Chapter Text
Monday. The most dreaded day for anyone still in school. And that’s obviously the same for Aaliyah Glen. She’s just your regular seventh-grade girl. She’s smart and intelligent, but also beautiful at that. She attracts all the boys. Except for the aroaces, of course — but that’s irrelevant information for your brain, dear reader.
Aaliyah’s long, silky brunette hair instantly pops out among a school full of normal black-haired girls. Her bright ocean-blue eyes can catch the attention of anyone paying the slightest attention to her. Let’s be real though, her fashion-sense is what makes her stick out. You might think someone who knows everybody wants to date her would dress more… girly. Like a skirt!
But Aaliyah doesn’t. Matter of fact, she dresses more masculine than feminine. What kind of person of the feminine species wears dark-blue jeans and a black shirt to school everyday? Definitely not me!
Aaliyah steps off her schoolbus, her bold bright-pink backpack hunched over one shoulder. She looks around the school as she enters it, searching for her friend. Then she sees her: Schaigh. Her so-called “best friend.”
And before you even close the damn book — or whatever you’re reading this on, you AO3 lovers — it’s pronounced “Sky.” Like the sky. Weird, I know. Ask her parents about it I guess.
“Schaigh!” Aaliyah shouts to Schaigh with a tone that says “I just got arrested, can you bail me out?”
“Hey!” Schaigh replies back, whipping around with a bright smile plastered across her face. “How was your weekend, girl?”
“It was great!”
“Nice to hear!” Schaigh replied in a loud, annoying voice that tells you everything you need to know.
I don't want to watch this anymore, so let’s switch gears!
Noah Emmison, your regular-old introverted quiet kid at school, sits at his homeroom desk eating the cinnamon bun the school breakfast team sells at an overpriced $6.50. He always gets to school like five minutes before the school even opens for business, so he has no worry of being late unlike some kids…
Dear reader, if you just take one glance at Noah… you wouldn’t notice anything. I did already say that one paragraph ago, if you skipped ahead you lazy humans. Black hair, grayish eyes. So in summary, your average guy!
Anyways, the girls behind him chatter his ears off about some boy getting sent to the principals office. He finishes the cinnamon bun, throwing the wrapper on his tray as he brings it to the trashcan, hurriedly sitting back at his desk.
He pulls out a fancy black pen and starts to work on schoolwork.
Then Aaliyah and Schaigh walk into the room. Noah instantly notices Aaliyah’s entrance, but doesn’t care at the same time. That idiot! But really, who can blame the guy? Does he even know he likes her?
“Girl, eat up quickly!” Aaliyah tells Schaigh.
“I’ll try!” Schaigh laughs — annoyingly. She takes a bite of the cereal. Without a spoon. “I can’t really control my eating speed, though.”
Noah turns to the other direction.
“Bro, where’s Cheyen?” one of the boys says to the girls. “When’she usually get’ere?”
“I dunno,” one of the girls shrugs.
“She needs to return my book!”
Noah sighs, digging into his backpack for his pen as he also takes out a blue paper from a light blue folder; his ELA folder. He reads the first question to himself as the first period bell rings.
The loud ringing of the PA turning on sings throughout the halls.
“Good morning, RDM!” the principal’s voice cracks through the old, broken speaker basically every classroom has, and no one has bothered fixing it. Also, RDM stands for “Raul Destiny Middle.”
“Please stand for the pledge of allegiance."
Everyone but Noah stands up. You see, Noah doesn’t really like the country’s government. He loves his country, but the government… not so much.
“I pledge allegiance. To the flag. Of the United States of America.” everyone says in unison. Schaigh’s loud, annoying voice was heard the best like she was trying to win the guiness world record of loudest pledge of allegiance said.
“One nation, under god.”
Noah mutters “under science” as everyone says that “god” part.
Everyone finished the pledge, then sat back down as the room grew completely silent with only the moving of pencils and rustling of paper heard. After ten seconds, the PA cracked back on.
“We only have… one announcement today.” the principal totally isn’t reading off a pre-made script from five years ago. “Student council representatives will have a meeting tomorrow at 7:30. Please attend. Have a good rest of your day!”
The teacher steps forward. “We’re going to continue our reading analysis on the book ‘Flipped,’ so please grab one from the front desk.”
Everyone stands up quietly.
Binnggg, binnggg, binnggg.
