Chapter Text
1.
JJ sat behind her brown curls for four days before he reached out and touched them just to get her attention, not needing to look at her baby blue backpack to know her name, where it was neatly written in cursive.
He never addressed people by their names unless he was confident enough in believing his brain had, for once, properly stored them away, it was his personal rule. Too many times he had drawn a blank when talking to someone and needed their name so he just didn’t use them. And the only reason the name tags didn’t work was because he paid no attention to them in the first two weeks where everyone was told to make one and place it at the front of their desks.
His teacher, whom he also forgot the name of nearly everyday for a month, had encouraged the name tags as a way of getting to know his classmates. The concept was great, but JJ felt he had more important things to worry about before memorizing people’s names -- especially since he would likely forget them anyways.
He remembered John B’s name because he usually remembered weird things, and to him, the name was a little weird. He also remembered things like John B’s favorite color and the look on his teacher's face when he made an excuse on why his homework wasn’t done. He remembered that Wednesday’s meant the cafeteria had pizza and that his dad’s truck smelled differently from all the other vehicles he’s been in, which as a kid, was a little hard to breathe in sometimes.
It felt like he would never forget scraping his knees climbing on trees with John B, trying to get to the tallest point, or sitting on the couch while watching his mother draw as the TV quietly played a cartoon, or all the blood rushing to his head as he hung upside down on the monkey bars at school.
Trying to help his dad with the truck before the man yelled towards the house, asking why she wasn’t watching him.
Eating a whole bag of tortilla chips as he sat beside John B, watching an old movie from Big John’s collection that they didn’t care to learn the name of.
The day John B brought a can of soda to school, with an extra one for him, which did his supposedly short attention span no favors.
Getting to help Big John with his truck, handing him tools and watching the man point to different parts, saying their names and their functions.
The night he and his parents sat and ate dinner, leftovers from the previous night, where he decided he would use his bedroom light less so maybe his dad wouldn’t yell about the bills so much.
Hearing Pope give his presentation in his social studies class, not being able to really follow it but wanting to know how he memorized his whole speech.
The sound of the small radio as he and John B sat around the fire, listening intently to Big John’s stories, trying to suppress their laughs at his casual seamless jokes.
The feel of the cool material of the hammock as he and John B laid under the tree till the stars came out and the fire died down to coals.
Getting in the way between his parents fighting and feeling the sting on his cheek for the rest of the night.
His teacher giving him a slip to take home for a signature after explaining he’d be failing math if he didn’t keep up with his homework and tests.
It was all pretty useless information that used to make him question what his brain deemed worth remembering. Eventually he stopped trying to figure it out as it only frustrated him. Even if teachers would scold him when asked to summarize the previous night's reading, where he would honestly tell them he didn’t remember, which of course came off as him not reading it at all. Even if his dad thought he was ignoring him when he asked him to do something simply because he never remembered to do it. Even if it meant forgetting where he put his belongings, then having to ask his mother if she knew where they were -- which of course she always did.
He accepted he just had no control over it.
He regularly forgot to take notes and set reminders, along with setting his alarm and utilizing any form of calendar. He forgot when homework assignments were due and how to get home sometimes. He forgot to close his window at night and lock the door when he got home from school. He never remembered to wash his plates or close the box of cereal or to clean his room.
And of course, he was unspeakably lousy with names.
Except for hers, which stuck like glue the second he heard her introduce herself to the class.
He didn’t have to try and commit it to memory because it resided there comfortably on its own. He didn’t have to look at her sparkly name tag during the first two weeks she had it placed at the front of her desk because even though she added a new doodle to it every couple of days that he enjoyed looking at, it would’ve been redundant.
He knew he couldn’t forget Kiara’s name even if he wanted to, which he really didn’t.
Her smile was also practically ingrained in his brain. Shamelessly, of course.
When he ranted about people who took too long in food lines at the beach, she smiled. When she found out she could finally tie her hook on her line for the first time, she smiled. As she laid in the hammock in the back of the Chateau, with nothing relatively exciting going on besides Pope and John B trying to see who could walk on their hands the farthest, she smiled.
Yeah, Kiara’s smile was hard to forget.
