Thread Roulette - Ryu, Roxy, Abby

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An ex-cheerleader, a rebellious junior and a hypertastic sophomore. Write.

[Roxy Rivera]

What a wonderful morning, Roxy couldn't help but think as she walked through the park. Always in trouble, Roxy had been grounded the first part of the weekend for getting caught skipping her last few classes on Friday afternoon. But her parents had said that her punishment would be over if she went to church with them, and Roxy had obliged, mostly to get out of the house. Roxy, didn't particularly like church and usually avoided going, but she still got dragged there from time to time. The 15 year old wasn't completely sure what she believed in, but either way she didn't think that church was the way to worship. But her belief's aside, now she was allowed outside to do as she pleased, so she'd decided to walk back rather than drive with her parents.

She'd of course have to go home at some point as she was still dressed in her church clothes which were fancier than her regular clothes, but she sort of hoped she'd find something entertaining to amuse her before that. She was wearing a floral skirt paired with a white blouse and yellow ballet flats. Her long dark hair was down, held back only by a headband, making the girl look sweeter than usually. Normally Roxy's wardrobe was colorful, daring and bold. But today the only intense colors came from some of the roses that decorated her skirt as well as the yellow shoes. But wardrobe wasn't exactly something that was at the front of Roxy's mind.

She continued her stroll through the park, letting her mind wander, when her eyes focused on Abby Winchester. Abby had been a cheerleader last year and was now one of the coaches. Roxy wanted to avoid her. Cheerleading actually wasn't the worst thing in the world to Roxy...it actually seemed like it could be fun getting to scream and shout and most importantly dance. But most of the cheerleaders were so full of themselves, not to mention the prank last year. Roxy had enraged most of the girls last year when she and Sawyer had pretended to haunt the locker room after their practice one day. Some of the girls had been more angry than others and Roxy wasn't sure where Abby stood on the whole matter, but she'd long decided that avoidance of all of them was probably the best answer.

However, as Roxy's brain processed all this, she of course let her mind drift as she walked until she found herself almost walking into and face to face with Abby. Eek!! "Sorry! Gotta run!" she said, her voice coming out loud and boisterously as she turned on her heel and started off in the other direction, inadvertently walking directly into someone else!! Ahhh!!!

"Sorry! Sorry!" she exclaimed to the boy she'd just walked into.

[Ryu Kobayashi]

He’d been minding his own business... Head down (normal stance for the surly teen) and eyes locked on the pavement a few inches ahead of his boots. As such Ryu was taken completely by surprise when he collided with another person. His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked up, poised to yell some kind of angry curse and neatly ignoring the fact that he hadn’t really been looking where he was going either. The girl’s instant apology - accompanied by a friendly enough smile - halted any outburst in its tracks.

He released his grip on the girl’s arms and he quickly regained his balance. “No problem,” he replied. “Partly my fault anyway.”

“You are in a hurry?” he went on to ask. Might as well try and strike up some kind of a conversation... It wasn’t like he had anything else filling his day!

[Roxy Rivera]

Roxy was relieved when the boy didn't seem to be cross with her. She had knocked into him kind of quickly in her haste but that was Roxy, never paying attention to the whole picture. She always seemed focused on whatever seemed important, quickly forgetting the other things around her. She could be spacey like that.

He even took part of the blame which Roxy thought was awfully kind of him as she was certain that all of it should be bestowed upon him. She'd turned to quickly in her haste and had bustled right on into him. Oh well, he was nice about it and Roxy offered him a smile.

"Oh, not really," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the girl for a moment. "I just--well, I kind of pulled a prank of the cheerleaders at school last year," she admitted, "That girl over there was one of them...and I well...don't want to be yelled at," she admitted, looking up at the boy, hoping he was still nice given her actual reason for hurrying. He didn't seem like a cheerleader type but you never knew. Lots of guys seemed to like the idea of cheerleaders after all.

[Ryu Kobayashi]

She seemed friendly enough in spite of almost knocking him flat on his back. Ryu could forgive her for that courtesy of her smile. It was a nice one... not that he offered the girl more than a fleeting flashed one in response. That was more than most people got from the normally unsociable youth.

