Internet-Degenerate

Fun fact: homosexuality is gay.

It was the following day, and I sat alone on the side of the athletic field. "It's not like I wanted to come to a girls' school, either..." I pathetically mumble to myself as I stare off into space. They were playing a game of softball in the middle of the field. "It's not like I wanted to play softball, either..." It was P.E. Unlike regular classes, I had a separate regimen for gym; which is to say I do nothing at all and watch everyone else have fun. That meant whenever P.E classes rolled around, I became more acutely aware of the fact that I was the only male around. Naturally, I was aware of it in every other aspect of my daily life. Like the bathroom, for instance. There weren't any boys' toilets (shocking, I know), and there was apparently a lot of debate, largely before I came to school, about where I should do my business. One suggestion was that I go back to my dorm for it; another was to have a simple bathroom installed. The first option was rejected as discrimination, and the second one as creating an eyesore. They ended up allocating me a specific stall in the staff bathroom. Despite the occasional inconveniences (like that one time I was kicked out of my room during twilight hours so my room could be searched for porn that I couldn't afford), I'm glad that I came here. I even made friends. I wish I had some guy friends, but I'm not picky. 

Hm?

I hear footsteps approaching me. It was Sol, my only friend in class. She was in her sports uniform, which was just a white t-shirt and blue shorts. She had her brown hair tied up in two buns.

"Why are you staring into space like that?" she asks, looking down at me and holding her hands behind her back.

"No reason..." I answer her in a lacklustre manner, staring into space. 

"You aren't feeling unwell, are you?"

I stare up at her, confused. "...No," I tell her blankly.

"Really?" Sceptical of my response, Sol placed her hand on my forehead. The softness of her hand causes my heart to stop, and I shut myself down so I don't reflexively strike out and reject her kindness. I'm never going to get used being touched, am I? "Ah... but it might not be your temperature," she says, as if just realizing what the reason for my listlessness was. 

"Hm?" Instead of using my words like a human being, I grunt, trying to get across the thought that I want her to elaborate.

"W-Well, you know..." Somehow understanding my intentions, Sol responded by stepping back and turning her eyes away, frowning. "I-I mean, after yesterday..." she says, slightly abashed. What happened yesterday...? 

"Ah... You mean the choking thing?" I ask, just to be sure.

"'Ah?' It really seems like nothing fazes you," Sol says, with a sigh of resignation. "Though I suppose I have no reason to complain..." 

"Eh..." I shrug. "I've had worse..."

"Worse?" My mindless statement seemed to have intrigued her, and she plopped down next to me.

"Oh..." I mutter, trying to pick one out of many unfortunate stories from my past. "Like this one time... when I was working as a landscape technician for a summer..."

"A landscape technician?" she repeats in awe.

"It's not as impressive as it sounds," I tell her. "It was just basic manual labour; planting trees and bushes, lawn care, watching over plants and flowers and stuff. All the basic groundskeeper stuff. Anyway..." I continue my story. "It was the middle of summer, so it was really hot. I was starting to experience heat syncope while checking the flowers for any insect infestations, so I sit down in the shade under a giant oak tree. It was a clear day - not a single cloud in the sky. So I'm sittin' there, minding my own business, when all over a sudden the tree I'm sitting under gets hit by an errant lightning bolt from a storm over 20km away! Oh, I-I got out fine, by the way. It was just a very... shocking experience. Hah ha! Get it? Because lightning! I made a pun!" That joke was the greatest thing my mind has ever come up with, and Sol isn't even acknowledging it. She's just looking at me, her eyes wide. I thought she was my friend, but I guess I thought wrong.

"You..." Sol utters, just staring at me. Why are you staring at me like that. Stop. "You truly are more impressive than you seem."

"W-What? No."

"Let me see your hand."

"W... W-What?"

Without even waiting for my consent, she took my hand and began looking over my palm like a palm reader. "It's true..." she says absent-mindedly. "It does feel rough." Is she talking about what Sapphire said yesterday?

"Uh... I-Is this okay?" I awkwardly ask. "People are looking..."

"Ah..." She lets go of my hand and scoots a little away from me in embarrassment. I regain my composure.

"Is it okay for you to just leave your class?"

"I'll be fine," she assured me. "Our team is batting now, and I just struck out." 

Even so, when I looked back at the game, everyone was participating in cheering - or at the very least, staying by the field. As a result, there were quite a few prying eyes turned our way. However, despite being embarrassed at holding my hand, she didn't seem to give their attention any thought.

"So, then, your feeling well?" Sol asks me again.

"Yeah."

"I see... that's good." Sol placed a hand on her breast and let out a sigh of obvious relief. "That was the first time I've ever acted violently... well, I suppose it's not. I did slap that gangster person. In any event, it is rare for me. I even surprised myself..."