Right before class started, JJ found himself dragging his feet as he walked back towards the teachers desk, having a good feeling on what she wanted. The woman had wasted no time in calling his name the very second he stepped foot into the classroom, knowing if she didn’t take advantage of his earliness he would somehow get out of the lovely little talks she had with him.
Usually he would walk in late or at the very least last minute, pack up early and leave with the bell so she wouldn’t get the chance.
Today, though, he evidently wasn’t so lucky.
“JJ, I’m sure you know what this is,” she carelessly tosses a red folder in front of him on top of her desk, cutting straight to the point in her high, slightly testy voice.
JJ very quickly learned she was a no bullshit teacher, one where if he chose to mess with, it would be a challenge to get away with it. He had to wonder why she ever chose a profession that involved kids. That didn’t, however, stop him from testing her patience.
He kept his eyes lowered on the folder, interlocking his fingers around the back of his neck, giving a nod. “Yup.”
“I was hoping, since we spent a good few days discussing them. So I can assume you’re aware that these need signatures?”
JJ automatically responds with his usual excuses, giving an innocent shrug. “Yeah, but both my parents work late and by the time I see them, I don’t really remember to ask them.”
It wasn’t completely a lie.
“I understand, JJ, you’ve told me this but it’s really important you have at least one of them sign these. It’s one of the ways I make sure you’re getting the support you need, especially as we’re getting to the end of the semester-- “
“I am, Mrs. Haines,” he says easily, reaching for the folder before she taps on it, looking at him seriously.
“Please take these home today and have them look over what’s inside. Can you do that?”
He silently nods, grabbing the folder once again before walking towards his desk a little quicker than necessary. Teacher talks always grossed him out. He dropped into his seat and opened the folder, glancing over the top paper, which was a progress report, explaining his grade and why she wanted to meet with his parents to ensure he passes. He can’t help but scoff at how sloppy the handwriting was, coming from the same teacher who gave him a hard time on his own writing.
Bringing the folder home the first time was a mistake. Every time after, it ended up staying at the bottom of his bag or in the trash because hearing his name being screamed was something that made breathing a little hard for him. Being the reason for their fights was the last thing he ever wanted and he knew not to want too much.
Only a few minutes pass by, crawl by, more like, before JJ was practically vibrating with energy, stuck at a desk when all he wanted to do was go outside and run and surf with John B and do anything but sit and quietly listen to a lesson he could not bring himself to care about to save his life so he did what he did best and he talked.
He talked when he wasn’t supposed to, he talked when he was but about things that were painfully left field and irrelevant well over most of the time. He talked to people he didn’t know the names of and people who seemed to wish he’d just leave them alone -- which sort of encouraged him, deep down, to keep talking.
Because he was stuck at his desk, though, Kiara, who had the sacred pleasure of sitting directly in front of him, always ended up being his default victim and he could never tell whether she enjoyed it or not.
He was practically hugging his desk as he blinked at her brown curls, a sight he was so accustomed to seeing ever since they got their seating chart at the beginning of the year, yet still made him feel just a bit lighter whenever he got a glimpse in the hallway or on the playground.
He finally gave in and leaned forward to poke her, more out of habit than anything else.
Kiara swivels around in her seat, knowing the drill of his need for attention but still holding an accusatory expression.
“What?”
“You cut your hair,” he says simply, chin laying on his desk so he’s peering up at her. Her soft brown eyes search his face as she listlessly taps her pencil on his desk.
“I did.”
“Has anyone told you how cute it is yet?”
She bites her lip for half a second as if to hide a smile but the pink on her cheeks betrays her a bit. JJ keeps an innocent look on his face, grabbing her pencil from her hand and twirling it between his fingers.
“Why? Do you wanna be the first or something?” she asks a little shyly, raising her eyebrows, although she wasn’t exactly naive to his flirty behaviour.
He just shrugs. “I wouldn’t hate it.”
She lets out a quiet giggle. “Does my dad count?”
JJ furrows his eyebrows humorously, glancing up at the front of the classroom for a second, watching a page flip through the projector.
“Isn’t he obligated to say that kinda stuff?”
“Aren’t friends obligated, too?”
He shakes his head confidently, twisting one of his rings as soon as she says friends. “Nah, I’m your annoying classmate who also happens to be your friend and is trying to give you a compliment, which you are making very difficult to do.”
