High-rise buildings and signs covered the entirety of my view. I yawned in boredom from the extremely long wait on the subway. I tried really hard to stay awake, but the long commute to school didn’t help with my sleep much. It took me 5 hours to commute to school and 5 hours back.
My family was below the average poverty line which made going to school difficult. I put in a lot of effort to be able to go to school. My grandparents weren’t too keen on letting me go to school. It wasn’t cost efficient. I spent crazy amounts of money on transportation and the commute seriously damages my health.
Transportation wasn’t the only issue; the uniform was expensive, and the textbooks and workbooks weren’t much different. The fact that I’m poor makes me a target for egotistical teenagers who can’t get enough of beating other kids down to feel better about themselves. I have so many reasons to complain, but I really didn’t want to give up getting an education.
I’m already 18 years old and it’s senior year. There would be no point in dropping out at this point. I’ve struggled through this for 2 full years, and I only have 1 more year left.
I lived with my grandparents in the countryside. My grandparents owned a farm, and the farm was pretty pathetic. The neighbors had several hundreds of acres of land, but our family only had 1 acre of land.
It took me an hour to bike to the closest bus station. After waiting an extremely long time for the bus to get there, I had to ride the bus for another hour. Once I get off the bus, I had to walk for another 30 minutes to the subway station and ride the subway for the next 2 hours. This barely gives me enough time to get through the gates at school.
I’m currently on this 2-hour long subway ride to school. I had to wake up at 3am just to go to school. I wonder how I’m still alive. I’ve been running on only 4 hours of sleep a day. I’m seriously considering skipping school tomorrow just to catch up on my sleep. That would definitely be a bad idea. I could imagine Mr. Yamada with his cane and his menacing glare.
There were many incidents when I got hit by that cane of his. He despised kids that were late to school or broke any rules. He especially had it out for me because I was the poorest student in the entire school. I was also late to school majority of the time because of my long commute. I couldn’t help it that the buses didn’t start arriving till 5am.
While I was nearly dozing off on the way to school, I noticed an elderly lady heading towards my direction. I leapt out of my seat to offer it to the kind old lady. It wasn’t polite to make an older person stand in the subway. Before the doors could shut, there were a whole wave of teenagers in various uniforms that began to cram into the subway.
I was smushed by the various backpacks with keychains on them. I looked down at my hand and noticed a gash on my hand because of the keychain. The owner of the backpack and keychain belonged to a teenage girl that fit the ‘popular’ category. Although she was heading to school, she had a full face of makeup caked onto her face. Her hair was curled fashionably, and her lips were drawn to look larger than its appearance.
I couldn’t understand the fad that was going around these days. Why did girls want to have big lips? She never wanted to have bigger lips, so she wouldn’t know. The popular girl didn’t seem too interested that her backpack was a weapon that left a gash on my hand. I glared at her furiously for a few moments before I felt the eyes of her posse on me. I diverted my attention in the other direction to avoid their stares.
Luckily for me, I was invisible to them. They didn’t care about their surroundings very much. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they were extremely loud during the whole ride to school. They wore the same uniform as her so they must be from the same school.
The curly haired girl had a friend with short hair and her bangs were tied up with a pastel pink ribbon. The short haired girl screamed in a high pitch voice. It shocked the living h*ll out of me. She shouted, “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Risa, look at this!” She pointed at her phone. I couldn’t see the phone from this angle, and I didn’t want to seem like I was snooping.
I decided to just wait out to see what they were talking about. The curly haired girl named Risa read the contents on the phone like her life depended on it. Once she read the last line, she screamed back at her friend, “Aiko, when did this happen? I’m always reading about Akira, and this is the first time I’ve heard of this. Is he really going to be attending our school?”
The short haired girl named Aiko happily leapt around to express her excitement. They both began screaming in unison. With both of their screams, I felt my eardrums tingle. I think my eardrums may have exploded. I put my index finger on both ears to block out their screams. That didn’t help at all. Their screams exceeded the volume of a lead singer in a screamo band.
I was relieved of my torment when an office worker shouted at them, “Shut up!” The girls squealed in fright when the office worker reprimanded them for being too loud. The girls ran away from the office worker and got a hold of one of the boys on the other end of the subway.
The girls explained their situation and pointed towards me and the office worker that yelled at them. The boy didn’t look like a boy. His body was massive, and the muscles made his uniform look too tight. His sleeves looked like they were going to rip. The boy looked like a body builder that was at least 25 years old.
The office worker became frantic when he noticed that he may have gotten himself into trouble. The boy looked like a delinquent that could easily smash his head open if he wanted. To his dismay, the delinquent boy grabbed the back of his suit to prevent him from running away.
He grinned at the office worker, “Just because you run away doesn’t mean that I won’t catch you.” The office worker shivered. I didn’t want to be involved in the fighting, so I made my way through the cramped subway to the other end. From where I stood, I could see that the office worker was getting beat up.
No matter how messed up it was, I couldn’t step in. If I wanted to be the hero, I could easily be one by stepping up to the bullies. My gut told me to help him, but I knew the consequences very well. I tried to play the hero once during my freshmen year and now I’m the least liked person in school. I was bullied by nearly everyone at school and that was because I chose to play the hero on the very first day.
Once my stop arrived, the man was beaten to a pulp and the girls were praising their boyfriends. I felt sick with guilt seeing the bruises and abrasions on the man’s face. If only I wasn’t such a loser, I’d definitely stand up to the bullies.
Once the doors slid open and announced the next destination, I chose to get off on this stop rather than the next. I usually got off on the next stop, but I didn’t want to be in that subway any longer. I’d rather risk being late to school than have to sit in the same subway as them.
It would be a matter of time before the bullies would recognize that she was there and direct their hatred towards her. She was lucky to get away without being noticed. She was famous at her school for being the loser senior that no one liked.
Once the subway shut its doors and sped away, I quickly gathered my things and ran up the stairs. There were many people that got off on this stop and I found it difficult to make it up the stairs. Could they walk any slower?
I shoved through the throng of people and made my way to the street. Once I felt pavement, I dashed to school with my life on the line. As I was approaching my school, the bell rang to notify that the cutline for students to enter the main school gates was over. The gates slammed shut and I still had to run up the hill to make it.
I have no choice but to leap the fence. I walked around the school building to the back. I found a spot that was inconspicuous and through my bag over the fence. I found a ridge on the fence that allowed my foot to rest for me to jump over. I was used to jumping the fence, so this was no problem.
I flew through the air and landed on a bunch of bushes. The gash on my hand throbbed in pain when the sharp branches cut through my already injured hand. I frowned at the blood that covered the palm of my hand. I reached into my bag and found a raggedy old handkerchief. I wrapped my hand with the handkerchief.
I was lucky enough to not get caught by Mr. Yamada. He was busy punishing the students that stood at the main gate with a disappointed expression. They were so close to making it to school, but they were just a few minutes late. Unfortunately for them, Mr. Yamada was waiting for them at the gate.
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