Neal's smile arched up just a little bit more. Maybe, just maybe he was starting to like this town and Justin too. He took his schedule back and stared at it for a second before his mind caught up. "Thanks. Uh...you've been helpful," he mumbled before Justin moved to his own locker. He didn't know what else to say so he quickly turned away to read his locker combo. He didn't have much so he didn't need a locker now, but this was as good of a time as any to make sure the lock would open. It did and he shoved one of his notebooks in there. The rest of it was just easier to carry around in his backpack.

Finished with that, he dodged across the hall to the classroom. He took a seat in the back corner and pulled out a pen and his sketchbook. Doodling helped him to think. The idea of not being judged had his mind buzzing. People would talk no matter what if they knew. He didn't know if Justin was just saying it because he felt obliged to, but the words comforted Neal. He did want to believe that some people were just essentially nice.

He slipped his sketchbook into his backpack rather than leaving it in his locker. Tossing the battered old bag onto his shoulder, he followed Neal into the classroom they would be sharing and wandered to the back. He'd had this room and this teacher last year, and was glad to be back in a familiar environment. The sight, the smell, the half-light that made the room just comfortable enough on the eyes, it was all so familiar. He settled into his seat and put his bag on the floor beside him---a perk of sitting in the back, since no one came back to trip over his bag in the middle of the walkway. Looking Neal's way, Justin smiled a little in acknowledgment and pulled his notebook out, doodling on its cover using a thin Sharpie. This would be his mathematics notebook, but the dark yellow cover was so boring.

He could just imagine his parents. About now, they'd be gearing up to meet their new neighbor, who Justin discovered apparently had a son. He hadn't seen them yet but he did want to stop by to at least say hello. He made a habit of knowing plenty of people in town, and newcomers were curious things. A very thin trickling of students started arriving, along with the teacher, and Alan, of course. He plopped himself down in the desk in front of Justin and grinned, earning a place as Justin's footrest for a time. Alan looked curiously at Neal, then to Justin, who just smiled as he drew. Glancing back to Neal, he smiled brightly and waved.

Neal's pen scratched steady across the white paper and by the time the room had filled, he already had the outlines of a forest drawn. He kept one ear and one eye on the front of the room to wait for the lesson to start. He otherwise kept drawing. If this went like most other days, he'd have the first tend pages of his new sketchpad filled by the end of school. Noticing a motion from a few desks down, he returned the wave after deciding it had to be meant for him. He felt awkward about it, but managed a smile.

He'd payed little attention to the world around him as he drew. Now he realized Justin also sat in the back row. A few students were paying attention to Neal, though it all seemed harmless. A girl looked on the verge of talking to him, but the teacher cleared his throat and started the lesson.

"Hello all, many of you know me, but I'm Mr. Allen and this is Algebra 2. I'm passing out some forms and the syllabi. Please look them over." And thus the usual drudgery that was the first day started. Nothing interesting ever happened in the first class.

When class finally started Justin perked up a bit, sitting upright at his desk and threading his pencil through the metal coil of his notebook. He had Mr. Allen last year as well and he was a good teacher, not too hard but no pushover. Justin sometimes wished he was, however, because his math class was one he didn't get quite the perfect score on without some help. A few forms were passed back through each of the five rows' four desks, and they fell into a quiet study. A quick test going over last year's work, which they would either need to be refreshed on or leave behind depending on the overall class score, a page of their personal information as needed by the teacher, and a summary of what they'd be in for this year. At least this class got over with early in the day.

As they worked on their first test of the year, Mr. Allen started roll call, glancing up now and then to see if someone raised their hand if they didn't call out. He paused at one name, and smiled a bit. "Looks like we got a new student. Neal Bayden? Like to stand and say hey, introduce yourself?"

Neal didn't exactly like math, but he was good at it. Strange for someone who liked art, but he had never exactly been a normal stereotype. Despite not having taken his first algebra class here, he didn't have difficulty with the review quiz. Before he could really get comfortable though, the teacher started with roll call. He raised his hand for his name, but had to ever so slightly cringe down in his seat when he was called out to introduce himself. He very nearly said 'no' considering it was a question. But probably not a real question.

