Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 23:01:39 +1000 From: Sakura Kangen Subject: Waiting for the Music Chapter 1 (of many) [gay/highschool] DISCLAIMER This story involves relationships between males aged 15-19. If you do not approve of this, why the hell are you even reading it now? If you are a parent reading through the Internet logs of your young child, do not punish your child for reading these stories. He/she clearly has some questions about his development, and it is YOUR responsibility to answer those questions truthfully and honestly. If this material is illegal in your area, leave now. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know the drill. If you aren't supposed to be reading this, Don't (although some flames would be lovely to publicly dissect :)). This story and setting are based on events in my life when I was 17 years old. Names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Obviously most (but not all) of the relationships are made up. All of the ones involving me are. The real relationship I had when I was 17 is too painful for me to want to recollect, as it ended in a horrible tragedy due to Pancreatic Cancer. Hence most of my writing here is based on post-Leo time frame, where I was single and looking. I have also removed sections of my life that I have felt would have made the story too multitracked and confusing. I am trying to keep the number of characters to a minimum. I am also avoiding all cliches. Finally this is set in the Australian High School System so if you don't know how it works go look it up. I'm sick of reading about sophomores and freshmen. We don't have that here. Enjoy! Note: This is my first story! So, please write to me and let me know what you think, email: sakurakanNOSPAMgen@gmail.com Of course, remove the NOSPAM there ~Kangen --- Waiting for the Music: Chapter 1 I walked into the room and beheld row after row of empty desks, my teacher already writing notes on the board, even though no-one else had arrived yet. Damn, I thought. Being alone in the classroom brought my work under closer scrutiny, and it was already too late for me to backtrack out the classroom and wait until others had arrived. I put on my bravest face, sat down, opened my book and began copying notes, hoping to escape the attention of my teacher so as to avoid another lecture. Such was life when one did an Extension Mathematics course. The head teacher at my school, Mr Richardson, was widely known for his harsh approach to tidiness and bookwork. I was therefore the epitome of all that he hated. My "work", and I use the term loosely, tended to resemble more the inane scribblings of a three year old than any detailed notation or setting out. Of course, for ME, it was entirely legible. For everyone else, it was worse than useless. And so, every maths lesson was like a gauntlet that I had to run through. If I made it out alive, I'd won. I breathed a sigh of relief when Jacob walked in. A loose acquaintance of mine, Jacob had been a very useful addition to the class. Being a solid-A student and academically competitive, he almost always had a long-winded question for Mr. Richardson that would often delay him enough to be distracted from my non-working. He had a very striking appearance, beautiful even, remarkably tall, half-Chinese, with deep, dark eyes and a soft, gentle appearance that..... gah! I shook my head and continued writing. He's STRAIGHT! I KNOW he's straight! He's been going out with the same girl for 7 years, so if that's not evidence, I don't know what is! Gradually more people began to trickle into the classroom, and we began to quietly chatter amongst ourselves. Unlike all my other classes, the only topic of discussion was the previous night's homework. I guess only the most studious of people (and me) put themselves through the torment that is Mr. Richardson' Extension Maths class. I quickly surveyed the people around me, and it seemed that many other people didn't complete the homework either. I felt a little relieved: At least I wasn't alone this time. Mr. Richardson turned around and said, "Right. Last night I set you the three exercises from the final chapter. Get it out please." We froze, the murmuring instantly ceased. You could almost hear the collective "gulp" coming from the classroom. He began to walk up and down the rows, glancing at everyone's work, and writing detention notes to everyone that hadn't completed it. Even Jacob got one. Being one of the last people he was going to check (as I was on the opposite end of the classroom), I quickly erased the heading of some older, similar-looking homework, and replaced it with the names of the exercises we had to do, praying fervently that he wouldn't look too closely. Detentions with Mr. Richardson were not fun. As he walked past mine, he murmured, "Good work, but make sure you mark your work next time!", and moved on. Damn! He always found something negative to comment on! Gaahhh! But, at least I got off without a detention note. After a slow 50 minutes of gruelling note taking and angry lectures to everyone in the class about work completion (everyone EXCEPT me, ironically enough) the single-chimed excuse for a bell that my school used sounded over the P.A system, and everyone hurriedly filed out of the class. My best friend Andy was waiting outside the class for me. He was a good deal shorter than me, and was probably one of the quietest guys in the school, so I guess he was easy to miss - I just walked on past him without even noticing he was there. He ran up next to me. "Hey, how'd it go?" He asked, matching my pace. