Chapter Text
There's a week left before spring break. Tom, Mike, Lean, and his girlfriend Aré are gathered in the cafeteria during break, discussing their tests.
Or rather, Mike is the one discussing them most.
"Dude, I'm telling you! My teacher is out of her depth. Not only did she not tell us the topics for our exam, she even told us to take this test orally!
Fuck, not only am I not very good at English, but here you are, French!"
Mike says,
"Dude, don't worry, so what if you couldn't do one test? You can already speak potatoich, why do you need to speak frogich?"
Lean answers calmly to his excited friend. Mike looks at Lean, angry but not seriously,
"Dude, stop joking around like that! Otherwise, I'll start calling you a dog-eater again!" Aré laughs at the two, but then turns her attention to Tom, who's sitting in the corner, completely quiet and completely sleep-deprived.
"Hey, Tom, how are you? Up all night again?" Tom looks at her, not expecting such a question.
"...oh, yeah..."
"You've been like this for two weeks now," Aré continued.
"I get it, tests, but you really need to get some proper sleep for once."
She says, worried about him. Tom simply wipes his eyes and replies.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll try."
She wanted to continue, but she and everyone else heard a familiar voice. It was Kyle. He'd missed the break again and was now running toward them.
"Hi, guys!"
"Hi, Kyle," said Tom.
"Kyle, hi! Why were you late this time?"
Lean asked, holding Michael in a chokehold, making Kyle laugh a little.
"Heh, I was just looking in my backpack for something I wanted to show Tom,"
Tom turned to Kyle, surprised, "Oh, really?"
Kyle nodded with a smile and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a disc in a clear case. "S.T.H._1" was written on the disc in black marker, but it didn't look like Kyle's font, it looked like some grown man had scrawled it. Tom looked at the disc, realizing what was on it, but just as he was about to answer Kyle, Mike interrupted him, "Dude, what is this?"
Lean let go of Mike, also curious about what it was. Tom wanted to say something but was too shy, but Kyle decided to say it loud and clear,
"I found the first Sonic for the computer!" Mike and Lean look at Kyle in confusion.
"So what's the big deal?" Mike said, Aré smiled.
"Cool!" she said, and Tom couldn't contain his excitement any longer.
"Oh my god! No, that can't be it! Dude, is this really the first Sonic?! For the computer?! Where did you even get that?!"
Kyle smiled and said proudly.
"At a garage sale!"
Aré in disbelieve asks Kyle.
"Are you sure it's Sonic? Maybe it's just a blank disc or a virus?"
"Well, I decided to check it out after school," Kyle replied. He looked at Tom and asked him.
"Do you want to check it out with me after school?"
Tom looked at him and replied sadly.
"No, bro, I can't today. You can start without me of course, but I can't. We can do it next week. I'll finish all my tests and then neer the spring break i could come."
Lean and Mike looked at him in shock.
"You still haven't written all your tests?!"
Mike was surprised.
"Lol, now that's a teacher who's really crazy!"
Lean giggled. Kyle smiled and said, "Okay, but that doesn't mean our meeting tomorrow is canceled, does it?"
Tom, waving his hands, said,
"No, no, of course we're meeting. I just can't play with you because of this. I just want to start studying early for the test."
The bell rang and everyone went to their classrooms.
"Well, see you Monday, guys,"
Are said, walking to class with Lean and Mike. "Yeah, bye," Tom said, heading to his classroom. Kyle waved as he ran to his.
"Don't forget about tomorrow," he exclaimed. Tom smiled and waved back.
Art is always the last lesson in his class on Fridays. Since Tom is quite good at drawing, he'd already completed the entire Lesson task, much to the surprise of his new teacher, with an A+. So he just sat there and drew whatever came to mind. So he decided to draw Sonic, just as he saw him. Even though Sonic had recently gotten his first 3D game, Tom still had a different idea of what he looked like. Tom was shy about his hobbies, so he covered his paper with his hand so no one would see his version of Sonic. He liked the new Sonic game, very much, his new favorite character was Shadow, but he was expecting something cooler from the power-ups in this game. He thought a simple bracelet for Sonic was kind of boring, so he started drawing his own version of a power-up. He liked the idea of a scarf that would lengthen with each increase in Sonic's Level, so he started drawing that. His deskmate, Linda, chatting with her friends again during class, noticed Tom working on something, but she couldn't see anything because of his hand.