He stood up. "I'm Neal. I just moved here from Metairie." With that, he dropped back into his seat without making eye contact with anyone. It was a wonderful introduction, spoken like a robot. He hoped he didn't run into this with every of his classes or he really would end up skipping. Or at least screaming into his notebook.

Justin had hoped the idea of introducing himself would take him a little out of an apparently self-imposed shell, but was rather disappointed. He sighed but smiled as some of the students mumbled a little to one another. "Well that was better than Alan's introduction last year. Just a big pile of syllables that didn't even make sense." He earned laughs in spite of his friend's reddening face, and reached forward, patting the guy on his shoulders. That took the focus off Neal at least, and Mr. Allen called for quiet and work as he finished the rest of the roll. Justin finished his own rather quickly, recalling most of the questions and pausing at a few, hoping he could remember. Any form of math greater than the every-day adding, subtracting, and so on was frustrating to him. He wouldn't be using it unless he actually became an algebra teacher, which was definitely not in his future. Still, he was quiet as half the classtime was taken up by the scratching of pens and pencils, muttering, mumbling, coughs, and shifting feet.

After finishing with the test and the papers, Neal went back to drawing. Using a black pen allowed for him to make really striking shading to his forest so it quickly started turning into a black sheet of paper. It was only up close that the black marks became discernible and the white showed through. After dealing with the test, the class was encouraged to do as they pleased for the rest of the period since it was mostly over with anyway. They passed everything up to the front barely a minute before the bell rang. Neal was glad for the mostly solid silence, so when the bell did ring, he jumped in his seat.

He scrabbled for his materials as the class did a mix of leaving quickly and lingering to chat. He planned to bolt himself, but then a lost feeling descended on him. The little walk through the halls earlier didn't help his poor sense of direction much. He fought to pull his schedule from his pocket and managed to drop it on the floor in the process. His pen bounced down on top of him when he bent down to pick up the paper. How was it possible for one person to be this much of a mess?

When he was finished with that rather torturous first test of the year, Justin breathed a sigh of relief and started back on his pencil sketch on the first page of his sketchbook. Realism was his forte, though it would descend into the dark realm when he didn't focus. Pictures of real places sometimes took a mysterious turn, becoming almost haunted when he was done with them. He gasped when the bell rang, not quite used to the sound, and stood, stretching. Alan did the same and knocked an elbow into him. "See ya later, yeah?"

"Yep. Hour three, don't be late." He prodded Alan in the shoulder, sending him off with a laugh, and glanced to where Neal was. He looked so... disorganized. Helplessly flailing in his attempts to get out of the room as fast as possible. Shaking his head, Justin stepped forward and scooped up the pen that had fallen to the floor. "You oughta take it easy. I mean, I'll help you anytime, y'know. Need a hand to your next class?"

Cursing in his mind, Neal took the pen and tucked it into his pocket. He muttered a quick thanks and continued to curse himself. It's not like he was trying to be a weirdo, but he was just so good at it. Not even for his freshman year was he so nervous, though he was a disorganized mess from the start. He somehow got his stuff in his bag and started for the door. "I don't need help!"

He took only one step though before letting out a huff. Squinting at his schedule was not going to make a map magically appear on it. He paused in the doorway and turned back to the other boy. "Okay...I really don't know where I'm going," he said with a frown. His father always told him it was okay to ask for help, but his pride just screamed in protest. He reluctantly held up his schedule for Justin to see. "I have history next."

There was that frantic kid from yesterday shining through. When he barked at Justin, he flinched at the suddenness, backing away and picking his bag up off the floor where he'd laid it. Then he took a few steps forward, taking the thing and running through all the classes several times. "Okay." He said simply, and walked around Neal, bringing him out the door and to the left. They threaded their way down the hall and to the right, and Justin paused outside a door. "This is history. I'm just down there." He pointed six doors down on the opposite side of the hall. "So... uh, yeah."

