Pinefall High Dormitory – Kitchen
Morning Phase
07.09.1994
Overcast
A muted grunt reverberates in John’s closed mouth.
He does not care enough about this. He does not want to care about it, either. However, experience tells him otherwise, that not striving to preserve the homeostasis of his local social environment more often than not comes back to bite him like one of Ubon’s imaginary ticks. Therefore, he will have to (pretend to) care.
The problem: intervention is in no way guarantee that things will be better. After all, he is just John Dove. He does not have Mercedes West’s social adroitness. In the end, John Dove can only do his best.
“Hmm. I…I’m going to talk to myself for a while, ladies. Do feel free to ignore me and make fun of me afterwards.”
Following this…unusual statement, John does exactly as he has claimed.
“Hnn. The thing is, high schools are noisy places, as anybody would very well attest. High school students are noisy people. Explosive, thoughtless, insensate; I believe the word is, um, hormonal.”
His head sways from side to side, the small crease on his forehead expressing a degree of disagreement with the word.
“Young people are quick to conflict, and this is generally accepted as a good thing. As students, as young people, we are expected to learn how to handle social conflict in a controlled environment, where it will not have lasting consequences across society.”
The fingers of his left hand drum the table without rhythm or purpose. His eyes lack even more luster than the usual. His voice feels somewhat detached, as if he were truly alone in the room, talking to himself. Were it not for the pauses that imply conscious thought and assembly of sentences, it would feel like he is enunciating a well-prepared and memorized response.
“Furthermore, this school is special. Mister Oceandrop has gathered a special collection of students. So-called ‘problem children, unfit for society’.”
He sighs, the sound somehow expressing disapproval toward those specific terms.
“We are a group of outliers. Stronger passions, stronger ambitions, stronger attachments, stronger convictions, stronger beliefs, stronger foundations…”
An unnecessary, yet powerfully eloquent, pause. For the length of a sentence, John Dove’s eyes glint with the unmistakable luster of conviction.
“…stronger desires, stronger doubts.”
And then, just like that, it is over, and the young man seated in front of Sakura Tsukioka is the same morose person as ever.
“Conflict was inevitable. This group is entirely outside the median of humanity. If anything, our differences are even starker, so the clashes will be more…dramatic.”
Again, a frown appears on his face, brief as the blink of an eye.
The eyes that have been glancing at the empty bowl of cereal now look up in Sakura’s direction. They look not at her; they look at nothing, really.
“Conflict will happen, in some way or another. In front of our eyes, and well beyond our sight. The only thing we can do is confront aggressiveness with serenity. Meet hostility with prudence. Face opposition with acceptance. It will not be easy, but, well, the proper way of things is rarely the easy way.”
He sighs again. It sounds utterly fake, merely a means to fill a lull in the rant with any sort of sound or gesture. After that, John Dove’s eyes seem to regain awareness of his surroundings, pupils properly centered on Sakura’s face.
“It will not be easy, but I believe Sakura is the kind of person who can do it.” Again, he frowns. “Of course, the burden of peace in this little—“
—hollow—
“—world of twenty-nine people does not belong to Sakura Tsukioka alone.”
John concludes that pointlessly long and exaggerated rant with a brief chuckle.
“Then again, what do I know? I am not so reckless as to claim I have figured out Sakura Tsukioka in a mere two days.”
Some red colors his cheeks; the most embarrassment he will display at his awareness of the fact he could have just spoken the one next sentence, and thus spare everyone from that deluge of words.
“Long story short, there is no point in moping about the inevitable.”
Leaving those words floating idly in the air between them, John takes to the refrigerator for the orange juice, and to the cupboard for some sliced bread he saw earlier.
“Do either of you have siblings? Is this how it feels? Having twenty-eight really strange, really troublesome siblings?”
Blissfully unaware of how those words could be taken when coming from the likes of him, John shrugs lamely, trying and failing to feel pity towards himself.
“I do not have any siblings, so I honestly cannot tell.”