Survival Of The Fittest

He didn't even look at her when he spoke. He just stared down at his book, speech thrown in the vague direction of Rea.

There was definitely something off about this guy. The way he walked into the library, stood there staring at each of the girls individually for what seemed to her minutes, and then sat down by himself, opening a book and becoming lost in it.

Of course, the boy wasn't the strangest occurrence in the library in the last ten minutes, as a severely damaged chair lying on the floor would show. The two girls on one of the other tables had apparently had a fight, a large one by the looks of things.

The darker-haired one with the glasses had become enraged by the other, dramatically throwing a chair to the ground in a fit of rage.

Rea had no idea why, though. All she saw happen was the other girl clasp the dark-haired one by the arm and walk off. Which seemingly enraged her. Maybe there was something wrong with her? After all, this was the same girl who had theatrically pointed at her, accusing her of being overly loud in the library, so maybe she wasn't fully herself today?

From what she'd heard around the school, a rumoured drug habit might have something to do with it. But what did she know, she wasn't an accomplished neurosurgeon like her mother (yet).

But that was all over now, and she probably didn't want to know anyway. And besides, the boy had spoken to her (and proven exceptionally good hearing in the process).

"Fine, what animal would you be then?" She replied to him. "And who are you, anyway, and what were you doing staring at us when you walked in?"
Rea had decided to get information about the boy from the boy himself, suddenly disregarding the option to have a quiet conversation in the library and substituting it with a rather louder conversation across the library.

This, coupled with the somewhat loud noise she made waking up made her wonder how long it would be before she was kicked out. Even if she was, though, it wasn't much of a problem.

There were plenty more places in the school to sleep.

Everything, once again, happened so fast. Fiyori's breakdown, the animal talk, the falling behind on her studies. She needed to concentrate on something else than people. At the same time, however, she didn't want to be rude to Rea until this man - boy, really - came along. Rea looked at Jeremy suspiciously, like he was some kind of hyena creeping through the jungle.

Wait a second, did hyenas lived in the jungle? In the Lion King, they lived in some sort of plain or something. Anyway, Jeremy seemed to have alerted Rea's sixth sense, which was guessing what animal they were best represented by. Dorothy didn't want to take part in the "what animal are you" buzzfeed-like type of discussion, he shad other things to do.

"Hey, I'll let you mingle together, I need to go the bathroom and then get something to eat. See you soon Rea and, um, you."

She packed up her stuff, making sure everything was inside of it. Cellphone, books, pencil case, friendship bracelets, everything was there! With that, she left the library.

(Dorothy Shelley wandered off into the abyss)

"For the record, I am an anglerfish."

((Asha Sur's here now.))

Familiarity's an annoyingly irrational concept. In the end, there's no real difference between one kinda comfortable, kinda padded library seat and another; with the obvious exception of the lonely chair in the middle of the floor that had died far from its brothers. Still, through simple happenstance, one table in particular had captured the essence of the library for Asha, all her memories shot from that particular angle. Arbitrary comfort was still comfort.

Today this table was occupied, and not being a spiteful jerk Asha normally would have just shrugged and found a different corner, but Jeremy and Rea were having a nice little conversation, voices echoing over the international borders that usually kept the library's inhabitants in their own neat little pods. The librarians didn't seem to give a shit and the place was nearly deserted anyway, so Asha figured there was no harm in joining in.

She leaned against Jeremy's table, facing Rea. "So, what are you nerds up to?"

Wow, the cover of this book didn't look nearly as good as the spine did. Just the giant block words of "me" and "you" from the spine put on the cover with the author's name on the bottom instead of the top. Why did he pick this out again? Oh right, the book was yellow and yellow was a colour he particularly happened to like. It was bright, lively, probably the opposite of him but it was something he was sorta attracted to. Platonically, of course. Kinda hard to have romantic feelings towards an inanimate object. Of course there were someone he remembered from a believe it or not book who if he remembered correctly tried to marry his playstation but that got denied. Jeremy wasn't sure whether the person was doing it ironically or not but if he wasn't then good for him? Love was love, of course. Maybe Jeremy would think that it was weird if one happened to love their inanimate objects but he wouldn't really judge much more than that, though.