He stepped away and was intercepted by Greg, who shared his next class, an elective cooking class Justin felt he would ace effortlessly. Cooking was like drawing, it was a form of art. Greg, on the other hand, was an awful cook so far as Justin knew. In the cooking classroom there were five alcoves where groups of three would be working. It was one of the smaller classes, and he and Greg took up residence in the alcove farthest from the rest.

Neal was silent as he let Justin lead to the classroom. He understood he was acting out and he was a hassle to be around. The atmosphere felt tense. Or did he just feel that way because he was tense? He was glad to slip into the history room though and let out a sigh of relief as he took the back corner seat again. He was hoping to get used to his schedule soon so he didn't have to rely on anyone. With his troubling sense of direction though, it seemed unlikely. He was pretty sure he could find his third class without help and then gym and lunch would be easy and then....hopeless. Just utterly hopeless. He dropped his head onto the desk and groaned.

The history class went much like math had. Papers and syllabi, and then the teacher drew a timeline on the board to go over some things without the class losing its casual air. He stayed silent and continued to draw in his sketchbook. The chances of him remembering a single date was ziltch so he didn't try.

Justin's cooking teacher was a man of nearly thirty, laid back and calm, and when the bell rang to signal the start of class, he handed out a rough idea of what would happen during the semester. The class didn't have too much of a solid directive, and recipes were scheduled to be handled between tests and instructional cooking videos that Justin probably saw already on television at one point or another. They had little to do for their first day, however, and were allowed to get used to the groups they would be working in for half the year. Justin turned to Greg and the other student, a girl by the name of Carly. Greg was smiling toward Carly, but spoke more directly to Justin. "So how's your charge?" He leaned on the counter.

"He's fine." Justin said simply. "A bit... headstrong... But hell, wouldn't you be if you've just been uprooted? Y'know, I was thinking about being a tutor." He shrugged, earning a raised brow from Greg and a smile from Carly. "What...?"

"Overachiever." Greg snorted. "You're gonna get buried."

Justin shrugged. Maybe, but he wanted something to do after school rather than the usual clubs or sports that he wasn't even interested in.

Neal's pen switched to abstract designs once his forest finished. The only subject matter he wouldn't draw would be figures, if only because the potential for seeing himself reflected in the images was greater. He stopped trying a while back. He worked random words from the teacher's talk into the curls erupting along the white page. It didn't mean anything, just a natural reflect to filter in his surroundings. He might have continued that way until the class ended, but another whisper caught his attention.

He turned to see a blonde girl with her hair tied up in a side pony tail. She tossed a ball off paper onto his desk. Even before he unrolled it, he could see the paper wasn't a note. Instead, it was a flyer advertising an artist gathering. judging by the simple, childish design, it was an unofficial something run by the youth. He was still staring at it when the bell did ring. This time he didn't move in a panicked way for the door. An art club? He'd never done something like that before. He should just throw it away...

Just as he was about to exit the room, the girl brushed past him. "Just think about it. It's a little thing. No adults, no rules. All you need is a pencil." Neal didn't get a chance to answer before she disappeared into the hall's crowd. He wandered into it aimlessly himself.

The full hour was taken up with meaningless chatter, wandering the cooking class's room and talking to the teacher they all loved because of his teenage demeanor. Justin didn't bother moving around, and neither did Greg or Carly. "Why not join the art club?" Carly offered suddenly. "I started it last year!"

"Art club?" Gary studied Justin. "Sure about that? I mean---"

"Hey, I said no clubs this year." Justin raised both hands to stop them. "I want to help other students with issues they're having in class, okay? That's different, and it's one-on-one, and---"

"You help too damn much." Gary huffed as the bell rang. They gathered their things and parted from Carly as she met a friend and parted ways, and Gary went down the hallway straight ahead. Justin turned right, back down the way he came, to head toward the history class he'd taken Neal to, spying him looking rather lost. "Hey, you okay?" He asked, stopping just inside the history room's doorway. "Need a hand anymore...?"

Neal stared at the flyer, still totally oblivious to where he walked. He startled and nearly tripped over a person when he heard a familiar voice. Neal spun to face him, crumpling the flyer in the same motion. He didn't realize himself crumpling it, just somehow he felt a panicked need to hide it, because he was seriously considering saying yes.

