Individual

Chapter 11

Kay draped her legs over the edge of the sofa and lay down, holding her phone right above her face to watch streetball videos. Tristan picked her phone out of her grasp and sat down in the space that Kay wasn't taking up.

He glanced at the title of the video and passed it back to Kay, commenting, "Good to see that you haven't given up on basketball. But why don't you go out to play instead of watching these at home?"

Kay scrambled to sit up and snatched her phone away. She motioned to the closed windows and the weather outside. "It's raining. Think before you speak," she said, exaggerating her movement as she acted out her words.

"Be more respectful, will you?" Tristan said, clicking his tongue.

"All right, Tris- Onii-san." She grinned, getting a kick out of Tristan's annoyed expression.

Tristan shook his head at his younger sister. "I was going to inform you that Oka-san's family is coming over next week."

"Oka-san's family... including the family living in France?" Kay asked, slowly.

"Yes, including that family."

Kay thought of the twin girls her age. Hiromi and Kiyomi, piano and violin prodigies respectively, with beautiful French accents. Not to mention they spoke their mother tongue perfectly. Kay slumped down in the sofa.

"Bloody hell."

~

Sam skittered up to Kay, nearly bouncing with excitement. He asked, "Did you really?"

"Did I really what?"

"You know," Sam said, his voice dropping to a whisper, like he was spilling a secret. "Do the thing you got called to the office for."

Kay would've just agreed. Of course she did whatever it was that she got called to the office for. But she had a hunch that what Sam was referring to wasn't accurate, and decided to confirm it further.

"And what's that?" Kay asked.

Sam raised his eyebrows and motioned for her to lean in, and he cupped his mouth as he said, "You did drugs."

"What?!" Kay exclaimed. She'd expected it to be extreme, but this was more far-fetched than she'd thought. She didn't even know where people sold drugs. "Where did you hear that from?"

"Er..." Sam scratched the nape of his neck sheepishly. "The people in my class were talking about it."

"Talking or speculating?" said Kay. "I didn't do drugs. Tell the people in your class to mind their own business." She walked off, ignoring Sam's pleas for more information.

During break, Kay was in the bathroom stall when she heard a couple of girls mention her name.

"Kay Nakagawa? Wait, Nakagawa... like Andrew Nakagawa?" a rather high-pitched voice asked.

There they go again, Kaydence thought to herself. She was stuck in the cubicle between the two girls gossiping.

"Yes, she's their little sister. She's a year below us. And I heard she really is little, I think she's below one five five, maybe."

Kay clenched her fist and barely managed to stop herself from giving the wall the same treatment she gave Brooklyn Sargent. She was one five seven, for goodness' sake. And her first sign of puberty only showed up last year, which meant that she was not done growing.

Kay heard a high-pitched giggle from the stall to her left, and wanted to throttle whoever was inside.

The second voice continued, "Anyway, she punched Brooklyn Sargent because Sargent stole her boyfriend."