Speaking of love and judging, did Rea think that Jeremy was a creep or something? Because he found that equal parts both annoying and humourous. Annoying because it meant that he had to become a part of the situation so that he could rectify Rea's misinterpretation (and because of the fact that he was accused of being a creep in the first place, which just kinda sucked for reasons that were pretty obvious), and humorous because wow, how delusional would you need to be to equate someone briefly looking at you as they entered the room to be them checking you out? It was kinda like those people on tumblr who equated looking at a person to sexual harassment except not as drastic, not as much social suicide for everyone involved and sexual harassment was actually something serious. Definitely more serious than this but still, kinda needed rectifying.

"Wolves are cool," he said, still not looking up from the book. "Also I was looking at everyone who was also in the room as I entered so I could get a grasp of the situation. I don't think that really carries an ulterior motive unless you think otherwise."

Colder than usual, but kinda unavoidable considering her questioning and the fact that she was actually getting on his nerves, a little bit. Hopefully she wouldn't jump on him again now.

Then Asha joined the conversation, leaning against Jeremy's table. She was pretty cool; kinda perky goth girl who was on Jeremy's "I haven't really talked to you that much but you seem interesting so ideally I'd like to talk to you more" list. This was ideally  not the best time for Jeremy to be able to talk to her more but if it helped him get out of the current situation with Rea then all the more reason to talk to her, he supposed.

"Hey Asha," he said, looking up from the book. "Mostly trying to read, although I wouldn't really mind a little company."

"I was just watching Fiyori completely lose it and storm off before you walked in," Answering the goth's question and gesturing to the fallen chair while doing so. The goth  had just strolled into the library and begun leaning on the boy's table before speaking.

According to the boy, he was just "looking at everyone else in the room", all of whom just happened to be girls. Ugh. She didn't have the energy to put up with horny teenagers right now; what she needed was sleep.

"Ask your boyfriend about it Ashley, or whatever your name is," She said, standing up from her chair. This place was too chaotic to rest in, from the pointing to the fight to Goliath strolling into the place and blatantly staring at her, it was fair to say (at least to her) the place wasn't exactly suitable for her at the moment.  Looking around, she located the exit and left the building, stretching as she passed the doors.

((Rea Adams, Continued in Morning Dew))

Asha's jovial mood was torpedoed by the parting shots Rea fired off before leaving the library. "Fuck, man, what's her problem?" Asha muttered to Jeremy as she sank down into the chair next to him, fuming. Normally she'd be more willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt, in case she had just been having a really bad day or something, but come on, not giving enough of a shit to even pretend to care about Asha's real name was one of the most disrespectful things you could do to any person.

Her name meant something, goddammit! Sure, "hope" might not be the most original meaning in the world, but "Asha" was what her parents named her, was the only gift her father had lived to bestow upon her, and this bitch thought that it was funny to call her "Ashley"? And that wasn't even getting into the 6th-grade level mentality that led Rea to think that calling Jeremy Asha's boyfriend was a good insult! 'Oh no, someone cares enough about you to date you, help me I'm so bitter and alone!'

Ugh. This wasn't going anywhere productive. Asha sighed and turned to Jeremy. "Yeah, I came in here to do some work on my Calc homework, but now I'm too pissed to concentrate on it."

"I dunno!" Jeremy replied, shrugging in an exaggerated manner. Wait, would that come off as weird? Sometimes when he was feeling excited or otherwise felt strong emotions he tended to exaggerate and make his actions bigger which although would probably be normal for those he was around a lot would probably be weird to someone he wasn't really around a lot. See: Asha. To be fair it was kinda hard not to do it considering that he was currently feeling strong emotions right now. Happiness that Rea had finally left and annoyance that she still thought that he was a creep; because seriously, how dumb and/or deluded would you have to be to equate "i'm looking at everyone into the room as I enter to gauge who they are" to "I'm checking this girl out because I cannot control my hormones and she is turning me on right now. Mmmmmmmmm. Delicious." Seriously. He was actually surprised that the previous conversation happened.

