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[SUP][SUB][H3]F E L I X   B R O O K S[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][sup][color=silver]— Classes[/color][/sup][/INDENT][/URL]
[INDENT][INDENT]“Felix?”

Felix’s eyes broke away from the clouds, adjusting to see an older guy in business-casual attire: khaki pants, dress shoes, plaid shirt buttoned-up except for the top two; he was confused. Felix’s expression remained unchanged, blank and desolate, despite the greeting, [color=lightblue]“Hey, Paul.”[/color]

Paul narrowed his eyes, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Felix’s eyes moved away from Paul’s, wandering aimlessly as he gathered his disorganized thoughts, [color=lightblue]“You’re right. I guess I should be.”[/color] The abruptness of Paul’s approach came two hours after Felix sat down and became lost in the moving cars and the coffee he was nursing. He thought now was a better time as any to finally make his appearance at school, figuring any assembly to kick off the year would be successfully avoided.

“You all right?” Paul questioned as Felix stood from his seat, properly clearing his table and placing his dishes in a bus bucket.

Felix gave him a simple nod.

“Hey,” Paul started. Felix turned to face him, “I’m sorry, bud, but I can’t really give you as many hours as I was over the summer. Now that summer’s over, business is a bit slower. I’ll try to getcha in as much as I can, but maybe you should use this time to focus on your school! I mean, it should come first and all.”

Felix ignored the awkwardness of his boss and paid closer attention to the dent Paul created in Felix’s plan for the school year. Working meant he would have an excuse to not be home, but now that he was working less hours, he would need to find something else to fill his time after school and on the weekends. Felix shrugged, [color=lightblue]“It’s fine. I’ll see you later, then.”[/color] Paul said his goodbyes just before Felix turned and went out the door.

The short walk to school was filled with thinking of new hobbies or activities to pick up to fill his time more. In no way was Felix intending to actually spend his free time on his academics or extracurriculars—he renounced any motivation to continue excelling in school, so he kept it at the bare minimum to pass his classes. He thought about picking up a new job, but a lot of places wouldn’t allow a 16-year-old to work a second job on top of school. Then he thought about the MMA gym that was a sport separate from the high school that he could use as an outlet, but something about starting at the bottom discouraged him from joining. Felix was limited on his options in this area, but he knew he would find something eventually.

Upon entering school, Felix was swarmed by the emotions, but they lingered outside of his barrier of mundane perplexity. He seemed to subdue the emotions well enough, but he didn’t know how he’d fare once he was actually faced with his peers. Felix stopped at the office first to grab his schedule and properly address his tardiness, proceeding to his predetermined classes. The end of the prior year, Felix barely managed to pass his classes, so he stooped down to much simpler classes for the sake of simplicity and ease.

And with ease and monotony did they pass, just as Felix had preferred it. Many of Felix’s enemies were placed in different or higher level classes, so he was relieved to not have to come across them except for the few times he’d pass them in the halls. He surprised himself at how well he was able to keep to himself and become somewhat unnoticed. The blaring music in his earbuds did a great job at keeping himself tastefully disconnected from his surroundings.

While Felix spent most of his day trying to figure out something to do after school instead of going home, he was presented with a new issue as he entered his last class of the day. While most of the time he’d enter a class and go straight to the back desks, the musty classroom that was dubbed ‘Social Conscious Program’ only offered couches as seating options. This meant being uncomfortably close to whomever he would sit next to. He maneuvered his way to the furthest possible spot from the teacher that was later introduced as Mr. Lehrer, but preferred to be called Jonas by this set of students.

Felix properly detached himself from his surroundings once more, only one earbud in to have ambient music in the background, though he paid closer attention to the music rather than the setting he was in. From his peripheral, he could see students coming into the class, but his gaze was fixated on the floor just in front of his toes, his right knee jumping up and down habitually, causing the couch to shake a bit. The sound of Jonas’ voice didn’t seem to engage Felix whatsoever, so he only put pieces of his sentences together to try and form the subject he was talking about. And introductions weren’t Felix’s forte, so he refused to speak unless absolutely necessary. He would keep himself as separate as possible to save from actually having to talk.
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