“A prank?” He frowned slightly. “Like a joke?” The girl nodded and Ryu looked over at the other girl who had just been mentioned. So she had been trying to avoid her? That was why she’d run into Ryu in her haste. It made more sense now.

“Then we should maybe move on and out of her sight,” he suggested. “But tell me something... what is a cheerleader...?”

He listened closely as the girl explained. “Ah yeah...” he said when she’d finished. “I have seen some of your western cheering. We have a different form of it in my country. We call it 'oendan’. Instead of the dancing that is seen here it is more about making a lot of noise with taiko drums, blowing horns, waving flags and banners, and yelling through plastic aaaah... I am not sure what they are called.” He shaped a megaphone with his hands in the air.

“ So tell me your name, prankster?” he asked with another all-too-brief smile. “I am Ryu. Kobayashi Ryu.”

[Roxy Rivera]

"Yes a joke," Roxy said with a nod of her head. "hmmm out of sight," she murmured with another fleeting glance to Abby. She didn't seem to be coming over...at least not yet, "I think I'm okay..." she said trailing off and hoping this was the truth.

It didn't take Roxy long to realize that he was not from around her. This was something Roxy was somewhat used to. While she'd grown up in the City of Angels as it was sometimes called, although Roxy didn't see anything very angelic about it, she knew all to well that this was somewhat rare. It seemed that more people relocated to Los Angeles than were brought up there. Even a good number people in school hadn't been born in LA. Although Ryu of course was rarer than most that relocated to the second largest city in the country as he was actually from outside the United States. Although she supposed if she was from another country relocated to the US that LA would be on her short list of places to go, New York being the first. Although anyone looking for warm weather would certainly choose LA as the coldest it got to was maybe 50 and even that was rather rare.

The city was known for mild weather, usually not to hot in the summer (at least not on the coast where Roxy lived) and not to cold in the summer. Random 80 degree heatwaves in December were normal and rain was scarce. The weather in New York was much more varied with true seasons and a lot more precipitation in-between.

"Cheerleading," she repeated when he asked what it was. His words were accented and he clearly wasn't familiar with all of the customs here yet. "You know they stand on the field at football games in short skirts and dance and jump up and down and yell," she said, mimicking the motions as she said them. She probably looked somewhat spastic to anyone who couldn't hear her explanations as she twirled and shook her hips and threw her arms in the air as she jumped and yelled "Go Team!" But then again, Roxy had never been one to embarrass easily and was accustomed to making somewhat of a spectacle of herself.

"Oh yeah," she said about the megaphone although the word escaped her for a moment too. "Those plastic yelly things...shouters...megaphone!" she said. "That's it. It's not really a word I use much," she explained. "I totally spaced on it for a second," she said with a laugh. "That sounds pretty cool though," she reasoned. "Here the only drums belong to the marching band. It would probably be cool if the cheerleaders and marching band did some sort of collaboration...you know something together," she said, not offending him by explaining her use of the word collaboration but just guessing he wouldn't know it since he seemed to still be learning some English words. "But the cheerleaders here tend to be really full of themselves," Roxy consoled, "and they would think they were to good to fraternize...hang out with the marching band kids. If the cheerleaders were nicer I might be one because I like to dance, but I'd rather dance on my own that hang out with a bunch of mean girls," she blabbed on. Sometimes when Roxy got started talking she found it hard to stop.

"Ko-bah-yah-shee Ryu," she said trying to replicate the way he said his name. "It's a good thing you go by Ryu. I really like your name. It's interesting and sounds cool but its hard for me to say," she admitted. "I'm Roxy," she said, "Roxy Rivera," she added since she'd always liked the way her name sounded because of the two R's. "But it's Roxy. Do you like go to school around here?" she asked. "I'm at Gould Silver--its actually not too far from this park," she remarked, knowing it was the closest high school to the spot she was at present. She wasn't sure how old Ryu was but he looked high school age. He certainly wasn't younger than high school and she'd be surprised if he was older although she supposed it was possible since she didn't know the teaching traditions in other countries and for all she knew people started college at 14 in whatever country he was from, although she doubted anyone would start college that young anywhere...

