Work Text:
Normally, Kenma goes about his daily life with a smile in his mind and a lethargic look on his face. He’s normally relatively neutral feeling, if not happy, and even days during which he does nothing are at least a little bit enjoyable to him. Every day is a good day. Just about.
Today was not Kenma’s day.
It was only the third day of school, and he woke up in a pretty decent mood. He entered his classroom, and upon setting foot in the door, he’d realized that he’d forgotten to finish a paper on an article for advanced environmental science. He knew all the answers, he just hadn’t written them down on paper. His first assignment of the year was put into the gradebook as a zero.
His next period is advanced Japanese, which he had always considered to be one of his stronger suits. He listens to the teacher yap about rules and answer questions about the new class. She is polite to anyone and everyone, being a young female teacher, but when Kenma raises his hand and opens his mouth, she pretends to be surprised, and asks the class if she heard correctly. Unfamiliar voices whisper and chuckle to each other, and Kenma feels ashamed for raising his hand the fourth time in the past three years. She goes on about deja vu, believing to have already answered the question (which she hadn’t, in that period at least), and dismisses the class.
Kenma decides to keep his mouth shut for the rest of his high school career.
The next period is art, and he is learning about lines. He’s switched seats since the first day, uncomfortable with the table he’d sat at first. The students were incredibly disrespectful, and Kenma felt sick around them. His new seat is with an old middle school classmate of his, and Kenma enjoys himself for the first time that day.
Advanced Mathematics Analysis is next and Kenma is excited. He likes this class, and even though he’s not the greatest mathematician, he enjoys the subject. The teacher doesn’t finish the lecture and Kenma is left with a pencil in hand and three heavy textbooks under his feet when the bell rings. Homework will be a burden tonight, Kenma sighs.
A meeting for his fitness class is held during lunch, and the coach is one of the most intimidating staff members on campus. He worries he’ll fail, and be kicked out on the first health examination. His heart races in his chest as he walks out the gym.
His foreign language class, Advanced Mandarin Chinese, hits him like a speeding bullet train. A paper is passed out to his classmates (four out of seven of whom speak the language at home), documenting the number of questions and point percentages for each section of the biggest test of the year. On the back is a brief study sheet of terms that may or may not help, and Kenma can recognize all of them. (Unfortunately, he cannot translate.) His teacher notes that they only have two seconds to respond to each listening question, and asks him directly a question in Mandarin. Kenma mutters something incoherent, and lowers his head. Despite noticing a familiar song being sung by a off-pitch first-year’s voice (his class was split into beginning and advanced learners, with the intermediate students (most of his friends) in a different period), he hears nothing else that period.
His final period, advanced chemistry, runs smoothly until he passes in the first quiz of the year, when he suddenly realizes he’d labeled three of the most common polyatomic ions incorrectly. He knows he’ll get an 85% instead of the 100 he deserved on the quiz he’d been studying for for the past four months, and hates himself for it. Tears are brimming in his eyes when he exits class with one of his almost-close friends at his side. He doesn’t even mind when two first year kids rush past and nearly push him down the stairs.
(That’s a lie. He wanted to throw the kid.)
Kenma skips practice and talks to no one on his way out the school gates.
Kenma’s noisy older sister picks him up and chatters his ears off, when all he wants to do is to hurry home and lock himself in his room. She doesn’t notice him wiping his eyes, taking the motion as his dabbing off the late-summer heat.
When Kenma finally gets home, he swiftly slips his box cutter into his backpack and heads off to his room. He takes off all his clothing, leaving not a single article of clothing on his body. Despite it being far too hot outside, inside, it’s just a little bit too cool, and his body reacts appropriately, only slightly. He pulls that far-too-large navy blue XXL sweatshirt he bought back in middle school over his head, turns around to face his full-length mirror, and glares angrily at the narrowing gap between his thighs. I need to eat less, he resolves, knowingly uncreatively and uninspiredly, eyes calm and unimpressed. He shuts his eyes momentarily and feels a familiar dampness streak his cheeks, his neck, pooling at his collarbones.
He climbs onto his bed, his messy blankets and numerous pillows making mounting the mattress a more tedious effort than it needs to be. His head hits an overstuffed fuchsia pillow, and his back rests on wrinkled bedsheets. His blade shifts up through its sheath twice, click click, and Kenma lifts his sweatshirt up to his sternum. He shuts his tired eyes. The tears sting.
When the job is done, and his tears have dried, Kenma stands up, and, hunched over like a possessed creature, shuffles toward his desk, soreness growing in his abdomen. After opening up and logging into his laptop, Kenma immediately clicks on his internet browser, pulls up a word processor, and begins to type out his day.