city lights // jannyew

one

a/n: this story is cliché on purpose, as a way to just have fun plus i like writing these kinds of stories. all characters belong to square enix and the creators of final fantasy + the bravely saga. tanner and some other ocs belong to my friends and i. ps: this story is written all in lowercase because of aesthetic reasons.

EDIT 1/20/2024: i have completely revamped this story! it's thrice as longer as it originally was. comments are highly appreciated! <3 

chapter one: al-khampis

The classroom is bustling with activity. In the back of the class, far from most students sits Yew, writing in his diary, waiting for the professor to arrive. Yew is a shy and quiet boy of sixteen years old, having few friends despite his social 'rank', a six-starred scholar. So, while Yew is at the top of the food chain, not many of his peers seem to respect him. It didn't really matter to Yew anyways — he's not here to socialise or make friends, sneak out of class with some boy and make out in the back of the school. He's here to learn: knowledge here around Al-Khampis is as tangible as the pen in his hand.

The school bell rings the second the professor enters the class. She drops her large textbooks on the lectern in front of her. "All right, class," she begins as she opens to a page. "Please open your trigonometry books to page eight." A few students, mostly two or three-starred scholars groan and obey their instructions. Yew reaches beneath his desk, struggling to lift the damn thing and plops it onto the surface with a loud thud. Some students whip their heads around, staring at the brunet boy. One student mumbles, "nerd", and a few giggle and point at Yew, who simply ignores his peers and their snide remarks.

They're just jealous, Yew thinks as he opens to the right page. The book he managed to grab from the library is tattered, has an odd scent and a lot of weird drawings and doodles, that Yew had even spent an entire class erasing whatever he could from the book. He's at least fortunate enough that he already knows what the teacher is discussing — how to search for angles and distance, an introduction to the basics of sine, cosine and tangent. Yew rests his chin in his hand as he dozes off slightly. He sometimes wishes that he were up there in the professor's place, scolding students for making fun of other kids, giving out detention left and right to those who show mean and nasty behaviours towards anyone, regardless of their social status. It makes his heart race thinking about it.

Yew is the heir to House Geneolgia, so once he inherits his father's place, he'll have the opportunity to give orders and almost do as he pleases. Although... something in Yew yearns for change. He has different goals; he wants to learn and use that knowledge to make changes in the world. Sure, the Heroes of Light had already saved the world once. But there's still some improvements that this world - that Luxendarc needs. Such as the erasure of the hierarchy. Al-Khampis is like its own little kingdom, with its own social system in place, known as scholars. There are six ranks, and depending on your rank, you're treated differently.

Well, unless you're Yew Geneolgia — the nerd, the weird kid in the back, the freak. Yew grits his teeth as he recalls insults from his classmates, making fun of him for simply having goals that don't involve training and physical activity. Yew would much rather sit out of physical education or fencing classes, reading a book and keeping notes in his diary. He's a logical learner, after all, and he likes to teach himself and strive ahead of the class. Sure, he'll still pay attention to the lessons, but the introductions bore him still. Setting the textbook to the side and reaching for his diary, Yew opens the journal up and begins to jot down some notes on how angles are measured, what a unit circle is, so forth. It's as easy as kindergarten, he thinks. Yew smiles to himself.