[Ryu Kobayashi]

Ryu committed the word ‘megaphone’ into his mentally-stored language database, knowing it would almost instantly be forgotten. It wasn’t exactly a word he knew he’d need all that often and his brain storage space was somewhat restricted he’d knew he’d do better to save it for the more important words.

He was struggling to keep up with the girl’s words. Not only did she speak quickly but her accent seemed to slur her sentences into one mass of unintelligible mass of syllables. It wasn’t her fault, of course, and his grasp of English was slowly improving. Still, it was hard to understand everything she was saying. Luckily she explained one of the longer words as he hadn’t a clue what coll... callob... corrob... the words for doing something together had meant.

“Just Ryu is fine,” he told her. Roxy Rivera. At least her name didn’t contain any L’s as he struggled with those! “Good to meet you... Roxy,” he added. Repeating her name out loud would help him to remember it!

“And yes, I go to the same school as you. I am in junior grade. What year are you in?” He wouldn’t even try to guess at her age! “So tell me what the prank was that she played? Was it that bad to see you have to run from her even this long afterwards?” Then again, had Roxy NOT wanted to run then she wouldn’t have collided with him and he would have missed the chance of talking with a real person rather than his mirrored reflection back home!

[Roxy Rivera]

If Roxy had any idea how confusing she was being she might have slowed down her speech...well try to at least. Roxy tended to have a quick tongue often conversing rather rapidly whether the person was listening or not. She'd been a terribly talkative child and not having any siblings to her name she'd learned to entertain herself, often learning to enjoy the sound of her own voice. Needless to say, Roxy had been one of those kids who liked to talk to hear her own voice rather than make conversation. Sure, with age she was improving, actually listening to others instead of constantly going on about this and that, but it was certainly easy to slip back into her old ways, especially when presented with someone who remained rather quiet such as Ryu.

"It's good to meet you too," she said with a nod, "and you go to my school, that's pretty neat, randomly running, quite literally in fact, into someone I go to school with. Although I guess like I mentioned we are rather near school at the moment so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, even if it is the weekend," she explained. "I'm a sophomore. I started there last year as a freshmen because I've been in LA for well, a long time," she stated, meaning always.

"The prank...right," she said, "well, it angered some more than others," Roxy admitted, "and I'm really not sure where Abby Winchester stood on the whole thing so I figured it was best to avoid her until I knew for sure. She graduated now anyway but now she's working as a coach for the cheerleaders," Roxy went on.

"But right, the prank. My friend Sawyer came up with it. See last year there were two schools Gould and Silver. I went to Gould and Sawyer went to Silver so I didn't even know here. But there were all these problems with Silver so they ended up combining us," she went on, now quite off track from her original thought.

"Last year it was terribly crowded but its much nicer this year because they spent the summer renovating and they put on a big extension so now there is room for all of us which I like much better than being all crammed together. But I suppose it wasn't the worst thing last year because I met Sawyer - and Levi who is my other friend, who had both gone to Silver. But Levi wasn't part of the prank, just Sawyer - right, the prank. She thought it would be funny to haunt the girls locker room so we snuck in just as the girls were finishing up practice. I painting things the ghost wanted to say on the all with red paint and Sawyer did this thing were she got the showers to all run at once even though no one was in them. I'm still not sure how she did it but she's great with stuff like that," Roxy continued.

"But when we ran off I didn't realize that they paint bucket was still open and I trailed red paint all through the school so in the end they were able to follow the trail right to us!" Roxy said dramatically. "We had detention for the rest of the year and one of the girls stuck dirty magazines in our lockers and then made sure they got searched in front of the whole school as revenge. It was so embarrassing, the principal opened my locker and all these naked pictures I never even saw before started pointing out. At first I wasn't sure who had done it but it wasn't hard to figure out," Roxy said shaking her head.

"Shelby, the cheerleader behind it never got in trouble though. It was clear to the principal that the pictures had been planted there so neither Sawyer or I got in trouble for that but there was no proof to pin it on Shelby," she said with a sigh. "The entire thing was just crazy! I haven't pulled any pranks since," she admitted, "but I don't know that I'd be opposed to it if something came up. They are rather fun and I'm awfully good at getting myself into trouble anyway so I suppose there is no use in even trying to stay out of it," Roxy finally declared as she ended her long ramblings without even a second thought to how long she'd gone on for.

