A year or two ago I tried to start writing a little thing about Ned and Jack before they started dating, but I didn't really get very far with it. But rereading it again just now, it was kind of a fun thing to work on and it's not as bad as I remember it being. SO! I'LL POST IT HERE, I GUESS...!
There's actually more to it here than what I'm posting, but the rest of it is too fragmented for me to feel like it's worth posting. :u MAYBE SOMEDAY... I'LL WORK ON THIS AGAIN... I'm taking a creative writing class right now actually, and I think it's helping me understand the differences between portraying a story through writing and portraying a story through comics/pictures. :0
But anyway, here's this. This story's a lot more lighthearted than A Life Like This, by the way. (ALLT IS SO MELODRAMATIC. Will I ever go back to it.... those charas...)
Also I know nothing about football, sorry world. Idk what a cornerback is, I think it's a real football thing.
***
In a particular pleasant suburban town, nearly the entire Northwest High School student population knows the name Matthew Brodney III (proud son of the son of Matthew Brodney I): 17 year old quarterback for the Scorpions, thick hair tied into tight cornrows pulled into a pony tail, 6’5, and 220 pounds of pure friendly dude. When not busy bonding with his teammates (a task he sees as a necessity for proper team leadership), Matthew Brodney III can be found assisting young freshman in search of their foreign classrooms around the Northwest High School halls. Other days, students say he helps the janitor clean the lunchroom tables during study period. On the weekends, it’s rumored that he works at a local preschool while simultaneously volunteering at the soup kitchen. Yes, Brodney is every student’s companion. A young man to look up to. Plot relevant. Not actually the main character.
But anyway.
A certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed, not-quarterback for the Scorpions, actual-main-character Jack, lives a less impressive lifestyle—For one, he doesn’t volunteer at a soup kitchen or even have a dad and granddad with the same name as him. Why, he doesn’t even help the janitors clean the lunchroom tables during study period. (In fact, he usually naps.)
Despite lacking such admirable characteristics, Jack feels fairly certain that he still holds an undeniable “cool factor” for reasons unknown even to Jack himself. Some degree of coolness comes with being a moderately-attractive, well-built, football-playing high school boy, he decides. And, well, being Brodney’s best bro. That helps, too.
As Jack contemplates the Theory of Coolness while slouched at his first period desk, he vaguely hears the teacher make an announcement for a partner project due next week. He stirs in his chair as he begins looking around the room for a worthy partner, when the teacher quickly tacks on to the end of her spiel, “…And your project partner will be by desk number. Amanda, Brady, you’re partners. Jack, Ned. Anthony, Sam…” She goes around the room, pairing students according to vertically adjacent seating.
Jack sighs, sits back into his seat, and returns to more important thoughts while he waits for the teacher to finish assigning pairs. Somewhere along the way, the Theory of Coolness transforms into the Theory of Chill, because Jack decides he’s not really cool after all: people don’t regularly talk about him, which he figures is some necessary component of coolness. But people do indeed talk to him; and when people talk to him, Jack feels that they are at the very least somewhat aware of his undeniable chillness.
In fact, as he recalls his interactions with his cohorts from this morning, he considers the possibility that his chillness is likely to spread from him to surrounding students. For instance, at 7:20 AM Jack had drifted through the hallways with one hand slipped into his pocket, casually glanced up from the text he was typing to make eye contact with football mate Dmitri, and without even changing his facial expression—for he was simply that chill—greeted his friend with an inoffensive “sup.” Dmitri nodded, sup’d the cornerback in chill response, and carried on down the hallway.
Jack tosses the thought around a couple times before deciding that it is sound enough to accept. Chillness: probably infectious. He breaks from his meditation just in time to hear the teacher say, “…and I’ll give you the rest of class to work on your projects with your partner.”
A perfect opportunity to test his latest conclusions! Jack turns around in his seat to greet his project partner—Ned, as he recalls. He gives the kid a not-mean-but-not-totally-friendly “Hey,” to establish his chillness.
Instead of receiving the equally chill “Hey,” he expects, Jack gets hit with a spirited “Yo, hey, ‘sup!” from the bespectacled boy, his braces agleam in a bright smile.
***
ABRUPT! This isn't actually where this scene ends, I just... never finished.... RIGHT BEFORE THE DIALOGUE TOO, HOW HORRIBLE. But yeah, basically this was just Jack being a spacey dude or something.
Anyway, I hope that was enjoyable for someone, haha. -u-b
