POP! Panic Shuffle!

[parallelzero]

"Aaaah, I have tennis quite a bit tomorrow. I have a meeting at lunch, and then practice after school, so I'm afraid we won't see each other much since we're in different years..." Corinne wasn't stupid. She understood the subtle hints in Alina's responses. Now, all that was left was to see if she could make this work. Rémi had technically asked Alina out, so Corinne figured she must as well make sure her brother saw the promise through. "I think I'll give my stupid brother a call in the morning and have him meet with you at lunch, since I'll be too busy to accompany you!" It was a lame excuse, but it would get the job done.

------NEXT MORNING------

As per usual, Corinne was up bright and early - as in 5am. Unlike her brother, whom she assumed had yet to unpack, she had laid everything she needed to get ready in the morning out on her desk. It wasn't long before she had quietly gotten herself prepped and ready for the day, even having time to run and grab food for Alina from the cafe, before setting it on Alina's desk. She glanced at her watch, and realized that it would be best if her roommate were to get up. She cautiously climbed the ladder to reach Alina, and shook her gently. "Psst, wake up, we have to go soon, and I'm about to call Rémi to see if he can meet you today~" Hoping her message had gotten through, she slid back down the ladder and took out a pink cellphone, before quickly using her speed dial to reach her brother.

---

"Gah... quiet down..." Rémi murmured in his sleep as the cellphone beside his pillow rang annoyingly. He was eventually forced to answer it, after almost being blinded by the light from outside. "Yo. Eh? Is my lunch free? Alina? Well, I suppose... But where would I- take her wherever? Fine, fine, but you couldn't have just asked me in class? We have the same homeroom? Okay, okay, see you in a bit." After hanging the phone up, he dopily climbed his way down the ladder and stumbled into the bathroom. It seemed his roommate had already gone ahead. Ah well. Out of the entire routine, he spent the longest on his hair. It was annoying to find a suitable style for shoulderlength hair on a guy, but in the end he tied the chestnut brown hair into his usual ponytail. In the end, he decided not to get breakfast either. He wasn't really a breakfast person, and he figured he should save his money to maybe buy Alina food later if she decided to come with him. Either way, he'd find out in homeroom.

---

"Okay, he said he'd meet you outside the girls dorms at lunch, if you'd like to go. I told him you didn't have an answer yet, so if you'd rather do it another time thats fine~ He's pretty flexible after all." Corinne wondered though. Was she being too forceful?

---

"Alphabetical, why did it have to be alphabetical?" Rémi sweatdropped as he realized Corinne and himself, who conveniently had been placed in seats directly beside each other, were being stared at by a majority of their class. They're relation to each other was too obvious like this! Things like "are they twins?" and "are they both girls?" were being murmured particularly amongst the female population of the class. Rémi sweatdropped again. "For the love of god, I'm obviously a guy..."

"Oh cheer up, this could be fun!" Corinne, ever the optimist, exclaimed.

"I'll give it a chance if the staring ever stops..."

 

[Kansas]

Heath sat in homeroom quietly pondering what would remain a mystery to the rest of the class until his thoughts were interrupted by Leberecht's approach to his chair. He ran his hands along the back of his seat, causing Heath to lazily crane his head backwards to look at him instead of turning around.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to pester you about track. But I heard you got appointed as the co-captain of the soccer team- Congratulations. Hopefully the sports season'll be great as ever. Some people don't seem too keen on teamwork this year, you know?" he said casually.

Heath and Leberecht had never spoken much but they definitely knew of each other and always had casual conversation in passing.

"Thanks, Leberecht. Ya I'm hoping to finally whip this team into shape this year... and the schools combining is creating a lot of friction between male and female players. We have one or two very good female players that seem to be intimidating some of the regulars. Trixie Taurite and Robin Craig, they'll probably make Varsity and replace some people. Some of the guys aren't happy... this is just taking some adjustment is all."

The two had a moment of silence as Leberecht finally cut in once again, "Hope they'll get over it soon."