[Ryu Kobayashi]

Ryu blinked a few times - an in rapid succession - as Roxy continued to speak. By the time his brain had finished playing catch up and managed to translate one sentence she'd already moved on to her next one.

He didn't stand a chance. Ryu's eyes began to glaze...

He managed to glean the cheerleader's name. Abby. And that she was now a teacher. Coach. Was there a difference? Ryu wasn't sure. The friends names. Sawyer. Levi. Damn those 'L' names! What had she just said? Ryu mentally back-pedalled as Roxy told him about a can of red paint. Haunting the girls' locker room? He snorted a laugh at that thought. Red paint. Concentrate!

"I see... " he said when she finished her tale. "At least, I think I do. And you still claim those magazines weren't yours?" he asked. Straight of face but yet with a gleam of amusement in his dark eyes. Ryu held up a hand to forestall her imminent protest. "I am joking," he quickly added. She didn't seem the type to read books like that! "It would be a shame to stop playing such tricks just because this one turned out badly," Ryu said with a wry lift of one shoulder. "And I am sure we could think up something to do that wouldn't result in our detention. Perhaps your friend Sawyer might like to take part..." Hopefully she spoke more slowly than Roxy, though, as he'd never manage to maintain pace with the pair of them!

"And I agree... If a person is destined to find trouble then there is no point in trying to steer out of its path. Something I know for myself all too well!"

He glanced over at the girl. She looked vaguely familiar. "Does she have a sister at school? She has a similar look to a girl I met last night. Jamie... I don't know her last name though. That said, all you westerners look alike to me," he added with a rare grin. He was, of course, still kidding. Well... for the most part!

[Roxy Rivera]

Roxy hardly noticed that the boy wasn't following. She'd gotten so wrapped up in telling her tale that she'd completely forgotten that English wasn't his first language and that the aught to slow down and perhaps pause more. But whatever parts he hadn't understood were lost on Roxy as his questions seemed to suggest he'd caught the entire thing.

"Definitely not," Roxy said with a laugh about the magazines, although she was pretty sure he was kidding anyway. "It was so funny, I guess Sawyer had never seen anything like it before and she ran down the hall screaming and covering her eyes!" Roxy said laughing as she'd remembered. Sawyer was pretty innocent, Roxy supposed. Most people thought the same of Roxy, she was sure, mostly because she concealed the rebellious things she'd done in the past, even from her good friends.

He confirmed that he was joking and went on to relish at the idea of more pranks. "Oh, so you're a prankster then," Roxy said. "I'll have to keep you in mind - it seems that we always have something stirring up between Sawyer and my friends Thad and Ezzie," she went on. "We've all been good so far this year but there has only been one week of school. I'm sure by homecoming we'll have something completely new thought up even though no one has given one thought to it yet," she said. "Where are you from?" she asked, "Did you do any cool tricks there?" she asked wondering if perhaps pranks were different in other countries.

She smiled when he mentioned he often got in trouble too. She couldn't help but be glad she'd run into him and wondered if perhaps this was the beginning of a new friend. Roxy was a very social girl and loved meeting new people and making new friends. After all, the more people she knew the less any one person had to listen to all of her talking.

"Hmm," Roxy said, trying to remember. "I think she does have a sister, Jamie," she said. "I don't really know either of them very well, but you sort of get to know people through school even if you don't actually know them. School's funny like that. Like I know the names of people that I've never even spoken to. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is like this or if its just me, like maybe I know who Jamie or Abby is by sight but maybe they have no idea who I am. It's one of those things that you really never know. I mean I like to consider myself pretty friendly, I'll talk to anyone really, but a lot of people aren't like that. A lot of people just like to stick with their own little cliques and never branch out. It's really too bad too. I don't like when people are closed minded like that but you can't exactly tell people what to do. I know I hate when people try and tell me what to do...if anything, it makes me want to do the opposite. I'm like that with my parents even though I try not to be. That's another reason I'm always getting into trouble," she said with a shake of her head and she finished her new rant, although this one was not quite as long as her story had been.