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He met the others by accident when they were in grade 10. Now, two years later, it’s the day before their graduation day.
There are just under two hours left before school starts for the day and they’re clustered in Kai, Nya and Lloyd’s living room. The graduation day is on a Friday and their school still required them to be present in classes for the last few days leading up to it even though they have done their final exams and gotten their finishing result already.
“Does it not feel real to anyone else that we graduate tomorrow?” Cole asked. The others were spread about the small room, waiting for a more reasonable time to roll around so they could leave for school.
“Nope,” Kai answered, as did all of the others, eventually, in some variation of the word.
Soon enough, it was time to leave so they (slowly) rounded everyone up (Lloyd had somehow managed to fall asleep again spread out in the middle of the floor and everyone tripped over him) and headed out the door.
Unsurprisingly, their last day of attending classes went by way too fast and rather uneventfully. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted in every class, as long as it didn’t distract anyone in another grade. Some students even left campus for the shopping centre!
The last class of the day was Humanities, which they all shared together. The six of them sat together in a row at the very back of the room where the desks were arranged in semi-circle rings.
There were ten minutes until the bell rang and that was the end of their last day of classes at high school forever. Jay’s phone sat on the table in front of him, the others, or those of them who could see the screen at least, were watching the numbers tick up.
When it got to five minutes to the bell, the teacher announced that as there was no reason for them to be there any longer, they could have an early minute.
“You know, it doesn’t feel any different than any other day,’ Nya declared as the group turned out onto the street.
“It doesn’t,” Lloyd agreed.
When they got to the apartment complex, then so began the frantic last-minute hunt for a suitable outfit (for some) or graduation day speech (Kai) but for everyone else who the first two didn’t apply, they were either consuming one of the ridiculous amounts of cookies that Zane had recently baked and coming to terms with the fact that high school was almost over (or both).
The Big Day.
When Lloyd woke the next morning, it was to the usual weekday scene: Nya was arguing with Kai about how much coffee he drunk on a day-to-day basis while something was burning and he had slept through his alarm (honestly, he should just cancel it, it never woke him up on time anyway).
Then it hit him, today was graduation day!
When he finally made it out to the kitchen, it was to this scene. Nya was attempting to waterfall-braid her hair while Kai was (once again) hunting for the speech that he had written over a week ago.
“Why did you agree to do a speech?” Lloyd asked as he grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard.
"Not purposefully! Ms Millzent asked me when I was running on an hour of sleep and I just agreed as I had no idea what she was saying,” Kai explained.
“That validates my point about your caffeine consumption even more,” Nya interjected. “Your speech is under the fruit bowl, where you left it since you finished it,” she added.
Confused, the elder sibling went to check, and lo and behold, there was his speech, under the fruit bowl.
Once they were organized and had finished breakfast. They split up, Kai and Nya left to go meet with their parents, while Lloyd left to go meet with his uncle, father, and possibly cousin before their group were meeting up at the entrance to the auditorium.
Everyone’s family matters had been sorted out and now they stood with the rest of their form class, attempting to organize themselves alphabetically by surname, it took a while but they got there. They had a lot more success than some of the other form classes.
Then, it began.
Out of their group, Cole was the first to graduate (as he was in one of the first classes and his surname started with B).
Then Lloyd (he was in the next class, so was Jay, and his surname started with G).
Then Jay (his surname started with G also but its second letter, O, came after A)
There was a sizable break in between.
Then Zane (he was in one of the last classes and his surname started with J)
Then Kai and finally Nya (siblings got sorted on the attendance register based on the first letter of their personal names).
After the last person had received their certificate, it was time for Kai’s speech. Which was surprisingly pretty good, actually.
Then they were allowed to go find their families (and friends). Echo actually had tears in his eyes when Zane approached him afterwards (their father hadn’t bothered to show up, of course). Ray and Maya looked so immensely proud of Nya and Kai. Lilly wrapped Cole in a hug as soon as he was close enough. Ed clapped Jay on the back happily while Edna hugged him. And Lloyd was surprised to see that not only had his uncle and father shown up but both his cousins.
“We’re actually done,” Jay whispered to Cole later, for no apparent reason. “We’re finally finished,” he added at a more normal volume.
“Yeah, we are,” the noiret agreed.
The two had managed to get away from their parentals for a while and were now sitting on the steps just outside the back of the auditorium.
“What are you doing now?” Cole asked. “Going to uni? Not just yet? Never?”
Jay shrugged as he played with a loose string on the hem of his shirt.
“I’ve already applied - got accepted too but not gonna start just yet, maybe next semester haven’t told my parent yet,” he said.
“They’ll be fine with it, I can be with you when you tell them if you want,” Cole offered.
‘Thanks but I’ll be fine,” Jay declined. “What are you going to do?” he asked, instead.
“Don’t think I’m going to be starting just yet either, maybe never? I’m not sure yet,” he said.
“Who do you think is going to start right away or even go at all?” Jay asked.
“Lloyd: definitely, same for Zane. Nya: maybe. Kai: who knows?”