fresh start (ryutaro/open)

[gaia]

It was early in the morning, and Gaia was ecstatic. She had been doing so well in her special ed. classes, that her teachers decided to let her try going to the regular classes on a trial basis. They had told her that it would be tough, that the children in the regular courses weren't as easygoing as the classmates she currently had. Nevertheless she told them that she wanted to do it, that she welcomed the challenge ahead of her.

When she came to her new class for the first time, she was a bit jittery. The teacher introduced her and mentioned her condition with being partially deaf, but the fact that the gadgets that looked like headphones were actually hearing aids. Once the teacher was finished, Gaia bowed to her new classmates and told them that so long as she had her hearing aids that she would be able to hear them, so raising their voices wasn't needed for conversation. She did, however, tell them that small noises such as whispers were still difficult to register.

While the first half of the day had gone by swimmingly, lunch didn't seem to be going very well. As she was walking down to get her lunch out of her locker, she was confronted by a pair of boys from a different class. While they had greeted her, she knew that something was off when she greeted them in return. When she tried to pass, they simply blocked her way, even if she said 'excuse me.' They were being very rude, and questioning her about her 'headphones,' asking her what she was listening to.

When she told them that they weren't headphones, they removed them from her head to take a listen for themselves. When they didn't hear anything interesting, they simply started playing monkey in the middle. With her hearing aids gone, Gaia couldn't even hear her own voice let alone the voices of the boys who were telling her where they were. She was being forced to guess where they were based on sight alone, and it was really starting to get to her.

"Please, I need those to hear." she said in a voice that was different from what it had been moments ago. Instead of a soft and gentle tone, it was loud, harsh, and definitely not something that sounded like and intelligent individual. She was still young, and therefore hadn't fully learned to speak without being able to hear herself.

Since the boys were still refusing to give her back the hearing aids, she was beginning to feel an emotion that she had never felt before. She felt helpless, miniscule and as a result, she couldn't stop the tears that were welling up in her eyes. Not only that, but the constant movement was definitely bad for her health. She could already feel her energy draining, and knew that if this didn't stop soon that she would end up in the nurse's office with a fever within the hour. If only they would just return what belonged to her and be on their way.

[stark]

Lunch! A great time during the average school day, a time that Ryutaro often waited for throughout his early morning classes. Yet his teacher had absolutely no sympathy for him whatsoever, while the rest of the class had been released to go to the cafeteria, Ryu was forced to stay behind in the classroom. Apparently, his teacher was angry with him for having arrived late to class... Arguing it only wasted more of the time he could have been spending at lunch, thus Ryutaro had been forced to resort to writing a seemingly endless apology across the face of the chalkboard.

It felt as though hours had passed by before his teacher finally accepted his apology, as well as his word that he would ‘never be late to class again’. The boy raced out of that classroom as fast as he could without getting himself further into trouble. Down the hallways he went, toward the cafeteria. Finally! He felt as though he had already missed the entire lunch period, while in reality he had only been stuck in that classroom for maybe ten minutes.

The hallways were mostly bare, with students either in the cafeteria or in their classrooms. That is, except for the odd group of kids that were messing around down the hall from him. And who wouldn’t notice the white-haired little girl among them? From her shouting, it was clear enough that she was being picked on.

"Hey!" he could not help but interfere. Gaia had been in his class earlier that day, and she definitely looked to fragile to be okay with getting bullied by these guys Ryu didn't know. One of them was about his size, the other stood a few inches taller. But he didn't give himself time to think about it anyway, his first instict was merely to charge in immediately.

Ryutaro charged at the boy who was currently holding onto the headphones. The taller one as it happened. As he tackled him to the ground, the girl's hearing aids flew through the air once more and found their way to the shorter of the two bullies.

"Who the heck are you? Get off me!" the one Ryu had assaulted grunted as he fell to the floor.

"Just give 'em back to her so we can all go to lunch," he had managed one punch against the kid when he wasn't expecting it, and was now rolling around the floor with him, both attempting to pin one another down. Ryu didn't have much time to notice what was going on between the girl and the other guy. This one was already beginning to overpower him, if Ryu took his eyes off of him for a second, he would likely be in for a punch to the face.

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[gaia]

Gaia was so flustered at having to run back and forth just to get her hearing aids back that she was feeling very close to collapsing. Just when she was about to give up, there was a pretty big crash as the boy who had her headphone-looking hearing aids was tackled by another boy. She gasped as she saw her 'ears' flying through the air. Even though the second boy who had been teasing her was the wone who had caught them, she still sighed in relief that they hadn't hit the floor. She had never dropped them before, and so she didn't know whether or not they were fragile.

Now that there was a fight going on, she was torn between getting her hearing aids back and making sure that this boy didn't get hurt just because of her. She would never forgive herself if that happened, so she turned, ignoring the other boy, and tried to pull the two that were wrestling apart from each other. "Come on, stop fighting." she told them, still whimpering a bit, though her voice was still louder than usual and sounding really off.

The boys, however, didn't seem to want to stop. They were irritated that some other kid had interrupted their fun, but the one that was holding Gaia's 'ears' shoved them back into her hands before helping his buddy up off of the floor. He hadn't wanted a fight, he had just wanted a little game. Fights were too difficult to get out of and keep from getting caught. At least games and teasing could be played off easily and avoid trouble.

Quickly returning her hearing aids to their proper position over her ears, she helped the blond boy to his feet as she watched the others get up as well. Since they seemed to be in a calmer mood now, she decided to try and explain her situation to them again as they hadn't wanted to listen to her earlier. "I really do need these since they take in sounds and amplify them to a level that I can hear." she began to explain to them, hoping that they were actually listening this time. "Without them I can't hear a thing, so I really would appreciate it if you didn't take them away from me."

