My Life is Not a Manga, or maybe...

Harem Scarem: 014

My locker was on the way, so I dropped off the Japanese workbook Mrs. Shimamoto had handed out near the end of class, then waded my way through the crowds of fellow high schoolers as I made my way to room 216 where Classic Literature was being held. Classic Literature—followed by Modern Literature in second semester—is the one required course for sophomores at Alburn High, so although my school doesn't go in for the whole "home room" thing, our literature class is effectively the sophomore home room. Being electives, the other classes are all a grab bag of sophomore, juniors, and occasionally seniors or freshmen, but Classic Literature is all tenth graders like myself.

I was one of the first there, and this classroom was set up more normally than my Japanese class had been; all the desks were in rows facing the front. I picked one midway back on the left side and sat down to watch people filter in.

Of course, since passing periods are the de facto social hour, people didn't really filter in so much as suddenly flood the classroom about 30 seconds before the bell. Rachel was one of the few people to arrive before the rush, and to my great shock she sat immediately next to me. Oh right, except that wasn't a shock at all. Manga logic dictates that if your romantic interest isn't within one seat in a cardinal direction, the earth shall cease to rotate and plants will gain sentience, then subsequently conduct a pogrom against vegetarians. Or something equally implausible and apocalyptic.

Most of the rest of my classmates were casual acquaintances, at best. The two exceptions were Seamus and his friend Jesse, who both gave me a wave when they sat down on the opposite side of the room.

The class period itself wasn't terribly interesting, although apparently "Kaczkowski" is pronounced "kax-KOW-skee". Mr. Kaczkowski is a jovial, medium height guy with a receding hairline who talks a little too loudly and likes to laugh at his own jokes.

And with second period done, it was time for lunch.

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Alburn High is big enough that they can't fit the entire school in the cafeteria; heck, they can't fit even half the school in the cafeteria, so there are a bunch of tables in the wider hallways down near the PAC and gyms to help with the overflow. In order to prevent everyone from going absolutely insane and leaving half the student body without time to get through the lunch line, there are two lunches: Lunch 1 falls immediately after second period, at 11:15, while those in Lunch 2 go to third period first, and then eat lunch at 12:35. Since my third period class was P.E. I would have preferred the later lunch, but my luck wasn't that good so off to Lunch 1 I went.

Lunch was one of the most stressful parts of high school during the first part of ninth grade—I'm terrible at interacting with strangers, so until I had a circle of friends and acquaintances finding somewhere to sit was pure torture—but fortunately by the end of the year I had a routine. I discovered that the tables in the hallways near the PAC were the last to fill since the bulk of the kids wanted to get their lunch in the cafeteria and immediately sit down. Since I almost always bring a lunch from home, I found I could claim a table over by the PAC easily and be joined later by Hayden, Andrea, and a few other drama geeks or acquaintances from the improv club and elsewhere.

With that in mind, I headed straight downstairs when the bell rang, staked out the table we'd habitually eaten at last year, and shot a text to Hayden to see if he had Lunch 1. A few bites into my sandwich later, he got back to me: he was in Lunch 2. Well, that sucked. I kept an eye peeled for some of my fellow improv participants instead; the drama classroom was a few doors down from the PAC, so they often ate in this area.

"Oh hey, Xavier, mind if I sit with you?"

I looked up, and there was Jill, holding a cafeteria tray in one hand, and pulling a chair out across the table without waiting for a reply.