"She just kinda went off at me for no reason. I think it's a popularity thing though. Haven't ever been in the in crowd myself but I could imagine it getting to someone's head and making them deluded enough to think that." Words. Normally he didn't speak that much outside of text mostly because his mouth couldn't really handle it but somehow that managed to come out. Probably a side effect from what just happened, like a brief adrenaline burst or something.

He then let Asha speak, and huh, she actually didn't really like being called Ashley that much, judging from what she said. Normally when someone messed up and called him Jeffrey (or Greg? He remembered one of his neighbours calling him Greg when he was like, five) he'd mostly shrug it off. He supposed that names had a lot more power on other people, kinda like how if he remembered correctly BB didn't really like being called being Barbara. Maybe Asha just really liked being called by her actual name or something? Admittedly it was kinda hard to understand but if Asha hated being called Ashley then he wasn't going to step in her way. Maybe if this somehow resulted in them becoming strong contacts and friends he'd call her it if he wanted to push her buttons. That was a potential future, though. This was now. Better not to think about what would likely not happen.

"Yeah," he replied. "Sorry about that. I wasn't the one who said those things but I guess my presence caused her to do that so I suppose I'm the next best thing."

"I dunno. In my experience, people tend to get popular just 'cause they're easy to get along with." Asha shrugged. "Maybe she's just a jerk." Normally she wouldn't be so willing to write people off, but seriously, screw Rea. Even if Jeremy had done something legit dickish (Asha didn't really know him well enough to judge the likelihood) that was no reason to snipe at people who had nothing to do with the situation. It was kinda weird how quick Jeremy was to heap blame on popularity, but Asha was just here for some friendly, light conversation before lunch ended, not to pick at how the dude viewed the world.

"Anyways, you don't need to apologize, dude." Though Asha did appreciate the thought. "What did you do wrong, exist? I mean, existing's obviously a mistake, but it's one we've all dedicated ourselves to making, so no use worrying about it. Life's too short and weird to take responsibility for anything except for what you, yourself, can control." Well, looked like it was the Asha philosophy hour regardless.

Jeremy chuckled, slightly.

"Deep," he replied. It was an attempt to be slightly jokey with what Asha just said (given that she didn't seem to be taking it too seriously herself) although he hoped that he didn't sound condescending given that he could totally see that response being a way to mock her and he couldn't really hear the tone of his voice from where he was. He probably didn't mostly because he felt super light about it from saying it but he still didn't really want himself to come off as that he was talking down to her. That really wasn't a way to make a new friend and given what had just happened before Asha appeared he kinda wanted to make a new friend to make up for what was apparently his new enemy.

"And yeah, despite what the movies told me would happen we have way more nice people sitting on the throne in our year." School popularity being a concept that Jeremy honestly didn't really care about as per most aspects of his life but still being something that Jeremy had to be aware of if he wanted to be a socially conscious human being. But seriously, he was expecting a Heather clique when he came here, not people like Josh or Emma. Even though the popular group did have some jerks in it (seriously did people actually like adelaide for something), there were enough considerably good/decent people to outwei- wait no upon further thinking about it there were probably more bad people than good. Or rather more annoying people than non-annoying. Better than anything the movies had told him but still noteworthy enough to bear correction.

"Actually it's probably more half half," he said. "Still better than I expected upon starting here, though."  

Okay, good, people didn't always get existential-despair based humor and things would always get kinda weird afterwards. One point in Jeremy's favor, right there.

Asha nodded as Jeremy calculated the school's niceness ratios. "Yeah, sounds about right. Once you get a big enough group of people, you're not gonna get away without having a few jerks in there, at least." There probably weren't any statistics available on what percentage of any given group acted like dicks, because if the technology to accurate do such a study existed the world would be an even more terrifying place than there already was and everyone'd probably have better things to be worrying about. Even the dicks.