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't notice you. The class was okay, I was able to get out of a detention. Everyone else is on one though." He chucked quietly as he flicked his hair out of his eyes. His hair was just about as long as the school permitted (which wasn't that long). He had naturally black hair that made him look a bit "goth" or "emo". He rejected those labels, though. Andy was just Andy. You couldn't really confine him to any particular subculture or category. We parted ways to put our schoolwork into our lockers (which, annoyingly enough, were on two separate floors in the school) and so I headed alone down the main hallway where most of the Senior classes were held. Damn! Mr. Richardson was waiting! He was like some poltergeist that was able to materialize at the most irritating times. He waved me over, so I walked over and asked him what he wanted. "I'll pop by your house after school to give you the work you missed out on when you were away last Monday." he said quietly. "Uh sir, I have choral commitments after school, so I won't be home till late." "That's alright, I'll give the work to your parents and they can pass it on" he said before walking away. Yeah, that's the other thing. Mr. Richardson lived just down the road from me. Probably the most annoying thing in my school life. Because my school was located in the inner city, the majority of the students had to commute from the suburbs.. and, so did the teachers. So, I would time it so that at no point on the morning commute would we even be able to see each other. This was absolutely critical as, half the time, I did my homework on the morning train. I put my books away and looked at my timetable. I noticed that Maths was actually the final period before Lunch - Sweet! The day had actually gone by faster than I thought. Lunchtime at my school meant being released from the school premises and let out into downtown Sydney for a precious hour before having to return to classes. My school was both wealthy and small, owing to the Central Business District location, and hence they didn't really have the room to run a full cafeteria. And so I met up with Andy again, as well as another friend of mine, Michael. Michael actually went to primary elementary school with Andy and so Andy was closer to Michael than I was. Michael was quite enigmatic, but also a bit of an extrovert. He wasn't quiet, but he didn't reveal much about himself at all. So, even though I had known them for the same length of time, I knew alot more about Andy than I did about Michael. Andy was an intelligent but unmotivated guy with an interest in science, particularly biology. He was also kind of cute. I had a crush on him a year earlier, and eventually I asked him if he was interested in a relationship. He turned out to be straight (damn! just like everyone else!) but he didn't mind the question. Over time we became good friends, and that's how I met Michael. As we walked up the road out of the school, and past the Cathedral (yeah, it's a catholic cathedral school.. I probably should have mentioned that earlier), we noticed an ominous figure emerging from the shadows behind one of the pillars. Mr. Richardson, of course, was on the sidewalk duty, making sure everyone was behaving well and in proper uniform while outside school premises (has he been following me around today or what!?). You see, being a private school, my school had an all-consuming obsession with its reputation, even to the point of deploying teachers in strategic locations around the city to keep us in order on our lunch break. Fortunately he simply let us pass without waylaying me yet again to discuss Mathematics. It was as if that was the only thing he thought about. --- Hope that's an okay Intro. The first few chapters are all going to be basically intro chapters without much plot happening. Tune in soon to hear more about Andy and Michael while on the lunch break.... and what about those Choral commitments mentioned? That's where the gay me really comes out ~Kangen and remember... emailing is the lifeblood of Nifty. Email me. sakurakanNOSPAMgen@gmail.com removing, of course, the NOSPAM.