"Ehem...what?" he asked, then cleared his voice because he sounded like he just swallowed a canary. The feeling of having feathers stuffed down his throat didn't quite dissipate, but at least he could continue speaking like a normal person. "Oh no. I think...I'm going that way," he pointed to the right back toward the staircase. The number was similar to the History room's number except it was in the 100's, not 200's. That should have meant it was almost directly below. He started to inch away. Hopefully Justin would let him be and not call Neal on his false mask of confidence.

Justin knitted his brow, running a hand through his hair and making it stand up on one side. Why did Neal seem so... off-put when it came to him? It was a blow to his confidence, if anything. He bit his lip and thought back to Neal's schedule. "Well... You're going the wrong way... You'd make a big loop and then have to come back around... Go that way and you'll get downstairs just a couple doors down." He pointed, then looked back at Neal.

"Hey... Um, well, y'know, if you're... If you just... need anyone t'talk to..." He sighed and rolled his eyes, for once feeling the awkward one in the situation. "Come find me or somethin'... I guess. I don't think you'd want to but I figured I'd throw it out, see ya later." He ducked into the room and took a seat in the far right desk, as far from the door as he could get. It was dark in the corner, and he liked the dark areas of the room because it bred a sense of security where he could work in peace.

Neal literally felt his face fall as he stopped walking. He'd stop the heat gathering in his cheeks if he could. He turned his face away quickly, but he didn't know if it was quick enough to avoid detection. He didn't mean to act so freakish around people, but Justin especially kept catching him unawares. Neal had too much pride to cope with his own current levels of patheticness. Strangely, he felt himself warm a little that Justin kept trying to talk to him. Even offered to talk just to talk. Neal didn't plan to take him up on the offer, but he did feel warmer.

"Oh...thanks." He corrected his path and just as Justin turned and left, Neal offered a raised hand in a good bye wave. He probably raised it too late, but he knew himself to know he waited that long for that reason subconsciously. He hurried down the hall according to the other boy's directions and survived reaching his class just before the bell rang.

When the bell rang, Justin felt enclosed in that normalcy again even as half the students were late and scrabbling at the door, forcing the teacher to pause in introducing himself to anyone new so he could let them in and repeat himself. Justin laughed quietly at that, and caught the eye of a student nearby, who had taken to looking right at him from two desks away. He knew teenagers well enough---seeing as he was one---to know that at least two things were on the girl's mind. It was getting harder and harder to explain away why he never had a girlfriend, and never seemed to be interested in anyone that showed interest in him. He kept himself as busy as possible to make up excuses, but it was still hard to convince some people to leave it be.

He focused hard on the teacher as they were handed around their plans for the year, then as was custom for this particular class, they jumped right into their first lesson. Between notes, Justin sketched a little on a spare sheet of paper, sketching a human form since it was something he didn't practice often. He barely heard the bell ring when it did and literally jumped out of his seat when it registered.

A few people sneaked into the room after Neal did, but once the bell rung, the class jumped into action. They had a test in this one as well to review the level of education students had. Neal wanted to cry. He got bored when he read books, especially the ones English teachers asked him to. A nice little adventure novel wasn't bad and what teenager hadn't read at least one Harry Potter book? Sure he got annoyed with the main trio after the second book and put it down, but it was better than Charles Dickens.

He was forced to read a Hemingway short story, Hills Like White Elephants. Even after the teacher explained it, he didn't understand. The woman had an abortion?! How was a person supposed to understand that from the tension between the lines? If it was art, then he could be abstract, but story analysis made no sense. The second the bell rang, he escaped the room as if chased. He had gym next so no difficulty. The gym was always on one end or the other and he saw one side when he entered the building. He hurried to the far side.

