbing his backpack today instead of watching Lumie leave, and he heads through the front doors to his extremely over the top friend group. Mario hasn't arrived yet, which is a good thing for him, it gives him time to escape for a period of time. Matt is talking about something in relation to some girl he likes and the agitated part in Rustica's brain reminds him that this is Matt's fourth girl crush this week. While everyone seems to be paying attention to something that isn't him, he takes this moment to slip away, but after getting halfway up the stairs, notices he's being followed by none other than Veronica, who he totally forgot is in the classroom beside him.

Veronica eyes him up and down for a good 3 minutes while they're walking up the staircase again. Her arms are crossed and her brows are furrowed as if she's trying to inspect his behaviour and his movements. Once they get nearly to the doors that lead to their classes, she grabs him and pulls him towards her, face to face.

Her voice is kind. "Is something wrong? You've been acting a bit off." and although she's nice, Rustica has no interest in talking to her, so he looks to the side and shrugs, shaking himself out of her grip, which was much easier than expected due to the fact she didn't even put up a fight, and walked through the doors towards his class.

Eventually Mario is going to be here, and will hopefully pay more attention to the teacher than him. If he ever shows up before the bell rings, then he might have to deal with him for a bit, but he can handle it. He hopes.

His prayers are answered once. Mario comes after the bell and doesn't say a word to him before the class takes a break. Mario then proceeds to take an extra long time looking for something, and Rustica takes this moment to get a head start on fucking leaving, but Mario catches up quickly, near-instantaneously becoming dramatic and screaming about Rustica abandoning him, but he quickly notices the lack of Rustica listening or even reacting to what he says at all. He looks like he's trying his absolute hardest to completely ignore Mario and continue walking, which makes the boy behind him go silent, and slow down.

As if anything could get worse, Ciboulette and Finch are already outside, waiting for who Rustica guesses is Matt (or in Ciboulette's case, Veronica) which makes him more than upset, so he beelines it for the bleachers, but is caught halfway by Finch, who's trotting up the hill towards him in their less than royal brown khakis. He feels himself let out a heavy breath, and continues walking, thoroughly ignoring Finch's concerned blabbering behind him.

Rustica sits beside a boy with curtain bangs and choppy chin-length dark hair and distracts himself with how much he's attracted to this random stranger,

And how much he really REALLY wants to ignore his friends.

Finch huffs and stops right in front of the bleachers, huffing and turning away, but giving him a concerned glance in the process, and then they proceed to walk back to Ciboulette (who now has Matt and Emothy chasing after her) and Mario (who's witnessing the chase).

After about 3 minutes of sitting, the boy beside him waves, but says goodbye in the process and he heads back with his class. This is probably also his cue to leave, so he dusts himself off and continues walking behind the main building to the side that his class came out of. He appears to be ahead of his class, because he can hear the distinct chattering of the kids in his class behind him. He feels his own anxiety creep up his neck as he strategically bounces down the hill towards the door without injuring himself.

The rest of the classes go smoothly, it's relatively normal and there are no pop quizzes or group work these periods, which Rustica thoroughly appreciates.
Lunch, however, is not as smooth. Rustica rushes downstairs towards the library with Mario hot on his heels, he takes as many sharp turns and backways as he possibly can to simply lose him, and it takes a long time but he eventually does, losing him inside the foyer and hopping up the stairs to get to the library.

Although it's crowded, the library is much better than the stairs. He heads to the second level and finds a comfortable chair to sit and open his laptop on and pretend he's working, when in reality, he's not. He's just sitting there.

It doesn't take long for Finch to come looking for him however, and soon he sees them plowing through kids our age looking for a 5'2 blonde kid who's name was Rustica. He's always wondered, why did his family choose a French name if they're Russian? He guesses it was for the aesthetic. In other news, Finch has spotted him.

They storm towards him, their movement acting more annoyed than their face does. They question if he's alright, to which he shrugs at, and continues pretending he's working. He hopes they've let it go, but clearly they haven't. They stand in front of him, tapping their foot, waiting. As if he'll break and start venting or telling them what's wrong.

They're anticipating something.

They're anticipating something that will not happen.

He hopes to whatever god is out there that they fucking get their shit together and stop torturing him. Today sucks ass, and he just wants to get through his classes without someone nagging him to do something he fucking doesn't want to do.

And god, he sounds like his brother.

At this point he can't even care, he shoots an annoyed glare at Finch and gets an equally annoyed one in return.
"Are you just going to abandon us at lunch, GB? Is that the type of shit you're pulling today?"
Abandoning?
Abandoning?
Fucking ABANDONING?

God, he wants to shoot an irrationally angry comment back at Finch. Neither of them are in a good mood, but Rustica has better things to deal with. He slams his laptop closed, making the table under him shake for a moment before he breezes by Finch.

He leaves early that day, calling his dad. It annoyed him, but he doesn't feel like dealing with anything.

Sometimes, you need to face the reasons why you're upset.
Maybe you lash out at others.
Maybe, just maybe, you can rekindle.
I'm sure.