"Yeah, I get it," I just casually blurt out, as if I have become a master in the art of conversation. "It'd be a pretty big scandal if something like that happened here."

"Yes... I suppose it would..." Her face started turning bright red. It seems she isn't very comfortable with these kinds of talks. To be honest, I find it rather embarrassing myself. So what now? Did you perhaps think we would sit in awkward silence? YOU FOOL!  I just told you I have become a master in the art of conversation. This is where I should change topics, I think.

"Um... there was also this other time, when I was working at an amusement park," I expertly steer the conversation back on track. "I was a rides operator at an amusement park. It was when I was assigned to a ride that had a height requirement to ride it. If you weren't tall enough, then you weren't allowed on no matter what. It was one of those rides that had those metal bars come down and sit across your stomach, so someone too small could easily slip out and hurt themselves. Anyway, I see this kid and his mother waiting pretty far back in the line, and I could already tell that the kid is going to be too short." I was in the middle of a story when a sudden 'watch out!' interrupted me. 

"Ah... Oh scheiße," I mutter in surprise, trying not to swear in English. A stray softball flew towards me at blinding speed. I may have been a little late to notice, but my reflexes serve me well. I barely manage to catch it before it breaks my face. Why do they call it softball when the ball isn't soft at all? I know it was when the game was created, but why do they still call it softball? It kind of hurt to catch.

"A-Are you alright?" Sol panicked.

"Yeah," I say, tossing the ball back in the general direction of the field. "Anyway, um... ugh, where was I... Right. I can already tell the kid is too short to ride, and I don't want him and his mum to wait two or three more runs of the ride to make it to the front only to get rejected. So after I finish loading the ride, I go to the kid's mum and tell her that her child is too small, and that they should go to a smaller version of the ride near the entrance on the other side. The mum just gives me the dirtiest look ever and says, 'we're just going to wait here, thanks,' in the most condescending tone imaginable. So, uh, at this point I don't exactly have time to argue with her. I have to get these rides running at certain times, and I left the passengers I loaded up waiting long enough. Anyway, a little bit later and it's the kids turn to ride. I measure him and, of course, he's like a head shorter than the requirement. I tell the lady the same thing I told her when she was in line, and she just says 'no, it's fine. I'm with him. I'll hold him,' because I guess she didn't think that the laws of physics applied to her. Yeah, so she tries to shove me out of the way, but I don't let her. I tell her something like, 'I'm sorry ma'am, but we don't allow people under the height limit on this ride. The safeties we have on it won't hold someone so small, and your kid could fall off and really hurt himself.' 
Then the lady demands to speak to my manager. So I give my team lead a call for help and I ask the lady to just wait to the side while I load the ride. This offends her for some reason, and she tells me that she shouldn't have to wait any longer for her kid to ride because I can't do my job. So the ride runs, my team lead comes, and he tells the lady the same thing I did. At this point, the kid is just having a tantrum. This isn't just any temper tantrum though. This is like... a tantrum... like, a full on shit fit he's having. He's as red as a tomato, rolling around on the concrete, screaming his head off and thrashing about like some kind of demon baby. So my lead apologizes, offers the mum a ticket to skip the line for the other ride he's allowed to go on, and leaves. The lady is trying to calm down her kid and starts speaking to him. The kid then gets up, all smiley and excited and whatnot, and he runs over to stand next to the gates and starts watching me. This obviously raises my suspicions, but I'm too busy doing the security checks to think much of it. As soon as I'm about to start the ride, the mother taps me on my shoulder and thanks me for my help. This raises even more suspicions, but I ignored those suspicions, crossing it off as just my trust issues. I tell her it's no problem, but she keeps apologizing and telling me that she shouldn't have acted the way she did and all that. After she finishes talking my ear off, I turn back to the ride and see that the kid isn't by the fence anymore. Then I turn to look at the mother, and she has her little camera phone pointing at the ride. That's when I knew. The ride is one of those 'swing' things, right? So I can't exactly see the back of the ride from where I'm operating it. I take the keys out of the ride and start walking to the back of it. The mum starts panicking, asking me what I'm doing and why I'm not running the ride, but I just ignore her. I get to the back of the ride, and, lo and behold, the kid snuck into one of the empty seats on the ride.
The kid sees me and he almost shits himself then and there. He didn't have the safety bar properly locked in place at all. If I started that ride, he would've been flung out and splattered his insides all over the place as soon as he hit the ground. I could've gone to jail for manslaughter, and I was a quite mad at that fact. I stare this kid down and tell him very sternly to get off. He tells me that he can't and needs help, which is fair. I help the kid off the ride and he starts running to his mum, crying. As he's running, he trips over himself and lands on his face. When he gets up, his nose is bloody and his knees are skinned, so I know I'm... well, fucked, for lack of a better terminology. The mother sees this and she starts screaming like a banshee. I run over to the kid to make sure he isn't too badly hurt, and since I'm closer to him I get there before his mum. As soon as his mum gets to him, she just straight up punches me in the eye and screaming for security. So the security guards come running trying to find out who's being murdered, and the lady just goes 'this boy assaulted my son! He threw him off the ride onto the pavement,' and the son chimed in and said 'it's true! He punched me, too!' The mum jumps back in, yelling 'you need to call the police and have him arrested! He's mentally unstable!' 
My lead hears the commotion and he arrives and asks me 'what the hell is going on?' I try tell him my side of the story, but the entire situation was causing me to have a bit of a panic, so I can barely even breathe and all I'm doing is stuttering. It's a good thing there was like 25 other witnesses who stood up for me. They told the police, the security guards and my lead what really happened. More people showed up to see what was going on, and the mother just grabs her son and books it."

