Gakuen no Bender
Chapter 11: Trust
By Danielle Franklin
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Chapter 11: Moral
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"...oh, you have no idea..." Katara laughed stupidly as she held her right eye open and squeezed a few eye drops onto it. The drops were cold, causing her to flinch slightly at the sudden contact. Capping the bottle closed, Katara slowly laid back, resting her head on Aang's lap. "I never expected her to kiss me. We were high."
With a slight grimace, Aang shrugged and looked away. "As hot... as it may be, I don't like it." He looked down at her, taking her face into his hands, forcing her to look at him. "You're my girl. Not... Toph's..." Katara said nothing, taken slightly aback by his honest words. "I... I love you. You're my girl..." He repeated the words in whisper, his eyes growing soft as he cradled her face in his hands.
For once in her short teenage life, Katara was unable to speak. His words bore into her with such a great force that it almost knocked her breathless. "I - I love you, too..." Her voice was a weak whisper, her mind fogged by the previous night's marijuana usage and his words.
The house was dark, almost silent, if not for the "clip clip clip" of tiny claws against the hardwood flooring. Momo, Aang's small ginger kitten scampered across the floor and under the couch, chasing a giant dust bunny as he went. Small mewls resonated from under the sofa, signaling the capture of the renegade dust clod.
However, the kitten went ignored. Katara had found Aang's lips, her own softly melded against his. Slowly Aang shifted Katara so she now lay under him as he straddled her waist, never leaving her lips for a second.
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She sat on the floor of her bathroom, the marble cold on her legs and her bottom through her towel. Slowly, Katara drew the towel around herself, securing it under her arm as she wiped away tears and sniffled. As soon as her hands left her face, another wave of emotion washed over her, ripping through her heart, causing her to shake with sadness and pain. This was something new, this hurt that reverberated through her whole body, and maybe even her soul.
'It's just a text message. It's just a text message.' Her mind screamed. She repeated the words in her mind like it was her own divine sutra, desperately wanting to believe her own lie. The cell phone buzzed on the counter above her head, she's previously turned the volume off in a failed attempt to keep the calls away. I slept with your boyfriend. He was great.
With all the courage she could muster, Katara slowly picked herself up off the floor, using the counter as an anchor to support her tiny body. She reached out, grasping the phone in her damp fingers, cradling it in her hands, too scared to flip it open and to read the messages received.
After a moment of indecision, she flings the phone back onto the counter top. Whomever was texting her wasn't worth the time. Obviously some jealous hoebag wanted to start trouble between her and Aang. This, however, wasn't going to happen.
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As usual, the short walk from the library to the Government room was entirely uneventful. Again she'd spent another lunch period with Suki and Toph, listening to them complain about their love lives and lack thereof respectively.
Slowly, her Ugg boots dragging, Katara made her way to fourth period Government. What remained of her venti iced chai lay nursed in her right hand, the cup leaving condensation on her fingers and palm. The other hand held her open Sidekick as she read the messages from the night before.
Twenty-three unread. 'Wonderful... So, I wonder which are from the whore...'
Looking up from the glare of her screen, somehow she'd made it to the classroom without falling on her ass or tripping over someone. It was truly a good day.
Grasping the cold steel of the industrial-grade doorknob, she quickly flung the door open and stepped inside the classroom. "Good afternoon, please take one of the worksheets and grab a textbook."
Katara looked up to see who had called out to her. Her usual teacher, Mr. Pakku, her grandfather, was not here today. Katara felt a pang of worry in her chest, but shook it off. What could be wrong with Pakku? He was a strong, sturdy man, even in his old age. She shook her head a little, shaking all bad thoughts from her mind. The woman sitting at the desk looked nice enough, and seemed to be happy to see her, a student.
"Welcome, welcome!" The woman urged Katara to take a seat in the front row. Katara, ever the good student, took the last chair in the front row. "May I have your name?" Katara looked up from her phone, "Katara. I'll be towards the bottom of the list."
The woman scanned the attendance sheet and checked off her name. "I'm Ms. Honda. It's very nice to meet you, Katara." At this Katara turned around to get a better look at the woman behind the desk. She was tall and slim, very beautiful as it were. Her face was perfect, a kind smile sat upon her lips as she addressed Katara. Everything about the woman screamed femininity, but she still held a mysterious look about her. Katara deduced she must have been an odd mixture of Betty Crocker and Bettie Page. She even smelled like cookies.
"It's nice to meet you too." She offered Ms. Honda a smile and sunk back down in her chair, clicking away at her phone again.
After a few second students began to filter in; the usual junkies and pot heads, the preppies and the jocks, even a few of the Rasta and banger kids who never seemed to like to show up. Everyone had taken their seat without a problem arising from the mixture of social cliques, endless incessant chatter filling the room. Every topic imaginable was being discussed; the best way to get booty, Black Sabbath versus Iron Maiden, who had been pillaged the night before, and by whom.
Suddenly the door burst open, all normal talk ceasing as a group of screaming kids filed in. "You don't even have this fucking class, why the fuck are you here?!" Toph screamed, the centre of the insanity. She shoved back a very tall and muscular guy. He eclipsed her in size, she seemed nothing more than a little mouse compared to his muscular bulk.
"Why don't you just back the hell off me, or I'll snap you." Jet breathed as he tried to control his skyrocketing anger.
Again, Toph shoved him and continued to throw insults. "Bitch, don't you fucking shove me!" She shouted, her voice harsh and shrill as she jabbed his chest. Jet began to turn red, his cheeks slightly puffing as he held is breath, trying desperately to control his growing rage.
Toph continued to scream and shove, as if she wanted him to do something to hurt her. Without thinking much at all, Jet slapped her clear across her face. It wasn't hard enough to cause visible damage, but it was enough to wake her. Stunned for a few seconds, Toph rebounded by punching him in the jaw. The blow did little more than to cause him to blink a few times in stunned confusion.
His brain completely fogged, Jet popped Toph in her right cheek. This blow was hard enough to knock her back several feet; she crumpled to her knees as hot humiliated tears flowed down her cheeks.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" The whole spectacle had taken less than ten seconds, but it was long enough for Ms. Honda to scramble to her feet and attempt to break it up. "You! What's your name! How dare you!"
By now the whole lot of the class was in uproar, swarming around Toph and Jet. One of the Rasta boys had thrown a stapler at Jet, screaming at him to, "Hit her with it! Get the dumb bitch!" A few of the junkies had gathered scissors and pencils, "Here, here! Shank 'er!"
Stunned realization of the situation washed over Jet as he took in Toph's defeated form as she lay sobbing on the grimy classroom floor. He realized that he'd be expelled for fighting, and yet worse, for hitting a girl. And to top off the already horrible situation, he was only three credits away from graduating in the summer. With one moment of indecision came an uncertain future.
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If you're a fan of dystopic future societies and crude genetic alterations, then you should check out my new fanfiction! :D I won't say the fandom, but the series IS A CLASSIC.