//------------------------------// // Thursday // Story: Ç ® υ § Η Ξ Ð // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// Vinyl didn't get much sleep the previous night. That's what usually happens when an evening is spent crying quietly into the shadows of a cold, empty bedroom. Even when Vinyl found the strength to play some music, it was all remixes of Cher's Do You Believe In Life After Love. Needless to say, her sighs were subdued, melodic things befitting a Don Bleuth film. The girl stared blearily down at her pastel sneakers, meandering left and right as she shuffled the length of the hallway between the school entrance and her homeroom class. Eternities lingered between each blink, and each epoch was laced with the purple sheen and velvety texture of an impossible angel never realized. Once in a while, the errant sounds of opening and shutting lockers roused Vinyl from her zombified shuffle. She glanced up, seeing a thin forest of wandering students. Bodies lingered at hallway junctions, murmuring in early-morning conversation that started nowhere and never found an ending. At one point, Vinyl's nostrils tickled with a peculiarly flowery scent. She didn't look up at first, assuming that some pathetic portion of her loathesome subconscious had simply fabricated the perfume. It wasn't until her peripheral vision was scraped with the tell-tale silhouette of a cello case that her heart managed a leap—or at least half-a-leap. She ignored the sensation, however, passing the last row of lockers and taking a sharp left. She stepped into her homeroom class, disastrously early. The only other person in there was the teacher. A smile flickered across the room, but it was merely a gesture of habit. Vinyl waved to the walls, to the gray overcast sky beyond the windows. It was turning out to be a very wet week. Grow a spine and drown me already. The sky stayed put. So—if only to spite the hazy morning—Vinyl slumped down to her seat and folded her arms. Headphones rattled around her ears, but all they did was play a hypnotic, continuous buzz of unfettered red noise. Closing her eyes, Vinyl submerged herself in the binaural oblivion. Her mind conjured up shapes and colors that most definitely did not depict a teenager in shades riding across a luminescent grid on a lightcycle and heroically rescuing a smokey-haired damsel in a glowing leotard from awkwardly-casted British stage actors with deadly frisbee discs. Gosh darn it. Can't even get her out of my head when I want to. Just can't... can't focus... can't— "Vinyl?" A voice from above. Like a chorus dripping out of heaven. "Vinyl Scratch... is it?" Vinyl's eyes flew open. A violet gaze pierced through her shades. Soft shoulders shifted the weight of a cello case. A velvety bow tie nearly materialized—only to be drowned out by a dramatic blood rush to Vinyl's sleepy head. When the color and shapes re-focused, Vinyl found herself staring up into the very soft, very dainty, very real smile of a certain accented instrumentalist. Don't... don't move... just don't... "Uhm... hi!" A soft hand waved even softer. "So terribly sorry to bother you..." Visual acuity... based on movement... if you don't move then you don't pee all over the floor and curl up and die... oh Gods... oh Gods she knows my name??? "But you're in Miss Heddon's Third Period Algebra class, yes?" Oh Gods Oh Gods Oh Gods Oh Gods she knows she knows she knows she— Vinyl gulped a desert down her throat, then nodded. "Oh! Brilliant!" Octavia leaned forward on the tips of her polished black Mary Janes. "I... uhm... I-I seem to have lost my notes on the bus ride to school. That or I must have forgotten to pack them this morning. Bloody daft, I know." She cleared her super feather-soft delicate throat and produced through a smile: "Might I kindly borrow yours for half-a-day? I promise that I'll return them to you before Third Period!" Vinyl was glad to be wearing shades. If anyone saw how badly her eyes were bugging out, they'd be calling the paramedics. Yes. Oh Gods, yes, you can kindly boink me... I-I mean borrow me... I-I-I mean borrow my panties... papers... noteboobs... crudsicles! Vinyl shook the dumb off in a vigorous, vigorous nod. Her fingers were already flying like tomahawk missiles into her backpack, practically ripping the algebra notes in question out of her math folder. She held the sheets out in a holy sacrifice, grinning stupidly from ear to ear. "Ta!" Octavia gently received the offering. Gray fingers came within a rapturous inch of pale digits, stroking graphite variables and integers in between. "You're a life-saver, love! I won't forget this!" I wank fornicate this either... I mean... ohmigoshohmigoshomigosh. I can almost smell her hair conditioner from here. Oh god send me to Hell in a purse, so long as it's filled with her voice—like silk handkerchiefs laced in kerosene. And just like that, she was gone in a smokey blur. All that was left in her wake was mirth and mirrors, and Vinyl rattled between the glass panes in a smiling stupor, solving for x, cuddling both the evens and the odds. She knows my name. She knows my name she knows my name she knows my naaaaaaaaaaame... A squeaking sound limped from Vinyl's lips. In a daze, she decided to celebrate. Her finger scraped across her music player, turning on Animal Collective and committing ecstatic seppuku with the sonic ambrosia.