"Tom, what are you drawing?"
She asked him urgently. Tom flinched in alarm, unexpected her question.
"Ummm..., ahhhh..., just doing something," Tom said, closing his paper tighter. Linda giggled with her friend and asked,
"Come on, show us, we're curious what you're drawing, you seem really good at it."
Tom, with a slightly more serious expression, said,
"No, I won't show you anything, you'll just start laughing at me again, like last month."
Linda wanted to answer, but the teacher came and started telling her again to stop getting distracted.
Tom continued drawing calmly until the lesson ended. Everyone had packed their backpacks. He was about to leave, but his art teacher, as well as his homeroom teacher, Miss Vaner, decided to talk to him:
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Tom, already knowing where this conversation was heading, closed the door and went to her.
"Yes, Miss Vaner?"
"Everything okay?"
Tom looked at her and replied,
"...Yeah, I think so."
Tom was ready to leave and headed for the door, but Miss Vaner, worried about him, said,
"Tom...I'm so sorry about last week. I only recently found out about...this. I just didn't think you—"
Tom interrupted the teacher mid-sentence and said,
"I know, everything's fine. There's no need to talk about it at the meeting."
Tom opened the door.
"Have a nice day, too."
and left.
After leaving school, Tom decided to take the bus home. He usually walks, but this time he just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. Tom reached the bus stop and stood there. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice.
"Boo!"
Lean appeared behind Tom. Tom was a little startled, but this time he laughed a little.
"Ha-ha, Lean, what's up?"
Lean, in his usual style, tried to make fun of Tom.
"I'm fine, my winter buddy, but you look weird. Did the teacher talked about that fight again?"
Tom's smile dropped again, and he replied.
"...Yeah, she said she now knows about... well, you know."
Lean looked at Tom sympathetically.
"Well, okay, let's hope for the best. She seems sane and shouldn't be pressuring you about this like the last one did."
Tom smiled a little again.
"Yeah, you're right."
The bus pulled up, and Tom said goodbye and headed home.
Tom arrived home and no one was waiting for him when he entered his apartment. His stepmother had gone away on business and wouldn't return for another month, so the whole house was his for a hole month. Tom undressed, changed, and went to make himself something to eat. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was silent, except for the ticking of the clock and his footsteps.
Tom sighed reluctantly and began making flashcards to prepare for the test. He had a history test awaiting him, where the topic was the first World War, which Tom understood nothing about. His stepmother had said the topic was difficult, but Tom argued that he was simply stupid and couldn't understand anything, even though his test on the Middle Ages was one of the best. Tom studied and studied, but then he looked at his watch and saw that it was already ten o'clock. He got up, cleared the table, and made himself some dinner.
Sitting at the table, he pondered what his stepmother would think of him when she found out about what he did at school, then wondered where to go with Kyle tomorrow, and then he looked at his watch and saw that it was already three to twelve.
Tom goes to the bathroom and starts getting ready. In the bathroom, he sees a guy, he hates him. He's so stupid, naive, and weak. Sometimes Tom just wants to smash his face in, but he's afraid the glass will get stuck in his hand and he'll have to go to the doctor. And even though the guy is a weakling, he has some good aspects: he has at least some talent in music, and he's the only one in his class who knows how to treat the girls, right, but somehow even these positives seem insufficient to stop him from seeing him as a complete idiot.
After, Tom crawls into bed and tries to fall asleep, staring at the ceiling, where he's glued stars were, witch he put to watch while he's awake. Tom starts thinking about what happened today, then he started going over what he had learned, then he started remembering where he left off in Sonic Adventure and how he could have defeated the boss, and then he closed his eyes and fell asleep in time with his thoughts.