Jel: Side storys

(Pilot chapter for future project)

"Jel, let's just think this through before we make any rash decisions-"

"Leon you can't stop me, you know this. Remember my childhood? Not letting some poor kid go through a bad one too."

My name is Niko, I am a inkling high schooler who is currently in the process of being adopted by those two. The one talking about making reasonable decisions, not going too fast and all that stuff is Leon. The one who is insistent on adopting me is Jel, some kind of octoling with both a strange ink color and skin color.

I lived an average life, going to school, becoming a social outcast for seemingly no reason, getting bullied also for no reason I can see, making a band and inviting your friend who is weirdly goopy. being heavily ignored by my parents and being left behind when they seemingly moved to wherever the hell they went to. 

Apparently, Leon says that this is not normal. Anyways, I guess I might talk about them a bit more before talking about myself. Since i mentioned him, Leon is my "Reasonable" dad, as he is more sensible and kind. Im not sure how he met with Jel and decided "Yea, I want to spend my life with this guy." but im not judging.

Jel, in all terms, is the "Cool" dad. Usually if I ask him for a bit of cash to get myself a snack or soda, he usually gives me some. I asked him about his whole "thing" going on and what's up with the prosthetic arm.

All he said was: "There was this guy named Tartar and hoo-boy was he a bitch."

He also seemingly has a thing for smoothies, usually drinking one every so often. He says they are "good for the soul" but im not sure what he means. He does not really talk about his past much. A bundle of "Sanitized" secrets, sanitized being the weird condition he says he has. Sounds extremely strange, might look into it more later.

Also, fun fact: He somehow knows all 3 of the major idol groups????? Hell, he even has their numbers, and usually gets frequent calls from them and right before he leaves, he just says "Oh dang, gotta go do my Job now, see ya kid." 

I asked Leon about this and he told me that not even he knew much. Mentioned it was a "Secret" that Jel was sworn to not share much about. Sounds to me like the idols are doing something highly illegal or Jel is stuck with a NDA by working there. I could pry some information out later, but I think that's enough talking about my "parents".

I run a small school band consisting of me and my friend Jem. He is...ok, but kind of weird. He is not like an inkling or octoling, but keeps up the appearance of one. Sometimes swapping between both, which I remind him and he swaps back to looking like an octoling. Also, just to note, he is also pure ink. He seamlessly can go into his own ink on a whim, can climb up walls via sticking to them, and for some reason likes to mimic others.

Y'know, there is a lot to Jem that I don't know about. He seems out of his environment, he has fairly high grades and rivals the smart kids with his intelligence but lacks common social norms. Best example is that he lacks understanding of what the concept of "love" is, and im no expert either but its weird. I remember on valentines day a few years back that he gave most of his chocolates which he got from others to me, seemingly thinking it was a competition and I would "win" if I had the most chocolates.

While kind of him, this also got bullies to come at me for this. Well meaning? Yes, he is. Understanding social norms? I would bet he would have a better chance at building a house himself then understanding.

Back to the band, he came up with the idea "Metr0nome" after telling him what one was and him mentioning he and his mom and dad live in the metro.

This is both strange and something I should have guessed. Jem is not a poor kid, he has brought enough money to school before that he could buy all the stuff from the snacks from the 5 vending machines we had, and those things are really pricey. But anyways, I play mainly the string and brass instruments while Jem plays the more mechanical instruments, such as the keyboard piano and sometimes uses a bit of "8-bit" music from time to time with a laptop he has.

Im also guessing he is related to Jel in some way as they both share the ink, skin, and hair color.

Now for myself? Where should I even start at this point. My name is Niko Greenbay, and as mentioned before, im being adopted by Jel and Leon after my parents just...left, bam, only a note saying they are moving and were coming to go pick me up later that day.

Last time I checked, it has been 2 weeks. Still no sign of them. So, instead of making a whole scene about it, I just came up to them one day and said: "Hey, could you two try and adopt me? My parents just straight up abandoned me and I would rather stay with you two."

Now you might say, "Why them? Just some random strangers?"

1. My parents were pretty negligent. I still ate and had clothes but they never really cared. I was just kind of a background character for them, ignored most of the time.

2. Not exactly strangers. I have slept in their house before. A week before they left, I was locked out of the house with no coat because they were washing it and was stuck out there because they wanted me to get out of the house for a bit. I was stuck in the winter cold with a sweater for 5 hours...and they had seemingly went out and locked the door when I tried to go back. So I was sitting at the crust bucket, drinking my 5th hot chocolate, when those two walked up there.

They talked to me and noticed that I was freezing, so Jel handed me his large coat. It was actually fairly warm. We talked for a bit and they said if I could actually head home. Told them the story about them getting home really late and about how they have the door locked. And yes, I know about the whole "Stranger dannger" situation but Jem had mentioned Jel before (And now that I say it, they have similar names) so I took my chances.

And so, for that night, I stayed over there. They were actually really interested in the whole band thing and talked about how Jem and his dad comes to visit every so often.

Next day, they brought me over back to my parents and all my parents said to knowing their child was sleeping in a strangers house because they were out on the town was: "Ok."

So yea, that's how we are here right now.

I feel like everything is going to get worse for no reason.

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Words: 1203


Shhhhh...future...