The second period bell rings three times just as always. Noah instantly starts counting in his head — one, two, three, four, five… et cetera — as he jolts out of the room. His next classroom was only like 34.69 feet away, so why so quick? Well, he has a gag going on with his friend, Jayden, where he counts down how many seconds late to second period he is down to the millisecond…
“Thirty-seven seconds late.” Noah grins as Jayden takes his regular seat — next to Noah. Jayden sets his bright red bag down on the floor, taking his pencil out of his pocket.
“Darn!” Jayden sarcastically exclaims. “Hey, atleast I’m not an hour and a half late…” Jayden references Noah’s absence from last week.
A short, blonde-haired girl in a blue jacket and slightly ripped jeans takes a seat behind Jayden. Just like she always does.
“Morning, Noah,” the girl greets.
“Morning, Cory.” Noah dismissively says as he begins to work on the week’s warmup.
Jayden quickly finishes the warmup — so fast he might’ve well circled the most random answer without a thought — and turns to Noah. “What’s my name of the day?”
“Hmm…” Noah pauses to think. That’s another running gag between the two. Every time Noah wants to refer to Jayden, he can’t call him by his real name but rather a nickname. And he has to do that the entire school year without repeating a name.
“Giraffina.”
Jayden looks at Noah like he committed five atrocious acts against the Geneva Convention.
“UNO-out!” Jayden calls out, slamming a red four card on the bench. The bright sun hovers above the three friends — Noah, Jayden, and Sean.
“Dang it!” Noah and Sean groan in unison.
“Alright, now we’re fighting for second place,” Sean magically changes his attitude, glaring at Noah, holding his six cards like they’re weapons.
Noah looks down at his cards. He only has two — he can easily win this! All he has to do is—
“Plus one,” Sean places down a red plus one card.
“Crap…!” Noah internally shouts. He analyzes his deck, then looks at Sean’s card. He has no way to counter. He draws from the pile.
Let’s see here… Noah monologues. He looks through his three cards — a red six, a blue nine, and a wild card. Noah looks up at Sean who has a smug grin on his face, tracing his fingers over the rim of his cards.
Then, Noah notices something. He can see a very tiny portion of the color of Sean’s cards. Smart. He looks at the three of five cards within his eyesight: red, red, and black.
Noah looks back at his cards. A red, blue, and a wild. He looks at the card Sean just placed — a red card.
If I place down my red card, Sean would either place down one of his reds or his wild. Either way is completely fine. If he places his wild, I’ll counteract with my wild and change the color back.
“Make a move already!” Jayden not-so-patiently waits.
Noah grabs his red eight card.
Sean doesn’t react. He pulls out his red and places it out. A red two. Noah looks at his blue card.
Yes! A two! I win!
Noah confidently places his blue card, shouting “UNO!” loudly before Sean could steal that opportunity.
Sean looks at his cards. “Hmm… it seems you outplayed me. Well done.” he says monotonously. An awkward silence follows for five seconds. “Is what I would say if I hadn’t had this card,”
Sean places a blue reverse card. “Now it’s back to me, so I’ll also use this.” he places down a red reverse.
Noah doesn’t break a sweat as Sean plays all his cards. He’s lost, either way!
“Then this,” Noah places a red skip card, followed by a wild card. “Now I’m down to one card. UNO.”
“What’s the color?”
“Blue.” Sean grins, thinking Noah lost. Oh how wrong the poor guy is!
“UNO. Out.” Noah says dramatically, placing his wild card down.
“Welp. I lost. Good game!” Sean slowly lowers his deck of cards, sighing.
“I’m home,” Aaliyah gently opens the door. She enters her house, closing the door behind her and locking it. She quickly heads over to her room — still looking for her mom — and throws her bag onto the ground. She jumps on her bed, digging her head in her pillow like an anime character about to whine about their love life to a pillow.
Then, her phone rings. She takes her head out of the pillow, glancing at the glowing, buzzing, and humming device.
She answers the call. “Yes, Cory?”
“Guess what just happened!” Cory excitedly squeals into the phone.
Aaliyah backs away from Cory’s loud mouse-sounds. “What happened?
Cory starts breathing. “I… wage war against you!”
She hangs up. Aaliyah stares at her phone, utterly bamboozled. “War? For what? What are we fighting against?”
Aaliyah looks up from her phone at the wall, narrowing her eyes. “I think I get it… if a war for him is what you want, a war is what you’ll get.”