"Ya, they're going to have to. Times are changing and as upperclassmen its our job to set the example." He said with his usual lay back tone of voice.

It was strange having an intellectual conversation for once. Dean didn't really provide the deep inferences about social life that Heath sometimes enjoyed discussing. It was an interesting change, finally sitting and talking to Leberecht. It wasn't all about girls or anything. He kind of liked it.

"So how is the track team doing? You know... if it doesn't get in the way of my practices and games, maybe I'll run for you guys every now and again. It'll be a good way to keep myself in shape, heck maybe i'll send the whole team over there to do endurance training with you guys, hows that sound?" He said, grinning to Leberecht.

Heath was in a surprisingly good mood. For the first time he felt as if he was making a new friend other than Dean, although it obviously wasn't the same degree of friendship, it was nice to have someone else to talk to. But of course, Dean was Heath's best friend and after so long of not seeing him he began to wonder about his where abouts. Apparently the separation wasn't TOO good for him.

"I wonder where Dean is... I hope he didn't sleep in...

 

[Loki]

Leberecht was highly amused at the idea of them having to set an example because they were upperclassmen. That wasn't the case at all! It was precisely because they were upperclassmen that they should've had the right to feel defensive. But Leberecht nodded at what Heath had said nonetheless.

"I wouldn't mind at all," The blonde replied with a calm smile, "The more the merrier. I'm not sure how the old team has reacted to the merge in regards of our team, but we'll know by this afternoon. There are some people who have already asked the coach to disqualify the girls from events like shotput. Endurance sounds great, we can put them on the long distance and make it seem like there's more people doing that event." Leberecht rubbed the back of his head sheepishly before waving to Matthew who had just walked through the door, turning his head again to pick up his conversation with Heath, "Sometimes it feels like there's only four or five people doing it, when our pacing differences end up putting us on other sides of the campus."

Leberecht looked up at the sound of the bell, "Ah, well, I better go back to my seat. Hopefully we get a good homeroom professor, right?" He moved back to his seat, sitting down and peering at the name tag beside him. Apparently, the set up was boy-girl-boy-girl, though they girl beside him had yet to show up. Strange, for Lahea.

"Please sit down..." Came a squeaky voice that Leberecht instantly labelled as the teacher who would be overseeing homeroom. He shuffled up to the front of the room. By god, he was ancient. A fossil! He re-aligned the smartboard, barely able to reach the dots on the top before scribbling his name across the screen in mousy scrawl. "I am Mr. Handell." Came his voice from behind his white moustache that fluttered with every word he said, "It's a pleasure to meet all you bright students."

Leberecht was dying of laughter inside his mind, but kept a composed expression as usual. What a joke. He didn't even notice the students that were late, still filtering in. He probably couldn't even see that far.

---------------------------------------------

"This is my SEAT." Luce barked, facing off against her toughest adversary yet. The homeroom teacher was a tall woman, dressed professionally with sharp features and a beak-like nose. She peered down at Luce with an arrogant superior aura that Luce was ready to tear to bits.

"Please sit alphabetically, Miss..." She glanced at her roster for effect, "Fulvio."

"It's FAL-vio. Not FUL-vio, you dipwad! I'm not going to sit up in front where you can breathe down my neck everyday!" Luce snapped, folding her arms tightly across her chest, "I already picked my seat, and this is where it is, farthest away from your bird breath as I can be. You can tell mousy over there to find a new seat!" She jerked her head towards the girl who was giving her a wary gaze. Luce recognized her from last year's class, but couldn't pin a name to her. "End of story!" She sat back down with a final sort of 'ploof'.

"Miss Fulvio," Mrs. Ridley spoke the truant's name correctly this time, pushing her wire rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose, "We aren't off to very good start this year, are we?"

Luce scoffed, crossing her legs, "Are we ever?"

"Out!" She pointed a bony finger to the door and Luce regarded her for a second. Ugly, bat-woman. She collected her baseball things and marched out the door.

"My pleasure!" Before slamming it shut behind her.