He had no idea how schoolteachers did it. They had a full day of class and had to repeat the same damn things over and over in every one of them, sometimes multiple times for students that didn't understand the first time. He was glad to get out of the classroom setting after having written down possibly twice what the rest of the class did, packing everything up and tossing it on his back to pause by his locker and place the history books that had been handed out in the locker along with the math books he'd gotten that morning, then headed downstairs. He had gym next, and thought that was Neal's next class as well. It was difficult keeping two schedules in mind, but somehow he was doing it without getting backed up.

The first day would see them retrieving their previously ordered gym clothes, roll call, and going to the locker room to stow away the clothes. Just like every year Justin had been here. He went down the last flight of stairs to the long hall that attached the gym to the rest of the school.

Though Neal wasn't sure where to go first, he saw other students going straight into the gym rather than the locker rooms. Previously, Neal's gym classes always started in the locker room which always seemed like a hassle, separating the boys and girl's from the start. He shuffled nervously into the room. P.E had never been his favorite course. Coaches liked to yell and the extroverted people flourished. He was fast though. On multiple occasions, someone tried to recruit Neal for track. He always turned them down as he hated physical activities. They had to wear shorts and shirts like uniformed prisoners and now he could only think about how he would get out of that.

A familiar face shook Neal out of his thoughts. He had no where to go in the large gym full of unfamiliar faces, so he shuffled toward Justin. "Hey. So you have gym too?" he asked with his arms stuffed awkwardly in his pockets. He didn't know why he latched himself onto the other boy now of all times, but in a world of him versus gym, he instinctively wanted someone on his side.

Justin found himself among familiar faces, greeted and nudged and stopped now and then by half-friends whose names he knew, but never spent a long while with outside school. The gym was longer than it was wide and had one wall full of wheeled bleachers that could be pulled in and out as desired or necessary. Five rows were pulled out now, the rest stacked high along the wall. Students were milling around and tossing their bags onto the bleachers where they wanted to sit later, and Justin did the same, waiting for the teachers to call everyone to stand in line. There were normally two because the class was large enough to be split in half. He glanced around when a familiar voice caught him.

"Hey, yeah. I like it. Not much order here, teachers do whatever they want and s'long as you ain't sittin' around you're gettin' a good grade." He smiled, looking up at the logos on the walls above the doors.

Neal hiked his bag up higher on his shoulder and glanced around. Everything was moving--people, their belongings, and random hackey sack that went sailing through the air. It made him nervous and unsure of which direction to look. His eyes jumped back to Justin when the other boy spoke. "They aren't going to make us run laps or something? There's always baseball and basketball and dodgeball. And I really hate balls," he muttered meaninglessly. He didn't want to wander closer to where everyone else milled, although he could hardly stay away from others anywhere in this gym.

The bell rang, making Neal even more skittish. Two teachers made their way to the front of the gym. One was a large man, clearly the school's main coach. The woman had a bright smile. The man called their attention with a whistle. "We've got a fair amount of you here, so I want you to count off a, b. A's are with me. B's with Ms. Kahill. After that, you'll be given your locker numbers so don't lose the combo."

Justin shrugged before the bell was due to ring. "Thirty seconds of laps, usually amounts to 'bout... three times 'round the gym. Coaches are pretty easy-goin' though, if you don't wanna bother with the sports you can walk 'round the gym. S'long as you're not standin' 'round." He shrugged and blinked when the bell rang, getting around the group but not necessarily leaving Neal to wallow in no-man's land. He knew Coach Ron very well, since he was always egging Justin to join either track or football, neither of which Justin was interested in. He was sure Ron's persistence would continue for his last year here, but he would hold his ground. The man began pointing and calling A or B, and finding himself in the A side. He smiled and stepped back with the knowledge, glad to be where he was.

Though Neal got assigned B, he immediately disregarded it. Gym shouldn't have been different than any of his other classes surrounded by unknown people, but he really didn't want to be alone in group B. He shuffled over to where the A's were gathering and decided to be one of them, although he didn't like the look of the coach that said he would be in charge of that group. Neal would just pretend like he couldn't run. He moved close to Justin again. "Um...and the uniforms? I need to get mine still. Are they strict about making you wear them and take off jewelry and....jackets and stuff?" he asked. He wanted to sound casual, but the answer was important.