SERAPHINA'S SCREAM BANGS THE CAFETERIA like an evening monk drum and silences every living thing out of their skeletons. And around a table brewing with frustration and the aroma of roasting brains, a table filled with jocks washed and rinsed in, dried and pressed with SAT prep classes. Wrong timing.
A growl bounces out of Kaolin's lips before he slams the table. "Are you crazy, Seraphina, what in the fucking hell?!"
Drake sighs, blowing a stray blond lock away from his eyes, and his index lazily clogging his ears from Sera's remnant resonance. While a pendulum of drool ticks off his lips, Pharrell is looking around, still stunned out of his sleep by the scream. Leroi is too busy devouring his heavily meatballed pasta -- who eats pasta in school even -- to even bother.
"I'm sorry. So sorry." Seraphina giggles, her hand over her mouth. "It's just, Leroi," she whispers, with another gasp, "is that a zit?"
Nixon can be found shifting between Leroi and Troy like he just pooped in his sandpaper diaper. He's watching Seraphina's revolted countenance carefully as she pokes the pimples.
Then her eyes land on him. "Bitch!" Then her hands land on his sweatshirt. "Bitch better have my money. Y'all should know me well enough!"
"Okay, okay. Cut it out. I'll pay you."
"Another bet, I bet." Drake snickers, humming to the Rihanna song.
Seraphina licks the yogurt off her lips. "Nixon here," she gestures to the sulking boy, "because he was Charles Darwin's lab assistant bet that Leroi will never have a pimple due to some "biological, environmental, social calculations" he made and now look who the clown is."
"Calculations based on?"
"Nixon Meyers said and I quote, 'a big overpampered baby with money long enough to buy all his problems away and a fridge that belongs only in a Cosmopolitan magazine; that's who Leroi is'. Isn't that right Nixie?"
"Wow." Drake whistles, his interest vanishing like heated camphor. "That's interesting."
"Look Sera I--"
Seraphina interrupts Nixon with a teasing smirk, "before you start proving your point, I'm still collecting my money."
"Ugh! I tried these calculations on my hamster at home, and myself! They involve diabetes too, so you know."
"How are you even sure of this? Self-diagnosis does more harm than good." Leroi, intrigued, smiles at the blue-haired Chinese spark who continually harangues the nerd with a grin on her face. "Nixon is just a slacker."
"Oh, so you're labelling a nerd a goldbricker?"
"You are." Seraphina flips her straight, melanoid hair. "And please stop with the big words. I don't have the energy today. Babysitting two little twin brothers is hell enough."
"See, the symptoms are pretty much standing in front of me. If you like it or not, I'll take care of it myself," Nixon argues, wiping the droplets resting on his Cupid's bow like balls cupped in a lacrosse stick.
"Why would I like it or not, who even gives a two fucks about you?"
"Then why are edifying me about self-diagnosis?"
She scrunches her face in disgust. "Eww, please don't even go there."
Seraphina Montana, also a sophomore like Nixon, has been hooked to Leroi and Kaolin since she started a greed-driven aspiration to the seat of Phoenix's queen bee; during her second week in this school. And she thinks hanging out with the co-captains will kind of boost her chances.
Leroi isn't bothered the slightest that the majority of his little gang are three classes below him considering his status in the school. In fact, he'd choose them over any of his mates any day. Seraphina keeps good company and gives incredible advice. He still thinks she has a kind of aging disease or came back from past time -- except for her immature thirst for affluence -- because her advice contains so much experience it is overwhelming.
Nixon, however, is same old same old obnoxiously obsessive geek who tails Leroi's every step like a search dog. They have this love-hate relationship -- from Leroi's perspective anyways. As much as Leroi avoids him, he can't spend a week without him. He highly thinks of Nixon as a kid brother -- but it's unpopular opinion that kid brothers are the most annoying so yes, he's a kid brother.
"Then why won't you just go to the hospital to test your blood sugar?" Troy pauses. "Wait does it involve blood sugar?"
Kaolin lets out a stifled giggle of mockery while Seraphina, in between bubblegum snaps, mutters something about the dumb jock stereotype being truer than the gospel.
"Yes, Troy. It does." Nixon deadpans for a second before resuming with his drink. The second time today Troy just has to disgrace himself before juniors.
"And how can the blood have sugar anyways? Then it has to be sweet, no?"
