of all the stars

c1

Ki Katashi did not want to go back to hell.

She stared it in the face, sun beaming down on her forehead, as she stood in front of the thick glass door.

Kennedy High School.

She wanted to stop at the door and go 'nope, not today,' turn around, get back in her Jeep, and go straight back home.

But unfortunately, her body prompted her to take those few steps forward, and by the time her fingers were pulling at the cold metal handle, she knew it was too late to turn back.

Ki smelt the familiar scent of every high school ever as she took those first few steps on to the ugly tile floor, handing the door off to the person walking behind her.

"Dude, did you see the new girl? She's super hot. And I hear she's trying out for cheer, maybe you can get her to go with you to homecoming this year..." A tall blonde in a varsity letterman jacket was saying into his squad of other football fuckeries.

Ki recognized him immediately as Taron Buchanan. An absolute asshole, grade-A fuckboy, and runnerback on the ever-so-small Kennedy Varsity Football Team.

She rolled her eyes as she passed them knowing that they weren't looking at her. Ki felt bad for who ever this new girl was though; who ever has the attention of the football team on the first day of school is going to turn up as a trophy on one of their arms eventually. The way they treated all these girls as prizes to be won, always disgusted Ki.

Is that the only thing women are good for? To be objectified by men?

Ki shook the thought out of her head and moved on to taking out the paper schedule that was folded into a neat little square, out of her back pocket.

Unfolding it, she made her way over to the hallway entrance she knew her first class to be in. It just so happened that her locker was right outside Mr. Aluric's room.

She sighed as she spotted her locker. Right in between two of the quietest girls she had ever met.

When Ki moved here as a freshman, she thought they looked like they needed a friend, so Ki hoped maybe they would form a little group of quiet people and get to know each other, but boy was she wrong.

Junior year and she still doesn't know jack shit about either of them. If she didn't know their names, they would be absolute strangers to her.

"Hey Ki! Wait up!" A familiar voice yelled from a few lockers over.

Ki never understood the term "wait up" either. Not like she was going that fast to begin with.

As she reached her locker, a familiar set of hands squeezed on her shoulders.

"Soooo... let me see your schedule... you can't keep it from me forever..." An excited whisper entered her ear.

Ki began to rotate the lock as a small smile crept on to her face.

There were very few times when Ki could express emotion, one of them was in the presence of her amazingly annoying, yet absolutely adoring best friend Acacia Krolic.

"Acacia, I don't want to be giddy middle schoolers sharing our schedules and screaming because we might get assigned seats across the room from each other in chemistry." Ki sighed, feeling the sass radiating off of the comment she just said.

"You're no fun Katashi." Acacia poked at Ki's right cheek with one of her dark purple nails.

Ki pulled open her locker, and slid the boring black backpack she carried with her off of her left shoulder.

Acacia leaned over on to the locker next to hers and shifted the binders she had in her left arm over to the right.

Ki looked down at the paper in her right hand and sighed.

"Fine, one look." She handed it over to Acacia, who returned a victorious smile.

"Hah." She snatched the paper out of Ki's hands.

While Acacia was busy looking over every detail of the confusing layout of her schedule, Ki emptied her few belongings into her locker.

She picked out the few school supplies she thought she would need until lunch. A black notebook that she had already started drawing in, a black pen, a red pen, the stupid summer reading book, and the only binder she owned for those useless papers that teachers hand out in the beginning of the year and never mention again.

"That's no fair! You got Mrs. Declan for English. I'm stuck with Hidsen!" Acacia whined, throwing her head back against the locker.

"Ew. I almost feel bad for you." Ki said shoving her backpack back as far as it could go into the dumb blue locker.

"Hey, but good news! We have the same lunch period! And we're in PE together, which means uh... ultimate dodgeball champions am I right?"

"Oh hell yeah!" Ki nodded, actually happy about that one small detail in her day.

She piled up all her supplies in her arm and then closed her bland little locker with a small 'click.'

"Too bad I'm not in your chem lab though. Having a boring lab partner sucks ass." Acacia sighed, handing out the schedule towards Ki.

Ki took the paper back, looking at the title of her first class.

Principles of American Democracy.

Well that's sounds boring.

"Yeah. Hopefully you'll find someone else to tolerate your bullshit." Ki smiled up at Acacia.

"Why am I even friends with you?" Acacia pursed her lips, making her purple lipstick stick out even more against her pale white skin.

"Because you love me." Ki shrugged sarcastically, starting to walk off.

"Yeah, you're right."

Acacia threw her arm around Ki's shoulders, pulling her down a little bit as they walked down the hallway.

Ki was glad at this point that she decided on pulling her shoulder length black hair into a ponytail this morning. If she hadn't, Acacia's arm would be trapping her hair and making it all staticky against her red leather jacket.

Looking back at today's forecast, and how this school had shit for air conditioning, Ki wasn't exactly sure how wearing a leather jacket on the first day was a wise move.

Feeling like a badass comes before sweating your ass off right?

I guess it does now. Ki internally sighed.

Maybe she should've listened to her brother this morning.

Beside her, Acacia gasped as if she had just remembered something really important.

"What?" Ki raised her eyebrows, glancing over at her best friend.

"I forgot my English notebook." Acacia stopped dead in her tracks, letting her arm fall off of Ki's shoulders. "Shit. Sorry Ki, I'll see you at lunch?"

"Yeah, hurry up you've got three minutes." Ki found herself laughing as she called after Acacia who was already half way down the hall.

Ki blew a strand of hair out of her face, as she conveniently turned to face the door of her first period class.

She could hear Mr. Aluric's voice telling kids where to sit through the open door. Pretty soon her name would be one of the many spoken off of his lips. The thought of how many times her name would get butchered today, made her shiver inside.

And yet again, Ki Katashi took a step inside the door to hell.