I Hate Mornings [Shouhei/Xander]

The tall figure was dragging his feet as he trodded throguh the mostly vacant hallways. Classes had started a good fiteen minutes ago, so it wasn't surprising that the halls were basically empty aside from old janitor Greg at the far end of the hall, all the students and teaching were already in class. All the good, proper students anyways.

Xander was wearing jeans, and a heavy, grey hoodie over a black t-shirt. All of it showed wear and tear. The Hoodie notably, had several dark-edged holes on the right sleeve that looked almost like the fabric had been burned through. Both the hood, and the left side of the chest had larger tears, much more clean, almost like it had been cut. And even under all the poor-condition clothing, Xander himself didn't look much better. The skin under his left eye showed some obvious discoloration from a bruise still in the process of fading, while a gauze pad was taped to his right cheek, some notable reddish-brown spots having seeped through.

He finally came to a door, and pushed it open, the sounds coming from within being cut off as the young man pulled himself through the doorway. Xander walked between the rows of seats toward the back of the class, some classmates staring, while the teacher, and older woman, shook her head in disapproval. "Late again, Mr. Avery. I suppose it's an improvement over your usual absences, but..." The woman began, in an irritating, preachy tone. He paid little head as he got to a desk,dropping his backpack beside it and seating himself.

Only now, looking at the blackboard, he could see names on the board, put in groups of two, with bits of text above each pair. "Today we were supposed to start working on the presentations that I mentioned about two weeks ago, unfortunately you weren't present then, or to any of my other classes since then, for that matter..." More preaching. It was funny how useful of a talent it was to tune out the annoying quality of someones voice while getting at least some of the conveyed information.

"Now, everyone else has already paired up, and everyone has been given a subject." Now that she brought his attention to it, it did seem like his classmates had shifte their desks about, so they had two desks together, with the exception of his desk, and a few others.

"I suppose you'll have to work on your own, or ask if you can join in on someone else's group. Samantha over there has the list of subjects available." The teacher would continue still, a clear tone of disdain to her voice, that quickly vanished as she referenced and gestured toward one of his female classmates, sitting on almost the opposite corner of the classroom. What a bother.

"That is, unless we have any more slackers who decide to show up late." More of her venomous tone, this time there was that word, slacker. It made him twitch, his fists clenching, teeth biting down. The bitch was lucky at her position of authority. "Are we understood, Mr. Avery?"

"Yes, Ms. Carbuncle." He droned in back in a low, non-committal tone as his eyes began to sweep across the blackboard.

Knowing full well on her words, to Mrs. Carbuncle’s cue, Shouhei Kagawa stumbled into the classroom.  His hair rather disheveled yet tied up in the back messily, his uniform wrinkled and untucked, breaths a bit ragged by sprinting from the dorms to the Academy.  His host club clientele had him drinking well into the hours the night… or very early morning, whichever was more technical.  At the very least he wasn’t hungover, merely exhausted, and annoyed that he had managed to oversleep.  Only because he knew what was going to come out of Mrs. Carbuncle’s mouth next.

“Ah, perfect, Mr. Avery.  It seems you’ve unwittingly found a very fitting partner,” she said condescendingly, then proceeded to stare daggers at Shouhei.  “Mr. Kagawa, you and Mr. Avery seem to share similar interests in regards to my class.  Habitual lack of attendance and constant tardiness if you do manage to grace us with your presence.  If only you had shown up a bit earlier; I wouldn’t have needed to explain myself again.  There’s group assignments.  You’re to be paired up with Mr. Avery.  Samantha over there can help you with the details.”

“M...my apologies, Mrs. Carbuncle,” Shouhei bowed reverently to her, not realizing his Japanese mannerisms had shown, and he wished she wouldn’t misinterpret it as a mocking sleight towards her.  Thankfully he was spared of any more of her verbal lashings and he quickly made his way over to where Samantha sat.

Shouhei fell in step with who he assumed was Mr. Avery.  The guy looked like he had been through a horrible night- or rather life.  Clothes in tatters, body scarred, bruised and bandaged face.  He wondered if Mr. Avery was in a gang, like he used to be.  Before he could think about all the situations that his future assignment partner was involved in, they made it to Samantha’s desk.  The prim and proper brunette kept her gaze away from both of them and simply handed them packets.

“I’ve crossed off the topics that the rest of the class has chosen.  Just read the things and get out of my face,” Samantha bitterly quipped.

Shouhei was again grateful that interactions with others were usually short and to the point, no matter how awful they sounded.  Keeping in line with Samantha’s wishes he ignored her and turned his head to Mr. Avery.  “Name’s Shouhei.  It’s like they rolled out the red carpet for us, yeah?”