Hothead:
I try my best. I really do try my best. I shut my eyes. I cover my mouth. I even bite my tongue to the point where I think it's about to fall off, but I just can't hold it in much longer. My mouth is forced open while water starts to flow out from my eyes.
"Hothead," Jump slowly starts. "Are you...crying?"
Instead of answering Jump, I slam my hands down on the table and jump up.
"Yessss," I cry out. Falling back onto my chair, I start to cry. I hide my face in my arms and start crying into them. "I hate this! Argh! Jump! I hate this so, so freaking much!"
I raise my head and look at Jump with teary eyes.
"There is soo much homework! It's never-ending. I feel like I've been sitting here for years! No, decades! No, centuries! What year is it? How old are we? Did we just skip by the best years of our short lives? Are we already old? Do we have no teeth and white hairs?"
"These are not the best years of my life," Alodia says, flipping through her textbooks.
I turn to Alodia. As far as I can tell, she hasn't moved in the last few centuries.
"How," I ask. "How are you so young?"
Finally, Alodia moves. She stops looking at her textbook and looks at me. She shakes her head as she looks at me.
"I really need to find a new team."
"Speaking of team," Jump says, also looking up and around. "Where is our team leader?"
I wipe the water from my eyes and look around too.
"Yeahhh," I say, getting up. "Where is Renee? How long does it take to get us snacks?"
"Snacks," Alodia repeats. "Renee isn't getting us snacks."
"He's not!"
Alodai rolls her eyes.
"Yellow Sun Academy is the most prestigious fighter academy in the world," Alodia states.
I look at Jump. Jump looks at me. We both shrug our shoulders.
"So," I ask after a moment of silence.
Again, Alodia rolls her eyes but this time, she throws a sigh in there.
"Yellow Sun Academy is the most prestigious fighter academy in the world," Alodia repeats. "They teach and train young students like us to be the most excellent and skilled fighters."
"So," I ask after another moment of silence.
This time, Alodia doesn't roll her eyes or sigh but I think her face turns red slightly.
"Yellow Sun Academy is the---" Alodia says before I take over.
"Most prestigious fighter in the world. Blah, blah, blah. Is this point to all of this?"
Alodia's skin turns even more red.
"My point is," Alodia says, grinding her teeth together, "that because Yellow Sun Academy is the most prestigious fighter academy in the world, they do not have snacks here. They want us to be in the best possible health."
"Yellow Sun Academy doesn't have snacks," I yell. "Ahhh!"
As I stand up again and yell, I hear knocking coming from our bedroom door. A few seconds later, Renee walks in.
"What's going on," Renee asks. "I can hear you screaming from the end of the hallway."
"Apparently, Sulien can't handle all of this homework without snacks," Alodia answers.
"Please tell me you have something. Something. Anything at all! I'm soo hungry!"
"Uuuhhh," Renee moans before Alodia interrupts him.
"Wait, did you actually find snacks? That's impossible."
"Okay," Jump says. She jumps up and looks at Alodia and me. "That's enough. You two, be quiet."
Alodia and I open our mouths to say something but before we can, Jump claps her hands and zips her lips.
"Be quiet," she says.
"Now, listen to me," Renee says, all eyes turning to him. "All of you. First thing first. Thank you, Eimear for calming these two down."
Alodia and I look at Renee before looking at each other and then back at Renee.
"You're welcome," Jump says. "But next time, I get to leave. You can stay here."
"Fine," Renee says with a nod before going. "Anyway, it had been a week since the school year started and I can see we're still not really getting along with one another. I have an idea."
"Ask Headmaster Noah to switch team members," Alodia suggests.
"Yes," I say, pointing a finger at Alodia. "I totally agree! Let's do it! Switch Alodia for Shocker! Jump, are you in?"
"No," Renee yells. "No! There will be no switching of team members. Like it or not, in this case, not, we are a team and we have to learn to get along. I mean, come on. The four of us are sharing one room. We have to get along. I don't want to stay up any more nights listening to you two argue with each other."
Renee points at Alodia and me.
"He snores," Alodia screams, pointing at me.
"We all snore," I yell back.
"I don't snore! I am a lady."
"Don't you mean pompous," I whisper. Despite my whispering, Alodia must have still heard me. She loses it and lunges at me. If it wasn't for Renee and Jump, Alodia would be on top of me strangling me with her bare hands.
"Not helping," Jump growls, looking at me while holding Alodia back. I cross my arms and turn my head. Despite this, I can still feel Jump's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head.
"I'm going to hate this," I think. I sigh and turn around. Uncrossing my arms, I look at Alodia.
"I'm sorry," I say, looking Alodia in the eyes. "I didn't mean to call you pompous."
Alodia seems to have calmed down after I apologized. I nod my head at Alodia and sit back down in the chair. Letting out a long breath, my breath blowing up my hair, I start to read the textbook.
Alodia, whose face is slowly returning to its original pale-white tone, also sits back down. She sits across from me and reads her textbook. Jump and Renee look at us before sitting down themselves. The four of us stay quiet for a while, reading our textbooks, before Alodia breaks the silence.
"You know," Alodia says, "Yellow Sun Academy may not have any snacks but I think we can still get something to eat at the dining hall. If it's not too late."
"Awesome," I say, quickly slapping my textbook close. "Food and an excuse to stop studying. Let's go!"
I don't even wait for the other. I pick up my sword, put on my jacket, and run out of our room. By the time the rest of the team gets to the dining room, I'm already eating spaghetti and breadsticks.
"Shush," Alodia says, taking a seat across from me. "Could've left something for us."
Using a half-eaten breadstick, I point to the basket of breadsticks.
"Help yourself," I say.
"No thanks. My Dad tells me not to eat after dinner. It's healthier."
"Whatever," I say, taking another bite. Despite a mouthful of tasty bread, I still shove in a forkful of spaghetti.
"Easy," Renee yells, "You're going to choke."
"No, he's not," Jump says. "Hothead does this a lot."
"He does," Alodia asks.
"Yeah. Whenever Hothead doesn't want to study, he'll use any excuse he can to get out of it. Snack break. Bathroom break. Crying break."
"Crying break?"
Hearing this, I start to choke. Hitting my chest, forcing the food down, I look at Jump.
"There was no crying break," I say, "No such thing. And even if there was, I wouldn't use something like that."
Jump smiles and shakes her head. Meanwhile, Alodia looks at me.
"Hey," she says, grabbing the sides of my head. Pulling me in close, she makes it so I'm looking right at her. "Listen to me, because I am only going to say this once. This is Yellow Sun Academy."
"The most prestigious fighter in the world," I say with a mouthful of pasta and bread. As I talk, I accidentally split food in Alodia's face. Thankfully, she doesn't rip my head off. Instead, she just wipes the food scraps off her face.
"My point is that we have to work a little harder to stay here. No, we have to work a lot harder to stay here at Yellow Sun. That means you can't use whatever excuse you want to stop reading. Okay? So finish that fast and let's go back. We still have a whole chapter to get through before going to sleep."
Alodia crosses her arms and stares at me. Making me uncomfortable, I finish my late-night snack, and the four of us return to our room to study.