Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 23:01:39 +1000
From: Sakura Kangen <sakurakangen (at) gmail (dot) com>
Subject: Waiting for the Music Chapter 1 (of many) [gay/highschool]

DISCLAIMER

This story involves relationships between males aged 15-19. If you do not
approve of this, why the hell are you even reading it now? If you are a
parent reading through the Internet logs of your young child, do not
punish your child for reading these stories. He/she clearly has some
questions about his development, and it is YOUR responsibility to answer
those questions truthfully and honestly. If this material is illegal in
your area, leave now. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know the drill.
If you aren't supposed to be reading this, Don't (although some flames
would be lovely to publicly dissect :)).

This story and setting are based on events in my life when I was 17 years
old. Names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of
individuals. Obviously most (but not all) of the relationships are made
up. All of the ones involving me are. The real relationship I had when I
was 17 is too painful for me to want to recollect, as it ended in a
horrible tragedy due to Pancreatic Cancer. Hence most of my writing here
is based on post-Leo time frame, where I was single and looking. I have
also removed sections of my life that I have felt would have made the
story too multitracked and confusing. I am trying to keep the number of
characters to a minimum. I am also avoiding all cliches.

Finally this is set in the Australian High School System so if you don't
know how it works go look it up. I'm sick of reading about sophomores and
freshmen. We don't have that here.

Enjoy!

Note: This is my first story! So, please write to me and let me know what
you think, email:

sakurakanNOSPAMgen@gmail.com

Of course, remove the NOSPAM there

~Kangen

---
Waiting for the Music: Chapter 1

I walked into the room and beheld row after row of empty desks, my
teacher already writing notes on the board, even though no-one else had
arrived yet. Damn, I thought. Being alone in the classroom brought my
work under closer scrutiny, and it was already too late for me to
backtrack out the classroom and wait until others had arrived. I put on
my bravest face, sat down, opened my book and began copying notes, hoping
to escape the attention of my teacher so as to avoid another lecture.

Such was life when one did an Extension Mathematics course. The head
teacher at my school, Mr Richardson, was widely known for his harsh
approach to tidiness and bookwork. I was therefore the epitome of all
that he hated. My "work", and I use the term loosely, tended to resemble
more the inane scribblings of a three year old than any detailed notation
or setting out. Of course, for ME, it was entirely legible. For everyone
else, it was worse than useless. And so, every maths lesson was like a
gauntlet that I had to run through. If I made it out alive, I'd won.

I breathed a sigh of relief when Jacob walked in. A loose acquaintance of
mine, Jacob had been a very useful addition to the class. Being a solid-A
student and academically competitive, he almost always had a long-winded
question for Mr. Richardson that would often delay him enough to be
distracted from my non-working. He had a very striking appearance,
beautiful even, remarkably tall, half-Chinese, with deep, dark eyes and a
soft, gentle appearance that..... gah! I shook my head and continued
writing. He's STRAIGHT! I KNOW he's straight! He's been going out with
the same girl for 7 years, so if that's not evidence, I don't know what
is!

Gradually more people began to trickle into the classroom, and we began
to quietly chatter amongst ourselves. Unlike all my other classes, the
only topic of discussion was the previous night's homework. I guess only
the most studious of people (and me) put themselves through the torment
that is Mr. Richardson' Extension Maths class. I quickly surveyed the
people around me, and it seemed that many other people didn't complete
the homework either. I felt a little relieved: At least I wasn't alone
this time.

Mr. Richardson turned around and said, "Right. Last night I set you the
three exercises from the final chapter. Get it out please."

We froze, the murmuring instantly ceased. You could almost hear the
collective "gulp" coming from the classroom. He began to walk up and down
the rows, glancing at everyone's work, and writing detention notes to
everyone that hadn't completed it. Even Jacob got one. Being one of the
last people he was going to check (as I was on the opposite end of the
classroom), I quickly erased the heading of some older, similar-looking
homework, and replaced it with the names of the exercises we had to do,
praying fervently that he wouldn't look too closely. Detentions with Mr.
Richardson were not fun. As he walked past mine, he murmured, "Good work,
but make sure you mark your work next time!", and moved on. Damn! He
always found something negative to comment on! Gaahhh! But, at least I
got off without a detention note.