Though the taller one didn't seem to care, the shorter of the two looked a bit taken aback and apologetic about what they had just done. However, since his buddy had already turned to leave, he didn't get the chance to apologize properly since he chose to turn and follow instead of stay. But now that the two bullies were gone, Gaia turned to the boy who had charged in practically head first.

"Are you alright? You could have gotten really hurt just charging in and fighting like that." she asked him as she turned to make sure he wasn't hurt. Now that she was able to look at him a bit more properly as opposed to seeing the boy wrestling with another on the floor, she recognized him. He was in her class - in fact he had turned up after her initial introduction. In other words, her telling the other two boys about her being deaf would have been the first time this one had heard about it as well.

[stark]

The little girl’s voice buzzed in Ryutaro’s ear, but he couldn’t stop now. Not after he’d already gone and scrambled into this bullying situation head first. He tried to push the other teenager’s hands away, attempting to pin him to the floor or something. However, he succeeded only in getting himself punched in the face. As Ryu flung his head back in pain, the bully took the opportunity to kick the orange-clothed boy off of him.

He pressed his hand against his eye where he’d been hit, watching with one eye open as kid number two helped kid number one back onto his feet. Were they done already? So, they could only pick on others when it was two on one then, apparently two on two was too fair for them.

Suddenly, Gaia was helping half-blind Ryutaro to his feet. Well... he wasn’t really half blind or anything, but his eye was still being covered by his hand because the pain was still there. It would probably bruise, but it was worth it, that blow the other kid took was going to bruise too.

Ooohhh... As the other two walked away, the blonde took a moment to think about the girl’s explanation. He had certainly missed that earlier in class, come to think of it, he had missed any introductions she might have given upon joining their class. The only reason he had noticed her in the first place was due to the fact that she stood out like a sore thumb in their classroom!

”Yeaaah I know,” he had to stop doing that. Reckless behavior tended to get him into all kinds of scrapes. They were actually pretty lucky that those two older guys had decided to just walk away from this. ”I’m fine though. How about you? Those guys didn’t break your hearing... things, did they?” Ryu lowered his hand from his eye and examined the white-haired girl a bit more.

”They look more like headphones to me.”

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[gaia]

Still upset from having just watched a fight so close to having her hearing aids taken from her, Gaia was quick to turn her attention to the boy who had just rushed in. She was concerned about the fact that he had been punched and was still holding his hand over his eye, even while speaking to her. She simply couldn't seem to allow the focus to stay on her when there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

He was asking her about her hearing aids while she was worrying about his eye. The thought itself made little sense to her at first, but she figured that if she reassured him about herself being alright, that he might do the same. Her response was a simple nod at first before she thought of exactly what to say. "They're alright, they were just tossed around a bit." was her verbal reply. "It's not like they were thrown on the ground or anything - they're pretty sturdy."

"Are you alright?" she asked him. "We should get you some ice from the nurse so that doesn't swell up." Reaching up, she tried to gently coerce him into removing his hand so that she could see how bad it was already. Being as she always had to be careful, she knew full well how quickly bruises and swelling would show up, and that ones on the face would definitely get some negative attention in school.

[stark]

Well, it had only been a punch, he was fine. Besides, Ryutaro couldn't be bothered to go see the nurse of his own accord just now anyway. He might get in trouble for fighting in the hallways for one, and he was certain the nurse has had a vendetta against him ever since he faked puking up blood in her office...

However, and more importantly, missing lunch was not an option, and if they went to see the nurse they would be doing just that! "No no, it's totally okay like this. See? No ice needed," he pointed a finger at his eye, the area around it already beginning to take on a blackish blue hue.

"Besides, you look so pale you must be hungry for lunch," the boy stated in a matter-of-fact sort of tone. Come to think of it, it might have just been her white hair that was making her skin appear as though it was too light as well, but if his argument worked then what did it matter.

[gaia]

Gaia was perplexed at the boy as he showed her his eye and tried to convince her that he didn't need anything. It was already starting to bruise, which meant that it would most likely be pretty swollen and dark by the time the school day was over. "But it's already starting to bruise. If you don't take care of it now it'll take longer to heal." she tried to plead with him. However, the boy quickly changed the subject back to her as well as to what her mind had been on before all of this had even started.

"I - uh," she started a bit hesitantly and completely baffled as far as to how she should react to the sudden change of subject. Even though her stomach agreed with what he had said, her mind was telling her to get some ice on that black eye of his. However, since she wasn't exactly one to argue, she quickly gave in to the double team of the boy and her growling stomach.

With a small sigh, signaling her defeat, she succumbed to his suggestion about getting lunch. "I am hungry, but that's not the reason I'm pale." she said in a very soft tone. "I was born this way, and that includes not only the way I look, but the fact that I get sick easily, and can't hear very well on my own." She was feeling extremely shy about explaining all of this, even though she hadn't been earlier this morning when explaining to her new class.

After a while of standing there with her mind going fuzzy, she caught a whiff of something from the cafeteria which sent her mind back into lunch mode. Embarrassed at having gone shy so suddenly, she tried to make up for it by speaking up. "W-well, uh, my name's Gaia." she said, holding out one of her small and fragile hands as a greeting to the boy who had just pretty much rescued her from a pair of bullies. "Would it be alright if I sat with you at lunch. I haven't had the chance to talk to anyone just yet, and sitting alone doesn't seem like something I'd like to do."