Warrior Cats: The Four Clans

It was as if Yoichi was completely unaware of the annoyance the people around him were causing to Common. He made no move to usher them away or move away from the swarm of girls slowly closing in, and it was only when he looked around the classroom, bored, did he catch Common's gaze. He smiled, a genuine one, although there was always a reason behind such smiles, and rarely a good one.

The teacher continued to talk, but it wasn't long before a vote was reached: The Phantom of the Opera. She seemed a little relieved that the more classic (and overdone ones) hadn't been reached (although somehow she suspected the fervor with with the Jap raised his hand had something to do with it).

"Alright," Mrs. Sianyde said, flipping a page over on her clipboard. "We've reached a majority vote for The Phantom of the Opera. Now, before we choose cast, I want you to keep this in mind: Although we won't be doing an actual opera, the main roles which include singing will be kept, so don't volunteer or nominate someone if you know the said person cannot sing, or is not willing to sing." There was a silence before role claims and nominations rang out loudly, and Sianyde merely stood there with a self-satisfied smile on her face as pandemonium rang out around her.

Yoichi couldn't exactly say that fourth period could even attempt to measure up to third, and he would have been a liar if he had said he had been paying much attention to anything their teacher had said; he was much too busy considering the... possibilities the play presented. Fourth seemed to last an eternity before the bell for lunch finally rung, and he all but flew out of his seat and then out the door as soon as the bell rung.

The Japanese was not oblivious to Common's distaste, and he smirked as he unfolded the hastily scrawled sheet of paper. Only freshly folded just under an hour ago, it was already worn along the crease, a testimony of how many times his slender fingers had danced across the lined paper.

Setting his backpack lightly on the floor, Yoichi resumed his perch upon one of the many tables and eyed his friends with laughter sparkling in his crystalline green eyes before he read the results aloud.

"Common: Christine Daaé." He glanced at his friend for a brief moment and met his eyes, smirking, before he returned to listing the names.

"Julia: Carlotta. Yoichi: Raoul...." He continued until the main character slots were filled, and folded up the abused piece of paper with a self satisfied smile. "The rest of the minor characters will be filled up later, when we have more time."

Yoichi blinked at him before carelessly tossing the sheet of paper at him. "Yep," he drawled, features unreadable.

The rest of lunch passed uneventfully, as did fifth, and before long the Japanese was sitting in his spot near the door in math, elbows on his desk and chin propped on his hands as he stared sightlessly at the white board, waiting for the tardy bell to ring so they could start sixth and end the too-long--albeit interesting--school day. He had things to do, places to be after school, and none of them involved Zeus Academy.

Crystalline green eyes darted up as soon as the lights started to move. He stood fluidly with the rest of the class. After the hesitation by the door, the class proceeded to move down the hallway slowly; unaffected by even a semblance of hurry, they drifted along, unhurried, just as they would cross a road even as the light turned red. Sometime after the second class in the building had passed them, Yoichi drifted back to where Common walked towards the back of the class.

He started to murmur something to his friend before a violent shock caused the Jap to stagger. Barely managing to keep his feet, he looked to the class and then to Common. The rest of the class seemed completely unaffected--or more accurately, unaware, of the sudden new shock. A second, much more powerful one followed not a half second after and Yoichi lost his balance, falling forward. However, even as he expected to hit the hard, unyielding tile floor, he felt nothing but empty space beneath his knees and hands. He had but a second to utter a single choice curse before oblivion, like the darkness he fell into, swallowed him.

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It seemed an eternity and yet a only second, but when Yoichi regained consciousness, he got the distinct feeling that the darkness had spit him out like an unwanted seed. Physically, he felt perfectly fine--there was no lingering sense of aches in the body except for a single pain in his back, but it was a mild discomfort. He had no headaches, either, but for some untold reason he felt unexplainably tired. It was an effort to prop himself up on his elbows, and it took a while for him to realize that the pain in his back was a sharp rock stabbing into his side.

Seconds later, he frowned. Mind working sluggishly, he finally questioned the placement of a rock. Hadn't he been in school just seconds--was it really only seconds?--ago...? Yoichi lay back down, and with his head on the dirt floor and his dark hair fanned around his head, he glanced to either side of him, wondering if he was alone in this strange hallucination-dream of his--for what else could it be?