After a slow 50 minutes of gruelling note taking and angry lectures to
everyone in the class about work completion (everyone EXCEPT me,
ironically enough) the single-chimed excuse for a bell that my school
used sounded over the P.A system, and everyone hurriedly filed out of the
class.

My best friend Andy was waiting outside the class for me. He was a good
deal shorter than me, and was probably one of the quietest guys in the
school, so I guess he was easy to miss - I just walked on past him
without even noticing he was there. He ran up next to me.

  "Hey, how'd it go?" He asked, matching my pace.
  "Oh! Sorry, I didn't notice you. The class was okay, I was able to get
out of a detention. Everyone else is on one though."

He chucked quietly as he flicked his hair out of his eyes. His hair was
just about as long as the school permitted (which wasn't that long). He
had naturally black hair that made him look a bit "goth" or "emo". He
rejected those labels, though. Andy was just Andy. You couldn't really
confine him to any particular subculture or category. We parted ways to
put our schoolwork into our lockers (which, annoyingly enough, were on
two separate floors in the school) and so I headed alone down the main
hallway where most of the Senior classes were held. Damn! Mr. Richardson
was waiting! He was like some poltergeist that was able to materialize at
the most irritating times. He waved me over, so I walked over and asked
him what he wanted.

  "I'll pop by your house after school to give you the work you missed
out on when you were away last Monday." he said quietly.
  "Uh sir, I have choral commitments after school, so I won't be home
till late."
  "That's alright, I'll give the work to your parents and they can pass
it on" he said before walking away.

Yeah, that's the other thing. Mr. Richardson lived just down the road
from me. Probably the most annoying thing in my school life. Because my
school was located in the inner city, the majority of the students had to
commute from the suburbs.. and, so did the teachers. So, I would time it
so that at no point on the morning commute would we even be able to see
each other. This was absolutely critical as, half the time, I did my
homework on the morning train.

I put my books away and looked at my timetable. I noticed that Maths was
actually the final period before Lunch - Sweet! The day had actually gone
by faster than I thought. Lunchtime at my school meant being released
from the school premises and let out into downtown Sydney for a precious
hour before having to return to classes. My school was both wealthy and
small, owing to the Central Business District location, and hence they
didn't really have the room to run a full cafeteria.

And so I met up with Andy again, as well as another friend of mine,
Michael. Michael actually went to primary elementary school with Andy and
so Andy was closer to Michael than I was. Michael was quite enigmatic,
but also a bit of an extrovert. He wasn't quiet, but  he didn't reveal
much about himself at all. So, even though I had known them for the same
length of time, I knew alot more about Andy than I did about Michael.
Andy was an intelligent but unmotivated guy with an interest in science,
particularly biology. He was also kind of cute. I had a crush on him a
year earlier, and eventually I asked him if he was interested in a
relationship. He turned out to be straight (damn! just like everyone
else!) but he didn't mind the question. Over time we became good friends,
and that's how I met Michael.

As we walked up the road out of the school, and past the Cathedral (yeah,
it's a catholic cathedral school.. I probably should have mentioned that
earlier), we noticed an ominous figure emerging from the shadows behind
one of the pillars. Mr. Richardson, of course, was on the sidewalk duty,
making sure everyone was behaving well and in proper uniform while
outside school premises (has he been following me around today or
what!?). You see, being a private school, my school had an all-consuming
obsession with its reputation, even to the point of deploying teachers in
strategic locations around the city to keep us in order on our lunch
break. Fortunately he simply let us pass without waylaying me yet again
to discuss Mathematics. It was as if that was the only thing he thought
about.


---

Hope that's an okay Intro. The first few chapters are all going to be
basically intro chapters without much plot happening. Tune in soon to
hear more about Andy and Michael while on the lunch break.... and what
about those Choral commitments mentioned? That's where the gay me really
comes out

~Kangen

and remember... emailing is the lifeblood of Nifty. Email me.

sakurakanNOSPAMgen@gmail.com removing, of course, the NOSPAM.