“You’re not annoying,” she says, suddenly sounding offended.
“Kiara. Is there a problem back there?” Mrs. Haines’ voice calls out impatiently. Kiara turns around in her chair a little reluctantly after the tiniest eye roll, shaking her head and pretending to go back to reading something on her desk.
JJ doesn’t bother hiding the fact that he too was interrupting class but the teacher doesn’t seem to care enough to pay it any more mind. Mrs. Haines continues lecturing which JJ instantly tunes out before Kiara turns in her chair again, whispering to him.
“You have your moments, but you’re not annoying.”
She goes back to her paper before getting called out again, likely oblivious to how JJ was suddenly rethinking everything he knew about people’s opinions of him. But then JJ pushes the thought away, knowing better than to think Kiara’s opinion of him reflected what strangers thought simply because she wasn’t a stranger.
Gratefully, ecstatically, fervently not a stranger.
He pulls himself forward with a grin, whispering just loud enough so she could hear. “I was the first, wasn’t I?”
She lifts her head from its bowed position but doesn’t seem to want to give him the satisfaction, blocking the smile she couldn’t quite hide with her hand and pretending to find something at the front of the classroom far more interesting.
JJ runs his hand through his hair while unable to wipe the smile from his face as he continues to twirl her pencil between his fingers, trying to focus on the worksheet in front of him. He hears her dig through her desk before pulling out another pencil, letting him keep hers, knowing how often he lost his.
He continued to poke her nearly everyday, convincing himself he really did need a pencil because he lost his and not that he wanted to just talk to her, to see her smile or get that look she got right before commenting on how he needed to organize his desk, then maybe he would find all his pencils that seemed to magically disappear.
Once Kiara got a new backpack, a pink one instead of the baby blue she had been carrying around for almost a year even with its gaping tear in the side, he found himself looking for pink in the hallway, just like how his unpredictable brain told him to look for shoulder length curls instead of the length that cascaded past her elbows.
He would find her at her locker and occasionally return said pencils, other times he would just ask her about her day and she would excitedly tell him about the little things that made her happy -- which were also things he efficiently stashed away unconsciously -- and stubbornly not hold back in telling him about the things that made her upset.
JJ liked talking to her, and almost relied on it some days without even realizing it. He looked forward to seeing her everyday, more than he would admit out loud because she was a girl and he was a boy and girls and boys weren’t really friends at their age but for some reason, that didn’t stop her from sitting at their table at lunch or partnering up with him in class.
He was grateful he wasn’t forced to realize how much he relied on seeing her that often, and when he was, he forced himself in Pope and John B’s company, even though they weren’t stuck in a seat next to him.
--
JJ eventually takes the folder home and instead of hiding it or throwing it away, he leaves it out on the kitchen counter where his dad had told him to leave it when he asked if he could sign it. Whether he got to go to school tomorrow with it signed or not didn’t really matter anymore -- it was having it acknowledged without ending in a screaming match that JJ thought should count for something.
It was a good day, one where he fell asleep pretty quickly, not having to listen to his parents yell half a dozen feet away from his bedroom door.
A couple of hours later he was sitting beside his mother in the hospital after he found his dad unconscious on the living room floor. He was still in his pajamas, an overgrown shirt his dad had given him and some pants in case he left his window open again, adding to his mother’s drawing, playing the game he was well familiar with.
She had pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from her purse and started with a line before handing him the pen. He then added to the line with his own before passing it back to her, occasionally rubbing his tired eyes. They took silent turns as the commotion of the emergency room surrounded them for a while before a nurse walked up to them and spoke to his mother, saying something about alcohol poisoning, using words JJ didn’t really understand.
JJ continued with his line and offered her the paper once the nurse finally left, but she only shook her head with closed eyes and pinched her nose, something he had seen her do more and more often. He asked her if they were going to go home soon because he wasn’t like John B -- pulling all-nighters with his friend had taught him he wasn’t that good at staying up in the middle of the night. Instead of answering she told him to take a nap, which sounded nice, except he didn’t really like the idea of sleeping when he didn’t know if his dad was going to be okay. So he continued drawing, leaning into his mothers side out of a mix of comfort and exhaustion, waiting until the nurse came back out.