"Definitely. Movies and TV really mess with your expectations, man. I mean, 'best years of our lives' my ass, we can't even drive for half of 'em," Asha said. Cynical, maybe, but she didn't think anyone under the age of 30 would seriously argue that high school was all it was cracked up to be. The sooner she got out, the better. Suddenly, Asha was all too aware of how close she was too graduation, and having to ultimately make a decision about what she wanted to do with her life afterwards. Art school or becoming a professional ballerina? Goddamn, man, you make a girl's biggest responsibilities in life not screwing up a test and then you pile that shit on her?

At least for the moment she had pleasant enough conversation to distract her from the crushing weight of the future.

"I can take not being able to drive. If I could I'd likely be in jail for mass vehicular manslaughter or something," because seriously, jesus christ cars were scary. Big, metal monsters which could basically kill anything they hit? No thanks. He totally understood that they were useful and that they were basically essential to survive in the modern world but if he could he'd try to stay away from even trying to learn how to control one of them. For the good of mankind. Plus, it felt cool to have people drive him around. Made him feel just that little extra bit regal, picking the songs from the CD that both people in the car had to listen to the whole time there. His mother hated Uncle Jonny, he didn't. Probably not his favourite song from Sam's Town (which depended on whether Exitlude counted as a song or not) but was pretty easily in his top three for the album.

"Admittedly I would say that these are the best years of my life though, by virtue of being better than the ones previous," Jeremy continued, going back to the topic at hand. Was he telling the truth there? Maybe, maybe not. He didn't think about it deeply enough to be able to get a comprehensive ranking of whether this would be better than middle school, but there were enough upsides to it for his jump to at least be partially justified. He was more socially advanced than he had ever been and he picked up some cool hobbies along the way (probably; only one he could think of right now was Survivor but there was definitely more than that), and considering the advancement of technology and Jeremy's opinions the games he had played were far better than the ones of previous years. Maybe there were downsides and there definitely were but nothing that was immediately glaring in his mind.

"Still though, nothing like what literally everyone's told me. Honestly I'm just waiting for college to take me away from here. Given the slow buildup of how good things are being that's likely to be even better."

And then the bell rang. Some sort of pop song. Jeremy wasn't really quite sure what it was because he wasn't a slave to the charts but he was pretty sure that there'd be some people who would know what it was. Probably Rea. Likely not Asha, given her aesthetic. Definitely not Jeremy. It didn't even sound that interesting or out of the norm for the most part, he wasn't really sure how something like this would get popular. Well, maybe he'd like it if he had heard something other than the same eight seconds of it in a different context he'd like it, but considering he only tended to hear the same eight seconds of it over and over again because that was the only segment of it that played for the bell he really couldn't pull himself into liking it.

Right now though, instead of irritation at the song or happiness that he'd finally go home or have a class he actually liked, the bell reeked of the bitter stench (?) of disappointment, as he was actually quite enjoying this conversation. If the bell went just that little bit later maybe it would have actually been worth having to have that conversation with Rea.

"Uugh," Jeremy said, standing up from his chair. "I gotta go to class now." He had um… English, that was right. Man, and it wasn't even a class he could even give himself the temptation to skip.

"Wanna talk about this later?"

He got something back, a couple words of affirmation. That was good. More than good, actually, but he tended to understate things when they were positive. He wasn't creative enough to think up of things like that.

"Awesome, I guess I'll see you later then." And with that, he waved before turning and walking out of the library.

So, all in all? Pretty good choice to go into the library! He figured out someone that he should avoid and he made a new friend on top of that. It's not going to be something he was going to regret in a few months time! Good job Jeremy, we're proud of you.

((Jeremy Frasier, continued in The Second Mistake))

((Jeremy Frasier also continued in I'm Not A Real Doctor, But They Call Me Dr. Worm))