Now how was that for the number-one 'don't-mess-with-me' introduction of the year? Now that she was free, where would she go? Antagonize the cafe? Make eerie sounds outside the dance gym? Nah, she decided, heading off towards the tables behind the cafe. Maybe she'd clean her bat and oil her glove.

 

[Trainer Kat]

As Dean sweet-talked the girls around him, he couldn't help but wonder if soccer practice had run over. After all, he had seen no sign of Heath. It was then that the thought hit him. What if they were in different homerooms this year? Dean had thought that everyone in the same grade was in the same homeroom, but then again, he hadn't really read the rules. He had just assumed that they would still be together, but they really hadn't talked about classes. And Dean would be mad if he didn't have any classes with Heath.

"One moment, ladies." At this, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat, silver-and-pink cell phone.

To: Heath
Txt: I don't think we're in the same homeroom this year. :,(

There was always the chance that he was wrong, and that Heath would come bounding through the door any second now. After all, Heath was Dean's only real friend. He obviously didn't know the names of three quarters of the girls he flirted with. He was popular, it was true, but he didn't connect with anyone except Heath. When the door creaked open, he couldn't help but feel he was right, and that his friend would enter the room. His hopes were shattered when a brunette male walked through the door, taking his seat towards the back of the class. Uninterested, Dean turned back to the throng of women. It was then that he saw the familiar mess of blonde hair overtop of one of the girls' heads.

"Hey~! Heath!" Dean grinned, immediately ignoring the girls and pushing his way over to Heath. For the second time in two days, Dean pulled Heath into a headlock-hug, ruffling his hair. "Yo, you worried me. I thought homeroom'd changed or something, and that we weren't going to be together." He realized how stupid the idea sounded as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Hey, Lebrecht. 'Sup?" he asked, offering the boy beside Heath a goofy grin.

----------♥----------​

"O-oh!" Alina's face flushed as her roommate offered to call her twin. The thought of meeting him for lunch had never crossed her mind, nor would it have been a prospect she'd have even considered, had it not been for Corrine's suggestion. Of course, she wasn't opposed to it by any means, but as per usual, Alina was more worried about annoying one or both siblings. She didn't want to force Rémi to go out of his way if he didn't want to. The blonde didn't say anything to that effect, merely responding with a timid "w-well, if he doesn't mind. It would be…fun."

After their conversation, the blonde retreated to the bathroom to change into a light blue long-sleeved nightgown that fell just about to her knees. Yawning softly, she ascended the ladder to her bed, where she immediately put her cheek against the soft feather pillow. Admittedly, she went to bed earlier than most teenagers, but it happened to be the way she was brought up. "Goodnight, Miss Corrine," she mumbled softly before closing her eyes.

-----Next Morning-----​

"Psst, wake up, we have to go soon, and I'm about to call Rémi to see if he can meet you today~" Alina was awoken by her roommate the next morning. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes.

"What time is it..?" she moaned, removing the cell phone from under her pillow. Thankfully, she still had time to take a shower while Corrine made her call, the mere thought of which sent the heat rushing back to Alina's cheeks. Quickly, the blonde hopped into the shower before her roommate could see her red face. Alina's showers didn't last very long. Unlike some people she knew, she didn't spend time lingering under the water, instead preferring to get clean in a timely fashion. When she exited the bathroom, the noticeable scent of blueberries followed her, obviously the result of her shampoo. After getting dressed and ready, she sat at her desk to eat some of the breakfast left for her by Corrine.

"Okay, he said he'd meet you outside the girls dorms at lunch, if you'd like to go. I told him you didn't have an answer yet, so if you'd rather do it another time thats fine~ He's pretty flexible after all."

"Yes, I-I'll meet him here, then." Alina shyly responded, a smile gracing her face. "And, thank you for the breakfast, Miss Corrine." At this, she stood, gathering her things, ready to go to homeroom. Of course, Alina didn't have homeroom with anyone she knew, as her roommate was a year older than she. Quickly, she took her seat, thankful that she hadn't been late.