"Dude, no!" Nixon's palms cover his face while he screams frustration into them. "How the fuck was this guy able to pass through four years of highschool without--"
"Money, guy," Leroi comments as he runs the toothpick across his pitch perfect dentition, "it's all about that dough. Unfortunately, I'm the only one that can relate to that."
Nixon shakes his head when Troy vaingloriously folds his arms, like excusing his cluelessness.
"But! Troy is still an infant. New money like my grandpa likes to call it and almost like you lots." Leroi slurps in a noodle. "At the bottom of the food chain."
"Hey!"
"We get it, Leroi. You can buy the whole school--"
"Nuh-uh." Leroi never passes off the chance to smack faces with his pretty wallet. "That's what we'll never do. But you'll get it soon when y'all bruise your knees for a check from CEO Leroi Maximus Slayberry in seven years time."
Like those sugar ants on the sucrose sample in the chemistry lab, the entire basketball team nest on their table and suddenly Leroi needs to breathe. One, even someone like him, can only handle so much spotlight.
Kaolin is blitheful and doesn't seem to care as he chatters away with Pharrell and Drake while whipping around a lengthy potato fry.
"Yes, Sera?" Mischief oozes from the gaps of the Asian's simper, causing Kaolin to narrow his eyes in suspicion.
"You haven't told me about your little experiment."
Nixon looks up from scanning the contents on the bottle. "Oh my, I totally forgot to ask you. Now do tell me." His fingers anxiously taps the book lying on the table like a pianist high on sugar.
"Positive," says Kaolin with a shrug while popping the fry in his mouth.
Seraphina bounces out of her seat as she claps her hands in glee, attracting onlookers who never cease to think that their table is full of the most beans in the school. "Eureka, eureka! I knew it! I fucking knew it."
Nixon lets out a big, crestfallen sigh and slams his head on the table.
"Kay is gay so you gotta pay bruh." Her fingers, twisted into the peace sign, pokes Nixon's head. "You're so fucked, man."
"I still like girls you know..."
"Booyah!" Nixon shrieks in victory.
However, Leroi is lost in a trance caused by the harmony of his best friend's jaws grinding on each other like veteran pornstars while he chews and speaks at the same time. Leroi is well aware of Kaolin's implausible grace in everything he does but has he always been this sexy? Hell was this how he chewed on his nipple last night...?!
Seraphina slams the table and Leroi jumps back into reality. "Sorry, sorry, what were you saying?"
Kaolin eyes him in a what-the-fuck manner and Leroi can only suppress the blush fighting its way hard out of his melanin.
"I was asking." Seraphina eyes the jocks dubiously. "I was asking if you were okay with Kaolin being gay-but-just-forget-it-since-you-are-one-of-the-pan-gang-and-all-is-it-bad-that-I-fucking-shippity-ship-you-both-with-chips-right-now?"
His slow brain eventually soaks up Seraphina's verbal nimble and he lets out an awkward chuckle. "That's ridiculous. We're best friends, Sera. Open your eyes!"
"I'm not four-eyed like Nixon over here. Or you either." She frowns before placing her hands on her flat chest. "And being best friends just makes it all cuter."
"Mm, no thanks. I'll pass. That's fucking awkward."
She snarls at Nixon. "I wasn't talking to you." Nixon has an habit of butting into talks that clearly doesn't involve him and is lowkey even more of a busybody than Seraphina.
"This sudden profession is still befuddling." Seraphina groans loudly at Nixon. "Kal was actually so girl-crazy, like how come?"
"None of your fucking business," Kaolin acidly snaps at Nixon who recoils into his seat with a mangled expression on his face. Like a touched, frightened snail into its shell.
If Leroi relates even the slightest, he would've felt pity for Nixon. Initially, it seemed like the cliché sibling love-hate shit but this shit escalated real quick. No wonder Nixon clutches on Leroi like an acrophobic koala every chance he can get.
Seraphina continues, regarding the fact that Kaolin on Nixon's throat isn't breaking news. "You're still missing a teeny bit of detail?"
"And what will that be?" Kaolin answers, looking anything but not crossed.
"How was the hookup? How did it go? Where did it go? Who did it go?" She gleams at that last part.
Leroi, busy feeling pity for Nixon who struggles to keep crocodile tears in, almost chokes on an oily, spicy noodle on hearing the peppy girl.