The next day was one of the days in which he was forced to realize his reliance on Kiara. JJ was at his desk uncharacteristically early, still rubbing sleep from his eyes as the bell rang, signaling the beginning of class.
The empty chair in front of him did nothing good for his mood. He waited until the teacher came around and asked why he wasn’t working on his worksheet and he had simply told her it was because he didn’t have a pencil, that he had forgotten it.
After she had given him one, throughout the rest of class he kept glancing at the door, wondering if she just overslept.
In the back of his head, JJ thought about if making Kiara laugh would lift his mood -- it was pretty contagious after all. But he never got to find out because he goes home that day without seeing her, going to John B’s to distract himself with an evening of surfing.
The day Kiara came back to school, from a sickness apparently, he lightly kicked her under the table, earning an offended raise of her eyebrows. He tells her it’s because he didn’t get to steal her food when she was gone, not because the disappointment of not getting to see her face nearly caused him to skip school altogether.
At that she shoved her whole lunch bag towards him, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Go ahead. I’m not hungry anyways.”
“What?” he asked, reaching for a small container of blueberries but giving her a genuinely concerned look. “You gotta eat something, you’re all shaky and shit-- “
“Good, maybe I’ll pass out and get to go home to prove to my mom that I wasn’t ready to come to school yet.”
“Ooh, so rebellious,” he smirks, getting cut off by a quick kick to his shin and the small tupperware of blueberries pulled from his hands. Kiara pops a berry in her mouth and smiles at him regardless, leaving him stumbling into that weird feeling he got whenever he saw it.
“Missed you too,” he mutters ruefully, slumping over the table and leaning his head on his palm, not missing the way she rolls her eyes with a smirk of her own.
“JJ, you like bologna, right?” Pope asks from his spot beside him, picking through his lunch bag and dropping a sandwich to the side.
JJ looks at it with a hint of judgement because who likes bologna? but then remembers he didn’t eat breakfast, which technically leaves him no option but to take it, as he also forgot to pack a lunch of his own.
He picks it up and unwraps it from the plastic when Pope turns to him with a curious expression.
“Oh, that reminds me, did you ever ask Mrs. Haines about your tests?”
JJ grimaces at the sandwich. “How the fuck does bologna remind you of my test taking, Pope?”
“It doesn’t matter. Did you?”
“Dude, stop chastising me,” JJ gives a pseudo offended shrug.
“What? I am not chastising you-- “
“Then why do I feel chastised all of a sudden?”
Pope doesn’t let him get away so easily. “I don’t know, that’s your problem-- “
“You’re making it my problem by chastising me-- “ JJ quips harmlessly, before John B jerks his head up from his overdue homework and drops his pencil a little aggressively, running both hands through his hair in irritation.
“Agh! Would you guys stop saying chastise! Some of us can’t work with idiots bantering in our ear-- “
“You’re the only one working, John B,” Kiara mumbles next to him, reaching for something in her backpack.
“Hey buddy, you know you’re supposed to have that done before class, right? That’s kinda how that works,” JJ twirls his finger towards John B’s homework, receiving a look.
“Really? I never knew that, thanks for the heads up, smartass.”
JJ grins at his friend playing along and at the familiarity his friends brought him. “Anytime bro. You know I got your back.”
John B tilts his head, speaking in a sentimental voice. “That’s so sweet, oh my God, JJ.”
“Wait, what’s wrong with JJ’s tests?” Kiara asks, glancing up at Pope from where she was examining the inside of her thermos.
“He can’t read them-- “
“Pfft,” JJ cuts him off, taking a big bite out of his sandwich and talking with his mouth full. “I can read them, Pope, jeesh-- “
“But you told me-- “
“Dude, I didn’t say I was illiterate, that never came outta my mouth. It’s just,“ he takes a moment chewing his food, taking his time in swallowing and clearing his throat. “The words get all weird sometimes.”
Kiara squints at him curiously. “They get weird? Weird, like how?”
John B perks up. “Yo, you think it’s your brain's way of telling you the public education system is tragically failing you and everything it stands for?”
JJ snaps and points at him. “Yes.”
Kiara shrugs in agreement, sipping the steaming liquid from her thermos. “Well, that’s not exactly wrong.”
“He’s got dyslexia,” Pope admits, bringing them back on topic.