"Did the guards catch her?" I hear someone ask.

"Yeah," I answer. "They caught her pretty... quickly..." Who... asked that? It wasn't Sol's voice. I felt my stomach drop. It only just now dawned on me that I hadn't looked at Sol the entire time I was telling my story. I was looking at the ground. Instead of looking at whoever I was talking to, I looked at the dirt. I thought I was getting good, but I clearly thought wrong. Now I'm paying the price. My eyes hesitantly drift upwards. Sol was there. She hadn't moved. It was obvious she was listening.

But there were also two other girls sitting around me. two complete strangers. They looked at me, confused. My eyes drift around some more. There were around ten more girls standing around me, all looking at me. They were standing away at a short distance, but they were well within ear shot. As soon as they saw me looking at them however, they scattered like flies. The rest of the class was gazing over in curiosity. Were they all... listening to me speak? Were they all... paying attention to me? Oh God... I think I'm going to be sick. 

"Are you okay, Seraph?" I think it was Sol who asked me.

"I'm, uh... I'm fine..." I say. I try to stand up, but my legs are too weak to properly support me. I stagger upwards, and my light headedness was making it difficult to balance. I'm starting to sweat, and I can feel myself beginning to hyperventilate. "I'm just having a little panic attack, is all."

"That is not fine at all!" Sol's sudden outburst caused everyone to freeze. "Come with me. I'm taking you to the nurse's office."

The girls of class 2-C could only watch as Sol dragged Seraph's trembling figure towards the school building. They quickly got back to the game they were playing, but the two friends who sat down to listen to Seraph's story started talking amongst themselves. 

"Hey Nina!"

"What is it?" her tall friend tiredly asked.

"You know the article in yesterday's newspaper? The one were it said Seraph fought against two-dozen or so gangsters and won?"

"What about it?" 

"He seems like a violent person, to be able to do something like that. I'm just surprised he didn't punch that lady in the face at his job, even when she hit him. I reckon I would've."

The two girls started listening to Seraph's story when the girl, Adelaide, ran to retrieve the ball that flew over to him, so they didn't really miss much. Seraph had tossed the ball back, but it didn't exactly go very far. When Adelaide picked up the ball, she could clearly hear Seraph speaking. She thought it was a bit strange, considering how he had just caught a softball with his bare hands. She had done the same before, and it still is, to this day, the most painful thing she had ever experienced. Seraph, however, just ignored it. What was so important about telling this story that it warrants completely ignoring that kind of pain? It must've been more interesting than this boring game of softball she's playing. She already batted out, so she decided to pitch the ball back to the field and listen to him speak for a bit. Before she knew it, she quickly found herself sitting near Sol, listening intently. Her friend came up to her to see why she sat down. Adelaide only patted the ground next to her, signalling Nina to sit down and listen with her, which she did. Eventually, wandering eyes and curious minds from the rest of the class drew them towards Seraph, wondering as to what he was saying. Soon enough, he had amassed a small audience.

"You don't think he could have been lying?" her stoic friend asked.

"It didn't seem like it to me. Hey Nina! Don't you think he's kind of weird, too?" the energetic Adelaide abruptly changed topics. "Like, he's unfazed when he narrowly catches a high speed softball aiming for his face, but he gets a panic attack when he realizes that people are looking at him?"

"Yeah. His anxiety must be really bad if that's all it takes to trigger an attack."

"Hey Nina! Don't you think he's kind of cool, too? Like, how he just caught the ball when he barely even looked at it?"

"Yeah. He must have-"

"Hey Nina! Did you see that squirrel just now? Did you see how fast it climbed that tree?"

Why am I even friends with this girl? Nina thought to herself.