It obviously isn't the spiciness. Kaolin left without a word to his house in the midnight and still hasn't talked about last night. Leroi is 100% sure he is never going to. Hell Kaolin is going to act like it never happened because that's just how he is.
It is, however, bugging Leroi more than ever because anywhere he looks or anytime he blinks, the back of his eyelids have Kaolin's nudity etched with a permanent marker inked with his saliva.
"You don't need to know who but hmm. How was he?" Kaolin dramatically strokes his bald chin.
Seraphina simpers in expectancy mixed with suspense but Leroi doesn't even notice himself tapping the fork against the plate. Strange that now he really wants to know how Kaolin felt...with him.
"His ass was way too loose, he's a sloppy kisser and can't suck without scraping off my skin with his teeth."
Leroi actually chokes. This time, on air.
"Are you okay?" Drake swings to the rescue, his salt and pepper irises highlighted with concern.
Of course, it would be Drake to offer him a cup of water, the Drake who has a forever crush on him. That doesn't mean Leroi hasn't hooked up with him a time or two, or three, or four or. . .
Leroi's loud gulps of the water is the only thing audible to him and the unusual silence that encumbers the table causes his eyes to wander away. He suddenly becomes aware of the cafeteria around them. Another reason why you should have 'good' friends. When you're with them, you totally forget about the world around you.
A lot of people are out now, probably to prepare for the next class or have a last-minute hangout. The football team lowkey stalks them like vultures from the opposite end of the cafeteria, the vendetta equally potent from their end.
Leroi scrunches his face in distaste as he observes the shithole of a cafeteria. And yes, he means it literally. The whole place practically stinks of battle ruins of last week's food fight that those bush-league cleaners have yet, refused to clean. Principal Kingsley would be in a blackhole of trouble if an health agency merely steps into Pheonix High.
"You sure?"
Kaolin's milkshake straw halts inches to his tongue. "Yeah?"
"Tell us more about this guy. Did you finally see the effects of drinking protein shakes on your two-minute nutsacks. Were you too watery or your strokes too sluggish? Was he really loose or your dick was just too fucking small?!"
The table erupts in hollers except for Nixon's head exploding into a pool of brains, Seraphina dropping her hairband into Drake's mashed potatoes, and Kaolin looking like a corpse on an electric chair.
"Hey, hey! Chill my dudes. I've always wanted to act out this vine I saw last week." Lies. Kaolin is not going to bruise his ego and get away with it.
Then Leroi's pupils dilate at a sight; Maurice Greene sitting in the furthest corner of the cafeteria, munching on a bagel. He is, as usual, alone and his hood covers most of his head except for his persistent ebony frill protruding like an aeroplane's nuzzle.
As if on cue, some white dudes Leroi recognizes as football jocks walks to the tall boy's seat. Maurice just stares blankly at his food like they're mere specks of dust. Apparently, they are put-off from being ignored so to show just how beautiful maturity can be, they smack Maurice's tray away from the table.
Carburetors go off in Leroi's head and he unconsciously snaps the fork in his hold in two. The autofocus in his brain blurs away his table's conversation and zeroes in on his crush seconds away from being crushed into a pulp, and the ugly Van Gogh caricature on the tiles; waste of good food. Just how dare they?
Maurice is poker-faced throughout and lets them verbally assault him. Not as if he feels them though, his countenance seems not to; Leroi will never know. Still he keeps his eyes trained on them while they --probably got tired of talking -- pick him up his seat like a ragdoll and shove him against the wall.
Maurice cringes in slight pain -- footballers pack mean muscles, it's no news -- and Leroi sees red.
He wants to march over there and rend their scrotums. He wants to incinerate the indifferent onlookers and cremate their ashes till there's no more. But how does he differ from every single one of them? He's currently butt-stuck while watching him with pathetic pity and can not do anything.
Seraphina nudges Leroi before gesturing to his fists clenched like spiked balls. Leroi opens them to see that his fingernails had dug into his palms, pinking them deeply. Oops.
Leroi tightens his apron and pulls on his mittens. Time to bake some knuckle sandwiches. 100% natural, cholesterol free.
"See y'all later guys." He stands to his feet. "I have to take care of something."
______________________________
QUE SERA SERA, whatever will be will be. ..♪♪♪
I hope this book hasn't been trash till now cos me I cannor comman goan kee mysef abeg
[UNEDITED cos gay wattpad is so overrated..]