JJ dismisses him. “I don’t even know what that is, why are you trying to label me-- “
“Bro, I’ve told you what it is and you definitely have it. You say the letters move around the page as you’re reading them, making it hard to read and concentrate, which is a shared symptom amongst people who have it,” Pope explains. “You know, one in five people struggle with it, it’s not that uncommon.”
“Symptoms,” JJ mutters, not exactly shutting him down like he wanted to because he might regretfully be onto something. JJ has always had trouble reading, whether it be his assigned reading, brochures at the local tourist traps, or things as simple as street signs. He hated reading only because it took him so long and usually ended with him getting a headache from trying to piece together nonsense words that refused to unscramble themselves.
If he didn’t completely give up on his tests and quizzes, he was usually the last one working on them and when he was given notes to copy down, he only wrote down as much as he could get before the teacher moved on, which wasn’t a lot. ‘
He finishes his sandwich as Pope and Kiara talk about dyslexia, both of them seeming to be surprisingly educated on the subject, talking about how certain fonts work better than others and how the background color plays into all of it.
JJ looks over at John B, who was watching the two with a lost expression, shrugging when JJ raises his eyebrows at him.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t ask her, then,” Pope concludes before JJ gives a hesitant shake of his head.
“I forget to,” he defends honestly, not really knowing why he didn’t make a bigger effort towards doing so. His grades were slipping and he was pretty positive there was a correlation. But then again, he never liked asking for handouts or special treatment and having his work printed out just for him definitely counted as such.
Kiara is quiet for a moment, lost in thought. She sets her thermos down and glances around the table, reaching over John B’s homework to his pile of writing utensils, which consisted of a dried up highlighter, a few chewed up pencils and a couple of pens.
JJ starts opening his carton of milk when she holds her hand out in front of him, holding a black pen with the other.
“Here, lemme see your hand.”
He hesitantly obliges, watching her uncap the pen and hold his hand flat, writing something in his palm.
“Ooh, I’ve always wanted a hand tattoo.”
“Doesn’t that give you ink poisoning or some shit?” John B asks, tilting his head trying to read what she was writing.
“The likelihood of ink poisoning from writing on your hand is literally microscopic, JB, that’s a myth,” Pope deadpans.
“Haven’t you guys ever written on your skin before?” Kiara mumbles, exasperated. JJ smiles a little, noticing for the first time the writing on her own hands, both palms and on the back of her left hand, along with some on her right wrist peeking out under her stringed and beaded bracelets.
“It kinda tickles,” he murmurs, tilting his head to make out the writing on her right wrist, which showed call aunt cynthia.
“Who’s aunt cynthia?”
“Huh?” Kiara finishes her writing and caps the pen, glancing down at the writing on her wrist. “Oh, why’re you bein’ so nosy, Maybank?”
He grins now, scoffing amused. “I’m not bein’ nosy! It’s on your wrist for the whole world to see, Kie, it’s too tempting to look at it.”
“That’s a nosy person's excuse, you perv,” she jokes.
“Why do you need to call her?” he asks just to annoy her, looking down at his hand now and read her neat print. Ask about tests. It’s a real thing.
“Why do you need to know?” Kiara shoots back but with hardly any accusation this time.
“Because he’s nosy,” John B supplies, now focused back on his homework, scribbling out some numbers in an equation.
JJ throws the ball of plastic wrap from his sandwich at him, barely denting his focus.
Kiara smiles, tossing the pen across his paper back into his pile, making him flinch backwards. “I wrote it down because I keep forgetting to call her and thank her for my birthday money. Writing it down and seeing it helps me remember things.”
JJ pauses, taken aback by her looking out for him like that. It’s sweet, so something she would do, he realizes fondly, but he’s not good with being outwardly sentimental so instead he bows his head towards her hands.
“You forget a lot.”
Pope winces. “Dude, you forget a lot!”
Kiara holds her hands out in front of her as if just now realizing how marked up they were, examining them with an amused glint in her eyes.
“Maybe it’ll help you,” she says a little shyly, “Maybe not. I think you should try it, though.”
“Gotcha,” he nods just as the bell rings and everyone starts gathering their belongings. She pats him on the back as she passes him on her way out, shaking him out of his daze.
It was nice, thinking he had an excuse to remember weird things now, especially if they were written in her handwriting on his hand.