Disclaimer: *looks around all sneaky-like; grabs the cheez-its and makes a break for it laughing maniacally* Mine! Mine! All mine! Bwa ha ha ha ha!
A/N: Don't tell me you all thought I was going to fade back into the shadows from wence I came to torment you 2 years ago. HA!
******************************************************
GROW UP!!!
prologue::laptop
A giant, monstrous yawn forced itself out through cherry blossom lips, clawing itself free until the body was twisted into a laborious stretch from foot to toe. Once free, it glanced quickly about the room before attacking the pale flesh of a brunette farther down the line, desperate to free its brethren.
Feeling shoulder joints and elbows lock into place and pop back out with a satisfactory sound that echoed through her bones and part of the room, she folded her arms across the desk and lowered the front feet of her chair to the floor, looking sleepily around the room. But there was nothing of any entertainment value to be had; the clowns were crying with boredom, the doodlers were working on five-star works of art, the note-passers were writing novels, and even the studious were making up for their all-nighters on the notes they had grown tired of taking.
A quick glance to the windows made it clear that there would be no daydreams of sunbathing today; not even of splashing through puddles. The fog swirled against the glass, so thick that even the heavy downpour failed to wet the panes. With a sigh, she lowered her eyes to her notebook, silently admiring the sledgehammer a stickman was wielding against a stick-mecha.
"Ah…what would I give for a laptop," came the content, satisfied, and rhetorical question beside her. Compelled if only by the need to look at something other than the numbers scrawled on the whiteboard several rows below, she turned, lifting blue eyes to the bluer ones that sparkled with malicious intent. "Oh, wait, I don't need to give anything, do I?" the girl continued, lifting the lid on the precious artifact, the soft glow of technological perfection splashing out onto both of them.
"Fuck you, Pan," she spat, whipping her head around to look down at the board, filled with a renewed sense of duty towards mathematics.
Beside her, her best friend laughed quietly, tugging absently on one of the pigtails that fell across either shoulder beneath her bandana, winking one incredibly blue eye as she opened her games folder.
"Right now?"
Bra laughed quietly and smacked blue bangs from her face, quietly hopping her seat closer to her friend's, leaning over to look at the blissfully amusing flat-screened wonder that gloated in its silver casing like a bird who had just preened his feathers.
"Is this the laptop your parents got you for your birthday last week?"
Pan rolled her eyes and angled the screen farther back to keep the blue glare from their eyes and to give the professor, busy droning on about functions, the impression that they were taking notes. "No Bra, this is the one they gave me for my birthday two years ago. Yes this is my birthday present, how many of these do you think I have?"
Bra shook her head and set the side of her face on her friend's shoulder, sighing contentedly at the familiar and unchanging warmth beneath the white shirt. She watched idly as Pan opened a game of Tetris, the red, orange, blue, and purple shapes blurring into smudges of color.
"Bra?" Pan whispered, pausing the game to look down at her friend's face on her shoulder. Giving a sharp, half-shrug, she was mortified to find the half-saiyan princess asleep. With a shrug of her eyebrow, she turned back to the game, completely unaware that their teacher had bored himself awake and was now mounting the stairs of the forum seating, eyes angrily trained on her. Rustles of whispers drew her out of her Tetris-trance as he reached the end of her row and she freaked, slamming the laptop shut and staring up at the teacher with eyes the size of baseballs.
"Miss Son," he started, receiving a stammered "Yes Sir?" before he had even finished that much. Glaring down at her, he started again. "Miss Son, would you like to explain to me what is going on?"
Pan straightened nervously, drawing in a deep breath that slid the sleeping Bra from her shoulder and startled her awake. Her mouth opened to breath and to answer, but the bell cut through her panic, slicing through the Friday afternoon doldrums left over from the lesson, brining everyone into awareness. Pan turned her gasp into a smile and thanked Dende.
"Yes, Sir, I would love to explain. Unfortunately, class is over and I have to catch my ride, so I'm afraid the explanation will have to wait until Monday." She stood quickly and bowed, turning to shove her laptop and school supplies into her bag and grab Bra before sprinting from the room.
"Alright, explain."
Bra shrugged, leaning back against the lockers as she shoved a foot into a boot, admiring the contrast between dull nylon and glossy leather, all the while cursing the trillions of eyelets as she shoved the ends of the nylon laces through them. She seemed almost oblivious to the demanding bite in her friend's voice.
"Bra…" Pan shifted and braced one hand against the wall of lockers, tugging off an indoor shoe with the other.
"It's nothing, Pan. So I fell asleep in math. Big deal, I seem to remember having to hide you under the desk one day and telling Mr. Wantanabe that you'd had to make an emergency bathroom run."
Pan rolled her eyes as she traded the white loafer for a hiking boot, hopping about in the hallway as she tried to put her foot inside and keep her blue skirt from flaring up at the same time.
"Bra, I'm serious. I know I'm prone to act like a complete idiot sometimes, but I think I just created a new breed of stupid today when I tried to hide my gaming addiction and your nap from the guy. I'll be surprised if I'm not called into the principal's office Monday morning for my impertinence."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Bra replied quietly. Pan rammed her foot into the locker right next to her, making her jump, and innocently tightening the laces of her boot before she started the process again with the other foot.
"I'm just tired, Pan," Bra admitted begrudgingly, setting her foot on the ground and stomping a little, eyeing the laces on both boots to make sure she hadn't missed a hole. "I haven't been sleeping all that well."
She busied herself with tugging at the pleats in her skirt as her friend hurried with the other boot, pulling out the wrinkles that had formed across her lap during a day of sitting down. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Pan lift her book bag from the floor and close her locker. Skirt situated, Bra smoothed her hands down the front of her blazer, picking off lint balls, preening herself with the diligence she showed between every class and before every appearance into the world beyond the school grounds.
"By the bruises on your eyelids, I'm going to say you're lying through your pretty white teeth, Bra," Pan said gently, catching her friend's eyes. "Either you haven't been sleeping well for a long ass time, or something's going on with you." Pulling her blazer out of her bag and draping it over her head, she leaned close to her friend as they walked out of the building into the rain. "You know, if your parents are fighting so badly, you're always welcome to crash at my place. You know we've always thought of you as my sister."
Bra smiled dryly as she clamped her book bag over her head, the two of them waiting for a break in the human flow of traffic to make their break for the train. "It's not Dad Mom's fighting with. It's my brother."
Pan looked at her for a moment before the sea of humanity parted, leaving them a slender gap of running room. Pushing the thought to the back of her mind for future reference, she followed her blue hair companion into the wet.
***************************************************
A/N: From the looks of things, this is going to turn into another one of my epic-ish fanfics. This idea has been with me for about a year and a half, but I haven't had a chance to pursue it *looks at the last monster that consumed her*, obviously enough...which means that not only do I know where this one's going for once, I also have a lot of ideas to put into it. I should also warn you that chapters are going to be infrequent at best, but there won't be any of those short little f*ckers that I'm known for (read: this does not apply to cliffhangers *halo*). Writing happy and not dramatic is a challenge for me (thus I am writing this to challenge myself), so please critique, comment, and flame as much as you want. Believe me, I'm going to need the feedback. Anyways, enjoy. I'll try and get the first chapter up before Valentine's.
-Panabelle ;P
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: harassing Trunks for 2 years